I Heart Faces: Anything But A Face

Good morning, friends! It is a beautiful Monday morning {though I read that we are going to get storms today so the ‘beauty’ might be a different ‘beauty’ before too long. It’s all good. I’m always reminded of that song ‘Every time I watch a storm, I know the awesome power of my Lord…’ …

Anyway, this week’s I Heart Faces photo challenge is ‘Anything But a Face’. And it’s really not that hard to get a photo without Benjamin’s face in it because honestly he’s not too hip with me getting one WITH it. So all these photos you see with his cutesy face in it is a LUCKY SHOT or one out of a million where I finally got him to glance my way. {You think I take a lot of pics, you should see all the ones I throw out!}

I love this of Benjamin looking out to our new neighborhood. Precious.

Project 365; Week One

So I’ve tried this twice before and so I’m giving this 365 another shot. I started last Sunday, a little later than others but it’s all good. Here are my photos from this past week:

Day 1. 2/20/2011 –

Day 2. 2/21/2011 –

Day 3. 2/22/2011 -

Day 4. 2/23/2011 -

Day 5. 2/24/2011 -

Day 6. 2/25/2011 -

Day 7. 2/26/2011 -

I Heart Faces: Fix-It Friday #88

Yay! It’s fix-it Friday again! And isn’t this girl adorable?? I’ll cut right to the chase and get my edits up…

SOOC:

LR Edits:
{Because I couldn’t choose just one!}

{I just love bright colors}

{A softer feel..}

{and who doesn’t love a good b&w?}

Which was your favorite? Link up at I Heart Faces!

Wordless Wednesday: Sweet and Rare

{TWO YEARS LATER:}

Sweet Shot Tuesday

I’m going to shamelessly plug a friend’s blog here. I love Lisa @ Being What I Want To Be! I love her blog so much. We are Sisters in Christ who have yet to meet in person and I just love keeping up with her little family and drawing inspiration from her, as a mother and budding photographer.

Anyway, that’s how I came across this photo link-up! Here’s a sweet shot for you!

Suh-weeeet! I love triangular baby mouths! He’s still a baby, right? Well he is to me. Look at those baby blues!

Keeping Busy

We have been so, so busy here. There is always something to do here, somewhere to be, someone to visit, or someone visiting us. There is barely any time for us to sit down and relax. But you know what? It has been a while since we have been this busy, and I am really enjoying it. So far I have been able to keep a decent balance with everything that goes on at home, and we’ve even made some headway with potty training {or at least I’d like to think so!} Here are a few pictures from the last few days that we’ve had here! Enjoy!

{bridal shower for a friend!}

We are loving this beautiful weather, and feeling very blessed! Being this busy is a lot of fun – and it’s only going to get busier here in the future! Which is fine with me! I love keeping busy!

The Paper Mama Photo Challenge: Red

I love my sweet boy in red. And he has a sweet spot for candy-coated pretzels.

Farewell to a Friend

I don’t want to be … sappy. But I did want to dedicate this post to a very special dog who passed away today. We got Bailey back when I was 10 years old, and while I don’t really remember too much about him as a puppy or young dog {besides a few of his favorite toys and the way he was so small as a puppy – smaller than the bottom step of our staircase}, I will always remember him as the best dog you could ever ask for.

He died of old age. He would have been 12 in 3 months and that’s about the age that dalmations die {he was half dalmation}. He had been sick for a while, but not … suffering or in pain or anything. But it’s a relief to know that this has passed. He’ll still be missed.

Farewell to a faithful friend and sweet doggy.
We love you, Baileybop!

Before & After {Pixel Perfect}

I haven’t participated in a Before & After blog hop in a while so I figured I would today!

Before {SOOC}:

After {LightRoom Edit}:

I just like the more … vintage feel. You know what I mean?

Join in, y’all!

Wordless Wednesday: Ben’s Bay Window

Conditions on Love

Something  has been on my mind lately and I hope you don’t mind my fleshing it out here. Stick around if you’d like and if not, no worries. It’s been on my mind since it was mentioned in passing at a Ladies’ Breakfast we had here and it has just been on my mind and I can’t get it off. It’s the subject of love, which personally I think we need more of. More love. Stronger love. Love that brings about obedience and love that causes you to want to bring others to Christ and make sure that they are right with God in all areas of their life. We need more love.

