Our Unexpected Journey: An Answered Prayer

After years of prayers and prayers and prayers, we are so thrilled to share that our baby girl arrived on June 5th, 2015. She’s happy, healthy, and beautiful (I know, I’m biased :))!

Newborn

I’m totally in love with this girl! Her little toes and feet are just adorable; I can’t help but kiss them. And, if I’m kissing toes, you know I’m in love :). I’m not a fan of feet!  Continue reading »

Slow Cooker Freezer Meals

In preparation for our baby girl’s June 6th due date, I decided to make some freezer meals. With the help of my bother, I was able to prepare five freezer meals in less than an hour (including clean up). Not too shabby! The grocery shopping probably took an additional hour. I’m just not a very efficient grocery shopper, plus I just despise doing it! Look at all those groceries :/ (most of them were for the freezer meals, but not all).

Groceries

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Bar Keepers Friend

Shortly after we updated our kitchen, I was preparing to take pictures of it for this post. As I was cleaning, I moved a rinsed-out mixed vegetable can I had put on the counter behind the sink the evening before and noticed RUST SPOTS on our BRAND NEW quartz countertops! I could not believe it! What bugged me the most was that when I put the can on the counter I even thought to myself, “This might leave rust marks. Maybe I should move it.” However, I decided against it because I knew I would be cleaning the kitchen the next morning. I thought “It won’t leave rust marks that quickly.” Well…I was wrong!

I tried cleaning the rust with vinegar – didn’t work. Windex (which is what the countertop installers recommended I use to regularly clean the counters) – didn’t work. Scratching the spot with my fingernail – didn’t work. I think I finally searched online for products that removed rust. Anyway, somehow I remembered this powder cleaner called Bar Keepers Friend that my grandma told me about years ago.

Bar Keepers Friend

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Our Unexpected Journey: We’re Expecting!

It's a Girl!After two an a half years of miscarriages, doctor appointments, surgeries, and countless prayers by countless people, Mark and I are super excited to share we are 20 weeks pregnant with a baby GIRL due in June! This is truly a miracle :).

As many of you know, we experienced four miscarriages. After our first two, we were referred to a specialist who found I had a very minor uterine abnormality that could be partially corrected with surgery. We were excited to hear this news because this meant something could be done to potentially increase our chances of a successful pregnancy. Choosing to have the surgery or not, though, was a bit of a tough decision for us. Here’s why…

  1. The uterine abnormality was so minor that the doctor wasn’t even sure himself that it was causing the miscarriages. He said he’d seen women with much more severe uterine abnormalities than mine have successful pregnancies.
  2. The surgery was minimally invasive and low risk; however, there were obviously risks associated with it, as there are with every surgery. If something went wrong during the surgery, my body could have had an even more difficult time carrying a child or, worst-case scenario, my body would be unable to carry a child. This is what really scared both of us. I just kept thinking, “If I have this surgery and my uterus is irreversibly damaged causing us to NEVER be able to have children, will I be able to get over it (especially since our doctor couldn’t be sure the abnormality was causing the miscarriages)?”

We stayed in constant prayer, and it wasn’t until two miscarriages later that we truly felt at peace with the decision to have surgery. I truly believe the Lord was with us throughout all of this, helping us make these decisions.   Continue reading »

The Reason for the Season…

The Reason for the Season…is Jesus! I thought this would be a fitting time to share the story of the birth of Jesus.

Luke 1: 26-38 New Living Translation (NLT)

The Birth of Jesus Foretold

26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. 28 Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”

29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. 30 “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”

34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”

35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. 36 What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month.37 For the word of God will never fail.”

38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.   Continue reading »

Food for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is less than a week away…boy how time flies. If you are anything like me, you’re trying to decide what dish to cook for the big meal. Below are several simple recipes that would be great for a Thanksgiving meal. I’ve made all of these, and highly recommend them!

