Transformation

When Chad and I got married we talked about not staying in our house for too many years with the desire to move perhaps to an acreage. Almost 8 years later and we are still in the same house. For quite some time I was looking at other houses and longing to move and just didn't feel settled. Emma coming helped that very much but I still looked because now I want to get her out of the city to grow up in the country. I am not sure what happened but sometime in the last little while my heart has changed. We have talked about it alot and how it makes more sense to stay where we are for a while longer to pay down the mortgage and then hopefully be able to move to a house and area that we love and could be in for a long time and raise our family. So this spring we finally did some landscaping and I feel more settled and more like our home is finally becoming our home. We also plan on finishing the basement this year which would be wonderful and give Emma and I more room and options during our long cold winters.

The landscaping was alot of work but so worth it! Our backyard feels like a backyard now instead of just a grassy area and we enjoy being out in it. We still have more that we would like to do but will save it for next year perhaps and see what happens.

I took during and after photos of it all. Of course Chad did most of the grunt work (he worked so hard!) with me helping where I could and once the gardens were ready to plant it was time for me to do the grunt work. Emma loved helping and it was fun watching her get involved.

Building the raised garden beds...

 Best little surpervisor ever!

 Chad never ceases to suprise and impress me with what he knows and what he can do!

 We ripped up all the sod in the area where we wanted the gardens...

 and then Chad spent a long time salvaging as much of the dirt as he could.

 Looking good!

 Emma has her own little garden box.

 Watering the rocks. :)

 Helping mix the dirt

 Our beautiful little apple tree

 Emma's garden

 I also did a little fairy garden for Emma

 Look! Everything is actually growing! It has been fun to eat from the garden and I am looking forward to harvest time!

 So pretty now

 Look at all those apples! There are so many this year that some of the branches are hanging quite low. Apple pies! Applesauce! Apple butter! Yum!

"Minnie Minnie everywhere!"

She's two! So very hard to believe! This blog will be all Emma (with lots of photos) as I share with you her birthday week! She was so very excited as we kept telling her how many sleeps until her birthday and then how many sleeps until her party and she would ask us to sing Happy Birthday and we would go through the list of who would be coming to her party and she would talk about balloons and cake and blowing the candle out. So much excitement for a little one!

Her birthday was on June 10th. Chad was able to take the day off which we are hoping to make into an annual tradition so we can take the whole day and do something fun and maybe as Emma gets older it will work its way into a Daddy/daughter date day. She was so happy to have him home all day! We started the day by giving her a present (a dollhouse) which she loved and played with the rest of the day whenever she could. Then we took her to Discoveryland at Telus World of Science where she got to play in water and fly an airplane and walk on a piano and climb into a treehouse and all sorts of fun stuff. That was followed by lunch and a nap and then that night cake and more presents. Quite a full day and she loved every minute of it!

After that big exciting day we had a few days where I did lots of prep work for her party on Saturday. She absolutely loves Minnie Mouse and so the party theme this year was Minnie. So cute to hear her saying "Minnie Minnie everywhere!" She was so excited and was counting sleeps until her party. Thank goodness she went down easily for a nap that day and was happy and ready to go by the time people started coming. It turned out so well! The weather was perfect, the decorations turned out, lots of people came to show their love. Emma did so incredibly well. She was her usual sweet self and even (when prompted) stood up and signed and said "thank you" to everyone after she opened all her gifts. I was so proud of her and the way she carried herself and behaved and I loved watching her have fun and smile and laugh and give hugs and high fives and just be excited and so very happy.

Now that all of the birthday excitement is over we are settling in to enjoy the summer! Looking forward to long summer days spent playing outside. We also did some landscaping in the backyard (another blog with before and after photos coming!) and it feels like a backyard now and not just a square spot of grass. 

Hard to believe two years have come and gone since Emma came home. What a difference she has made in so many lives. I love to celebrate her!

Big Move!

I got in touch with the adoption agency this week for our monthly update. We are moving up the list in leaps and bounds! We are now number 47 with 4 couples on hold in front of us. Rather encouraging to hear! Our profile hasn't been out lately but that's okay. It will start to happen soon as we keep moving up.

I am starting to get into birthday party mode. A Minnie Mouse birthday for our little mouse! So hard to believe she is almost 2!

