My Ebenezer

Lately if Noah wants to compliment someone to the highest degree, he'll say, "You look like a king!" (whatever that means, but it must be good, right?). If I get dressed up for church, or fix my hair Noah will announce that I look like a king. Awww. Kind of made my heart melt until we went to the fair last weekend and he said the same thing.... about a PIG!! It had to be the hugest pig I have ever seen, and she had a pen-ful of piglets with her. Noah said, "That pig looks like a king!" Great. Thanks. Now I know that when I get dressed up, I either resemble a king or a very huge pig. Thanks, sweetie!

That's a cell phone in his hand. :)

"In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." Enjoy!

Saturday evening we needed a break from all the rehabbing and work projects, so we headed downtown to the Fair which happened to be in town for its final weekend. I had read a book to Noah earlier in the week about a mouse who went to the Fair, and ever since then he's been determined to ride the Ferris Wheel. It turns out in real life they won't let someone who is 36" tall get on the Ferris Wheel (you have to be taller), so that was a little disappointing, but we made do very nicely with the Kiddie rides instead. :) That was fine with me. Kiddie rides are more my style anyway (right, Rachel? The "Little" Dipper? Ring a bell? Inside joke.). They had an agricultural section with all kinds of animals, like these cows. Noah thought they were big and "smelly". Chickens! He loved that a few had laid eggs in their cages. Bunnies! The helicopter ride, which Noah begged to go on. Way cool. The following video is of Noah on The Motorcycle Ride. I also ...

Sadly my blog has fallen by the wayside again. Well, probably none of you are saddened by my absence, but I miss writing and journaling. This blog provides an important outlet and diary for me, and my ideal would be to post at least once a day. Lately that goal would be close to impossible to pull off so I will just have to be content to post when I can until this Living In Limbo stage comes to an end (hopefully soon?). Mom Rowley has been a tremendous help to us over the last week that she has been here. She leaves tomorrow for Connecticut. We have gotten more done this last week than any of the previous weeks because she has been here helping with Noah and even pitching in at the jobsite almost every day. Rehabbing and shopping at home improvement stores with a two-year-old in tow is not the easiest thing in the world to accomplish! If I am working with Noah there, I'm functioning at about 10% of my normal capacity simply because I am constantly distracted and having to re...

Today, as I mentioned before, I was able to take a stroll through Publix armed with my coupons for a blissful I-actually-completed-a-thought-without-someone-fussing-or-distracting-me shopping trip! Everyone should have a shopping trip like this at some point. No deadline. No interruptions. Just you, your coupons, and a shopping cart. Here's what I scored today for $16.40! That's: 4 boxes of cereal a 5lb bag of potatoes 4 cans diced tomatoes 2 jars pasta sauce 2 tubes toothpaste (1 regular, 1 travel size) Tylenol 2 packages ready-to-bake cookie dough 2 tubes lip gloss I could have done even better, except I thought I had coupons for some of the items and it turns out I didn't, but I bought them anyway. I don't think I'll ever do as well as my sister-in-law Melanie, who recently got paid for her groceries. **scratches head in disbelief** But I'm saving money over what I used to spend, so that's at least progress! Can I tell you a little secret? I don't do...

In Action is always the best way to describe Noah! Grammie took him and Brianne to the park today so I could do some couponing at Publix (finally!) and I joined them after I was done. These are a few of the shots of Noah I was able to secure in between his constant busy-ness. P.S. To my mom: The shirt on Noah is one of the ones you gave him for his birthday! He was excited to wear it today :)

We've made a lot of headway in the kitchen over at Cellar Cir. The floor has been tiled and the cabinets are in! Thought you'd like to see some of that progress: After the first coat of paint went on the walls but before tile. After Matt took pity on us and came over and helped pour concrete over the floor to make it level. It turns out, there was a SEVERAL INCH floor slope from one end of the kitchen to the other; a huge problem if you don't want your tile to be weird or your cabinets to be sloped. Laying tile on our newly-leveled floor. Tile laid! This was pre-grout. I'm wishing I had gotten pictures of the grouting process because I did most of it! After the cabinet installation (the drawer that's missing is actually laying in the cabinet on the left. We fixed it shortly after this picture was taken.) Cabinets installed! Now for the sink, countertops, and appliances! Stay tuned. One big piece of news is that we've been given a time extension on o...

