God-breathed beauty mark

Life has been quite overwhelming lately. We recently found out that it is official that we have 30 days to close on our house. This means we have to finish the renovation of our living areas in the new house, pack and move in 30 days!! I have been an emotional roller coaster and suffering from short term memory loss these days- Im just not all there. So that all said, I have confession. I am the world's biggest worry- wart. I have struggled with this my whole life. Im sure there is some deep rooted psychological reason that I am always bracing myself for the worst thing possible to happen in every situation. Of course all the things I just listed are at the forefront of my mind when it comes to worry, but the biggest test of my worry stems from my almost-11 month old.

He is the most amazing child I have ever encountered and yet I constantly worry about him- from him not lifting his belly when he crawls to his light weight to his disinterest in food. The list goes on and on. The other day I practically admitted him to the ER after getting a stomach bug.
Today I was on the phone crying (of course) to a dear friend about all my fears and worries and of course she gave me godly counsel which encouraged and set me at ease. Wiping my tears, I hung up, and as I went to pick up Preson, something caught my eye. I looked a little closer and discovered on his little thigh what we in the south refer to as a "beauty mark". I totally lost it as I stood there alone in my kitchen holding my baby. I realized that it was God's perfect timing in waiting to let me discover this little reminder that my little one is beautiful. Despite all my fears and worry, God created him beautiful and perfect in every way. He created my baby boy and know matter what fears I may have, HE CREATED HIM, so it is going to be ok. Period. Not only that, but if I spend all my time living in fear and worry, I will find myself missing all the little beautiful things God wants me to enjoy as my little grows. I dont know, it was just a very spiritual moment for me- it was God talking to me through a beauty mark. As I continue in my adventures of first-time mommy-dom, I hope and pray that God will show it to me frequently as reminder not to worry and that HE is in control...


(This seems to be a recurring theme in my blog, I know)

.2009.

The year 2009 was the most wonderful year of my life. Since my husband and I were first married in 2002, we have had a very rich and fullfilling life together- filled with the strongest of loves, happiness and joy. God truly did create each of us with the other in mind. We never anticipated having more love in us than when we had our first child this year. It has changed our lives in every way for the better. I always knew I had purpose. I just never realized the extent of the purpose until now.

Every day there are hidden joys throughout that unexpectedly reveal themselves. Right when you think you have it all, God reveals a whole new portion of the spectrum of life to you that you never knew existed. It is a piece of the pie many had spoken of in my previous years, but I can truly say I could never understand it until it was. Preson Peek Phillips III. This child is our greatest blessing in the truest sense.

parallels

One of the things that made me fall head over heels in love with my husband was this lacksadaisical happiness he has to him. He always has a smile on his face, he is very slow to anger, he is a total goofball, usually is oblivious to when I or anyone else is upset with him- he just loves life and looks at the glass as half full. When first getting to know his family, they told me he was their "sunshine". They told me that from the time he was a baby, he has always brought joy to people through his gentle spirit. He is truly my sweet heart.

Every day I look at my son and I see my husband in him. He is just as happy as a clam the majority of the time. All you have to do is bat your eyelashes at him and he busts out the sweetest little grin especially for you. It is as though he knows it will make you smile if he smiles at you. He has a gentle and loving spirit.

Tommy and Preson connect effortlessly. It is a beautiful thing to have a man who's favorite thing in the world is to interact and play with his baby. He is constantly grabbing him away from me to squeeze on him.

I now have my very own- not one, but TWO sunshines in my life. Preson is my little Tommy.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Things are coming along very quickly with our new house. In the last 2 weeks we have cleaned every inch of it, knocked down walls, pulled down ceilings, pulled up floors, had a new roof put on, new a/c installed, electric is in the works and we have discovered some very cool features. We have had moments of giddiness of what we hope it will be, and moments of overwhelming discouragement when we run into more work than we anticipated being needed- which we actually anticipated happening.

This last Saturday, we had a team of people from our church community donate their day to us and this house. I mean to tell you they got down and dirty! It was such a blessing that it actually brings tears to my eyes to have such wonderful people in our lives to come alongside us to see this thing get done! We got about a week's worth of work done in a day! I dont take a single one of em for granted.

My mother in law came down about every day last week to help me with cleaning and it has been so awesome to just have her motivating me to keep on keeping on! She has been on board with this crazy idea of ours since we first told her about it and she has backed it with some elbow grease to prove it. My hubby and I decided that encouragement is definitely one of her gifts.

