We heard the baby's heartbeat today! Nice and strong!

Baby Bush THREE!!! For anyone who reads this and has not heard, we are pregnant with Bush Baby #3! I'm a little over 2 months along and anxiously awaiting the end of pregnancy sickness. I don't get violently ill but pretty much stay nauseous 24 hours a day. Even in the middle of the night when I wake up to roll over. :) We are very very excited and yes, it was planned. I can't begin to tell you how much we thought and prayed over this! The Lord affirmed our decision VERY quickly which just never happens! :) This might be the fastest the Lord has ever answered our prayers. I'm due October 28th. We pray the Lord will give us the patience and strength to raise THREE children together and do all we can to bring Glory to God. Above all we thank Him for this tremendous blessing and pray for the health and salvation of all our children. This week has been yet another exhausting one! Last weekend we spent some time at my brother's house (Sunday) to celebrate (late) his birthday. We watched lots of sports on the big screen and Tyler played trains. We did Applebee's carryout which was nice. That two for $20 turns out to be a LOT of food! Monday thru Wednesday we didn't do too much but it seems it does not take much to get me to the point of needing to sleep. :) Wednesday (and Friday) Gary filmed his school's musical and did not get home until 11 pm which was a llllooooonnnngggg day for me! Thursday my mom came to visit and I FINALLY got to share my news with her! Actually Tyler did. Wednesday Gary had come home for about 45 minutes so we could eat together and tell the kids about the baby. We let Tyler tell my mom on Thursday and also call Uncle Josh and Papa Tim. The bush's were busy so we had to wait until Saturday to tell them. Tyler told them Saturday at lunch and then left Uncle Josh a message. After that we were able to give my family permission to share with the masses. :) I'm relieved to be able to talk about it but it's very strange for me. I've worked so hard to try to keep my secret it's very strange to suddenly be able to (and expected to) talk easily about it. To be honest I'm still wrapping my own mind around it!

Tyler waiting patiently for mommy to try on dresses.

Grace reading a book.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! To those who celebrate. :) We are not this year. I don't have any green jello or anything so we're skipping it. I do realize though that I best get my Easter decorations out soon! We had a wonderful weekend but i don't have much record of it because i forgot my camera! Our computer was down from mid January to the present. Now it's sort of hit and miss so i'm able to get online with the old laptop, or Gary's school laptop when he brings it home. However, I'm not able to upload photo's. Due to this my card was full for a long time and i had no way to empty it and save the photos. Gary did finally put them on his school machine (which means I can still not access them) but i forget the camera b/c I went so long without it! Friday night I had a girls night out with my friend Jen. Her boys have birthday's about a month apart so they did a joint First/Third Birthday party. She had some shopping to do and since her husband is home from the road (actually working near home! What a concept!) he watched their 3 kids while she and I traveled Canton. I had a wonderful time just being away (Gary watched ours) and found some great deals! It was nice for her and I to get to visit as well. Usually when we get together we have 4 or 5 kids running around or on us. :) Saturday morning was the big party at her church's playland. This thing is HUGE. Tyler loves it and Grace wants to be able to do all Tyler can. Gary and I both went up in the monstrosity several times (him more than me) so that we could keep an eye out and let Grace do some things she couldn't do on her own. She loves that slide! The boys were so cute and just loved all the people there to celebrate them, and Jen made the cutest dirt in a dump truck desert. Sinfully delicious too! :) The time went quickly and we'd planned to take the kids swimming after but the playing, noise and stimulation completely wore them out so we came home to take naps and had a fun family day at home. The Bush's got back late in the evening from their cruise and i missed their call! oops!! Sunday we went to church and found out they were doing lunch with Pap so we went with them. I love Alliance Family Restaurant because they have great food and lots of choices but the service is ridiculous. Clearly 98% of their clientele are seniors who have all day to eat. We ran out of there and made our way to the IX Center in Cleveland for the Greatest Hobby Show- TRAINS. It was expensive to get in but SO worth it. Tyler was fascinated. Grace loved it too. They had many many booths set up with model trains and villages etc. Tyler loved every minute of it. They had a section where you could play on the ground with Thomas trains which was a huge hit, as well as a Thomas/Annie/Clarabelle you could ride. They smashed about 14 kids on a ride but the kids enjoyed it! At least I knew Grace could not get out! I was afraid we'd not have time to see everything since we got a late start and it ended at 5 but the 2 and a half hours was perfect. We saw everything twice and got to do some shopping. We got Tyler the train Rheneus and I looked in vain for a Thomas music CD. Our library must have the last one ever made. :) We stopped to eat on the way home and got home in time to play trains a bit before bed. It was so nice to have a family day. I"m glad it all worked out! We told Tyler on Sunday morning (because let's face it- plans change way too often!) and he was very excited. I'm not sure what he expected. :) Yesterday I decided to let the kids get a little more messy than usual and we did pudding finger paint. I did vanilla so we could add food coloring to it after a while and each kid mixed two colors. They loved it. I will say it was very freaky to see them licking their fingers seeing them red/orange and green/blue covered in muck the consistency of real finger paint!Our only other news right now is that we do not have cable!! We figured out that most of the shows we enjoy can be viewed online for free so Gary hooked our computer up to our fancy new tv and when it works we can watch shows online. We also have Netflix which can send us a disc at a time but also allows us to view their "watch now" selections. So far it's only been a couple shows for Tyler but that with the crazy amount of DVD's and VHS's we have makes for more than enough screen time opportunity. :) Time to make lunch and set out some meat to thaw for dinner.

