Sickness has descended upon us.

First I was sick.  

Then Hipster was sick (still mending)

Now Ballerina is sick.  

I'm praying Josh is able to skate through without getting it. 

Ballerina wanted to just veg last night, so I let her lay in my bed and watch a movie.  'Up' was her choice.  Gotta love that movie.  

She was joined by a very snugly buddy.

Because of her fever, Kandee was huddling next to her to keep warm.  

Hopefully we can shake this sickness out of our house soon.  

Until next time~

Funnies on Friday

Don't you just love that moment when this:

Becomes this:

This pretty much describes last night.  :(

Photo challenge.

From a low angle.  

Look who's getting bigger!

Playtime outside for little Kandee.  She's getting bigger and bigger.  And now she's starting to loose her fluff and get the beginnings of actual feathers.  And her little peep is getting deeper.  It won't be long before she is able to move outside.  It's starting to warm up and her feathers will be in in no time.  I'm looking forward to it... I really want my bathroom back.  We need to start work on her den.  Always so much to do~

Wordless Wednesday

Such clever doodles.

Ten Years.

Ten years ago on this day, my husband and I decided to "date with the intent to marry".  We looked like this back then.  

Since that day, the Lord has taken us on an amazing journey together.  To anyone single:  Do not settle for what your eyes and emotions want.  Wait for God's best for you.  I didn't have to wait long.  I know I'm blessed in that way.  We met in high school.  But if you're waiting and you are lonely, I would just encourage you in that.  There is nothing better than sharing your life with someone who serves the Lord. Who will partner with you in serving Him.  Scripture tells us not to be unequally yolked for a reason.  As a wife called to support and submit to my husband, how difficult would that be for me if he wasn't seeking the Lord as to the direction we should take?  As a man, how can you be a spiritual leader if your wife's heart is not after the Lord's?  Our life together is blessed because we have surrendered it to Jesus. So, find someone who is serving the Lord in their life and I promise you, you'll be glad you waited for God's best.  Our journey hasn't always been easy, but with the strength of the Lord in our marriage, we have been steadfast.  

We were engaged that November, and married the following August.  We looked like this then:

Our wedding was such fun.  We had an amazing honeymoon on a Hawaiian cruise as well.  The Lord provided for us to have a beautiful wedding on a shoestring budget.  As we saw throughout our first year of marriage, the Lord is an amazing provider.  Our refrigerator came from someone we knew that picked up old fridges from people when they got new ones.  The Lord provided a washer and dryer that same way.   We had groceries provided to us many times.  I became pregnant with our first in November of that year and we had a beautiful daughter on our one year anniversary.  I tell her she was our anniversary present from Jesus.  

She looked like this:

This is Ballerina.  She was, and still is, our pride and joy.  She was a very happy and sociable little gal.  Because we were so close with our church family at that time, we've often joked that she had 10 sets of parents.  They say it takes a village and she certainly had one.  We had tons of great support, help and love from our friends and family.  It stayed the three of us for a while.  Time passed, not much changed, Ballerina got older.  

1

2

3

4

Shortly after Ballerina turned four, we set off on our greatest adventure yet.  We moved to Japan.  

The ways in which our time there changed and grew me is a whole different post, but I'll say that we grew together as a family in amazing ways that year.  We learned how to lean independently on the Lord and yet support and lean on each other at the same time that year.  While living there, the Lord saw fit to bless us with our second child.  

Born in Japan, meet Hipster.

After his birth, we felt the Lord leading us back stateside.  If your curiosity cannot be contained and you want to know all about our time in Japan, you can read about it here.

http://deanclaninjapan.wordpress.com/

He got older, tons changed.  We changed our home, bought our first house, changed churches and changed lifestyles.  We became more settled and homebody-ish than we ever were before.  We're still adjusting and settling into our "new normal", but one thing that has never changed in all that time is my steadfast, dependable, honest, kind, intelligent, understanding, hardworking and gentle husband.  He is my best friend.  My companion.  My confidant.  My hero.  I love him more each day.  I am so happy with our time together.  I'm so glad I married him as young as I did.  After all the adventure we've had thus far, we're still young!  We (Lord willing) still have so much life ahead of us to enjoy together.  I'm blessed and amazed that the Lord has given me such a wonderful gift.  I don't know what the next ten years will have for us, but I know that the Lord has great plans and I'm excited to discover them together.

Loving the Lord, and loving my life.

I'm so blessed to be your wife.

You're strong and courageous, honest and true.

I am so deeply in love with you.

Photo challenge again

These are fun.  This week is "Water".

Raised Garden Beds DIY

Wordless Wednesday

Girls are getting bigger!

My lovely ladies.  

DIY potting bench.

This past weekend, my hubs built me this super handy bench for my herb pots to sit on outside.  This is how I was storing them before he worked his magic:

It was very hard to keep Hipster from rolling them all over the yard... it's just so stinkin' fun, ya know?

So Hubby got right to work to solve my issues.  

