Opening up shop tomorrow!!!

Well here goes nothing. . . I'm opening up shop tomorrow at Etsy! :) If you'd like a sneak peak, you should look at my new blog http://toasterstransformations.blogspot.com/ to see some of the items that will be featured tomorrow! :) I'm so excited.  Praying that God can use this for His glory!

Sneak Peak

Hello Everyone!!! I can't believe that tomorrow is the day I will actually open my very own Etsy shop, Toaster's Transformations!  I have most of the items up and listed and ready to publish.  It took a while for me to get the courage to do this but I plan on just enjoying using my creativity to hopefully help others.  Would you like a sneak peak of some of the items going to up for grabs tomorrow??? 

Really? 

Great! 

Here are some of my favorites!

This can be made into a hair clip, headband or pin.  Yum Coral!

Can be worn as a headband or necklace.  Perfect for those partly cloudy days.

Pure happiness to me.  I love these colors!

Finding God in the Little Things

Today I will be linking up with my friend, Laura from, Along for the Ride.  She has started a new series on Tuesdays called Finding God.

Lately I have been finding God in the Little things:

 like two little pink lines: 

Yep, that's correct, Aaron and I are expecting our first child.  We are ten weeks along right now.  We will be due in mid-late January. 

That following Saturday we went yard-saling, our friend James was in town and helped us to find a terrific crib, mattress, bedding set, and additional nursery items for $170.  That's a fantastic deal friends.  Do I think this was God's providence?  Absolutely!!! Neither of us have jobs right now (although I am still paid through August, praise God), so we can't really afford a lot of things for baby.  Our friend James helped us buy our crib set.  We are so thankful that he was here, that day, when we found that remarkable deal.  We also found some other great deals too! God is in the little things, like having friends visit at the exact right time. 

We came home from the yard sale to find this lovely package for me.

My awesome friend, Laura, sent me these earrings as an anniversary gift.  I absolutely love them.  You should totally visit her shop.  She has soooooo many wonderful things for sale.

I wear these earrings all the time.  I especially love the mum earrings in Green Tea.  I unfortunately have been terrible about taking pictures in them though.  :/  

So what Laura didn't know is she sent me a Happy Anniversary, Happy Pregnancy gift.  A small little blessing from God?  Absolutely!!!

Lately, I have been hit by morning sickness, oh wait, no not morning, all day sickness.  I don't vomit too often, but I'm nauseous almost all day, everyday.  Hopefully this will clear up in the next few weeks, but even still, I praise God for this sickness, because He is allowing us to bring a little child into this world that we love very much already.  Not every woman will be blessed to go through morning sickness, because not every woman can have children.  So I keep reminding myself to be thankful even for this time. 

I praise God that telling our families went better than we had expected.  We knew Aaron's family would be excited.  And they were, his mom jumped up and down and was super cute :).  

My family is full of worriers, so we were a bit nervous about telling them.  While my family is nervous, they did also seem happy for us and for that I'm so thankful.  I found God in my dad's smile when we told him he was going to be "pap" again.   This will be number 4.  My younger sister is really hoping for a niece this time.  We'll find out in January. 

So that's how I've been finding God in the little things lately.  How about you?

My first June Birthday :)

I told my husband that all I wanted for my birthday last year was a romantic date.  Well we kept having to put off said date for a very long time.  Then a few weekends ago, my husband had planned a wonderful birthday date for me.  

We went to Cracker Barrel for a very tasty lunch.

My handsome husband, sorry for the poor quality it was quite dark in there.

mmm yummy.

I love those apples and I need to get in the calcium. 

 Then we went to Perry Monument at Presque Isle State Park.  We really don't live far from here at all but this was our first time taking a ride on the Lady Kate, a boat that tours the Peninsula.  It was a terrific day. 

We read about the War of 1812.

Walked around Perry's Monument

took in all the fuzzies. . . the fluffy things that blow from the trees

enjoyed talking about our marriage

Once on the Lady Kate we got to see this lighthouse!  Pretty! :) 

No, that's not a pirate ship, that's the Brig Niagra

Isn't it beautiful!  Yup, we got close enough to see the people working on the ship!

On our way back to port we saw some people flying kites.

And this 1,000 footer barge.

Then we got off the boat and headed to Cold Stone Creamery to get some tasty tasty icecream.  Yum, Yum, Yum!

Then we visited Aaron's mom and sister, Courtney after that.  

What a great evening, what a great day, what a great Birthday!  Thanks husband!  I love you!

Guest Posting

Today I will be guest posting for Piper Post.  She has been featuring a series this week on how God has made us new.  You should check out the posts and be encouraged by how God is able to change our lives! We serve an awesome and mighty God.  He's got some great things in store for us coming soon! :)

My freshman year of college, my how I've changed since then!

