Lots of help!

This past weekend, Grandpa and Grandma Smith and Aunt Aimee came to help us get some house projects done. We got so much accomplished and we are so grateful for their help. The guys put cabinets in the laundry room and changed out several ugly light fixtures while us women unpacked boxes and kept the girls entertained. I snapped these quick pictures right before they left and we headed to church on Sunday morning. Thanks so much for your help - we love you!

Moving...Ugh!

On July 23rd we moved out of our home in WV and started the transition to PA. The night before we moved, we dug out a BOZ board game to play to keep us entertained. It was fun playing on the boxes and good to have the family time before our life turned upside down. We celebrated with ice cream sundaes from McDonalds once we arrived at the hotel. It was a long, emotional drive from WV to PA for Mommy and of course ice cream, especially chocolate, always makes things better. :) The girls enjoyed swimming in the hotel pool. Both of them love the water and I'm amazed at how well they're each doing with swimming. Anna's doing great on her own without any floaties and Audrey swims all over and even likes to jump in and go under with her floaties on. I'm so thankful they're not afraid although they definitely keep us on our toes!

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The moving truck arrived with our stuff on Wednesday, July 28th. I cried when it pulled away and left us with 176 boxes to unpack. I've been through this many times but it's still completely overwhelming each time! Where's the kitchen? Can't see it but it is back there behind all of those depressing boxes. Too bad Audrey's little sweeper didn't really pick up anything. The boxes make such a mess! Anna thought she'd make a bed out of a paper towel roll. Our first breakfast in our new house. Mommy had to make some yummy cinnamon rolls.

On the road again...

The movers are arriving tomorrow morning and we're not ready. They just called to say that they need more time to pack us so they're coming tomorrow instead of on Thursday morning like originally planned. I'm not panicking - yet! God has it all worked out and He knows what needs to be done when so I guess I'll just get done what I can tonight and worry about the rest later, or at least before Friday when the truck pulls away from our house here and heads to the new place in PA. I praise God for working everything out like He always does, that's how we know it's His will. We can't make these things happen nor do I think we would choose to. Moving is no easy job but when He's leading it, it does go fairly smoothly. We'd appreciate your prayers as we transition to a new area once again. Each move requires finding a new church home, new friends, finding our way around, new doctors, new hairstylist =), and organizing yet another house. It'll all come together in His timing.

Bike rides

We love to go on bike rides and even though mommy can't ride a bike right now, it's not stopping Anna, Daddy, and Audrey from enjoying a ride. I walk and they ride circles around me. :) Audrey loves the bike trailer just like Anna did. It's been a great investment!

Swim lessons

Anna started swim lessons on Monday and has made incredible progress since then. It's an intense program, only 8 days, but they promise your child will be swimming by the end. The videos below are proof that she's swimming all by herself and it's only day 4. They push the kids hard, not allowing crying and they make them get in and go under whether they want to or not. But, they're not mean about it and after the kids are exposed to it and face their fear of the water, they do really well. It's sometimes hard to watch but the videos are proof that it works. She has a great instructor for which we are very thankful!

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Celebrating the U.S.A.

Anna is 5!

Hard to believe Miss Anna is now 5 years old! My goodness how time flies! She is such a big helper and sweet companion but I do miss my baby girl. She'll be starting Kindergarten in the fall and that will be hard for mommy although she's very ready. We celebrated her birthday at the beach but she wasn't feeling 100%. The poor girl had come down with a fever virus a few days into our vacation and thankfully she did pretty well as long as she was medicated. We decorated our hotel room and took some of her gifts with us so that we can could celebrate her birthday away from home. She loved having the hotel room decorated and enjoyed her special day. We played on the beach, in the pool, and then went out for dinner to a pizzeria and then to play games at an arcade which she loved. She had a full day of fun!

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Virginia Beach 2010

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Daddy's Day

We had a low-key Father's Day at our house as Audrey had a fever and wasn't feeling too well. The girls and I picked out some gifts for Michael that he opened and I made him a blackberry cobbler. He and Anna had fun playing soccer in the yard and hide and seek. Audrey and I had fun watching them. :) The girls are blessed with a great daddy who is their "knight in shining armor" right now. Anna asks if she can marry him often and Audrey drops everything and runs to tackle him the minute he walks in the door at the end of each work day. He's a pretty popular guy around our house!

Saddle Ridge Ranch

This past week was VBS and oh what an exhausting week! It was from 6:30-9:00 each night and while the girls loved it, it sure was tiring! We had a good time though and enjoyed seeing the girls' excitement. We were amazed at how the classrooms were decorated! This is a picture of Anna's classroom and many others looked very similar to this as many of the teachers built ranch-like structures to fill their rooms. Wow! Michael and I taught the 3rd grade class and we weren't nearly this creative. Michael was able to salvage some leftover material from another classroom and made an outhouse for our room. The boys in our class thought it was great! :) Audrey woke up with a fever the last day of VBS so she didn't get to sing with her class in the program. We were bummed as her music teacher told us what a great little singer and dancer she was. :) VBS left the girls exhausted despite sleeping lots at night and taking good naps. Anna had just woke up from a nap in the picture below but obviously wasn't quite ready to be awake.

