Pink Or Blue??

The last time I went to the doctor, we finished up by scheduling my next appointment which will include the big gender reveal!  

BUT

A couple weeks ago, I had some concerns that resulted in an early and unexpected ultrasound!(Everything is fine, we just had to go check to make sure.)  But that ultrasound was late enough in my pregnancy that we were able to find out sooner than we thought!  

We told our families at Christmas and now we'll tell the rest of you!  But not for a few days yet:)  First you have to vote.

Some things to consider:
- Danny's family has a very strong representation of girls.  It seems to be the common theme as there are 11 girls and only 3 boys thus far.  There must be something in the water.

HOWEVER

- With the exception of about three of my sister in laws, most people in both sides of the family strongly suspected that it's a boy.

So will this baby follow the trend and be a girl?  Or are all those suspicions true?  You decide!! You can vote in the poll in the top right corner of my blog.  The poll closes next Monday (January 5), which is the night before our sonogram that has been scheduled all along.

Happy voting!!

This World Is Not Our Home, But.....

Well the house is a mess and I am worn out but we are here!!  And we are thankful.  We feel pretty undeserving, actually.  We're not sure if it's something God specifically intended for us to go through or not.  The question I always wonder is, would this have happened no matter which house we had bought?  Or did it just so happen to this house and we just so happened to buy it?  Regardless, His hand has been in it and we feel blessed.  

Now how about some pictures!  If you missed the previous post, that's where all the before pictures are.  Structurally, the kitchen is basically the same.  Since all the plumbing and wiring was already in place there wasn't a whole lot we could do different.  But we did extend the counter, put in a stove top oven, and new microwave above the stove.  We got new light fixtures and the soffet (I have NO idea how to spell that-it's that part of the ceiling that was lower than the rest) was taken out.  And that bright green paint went bye-bye.  It's so much more open looking and much brighter lighting!

Like I said in the last post, the living room didn't change much.  The big walls used to be more of a beige color and now they are more gray.  We have that same gray throughout the whole house with a few different colors splattered here and there.

The bathroom is still yellow, but a little more subdued than the other yellow we had before.  And we got a new counter top, faucet, and floor.  It wasn't actually damaged but it was something we had wanted to do anyway so we decided to just do it while the rest of the house was getting done.

And then there's the basement..... Danny loves the color orange and would have loved to paint the whole thing orange.  But he has a wife who does not share his affinity for the color.  So he settled on one wall.  And I have to say, I like it a lot better than I thought I would!  But I'm glad we did just one wall and kept the rest gray:)

We went with gray (it's my favorite neutral color) for the siding with white trim.  Our bedroom, bathroom, and the other two bedrooms are pretty much the same so I didn't post any pictures of that.

While there have been changes made, there is yet one thing that remains.  That pink bathtub and toilet!  We just couldn't justify changing those out when all they needed was a good cleaning.  There may come a day when we move out of this house and I find myself missing those pink bathroom fixtures, but until then I just have to smile and shake my head at them:)

Now our prayer is that we can use this house for God's glory.  Whether by keeping it a safe haven for our family, making others feel welcome and comfortable in it, or whatever it might be, we don't want to take it for granted!  Thank you to everyone who offered prayers on our behalf.  We are grateful for them!

Merry Christmas To Us!!

We are so excited that in just ONE week all of our stuff will be coming back from storage and we will be able to move back HOME!!!  Here's just a few pictures to remind you of the before stages of this process.

Things will look a little different than before- especially in the kitchen.  The living room will pretty much be the same, because I really did like the blue.  After we painted that green kitchen, I decided it was just a little too bright but was just going to live with it because it was finished and we didn't want to paint anymore for awhile.  But that theory only lasted about a week.

We are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO happy to be past this point!  (Can't add enough "O's" there...)

As I was looking through the pictures I saw this one and remembered taking it right after the fire.  Five months later, it's still true!  It just about makes me cry to look at those words.  But then again, a lot of things make me cry these days.  Gotta love those raging hormones:)

For real though- we didn't always have the greatest of attitudes and there were days when it felt like we would N.E.V.E.R. see progress.  But God met and exceeded all of our needs and has most definitely shown us His faithfulness.

