And baby will make 3!

After praying for 4+ long years for a child, going through fertility treatments for 1 ½ years, and nearly completely our foster care home study after 1 ¾ years…we found out we are expecting a child of our own June 18, 2013! Yes! We’re pregnant!!! A couple weeks ago we went for our first ultrasound and were so excited to see our little baby moving all around at 11 weeks and to hear the baby's heartbeat. Things seem to be progressing normally. We are now 12 1/2 weeks along.

After struggling with infertility and the uncertainty, the sadness, the struggle to trust the Lord and His goodness at times, we understand the fact that our joy of a growing child only deepens the wound for some. We want to say that we understand a small bit of that and hurt with you. We don't know what the future is for you but we do know that the Lord has Good plans for you. 

Over the last four years some days and weeks were much harder than others. A year ago I was really, really struggling. The Lord began to impress on me the word "Hope". Then I began to question...what is my hope in? I realized that I was placing my hope in having a child rather than in Him. He began to show me verse after verse after verse about hope. The thing I noticed was that the guarantee for strength and a reason to live is not hoping for the sake of hope. Instead hope comes when my hope is in God. 

Isaiah 40:30 "...but those who Hope in the LORD will renew their strength."
Psalm 130:5 "I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my Hope."
Psalm 146:5-6 "Blessed is he whose help is is the God of Jacob, whose Hope is in the LORD his God, the maker of heaven and earth; the sea and everything in them -- the LORD, who remains faithful forever."
Romans 15:13 "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with Hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

The last verse that I wrote in my list of Hope verses was Proverbs 13:12 "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." That was the verse that I was still pondering on when I finally got a positive pregnancy test. (Ok, so I took 3 of them that day, another one the next day and two blood tests...it was a little unreal that it might actually happen.)

In the journey of infertility a person feels very alone. You continuously hear about those that are pregnant and all about the new babies. It's not like there's a status on Facebook to say "I'm struggling with infertility" (Not that most of us would really want to put that out there for the whole world though.) It's easy for people to say really, really, really dumb things without realizing it. Days like Mother's Day at church can be brutal (why does it always have to be on a Sunday?!) and Baby Showers. Most people don't know what to do or say...because it is awkward. 

However, the thing that has been most amazing about sharing with people that we're pregnant is to realize just how many people have been praying for us and have really cared. Many of them we knew were praying for us...a few near us, many off in the distance in a way, others we didn't even know were praying and some other people that we don't even know but are connected by family have been praying. A person can feel so alone but now we've seen a glimpse of just how many people were silently cheering us on. And we had no idea.

Thank you so much for those that have prayed with us, near or far these past years!!! Thank you to those that are continuing to pray for a healthy baby. We pray that this little one will grow to love the Lord and serve Him. This phase of our journey is only beginning. I don't think I'll completely believe it until I hold this little one in my arms. 

Plowing Match 2012

 The International Plowing Match and Rural Expo is an event held every year but in a different place. 100 acres of a farmer's field is turned into the tented city. This year it was held near Kitchener (3 1/2 hours south/west of us). We were just a couple of the workers as it takes around 15 people to run the booth each day.

 The crowds weren't as big as some years, partly due to the rain it seemed. I was so excited to have my pink rubber boots...my new standard fair wear.

 It rained most of Tuesday and Thursday and threatened to on Saturday.

 This year CEF Ontario's booth featured a walk through the story of "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" with the gospel shared in it. Over 650 people came through between Tuesday and Saturday and at least one girl gave her life to the Lord!

 Reepicheep the mouse and I saying hello. I don't even remember who was inside the time. I was only wearing 5 layers at the moment. Most of the time I was wearing 7-8 layers.

 Reepicheep the mouse and Eustace the Dragon said hello and invited kids to come through and hear the story.

 I hung out with the face painters nearly the whole week. I painted the cherries on Belle's face. =]

 David got to hang out in front nearly all week and invite people to come through and explain what it was. He also talked to the fish puppets all week. He now knows 40 new fish jokes by heart.

 Half man, half dragon taking a break.

 This was the first Plowing Match that we actually saw them plowing. This was the steam tractor giving a demonstration.

