Changes...

Hey there!  It has been a while!  How are ya?  There have been lots of changes going on around here the past couple of months!  Some affect just me, some affect our family.

I went through a stage of learning to be content with the way my house looks.  Even if that meant things weren't quite right or they were even unfinished.  Decorating your home is never ending, so I didn't wanna spend all our money and time trying to get it all done in a few days.  Besides, who can afford that?   Just learning to be ok with my home and, most importantly, being thankful for it.  I also went through and got rid of a bunch of stuff as well! 

Our family has also been focused on wanting to have another baby.  We (my son included!) prayed every day for a baby sister.  My son even prayed for a sister and a brother!  He was so sweet saying, "Please God, I know You can do it!!"  (How sweet is the faith of a child?  No wonder God answers their prayers!)

Then one month, I just felt the Lord say that I needed to believe and have faith that I was pregnant.  Some days it was easy.  Some days not so much.  You know how Satan is, telling me things like, "There aren't any signs that you are pregnant."  I listened to that one day, and when he said it again the next day, I said, "Well, there aren't any signs that I'm NOT pregnant either!"  And that was the end of that.  Some days I would go into the room that will be the nursery and pray over the baby clothes I already have hanging in there. 

Well, I had said I was going to take a pregnancy test on a Saturday, but I woke up on a Wednesday morning with an overwhelming desire to go ahead and take it.  I didn't tell my husband about any of this so he didn't know a thing.  I was in the shower that morning trying to talk myself out of it because I didn't want to get a false negative and get discouraged.  But then I remembered that my God is bigger than any pregnancy test.  He could make it say whether I was, no matter if it was too early. 

So I decided to take it after my husband left for work.  Wouldn't you know it, it was POSITIVE!!  I was overjoyed!  I had feelings of, "I knew it!" but also at the same time, "I can't believe it!!" 

I had planned on telling my husband that afternoon when he got home from work, but I couldn't wait that long!  As soon as I dropped my son off at preschool, I drove to his work to show him.  He was ecstatic! 

It was very early (I was about 3 1/2 weeks along) so we had to wait a month before going to the doctor.  Longest. month. ever!!  The doc wanted to wait until I was 7 weeks before she saw me.  My hubby wanted me to take a pregnancy test each week until then, but I only took two more!  :)  He is so silly!

My appointment was May 24.  The baby is doing fine and is right on target!  I am due January 5!  Remember my son had been praying for two babies?  Well, we told them about it, and they checked and said they are pretty sure there is only one baby.  At first, he was a little disappointed, I think, but when he sees how much babies cry, he will be glad there is just one!  :)  Whenever anyone asks if he wants a brother or sister though, he still says he wants two babies!

This is how my son announced it to Facebook:  (after we told our parents of course!)

He is so excited!  He keeps saying he wants to see pictures of "his" baby!  He kisses my belly and tells the baby he can't wait to see her and that he loves her.  Yes, we call the baby a "she" even though I'm only 9 weeks along.  Keeping the faith going!  ;)

Here is "her" first pic!

I will have lots of nursery inspiration to share!  I loved decorating my son's nursery, and I will have just as much fun doing this one too!  I am finally feeling better.  I had some morning afternoon/evening sickness for about 3 weeks.  I didn't have any with my son, so this was new for me.  I went through this past weekend without it though!  I was praying it would end early! 

If you were helping us pray that we would be blessed with another baby......THANK YOU!!  We are so very blessed and we are so excited about our new baby!  We have learned so much about faith in the process, and that God is faithful and true to keep His promises!

God bless!
Jessica

Kids Say the Cutest Things!

Hey y'all!  Sorry I haven't posted in a LONG time!  Truth is, we had some health scares with my mom AND my mother-in-law, but Praise the Lord everything is fine for BOTH of them!  It's been a long month!

