She's Sun and Rain

 Gratitude by Brandon Lake is playing in the background as I come and sit down to have an afternoon snack of homemade pico and chips.  My children are across the street at our new neighbors. They are from Ukraine. They have been a gift like all the other neighbors we have met in this unexpected season of life. They love to play with my kids and they are kind. There are three other families with children in the neighborhood who all love our kids and treat them like family. There is an abuela who will have the occasional glass of wine and a cheese board with me. Gratitude...as I am sitting here frustrated over a house I wanted that went to someone else today. It's not my plan. It's one hundred percent up to the Lord, which is where I want it to be, but some days are harder than others.  I am on the phone telling my Mom about the house I wanted and then the new neighbors and then was reminded about a house I saw online so I decided to drive by it. It started raining and the ...

 The online world is wild, really. It seems to have gotten more and more wild over the years. Sometimes the fear of comments or other peoples opinions keeps you from writing. My buddy Matt said to me "keep writing, Ginny". An influencer I follow said you only have dreams until you have projects. I love to write but if I keep it all in my head and it never makes it to a digital file or paper then noone will ever know it was there. It's all a dream. If you don't tell anyone your dream, it remains locked up in your thoughts and while sometimes that's okay with dreams...other times there is no way for it to become reality. If you want it to become reality, you have to turn the dream into a project.  My projects start with lists. As most I'm sure, it gets created in our mind, makes its way to a list somewhere, and eventually if I decide to tackle the list, the list turns into individual projects. When I think of my life, it's daily small projects. Unloading the...

 I may have just lost some of you with the title or you may think I've finally gone over the organizational edge :) However, this is a great way to save space and time and was something I have been wanting to do for a while now. We find ourselves frequently needing to pull out one of our user manuals to figure out how to use something. Once baby came, we accumulated A LOT more manuals. These are important to keep because they can contain product numbers in case there is a safety issue or recall. Previously I would just throw them into this plastic container.  Before: a giant mess of manuals I recommend using erasable dividers, that way you don't end up needing to buy new ones if something changes. Tab Dividers The tabs I use are: 1. Baby 2. Electronics 3. Kitchen 4. General Home (carbon monoxide detectors, etc) 5. Outdoor/Lawn Heavy weight sheet protectors. They load from the top. The heavy weight ones won't tear.  Sheet P...

I just spent a few minutes reading through some of my old blogs. The really old ones are funny and I realize how young I was when I started writing this! I'm sure five years from now I'll look back and think how young I am now. I enjoy writing. Lately, with the baby I have had a ton of other things going on and haven't made writing a priority. I am working on several projects around here. Painting a doll house. Creating a photo wall. Scrapbooking (as always). I also have a hand written journal for our daughter that I write in every time she does something new and journaling about her life in general. So, life is good but I just haven't been blogging. Adam started a new job with Edward Jones two weeks ago. He is going to be a Financial Advisor with them and is really excited about this opportunity. Tonight we had dinner with the regional guys and some of their wives and I honestly think this is something he's going to be great at and really succeed. I'm very pro...

I'm still working on the eating healthy thing. I've found one of my favorite snacks is Triscuits (the original, they have only 3 ingredients and no junk!) and hummus. But every time I go to the Teeter they are out of the sun dried tomato so I end up with garlic... and in turn end up with garlic breath. Oh the lengths we go to be healthy ;) Today I'm buckling down on Alley's baby book. I make a Shutterfly book for each year since Adam and I have been married and so far I LOVE the way they turn out. I started the old fashioned scrapbooking when I was in college. My Mom had made ours up through high school and I continued it through about 2005. So when Adam and I got married I started the digital books. I've done one so far for 2010 and 2011. I am working on 2012 so I can get caught up :) But, for the baby I want to do an old fashioned baby book with all the photos for at least the first couple of months or the first year. I also want to do one of the "fill out...

I know it's been a while. A long while since I've been in the blogosphere. I honestly haven't known what to write about. I could write about our finances or our job searches but those are so boring. Adam has continued to look for ministry jobs with no luck. We have gotten to several interviews but they didn't pan out. He's looking into some other non-ministry jobs in Charlotte, so we'll see. Being a Mom is amazing and hard. :) I love it. I love her. What a gift from God! It definitely changes your life completely, hence, why I haven't blogged in a while. When I do have free time I tend to clean or balance our checkbook or do laundry or play on facebook. I didn't want to blog during my postpartum mess or during colic, for fear people would think I was crazy. And I've been posting photos on facebook and so many people are on there anyway. So that brings me to what I want to write about...the thing I've noticed that mother hood has changed the mos...

