A Flurry of Activity.

...times three.  To begin, Advent is literally days away and I'm totally unprepared.  Between all of my Christmas gear and Advent activities for homeschooling and decorating being tucked away in an unreachable spot in one of our three storage units, and not being in a house that I can really decorate I'm feeling a little scattered. 

I am in desperate need of the Magnificat Advent Companion....hoping that I can make it over to the Catholic bookstore before they are all snatched up!  That little booklet is always such a blessing to me in this busy season.

I guess a big part of my preparation for Advent in years past has been focused on decorating and doing activities with the kids.  During Advent our homeschool lesson plans change from the Catholic Heritage Curriculum to a mix of educational and just plain fun activities and lessons which lead up to the birth of Jesus.  I change out activities on our school shelves and this year I just feel kind of lost without my own space to be able to do that.  I am trying to incorporate some Advent prep crafts and such the best that I can.  Today we did this activity that I found on Catholic Icing.  Making our frugal dollar store candles into Advent pink and purple ones...along with our dollar store wreath and fake flowers. 

(I have to say the first two candles were "smoother" than the last two purples, but overall painting with melted crayons worked quite well, and Isabel enjoyed the instant transformation as much as I did!)

Now while I'm a little disappointed that we are not in the new house to be able to do all of this right now, I am excited and thankful that we are just getting a new home for Christmas!  And that is the second part of my flurry of activity....I am spending wayyyy too much time on Pinterest and Craigslist searching for new finds/ideas/creations for the new home.  I'm torn because it's fun to think about decorating and preparing a new house, and yet I don't want to be totally occupied by this excitement during this special season when I'm supposed to be focusing on preparing my heart. 

And finally, there has been a flurry of activity in my belly lately!  This baby who has seemed fairly inactive to me, has suddenly increased his or her movement quite a bit, and I've been enjoying it!  Very thankful to be able to feel this little one move around more and more!

Anatomy Scan was.... *Updated with PIC*

a success!!  And by that I mean that first and foremost, the baby is growing right on track and looks completely healthy from all that they saw!  What a relief!  I have plenty of amniotic fluid, baby has all organs, a four chamber heart, a 3 vessel cord, my cervix has not begun to shorten, etc...everything just looks great! 

And the second success was that we stuck to our guns and did not find out the baby's gender!  I think our ultrasound tech was surprised.  I guess these days the majority of people do find out the gender; she seemed kind of amused by the suspense we were creating for ourselves ;)  I did press her a little bit and asked if she could tell for sure one way or the other what the gender was (really if the baby was giving her a clear shot) and she said that she definitely knew.  So that part was hard, knowing that she knew and the four of us (Rob, Isabel and Ian all joined me!) did not.  She made sure to write "patient did not wish to know the gender" in my chart so that the doctors and nurses would not slip up and say, "Oh, so it says here you are having a...."  I thought that was smart! ;)  I had dreamt a few days prior that somehow I was able to see the "parts" at the ultrasound and ruined the surprise for myself.

At this point I really think it's going to be a boy.  Of course we will just be happy with a healthy, live baby; part of me is hoping for a girl for Isabel, although a boy close in age to Ian would be great too...so really whoever comes out will be just who God intended for us :)

We're Under Contract!

FINALLY!  After selling our home back in July and living with relatives for the last 4+ months, we are under contract on THE home!  I don't know how many houses we have seen over the last year in this search for a home on unrestricted land, but God has finally opened up this house and we think it is just perfect. 

A well-built home that is big enough to grow our family, on nearly 4 acres of land out in the country....yet not so far away that it will feel like we are isolated from civilization! ;)  All well within our budget....God is so good!  And did I mention that we will have a tractor??  Oh, my husband and son (yes, Ian's latest thing is tractors!) are going to be in heaven!

I have to say that there were many moments when I wondered if God didn't just want us to live with our family, well.....forever.  And while it has been a blessing to save money while living with family, we are all ready to get into our own place.  Not to mention I was starting to get a bit antsy about not having a home in which to "nest"!  

Our closing will put us very near Christmas....so it will be a busy time of the year, not to mention a joyous reason to count our blessings! 

In the beginning of 2012, in this post, I wrote about having a hopefulness about the year.  I could never have guessed the plans God had in store for us......selling our home, getting pregnant with another little blessing, and finding a home that will allow us to be a little more self-sufficient and which is really a place we feel is going to be a great fit for our family!