Moving Day

It is moving day and I am on bedrest. My sweet husband stayed up all night to finish packing. Now he is off to class before the move. I am so thankful we hired movers for this it is alot less stressful. I will be so happy when we get everything in our little house one less thing before the boys get here. The one sad thing user won't have internet so I will try to blog from my phone. Happy moving day hopefully I will eventually get pictures up of our house.

We are MOVING!!!!

I am so excited to make this post. For months Bob and I have been looking for the perfect rental house to live in, we have searched and searched. Finally last week Bob and I found the perfect house. We then found out we were not the only ones who fell in love with the house. So after a week of anxious waiting we got the long awaited phone call today! We GOT THE HOUSE!!! We are so excited! This will be the perfect house to bring our two sweet boys home to.  It is 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and brand new! It has a beautiful kitchen, the perfect room for a nursery, and a wonderful master suite! We are beyond elated!!!
 Don't you just love it, it is so cute!

Let the packing begin!

Catch Up...

I need to play catch up. I know is almost the end of January but time has really gotten away from me! Christmas was great a little bittersweet as this was our last Christmas as a family. Bob and I celebrated Christmas in North Carolina with the Smithermans, McIntyres, and Lewis'. We are so blessed to have a wonderful community group from church that has become like family to us. The day after Christmas we had tons of snow as you may remember from my last post.  January has flown by I absolutely forgot to make New Years resolutions but to be honest I am not sure what to expect this year. I can not believe in just a few short months we will be parents and not just parents to one baby but two an instant family of four. That is mind blowing!  There is not to much to catch you up on simply because our lives are pretty quiet right now. Bob started back seminary last week. He is taking a full load and hoping the babies come during spring break, we will see. I have had to reduce my hours significantly at work because of the babies, but as long as I am not on bed rest right now I am a happy camper we are just having to learn to be very frugal with our money. Our biggest obstacle lately has been that our lease is up right when the babies our due so we having been trying to deal with our living arrangements. We live in a 2 bedroom apartment now and are really tired of apartment living thanks to our loud, obnoxious neighbors. We have been looking for place to move for a few months now. We decided that even thought the housing market is ideal for buyers right now we are not going to try to buy a house because we are not sure how long we will be in North Carolina. Bob has about 2 more years on his MDIV but is not sure where he is going to get his PhD degree from. We began looking at houses to rent but did not really want to raise our expenses with the cost of two babies we are adding to the budget this year. This has proven to be a challenge since things are way overpriced up here. Last week we actually found a house that we liked that is closer to the seminary and our church family and only about a 10 minute increase in my work commute. We are going to look at it today. It is actually a brand new house that the owner bought just for rental purposes so far it seems like an answer to prayer so hopefully it will all work out. I will keep you posted. I think you are all caught up on our life now. I told you there was not to much going on!

Christmas Snow...

 It was a white Christmas night.  Last night it began to snow. The snow kept falling throughout the night and the prediction was for us to get about 2-3 inches. We woke up this morning to a Winter Wonderland. When I measured the ground we had 7 inches and it was still falling. It has been flurrying off and on for the day. It is just beautiful.

 Izzy loves the snow too!

A little snow day video:

Merry Christmas!!

Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas!

Izzy and Santa...

I took Izzy to see Santa at Petsmart today. She was not to sure about him but finally she looked at the camera and we got two really cute pictures.

They let anyone take a picture with Santa for $10 and $5 of that goes to homeless pets. You get two digital prints and picture frame. I think next year we may just have to go back with the boys and Izzy it was a lot less chaotic than the mall and a cost a lot less. Sorry the picture is poor quality it is a picture of a picture since my scanner will not work. 

Book Review: Two Tickets to the Christmas Ball

As you may know I am part of Waterbrook Multunomah's Blogging for Books program.  I absolutely love doing this since I am an avid reader of Christian fiction. They have recently revamped their program so it has been a while since I have had a chance to review a book. Since it was almost Christmas I decided to review Donita K. Paul's Two Tickets to the Christmas Ball. I have never read one of Mrs. Paul's books before and I am always looking for new authors.

