Transformations

It's amazing what a little paint and new flooring can do to a house!  

Because our "new to us" home is actually a church parsonage, they renovated the house before we moved in.  We are so amazed at how much they invested in us before they really even knew us!  We feel truly blessed and are so thankful for all of the work so many of the church members did for us!  

From painting to ripping out old carpet to clearing brush in the backyard to mowing to helping us load and unload furniture to giving us an old fashioned food pounding...we have felt such a warm welcome!  

Thank you, Bro, Andy & Renie and members of Idabel FBC!  

You are living out the Acts 2 church!

Here are a few BEFORE and AFTER pictures of our new home.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

Living Room looking at entry way & master bedroom

BEFORE

Living Room looking from the entry way

 AFTER

(Living Room next to entry way)

AFTER

Living Room & Dining & Kitchen

(They removed half of the wall between the living room & kitchen.  

It opened up the whole living area!  

You can stand at the fireplace & see all the way to the boys' bathroom and vice versa!)

AFTER 

(Entry way.  On the other side of the wall where the entry table is, they built a wall for the refrigerator.)

AFTER

(Master Bedroom.  I guess I didn't get a before picture of this room.)

 BEFORE

(Kitchen.  They removed half of the blue wall to open up into the living room.

Then they built a space for the refrigerator on the right and added cabinets and

prep space next to the oven/stove.)  

BEFORE

(Kitchen.  And the most obvious difference...they changed EVERYTHING that was

BROWN to WHITE.  Lightened up the whole house!)

BEFORE

(Family Room/School Room)

BEFORE

(Family Room/School Room looking into kitchen)

AFTER

Family Room/School Room...what a difference!

BEFORE

Standing in the kitchen looking into the family room

BEFORE

(4th bedroom that they turned into a laundry room/craft room.

The washer & dryer were outside in the garage on the opposite side of the 

right wall, so they changed the pipes to work INSIDE!)

BEFORE

Laundry Room

AFTER

(Laudnry Room/Craft Room...LOVE being able to have 

washer & dryer inside the house!)

 BEFORE

Boys' Bathroom

AFTER

Boys' Bathroom

BEFORE

Evan's Room

AFTER

Evan's Room

BEFORE

Ethan's Room

AFTER

Ethan's Room

So...what do you think of the transformation?  

As for us, we walk around the house with a big smile on our face daily! 

We've Crossed the Border!

It's hard to believe that it's only been 3 weeks since we moved to Oklahoma!  We are getting settled in nicely.  We feel so blessed with our new home and our new ministry at Idabel FBC!  The people have made us feel so very welcome!  We are so thankful that the church renovated this parsonage for us!  (I'll have to show before and after pictures on another post.)

Several people have asked to see pictures, so I finally have all of my boxes unpacked and have the house in good enough shape to give you a "bloggy" tour of our Oklahoma home!

So...

Welcome to Abbey Lane

The entry way...you can see the living room, dining room, & kitchen from this point!

The living room and dining room in the back

Another view of the living room as I'm standing in our bedroom

Standing by the fireplace, you can see the dining room, 

kitchen, & family room/school room!

The dining room

Family Room/School room & Kitchen

Family Room/School room & Kitchen

(The pantry is on the left.  I have school supplies, cake decorating supplies, 

arts/crafts supplies, & small appliances on the right side.)

Love, Love, Love the storage space!

Awesome laundry room/crafty room

 

Another view of laundry room/crafty room

(it's still a work in progress..not finished organizing everything 

in there yet. Do you see Flat Ethan's wall?)

The boys' bathroom

Evan's man cave

He's very proud of his simple room...

and he does not want me to clutter it up. :)

Evan's room looking into their bathroom. 

Ethan's room is on the right, the laundry room is to the left.

Ethan's super cool room with loft bed!

Ethan's room--school area

Ethan is so proud of his loft bed that PawPaw & Daddy built for him.

He said the ladder helps him reach the books up high in his "library" (bookshelf).

Our bedroom

Another view of our bedroom

Our bedroom and bathroom

Our bathroom

I didn't want to end the tour with the bathroom.

So here's a picture of our fireplace.

We are. Truly.

Blessed.

Women Living Well {GIVEAWAY}

UPDATE...The Winner is...

domdandevdil!

 Please email me your mailing address so I can get the book sent to you!

Congratulations!

I am so thrilled to be chosen to be a part of Courtney's "Women Living Well" Launch Team for her new book that was just released today!  It's called Women Living Well:  Finding Your Joy in God, Your Man, Your Kids, and Your Home.

