Major Update!

So I'm not very good at this. As you can see, it's been a while since I wrote a new post! A lot has happened in that time and I have had many ideas of what to write but never managed to make it to the computer with them. I wish I could say that I've just been too busy with Thanksgiving and Christmas and all that goes into the planning and preparing for both holidays, but I haven't actually been that busy since I decided to only leave the house out of absolute necessity a few weeks ago. I have just found other things to do with my time. Plus I have the memory of a peanut, making it difficult to remember to sit down and get to work.

So here is a not-so-quick update:

Our 5 year old son had surgery in mid-November to fix an intestinal issue. It was the most stressful and nerve-racking experience in my five years as a mother! However, he healed remarkably well and has had no other issues. Praise the Lord for a full recovery!

Right before Thanksgiving we were blessed with a beautiful mini-van for a very low price. The owner of the car lot goes to our church and gave us a fantastic deal, better than anything we could ever imagine! We are so thankful for him nudging us towards something that was a little out of our price range but that was completely worth it. It is the newest and nicest car that either of us have ever owned! We are living a debt free lifestyle so we paid cash and the van is officially ours!

We spent Thanksgiving with my husband's family then took off the day after for a trip to the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky for the weekend. We had a great time and learned a lot about God's creation! The kiddos did really well on the trip and we really enjoyed taking the road trip in our new van.

Where else do you get to ride a triceratops? 

Little girl LOVED the moving, roaring dinosaurs!

Shortly after returning from Kentucky the lovely ladies at my church threw me a baby shower! It was beautiful and fun and I feel blessed beyond measure that my church family was so thoughtful. We won't have to buy diapers for quite some time!

Our favorite time of the year is Christmas time and we really enjoyed taking part in our annual Christmas traditions! Decorating, looking at lights, baking, making gingerbread houses, singing Christmas hymns around the piano, and opening presents. We love celebrating the birth of Jesus by doing a nightly devotion with our Advent calendar. If it wasn't for our sweet boy loving that tradition above all others, we would have forgotten! My husband's family Christmas will be next weekend so it isn't quite over for us yet.

Our beautiful children

Our five year-old's first gingerbread house 

The boy loves setting up his own nativity scene

We are big fans of Christmas lights and were thrilled to have enough lights to put on the outside of the house this year!

My husband, son, and I worked together to make these cookies on Christmas day. A sweet woman from our church gave us the kit to make them, otherwise we never would have thought to do it!

Two very excited children on Christmas morning!

I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes in mid-December. I was so disappointed and remember crying the whole day I found out! I had never had issues with my blood sugar before and felt like it was the end of the world. I was quite dramatic about it. I had NO IDEA what to eat and the prospect of poking my finger with a needle four times a day for the next couple of months was quite daunting! However, it turns out that I have a pretty mild case and my doctor and I are hopeful that I can manage it with diet and stay off of medication. It has been difficult to retrain my brain from what I thought was good, healthy food to what is actually healthy for ME. Breakfast is the hardest meal of the day but I have been eating a lot of eggs and breakfast wraps. We joined eMeals with a diabetic family plan and have been able to eat some new yummy meals that everyone likes. I will be sharing some of my favorite meals on here in the future. My husband's family Christmas breakfast is oysters cooked with Bisquick and cinnamon rolls but I don't like oysters (or any seafood really) and I can only eat about 1/8 of one those delicious cinnamon rolls. So this week I am going to attempt to make my own diabetic friendly cinnamon rolls using almond flour, almond milk, applesauce, and Splenda. I'll update you on that venture!! 

I am currently 32 weeks pregnant with my sweet little twinnies! Despite being head down for most of our ultrasounds, they are currently head up. Baby B enjoys banging around inside the bottom of my rib cage and Baby A has decided that my bladder is a soccer ball. My back, hips, and pelvis have been more sore than I could imagine and I am waking up every hour at night to hips that are screaming in pain. Heaving myself to a different position is no easy task and it usually takes a while for me to fall back to sleep. I have contractions daily, although they are few and far between so I am not worried about pre-term labor (yet). At my last appointment I had a slightly high blood pressure which put the doctor on edge but since it went down a little bit after taking it again 15 minutes later, he said that we won't worry about it for right now. If it's high again at my next appointment then we'll go from there. My doctor is really great and believes in taking hurdles one step at a time and not dwelling on things that haven't happened yet, which cuts down greatly on the worry. But despite those things, the pregnancy is going well and we are praying for two healthy full term babies! 

Out of all the many ultrasounds we have had, our sweet girls have only had their heads apart once. Every other time their heads are right next to one another. I can't wait to see them sticking together after they are born!

This is me at 30 weeks with a tummy about as large as full term with my other two children. :-)