Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for my God who loves me unconditionally and for His amazing grace. I am thankful for a devoted husband and father to my girls who loves us and works hard to provide for and care for us. I am thankful for my sweet girls that teach me so much each day. I feel priviledged that God has entrusted me to take care of them. I am thankul for both of our families and for our friends. I am thankful for our church family and for our pastor who unwaveringly teaches the Truth. I am thankful for so many blessings that I could go on and on. What are you thankful for?

Wall Canvas for the Girls and Fleece Throw for Rachel

I've been working on a few crafty things as time permits and these are a couple of my completed projects. The girls will be sharing a room soon so I wanted to make a wall canvas for them. Here it is:

Rachel wanted a new blanket so I made her a no-sew fleece throw to match the room that the girls will soon share. Here it is:

The Soccer Season is Over

Today was Rachel's last soccer game of the season. Jeremy coached her team again this year. They didn't win a lot of games this year, but they had fun playing. Rachel was very excited to get her trophy today. Here is her soccer team picture and her individual picture.

Trunk-or-Treat

Since Halloween fell on Sunday this year, we didn't take the girls trick-or-treating that night, but we did go to Trunk-or-Treat at church on Saturday afternoon. Rachel picked out the costumes this year. She decided that she wanted Abigail to be a dalmation and she wanted to be a firefighter. The only problem with it was that Abigail refused to put on her costume. I finally got it on her, but it didn't last long at all. Oh, well. The girls had a good time playing on the moon bounces, trunk-or-treating and playing games.

Our Carved Pumpkins

I carved four pumpkins this year. I let Abigail decide what we should put on the two small ones and Rachel picked the design for one of the large ones. I showed Abigail several pictures of kids pumpkin designs and she loved Mickey and Minnie the best (aka Mickey House and Minnie House.) Rachel wanted a scary face so I let her choose from three or four designs. I designed the other pumpkin myself. Hope you enjoy!

Our Baby Boy's Nursery

Here are the samples of the fabrics for the nursery. I got these pics from an online store so some of the colors are a bit off, but you can get the general idea.

I painted these wall letters on Friday night. (It was supposed to be a date night since our church had a parents' night out, but Jeremy was sick so this is how I spent my child-free time.)

Our baby boy's name will be Joshua Kirby.

Gramsy's Visit

My mom, aka Gramsy, came for a quick visit on Saturday. On Friday, I located the fabric that I wanted to use for our baby boy's crib bedding at a local fabric store. After I learned that I could get the fabric locally (and not from an online store), we decided to go to the store to see it in person this weekend.

Mom drove here early Saturday morning so that she could make it here for Rachel's 9am soccer game. The girls were so excited to see her! I let her visit be a surprise for them.

After the soccer game, we went to the SBEC Fall Festival. The girls enjoyed moon bounces and a pony ride together. Rachel also climbed a rock wall and jumped on a trampoline with bungee cords. They had a good time!

After that, Mom and I drove to the fabric store in Germantown. We ended up getting all of the fabric needed for my crib bedding, accent pillows and window valance. I'm so excited about us making everything together. It's going to be a beautiful nursery!

A New TV...

So a few weeks ago, we turned off our living room tv (an older HDTV) one night when we went to bed and wouldn't come on the next morning. I researched our tv model on the internet and tried a few things to get it to turn on, but had no luck. When Jeremy came home from work, he tried to turn it on and it came on. We decided that we would leave the tv on all the time, but leave it on a blank screen when we weren't watching it. That worked for about a week.

Wednesday morning, Jeremy watched the news and then turned off the tv out of habit when he left for work. We were not able to get it to come back on at all so we decided to replace it. That also meant that we would also need to replace our media cabinet since the one that we had only held up to a 32" tv. We decided on a budget for both.

I shopped around for a new media cabinet and Jeremy shopped around for a new tv. We had decided to just put our new tv above our fireplace because we couldn't find a media cabinet that was the right size and style that fit within our budget. Then, when we were at Sam's looking at tvs, we saw a cabinet that we both really liked so we purchased it and a new 55" Vizio tv. We're hoping that it lasts for several years!

Oh What Joy...

We're expecting a baby BOY!!! He is due March 2nd and we are so excited!



We had been wanting to add to our family for quite some time. This baby is certainly an answer to many prayers. I found out that I was expecting on June 30th. I just couldn't believe it. I immediately called Jeremy to share the good news. I couldn't even wait until he made it home to plan a cute announcement for him!

I saw my OB for the first time on July 13th. (At which time, I was only 6 weeks pregnant.) Amazingly, we were able to keep my pregnancy a secret for several weeks. I had my next doctor's appointment on August 3rd. That night, we decided to tell our girls. And the following day, we shared our news with our parents and grandparents. We let Rachel call them all to share our announcement. Then we began telling everyone else.

Today, we had an ultrasound and were able to see our baby for the first time since my first appointment in July. (And at that time, there wasn't much to see. We weren't even able to see a heartbeat then.) The girls came with us and we all found out together that they would be getting a baby brother. Rachel is excited and Abigail doesn't really understand what is happening.

It's been forever!

I know that it's been a very long time since I've updated our blog. I'll do my best over the next few weeks to go back through the year that has passed and update.