July 3rd Update on House

The House has come such a long way!

Jake is off today and tomorrow working on it then he is taking off next week a couple days too! Its all finish work for here out and they say it takes the longest! But we have to be done by the end of Aug so it better not take to long ! lol

Everything is painted on the inside and a man has been working on painting the outside but it has rained almost everyday for the past month!

My amazing ceiling in the living room is up and I LOVE IT SO MUCH!

Our floors are down all except the grout in the bathrooms.

We have our cabinets and Jake has been working on modifying them! We bought plain stock cabinets and we are cutting the faces out of the doors and putting bead board in them and painting all the cabinets blue! All the doors are done with bead board now they just have to be painted! upper cabinets have been hung and all they need is the finish coat on them. We hung them the other night and it was a little tricky with short ol me ! lol But they look great!

All the doors are hung but the closet and I love them so much! My parents gifted us with them ! We are so greatful! They look amazing ! They are solid wood doors with the bead board look in them! So it matches our ceiling and our cabinets! LOVE!

Everytime something else goes up or happens its just amazing to watch! I'm so greatful we are able to build our home! It has been a ton of hard work but it's all memories we will get to look back on. From pouring the slab , to the kids helping clean up, paint, and be out there while we work. To writing the Bible verse on the studs and praying over our home. Lots of memories I will cherish forever!

Now I just cant wait to move it!!!!!

New home Update!

Wow its been a while since I wrote!
Well we have been on this journey of building our dream home and its def not for the weak!
Jake stays out in the new house til almost 12 everynight working on it and on every weekend!
Basically building our home is our Life right now!
Thankful for his dad that has came and helped out many many weekends and my dad for paying for some stuff to get done! We are equally greatful and thankful for both of them! Neither had to do anything for us but they both have out of the kindness of their hearts and we are forever greatful!

We are up to sheetrock mudd being put up this week! YAY!
Closer and closer to being able to move in!
Every step even if its been a little step , I say 1 step closer! 1 more thing to check off the List!
It helps not to look at the HUGE list we still have left and to just say 1 more thing checked off!

All Glory goes to God for letting us do all this and him providing over and over again! He cares about the big and the little desires of your heart! Just Pray! Talk to Him!

We started officially on Oct 11th when the slab was poured but I guess it was before that cause the land had to be cleared and the frame built for the concrete to be poured into. But ya get my drift!
And we do not have a FINISH date! Cause we are doing mostly everything its when we can do it! People keep asking yall done yet? or Man when yall gonna be moving in? Believe me we are trying our hardest and we want it done more than anyone else!!!!! Wanna come help?? That would move on the process a little faster! lol Everybody wants to come look at the house but no one but 2 have came and helped! But anyways!!!! We are thankful for the ones that have helped and blessed to be able to build our home!
It will all be worth in when we are in our home and enjoying it for many many years with our family!

That's all for now! I will try and upload some new pics of the house another day when I can connect to the internet from a computer again !

Oh and I have made us a YOU TUBE Channel that you should totally check out! Lots of videos on the home updates, fun adventures , & day in the lifes of our little family <3 Click the link Below and take a look and subscribe for all our new videos!
https://youtu.be/5G63hYiwSzM

Be blessed and Give God all the Glory!
Heather <3

Family Photos Nov 2016

Every year we have one of my photographer friends take our huge family photos with my side of the family. This year it was a sweet friend from church Calee and these were taken on our road around from our house on a friends land. I think the turned out cute considering we had 8 kiddos and 1 main fella that def didnt want ANY pics after the 1st 2 where taken. lol. But my mom got her pics by a cotton field like she wanted. 

So here are our family photos from Nov 2016.

God Bless,

Heather 

The Whole Gang

 My wonderful Parents 

 Granny & Poppa with all their Great 8 !

 My brother and his family.

 My sweet Adlee Jean with Poppa in the background

 My hubby and Adlee Jean 

 My sweet little family 

 Us again

 Adlee exploring the cotton 

 My 3 blessings 

 My main Squeeze 

 Love him so much

 Me , Mom, and Josh

 me and Mom 

 love this pic of us. so glad to have my mom as a best friend.

 All the fellas

 My Annaliese Joy

 The Great 8

 Happy New year from the Cowart - Lewis Gang!

And so it begins.......

So we officially started working on our dream home!!!

I am beyond words. I am so excited and nervous all at the same time.

You know the feeling I'm talking about.

Like I can't wait to be in my big beautiful home I have been dreaming about for years, yet

I wanna throw up thinking about all that has to be done from here to then.

