Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That...

It has been a while since my last post and I have nothing amazing to report, so I thought I would just ramble about the latest happenings around here.

My youngest started preschool this year and this last week she had her first "themed" day. It was cowboy day and if anyone knows our family, they know we are anything BUT cowboys. So I called my bestie to see if we could borrow some of her daughters stuff, thanks again Krystole!! She had several outfits to choose from and, of course, I can't make decisions without an opinion from everyone :) So we brought them ALL home and did a little modeling for the family....and everyone on Facebook.

She is such a ham posing like that! Ha ha ha!! After long deliberation we decided on the first outfit. I am just a sucker for ruffles! By the way, aren't those outfits super freakin cute?!? My friend Krystole, that we borrowed them from, makes them!! All of them except the way cute red bandana dress, but everything else was her creation! If you get a chance, go to her business page on facebook and see her latest creations. She is so talented!! The name is Krystole's BOWtique....you won't be disappointed.

Ok! Back to Cowboy Day! So the day comes to get dressed and she is beyond excited! She happily lets me fix her hair, which is usually WWIII, we get dressed and go. Her morning was great and I am still hearing little details here and there, but her big excitement was because she was going to get to ride a real horse. I learned that the horse's name is Abby, she is very nice and she has a belt around her nose :) So sweet hearing her tell me about her days in Pre-school...anyway, I have pics of that too :) I am sure you are shocked about that :)

She looks so cute on a horse all dressed up and that big red bow. She is having so much fun in Pre-school and I just love watching her learn and grow.

Ok, moving on....well, we are still not finished painting our house. The house we wanted has gone back under contract and I am ok with it. I am disappointed, I would be lying if I said I wasn't. But God has a better plan for us. And I will trust in that until he opens our eyes to see it too. So until then, we are painting, painting and.....did I mention we are still painting? Please continue to pray for us with this matter. We just want to be able to continue to make wise decisions for our family and not ones that have been made with emotions. Thanks in advance for the prayers :)

Next week marks the start of a very LONG journey for Kyle, me...the kids...Come Monday morning, we will not see Kyle Monday through Thursday at all. He has classes all four evenings and they don't end until 9:50 every night. I will at least get to see him when he gets home, for a second, before he has to start on his homework, but the kids will not see him AT ALL. This is going to be very difficult for them. He goes to school two nights a week now and they already ask when he is coming home. I know this is going to be really hard for them, but his education is essential for us and I trust this is the best for our family. So because of our limited time together, we have implemented something that I have wanted to do for a long time now, Family Night. Every Friday will be our time together where we will be game playing, cooking, crafting, and most importantly, devoing...is that a word? Well it is now. We have not been the best at being involved with their spiritual growth. I have heard so many lessons, recently, about being intentional...it has been on my heart and I need to step up and listen to my heart. We started our first Family Night last night and had a lot of fun. We journeyed out to the Don Harrington Discovery Center to watch hot air balloons light up the sky. It did not go the way I had planned, but we enjoyed our undivided time together...here are a few pics...

We had a lot of fun and are already looking forward to our next night together. Please, also, continue to pray for all of us. This will be a huge stress on our family, but I know God will get us through.

In other news, my brother and his wife just bought their new house!! Yay!!! They are so excited and are actually moving in...right now. I just got off the phone with Hali and I'm pretty sure her head is fixing to explode. It's only funny because it is not me :) I am getting ready to go over there and, hopefully, relieve some stress for them...and hopefully come back with pics :)

So in conclusion to this insanely long ramble of different things, I hope that everyone has a very blessed week!

Decisions, Decisions!!!!

I will start by apologizing for the lengthy blog today, but I have a lot to say dang it!!! Ha ha ha!! Ok, so let's get started.....

Our family is officially too big for our house! Ahhhh!! We are practically sitting in each other's laps. So annoying!!!! When we bought our house four years ago, it was perfect for our five person family.  Four bedrooms (second living area turned into the master suite :) ), 1 1/2 baths, HUGE backyard, a happily overlooked small kitchen (which has now turned into my nightmare), 1566 sq. ft....not bad for first time home buyers. It was so perfect...we painted, cleaned, moved in our NEW furniture...it was like a dream I had been having since I was like ten....Anyway, so we moved in. Great! Wonderful! Awesome! .......We didn't even get unpacked before I found out about baby number four! WHAT!!!!!! So unexpected....so unplanned, which is the story of our freakin lives!!!!

So, since then, we have been planning on when we would be able to move.  We have been slowly fixing things, updating things, replacing things....which is really frustrating, most of the time. Something that should be so simple and quick has turned out to be three month projects for us. Most recently, we decided that it was time to paint the exterior of the house. It is a 1920's original wood siding house...not the easy project I had hoped for, although I had been warned by my parents. Three months later, we are still not finished..... Here is the before shot of the front....

