Tickled Pink by Answered Prayer

While I am not finished with my posts on affordable travel, I have to interrupt the series to let you know that I am tickled pink. My heart is overflowing with joy. We have prayed for seven years and our prayers have been answered.

Let me give you a little background.

Remember this chair that I covered for my sweet friend for her nursery.

And remember this dresser that I updated for her nursery. After several years of marriage and dealing with infertility, my friend decided to pursue adoption.  After being on an adoption waiting list for over two years, a sweet baby girl came through the foster care system to live in this nursery in October of 2014. Her adoption was final in January of 2015.

Remember this chair that I converted to a swivel rocker. Four months after baby #1 arrived from foster care, my sweet friend  became the proud mother of a newborn baby girl that was adopted in May of 2014. She happily had two girls under the age of two. But wait. There’s more. My sweet friend appeared to be going through a physical slump last summer. She was tired, sleepy, and had no appetite. She attributed it to adjusting to motherhood to the two babies. Not being able to snap out of it, she finally went to the doctor. I’m sure you have figured out the rest of the story by now. My precious friend was pregnant! By the grace of God, she delivered a healthy baby girl last week! She is now the proud mother of three girls under the age of three! Our many prayers for a baby have been answered. Please join me in praying for my sweet friend as she recovers from a  C-section and adjusts to a very busy life. We are praising God from whom all blessings flow!

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21

You will have to trust me when I say that they are all beautiful babies. To protect their privacy, I have not included photos.

Have a wonderful week as we welcome spring!

I’m linking to Grace at Home at Imparting Grace.

Making Corn Hole Boards

My daughter and I finally made corn hole boards to enjoy this fall. It was quite a project but they turned out very nice. She found the information regarding the dimensions online which we used to build the boards.

We decided to use 1/2 inch plywood so that the boards would not bounce when the bags hit them. We used the top of a margarine tub to draw the circle for the hole.

Next we used a paddle bit to drill a starter hole.

Next we used a jigsaw to carefully cut the hole.

Next we screwed the frame together.

We added glue before attaching the top.

We also used screws to attach the top.

We used another container to mark the curve for the legs.

We used the paddle bit again to make holes for the leg hardware.

Then the painting process began.

We used a projector to trace the logo.

The painting process was the hardest and most time consuming part.

A scoreboard using golf tees was added to the end of one board.

We also used hardware cleats to store the measuring rope for ease in spacing the boards.

After many hours of tedious painting, the boards were complete.

Just in case you wonder, this is what our house looks like when I am involved in a project. So, this is what our house looks like most of the time!!

I’ll be linking to Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style.

Biking Through the Flower Fields of Holland

It has been a while since I have posted so I have a bit of catching up to do.  I have been busy on several non “blog-worthy” projects but I do have some fresh material to share so I hope to get more posts up soon.  One of my latest projects was a trip to Europe with my daughter. I’ll give more details later but today I am sharing our bike ride through the flower fields of Holland. It was a 10 mile ride and we were in awe at every turn we made. The weather was very overcast and quite chilly, hence the heavy coats in the photos. Thankfully, the land was all very flat so we had no hills to climb but the wind presented a bit of a challenge. We can’t imagine how beautiful it would be on a sunny day because we were swept away on an overcast day. This is a heavy photo post so I will let the pictures do most of the talking.

The area on top of this hill was a part of a golf course! Can you imagine playing golf through the flower fields? Many of the photos are not the best quality because they were taken while I was riding a bike so that I wouldn’t have to keep stopping!

I loved this beautiful home. It had the canal in front and was surrounded by flower fields in the back!

My daughter made a video of the highlights of our trip using a GoPro camera and added music. You can click here to watch it.  I’ll be back soon with more info and photos from the trip.

I hope that you celebrated a wonderful Easter as I did and that you are having a great spring!

I’ll be linking to The Scoop at Worthing Court and to Grace at Home at Imparting Grace.  Click the link for lots of inspiration!

Fun in Philadelphia

It has been several weeks since I have posted because I have been traveling. I spent 3 of the last 4 weeks traveling, then had to take time to catch up on my homekeeping duties (laundry, bills, and other fun stuff!!) One of the places that I traveled to was Philadelphia. I had not been there before. I went with my daughter to attend a conference and we had a little time to do just a little bit of sightseeing. Philadelphia is a beautiful city. We have found that taking a tour gives us a lot of info in a short amount of time whenever we are on a tight schedule. We opted for the Big Bus tour as we have in other cities. It was FREEZING cold, 28 degrees, so our tour was in a heated trolley instead of an open top bus! We didn’t do a lot of hopping on and off nor did we do as much touring by foot like we usually do but we had a great time never the less. We were told on the tour that Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures that any other city in the US.

We stayed downtown just one block from the magnificent City Hall which is in the center of town! I love buildings and architecture and this City Hall is one of the most magnificent buildings I have ever seen!

A 30 foot statue of William Penn stands at the top!

The statues and carvings around all of the windows and doors is just unbelievable!

Look at the little fellow on top of the pediment above! I would love to know the stories behind all of these figures!

Of course we also visited the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. The city is so historic!

I am so thankful that these historic sights have been preserved. The conference that we attended was in the convention center which was being prepared for the Philadelphia Flower Show the following week!  It would have really been wonderful if we could have taken that in at the same time! Any time we visit a new city, I always purchase a travel book to read ahead of time so I’ll know what we just can’t miss! I am so glad that I read about Philadelphia or I would have missed a treat! I read that Macy’s in Philadelphia is the home of a wonderful pipe organ. Somehow I underestimated the grandeur of the organ! It has 28,842 pipes and is quite magnificent. It was built for the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis before being purchased and transported to Philadelphia. It has been thrilling shoppers every business day since 1911!!! It is in the center atrium of the store.

An organist plays twice each day, Monday through Saturday. We were able to catch two of the mini concerts!

Organ pipes are on each of those seven levels going up although the Macy’s store is only on three of the levels now.The console is just above the shoe department!

At the end of the mini concerts, visitors are allowed to view the console.

Of course, we took the opportunity to take cheesy photos!

I am delighted that Macy’s has maintained and preserved this magnificent organ. I am including a very short video so that you can hear it but you can find several other lengthy videos on YouTube to hear more!

We had a great time and would highly recommend a visit to Philadelphia, especially for any history lovers!

I still have several projects in the works but as you can imagine, I haven’t been at home long enough to work on them! I hope you’ll visit again to check my progress!

If you would like to read my daughter’s take on the trip, click here.

I’ll be linking to Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style. Click over and visit for lots of inspiration!