30 Days of Thanksgiving, Day 2

Today, I am so mindful of what an awesome husband I have been blessed with.  For those of you who do not know, Travis and I work right across the street from each other.  And lunchtime is a real bonding time for us; we purchase lunches every Monday and then spend the rest of the week's lunch breaks chowing down while trying to get some meaningful (and sometimes hilarious) conversation in.  Today, we worked on some of our vinyl business to-do's and had a great time going to Hobby Lobby and eating at KFC!  Woohoo!  I am so thankful  for our lunchtimes together! 

Vinylicious Wall Art

Tomorrow, our new vinyl decor business, cleverly called Vinylicious Wall Art, will be setting up for our first craft fair!  We are super excited and have been prepping for the past week to get our inventory, booth displays, and products ready!  I will most certainly post pictures of our booth after tomorrow so that you can see it! 

We have been keeping pretty busy with our new little business!  Our website just went live this past month, which is super exciting.  Feel free to check it out at www.vinyliciouswallart.com!  I have been working on getting more and more of our premade designs online for purchase, so check back frequently! 

Thanks for all of  your support as we take our journey into operating our own business! 

30 Days of Thanksgiving

Today starts the wonderful month of November.  Fall leaves, brisk weather, turkey.  Wow!  I can't believe that we are already entering another November!  This month is, of course, a great time to remember our many blessings in life.  I will be posting each day of November with a short blurb about something I am thankful for. 

Today, I am so very thankful for good health.  I attended our annual Alzheimer's Association conference today and it made me realize how blessed we are to still have our memories intact, our bodies in fairly good working order, and all of our senses working properly!  Thank you God for blessing my family with good health. 

Lucas' Surgery

Please pray for Lucas, as he will be going into surgery tomorrow morning to get his adenoids removed and to get ear tubes put in.  He has been struggling with ear infections; he's had five rounds of antibiotics in the past three months.  He has pain, a stuffy and runny nose, and is my little grumpy gills.  We have been battling this sickness for three months constantly and his pediatrician finally said he's had enough.  We visited with the ENT last week and she wanted to get him in quickly, since he had just finished a round of antibiotics and was as healthy as he has been in awhile.  Yay!  So here we are, looking at a 30 minute operation tomorrow.  Of course, as his mom, I am nervous and a bit anxious about my baby boy being operated on.  I know this is the right thing to do, though, as I don't want these infections to cause permanent damage to his hearing or balance. 

I keep reminding myself, as Lysa TerKeurst would say: "if this is the worst thing that happens today, it's still a good day."  Although this is a bump in his health, we are so blessed for all that we have!  He is alive, without major defects, active, and the most smiley toddler I've ever met.  We are so thankful to God that we have the good health that we have.  So, if this is the worst illness that Lucas has today, it's still a super great day!  :-) 

Please pray for a quick recovery for him!  Thanks friends! 

God bless,
Alicia

Women's Conference and Adoption

Danielle, Angie, and I went to see Lysa TerKeurst LIVE in Pella, IA today!!  It was such a wonderful day!  Not only did I get to spend time with my bestie and new-found friend, but we were challenged by God's amazing words spoken through Lysa.  I have been leading these ladies through Lysa's book, Unglued, and it has been a challenging study for all of us.  I tend to show all four of the "unglued" tendencies, in my various relationships- exploding and blaming others, exploding and shaming oneself, stuffing and building barriers, and stuffing and collecting retaliation rocks.  Although not much that Lysa spoke about at today's conference was new information (because we have been going through the book already in the past five weeks), one story she told deeply touched me.

Lysa told the story of her adopted son when he still lived in Libya.  Simply put, she shared how her son only had one meal each day, but was asked one day to stand up and say why he was thankful.  He simply was unable to think of anything to be thankful for, because of the conditions he lived in and the dangers he faced.  Instead of professing a thanksgiving, her son stood up and sang a praise song to God, in the midst of his terrible circumstances.  The next day, the orphanage leader asked another boy to stand up and say what he was thankful for and the young child also couldn't think of anything, so he followed Lysa's son's lead and also sang a praise song to God.  Lysa's son joined in.  This happened each day until all of the boys were all standing singing praises to God; on that day, it just so happened that a person from America was visiting the orphanage and found a way for those beautiful-sounding boys to come to America on a tour to raise money for the orphanage.  The boys did do that tour and Lysa and her husband went to one of their concerts; that's how they met the boys that later became their sons.  Now, Lysa's church and community have adopted dozens of boys from that orphanage, changing the future for them and their country.  All this occured because one young boy sang praise songs to God!  Amazing!! 

