Blessings

We have been so blessed lately, that I just need to share.  First, were all the Christmas movies we got over the holidays.  I was wanting to get the boys some Christmas movies that were actually about Jesus and his birth and the real reason we celebrate Christmas.  Well, it kept getting closer and closer to Christmas and I ended up not having enough time to order any and just decided to wait and order some throughout the year in time for next Christmas.  Well, God totally provided because between Sam's mom (Meemaw) and my mom (Granny) we got about 8 new Christmas movies and all of them are about Jesus!  I only bought one, The Little Drummer Boy claymation one that I found on sale at Hastings for $9!  Isn't that amazing?!  

 Then, Sam's parents took Braden to meet my mom so that he could stay with her for a few days, which he LOVED! (Like I suspected, he didn't miss us at all....)  We also got to spend time with just Zekey, which we had yet to do. That was an amazing time, as well.  He's very different when he is not constantly around Braden and it was neat to be able to see and be a part of that. Because Sam's Dad (Peepaw) got the van window up, I was able to not only meet my mom half way to pick Braden up so she wouldn't have to drive so far, but I also got to go hang out at my sister's house for a couple of days and meet my newest nephew for the first time.  I also got to see my other nephew, my sister and her husband, whom I hadn't seen in over  6 mos.  Yay!  Then, while we were there she had this coat that she gave Zekey.  I had mentioned to Sam that Zekey needed a heavier coat because the one I had stored for him was in a different bag that I hadn't gotten out of the rv and I wasn't going to be able to go and get it before he was really going to need it.  Sam said instead of going to the store and just buying one, why don't we take it to God in prayer and see what He wants us to do about it.  Well, didn't He just work it out perfectly?!  How awesome is our God!!!  

Sam has also gotten days and hours off though they were on 7/12's and I can't tell you how much of a blessing and treat that has been for all of us.  God just totally knows when we need down time and its amazing to see Him work it all out!  Now, I just got told by Sam that they are officially going to 6/10's!  More of God's amazing handiwork!  I know this is long, but seriously, there's more... we also received a notice that we were going to start having lower payments on our mobile home mortgage, in addition to the cool way God has totally worked that particular situation out.  We got that mobile home when we moved from Hawaii back to East Texas.  We were completely provided for in many interesting ways.  First, we were given the gift of a place to put a mobile home for free!  Yep, my sister Jennifer's parents are so hospitable and they saw our need and didn't hesitate about offering that to us.  They had land that was already set up for a mobile home and they told us we could put one on there for as long as we needed.  How cool is that?!  Then, we went looking at mobile homes.  We decided against apartments or duplexes or anything of that sort because we would not have been able to afford it long term.  We found one that had been repossessed and it was the right price and very decent inside and out.  We ended up living in it for a year and were very happy there.  We went back out on the road and the mobile home sat for a while.  Eventually, Sam's sister Mollie needed a place to live and had bought some land and we offered her the mobile home at only a portion of the monthly payment.  Again, an opportunity for her and for us.  She was helping us to pay part of the monthly cost and we were helping her out with cheap rent.  She lived in it for a time and then it sat on her land for a while.  Then, after a time, Sam's brother and his family knew that God had a different direction for them to take and they put the house that they had built up for sale.  (God was/is doing amazing things in their lives, too, and this was just the part that merged with ours concerning our mobile home:)  They started looking at mobile homes and were gonna move out to the same piece of land that we had the mobile home on when we lived there.  (They had previously lived on it in their own mobile home for many years before they built their house and before we were blessed with the same provision.)  Well, since the market had changed so much, the mobile home costs had sky rocketed and the quality to cost was grossly out of proportion.  Anyway, what ended up happening is, they moved our mobile home on to the land, totally renovated it (There are parts that are still a work in progress.  It is very time consuming to do all that, but the stuff that has been done is downright gorgeous.  I wish they could have renovated it for us when we lived in it!;) and are buying it from us.  Only God would work all that out and have it be a blessing to three different families in the same family.  I hope that made sense.  Then there's the baby stuff.  There are things that I am trying out this time around, but pretty much I have all I need for this next little one.  We have enough neutral clothes for a newborn until we know for sure if this is a boy or girl and I have a husband who is open to and supportive of his wife's tendency to always try something new and different!

I wanted to mention here how honored I am and how very neat I find it that there are people in different countries all over the world that have read/are reading this blog.  I put that little map on here just out of curiosity and I have just been so surprised!  I hope you are being blessed and encouraged and hopefully even getting an occasional laugh or two from this blog no matter where you are!  Thanks for reading. Your interest blesses me more than you know. :D

I also wanted to keep you posted on the progress of the diapers and wipes.  The wipes have turned out just fine and dandy.  I made 22 already and have another bazillion cut out that I need to stitch around the edges.  The diapers, as previously stated, were starting out as a huge frustration due to my ignorance of how to sew a welt pocket.  Well, I did go online and found another video showing how to do the welt pocket and bam! it made sense!  So, off I went to sew the first of my welt pockets.  I did it exactly the way she showed in the video and lo and behold, it looked NOTHING like the pictures or the actual diaper that I got off of the auction!  I was pretty irritated at this point and just couldn't fathom why my pocket didn't look like it was supposed to.  Why, why, why?????!!!!!  Then, I went back to the instructions which I had read over several times, but the wording wasn't making sense to my backward brain.  Well, this time when I read over them again, I noticed that she does her pockets a little bit differently and I had missed several steps completely.  Go figure, it was there in the instructions all along!  All I had to do was follow them...and totally mess up my first diaper and watch two different videos and get very irritated that I did it wrong.....  You know, the usual!:p  So, after completely screwing up the first welt pocket, I had great success with the other two.  I also decided that even though the first diaper looks totally wrong, its still functional and I'm going to use it anyway.  I went ahead and completed it and another one and the third will be even better.  The more I make, the better they should look.  That's my hope anyway.  This was also my first time working with elastic.  The diapers have elastic in the back and around the leg areas.  That was also a learning experience.  After I sewed mine up, I checked the one that I ordered and noticed that you couldn't see any of her stitches down the elastic.   The pattern calls for you to sew a broken zig zag stitch while stretching the elastic.  That was a very difficult part for me because of the way you have to do it according to the instructions, but I did do it and you can totally see my stitches.  Well, the more I thought about it the more I came to realize that the one that I had ordered didn't have stitches down the length of the elastic.  She just anchored both ends and then hemmed it in like it would be around a waist band or the like.  The more I realized that, the more I liked that idea and now will be implementing that sewing technique instead.  So much easier!!!!  Okay, enough about my sewing adventures and trials.  Here are pics of the finished products:

These are the wipes made out of the flannel we intended to use for Christmas pajama pants.

This is my first attempt at the diaper.

This would be the welt pocket wanna be...

This is the diaper in its folded state.

This is the diaper that I bought off of ebay so that I would have a tangible example to go by.

Notice the correctly done welt pocket.  Yeah, big difference!

Here is attempt #2 after the confusion and frustration went away and revelation dawned...

Notice the welt pocket in all of its correctness?  Woo-hoo!  Success!!  I also was successful on the welt pocket on the third diaper, but I haven't put the elastic in it or the finishing touches, so no pics yet.

And here they all are in their photo finale!