 Saturday was David's birthday so we got to enjoy poutine, his favourite fair food.

Poutine (fries, gravy and cheese) that came in a special little bucket. 

After an exhausting week, we are very, very, very happy to be home! Only one more fair to go at Elmvale before we're finished with fall fairs for the year.

Garden pics

 These pictures are from a few weeks ago, as things aren't quite as green but they are still producing some sugar snap peas and yellow beans. Not in full force like before, however. I was looking up sugar snap pea recipes online every other night to figure out what to do with them all. It's been amazing!

 An acorn squash that looked so beautiful then, but has since rotted. =[ There's still a few smaller ones I'm holding out hope for.

 I've never grown broccoli or even seen broccoli grown until this summer. I bought one set of 4 plants for $1.29 and have certainly gotten my moneys worth.The picture  doesn't show just how big the broccoli head was...the biggest one that I've ever seen. It was nearly a foot across the top! Lots of yummy Broccoli Sunshine Salad out of that one! We still have some heads waiting in the garden.

 All the cherry tomato plants have been turning now. Personally garden tomatoes are the taste of summer. The broccoli, beans, peas, peppers all taste like the grocery store kind...but not the tomatoes!

This picture is from Labour Day weekend when it was hot, warm and sunny (unlike this week). We went to the Port Sydney falls for a couple hours to read and enjoy the sunshine. Lots of people were going down the falls that day, but we didn't. David made us come back and work on the house. Isn't he cruel? =]

Stair Cubbies...and other exciting things

I remember that in late May someone asked if summer was our busiest time of the year. I quickly denied it, thinking about all that happens throughout the rest of the year and how CEF is so much more than just a summer ministry. However, now that Labour Day weekend has arrived and I have finally breathed again, I think 9 months of time fades the memory. If someone were to ask the same question today or over the past 3 months, I would have agreed. Yes, summer is our busiest time...well until fall rolls around that is. What a blessing to see all that God did this summer. He is so marvelous! We are so blessed to be able to be apart of what He does. It never seems like enough however. Since we have a newsletter about summer close to being send-able I'll share some house updates.

Entry Way Issues
Since we built our house a little different than we originally planned we've been struggling to figure out the best way to make our entry way work. When your house isn't that big you want to be sure and use every space to max. I had a really cool idea and David worked out the plans for pull-out drawers to the side of the stairs. But, the more I thought about it I realized how much space would have to be available for the drawers to work.So I've been chewing on it for the last while and came up with a different idea.

Here's the "Before" picture, although it's not a true before picture since all the stuff thrown behind the stairs was removed and looking half decent.

 My idea was for stair cubby holes. The last few months I've been storing my shoes under the bottom step to get them out of the way and eventually realized could work for all of the stairs...if the brains and brawn in the family could figure out how to do it. Once again, David came through!!

 After cutting all the boards for the extensions and putting plywood behind it all...it's complete!

 I LOVE IT!!! Our shoes are out of the way and we have 12 more steps worth of storage for guests, mittens, etc.

 Don't they look so cute hiding under there?

 We I ended up deciding that a coat closet beside the stairs seems to be the best place for it. This closet/entry thing has been the hardest decisions for me out of the whole house. It seems a little ridiculous. =] I guess we'll try this and see how it works. It's hard to tell right now as we aren't wearing coats yet. Yay! But alas I know the day is coming very, very soon.

The Basement
 The closet isn't the only thing that has been framed-in in the basement. David's finished framing in everything now!!!

 This is his workshop (slightly bigger than our upstairs living room). He claims he needs space for all these projects he's working on. =]

 There's a hallway now! The workshop is to the left, stairs are the the right, laundry straight ahead.

 Here's the laundry room.

 The bathroom-to-be.

 The basement bedroom-to-be. Storage stash for now.

In front of the workshop will be a living area/music area/playroom for foster kids.

 Moving back by the front door/stairs is our office-to-be off to the right. The room that has to be finished before we can have foster kids. (Since our office is in the spare bedroom upstairs and therefore we have no bedroom.)

