We have another niece or nephew on the way! 2011 is going to be a joyous year indeed.;)

This old house

So, I have to admit to my own stupidity and ignorance. With owning a old house now, there are some things that I just don't think about. Like, say, tearing into the wallpaper, little thinking that there could be lead based paint in there. Thankfully, God is good and sent me a father in law who could test the paint to make sure it was safe to proceed.;) The tests turned out to be negative, so I could proceed and rid the room of its 5+ layers of wallpaper and paint.:) Ah, the adventures we are having with our first home!:D
We also were quite blessed to discover that the linoleum we tore out was not asbestos, which was a huge blessing, since the deed was done and the linoleum removed. It is nice to know we didn't stir up anything hazardous.
It has been amazing to see how many ways God has already blessed us and the lessons He has started to teach us with the house.

If all goes according to plan, we should close on the 24th! Andrew told me that mean Thanksgiving at our house.;) (with the bat and unfinished rooms. lol)
There have been a lot of set backs with the house, with waiting on the title company, and then having the bank back out on us. But, God has blessed us through it all with a temporary place to live (one that we didn't have to rent for a set amount of time) and a better loan now then what the first bank offered us. Its hard to know what why things happen that way they do until you see the bigger picture.

Our house! We had to fill out paperwork today to get the extension needed by the title company. So, it could be at least another thirty days before we are in it. I would complain about that, if it meant we would be on the streets once we are married, but we have been incredible blessed to have relatives offer a empty house to us until ours is ready. *confetti*
Things are coming together nicely for the big day, though I find myself making massive to-do lists of all the things we can't do until the week of.;) I just hope that I don't wind up losing one of those lists, since they are the equivalent of my brain these days.;)

So much to be thankful for

Lately, I have been rather blown away at the amount of answered prayers there have been in my life. After hearing "wait" for Dad to get a good job for so many months, he recently got hired on by a local college. I'm thrilled that he is working for a place that values all his gifts and areas of expertise! The job has been a huge blessing so far.
We are finishing up the last minute plans for the wedding, which included finally sitting down and writing up a schedule to make sure everything is done in time. (finally, those nightmares regarding a half planned wedding can stop! lol) Right after we finished, I had several friends offer to help with whatever needs to be done the week leading up to the wedding. *whew* Now I don't have to try and figure how to decorate the church with just three pairs of hands or plan on a all nighter working on flowers.;) I feel incredibly blessed by the friends I have!
Is it wrong for me to be super excited about how the cake is looking to turn out? I think it is one of the things I am most excited about, since I have had a clear picture of how I want it to turn out for so long and yet didn't think it was possible. I want the cake to taste good, and then the look is second, so I didn't want to have to go with fondant as the design seemed to call for. Well, Poppy came up with this ingenious plan to do buttercream frosting on the actual cake, but then make the flowers out of fondant. So, it will both taste good and look the way I want.:D Because, it is just wrong for the baker to have a awful tasting wedding cake. lol.
We started the gluten free bakery and it has been amazing to see the doors open for that! God has richly blessed my family.

We are still in the midst of working out the paperwork in regards to the house. There were a few problems with the contract, so we used up our three chances to get it right... The realtor just sent it in the for the third and final time, so I do hope that everything looks good! I mean, now I know how to spell my middle name. lol. I didn't realize until two years ago that the way I have always spelled my middle name is not how it is on the birth certificate, so now I have to decide which way to go with how I spell it. So, when the government finds that I spelled my middle name one way on the paper work and then another on my SSN card and drivers license, they kind of frowned on that.;) But, hopefully that is all worked out now!

Once we have the house, though, we can finally finish registering for the wedding, since we won't be blindly guessing what we would like to have in a future house.;) So many things up in the air until then though!

VBS is going on this week, ending with the community BBQ on Saturday. So, the kids went out last night to collect cans of food for the food pantry and invite the neighbors to the BBQ. It has been cute to see their zeal.:)

Andrew and I bought a home! We found out today that our offer was accepted.:)