Best.Present.EVER!

I think I have waited long enough to blog about this....I didn't want to right away because I tend to be strange about certain things (no comments from those who think me strange in all things! ;) and I wanted to just keep this close for a while I think.  A while back, I really felt God pressing in for me to be a worship leader of sorts.  At the time, I could play a bit of hand drum and I do mean a bit ;) and the tambourine and shaker and that's about it.  Good accent instruments, but lead instruments. :)  I tried to learn guitar 7 years ago when we lived in Hawaii with no success.  I was attempting to learn left-handed because I am and its more comfortable that way for me, but it really never panned out.  So fast forward to the recent past and God leading me into a place of amazing worship of Him and I picked up the guitar at the end of June, playing right-handed and have been going ever since.  Its been pretty fast-paced and I can play pretty much any song God puts on my heart.  Now, I will tell you that I can't bar to save my life...anything with Fs and Bs I steer clear of, but the great thing is I can just transpose it into Gs, Ds, As, Cs...you get the picture..stuff I can play.  I think there will be a time where I will really try to get proficient at playing chords I can't play right now....maybe. ;p  I also want to learn more about the instrument and all the technical terms and all that rigamarole, but I'm okay with that being a little at a time for now.  I also don't strum "normally" or play "normal" rhythm, but the songs sound the way I want them to and that's good enough for me!  Anyway, its been a very interesting so far and I'm loving that I can play while worshipping any time I want.   Its pretty neat!  God has just been so purposeful and gracious in equipping me this way and I'm really very honored and blessed!  I'm very excited to see where He takes me in all of this.  

Okay, now where my new guitar comes in is this...Sam has seen what God is doing with me with worship and he decided to full on equip and support me!  My husband is so great, people!  Seriously fantastic!  So buying me a guitar that is more suited for me was his opening move of empowering me:

Isn't it purdy?!  This is what Sam bought me for my birthday.  He actually bought it for me at the end of August and my birthday is not until November.  He wanted me to have it to play when I and several of the ladies of our home group were asked to lead the worship portion of a special service at a church in Copperas Cove.  I just love that about Sam!  He dreams bigger for me than I do!
Our friend Mel has a Big Baby Taylor and she let me play it and I just fell in love with it.  The wood and the feel of the guitar...just lovely!  I was totally smitten.  Add to that that she introduced me to Elixer Nanoweb strings...Oh, MY!  They feel slicker 'n' snot and they are truly lovely to play!
We had gone to San Antonio to visit and as usual, and with much gratitude from Sam and I, Juan and Donna sent us off on a much needed date while they spent alone time with the kids.  Sam decided it would be fun to go to Guitar Center there and just look to see what we could find.  They had a Big Baby in stock and I took it down and strummed on it for a minute and then... Sam found a MINI Taylor!  Oh, yeah!  I have very squatty hands with squatty fingers and short arms and it is difficult for me to play a full-sized guitar, so we wanted a smaller one for me.  Anyway, we ended up being able to get the same model at our Guitar Center here in Killeen.  I love it!  Plus, though its small, Sam can still plunk around on it and when the kids get older, if any of them want to learn, its the perfect size for that, too.  Its along the same lines as a travel guitar, but it has a full-bodied sound just like a full-size.

And yes, I did bling out my pick guard.  It was necessary, I promise!

Wow! Loving some Chipotles!

Sam and I really needed to spend some quality time together in a bad sort of way, so we decided despite near complete exhaustion and major sleep deprivation and really no excess budgeted out-to-eat money, we would go on a date after we drop the older three off at AWANAs.  (BTW, totally grateful for all the people that make AWANAs happen and available!  Thank you to all of you!)  We decided that we would finally go and try out Chipotles.  We walked in and up to the counter and the girl behind the counter looked at us expectantly.  I told her we were newbies so it would probably take us a few minutes to figure out what we want.  Another lady came up and took over and explained it all to us.  We ordered, went down the line telling what we wanted on our burritos and when we got to the register, I got my wallet out and waited to be told what the total was.  I was watching the total go up and stop just under $20, but she was still pushing buttons, so I waited and then all of a sudden it came up as $0.00.  I looked up at her and she said enjoy your meal.  My mouth dropped open and then I said, "Wha?"  She said that since it was our first time, they were comping our meal.  I said, "REALLY?!...Wow, Thanks!"  Then, I promised to blog about it. :)  God has been blessing us in little ways like that recently.  We've made some changes in the way we handle some things and we fully believe that in so doing, we've gotten ourselves out of the way and allowed God to do just that much more in our lives and this, I believe, happens to be a neat little result of that. :D  We prayed over our free meal and also asked for God to bless that establishment and the people therein and thoroughly enjoyed our date and yummy food.  Really like their chips, too, by the by.  Okay, just thought I'd share....  Chipotles, anyone?!