The front is now almost completely finished with only just a few places not done...

A HUGE shout out goes to my husband Kyle, Krystole Glover, Jeremy Glover, Luke Deal, Hali Crawford, Drew Parker, Emily Bowmer, my parents for all of their help with the kids, I'm sure I am forgetting people and I'm sorry if I am, but we couldn't have done it without you guys!

So, several months ago, a newly listed house came up on an email thread that I have been receiving from my realtor. We get new listings almost everyday, so it wasn't a big shock to get this one. I just browsed quickly over the main details of the listing....bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, neighborhood....then I realized the price and thought "Huh?!". This house was perfect and way under priced for it's size and location. So what's wrong with it? I call my realtor and we are talking about it....so we decide to go over and look at it, right then! AWESOME!!! So we get over there and.....it's beautiful. Something I can see me and Kyle growing old together in. Plenty of room for the kids and plenty of room to have people over...LOVE it!!! Then I have to realize several things....our house is NO where near ready to be put on the market and...what if we don't get approved for a loan? So....first thing Monday morning, we go to the bank. If we don't get approved for a loan, there is no point going any further into the process. Later the next day, we get the call...We have been approved!!!! WHAT!?! Maybe this is what God has planned for us. Everything seems to be falling right into place....but our house still isn't ready. At this point, we had not even started painting the exterior of the house yet. It was a short sale so we thought about putting an offer in anyway and just really busting our butts to get our house listed within the next two weeks....but too late. A higher offer had been made. We could have made a higher bid, but we really didn't want to do that? I chalked it up as a motivation to get the house done so when the next "perfect" house came up, we would be ready.

So for the last two and a half months I have been slowly working on the house here and there....checking my email regularly, but nothing real interesting ever showed up....until two days ago....bet you'll never guess what was listed.....AGAIN!!! .......MY HOUSE!!! I can't believe it! We called our realtor immediately, worried that maybe inspections didn't go well. She said the lady that put the offer in got tired of waiting to hear back from the bank and decided to go with a different house. Hallelujah!!!! But our house still isn't done yet....we are in the middle of a debate on whether or not to make an offer. We would have plenty of time to finish our house if it goes the same way it did with the other lady. She waited two months and never heard anything....let me see if I can get this house to upload for you.....

Isn't it so cute?! I am so ready to get out of this house I could scream!!! I really am trying to think through my emotions, but it is really hard. God tells us to be content with the life we have and I am desperately trying to. I'm not asking for a mansion on the most expensive side of town. I just wan t a house that will have enough room for us. Is that selfish of me? I still truly believe that the house we live in was from God. Our situation then was totally different and we needed our own place. God totally dropped that house in our laps. Every little detail, to the end, fell just perfectly into place. I keep telling myself that if things fall into place like that again, then this house is another blessing from God. Well, I'm not sure what we are going to end up doing, but I am going to do my best to be content no matter what the outcome is.

My Besties!!!

I have had quite a few close, close friends in school growing up and several of them are coming to mind as I type this. We are all still pretty close and keep in contact and see each other as often as the good Lord lets us, but I have to say that I have the two very best friends a girl could ask for now in my adult life. These two girls have only been my friends for almost five years now and in those five years I have been truly blessed. So I would like to take the time to tell all the things I LOVE about my besties!!

I love that us and our husbands are great friends.
I love that we all share the same love for our Savior.
I love that we have all had tremendous struggles the last several years and we were all there to love each other through it.
I love that we share the same church family.
I love that we hold each other accountable.

 
I love that we all have babies and that they are all friends.
I love that we have date nights with each other. (Shout out for Taco Tuesdays!)
I love that we love each other even with all our quirks and craziness!
I love that we can take vacations together and still be friends at the end of it. LOL!!
I love that when one is hurting, we all are hurting.

I love that when one is happy, we all are happy.
I love that they are inspirations to me everyday.
I love that we can have other friends and still be besties to each other.
I love that our husbands are Magic geeks together.
I love that we can all fit in one car, although an SUV would have been more comfortable :)

I love that in desperate situations, I KNOW that we can count on each other to be there.
I love that we can challenge each other to be better Christians and not feel judged.
I love that my house doesn't have to be perfect when they come over.
I love that I can tell them ANYTHING!
I love that I can have the worst day in the world and they would be there to help me go grocery shopping. I will never for get that, by the way...

I love that there is no jealousy in our friendship.
I love that you can say, "I'm cleaning the house" and that means something completely different to all of us...Ha ha ha!! Love you, Krystole!!
I love that they love me.
I love that we can show up at church and completely color coordinate! :)

I love that I can continue to make this list and know that it will never be complete!!

A HUGE thank you to Krystole Glover and Kara Deal for being my besties and I hope we are besties until our Jesus returns! Love you!