It's time...

I realized that at some point I have to stop saying "we just moved here". We have been in our "new" town for almost a year now. 10 1/2 months to be exact. At church on Sunday we met a couple who had their grand-kids visiting from Edmond! I'm pretty sure I said "cool we just moved here from there!".

I do love it here in our "new" town. I love our new house and our new neighbors. However, I can't help but still miss the way things were. I feel left out when I hear the news of a friend being pregnant, even though I am finding out with everyone else, for some reason being far away makes me feel left out. 

I feel far away and I can tell that my friendships are slipping away. Not in a we aren't friends kind of way, but in a we live far away so we don't see each other kind of way. It is a natural part of moving, I know. It is also one of the harder parts of moving. 

I am thankful for things like email, texting and Facebook, as it helps us stay connected more than if we didn't have those things. However, I sometimes wonder if not having those things would make it easier to part. You know because you wouldn't know about the things that are going on so you wouldn't miss it as much. Maybe not. 

Okay, I better get out of this slump. I have plenty to be thankful for and I need to think on those things.

Here's the story...

Wow, so much has been going on in the life our our little family! God is so good and I am so glad to be his child.

As most of you know, in December of 2012 God moved our family to a new place.  This was not all together unexpected, as my husband had been applying for new jobs for a while. Part of me was thrilled with the news of moving! I was so happy for my husband and so proud of him for getting this job. The other part of me was not that excited. I was going to be leaving my friends and my family and the town that I knew and loved.

From day one of my husband applying for jobs, God had this under his control. If he would have gotten this job when he first started applying I would never have met my friend Lindsey. Lindsey in turn introduced me to several other people and invited us to go to church, where we now call our church home. You see three years ago she was over seas doing mission work.

Moving on though to the most recent of God stories. Several months ago Lindsey messaged me that her parents were going to be selling the house her grandparents use to live in. They wanted to know if we would be interested in buying it. I was very excited, because not only was it in the school district we wanted to be in, but it was super close to Justin's work! So we decided we would take a look at it.

Now I should mention that we had been renting a duplex and had a 12 month lease agreement signed.  In order to leave in good standing we had to wait till 75% of our lease was up before breaking the lease. 

Okay, to continue with the story...

So Justin and I took a look at the house. It was really cute, but in the end we decided it was a little too small for us. We were kind of bummed because we would have loved to live so close to Justin's work and next door to our friends! During this time I really felt like God was telling us to wait till August to do anything about a house. At the time I thought August would have been the 75% mark, but really September was. 

So August 1st came around and I was back on zillow and realtor.com looking for houses. We got a realtor and set up times to go look at houses. I was SO excited. I was really ready to move into our forever home. 

One day in the midst of all of this we had to take our car into the shop to have the breaks replaced. So on that day I took Justin to work. I decided to drive through the neighborhood behind his work (the neighborhood that our friends house was) to get back home. That is when I saw it. This amazingly cute house. I knew that as soon as I got home I would have to look it up. 

And that is what I did, however the sign must have just been put up because there was no evidence of it online. All afternoon I would continue to look, then about 2 pm it finally appeared! I was in love! But the price was over the price we had told our realtor we wanted to spend. I decided I would show Justin anyway and see what he thought. 

To make a long story longer we decided to take a look at it in person. I fell in love even more. Thankfully I have a husband who is smart and thinks things through, because I would have put an offer on it right then and there. But we didn't. We went home, worked out a budget to make sure we could afford it and then after a week we put an offer down. 

They accepted!!! I was SO excited. I truly believe this is the house God had in mind for us when he told me to wait till August, when he had us get our breaks worked on so I had to take Justin to work and drive by it, when he had us turn down the house our friends were selling.  He knew we would end up being in the school district we wanted, be close to Justin's work and have those same friends as neighbors!

I can't wait to see how God is going to use this house to further his kingdom. We are excited to get the process started to become foster parents, we want to be able to host get togethers for church and birthday parties for the boys and host those who need a place to stay! I am just really excited (can you tell?)!!!!

So there you go. That is the story of the House That God Built. God is good all the time and all the time God is good!!! Praise and glory to him forever and ever amen!!

Kansas City, Kansas City her I come...

Have I mentioned lately that I have an amazingly awesome husband? Well I do! This past weekend he let me drive up to Kansas City and visit one of my very dear friends and her family!  That means he spent 4 days taking care of the boys with out any help! I know, I am so blessed to have him. 

