June update!

AHHHH So much excitement, so much crazy and so much change. 

I seriously didn't know life could change so much so quickly. I'm not even sure where to begin. Our anniversary came and went....I think I'll start with house details.

Chris and I have been looking at moving for a while now....technically since we bought our mobile home. It was our goal to buy our house to be able to to turn around and sell it as our down payment on a bigger house.  That plan and dream is finally become a reality and it's so stinking exciting I can't even put into words how excited I am. That is the single reason my update for June is so late this month...I've been waiting for it all to be somewhat concrete. Well today we signed a purchase agreement on our house and should close on it by next week. Tomorrow our new house gets inspected and we should close on it in about two-three weeks. wooohooooo!!!! I get so excited thinking about our new house.... It has 4 bedrooms and two bathrooms and is located blocks away from an elementary school and is across the street from the middle school. It's an adorable brick house in need of some good old fashioned TLC. It has only had one owner and she hasn't updated anything since it was built. She died not too long ago and left it to family and they have fixed a few things to make it more sellable. Such as painting the basement and putting down some carpet. The basement had those yucky lenorlium floors (that I hope aren't made from asbestos) and tacky white walls. But there are two good sized rooms down there plus a full bathroom, family room and laundry room. The only thing that needs immediate attention is the laundry room. It is currently unfinished and the door doesn't open up because the ducting passes just close enough that the door bumps it. All easily fixed....we hope. Then upstairs...I'll start from the front door, as you enter there is a nice sized living room and strait ahead is the dinning room. To the right of the dinning room is the kitchen. From the living room is a short hallway to the two bedrooms that are upstairs. And in the middle of the bathrooms is a very nice sized bathroom. Not a whole lot needs to be done upstairs except painting and redoing the kitchen. I will admit the kitchen kinda stresses me out a bit. Right now it's super small, but we are looking into what it would take to canteliever some cabinets into the garage and knock the wall between the dinningroom and kitchen out. The part that makes all of this super hard is the fact that the stairs are between the living room and the kitchen. So even if we were able to knock the wall out it wouldn't be completely open because the stairs are there. Many hours have gone into thinking how to fix this issue. On the bright side though we have about 800 more square feet of living space and a garage. The backyard also has a slab that we could easily build a yard shed on top of.  The biggest selling point for me through this whole process has been how much potential this house has. It literally is a blank slate and we can do whatever we want because EVERYTHING needs to be redone. 

Well I could talk about the house for a while. I'm super excited about it. That's not all that has been going on though! Marcelyn turns 18 months old in about a week and that's just insane! She's so tall and starting to get bossy. She scared me a bit this past week. It was actually a week ago today. We went to the pool Monday evening as part of a community event so we got in free. We were playing on one of the toys in the water and she wanted to move on to the next thing ,but instead of getting off near me she hopped off and started going the other direction so the toy was between me and her...she lost her balance and went under. Thankfully Dad (Chris) was right there to snatch her up. She wasn't fased at all. Thank God. She absolutely loved being at the pool. The next day she spiked a pretty high fever and was really grumpy. By Wednesday nothing had changed even with meds which is very unusual for her. She had a crying fit and was tugging at her ears so I thought maybe she had gotten an ear infection from the pool so we went to the Peditrician.  I was wrong she didn't have an ear infection she had somehow picked up a virus called Hand Foot and Mouth disease. Sounds much worse that it really is, and thankfully much worse than it actually was. She got over it a few days later and hasn't shown any signs in a few days. She had been grumpy for a few days before we went to the dr. But just thought it had to do with teething or her being the age she is. The weird part is she had also been scratching and pulling at her tongue. After learning that the virus was an itchy throught it all made sense.....The only part that really made me concerned was that I could possibly pass it on to someone else or that there wasn't anything that I could do to make her better. We just had to wait it out for the virus to run its course. 

The other eventful thing that has been a little alarming has been my Grandpa. He has been having problems with his breathing. He had surgery on something a while back and it took quite a bit out of him, but he's more comfortable.  There for a bit he had to be off blood thinners to help heal the incision.  Which was hard on his heart so they put him on different heart meds which was hard on his kidneys....but thankfully that's all past. He's been moved to the nursing home now instead of assisted living.  

