I want to thank everyone for their kind words left on my blog as I've been away dealing with the morning/all day sickness.  It seems to be going away, for which I'm grateful, with only occasional relapses.  I've never been that sick with any of my other pregnancies, so it took me by surprise.  Now we need to finish school and get the house/yard caught up.  I seem to have good and bad days, so I'm just accepting that this will be a time for me to slow down and just take it easy.  Right now the kids have banished me to the computer room so they can clean the house.  Yeah!  This is an answer to prayer, as I've noticed as the weeks have gone by we've struggled more and more with keeping things up. 

Our garden is almost completely in thanks to both of my daughters.  I knew I wouldn't be much help this year, but they don't mind and are doing a great job!  We bought some tomatoes and peppers from the Amish and they are doping really well.  We love the products sold by Gardens Alive! and also use fish/kelp emulsion quite frequently.  We like to garden organically as much as possible.  My 9 yo daughter thinks its great fun to pick off the tomato worms in the summer, so we leave that job to her.  :-)

Piano is over for the summer which is a blessing.  The last few weeks of piano were so hard due to being sick.  I didn't want to quit so close to the end, so we stuck it out.  I'm so happy we did!  The kids had their recitals last Friday night and they did so well.  Our piano teacher is so kind and loves her students so much.  She is such a blessing.

We're still going ahead with our plans to move.  I have to admit it seems overwhelming right now to think about moving while I'm struggling with fatigue, etc., but I know this will be best for our family.  I hope to have a couple of months to settle in before the new baby comes.

Not much else has been going on around here.  Just trying to get the basics done and kept up keep us all occupied.   I think we'll be done with school in a few weeks.  I've already ordered most of my books for next year, so that's a relief.  It's nice to not have to think about those things! :-)

I'll be back around after I get things caught up here.  

Love, Karen 

This week has been so busy!  We had dentist appointments on Monday and Thursday, friends over on Tuesday, piano/church on Wed., Good Friday Service at our church tonight, friends over tomorrow for dinner, and Easter/Resurrection Day is on Sunday.  Next week looks like it will start busy but will end calm, I hope.  I go to the dentist on Monday afternoon and that night we are going to our friends church for their dedication sevice, I'm hosting our church's Ladies Meeting at my house on Tuesday night, piano practice/church on Wed. and then it should be calm after that.  I get so tired now, that doing one big thing, like a dentist appointment, wears me out for most of the day.  But I don't mind. :-)  I like to say I'm delightfully tired and am just so happy to be expecting another baby, I don't care what symptoms I'm feeling! 

The weather here has been normal spring weather for us.  Very erratic with temps almost to 80 one day and snow flurries the next.  But, soon it will be warm all of the time and we'll get our garden in and will be able to keep the windows open every day.  The kids can't wait!  And, honestly, neither can I!  I love spring so much!

We have a sunrise service at the cemetary near our church this Sunday.  The youth will be putting on a skit about finding the tomb empty, which my oldest is participating in.  Afterwards we have breakfast at the church and then go singing at the local nursing home.  This is such a blessed day for us and our church family. 

My de-cluttering is put on hold until I have more energy.  I really want to have everything gone through before we move so it will be a much easier process, especially now that I'm pregnant.  There so many changes taking place this year, it's so exciting!

I better go now.  I'm trying to get up the energy to clean the playroom with the kiddos, and then run out and put gas into the van.  I'm just so tired, I may take a nap before then! 

~Karen

Lately I've been tired, feeling sick, and have felt my energy being zapped.  At first I thought I was getting sick, but when it wouldn't go away, I started to suspect I might be pregnant.  It has been six years since my youngest was born and I thought we were done having children.  I always prayed that the Lord would bless us with more children, but as the years went by, I didn't think it would really happen.  Imagine my surprise when the test came up positive!!!  I was in shock and didn't know what to do at first.  The day I'd waited for had finally happened and I was stunned. 

As the days passed by I started to get really scared that I would have a miscarriage.  This seemed to good to be true.  After a few days being scared to do anything for fear of losing the baby, my wonderful husband took me aside and said I needed to relax, that everything was going to be okay.  I need to enjoy this pregnancy, he reminded me.  I really needed to hear that.  It calmed my nerves and has given me freedom from the fear I was gripped with. 

The kids were so thrilled when we told them.  We were worried about our youngest, who wasn't thrilled with the news at first.  By that evening he was collecting toys for the baby and was happy he was going to be a big brother.  My 9 y.o. daughter keeps telling me how happy she is, and that she can't believe there's really a baby inside my tummy. :-)

I am due at the end of November, right about the time my oldest will be turning 15.  She's hoping the new baby will be born on her birthday.  I was joking with her, saying that if the baby was born on her birthday would we have to get her anything else, and she laughed.  She's so excited!!

My husband and I are thrilled we are getting the chance to raise another child for the Lord.  Praise the Lord who can allow the woman who thought she couldn't have anymore children to conceive another baby in His time!!

~Karen 

Spring is starting to make her appearance here in Ohio.  The grass is green and the lilacs have big buds on their branches.  we were able to have our windows open most of the day yesterday and the fresh breeze was so refreshing!  I love spring!

We are doing really well with our school work and should finish most subjects by the end of May.  I had to do school all summer one year and it wasn't fun for any of us.  We have a huge garden planned this summer, so we need to put a lot of our time towards caring for that.  We are so excited to dig our feet in the soil and plant some seeds!