In the Middle, its a little fuzzy

I am right in the middle of trying to get Brea to sleep all the way through the night.  Sleep deprivation does not do nice things for me or Sam. ;)  Ailey, too, has been waking up during the night lately.  She hasn't slept the same since she got croup a little over a month ago.  I am not a fan of letting a baby cry through the night, but man am I tired of not getting any sleep!  So far, I have had the girls in with me so that Sam, at least, will get some sleep.  When both of us are on the sleep deprivation train, well...I'm sure you can imagine.  Its not pretty!  I did let Brea cry through the first part of the first night.  She woke up several times and cried and then went back to sleep on her own.  I fed her around 3 am and then she slept the rest of the night until 7, when Zekes decided to make his debut.  (Still working on that.  My children have not gotten the not-until-after-8am memo.)  Ailey didn't wake all the way up, but she would turn over and put her hand on me every now and then to make sure I was still there and then roll over and continue on with sleeping.  Not bad for the first night, but I was still working the lack of sleep routine yesterday and my attitude was having a hard time being pleasant.  So, I decided to watch the next in the Freedom Classes Foundational Series from Gateway Church.  It is LIFE CHANGING!!  I challenge anyone to go through them all and not come out of it a different being.  AND, that is exactly what happened to me yesterday.  As I made my way through the 3rd class, God was working a miracle in me!  Despite my lack of sleep, energy, motivation, self-control and general peppiness that I started out with, I ended up with all kinds of energy, patience with the kiddos and steadiness throughout the day.  I am so thankful that God gives so freely of Himself!  I truly needed to hear that message yesterday and I absolutely needed more of my Lord, Savior, Redeemer, Healer, Master, Creator and His joy in which my strength is found!  Praise You, Father!

Last night was even better.  Brea went to sleep and then Ailey and I followed suit and she slept until 5am!  Yay!  I fed her, put her back in her bed and she slept until 7.  I'm thinking the kids have a conspiracy to NOT sleep past 7.  Ugh.  BUT, I was soooooo grateful for the continuous hours of sleep last night.  Woohoo!!!!  Yippee!!!  Ailey did her reassurance routine and slept very well.  I am excited to see how tonight goes.  I want to be consistent for 5 nights to break the habits that have been formed.  Of course, I have been covering all of this in prayer, asking the Lord to HELP!!!  Tonight will be no different and today is going to be full of rejoicing!  I'm also excited to hear session four of the Freedom class!

Sleeping and Another Score!

I've caught Zekes sleeping on camera twice in the last week.

My mom has lots of pics of me sleeping throughout my years at home, but I don't tend to get my kids sleeping because I don't want to wake them up!  Its necessary for them to stay asleep! ;p  There is the whole issue of my sanity, you know!  Theirs, too, come to think of it. :)

Now for the score part.  I found this exersaucer on craigslist for $10!

Yep, I have an unabashed romance with craigslist! :)  But, seriously, $10?!  All I had to do was wipe it down and throw the seat and toys in the washer.  Yes, I did do that with the toys.  I don't have a dishwasher so I have to improvise at times.  Those delicates bags work wonders for lots of stuff!  The other kiddos like to play with it, too.  Not the delicates bag, the exersaucer.  I just got it yesterday and already it has been a rocket ship, a robot body and a trampoline for Zekey, a fun house for Ailey and Braden also got in it while the seat was still in the dryer and was being silly.  Good times!

