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!!!

2010 Goals (I know I'm a little behind)

Most people set their new year's resolutions at the very beginning of the new year, but here I am, a month late. Like the saying goes, "better late than never".

1. I want to lose at least 30 pounds by the time I graduate
- I plan on getting up every morning and working out at the fitness center
- I am going to eat less at sittings and make smarter choices about when I eat and what I'm eating

2. I want to run a mile in 7 minutes or less by March 1, 2010
- For those of you who know me, I tend to "run" a mile in about 10-15 minutes...ha, which is not really running at all
- Anyway, I plan on starting out at a moderate speed and each week I plan on increasing the speed a little until I reach my goal

3. Continue editing my resume and start sending it out by January 2011
- Work on it as I receive more experience with school and hopefully work
- Under the education section, I want to make sure that I include my GPA and my pending graduation date

4. I want to have my own photography website and business cards by May 2010
- Figure out how to upload pictures to my domain address
- add harmoniousportraits@gmail.com as my contact e-mail
- build my clientelle mostly by word of mouth (senior pictures, child portraiture, weddings...)

5. The most important: I am going to trust God more in everything I do and to seek His will in my life
- I don't want to rely on my own planning and my own will
- I'm going to read God's word daily and continue to pray about every decision

Upset

Well today we got the news that we most likely will overqualify to live in the house that we were hoping to get. It is frustrating because they figured in a raise that Pat could POSSIBLY get, but probably won't, so that put us over the top. They also based our income off of the bonus Pat got around Christmas time and made that a constant for the entire year which is about 50% higher than what he normally receives. On top of all of that, they took my two largest paycheck stubs and based my income off of those, which shows us bringing in about 50% more than we actually do. It's a bummer, but we know that God is good and as long as we are doing our part of the deal, He will do His. We are kind of on edge trying to figure out where we are supposed to go because in order for our apartment complex to confirm our rental history, we had to let them know that we plan on leaving. So we turned in a letter to our front office informing them that when our lease is up, at the end of February, that we will not be staying here. It's tricky because we're in a catch 22. The housing place will only refund our security deposit if we are ineligible to move into the house. If we withdrawl our application, they keep the security deposit, which is quite a chunk of change. So, even though we don't think we're going to qualify to live in this house, we have to continue with the process and let God do his thing. Since we had to tell our current place that we are no longer staying here in order for them to get the paperwork filled out that has to go back to the place we're wanting to lease the house from...well you get it...it's a viscious cycle.

We believe that God has a plan for us and that He will lead us in the direction he wants us to go, wherever that may be. I'm sad that we're probably not getting the house but I trust in God completely to take care of us, so I'm not worried!

Update

So if you didn't know already, we're trying to move into a house hopefully by the end of February. They are just waiting on some verifications and we should hopfully know by the end of this week if we are set to move. We will be in between Troy and Wentzville in a quiet neighborhood and we are SO excited! As excited as I am, I am not looking forward to the packing and unpacking part, but the overall outcome is going to be MUCH better, which makes it all worth it in the end! God is already blessing us and the first month isn't even over yet!

Yesterday, I went to get my hair trimmed and my eyebrows waxed and decided that Alaina needed a trim, too. She has this one curl in the back that always ends up tangled and knotted and so we had Trista cut it off and make the back a little more even. We also had her trim the front since it kept getting in Alaina's eyes. The front is a little shorter than I wanted, but it will grow out, so I'm not too worried about it. Since she got her haircut she looks a little older.

Update from the last blog post...since Alaina is now 2 years old and has all of her teeth, we decided it was finally time to take away the bink or as Alaina calls it, her "b". So she now only gets it at nap time and bed time and she has been talking alot more. Although the first 3 days or so were rough, she's been really good since! Now if you say "Alaina are you a big girl?" she says "No, I baby" because we told her that "b's" are for babies, so now she tells us she is a baby in hopes that we'll allow her to have it. No such luck but it's really cute to hear her say it!