She's growing up!

Me and the sister, lol.

Haley and "Jimmy" aka, Secret Asian Man, LOL.

Linel, Bailee, Haley. Pals of several years.
My baby sister graduated high school last Friday night, with the grace and beauty of woman. It was kinda weird, seeing her all grown up! I wish her all the best as she blazes her own trail through life.

Lord, I need patience. Amen.

Well Keith tore out the old shower in the house so that we could replace it with the new one. Only it turns out that there is significant moisture damage to the floor. AAAHHHHHH!!!! So the bathroom project is growing, and my patience is waning, LOL. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that we have to be out of our apartment by April 30. This means all our stuff is moving to the house, and we are going to be going to my inlaws to stay until the bathroom is finished. I don't mind staying with my inlaws at all, I love them to death, but its not very convenient for our everyday routine, LOL. Anyway, here are some pictures of what my bathroom looks like at the moment. Heaven help me, lol.

WOO HOOOOOO

WE ARE NOW OFFICIALLY HOMEOWNERS!!!! Praise the Lord we finally closed on our house today at 2pm!!! It doesn't even seem real yet, I don't think!! More updates and hopefully pictures to come later....God Bless!

House Update again

Today is Monday, and we still haven't closed. *sigh* The selling realtor still hadn't taken care of the termite treatment like they were supposed to do. (The house had some live termites in the landscaping timbers that had to be treated, but we're going to take out all those timbers once we close.) So now we're just waiting once again for yet another closing date. It should be this week. At least it better be, LOL.

House Update!!!

Isn't it funny how in the middle of victory and answered prayers how quickly we can become discouraged? We were originally set to close on our house on April 8th. Man we were excited, gung-ho, ready! As it turned out, our loan wasn't quite ready yet. Our mortgage broker was working on getting us a "Welcome Home" grant from the government that would be a down payment on our house. Even when we should have viewed that as the blessing from God that it was, we instantly became frustrated and discouraged. (And when I say "we" I mean mostly "me" LOL, Keith is not so quick to emotional outbursts as me.) We didn't know how long it would take the grant money to come in, and we had already turned in our 30 day notice here on the apartment. Now I am so happy to say that the money has come in, and we are set to close on our very first home on Monday, April 14!! God is so good to us. We are so thankful for this home that He has given us and for blessing us with this government grant as a down payment on it. Now the stressful part begins---packing and moving!!!! ;)

Card making!

I've been trying to make some actual cards with all of my new Stampin' Up! goodies my WONDERFUL hubby let me buy!


For the card above, I used the One of a Kind stamp set, with the Boho Blossoms punch, chocolate chip ink and Pretty in Pink ink. The big flower is actually three layers, and has a very dimensional feel to is. The patterned paper is DCWV and the brown ribbon is from Offray.

My inspiration was sadly lacking so I went to Splitcoaststampers to try and find some. I found this beautiful card: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/858203 and decided to case it. I used the SAB set Friendship Blooms, with Chocolate Chip ink. I used my SU watercolor pencils and blender pen to color in the flowers. The striped patterned paper is DCWV, and the pink paper with white dots I made using a Sassafrass Lass stitched border stamp and Whisper White ink.

It felt good to get a little creative again, even if I did borrow some ideas, lol. Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

Life is crazy, but God is good

I've been negligent of my blog, as Ashley informed me, LOL. These past couple of weeks have just been kind of crazy! The weekend of of the 8th, we had our biggest snow of the season, go figure. We ended up stuck at my inlaws for the night. While we were there, Keith decided to browse houses online. He happened to stumble upon one that seemed to be exactly what we were looking for. An older home that was well-taken care of and updated with a huge yard, and what we *thought* was an affordable price for us right now. We called a realtor we know, and he had Keith do some mortgage pre-approval work. It turned out that what would be our monthly payment on that house was going to be too much for us. We were so bummed. We started getting really discouraged and it began to look like we were just going to have to put house-hunting on hold for several more months. Then a few days later, Keith found another house online, right across the road from the other one! It was the same type house, just with a smaller yard and a much more affordable price. We met with the realtor so we could get in the house and look around. It has an awesome, updated kitchen, spacious living room, good sized bathroom, and three small but do-able bedrooms. Just needs a tad cosmetic work. Within one week we saw the house, bid on the house, had our bid accepted, and now we have plans on Monday for an inspection. If the inspection goes well, we will close on the house April 8 and be moved in by the beginning of May!!! How's that for crazy?!? And just when we were getting so discouraged and doubtful, God came along with this HUGE blessing for us. We prayed that if God really wanted us to have this house, that He would allow our bid to be accepted and it was. Now we're praying that if God still wants us to have this house, that the inspection will go fine. Its exciting, scary, wonderful all in one! God is so good, even when our faith wavers.