35 Weeks and still gestating!!

I am in awe of our birth mom...she is in her 35th week!! It now appears we will have September babies! Yay!!! The boys are measuring at over 5 pounds and that means bigger stronger babies and less time in the NICU which is such a blessing!

This is her picture she sent me while she was waiting to see the doctor on Monday. Such a big difference from her picture at 32 weeks. I know she is really uncomfortable, but she is doing such a great job and being so selfless about all of this. We love her for her strength and commitment to the health and safety of our precious baby boys. Please keep her and her family in your prayers.
 And speaking of Blessings... We are having such a fun time making our Blessing Blankets for Helping Hands, Saving Lives! They are so sweet and soft and I can not wait to hand them to Annalise when we go to North Carolina...soon. I will take pictures and post them.
 As I sew I am imagining them wrapped around beautiful babies while the Mommas hold them and praise Jesus for changing their hearts and filling them with love for their sweet babies!
 ...every child a Blessing, thank you Lord!

Looking for Sponsors!

As we approach the end of our adoption journey...or really the beginning with our new little men! We are in need of a fundraiser in order to afford the remaining attorneys fees and travel expenses for our family to travel to Charlotte, NC to pick up our twin boys. I have never done a fundraiser before and wanted it to make sense for our family, not just asking for donations, and not just selling something. After a LOT of prayer and a very sleepless night (I'm talking 3:30 in the morning, on my knees having some very long conversations with God kind of night!) We have an awesome fundraiser to announce!! We are asking you to Sponsor a Blessing Blanket for a baby in need! Blessing Blankets are soft and warm receiving blankets, only a little larger, handmade by me out of 100% cotton flannel in pretty and sweet colors for the girls and bright and fun colors for the boys! You can sponsor a Blessing Blanket for just $25 right there on the left side of my Blog. By clicking on there you will go to my Etsy shop where you can make your "purchase".

Your Blessing Blanket will be donated to Helping Hands, Saving Lives a ministry started by a beautiful young lady named Annalise Metzger. You can view her website here My hope is that each baby who receives one of these Blessing Blankets feels your love and God's love wrapped around them. Please feel free to share this post with your friends and family!

First Day of School!

It is the first day of school for both my public school kids and my Homeschool kids.  I thought it would be easiest for me if we kept on the same schedule.  I blogged about our first day of school on my Homeschool Blog here.

We had a really fun weekend, I especially enjoyed Sunday because it was my birthday!  Yes, I am 31...again!

This is my birthday brownie the girls made me.  My son Randy came over for dinner and I made Italian sausages with onions and green peppers, Yummy!

On Monday we were invited to my friend Nancy's house.  She laid out a feast for the girls and I, including pizza, chips and dip, brownies, lemon squares and four different kinds of sherbet!

Then we went down to her basement to watch a movie.  They actually have a movie theater in their basement!  With actual movie seats...that recline...and have cup holders!!  It was too awesome!  I could barely get the girls to leave when the movie was over!

And as if all that wasn't enough...on Tuesday we were invited over to my friend Ruby's farm.  It is in Garnett, KS about an hour from us.  Ruby is such a blessing, she has four children and she and her husband attend our church.  Yes, folks, they drive over an hour every Sunday to get to worship with us!!  So Ruby told me she was going to make applesauce and asked if we wanted to come out and make some for our family too!  Of course I said yes!  Every time Ruby brings her applesauce to our fellowship meal after service, my children practically inhale it and since that is just slightly embarassing, I thought it might be a good idea for me to learn how to make it too!

Ruby picked up several boxes of Gala & Golden Delicious Apples.  We used the Gala for our applesauce, we washed, and cored and sliced them, then put everything, even the core, into a big pot and boiled them.  Then Ruby showed us how to pour them into this contraption which separates the skin, seeds and other bits from the pulp and juice!  It was like magic!

Madyson and Mackenzie and Katy took turns turning the handle and I filled the jars.

 I canned 24 quarts of this liquid gold!  It is so sweet and wonderful.  Next time we are going to make cinnamon applesauce.  I think this will last us a couple of weeks!

What a fun week leading up to today and the first day of school!

Sweet Saturdays

We had a nice relaxing Saturday.  Last night the girls and I went to the Theater in the Park to watch "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown".  It was a really great show and I so enjoyed the music and the singing, and most especially the almost chilly weather!

This morning I got up and made some banana bread and got the kids dressed and out the door to play in this nice weather and then a friend stopped by for a nice long chat!  I haven't had time for one of those in such a long time.  It was so much fun to sip our coffee and nibble the fresh bread and just talk girl talk!

