We had our first ‘planned’ ultrasound on Monday. I had an ultrasound once when I needed my appendix removed just before my second trimester with my pregnancy with baby #2 - they wanted to make sure it was my appendix before going in for it because of the risk to baby (20% chance of loss I believe, due to the general anaesthetic and possible uterine irritability and baby ejection, baby is a big, nearly 2 year old girl now!).

Yes, I drank all that water, and as soon as I was up on the table, she scanned me back and forth a couple of times and told me to let it all go! WOW! I had been so uncomfortable on the drive to the imaging office… I wonder why they even make us drink all that water?! The first thing on my mind was if there was more than one, and there wasn’t! They did date me 10 days earlier than we thought - dating us at nearly 25 weeks and a due date of June 25th, we thought July 7th or so (so the Doctor has scheduled another confirmatory scan, because nobody wants earlier dates if they aren’t accurate because that would increase the chances of induction!). And…baby is a girl! So that makes 3 for us! We were a bit surprised, because we were expecting a boy in our own minds, so this shows how much we know…NOTHING! It is all in the Lords hands, but we are still absolutely delighted, AND we have so many girls clothes, this means we won’t have to go shopping! Except for a new sleeper just for this baby to wear after her birth :).

So, please rejoice with us! The Lord is so good, we were a bit worried we might be having twins and possible complications, not to mention the loss of our homebirth and transfer to a hospital birth as required here in Alberta. Larry was just beaming when he found out. Of course, we would have been delighted to have twins as well, and God is ALWAYS good, regardless of the perceived outcome.

One of my favourite free homeschooling resources website has recently changed names and design! CurrClick, previous HomeschoolEStore, gives away a free downloadable homeschooling resource file each week. If you subscribe to their weekly newsletter you can receive updates as soon as the downloads are available. They have also from time to time had HUGE giveaways with multiple free downloads as gifts to their shoppers to celebrate certain events. We have downloaded many of their various titles and hope to have some reviews here on our blog in the future!

Here is some information regarding their Grand Opening, which is running from March 10th - 17th!

HomeschoolEstore Changes to CurrClick.com, Curriculum in a Click!

The Same great site and customer service … but better! Experience our improved previews of thousands of your favorite homeschool titles, easily and from the comfort of your own home!

We are happy to announce the Grand Opening of CurrClick.com. Get 10% account credit on every purchase you make from March 10th-March 17th, add future purchases to your wish list, experience a more intuitive browsing experience that makes it easier to find what you’re looking for, send your wish list to friends and family members and find out what other people think about the curriculum you are considering, by reading our staff and customer reviews.

CurrClick.com is the only eBook and audio site specializing in instantly downloadable Homeschool curriculum. At CurrClick, you can choose from thousands of homeschool titles from hundreds of your favorite publshers, cheaply and completely free of shipping costs.

It happened so quickly, it’s hard to remember exactly how we came to our conviction of leaving the planning of our family size to God. We came to Christ in the fall of 2006, and the Holy Ghost took us and started changing us immediately, praise God! Sinful behaviour dropped away before we even realized that they were sins in our new walk with Christ. We were learning so much about God and His ways, we rolled over and showed Jesus our belly, as I like to say. Even though we did not initially understand why God asked us to do things a certain way, it was enough for us to know that He asked, we would try to obey. We know that His ways are not our ways, and who are we to argue with the creator of the universe? Of course we are still learning.

Early in our Christian walk we also learned that walking in obedience to the word of God brings blessings. People often say that life does not come with an instruction manual, but it does, and it is called the Bible! And when we step out in obedience and apply the word of God to our lives, great things happen. When we trust in Gods promises for us and our lives he fulfills them. And this was the backdrop for what became our quiverfull conviction.

I cannot remember when I first heard of being quiverfull as a believer - it wasn’t long ago, but still I can’t bring it to mind. I know that I had heard of ‘crazy Christian families with a million children’ before, and my husband had even shared stories of these families with me before we were saved. Often when we would hear of people with large families we would say, in our ignorance “They must be…religious…”. But, being who I am, I mostly likely stumbled upon a QF mamma on a discussion board somewhere, or on an email list or forum. I mentioned this new thought to Larry, and he looked into the scriptures, I looked into the scriptures as well, and visited the quiverfull.com website to do some more reading. And one day we both just agreed - well, no more contraception for us! And that was it! We burned our condoms!

