My life at this moment...

I'm glad it's almost time to spring forward. I love the longer days.

I stabbed the end of my finger with a knife while unloading the dishwasher.

Pinterest is addictive!

My belly is getting bigger. My jeans and skirts no longer fit. I've been looping a ponytail holder through the hole and around the button to keep them up.

People just blurt out the dumbest stuff to pregnant women.

I'm in organization mode. I feel like I have to get the house in order ASAP...even though the baby won't be here until August. My house is torn apart, I have piles of stuff laying everywhere. Piles to go to the Goodwill, Piles to go to the dumpster, Piles to be reorganized....piles, piles, piles. Where does the stuff come from. I haven't bought anything except groceries for months.

My husband just got headphones to wear while playing the Playstation. I love the new peace and quiet in my home!

I was excited that it snowed this morning, but disappointed that it melted within a couple hours.

I got a new tv for the bedroom for my birthday.

We're so excited!!!

We found out 2 weeks before Christmas that I am expecting another baby. So far everything is looking great! I will be 13 weeks along this coming Friday. Please keep us in your prayers that everything continues to go well.

This is our first ultrasound. It was on January 11th (approx 7.5weeks). They won't do another one until our appointment in April ( I was hoping they would do one at our last appointment, since it actually looks like a baby now instead of a sweet little blob). The yellow lines are closed in on the little heart that was twinkling with every beat and if you look across the bottom, the heart rate was 167 beats per minute. We heard the heart beat again this past Wednesday. Still sounded fast and strong. The baby kept moving around while she tried to use the dopplar. Sooo excited!!!!

Hope you all have a Happy Valentines Day!!!!!!

I fixed it!

The cold water in my washing machine had been coming in at barely a trickle. It was taking an hour and a half to do a load of laundry. I told my dad about it and he told me to check the screen on the back of the washer where the cold water hose screws in. He was right, it was full of sediment. I cleaned it out, reattached the hose and now the water is flowing like a waterfall again! I was so happy about fixing it. I did may have done a little happy dance in my basement. It always makes me feel good to fix things. I was afraid that I was going to have to get a new washer. I've had this one for nearly 10 years. It wouldn't be terrible to have a new one (mine is very basic and old school), we just don't need to be spending the money right now. I've been reattaching the sensor that lets it go into the spin cycle with duck tape for over a year now. Until that piece completely breaks off, I'll just keep what I have.

It's been 2 months?!?!?!?

I can't believe I've went that long without a post. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas. We did. We went on a mini getaway the week before Christmas. It was only for 2 nights, but it was well needed and worth it. Here are some pictures from our trip:

I have a lot of stuff to share and will be posting the pillow case dress tutorial soon. I've only looked at Blogger a few times over the last couple months. There have been hundreds of posts piled into my google reader. I've tried to at least skim through and look at pictures when I had time.

I always had a way there!

I'm linking up with Callie at Through Clouded Glass for this one.

I wasn't raised in a home where going to church was a priority. It wasn't that my parents didn't believe in the Lord, they just didn't go to church. Despite this, there was always someone willing to take me to church and I'm sure praying for me at the same time. The act of going to church doesn't make you saved or a Christian. What saves us is believing that Jesus was born of a virgin, died on a cross and rose the third day. It's believing that he (Jesus) loves us so much that he was willing to be the  ultimate sacrifice for our sins. Church (the building) is a place for worship, a place to learn about Jesus, a place for encouragement.

MY STORY

My brother, who is 15 years older than me, was the first person to get me to church. Early on, even before kindergarten, he would pick me up on Sunday mornings and take me with him. My earliest memory of church is sitting in the floor under the pew playing and listening to the pastor preach. I remember thinking, "why does he have to be so loud all the time." haha

I didn't always go with them on Sundays, but I would usually make an effort to go to Vacation Bible School (VBS) in the summer time. It was always fun.  VBS the summer after 5th grade was different. A dark haired lady named Annabell was teaching the lesson. I honestly can't remember exactly what she was teaching, but I remember feeling a tug on my heart. I wanted to learn about Jesus, not only that, I wanted to KNOW him. At the end of the lesson she asked if any of us wanted to be saved. I immediately raised my hand and so did a little blond haired girl (I knew her name at the time, no clue now). The other lady who was helping, Gail, took us into a room away from the other kids and led us in the sinner's prayer. I accepted Jesus into my heart then. I immediately felt different. She prayed with and encouraged us. They gave us each a Bible. I still have it.  I remember her telling us to start reading the Bible every day, to start in the book of John and work your way forward in the New Testament.

Within the two years after this, a couple who lived close to us started taking me to church with them, but I eventually slacked off. At that point, my mom still wasn't going to church either.

At the end of 7th grade, Jenny, a girl I went to school with invited me to church with her on a Wednesday night. They had a very sizable, involved youth group. I enjoyed it. Everyone was excited and fired up for the Lord. I wanted to keep going, and I did! (I went until I was a senior in high school). They had a church van that would pick kids up on Wednesday nights. I think my enthusiasm about church encouraged my mom to start going around this time too. We started attending the same one as my sister's family on Sunday mornings.