Growing up!

My little helper is growing up. Where she used to follow me around everywhere and have to do everything Mommy did now she gets bored with it and goes and plays with her toys. This is a fairly new thing for her and I will admit that I am appreciating it as it is easier and faster to get things done. It feels like she just all of a sudden grew up in the last few weeks and went from being a baby to being a kid. She is so much fun and has us laughing all the time at what she says and does and the things she comes up with. I love watching her independence grow and her confidence bloom. She is still an introvert and very quiet in groups but oh she is funny! She talks all day from the time she gets up to the time she goes to bed. People who only see her once in a while don't believe us and are always surprised once she is comfortable around them and starts talking. It's fun having conversations with her and I am amazed every day at how quickly her vocabulary is growing. I do miss her being my little shadow all day long and love it when she comes running up to me to grab me around the leg just cause and to hear her say "hug" as she does it. She does it at the most spontaneous and random moments and I love it.

I have been talking to her quite a bit about her being adopted. I have made it into kind of a story that I tell her. She now tells me that she is adopted (even though she doesn't yet understand what that means) and that it is a "bootiful fing" which is what I tell her every time. I was telling her the other night how much I love her and that Jesus gave her to me and she looked at me and said "adopted". Her little brain never stops working and thinking and trying to figure things out. It's going to make homeschooling her interesting for sure!

Today while I was doing housework she kept herself busy in her playroom playing with some toys. Again, something fairly new as she usually would only play with her toys if we were playing with her or she would just get bored with them quickly. Her imagination is taking off now though and it's fun to watch her and listen to her when she doesn't know you are there. She decided to get her craft stuff out today while I was going up and down the stairs trying to get the house clean. I found her with her safety scissors, a glue stick and a magazine. So I got a piece of paper for her and she did her first craft all by herself. :)

I will be keeping this piece of artwork for sure!

To Lead a Quiet Life...

It's been a long time coming. I have thought about doing it so many times but something always changed my mind. Working with youth and wanting to stay in touch with them. Wanting to see photos of new babies or wedding photos or just being curious about where and how people are doing. Not wanting to feel like I was going to be "out of the loop" or becoming a total hermit. I am tired of excuses though and so in the last little while I have "unfriended" a whole bunch of people.

Facebook. I have nothing against it. I like the idea of it. Of staying in touch and getting back in touch. Of having glimpses into the lives of others and being part of groups where I may learn some things and accumulate some knowledge to be used in the future. I have seen great things happen on Facebook like people from all over the world joining together in prayer for a man who was in a fight for his life and being part of the miracle when those prayers were answered and he was able to go home healthier in some ways than before. I have laughed lots at the jokes and cute videos that go around. I have read some interesting health articles and found lots of great recipes and been able to share probably too many photos of our little blessing. I have cried and had my heart touched by some of the stories shared. The flip side to all of that though is getting bogged down and wrapped up in lives that I otherwise wouldn't know about. I have been thinking so much about it lately and just how easy it is for me to waste time reading about other people's lives and doings and busyness and heartaches and joys and frustrations and peeves and bad attitudes when I have my own life to be living.

There are a couple of verses that have always been a favourite of mine and I read through them again tonight. It pretty much sums all of this up better than any words I could say...

"...and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly towards outsiders and not be in any need."  
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

So for those of you that I was friends with on Facebook please don't be offended that I have "unfriended" you. It isn't you it's me and it's me wanting to live a quiet life attending to my own business and working with my hands and living my life and devoting my time and attention to my family and interests. I have kept all my immediate family as "friends" but that is it for now.

I am hoping to start blogging more again. I have missed writing and don't really have a reason why I haven't been doing it and you would think that giving up Facebook wouldn't make that big of a difference but 20 minutes here and there sure adds up!

It is quite surprising really how much better I have felt about life in the last week since making this decision. It is freeing in a way and I realized just how much time I have spent on there and how much I let things that I read on there affect me and the way I thought about people or situations. It is such a pretend reality. People thinking that they know others just because of what is posted. Anyways, I am done with it in the capacity that I was using it and am looking forward to writing more and not wasting so much time!

Here is the best reason of all to stop wasting my time!