Feeling blessed.

I'd like to introduce you to my new friend Natalie and her family.

This lady has a beautiful heart for the Lord and for her family, and wants to use her blog for a greater purpose...to serve others. Love, love, love this lady's heart!  October is Down Syndrome Awareness month, so for the whole month she will be doing posts answering any questions you may have regarding Down syndrome.  She is also giving away a beautiful handmade hair accessory of your choice with a $25.00 donation on her blog.

So pretty!  All the proceeds will go to help get these three boys home to their mama's who are aching to hold them.

Sergey for us, Davis for the Jupin family and Isaac for the Kelley family.  So go visit Natalie's blog to see and learn about the beauty and blessing of Down syndrome and if you feel led please consider donating.  It would mean so much to me.  Thank you Natalie for being such a wonderful example of Christ's love by serving in such a selfless way.  We are so humbled by your compassion and willingness to go out of your way for complete strangers.  Many blessings to you:)

Starting on the next project for the kitchen, can't wait to show you!  The best part of this project is that we were given all these materials for FREE!!!  I feel truly blessed and am so thankful for the generosity of good friends.

Kayaking with the girls.

This was such a fun day...

Lots of laughs.

And chest bumps.

And apparently some martial arts.

Thanks Ladies for an awesome, much needed day!

Kitchen update and some good news.

Here's a few pics of the kitchen so far...

Life's been getting in the way of me finishing the bottom cabinets this past week, so I will start them this week.    I did however organize every cabinet and made things a little more efficient even though it has seriously confused my husband. lol!!!

I made this our coffee and tea station and painted the inside of the cabinet with chalkboard paint.  And by the way I am so not a morning person:)

Here is my pantry, I had bought all of these bins on clearance last Spring.

I got these bins on clearance as well and moved an old shelf into the kitchen for extra storage.  I purposely left the lower half of the wall unpainted on purpose, you'll see why in a later post:) 

I'm really happy with it so far:)

And for the good news...we got our fingerprint appt.'s today for USCIS!!!  I'm so excited!!!  We are so close to bringing Sergey home!!!

Avery turned 7!

In all the chaos of painting my kitchen and getting ready for a craft show I completely forgot to do a post for Avery's birthday:(  Her birthday was September 14th.

I think my husband said it beautifully...

"Today our beautiful little Avery turns 7!!!  She has such a servants heart.  Always wanting to help with whatever she can, whether it be with mommy in the kitchen or daddy pulling weeds...she even attempts to change Sadie's diapers!  As she puts it, "I just want to spend time together"...that my friends is a beautiful heart of helping that warms my heart and makes this world a better place, by showing the love of Christ through servants hands and a desire for fellowship."

We love you Avery Karis:)

Making progress

Something I have always wanted is white cabinets, so for my birthday I asked if I could paint our kitchen cabinets.  So for the past week and a half I have been painting and painting and painting.  It has taken me 5 coats to completely cover them and that is using the Behr paint plus primer!  This last weekend my husband added crown molding to the tops of the cabinets.  It looks so much better!

I wanted the walls to be a soft true gray and to say that it has been frustrating picking the perfect gray color is an understatement.  I have gone through four different colors trying to find the right color, one looked lavender, the other was to dark and one just looked white. Finally I think I found the perfect color, here is where we are today.  Please excuse the mess and the poor lighting, I only have the upper cabinets painted but I will be working on the lower cabinets this week:)

How do you like my tupperware Amy?  I definitely need to work on that cupboard:)

I still need to add a second coat of paint on the walls and I have a few more goodies in mind for the kitchen.  This is sort of where my brain is going.

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So there's where I'm at, I'll keep you posted on the progress:)

Winner!

The winner of the Willow House Apron goes to....

Jaime!!!

Congratulations, email me your info so I can send you your new apron:)

That was fun, my mind is already turning for another giveaway so keep checking back and go visit Denise's site, the 10% discount is still good if you mention my name at checkout!