I wanted to pop in and share an activity I did with my son yesterday.  I found a list of questions on Pinterest  to ask to your kids.  My son is four and has a wonderful imagination!  I got some great and unexpected answers!  I also found out my kid knows me pretty well!  :)

                                         (Click the pic to be taken to the original website!)
Here were his answers:
1.  "That Jesus loves me."  (My thought was, "Thank You Lord this is what he remembers!"  LOL)
2.  "When I give her a hug."  (He is absolutely right!)
3.  "When I don't give her a hug and when I tell her I don't love her."  (He says he doesn't love me in a joking way just to see my reaction --he is like his daddy, they like to see my reaction to crazy things they say, but after having a talk with him about how it hurts my feelings, he doesn't do it anymore.)
4.  "She tickles me." 
5.  "You were happy."
6.  "11"   :)
7.  "7 feet."
8.  "Play with toys."
9.  "Take care of Bo."  (our cat)
10.  "For painting"  (I don't even paint that much and I am SO not an artist!)
11.  "Painting"
12.  "Playing games"  (I would switch number 11 and 12 ha!)
13.  "work on the computer"
14.  "spaghetti"  (He is right!)
15.  "Being happy!"
16.   "A Racecar"  (haha!)
17.  "Love each other!"  (aww, he is so sweet!)
18.  "We have the same color hair"
19.  "I'm short and she is tall."
20.  "Cause she tells me all the time."
21.  "Kroger!" (Bwahahahaha!)

So according to my kid, I am an 11 year old, 7' tall, happy painter that likes to tickle my kid and tell him that Jesus loves him!  I take care of our cat and my fav place to go is a grocery store!  LOL 

This was a lot of fun!  Try it with your kids and let me know what they come up with! 

God bless!
Jessica

Crosses for the Wall

                               (Do you like the teaser photo?)


Hello there!  Are y'all having a good week?  My little fella has been sick with a bad head and chest cold this week!  Thank the Lord, he is much better today though! 

In continuing with my living room transformation (Here is Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) I decided the wall that my TV is on, needed something.  Our TV is large and it's sitting on a dresser, so I didn't want a lot of visual clutter.  I have a large wall clock up there already, and wanted to leave it because I like it, and it's been up there so long, I depend on it!  :)

I remembered in my Master Bathroom, I have two crosses, and the colors match my new living room perfectly!  I also have 2 dark brown metal ones that would also look perfect!  I grabbed them up and came up with this!

Here are pics of each individual cross:

All of them were gifts, and I love each and every one!

This

This one is so unique!  Love the color and the print on it!  It's ceramic!

This is my newest one!  Love it!

Love the colors in this one too!

I actually have a 5th one, but I am such a symmetrical gal, I am gonna wait to hang that one until I find a 6th one!  :)

There you go!  This project took like 5 minutes, if that.  And once again, it was free!  If you don't know that I love a free project by now, I don't know what's gonna convince you!  :)

God bless!

Jessica

Dramatic Dining Room Makeover

Hello!  I hope you are enjoying your MLK Day!  My hubby and son are both home today, and I am loving that!  I wanted to share my dining room makeover.  You may remember in this post, I shared that I redid some things in there, and the best part was that I didn't spend a penny!  I love that!  It wasn't even a huge redo, but it was dramatic!

You may remember this was the before:

I just realized I never took pics of the old curtains!  But you can see a tiny corner of the mirror and candle sconces I had on the wall.  I was ready for a change....

I added the red curtains from my living room now that I have new ones in the living room.  It was really hard to get a good pic of the curtains because of all the sunlight flooding in.  I love sunlight, but it makes for some really bad pics.  I also added the black shelves and pics from the living room too. 

This was a Christmas present from my sister and brother-in-law, and I think it makes a perfect centerpiece for the table!

 And of course, our cat Bo.  He always follows me around the house, and loves to hide on one of these chairs and wait for us to walk by.  Then he stands up and reaches his paws through the back of the chair trying to "grab" us!  :)  Silly kitty.

I kept the pew because I absolutely love it, and it can fit 4-5 kids on it at meal time which is always a bonus because we have such a large extended family!

Here you can see into my kitchen on the left, and walk through the entryway and into the living room on the right.  You can enter the kitchen through the living room too, so it makes a big circle.  The little fella loves for us (and the cat!) to chase him around the big circle!

Here is another good pic of the curtains, so you can see the color.  There are two big windows.  I have a panel on the outside of each window and two squished together in the middle to look like one.

I love all the sunlight coming into this room in the morning!  And so does, Bo.  You can find him sleeping on the floor right in front of the windows because it's so warm! 

I did find a really old pic of how the dining room looked in May of 2011.  It been through a few changes since then:

Everything has changed about the room since then except for the pew and the chairs!  Much different (and still trying to find my style) compared to now:

Whenever I walk into this room now, I have to stop and stare for a few minutes now!  I really love it!  Very dramatic! 

What have y'all been working on lately?  Leave me some links in the comments, I would love to see!!

