Overwhelmed

*I truly hoped you had forgotten.
 
This weekend, Justin and I headed out to go camping with our youth group kids and their families.  The girls went to Nana and Grandad's over night and everyone had a blast.  It rained, we slept on the ground (I slept in the van :cP), there was no electricity, and no running water, but we didn't care.  It was a great time fellowshipping with some of our closest friends and youth group kids.  God has blessed us so much with such an incredible church family.  Justin and I have toyed with the idea of going church hunting in the past, in order to find a group with more people our age (we are the youngest couple who attend Harvest, on average by about 10 years).  We kept coming back to however, the fact that it would be nearly impossible to find a group that believed the way we did, and that would be more supportive to us as a couple and to our girls.  We know that if we EVER needed anything, or were put in tough circumstances (which we have experienced in the past) that they would be there for us.  And that is hard to find in this world. 

One of our greatest blessings of the weekend however, occurred when we got home late last night.  We walked into the house, and instantly, I could smell the clean and knew two little cleaning fairies and their munchkin counterparts had been here visiting.  They had made mention a couple weeks ago of taking advantage of us being out of town and coming over to "help" get this house back in order.  I've been stressing a lot lately about getting this house on the market and all the preparation, cleaning, and organization that it's going to take.  Our house is small (only 925 sq. ft.) and that was just fine when it was just Justin and I.  But then you add 2 kids, 2 dogs, and a cat and all that comes with, and 925 sq. ft. suddenly feels very claustrophobic.  I am not the greatest cleaner in the world and must say that organization is not a strong characteristic either.  So, needless to say, my house is not in "market" shape- or anywhere near it for that matter.  Well, two of our closest friends came over and really gave us a huge start in the right direction.  They cleaned and organized over half our house.  The kitchen looks the best it's looked since we moved in.  I found myself, though truly thankful, also very embarrassed that someone would be that up close and personal with our dirt and *I truly wished they had forgotten.*  It's so much easier in life to give other's blessings, than to except one for ourselves.  Being vulnerable and allowing other's to see our "dirt" in all aspects of our lives, requires lowering walls and showing our most inner corners, behind our toilets and stoves, but also in our hearts.  I am so immensely blessed that I have friends that care enough about those "dirty" areas and are willing to see them up close and personal because they love me.  God wants us to have those types of friends, and He wants us to show those areas to Him too.  Because only with His help, sometimes through our closest friends, can those areas ever truly get clean. 

Love you guys.  Thank you.  (I promise, I'm going to try and keep it up! :cP)

Catch up

It seems like we've been playing catch up these past few weeks.  We've been so busy with church activities, family coming in town, Justin's work and mowing, among other random things that we frankly feel like we are just staying afloat.  All of these busy life activities have been fun and totally our choosing- well maybe besides work- but nonetheless they have been exhausting.  Last week we had Justin's parent's in town.  We actually flew Sue out here to be our babysitter for a couple days since our normal daycare lady was out of town.  Thanks to Sue and our dear friend, Nicci, Justin and I were able to keep our normal work schedules and not have to take time off- though I think that might have been a lot less stressful.  I love my days off.... We then had our youth group "Couch to the People" event last Saturday, which turned out to be a blast. (I've posted those entertaining pictures on FB if anyone is interested.) Then following the C2P event we had our church's annual barn dance.  It was also a lot of fun and Morganne  LOVED square dancing.  She even mentioned teaching some of the other kids at daycare how to square dance!  Pictures below....  This past week we had small group, I was fortunate enough to acompany a couple friends and drive to Colunbus, OH for dinner one night to surprise our dear friend, Lynsey, for her 30th birthday, and then our other monthly small group meeting on Friday.  Whew....  Today we just took it easy and did small fun things.  Nana called early this morning requesting a date with Morganne and picked her up and took her to see her first big screen movie- Yogi the Bear.  I heard she made it through intermission -about 30 mins. and then asked to go home.  That's better than screaming or hating the whole thing.  I think she liked it, her attention span just isn't there yet for movies.  Maybe in a few months.  Anyhow, off to take a snooze maybe while the girls are asleep???  Hope everyone has a great week!

I love this picture, unfortunately, when uploading to blogger some things become blurry.  I hope you can see the expression on Morganne's face when "peeking" around the other couple while square dancing.  Priceless...

How Kaelynn got involved in square dancing too....

Grandpa Fred watching over Kaelynn during Justin's softball game. 

Morganne and Grandma cheering for Daddy!  Not sure about Morganne's facial expression! :cP  I think she was trying to be silly when I took the picture...

Also, last week we had to say goodbye to some close friends of ours that moved back to New York to greet her husband who is returning home from a tour of duty in Afghanistan.  We took pizzas over and enjoyed a final lunch while Niki and the kids were finishing packing.  Sarah and her kids we able to join us too.  I truly wish schedules this past summer would have allowed more time to hang out with these two ladies. They are great fun.  And, check out all the cute kids between all of us!