And if you ever are in a position where you need fire damage restoration, we highly recommend J Yoder Inc out of Ft. Wayne.  They were great to work.  They gave us high hopes of being in before Christmas and they didn't let us down!

Hopefully I'll manage to get a post in next week of our "after" pictures!  Woo Hoo:)

Pregnancy And Other Stuff

I'm 15 weeks today!  According to my handy "What to Expect" app, the wee one is roughly the size of an orange now.  Significantly bigger than the little pea it once was!  My next appointment is December 2 and I'm getting pretty anxious to go hear the heartbeat again.  Then I think the appointment after that one will be when we get to find out what we're having!  Yes, we will find out and yes, we will tell.  Not the name- just the gender.  We're both way to curious to keep it a surprise.

I never threw up, but I was pretty nauseous from week 6 to week 13ish.  I still have moments, especially in the evenings when I don't feel great, but overall I am much better.  Which I'm so thankful for because I was getting pretty discouraged by the end of October and just wanted to feel good again.  If I ever have some sort of chronic condition where I never feel good, I will require a LOT of grace to press on and not complain.

Okay- new topic.

I'm so excited to decorate for Christmas and go Christmas shopping!  Except the problem is, I'm not sure where we're going to be living in the next few weeks.  I'll probably do a few basic decorations here in the trailerhood but I don't want to get a bunch of stuff set out and then a week later have to pack it all up to move back into our house.  The contractor still seems to think we'll be back by Christmas!  But who knows... maybe I should just deck the halls of the trailer anyway:)

Well, this is pretty short and boring but it's just been so long since I did a post.  And we have almost a whole Saturday at home doing not much of anything so I figured now would be a good time to get one done.

We are looking forward to being with family and friends next week for Thanksgiving- I hope you are too!  We truly have so much to be thankful for.

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."  James 1:17

Then And Now

Just shy of one year ago, I went on my very first date ever.

Now, after a wedding, a honeymoon, another vacation, a house fire, living in grandma's house, another vacation, a new job, and moving into a trailer temporarily....

I'm pregnant!!

That escalated quickly:)

Baby Bertsch due May 16, 2015!

It's Coming Along!

Drywall and ceilings are up!

And we have high hopes of being back in by Christmas!!  It's not a for sure thing, but the contractor thinks there's a really good chance.  He's been great to work with and really good about keeping things moving.

The new siding is up too.

It's supposed to be gray but I can't decide if it looks more tan than gray.  Kinda depends on the light I think.

Oh, and tonight we had some pretty cute trick-or-treaters stop by:)

Harvest Makes Me Happy:)

We had a gooooooood weekend!  I love me some harvest time and I have MISSED it this year!  Working at the elevator, riding around in the combine and semi..... it's home.  And this weekend I finally got a taste of it.  I mean, that's not ALL we did, but it's the biggest reason we went.  Plus it had been way too long for my liking and was it was just time.

We got to meet baby Wren for the first time too!  That's my cousin's baby.  She's pretty cute, except for within the first 10 seconds of me holding her she puked all over me.  Oh well.  She's still cute and sweet.

After lunch at Caleri's (of course) it was out to the field!  Not only did I get some combine time and a few rounds to the elevator, I also got to weigh a few trucks while I went in to say hi at the elevator.  It was pretty much a dream come true:)  But then they broke down and we left the field and that was pretty much the end of my harvest experience for the weekend.

I had requested a wiener roast for supper on Sunday cause I haven't been to one yet this fall and it just sounded really good.  It as a little too windy to be outside but we still had a fire long enough to roast the hot dogs before taking them inside!

And after supper we quick went out to try and get some marshmallows roasted for s'mores but the fire had dwindled to just a few coals and some smoke.  But we managed!  I just wanted a picture of it because I thought it looked funny how all of us were so crowded around the tiniest fire ever trying to roast marshmallows:)

We had a few minutes before it was time to leave so we got in on a little bit of pumpkin carving.  Cooper really did like it a lot more that what this picture depicts!  He was all into it, digging into the guts, grinning and telling us all about it:)  

The girls were having a great time too.  It was so hard to leave them!  I just love those kiddos so much.  The weekend went way to fast for my liking and I'm considering going back this week since I have fall break:)  I haven't decided yet though if I will or not.

If only we could have Danny's family and my family live close to each other...