Lucky Number 7 (The Year of Prayer)

On May 8th Jeremy and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. I honestly can't believe its been seven years. I still kind of see us in the "young/newly wed" category sometimes (although the 3 kids & minivan do help with that...) We celebrated by a night away at Harpole's Heartland Lodge in Nebo, IL which is about an hour away. The lodge was first built as a hunting lodge, but now they have guests for getaways as well. In order to save a bit of money we stayed in the "Hunter's Lodge," but we had the entire thing to ourselves so it was great!

After dinner (which was amazing!) we went on a hay ride & then has smores at their camp fire.
In the morning we woke up early. I know, I know you are supposed to sleep in but we get up so early during the week these days we are just prewired. We went on an hour walk before breakfast on their large property. It was very quiet and gorgeous. We both really miss having time to be outside in God's creation. It was just nice to be together and talk without our 3 beautiful interruptions.
After breakfast we did some more hiking in the woods before heading home. It was getting very hot and was pretty muddy from the rain the night before. We saw a HUGE snake as well which added to the excitement. Jeremy tried to encourage it to move out of our path, but it won and we hiked through the brush to go around instead.

When we got married, my cousin/friend Kara was my personal attendant. She brought me lucky bamboo, which she renamed my "prayer bamboo." A year or 2 ago I accidentally watered my prayer bamboo with crystal light. Opps! No, matter what I tried it killed my bamboo (and made me reconsider putting crystal light in my body). Jeremy and I have gone to enough marriage enrichment classes to know that year 7 is kind of a mile marker of sorts in a lifelong marriage. (AKA a lot of divorces happen by/at year 7). I recently did some redecorating in our master bedroom and found a great place to put a new piece of bamboo, that will compliment our travel theme great. I am hoping to purchase one soon. So, instead of this year being lucky number 7 I am declaring it our prayer year. I really see how God is growing us in this area. A few months back we began praying together one morning a week. This was a challenge since Jeremy leaves for work so stinkin' early, but it has been such a blessing. At church we are currently focusing on the family and a couple gave a testimony of praying together. We found if very challenging because he has to be at work at 5:30 am. His wife's faithfulness to get up and have prayer time each morning really hit home. I knew God was calling us to make our once a week "good thing" a daily "great thing." So, I am getting acquainted with my husband's world of getting up with the sun. My spirit is willing, but let me confess my flesh is fighting me!! But, I know God is up to things in our life and I think this daily morning prayer time is going to be a part of us discovering his plan for us.

7 Blessings of our Marriage

1-Laughter (We laugh a lot, mostly at Jeremy because he is funny...and sometimes at me because I'm ridiculous.)

2-Balance (I'm amazed more and more how well we compliment each other.)

3-Fun (We still have a whole lot of fun together.)

4-Dreaming (We are beginning to pursue our dream of adoption together-horay!)

5-Ministry (We love to minister together as a team. We are finally back in the saddle again with me assisting Jeremy as he teaches 11-12th grade sunday school and him helping me teach 2-5 year olds one Sunday a month.)

6-Prayer (Just beginning to discover this one.)

7- Challenge (So thankful for the way the deep challenges have cemented us together.)

A Trip to Roseville

The weekend before Mother's Day we had a great dual purpose trip to Roseville. On Saturday night we spent the night at Nana's house. The kids were VERY excited about that! We walked to the park for some fun in the evening.

The next day we are had to "match" in our purple and black! We went to church with Nana and all 3 of them went to class without any tears!
After lunch with Nana we headed to Grandpa Don's 80th birthday party. The girls enjoyed making him lots of cards to help keep them entertained. They were very disappointed he didn't have any candles on his birthday cake. For the first half of the party Titus took a nap at Nana's house. Here he is sleeping with Jeremy's dinosaur blanket from when he was little. I think the caption is, "Nana seriously, I just woke up! Put that flash away..."
I unfortunately forgot to take any pics at the party, but it was a great weekend!

The perfect purple bike & more!

This year at city wide garage sales I truly saw the goodness of God on display!! I didn't buy as much this year as I have in years past. But, I went into the weekend with a very specific list of items I wanted to try and find. I was hoping to search more specifically for only what we "wanted most."

Some of these included:

- A bathrobe (Grace had one handed down to her and Faith wanted one too. Beforehand I told them I might not be able to find one small enough for Faith, but maybe one that would fit Grace and then she could in turn hand hers down.)

-Nightgowns (The girls have decided this is basically the only type of pjs they like right now)

-A bike for Grace (with training wheels, and of course she was hoping for purple)

Well, we found all three of these plus a few great bonus items!!

-I found a Hello Kitty bathrobe for Grace. She has a Hello Kitty blanket and loved the robe, happy to hand hers (that Faith loved) on to her sister!

-Then I was at a sale with a lot of name brand clothes that had a lot of wear but were still pretty pricy. I was about to leave disappointed, when the women asked if I was looking for anything in particular. I mentioned, "You don't happen to have any nightgowns, by chance?" She did, she told me her daughter went through a phase where that was all she would wear as well. I spent $8 and got like 12 nightgowns!! They were all name brand and in good condition. They were all similar in size so I just brought them home and let the girls divide them buy the patterns and colors they liked best. I have already gotten my $8 out of them!

-On Friday I found a bike that was purple for $12...but it had a rusted seat and the training wheels were missing. It was hard to walk away, but I decided to wait. On Saturday I found a purple bike for $5 that was in GREAT condition. The training wheel were also missing, but I decided to go ahead and purchase it. At the next sale I found MATCHING PURPLE TRAINING WHEELS for $.50 and a purple/pink basket for $.25. One of Grace's friends has a basket on her bike which Grace had admired so I knew she would find the basket a great bonus. So, for $5.75 God gave us the perfect bike for Grace-WOW!!!!

My heart was so full of praise for God's specific provision of these. It was such a great reminder to me that he loves to give good gifts to his children.

Faith got this adorable hat which she loves!

Like mother, like daughter. Grace had to mark up her paper as well!
Grace's perfect purple bike! Can you see how awesome the training wheels match?
I also found a few things for Titus including a pair of adorable rain boots. The kids all have them now so we are hoping to take a picture in them. For me, I was on the hunt for cheap frames to make a gallery wall I have been dreaming up for the house. I found several of these and am looking forward to adding to the collection at future sales.

Isn't God good?!