April Showers

Miracles have literally been showered upon our family this month. Just to name a few, my grandfather came to visit for a week and we were able to spend some time with him. He went into surgery to remove the cancer on the 20th and is recovering well and should survive. The timing on just about everything has been miraculous, even the things that we thought were trials ended up being blessings in disguise and led us to purchase the house that we are now living in. If the economy hadn't been bad and if business hadn't slowed down in March, then my dad wouldn't have offered for us to live at Grandma's and we wouldn't have put in our 3 months notice to my aunt (who we were renting the condo from), then if my grandfather hadn't been diagnosed with cancer, my dad wouldn't have had us look elsewhere for living arrangements, but he did and we started looking for houses to buy. It all happened really fast and after we went under contract for our house, we found out my grandpa was going to be okay. We realize that this home is literally the only one that we would have been able to buy at this time. We feel so blessed and the Lord has guided us to this place more than we even realize. I LOVE my house!!! Everything has been a remarkable blessing. Thanks to all those who helped us pack and clean and thanks to my angel mother for watching my girls for 3 days and 2 nights while we were in the process of moving. It just seems like this month has literally been a month of abundant miracles and blessings for us. We are so thankful to Heavenly Father for his watchful eye and guidance in our lives. He truly listens to prayers and guides our lives if we let Him.

Here is a picture Katie Marie drew with her sidewalk chalk. It's a picture of Jesus on the cross.
Belinda, Papa, and I (This is the grandfather that had Pancreatic Cancer).

Katie Marie and Papa.

Then we did have a few real April showers. The girls had so much fun dancing in the rain.

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... It's about learning to dance in the rain." (this is literally the perfect quote for our lives this month).

My parents bought 2 baby goats. Here I am feeding baby Clara.

I love this picture because of Belinda in the background also drinking a bottle. She kept trying to drink Clara and Bella's bottles and so we had to get her one of her own.

Belinda loves playing with her grandma.

For Katie Marie's preschool we ordered butterfly larva and watch them turn from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly. Katie Marie and her uncle Jacob released them together.

The funnest butterfly by far was the one with the broken wing, because it didn't fly away and the kids had so much fun holding it and carrying it around. I even caught Jacob jumping on the trampoline with it!!! Even though it may have been a bit traumatic for the butterfly, it did survive that ordeal and we gently put it in a blossom tree to fend for himself for however long it lasted.

Well, now that we are moved in, I am so excited about our house. It is just perfect for us. Gorgeous neighborhood, view, home, everything. Except for a few minor flooding problems we had yesterday everything has been perfect.

Lucky for us everything like this is still covered under the construction warranty. They discovered a broken sewage pipe in our front yard that had been clogged up with rocks and gravel. They had to dig up our whole front yard. I think if I had boys, they probably would have been glued to all the action taking place 100% of the time, but since I have girls, Katie Marie was only glued to the window for about 50% of the time. Even so, all the diggers and tractors in our area have provided hours of entertainment. Even for me.

The problem is now fixed and we will no longer be having any flooding problems. Hopefully!!! I must say it was a long day yesterday. I had about 5 guys come into our house yesterday. One for the internet, 2 for the plumbing, 2 more from the construction company to fix the plumbing. Not to mention the other guys I talked to that were digging up our front yard and the trash guy finally delivered our trash can. Apparently they delivered our trash can the 20th when we had ordered it the 19th and the city had said it would take 2-3 wks. Of course on the 20th we weren't around and so never saw a trash can. When we moved in it was gone. We don't really know what happened to it, but we weren't going to pay the fee for a missing trash can that we never even saw. We did eventually get the problem resolved and now have a new replacement trashcan.

It has been a long few days, but I hope now all the major things have been fixed and we can finally start to relax. I have been doing a lot of unpacking and organizing, but still have a long way to go. I'll post pictures of everything once I get things looking nice. I guess some of you may want to know some details about the house. It has a finished upstairs and a full unfinished basement downstairs. It is a total of 2735 sq ft. It's a brand new home and we love it. It has 3 finished bedrooms and 2 finished bathrooms. Currently we have the girls sharing one of the bedrooms and the other bedroom is being used as a playroom!!! I've had a lot of people ask me this so I will just clarify that I will ALWAYS be having my kids share a room (unless I only have 1 boy or something like that). So, Belinda and Katie Marie will be roommates for the duration of their time living at home. In the unfinished basement we will eventually build a storage room, family room, bathroom and 2 more bedrooms.

I just want you all to know that I have a testimony that the Lord guides all of our lives. He does watch out for us. Sometimes he doesn't give us what we want immediately (like the condo Randy and I were going to buy 2 years ago), because He has something better prepared for us in the future, but we need to be willing to trust Him and have patience in His timing. He does hear and answer our prayers, sometimes not in the way we want Him to, but always in the way that is best for us. Trials can and do become blessings to all of us. In the moment it can be really hard to see that, but looking back we can see the hand of the Lord in our lives. I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love all of us. That means you too.