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This was one of the first rooms we organized. We are still in the process of the Master closet and bedroom. I didn't take before pics of all the drawers, or after of all the drawers, just the ones I think become the most messy places. Here's what it looked like before: This is the top drawer after I organized it. I got these bamboo containers at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. I will get more of these eventually, but for now I use them for makeup, hair bows, nail clippers, and Adam's cologne samples. Basically all the little items. This is under the sink on my side. The white basket holds extra toiletries like mouthwash and body wash.  The white 3 drawer holds floss, travel size shampoos and conditioners and small lotions.  The round box holds all of Alley's baby stuff for bath-time.  The few bottles in front are the ones I use the most frequent.  The blue container holds nail supplies.  I recommend Target for rubbermaid storage and drawers. Believe it o...

My house has gotten out of control. Granted, I had a baby and things got a little crazy :) Adam and I know we are going to have to move sometime in the near future because the people who own this house are going to try to sell it. We have decided after moving so many times that we don't want to have to move anything we don't need anymore. Yesterday, we started on the master closet. I didn't take a before picture but will post an "after" picture shortly. Join me as I take on this task of organizing my entire home and ridding it of the unnecessary items!

My friend Colleen posted a facebook status about how their family was "vision casting".What a great idea. I believe it is important to have goals and visions for your family and for yourself. Every year I make a new year's resolution. I know it's probably cheesy or cliche'. I don't care. I like having goals and even moreso, I like accomplishing goals. It's why I like vacuuming and washing my car. Or mowing the grass. I like to see results. I have ten pounds to lose after having Alley. It's all in my tummy but I want it to go away. As.Soon.As.Possible. :) So, I asked Adam if we could do some vision casting for our family. We didn't, but it was a nice thought. Maybe he'll come around. :) So, I do it for myself anyway. Here are a few things I'd like to get accomplished this year. 1. I'd like to pray and read my bible more. I don't do this enough. Billy Graham even said he doesn't do it enough, I've got to work in this area. ...

Wow. The last 24 hours have been so good I just had to write about it. I am pretty honest in my blog. Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes, it's not. I write about what I think and feel during each season of life. Having a baby is HARD. She tried to come early at 19 weeks, I had bed rest, two hospitalizations, magnesium sulfate (ugh, that stuff is AWFUL), lots of medical bills, and then a c-section. Try having a c-section after your muscles already don't work from laying down for 4 and a half months. I couldn't even get up off the toilet by myself. For.2.Weeks. TMI? The medical bills abounded and then we had jaundice, low milk supply, followed by reflux and colic. I had a meltdown somewhere in there. Two of them actually. Thankful for my neighbor who came to help and my mom and mother-in-law and my sweet husband. So, needless to say I had a rough 2012. But we are blessed. I have a healthy baby girl who sleeps at night and is starting to nap well during the day. Colic is on it...

So I haven't blogged in a while...this is why :) To say she keeps me busy is an understatement. We are blessed people. Thank you God for keeping her in the womb to 37 weeks and for a healthy baby girl. We are in love with her. How could you not be? Look at that sweet face!

Adam and I have been talking about smartphones this weekend. It would be an easy way to take pictures and video of our new baby girl and share with each other (or, me share with him while he's at work) or with our parents and an easier way to upload online or to Shutterfly, which is usually who I use for prints and albums these days. But they are a little more expensive. To off set we're talking about cutting cable, and looking at what other expenses we might can cut that aren't necessary. We/I don't want life to be one big distraction. I am around people that can't carry on a conversation sometimes without checking their phone every two seconds.  I keep finding myself reading blogs about natural cleaning recipes, natural body products (see www.desiringvirture.com or www.homehealthheart.org ) and they always direct me to the way things were done "back then". Bleach is bad, face wash is bad, use oil and water to cleanse your skin...um, really? Oil is the...