I know my mom is saved, has been for years. I'm fairly certain my dad is too, though he still doesn't go to church anywhere. I remember laying awake at night while I was in high school. I would be crying and praying so earnestly that my daddy would be saved. That God would do "whatever it takes." I'm certain my siblings were praying for him too. A few years after that, his emphysema got worse and he couldn't get out and do a lot like before without getting out of breath. I think this slowed him down, made him start thinking and he soon started reading the Bible. I know he has read it through at least once now and a lot of times he will talk with me about stuff he has heard TV preachers saying. I have peace of mind about him now.
I guess I just want to stress how important it is to invite and take others to church with you. If those people hadn't prayed for me and took me with them, would I be saved and living the way I am now? Would my parents be saved? Would the three of us be able to reach others for Christ? It was a chain reaction.

Reach the children, then the parents will follow.

Here I am, 28 years old and loving the Lord. I'm married to a Christian man who grew up in church (his grandpa was a pastor). Though I was saved at a young age, I've had ups and downs. I'm not a perfect person by any means, but I am thankful to say that the majority of my life has been spent serving the Lord. I wouldn't change that for anything!

Pillow Case Dresses

2 down and 8 to go. I have a friend, who has a friend who works at an orphanage in Haiti. She is coming in over the holidays and will be taking these little dresses back with her.

I've made a tutorial, but I haven't decided how I want to post it to my blog. One of my guild friends was interested in making some too and asked where I got the instructions. Mom and I gleaned what we could from other tutorials and looked closely at the ones at the craft show this year. That's why I needed to make a tutorial (we kinda came up with our own measurements). They are so simple. It takes less than an hour to make one from start to finish.

I can officially call this my second completed quilt. I'm getting better at starting projects and finishing them. I stuck it in the mail a couple weeks ago and it arrived in Alaska safely. It's hard for me to let go of homemade things after spending so much time working on them. I just had to keep telling myself this one was not a keeper.

I'm pretty excited. Someone saw this quilt and wanted me to make one for them to give away. So I guess I have my first order! Yaaaay!

Car shopping and a personal shortcoming...

I have to say that car shopping this go round hasn't been exciting or fun. This feels like a forced/pressured experience because I will have to give the rental car back in a few days. We are the type of people who research, ask questions and explore all options before making big decisions. And somehow I feel rushed and under pressure because we both work and need to be separate places at the same time. We have it narrowed down to a few different ones, but won't test drive anymore until next week when hubby is off again. It's been almost 6 years since we car shopped. Needless to say, I'm kind of in sticker shock right now too.

I want to share a situation that I didn't handle well this week. I would love to hear how you would have felt about this too. 

I know that when you post pictures on the internet; Blogger and Facebook, that the things you post are basically fair game for others to steal. I know this especially for blogger (straight to public view and the internet). That's why I have started putting my blog name within my photos.

I think of Facebook as being a little friendlier than this, so I'm a little more open with what I share because I know all of the people who will be viewing and set all of my albums to "friends only" view.

This week I had a father of a friend send me a friend request. I felt uneasy about accepting him, but my husband told me to go ahead because he knew him and he was "just wanting to see your bear pictures." Also, by his profession he is what we would consider a more trustworthy/upstanding person in the community. So I accepted his friend request.

I got up the next morning to find that this man had taken the time to save each of my photos from the bear accident album I had made (including a picture of me) to his computer. He then uploaded them to his own Facebook album and set it to Public view! (he also included a few he had swiped from another man's page too!)

I was furious!! Instead of waiting and praying about how I should handle the problem, I immediately shot him several hateful private messages. I basically told him he had no right do that without my permission, it was very inconsiderate, I wanted them removed, he didn't even know me personally, what I post on Facebook is for my friends only, not the public. And this is the part I'm really ashamed of, I made a shot at him, saying that he was a pastor and should have known to be more considerate than that. I know, that was horrible.

He responded by saying that the pictures were already out there by other people and that he copied them from them and couldn't be removed. Then I told him that I wasn't stupid, that the album was under his own name and all he has to do is delete it. That the pictures he stole copied were mine and the other gentlemans (I named his name).

Then he deleted it.

I'm still angry that he had the nerve to do that and then act like he didn't do anything wrong. At the same time I'm aggravated at myself. I think I could have accomplished the same outcome in a gentler way. I reacted in my anger instead of giving myself a few moments to calm down.

This is a principle I need to put into practice:

James 1:19

King James Version (KJV)

 ¹⁹Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

Longing for a Home Grown Watermelon



We finally had watermelon success for the first time this summer. They were so good. We had tried last year, but they didn't turn out. This time we put black paper in the garden and cut some holes in it for the vines to grow through. The one in the top picture was about 12 inches long. This type of water melon (sugar babies) doesn't usually get that big. Look at the counter...see how juicy it was when I cut into it.

Summer is gone, fall is here. The high for today is only 48 degrees. And I am wishing I had a watermelon.

This one was "normal," only a few inches in diameter.

A glimpse of a new one...

More pictures to come...