Re-reading the story how I speak it doesn't come close to how powerful this story really is.  Lysa's words had a profound impact on me today, especially since I have felt for some time now God tugging at my heart to consider adoption.  You see, I have been praying about it and have even researched it online.  I bought a book about it (that book is on my reading list- see yesterday's post)... I have put a great deal of thought into adoption.  But I haven't acted on what I feel is God's quiet nudge.  Travis is open to adoption.  I am very open to adoption.  So, why haven't I taken the next step?   I make excuses.

I feel inadequate; I don't feel like I'm capable.  We don't have enough money to afford it; adoption could cost us over $20,000.  Our house isn't nice enough; it will be inspected and we will fail and get denied.  I'm too busy; I don't have enough time to devote to another child.  The list goes on and on with all the reasons why I feel like we can't adopt a child. 

Today, it hit me that none of those excuses matter to God.  If I come to God with obedience and a willingness to do as He desires, He will provide all those other things.  With His power, he can make wonderful things happen; I just have to be willing to obey Him.  Wow! 

I'm sitting here on my couch bawling like a baby.  I'm scared and nervous, knowing in my heart what God is calling us to do.  But I'm happy and relieved that I have finally come to accept that God will move mountains if I just obey Him.  Please pray for us.  Pray that Travis and I listen, obey, and move.  Pray that God opens doors for our family.  Pray that the right little person come into our lives at the right time. 

Here I am, willing and ready to listen to God's calling for my life...  Let's see what He has in store...

2012 Book List

 I have been doing fairly well with reading over the past couple of weeks!  I have devoted some time to reading almost every night before bed, right after I do my Bible Study for the day!  Yay!  I'm trying to get better about getting into God's Word and learning from others through their writing. 

• Entreleadership by Dave Ramsey
• The 5 Love Languages of Children
• Nonprofit Leadership in a For-Profit World: Essential Insights From 15 Christian Executives... Need to finish a couple chapters
• Unglued by Lysa TerKeurst... Finishing the last two chapters tonight after I finish this blog post, hopefully! 

Here are some books that are on my "to-read" list and I aim to read them in the next few months:

• Becoming More Than A Good Bible Study Girl by Lysa TerKeurst
• What Happens When Women Say Yes to God by Lysa Terkeurst
• The Adoption Decision by Christianson
• Boundaries by Dr. Henry
• A Woman’s Secret to a Balanced Life by Lysa TerKeurst
• Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow
• Am I Messing Up My Kids by Lysa Terkeurst
• Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman
• More Than a Hobby by David Green (Hobby Lobby Founder)
• Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall
• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• Let. It. Go. By Karen Ehman
• Point Man by Steve Farrar

Anyways, I just hadn't posted an update about how my reading is coming in awhile and wanted to share with you my new book list!  I'm excited to grow and learn through these books! 

Lucas' Room Is Done!!

We had a very productive weekend and it was the perfect way to start off a great week!  The rain put a damper on our Saturday, or we thought.  It rained all day long, but because of that rain, I was able to stay inside all day and work on Lucas' room.  I finished painting the tan walls and the closet all before 10 am, so decided I was motivated enough to tackle the red wall.  It dried quickly, so I finished the second coat right away.  Then, Travis and I decided a movie would be great while the room dried completely, so we spent a couple hours watching "Forrest Gump," one of our all-time favorite movies.  In the late afternoon, we decided we wanted to buckle down and get the room finished.  We dashed off, with Lucas in his jammies, to Menards to get the necessary supplies to lay the carpet.  Lucas was hungry by the time we arrived home, so we stuck him in his highchair and placed him so he could watch some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse while we diligently worked.  At one point, I went to check on him because he was too quiet and this is what I found:

After putting him in his crib for the night, we went back to work on the room and actually got the carpet completely laid before 10:00 pm!  We are carpet laying rockstars!  :)  Anyways, his room is done and we moved him in on Sunday afternoon!  We also accomplished the dreaded task of deep cleaning and re-organizing our bedroom and living room!  Yay for a productive weekend! 

Now, we just need to get trim made and put up and the living room and Lucas' room will look brand new!

Here are pictures of Lucas' new bedroom.  Of course, we have to add pictures and some vinyl art to the walls!  And this is the crib that he's using for now, until we decide he's ready for his big-boy bed!  Don't you love Lucas in his jammies in the background trying to peek into his hamper?!  Cutie pie!