I am in the process of designing the kitchen. I am doing the entire kitchen from Ikea and let me tell ya, they provide you with all the tools for a DIY kitchen including trained people to assist in making sure you get it right. One thing I have run into is that the kitchen is much smaller when you put cabinets in than meets the eye- which I also anticipated. I am loving the design we came up with and am so excited to bring it into existence. In the meantime, I was able to get a couple of things for the bathroom. A rain-can shower head and this is the new vanity we got for our bathroom!

We have had a few setbacks. A couple of the ceilings we started to open up just enough to repair the visible damage from the leaky roof (shown below), has turned into a beast of a project (you have no idea). We had to completely remove the ceilings in both the kitchen and the bedroom. Upon opening the ceilings up we discovered that there are termites and mold in some parts. I was pouring my heart out to one of our elders at church the other day about the mold issue and he explained that he specializes in mold and is helping us now with getting it out of there! Wow! God is good! Its amazing to watch him take care of us.

Another shocker was that the electricians have pretty much demo-ed all the walls to get the wiring in the walls and to remove the old knob and tube wiring. We did not realize how messy it would end up looking when they were finished. Surprise!

In spite of all the stress, I am realizing that God has a funny way of giving us time-outs. I am officially at a stand still with hard labor on the house until the drywall work is done- which should be after Christmas. In the meantime, I have welcomed the break to do some design work, catch up on some christmas baking and christmas cards, and *HELLO!*- start packing up this house(!)

I love this poster and I have posted it up in my house as a constant reminder. Though not necessarily its intention, I am reminded through it that God is on the throne. He is sovereign and he knew every detail of my existence before there was time. It will all be ok. It will all pan out. I will not worry and fret, because I know my God will take care of me- even if I cant see how and it isn't how I envision him to.

God, thank you for this amazing opportunity and I give it to you every morning.

Each day his blessings are new.

Homeward Bound

Well, here she is. Our new home sweet home.

We are so excited to purchase our first fixer upper! We just recently closed on this house in Seminole Heights. When making the decision about this house, we walked away saying "no way is that house something we are ready to commit to"-It is not so bad on the outside, but the inside is a whole 'nother ball game.

We revisited the idea of it after a whole lot of prayer and lost sleep dreaming of the pottery barn, magazine-worthy home this house had the potential of becoming. It is 2400 sq ft and I am excited to see how God will allow us to use it to further his name. We know we want to have a big family- so perhaps this is confirmation? :) Not only that, but I cant tell you how many times I have wished to extend more than a sofa to a friend in need. I look forward to many bonfires, potluck dinners, parties and house churches.

From the moment we closed I have been over there cleaning it and trying to get it prepped for painting in the day and Tommy goes over at night when he finishes his work for the day. The "artsy" folks that lived there before had a very colorful palette and chose to paint every room a different primary color...The brightest shade of each primary color. In high gloss. The walls. The ceilings. The trim. The moulding. The doors- Everything.

The house has been vacant for about a year and a few of the neighbors told us that the last folks to live there were slumlords- basically about 15 people were renting from her and she just totally let it go- not keeping it up or making repairs when needed.

I never knew filth of this magnitude existed. I have been tempted to pressure wash the walls with trisodium phosphate.

We have about a month to get it in living condition and there are many things that need to happen before we can even think about moving in. New roof, new plumbing, new wiring, central heating and air, wall and ceiling repair, paint, floors, kitchen- everything needs to be done. We will basically be rebuilding the house without it being torn down- all in a month or two!

So hold your breath- here are the "before's" and of course I will be blogging as we renovate the house. Prayers are appreciated- we are going to need it.

This is the living room and dining room

The front porch was windowed in and divided into two rooms- The mud room outfitted with utility hookups and all- and a tiny room at the far end. We hope to open up the porch and restore the historic charm with large columns

This is one of the bedrooms. This is the room I hope to make into Preson's nursery/little boy room.
A bathroom right off of Preson's room. The tub is historic and cast iron (takes about 8 dudes to remove it) We will have to gut this room, replace the subfloor, knock down the wall (right) to extend this bathroom to make it bigger. The room we will be extending it into, used to be a second kitchen. This bathroom will eventually be the primary bathroom.
This is the 2nd kitchen- massive hole in the ceiling. This will be the other half of the bathroom reno I mentioned above. We will probably not even be able to start on this part of the house until after we move in.

