Made In Germany

Our new "Made In Germany" order is on its way but takes 36-40 weeks to arrive. The Twichels will be a family of five later this year!!!!! We are due the first week of September so we will probably have the baby the end of August. We are very excited to welcome another child to our family!

Speaking of excited, the girls are super excited. They really want a little brother and have named the baby multiple times already. The give "the baby" kisses and hugs, which makes me happy. We will see how much they love their little sibling when the baby actually arrives.

February Quilt Along

It might not seem that I completed my February blocks in time to get them submitted before the deadline since I haven't posted them but I did get them done on time! In fact one of my blocks won the monthly giveaway. It's a randomly generated number type of giveaway so it's no testament to my skill but I am excited to check out the fabric that I won!

These were definitely more challenging than they appeared but I like the way they turned out! March's blocks look much easier so stay tuned!

Whimsical Fabric Quilt Along - January

The sewing machine and all my totes of colorful fabric have been calling my name every time I walk through the office/craft room. After our whole family being sick for days on end and stuck at home going stir crazy someone in a crafting group I'm in mentioned that a year long quilt along with Whimsical Fabric had just started and my interest was piqued. I am not the most experienced or talented quilter but I would like to become one and this promised to be a doable project. Plus, I need something to keep me occupied while the weather is so terrible here right now. I should be unpacking boxes buuttt.....I might be doing some sewing too.

So, I jumped right in! The project for January is a tiny 9 block square made out of 2 inch pieces of fabric. After rifling through my scrap box I threw together 4 blocks. You were only required to make one but they are SO SMALL that I didn't think I would ever have enough squares to make a big blanket at the end of the year if I didn't make multiples.

My pictures aren't the greatest since it is rather late here in Germany and I am ready to head to bed but here they are. My four beeAootiful quilt blocks!

And all four of them together, just to see how they looked. I have no idea how they will end up spaced throughout the finished quilt.

I am excited to have a reason to quilt every month. Maybe all my unfinished projects will get done if I am already in the sewing corner working on new quilt blocks each month!

Provo House Pictures

This is super delayed with all the craziness that happened at the end of summer with me breaking my toes, Scott leaving for training, remodeling the house and putting it on the market while getting ready to move overseas. BUT.....here are the pictures of our house in Provo that were used in the sale listing. So, if you never got a chance to visit our lovely historic home or didn't get a chance to see it after I stripped wallpaper for weeks and painted like there was no tomorrow (cause there really wasn't, we had a deadline) here you go!

The view from the street

The backyard/garage (it's hard to see but there are 3 fruit trees growing back there)

The Entry Way

 Living Room

Master Bedroom, just off of the living room  

 The Girl's Room (upstairs)

Bathroom (much different after being totally gutted and redone! No more pink tile and floral wallpaper)

The Kitchen

Downstairs Bedroom (we always used it as a playroom but staged it as a bedroom)

Downstairs Storage Area (the laundry area is in the other half of the open space in the basement)

 No pictures were taken of the other massive room in the basement. It was the final project that I finished the night before the house went on the market. It is twice the size of the other downstairs bedroom and we used it as a craft room/office. There is also a very large pantry in the basement that didn't get pictured along with an under the stairs storage area where Scott kept his tools.

Except for the master bedroom, every painted area in the house was painted before we put the house on the market(after much wallpaper stripping, patching, sanding etc..). Even the doors. My awesome brothers/sister-in-laws/nephews, etc... made several trips down to help sand and paint the gazillion doors in this house and hang all the pictures.  The wallpaper that did stay was cleaned and re-glued down by my father, which was definitely a labor of love (even the wallpaper on the ceiling in the kitchen). There is nothing quite like spending time with grandma to keep my kids entertained during all of this. My mother was a life saver with those two kids. My father-in-law practically lived at our house for awhile while the big stuff was getting done and had valuable expertise. It was definitely a family project. As much as I loved this house and the charm of it I don't think I am ready for another fixer upper for at least 20 years, if ever.

So, if you never were able to see our house, now you've had a bit of a virtual tour! One of these days I will get our pictures unpacked and put up and show you our house here in Germany!

Four Is Better Than Ten

Four broken bones in one foot isn't the way I had hoped to start out a week where I had planned on making some serious progress on getting our house ready to sell. Life threw me for a loop, for sure! 

After a less than graceful descent down some stairs, the ensuing trips to: the Insta-Care, the Emergency Room and a podiatrist, I finally had my foot fixed up and sent home. A week has passed and I get more x-rays tomorrow and will hopefully know more about how long healing will take.  

It's been a long week of staying off my foot and trying to rest. I always think that sitting around with nothing to do but watch movies and read books would be great but its not! I keep looking around at all the wallpaper that I want to be stripping and the walls I want to be painting and it's driving me a bit bonkers!! Asking for and accepting help is incredibly hard for me but I am very grateful for the wonderful family and friends that have brought by meals for us and checked in on me! 

