Wow! I can't believe it's been almost a week since I've posted. Can you tell it's been a busy week? Last Saturday we had my dear sister-in-laws baby shower. She got so many cute things! It was fun to see the little baby stuff again. When I had my baby shower I didn't ever think that my kids would fit into 2T things, but now Libby is in 4T. Time just flies.

Then on Monday morning we picked up our big 24 foot moving truck. When I reserved this truck, I thought that it might be a little big, but we wanted to be on the safe side and get the big one. Man am I glad that I did. We had that puppy full!! Thankfully we got most of out things on, including my huge deep freezer and my fridge. At one point in the loading process I didn't think that either one would fit. Then Tuesday morning we left for Indiana at 6am and got there a little after noon their time. We unloaded with the help of the other alternates and now all of our possessions are in our new home. It is a very strange feeling. But very exciting.

We are now staying with our dear friends Cody and Maggie! I am so thankful for these two. They have been amazing! We are having fun and enjoying some last laughs together before we move.

Now, I must escorte my dear Liberty downstairs to her bed. She isn't too thrilled to take a nap, but mommy is in need of some quiet time! :)

Dustin's Last Day

Well, today Dustin begins his last day of work. I can hardly believe it. My last day was hard, but it really didn't feel like my last day. I don't normally work on Thursdays or Fridays, so these past few days just seem normal. I guess it will really sink in when I don't have to go to work on Monday. I hope you have a wonderful last day, hon and am excited to start this new journey with you!

On Monday we are scheduled to pick up our moving truck, we then will load it Monday night! I think I'm going to be ready. Earlier, when I didn't have as much accomplished I didn't think I would ever be ready to pack the truck, but today I feel like I am ready.

My mother-in-law and A. Kathy are coming over to help clean the house today. I don't know how I would do it without these two! I am NOT a fan of cleaning at all, but they really enjoy doing it. So I will just take orders from them and do as they say! :) Then I am having lunch with A. Bev and Maggie, Jodi, Alli, and Tyler, Jamie and Haley, and Liberty and Caden. Should be lots of fun. Then, tonight we are having one last girls night with our dear cousin Lydia. We are going to get pizza and watch High School Musical 3. She is so excited!

Now my house is calling to me to start cleaning, so a cleaning I will go! Have a wonderful start to your weekend!

Last Day At Work

So today is my last day at work. It's kind of bittersweet. I know that this is just one chapter in my life that is ending and another on is beginning, but at times I think that I would just love to stay here and continue doing this. Then I would know exactly what lies ahead and I would have no suprises. Then the Lord reminds me that my work is out at Gateway and that makes me so excited! Although I am going to miss Visiting Angels so very much!! I have had the best boss ever! Nate has just been wonderful! Another wonderful person that I have worked with for almost a year is Maggie. I love this girl! She is just a wonderful person. She is always happy and is so willing to help. During my packing time she has watched my kids and brought me very yummy meals. I don't know what I would do without her! I love you Magz!! Recently I have started to work with Jeanni and Tracy! They have been fun and amazing to work with! Thanks for all the memories!!

My house is coming along quite well. It's very exciting! I am getting all the stuff out in my garage and almost ready for moving day! Now that everything is coming together, it's becoming very real! :)

Liberty sucks her first two fingers of her left hand. She has done this since she was about 3 months and at this point I don't think she even knows she is doing it. Well, on Monday night she had sucked them SO much it made one of her fingers bleed. Dustin put a bandaid on it and she didn't suck them the rest of the night. On Tuesday morning I thought "Great!!! This is the way that we will break her of this habit. Well, she got up WAY to early and was a crab, so I sent her back to bed and she did sleep for about another hour. When I went into her room after she had woken up, she was laying in her bed sucking her fingers. I thought that she had just taken her bandaid off. Nope!! She informed me that she had decided that she would suck her other fingers!! GREAT!! That's exactly what I wanted her to do!! Oh well, I've accepted the fact that she might walk down the isle at her own wedding sucking her finger! :) I love you my Liberty Joy!!

I hope you all have a wonderful day!!

Packing

So I have been packing....alot of packing...with lots more packing!!! It really hasn't been too bad and our family and friends have been wonderful at watching our children and feeding us! I couldn't do it without everyone's help!! I think that I'm coming along, but now that we are down to one week before we move the house out, I'm starting to get a little stressed! I know it will all be fine, it's just hard to see that now!