 Another long awaited project was the hanging and framing of our bathroom mirror. Yahoo!! The frame still needs to be sanded and painted again...but it's up!!!!

Summer Training 2012

 Our summer theme this year is "Treasure Seekers". Using the "I AMs" of Christ- Good Shepherd, Bread of Life, Resurrection, Light of the World and The Way, children discover Jesus is the greatest treasure.


 "Butterfingers" and "John Paul" have a continued sailing adventure where they discover a different island, treasure and clue each day.

It was neat to see our "daughter" Ashley who has been interning with CEF this year as she took more of a leadership role, including doing two demo clubs.

 Every "Butterfingers" and "John Paul" looks just a little bit different. =]

 On games night, Ivhan and Josh put together a big "Canadian Race" game. One of the stations included "skiing". Have you ever tried skiing with 4 people on your skis?

July 1, Canada Day was celebrated without a lot of fanfare this year, but Jeanette our cook made a very patriotic cake! Being at training over the 4th of July did make me homesick. A couple people connected the dots as to why I was wearing a giant red, white and blue bow in my hair that day. I still don't have an American shirt to wear for the 4th of July and they're kind of hard to get here.

 All the students crammed in for class.

Here's our wonderful 50 students!

 And the crazy staff and interns. We had 10 staff and 4 interns. What a blessing our interns were! We really wouldn't have been able to run training without them.

And last but not least..."Deet" the defender of the North. Each area got to dress up one of their leaders (thankfully they chose David) and turned him into some wacko bug guy that carried his pet polar bear around. 

We were very blessed by how smoothly training went and knew that the Lord was at work in the student's lives. As they shared before they left one guy said "I'm not going to be homesick for my family, I'm going to be homesick for this place."

Yard Work

 It's already been 6 weeks since David did all the yardwork...so mom, the pictures are finally getting put up. Something about CEF Summer Ministry has been keeping us a little busy. =] Also our internet is being super finicky and not really working a lot these days.

 I'm very impressed at how good David has gotten with the maneuvering the machinery. It helps that he's had several chances to use them over the last year and a half. We rented the excavator for the week so he could dig the trench for the power lines to the solar panels as well as clean up the yard.

This is the same spot where the excavator is, before David began cleaning it up. It's been unbelievable how quickly the shoots of the trees came back up, so he scraped things down, exposing the bedrock in a lot of places and leveling it in others.

The front patch that was seeded two years ago, finally got mowed for the first time! (We didn't have a lawn mower before.)

 This is the very beginning of my rock garden. David brought rocks from around the yard that he'd uncovered and partially buried them for the garden.

 This is what the garden looks like now! I think it looks amazing! David did a great job!

 Things are growing in my garden too!! Radishes, beans, peas, tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, chives and peppers! I had my first garden spinach salad yesterday...yum! You feel so much healthier when you know there's fresh dirt on it.

 This is our "patio" for now. It's lovely to have a place to eat outside sometimes. I have to remind David to look at the beautiful trees and not all the dirt and work he still has to do. We did some raking yesterday and planted a patch of grass, as big as our two sprinklers will reach. Hopefully we'll have time to plant some more next week. We're also waiting for them to fill in the trench for the solar panels before we can plant a lot of it.

 David uncovered the rest of this bedrock and put some rocks in front for what we're planning to eventually, someday going to turn in to a little waterfall. The rock is shaped perfectly for it. The picture doesn't really show it up very well.

This is what the rock looks like after it's power-sprayed and cleaned off. At first I wasn't sure if I'd like the look but I really do now. A few hours of raking dirt to plant grass also convinced me to David's thinking...more rock, less grass.

Here's one of my front flower containers to greet you by the door.

It sure felt this hot some of these days...the sun helped it a little but it sure can get warm. Everyone seems to be experiencing the heat this year. I grew up with air conditioning and wondered how people did it without...well now I'm one of "those people". Thankfully your body seems to adapt somewhat. Lots of water and being aware of the crabbies seem to be key.

These were the first radish shoots in my garden just 3 days after planting...amazing! Radishes must be the gardeners encouraging plant to let you know that yes, something is coming even if everyone else is slower.