Tues.Sept 20,2016

Jake got home from work. Said he had talked to Mr.Greg and he could come tomorrow and do our land if we had our house staked off. So we got out there in the dark with Jakes phone flashlight and set up our post where the corners of the house and porch would be. We got eaten alive with misquitos but we got it done. 

Wed. Sept 21,2016

Mr.Greg( a nice man from church that Jake had already talked to )came out and started working around 9am on getting the land level and cleared out. We wanted to get some of the land where the trees had been knocked down cleaned up along with the leveling and dirt pad for the house. Of coarse I took pics like all day long. Nanna came by and visited us for a little while and that is always a blessing. Mom & Dad dropped by for a min to see some of the work. 

It started to look so so different and so good. I was squealing on the inside and maybe a little on the outside too. Its really happening... Its really happening yall! That's all I could think about!

Thurs. Sept 22,2016

Mr.Greg was back bright at early , and when I saw bright and early I mean 8am cause lets face it. I am not a morning person and before 8 is early for me. lol

He worked all day long. He took one little break and kept working. He is such a nice, hardworking man. I would recommened him to anyone. And I truly believe God set him into our path. We met him one night at VBS and he came up and talked to us (we were the kinda new people) and then Jake and him started talking about what work they did, And when he told Jake he had done this type of work and had been doing it 30 years. We Knew we wanted him to do our work for us.

But back to this day. We made to like every other day. Doing our house work, school work, and playing. I of coarse took more pics, and Jake wanted an updated photo every couple hours cause he was at work. But the time Mr.Greg left at 4:30 , he had the dirt pad ready, and so much of the land cleared off. It looks so much bigger now and we know exactly where and how big our house is going to look. Looks amazing! He just did such a great job.

My parents and jakes parents had road by and checked out the work. And all thought that he did a great job. 

I let the girls get in the slip n slide and Jake pulled up and said how good it looked too.

We need to pull something on it to move some of the little sticks and divits around so we can cut the grass but all in all it looks Great! We got a family pic infront of our "house" aka dirt pad and then went inside for dinner.

It is such a blessing that we are able to finally start our dream home. We have a tight budget but we will make it work!!! 

We have already gotten 2 double windows for a GREAT Price(Lowes), A jacuzzi tub for our master bathroom (friend), 2 barstools (Goodwill), a living room rug (Lowes), and 2 pillows to match (America Thrift)! All on sale or for an awesome Price! 

I am thrifty and I will try my best to make our budget work good for everything we need. And I know that God has us in his hands and My God will give us the desires of our Hearts! 

God Bless,

Heather 

  

Decluttering

Well if you know me I am kinda of a... I hoard sentimental things person. Like the shirt I wore when me and my husband met. Or the hat and outter covering he wore when our kids where born. Also I'm a "I'm totally going to be able to wear that again one day so I dont want to get rid of it" person too. Well recently clutter has just made my skin cringe! So I have bravely been getting rid of things. Like bag fulls of things , yall. I have been so proud of myself. Slowly my anxitey about getting rid of things is going away. Thank you Jesus! Now dont get me wrong I will still keep the very sentimental things that mean alot to me , but all those smaller clothes if  I dont absolutely LOVE them they are getting donated! And if something fits me right now and I have it just because it Fits and I dont Love it... BYE BYE! My cloths have been making me feel frumpy and old and that is not me. AT ALL!

Sunday I went through my closet in 5 mins and got rid of a whole Garbage bag full of cloths! 5 MINS and I got rid of that much stuff I have been holding on too. And it felt SOOOOO GOOD!

I've been selling some odds and ends things on a local resale sight and saving all that money in a coffee can so I can buy myself a MAC desktop , to edit photos and so my kids have a place to do some homeschool work on. So out with all the old junk that just sits in my back room and hello new computer and clean back room =] Plus when we build our home we dont want to bring extra useless clutter into it.

The less and less clutter I have I feel anxiety lifting and feeling so much better!

I have gotten rid of 2 more garbage bags full of stuff and have a box half full. Im going through the girls rooms with them so they can keep their most loved toys/ things and lets get rid of the other cause yall know birthday parties and christmas will be coming and MORE toys will enter our house. 

So this is a new me and Im have way less anxiety about getting rid of the old. Now dont get me wrong I am still sentimental and those EXTRA special things to me I will keep but for real yall I know I have gotten so much better!!

Anyone else like that?

Are you a sentimental hoarder or can you toss anything??

