The Lord is Gracious

We've had a busy month to say the least.  After many delays in Garrett's background clearances due to living in Ukraine, we are now happily living in Appleton, WI!  We delayed Garrett's start date and our move a number of weeks because the background clearances were taking so long.  Finally the week of November 10th we packed all our belongings and put it in storage.  Then we moved with our essentials to a fully furnished temporary apartment where we will be living until we settle on our house.

Our apartment is a blessing - I think it's a little bit like the Crowded House in that when we finally get to move into our house it will feel cavernous!  I feel very sorry for our neighbors and I cringe at the thought of meeting them due to the fact that we are on the 3rd floor and our boys are shall we say "a little active".  I'm sure the 5:30 pattering of running feet is not so welcome to those living below us!  My mom used to refer to us as a herd of elephants and I'm sure that's just what it sounds like to those downstairs.  Living on the 3rd floor has other challenges. It takes me a little while to get up the stairs especially with groceries and kids in toe, but a little exercise never hurt anyone - right?!

The weekends before we moved we would drive down to Appleton and look at houses.  The week we moved we looked at a few more. Then the day before we left to drive to PA for Thanksgiving we put in an offer which was accepted!  Our settlement date is the end of January and we are praying that all will go smoothly and quickly so we can move in as soon as possible.  It will be wonderful to have a month to settle in to our new home before the babies come!

Praise the Lord with us - we found a church!  The first Sunday after we arrived we attended Emmaus Road Presbyterian Church and loved it!  We loved the liturgy, the people, the solid gospel preaching.  We even met a couple we had taken on a tour of Kiev, Ukraine!  Cue - It's a Small World
We feel incredibly blessed to have found a church where we feel at home and can settle in right away.

You can be praying that the babies stay comfy and cozy in-utero until March 3rd when they will be 38 weeks.  You can also be praying for Logan and Noah as they transition from Duluth to Appleton and then to a new house.  It's a lot of changes for such little guys, but they are troopers!

This is getting quite wordy, there are lots of stories of the Lord's faithfulness behind all of these broad strokes.  If you want more details, feel free to e-mail me!!

Never a Dull Moment

Weeks after we found out we are pregnant with twins, Garrett got his dream job offer!  We are currently in the process of moving to Appleton, WI.  Garrett will be working for Gulfstream Aerospace as an Airplane Technician.  We are all very excited about this move as it means the very real possibility of purchasing our first home and staying in an area for more than 2 years!

In the midst of this good news we also had our 20 week ultrasound where we found that both babies are growing well and looking good!  They are both 12 ounces!  The GIRL is in the 50th percentile while the BOY is in the 45th percentile.  Both are very active and I'm excited for when Logan and Noah will be able to feel them kick and move around!  We took Logan and Noah along with us to the 20 week ultrasound because we thought they would find it interesting... luckily a young woman from our Small Group at church could come with us so when the boys quickly became bored she could take them out to play in the waiting room.  (What a blessing! Thanks Kim!)  Garrett and I enjoyed all 1 hour and 30 minutes of watching the babies kick and move.  We are THRILLED to have a little girl coming our way!  Not that boys are excellent, we are just very excited to experience the "sugar and spice and everything nice" that little girls are made of!

I tried to get some fun pictures of the boys with balloons to announce we are having a girl and a boy, but it didn't turn out as I had hoped.  Here they are anyway!  Enjoy!

Picture Update

I finally, after a few months, updated my monthly picture slideshows on Snapfish.  So if you want to see lots of pictures this is the link for you!
http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=5690595024/a=159579568_159579568/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/

Enjoy!

More Thoughts and Lots of Pictures

Garrett and I feel truly blessed to be entrusted with not one but two additional lives to nurture and raise in the fear and admonition of the Lord.  We are so excited and overwhelmed about our family doubling in size!  We greatly appreciate your prayers for safety and growth for the babies during the next 6 months and patience and grace for me as this pregnancy is already proving to be much more taxing then my previous ones.

Little Slugger

On our way to our favorite place to play, the dirt pile!

Riding a dirt bike like Uncle Kenton

Sweet moments like these make a mommy's heart happy!

Sin is never far away though...

Babies 3 & 4!

"Our mom lets us dig in the dirt!"

My Thoughts on Twins

When the ultrasound technician told me we were pregnant with twins I literally guffawed in her face.  I'm the person who secretly thought to myself every time I was pregnant "I'm so glad I don't have to worry about having twins! Lord knows I would never have enough patience for that!"  Well our God has a great sense of humor, does he not?!  So in my year of praying for patience with my precious 3 and 1 year old, I'm coming to understand that this prayer for patience will most undoubtedly be a life long prayer!

I know that's not many thoughts but Logan just woke up ~ CRANKY, again!  patience, patience, grace, patience! Maybe this should be entitled My Thoughts on Patience! More thoughts and pictures to follow!!

Camping

About a month ago we went on our first family camping trip.  It was a blast!  Well except for sleeping part... we might have slept a total of 4 hours all night, but other than that, we had so much fun!  The boys loved being outside and dirty 24/7 as the pictures show!

Library Days

One of Logan's favorite days is Library Day!  I absolutely love that he is so in love with books.  Whenever it is raining or even just cloudy he says, "Mom, when Noah gets up from his nap let's go to the library!"  So we go and pick out new books, play with the trains and trucks and puzzles, clean up the toys and get a sticker.  Then the whole way home the boys look at books and as soon as we get home Logan dumps all the books out on the floor and sits down in the middle of them to look at them all over again.  Noah mostly eats the books, but he loves to look at the pictures as well.  He prefers looking at the paper books because he likes the feel of the pages.  So far this has not been a problem - no ripped pages yet.  My very favorite part of having books all over the house is when Logan sits down and reads the books to Noah.  I LOVE it!  I unfortunately don't have very many good pictures of these book times, but I'm sure you can picture them in your mind!

* A note about the video ~ Before I actually shot the video Logan was reading the book out loud.  Of course as soon as I managed to get the video rolling he stopped...