My view over the last week! 

An interesting hiccup of the situation is that a month ago I signed my girls up for swim lessons that started today. Guess who is now going to the "Mommy and Me" swim lesson with Lilly in my stead for the next few weeks? What do you want to bet he's the only dad lucky enough to be there?

Don't they make a cute group? Scott has been a life saver in so many ways over the past week! Our house has never been so clean! (puts me to shame) The girls love all the extra one-on-one time with Daddy and they really thrive around him. The longer we are married the more I love and appreciate this awesome guy, he truly is my better half!

He even has the girls pick out flowers to bring home to cheer me up!

This is my first broken bone so I am curious, what bones have you broken and how long was the recovery?

The Most Inspirational Woman I Know

There are some people in life that you meet and never forget. My mom is one of those people. Her warmth and love touch everyone she meets, however brief that meeting. Her laugh is infectious and comes easily and often. Happiness just seems to follow her.

(My mom at my wedding reception)

When I was little and people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, I most often said I wanted to be a mom. Nurse, dancer, singer, etc... were also sprinkled in there occasionally but I always came back to being a mother. There is a very simple explanation for why I wanted to be a mom. My mother is THE BEST.

If you were to look my name up in the dictionary the word stubborn just might be listed as the definition. Despite this my mother has always loved me and showed me unconditional love, even though I didn't always see it or appreciate it. The definition after her name would be love, joy and patience.

(mother's weekend my first year of college)

My mom's brain is overflowing with knowledge. When she wants to know something, she learns it. She knows a little bit about just about everything and more about the things she really cares about and she has the memory of an elephant, she never forgets! Not only does she know things but she possesses the ability to explain things on different levels. She gauges her response to each persons understanding and maturity and is a magnificent teacher.

As the youngest of seven I spent quite a bit of one-on-one time with my mom and leaned on her and learned from her in so many ways (definitely a mommy's girl). She taught me how to bake, and sew among other things and now she teaches those things to my girls.

I don't think she has ever killed a plant in her life, she has the greenest thumb you'll ever see and willingly shares that knowledge and love.

My parents instilled in me a love of reading, and every time my kids are with my mom they are begging her to read to them and she happily obliges, mush to their delight.

She is committed to serving others and finds joy in giving.  She serves everyone around her, with a smile. When each of my babies has been born she has come down and taken care of us all! I couldn't have done it without her love and support and gentle way of teaching me what I need to know to be a good mom.

There are some people in life who seem to always find joy in something.  My mother is one of those people. I am so blessed to have her as my mother and the grandmother to my children. She inspires me to not compare myself to others but to just be myself as a wife and mother and reassures me that that is more than enough. I love you mom!

Air Force Job Offer

We finally heard back!!! Yay!! You might remember from some previous posts that over a year ago when Scott was accepted into the Delayed Entry Program he was initially offered a job that he was okay with, signed the 8 year contract and then when they realized he was colorblind they withdrew that job offer, understandably. They have been looking for a new job to offer him and we have been waiting patiently (well..mostly patiently!) for them to find one.

It had been so long since we had heard anything definite that we had started looking into other career options when Scott got THE PHONE CALL a couple weeks ago. They called on a Thursday afternoon with the new job offer and gave us until Monday to decide if we wanted it. It was a long weekend of introspection, research into the job and praying. Monday morning Scott sent off his acceptance letter and received his training date for O.T.S. at Maxwell A.F.B. Wahoo!!! This new job offer really opens up the options of where we could be stationed which is exhilarating!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. I'm still having a little trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that it is actually going to happen and that we are headed for an Air Force life. Overall we are very excited and looking forward to the opportunities this life will bring.

I've been busy trying to make a plan for getting the house de-cluttered, garage-saled (is that a word?) and ready to sell. I am a bit of a pack rat so this is rather time consuming! Also, I am trying to get all of our paperwork super organized and throw out anything I don't have to keep. I don't want to be moving things around with us that we don't need or use.

 I've also been doing some (okay, a lot of) reading about moving with the Air Force and looking into different bases. I think that Scott might secretly think my spreadsheet about the pros and cons of different bases is a bit silly, but it helps me remember, in all this chaos, what I've read and heard. I want us to be prepared to make good choices with Scott's dream sheet when the time comes. We would love to live overseas or near the coast in the U.S. Lets be honest, who wouldn't be excited about the idea of putting Hawaii, Florida, Washington, Germany, Italy etc.. on your dream list!  We will have to see what options he gets to choose from to make his list...  If we actually got one of the ones I'm leaning toward right now we would be overjoyed but we will be happy wherever we end up. Finding joy in the journey is something I am really working on.

(It's more than that but still a bit crazy)

I have loved reading blogs by military spouses and getting their unique take on the Air Force life!

Which bases have been your favorite and which would you try to avoid?