Moving, A New Home & A Dream Come True

After months of searching, and a truly emotional roller coaster I'm so happy to say that we found our forever home. We've moved! This past week and a half has been crazy, the story of this house is for sure one to tell but that will have to wait for another time.

We officially moved in December 1st, and we've been busy trying to make it livable and get ready for this baby's arrival all at the same time. Through this whole process we've been reminded of God's faithfulness to us, and it's been a dream realized since we lost our first home back in 2009.

I call this our "forever" home because it's the home we'll raise our children in, it's the one they'll remember first and it's probably going to be the one we'll live in for years to come. I can't wait to make it ours.

I hope to get a tour up in the next couple weeks, it probably won't be before baby but it'll be soon. We have big plans and ideas for this home. I can't wait to share all my ideas with you. 

#11 crossed off the 30B430 list, to see the full list click here. 

Come back tomorrow morning for a fun giveaway from PRINTCOPIA!

30B430: Celebrate my Husband's 35th Birthday in a Fun Way

My husband turned 35 this year, originally I wanted to celebrate with a gigantic party to celebrate the milestone. But he's not really into parties, so I wanted to do something that he'd enjoy and love. My parent's surprised him with tickets to the Oklahoma Sooner vs. Iowa State game. He loves college football and the Sooners are his favorite team, this was perfect. 

Friday the day of his birthday we took him to the airport so he could fly to Iowa for the game. His Sooners won, and that made me even more excited that he was able to attend a game and truly do something that was fun for him. 

#27 cross off the list. See the full list here. 

A Date Night with Carrie Underwood

Last week I turned 30. For my birthday Hubby got me tickets to see Carrie Underwood in concert. I'd known that she was coming to town for a while and was dropping hints for months about going. He got a baby sitter lined up and everything, so off we went to celebrate my birthday!

We haven't been on a date night since our anniversary in July, and we both agreed after such a fun night that we need to make going out once a month more a priority. It's always fun getting out of the house for a night, having fun together and remembering exactly why he's my best friend!

I've been a fan of hers since she was on American Idol, I remember voting for her. She puts on a really great LIVE show, if you ever have the chance to go see her go! It was a lot of fun.

My hubby and I have seen a lot of musicals and plays together but never in 7 and a half years together have we ever been to a music concert together. So this was an extra special occasion together. A great start to year 30, thank you Husband!

#5 completed on the 30B430 list, check out the full list here. 

30B430: Do 30 Random Acts of Kindness on my Birthday

A while ago I saw a post on Pinterest which brought me here. I was so inspired by her post about spending your birthday on others and doing random acts of kindness to celebrate your birthday. I don't know about you but I think kindness, manners and doing good things is just a lost art. People don't take the time anymore to do nice things for no reason.

I don't know about you but I'd love to challenge myself to bring more kindness into this world. Not just on my birthday but everyday. So for my 30th birthday I thought I'd start there, I challenged myself to do 30 random acts of kindness and spread this love & joy to others!

Kindness is free, it doesn't cost anything either. I kept my list pretty inexpensive for this reason. I wanted to show that there are plenty of things that you can do to spread kindness and love without spending a lot. Not that it's wrong to buy things for people to be nice but there's always a time and place for that I think.

Here's what I did on my birthday to celebrate and spread kindness to those around me.

1. I started the day giving away a shop discount over at my Etsy shop.
2. Left a note for the mail man at the mail boxes.

3. Left several notes in the women's bathroom with encouraging words to women & mothers.

4. Helped a sweet Mom at Target put back things on the shelves that her rowdy toddler knocked down, she was so humbled that I offered to help her.
5. Took back some stranded shopping carts and placed them back in the cart corral at Target.

6. Placed a few quarters at an arcade game for someone to play.

7. Put a few more quarters in the gumball machines at Wal-Mart.

8. Stopped to tell a Mom in Wal-Mart who's kid was screaming & crying that she was a good mom and that she was doing a good job. She cried and said thank you.
9. Paid for a nice lady's drink at Starbucks. She was floored and didn't understand why I wanted to pay for her drink, when I told her I just wanted to bless her she said thank you!

10. Baked cupcakes and gave them to my Hubby to take to work for his co-workers.

11. Took my neighbors trash to the dumpster for them.
12. Left a few quarters at the newspaper stand for someone to buy a newspaper.
13. Held open many doors for people every where I went that day Target, Starbucks, WalMart, the restaurant.
14. Left a bunch of $1 off coupons for someone else to use in the baby aisle at Target.

