Spring Surprise...

SNOW??!!??
Yes, that is exactly what we woke up to this morning! Last night, just before we went to bed, I checked the weather. The weather on our phone showed the temperature in the 40s and when I looked at the radar it showed us covered in blue (snow). Neither Brent or I thought anything about it and went to bed.
The first thing I heard this morning is..."you've got to be kidding me!!" This was Brent's response as he looked out the window this morning.
This was the view from the back porch this morning. We were not even able to have church services today because of the snow. We ended up getting about 6 inches of snow in 3 to 4 hours here at our house! We got 5 inches in just 2 hours!! At the bottom right corner of this picture, though it is a little hard to tell, there is a very snow covered flower pot.

This picture shows Rachel 2 days ago planting some bean seeds in the flower pot that is now snow covered! Oops!

This was the girls checking the snow this morning. They were pretty surprised too!

We did go out in the snow for a little while. We had to enjoy our March 30th, yes, MARCH 30th, snowstorm a little bit.
By the way, the forecast high here tomorrow is 66 degrees...so, at least, maybe our surprise snow won't be around too long!

Snow Days

 One thing we certainly had plenty of this year was...SNOW! I think we had at least 4 snows this year of at least 5 to 6 inches and one of those times, we had well over a foot. I just decided to combine the pictures from the snows into one post. This picture is from Round 2 when we got over a foot of snow. This was our cat, Tiger, trying to climb over the snow to the door. We actually got so much snow it drifted against the door.

 Since I am expecting Bouncy, I am a very careful picture taker only this year, but I have had fun watching and taking pictures of all the fun ways the girls came up with to play in the snow. Rachel liked sledding with her dad this year. Bekah absolutely did not like sledding and stuck close to me instead.

The girls were able to have our friends, the Walkers, down to sled with them one day. Riding their tricycle in the snow, filling sand buckets with snow, shoveling the trees out of the snow were some of the snow fun they had.

Can't forget making snow angels! Rachel thought this was great this year. I could only get Rebekah to lay down once to try it. No more after that!

Here are our beautiful snow girls!

This past week brought us to what was, WE HOPE, our last snow of the season. Rachel, as you can see, pulled out one of the beach chairs for the snow. It was a beautiful snow, but we are ready for spring around here!

Nana, Brent's Mom, was visiting during this last snow and she helped the girls make snow people on the deck rail.

We very much hope they are waving good-bye to winter and saying Hello to Spring!

Baby Bouncy Update

As most of you know, we are expecting a little one in July. Today marks 24 weeks (6 months) for this pregnancy. Praise the Lord for each of these days of a safe and healthy pregnancy so far. I have been extremely extremely sick with this pregnancy too and so have not been able to post in quite a while. 

When I was expecting Rebekah, we asked Rachel what she wanted to call her sister. She replied "Sponjas." We have never figured out how or why she came up with that nickname but it stuck and that is what we called Rebekah until the day she was born. Each child has a nickname because we found out if we are having a girl or a boy, but we do not share the name until the baby is born. Since Rachel gave Bekah her nickname, we allowed Bekah to pick the nickname this time. Several weeks ago, we asked Bekah what we should call the baby. She replied "Bouncy, Bouncy, Bouncy." So, Bouncy, this baby will be until her arrival in July.

Yes, we found out at the ultrasound earlier in March, that the Lord is blessing us with another little daughter. This was our first glimpse of her at the ultrasound. It is a little hard to tell in this picture but she is laying on her back with her feet over her head!

They then turned on the 3-D and we were able to get a really good picture of her sweet face before she began to try to hide!

 She also waved to us!

                               

                                         

We will be able to tell even more when she arrives, but we think she and her eldest sister may look quite a bit alike. Rachel is pictured on the left at 20 weeks and Bouncy, at 21 weeks, on the right.

Here is the 24 week picture. Thank you to each of you for your prayers for Bouncy and me. I am still having some nausea but it hopefully it will continue to improve even more as the weeks go by.We got a great report on Bouncy at the ultrasound and especially, that her growth rate looked good. She weighed almost one pound at that point. This was a huge blessing to know with all the sickness this pregnancy, that she is growing well.

We thank the Lord for the blessing of Little Bouncy. She is precious to us already and we look forward to raising her by God's grace and for His Glory. 

24 weeks