He had scrap wood from the scrap section at Home Depot and some fence post ends.  You know... the cedar ones that you find in the fencing section.  

Lay two pieces down parallel to each other and nail your fence scraps to them like so:

This is what it looks like once you flip it over so that the long sides are on the top.  Next you will need 4 pieces that are the length you want for your bench legs.  Cut them all equal.

Adorable observing toddler optional.

Attach them with screws to the inside of your side pieces.  

Next, you'll want to reinforce the legs just a bit.  

We just nailed more pieces around the outside... Like a frame.  

Voila!  Easy Peasy Bench.

Thanks Hubby!

If you painted it, it could look a bit more polished.  I, however, prefer the rugged look.  

Good luck!

Followers

I think if I get to the 100 followers mark here on the blog, I'll do a giveaway.  What say ye?

I will choose something exciting and fun to offer up.....

This week's photo challenge

I like photo challenges.  They're fun.  I get to look at several creative and beautiful shots.  I love photography!  While I don't have the chops to do it professionally (too much pressure for me) I enjoy it as a hobby.  My camera is not fancy, I've never taken a class, I know nothing about lighting or composition, and I'm marginally creative.  That being said, I have a good time with it.  I'm just artsy at heart.  I love creation.  I love to freeze meaningful moments.  A good picture can touch your soul much like music can.  So with that being said, here is my submission for "Shadows"

Blog Party!

I love meeting new friends.  So when I heard about the Blog Party going on right now, I was genuinely excited.  I'm gonna have so much fun looking at the blogs that link up this year.  I couldn't decide if I more closely fit into the "Mom blog with very little product emphasis" or the "Religious" category.  In the end, I decided to go with the religious peeps!  It is Jesus who gave me my family and He is the one I seek to honor in how I care for them, so it seemed to cover me more completely.  If you have not linked up... head on over and make some friends!

If you're new to the Create Corner, welcome!

 I'm Regi and this is my family.

 I am a stay at home mom who loves the Lord, my family, my sewing machine, and my garden.  I have one amazing husband and two perfect kids.

My hubs is Josh.  He is a brainy/nerdy/outdoorsy stud muffin.  We've been married almost nine years.  He has given me love, laughter and my happily ever after.

Then there's Ballerina.  She is almost 8.  She loves to dance (hence the name).  She is goofy, creative, smart and strong willed.  If the Lord doesn't come back first, she will change this world.  She is my garden helper.  I home school her, so we get to spend a lot of time together.

Next is Hipster.  He spends his days attached to my hip (or back, or boob.... LOL)  He is approaching three now.  He is our Japanese souvenir.  He was born while we were living there a missionaries.  He loves Curious George and Fishie crackers.  His sister is his best friend.  I've made many friends through him... (Shout out to all my cloth diapering, nursing, babywearing friends!)

And then there's Ross.  We are in the process of adopting him.  He turned six in February.  When he comes home, we will have three kids, all of whom were born in different countries from each other.  Funny!

You can read more about our adoption here.

So that's me in a nutshell.....

We also have a dog, cat, 3 hens and one duck.  I'm a vegetable gardening, broth drinking, whole food eating, non-shoe wearing, babywearing granola crunching mama.  I treasure what I've been given by the Lord.

"何を するにも, 人に たいして ではなく、主に  たいして  する ように  ,心から  しなさい."　　

~Colossians 3:23

So go link up!  I look forward to meeting you!

Rain Rain

April showers bring May flowers

but they also pound the ground

Plants are suffering from the buffering

Puddles all around.

Progress

Coming along...

Wordless Wednesday

Goin' on today...

Yep.  Making progress is such fun.

Easter fun

Our Easter surprise for the kids (that we've been planning for a long time.  We're already backyard chicken owners, so this was not an Easter impulse buy that we're not prepared for).  

Meet Kandee the Khaki Campbell duckling.

  I determined her to be female myself... seems sexing ducklings is my new trick.  Here's to hoping I did it right.  (I'm pretty sure I did.)  We should get over 300 eggs a year from this gal later in her life.  She will be very happy in our garden pond that we're making her.  And she will have plenty of bugs and such to eat in the garden.  We're very excited to have her as an addition to our backyard flock.  As you can see, she is very friendly.  Ducks are more affectionate than chickens.  We are building her a house for when she is big enough to go outside.  Her house will go inside the chicken run and we'll close her in with the hens at night. During the day though... they have the run of the entire yard.  I'm really liking how it's shaping up out there. My hubs tilled the yard by hand with a pick.  He's a rock star.  We're using raised beds, but we had to loosen the dirt so that we could level and grade the ground before we put the beds in.  Here's how it looked all churned up before we graded and smoothed it down.  

So we're ready now to put the beds down, fill them "Back to Eden" style, and transplant the seedlings.  Then we'll build our pea tee pee and put the pond in for Kandee.  We're building our own pond out of an old fountain, so be on the lookout for that DIY.   

Here's Kandee again.

When she is full grown, she'll look like this:

Until next time~

><> Regi <><

Photo contest

Faceless Portrait