Follow-up to "Big News"

If you haven't seen my previous post, go there first.

So...for everyone who has asked, my due date is May 26th, which is perfect timing for ending school. Thank you to everyone who has called and emailed to share in our enthusiasm. We are surrounded by the most wonderful friends and family.

This morning Nathanael's 5-year-old buddy called.

Me: Hello.
Sean: Good morning, Mrs. DiSalvatore. Congratulations on your new baby.
Me: Oh, thank you. Won't it be fun to have a new baby around?
Sean: I don't know. You know, more kids-more mess.
Me: [hysterical laughter]

Anyway, I feel great...wouldn't even know I was pregnant except for the softball-sized mass sitting between my hips. I've already been to one appointment and was thrilled to hear a nice, strong heartbeat.

We're trusting God for a healthy baby and know that this one will perfectly fit into our family just as his or her siblings have. I've been pondering Psalm 139:

13 For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you

when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in you book

before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand.

God has richly blessed us. I marvel at His goodness and rest in knowing that the God of the universe is busy knitting our little miracle together.

Big News

We "tricked" the kids. We were all serious and called this family meeting. The kids sat nervously on the couch, unsure of what crime had been committed. Watch and see what the meeting was really all about. Click here to view the video.

Happy Birthday To Me!

I had such a great birthday this year. My expectations were low, only because it fell on a Tuesday with work and school still needing to be done AND we had an evening meeting. BUT, my awesome husband came through. He knows how important days like this are to me. I try to be like, "Oh, it's just a birthday, just another day." But deep down, I love the attention and spoiling that comes with a day that's 'all about me!'

I got up and went to the gym, as usual. When I got home, he had a nice, big breakfast waiting for me and the birthday banner was up and the kids were giddy with excitement.

I left at 10:30 to get my hair trimmed...thought a little pampering would be nice and I didn't realize there was a discount for doing it on my birthday...very nice!

Colombo made lunch for everyone. I finished up school stuff with the kids and then snuck upstairs with TJ for a little nap...another treat. When I got up, we all headed out to pick up my present. Colombo replaced my camera that had broken and I'm so excited to have one after being without for 2 weeks.

Then we went to Moe's for dinner (kids eat free on Tuesdays). There, I opened up the cards I'd gotten. I was overwhelmed by the dozens of cards, phone calls, and emails I received. Everyone was so kind and thoughtful. It was truly overwhelming. I'm so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful and loving friends and family. That was all the gift I needed!
This was Madison's homemade card to me,
"Dear Mom, Happy Birthday. I hope you have a happy happy birthday. I now that it will be good. Did you now that you ar the best mom in the world. Thank you for homeschooling us. I am so glad that you ar my mom. Thank you for helping me with hard times in my life. Thank you for helping me now that God is always with me. Thank you for everything you do for us. I love you."
She also included the verse "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked." Psalms 1:1 I thought that was an interesting selection. She also included a five dollar bill! I only made it half way through before the tears flowed. That girl is too much!

Finally, on to Dairy Queen for dessert before heading over to the church for our meeting.

I'm also sportin' the new pair of shoes that I got the other night. My mom took me shoe shopping and to dinner at Panera. I am so spoiled.

I'm just so grateful for the faithfulness of my Heavenly Father. He's been better to me than I deserve.

Our Weekend

This past weekend was a pretty typical one. Translation: we spent half of it in the car running from activity to activity. A couple of noteworthy (and picture worthy) events included a Bilingual Story Hour at the library. Sweet friends were doing it, so I wanted to show my support.

Nathanael, Sean, Madison, & Trevor listen to the story in English & Spanish.

As the narrator tells the story of Columbus' 2nd voyage and the discovery of Puerto Rico, Nathanael (Columbus) requests the help of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.

After, Nathanael's buddy Sean and C4's buddy Kevin came over for the afternoon to play. This is their battle:

On Sunday morning, Madison went to a dance workshop for 4 hours and loved it! She had 3 sessions- tap, ballet, and modern. She was in the youngest group of 7-10 year-olds. Look how little she is!
Also very exciting weekend news is that C4 won both of his hockey games. That puts them at 4-6-2 so far.