This is the main kitchen...functional in no way whatsoever. There is about an 8 foot radius hole in the ceiling. The cabinets (rotted) are already gone and we hope to eventually open this wall up to the dining room (first pic- green) Can I say IKEA? Yes, please.

One of the bedrooms upstairs. We found some pretty decent wood under the nasty carpet. We hope to restore the floors and put a glaze over the top of it. Nice mini fan- and yes, this room is black.

The other upstairs bedroom. We crawled in the crawl space to find about 6 more feet of bedroom past the walls. So we hope to open the walls and expand the room. This is another part of the house we will not be getting to right away.
The stair way leading to the two rooms above. The ceiling of this landing was very low with several holes in it. Tommy pulled open one of the holes to reveal beautiful wood rafters and beams. So the ceiling is no more. We just pulled the whole thing out to expose the beams.

Tomorrow we get a new roof :)

Dont Waste a Day

This week, Tommy is taking a break from teaching to get caught up on some tedious church projects, work toward his ordination and to just spend some much needed quality time as a family. We spent the first 2 days of the week taking turns sleeping in while the other cared and tended to the baby. We have made it a point to just relax and do whatever tickles our fancy at that moment! We took an afternoon to go see the movie, "Where the Wild Things Are"- this was actually Preson's very first movie theater experience. It was interesting to say the least! :) Why did I ever think he would possibly sleep through the movie? And Tuesday we went on a beautiful drive to a highly recommended destination, called Barn&Stable (snaps for Cyndi for sharing this treasure with us!). I felt like I had taken a trip to Amish country. They had a christmas shop stocked full of twinkling christmas trees and scented candles. It was precious watching Preson take in all that beauty - and for the first time it sunk in, that this is Preson's 1st Christmas! I hope it will be so special for him!

After exploring the Christmas shop we had a picnic lunch on a veranda overlooking a pond full of lily pads! It was so cute- they bring you out a little picnic basket with your order!

There was a beautiful antique store with the most extravagant furniture and stained glass. We decided we would come back when our next house is renovated and replace the upstairs dormer windows overlooking the street with a stained glass one as the finishing touch! Before we even get started it is something to set our sites on as we venture into this new chapter of life. All in all, it was a great time of rest and fulfilling time with my family.

Little Peanut

Sweet Baby Boy.

Having you in our lives has completely rocked our world in the most amazing of ways. These last 8 1/2 months have flown by way too fast. Sometimes it is a little sad to see you graduate from one milestone into another. I try to seize every day-taking note and savoring all your little changes as they happen.

The last time we went to the pediatrician, I found out you were in the 1 percentile for weight, which of course I worry about way too much. You just dont have much of an appetite and every time we sit down to nurse or eat (really, from the time you were born), we do this little song and dance routine with each other. In fact when you are sitting in your high chair, sometimes daddy has to stand beside me with his silly faces, just to distract you to get a few bites in! We think it is hilarious that you just mindlessly "open up" when he is there doing this! I pray over you before we go to eat, that God will give you a hearty appetite and that no matter how little you eat you will be well nourished. You are my little peanut.

You creep around as fast as you can on your little tummy! You have been doing this since you were 5 months old and have mastered this little army crawl. Every once in a while you will get up on all fours and teeter back and forth only to splat out on your tummy again! I have about the most non baby proof home there is (changing every day!), so I just follow you around all day while you explore.

You are standing up on everything that is within your reach. What is so very sad, is that you have started doing this in the middle of the night and you dont know how to get back down. Its ok! Daddy to the rescue-though we are starting to wonder if we need to impart some tough love and let you learn how to do this on your own.

One of the funnest things you do is babble da da da da da whenever daddy comes around! The other day in bed, you rolled over onto daddy and in a very matter-of-fact tone, said "DaaaD". Though you probably have no idea what your saying, it just means the world to him and keeps us cracking up!

It is fascinating watching you explore every object that you come into contact with- slowly turning it in your hand and then on to your default sense- shoving it in your mouth. One day I will tell you of all the objects that I have swiped out of your mouth, but for now it is much too disturbing to share.

Among many other milestones, your starting to clap your hands; you are having major separation anxiety (thats a post for another day); your cruising 2-4 steps at a time; you can feed yourself finger foods; your developing quite the sense of humor and your starting to combine more syllables.

I am loving watching your little personality blossom. You are my best buddy and there is no one I would rather spend every waking moment caring for. I love you, Little Peanut!