Things that make me happy..

• The kids and I are heading out west tomorrow but we’re making a stop along the way to visit my sister Gracie first. She makes my heart happy. Here’s the thing about age difference in siblings. It doesn’t matter. Well, I suppose with certain things it does, but once you get older it’s not such a big deal. Gracie and I are about 9 1/2 years apart. I’m the oldest sister and she is the youngest, yet we are probably the most alike. Weird how that works out, huh. I love her and I cannot wait to see her.
• We will spend a fair amount of time in my parents pool. We may come back as mermaids. Noah likes to say he wants to be a mermaid because he doesn’t like the sound of merman and quite frankly you do hear the word mermaid a lot more, so it probably does sound strange to him to hear merman. The fact that my children want to be mermaids is not strange to me at all. They love the water. 
• I’m going to spend some quality time with my sister Melody before she heads back home to South Korea. I feel like she just got here and I haven’t seen her much. Besides our sister’s wedding, she’s had, I think, four other weddings to attend or be in. That’s crazy right?  
• I don’t normally talk about our finances but sometimes it’s encouraging to hear other people going through the same stuff you are and know..It’s going to be okay. You can do it. Kris and I are continuing to make progress in paying off our debt. As of last Friday, we paid off a big debt and another big one is going to be paid off at the end of the week. We still have a ways to go but we’re getting there. I am so thankful Kris’s job is secure right now. Of course that could change, but you could say that about any job really. We shouldn’t live our lives in fear of the unknown. We made mistakes that were magnified when Kris was laid off here and there. Michigan’s economy was failing way before the rest of the country took a hit and we struggled. We’re learning though:) We trust each other and we trust God. I know everyone who reads this might not understand or believe this part of our lives and that is totally fine, but Kris and I tithe our paycheck weekly. There was a time where we weren’t tithing at all because realistically, our situation looked impossible to tithe. But that’s where being obedient and trusting in God comes in. When we started tithing again, things improved. And it’s not just giving the money that matters; it’s the attitude..Giving with a thankful and obedient heart, not ‘I’m doing this because I’m supposed to or have to.’ Anyway, some of you will dig this and some won’t. Umm, this was long bullet point, but something that makes me happy. 
• I did some mad cleaning yesterday. The vacuum part we ordered took a week longer to get here than we thought it would, so my house was literally a giant fur ball with an extra coating of stickiness compliments of Noah. I vacuumed and mopped all the floors, but the majority of work was done in the living room. We bought a new couch from my brother Seth. He works for Art Van and along with finding a great couch in the clearance center we got a family discount, holla. We also got back some of the furniture we let my sister borrow when she lived in Chicago and Ann Arbor. She couldn’t take anything with her to San Fran so we have our bookcase and an end table back. I cleaned and then polished all the furniture with coconut oil. It smelled heavenly. I cleaned the sludge off our windows, seriously Noah, and dusted the room from top to bottom. I did some rearranging and moved all the furniture back into the living room. I moved out the black entertainment center and replaced it with one of the end tables. We don’t have cable anymore so the end table will be perfect for the DVD player and sound system. All of our DVD’s are going to go in baskets in the bookcase. We picked up our couch yesterday and it looks great in our living room. More importantly, it’s super comfortable. I thought if I did bullet points, I could keep things concise and short, but when have I ever been able to do that. 
• The kids and I did mad cleaning in the room today. It looked like a bomb went off and it took a solid hour to sort through and put everything in it’s place or some sort of organized state of play. I had to stop every five minutes and talk to Noah. He was whiney and would start crying, “I’m too tired to pick up.” He did pick up all of his hot wheels and put them in one bag. Good job buddy. Izzie did a great job too. She was in charge of picking up all the Legos. They were all over the room, strewn about dolls and dress up clothes, hidden under toys and stuffed animals..but she had a great attitude. I’ll post before and after pics of the room. 
• Almost all of the dirty laundry in the house is clean and I have everything set out on the bed to throw in suitcases for our trip. It’s been quiet here because the children spent a few hours with Grandma and Bepa. They’re on their way back now. They went to George George Park and had a fabulous time. I guess they were climbing up everything like little mountaineers. They also had macaroni and cheese with pepperoni on top for dinner, weirdo’s:) I love them. I hope they sleep well tonight and maybe sleep in later than the crack of dawn.