Little blessings

I don't pause to think of it often, but I am so blessed to have healthy, growing, kiddos. Gabi is currently in the "I can at least try to do it myself" developmental stage. This is a picture of her taking a bath. Yes, the water is on, the toys are in place, even the shampoo is in readiness... however, when you are almost two, you may forget a little thing or to like taking clothes and diapers off. But hey, what is a little thing like that? It saves mommy having to wash them. She also has decided that now that she is a big girl she really should start using a pacifier. I have started throwing them away as I see them. There is no way I'm going to let her start developing that habit at this late date.

My little mop head is proudly showing you her owie on her lip. You can barely see it on the left hand side. The blessing comes in the fact that it isn't much worse. We were at the beach yesterday throwing rocks. I didn't see it happen, but my understanding is that Karis threw a good sized rock. Instead of going out into the water as planned it went up and came back down on her lip. I am grateful she has all her teeth intact and no eyeballs are missing.
This one doesn't even need an explanation, but I'll give it anyway. The plant is feeling blessed to have me as it's owner and still be alive. I think it has given me enough confidence to attempt some flowers in a pot next year. Karis is thrilled.

Two weeks ago, or so, Dustin got into an accident.

Thankfully not his fault.

As accidents go, it was fairly minor. A van pulled out directly in front of him, he slammed on his brakes, but with the rain and the lack of time he slid the right side of the car along the vans bumper. The van was barely damaged, our car however is currently residing in the junk yard nursing a broken axel.

Now, the taurus itself was no great loss. It had some car disease that acted up in cold weather. I'm serious. When it gets cold, the power steering goes bad. When it is warm out, it works like a charm. Don't ask me, I'm just repeating what I was told. All that to say, we knew my car was dying. But we were hoping we could hold onto it for a little bit longer. After all, between my health, the remodel, and the basement, there is precious little money to spend on a car.

The insurance money came to $2,600. Better then if we had sold it, but not buying much of anything, especially with the cash for clunkers going on. Blast the government. Not a decent clunker to be found. Dustin spent a discouraging day looking at vehicles with around 130-150 thousand miles on them. Pieces of junk. We were pretty discouraged when a man from church who works with used cars gave us a call. He had just bought another taurus ( I guess it is our lot in life to own these) and we could have it, tax, title, and license for $2,500. The best part? It only has 68,000 miles on it. Half of what our old one had. God is good. No, it's not flashy, and no, it doesn't have power locks, but you know what? We don't care. It runs, the power steering works, and it was under our budget. God knew our old one was dying with no money to replace it and He took care of it. Now.... just wait till the Honda gets about a 100,000 more miles on it and He can do the same thing. :-)
Amazing how beautiful a car can look under the right circumstances. :-)