15. Gave the UPS man a bottle of water when he delivered my packages.
16. Picked up trash around my apartment complex.
17. Wrote a stack of encouraging notes to my friends and mailed them.
18. Told the lady helping me at Dunkin' Donuts that's she's always positive & has a great attitude. Because she really does and every time I go in she always, always has the best attitude!
19. Made some online donations to some of my fave charities.
20. Let several people on the road go in front of me that day, which if you know Phoenix traffic this is almost unheard of. :)
21. Wrote a note of encouragement to Ava's daycare teacher.
22. Helped someone in Target clean up the aisle when they ran into a paper towel display and knocked them over.
23. helped my neighbor clean their patio.
24. helped a lady at the store carry her bags to her car.
25. made a few phone calls about important estate stuff for my sister to save her time during her day.
26. gave our waiter at lunch an over the top tip for his great service to us.
27. sent a round of encouraging notes to my co workers, these ladies are so awesome!
28. I also gave away a free photo session from my photography business.
29. donated some books and toys to our church.
30. bought supplies for our church nursery.

To find out more about The Birthday Project click here.

Completes #2 & #30 from the list  

*update* I have completed all of the 30B430 list, but it'll probably take me till the end of the year to update the list and tell you all about each one. Bare with me, I can't wait to share! 

30B430: Have My Fave Blog Posts Put Into a Book

It's hard to believe that I've been blogging for almost five years! Writing in this space has meant so much to me these last few years. One of my goals this year was to take some of my fave posts and compile them all into a book that I could look back on and read over and over again.

No pictures. Just words.

My words about family, faith, obstacles we've overcome and the joy we've embraced during these seasons of life.

There's a lot of companies that do this for you where you can import your whole blog and they make you a book. I knew I just wanted a select few posts so I choose to do my book through Shutterfly. I did a regular photo book and just imported the text by copy/paste. This way I could completely control what was going in the book and how it looked. 

Plus Shutterfly is always running great deals, I got my book for $11 shipped. A lot better than some of the blog book websites I looked at. Twenty pages of my writing there in print was such a joy to have.

#14 crossed of the list, to see the full 30B430 list click here. 

30B430: Read Every Nicholas Sparks' Novel

I don't read a lot of fiction, most of the books I read are either inspirational, self-help, cook books, or parenting/child related. But, Nicholas Sparks is one of my fave writers. When I do read fiction his books are the first that I gravitate towards. 

So as a goal this year I wanted to finish off the last of his books that I hadn't read. Here's a list of the ones that we're on my reading list this year:

The Best of Me

Safe Haven

The Choice

At First Sight

True Believer

Three Weeks with my Brother

The Lucky One

This was the last book on my reading list and I finished it a couple months ago, just in time for the movie to come out on DVD. Books are always better than the movies, don't you think? But, it was fun to see the characters come to life and play out the story on screen. 

#26 Crossed off my list. To see the full 30B430 list click here.

30B430: Take Ava to see Veggie Tales LIVE

I've been wanting to take Ava to a Veggie Tales event since last year when we attended a local screening of one of their new movies. She loved it, and she loves singing along to their songs. It's amazing how at such a young age they can memorize the words to music and sing along. 

When my husband found out they were coming to Phoenix and playing at the GCU arena we scooped up tickets! 

With so many changes coming this year moving, and the addition of a new baby we really wanted to do something special for her before all those changes took place. It was fun to see her face light up and her expressions. 

Our little family at Veggie Tales LIVE

10.09.12

To see the full 30B430 list click here. 

30B430: Develop Better Eating Habits

One of the changes I'm excited that we've made this year not only for myself but also for my entire family is that we've developed better eating habits around our house. Small changes have added up, which makes this lifestyle change so worth it. 

One of the biggest changes we've made is buying organically. We've been buying organically a lot for the last three years, but this year we made even more changes to buy most everything organic. Buying organic can be a huge change for most people, but if you can't buy everything start small by buying what you eat most. For us a lot of that is dairy and meat. So that's where we started at first and it was an easy small change. 

Another change we've made is buying more fresh fruit and veggies. We buy fresh every week, and I love have fresh fruit and veggies on hand. It helps us to eat fresh even more when it's readily accessible.  We also eat a lot less processed foods in our home now. I'm cooking a lot more fresh these days and loving it. 

One tip that's helped us is to cut and prepped everything as soon as we get home from the grocery store. I take about 30 minutes to cut up fruit and veggies and portion them out for us for the week. A little bit of prep time goes along way in helping us to eat better. 

All of our meat is bought free range, antibiotic and hormone free as well. We don't eat a lot of red meat either, but that's a change I made three years ago and now my husband is on board as well which is great for us. 

I encourage you to do your research and see what will work for you. What changes have you made recently to make healthier choices for yourself and your family?

See the full 30B430 list here. 

30B430: Read Through the Entire Bible Again

Sharing another goal today that I crossed off my list: Read Through the Bible again. It's been a long time since I've taken the time to read the Bible cover to cover instead of just getting into a devotional and only reading certain chapters. 

It's been really great this last year to re read scriptures this year, and rediscover parts of the Bible that I haven't read in a while.

I used a One Year Bible reading plan this year to go through the Bible. You can download it here.  You can Google Bible reading plans as well and come up with a ton different plans. My advice is that these are really easy to use and very helpful to keep you on track and accountable. 

Also towards the end of this year I found She Reads Truth, which has been great to read along with other women. A great source of encouragement and accountability. 