But sometimes we tend to put conditions on our love. How come we do this? We are only willing to love someone if they happen  to fulfill some of your needs, or perhaps if they make you feel good, or they like the same things as you do, or they hold the same opinions. In marriages, we love our spouse as long as they take the trash out when we ask them to or keep the house clean or make the dinner or fill other needs. We place conditions on ourselves and on others concerning their appearance or how they react to the way we function.

We are told many times in the Bible that the greatest commandment is love: loving the Lord our God, loving our neighbors as ourselves {and that means that we need to love ourselves in the first place too}, and we’re to love our enemies. Love is stressed so many times in the Bible and yet we find so many reasons why we shouldn’t love.

Does God place conditions on His love? Some might think that unless you’re a Christian, God doesn’t truly love you. This isn’t true. God doesn’t put conditions on His love. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8; God showed us how He loved us while we were yet sinners! Humanity had rebelled against God, disobeying His commandments and turning against Him in every which way. And yet while man did this, God still loved us all enough to send His Son to die for us on the cross to shed His blood – the blood that washes away our sins when we come to Him in obedience {Romans 10:17; Matthew 16:16; Acts 17:30,31; Romans 10:8-10; Acts 2:38}! There are no conditions to God’s love – He loves us regardless of what we have done! {That isn’t to say that there is no condition to salvation – that is proved within the verses listed above.}

So if God, who gave His Son to die for those who rebelled against Him and continue to rebel against Him can show us unconditional love and desire the best for us {that is, to be saved – 1 Timothy 2:4}, how come we can’t show the same unconditional love toward each other. Instead of holding grudges against each other for the smallest slights, or being way to sensitive so that every little thing sets us against each other… why can’t we just say, “We are all human, we all make mistakes, but that doesn’t change the fact that we are to love one another.”

I just don’t understand why we always insist on placing conditions on our love. And that isn’t to say that I don’t do this. I certainly do. And it is something I certainly need to work on. Let’s all love each other.

Happy Valentine’s Day

I wanted to do a cute heart picture and Benjamin insisted on putting his hand through the heart. Happy Valentine’s Day from a unique boy and his blogging momma!

One day we will look back on this and laugh.

One day we will say, “Hey, remember that time we came home from bible study and started the dishwasher and then walked away and then started hearing really loud rushing water and went into the kitchen to find it completely flooded?” And then we will laugh.

But I so was not laughing last night. Praying, more like.

We had just gotten home from Bible study and Carl went to load the dishwasher and start it because we had some friends coming over to watch a show with us. Well we had left the room and I was on the phone with my mom and all this time I am hearing rushing water, thinking nothing of it because I was sure it was the washing machine filling up or something. Well I walked into the kitchen and found it flooding. I told my mom, “Something big just happened! Gotta go!” and hung up the phone. {Poor mom thought something was wrong with Ben because he had banged his head pretty bad about 20 minutes prior and she was saying to watch out for a concussion. She told my dad after I hung up that she was afraid something was wrong with Ben—sorry mom and dad!}

Anyway, like I said, the kitchen was flooding rapidly before our eyes. The first words out of my mouth were, “Call David NOW!” – he is a deacon at the congregation and he is super handy and lives just up the road. It was coming from under the sink and Carl rushed around to try to turn the water off but the water was SO HOT and it was scalding our feet and fogging up Carl’s glasses. While he tried to turn it off, I ran back and forth from the bathroom to the kitchen with towels, throwing them down on the floor to try to get the water to stop moving further into the house. I ran out of towels eventually, and we have a LOT of towels. It still really wasn’t enough to really get it all soaked up. It wasn’t like “oh there is some water on the floor” it was like “Wow, I am splashing through my kitchen” – even with the towels down.

Finally the water was shut off and David arrived with his shop vac and we got the soaked towels up so he could vacuum up the rest of the water. We looked under the sink and found that the line had exploded. This morning David came with some new lines and installed them for us.

So all is well, or should be. I haven’t tried to turn the dishwasher on again because now I’m all nervous. It should be fine, but I’d rather not risk it. My kitchen is kinda cluttered up now with cleaner stuff that had been under the sink now on all my counters. It was a stressful situation and all I wanted to do was pray and count my blessings and there were a few big ones that really came to me.

I am thankful that we have indoor plumbing even if it explodes in our kitchen!

I am thankful for a quick-moving husband.