God bless!
Jessica

Living Room Transformation Part 3: New Curtains

Hey y'all!  I am back today to share my Part 3 of my living room transformation with you, and that is my new curtains.  (Here is Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed it.)  I try to be as frugal as I can.  Curtains can be pricey as well as rugs and pillows!  I searched online at several different sites, and finally came across these from Walmart.  I needed 95" lengths and I also needed 6 panels!  These were about the cheapest I could find in the color I needed and for the length I needed.  I am pretty pleased with them!

Here is my cute hubby hanging the first of the six panels.  He is standing on the back of the couch!  :)

Did I mention they are grommet panels?  Loooove them!  I got them in the color "sky." It's a light blue/green/gray color.  It's hard to get a good pic of the color of them because of two reasons:  1)  my point-n-shoot camera  2)  I took these at night.   They go with the solid blue fringey pillows though.  The color is a shade or two lighter than the pillows.  Here is a pic of them all closed!

I took down those two pics of my little fella.  You could hardly see them after the panels went up.  Everything is coming together quite nicely, I think, so I am very excited about that! 

I am finishing up with the accessories.  This is where things can go totally crazy and look too busy, so I will probably take my time with that! 

I did some sprucing up in my dining room yesterday and I am so proud of the results!  The best part was I didn't spend a penny!!  Woo Hoo!!  I hope to show you that next week!  Have a great 3-day weekend!!

Jessica

Goals for 2012

Hi there!  It's that time of year again;  Nester is having her Goals Linky Party.  And of course, everyone who is anyone wants to be a part of Nester's parties!  She throws some great ones!  :)

Anywho, I have hesitated in writing a post full of goals this year.  Why?  I'm not exactly sure.  Are there things I would like to do around my house?  Sure!  But I think this year it will be more about focusing on the family and making my home a place for lots of family time. 

My hubby has started back to college this semester (working on that PhD!), and the tears have already started for my little fella every time Daddy walks out the door!  Nothing breaks my or my hubby's hearts more than seeing him cry and there is nothing we can do.   Hubby has about a year and a half left of school, (hopefully!) and I am thinking this year needs to be spent on more family time when he is home.  Not that we haven't done that in the past, but I think it needs to happen more.  We could all use a little more family time in the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, right?

                             (my fav pic of my two fav people!)

My second goal would have to be that my little family has decided we want another baby...preferably a girl.  We think about her, pray for her, we are preparing for her, and we have even named her!  I am probably really confusing my little fella because he thinks he already has a baby sister!  We are praying and believing that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desire of our hearts!

As far as things around the house go, I do want to continue to declutter, but the main focus will be more quality time with family/friends.  We also would like to buy a house too, so we will see if that's in God's will this year or not!  :)

Living Room Transformation Part 2

Hello there!  How is your weather?  Ours is quite warm (I turned my fan on yesterday!) and for the past two days, it has been a rainy yucky mess!  And last night, we had no water in our house!  Our whole street must have been out because our church next door was out as well.  Thankfully, it was at bedtime, so we didn't need it, and this morning everything was back to normal! 

I showed you how I found the perfect rug here, so today I wanted to share a little more of my living room transformation with you!  This has got to be transformation number 1,732 for this room!  Geez!  :)

I actually bought these pillows before I bought my rug!  Is that crazy?  I knew the colors I wanted though, and these were perfect and the price was right too!  These 4 pillows came from Ross.  (the four blue pillows that is;  the yellowish/orange ones I already had!)

My cat likes them too, as you can tell!  He hardly sleeps on the couch, but when I put these pillows up there, it didn't take him long to figure out how cozy they are!  They are feather filled!  I love the detail on the fringe too:

They make the blue color in my new rug pop!

I hope to find some beautiful red ones that have the blue color in them as well!  That would tie it all in together really well!  The pillows I already had look great too.....

......Except for the orange color!  And that little red pillow will not be staying long!  I am loving the way it is all coming together! 

I styled those pillows a little differently and I think I like it much better as well.  Unfortunately with the yucky weather, I haven't been able to get decent pics.  Boo!

If you look really closely in some of the pics, you can see a smidge of my new curtains!  I am loving those too and can't believe I got them for such a great price!  It's funny how it has taken me over a year to find what I wanted, and now that I have, it's coming together so quickly!  I can't believe it!  What colors are you loving for your living room?  Are you having as hard a time as I was?  No, just me?  I thought so! 

God bless!

Jessica