Evie Turns 2!!

For Evie's 2nd Birthday, we had a Doggie Day Spa Party. The kids had fun making dog collars and tags for their stuffed doggies. Then they exercised their dogs, massaged them, gave them a bubble bath, had story time, blow dried and brushed their dogs, then the boys dressed their dogs in bandanas and girls dressed theirs in bows.

Evie had so much fun playing in the fake bubble bath (She and Wiley had so much fun playing with it after the party too.)

We are so thankful God has blessed us with Evie these past two years. She is such a joy to our family. We continue to pray that god will grow her into a loving and kind hearted young woman who will love Him with all her heart!

Church Planting Here We Come!

I wish I had the time to write a massive blog about this, but that's just not practical right now because it's almost dinner time and the munchkins are getting restless. I just want to take a minute though to let you all know that this summer we will be moving back to Lexington, South Carolina to begin an incredible adventure of Church Planting with Columbia Crossroads Church. Church planting is a ministry that we've prayed about for over two years. We are so thrilled and can't wait to begin. Crossroads is a missional focused church who is seeking to share the love of God in Columbia and throughout the world. It is truly a great privilege to be able to partner with them in ministry.

We will be moving back into our old home and the church building the plant will be in is just down the street. God really burdened our hearts for the people of Lexington, West Columbia, Cayce and Columbia during the two years we lived back in South Carolina. We are so grateful to the Lord for opening a door for us to minister to these communities. I can't even begin to tell you how God has confirmed this decision for us in so many ways, big and small, and we are so thankful to Him for that. First Shane will be finishing out his 1 year contract with Lancaster Bible College. We are so thankful for our time here at LBC and for the ministry here. The faculty and administration have been very supportive of our decision and we thank God for this. Please keep our family and Crossroads Church in your prayers as we begin this new venture. More details to come later!

Check out Columbia Crossroads Ministry here
http://www.columbiacrossroads.org/

Winter Moments

The other day we went and had a snow day with our good friends, The Pinzers. We went sledding and the boys had a snowball fight. Afterwards, Becky surprised me with whoopy pie cupcakes - yum! for my birthday :)

The bottom photos: During my massive Master Closet clean out, the kids decided to "help". While helping, Evie decided to try on my heels.

So I made it out of the Master Closet Alive! Whoo Hoo!!!

So, as I mentioned in my last blog, I'm really trying to get my whole house organized. I've really been enjoyed some other women's blogs that are all about organizing (tips and such). I've listed a few below that are my favorites right now. Check them out!


http://www.orgjunkie.com/ - She gives you a 52 week challenge to organize 52 things of your choice in your home. It's basically a 1 year plan to getting yourself organized week by week. (So far my list has 40 things on it, some big and some small projects.)


http://abowlfulloflemons.blogspot.com/pot.com/ - This is my favorite so far! She gave a 21 day challenge in which she lists specific areas of your home to organize each day. I've completed the list already and it was so helpful! She encouraged other bloggers to go on her site each day and post their before and after photos for each day. I totally didn't do that, but took photos and thought I'd post them here now that I'm done. (This will be a good reminder to me down the road!) She also sells eco-friendly house cleaning products called Shaklee that are supposed to be safer with no chemicals. I'm very interested in checking into these down the road. Anyone who has used them before, I'd love your thoughts on the products.


http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/ -This last one I've posted has just cute and creative ideas. The lady lives in an older home that she and hur husband have really done a lot to in order to fix it up. I love her colors and decorating! Check it out!


So here are some of the photos of some areas I've already covered in our home. I'm sticking with it each week and knocking it out little by little. I really hope to make life much calmer and less chaotic for our whole family with these changes. I also hope to develop some new GOOD habits that I can instill in my children: Basically - to make it easy to keep things clean and tidy and to get rid of STUFF (not be hoarders!) It's so easy in our culture to hang on to junk! We are so trying to downsize everything we have before we move! Though our home back in South Carolina we will be moving back into is large, there isn't much storage space. For instance, I only have 1 closet in the entire downstairs (I'm already coming up with some creative plans for how to best utilize this space) and we don't have a linen closet in either bathroom (ugh! Again, creative thinking is already underway. Wish me luck!)


