The pigeons are back.

For being “rats with wings” as Husband says, they are quite smart. They managed to tear down his chicken wire barricade and build a roomy nest in the eave of our house. But for all their brains, they clearly have a short memory because they’ve completely forgotten what Husband did to their relatives last year, and by the look in Husband’s eyes, I fear they’ll suffer the same fate.

However, I’ll put death talk aside and talk about life for a moment. It’s so easy to take for granted that we have a living Savior who cares about every detail of our lives, although we don’t deserve it. So, with that in mind, I want to share one of my favorite vocal performances of all time. I’ve probably watched this video a hundred times, but it never fails to give me chills. Happy Easter!

http://youtu.be/pLLMzr3PFgk

Here are some more fun photos of the 3 showers she’s had. I just can’t wait for that little munchkin to be here!

1. Baby showers, baby showers, baby showers. (more on this later)
2. Game night with friends. If you haven’t discovered Cranium or Munchkin yet, get yourself to Target and check them out. All you need are a few friends, and you’re guaranteed an evening full of laughs.
3. Our wedding anniversary celebration. Two words: Capital Grille. Yum!
4. Husband’s week-long birthday celebration, including a surprise birthday party that I barely pulled off. Husband will tell you he knew the whole time, though.
5. Spring cleaning. Yes, all of our winter clothes are now packed away in celebration of warmer weather and longer days, and those drawers that needed cleaning out are now stowing a much lighter load.
6. For Husband, motorcycle track days and day trips with his buddies have filled much of his time.
7. Reading. I caught the Hunger Games bug and read all 3 books in 1 week – then went to see the first movie with a friend. While the story is captivating, I can’t decide if I actually like it or not.
8. Working out. Husband and I have become quite the gym rats and have been consistently going 5 nights a week. I have to say he’s looking pretty buff lately!
9. Making some safety improvements to our house, including a new alarm system which helps me sleep easier on the rare occasion when Husband is out of town.
10. See #1

As you can see, there’s plenty to catch everyone up on. So, be looking for more posts in the coming days!

The nursery bedding inspired the theme for the BBQ baby shower.

One of the things that is keeping me busy until he decides to arrive is helping to throw a baby shower for my sister. Using the nursery bedding as inspiration, we are planning a BABYQ party, complete with mini BBQ sandwiches and teacup size servings of banana pudding. The invitations and decorations all tie into the theme, but more on that later.

Today I want to focus on the diaper cake my other sister and I created last weekend. We had two goals with the cake: 1) Match the theme and 2) Include as many useful things as we could. Here’s what we came up with.

Making a Diaper Cake

1. Start with a solid, sturdy base that will be used to transport the diaper cake. In this case, we used a large white platter.
2. Roll up individual diapers (like a tortilla wrap), using scotch tape to keep them coiled.
3. Pack the diapers as tightly as you can until the base is the size you want, then wrap your ribbon around the entire layer to hold it together. We used hot glue to keep the ribbon secure, but you can also just tie it.
4. Create a solid base for the next layer. We covered a paper plate with some cute rodeo scrapbook paper and used pinking shears to cut a cute border into the paper.
5. Then we stuffed newborn socks into six different bottles to create the next layer. This was my sister’s idea, and I love the way it turned out!
6. We placed another paper plate on top of the bottles, using a small dab of hot glue on the top of each bottle to add stability.
7. Then, we created the top layer in similar fashion to the bottom layer, only smaller.
8. Finally, we created the topper by using more of the ribbon on the two diaper layers, as well as some raffia.
9. The last step was to tie pacifiers into the top bow and at the center of each diaper layer.

We can’t wait for our sister to see it!

With the Grammys and Oscars this month, award season is in full swing, and apparently blogs are no exception. My lovely friend and fellow blogger Mrs. Hargrave recently honored me with the Liebster Blog Award, and I want to give her a HUGE thank you.

The Liebster Blog Award is to recognize your favorite blogs with less than 200 followers.  The rules for the award are: 1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog. 2. Link back to the blogger who awarded/nominated you. 3. Copy and paste the blog award to your blog. 4. Reveal your top 5 blog picks! 5. Drop by your top 5 picks and let them know you chose them by commenting on their blog!

