Michael and I have been married 14 years today. We have been through a lot in just the last 10 years. Birth of Angela Faith born with brain defect, but the joy of our lives. The loss of Angela, 37 months later. The unexpectedly soon arrival of her sister Cayli Grace and then Lia Hope. Now 4 and 2. Kinda unexpected unemployment in February of 2009. But we definitely haven’t expected it to last as long as it has… almost 16 months. And God’s surprise of child number four on the way to arrive with an expected date of October 5th. We still have no idea where God is leading us.

Today we won’t really be celebrating our anniversary together at least in a formal go out way. There’s plenty to do as there is every day. My back and hip are in pain from this pregnancy which made sleeping hard last night. (Especially since it’s the left side where you are supposed to sleep.) I have a lot of computer work to do, and then cleaning for a house guest that is arriving in just short of a week. (And the guest bed is currently covered in clothes to be put away (winter stuff) or in drawers (summer stuff).)

Hopefully today will be a good day.

So Michael is doing his whirl-wind trip of three states this week.  He left yesterday for NJ, today has his interview there, stays overnight and then heads towards Pittsburgh tomorrow for an interview on Thursday.  The kids are doing there best to remind me of the joys of single parenthood and it hasn’t even been 24 hours yet!

• Cayli who hasn’t worn any of the overalls in her drawer since they got put there decided today is the day (and of course she can’t do them up or undo them on her own – still not sure why this is a big deal?  think potty time)

• you don’t have someone else to nudge when someone starts crying in the middle of the night or to help change diapers.

• and when I gave the kids a bath last night and lets just say there was an accident in the bath requiring getting them out, cleaning the tub out, cleaning it and redrawing bath water.

Love them dearly but I’m a little worried it hasn’t even been 24 hours!  :)

Lia doesn’t quite have the understanding of what is going on.  I’m still here in my pajamas and she thinks that any time now Daddy is going to be waking up, that I’ve just been letting him sleep in.

And of course Cayli wants to know how many darks (yes she counts nights not days) until … just about everything in the calendar year.  Halloween, until the baby is born, Christmas, when Daddy gets back, when we will go stay at Grandma & Grandpa’s… the list goes on and on.

Does anyone know of something that would allow me to instantly know how many days there are until…?  I keep thinking there is probably an app for the iTouch but since I haven’t made that purchase yet that doesn’t do any good yet.  Best thing I can come up with when I’m by my computer is having the days of the year up on my Google Calendar so I can (hopefully) do the subtraction in my head from one date to today.

Well it is time to try and get something done today.  Enjoy!

So many of you have heard and are probably being directed here by my latest email.  We are expecting.  I am about 7-7 1/2 weeks along depending if you go by my dates or the last ultrasound’s date.  Either way it is close.

We have not made it to Syracuse yet, but hope to have that appointment with the Perinatal Center in the next month or so.  The advantage is if we get a job here in New York, we should be able to follow up with them throughout the pregnancy.

We are excited.  A little nervous at the timing, but we are looking forward to see what happens.  We are due right now in October.

Meanwhile we enjoy Cayli and Lia as they grow up.  Cayli has a small idea of what is to come.  She will tell anyone there is around when she is thinking of it that there will be a new baby after Lia’s birthday.  That’s the goal.  We will see what the Lord has in store.

My baby girl’s birthday was yesterday.  We were shopping at the store Friday night, walking by the cake section at the bakery and I almost lost it.  Angela loved ice cream cake.  Yesterday a few friends came over with cake and ice cream just like she would have loved.  I know Cayli and Lia didn’t quite understand, but they tried.

Angela would have been eight years old.  Hard to believe in some ways, but in others it is hard to believe it has only been that long.  Her two beautiful sisters here kept me smiling but tonight I just had to sit down and put my facebook post down in a scrapbook page.  I choose Autumn Bliss created by Sweet Tomato Designs.  (see my scrapbooking blog post)

This month has been stressful.  The next month brings continued uncertainty and another emotional anniversary. But this is why I started scrapbooking.  Therapy.  And digital scrapbooking therapy is certainly cheaper than retail therapy!  (Not that there is anywhere around here for the latter either!)

