The GREAT Bedroom Swap

We have lived in, and LOVED our house for a little over 8 years!! We bought our house brand new and have had many fun adventures here!! When we first bought our house, we were a different couple than we are now! We thought we would move to something bigger and better after a few short years! We thought that we "deserved" better! Ah, how God has changed our hearts and minds!!! We are SO thankful!! :) We have a beautiful 4 bedroom, 2 bath house, plenty of room for our little family of 4! We know that at some point God will move us, but we don't feel HIS call yet, so we will live here until He moves us!! (I am so thankful that it isn't in our timing, but His! Whew, that takes a load off our minds!:)) We do love to have people over, and we occasionally have out of town guests, so last December we started thinking about how we could improve the space that we currently have!!

  We had ALL sorts of ideas, and this past weekend, we made them happen!! As I mentioned preciously we have 4 bedrooms... we have a master and then 3 additional bedrooms! Our daughter has her own room, and our son has his own room and then we have a play room!! We talked back and forth about making the play room into a spare bedroom, but then decided against that, the kiddos and their friends LOVE having their own room to play in, AND it keeps toys outta our way! :) And, since we don't have out of guests but a few times a year, we felt like that wasn't the solution! So, in February we bought bunk beds for our son! YES! Checked the first part of our plan off the list! Bunk beds gave us an additional place for a kiddo to sleep! For our 10 year anniversary, my sweet husband and I celebrated by buying a whole new bedroom set of furniture for our bedroom!! We had hand-me-downs (which were a blessing for 10 years:)) but we were excited to pick out our very OWN set...and, in a KING size!! We knew that our furniture was going to be delivered on Friday the 18th, so last week we got to work painting our room and getting it ready for our new furniture! Not only that, we were getting our sweet little girls room to "inherit" all of our furniture!! WHEW, it was a busy week, but we have all of the rooms settled and they look fabulous!! SO, when we have company, our daughter will sleep in brothers room in the bunk bed (and any other kiddos who come will get to sleep in there also), our guests will get to sleep in the queen sized bed and have their "own" room and we get to sleep in our NEW, KING sized bed!! It is ahhhmazing!! I am so thankful for God's provision in making all of this happen!! He always provides and we are so thankful!! :) Now we are ready and EXCITED for guests to come and hang with us!! :)

10 Things in 10 years!

Yesterday Wyatt and I celebrated 10 years of marriage!! :) We have gotten to celebrate this whole week and we have enjoyed EVERY single moment of it!! We are so thankful for this time!! :) Wyatt and I have always had a really good relationship...of course we have had our "down" moments, but we get along really well and have good communication!!! As we were traveling home yesterday we were talking about some of the biggest things we have learned throughout our marriage! We laughed and (I) cried as we remembered some of our most precious moments together, we cracked up at some of the situations we have been put in and we were SO joyful as we talked about some of our biggest accomplishments!! :) We came up with these 10 things we have learned in our 10 years of marriage! (Of course we have learned a LOT more than just 10 things, but these are at the very top of our list!!:))

1. First and foremost...Christ should always be at the CENTER of your marriage! Without Him, EVERYTHING is so much harder! Even when we have Him things get hard, but we have hope, joy and peace knowing that He is taking care of it!

2.  LOVE covers anything!! Yes, you will disagree and go through valley's in your marriage but when you love each other unconditionally and wholeheartedly, those disagreements don't seem as personal and attacking!! Forgive quickly and shower each other with grace! 

3.  Pray together every night! There is no better connection than your connection in Christ!! Share with one another prayers requests and things that are on your heart, and then pray about them for each other!!!

4.  Family is hard!! It just is...combining two families that most likely did everything completely opposite from one another is NOT easy!! Extend GRACE as often as you can!! You cannot change people, but God can!! Pray and trust that God will provide these changes that need to be made, love hard and love well!

5.  Laugh, a LOT!!! Make each other laugh, and not because you are making fun of someone or something else, but because you have FUN together!!

6.  Continue to date one another! Dates WILL look different when you have kiddos at home (Whether they are young or old), but make an effort to continue to show your spouse attention and love!! Someday, when you kiddos are gone, you want to know that you still have that awesome connection that you started off with!! :)

7.  Comparison KILLS contentment!! Every!! Single! Time!! Don't go there!!

8.  Intimacy is a choice! A very good choice! :) 

9.  Don't talk badly behind your spouses back!! This is one of our BIGGEST pet peeves!!!! It isn't pretty and makes the other person feel terribly! Instead build your spouse up and encourage them every chance you get!! SO many others are tearing them down, don't be one of them!

10.  Set goals together and ENJOY reaching them!! Working together towards a goal is so rewarding and fun!! Be creative together about how you can reach that goal...even if it is small!!!

  I am so thankful for my husband and for our life together!! :)

Mother's Day!