And the Award Goes To…

In addition to Mrs. Hargrave, you’ve got to check out these other wonderful blogs:

• The Link Home
• The Jones Family
• The Sweet Pea Life
• NewlyWife 
• Life in Tacoma (although she hasn’t posted in awhile (hint, hint), she’s a fantastic writer)

I’ve considered apothecary jars, garlands, a pot of sage or gold hydrangeas for the mantel. Then comes the base of the fireplace. I don’t even know where to start there.

So, I thought I’d ask you. What should I place on the mantel?

• Apothecary jars with wine corks
• A seasonal garland
• Lanterns with candles
• A stack of old books
• Potted floral arrangements

Husband and I spent the last year giving our house a makeover, and we are excited about beginning this year with a financial one. We have begun the 13-week Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University course with a group from his office, and after only 2 weeks, we are so excited about what this course is teaching us.

It’s more than just a course in how to manage your money, it’s about how to manage your attitude towards money. Luckily, we’ve been doing a lot of things right, but there are several areas of improvement that we are pumped about working on. The one surprise (for me at least) has been learning how much the Bible talks about our personal finances. It’s full of wisdom on how we should be stewards of what God has blessed us with.

Verses About Personal Finance

• 1 Timothy 5:8
• 2 Thessalonians 3:10
• Proverbs 28:20
• Genesis 41:35-36
• Hebrews 12:11
• Psalm 62:10

The most eye-opening verse we’ve covered is Proverbs 22:6-7. While most of us have heard Proverbs 22:6 as a promise to parents, we rarely here it coupled with the verse immediately following it:

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is a servant to the lender.”

Dave Ramsey uses these verses to make the point about how important it is that we teach our children how to handle finances. I am so looking forward to doing this one day!

“Give thanks to the LORD for He is good. His love endures forever.”  – Psalm 118:1

His love endures forever. His love endures for-ev-er. Let that sink in.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve waited in your fair share of long lines, had a long day where you flat-out forgot to eat, or even gone a few months without talking to a friend. And I describe all these situations the same way: “It’s been forever since…”

So needless to say I was overwhelmed this week to realize that God sees forever from a completely different perspective. Psalm 136, which begins with the verse above, repeats the phrase “His love endures forever” 26 times as it lists some of the most powerful acts the Lord made on behalf of the Israelites to free them from bondage – even when they rejected Him.

This thought had been lingering in the back of my mind this week, but it wasn’t until this morning in church that the light bulb came on. We were covering some scripture in Ephesians when I noticed I had underlined Eph. 3:18 some time ago:

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

As I read those words, my heart began to beat faster as God’s meaning of forever sank in. His love is so vast that it’s difficult to comprehend, but when we do understand it we’ll be filled beyond belief. And that’s exactly how I felt at that moment. Filled beyond belief.

I’m overjoyed to know that I have a Savior who’s loved me through every high and every low, and always will. He’s performed powerful acts in my life – even when I have rejected Him – and there is no end to this love. But here’s the best part: He does the same for you!

I hope these verses will be the encouragement you need to make it a great week. It certainly worked for me.

When we first started designing the master bedroom, we knew we wanted it to be a peaceful retreat where we could relax, and I especially wanted to take advantage of the small bay window by turning it into a reading nook. While we’ve made a lot of headway with the room, it’s not quite finished. I was waiting to post pictures until I had it completed, but I’m realizing it’s going to take longer than I thought.

We painted the walls a wonderful color called wheat bread, added a silky-soft area rug, and two vintage tufted chairs that I picked up from a local resale shop for $25 a piece. I plan on recovering the chairs, but that’s one of those projects that may take awhile to get to.

So, here are the almost-after pictures:

We have some exciting news! As you know, Husband and I purchased our home when it was in foreclosure and disrepair – just check out these before pictures (which don’t really do the damage justice). After 8 months of hard labor and nonstop projects, we decided to refinance the house at a lower interest rate.

Included in the refinance is another home inspection, which was completed by the same person who did our inspection the first time. In addition to saying he was impressed with our work, he valued the house at $40,000 more than what it was valued at when we bought it and $70,000 more than what we paid for it! While we did have to put some money into the house to get it to this point, our return is almost triple our investment.

We have no intention of selling anytime soon, but it was a satisfying feeling to know that our hard work (and the hard work of our loving family who painted countless walls and ceilings) has paid off. Here are some of the room makeovers we’ve completed:

Guest Bedroom

Kitchen

Media Room

Half Bath

Master Bath

Formal Dining