It's official

Well it's official. We got the house! I know to many of you, having a garage is not that exciting but we are STOKED! We, and by that I mean Pat, is SUPER excited about not having to carry groceries up 3 flights of stairs anymore. We can pull in the garage, get out without getting rained on and be able to carry groceries right into the kitchen...YEA!!! I am so amazed at what God still does for us everyday. Pat lost his job, we had to be out of our apartment by the 28th and weren't sure where we were going, but we knew one thing was for sure. God's hand was in this and He was taking care of us this entire time. The easy thing to do would have been to give up on the house, be discouraged with Pat losing his job and just giving up hope and try to do things our own way but we constantly prayed and continued to be faithful and believe that God would show us where he wanted us to move. I can't tell you how much my faith has grown in the past 5 years. Pat and I have seen our ups and seen our downs and I'm so grateful that through it all God was there. He was there pushing us, He was there holding our hand and at times he was carrying us through. We are moving into this house within the next week, unsure of what God has planned for a job for Pat, but we are SURE that he has something and in His timing, Pat will have something amazing! We did our part so that God can do His and I am so excited to see what God has in store for us next!

NEW

Check out my new website thanks to a marketing class that I had, a lot of time and hard work and of course Jonathan Robertson!

www.harmoniousportraits.com

For those of you that don't know

We decided to go to the science center yesterday and have a little fun. For those of you that don't know, Pat just lost his job, so he's now on the job hunt. However, we have hope and trust in God that He will continue to take care of us and do great things! I uploaded some pictures from the Science Center:

Jehovah-jireh

Being young, having two kids and trying to finish up on school is tough. We don't' make a lot of money, actually combined we make less than $30,000/year. However we make it work and even though we don't have all the things we would like to, we still feel very blessed! We have a place to live, two healthy children, a nice car, and we have the love of our friends and family. Everything else is just the details of life. Every once in a while I feel overwhelmed, wonder where the money will come from to pay some of our bills but then I stop and pray and remember that God is in charge and He always takes care of us. Thinking back, I can not think of a single time where we were desperate and God didn't come through. He always comes through and usually in a really big and unexpected way. This year's tax season was no different.
When Pat got his W2, I started worrying a little bit since he claims "4" and they only took out $55.00 in federal taxes last year. I, on the other hand, wasn't having any taxes taken out because I didn't make enough, so I had them with hold $50/paycheck just in case. I didn't want to owe anything at the end of the year and so when I saw Pat's W2, I started stressing. I made sure to calm myself, pray and trust that God was in control and he was going to take care of this. I just knew we were going to owe money to the IRS and on top of trying to move (which is expensive), and working less hours (Sam's is cutting hours) and Pat's company is soon going to move to a further location which means more gas money and so on. These are the things that started going through my head. Thank goodness we are children of God!
For the past 3 years we have taken our taxes to The Old Tax House in O'Fallon. Even though our taxes aren't that difficult to do, they do a good job and honestly it's not something I want to mess with. I would rather pay the money to have someone else do them. Anyway, they have a thing where you can drop them off and then when they're finished, they call. To my surprise, I dropped them off on Tuesday and received the phone call that they were finished on Thursday. We went and picked them up. I about fell on the floor when I realized not only do we NOT owe any money, but the refund we are going to get is phenomenal. It is so true that you can never outgive God!!!