Before we became believers we planned on having 2 - 3 children, at the most. We even subscribed to the deep ecology concepts of zero population growth, and felt that the world was just a terrible place to bring children into. When we were first married we used a natural family planning method until we felt it was the right time to conceive our first child. After she was born we used condoms until we were ready to conceive our second. After our second we continued using condoms until the Holy Ghost convicted us of Gods desire to bless us with more children that He could use if we raised them for Him. How Christ can change us! Larry, ever a planner, now rests securely in the fact that God has promised to provide for whatever children He blesses us with. He is only responsible to do his best to provide for us, and God will do the rest. Larry feels that such a weight and burden of responsibility was lifted from his shoulders when he surrendered our family planning to God. He claims that he would not use a contraceptive device even at gunpoint now, he is so determined that it is Gods will to raise up a Godly seed in Christian homes that He can use to stand in the gates. For myself, God has changed me in such away that I am just delighted at the thought of more children, and was so eagerly expecting another blessing that I thought we would conceive as soon as we burned the condoms! This wasn’t the case - but I think it was a matter of 6 months or so before I conceived the child that is now growing in my womb!

Psalm 127 is the first Psalm that anyone in our family memorized in song, and DH, eldest DD and I all know it by heart.

Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh [but] in vain.
[It is] vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: [for] so he giveth his beloved sleep.
Lo, children [are] an heritage of the LORD: [and] the fruit of the womb [is his] reward.
As arrows [are] in the hand of a mighty man; so [are] children of the youth.
Happy [is] the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

God has commanded us to be fruitful and multiply - let’s get to it!

Do your children love memorizing to song? I know our little ones love music, and if you set something in song, they learn so much easier, and retain much better. Hey, not even mentioning little ones, what about us big folks! I have learned SO much scripture in the past year through having listened to it set to music, or setting it to music myself.

Mama Archer is giving away a copy of Lyrical Earth Science on her blog, you can head over there for all the details! I have heard of this curriculum before, they also do Lyrical Life Science etc. The workbook is reproducible! Great for us quiverfull families, you only need one set for all of your children. It all sounds good to me! Contest closes March 15th.

Here is some more info if you are interested in checking it out for yourself:

Lyrical Earth Science -Geology with CD Volume 1 By Dorry & Doug Eldon / Lyrical Learning Rockin’ science all day long! Doo-dah! Doo-dah! Your middle and high school students will really dig this toe-tappin’, memory-grabbin’ introduction to the earth’s structure. Original lyrics set to traditional, patriotic, and camp tunes teach basic geological concepts—such as plate tectonics, topography, hydrology, landforms, and intrusions. Features over 200 line drawings and an answer key. Includes CD, textbook, and workbook. Grades 5 and up. From Lyrical Learning.

We love the Maxwell family. We don’t personally know them, but we have read their blog, read their books, read their emailed articles, prayed for them, wept with them - we love them (of course, they don’t know who we are!). AND, I just found out that they will be visiting Alberta this spring! We are currently reading, both Larry and I, Keeping Our Children’s Hearts by the Maxwell’s. I will post a review when I’m done ;).

I knew that they would be at the AHEA homeschooling conference in Red Deer, but it is not possible for us to go because of the child-unfriendly policies and our families conviction of keeping our children with us and near us at all times, we couldn’t put our ‘big girl’ (would them be 5) in their childcare (youth conference) option, nor hire a babysitter to watch our little one, and children are strictly disallowed from the conference. A bit odd for homeschoolers?

In any case, not only will they be in Red Deer this spring, but also at a more child-friendly avenue, where - yes, your children will be allowed to come and sit with you! Wow! And not only that, but it is located in the remote location of Cleardale, AB where there is a thriving New Testament church to fellowship with. You can find all of the details of their appearance here on their website. If you plan on going for the Friday and Saturday, do call the organizers listed in the .pdf file, I believe some of them are elders of the church if you’d like to fellowship there on Sunday. Our local fellowship in Westlock has been blessed to be encouraged by some of these believers, and have been touched by their passion for the Lord.

I don’t believe that we will be able to attend, as DH is going to a men’s leadership meeting in Southern Alberta only a week prior to the Maxwell’s being in Cleardale, and he isn’t a big traveller, but if you are able to go, I’m sure it will be a real blessing to you and your family!

