{ a slice of sweet conversation }

Mommy ( to Annabelle) : Hey Sug. ? ( short for sugar)
Annabelle : Yeah, Mommy?
Mommy: Who loves us the most?
Annabelle : Daddy.
Mommy (Smiling) : Yes Daddy. And who loves us even more than Daddy?
Annabelle ( without hesitation ): Oh Mommy, Jesus does.

That's right, Sugar. That's right.

{ For Whom The Bell Tolls }

I sat on the floor, in the corner of our living room, observing the empty space and the eerie way my voice bounced off the walls in an echo when I called out to my husband. In the mad rush that was filling and loading all our earthly belongings into boxes and the miles of bubble wrap and packaging tape that come with such a ritual, my little five week old son let it be known that just because we'd forgotten about our dinner, he had not forgotten about getting his. So I scooped him up in my arms and settled with him down on the floor, the flurry of moving day put on pause for a little bit, and then it all began to hit me. I could hear myself think and it scared me because I dreaded the deep surge of emotion that I had tried so hard to bury in box after box being loaded onto the U Haul, to be moved over the mountains, and across the state to a new home.

Then the bells from the Catholic Church adjoining the back corner of our yard began to ring out, their last call for Saturday night mass. As I sat there I thought about how much I'd grown to love those bells over the last five years of my life and remembered how I would always stop whatever I was doing to listen to their happy sound whenever they would ring, and I thought about how much I was going to miss those moments of peaceful reflection. Those bells expressed so well all my feelings toward this home sweet home we were about to leave...they summed up almost six years of memories made...hours of accumulated laughter, some tears, the birth of both our children and many beautiful milestones, great and small, along with the millions of just regular, ordinary sort of moments that make up life.
And as I listened to the familiar dong....dong...dong...the tears that had been pooling up in my eyes spilled out over my cheeks, as I felt an overwhelming pang of sadness knowing that I was hearing those bells for the last time.

The next morning as I looked out the car door window, familiarizing myself with the streets and houses around my future home, half pinching myself inside as we pulled up in front of the towering blue, circa 1909 house that we'll someday call home, half terrified at the task that lay ahead in making this house a home, I stepped out to the car, with a hopeful heart. And I heard bells, glorious bells ringing out around me. I felt the goose bumps pop up all over my arms as, awestruck, I whispered my thanks to Him.
But isn't that just like Jesus to send us little gifts of reassurance, like that.




P.S. - I cannot tell you how glad I am to have a blog full of memories to look back on, of the years we spent in our first home. It's one of greatest blessings of keeping a blog. That, and having the love and support and encouragement of each of you.

{ finding our rhythmn }

We are all settled in to the sweet little cottage. It's been a crazy full week with unpacking and setting up our life here, including evenings out, friends over, and the bridal shower of one of my dearest ever childhood friends that I got to decorate for and attend this weekend.
Go, go, go and rush, rush, rush, has been the rhythm of our life. But I am
looking forward to the rest of the summer, to a little slower pace of life as we are tucked away in our little one bedroom cottage without phone, internet, a debit card ( which I have handed in, as we have made the switch to a cash only budget this summer, in the hope that it helps with saving money) or even an oven to cook on. I am enjoying my little one burner hot plate and a toaster oven and I am going to attempt baking potatoes in it for dinner tonight. Starting yesterday I am being more intential about how I spend my days...incuding reading more, to Annabelle and in general. ( This book being our favorites of the week), taking longer walks, spending quiet moments alone with Jesus and my bible at the kitchen table in the mornings, devoting my days entirely to my children and to playing out in these sunny summer days. To spending our evenings just being together, taking long walks and have lengthy conversations, and cuddle sessions, and soaking up every single moment, so many of which are magical with our beautiful growing children. To seeing this particular chapter in our life as more than just a transition period or temporary, and not missing the sweetness each day holds...

I should be packing...

Instead of blogging. Especially while the kids are both fast asleep for the night.
But I ran out of boxes. And rubbermaids.
So here I sit, munching away on a dark chocolate bar that I just uncovered in the bottom of my dresser drawer and had stashed away weeks ago, compliments of my very own personal postpartum chocolate fairy -
You know who you are...And hopefully you know as well, how very much I adore you. For many, many reasons, in addition to the steady supply of chocolate of course.

