Resurrection Day Celebration 2013

We love hosting Easter at our home!

The kids get along so well and have so much fun. And, well, so do the rest of us!

We read the poem for the resurrection eggs and the kids listened so well. Marie was not happy that she got the empty egg though... I probably should have thought that through.

Kempton and his great Uncle Dann were twins.

Natalie and Kempton are gonna be great pals, just like their big sibs!

Derek worked so hard on our yard and made this Swedish fire log. It was a huge hit!

This year I managed to take some good pics so check out Facebook for many many more! :)

We are so blessed with our house and the opportunity to minister to others by opening it up! There is so much joy in it!

Hope you all had a blessed Resurrection Day!

Waiting for the best blessing

You've probably noticed that I love our house.

Love. It.

It is the biggest example in our lives of how waiting for God's timing is always the best option. We (mostly Derek) searched and waited for a house for 10 months before we closed on this one. Our realtor was getting a little irritated. Especially when the previous owners of this house rejected our best offer and we didn't really have a second choice. We loved this house.

God's timing is always perfect.

But it is stinkin' hard to wait for sometimes.

Just last week, God did it again... blessed our socks off with this...

We tried buying a van last year with our tax money. We (mostly Derek) searched and searched and searched and doors slammed over and over.

This year, I'm telling ya, God plopped this baby right into our laps!

Sold to us by another family that I will be praying showers of blessings on!

A house... a sufficiently-sized vehicle... food... clothing...

All necessities God is very much aware of. Wait, and these things will be more than just needs met, but truly the best blessings.

³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6)

Linking up HERE.

Around the House: Master Bedroom Edition

Today marks 2 years since we signed the papers that made this beautiful Conor House ours!

Not only have we not once regretted it, but we've been flooded with blessings ever since. Every once in a while I pray for floods of blessings on the previous owners because it was a sacrifice to them to sell us this house. As fellow believers, I know they followed God's leading and I'm so so so grateful they did!

To celebrate here on the blog, here's some shots of the newly painted master. A romantic master bedroom is good medicine for the married soul.

Our happy place.

Poor lighting, but I LOVE these curtains. We plan to paint the furniture eventually.

Awesome book shelves we got from the inlaws! I don't know how we lived without them for so long!

More bad lighting, but this is a picture my MIL made for me to give to D.

Our caricatures.

So many people contributed to this haven and we are so grateful! There is still plenty to do (dressers to paint, decor to hang, mirror to find) but we are so happy!

More multitudes on Monday...

• Lofted ceilings
• Crumbs under the table = well fed babies
• Dishes to wash
• A shared bed
• The color purple

30 Days of Thanksgiving {Days 2&3}

Look at that, I missed day 2 already. Not that I wasn't thinking about what I am thankful for. I committed to praying for this particular thing all day yesterday, and that just made me even more grateful for it! But alas, motherof3 didn't have a chance to blog.

Day 2:

Thank You, Jehovah Jireh, for The Crossing.



That's where Derek works. What an amazing blessing it has been! If Derek's boss hadn't believed in him after just one interview, who knows if we would have ever made it out here to Indiana.

Probably over the last year we were in PA, Derek would go through these almost depressed episodes. He felt useless. He was working constantly, and we were still struggling financially. And we had almost zero ministry involvement. He would just sorta sink into himself for hours at a time. It was not ideal for our marriage.

Finally, God opened this door to work at the Crossing and we took the leap. Totally worth it! He now gets to speak truth into the lives of young men, and mentor them, and teach them. He's using his spiritual gift of teaching and fulfilling his calling as a believer, every single day! AND, he's learning amazing new skills and working with his hands all day long. There is just no denying that God was intimately involved in bringing us here.

It's so amazing to know my husband is part of changing lives and leading souls to the Savior. I definitely got a little teary watching some of these interviews. Check them out. Also for some peaks into what really goes on and more testimonies, check out the blog! And then make sure to listen to the Spirit when He moves you to be involved! :)


Day 3:

Thank You, Father, for this house.



I've gone on and on about how much I love the Conor house before, so I'll just keep it short.

I love this house.

Remember to be thankful every day! We all are so blessed!

Around the House {Guest Room}

Don't you love when you find something super cheap at a garage sale, not sure exactly what you want to do with it, but it ends up being just the perfect thing? Makes up for all those things you end up selling again in your own garage sale.

I found this last year for just a couple bucks.

I thought I would paint it and put it in Marie's room but there just isn't a good place for it. So we've had it down in the guest room.

It just hit me the other day that the color we used in Jack's room would match the guest room perfectly. So I sanded this little baby down, whipped out the foam paint roller, and transformed it with a simple couple of coats of beautiful navy blue.