Coat Closet

BEFORE / AFTER













The Master Bathroom Linen Closet

BEFORE / AFTER

Laundry Room: Now for us, this is right inside the garage and so it naturally becomes our "dumping ground". We have a coat closet, but it isn't convenient to use it to keep our coats, purse, diaper bag, etc. So I rethought some things and am pleased with how it turned out.

BEFORE / AFTER

Under the Kitchen Sink

BEFORE / AFTER

And the dreaded Master Closet! We both still have clothes to get rid of but this is much better for now. Shane and I are doing a contest to see who can get down to the fewest items of clothing! It will be neat to see who wins!!!

BEFORE / AFTER

BEFORE / AFTER

BEFORE / AFTER

BEFORE / AFTER

My new thing - Organizing!!!!!

So one of my biggest New Year's Resolutions is to become so much more organized in our home. I've been enjoying reading blogs by other women about organization. My little sister would be so proud of me for doing this. I'm pretty sure she will probably be pretty envious when she reads this and wishes she could've helped. (She's a bit OCD for those of you who don't know. As a child, just for fun she would sometimes take all the things from around her room and put them in the middle of her floor just so she could clean up and put them right back where they came from! Needless to say that's why Dawn and I had to share a room while she got the guest room, the biggest room! Whenever we had company, Mom didn't have to worry about cleaning up the room. She loves things to be very neat and tidy! Shane has had countless hours having fun with this as you can imagine. Every time we would visit, he would go in her room when she was at work and move her picture frames and things ever so slightly. When she got home, she would walk in her room and IMMEDIATELY know exactly what had been moved.)
Anyways, enough about that! Katiebeth, this blog entry is for you! Just don't look too closely or I'm sure you'll find 100 other little things I could've done better. Feel free to give me your feedback though. I'm going to continue to try and improve as I go!

So I'm going to do my best to post my Before and After photos here to keep track of it all! I'm hoping I'll get addicted to it! :)

My first project was our kitchen pantry.





















BEFORE / AFTER

BEFORE / AFTER

BEFORE / AFTER

Tomorrow I tackle our master bedroom closet! Wish me luck! If you don't hear back from me, it means I never made it out!

(Just had a thought - maybe I should post a Before and After photo of my family and see if we all look a little more sane after I'm through organzing our entire home! :)

Precious Visit with the Kizziahs

Last weekend we got to visit some of our most precious friends in North Carolina - The Kizziah Family! (I messed up creating this entry so you'll have to scroll all the way to the bottom of this post to read what I wrote - sorry!)

Evie crashed for part of the time on the drive there. I couldn't resist this photo :)

Evie and Claire enjoyed the playground.

Katie and Claire - such sweet ladies!

Wiley and John David - who made fast friends!

The family whose home we stayed at had these aprons. They have a daughter named Lydia, and the wife's name is Shannon but she is called Shan. Too funny!

The boys enjoyed playing dress up!

The Kizziahs are some of our dearest friends. Shane and I met David Kizziah the summer of 2001. We served M-Fuge staff with him in Philadelphia and he and Shane were put together as prayer partners for the summer and got really close. We had the priveledge of reuniting with him and meeting Katie a few years later when they were engaged. David was living in Kentucky and going to Southern Seminary the same time Shane was. Their oldest son John David was born 9 months after Wiley, and their daughter Claire was born 6 months after Evie. We have been unable to get our families together since November of 2008 when Wiley was just over 2 years. The Kizziahs recently moved to North Carolina where David is pastoring a church. Shane was so honored to be asked by David to come and preach the Instillation Service for David's ministry to the church. What a blessing on so many levels! For me, the greatest blessing was just finally getting to see them all again and to meet little Claire for the first time! They also got to meet Evie for the first time.

Though our trip was way too short, we were so blessed for the time we got to spend with them. We ended up getting to stay with them in the same house (an amazing place belonging to one of their church members - it was a gorgeous finished basement that looked like a log cabin on the inside. We all slept in full size bunk beds. It was like a very ritzy camping experience which only added to the fun of the weekend!)

Here are some of the photos of our time together. We are praying for another chance to see them again soon. Thanks Kizziahs for allowing us to come and visit you, and to be with you on such a special occasion. We are so looking forward to seeing what God is going to do in and through you as you serve Him and His Bride!

You can learn more about this wonderful family and their ministry at their blog

http://www.kizziahs.blogspot.com/

Please keep them in your prayers as they seek to serve our Lord!