To put it mildly, life is a wild and crazy topsy-turvy tangle of boxes and babies and lists and houses...such as the one we are leaving, in 5 days, the one we are moving into ( more on that in a minute ) and the one we bought on the other side of the mountains and are renovating...David and I are feeling excited and encouraged, a little bit exhausted and a whole lot loved and taken care of. We have had an incredible amount of support, prayer, and help and once again find ourselves overwhelmed by the faithfulness of God in meeting our needs. Two days ago, at this time, we had no idea where we would be moving after our house closed. We were starting to feel the pressure, as we have only 5 days left to be here. I was working on finding a short term rental for the next three months, while David finishes up work over here and while we work on getting our new house livable over there. Yesterday afternoon I probably called over thirty different apartment complexes, desperate to find something, anything...and I begin to notice this trend: if ( and it's a big IF )they offer a short term lease at all, the price is always higher ( a lot higher ), because it is so temporary. And then we got our hopes up when we thought this lady was going to rent us her teeny tiny cottage, but that fell through because she found someone who wanted to lease it for longer than we did. All of that yesterday, and getting no where...totally back to square one.
An hour and a miracle later, we are handed the sweetest, beyond our wildest imagination gift, the invitation to stay for the next couple months in the little place we lived in after we were married, which we've always called, the honeymoon cottage...a place and time in our lives that we hold the happiest memories of. David just happened to be driving by there after work, to see if maybe the cottage might just happen to be empty and if so, the owners just might happen to be open to letting us rent it for a couple months from them...they just happened to agree, and then happened to give us a killer good deal on rent, all of which just happened to be God's answer to our prayers. We couldn't stop grinning last night, and truly cannot tell you how thankful we are to know we will have a roof over our heads, after we leave here. Add to that the sweetness of getting to go back to our very first little love nest, that was and still is so dear to our hearts. I told David last night, if we ever and I mean ever doubt God's faithfulness, from here on out, I hope he gives us a good, swift kick in the rear.
Without fail. Every. Single. Day. He supplies our needs.
And we hold countless proofs of His love.
Of His perfect love.

" What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a stone."

- Jesus ( Luke 11:11 )

" All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. "

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

{ well worth your time }

This uplifted me yesterday. So I have to share. I walked out of church, with tears running down my cheeks, asking Jesus to renew and expand my love for Him...I don't want a day to pass by that I am not growing deeper and being changed by the joy of knowing Him.

( oh and don't forget to pause project playlist first )

{ Celebrating You }

Make a Free Flash Slideshow

Happy 30th Birthday David, from the girl who like the song says...loves you more than she has ever found a way to say to you.

( Remembering May 17th, 2003 )

It didn't take more than a couple minutes of quiet observation to decide that this cute blonde guy, with the killer smile was 100% crush-worthy. And in the following weeks after rubbing shoulders with him and his family a little more, and hearing his Mom and sisters absolutely rave about him, I realized he was more than crush material. I watched him fill the role of the man of the house, as the oldest boy of 11 kids after his Dad lost the use of his arms to ALS. He was this amazing 18 year old guy with stellar character. The kind of guy you can totally picture being the father of your children. I am not sure how it is that we girls can go from having a crush on a guy one minute, to seeing him as the potential father of our children the next ? One of life's great mysteries, I guess.
So I was a girl in-love with a boy, a common, everyday sort of occurrence I know, but he was the guy who I measured all other men by, a hero of a man, my hero. Secretly. I said nothing about this to anyone, except for my parents and eventually a couple of my closest girlfriends. It took him a little longer to catch on. Lets say, four years. But in God's perfect timing, and after four years of hoping, wishing, agonizing and I do mean agonizing. After four years of praying for him and waiting, he noticed me. And we became really good friends. Over the summer we had some really meaningful heart to heart talks and shared some very sweet moments. He called me late the night on my birthday and was I ever surprised to realized the guy on the other line was not infact my brother. Not long after that, he called to ask my Dad if it was okay to call me on the phone. My Dad pretty much put him on the spot and said, hey, I am not going to risk my daughters heart at your expense so you better think this through and if your serious then you can absolutely call her... I overheard my Dad's end of that conversation and was crushed, thinking that after a talk like that he would certainly be scared away and that would be the end of our friendship. Looking back I am so thankful my Dad stood up for me like that and basically got the ball rolling by challenging him to man up and figure out where exactly he was at with us. A couple weeks and 20 minutes later, after totally beating around the bush in another phone conversation he very nervously said to me " I'd like to get to know you better, if that's alright with you? " I am sure he could hear my heart racing when I replied " Yes, I'd like that."
Just over a month later David asked me to marry him. I was over the moon. And literally unable to come back down to earth in the months following, leading up to our wedding.

