"Not For A Moment" Vertical Church Band

A month or so ago, my friend Michelle shared this song on facebook and I loved it and wanted to share too. It is a beautiful song to remind us God is always with us and will never ever leave us. What a gift!

Wait.Hope.Expect

A couple weekends ago, I was visiting my mother-in-law while Brent went hunting with his dad and brother. I noticed a magnet on her refrigerator that read: wait. hope. expect. At first glance, I didn't get it or realize what it meant exactly. Then the next day, I was there at the sink again and re-read it. A light bulb went on in my head! I get it!

{WAIT} was one of the first words I heard from The Lord when receiving our news and for many days after. Even now, just in different ways, I am finding out how to wait on Him. I was to wait on Him and not abort. I was to wait on Him with the decision about the doctor.

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." {Jeremiah 1:5}

Psalm 139 {The Voice}
13 For You shaped me, inside and out. You knitted me together in my mother’s womb long before I took my first breath.

14 I will offer You my grateful heart, for I am Your unique creation, filled with wonder and awe.
You have approached even the smallest details with excellence;
Your works are wonderful;
I carry this knowledge deep within my soul.

15 You see all things; nothing about me was hidden from You
As I took shape in secret,
carefully crafted in the heart of the earth before I was born from its womb.

16 You see all things;
You saw me growing, changing in my mother’s womb;
Every detail of my life was already written in Your book;
You established the length of my life before I ever tasted the sweetness of it.

17 Your thoughts and plans are treasures to me, O God! I cherish each and every one of them!
How grand in scope! How many in number!

18 If I could count each one of them, they would be more than all the grains of sand on earth. Their number is inconceivable!
Even when I wake up, I am still near to You.

We can't know exactly how this will play out in the end. Only God. We must wait on Him and trust Him always. He sees the big picture. I hear Him telling me to: {Wait on Me, I have something more in store for you and this baby. Don't end her life}.

God of Ages {Hillsong United}
You are the God who lives, You are the God who heals
You are my hope my everything
You brought salvation to us offered your peace to the earth
You are my Lord my everything
I'll trust in You

Next I heard {HOPE}. The first couple days were full of tears. I felt as though I couldn't breathe. An old song started to play in my head: Treasure {ShadoWalk}. The theme of that song and title of the album: "what's your hope built on?"

One thing's for sure, the storm is going to come
So I've got to ask you what's your hope built on?
Is it built on the sand?
I'm talking about things like fame, success, friendship, money and romance.
Or Is it built upon the rock?
'Cause in the end, that's the only thing that's for sure.
'Cause neither death, nor life, not the past, not the present, and not the future. Nothing under the earth, nothing over the earth, nothing on the earth. Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. {Shadow Walk}

On our first ultrasound, when given the news, our baby's gender was not reveal. But I was sure we were expecting another girl. We had the name Lyla but we had not decided on a middle name. That week, after our news and before finding out the gender, the name hope was given to me. The Lord gave me that name to always remember where my hope lies. In Him.

Song of Hope {Robbie Seay Band}
I will sing a song of hope
Sing along
God of heaven come down
Heaven come down
Just to know that You are near is enough
God of heaven come down, heaven come down

Lastly, I heard {EXPECT}. I feel like this part is both wait and hope. It's unpredictable for us to know the end result, how exactly this journey will play out. Only The Lord knows what lies ahead and we must wait, hope and continue to trust in Him because we know He sees the big picture. We know that for sure. We also know that however this turns out that Lyla will be healed, fully restored. Will it look like what I have pictured and desire? I don't know. We can expect complete healing but will my perspective and outlook on that look the same as God's perspective? Either way she will be healed but which way will reveal God's glory and power the most? To know this, we must wait and see. We can expect Him to see us through this, no matter the outcome. He has walked with us every step of the way so far and will always continue.

I hear Him keep telling me: Expect great things for me. Remember who I AM.

I love this song by Gungor. Or formally known as The Michael Gungor Band. His music has been a huge part of my life. He was the worship leader of the church I went to in high school on Friday nights. It has always had a impact on me and drawn me close to The Lord. This particular song speaks to me right now because I love the reminder of how God is making beautiful things out of us. That He is so great and mighty that He created the first man out of DUST. Seriously?! Have you thought about that? It just reminds me that He can do all things. He can heal Lyla, form her skull, put the pieces of her brain back together, perfectly.

Beautiful Things {Gungor}
All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth,
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come up from this ground at all?

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You

Remember Lazarius? John 1-44? Jesus raised him from the dead. Dead. Stinky dead.

Dry Bones {Gungor}These bones cry out
These dry bones cry for you
To live and move
'Cause only You can raise the dead
Can lift my head upMy soul cries out
My soul cries out for you

So we continue to wait, hope and expect great things from our God. He is good.

DIY: Upholstered Headboard

Back in February 2012 {yes, a year ago} or so, my husband was out of town with his family on their annual hunting trip. My sister-in-law knew we were looking for a kitchen table and happened to see some super clearance table tops for $20. Well of course, I asked him to stop in there on his way home.

As he was looking around, he stumbled upon a king headboard too. It was marked $20 but he talked them down to $5 because of some damage we would have to fix! Awesome find!