This was a charming and entertaining story of two people who have been around each other for years but this holiday season they are brought together by unexpected encounter at a peculiar bookstore. After their encounter at the bookstore they each find themselves in possession of a ticket to a very special Christmas Ball thanks to some very unconventional matchmaking booksellers. This spurs on an interesting series of events that will leave Cora Crowder and Simon Derrick with a holiday season they will never forget. 

This was a very different book for me to read. Mrs. Paul intertwines faith and fantasy in a way I have never seen before and I quite enjoyed it. I would encourage you to give this book a try. It was very entertaining in it's quirky narrative. Even better throughout the narrative Cora is able to truly catch the Christmas spirit reminding us all of the reason we celebrate this time of year. Grab a cup of hot chocolate and cozy on up in your favorite reading chair and dive in to this delightful book. 

Here is a link  for you to download the first chapter of "Two Tickets To The Christmas Ball"

You can also purchase this book at Waterbrook Multnomah 's Website in hardback or ebook format. 

"I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review"

My Ultimate Christmas Wish List...

1. Cannon EOS Rebel T2i 18.0

2.Keurig Coffee Maker

3. The Nook Color

4. Cricut Expression

5. 2011 Honda Odyssey

6. Two Toned Hand Stamped Necklace by Etsy's HannahDesign

(I said it is a WISH list)

A Snowy Weekend...

My mom came up to visit this weekend, well actually she came to pick up Nana who has been staying with us. I think I forgot to mention that on the blog. You see the week before Thanksgiving my mom, Nana, and Bob's mom came for a visit. They were coming for my ultrasound. Sadly it was rescheduled but they decided to come anyway. We had a fabulous weekend and on Monday while they were getting ready to leave Nana fell. We took her to the ER where I work and she had multiple fractures to the ball of her humerus and dislocated her shoulder. Needless to say she was not going home. In fact she had surgery the next day. She has been recovering at our house the past few weeks. She is now doing much better.

Now that you are all caught up back to this weekend. Friday after I got off work I picked up dinner for mom, Nana, and I. We put up the Christmas tree, hung new bows( my wonderful dad made) on the wreaths and our tree. All this was done while of course watching Christmas movies.

(Our almost finished tree we just need to add our finishing touches)

 Overall a wonderful night. 

On Saturday we had a slight chance for snow flurries/ mix that night but there was to be no accumulation. Mom and I set out Saturday early afternoon and lo and behold the snow flurries started. It was not much of anything but it began to pick up as the first hour went on. We stopped to eat at Mexican restaurant and came out to see it sticking to cars, ground, trees, and was really coming down. As we continued to shop it continued to pick up, so much for no accumulation. It snowed for almost 5 hours. It was beautiful and I am glad my mom was able to see it. 

This is the beginning of the snow flurries

This is before we went into the restaurant

 This is when we came out

 It had come down alot in 45 minutes and just kept coming

 It made a beautiful winter wonderland

We did lots of fun shopping on Saturday at Carolina Pottery and Lowe's for Christmas decor and then we went shopping for the boys. Babies"R"us was our first stop were mom got some really cute outfits on clearance. We also looked a bedding and such, it was a blast! Next we went to Pottery Barn Kids, I LOVE that store. I actually bought a sweet hippo which plays sounds for for the boy's nursery. It play nature sounds, waterfalls, and womb sounds.  

I also took my mom to the Apple store, she had never been so she could play on an Ipad needless to say she made my dad a little jealous! Saturday night Bob was off so we all went to Olive Garden for a wonderful dinner to top off a great weekend. 

Outside our apartment after the Saturday snowfall

 Mom and Nana left Sunday and boy was the house quiet. It was very strange after having Nana stay with is these past few weeks. Izzy has been really sad she misses her buddy. She was the ultimate lap dog while Nana was here and even woke up today looking for her. We had a great snowy weekend and I really wish our family lived closer to us. 

Oh Boy..

In case you missed our update on our pregnancy blog we are having identical twin BOYS!!