I had such a great time getting to visit with my friends the Irwin's. You have heard me talk about them before. Here is her blog. They are the ones who are adopting this sweet boy. 

They are also fostering another little baby boy, whom we will call J. Sorry you won't get to see pictures of him, but you can trust me when I say he is a cutie!

One of the funnest parts of our weekend was getting to go to a place called Country Club Plaza. We walked around, had lunch and shopped. Then Liesl and I got to stay in a hotel and have our Miss America watching party! We got dressed up in our wedding dresses in honor of the event. I know, you want to be as cool as us, but friends I just don't think it is possible. :) 

Drawing near to God...

Last night was an emotional night. I should back up to earlier in the day at soccer practice for Ian.

Ian did not do good during soccer practice. I'm not talking about his talent, but his attitude. He was just throwing fits right and left. Crying and screaming and fighting us on everything. To be honest, I was a little embarrassed. By the end of practice I finally just took him to the car to wait while Justin brought everything back to the car. 

On the way to the car Ian began to scream "my head, my head, I'm thirsty, my head hurts, I'm thirsty!" At this point I began to get worried about it. We got in the car and I looked to see if there was any water, of course the one time we need it we didn't leave any in the car. So I drive closer to where Justin and Owen are at. Justin brought some water (thankfully) so we got Ian to drinking water. He finally calmed down. Once at home I talked with him about what happened and he went to bed with out fighting us. 

I am thinking that Ian was dehydrated. This scared me to death! I felt horrible for not making sure my boy was drinking enough. We had played outside earlier in the day and he didn't drink much then either. By the time that Justin and I went to bed it was just too much. I began to cry and couldn't stop. I was so scared that God was going to take one of our boys away from us. It was unlike any feeling I have ever had. 

I got up and checked on Ian, took him to the bathroom to make sure he had enough in him to go, then I got back in bed and just kept crying. I think it scared Justin a little bit because at one point he got up and checked on Ian. He prayed with me and worked on calming me down. 

I just couldn't shake it. So I finally just got on the floor, on my knees, and began to cry out to God. I'm talking head on the floor, tears flowing down the face crying out to God kind of praying. I don't think I have ever done this with such strong emotions. 

I wish that my words could capture the intensity of last night. Sadly I am not that great of a writer. I do want to say that after about 20 minutes, well it at least felt like that long, it probably was like 5 minutes or something, I finally felt a peace from God. I laid down on the floor and began to relax and go to sleep. At some point I crawled back into bed and was able to sleep. Good sleep too. God was truly with us in this house last night. 

I don't know if anyone is reading this, but I really just wanted to post it so that someday I will be able to look back and remember this time. So that I can remember what God taught me, even though I can't seem to put that into words. I pray that God will remind me daily how I should rely on him as I did last night. 

Can I pray for you about anything? Comment and let me know.

First day of school 2013...

Floss, the gift of love...

Yesterday the boys and I were at the store getting our weekly groceries. We had got almost everything on the list when I said "Okay, we just need to go to the other side of the store and get some floss for daddy and I." Ian told me that he had plenty of floss that we could have, so I decided to go ahead and check out. 

Well last night as I was going to get my jammies on I noticed that Ian had placed a thing of floss on each one of our sides of the bed! He did this with out telling anyone about it. He didn't draw attention to himself. He simply left us a gift out of love. Or if he is like his daddy, that is just what made sense, because he had told me we could have some. Either way, it filled my Ian love tank and just made me appreciate him all the more! 

Sorry about the picture of my deodorant, I wanted to take the picture as he had left it :)

Owen's new rules...

Today while driving home from the store, Owen decided he wanted to share some new rules with us. They were so funny I thought I would share them with you! Be warned poop is involved. It pretty much always is involved when we are talking about Owen! 

Owen's 1st rule: No pooping in the house. My response was this "well where are we going to go poop then?" Ian's reply "well I guess we could go in the yard like a dog." Me "yeah, but then everyone would see us naked and I don't want to do that. So Owen I think we should keep the rule that we can poop in the house. Okay?" Owen "Okay, I have another rule."

Owen's 2nd rule: No walking in the street. My response "well okay, that is a good rule. But what happens when we go walking in a neighborhood that doesn't have sidewalks and we have to walk in the street? Maybe we should just say no walking on busy streets. Okay?" Owen "Okay."

So now we have our two official rules, 1. it is okay to poop in the house and 2. no walking on busy streets! 

This kid cracks me up! He makes me smile and laugh pretty much everyday!