Happy Monday!! Things are going well here for us. We've enjoyed some very warm weather the past few days. It's been wonderful to not have to bundle up the kids to just run to the van! This past weekend we spent time at Grandma Sandra's house and then time with our friends the Pierre's. We have a blast when we get together wtih them. Their kids are our kids ages as well so everyone has a friend! It was fun for me to have another woman to cook with! Even something as easy as pasta is easier and much more fun with a friend, and a huge kitchen!! Yesterday we had rain as if it was a tropical storm. Those are times i'm so thankful (again) to have a van b/c we can climb in to secure the kids and not stand in the rain. We had to get to church early yesterday because Gary had to practice before service with the worship team. Usually i try to keep the kids out of everyone's way but yesterday i decided to take them to the preschool classroom to have breakfast and play a bit. Unfortunately the leak in the ceiling that we thought would only be a winter problem is also a spring problem! I'm glad i was there early to catch it and hopefully save a bit of the carpet. :) Tyler thought it was just the coolest thing in the world that God sent rain in the church. :) It was a wonderful service and we celebrated communion. Gary being an elder helped serve which was wonderful to watch as his wife. God has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams with such a wonderful husband- God's best for me.

I wish we did communion more often to be honest. It's such a time of intimate worship and reflection with the Lord... it's also a reminder we all need more often I think. Jesus Christ really did suffer at the hands of men, and to take the punishment for my sins, died a horrible death. The best news that there is, is that he rose again so that we might also be resurrected with Him and live with him eternally in Heaven! I think if we did communion too often, we'd get hard hearted and take it for granted though.

The weekend before last we celebrated Josh and Lia's engagement! (Feb 28) Below are posted some photo's Lia took. I've nabbed them off of her facebook account so i'm not sure how well they will load. Gary's mom gave me the above adorable picture of the kids from her camera. Can you believe I forgot mine!?!!? how is that even possible!?!?

There isn't much new going on, just enjoying quiet days in the house full of play and projects and playing out in the mud some. Life will get crazy busy here soon enough so we're enjoying each day as it comes. We're working towards contentment which is never easy! I hope whoever reads this is well and i hope you know i love you and pray for you. God Bless!

~Bush Family~

Josh, Lia, and their parent's~ Mr & Mrs Quatrini and Bush Tyler trying to be like Lia and her friends with the hand signals. :)

Josh, Lia, Heather and Gary

The happy couple!!

Tyler, with crazy hair, playing with playmobil toys

Tyler is shown here using his binoculars to see across the street.

Grace is posing for a picture. She loves to pose for pictures.