In the afternoon we went to visit a new mommy in the hospital where her precious baby girl is trying to grow and gain strength.  I am praying for little Mattie and her brave mommy.  I know God will be with them.  I can only imagine how frightening it would be to have this happen with your first child.

Going to settle in for the night, have to be in bed early so we can be on time for church tomorrow!  We have been late for the last few weeks and I am bound and determined to start getting my family there on time!!  I hate to be the last family in there...and we don't even have the babies yet!  At least then we would have a good excuse!

32 Weeks and counting!

Here is the birthmom's beautiful 32 week tummy!  She is a tiny little lady, so she is practically all tummy now!  She says the boys are up til all hours playing and kicking each other!  That is one of her twins with his hand on her tummy, he is so precious.

We are still in Kansas.  I have a class that does not finish up until the 23rd of August, I can leave if i have to, but I'd like to complete that before we drive to North Carolina.  The plan is to leave on Friday the 24th and drive through Nashville to Charlotte.  It is approximately 984 miles and so it will make for a fun family road trip!!

I have been busy around the house...nesting!  Besides sewing the fun receiving blankets in all the bright fabrics we bought, I have also used the scraps to make these cute burp cloths.  You just buy the cloth diapers at WalMart, and then take a strip of the flannel fabric and turn it under, pin it in place down the front of the cloth diaper and sew it down.  It's cute and matches the blankets! (And for some reason the picture makes it look like it's pink!  But it really is not!)

And here is our "Diaper Station" that we set up in the family room.  We got the cute basket at Michael's on sale!  It holds about 60 diapers, the wipe container in it's handy carry basket, and will also hold about 6 receiving blankets.  To the side of it, where there is a stack of diapers right now, I will place a medium size plastic bin that will hold all of their dirty laundry each day.  Our house is large and if you are down in the family room you can't hear anything going on up in my Master bedroom which is on the complete opposite side of the house and upstairs.  So we find it easier to have 2 complete areas that are set up for sleeping, diapering, feeding, etc.

Oh you know I have to be organized!  How else could I keep my sanity with all these kiddos!  And lastly are the new bottles.  I have used the same bottles for the last 5 years!  I decided it was time to buy some new ones.  I was going to use the Dr. Browns, but have you seen what those cost?!  And I need 20!  Now in the past I have used only 3 or 4 bottles per child.  I like the wide mouth so when I am mixing up the formula late at night I don't have to worry about missing the opening and dumping all that expensive formula down the side of the bottle.  But with twins I figure I am going to need a better plan.

So I am going to mix up the formula every morning in a big pitcher and then pour it out into 16 bottles for the day.  I will then put the bottles into the refrigerator and take them out 1/2 hour before feeding time.  I am also putting one of those little dorm refrigerators in my bedroom for a while so I can store their bottles for the nighttime feedings.  Now doesn't that sound organized?!

So because of the sheer number needed, I went with these little Gerber bottles.  When they eat more than 5 ounces, well then we will have to get bigger bottles.  This will be the first time i have not "Fed on demand".  I usually don't like to schedule babies, I have always thought that was kind of like trying to potty train a cat!  I mean, babies will let you know when they are hungry, and they are always growing so their internal schedules are always changing.  But other moms of twins have really been adamant about getting the boys on a schedule.  They have told me if I let them eat just when they want to I will literally be feeding one of them all of the time!  So we will try sticking to a schedule and so I will need a lot of bottles!

I am excited!  I know some of this will work and some will go right out of the window, but I am ready to get started.  Double the load, double the fun!!

Eat More Chickin'

We headed to Chick-Fil-A tonight for their Appreciation Day.  Had a great dinner and met some really wonderful people.  The Manager and the Owner came out to thank everyone while we were in line and explain that while they had all of their staff working, it was still taking a while to cook the chicken!  They were actually apologizing for our wait!!  Everyone just started clapping for them!  They were so sweet!

It took us about an hour to get through the line and get our dinner.  We watched as many people finished their meals, cleaned up their tables and then went up to the manager and offered to help as volunteers!  It was so awesome!!  One little lady walked around the restaurant offering to refill your drinks, she was just precious!

I was so proud to be a part of this and for my children to witness such encouragement and caring from our community and I know this is going on throughout our country!!

God Bless America and the citizens who stand up for our right to speak our minds!!  God Bless the management and employees of Chick-Fil-A for modeling such wholesome family values!!