I challenge you to go into your closet and take 5 mins just 5 mins. And look around, If it doesnt make you happy when you look at it, if you dont love it, if it is something that you have been holding onto for 3 years and you still havent worn it... Toss it into a garbage bag and take it to your local donation center! I promise it will make you feel so much better and so much anxiety will be lifted and you will want to keep getting rid of things you dont use, need, or love! 

God bless,

Heather 

New Hair

So dec was almost over and I really wanted to make a change. A change in how our family was doing things and a change in me. We talked and prayed and made out a plan. Financials, kids, our outlooks, where we want to be by next year, etc.... 

Well I really have been wanting to change my look up some too. So Jake said to your hair like a brown or dark red color. So I went and got a box color (the old hairdresser in me was screaming NOOOO) but I was just ready to do it before I changed my mind. Went to my parents and my sis in law put the color on for me. Here is the after color of that...

Well it was ok but the color was kinda faded looking and I was talking to my friend Lindsey on the phone and she said lets go to Sallies and get your color you really wanted and I can get my cousin to come trim your hair and color it. I said ok lets do it. So she did my hair and Lindsey and Chelsea wanted to give me a makeover. So they fixed my hair and did my makeup. Here is my before and after of the 1st red to the 2nd red....

And here is the BEFORE and AFTER..

BLONDE VS RED

Sooooooo different. I have always been a blonde all but 1 time i put a red color and blonde highlights all over and the lady cut it WAY to short and I HATED it. And dyed it back blonde like 3 weeks later. And of coarse in cosmotology school I put some red low lights and black low lights in my hair... but I was still mainly Blonde. So this... this is a HUGE deal for me. 

Such a change.

I feel like I look like a different person.

I was so worried that Adlee wouldn't know who I was. 

But she looked at me and then my hair but still wanted me to hold her and love on her. 

So that made me feel so much better.

Here are me , Lindsey, and Chelsea after they did my makeover =] 

Been through alot with the girls. Friends since highschool =] 

Thats all for now. 

Hope you are having a Great New Year! 

<3 God Bless <3

Heather!

K5 registration & supply shopping

Well July 13,2015 we went and registered Avery for kindergarten. Still unsure and nervous about making a decision If we were going to send her to school or homeschool. I went to get a feel for the school and  see what it would be like. I filled out the paper work nervous and scared to send my baby to a school were I knew nobody. I still had a uneasy filling when we left. But they had the 10 commandments and In God we Trust in frames in the cafeteria where registration was being held. I talked to the principal who was really nice and to some PTO members that were there Who were also nice. Still uneasy feeling though. This is my baby and it's hard for me to send her off. They do have these cool firetruck and train at the school and Avery wanted her pic by them. And I took a pic of the new sign that they just put up the week before. left there still praying and thinking back and forth about everything. Here are some pics:

 With lots and lots of thoughts,prayers,and talking it out , we decided to send our girl to school. As I was praying in the van one day riding down the road something came on the radio like they were talking right to me. The lady said something in the lines of why do we worry so much about our children, if we give it all to God including our children then everything will be ok. We can not hid them under a rock and shelter them from everything we just pray and believe that God has them in his hands. BOOM. It was like it hit me right in my face. I had so much anxiety and fear about her going to school. What are they going to teach my baby , I don't want her learning bad habits or anything else. I wanted to shelter her from the bad world. But then it was like I heard this and I said ok God I hear you. My children are in your hands. And I will still teach them your ways but I will loosing my reigns and you take them.
here are a couple pics from school supply shopping. She looks so grown in her uniform and yes she picked the donut bookbag :)

 We had to take some documents back up to the school to finalize the registration. The principal was up there again. And we talked to her some more. She was so nice again and told me about all the renovations she had been doing in the previous 2 years that she has been there and that they plan on doing more. That made me feel better. Then I saw again in the office the 10 commandments and In God we Trust. Loved that being in there. We couldn't walk around and see the classrooms because the floors were being waxed but you could see the hall her class would be down. She said if I wanted to I could walk her in and come pick her up from her classroom everyday. And if I had any questions to ask her or any concerns to come tell her. She was so nice and seemed like she really cared. They also lock their doors at 7:30 and any visitors or late people have to come through the office. They also have bullet proof glass and cameras. Which all made me feel better. I think she is going to love school and I'm feeling so much better about her going. with the Lord giving me the strength and knowing he is watching over my baby all day makes me feel like we will be ok. Heres a pic of both #1 and # 2 playing on the train at Avery's new svhool.

God Bless! Keep this momma and my big girl in your prayers. This is def going to be a new adventure for all of us. 

Heather :)