My Un-Paper Towels

                VS
              (image source)                                    (image source)


With our move to Houston only five months away, I have began to think about what will be changing in our lives. One of the big and more obvious changes is going to be in our finances. Because of this, I have began to look for ways that we can change our lifestyle now and save money.

One way that I have already started doing scrimping, is by switching mostly to cloth. I made the switch to cloth diapers and wipes back when Luke was born, and I have always used cloth napkins for "fancy" dinners at our house. But, while perusing Pinterest I saw this post from "One Good Thing", by Jillee (awesome blog to check out if you are wanting to make your own products), to replace your paper towels with cloth! They are called "unpaper towels". It was one of those...now why didn't I think of this before...moments! I was immediately hooked.

I hate the idea of buying something that I can only use one time and then have to throw away. So this just seemed perfect for me! Now, you can buy unpaper towels already made! I especially love these and these on Etsy...they are so colorful! But, one of the big purposes for me doing this is to save as much money as possible.  So I started looking around at what I had on hand. I remembered that I had two birdseye cloth diapers left over from when I had made cloth wipes. I grabbed those, cut them to the size of a paper towel, and serged around the edges. Now you could leave your edges and they will fray a bit, but I wanted mine to last as long as possible, so I went ahead and serged them. It only took about fifteen minutes.

This gave me sixteen towels. Sixteen was good, but that would last me about...oh...one day, maybe two. I didn't want to have to wash them that often or worry about running out. I was just going to buy a new package of birdseye diapers, but they are $12 for 10 of them...which isn't bad. I just didn't have that much to spend on that particular day. So I kept looking around and found flour sacks at the Dollar Tree. Perfect! I bought five of them which gave me forty towels. Now that should be plenty. Hopefully.

These towels work perfectly! So much better than even the expensive brands of paper towels. Once I have used a towel I place it in the pink basket on my counter. Then at the end of the day, I empty the basket in to the laundry with the rest of our shower towels. If I am running low on clean ones, I go ahead and run a load of towels that night. It really has been so easy!

I am so excited to not have to worry about putting paper towels on my shopping list again! One less thing to buy when I go shopping...and that makes me happy :-)

What are some small things your family is doing to save money and resources?


Linking to Frugal Days Sustainable Ways

A New Journey

Recently I have been doing some thinking along these lines..."man I really miss blogging. But I haven't blogged in almost a year, and what if I don't keep up with it..and..and..and". Have you ever done that before? Had a mental argument with yourself? Well at the end of all my thinking and arguing I decided to give blogging another go.

However, I really don't like limiting myself to just crafts or stuff I make. I really want my blog to be about more. To be more of a reflection of myself. Not just the things I do or make but the experiences, journeys, and changes in my life. My hope is that in sharing with you, you will be encouraged, or challenged, or simply just laugh.

So I will start out by sharing with you our latest journey. My husband, two children, and I live in Oklahoma. We are very happy and very comfortable. My husband works at a church as the children's pastor and I stay at home with our kids. We love our life. We love the people in our life. For us, life is really pretty wonderful. Comfortable, is a great way to sum it up.

...but God...

It is amazing how powerful those two little words can be. Three months ago we would have never imagined how powerful. So here is the whole story...

Three months ago, close friends of ours from college called us and said they wanted to talk with us. We told them we could skype later that night, but they insisted that is had to be in person. My husband and I were pretty confused, but decided to make the drive to spend a weekend with them.

On our way to visit my husband and I were discussing the possible reasons why they would have to talk to us in person. I thought maybe they were pregnant again, but they had always told us that over the phone in the past. My husband decided that it had to be something job related. He figured that either one of two things were happening. That either they were leaving their church to go plant a church and wanted us to come, or they wanted us to come be the children's pastors at their church. (Our friends are youth pastors for a church about two hours away from us) Either way, my husband said, we were NOT doing either of those ridiculous things. We are happy where we are and love the work we are doing. Besides, there is still so much to be done!
NO, NO, NO!

...but God...

Our plans, are not always God plans. Our plans were to stay put for AT LEAST the next 5-7 years. Our plans were to continue ministering to the people we love here. To stay here. Little did we know while driving to see our friends, that God was about to radically change our plans and our lives.

Our friends told us that they were in fact leaving their ministry position, salary, and house, to move to Houston, Texas to help a team plant a multicultural church. They then told us that they wanted us to pray about moving with the team to plant this church.

Our response was...“But God you just don’t understand! We still have so much to do here! We love these people! We...we....we...we”

...but God...

To make a long story short God’s plans finally won out over ours. I can say that God has truly called us to help plant a multicultural church in Houston and we have fully surrendered to His will. We are so excited and scared at the same time. Leaving everything comfortable and familiar for the uncertain and completely different is going to be difficult to say the least. What will Chad do for a job? How will we provide for our two kids? How...how...how?

...but God...

Aren’t those two words so wonderful! In man’s eyes none of this makes sense. To leave a wonderful job, safety, security, comfort, friends, it just all seems so ridiculous. But my God is bigger than man, He is bigger than a job, than finances, than security! With my God ALL things are possible! And that is what we are believing Him for... ALL THINGS!

God will provide my husband with a job. He will provide us with a home. He will provide us with food. He will provide us with security. As long as we are willing to do whatever God’s will is, and not our own, we have no need to fear!

I will be continually sharing our journey with you all, to let you know what God is doing for the team and Advance Church. Please be praying for us as we step out on this great journey.

If you want to know more about Advance Church check out our website
http://www.advancehouston.com/

Two Years

Two years ago we were blessed with this precious little guy...

and now...



...he is growing up and becoming a little boy. I love to watch him learn and grow. To wake up each morning to his little face in front of mine whispering "mama..juice...". To snuggle with him and read "The Big Red Barn" for the fourth time that day. To play cars, and dinosaurs, and blocks all at the same time. To play hide and seek and listen to him ask his daddy "where go?". To hear him yell at the top of his lungs "Pana!!!!" every time he spots a panda bear some where. To see him bring his little brother a pacy and blanket when he is crying. To watch him eat the ketchup off of his plate before anything else. To watch him jump off the couch onto his daddy with no fear of falling. To listen to him pray at the dinner table then watch him throw his hands in the air and say "amen!"

Every single moment with this little guy is so precious. And I wake up every morning and fall more and more in love with him.!



















Thanks again to my wonderful sister Erica for taking these amazing photos!!

My 9 Month Long Project- COMPLETE!

I have been super busy lately...and have finally finished up my nine month long project :-)
He is cuddly, soft, and so incredibly precious!






























Big brother loves his "baby!" as he calls him. I feel so incredibly blessed to be the mommy to these two precious boys.

My wonderful sister took these pictures for me when baby brother was only 4 days old :-) She is so talented!