House Update.....

Well we are set to close on the house on May 13th...... We have finished lots of projects and several more to go. Here is the latest progress on our house:

Not much progress to the exterior at this point, but painting and new porch railing is in the works.

We buried all the rubble of brick from the inside of the house and tore down 2 dead trees. This pictures shows where the future driveway will go.

This is the living room, all that is left is to sand the floors and paint the front door and trim.

Don't you love the wide window frames? Grandpa did a great job!

The dining room, new picture window, painted chandelier, stenciled wall.

The floors need to be stained as well as the trim for this room.

Dining room looking into Living room.

Here is a before of the chandelier, (my grandfather made this chandelier when he owned this house in 1963, I know crazy, I will tell that story another day)

The picture is kinda blurry but I painted it copper.

The kitchen is coming along, cabinets almost completed, pot rack hung, refrigerator in, I love it.

This is the playroom, the first room to be completely done (besides some touch ups). 

In the end this is what all the floors will look like!

This is Puddin's room, for right now it is the supply room.

This is Cupcake's rooms, obviously all the trim work has to be painted.

This is our bedroom, the floors are taking lots of work because they are in really bad shape. And you can see that the doors and trim need a good paint job.

This is "Mommy's room", aka the laundry/sewing room. I painted it pink of course. I love it!

This is the ceiling my very artistic cousin painted for me in the laundry/sewing room!

Here is the big bathroom. Finished the bathtub and the vanity is still a work in progress.

The vanity...

My $35 garage sale find, Nana and Grandpa sanded and painted it. Isn't it gorgeous. The vintage faucet is on its way. Now all the bathroom needs is a sink and toilet.

So we have five weeks left and everyone is working crazy to get this done. I think we are all kinda of burnt out and sick or it but in the end it will be worth it. Lots of work left, praying some how we can get this done. 

Easter 2010

All of us before church, I am so blessed to have each one of them, ;) !

My sweet boys, I love the green and purple!

Cheesy grin and squinting eyes, oh but so handsome~

Sweet boy with drool all over his sweater!

Easter morning breakfast!

Daddy and Collin watching brother hunt eggs!

Yummy Eggs

Grandpa and Collin

Carter hunting eggs...

We spent the evening at our friends house the Ryden's and had a blast with lots of friends and all their kiddos. 

Collin and the girls, he has great choices for a future wife, ;)

Carter busy at his second easter egg hunt of the day!

It was a great Easter and we enjoyed celebrating our Risen Lord with lots of family and friends.

Bathroom Updates!

Before

And more Before pictures......

And the in between, or almost done!
We have painted the walls, replaced the stylish pink tile with bead board, and replaced the light fixture!

We have replaced the tile, added a chandelier over the vanity.
This is my project for the week- to get the vanity sanded and painted as well as the bathroom doors and door frames.

This picture is taken from the inside of the bathroom looking out, that is my littliest helper down there at the end!

This picture is taken from the outside looking in, my garage sale pedestal tub we go in the middle directly under the window. The pedestal sink will go to the left  and the toilet to the right!

This bathroom is my main focus for the week, hoping to finally finish one room! Grandpa and Nana have taken off work for the week to work on the house, stay posted for updates of their projects!

And please be praying that God would provide a way for us to finish this house, we have to be done by May 13!

Kitchen Update

KITCHEN

This is the beginning of putting the kitchen back together..... Yeah

Stay posted for more pictures and updates!

Collin

Collin 10 months......... Sweet!

God is Good!

