Friday, December 17, 2010

Pictures from this week that make me smile...

I must admit, I am dissappointed in several things related to photo taking and the new camera.  First of all, I am dissappointed that I haven't been taking advantage of opportunities to take good pictures because I'm too busy enjoying myself (which...I guess can be a good thing.)  Secondly, I still don't know how to use my camera very well.  There is a learning curve, I hear, but I haven't tried very hard to learn.  bleh!  And thirdly, I can't find an easy to use editing program.  Every one I have found so far is awful and slow!!  The program the camera came with doesn't open jpeg files, and if you take the pictures in RAW format, you can't see thumbnails on the computer, so you are just guessing when choosing a picture to edit.  Also, the RAW pictures won't open in my photo viewer on my computer because Canon hasn't developed a codec for Windows 7 yet.  I just can't win!!!  grrr!  (update:  and now my computer overheats about every 15 minutes and shuts down! yippee!!) 

Anyway!  Enough with the complaining!  I have taken a few I like this week...they make me feel all warm and cozy!  Honestly, they have personal sentiment and will probably mean nothing to you, but I will share them anyway!  (Most are completely unedited because I am nearly completely out of patience!  Photographers, don't judge!)


My shoes. Wes's shoes.  :)

Zane's first Christmas program!  Look at that little tongue sticking out.  Ahhh...what a cutie!!  and that girl to the right of him is the essence of precious.  I think she should be a kid super model:)

Most delicious chicken pot pie.  It is a snap to make and Wes and I cannot get enough of it (so I always make a double batch for just the two of us!  The recipe can be found here.  Don't forget the velveeta!!

Last night we had a Christmas Party for the high school girls at church.  We had a lovely spread of snacks and drinks thanks to Amber, Chelsey and Chloe:)  They made beautiful, fancy things!!! 

This is the girls playing mafia.  We had a gift exchanging game, and Amber gave a short, but wonderful message about the condition of our hearts and our attitudes towards God using a portion of the Christmas story:)

I love this season!  Something about the cold weather and focus on Jesus absolutely melts my insides and makes me want to hug people:)

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

House Update!

Hey People!

First of all, I must say, I have SO MUCH to write about!  hopefully I can get to it all eventually!  Life has been crazy (and looks like it will stay that way for as far into the future as I care to look!)   I've been computer-less for a while, so now that I have it back I hope to blog like mad! 

Anyway.  I thought I'd get this crazy good news out of the way.  We are (once again...lol) under contract for that house.  A while back I wrote about how the house was on hold because of the new forclosure laws that congress passed.  Sometime last week the hold on our future home was lifted!  When the process was halted, we had just gotten a home inspection with some not so great news.  Because of that, when we were able to resume the process, we lowered our offer to reflect the additional repairs that needed to be made...and they accepted!  How simple!  I've never been through this whole home buying process before, but it was far less intense than I expected!  (I give you permission to laugh...all I had to do was daydream and fall in love with the house and sign a few papers...my husband is the man and did all of the mathy calculations and loan stuff.  He's so great at that!)  We close January 13th!

In the end, I'm thrilled and so thankful how everything worked out.  We truly believe God had is hand in it for so many reasons, but I won't ramble about them on here.  I know how wordy I can get, so I will spare you!  However, I will say, we are ridiculously blessed in so many ways.  It is humbling because we are so undeserving.  Why is God so good to us!?  I don't get it...but we are genuinely grateful, and continuously in awe.

We are now praying:
1.  We are able to sell our new house by April.  I hope around April (I'm sure Wes hopes sooner), so we don't have to move to a "temporary home."  oh how that would suck!
2.  Everything with the loan goes smoothly.
3.  We devise a great plan that is most cost effective and efficient to get the house refinished.
4.  The refinishing process is peaceful and exciting instead of stressful and torturous.  (you know...things run smoothly...Wes and I don't kill each other, etc.)
5.  The ministries we are involved in don't get the shaft when we are so busy.
6.  That we can use all of the space in the new place for God's glory alone!  We have so many dreams about how we can use it to reach out to others, and share the love of Christ with them! 
If you feel moved to join us in prayer, we'd love it!  :)

I am so excited to share the progress on our house with you, and I can't wait to see the before and after pictures!  They are sure to be intense!  haha!

Have sweet dreams tonight.  I know I will! 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!