I love it! But I had a cool idea after I finished that I can't do now. Underneath the old blue color was red. You can kinda see it in the pictures. I shoulda really sanded this baby down so more red was showing, then painted the navy, then distressed it. It would have looked amazing in the Americana guest room! But it's okay. I'm pretty stinkin' happy with the results. Here it is in its home...

Comfy, cozy, little corner of the guest room.

We're praying for a full size bed so couples can comfortably stay. We'd also love to get rid of this...

(Just the bowflex, not the trampoline or light in the background! Sorry for the horrible pic). I've been holding on to this baby for much too long. It's in excellent shape bc it's barely been used! We're asking $400 if you know anyone interested! ;)

When we get this puppy outta there, and get a full size bed, we'll center it in the room and it will be a much more complete look. But for now, I'm happy with the American pride in the corner :) Which, by the way, is made up of all garage sale purchases except the bed itself.

Gotta love garage sales!!

Dresser makeover

We were given this dresser a few years ago. SO grateful for it.

(I was trying to decide which hole to use for the new knobs in this pic)

But man this thing was ugly. So I decided to paint it white. We had some high gloss white paint in the basement from the previous owners. So all I had to buy was...

wood filler
sand paper
quart of primer
paint brushes (which I learned was unnecessary)
mini foam roller and refills
knobs (half off at hobby lobby, of course)

I don't really want to figure out exactly how much I spent. I know it was a lot less than it could have been, but definitely more than I had planned! But it's okay because I'm thrilled with the results!

First I filled the extra holes from the hardware...

 

Then sanded, primed, and proceeded to paint about 8 coats of paint. 

Not kidding. 

I used regular paint brushes at first and could not hide the brush strokes. So with some seriously amazing help from facebook friends, I got the foam rollers and added a couple more coats. You can still sort of see the brush strokes but it looks more like texture and I like it.

Meet my very first real project that I did all by myself!!

Oh I know it's poor lighting! Very sad. It's such a beautiful pure white and I just love it! I got a free quart of chocolate brown paint awhile back and used it to paint the sides of the drawers...

I'd love to line the insides of the drawers with some bright pink patterned paper of some sort eventually. But since her clothes pack this thing pretty good, that may be a waste! We'll see.

Marie said, "Oh mom! It's beautiful!" 

Next step is to get rid of that nasty green on those walls. 

I'm so proud of myself :)

Christmas on Conor - Livingroom

Last year we didn't decorate because we were living in the cockroach house, we spent Christmas in PA, and we were going to be moving in a month so we didn't want to bother.

That added to my excitement to decorate this year! It feels like Christmas has been gone a long time! Even Derek has gotten into it. I didn't even have to ask him to get the tree out.

And speaking of the tree, we finally have a full size tree. And not just any full size tree, the Jacobs family tree! Isn't it a beauty??

I just love how it fits so perfectly in our wonderful blessing of a house. And it's just loaded with gorgeous blue and silver ornaments my MIL got me over the past couple of years. I have so many I could probably decorate another small tree with the left overs. But that's probably good as I'm sure not all will survive with Jack the destroyer wandering around.

We used blue/navy, silver, and white for our wedding - a "winter wonderland" theme. Now we're a little obsessed.

We even use blue and silver wrapping paper every year.

And surprise, navy and silver stockings! :)

 

Our Jesse Tree boxes...

And some more blue and silver decor...

We have been gifted some things that aren't navy and silver, but I love them anyway. One of my favorites...

 

And I love these little guys...

I hung some snowflakes from the fan. I also hung one on the kitchen light, but that's a different post for a different day. I know you can hardly stand the anticipation.

I love the simplicity in our decor, and the consistent color scheme.

I could never be an interior designer because not only am I horrible at it, I have trouble seeing past matching... everything must match. Always.

I don't think that's in right now.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed the little tour. I am realizing just now that I didn't get an overall shot. Next time. Or you could stop by and see it in all its real life awesomeness.

Linking up...

Around the House {Part 1}

So these pics were taken like 6 weeks ago. But the only difference is the flowers are dead and gone :(

I am accepting replacements any time.

On to the mini tour of our main floor living room. I probably don't really need to have the baby swing and bouncer, but they seem to kinda fill in the blanks!

This is the view from the dining area/kitchen into the livingroom. You can see the front door and the entrance to the kids' hallway. The stairs to the downstairs is in the bottom right hand corner of the pic.

Behind me in the below pic is the sliding glass back door. The door to the left goes out to the garage. To the right is the kitchen. Look at my beautiful birthday flowers!

More birthday flowers on my birthday present from my parents! LOVE this little half table. Just. Right.

I made this spring wreath way back and meant to share, but you know, I forgot. I don't love it but I like it enough.

It was super easy. I had a foam wreath base that I wrapped with green yarn. Then I hot glued some fake flowers on and hung it up on the front door!

Hopefully there will be more to come eventually!

I love this house.

God sure loves to bless.

Linking up HERE