Chris is doing well. He says work is eerily slow, and there's no real way of knowing when things will turn around. Gas and oil prices keep going down which is nice, but it's really hurting our community.... Thankfully we know that job isn't our source. Our God is Greater! Chris is also still the youth pastor and loves it. The youth group took a little break for the last bit of May and into June and just started back up last week. It's encouraging to see him so passionate about something. I'm getting to help out finally! I'm so blessed to have family close by. Marcelyn gets to go spend the evening with my brother and sister-in-law which right now are her favorite people. Next month Chris takes a trip with a couple of the kids in the youth group to Mexico City.  Since the house has been such a project we've kinda put that trip on the back burner. He leaves Jully 23rd and will be gone until the 30th.  Funny thing is I still don't know a whole lot of details because we've been so busy with selling our house. I have been on this trip before though so I have a pretty good idea as to what they will be doing. I'll leave the details of all of that for the July post!

Well I think that's all I have time for today! 

Don't forget to follow us on Instagram for picture updates!

@cmlofstrom #lofstromadventures 

And #babylofstrom for pictures on Marcelyn 

May update

May is going by rather fast! I have a few minutes so I thought I'd post SOMETHING at least. 

Marcelyn is growing up so fast. I probably say that in every post but seriously though. Check out this picture from March 

And here is one of her just this week 

Ok so maybe pictures don't capture what I'm talking about but there was a morning a little over a week ago where she woke up and it was like she grew 1/2 an inch in all directions. She has outgrown most of her 12m clothing some pants and t-shirts fit, but she's been in 18m onesies since before she was a year old.  Her vocabulary is ever expanding and perfecting. Although differentiating between drink (jeese) and please (sheese) is still a challenge (adorable but a challenge none the less) She LOVES to be outdoors, and bubbles are her latest delight. 

Mother's Day has come and gone. Marcelyn and Chris got me pretty flowers to put in my flower pots outside. Be sure and check out pictures of those on Instagram @mollz2 or @cmlofstrom 

We also planted a salsa garden. Chris posted about that on his Facebook page. 

Suzanne came to visit the weekend of Mother's Day and we all went down to see Fort Larned. 

They also came with Apple gear questions 

Which we happily answered. 

We had our first "tornado threat" of the season last weekend

We spend most of the evening close to a basement. (At my parents house) this is the only time of the year I hate living where we do. 

Tonight we finish up our last night of Kids Club until next fall and start gearing up for VBS at the end of June.  Chris and I will be part of the Leadership team again this year. I'll most likely head up crafts and Chris will most likely head up games.

I'm drawing a blank as to what else has happened this past month. Looking ahead though June is going to be great. First though my birthday is in a week and I'll be 28 (gasp she told us her age). June 11-12 Sharon Daugherty, from the Bible School and church Chris and attended while in Tulsa, will be here. I'm really looking forward to that and of corse our anniversary. It's hard to believe it will be 8 years already 🙈 

Well I'll just share these pictures. I absolutely love them but I'm out of time to write what stories go with them. 

Well I better run! There are lots of details to finish for tonight. Thanks for reading!!

April Update

Oh. My. Goodness.
This month has been full full full!!!
This past weekend we had the dedication for the church and open house. It's wonderful to say that our church building is FINALLY DONE!
I was in charge of making the slide show of all the construction pictures. It was so cool to see how we all came together as a body and captured the whole process rather well. I didn't ever get real good before pictures or fully complete pictures, but the process was still amazing and you could tell how bad things were before we started. Unfortunately the video is pretty long so I can't post it here, but I'll look into sharing it on youtube or facebook. That project is the main reason I'm so late in posting this month. I can't believe April is already more than 1/2 over! My birthday is almost a month away and I'll be 28 this year!

One of my favorite tulips from my garden.

Spring is so pretty here this year.
We finally got some substantial rain this past weekend and wow did we need it.

The view from the bridge

It's amazing to see the impact of something as simple as a few inches of rain. This past weekend was an answer to prayer. It calmly rained for days and most of it soaked right in.
This picture on the left is pretty mind boggling to think that just 24 hours before us being there where we stood was under water. I'm not sure how much but my guess was about 2ft or so. There were definite lines of water movement where we were standing and trash bags and debris in the trees to the right of what's show in the picture. Plus you can tell the steps across the way are wet and packed with mud.

Marcelyn is growing growing growing! She's almost 20lbs now. 

15 monthday picture <3 td="">

helping Daddy dig a hole for our new
pampas grass.

She absolutely loves being outside and can say several words. She understands most things that I tell her which is a lot of fun to watch. She surprises me every day with a new word yesterday there were about 3-4. Sadly I'm drawing a blank as to what they all were, but her favorites are "go" "stop it" and "phone" She says "please" and it sounds like jeesh or cheese which is absolutely adorable. If she does have to be inside she loves playing with her Minion ball that her Aunt Brandy gave her during our last visit to Tulsa. Today however her favorite activity was splashing in the water that we collected during all the rain this weekend.