I have been de-cluttering again.  A week ago I went through all of our homeschool books and threw out/gave away ones we didn't need.  Somehow I ended up with a few copies of different books, so those I gave to friends.  I also went through our bookcases and found a few copies there as well.  I had three copies of The Little Peppers!  Now they look so neat and organized, I love it!

We are still planning on moving 1 1/2 hrs. away this summer.  Housing is so much cheaper there and hopefully we'll find a place that's a little closer to my dh's work.  We've been watching realtor.com and have seen a few houses we like.  One house we all fell in love with has already sold.  I know the Lord will have the perfect house for us, when the time is right.

The kids will be getting new bikes this week.  They all received gift certificates from my dh's employer for entering a safety contest.  We decided to save them and use them for bikes.  They've all outgrown their old bikes and are looking forward to getting new ones.

I finally broke down and ordered a grain mill from Marmee.  We are all happy to not have to hand-crank anymore. :-)  It should get here this week.

We will probably get some chicks in a few weeks, along with some ducks and maybe a turkey or two.  We need to cull some of our hens and butcher them.  Our freezer is empty of our own chicken meat, so we need some more.  We would also love to get some Nubian goats.  They are so cute!  Friends of ours will have a dairy cow ready at the end of summer.  I hope to be able to buy her so we can have our own fresh milk.  Yum!

After hearing many good reports about Charlie's Soap, I ordered some.  I mainly use it for my dishwasher and it does a great job.  I'm sure it will last us a long time.  I also ordered their all-purpose spray cleaner.  I was surprised at how well it cleans things.  My dh's lunch cooler always gets so dirty, but this stuff just takes it right off after letting it sit for a few minutes.  My 6 y.o. loves to clean things, and since this is safe for him to use, we let him clean to his heart's content!

I better go.  Mondays find me cleaning my bathroom, along with many other jobs.  Hopefully I'll be able to find more time to blog!  My dh's new work schedule has really thrown all of us for a loop and we're finding it hard to get back on track.

~Karen    

Eric, access his blog by clicking here, had an offer to view the current issue of The Girlhood Companion if I agreed to post a review of it later.  My daughters and I spent quite a long time enjoying this gem and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who enjoys celebrating girlhood.  There is something for everyone here, with recipes, nice stories, cute pictures of rabbits having tea, etc.  We had a Dutch rabbit, so it was nice seeing these cute bunnies enjoying tea!  This is a very nice e-magazine available by clicking  here. 

They also made a very nice video on youtube, which you can see here.

**Updated to add that this is also available in print form.  For more information go to: www.giftoffamilywriting.com for more information about it.  :-)

~Karen

We woke up with both our driveway and our road completely flooded.  thankfully we have our big truck or else Tim would have had to stay home from work.  Our neighbor tried to drive through her flooded driveway and got her van stuck halfway through.  She had to walk through the water back up to her house.  She slipped and fell twice while we were watching, too far away to help her.  :-(  Her van will be there until the water recedes.

The kids are so enjoying the water and have made some different floating boats.  They float and can hold up Matthew, but not Jacob.  Do you think that stopped him from trying??  :-)

~Karen

P.S. I have two new posts below this one ~ take a look!

All pictures from flickr.com

Matthew turned 6 yesterday!!  He had to wait all day to open his gifts, which was complete agony for him, I can assure you!  So, right before dinner he was able to tear into everything and was very happy with everything he got. :-)

He wanted a bug party, so we decided to make a dirt cake with bugs and worms on it .  I bought these bugs at Wal Mart that grow over a period of a couple of days, so we started those on Tuesday to get everyone in the mood.  We put those on the table as decorations.  We had balloons everywhere and our Happy Birthday banner on the hutch, which added to the festivities.  He loved it so much!  He was our little king for the day.  :-)

I wanted to let everyone know what Matthew did with his gifts that we thought was really cute and funny.  I wrapped all of his gifts on Wednesday afternoon and left them on my bed.  He went in to my bathroom, but after awhile I thopught that he might be getting into the gifts as it was really quiet in there and taking too long.  I went in to find he had found some leftover bows from Christmas and he had put a bow on each gift to spruce them up!!  It was so cute, and he was so excited about his birthday, we all got a chuckle over it. :-)

Matthew loves bugs, especially flies--yuck!!  I found this at Jo-Ann's and let Jacob give it to him.  Now he can catch his "friends" and they can live in there instead of the house!!

Tim wanted the fishing pole to be a special gift from him to Matthew.  The boys are so excited to do a lot of fishing with Tim this summer.

Please excuse the mattress in back of them.  We were changing beds around right before this and stopped for his party!

Becky made this for Matthew and she used it as the tag for her gift to him.  She ran out of t's, so she put Mathew instead of Matthew.

Chelsea had this by the sliding glass door when we got home.  We all do love Matthew very much.  It's so nice to see the kiddos show their love for each other.  :-)

~Karen

A few weeks ago our 9 y.o. daughter, Becky, got new glasses!  She thought that when we went to pick out her frames she would get the glasses that day, so she was a tad disappointed when she found out she had to wait for a week.  She quickly got over it and picked out these neat purple frames which look so good on her. :-)

~Karen