Apparently I'm picky

Today I wanted to participate in the Inspiration Workshop from GussySews. This week the Inspiration post was on Kitchens. Well I've always been one to really like old, farmhouse feel kitchens with a nice little breakfast nook or maybe a table with benches instead of chairs. I don't know what it is, maybe because I watched 7 Brides for 7 Brothers too much growing up.

When browsing the Internet, I had a hard time finding things I liked. . . or perhaps defining what I like so google can find it for me. Here are some of the best ones to something I'd like that I've found.

Source

I love all of the light in this room.  It also looks like there is maybe a breakfast nook there by the bay window.  LOVE!!! I also still would really hope to receive the Peacock and Chocolate Fiestaware we registered for, and hopefully that would go well with this kind of color scheme.

Source

Now this, this I love!  Look at all that storage space.  And it just SCREAMS farmhouse to me.  The only thing is it doesn't seem like a lot of counter space.   We have NO counter space at our apartment. . . literally.  We have a small counter on either side of the sink, but they have ridges so not really good for doing much of anything.   So our table is our counter, basically. So I would love counter space. 

Source

This is WAY more contemporary then I would normally go.  But I like it and if we ever got those plates it would work so well with them.  Just Gorgeous!!! LOVE the backsplash, and it would incorporate Aaron's favorite color with one of my favorites. . . perfect right?

Well those were the three photos that I could find closest to something that I would want.  What about you?  Would you like to participate in the inspiration workshop?

A few weeks late

here are some of the pictures from Aaron's graduation.  These are LONG over due as he graduated May 14th.  But I've been a bit behind lately.  Unfortunately, I forgot to actually take pictures on my camera of Aaron and I and his family at the graduation.  Sometimes I just think, "Oh, mom unit has the better camera, I'll let her take the pictures."   That doesn't work out so well for me with blogging though.  Oops.

There were over 5,000 graduates there.  But over 10,000 graduating from Liberty University that day!

Randall Wallace, screenwriter of Braveheart spoke at commencement.  

Pretty butterfly (or moth) that we found at Shenandoah National Park on our way home.

 Also on our way home we went to Frontier Culture Museum, one of the coolest places I've ever been.  I LOVED IT.  Seriously, go to their website, check it out, then go visit them!  The workers are so knowledgeable about everything there. It was fascinating talking to them.     

West African Settlement of the Igbo people. 

A flax/linen loom in the Irish house.  The process to get those fibers takes forever.

A barn at the German house.

A goat for Sky :) 

My favorite part, the lambs that were just born that morning. . . yup, the workers have to help birth the animals, feed, tend to, shear (with scissors not clippers), and other such farm duties. 

Almost everything is made on site.  Look at that beautiful quilt!

Inside one of the American kitchens.

Isn't the cradle just darling?

And these aren't even all of the pictures that I could share from that day.  I fell in love with that place.   How could you not??? It's one of the ways God has been changing me lately is by getting me interested in history.  After all, it's HisStory.

When we left we bought some of the most amazing fudge everz.  SOOOOOOOOO tasty.  The man in the gift shop was so sweet and great with kids.  Then we went to get in the car, the battery was dead.  We forgot to turn off the lights.  So they helped us jump the car and we started the long trek back home.  We arrived home at 3:30 ish am.  I had to be up at 5:30.  It made for a rough next day, but it was ok.

What are some of your favorite places to visit?  Do you enjoy learning about history?  Have you always enjoyed learning about it?

Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful to be home from work.  It was just a rough day because I was stupid and wore shorts.  And the dog wanted outside all day.  It was too cold outside for shorts today.  I liked the temperature, just not in shorts.  I came back in and not even an hour later she peed in the mud room.  UGH!!!  2 year old was WHINY most of the day.  I finally rocked her to sleep.  So today I am thankful to be home.

I am thankful that I have a wonderful husband who right now is working on certification applications.  BOO they stink and cost $$$.  But it's ok.  God is good and will somehow provide for all of our needs.  Praying Aaron finds a job in this area though.  Not really ready to move yet.

I am thankful for missions week at church.  Tonight the Vietnamese church in Erie is presenting.  I'm excited about that.  Tuesday night we had an international foods dinner and talked about missions in Russia.  I can't wait until we decide what to send with those going in September.  I'm thankful that I have the kind of warm clothing that I need during the winter.  It's quite cold in Russia and some of the people working outside don't have winter coats, hats, gloves, scarves, etc.  So thankful for the blessings we have in the US.

I'm thankful for spending time with family this weekend.  We visited my family Saturday night and Aaron's dad Sunday into Monday.  It was his dad's birthday and so we made him dinner and I made cake balls (this time it was lemon cake, orange frosting covered in dark chocolate.)

I'm thankful for the Memorial Day picnic the McKenney's had.  I love our church family so much.  It was just a great time of hanging out with a couple of riveting games of horseshoes *cough* *cough*.  Still way fun though.

What are you thankful for this week?