I don't think I will ever get over my amazement of how God can take two people right where they are, as long as their hearts are turned toward Him, mistakes and all and in His good grace, redeems their lives and together turns their story into something better than a fairytale.

Being married to David, I would have to say is my personal definition of heaven on earth and still even after, no especially after 6 years, even though life and children often come before romance, life with you continues to be a truly, goose-bump inducing experience.

I am so thankful that I didn't fall in love with anyone short of a man who has a heart after God and is willing to on a daily basis puts the needs of others before his own. Every day, since I felt the first tinge of butterflies for him at age sixteen, I have told myself...he should be too good to be true. This should be too good to be true. All of it.

But the impossible happened.

Happy Anniversary, Babe. Thank you for the last six amazing years. I am so excited for the next six, no sixty . I love you.

"Come grow old along with me,

the best is yet to be. "

Robert Browning

{ Project: Redeem-a-Home }

So we bought a house over the weekend.

A house that was being auctioned off, just inside the courthouse steps...

While I sat in the car with the kids praying so hard for God's will in all of it, remembering how I had told David an hour before something to the effect of " I want this house..." then later thinking it through and getting scared, not having been able to walk through it, and realizing how dangerous it could be for me to want something that might not be God's best. Asking that He would please control and bless the outcome.

All David had to say is: " one dollar more." and it was ours.

I will never forget the phone call from him, the one where he said, " well, I bought you a house." Both of us sweating, shaking grinning and in shock.

I squeal and hurt his ears I am sure, when he told me the amount he had to pay and how it was so much less than we thought we might have to give for it.

We were flying high. And so beyond thankful.

The next day we drove up to the house with nervous excitement to see it for the very first time. Our hearts took a dive after seeing the condition it was in.

It was worse than we had hoped.

There was an air of devastation about the house, as we surveyed the sad remnants of the lives that had been there before us.

I cannot begin to describe either the condition the previous owners left the house in or the amount of stuff they left behind.

It was overwhelming .

We began to doubt ourselves and wondered if we had made a huge mistake.

Until we prayed over this house asking that the Lord would cleanse it and fill it with His presence.

Then we started envisioning what it could be...and began to see it finished instead of it's current state of desolation .

Sure it's going to be a lot, a lot of work but we are young and strong and able.

And it's going to make the process all that more rewarding in the end.

The positives started stacking up fast:

We are 3 1/2 instead of 7 hours away from our families, 1 1/2 instead of 5 1/2 hours away from our best friends and only 15 min from this precious friend's door step.

We met and already know that we like the next door neighbors...and they were so encouraging.

There are three gorgeous parks within walking distance of our house...

I have always wanted to live in a neighborhood where the houses were old and restored.

We are now going to have room for more family and friends and there is nothing I love more than having people in our home and the promise of laughter filled rooms, and cooking up dinner for them. My philosophy is " the more the merrier. " Praying so hard that Jesus love will be felt within the walls of our home.

So every day our excitement grows.

re·demp·tion - n.

1. The act of redeeming or the condition of having been redeemed.

2. Recovery of something pawned or mortgaged.

3. Deliverance upon payment of ransom; rescue.

4. Christianity Salvation from sin through Jesus's sacrifice.

And that, dear ones is what Project Redeem-a-Home is all about.