If it was just a little bit warmer I would have let her play in it more, but I couldn't get past her freezing hands and runny nose. We went to the dr. Monday and I think we picked something up while we were there :(
Friday was her 15 month check up and they wanted to give her shots to her then. I knew that she normally runs a fever and is rather grumpy for a few days afterwards so I asked if we could wait until after our HUGE weekend....and boy am I glad I did. She still isn't back to herself. On top of 3 immunizations she also had to get her iron levels rechecked.....rough rough rough. I'm so thankful to have my wonderful husband. I'm also thankful to have a healthy baby girl. All went well and I'm glad to have it all over with. Below are picture I took earlier this month. It's hard to capture good pictures of the Marcemallow nowadays because she's SO BUSY! I love it though. More adventures are ahead for us. Marce and I signed up for my first HRC class. (hmmm how to explain HRC...Hays Rec Commission....) We go on Thursdays to the gym and play play play. The class is called Little Climbers and is for toddlers Marcelyn's age (9mon-18mon) range. I wasn't able to capture any pictures this last time because I was busy chasing Marcelyn from one end of the gym to the next, but I'll try and paint you a word picture. Imagine yourself in a full-size basketball court with stations of activities spread out. Two of the stations are soft shapes to climb on made out of the same matterials as gymnastic mats. Other stations include a ball pit, things with wheels (trikes, cars and push carts), small toys with wheels or that can be pulled by a string, and Marcelyn's favorite, beach balls the size of her. I'm not sure why she loved them so much but she played with those the most. I wasn't all that impressed at first thinking how is this going to entertain her for a whole hour, but it did and she PLAYED HARD.

#Selfie

All dressed and ready for church. Purse and ALL!

2 seconds later I took it out myself

Mommy braided my hair AND put a bow in it!

Well I probably better quit for now. I'm writing during nap time, and I've heard the Marcemallow make some noise a few times. Plus its getting late and we have Kids Club tonight!
Thanks for reading!!

Random post

Hello

I've been posting a lot of "long posts" on Instagram lately so I thought I'd just do a whole post today instead of another long post. 

I actually had my phone in the right place today! Marcelyn sang along with her favorite show this morning. It was so cute!! Just when I think she may have gotten bored with this show she does something new to show she still loves it. 

I didn't actually didn't capture her singing, but I wanted to document the moment so I snapped a picture. She sat in the recliner for most of the show and babbled along with the "Peg+Cat" theme song. You may be thinking big deal Molly, but she's grown up with this show and had loved it since she was 3 months old. At that age she's just watch and coo with delight, but soon she would dance along and now she sings 🙂 I'm looking forward to seeing what she does next. 

March Update!

Well well well how about that. I posted last month and here I am posting right on schedule *happy dance*
Oh. My. G.O.O.D.N.E.S.S. The past few weeks have been tough tough tough. Feb 23rd we received heart breaking news that our step nephew ended his own life at the young age of 15.  That was a Tuesday and the following Monday was his funeral.  There's something horribly wrong with having to process something like that. Prayers are needed for our sister-in-law and brother-in-law as they grieve.  We were able to be in Tulsa for the whole weekend which was nice. On our way home however we received more sad news when back in Hays good friends of mine lost their dad in a construction accident.  It made state wide news and shook the whole town to the core. Saturday was the funeral for him and it was packed. My nephew's funeral was full too and all I could think of was "if he would have knows this many people cared" ...sigh....

In happier news Marcelyn is learning to say real words. She babbles adorably all day long, but it is a lot of fun to see her connect things when she learns a new word. Everyone in her world is Dad-da including Mom, Tripod and the nursery staff at church.  Her latest word that surprised me was "peach" one of our latest acctivities has been to play with boxes as building blocks to learn how to stack things. One of the boxes we use is a case of peach cups. She carried the box to me, handed it to me and very clearly said "peaches!" It was adorable.  She's learning please, she says it sometimes but hasn't connected why she needs to say it yet. Today though, it was super cute. I sat down with a snack and she wanted to some so she came running over saying "peese, peese, peeeeeese" ooh alright. :-P

Well that's all the exciting news I can think of for today. Tonight is our 2nd Achievement ceremony for our Children's ministry on wednesday nights. It's the first time we've done one on a wednesday night. In the past we've condensed all we do into a 15-20 window of time and presented everything on sunday morning. Now that more than 75% of the kids that come don't come on Sunday mornings it doesn't make sense to having it on a Sunday....excpet that it gets the whole family in church.

February Update!