Josh's mom is flying down here today for the express purpose of helping us out by watching Noah and/or painting or whatever we need her for! She's giving us her time for a week and I am so excited! These days I hardly know which way is up, as each day is busier than I can remember being in a long time and I fall into bed exhausted every night. I am so looking forward to an extra pair of hands for a week. :) Matt and Jen have been super helpful as well. Jen has watched Noah for me on more than one occasion and Matt took pity on us and came over and laid tile in our kitchen yesterday! Thank you, guys! I'll have to be better about taking and posting pictures. Right now I have a few pics of the tiling and painting that has been done, but I haven't taken the time to get them off the camera and onto the computer. In other news, Noah caught a cold yesterday, which has made things interesting with the work going on. I'm praying that he heals quickly and that none of...

Just wanted to show my "face" around here so you all wouldn't think I forgot about this blog. I've been so busy lately with the move and the renovation at the other house....but I didn't stop in to talk about that! I wanted to talk about the importance of staying focused on the Lord in the middle of a huge upheaval like the one we're going through right now. One of my regular readers, Jenny, commented on one of my posts not long ago reminding me to stay in God's Word through this whole process and not neglect my time with the Lord. Jenny, I stopped in to say You're RIGHT!! I did end up neglecting (short-changing would be a better way to describe it) my time with the Lord, because I didn't think I had time. And I suffered. My fuse was short, and I was becoming snappy and selfish. Those aren't good character qualities in anyone, but especially not in someone who has so much going on and needs to be Spirit-filled! It's in times like the...

Life has been BUSY these days. If I'm not packing up our house, I'm over at Cellar Circle helping out, and if I'm not doing either of those things, I'm fixing dinner or cleaning it up. That's pretty much the sum of my life these days! Sleep, eat, work at Cellar, eat, pack, eat, work at Cellar, repeat. But you know what? It's exciting! Today it was especially thrilling to see some color go up on the walls for the first time. Here's a pic of the kitchen and the living room so far (haven't cut in yet): Josh is unsure about the kitchen color because he's "never seen a blue kitchen." He thinks it will be too much, but I'm telling him that once all the cabinets, backsplashes, and appliances go in, there won't be much blue wall space showing and I think it will be charming. We'll see! I told him if he still doesn't like it after he sees the finished product, I will repaint it for him. This is the fun part of rehabbing! You can hav...

Josh and I got to go out on our monthly date night last night, thanks to Matt and Jen. We went to Ruby Tuesday and then to Lowes to pick out some light fixtures, vanities, and toilets! Can you stand the romance?? :) Seriously though, these are decisions that are so much easier to make when you don't have to tell a third of your party to stop touching things in the store! The picture is of us enjoying a few quiet minutes in the parking lot of Lowes. Hopefully there will be other date opportunities for more romantic outings!!

Dusty is the best word to describe our jobsite over at Cellar right now, though that simple word doesn't quite convey the full scope of what Cellar looks like right now. We're in the final stages of sanding the walls, and planning to start painting on Monday. Have you ever sanded sheetrock? No, I'm not talking about that time you had to fix a nail hole in the wall with some putty and you sanded that down. No. This is like nothing I've ever done before. Sanding an entire house creates a layer of fine dust about an inch deep that penetrates everything. Everything. Think baby-powder fine. I thought I'd show you some pictures just for effect: Dusty me. It's a good look, don't you think? No, that's not fog, that's dust. Josh might be in there somewhere! :) Let it snow! Even Noah felt compelled to help clean it up. Well, either that or he just loves machinery. You decide. Stay tuned for more pics from the jobsite coming this week! Hopefully it will sta...