The Velveteen Rabbit

Last Monday (11/10) we took the kids to the Bushnell Children's Theatre to see "The Velveteen Rabbit". In preparation, I read the kids the book, but did not finish it so that the ending would be a surprise. It was only recommended for the younger kids, so I left Trevor with Ninny and C4 at home with C3 doing schoolwork. Lisa and Avery came along with us. The kids sat through it so well and really enjoyed it. Madison was so impressed that only 6 people were able to change costumes and seem like a big cast. Their favorite character was "Nana" who stood about eight feet tall.

Fun With Food Photo Contest

Here's my entry for 5 Minutes for Mom photo contest. The grand prize is a $500 grocery card!

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This is Nathanael about three years ago. Sadly, not much has changed.

My 200th Post

To commemorate this milestone of my 200th post, I decided to share a wonderful thing that blogging has done for me. We got home Saturday night at 11:30 and I saw a package leaning up against the house in a bag to protect it from the rain. Too tired to deal with it, I walked by it and headed straight up the stairs to my bathroom, leaving the package and the four sleeping kids in the van and the dog for my husband to deal with. He's so good!

This morning, he said, "That package was your blog book." I was so excited! About a month ago I began transforming all of my posts from 2007 into bound book form. I used blurb.com to do it. I spent a couple of hours learning the free software and finding my way around, but after that it was just a little bit of tweaking with the pictures to get it just right. You see all I had to do was 'slurp' my 'blog' to 'blurb'. There's a sentence I never thought I'd say!

The wonderful result is my 8-1/2 x 11 hardcover, bound book designed by me with all of my pictures and journaling from 2007. I'm so thrilled with it! Mostly I'm thrilled for the posterity of it. To me, it's invaluable, but it only cost me about $50 after shipping. A whole year of memories preserved. Priceless!

He Likes to Move It, Move It!

We went with friends to see Madagascar 2 at the theater with friends. It was in the IMAX which is huge. There's like 50 rows. The kids wanted to go to the tippy top, but I convinced them to stop about 3/4 of the way up. There were only about 5 families in the whole place, so it was nearly empty. (Most kids were still in school...sad.) During the credits at the end, the song "I Like to Move It, Move It" plays. Nathanael came and said, "Mom, can I go up front and dance?" I said "Go for it."

My friend and I watched him hike down the 35 steps to the bottom and there's my sweet, little, innocent guy shaking his thing in front of the 200 foot screen. We all laughed and laughed. My friend was like, "Does he always do that?" "No, that's the first time."

That's Nathanael, no thought to it or embarrasment. He just felt like dancing and he gave it all he had.

New Front Door

Our latest house project was replacing the front door. Apparently there was rot in the kick board and the door didn't hang right, etc, etc,...yeah, yeah just tell me how much this is going to cost. Anyway...all I had to do was pick what I liked and Colombo and Shaun did the rest. And God blessed us with mild, even warm weather to complete the project.

Before

During

(Do you know how hard it is to teach school in these conditions?)

After

Thanks, Uncle Shaun! We love it!

Disappointment

Go over and read "The Preacher's Wife" post dated Nov. 6. She says exactly how I am feeling post election...only she made her words clearer than I did on my soap box.

Another Trip to Sturbridge Village

Because schools were out for the election, my friend, Laurie, and I headed up to Old Sturbridge Village for the day. It was supposed to be 66 and sunny. Sounds like a great day, right? Oh, details...I had my 4 plus my niece. She had her 4, plus her day care guy, and her son's buddy. That's right...2 mamas and 11 kids! Honestly, though, we had an awesome day! The weather was nice, the kids got along wonderfully, and it's so easy to be there-so much to do, very safe setting.

All 11 bums!

The kids agreed that the best part of the day was the little nature hike we took. Laurie and I and the babies followed the path. The other 9 cut their own route.

Our nature discoveries included 3 ticks on the boys t-shirts, 2 boys with a soaked sneaker from the creek, and 3 nameless boys peeing into the creek!

Height order (Owen's not pictured)

Laurie and her boys...aren't they precious!

Me and my guys

Laurie's jumping up to see if the self-timer worked.

And all this fun for $14!!! Between my membership which has TOTALLY paid off and her coupon...$14 for the 13 of us.