Hello Friend!
Love is in the air, but spring and Easter are just around the corner. Happy Ash Wednesday btw (I'm not sure this is a happy holiday though) I absolutely love this time of year.  The days are getting longer the weather will be warming up soon and the sense of all things new gives me such excitement.  I love Christmas time too, but Easter is by FAR my favorite holiday celebration. The two holidays go hand-in-hand (can't have one without the other) but I'm a pastel artsy personality type. I was in Hobby Lobby and noticed Easter decorations are out already....I almost bought one of everything!!!!

In other news (the real reason I'm writing today....not just to rant about how much I love this time of year) Marcelyn is WALKING! I posted a pretty cute video on my instagram if you haven't seen it yet be sure and check it out (@mollz2)  and you can also check out the hashtag #babylofstrom for any pictures you may have missed.

I'm also writing to share of my goal for this Lent Season. I always love setting goals for the new year, but this one is only for 40 days instead of a full 365. It's call 40 bags in 40 days. Starting today and going until Easter Sunday I'll pick 40 different places in my house to go through and de-clutter. Today and probably all this week I"ll be focusing on my desk area. I really need to make this space more soothing and functional....rather than a place to capture crap! *squinty-faced emoji*

Well I think I better call it good. Marcelyn is running out of Cherioes and or she's full and they will start ending up on the floor instead of her mouth.... Oh the joys of toddlerhood

Until Next Time! Thanks for reading :)

Marcelyn is ONE!!!

Well that's quite old news by now that January is almost over. Marcelyn Rose Lofstrom was born OVER a year ago. I just can't believe that. She is not quite walking steadily, although she did walk across the living room quite triumphantly :)



January and the new year (Happy New Year btw) cause one to think back and reflect. I made Marcelyn a couple of scrap books for her birthday of her first year. WOW! It was a full year.  Liberty moved into a new building and is still remodeling. That story is blog post in its self. I will say this though Marcelyn was born on the 5th and papers were sign on the 6th for the new building. Major renovations to the main floor started and we moved in Palm Sunday. All renovations should be done in April.
2016 looks like it will be a fun year too. Chris goes to an annual men's conference in Colorado this weekend and that kicks off lots of events I'm currently drawing a blank on. Yes mission trips are being planned and I'll post details when we know them.

I mostly wanted to tell a few stories from "the hood" God has been teaching me a lot lately about my missionary heart.  I try and call our neighborhood nice things like "neighborhood" or "community" instead of "trailer park" or "mobile home park" but it seems the last few months things have just gotten bad. Bad enough that I was getting depressed. I know I've gotten to this point once before, but this time it was almost a helpless, hopeless depressed feeling mixed with anger.  It took me a week to figure it out, but God finally showed me that I need to be praying more.  He also reminded me that He sent me here (to Hays) as a missionary. My mission field is constant and I need to quit getting upset when the world doesn't live up to my standards of the way I was taught to live. They don't know any different. That's probably the biggest shocker I've learned in the last couple of years as I've started to FINALLY gain trust with some families and build some friendships.  I've learned that they all want what we want, to have a nice house, yard, car and life.  The sad thing though is they don't understand that it takes constant upkeep and maintenance to have these things. Most importantly though is that it takes a solid relationship with God. I said I wanted to tell a story though. Here goes.
It's a of a girl with long blonde hair. She comes from a home that's one of the most dilapidated in the neighborhood with a mom that's rarely home. Yet she is the friendliest most outgoing person in the neighborhood. She knows every single kid that has lived here more than a week. However, her school that she's gone to for the last 4+ years closed. She has been coming to our Wednesday night meetings for about 2 years now and made a good friend through that. This August was her first day in a new school and one of her friends from Wednesday nights was in her class. She had already been going to school there for a while and happily made the long blonde hair girl feel right at home. It's my prayer that this long blonde haired girl falls in love with church and sees that she needs to be there.
The other story I wanted to tell is also of another girl. She's (was at the time) very small, shy and insecure. She started coming on Wednesday nights from just around the corner from where our house is. One day I was doing some follow up visits getting t-shirt orders or handing out flyers for VBS...I don't rememeber exactly, but this little girls mom was at home. We had talked shortly here and there, but I had more time this time and she asked me "Are you Molly Dinkel?" I answered "I used to be" She went on to tell me that she remembered me from when we were kids and we would play out a mutual friends house. Hah wow. As we got to know that family I also went to school with some of them too.

Well I think that's all I have time for in this post. It's my goal to post at least once a month and send out e-mails quarterly. I know I've said this in years past, but I'm going to give it another go and hopefully it becomes more of a routine this year. Also I post most regularly on instagram. @cmlofstrom

Happy 2016 friend