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:)