And From His Goodness...

I must first start this post by apologizing for my laziness in getting a new post up last month. I know that all of you were just hanging on the edges of your seats, so I hope you can forgive me for not giving you all what you just dying for... (Please detect the sarcasm ;-)) Anyway, life has been going in a way that is not too far from what is normal, although we must say that every day we are so blessed beyond belief, and we are always doing better than we deserve. 

Christian, as of yesterday, completed his very first semester here at Emmaus. Wow! Already!? But he is so thankful it's over for the summer, as much as he loved it, he's ready for a break (and I'm ready to have a husband again ;-)). Since the end of March, I have settled into my new job, and have been learning enough new information on investments for my head to explode. I'm really glad that it hasn't yet, but stay tuned... Who knows? Seriously, though. I am so thankful for this job. The Lord has just provided immensely for us, and we are just so blessed by His goodness. Kylie wanted to see a picture of me in my normal work-wear, so here it is!

I also promised Kylie that I would post some more updated pics of our new home, so here they go!

 Welcome to our home!

 This is our floor mat right inside our front door. I just thought that it was perfect because these are the three most important things in our lives :-)

 Our kitchen is the first thing you see when you walk in the front door (granted, this pic was taken from our little nook, not the front door, but it was the best way to get a good angle)

 You can see the front door on the far right, just inside the doorway. This is our living room. We absolutely LOVE our furniture. Craigslist is the BOMB!

This is the dining room area. Also a craigslist find. Also, Kylie see the ficus? ;-) 

 If you stand on the outside wall of our living room/dining room, this is what you see. I love that little window into the kitchen. :-)

 The door on the left here is the pantry. I love it. It's HUGE and a nice big walk in, so we store all of our food, cleaning supplies and everything in there. It's great! Also, that painting up above the archway is a painting I just did here a few weeks ago. It says, "Consider the Lillies", just as a reminder that God is our provider, not only ourselves.

 If you keep walking straight through that archway, you walk into Christian's study room. It's the only room that we haven't finished yet, but it's coming along. There is a huge bookshelf on the right, but you can't see it. It has a lot of Christian's school books, etc on it. Emmaus had its annual book sale a couple of weeks ago (almost all books were only 25 cents!) so needless to say, we seriously stocked up on literature.

 If you walk out of Christian's room and take a sharp left, you will walk down a short hall and into our bathroom! We love our bathroom. It's a little tight for the two of us, but it suits us fine :-) The colors are my favorite part.

 Then, if you walk out of the bathroom and take a sharp right, there is another little archway that goes into our bedroom! We LOVE our room. I am so thankful for the way that it's turned out. We have shelves attached to the wall on the opposite wall  that our bed faces.

Here is the other window in our room. Then on the right of the window, on the wall adjacent, there is my walk in closet! Christian's walk in closet is in his study room. :-) 

 This is what you see when you walk out of our room. That picture was given to us by Aunt Carol Papworth. We love it! :-)

 So, on my birthday we added a few new members to our family. One in particular. Our new fish (Christian's birthday gift to me), Jose Viernes. Our new betta fish! :-) Isn't he gorgeous!? And also, this last Saturday was the first day of Dubuque Farmer's Market! I met a lady who was running one of the booth's there who was from Australia, and she gave me some herbal plants to start my own indoor garden! YAY! So from left to right I have lemon thyme, chamomile, lavender, chives and then spearmint. I am SO excited. I have ALWAYS wanted my own garden. BUT, ok... I just have to say this. So last year I planted about 6 rananculus bulbs in a pot on the back deck at my parent's house. And guess what? NOTHING happened. They were supposed to bloom in summer, and they totally didn't. Well, today my mom sent me an email with a picture of the flowers this year, and guess what? They decided to bloom AFTER I LEFT HOME! Rude. But check out how beautiful one of them is.

I have also been broadening my cooking skills lately, and a couple of nights ago I ventured to make my very first homemade empanadas from scratch. Yes, they turned out pretty tasty, and Christian was very happy. He always loves getting food from home.

 I also tried Ruth Keller's sweet and sour chicken from scratch! It's in the Westside cookbook. SO YUMMY!!! But that's not shocking. Anything the Kellers make is yum in the tum.

And with that, my parents are coming out to visit us over Memorial Day weekend, and we can hardly wait to see you, Mom and Dad! 

We'll post again soon, all! We are blessed by you all and are so thankful for all of your support and prayers. 

Cheers!