God is still moving in amazing ways at our church. There were 20 people baptized last night – the 20 that were saved during our revival – and 3 more people accepted Christ as their Savior. God is so good.

I am really looking forward to seeing what God has in store for our church!

After dealing with infertility, I’m finding I’m rather hesitant to share much about this miracle pregnancy for fear of hurting those who are still waiting for their children. If hearing about pregnancy is painful for you right now, you’ll probably want to skip this post.

I’m about a week away from being out of my first trimester, depending on which calculator you use. Just today I’m 13 weeks along. I told Stephen the other day that I’m absolutely amazed that God would even let me experience this this far. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not overly paranoid that we’ll lose this baby – I’m just so humbled that God is letting us experience pregnancy at all. It is such a miracle to me.

It’s a really long story how, but God worked in an amazing way to allow me to the OB practice that I go to. I won’t go into the details here, but I am constantly amazed that I can go there. They are absolutely wonderful.

The nurse midwife also did an ultrasound for me to determine my due date. It was funny; we discovered that I’m a week farther along than I thought. So much for temping and charting – let’s just say that my chart was about two weeks off from the actual age of this baby. *smile* God works like that though.

It just amazed me to watch the baby moving around. Jumping, rolling over, waving, and it even looked like the baby was sucking its thumb. I sat up after the ultrasound just wiping tears from my eyes.

Because of my insulin resistance and the fact that I’m on metformin, she sent me for my glucose tolerance test early. It was yesterday. I had read some about it, but wasn’t prepared for how poorly I would physically tolerate all that added sugar in my body. I have had several near-fainting spells and quite a bit of dizziness even before the test, so I’m really curious how the results will turn out. It’ll probably be a few days before I get them though.

Weight-wise I’m doing well. They put me on a rather strict diet (which I think I mentioned previously) and I’ve actually lost a few pounds because I’ve been so careful about my eating. *grin* I hit the 65-pounds-lost mark last week. . .though I highly doubt I’ll be staying at that weight for long!

I am showing now too. I’ve done some sewing and altering my clothes so I can have some maternity skirts. Drawstring-waisted skirts have become my friends. Yesterday when I was out grocery shopping, a lady stopped me and asked if I was expecting. So I guess it’s obvious to others now.

For those that are wondering, I’m not sure if we’re going to find out the gender of the baby or not. We’re both still on the fence on that one, and we still have another month or so before they’ll do the next ultrasound anyway. We’ll see. We’re leaning toward not finding out, but that could change.

God is so good!

Sweet Hickory BBQ Sauce

2 1/2 cups ketchup
1 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup mustard
1/8 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp. liquid smoke
4 drops soy sauce
4 drops worcestershire sauce

Combine all ingredients, mixing well. Store in the refrigerator.

There have been some requests already about when the pearl earrings in the jewelry giveaway would be added to the store. This is to officially announce that the earrings have been added and are now available at Hope of My Heart Designs. The earwires and beads are solid sterling silver, and the pearls are Swarovski crystal pearls.

Grace : Pearl and Sterling Silver Earrings

First, let me just say that I was completely blown away by the number of people that entered the giveaways! Wow! Thanks to everyone for entering my giveaways! This was a lot of fun!

I was going to print everything out, cut them apart, and let my son pick from a bowl, but with so many comments, I ended up using a random number generator instead.

The first winner for the earrings is #192 – Jennifer from Life is Not a Cereal.

Then I picked another winner for a pair of earrings. I couldn’t give away just one pair! That winner was #33 – Mandy from The Sietsema Family.

Check your emails ladies – I need your snail mail addresses so your earrings can go in the mail.

The winner for the notebook .pdf file is #25 – Sheri.

I decided to pick another notebook winner too. That was #17 – Jessica P.

Jessica and Sheri, I emailed you as well with options about your notebooks.

If you’d like to purchase a pair of earrings for yourself, you can see them in my store here. The notebook files are also available for purchase here.

Don’t forget to check Shannon’s site Rocks in My Dryer for a big list of winners! She put in a massive amount of work to hostess :O) this thing. Thanks, Shannon!

This is what happens when I’m inside entering giveaways and daddy and son are outside.

(And for all of you that are worried, he was driving very, very slowly!)

This week I’ve been pretty busy with a new project of sorts. I’ve enjoyed making myself tote bags for a while, and had considered selling them, but hadn’t taken the idea any farther than that.

Then I got an email. “Have you ever considered selling your bags? I’d love to buy one.”

So I sat down, measured this bag, and went to work. I took pretty careful notes, so it would be easier to duplicate in the future.

This was the result:

I’ll be adding bags to my store in the near future, but they will probably be as I make them and not made to order. I haven’t decided that for sure yet.

Just thought I’d share my latest project with you!

Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer is hosting a massive bloggy giveaway carnival this week. Since I’ve been thinking about having a giveaway (or two) around here recently anyways, I figured I’d take this opportunity to do it.

The first item I’m giving away is this pair of earrings. I’ll be adding a new line of pearl jewelry to my store Hope of My Heart Designs soon, and this is just a preview of it. The earwires are solid sterling silver, so you don’t have to worry about irritation if you have sensitive ears. Oh – and shipping is free too!

To enter, just leave me a comment. You don’t have to have a blog to enter, but you do need to leave your name – I can’t contact you if you win if you enter anonymously. You have until Friday at noon EST to enter – I will announce the winner here some time that afternoon (and I’ll email you as well).

If you’d like to buy a pair for yourself, keep an eye out here on my blog. When I get them added to the store, I’ll let you know.

Hop on over to Rocks in My Dryer to see what other giveaways there are. Last time I checked, there were almost 400!

Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer is hosting a massive bloggy giveaway carnival this week. This is my second item I’m giving away.

It’s a downloadable .pdf file for you to create your own Household Management Notebook. It’s available in 6 different colors – burgundy, dark blue, teal, salmon, lilac, and black for those who don’t have color printers. The .pdf file has over 50 pages for you to customize however you wish. You can read more about them over at my notebook store.

To enter, just leave me a comment. You don’t have to have a blog to enter, but you do need to leave your name – I can’t contact you if you win if you enter anonymously. You have until Friday at noon EST to enter – I will announce the winner here some time that afternoon (and I’ll email you as well).

If you’d like to buy one for yourself, head over to the notebook store and check them out.

Hop on over to Rocks in My Dryer to see what other giveaways there are. Last time I checked, there were almost 400!

He thinks he’s headed out the door to PawPaw’s house with Daddy, but we haven’t decided on that yet.

“Mama! Stay here! You’re sick. I’ll be back, ok? Go over there! Bye bye.”

“See you tomorrow! I’m goin’ bye bye.”

Um, thanks for the warning!