Beware the Big Fish

As I write this, I am almost in tears. It has finally hit me that we are leaving this coming Tuesday to PERMANENTLY move to Michigan. I knew it was coming, but I don't think the reality of it really set in until today when our buyer's agent called and asked "Thursday or Friday?" for our closing day and I started running around packing last minute things, making a reservation for a moving truck and making lists of things that had to be completed before we blast off. I was so relieved and refreshed when I looked over at my daily devotional on my blog and it had this wonderful scripture for me.

Jonah 1:1-3 NIV: "The word of the LORD came to Jonah´Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.´ But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish."
Jonah learned the hard way what happens when a child of God does not yield to the will of God. In our lives as believers, it is probable that God is going to lead us in a direction we did not expect, or lead us to do a work we would never have chosen to do. And within that moment, we (like Jonah) have a choice: we can be obedient to God´s will, thus allowing God to work through us as He wishes; or we can run from God´s will and, essentially, be miserable. It is not God´s intention to make you miserable. But rest assured that since we are His, and since we have a purpose of God´s desire, we must function accordingly if we are to have peace. The benefits far outweigh the costs. Letting go of what we think or want is difficult, but necessary, if God is to complete His perfect work in us. Anything else is like kicking "against the goads." The best thing we can do is simply follow His way, and stop trying to force our will above His.

I am still always amazed at how God always has just the right message for me at the right time. I know that God has great plans for our family there and that these next four years are going to be a wonderful adventure as long as we remember to rely on Him. I'm sure post-pregnancy hormones are playing a big part of this too, but all the unknown is sometimes overwhelming. Please keep our family in your prayers during this next week with our closing, new car, traveling, remodeling, and settling in all comes to fruition! I hope you all have a great week!

Car Trouble Anyone?

As I mentioned in my previous post, Tom was in a bad wreck not 2 days after our new baby was born and less than 1 week before we are supposed to move to Michigan. Now we have to go and buy a new car and deal with all the red tape of the insurance company. AHHHH! We already found a newer version of our car for a good price but we have to wait for the insurance to say whether or not our car is totaled. As you can see from the pictures, we are pretty sure that it is. We are so thankful that no one was hurt (especially Tom!) but could more things happen at once? I doubt it!

Baby Morgan!

Here are some more pictures from the birth of Morgan!

Before

After

With Papa!

Life has been awesome with a new little bear around and having Tommy home has made the transition with Grant so easy. He loves to pet his baby and hold him, not to mention feed him! That's right- Grant has shared his pizza, a pepperoni, an M&M, and some cinnamon roll with Morgan! (Don't worry, it never made it past Morgan's lips, but we do have to watch him carefully) So glad we can all share!

Introducing James Morgan Howard!

Hello all! We are proud to introduce to you James Morgan Howard, born on June 11th at 5:20AM, weighing 7 lbs 4oz and with a length of 20 inches. Momma and baby are both doing great and big brother Grant loves to hold his little bubby. God has blessed our family and we are so grateful to have a healthy little boy!

It's been a couple of exciting days! The same morning that Morgan arrived, we received news that we are finally ready to close on our house in Muskegon. We are so excited! Then on Saturday while we were resting, Tom decided to head out to storage and retrieve our baby swing. On the way back, he was sideswiped by a truck and then spun out of control and was hit by 2 other cars. Very scary! Thankfully everyone was ok but our car is completely totaled! So now we have to go car shopping with less than 2 weeks before we move.

Hope everyone is having a great week and I am looking forward to catching up on your posts!

A Family of Three

We have had such a fun week together! Being a family of three is fun and even though we are super excited about our new addition, it is hard to believe that after over 2 years, our family will soon be growing again! I don't think that reality has set in that the baby will be here so soon!

It has been so much fun having Tommy home to help out and Grant and him have really gotten close. I'm not sure Grant understands that Tom is not a little kid friend and is his Daddy, because they play together like little brothers. We have been trying to prepare Grant for a new baby, but we talk about the baby and Tom rubs my tummy, and Grant puts his finger in my belly button, twirls his finger back and forth and just laughs, so I think he is in for a big surprise!

We went ahead tonight and packed my hospital bag, cleaned out the car, and set up the pack-n-play next to our bed. Grant wanted to lay in it, but we again tried to let him know that it was there for the baby.....someone needs to tell the cat as well! He has always loved to nap with Grant so now he is breaking in the pack-n-play!

This past weekend started our last hoorah before the baby comes. Friday we went out to a farm to pick blueberries and strawberries and had a blast! Since Grant's favorite color is blue, he was very good at only picking the BLUE berries, not the green or red unripe ones!! Saturday we headed to OKC to have a nice babymoon dinner at my favorite restaurant, Pepperoni Grill and stayed at a Holiday Inn so Grant could have some fun swimming. The water felt really good and the boys had a great time! The next morning we headed to the Zoo and stayed as long as we could until I was ready to pass out, Grant was about to fall asleep, and Tom was sweating bullets! Then we loaded up and headed back to Tulsa. We all took a late afternoon nap and went to the mall that evening for some inside play!

