pour a cup...

and enjoy!
Just a few links to enjoy during your weekend.

• A great post on what is really important when it comes to time with your littles. 
• I definitely need to do this...do you?
• Stains be GONE! I was amazed when I used this homemade stain remover this week!

(doesn't that look delicious! totally wish I was enjoying that right about now)

Have a wonderful weekend enjoying friends, family, and our Risen Savior!

Old Fridays are BACK!

Thanks to Miss Lauren, the old Fill in the Blank Fridays are back...and I am so pumped :)

1.  I am   a daughter of the King, wife, momma, sister, daughter, friend, crafter/sewer, coffee lover, student (graduating in DECEMBER!!), baker.

2.   I have always   wanted to have my own little business...even as a kid I remember always trying to start something (be it babysitting or something else) either by myself or with my good friend Brittany Jo  .

3.  I hope to    return to Uganda some day to visit the ones we met there and LOVE.

4. I can    out run my the Hubs for the first time in my life! We took a jog the other night and I gave him a nice workout :)

5. I dream of    serving with my husband in a church plant somewhere, someday and making an impact on people's lives (especially young girls).

6. The way to my heart is   through chocolate, coffee, and long talks .

7.  I am passionate about   living simply and freely. Keeping stuff to a minimum and only buying things I need. It is hard to do in our culture, but I believe it is so worth it. I never want to be tied to my stuff because that really keeps us from living! I work really hard to do what I can to provide for my family by being frugal and not frivolous with our money--this translates into not buying things we don't need and trying to stay out of debt. As a stay-at-home-mom, I kind of feel like this is a calling of mine to help provide for our family...being wise with our spending. 

Lauren said she is passionate about birth--I didn't want to put that too, but I am also passionate about birth. After having a dream natural birth with Little E, I am ready to help others have the birth they envision (not one run by a hospital staff/doctor). I have dreams of one day (after this degree is complete) getting certified to be a doula...one day....

Thanks for bringing back Fill in the Blank Fridays! I love them! 

On another note, I am working on recovering a chair I got last weekend...this is my first major project like this, so stay tuned for how it turns out! I'm open to ideas/suggestions/help! :)

favorite things

I've been meaning to write this post for a while...so here it is! 

A few weeks ago I hosted a Favorite Things party for our Mom's Night Out...and boy was it fun! I'd love to have another one sometime! Everyone brought 5 of their "Favorite thing" and we swapped our favorite things...we each went home with 5 new items! So much fun! We had everything from candy, to body wash, to herbs, to journals, and beyond! Here are some photos from the night

A day away...

"If I could get away for the day, I would go...."

to the beach! 

Today I am going to have to agree with Miss Lauren over at The Little Things We Do. 

If I could get away for a day, I would definitely go to the beach...and if you couldn't tell by the picture, I would go totally and completely alone.

Its not that I don't enjoy people and socialization, I do! The thing is, I rarely get any time completely by myself. We already went to the beach this summer, but let's be honest--vacation changes once you have kids. There is no more reclining in a chair getting lost in a book for hours while you bake tan. Its more like running back and forth from the beach to the condo to get something you forgot or change someone's diaper.  If you are lucky enough to get to actually be on the beach, then you aren't sitting in a chair, more than likely you are sitting in the sand digging or out in the ocean splashing. 

Don't get me wrong, I loved our beach vacation this year! But I do look forward to one day sitting on a pristine beach in quite and solitude. 

weekend storms

For those of you who haven't heard, our area was hit with a huge, unexpected storm on Friday evening.  The results have been devastating damage to numerous homes throughout the region and massive power outages.

Friday evening, I was supposed to run a 5k with several ladies from church. The race was scheduled to begin at 7:45, but was interrupted by a storm that came around 7:15. Because I was a runner in the race I was taken to a building with no windows which prevented me from seeing the storm take place. My husband however was able to watch the storm and the craziness of it. A window from the hotel where he took shelter was broken and pieces of glass were flying everywhere. My mother was out to dinner with my mother-in-law and a tree branch flew into the window of the dining room shattering it and causing them to have to move into the bar of the restaurant to finish their dinner. A neighbor called my mom and told her that a tree had fallen in her yard--what an understatement!

This wasn't just a tree--it was a 100+ year old black walnut tree that has been in the yard basically since this house was built! It was here when my dad and his brothers were growing up and it has been here since my parents bought the home almost 20 years ago! Thankfully the damage was only to the porch and not the actual house. And despite the fallen uprooted, enormous tree on the porch and in the yard, she still has electricity--which is more than you can say for half of the town (including us)!

So our weekend was spent trying to beat the 100* heat without electricity. We are grateful to my mom for allowing us (and some other friends) to stay with her and our friends in Charleston who had power allowed us to spend Saturday afternoon with them playing games and making a DIY slip-n-slide :) It has been nothing short of an exciting weekend.

Please pray for those in our area who had worse damage done to their homes and those of us still without power--especially those with no cool place to stay. They are saying it will be Friday before all of the power is restored. We are hoping it will be sooner.