Marchin' into Spring {at full speed}

We have thoroughly been enjoying the warmer temperatures March has brought, although I'm not sure we were prepared for the smattering of projects and activities that all seem to be happening at once! First off, we started a Toastmaster Public Speaking Class. They are offering three different classes with Kenan placing in the youngest one, Jared and lily in the middle, and Marcus and I in the high school class. It's a great experience for all of us, but when you start talking class every week and five speeches to write and practice in the meantime (between all of us), you can see that it has definitely added dimension to our school days! 

We also are in the middle of a remodel project. Yep, you read that right: we are at it again!! This time we took Kenan and Lily's room and made it two separate rooms, which means a new doorway, a new wall, and then of course painting, trim, light fixtures, and carpet :). Dad and the boys (along with the help of Don one Saturday) have done a great job and it seems to actually be going by pretty fast! We have one week till the carpet comes in and hopefully we can be finished with the painting and trim by then - except for why am I saying 'we'?! It certainly hasn't been 'me' :). 

This is what we've seen a lot of these past few weeks!

yes, this is our living room!

 It seems like we are always tearing something up to make it better around here these days. In fact, we have only one room in our house that we haven't touched: the upstairs bathroom:). This leads me to my next note worthy fact. March 4th was our tenth anniversary of moving to Fairbury! Can you believe it?! In a way it feels like we've just always been here - especially to us kids. It's a great place to be, that's for sure :). 

right before our addition of a living room in 2007

right after the finished addition. So much has changed, indoor and outdoor in these past ten years!!

our latest addition to the property... It's going to be really great this summer!!

In other news...

Serving church lunch soon calls for lots of baking, which in turn calls for test tasting, haha! :)

 Some sweet little visitors every now and again - we love extras! ;)

 A Sunday night at home calls for a fancy dinner, apparently! I was actually in Princeville for the weekend, but by the looks of things, it might have been worth it to stay home :)

Ahh yes, you are wanting the story behind this one, I presume. This is what happened when Jared knocked over Mom's decorative scrabble tiles and didn't know how to spell Salvation in order to leave it the way he found it... so, he improvised :).

 She found that a room with nothing in it echos and thus practiced her violin in one of the new bedrooms! :)


Another spring event that has consumed our time as of late has been our Easter Travel Supper! It is titled Power of the Cross and we are getting super excited :). We've been busy making costumes, practicing music and lines and just got together with the other families on Saturday for a big rehearsal. We hope and pray we can finish all of the last minute details at our upcoming dress rehearsal and pull off our two 'performances' all to the glory of God!! But, that's all I can say right now... :)

We've also started some seeds in the basement and actually threw in some lettuce seeds outdoors, too (There again, I can't say 'we'... ). Soon we'll be full swing in the gardening process but for now, we still plodding through school and trying to focus on Christ even when it feels like all other areas of life are spinning out of control :) - faith