What we thought would be a move to our new house on Cellar Circle "sooner or later" turned quickly into "sooner" yesterday. It turns out we need to be out of our current house by November 19, so we are shooting for November 17th as Moving Day. I don't know if you've seen the recent pictures of Cellar Cir, but this is about what the house looks like at the present time. EEEEEEKKK!!! We have a LOT of work to do, not to mention an entire house to sort and pack up. I better get busy!!!

Okay, so this is not the pumpkin picture I promised you. So what? I'll get on that as soon as I can. For now, this is one of the best sights in all the world to me: A sleeping Noah and his new best friend, "Curry George" patiently waiting for Noah to wake up.

We went pumpkin "picking" on Saturday to celebrate the first Fall-like day we've had! The closest pumpkin farm is over an hour away, so we ditched that idea and went to a church that offers loads of pumpkins to choose from. So no, we didn't pick our own pumpkin this year, but we did get to choose it! Can I just say how weird it is that last Saturday was 92 degrees and this past Saturday was about 62 degrees? But it is so wonderful to finally get out our sweaters and feel some cool air on our faces again! Jeans and long pants are a novelty to Noah these days since he can only remember wearing shorts and tee shirts. I went in to his room wearing jeans the other morning, and he said, "Mommy, what you wearing?" I don't think he remembers seeing me in pants all the way to my ankles. :) So Fall has finally come to Florida! I thought I better write that down. Pictures of our pumpkins to follow.

Awhile ago my friend Ruth asked me for my banana bread recipe, and I'm just now remembering and taking time to do so! If you like banana bread, this one's worth a try. Banana Bread 3/4 C sugar 3 large ripe bananas, mashed 3/4 C oil OR applesauce 2 eggs 2 C flour 1/2 C nuts OR craisins 1 tsp. baking soda 2 tsp. vanilla 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg Heat oven to 325. Mix sugar, bananas, oil (or applesauce), and eggs in a large bowl with a wooden spoon. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into greased loaf pan. Bake 60-70 mins or til toothpick comes out clean (during the last 15 mins you may need to cover the edges with foil to prevent over-browning). Let cool 10 mins, then remove from pan to wire rack. Enjoy! **Quick note: You will get slightly differing results depending on whether you use oil or applesauce. Oil gives the bread a richer texture (more cake-y) but increases fat in the recipe. The applesauce gives the bread a spongier texture, b...

We were making biscuits last night for dinner, and Noah was helping. He got a little dough on his hands and said, "Mommy, I need to wash my hands. I have biscuit juice on them!" Love it!!!

It has recently dawned on Jen and I that we should trade babysitting more often! After all, it's not much harder to take care of two kids (especially if they will play together), but it's TONS easier to get things done with no kids at all! The day after we got home from our trip to D.C., Jen took Noah for me all morning so I could "get my life back". I can't express in words how much more I got done without distractions! Today I decided to take Brianne so Jen could accomplish something. Here are some pictures of our fun: After folding a load of laundry, both kids decided to hop in the laundry basket! Quick clarification: I folded the laundry, not the kids. It will make headlines when the day comes that Noah can fold laundry by himself. :) He's almost too big for the "baby" swing. **Sniff** She looks tired. Happy, but tired! (Jen, did she take a good nap?) The Tube Slide. I never realized how orange this looks from inside. Both kids love it! Have I...

Last night we had our second Ladies' Fellowship meeting at our house. Again, the Lord brought us 7 ladies, though 5 had been to the last one and 2 were new this time (2 from the previous meeting didn't come). We discussed the first two chapters of God's Portrait of a Beautiful Woman by Dorothy Davis, which is really a great study so far. The chapter on trials (chapter 2) was a real blessing to me, reminding me once again that the Lord's plan is best. It seems I need that truth hammered into me at least once a week! I am very "prone to wander! Lord, I feel it!" After our discussion, we enjoyed some refreshments that various ladies had brought, and then we made our first craft together: a magnet for our refrigerators. Go to Jen's blog here if you want to see a finished picture of that. I find I just really enjoy ladies' fellowships. There's such a different dynamic that I notice when it's just ladies together. Of course, having my husband take N...