I have been reading Courtney's Women Living Well blog for several years now.  She is very inspirational and very honest and extremely down to earth.  She is the type of Christian witness I always dream of being.  In her book, she shares her testimony and a TON of practical ways to "walk with the King" in our daily lives.

I have had the honor to receive an advanced ebook copy and have thoroughly enjoyed reading it (when I haven't been packing or planning Ethan's birthday party or moving, etc) during the last few weeks.  Actually, it has been nice to read it after I collapse onto the bed from exhaustion at night. :)

The book is divided into 4 parts:  

1.  Your Walk with the King

2.  Your Marriage

3.  Your Parenting

4.  Your Homemaking

I will be reviewing each of these sections during the month of November.  However, if you'd like to try to win a FREE signed copy of the book, just leave a comment on this blog post.  The GIVEAWAY will end on Sunday, October 6.  

If you don't want to wait, you can purchase your own copy here.

**I was chosen as part of the launch team for this book and was given an advanced PDF copy of the book in exchange for an honest review and promotion of the book. 

Happy 7th Birthday, Ethan!

There are a few days each year that I get very nostalgic--May 27 (our anniversary), May 16 (the day my Aunt Dixie died), Mother's Day weekend (because my grandma died the day before I graduated from college), March 18 (the day Evan was born), and today. September 5. The day Ethan was born!

When I delivered Evan, all I remember is how I didn't have any medicine because it was "time to push," Eric stepping on my IV and blood was running out of my body & onto the floor, and how they covered me with these really heavy warm blankets right after he was born because I was shivering so badly. I didn't get to see him get his little bath or get weighed. I didn't really get to see him for quite awhile.

But with Ethan...it was quite different. I didn't have ANY physical pain...yes we were all happy emotional wrecks...but no pain!  We had the blessed opportunity to be in the nursery with him when the nurse gave this 9 1/2 pound sumo wrestler his first bath. We even got to spend a few hours cuddling, holding, and oohing & ahhing over him! 

 You see, God blessed us with such a unique opportunity to have two miraculous sons--one by birth and one through adoption.  "The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with JOY!" Psalm 126:3

Now, going through the difficult and painful process of years of infertility, numerous doctor visits, completing the mountains of adoption paperwork, having one mom choose us & change her mind right before the baby was born, and then having to wait another 9 long Months were NOT times that I would call JOYOUS or even fun, but oh the blessing we received when God worked all of this out for His (and our) good! (Romans 8:28)

Looking back, I would not have it any other way.  You see, I'm a little stubborn (ok maybe more than a little). And I was bound & determined that I wanted to birth another child. I loved being pregnant with Evan & I so desired to experience that again.  I truly thought it would be great to even have twins. 

I learned to claim Psalm 37:4 as my verse through these times.  "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."  I learned that meant that I needed to DELIGHT in the LORD and then HIS desires for me would become my desires.

And God, in His wisdom, knew I needed to experience all that we did with our numerous drives to the Shreveport doctor in order to break MY will and get to a place that I would be willing to adopt.  

And God, in His wisdom,  also placed some wonderful friends, Monica & Shawn, in our lives who adopted two beautiful children through Christian Homes in Abilene.  And as we finally began the process, we met several others who successfully adopted children. 

And would you believe that my sweet friend, Monica, also experienced a mom choosing them & changing her mind a year or so before we experienced the same exact thing? So she was able to minister to me during that devastating time!  God is so good! His plans are perfect!

So today...as we celebrate Ethan's SEVENTH birthday, words cannot express the gratitude in my heart for this sweet, compassionate, creative, intelligent young whipper snapper that God uniquely designed for our family! He brings so much joy and laughter to our days!  

And words cannot express the gratitude in my heart for his sweet birth mom who chose to give us Ethan.  She is truly a blessing to us as well!

Ethan, our big first grader, we are so very proud of you!  We love the way you are curious about EVERYTHING! Yes, you may wear this old mom and dad down with your constant questions, but never stop asking! We love your vivid imagination and your ability to remember all sorts of random facts about world geography and animals!  We love how you giggle when you wrestle your brother. You are also very compassionate and friendly and kind to everyone.  We know that God is going to use you in a mighty way as you grow!  We love you! Mom, Dad, and Bro Bro (Evan)

Memory Verse 17

We are two-thirds of the way through our Scripture Memory challenge for 2013!

Here is my verse for this time around:

"For You, O Lord, have made me 

glad by Your work; 

at the works of Your hands

I sing for joy". Psalm 92:4 (ESV)