18 weeks

Here I am, 18 weeks along with baby boy. I've thought about looking at pictures of me at this stage while pregnant with the girls but I'm sure it'll just depress me as I know I was smaller. O'well, he's healthy and I'm healthy and that's all that matters. I've gained 8 pounds so far and am trying to not let that get out of control. We had a great doctor's appointment last week and I praise God for getting us to this point and for our health. Michael wants to decorate the baby's room in airplanes, WWII planes, so we found some bedding we both like and bought some small model planes from Hobby Lobby to decorate with. He's very excited about the planes we bought, it's so fun to see his excitment. I'm feeling good besides the discomfort of stretching and am feeling the little guy move around more and more each day. I can't wait for the girls to feel him move!

Home in PA

We spent this past week in PA looking for a place to call home. God blessed us with a great house that will soon be our's and it clearly stood out among the others as the place for us. Finding a place with some breathing room is difficult there but thankfully He lead us to the right place. I was hoping to find something that didn't have a drive under garage but at least 70% of the houses there have this due to the rolling hills so that wasn't an option. The house is 4 years old and in very good condition. There've been no kids or pets living in it so it's about as close to brand new as you can get without it actually being brand new. The owners had beautiful furniture and decorations so it'll be intersting to see what it looks like after we get our things moved in. It definitely won't look so formal or fancy but that's ok. We're more relaxed and simple and I want my home to feel like a home where you can sit back and be comfortable without worrying that you'll break something or breathe the wrong way. =) Enjoy the pictures, we are praising God for His direction and provision!

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I'm so behind!

I'm so far behind with blogging. I don't know that I'll ever catch up. There are many pictures I'd love to share but never enough time. Since my last post, we spent a week in Indiana visiting family, Michael and I went away to Lexington for our 10 year anniversary, we got our move notice on Tuesday and are to be in PA by July 19, got our house on the market, and found out this past Thursday that we're having a boy (We are so excited!). We also had a garage sale and a house showing today that both combined just about put me over the edge. I'm thankful there's interest in our house and thankful to get rid of lots of stuff we don't we want to move but it's just been crazy lately and there haven't been enough hours in the day. This next week we'll be house hunting in PA so maybe the following week I can catch up with the blog. We'll see. So, for now, here are a few pictures, definitely not all that I want to share but these'll have to do. The girls with Great Grandpa and Grandma Burch Anna's Preschool Graduation Michael and I celebrating 10 years of marriage. Thank you Lord for a wonderful husband who's my very best friend, a great daddy, and most important, a man who's given his heart to the Lord and strives each day to live for Him.

Baby update

I'm a week late in updating but so goes life. I had a doctor appt. last Thursday and praise the Lord, the placenta has moved according to the ultrasound. It's now in a safer spot which is such an answer to prayer. I do have a cervical polyp that is causing the spotting that is sometimes heavy at times but it's not affecting the baby. The baby looked very healthy and was still measuring ahead. We were able to see the bladder and stomach and the heart rate was 153 bpm. My due date is now November 8th although if they don't feel like they can safely remove the polyp before delivery, I'll more than likely have a c-section once I'm full term before I would go into labor on my own. We go back for another check-up and ultrasound on June 3rd and will find out what we're having then. Soooo excited!!! =)

Audrey's Big Owie

Yesterday the girls were having a good 'ol time wrestling and this is what ended up happening to Miss Audrey. We're not exactly sure how it happened but it was pretty scary as her eye was bleeding and she was screaming. We got her checked out and it's healing fine on it's own but it sure doesn't look pretty. It will probably leave a small scar where the eyelid has a small cut on it, but other than that she should be looking ok in a few days. No more wrestling!!!

Happy Mother's Day!

I'm so thankful to be a Mommy. I remember years ago when we were struggling to get pregnant with Anna and even before that how much I longed to be a mother. I so looked forward to the day when a child would call me "mommy". Sometimes I forget about those times in the chaos and trials of each day but the Lord is faithful to remind me of all that I have to be grateful for. Anna planted these flowers for me at school, she was soooo excited to show me what she'd been working on at preschool, and both girls made me lots of sweet crafts. They even baked a cake for me with Daddy's help. I am spoiled!! I'm so thankful for these sweet girls and the little one in my belly that the Lord has entrusted in my care. I am blessed to be their Mommy! I pray that I will model for them each day what my mother modeled for me; complete devotion to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There is no better gift to give your child!

Barbies with Daddy

This is one of the many reasons I love my husband. Does he enjoy playing Barbies? No, but he'll do it because his girls ask him to. What a great daddy!! =)

Cuddly Cows

My Aunt Carol got a cow for each of the girls when they were newborns and both girls have slept with their cows from day 1. As you can see, the attachment to their cows is strong. I couldn't pass up these picture opportunities the other night when I checked on them and they both had their cows right there with them. Too sweet!

Gliding

This glider swing has provided hours of entertainment over the past 2 years. Anna used to swing on it for a half an hour and never stop. Now that Audrey's big enough to swing on it too, the girls will spend lots of time on it together. What a great investment!

Fun neighbors

We had fun "neighbors" living behind our house up until a few days ago when the family moved. The girls used to call for the puppies as soon as we'd step foot out the door and the puppies would coming running, sticking their noses through the fence wanting to be played with. The girls would run back and forth along the fence and the puppies would run with them. They had so much fun wearing one another out. We were so sad to see them move away to a new home.