a bit of life

Let's take a leisurely jaunt through the fascinating mind of a toddler, shall we?

Mission: usurp attention!
Stand by for breastfeeding session or rocking to sleep...
Troops mobilize!  Lower lip pout!  Hang onto leg! Go go go!

Exhibit A:
Rice.  Definitely NOT food.  Yeeeee-ugch

Exhibit B:
Paper towel roll with bits still stuck to it.  Definitely food.  Mmmmmm.

The wonders of the toddler mind never cease.

A new chapter

Here we are together again.  I have doubts anyone will read this post, but perhaps when we are further in our adoption journey someone will want to go back and read the beginnings.  So that's what this post is. 
   First I'll wrap up the previous posts.  In short, the house became "Living Acts", a place of intentional community where several of us lived and experimented with faith and life.  It was a good chapter, one I am grateful for.  We had our first child, Kian, in 2011 and Logan 2 months ago.  Before which we had moved to the house we purchased.  The Living Acts program had a beginning and an end, and now we are collaborating together with other area churches to form a new vision for the house.
  This is our next chapter.  We (Zack and Rachel) are pursuing international special needs adoption.  We have been praying and fasting about this calling for about a year.  Through a random post of a friend of a friend on facebook, we found Reece's Rainbow.  The need of the special needs orphan was weighed heavy on our hearts from the moment we saw "Susan's" (pseudomym) picture.  she was adopted in her country (which we rejoice in) but the plight of so many if her kind nagged us.  Now that we are settling onto a routine with our youngest, we are ready to pursue this.
   Stay tuned.  And pray, please.

garage sale

So... for those who didn't hear, the garage sale went GREAT! We were so busy on Friday morning that a few of us could do nothing else but accept money from willing stuff-buyers! The weather wasn't as nice on Saturday but we were able to make a couple hundered off of people wanting to come out of the rain anyway! We ended up making 1100 dollars total! (to be determined how to spend it!!!) Thanks to everyone who donated time, stuff, and more stuff!!!
way to go!

environmental pillows?

a part of this house project's line of thinking has been to experiment with environmental ways of living and alternatives to chemical baddies... so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the second cheapest pillows here at the Wal-Mart (the only place I could think to get pillows closeby) were "EcoTEX Earth Friendly Bed Pillows".  Cool, eh?  They're made with recycled water bottles, bleached without chlorine, are 100% cotton, and come in biodegradable plastic.  I thought it was rad and always like a good excuse to take a funny picture.

next door?

By the way... Here's the new floor!
And here's the latest project!

We removed wallpaper last week!!!  The entryway/stairway/upstairs hall has been stripped of the striped wallpaper of yesteryear and ready for a fresh new paint job!

How about the name Next Door?  It's one of the choices on the table and I think it's a front-runner so far...

PICTURE TIME!

Slowly sanding away our sanity.

Our most recent project has been tackling the hardwood floor we uncovered under the carpet of the living and dining rooms.  We (mostly Zack) spent all day sanding the old, belligerent varnish and aging off.  We used a large industrial sander and still had to get on our hands and knees and hand sand most of it.  But the good news is we are left with an absolutely gorgeous artful wood floor that will hopefully be varnished this week.  It is well worth the sore arms and knees!