I also found a crib bedding set on, yes, craigslist.  I had one from before Braden was born that my sister had gotten for me, but it had been through a lot and it was not really girly at all, so I had gotten rid of it a while back at my garage sale.  I decided that it would be a good idea to get a bumper for the crib so that I could have Brea start sleeping in the crib to get used to it.  (I want to transition her into another room soon.)  Well, I couldn't find just a bumper on craiglist and when I went online to see how much just a bumper was, the cheapest I found was $29+!  Seriously?  For a bumper?  I know you are probably asking, "Shelly, why don't you just make one yourself, since you are all up in that?"  Well, I will tell you why....I don't wanna.  I have other projects waiting in the who-knows-when-I'm-going-to-get-to-them wings and anyway, to go and buy the fabric and batting for it would still be more than $20+ with coupons and watching the sales.  (I just had an epiphany!  I may not be able to jump into the whole grocery couponing craziness, but I'm all about it when it comes to craft stuff and online discount surfing!  Yay!  Okay...where was I? Oh, yeah....) So, with that in mind, I will continue to justify my crib bedding purchase. :)  I had intended to see if I could get some bedding a bit at a time that would complement both Ailey's bed and Brea's crib.  I have never set up a nursery.  Never.  We never had a room set aside for a nursery.  When we had Braden, we lived in a one bedroom condo.  When we had Zekes and Ailey, we lived in the motor home.  Brea is the only one that has come home to a house.  Since we only have a three bedroom and I put my babies in a bassinet or pack n play right next to my side of the bed until they sleep all the way through the night...well, you get the picture.  Now, however, we have a girl room and a boy room.  I can at least get nice bedding for the crib for the time being, right?!  She'll be in it for another year or so at least.  Okay, so again, I found some on craigslist.  Here it is:




It will go with the sorta shabby chic thing I'm aiming for.  It came with the diaper stacker, fitted sheet, quilt, bumper, toy holder thingy hanging on the wall in the pic, the heart pillow, bed skirt and the bumper.  It also has a valance, but where it says on the package that there are two, I think they forgot to cut it and so its actually one super duper long one. :) The lady bought it, then had a crazy pregnancy where muted colors messed with her mood and never used it.   She paid $169 for it and I paid $65.  I talked her down from $75.  I'm thinking that was a pretty good stinkin' deal!  AND, in my tradition of tweaking, if I ever get around to it, I can make something else out of it all....if.  Or, I can just sell it.  Whatever. ;p

Score!

We got an Ikea Ektorp sofa fo' 50 bucks! and a Kirby 5G vacuum cleaner for...wait for it....wait for it.... THIRTY DOLLARS!!!  Yes, you read right, 30!  I need to get some bags and attachments for it, but THIRTY DOLLARS!!!  Just one more time: THIRTY DOLLARS!!!  Okay, I think I can continue in lowercase from here on out... ;p  A sweet lady from our homeschool group was needing to rid herself and family of some items and these two were among them and I swooped in like a buzzard on fresh road kill.  I'm not ashamed to admit it.  The funniest thing (as opposed to the usage of most funny in a recent, previous post) was that Sam was super excited about it.  He gets excited about things, but usually it is not outwardly visible.  It was this time concerning the vacuum!  I got it home and he went and got it and started putting it through it's paces.  It was funny to watch.  I think it will help to explain that Sam did a two-week stint as a Kirby salesman in our first year of marriage.  Though Sam is not in any way, shape or form salesman material,  it is a fantastic vacuum and its been our standard ever since and now God provided us the opportunity to have one for THIRTY DOLLARS!!  Apparently, I wasn't done with the caps button yet. :)



The couch was another interesting blessing/provision.  We were given a really nice couch when we moved in and we have been so grateful for it.  I was intending to paint the fabric a different color because it totally wasn't jiving with The Plan I'm working.  That, however would have been an involved process and lots 'o work.  I really wanted a less formal couch with a removable cover that I could wash.  Enter the Ikea couch.  I can get a custom cover for it from Ikea for a fairly decent price.  Anyway, I talked it over with Sam and we decided to sell the formal couch along with the two chairs that were also given to us for what it would cost to get a new slip cover.  I listed them on Saturday and sold the couch on Sunday!  I asked God if He would please send buyers for the items.  Yep, He wants to be involved in that stuff, too, folks!

This is the couch that we did have:

This is the Ektorp we have now:

God is not a wish dispenser, but rather he knows even our tiniest, piddley-est, silliest desires and at times when they co-incide with his plans/will for our lives He blesses in very neat, creative ways.  In addition to that, He blesses us for His purposes and I'm interested and fairly curious to see what will be required of us involving the vacuum and couch and most probably our house and generosity  (we've been blessed and provided for LOTS)...we shall see!