Finding Out...

One day in March I confided in my sister about some odd symptoms I'd been experiencing. She had a funny feeling that in addition to our pending adoption, we may have another babe on the way, but because she knows me [and our story] she refrained from pushing too many pregnancy assumptions on me. I told her my symptoms were due to stress because pregnancy, well, that just couldn't be. Two days later she called me over to her house, handed me a pregnancy test, and told me that she needed to know.

The test result was confusing, so we called Brian (who I had shooed out of the house not 15 minutes prior), and commanded him to go to the store, buy us another, and to do so quickly! 

The poor guy! I had tried to save him the anxiety that goes with taking a pregnancy test. (We had been there, done that, and it had never turned out well for us.) He asked what the first had said. Tess told him it was positive, I emphatically assured him that it was lying. He was so frazzled, he asked us what to do with the coffee and wrap he'd just ordered at a local coffee shop...we said "Ditch 'em for all we care! We need you!"
The second test came back the same as the first and had all three of us confused. It said 'pregnant' but not in the way the diagram said it should. I was so used to getting a blatant 'not pregnant' that I was convinced that this was just a new form of 'no.'
Then things became funny. Brian decided, like Tessa earlier in the day, that he needed to know, so he dialed the number on the box and had the lengthiest of conversations with the operator on the other end. Tess and I got a BIG laugh out of this. Who calls the number on the backside of a pregnancy test box to ask if their wife is prego?! Brian does. :)
The operator, after listening to Brian's detailed description of our situation and asking a few questions, explained to Brian that the test result was contradictory because I was further along than most women when they take a first response test and my pregnancy hormones were overpowering the test's ability to determine correctly.
"Pregnancy Hormones?!" I thought, "I have pregnancy hormones?!!"


The day we thought we'd never experience had come! 


Once Baby #2's existence had been confirmed I started bugging Tess about how now it was her turn to get pregnant with her #3. She kept looking at me funny and not saying anything until finally she caved and said, 'I am. ...I found out yesterday!" Here's a look at our overjoyed, tired, squeamish early-pregnancy faces. In many ways we didn't feel so hot, in other ways we were soaring sky-high.

(MillieGirl couldn't believe it either. ;)

I've decided that finding out 6 weeks into my pregnancy was God's extra special way of shortening my wait. He also gave me the best buddy I could imagine with which to share the journey. And I have learned that pregnancy is weird, I'm very happy to have a prego buddy. Praise Jesus! We couldn't have come up with a story this good on our own!

Friday, March 30, 2012, we will never forget you...

oooh, babIES!

Just when we thought life was becoming exciting...
Just when things were seeming really, really beautiful...
Just when we were feeling sooo blessed...

God gave us another reason to rejoice.

We have a LITTLE TURKEY 

roasting in the oven until Thanksgiving.

(That's right, People, I'm PREGNANT.)

With Baby #1 due the end of August and 

Baby #2 due the week of Thanksgiving, 

Lord willing, 

our "pseudo twins" will be just 3 months apart.

We've spent the last 6 weeks (since finding out about Baby #2) reeling from God's overwhelming and undeniable presence in our life. We've concluded that He really does have a sense of humor and that His plans really are far greater than our own. 

We can hardly wait to meet our babIES!!!

We are truly blessed beyond belief.

A [not so] Beautiful Mess

Grandpa Lawrence and Grandma Bertha came to help out yet again today. We had a bit of a catastrophe. But we'll get to that... (You've gotta stick around for the good stuff. ;)
Grandma and I started our day with a doily and lace washing party. 

Then Grandma moved onto washing all my glassware. She noticed that there were still paint remainders from our first week in the house. So, of course, she went to town scrubbing my sink with nail polish remover. :)

My garbage disposal has been out of order for at least a week. 

The culprit: 8 Screws 

As of today, it is back in working order!

After the guys conquered the garbage disposal and Brian and Grandpa fixed some outdoor light fixtures, we went out for a delicious lunch.

Following a quick hardware stop, we returned home and Grandpa went to work beautifying my entryway with this cute little chandelier. I had lovingly tucked it away in the garage back in Vancouver, "for someday when we bought a house." :)

Brian headed into the attic to check out the electrical so that he and Grandpa could determine what would be needed in order to install can lighting sometime soon.

Up he went...

...and before we knew it after a minute or two of creaking heard overhead, 

down he came 

through the ceiling.