I am thankful that we have hot water even if it scalds our feet!

I am thankful that we have a million towels to throw down on the floor!

I am thankful for friends and family in Christ who are handy and close by enough to come help us in our time of great need!

I am thankful that tonight I am going on a girls’ night out with Blythe to get our nails did and have dinner and relax.

I am thankful for a new line under our sink!

So very, very thankful to be able to remain calm and keep a good attitude when I really wanted to scream and rip my hair out! Oh, and you might be wondering what Benjamin thought of all this. Nothing. He thought nothing of this because he was completely oblivious the entire time. I am so thankful for Word World no matter how many times I have seen it and no matter how annoying it can be. It kept him so occupied so we didn’t have to keep him out of the way or out of the kitchen. I imagine he would have  been slipping all around in that hot water! It still cracks me up that he STILL has no idea what happened.

So yeah, one day we may look back on all of this and laugh. But right now I’m feeling really sleep deprived and just really thankful that it’s all been taken care of.

Just One Look

Just one look at this sweet little face
Can cheer this mama up in a heartbeat.

The Paper Mama Photo Challenge: Self Portrait

I used to be kinda pro at the self portraits. Because I was young and full of myself. But now I’m really not good at it and I am a bit camera shy. I’d rather be on the “taking” end of the camera than the “taken” end. If you know what I mean. And thus, there are hardly any pictures of me floating around unless someone has caught me unawares with their own camera.

Anyway. Enough skirting around the issue. This week’s challenge is self portrait. So that’s what I did. I think this photo describes me perfectly. Distinguished. Noble. Stately. Unsavory Charlatan. Don’t you think?

Yes? I thought so too. Okay, okay. That isn’t my real mustache… But you gotta admit. I surely would look rather distinguished if I did sport a mustache.

So maybe I’m a little … strange. But you asked for it … or at least the Paper Mama did! ha!

On The Menu This Week

Thank you, Lisa, for inspiring me with your menu plans! Since making my own menu plans, I have been able to keep more organized with my life and not having to wonder at 5:00 what we’re going to have for dinner. Menu planning also really helps with grocery shopping and keeping that bill as low as possible! So here we go. On the menu this week…

• Chili Dogs. We have some buns we need to use up, and who doesn’t love a good chili dog anyway?
• Porkchops, baked potatoes, and corn. I’m not sure how I’m going to fix the porkchops yet. I will have to figure that out sometime today… one of my favorite websites for recipes is Tablespoon. You can type in your main ingredient and find all sorts of recipes for it!
• Chicken sammiches. We always have something simple on Wednesdays since Wednesday night is Bible Study night.
• Burgers – either just regular burgers or if it sounds good to Hubby, we can do Burger Burritos. If we end up doing this, I’ll be sure to post a recipe on my recipe blog.
• And Friday is Game night at our house, so we asked everyone to bring something we could all share.

That’s the menu for Monday-Friday! I am certainly no chef, but I really have enjoyed being able to be in my own kitchen amongst my own familiar appliances and utensils and all that good stuff. You never realize all you take for granted until you are in a position where you don’t have all that!

our house!

Finally I have some pictures to show for our new digs. Oh yes! You’re really excited, I can tell! I don’t blame you! I love our new house!

Ben’s bathroom.

Benjamin’s bedroom. You may see a few pictures with him in them because he was following me around… or I was following him. Either way…

Dining room…see what I mean? There’s Ben!

There’s the entry way…
{boy these neighborhood dogs sure do like to bark all night…}

Guest room.

Kitchen… and I LOVE the red.

Laundry area

Living room!

 

Of course, it’s not completely put together but it’s so very close. It is so homey and nice and we just love it here! We are just so blessed! God is good!

Also, a little update on Benjamin and a prayer request. Prayers first. Benjamin is sick. We are probably going to try to get him in to see the doctor this week. Please pray he starts feeling better. He has a runny, cloggy nose {I seriously wipe his nose all day long. He comes to me and goes, “TISSUE! TISSUE! NOSE!” while his nose just drips and drips}, a nasty cough, and he wheezes when he breathes. Sigh!

And the update is that tonight will be the fourth night in a row that he has been sleeping in his big boy bed without any problem at all. This transition has been so easy. We still push the pack-n-play up against his bed until we can get some rails up. But he does so well. We are SO proud of him.

Ahhh my big boy! Now if we can just get him to use the potty….