My Blog, My Soap Box

Despite my lack of political posts, my husband and I have followed the campaign trail fairly closely. We don't have t.v., so we did not subject ourselves to hours of BIASED coverage, but we did educate ourselves on the candidates (even town and state), caught up on the news via the Internet, listened to a lot of talk radio, and just shared a general interest in what was going on. Without t.v., I went to bed on election night without knowing the results, but discouraged by how things were shaping up.

Upon waking this morning, I double-clicked on my web browser and saw the Obama family pop up across my screen. My guy didn't win. I listened to McCain's concession speech as tears rolled down my cheeks.

I went to my 'spot' for my quiet time. I began to cry to God, and as I did, I thought, "why am I feeling like this? For weeks now I have intently prayed that God's man would take office, that His plan would come to fruition, that whatever happens, I know He has it under control and that it is all part of His perfect plan."

As I thought it through, I realized that what I was feeling was fear. Fear of a majority Democratic government, fear of the appointments that will be made to the Supreme Court by this man, fear of the tax implications this will immediately mean for our family and us as small business owners. I began to ask God to take this fear from me.

I cracked my Bible open to Psalms where I start every morning. I randomly started reading at chapter 146,

"Praise the Lord! Let all that I am praise the Lord.
I will praise the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God with my dying breath.
Don’t put your confidence in powerful people [or presidents]; there is no help for you there. When they breathe their last, they return to the earth, and all their plans die with them.
But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper, whose hope is in the Lord their God. He made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. He keeps every promise forever. He gives justice to the oppressed and food to the hungry. The Lord frees the prisoners. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are weighed down. The Lord loves the godly. The Lord protects the foreigners among us. He cares for the orphans and widows, but he frustrates the plans of the wicked.
The Lord will reign forever. He will be your God, O Jerusalem, throughout the generations.
Praise the Lord!"

That was exactly what I needed. I said, "God, you are still on the throne."

The kids got up one by one (Madison first) and expressed their concern about the results. (My 9-year-old had already unraveled Obama's 'genius' redistribution of wealth plan weeks ago.) I assured them that God elected the right man and now as Christians we need to support him and pray for him.

I walked into the school room. Madison had written on the white board, "OBAMA WON--dun, dun, duuuun!"

I still feel that sense of 'Crap!' Now my husband will probably have to grow his business for the next two years just to keep up with the tax increase. After all, he works hard, why should he get to decide how to spend his money? And my biggest issue through the campaign is the prospect of Obama appointing 3-4 Supreme Court justices. Moral decisions will be made that will affect my lifetime and my children's and he does not cleave to the same conservative Christian values that I do.

And I think it's wonderful that we've come to a place where history was made and we elected an African-American into office (although he is 1/2 white!). As Colombo and I talked things over in his office this morning, Colombo glanced up to a picture of Abraham Lincoln on the wall and said, "Lincoln would have been proud." The man who had the morals and guts to omit slavery, and now this dream is realized. However, I think it's too bad that reverse prejudice played a part. 95% of black men voted for Obama. They didn't vote for a man or ideals or principles. They voted for a color. Isn't that prejudice? 50% of white men voted for Obama.

But here we are. I hope everyone who voted for him regardless of his zero record knows something I don't. I hope they're right. I hope his "change" is good. 'Cause up until now, I've been pretty happy as an American.

BUT in the end, my hope is not my government. My hope is in the God of Israel. I know that God is on the throne. He knows all and this is a part of His perfect plan. I've already begun praying for the Obama family that even in this next couple months of transition, that they would find strength and peace and harmony. That God would orchestrate all that needs to happen and that Obama will surround himself with godly leaders.

Sorry if I offended any Democratic readers. I'm just exercising my 1st Amendment rights!

Hallelujah Night

Our church hosts a Halloween alternative every year called "Hallelujah Night". The evening includes face painting, carnival games, tickets, prizes, bouncies, costumes, and way too much candy. The kids love it. I make them do 'homemade' costumes, though. Not in the sense that I sew, but we put the ensembles together ourselves.

This year we had two baseball players, a boxer, and a clown. The clown woke up from his nap in a foul mood which caused major face paint smudging and required a zuppa (pacifier) for the first hour. But he warmed up and was a hit. I think I'll go now and steal a piece of chocolate!