Grandma ran from the kitchen, Grandpa and I jumped from the entry and I exclaimed, "AREYOUOK?!!!!" The Mr. let out a quiet, slow, regretful, "Ye---ah" and me, being who I am, [prior to helping my dangling-from-the-attic-hubs down from his accidental perch] sprinted for my camera and began snapping. 

Here goes the craziness, as we were able to document it...

How handy, a chair back for standing on!

Insulation. 

Itchy, smelly, dreadful.

Make-you-sneeze, make-you-cough, make-you-wheeze. 

Insulation. 

Everywhere.

Note: my little chandy, abandoned, forgotten, hanging haphazardly, blocking the front door. (We had bigger fish to fry.)

Once we'd determined that Brian was fine it was absolutely hilarious.

Grandma and I erupted into constant fits of laughter for an hour following "the incident," until she left to head for home! Besides scooping dustpan after dustpan of insulation and hacking up a storm, there wasn't much else to do. 

Sweet, Comforting Grandma

Here we are. There's a 4x6 foot gaping hole in our ceiling. But don't worry, we just covered it with some cardboard. No big deal. :)

My living room was the one room in my house that I felt was complete, hence yesterday's blog post. Ironically, today my husband came crashing through the ceiling into what was formerly my 'completed' living room, bringing with him a huge box full of insulation and enough dust that there's a grey haze in each of the pictures. Now my living room looks like this...

Amy, thank you, thank you, thank you for giving Brian a ShopVac for Christmas! 

It came in reeeal handy today.

My antique end table is officially a goner. Who knew it wouldn't be able to support the weight and force of my husband falling from the attic, through the ceiling, onto it's ancient, cute little legs?!

Far more important than old tables,

HURRAY! My husband is okay!!!

...but my ceiling, it's gonna take some work...

Oh! I almost forgot! 
My Grandpa did manage to finish installing the chandy.
All night, when tempted to look over at this...

...instead I chose to gaze at this...

I talked to my dad on the phone today. He told me a story about the recovery of his recently injured hand and referred to having taken two steps forward and one step back. You know, Dad, after today, we know just what you were talking about.

Now I am going to close my tired eyes and end this very odd day.

Here's to taking two steps forward and no steps back tomorrow.

Also, thank God for laughter. 

Without it, today would have totally sucked.

Without any Warning...

Yesterday Brian and I found ourselves in, lets just call it,

a sit.u.ation,

when without any warning, a huge tree branch gave way with our car as its target.

 Unfortunate for us, it had good aim...

Here's the link to the article in The Columbian.

I'm bummed that I didn't have my camera to better have captured the craziness.

Cell phone pics will just have to do...

Note: All these pictures were taken after the tree was moved out of the street and [mostly] off our car in order to allow Brian access out of the car.

I had just clocked off at work and was standing in line waiting to order a beverage for the road. I glanced out the window and saw my car parked across the street. I smiled to myself knowing that Brian and my pups were inside, patiently waiting to pick me up. "How sweet!", I thought. Less than a minute later, as I walked toward the bar to wait for my drink, I glanced out the window again and saw this...

What in the world?!

"Man, I must be tired!", I thought.

I did a double take.

Yes, in fact, there was tree. On top of my car.

Now, this picture is deceiving. Let me assure you, just moments after it happened Brian wasn't just standing on the sidewalk looking calm. No, no, instead, 8th street in downtown 'Couve was mayhem. People shouting and running everywhere.

The circle on the right is outlining my car. As you can see, we're serious when we say H.U.G.E branch.

Once again, big branch, makes my car look tiny.

The lady from the City, taking a look at the tree.

This tree spells TROUBLE.

Something like an hour later, a random City employee stumbled upon our situation. He ever-so-slowly got out of his truck, took a moment to ponder, and then proceeded to place cones around the branch. I thought, "Really, Buddy?! You may have missed it at the time of action, but it'd be pretty hard not to notice the mess we've got going on now..."

Little Bummer.

My antenna is no longer.

Big Bummer.

The roof of our car is dented.

Althought the verdict has yet to be declared, the city says it will most likely be determined an act of [some say]God/[some say]nature.

It all depends on who you talk to.

Gotta love how random moments like these bring out people's world view...

After a couple hours of standing next our dirty, damaged Passat we were able to leave. We were still a bit stunned so we circled around and took one last look before leaving the scene and finally heading for home.

This situation of ours, it's a bummer.

We're still stunned that it happened but we're so very thankful that it didn't turn out worse.

Praise God from whom all blessing flow!