Hey, we have a signed contract on our house - Yikes! We are now in fast motion. I have been job searching and applying via the internet for Iowa jobs. Our plan is for me to take the girls and head out to Iowa on the 25th, arriving the 28th. I have located a place for us to rent. It's perfect actually. $350/month gets us a furnished room, one hot meal a day, and they used to run a licensed daycare center in their home so they have a huge playroom and big fenced in yard. They have a 3 and 5 year old too, so Trinity will have playmates. They have a live in nanny, so I may even be able to just pay her extra to watch the girls while I go on job interviews. Once I get a job, then we can get financed and buy a house. David will come out once he has a job secured or we have a house to move into - whichever comes first.

So, now we have a week and a half to pack up the house, discard, donate, and sell off.

Keep praying for us - we need it! This is a very stressful time for our family.

Posted in: moving, Slow Lane on Wednesday, May 16, 2007 at at 3:03 AM 1 comments    

"And why worry about your clothes? Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don't work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won't he more surely care for you? You have so little faith!" Matthew 6:28-30

That was the verse in grace mail this morning. Very appropriate for us. We appear to have our house sold. We received the offer yesterday from the couple that came to see our home last week. It was a very decent offer, but of course we countered. :) Whatever they come back with, we are done. Closing date is to be June 18th, so now we are stressing out - how do we buy a house, what are we going to do for work, do we sell off everything or take it all with us? The verse today was the perfect reminder that God is directing our steps in this and is going to continue to work all things out. I just can't accept that He would work out a buyer for our business, a buyer for our home "as is" in this market, and then leave us high and dry for a job. I just keep praying that God would help me to cast all my cares on Him.

We have several properties in mind. They are all bank owned properties so we are planning on bidding at about 70% of the asking price. That may seem crazy, but we have seen plenty of bank owned properties go for about that rate. One property we were interested in just sold last week - asking price was $155k and it sold for $105k. I was kind of bummed b/c I really liked the location of that home - right across the street from a huge forested park. But I know God has the perfect home already picked out for us. :)

Posted in: God Lane, moving, Slow Lane on Monday, May 14, 2007 at at 2:20 PM 0 comments    

In honor of mothers day, I thought I would post some reflections on being a mom:

Baby giggles - never enough!
Twinkle, twinkle, little star sung over and over by 2 year old - too much!
The crazy things you hear yourself saying, like "Don't lick your sister!"
Utter exhaustion.
How any show, commercial, anything having to do with a child in danger has me in tears.
The feel of a limp, sleepy child pressed against you with their arms and legs dangling as you carry them to bed - so precious!
Hearing "I do it!" about 100 times a day.
Impressing yourself with your staggering ability to continue to come up with answers to "why."
Baby and toddler having laughing fits with each other - wonderful!
Amazing love - really, something you just can't even imagine until you have a child.
And the sudden corresponding realization of how much God loves you.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!

Posted in: mother's day, Slow Lane on Sunday, May 13, 2007 at at 12:24 AM 0 comments    

Okay, if you haven't had enough pictures yet, here is another! lol!

Be praying for us - we posted our home on craigslist yesterday and had a couple come look at it today. They are very interested and wanted us to come up with an AS IS price. (we advertised it at the completed price less realtor fees) We calculated what it would cost us to hire someone to complete the work on the house and deducted that from the price. So now we just wait and see if they accept our price or counter.

From today's Grace mail:

Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.  Matthew 6:32b-33

And my God shall supply ALL your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:19, NASB

Those were definitely words I needed today!

Posted in: moving, Slow Lane on Thursday, May 10, 2007 at at 11:28 PM 0 comments    

I have to admit, this has been a hard time for me lately. My birthday last year was the last time I saw my dad alive, essentially. He was still "alive" when I saw him in the emergency room, but unconscious. No more words of wit or wisdom from him at that time. I wanted to post a couple pictures that are dear to me now. The first is me and dad when I was a baby. Sorry for the picture quality - it's an OLD photo!

Posted in: Slow Lane on Wednesday, May 9, 2007 at at 4:53 PM 0 comments    

We'll start with our little camera ham - Miss Trinity. Sunday morning at church, she got up on stage before class started and got the microphone and started singing. Fortunately, it wasn't on, so her little babbling singing was cute and not ear piercing! It was really sweet and she has an adoring audience in the young married's class. :)




In these next pictures, Angelina got up on her knees holding onto Trinity and knocked her over - revenge for all the times Trinity has wrestled her down to the ground!



Big grin!

Trying to crawl



Sweet smile :)

Oh, yeah. I did spot that second tooth today - David is right. She has the one on the bottom and one coming in on top. Also, thinking about our little American Idol on stage at church last Sunday, I don't know how many of you follow the show American Idol, but one of the final four is a young lady from our church. Her name is Jordin Sparks and our pastor has asked for prayer for her and her family during this time where she is being catapulted into the public eye. So please be praying for her. It's been really fun for us watching the show this season actually knowing one of the contestants. Amazing that she is still on with only a few more shows til the winner - wow!

Posted in: Slow Lane on Monday, May 7, 2007 at at 10:06 PM 0 comments    

Yes. It's true. I turned 40 last week. I thought about posting on my birthday, but decided against it. Best to let some things just pass without too much fuss. :)

Meanwhile, I finally found our battery charger and so I have an updated picture of our little Angel to post. She is working on tooth number two (so says Daddy - I haven't spotted it yet) and so close to crawling, I'm sure I'm going to miss the actual first time event! This is her flashing us one of her ever ready smiles. What a love bug!



The latest on the Iowa front: David called about the job with the City of Des Moines on Friday. The guy said he is so backed up with paperwork, he hasn't even looked at the applications yet for that position. So we are still in the waiting mode. We also had a showing of our house to friends of friends last Saturday morning for a possible AS IS sale. They opted not to make an offer though, so David will get to work on the kitchen on Wednesday.

That's all for now!

Posted in: Slow Lane on at at 3:40 AM 0 comments