Dedication Day

Back in April, we had Little dude's baby dedication at our church. My mom was able to come out and be a part of it, just as she was here for Little lady's almost a year ago now. {Here's why we do it.}

We have a sweet ministry at our church that does photography and they do their best to capture the baby dedications. We got a disc in the mail with 25 pictures or so of the event. I love that we will have the memory recorded. I'm going to hang a picture of both the kids dedications, as a reminder.

Excited to introduce...

...what I've been spending most of my free blog time doing.

The idea and details have been brewing, growing, changing, and finalizing for several months now. It's been exciting, nerve wracking and frustrating at times. I'm impatient and when things take time I find myself stressing out. But it always works out for the best when I wait it out. In this case, actually in most, make that all cases, it's the best when I wait on the Lord's timing and let me lead me instead of the other way around.

So I bet you're wondering what it is that I'm even talking blogging about, right?! {Or not. Either way I'm going to tell you!!}

Ok, I'm getting ahead of myself.

It all started when the Lord put adoption on our hearts. It was simple how it happened and we just knew it was God tugging at our heart strings. Being that we just had a new born we weren't really sure it was the right time, you know, right now. So we committed to praying and waiting on the Lord for more direction and confirmation.

In the mean time I was finding my true, unmeasurable, deeply satisfying joy in sewing {ok, it may be an exaggeration} and creating cute, adorable and ruffly things for little ladies to wear! I believe my gift and desire is from the Lord and I wanted to find a way to use it to honor Him. One night, late {that has been when all my ideas have come to me} the idea of sewing and adopting came together for me.

God lead me to the idea of selling my sewing creations in order to fund and help pay for adoptions! Oh, I can hardly contain my excitement!! I seriously get goosebumps and butterflies when I think about it. I wanted to know for sure that this idea was from the Lord so I asked Him to give me confirmation if this would be worth my time and investment.

First, I knew that I would use an online site already set up for selling handmade items. I'm sure you have heard of it, Etsy. I've used the site before and the hardest part for me has always been in coming up with a name for my shop. Something that represents what who I am and what I'm about. I knew that God had to name my shop. That it would be unique and there wouldn't be another even remotely like it!

So He has named it abundant Sonshine. And the first thing that came to mind when I heard that name was Ephesians 3:20.

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think"

This is just one simple example of how the Lord has created this shop and set up the details. The details which include donating a portion of every sale to a wonderful Christian adoption organization called "Home for Good" and any other opportunity that the Lord would lead me to. Even the possibility of the shop funding our own adoption in the future!!

So it is with great excitement and hope for the future plans God has for our family that I introduce to you 

Please take a look around and come back here to tell me what you love!!

Spring Cleaning!

I am not messing around this year. I am on a cleaning spree and stripping our house top to bottom of all the things that are not necessity and are just laying around. I'm tired of the clutter and of things not having a designated spot. Even the kids toys feel out of control.

We are going to have a garage sale. Make that several garage sales, because we have too much stuff to put it all out for just one. Sad, I know. All the money we make is going towards the last bit of debt we have. Our goal is to be debt free as soon as possible, including our mortgage. Yep, you heard me correctly! We want to be free from all monetary bondage! And free to use the money we make however the Lord leads us to use it, to further His Kingdom.

I am really feeling motivated and I know it's from the Lord. I have been telling Him how I'm just sick and tired in the stuff lifestyle we are saturated in by this world. And I want to live so much more simply. I just feel so tired everyday. There is so much that I want to do but I just can't do it on my own. I want to be a good steward of all that He provides for us, including our income and the abundance that He gives us to give to help others and share the love of Jesus!

So this morning, I forewent {whoa, didn't know if that was a real word, but I guess it is!} my scheduled training work out and spent my energy deep cleaning and gutting out our bedrooms. It was such a great feeling to eliminate all the excess and finally have a place for each thing that we need and/or that we actually use {so long half used bottles of lotion from five years ago and crusty dried out nail polish!}.

I plan on using the rest of this week {and probably next week too} to eventually hit every single spot/corner/closet/drawer/storage container until I get rid of everything we don't need or use and everything that is left has a place. Today was bedrooms, tomorrow is living room and kitchen!

Oh, and I'm also planning on starting this challenge for myself tomorrow. I can't wait to get my devotion time back to, well devotion to my Jesus! Will you join us?

Flowers and pictures.

We spent our Memorial day holiday at the Botanical Gardens. I'd never been there before but it was gorgeous! I kept telling hubby over and over again that my grandma {who passed away in 2006 of cancer} would have loved it there. She was passionate about flowers. She always had a beautiful garden and lawn and I loved visiting her in the summers and helping her water them as she told me about each one. I decided to throughly enjoy it on her behalf!

