Craft and Furnace Time!

In light of the beautiful, 60 degree weather that we are experiencing today, I thought I would share a craft project we did (we meaning Graham and I with Ellie playing with wooden beads). We are getting spring fever and are absolutely ecstatic with the hope and promise of warmer days.
In other news, our 28 year-old furnace finally had to be put to rest. In the past couple of weeks it has been overheating, causing a lovely burning odor to come into the house and shutting down. Finally I called a heating company to come out and look at it yesterday. What they found was a huge, gaping hole behind the burners. The flames were not being contained and the heating guy said that it is a house fire waiting to happen and that we have been pumping our house full of carbon monoxide. We do have a carbon monoxide detector in our home but they said that those only go off when there is a level that can be really dangerous. There can still be unsafe levels of carbon monoxide without the alarm going off so I guess it is important to err on the side of caution when it comes to furnaces.

Anyhow, we had to have a new furnace that was installed this morning (we used space heaters last night). A couple hours after the installation, I went into the garage and smelled a strong natural gas smell. Immediately, I called the company and they sent the same guy out who found that there was a crack in our gas hose in the garage. The Lord has really been watching out for us! So all is well at The Shire now; fortunately for us they are giving us a year to pay off the furnace without interest- yet another blessing. We have a lot to be thankful for as we go into this Easter weekend!

March Madness

For the past two years, March and April seem to bring about big changes in our lives, specifically in our employment. Last year it was Graham's transition from Crossroads to ServiceMaster and me starting my Arbonne business, allowing me to stay at home with Ellie as of October 2007. The year before that was the closing of The Little Gym and our getting hired on at Crossroads Fitness. This year is the same but also different in other ways. Graham got hired on as an Auto Adjuster with Farmer's Insurance after a very grueling testing and interviewing process! It feels different to us this time because it seems like a career that Graham is excited about and has a lot of promise in the benefits such as paid vacation (what is that?!?!?), a group health insurance plan (woohoo!), pension, profit sharing, retirement, and a company car! This truly is proof that when you wait on the Lord-as Graham is very good at, (and as hard as those waiting times are- especially for me) He knows the timing and has a plan for that which we can't even imagine!

As I look back on the past four years, after we moved from Chicago, I am amazed at God's faithfulness even in the midst of uncertainty and financially hard times. There is a lot to be said for those times when we feel completely dependent on Him for provision. The lack of control is an invaluable lesson in the fact that we are called to become dependent on Him and give up the false idea that we can be in control of our lives. As wonderful as all of the benefits Graham is about to get from this new job, we know that worldly security is fleeting and false. The only true security we can have is through the promises of the Lord, and I have been (and still am) in the process of realizing that those are more than enough! What a faithful, good God we serve! I am in awe.

I thought I would also share some photos of what we have been up to so far in March.

Sleeping (this is how El sleeps at night)

Holding Babies (Wyatt is Laura Ensor's new baby)


Making basketball cookies


Coloring


Learning how eat like a big girl (unsuccessful so far)

Eating cake batter (yummy!)

Good: Baby chicks

Better: Baby chicks at a farm

Best: Baby chicks at a farm supply store ;)

My husband vs. Rivaldo

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebs

They say that my hubby looks like Rivaldo?

This is weird...

I found this website through someone else's blog and just played with it for a minute. Basically they said that I most look like Kelly Hu- never heard of her. I didn't believe them so I decided to morph myself- if nothing else it is somewhat amusing.

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities

Influenced...

This past week, El made a perfect illustration of how things we watch (on TV in particular) can make a difference in what we do. She received an amazing Elmo's World DVD collection for Valentine's Day from Grammy Wendy (I think we, as parents, were actually more excited that we didn't have to keep watching and listening to the Pets one). Last Thursday was the first time she had seen the video below and had never had an obvious affinity to anything listed in the title. On Friday at breakfast, she kept pointing to the kitchen counter where the bananas were. I finally realized that it was a banana that she wanted- I happily obliged and she ate the entire banana (a first for her). At lunch, the exact same thing happened and she ate another entire banana. Finally, dinner came and I figured that I would be able to give her a pear or orange...boy was I mistaken! By then, she started saying, "Nana!" and pointing to the counter again. So, by the end of Friday, she had eaten 3 ENTIRE bananas...that has got be some kind of record, right?!?!? Which brings me to this video: thanks to Jeremy and Ashley for introducing me to this quite some time ago! Why not use technology to reinforce good eating habits?