So I feel like the Lord has been ringing symbols on my head over and over! When Collin was born and we began this journey one of the first things I asked was what will we say to people. And over the past 9 months I have said it all, "He was born that way", "That is just the way God made him", "His hands are just different", and as all of those words came out of my mouth they never set right in my heart. They made me want to cringe. I have even tried to convince myself that "Oh his hands are wonderful just the way they are because thats how God created them". Over and over this made me uncomfortable. Most people in the world of children with differences, syndromes, and disabilities use these terms often. They seem like the logical thing to say to your child and to explain to all the curious questions you receive. And for nine months I have really never known why this perspective made me so uncomfortable until this past week. I have shared several conversations with different friends and realized that the reason these responses make me feel that way is because they do not line up with the character of God. Honestly for Collin's situation this is not even truth. Truth is that God created him perfect and whole inside and out and because of a medical syndrome bands caused restrictions of growth and scarring on his hands. I don't want him to view God as the one who did this to him. As his mother I plee my heart out to the Lord for his salvation. As I am teaching him about God and the love God has for Collin I am off setting that with a very contradicting view point which is "God did this to you", "God made you this way". Personally that is not what I believe. I believe it grieves God's heart that he will ever experiece pain. I believe is grieves God's heart that it would ever hurt or be made fun of because of the his hands. It is because of the fall of the world that disease, disabilities, and syndromes have entered the world not because our God wanted it that way. So instead of making the explanations to him and others a spiritual thing, I'm just going to focus on what medically happened. I will tell him that he is "fearfully and wonderfully made..." because he is. God created him whole and I know he is more concerned with his spiritual wholeness than his physical wholeness (not to say he isn't concerned about his physical wholeness). I don't want Collin to ever feel like this is God's fault, God did this to me, I want Collin to know that God saved his life. As he gets older and matures that is what I am going to focus on. I am going to teach him to Praise God that I went into labor two weeks early because most likely had he gone full term he would have lost one of his hands and his middle finger. (due to the bands being so tight around his wrist). Most importantly I am going to teach him that God loved him so much that he saved Collin's life. It is very common that ABS kills babies in utero because the bands get tangled around their neck or stomach. If you remember the last 2 months of my pregnancy Collin was doing sumersaults. My OB said that he had never seen a baby turn so many times so late in the pregnancy. Every sonogram we went in for he had turned another way. I can remember laying my hands on my stomach and praying he would turn head down. I had friends praying over me that he would turn head down. Whether it is true or not, I can invision the Lord turning Collin around and around to get him untangled from the bands. That is the love of God. That is what Collin needs to know about God. That he loves him, that he saved his hand, and bigger than that, he saved his life! Satan would love nothing more than for him to get his foot into the situation. To manipulate Collin to be angry with God and feel like it's God's fault. Well we will not even give him the oppurtunity. I will not say "that is just the way God made you", because that is not true. God made him perfect and whole and saved his life from a syndrome that could have killed him. So when he is older and looks down at the scars from the bands, I want him to know those are the battle wounds. We can look at that and praise God for saving him. For twisting and turning him inside the womb to protect from getting tangled. Now that perspective lines up with the character of God. That perspective doesn't make me want to cringe inside. I feel like God has really shown me through his word and the Holy Spirit the way to handle this. Not to say that I won't still have bad days dealing with it, but I feel impowered. I always believed that God would recieve the glory through these circumstances but I didn't really understand how that would happen. I still don't completely understand but I have a glimpse and that starts with teaching Collin, our friends and family, and some of the random curious people (who tend to drive me crazy), what the truth is. What an amazing oppurtunity to share the love of Christ with people. When they ask it opens the door of communication to share that when he was in utero he had a rare syndrome but God saved his life. I can't promise that that will always be my response because sometimes I still want to say something more along the lines of "He is missing part of his fingers just like you are obviouly missing part of your brain!". (I am aware this is not a very Christlike reaction) I pray that the Lord would continue to refine me and stretch me and I'm sure as he does I will grow more maturely in my outlook and how I respond. But the bottom line is that yes that might be how I am feeling, and YES, I have reason to feel this way, but I am held to God's standards which means I need to respond in the way that brings him glory, and teaches Collin truth about why he is the way he is! For now this is how I feel, but as I grow closer in my walk with God I know he could teach me more and show me his ways more intimately so as God teaches me I could change. None of this is to say that I have all the answers or people should agree with me its just to say this is what I feel like the Lord has shown me about my child and our circumstances! God is love and God is good and I don't think its some sick twisted version of good, I believe HE IS REALLY GOOD!