My Daughter, Kiley, the Giver of Advice

Kiley may only be 11 years old, but there's a lot of wisdom in those 11 years. She sure knows me well. She knows I'm constantly pushing the limits on how much I can get done in as little time as possible. So it didn't surprise me the other day when she begged me to listen to her. It was 10 minutes until 8:00pm and with probably only 10 minutes of decent sunlight left and maybe another 20 minutes after that of fading sunlight, I decided I was going to try to hurry and mow the front yard. If you've seen our front yard, you would know that this is a much longer project than 30 minutes, our front yard is one giant area of grass! As I'm rushing to change into my "lawn work clothes" and grabbing my ipod, Kiley says, "Mom, please don't! You don't have enough time and you need to slow down and relax this evening." She stopped me dead in my tracks. She was right and was thinking more logically than me! I would have never finished it in the daylight and what was the hurry? I could easily do it the next evening when I could start on it earlier. Perhaps I should listen to this wise young lady more often!

Celebrating 15 Years of Marriage

It's hard to believe, but just a few days ago, John and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary! It's amazing how the years have passed so quickly. Even more amazing is that we started dating 4 years before we even got married. I have spent more of my life with John than I lived before I met him. I feel so blessed that God chose John to be my husband. As far as marriages go, I feel like I hit the jackpot! We almost never fight and we tend to always be thinking about the same things without even saying a word out loud. It's like we have that "twin thing" going on.
God's Hand has always been on this marriage. I'm amazed all He has done for us and through us. We have been blessed with 2 beautiful daughters that we praise God for daily. Our prayers are that God will provide K and M with Godly husbands and that they'll have a strong marriage like ours. God's given us the ability to buy, then sell, then buy another beautiful home. The last 15 years haven't all been easy, we've had our share of medical scares, surgeries and difficult recoveries, the loss of loved ones and other hard times, but we count those all as building blocks to get where we are today and be the people God wants us to be for Him, for our children and for each other. We look forward to another 15 years and beyond as we continue to grow old together with God as the center of our family.

My New Website

Mooralley Custom Room Designs is up and running and we finally have our website up! It took a lot of work, many hours of wanting to scream at the computer, but the new website is just what Janet and I wanted. We get to show off our work and hopefully bring in some new business. We have our next job this Friday at my parent's house. It will be a relatively small job compared to our last job! I will post those pictures once it's complete. For now, please check out our new website at: www.muralyourroom.com.

My Summer Job

By the end of this week I will be half way through my part time, 6 week summer job. I am teaching chapel to 4 year-olds through 6th graders at a summer day camp. The greatest part about this job is that I'm working for Estina Schrock again! She was my babysitter when I was little and I also attended her day camp as a tween when she first started it 27 years ago. Then, in my mid teens, I worked for the day camp as a teen helper. After all these years, she thought of me when her regular chapel director had to go on maternity leave. I have really enjoyed teaching again and best of all, there is absolutely no curriculum, so I have the opportunity to be creative, write my own curriculum and run chapel how I want to do it rather than being told how to do. So far the kids have been great and my daughters have been great helpers! I don't know what I would do without their help. I only teach a total of 3 hours a week broken up over 3 mornings. Does it get much better than this?