I knew what several of the flowers where called because of her educating me as a child. Hubby was impressed! My absolute favorite flower is -who am I kidding, I have several favorites- but I really, really, really love peonies! {And we didn't get any pictures of them because my camera battery died soon after we got there.} I think I convinced hubby to let me plant one or two in our yard. He thought they were pretty neat before they bloom, they are these tight, small little balls. And when they bloom they are these big, fluffy and soft looking flowers! Ah, I just love them.





The actual reason we went to the Botanical Gardens yesterday was to have family photos taken! Hubby surprised me on Mother's day with a paid session with MckMama for yesterday. I had been telling him how I wished we would be able to schedule something with her while she was here {for those of you who might not know who she is, she is a mama blogger who lives up north and her family is on a summer long road trip in a camper headed out west! She is also a photographer by profession and takes amazing pictures.} We actually had a photo shoot with her last winter when she came out for a Focus on the Family marriage conference.

Here the kids are dressed for the pictures.  I made Little lady's dress. :)

The funny thing is when she came out last February Little lady was 7 months old and now Little dude is 7 months old, having our photos taken by her again! She recognized us and recalled us from the first time once we told her about it. It was fun to chat with her again. She is so good with kids {shoot, she has 5 of her own!} and we can not wait to see how the pictures turned out!!

Rainy days.

I guess when it rains day after day, they start running together. I am completely aware that I didn't get the little's updates posted last week. We've been enjoying just hanging out and playing together at home. Without even realizing it, I kind of unplugged us, the kids and I, from our media outlets. Less shows, Facebook, blogging, etc and just been together.

It's so refreshing!


I'm more naturally a get-out-and-go girl, but God is preparing me for a new phase of life. As we make the needed changes to become a one car family and continue to work on simplifying our life of busyness and media input, I'm so excited for the future of this little family.

Every time I think of ways to simplify our lives and focus more on being a family and what we can do to live and glorify the Lord! Because regardless if  the world ends tomorrow or not {only God knows, it's His call} our time on earth and in this life is short. I want to make it count!

So there may or may not be regular updates on the littles milestones, at least as the blog world is concerned. In the mean time, if you don't see or hear from us here, just know we are unplugged and hopefully on a family adventure, even if it's in our own living room!

Sew much fun!

My mama came to visit this weekend and we really enjoyed it! On Saturday hubby had to work so we went out and did a little shopping. Sunday was church and I went to help plan a baby shower and then we just hung out at the house. Monday we all {except hubby and little dude} had a bit of a stomach bug or ate something that didn't settle right. So Nana decided to stay another day.

It was a relaxing, enjoyable time! And the best part was I got some focused sewing time in while Nana had tea parties and played with the kids. We all got to do what we enjoy!

Someone my mom works with has a little girl who turned 2 this past weekend. I got inspired and decided to make her a little outfit!

Dresses like these and many other adorable things for your little sweetheart will be available in my shop by the end of this month!! I'll share more about this in the coming months!!

Wonderful Weekend.

What a wonderful weekend! I hope you all had a great one too.

Let's see, on Saturday we got up and around and went out to our favorite outdoor shopping center close by to snap some picture of the kids! Imagine my surprise when we pull up to the courtyard {that also has a ground fountain we enjoy through out the summer} and find that all of the flower gardens surrounding it are filled with TULIPS, all in full bloom. I was so excited because tulips are my absolute favorite flowers!

And they were gorgeous! The fountain was going to, which was also a surprise. Although I can see why, given our 80 degree weekend. Summer is just around the corner!!

The kids were in pretty good moods and we got quite a few great shots! Even though Little lady is in a phase where she doesn't mind her brother as long as he isn't touching her. That left little hope for a sibling shot.

After we took pictures, I spent the afternoon at our church helping put together rose bouquets that our mom's group sold for Mother's day to benefit a local place that helps single moms in the area. And we went to Saturday evening service as well, where I won the "Mom of the youngest child" contest! Every year they do a competition for the "Mother of the youngest" and "Mother of the oldest child" at each service. Little dude happened to be the youngest little dude there on Saturday night! I won a beautiful bouquet of roses and book!

Sunday morning my mother's day wish came true and I was able to sew for the whole morning!! I actually completed a little summer dress for Little lady! {All except for the shoulder straps which I still have to attach before she can wear it.}

 

I used the tutorial over at Make it and Love it blog! It was really simple and so very cute! I'm excited to make a few other adorable little outfits for her from a pattern book I found.

We also spent Sunday afternoon with hubby's mom and his aunt and we always have a great time visiting with them! To finish off our day, we went to the park and watched in amazement how much Little lady has grown since last year this time.

 

And Little dude had his first experience in the swing! He really liked it, much more than his big sister did at his age.

A little work out with daddy was in order as well!

What was the best part about your weekend?