I know that Mother's Day was a few weeks ago,  but these past few weeks have FLOWN by!! We are OUT of school for the summer and we couldn't be HAPPIER! :) We are so excited about ALL that we have planned for our summer!! But that is all for a different post! Mostly I want to remember how special this past Mother's day was! Wyatt is a really thoughtful planner and I appreciate so much the thought, time and love he puts into special occasions! I don't think he is a natural at being thoughtful (hey, he IS a man) but over the 13 1/2 years that we have been together, he has grown into a VERY thoughtful husband and daddy!!! :)

  Wyatt let me sleep in on Mother's Day, and when breakfast was ready, two REALLY cute little kiddos came and woke me up and led me  to our table!! Our table was beautifully decorated with flowers, some of our nicest dishes and YUMMY treats from the Aviary!! YUM-O! After tasting each treat (I am not sure who was more excited about breakfast, the kiddos, Wyatt or I?! They had helped Wyatt pick out each treat the day before!) I got to open my handmade cards and gifts! Each kiddos had written me a sweet note, and I was so touched by their little handwriting and loving words! :) I was also very excited about the spa package Wyatt had chosen for me! :) (Again, so thoughtful!) We all got dressed and headed off to church! That morning our sermon was on REALationships!! (Also, I will be posting more about this sermon later, it was ahhhhmazing!:)) It made for very good conversation on the ride from church to my favorite restaurant...Jimm's! :) This has become our little families new Mother's Day tradition and I must say that I LOVE it! :) We had a reservation, so we were seated right away! Our kiddos were so sweet and so excited to be dining at such a nice restaurant! We ate and talked, and talked and ate! It! Was! WONDERFUL!!!!!! We were there over two hours just enjoying being our little family! After lunch we headed over to my parents house, and enjoyed time with my mom, Grandma and sister!! It was WONDERFUL!! That evening I went for a loooooong walk and then we grilled out and ate on our deck!! Even more than the delicious food and thoughtful gifts, I so enjoyed TIME with my family!! Both my little family and my extended family!!! It was a blessed day and I felt SO loved!

Seasons

One of the things that I love the MOST about Missouri are the seasons we get to enjoy!!! The way I look at it is this...God knew we would get bored with one seasons, ALL the time, so He BLESSED us with 4 different seasons! As a grown up and as a mommy, I have come to truly appreciate each different season when it comes!! Right now, we are really enjoying the winter!! We have waited all year long for hot cocoa, fires and movie/game nights in!!! Thankfully, I have been blessed with a little family of snow bunnies, we LOVE THIS SNOW!!!!! We love to look at it, we love to play in it, we love to eat snow ice cream, we love to drive in it!! We love everything about it!! Does it change out plans sometimes?? Yes! Is it super cold out?? YES!! It is kind of a pain to get everyone all bundled up?? YES!! BUT, God provided it, so we are very thankful for it!!!

"There is a time for everything,
    and a season for EVERY activity under the heavens..." Ecclesiastes 3:1

February

  I absolutely have to admit that February is one of my FAVORITE months! When the calendar turns to February, I get very excited! :) Not only is my birthday in February, but it is also the birthday month for many of my dear friends!! When I was little, my best friend and I had birthdays 10 days a part! We always enjoyed getting to celebrate together twice! When I was in college, I had three dear friends whose birthdays were also in February! We would take our turns going to Lambert's to get our FREE birthday meal!  By the end of February, we were all SO TIRED of Lambert's, but it was a fun tradition that took place for 4 years with sweet friends! MANY memories were made!! Still today, several of my favorite friends share my birthday month and I am so excited to celebrate them!! This weekend starts our celebrations with a FUN girls day planned for Saturday! Wednesday is my actual birthday, and I get to have the day OFF with my husband!! :) Next weekend Wyatt is whisking me away to Chateau on the Lake! :) YAY!!

  We are hosting a BIG family Valentine's party this year and I am SO looking forward to that!! Time with our family is SO precious, we can't WAIT! Maddie, Zack and I have been planning and decorating and making crafts!! IT is SO much FUN! At the end of this month one of my sweetest friends will turn 30, so her and her cute little crew is coming to spend the weekend with us!! We have some really fun things planned!! :)  Whoo-hoo!!

   FEBRUARY, we are READY for you!!!! :):):)

Cooking

IF you know me at all, you know that I don't love to cook!! My mom is an AHHHmzing cook, so is my sister, so I have always let them do the cooking!! I love to bake, and be crafty and make ALL things beautiful!! :) But this year, one of the my biggest goals is to be more intentional about cooking and planning all of my meals out!! One of my sweet friends, Katie challenged me to think up 30 recipes that I can make/like to make, etc! I wrote them on little slips of paper and added them to a fabulous MENU board that I made super simply!! :) (It is now hanging in my laundry room!) I no longer have the excuse of not knowing what I am going to make for dinner because every Sunday, as a family we discuss what we are going to fix all throughout the week!! It is very fun, and has taken the scary-ness out of cooking for me!! We have cut our eating budget in HALF and it feels SO good to be cooking for my family each evening!! :) THANKS Katie for holding me accountable!! I love my new menu board!! (And if I was smart enough, I would post a picture of it on here!! Alas, I am not!! :))

10 YEARS! :)

This year, Wyatt and I will celebrate 10 years of marriage! :) I am SO EXCITED!! I have a bunch of little plans of celebration from now, leading up to our actual anniversary in June!! I have dates planned every month...some of them are we-get-to-go-out-dates, and some of them are late-date-night-in dates! I am SO excited about each of them, I love spending time with my husband SO much! Then in June, HE is surprising ME with a trip!! :) Whoo-hoo! Several people have asked if we are going to some where BIG for our anniversary, and I honestly don't know! My honest answer...I HOPE NOT!! :) (Crazy right?) We don't need anything fancy, we just need each other!! We have such a good time together! We don't run out of things to talk about, and we love being together! We went on a big, fun fabulous honeymoon, and it was fantastic! We didn't have any kiddos, we had two really nice incomes, and we lived in a townhouse! We had all the money in the world! Now, we are just content to be together! We love to even read books beside one another...we just like BEING together! That is what 10 years of marriage will do for you!! :) Needless to say though, I am excited that he has taken on this special task!!