We're moving...

We've had some crazy turn of events here lately. The past two weeks we had two offers come in on our house, two very bad offers. We countered them both and never heard back from the Realtors. I was actually grateful that they didn't go through, because this little girl is due in just 6 weeks and the thought of moving with a newborn brought me to tears!! We actually decided to take our house off the market on May 1st (Saturday), and I've been SO excited to feel more settled just weeks before little sweetie pie arrives. I've been counting down the days for May 1st to finally get here!

Then around 9:30pm tonight our Realtor calls and shocks us with the news that one of the buyers accepted our counter. Which was almost a full price counter on our part! We thought they'd never accept it. Sparing many details, just 24 hours before we were going to (happily) take our house off the market for a little while, it sells.

The biggest kick to the whole story is that we have no where to go and they want to close on May 21st!!! PLEASE PRAY for us tomorrow! We feel the Lord leading us to sign this contract, but its a bit scary not knowing where we will be in three weeks. We have decided we'll look for a place to rent for at least 3 months...to be "settled" when the baby comes and to give us time to look for a house to buy.

Right now I feel a crazy mixture of peace (definitely a gift from God, because I was full of anxiety earlier this week about the thought of moving before the baby comes), faith and a huge heap of emotion. We've lived here almost 8 years and loved every day of it. We love this house. And almost every memory as a married couple and with our girls is here. Its hard for me to imagine leaving in a few weeks (especially with these pregnancy hormones kicking in...I'm crying a lot these days!!). Everywhere I look I think of a memory and I tear up!

I'd love any encouragement on how to handle the emotions of moving...especially since I have NO idea where we are going. This is certainly not my timing...but I'm holding tightly that God's timing is far better. Thanks for your prayers! We desperately need them.

Easter Princesses

Easter is a fun time to have girls...with Easter Sunday being a wonderful occasion to dress them up in their finest. This year my Dad & Rachel sent Alathea & Abigail these matching "princess Easter dresses", as the girls called them. Here are bunches of pictures of them as little easter princesses...

A sweet family picture from Easter afternoon, spent at Joe's families house.

Easter day was gorgeous and spent with family eating a yummy meal and hunting for eggs out back.

Abigail's "hunt" was cut short after finding her first egg to have candy in it. She happily stopped to eat the candy before proceeding to the next egg. Alathea on the other hand raced around the yard collecting 95% of the eggs. I love their different personalities!

Easter morning...very happy girls waking up to Easter baskets.

We bypassed lots of candy this year and ended up giving them books and play dough :)

They were happy!

We spent a good bit of time every evening the weeks prior to Easter, talking with the girls (mostly Alathea) about the Gospel and the true meaning of Easter. Each year I think (and hope and pray) a bit more sinks in...

This year Easter was a week long celebration.

Almost every night before bed we'd have a family easter egg hunt, sometimes outside and sometimes in the house. It was so fun! The girls (and Joe!) were quite competitive.

Our dear friends, the Lloyds, had the girls over for a morning to dye eggs, and make and decorate easter cookies. My girls had a blast!

And the day before Easter we went to our churches annual Easter Egg Hunt.

It was the craziest thing I've ever seen...the hunt was over about 30 seconds after it began!

Literally hundreds of kids sprinted to collect all the eggs as fast as they could leaving the littles in the dust :) Fortunately my girlies only cared about the candy in the eggs, not how many eggs they found, and were quite content with three eggs each.

Its hard to believe that next Easter we'll have THREE little girls.

Just 7 weeks until this little sweetie is due...

Come home, Daddy, we miss you!

Joe's been gone in KY at Together for the Gospel since Monday. We really miss him!! He is on his way home and I cannot wait to see him (hopefully they'll get in around 11pm). I always miss him, but this time being 8 months pregnant and with two little girls by myself for four days, I really, really miss him (and didn't know I could be so tired :) The girls absolutely cannot wait!! Life is so out of sorts when he is away!

We also got an offer on our house while he was away. It wasn't a good one, so we countered and are waiting to hear what the buyers think. I'm just trusting and waiting. God knows if this is the time to move and I'm completely dependent on Him! If this does go through, we'll be moving just a week or two before this little one would come. But all that is still up in the air until we hear back about the counter. Keep us in your prayers!

7 Months

While on our trip, it occurred to me I have zero pictures of my pregnancy this time around, so Joe snapped a few before we left (sorry for the poor lighting!). This poor little girl...the first pregnancy picture I took of her is at nearly 8 months!

The past month my belly has popped and I look completely pregnant. It's amazing how much I've grown so fast...just 4 weeks ago I wasn't even wearing maternity clothes.

So far this pregnancy has been nearly identical with the other two in almost every way. Its been so nice to know what to expect from month to month. I'm very blessed with feeling great most of the time. The only downer is that I have been pretty tired, and discovered I'm very anemic, so hopefully taking extra iron with help!

This little one is due in just 9 weeks! Amazing to think about! I'm getting really excited about meeting her. I've slowly started thinking through getting things ready for her. I've not wanted to jump right into it, because our house is still on the market and I've not had a clue as to where we will be living. But for now, I'm starting to assume it will be here, which is wonderful. She won't really have any "space" of her own...so preparations have more to do with organizing closets to find places for her little clothes and baby items instead of decorating a nursery, but God has given me great joy in even that.

We still have yet to decide on a name. In fact, we not anywhere close to choosing a name for her. Alathea has had a name all along: "Alina Sleeping Beauty Snow White Tinker Bell". She's pretty insistent on it :) Joe & I both love a certain name, but it has a horrible meaning, so we're not a peace with it. The meaning of a name is important to Joe.

Please feel free to send ANY name suggestions our way! We can us all the help we can get!!

a trip with my boy

This past week Joe & I were blessed to take a 3 day trip just the two of us!

It was sooo nice to get a way together. We went to my friends parents lake house in South Carolina. Its an adorable little cottage right on Lake Keowee. There is not a ton to do there, but to enjoy the beauty of the lake and hike the near by trails and enjoy the college town of Clemson (and the yummy restaurants nearby). We did explore some beautiful waterfalls and a very cool tunnel/cave one day. The rest of the time we read and enjoyed walking around the lake and playing scrabble. A perfect get-a-way for an 8 month pregnant lady!

We both brought a bunch of books and sat on two comfy chairs overlooking the lake together. The view above is the view out the window! Its amazing how enjoyable reading during the day is since we normally can't until late at night! Joe finished 3 books while there (he's super fast) and I finished 1 and got a good bit of planning done. It was a spiritually and physically refreshing time away.

We sure had fun together too...wish we could get a way the two of us more often (as in every month...hehe)!!

These are the waterfalls we hiked too. It was great wading in the bottom of them and enjoying the cool mountain water. Makes me feel like a little kid :)