The kids were excited that since we were carving two, they could each choose a design. Clark (7) decided to freehand his, while P (4) picked out one from the book.

Clark was serious about his. He was all in 100% by himself… trust me I had absolutely nothing to do with how his turned out. Penelope flipped past all the bats, cats and traditional jack-o-lantern faces and settled on this fabulous skull on fire. She was so proud… my precious, blonde princess called her flaming skull “brilliant”! I can’t make this stuff up!

Once they were carved, we were ready for the experiment! We chose to soak Clark’s pumpkin in the bleach water solution and leave P’s alone.

After the pumpkin is totally dry (we let ours sit overnight) spray it with a solution of vinegar, water & lemon juice. Let that air dry and it’s done!

Both pumpkins will be kept on the front porch until Halloween night. That is less than 10 days away (10 days is a normal life-span of a Jack-o-lantern) and we’ll compare them then!

In the meantime, have fun carving! Comment below if you and your family do something different to preserve your Jack-o-lantern.

Cleanup tip… wash your tools, table and anything else that has pumpkin guts asap after carving. Once it dries, it hardens and is almost impossible to get off!

-Bloom Creative Co.

Thanks for stopping by, Jamie xo

Where our stories probably differ is the fact that the home we stepped into looked like this…

This is what I was looking at when my heart skipped a beat. This explains why my husband had doubts.

This beauty had burned 3 years prior to this day, sat vacant, been vandalized, and had more smoke and water damage than we even realized at the time!

We were not in the market to buy a home, not one bit! Adam had quit his job 45 days before and we were sacrificing to start our construction company, Blueprint. I was a SAHM with an 8 month old and a 4 year old. We had no real income and no plan B! We had started our business as a leap of faith and I found myself feeling like God was asking us to take another. It was scary and exhilarating all at once!

Long story short, Adam and I leapt…God opened doors…we found a lender that believed in us (he took a leap of faith too), and we got to WORK.

As we started planning to navigate this enormous beast of a house, doubt began to creep in, overwhelming feelings and fear. We knew it was going to be tough; We refocused on God and started tackling it one project at a time!

The house was totally gutted, walls were knocked down, we added on, rewired, re-sided the outside, reroofed, installed all new heating and cooling… you name it, we did it. And you know what? God showed up! Like He always does. His provision was better than what we could’ve done on our own!

We wanted to bang this thing out in 6-8 months and it DID NOT happen. Not. Even. Close. This bad boy took us 2 years to complete. We worked almost every weekend with little down time. My in laws, who built their own home and helped us build our first one, were there with us every step of the way! We could’ve never done it without their hard work and expertise!

You know how you eat an elephant?

…one bite at a time!

-Bobby G., my father-in-law, when we started feeling overwhelmed

Slowly but surely it started to come together! The fact that it took us 4 times as long as we wanted, makes us appreciate every single detail, every single day, every single moment 400 times as much! Honestly, now looking back, we are so thankful we let God have His way and didn’t force ours. He ALWAYS knows better than us.

I could share with you a million ways God was in the middle of this, but it would be a book not a blog! We witnessed Him literally making a way when there wasn’t one, showing us things we’d never known and providing for us in ways we hadn’t dreamt before.

Bottom line… trust Him with your stuff, all the things. He can handle it.

We have now been in our home 18 months and I still have the same feeling I did the day I first stepped into it. It is a place of peace and chaos, sometimes all at once. It’s our home, it’s our gift and we will never forget how God made it possible.

I am excited to share with you the “after” pictures of our home project. We still have little things we want to do, of course, but it is HOME!

Comment below and let me know which room is your favorite. Join the Insider’s List and follow me on social for more tips and ideas to make your dream boards come to life. Thanks for stopping by, Jamie xo

If you want to know more about trusting God through faith in Jesus Christ, shoot me an email at mybloomcreative@gmail.com I’d love nothing more than to chat with you about the most important decision of your life.