Well, we had our first appointment with a St. Albert based doctor that we found through a circuitous email/article forwarding/phone calling route last Friday, February 29th. We feel so blessed to have found Dr. Marlene Lidkea, and really feel that the Lord is providing his direction and leading for our family during this pregnancy.

We had our first two children at home with a midwife. Here in Alberta, midwives are not funded by provincial healthcare, as they are in other provinces such as British Columbia and Ontario, so we paid our midwife, Barbara Scriver for the births privately, and it was well worth it, we love Barb, and our first two births were just perfect, natural, intervention free, personal, just what we were looking for. However, this pregnancy we needed our funds in other areas, and were not certain how to proceed. Barb was on vacation, so we met with the other midwife in the Edmonton area, but we still didn’t feel entirely settled until we came upon the article describing Dr. Lidkea’s services.

She works together with a Registered Nurse and a team of doula’s to provide home births in the greater Edmonton area, that the provincial health care system funds! Wow! What provision from God! We called, met with one of the doula’s, loved her, and booked an appointment, and it was last Friday, our first prenatal appointment.

Everything went well, and we heard babys’ heartbeat, the only surprise was that I was measuring big for my dates…very big….

*Flashback to Fall 2007* ————–>

Our second child was around 1.5 yrs. and still breastfeeding, my cycles had returned for a few months, but bleeding was light, and my cycles were long and somewhat erratic, different lengths. I was keeping meticulous records, this pregnancy I would know EXACTLY when we conceived! We weren’t planning, or trying, just waiting on God’s timing, but we were expecting to become pregnant at some point in time. However, after 4 months or so, I gave up, Ah, I thought to myself….it’s going to be a LONG time until I become pregnant again, why bother tracking.

Two months later, and after some shorter, heavier periods, …tada! Positive pregnancy test, and NO written records available…hmmm. Around mid October I started feeling tha we may have conceived. I tested in mid-late October, negative, 1 week later, light positive, a couple of days later, dark positive! We were pregnant, with no really firm dates to go by, but I felt fairly certain mid-October was the conception time for us!

A midwife told us a traditional way of telling a due date, is taking the time of quickening, the babys’ first movements that are certain, and add five months for an approximate due date. When baby moved for certain, DH and I did some quick math and got early July, the same date as we received after speaking with Barb about a mid-October conception date.

*Flashforward to late-Winter 2008* ————–>

So here we were in Dr. Lidkea’s office…supposed to be somewhere around 21 weeks, and measuring 30 cm. Hmmm, after some discussions we booked an ultrasound (normally we don’t), and long story short, this coming Monday we are having it done.

Oddly, two days before our appointment an email was sent to the Above Rubies mailing list regarding what factors increase your chances of twin pregnancies, and conception while breastfeeding was amongst those odds-increasing factors. The next day I mentioned this article to DH, and showed him a picture of a family with 14 children, I said, “Wow, do you think God might bless us with so many?”  We thought, likely not, I’m already 28, and Larry is 42, and I said “Not unless God puts us on the fast-track plan and starts laying on the multiples!”  I laughed then, I’m still chuckling and asking “Hmmm, God?”  My paternal grandmother also lost a set of twins, and the RN mentioned that practically twins often skip a generation. So, are we having multiples? I am LESS sick with this pregnancy than my first two, but apparently that isn’t the only factor, and some women don’t get sicker with a twin pregnancy. It looks like we will need to transfer to an OB if we are having twins, because the province doesn’t allow twin births at home under its regulations. Off to the hospital it will be for us!

So, what do you think? Twins, or a super big singleton? Or, I messed up really badly on my dates? Hmmm, comments welcome.

I was just over visiting Deanne Crawford when I read about a previously undiscovered blog that reviews and subsequently gives away the reviewed titles to readers within North America! Yes, even Canada, for those of us living north of the border!

You need to act fast to take advantage of the latest reviewed book Sentinel - City of Destiny, because the contest for the drawing ends tonight!

I love Christian allegories, and I just finished reading aloud a children’s version of Pilgrim’s Progress from Abeka to my 4.5 year old for bed-time story a couple of months ago, and she loved it, still talks about the allegories as a matter of fact! She even enjoyed the comprehension questions as the end of each chapter if you can imagine that! So surf on over there and take a peek, it is even signed by the author, Landel Bilbrey, and comes recommended for homeschoolers!