Brown Sugar Ham

If you are hosting Thanksgiving, this is a great main dish.

ham

Source: crockingirls.com

Ingredients:

  • 1 ham, pre-cooked, bone-in, spiral cut (mine was 11lbs)
  • 3 cups brown sugar
  • 1 can pineapple tidbits, undrained

Directions:

  1. Cover the bottom of the roaster with brown sugar.
  2. Place ham on top of brown sugar and add the pineapple with the juice. Sprinkle ham with more brown sugar.
  3. Cover and cook on low (about 200 degrees) for about 8 hours.

The original recipe said to use a crockpot, but I didn’t have one big enough to fit an 11lb ham.

Parmesan Ranch Mushrooms & Green Beans

This recipe works really well because you can throw all of the ingredients in the crockpot in the morning, then you’re done. It’ll be ready by lunch.   Continue reading »

Get Prayd.

Prayd Landscape

It all began with a light-hearted conversation during our Bible study about creating a prayer app. From there the idea grew, and my husband and his buddies began working on a prayer app – Prayd.

None of us had any idea how this would all pan out. We knew it could be anything from a complete failure to an utter success. One thing we knew for sure, though, was that we needed to pray about it! If the Lord was in it, and if my husband and his buddies kept their sights on Him, we knew something great could come from this.

Now, almost a year (filled with hours and hours of great work) later, the app is now live! Prayd allows prayer requests to be connected with pray-ers. God, the Father of Jesus Christ, gave each of us unique talents, abilities and personalities. These personalities are on full display in prayer—our hearts naturally go out to people struggling with needs that we can relate to. Prayd enables this by helping people find pray-ers and helping pray-ers find people (prayd.net).

Let me tell you, in just the few short months this app has been live, it has been such a blessing! I cannot believe the number of people joining the Prayd community by submitting prayer requests and praying for others in need. I have been so extremely blessed by simply having the opportunity to pray for strangers! It’s so weird, I did not at all expect to be so blessed by this; it’s amazing how the Lord works :).

My prayer is that others using the app are somehow blessed as well. I pray this app continues to further the Kingdom and connect others to Jesus Christ through the power of prayer!

Join the community. Get Prayd.

iOS Devices        Android Devices        prayd.net       @GetPrayd        /GetPrayd        +GetPrayd

 

Kitchen Makeover

Back in mid-May I began our kitchen makeover. It was quite the project, with the DIY pieces taking over 55 hours to complete. Yikes :/. I’m so happy with the finished product, though!

I’ll give you a quick before and after photo before explaining all the changes we made.

Before

After

I just love it :). Ok, now for all the changes…  Continue reading »

Garlic Chicken with Orzo

I’m always looking for easy recipes, especially recipes that are at least semi-healthy. This garlic chicken with orzo recipe was one I found on Pinterest. I’ve made it twice now, and we BOTH enjoyed it BOTH times – yay! Here’s my modified recipe below:  Continue reading »

Kitchen Project: Sherwin Williams ProClassic Paint

I’ve now completed two cabinet painting projects. The first one was our bathroom vanity. You can read about that here. The second one was our kitchen cabinets. This was a MUCH larger project than the bathroom vanity, but it was SO worth every bit of the 50+ hours it took to complete the project. Thankfully I had some help from a good friend and the hubs!

I used different paint for the kitchen cabinets than I did for the bathroom (per a recommendation from a friend’s mom who knows a professional painter), and boy, I’m glad I did!

I used Benjamin Moore Fresh Start primer and Sherwin Williams ProClassic paint. The picture below shows the primer in white, but I actually used the deep base version and had it tinted. My paint color was Stratus by Valspar. Sherwin Williams color matched it perfectly.proclassic paint

Ok, so the Sherwin Williams paint, it’s expensive (I paid $50 for one gallon, and that was with 30% off), but it was worth every penny! This paint is amazing. It goes on thick, pretty much self-levels so you don’t have to mess with it much, and dries without that tacky/sticky feel that some cheaper paints have. It also dries quickly. I highly recommend it for painting cabinets.  Continue reading »