Wanna buy a house????

So in spite of difficult economic situations all around and a terrible housing market, Jace and I have decided to try to sell our house. We realize that it just might not sell, and we would be fine with that. We are having a hard time finding a Realtor that we want to work with and that is willing to negotiate on their commission. But we will keep working at it...

And for now I thought I would put out a few pics of our 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath home. Let me know if you know anyone who might be interested. It's a great house. I wouldn't be sad if we had to stay right here. :)



Living spaces, kitchen, dining, living.



Finished walkout basement with the cement patio beyond the slider.



Master Bedroom with it's own bath and walk-in closet.
It is about 1500 square feet with extra insulation and a two plus car garage with boiler ready in floor heat and a workshop and even a urinal. It has lots of extras!!! Let me know if you know of anyone who might be interested... :) Especially, before we list it with a Realtor.

And I just had to post the pics to prove how clean it was right now. :) Maybe it will last until bedtime tonight...

Gardening with Grandma...

A couple of weeks ago, we took a short trip to my parents beach house. They recently purchased this fixer upper and now that it is spring my great gardener of a mother will be adding her touches to it's small yard. My Ella has inherited her green thumb; she really loves to garden with Grandma.

I was not so lucky. Any plant that is going to survive in my care has to be hardy and able to survive on little to no water for long periods. :) Maybe Ella and Linc will help me garden and keep our plants alive this summer...

Jack says...

My Jack turned four yesterday. He really loves birthdays. Especially his own. :)



I thought in honor of him I'd write my first blog post entitled "Jack says...". I intend to start keeping better track of all those funny things that you hope you will remember but should make a point to log.

Jack says lots of funny things. But the first one I thought I would share is "Mad Scarf."

Jack says, "Grandpa and the train conductor from the Polar Express both have mad scarfs."

What is a mad scarf, you say? A mustache of course! And of course my boy who loves to dress as all his favorite characters, uses a Mr. Potato Head mustache for his own "mad scarf".



Our sweet boy opening his pirate hat and hook from Uncle Greg and Aunt Emily. He was so excited.

So happy birthday, sweet Jack! I love you so much and I can't wait to hear all the things you have yet to say!

Cardboard Testimonies

For Easter this year our church organized people to share "cardboard testimonies."

These are just what they sound like - pieces of cardboard with a summary of the before and a summary of the after of people's testimonies. And testimonies not just about first accepting Christ's gift of forgiveness and eternal life but testimonies about how God continues to change hearts, lives, and circumstances as His people follow Him.

It was a wonderful, moving part of our Easter celebration. Something that in the midst of churches growing and changing we kind of miss - we don't carry around signs that say what God has done in us lately, nor do we really have moments to share those amazing stories. I'm so glad I got to not only see all the great things God is doing but I also got to share...

Check out the video.

He is Risen and He is Changing Lives!!!!

Blessed are the Peacemakers

A few weeks ago, we received a letter. It said that Ella had been nominated for a Peacemaking Award. Since we are just beginning this adventure into public education (Ella is just a kindergartner), we really didn't know what that meant. But the letter explained that 250 students in the district were to receive this award and that we were invited to a ceremony at the end of March. We also got a copy of what Mrs. Bowen (who had nominated Ella) had said about her. It was awesome. Here is a part of what Mrs. Bowen wrote:

Ella demonstrates peacemaking skills by standing up for what is important and leading by example. Ella knows that standing up for her friends and helping others when they are in need are important traits. When someone is treating a student poorly, she is the first one to help her friends deal with the conflict.

Wow.

I cried. How incredible that this little girl is already so clearly reflecting Jesus that Mrs. Bowen can see it in her everyday interactions with her peers. Awesome.

And well sometimes public education does not support our beliefs (or a lot of times), this award gave us such a concrete opportunity to really encourage Ella to be who Jesus has created her to be and to continue to let His light shine through her. I love those moments!

At the ceremony, the president of the board of education explained how much he like the peacemaking awards because it was an opportunity not to award academic achievement or sports achievement but achievement in character. Wow.

The ceremony was very much graduation-like and Ella received her award from the superintendent and shook all the school board members hands. Check out a few pics from the event. I am so proud of her. I just had to share.



Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Matthew 5:9

"Oh, My Word!"

Last week, in preparation for Jace's long weekend, I started a list of all the things that need to be done around the house in preparation for selling it. It is a pretty long list with both little and big things on it, everything from painting some walls to cleaning the cupboards. So on Friday night, Jace and I tried to decide what we would tackle on Saturday and we decided to start with adding some base shoe molding to finish out the trim on the main floor of the house.

Saturday morning, Jace measured and figured out what he needed, called the local lumber yards and found the best price and went out to purchase 50 dollars worth of base shoe molding.

Jace had installed nearly all the molding and all was going smoothly until he pulled out the washer and dryer to install some behind there. Another thing on the list was to clean behind all the large appliances, and I asked Jace to vacuum back there and mop (I offered too, but he said he would since he was back there already, such a good husband). I handed him a bowl of warm, soapy water and a towel and he handed me a black hose. The hose looked like a shop vac hose and all he said was, "Can you hold this?" "Sure." I didn't ask any questions and I probably should have...

So Jace is cleaning behind the washer and dryer, I am standing with the black hose in my hand and Linc is wandering the house. Ella is sleeping and Jack is in the basement watching a movie. I hear Linc head up the stairs and I hook the hose to the top of the washer and walk away.

I returned very quickly - maybe I'd been gone 5 minutes and in that time Jace had gone out to cut a piece of trim and returned to a squish in the laundry room rug. Yes, the black hose was the washer hose which happened to be full of water. And of course, the hose had come unhooked from where I had stuck it when I went to get Linc and the water was pouring all over the floor.

Of course, when things like this happen, I take a moment to respond because I just cannot believe it is happening. And really can only say, "Oh, my word!" When I did respond, my first thought was to grab towels and Jace said that wasn't going to cut it. (Which of course it wasn't) I told him to go and get the shop vac and he told me to hold the hose again. :)

So he ran to the garage and he started to vacuum up the water and then had to run to the garage again for the right attachment. I continued to try to dry up water with towels and the rugs in the half bath and laundry room while holding the hose.

Then Jack yells from the basement, "There's water on the white couch!" "Okay, Jack, we're kind of busy." Both Jace and I thought there would probably be some water dripping to the basement, but we had no idea...

Yes, it was pouring down unto the couch and the new laminate flooring (which cannot get wet). And again, I thought, "oh, my word! this cannot be happening."

Let me just say here, that I am not the best in stressful situations. I get really crabby. Really. And this time there was enough blame to go around - I left the hose, Jace never told me what it was, I never asked, he never mentioned it was full of water, etc, etc.

Anyway, I am pleased to report, that I was surprisingly not crabby. I really just wanted to laugh and shout, "oh, my word!" The irony was too much. Here we had been trying to get the house ready to sell by working on the to do list and it seemed we had just created a ton more work, maybe even an insurance claim. We had spent only 50 dollars on trim and we were looking at repairing drywall, replacing a couch and of course the floor.

Well, here we are several days later and it seems that all our shop vacing, towel drying, fan blowing, and door opening have paid off. The floor seems to be fine and so does the couch. Phew.

In the midst of cleaning it up, I was reminded that our stuff is not the most important thing (of course) and even if it had all ended up completely ruined, we would have figured it out. Don't get me wrong, I'm really thankful all of the Saturday cleaning paid off. But it is always good to get a moment to remember what really matters and it is not the new flooring. :)

Oh, my word, am I glad that it was only a small load in the washing machine....



The hole in the ceiling to let the water finish dripping out as Jace shop vaced it up. :)

The Big ONE

Happy St. Patrick's Day and happy 1st birthday to Lincoln! It's hard to believe a year has passed already. Here are some pictures from a year ago...



I was so glad to meet Lincoln last year - it was kind of a long pregnancy. He was a beautiful, BIG baby (9 pounds, 10 ounces)! :) His brother and sister were so proud. So were Jace and I.



He is getting so big. This is him today, playing at the park. Walking all around, saying "uh-oh" and "Ella." And playing with Jack. We couldn't ask for a more wonderful baby. So, happy birthday, sweet St. Patrick's Day boy! We love you so much. We can't wait to see all your life holds.