Thank YOU Beautiful Calling

Jen over at Beautiful Calling linked to my blog in her post today.  I posted a blog entitled Gentle Reminder in January and I am so honored that she needed to read just what I posted.  It is so easy in the mundane everyday tasks for us as wives, mothers, and homemakers to forget what we are really doing and who we are really doing it for.  Rereading this on her post was a good reminder to me again today.

Thank you so much Jen for linking to my blog!  I am glad to have found you in the Blogosphere and look forward to sharing and learning more as we travel on the path that God leads us!

"There are better things ahead than any we leave behind"

I have a dear friend who writes The Sweet Life and I read whenever she posts.  She has lots of recipes, crafty projects and overall goodness.  After reading her post today I sent her a comment expressing how much I enjoyed reading her posts.  I received an email from her stating her gratitude and at the bottom of her email was this quote by C.S. Lewis.  "There are better things ahead than any we leave behind."

I feel that as I go through like I learn more and more that things happen for a reason.  I beleive that I was meant to see this quote on this particular day.  I have been going through some extended family issues and understanding how to deal with it can be a challenge.

So where do I go from here?  I must continue doing what I feel in my heart is right and not let any outside influences affect me or my actions.  This can be very hard to do when you are deeply invested in a particular situation, and trying to remove your feelings out of it can almost be impossible.

I must have faith that every road that we are on is the one that God intended for us to be on and truly beleive that "there are better things ahead than any we leave behind."

Thanks Alisa for the encouragement I needed today!

Thankfulness - My Cup Runneth Over

WOW - our family has had an amazing, crazy, busy two weeks.  First we started with the selling of our home and our move into our new ABSOLUTELY, FANTASTICAL, WONDERFUL home!  Can you tell I love it?  Brian has said soooo many times how comfortable he is in our new surroundings.  After having him fight a move out of Kansas City and into Tonganoxie for a long time, those comments are very accepted by me.  I am relieved that he is as happy as the rest of us.  First off my drive to take the kids to school couldn't be any easier.  We are only two minutes from the schools.  No more driving for 20 minutes each way.  I will have so much more time to do other things during the day.  We are so thankful that God blessed the selling of our other home and the purchase of the new one.  I don't think the process could have been any smoother.

Our daughter Alysia has been practicing her little tush off for the Beauty and the Beast play at school.  They have been practicing for 6 weeks sometimes until 10 or 10:30 at night, almost every night of the week.  I even think James was beginning to miss her although he wouldn't admit it.  This past weekend all of the kids' hard work paid off in four performances.  I must say that the kids of Tonganoxie High School are a very talented bunch.  I give kudos to the drama department for putting on such wonderful plays and also to the students!  They put in hard work but had a blast putting it all together.  Alysia is sad to know that she will not get to hang out with her new "family" after school anymore.

My hubby has had an amazing week to say the least.  He has been reunited with his long lost daughter whom he has never met and is 16 years old.  She pursued looking for him and his family and succeeded. Needless to say Brian has been on cloud nine.  He has waited for this day for so long and it seems Brenna has too.  I am soooo thankful that they finally got to meet and pray that their relationship continues to grow.  She seems like an amazing young woman and I can't wait to meet her also.

Parker is a little fire ball that is always on the go.  He is so close to walking I know it will be any day.  He has been such a happy baby lately and I love how he can make himself laugh.  The other day when he was playing by himself, he would fall back and hit his head on a pillow and crack up.  It was one of those moments though where I didn't get my camera quick enough.  Hearing him laugh brings a HUGE smile to my face.  I can't wait to see his personality emerge as he grows into who he will become in the next year or two.  They change so much during this time and I can't wait to cherish each moment as it comes.

Poor James through all of this has been fighting sicknesses.  When we moved he had a fever of around 102 for about three nights straight.  Crazy thing; it was only at night.  During the day he was completely fine and there were no other symptoms.  Then that got better and then he started having to use his inhaler because his asthma started acting up.  He hasn't had complications with that for a couple of years so that caused some concerns.  A trip to the Dr. showed that he was fine though.  Then when the kids were out of school last Friday, poor James was home vomiting all day long.  He laid on the couch and didn't do anything for 2 1/2 days.  I didn't know my cannon ball could sit that long and sleep so much so I knew that he was really sick.  He missed school yesterday and I think enjoyed hanging out with Mom and Dad that this morning he tried to pull the old "my throat still hurts" line.  Needless to say he is on the mend and back at school hanging with his buddies as we speak.

There you have it; an update since I haven't been on in a couple of weeks. The next few weeks will prove to be more exciting as we move through the holiday season.  Brian and I will be having Thanksgiving at our house this year with the family and I can't wait!

Thank You Dear Jesus!

Some of you may know that we are going through the process of selling our home and buying a new one.  This can be a very trying time for any family and I just pray that this is a smooth transition for us.  I want to show my great gratitude for the work that the Lord has done so far.  Having only had our house on the market for three weeks, we have been blessed to come into contact with a realtor who has a home that we love and it just so happens that he is looking for a house for his mother-in-law and thinks that ours would be perfect for her.  We signed a contract today.  He gave is the amount we were looking for and it couldn't have worked out any smoother.  Although he is a realtor, since we did all this as basically by owner we still didn't have to pay any realtor commission.  That saved us about $5000!!  Our current home loan is a VA loan and so we had to be out of that loan before we could move into a new house.  I don't know of any situation that could have flowed smoother and worked out better.  PRAISE THE LORD!

Our tentative closing date is set for October 27.  We are going to keep praying that all goes well between now and the time we close.  We pray that God will continue blessing this process.  We look to him for answers and guidance.  We are going to be getting into the Christmas season and we would love to be settled in our new home celebrating the holidays.

Thank you all that have been praying for us and we ask that you please continue to do so.  We are all very excited about  this move and hope that our family will greatly benefit from it.

Here are some pics of the new house!  I hope to be able to get some pictures with us living in it soon!!