On another note, I had a fabulous Mother's Day! Dustin let me sleep a little later and then they all came into my room with my Mother's Day gift. It was fun! They got me some perfume and an outfit. We went to church and came home and I took a wonderful nap!! Thanks to my children taking wonderful naps!! We then went out to Dad and Mom's for supper, which Erin made for us. It was delicious!! It was just a great Mother's Day overall!!! I told Dustin that the only thing that would have made it even better would be spending it with my mom too! It's kinda hard going through Holiday's with them being in Florida. Oh well, God helps me get through them!!

Well, my plan tonight is to get back into packing. Shocker, huh? ;) I'm excited to just get it all ready for the moving truck next Monday! Have a great day everyone!!

Our Story

Here is the post that I promised. The post that tells you all how we were lead to Gateway Woods. This may be a long one. Just want to warn all of you! :)



It all starts about a year ago, I had received an email from a friend who was teaching at Gateway at the time. She just said that they had an opening for Alternate Houseparents and just thought of Dustin and I. She said that she just wanted to pass along the thought. I mentioned it to Dustin and got no response. So, I thought that this was not the time. About a year later, Dustin had been in contact with a close friend who lives at Gateway and she said the same thing as the friend had before. This time was different for Dustin. He felt like he should pray about it and then talk to me. He was praying one day that if God wanted us to look into this that God would show him something. He opened up to the Potter and the Clay. He really felt like God was wanting him to be the Clay and allow himself to be molded.



We were in the kitchen one day talking and he brought this up to me. He asked me if I would consider praying about it. I told him yes, but in the back of my mind thought that it would probably never become something that we would really do. We really didn't talk about it much for several days.



The Sunday morning after he had talked to me about it, I prayed that God would speak to me sometime throughout the day at church if this is what he wanted us to do. I prayed this somewhat halfheartedly because it can be very hard for me to concentrate at church do to two small children. ( I will not mention any names! :) ) That afternoon Libby was sitting with me and was being so good and entertaining herself. We were reading in Isaiah 6 and in verse 8 God is talking to Isaiah and asking Who am I going to send? Isaiah then says, "I will go send me!" That was like the voice of God speaking to me. After the chapter the minister then starting talking about going to do what God calls us to do, and how we should just go do it and not ask why or have an excuse on why we can't.



On the way home I told Dustin about that and he told me that he was feeling the same way. So we began the process of applying for the position. Through this time, we both kept reading things in the Bible that supported our decision. We both felt at complete peace about this. I had never expected for God to work this way in our life, but we are so excited he is leading us to Gateway.

We will miss our family so much, but knowing that we are doing God's work makes it so much easier to leave. We are excited to follow God and take us where he leads!

Ok....so I'm a little behind but better late than never!!

Well. I have a lot of catching up to do. So I will just start with more recent things and just go from there I guess. For those of you who don't know we are moving to Gateway Woods at the end of May. We are so excited and are ready to follow God!! I will post our story about how we have gotten to this point, but that will probably be in a later post.

We told Libby and Caden on Saturday and now I'm thinking we should have waited a little bit. Libby has asked me each day since if we are moving Today!! " No sweetheart, we aren't moving for a couple weeks!!" I don't think she gets it. She is excited and talks about all that we have told her. Caden really has no clue of what is going on, but I expected that.

Cute little story that I have to share. Yesterday afternoon Cade got up from his nap a little crabby. Normally he wakes up and is just a cuddle bug and pretty happy. Well on this particular day he woke up crying, not a good sign. We were planning on going out with the Hodel's for Mother's Day celebration and I told him he needed to stop crying and be happy if he wanted to go. He then proceeded to tell me, "But I want to cry a little bit". Too cute. I didn't even have anything to say, I just gave him a big hug and kiss......man I love that kid!!

So, we are planning on moving the week of the 18th. We would like to move everything out there that week and then be back for Joel and Kristi's wedding for our last weekend without having to worry about moving. So that mean I have 2 weeks to pack my entire house! Kinda overwhelmed at this point, but I know that everything will go well. It has already.

Well, hopefully my next post will be on how God lead us to Gateway. Thanks for keeping up with my blog, and thanks to those who kept up with it even there was like a 6 month gap between posts. I will do better now! I will!

Hope you all have a wonderful afternoon!!