two things i know for sure...

i'm stealing this from john newton but i just loved this from church this morning...as john newton (who wrote amazing grace) was aging, his memory began to fail him. during a sermon, he lost his way and admitted that he could not remember what he was going to say. he followed it up by saying that he did remember two things...

- I am a great sinner.
- I have a great Saviour.

Truly if there are only two things I know for sure, it is those.

polka dot apples

i love fruit. i adore apples. i've been eating two apples a day this fall.

madeleine loves applesauce. she does not love apples.

she came home from school today having made her own "apple" book which was essentially a coloring book where the kids picked the correct color (red, yellow, green) to paint the apple on each page. at the end of the book, the apple is gone!

i had just seen a little blurb on fun apples in parents magazine and decided to give them a try. my hope being that madeleine would realize how very cool apples are.

happy halloween

happy belated halloween to everyone.

our baby/toddler halloween party didn't happen last weekend due to the family coming down with influenza - not sure if it was plain old influenza or the oink oink kind, but it was bad.

madeleine thoroughly enjoyed her first time trick or treating last night and was the cutest little pumpkin we've ever seen. our stamina (mine and madeleine's) only lasted for four houses so it was a fairly quick candy run. we enjoyed the rest of the evening handing out candy to people who came to our house.

debbie cats

my sweet mom bought me a GREAT book for entertaining at Halloween. we decided awhile back to throw a toddlers and babies halloween party. i'm not into the scary stuff but i do love the costumes.

anyway, the party has (as is usual for me) gotten a little out of control with planning but we're excited. i decided to experiment on the cat cakes. they're cute but i hope they turn out better tomorrow night. i forgot the nose on the first one and should have gone with a brown nose for the second one.

madeleine was impressed, though. i have to say that one of the coolest things about being a mom is that madeleine really thinks i'm something. in her eyes i'm creative, know everything there is to know, make great crafts, and cook well. moms need those ego boosts.

will post more pics after the party.

getting more than you hoped for...

there is a verse i love that says God will give us exceedingly, abundantly all that we've hoped or imagined. i have personally experienced that verse this week.

for several years, we've talked about how much we would like to move closer to family and live somewhere the cost of living isn't outrageous. specifically, we'd like to move to arkansas.

we've looked for jobs, to no avail. until now.

on somewhat of a lark, i applied for an internal corporate position with my current company (i'm in consulting) on october 5. received an interview request that friday. interviewed the following monday. received the job offer that friday. wrote back and said they'd need to approve an exception for me to live in a non-office location (my company does not have offices in arkansas).

the following monday night (two weeks from the day i applied for the job) i received approval for my exception case.

wow.

i mean, really...i get to work for the same company i work for now. keep my benefits (with a reduction in pay but let's not get greedy here) including maternity leave. work virtually 100% of the time (yes, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time). move closer to family whenever we're ready to do so and do it at our leisure since it doesn't really matter where i live. and...do work i find interesting and rewarding.

i really did not anticipate it would work out. who would want to hire a five month pregnant woman who insists on living in a non-sanctioned location. who indeed.

i've always known God is faithful and i've seen it all throughout my life. times like these are reminders that not only is He faithful but He really does delight in giving His children things they want and love, not just what they need.

nursery pics - part deux

rebirth of the nursery

we have decided that the two kiddos will be sharing the nursery. we have two bedrooms upstairs and i'm not comfortable having one child downstairs and one upstairs when they're so young.

it's a bit more challenging to decorate a boy-girl nursery than a girl-girl or boy-boy nursery but we've risen to the occasion and are very excited about the new nursery. i painted on Sunday (madeleine was sick so we didn't go to church) only to find that pale yellow is no match for pale lavendar. i have three days off from my project this week so i was able to repaint yesterday. the yellow appears to have finally licked the purple so we now have a lovely moonlight yellow nursery.

as fortune would have it (or misfortune as the case may be) several of the items are on backorder (of course) so it will still be a bit before we have the complete rebirth captured in pictures.

here is a sneak preview of m's side of the room. i am IN LOVE with this tree and the furry friends just waiting to find their place on the wall.