Monday we went to Whiteside park and played, enjoyed a picnic lunch, then headed to the pool for some free swimtime! I had a great time laying beside the pool reading a book I needed to finish and return to the library before we move and again the boys had fun splashing and playing with the other kids! It was like a fertility fest at Whiteside, there were like 10 moms there and a good 7 of them were big and pregnant like myself (must have been a boring winter!).

Then today, we went to Pottery Barn Kids for their storytime and got our last stamp, so Grant got to pick out a $10 gift he wanted to get! We got a fun Melissa & Doug wooden puzzle of vehicles.....it makes noise when you put in the correct pieces, Grant LOVES it! Then we headed to the Jenks Library to get some movies, then to Target! Busy day! After naptime, Tommy said we needed to head to the mall and surprised me with a pedicure so my toes will look beautiful for the baby's arrival and you know the Doc loves seeing pretty toes on big swollen elephant legs, hehe! Grant and Tom got some free food samples then headed to the play place while I relaxed, oh it was sooooooo nice!

I said to Tom that it was probably our last outing as a family of three and he looked at me strange, like he hadn't thought about it. He said that that made him sad. He is very excited about #2 munchkin coming along, but after 2 years a chapter is closing and I can totally see what he is feeling and feel it too. Grant, we have had a great time with you at the center of our world for the last two years and can't wait to see you grow into a loving big brother. New baby, we can't wait to meet you and see what a wonderful plan God has for your little life!

P.S. - I have some fun and beautiful pictures from our babymoon, but again my camera is being a pill so you will have to wait until after the baby comes and I can upload them all! I hope you all have a great week!

Craft Creation: Grant's Rocker

Still no closing date......hmmm. Still trying to stay busy so I don't go crazy! Tommy volunteered to help me with this project, due to the fact that I needed to use heavy tools to get the old material off the chair and needed to use a staple gun to put on the new fabric. Due to my fatigue and muscle loss, I couldn't even squeeze the trigger once, so thank the Lord for Bunny! Here is my attempt to do it myself, hehe, a lot of grunting occurred then the staple gun was taken from my hand.

This rocker is very special to our family. It was my dad's chair when he was a little boy, then my mom and grandma re-upholstered it when I was little, when we were still living in my birth town of Mineral Wells, TX......YEEEEHAW!!! Now, 25 years later, it was definitely time to give it some new life! Grant has sat in this rocker for a long time, but the 80's fabric was doing nothing for it, not to mention most of the stuffing was gone and the fabric was worn to a frazzle. Jo-Ann's was having a 50% off sale on all of their upholstering fabric, so I knew it was time for the upgrade!

Here is the fabric that it once was covered in......exciting huh? We kept one piece that was in really good condition to cover the bottom, so we would always have a reminder of what it was once like. The microfiber washes up with water so easily and the material and supplies cost around $12, what a difference it makes! Hopefully our material will last 25 years, but I won't hold my breath!

Now it is all ready for its new home in Muskegon, if we ever get to close on our house! All in God's time!

Crafty Creations: Cloth Napkins!

Here's another "keepin' me busy" craft! I found this great site that had these adorable cloth napkins, but they were super expensive, and the entire point, at least to me, of using cloth napkins is to cut down on waste and costs. I'm going to be running loads of laundry anyway, why not through in a couple napkins at the end of a meal too, not to mention the cost of paper towels/napkins and how wasteful it is to just grab something, use it once and throw it away!I found some cute fabric at HL that I have loved for a long time, but since I don't have little girls to make things for, I have always passed it by. Our dining room things have this beautiful color of blue in them that I love and this fabric just matched perfectly. The fabric was also on sale, so it was even a better bargain than I had thought of to begin with. There were 3 coordinating fabrics that were cute and then I got the solid blue cotton for the back of all of them, thus lowering the cost even more.

It was so simple- I just got 14 inches of each pattered fabric and 3- 14 inches sections of the solid and then at home cut each section into thirds, giving me 3-14x14 squares of each fabric. This resulted in 9 napkins. Just lay the fabric right sides facing each other and machine sew around the parameter, leaving a 2 in place open to turn the napkin. Turn, then iron making sure to pull your corners and seams out to make nice straight corners and sides. Make sure you also iron your open section under so that all four sides look alike. Now go and topstich with your machine around all four sides(this will close your open spot as well) and you are finished!! So easy!

After, I had picked out my fabric, Grant spotted some cute Cars (TM) fabric as well, so I made him 3 napkins to use. The only difference with them is that I added ric rac to the sides of his to make them a little funkier! If you want to add ric rac to your napkins, this is the first thing you do right after you get your 14x14 squares cut. Just pin the ric rac to the RIGHT side of one of your squares (having the outside edge of the ric rac barely touch the outside edge of your fabric) and sew it on all the way around, then lay both pieces of your square right sides together and follow the above directions. While this takes one extra step, it was actually easier to iron them and get a straight side and good corners because you can tug on the ric rac as you iron and really open the seam.

I can't wait to get to the new house to use them and see if we can totally stop buying paper napkins and paper towels.....I mean, come on, what did people do for centuries before they were invented? Now, toilet paper, we will still be purchasing!