If you know me at all, you know how I feel about organization. I love it! Like, it makes me happy. (And yes, I said "like"). I enjoy vacuuming because it gives me a feeling of instant gratification. Everyone gets that feeling from something and for me, it's cleaning and organization. I am type A but definitely not a perfectionist. There are just some things I like neat and orderly, like underneath my bathroom cabinets for example. I love things that make life simpler and since there is no need to reinvent the wheel I thought I'd pass along these websites. Being pregnant and on bedrest for a while has given me time to catch up on blogs and find some new sites that might make life a little easier. I already have a home notebook with important information in it like wills, where documents are located, and a list of books to read some day. It also has our budgets in it and the last time we changed the air filters. I found that idea by googling home notebook. This is the w...

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It's hard for me to believe that we've made it to 31 weeks with all the craziness that has happened. At 28 weeks I was taken off bed rest and just told to take it easy. So, the last two ish weeks were great. I had a baby shower (pics to come) and was able to get her nursery bedding washed, Adam put the crib together, we got the car seat in and inspected, etc. And then...  Last week we spent Wednesday through Friday in labor and delivery in the hospital fighting off contractions. Dr. says she doesn't know where they came from, only that they showed up. My cervix was still plenty long enough "fort knox" she said and there were no signs of pre-term labor, only pre-term contractions. One of the tests they do gives a 99% proof that you won't go into labor in the next two weeks. That will put me at 32 1/2 weeks. If we can make it to 34 weeks it puts us past a lot of risks and I won't have to have certain injections before she's born (not that she hasn't...

This week I know I've been stressed dealing with finances. I think it's just because of the gigantic bill I got from the hospital that followed with the gigantic check I had to write. Today one of the articles on the Dave Ramsey website was about living life and being content while you're trying to be good stewards and pay off debt. You can't let it drive you crazy. I have to be content in our circumstances, even if I don't love everything about them. I know that sounds so easy right? Here's a link to the article. Anxiety Fever It says it way better than I could. :) Happy Friday to all! Stay safe in this hot weather. I will not be sitting outside at all today, it's smoking hot out there!

Oh my goodness we are almost to 28 weeks! I am sooo excited about this fact :) I may or may not have been hormonal in my last blog post. Adam asked me if I was going to delete it and I thought about it, but... decided that everyone is human and everyone has their days when they just need to vent. I'm not perfect so why try to pretend I am in my blog? The truth is we have so much to be thankful for. Last night I watched Charles Stanley that we recorded from Sunday (since I haven't really been able to go to church) and he kicked my butt! He was talking about how obedience always leads to blessing. Adam and I have been struggling with this because we really feel like we have been obedient and it doesn't "seem" to us that we have received blessings out of it. But, our blessings aren't always what we think they are. Of course, our baby girl is a blessing! Adam's job at The Hartford is a blessing. My being on bed rest and not having income did not seem like a b...

Yesterday was Father's Day and I think Adam had a good first Father's Day. We got him a grill since we sold ours when we moved into the apartment. Every man needs a grill and since he is the one doing most of the cooking these days I thought it appropriate. We also picked up some Dreft so we can start washing baby clothes and items that we've gotten at showers and as hand-me-downs from family and friends. We are really blessed to have people that love us and help us with baby items. I called Barry yesterday to wish him a Happy Father's Day. I was really fortunate to have two Dads. (And they both had the same name!) They are/were both really great people who love their family. I have a wonderful father-in-law too! I've also got both my grandfathers alive and two great grandfathers alive. It's so cool to be 31 and have all these wonderful men still around. Adam is going to be a great Dad. Ask anyone. He loves kids and is sooo good with them. They just like being...

We have almost made it to 26 weeks. On Sunday, that's where we'll be. I had an appointment with the surgeon Tuesday and everything went really well. He says I'm  measuring right where I need to be. The baby is moving around a lot, I can feel her kick almost every day. Today she has been moving a lot!!! It's neat for Adam to feel her and see her kick. He talks to my belly and tells her to have a good day when he leaves for work. Can you say, adorable? :) I first felt her move the day I got home from the hospital. It is for sure one of the coolest things ever. We had a baby shower this weekend hosted by two of my childhood friends. My family and high school friends came. Lots of fun! There are pictures on facebook for those who want to see. It seems like there are pregnant people allll around me. More and more I'm hearing of people having babies this year! In 10 weeks, they'll be taking the stitches out... in 6 weeks, they consider me "as good as full term...