I know I’m going to have my moments, especially over the course of the next month.  But family is here to support, and God is hanging on to me.

Well family is always asking us for ideas for Christmas so I have been putting together a list with the help of the universal add to wish list button for Amazon.  So hopefully this will help any family and friends who are interested.  There should be a link on the right that you can click on to go straight there.  Enjoy!

So the kids woke us up this morning almost screaming about the fact that it was snowing outside and they were so happy!

If you have ever seen the Backyardigans episode of the Secret of Snow where Uniqua sings the song, “I Love Snow” to the tune of Jingle Bells, you can guess what Cayli was singing…

snow outside today (11/30/09)

This is what we woke up to this morning. Nothing much stuck but enough to make the kids want to go out, but not enough for us to want them to go out and get all muddy when they tried to make “snow” (ie mud) angels.

So they didn’t go out, but maybe later this week we will get more.

I know that we (the parents) are just hoping we can get the garage stuff shifted around again to put the van in.  Frozen water on power doors is not a good thing.

So we are both getting very ready for the phone to ring … for something to arrive in the mail. We keep hoping and praying that something shows up from Rome for a job in Rome that will start before Christmas.

I know Christmas is not about the gifts you can give or that you get. But after almost 10 months of not spending for anything extra, waiting on things we do need because we just can’t do it with the funds we have right now, it would be nice to be able to get a few of those things.

Last night we joked around that the “perfect thing” would be to get the notice today that he has a job, starting December1st.  Yes it would mean we would be apart for a good portion of the month of December, but then we could get a few of those things we need to for tax purposes before the end of the year.  And maybe, just maybe a few of the things we have really been wanting to make life easier.

I don’t know.  I don’t know what God’s plan is, we are trying to be open, trying to be patient.  It is not easy.  Especially with two little girls who are trying their limits it feels at every opprotunity.

ps…  I’ll apologize to whoever I got this picture from, I abcolutely love it and it fits today, but I don’t have it marked where I got it from (or if I do it is in my ACDsee software trial that has run out – one of the purchases for tax reasons), and google is not working so I can’t try to look it up right now.  I will I promise!  :>)

Nothing much new yet on the job front for us. Michael has an interview in CT this week, and we are still hoping to hear from Rome.  Hope, pray, contort fingers?  We wills see what is going to happen.

We had a blast on Halloween with the kids, I still have to post pics from then.

Yes I know it has been a week.

Things have been busy, REALLY!!

And we have been really tired from working on the leaves outside.  They are almost all up.  I have pics of the girls “jumping” in the leaves with Daddy today too.  Get the batteries on the camera recharged and then I can download them.  Hopefully tomorrow.

Just wanted to post an update just in case anyone in the family is checking in.

Anyways aside from the stress (see previous post) …. I have been busy doing some scrapbooking but I wanted to share some of the pictures of things here for everyone to see.

I’m just going to post the pictures for now.  Links to the kits if anyone is interested are at http://www.faithisscrapbooking, my scrapbooking blog.  I will probably get them here eventually but my main concern right now is just getting some pictures up!

The girls are so excited for Halloween this year, it should be interesting to see what happens and how much candy the two of them come home with.  It looks like they will be superheros/The Wonder Pets depending on what I can cobble together before the main event.

Keep thinking good thoughts on weather!

Hope you’ve enjoyed the pics, more to come soon!

So I am beginning to think that when an “ending” or an “answer” gets closer the stress gets harder to take.  We are getting very tired of waiting to hear what is going on and for God’s plan to start it’s new path in our lives.  Unemployment is getting old.  But we are trying to be patient.  Remember the phrase, “Patience is a Virtue” ?  It seems all too true right now.