2014 The Year Of Growth

This year has so much to offer us. My sweet family is growing, my husband's business is growing and we are growing into our house that we are renting. We are growing in our marriage, love and faith.

My little belly is growing and so is my sweet family! Zack and I are expecting our first child April 8! We are so excited for our baby boy Bryson to get here. We are getting very prepared for him. Not that you can ever be totally prepared for what’s to come. But with God’s help we are doing our best.

Zack’s business is growing more than ever. This winter has been his BEST winter yet. He is always busy in the summer/fall time. But winters are usually rough for us. But this winter has been the most amazing winter ever for us. He’s been doing a lot of his own jobs instead of working for his couple friends. God is TRULY blessing him and his work greatly. We just praise the Lord and thank him for what he is doing in our lives.

Our house we’ve been renting since August we are growing into very fast. We moved from a 1 bedroom/1 bathroom apartment to a 3 bedroom/2 bathroom house with a garage. Then the weekend after we moved in we found out we were expecting our sweet baby. We are defiantly starting to grow into our home. Baby boy’s nursery needs organized, because we’ve been very blessed by generous people who have given/gotten us things already!  With Bryson on his way and us getting things we need to make our house a home we are really growing nicely into our home.

Zack and I have learned and have grown so much in our year and a half of marriage. To a lot of people that doesn’t seem like a very long time. That is true it hasn’t been a very long time, but the growth and progress we have made has been major. The love this man has for me is truly from God. It's beyond my understanding, how or why I got so lucky. But I am very thankful and so very happy! Yes we get on each others nerves, or things we say to each other we wish we wouldn't have after the fact. But we are human, and there is not much we can do about that. We always talk it out after the fact, forgive and just trust God heals the hurt that we caused. :-) I can see our love growing for each other everyday and see God at work in our lives. He is SO good!

God has really allowed our faith to grow in 2013. When we started on top of faithfully giving our tithe to our church we also gave an Offering towards a cause we wanted to support called "Charlies Dinosaurs " (I'll put more about it at the end because it's a cause that hit home hard from me). After starting to give an offering to this cause we saw God really start to move in our finances. But remember this was on TOP of already giving our tithe, I repeat this because we really started seeing the change after we did both. Not saying God only works this way, because his plan for everyone is different! But for us this has really opened our eye's that when we let go and give what we can to make a difference in someone's life, God openly blesses you where you need it. He is so amazing and we fully trust him in everything in our lives. Not to say we will never have a rough patch again, but even in that rough time God is still there and there is light at the end of the tunnel. We just have to have faith and trust him to take care of us!

Thanks for taking the time to read this! I believe this year is going to be amazing! I look forward to all the new things God has for Zack, Bryson and I! Love you all and pray God blesses you and your families through this year 2014 and every year after!

CHARLIES DINOSAURS: Charlies Dinosaurs is a foundation set up for Foster Children ages 3-16. Our financial support helps our church working with the foundation fill backpacks for children being placed in to foster homes. Because I was a foster child at one time to me this is SO important because these backpacks are the only thing most of these children have to call their own. They usually just have the clothes on there backs when they are being taken from a life of abuse which is all they've ever known. They fill these backpacks with age appropriate things for the children like  (Clothes, Coats, Hair Brushes, Tooth Paste, Tooth Brushes, Shampoo's & Conditioners, Books, Make Up, and so much more.) The children get these things when right when they enter the foster care system to accompany them in to their new environment!

This hits home hard for me not only because I was a foster child, but right when I was placed in the car to be taken away from my biological family I was given a Teddy Bear. I have my teddy bear still today. He was a HUGE comfort in the mist of horror of what was going on. My teddy bear comforted me many years after the fact as well, when I would have nightmares, or cry myself to sleep sleep at night, or wonder why the people that where supposed to love me the most in this world would hurt me and not want me, I would just snuggle my teddy bear and let the tears flow. Thankfully God had the most wonderful adoptive parents for me, that loved and care for me like I was there very own. Most foster children are not that lucky! So I count my blessings everyday.

So that is a little about the foundation and why it's so important to my husband and I! Thank you for taking the time to read this!

                                               ~God Bless You~

                                             Casey