Well, like many projects it sat in our house/garage for 7 months before figuring out how we were going to put it to use. At first, we thought there was only a small gash that could be filled and restained or painted. But then we noticed one of the sleigh curves on the side was missing. It was going to be tougher then we thought to fix it and make look good.

A few weeks passed, I came up with the idea of creating a tuffed upholstered headboard. I did a little research and looked over pinterest.
Supply List:
Cost: $112*
*With sales and Joann's coupons

Do you know that there's a Joann's APP? If you don't have it, then GO get it! There are all the current coupons right there on your phone and they just scan your phone. How cool is that?! And did you know that they let you use multiple coupons at once?! Seriously get the app!

The How:
#1: Find an old, solid headboard that you aren't using or from goodwill or garage sale. Other sites used plywood. Reusing something is green. ;)


#2: mark and measured where you want your tuffs to be located.



#3: drill holes in board.


#4: cut your 2" foam to size and use spray adhesive to attach it to the board.


#5: use batting or an old sheet (the green alternative) to cover the foam and use a staple gun to attach to the back of the board.


#6: select your material to cover your headboard. I ended up using a set of two curtain panels I found at Home Goods. They were 84" in length and about 54" wide. If you decided to purchase fabric it would need to be at least 3-4 yards, depending on the size of your headboard. To have enough length on the sides, I had to have one seam and decided to put that right down the middle. Make sure you fabric is straight, especially of there is a design of any kind. Use staple gun to secure tightly. These will likely be temporary staples** and you will add more later. Use enough that fabric stays in place, 4 corners and center at least.




{tuffed top}

**I did not use temporary staples like I wrote in step 6 but it is something I learned that I should have done through my experience. If you want to staples all around, use as many staples as desired. I just ended up having to removed almost all my first staples once I did all the tuffing because there were wrinkles and the fabric needed to be pulled tighter.


#7: use a botton cover kit and make all your buttons. The instructions on back of the kind I picked were easy to follow.




#8: begin the tuffing process.



#9: pull material tight and finish stapling it securely to the back of the board.


#10: attach to bed frame.

Brother Sister Love

I love watching and hearing Cole and Claire play together. Their relationship has been blossoming over the last several months.

Claire is finally to the point where she plays with Cole instead of just around him. She loves her big brother. It is so cute how she looks up to him and does whatever he is doing. She dresses up in all his superhero costumes, plays sword fight, "hi-ya's" and all. Don't worry he plays babies with her too. :)


Cole loves to look out for Claire. He enjoys getting her up in the morning or from her naps. Their conversations are precious! I wish I could get them on tape somehow. Lately, when he gets her up, they end up playing in his room for awhile building forts with all their pillows and blankets.


Cole also helps set a good example for Claire. She definitely wants to do things her way but if she sees Cole do what we ask, she quickly follows.

Love these two! They are so fun!

Our First Visit

Last Tuesday {Jan. 29th}, we met our new doctor for the first time. The appointment went great and we left feeling at peace with her being our doctor. The Lord provided once again. I was nervous that day. Like I said before, I am not so great with change. So of course, I started comparing everything about the "look" of the office when we got there. It's older, less modern then the other. Does that make it any less better? No! Sometimes my mind is so silly about not so important details. The entire process of the appointment went well: checking in, the nurse, and the doctor. Everyone was sweet and kind. They did move alot slower then the other office. Not that is bad, just different. The doctor for sure moved slower, which is one of the best things about her! When she came in, she introduced herself and told me that she is here to support us and walk us through the rest of my pregnancy. She had received my chart earlier that day, so she didn't have many questions for us, but sat down in a chair and just talked to us and asked if we had any questions for her. That was a new experience. Brent and I always freeze when asked that question. We never know what to ask. But eventually we came up with something to ask her. Our other doctor was always saying things like "are you sure you want to put them through this?" Referring to our two other children. Our new doctor was the direct OPPOSITE. She was so encouraging about how loving and forgiving children are with babies. What a difference! We are beyond thankful to receive that piece of encouragement because that is a concern for us as parents with two other children. We want to protect them but we also want them to be apart of this journey. We were also told she was a believer from the peditrician who asked her to take me as a patient. There was not anything said in the appointment that directly confirmed that, but when we started talking about the birth, there was something she said that led me to believe that it was true. We discussed the possible outcomes of birth, which we knew but it was good to hear it from her and it was world's apart from our other experience. She simply and gently explained that babies with this diagnosis can be stillborn, live for a few moments, hours or days. "And sometimes they are perfectly fine!" That's exactly what she said! I feel like my heart jump when I heard that. I still know that may not be the outcome our Lord has for Lyla, but to hear her say that just made me know she believes alongside us that it's possible! And that is exactly what I had prayed for the week before. That we would find a doctor who would believe alongside us that God is able, no matter what her medical training tells her. She is very accommodating as well, such as letting me get my labs done closer to home. And we had questions about Lyla's appearance and she said for us to make an appointment for an ultrasound whenever we would like. They also have 4D in office and they fly a man in from Maryland to do ultrasounds. The appointment lady said "he's that good." So we get to see our sweet girl again on Monday {Feb. 11th}! Can't wait!