If you're struggling today to read through the Bible on a daily basis I encourage you to start somewhere maybe small, print off a reading plan and get started. Use some of these great resources and get started. 

{Featured} Modern Mom Magazine

I'm so excited and honored to have an article in the new Fall issue of Modern Mom magazine. If you haven't heard of Modern Mom before it's an online community/website for Moms. They have awesome articles everyday for Moms to encourage Moms. Founded by celebrity mom Brooke Burke from Dancing with the Stars. 

My Article is called Five Things I've Learned. I'd love for you to check it out! Thanks to Modern Mom for this great feature!

The magazine is an online magazine that you can download and read from your smart phone or iPad and it's free to download a copy.

Click here to down load the app.

Ps- I'm excited because this officially crosses off #17 off my 30B430 list. 

30B430: Eat at a Restaurant Solo

#4: Eat at a restaurant solo.

I remember when I was writing this list and I shared it with my sister, after she read it she asked me;

"Why do you want to do some of these things alone?"

The truth is I've always been a very independent person, and as independent as I am there's a lot of things I haven't done alone out of fear. A lot of them being social things like eating out a lone or going to a movie by myself. 

I've always viewed those things as very "social" things, things that you do with your girlfriends, a group of people or your significant other. Not things you do alone.

The other truth, I was worried if I did these things alone what would people think? What would they say? Would they feel sorry for the girl eating in a restaurant by herself? Would they care? You get the idea.

Some of this list is about overcoming fears. As I've gotten older, and wiser I've learned a lot that I need to be myself and careless about what others think and feel about me. As long as I am pleasing the Lord with my life, the rest doesn't matter. 

A couple weekends ago one afternoon I was on my way to get my hair done, I thought it would take me longer to get there because of traffic but it didn't. I pulled into the parking lot and I still had 30 minutes before my appointment. I sat there for a few minutes not sure what I was going to do to kill time, then I saw a little pizza shop next door realized that I hadn't eaten lunch, I was pregnant and probably shouldn't go 3 more hours without lunch. Logical right?!

I strolled into the restaurant, ordered food and sat outside on the busy patio. Challenging myself to enjoy my lunch and not care what people were thinking. 

The truth is, I don't think people care. Generally I think most people are busy eating their own lunch and visiting with their friends to notice or care. 


It was a good challenge for me. A good way to get over silly insecurities. 


To see the full list, click here. 

30B430: Have Ava's Party Featured on a Party Blog

#16: Have Ava's Second Birthday Party featured on a party blog. 

I'm excited to cross another goal off my list for the year! I worked so hard on this party, and it was such a celebration of Ava and her second year that I wanted to show it off! I met Toni at SNAP! this past year, she runs a popular children's party & decor site called Design Dazzle! 

Ava's party has been awesomely featured on her site this week! Go here and check out the full feature. Thank you Toni, for sharing her party with your readers! 

You can view the original 30B430 list here. 

Ava's Special Announcement

Ava's has a special announcement to make. 

She's pretty excited about it.

Can't stop smiling.

Coming December 15th, 2012.

Peace out.

Happy Monday Friends.

*this also completes #3 off the 30B430 list. 

30B430: Stop Drinking Soda

Hi Friends! I'm back to share with you another 30B430 goal that I've crossed off my list! You can see the original list here.

They say that it takes 21 days to break a habit, this one was definitely a habit that I think took longer for me to break. Simply because it came down to will power. Which apparently, I didn't have enough of to start with.

#28. Stop drinking soda.

We don't keep soda in our home, so if I drink it it's because we're out to dinner. Or were at the movies, etc. But the problem was during those occasions I would have 3 or 4 Dr. Peppers during the coarse of one meal. Crazy, drinking that many calories and sugar not to mention. 

So at the beginning of this year I was set out to stop drinking soda for good. Drink more water, anything but soda. 

January, was a complete fail. I'd do really well and then I'd go to dinner with friends and again be back in my trap. February I started over. And this time it was for real! 

I've successfully been off soda since February. I'm drinking more water than ever, it's been a great and welcome change. It's been a good decision for me, and pretty much now I don't crave it or really remember the taste of Dr. Pepper or Coke Zero which were my regular soda go to's.

What about you, made any lasting changes this year? Broken an bad habits? Tell me about it in the comments below. 

30B430: Have Another Booth at a Craft Fair

I'm back sharing another goal I've crossed off my 30B430 list! I've been really wanting to stretch myself with my handmade business and grow it. And I really enjoy meeting people and seeing them excited about my products. I knew I wanted to do another craft fair of sorts. 

My church had a local fair the last weekend in April. I signed up a few months ago, and have been busy making lots of new things. Here's what my table looked like that day:

 

 

This was my second craft show, I learned a lot the first go around. So it was nice to apply what I learned this time and see improvements.

 

I'm excited to be listing and offering a lot of the items you see here this weekend in my Etsy shop: Worley House Designs.  Look for fun new headbands, earrings, and clips! 

And for a special treat we're having a Spring Sale! Use code: SPRINGSALE30 for 30% off your purchases! 

See the original list here.