Pretty Little Girl

I spend a lot of time being smitten by how cute our two year old is. But unfortunately, some setting on my Nikon has gotten out of whack and I'm having a hard time getting clear, bright pictures. It's time to head on over to my friend KeriAnn's house and have her help me sort out what's wrong, before this next baby gets here!

But in the meantime, here are two that I snapped today that make me smile when I see them (even if they're not completely in focus): 

Christian Benedict

One year ago today our little son Christian went ahead of us into glory. The day I held him here on earth was also the day he was welcomed into heaven with shouts of joy, into the arms of immeasurable love.

Sometimes I wonder what one year in heaven has been like for my son? And when I think about that, it is hard to be sad, just as it's hard to be sad imagining your child off on a holiday having a wonderful time, and knowing that you get to join them there soon.

I have a new love for Psalm 116:15:  "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Spurgeon gave an excellent sermon on this verse. He said:

"We love the people of God, they are exceedingly precious to us, and, therefore, we are too apt to look upon their deaths as a very grievous loss. We would never let them die at all if we could help it... We count that we are the poorer because of the eternal enriching of those beloved ones who have gone over to the majority, and entered into their rest...We hang up the mournful escutcheon, and sit us down to mourn our full, and yet, meanwhile, the bells of heaven are ringing for "the bridal feast above," the streamers are floating joyously in every heavenly street, and the celestial world keeps holiday because another heir of heaven has entered upon his heritage. May this correct our grief. Tears are permitted to us, but they must glisten in the light of faith and hope. Jesus wept, but Jesus never repined. We, too, may weep, but not as those who are without hope, nor yet as though forgetful that there is greater cause for joy than for sorrow in the departure of our brethren."

But I think it's important to remember that it's not just Christian who gained something that day. Joel and I, and all of those who suffered with us, were privileged to bear a heavier portion of the cross of Christ. And when Christ's cross is laid on you, He is right there with you bearing you up. Those who suffer draw nearer to God, and the comfort He gives is far more wonderful than the pain we might feel. Rutherford said: "If your Lord calls you to suffering, do not be dismayed, for he will provide a deeper portion of Christ in your suffering...You can't sneak quietly into heaven without a cross. Crosses form us into his image. They cut away the pieces of our corruption...Lay all your loads by faith on Christ, ease yourself, and let him bear all. He can, he does, and he will bear you."

We are missing our son today. But we are also rejoicing that he is already further up and further in.

The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Several Weeks of Belly

I've been really bad about taking belly shots this time around. And when I do remember, Joel is never home and I have to try taking them in the mirror while holding my camera out with one hand. Either that or you just get a shot of my belly with my face obscured by the camera. Either way, it's not very easy, which is my only excuse for not posting pics. 

So here are a few kind of blurry, not very good pictures of the growing bump. But as you can see from the pictures, it is definitely growing!

Here's 31 weeks: 

And these I took today at 33 1/2 weeks: 

I'm feeling a lot less "puffy" this time around, perhaps because it's wintertime instead of summertime, or perhaps because I'm chasing a rambunctious 2 year old around all day. Either way, I'll take it!

Thrifty Frames

Continuing on our DIY spree, a quick downstairs bathroom update! I only took one photo of our downstairs bathroom when we moved in. But this is it. And yes, it really was that bad: 

We had stripped the wallpaper (the bottom half) partially, but hadn't gotten around to doing anything else. Until a few months ago (maybe sometime in the summer?) when I finally rolled up my sleeves and finished ripping the wallpaper off. Then, since I was pregnant, when my parents came down for a visit my mom graciously painted the whole thing the same white we've been doing throughout our whole house. Which made a huge difference. HUGE. As in I didn't cringe every time I went in that bathroom. Then my dad hung up our bathroom cabinet that had been sitting in our garage for months, and just last week I finally went to World Market and got some accessories to decorate it: 

I already had the candle, towels and elephant tray so I just picked up some fun colored candle holders and that cute little glass lantern and called it good. But the wall next to the cabinet still needed a little pop of color. Enter my cheap, art solution:

I picked up the frames at goodwill a long while back. They were an ugly brown color so I spray-painted them cream. And then while I was trying to find some artwork to put in them that matched the items on my medicine cabinet, I spotted a large party bag at Target. The colors were a perfect match, I loved it, Lucy loved it (she ooed and aaed when I put it in our shopping cart), so we bought it for three whole dollars. Then I took it home, cut it up, and framed the gift bag!

So both frames plus artwork probably cost 3.50 each, putting my total price for new wall art at 7 dollars. 

But can you put a price on happiness? Because I get almost giddy with joy when I walk into this bathroom and it no longer looks like that very first picture. 

What we've been up to

Yikes, another one month hiatus from the blog! I realized that part of the reason for my departure from normal blogging is the new technology I've acquired (an ipad and a smartphone). I love having these easier and more portable ways to take pictures and share them (hello Instagram!), but consequently I have less pictures saved on our desktop for me to scroll through and think "I should blog about this". But I'm going to make an effort to get back into blogging, for the grandparents' sake (they're our main audience anyway!). And because I still have plans to someday get our blog posts turned into a scrapbook. Someday....

So here's a quick rundown of what we've been up to. Before Christmas I had a week or two in which I really had nothing on my plate (besides caring for one child and growing another). So I took a look around our house and asked myself what I could plausibly do with my growing belly. And I saw this:

Yes, that is what our entryway has looked like for the past 8 months or so, ever since we moved in. The previous owners are responsible for the taupe to beige transition that you see happening above the doorway (I guess they lost incentive halfway through the project), but I made matters worse by trying out different samples right in that extremely conspicuous spot. That was back when I had the crazy idea that we'd have the entire house painted before we moved in. Bahahahaha. 

So over the course of a week, during Lucy's afternoon naps, I hauled out my rollers and paint brushes and a stepstool and painted our entryway white. 

It wasn't just that wall that needed painting, I had to do the whole entrance area and the ceiling, two coats, which is why it took so long. But I am so incredibly happy not to have to look at that horrible half-finished wall area anymore, I think I grin every time I pass through it!

And then after Christmas I took a trip to Ikea and bought a few entryway items to spice things up. Particularly this new rug, the floor vase and twigs, and the watering can.

A much more cheerful welcome when you step in the door! 

Our January project is to clean out the garage, and we're making pretty good progress on that as well. Our goals were to: find places in our two big attic spaces for all the junk in the garage (minus things that really need to stay out there like tools and paint supplies and bikes); tear out those rickety shelving units on the side of the garage so two cars can actually fit in it; get all chemicals up very high so small hands cannot find them; and build a new workbench.

We've been working on the garage on Saturdays during Lucy's nap. Here's the before shot:

Here is what it looked like after one day. It took a good bit of time to organize everything into well-marked bins and haul it upstairs, but we did all of that and Joel got started with tearing out those units:

This was the 2nd Saturday, Joel hard at work on his new workbench (see how abnormally tall his other workbench was? Also, the reason we could remove all those side storage units is because we have a ton at the back of the garage, as you can see in this pic. The high up ones are where the chemicals are now hidden). 

And here it is by the end of the second Saturday. Such a vast improvement already! 

So really what we have left now is to finish building the workbench and find places for the pile of items we decided to keep out in the garage. It's so nice to know where everything is now and for Joel to have room in the garage to actually use the tools he's been collecting!