Homemade Pumpkin Spice

Yesterday I had the day off, and since it is getting chilly out here in Airdrie my mind was in the fall already. I decided to make pumpkin spice syrup so that I won't need to go to Starbucks to get my pumpkin spice latte and so that it could be a bit more healthy as well. So this is what I cooked up:

1/3 cup agave syrup
1 cup water
2/3 cup pumpkin purée
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves

I just put it all into a saucepan and stirred it till it had boiled down a bit and was a little thicker. (I sort of changed it a little based on the first pumpkin spice recipe I came across when I googled it.) it doesn't make my coffee taste much like pumpkin but it is a nice fall spiced drink, and maybe if you tried it you would taste pumpkin and maybe I am crazy. I put it in a nice glass bottle and stuck it in the fridge :) yay fall!

With love.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!!

These are my parents on their wedding day, 35 years ago yesterday!! They were beautiful then and they are beautiful still. My prayer for them is that God will continue to bless them in their marriage and guide them in life. I am thankful to have had them to look up to as I entered into marriage myself, and for all that they have taught me, sometimes without even doing so intentionally. I love you Mom and Dad! I hope this 36th year will be full of joy and exciting new things for you!! With love.

Love.

Does anyone else find the call to love so simple and yet so daunting? I find myself constantly struggling with its overwhelming simplicity and difficulty. When I call out to God asking what He requires of me it's as though I expect some new specific task that He will lay before me, but the answer remains the same: love. He requires me to love. To love Him above all else and to love others as He loves me. To love without regard for myself.

1 Corinthians 13:2 says:

"If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn't love others, I would be nothing."

It is as simple as that, and yet why so difficult? When God's answer comes back the same as before, always gently reminding me to love, I don't know why I always feel overwhelmed. What does it mean to love? Well, I know it sounds silly but that is just how I feel, over and over again. But thank the Lord, He has laid it out for us. Throughout His Word we read of His love and see examples of love. But it is never written out as clearly as it is in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Here love is defined.

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." 

So I read this again this morning and I searched for something I already knew, and though, wow! I am not always loving the way I should. But I am thankful for Christ's spirit within me giving me the grace and guidance I need to be a bit more like Him today. 

God is good. Love is... Simple?? Ha. I hope you all have a wonderful day and know that even if you struggle to love completely, as I know I do quite often, God loves you completely every moment of every day. His love is perfect and His grace is sufficient for us. 

With love.

Nothing Fancy...

Hello everybody!

It's been quite a while since I posted anything on here and have every intention of posting  new pictures of our house now that it is furnished and mostly set up. Today is not the day for that however... I just wanted to share a passage that is comforting me today and hope it will do the same for you...

Hebrews 4:16 

So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us in our time of need.

Also, a few weeks ago I had the privilege of going to Kelowna to visit family and it was so nice. I got to have some bonding with my sisters, parents, in-laws and nieces and nephew! If I could figure out how to get my pictures from my phone or from my pictures on this contraption I would post some but alas it is not working for me right now. 

Hoping everyone is having a good summer day! 

With love.

1 WEEK! (PICTURES)

Ian had the privilege of walking through our "almost-entirely-complete-minus-the-things-they-forgot-house" today! (And use our bathroom for the first time! Sorry if that's TMI) I unfortunately had to be at work..(and it was a good thing too, because we have a significant amount of our staff call in sick today.. but that is besides the point!) and so he took lots of pictures! The green tape represents areas that need touch ups and I am going to let the pictures say the rest! (Not in any particular order)

The Pantry:

Kitchen:
Kitchen/Living Room:

Living Room:

Closet at Front Door:
Powder Room:


Spare Room #2:

Linen Closet:

Spare Room #1:
Laundry Room:


Ensuite:
Walk-in Closet:
Master Bedroom:
Tub:

Main Bath:

Our new home in a nutshell! Enjoy!

With love.

Packing

Well it's VERY difficult to believe but we will move into our new house in 9 sleeps! It's crazy! After Christmas I thought this day would never come and now we are packing up our little suite in preparation.

Being a procrastinator, I have been a little less motivated than Ian to actually get started packing. Thankfully we left a bunch of our stuff in boxes when we moved from our last apartment, YAY! But as I write here Ian is busy at work packing and I have done a bunch of bedroom and bathroom packing. I feel pretty good about that haha however, I will only have one more day off after today until the day we actually move. I have mentioned to others that I am lacking motivation because I cannot actually wrap my mind around the fact that after 13 months of waiting we will soon be living in our very own, brand new, house. It all just seems like it was one of those computer games where you plan your dream house or something ha!

We feel very blessed and find it hard to believe that all of this is happening. We never thought that things would work out so perfectly in the process of buying this house that we thought was little more than a dream we had.

We CANNOT wait to have everyone come out and visit! To stay in actual spare bedrooms haha instead of in a room with all of our storage or in the living room. SO EXCITED! I love having people stay with us but have, up until this point, felt a little bit sorry for anyone who does stay with us because it must not be completely comfortable being stuffed into a corner.. so I am sorry to everyone who experienced that at our place! Now when you visit you will have your own room (and a room for the kids) and your very own bathroom :)

All of this to say.. I CAN'T WAIT for this new experience and chapter of our life! Sometimes, because Airdrie is so close to Calgary, I forget that we are actually moving to a new city! It's weird and exciting all at the same time. It means exploration and finding new and exciting places to shop, walk, play, roam and anything else we feel like we want to do. Not to mention it will be SO nice being 10 minutes away from work! And being so close to the majority of my girlfriends out here!

Hope to have visitors soon! I should get back to packing!

With Love.

Our House - One week ago till today!

Hello everyone!

This is how our house looked a week ago:

And this is how it looked today!!

It was very exciting looking in the back because everything is dry walled and also our cabinets and island have already been installed! Wee!

So with all this progress we are hoping to maybe be in sooner than expected! We will see!

Have a great weekend!

With love.

Our very own house!!!

Well. We bought a house! EEE! Most of you who are reading this probably already know this and probably have seen the floor plans but these are pictures of OUR actual house! Ian and his friend Marcel went out on Sunday and took a look at it and to my dismay (and delight) they went inside :) We haven't yet had our frame walk and will have more pictures once we do but for now this is our humble abode:

This is from one of our spare bedrooms into our master bedroom (with the window) on the right is where our laundry room and main bath will be:

This is looking over the stairs into the garage:

This is looking into the garage, through this door will be our mud room (walk-in pantry on the left and closet on the right) and then our kitchen:

These are our en-suite and main bath back to back (en-suite on the left):

This is looking from the master bedroom over the stairs and into our second spare room (which is most likely be first an office and then hopefully sometime in the near future a nursery!) the little framed up square on the right is our walk-in closet (so excited!):

And this is the master bedroom, our bedroom :) nice big window into the back yard:

This is our house from the back (paved) alley, we hope our backyard will be big enough to have a little patio and still have grass and a little veggie garden, the sliding door goes into our dining room, attached to the kitchen and then it's open into the living room on the right:

This is the front of our house:

And this is our living room! Looking in from just past the stairs (on the right) and the closet (to your left just as you enter the house) and then powder room (on the left):

Well now that I have given you the virtual tour there will be no need when everyone comes to visit! No need to ask where the bathroom is :) Kidding! We will still give tours. Getting excited and hoping it will be done earlier than they are saying (April 24th -- 2 months later than our original closing date... bleh). It's exciting! Enjoy!

With love.