Update time again...

Since I never seem to have make the time to update my blog these days, I decided it was time to update you of the goings on around here.  Excuse the bullets, but they will help me to relay all necessary info without requiring any sense of cohesiveness....

-  We are still living with my parents.  If you are sending us a holiday card, you can send it here.  If you've already sent one to our MD address, we will get it eventually, either through the postal service forwarding it here or by picking it up ourselves....BUT, if you are not uber-organized (yep, it's a word), and haven't sent your cards yet, you can send it to this address...
     1290 Mount Joy Road
     Manheim, PA, 17545

-While we're on the subject of holiday cards, I'm not sending you one.  Well, not just you.  I DO plan to send change of address cards however, when I have a new address to give you.  Not sure when that will be yet BUT...

-We rented our house in MD!!!  Woo hoo!!!  That is one major piece of the puzzle.

***PA friends, this one's for you!!!***

-I'm starting a book club!  It's one of the things I miss most about MD, and so I'm starting one here.  The plan is to meet the first Tuesday of the month at 6:30pm.  We will have dinner (soup, salad, bread, and dessert).  You don't have to bring a food item every time.  After dinner, we will have discussion.  We are meeting Thursday, Dec 28 at 7:30 pm (location to be determined) to pick the books for the first few months.  Then, we will begin our first meeting and book discussion on the first Tues in Feb (the 7th).  The idea is to do a variety of genres, and also to have a diverse group of women to discuss.  If you are interested, please email me at therohals@yahoo.com, and I will give you more info.


-In other news, Nathaniel is crawling....like for real....like he's MOBILE.  Yeah, game changer.  Super cute though.

-I really need to post some pictures.  So sorry, I'll get right on that.  Posts are so much better with pictures of my cute children.

-m'kay, time to cook dinner for the masses, wipe some snotty noses, and ya know, other mom stuff...

In case you were wondering....

...my life if CRAZY right now!  I haven't given an update for a while, so here goes...

We are mostly living in PA at this point.  My parents have been so generous and hospitable as 5 of us and all our stuff descended on their home.  Patrick started his new job three weeks ago, and it is going really well.  He splits his time between Baron Family Practice and a clinic in inner city Lancaster for now.  He has off on Wednesdays (LOVE THAT!) but works late on Thursdays (so they can have some evening hours at the clinic).

We've been working on renting our home in MD, as we would lose too much by selling it.  The market has tanked everywhere, but it seems to be especially bad in the DC area.  It stinks if you want to sell your home, but it does create a rather nice rental market.  Anyway, we just agreed to a lease this week, and the new tenants are moving Dec 1!!!  That means we need to get out....SOON!!!  The packers/movers are coming the Monday after Thanksgiving, and we will spend a few days bonding over the work of packing most of our worldly goods, which will then go into storage until we close on a house in PA.  To close on a house in PA, we first need to have a contract.  To have a contract, we need to have a loan.  Having a loan largely depended on having a tenant.  Ah, now you see how this is all coming together.  We are hoping to hear news about our loan tomorrow (happy news, please!!!), and put in an offer this week.  The owners of the house we want don't want to move until January, so if all these little details work in our favor, that is when we will finally settle here.  God is so good.  Thank you for your prayers.  Please keep praying!

Having a house here will probably help reality to set in that we now LIVE in Pennsylvania.  I've been working on and off in MD, and we've been down to visit on a few weekends, so we still pop in at church and Bible studies on occasion which really makes it seem like we're not really gone yet.  I guess not having a house there anymore will help the feeling of permanence.

We've also begun to plug into life in our new town.  It helps that this is "home" for me, and we already have friends and family here.  We are really excited about church and the people we are meeting there.  I joined the flute choir.  Patrick is planning to sing with the men's choir in a few weeks, and he will probably join one of the noteveryweek choir options.  The church offers dinner every Wed evening for $12 for your whole family.  LOVE THIS!  After dinner, there are various rehearsals, Bible studies, classes for the kids, and nursery for the babies.  How nice to not have to cook dinner or find childcare to be involved in church activities.  I've also been going to a mom's group (at another church) that several of my friends attend on Wednesday mornings.  I've run into old friends that I haven't seen in years.  It feels good to be home.

So, that's us.  That's why I haven't been blogging.  I can't find my shoes some days, let alone compose coherent sentences.  Most of the pictures that go with posts in my head are on the computer we still have in MD.  I keep reminding myself that this is not a normal season for us.  My kids may watch more TV than I ever thought I would allow.  I might not read to them as much as I like, they might have candy before breakfast some days, and we may have to skip many of our holiday traditions.  It's okay.  This isn't our home.  Our stuff is in a million places, and I don't have to do it all.  Can you hear me preaching to myself?  I'm tough to convince....

BIG NEWS!!!

No, not that news....good gracious people, Nathaniel's only 6 months old!

We're moving!!!!!

We thought we were staying in this area for another 3-5 years.  God had a different plan.  Doors were closed here, and doors we were barely knocking on started opening wide.  Bottom line...we are moving back to Pennsylvania!!!  Patrick accepted a position at a small family practice (in my hometown!) under the umbrella of Heart of Lancaster hospital.  His start date is Nov 1.  We are both excited and overwhelmed.  

We need to sell our house.  The market is not very conducive to meeting that goal, but we know our God is big enough.  Please pray with us that we would find a buyer soon.  If you know anyone moving to the Baltimore/Washington area (our house is in Bowie, MD), please send them our way!

I created a blog to show our house, since most of the sites where we listed it only allow 5-10 pictures.  Our house is convenient to several military bases (Andrews, Naval Academy, Fort Meade, Bethesda).  Comments, advice, and encouragement are welcome.

www.orchardparkway.blogspot.com

You can also pray that we will find a house in PA.  We've been looking, although the process is somewhat stalled until we sell/rent our house.  It's a big decision.

Nolt Picnic

I know I haven't blogged much lately.  I'm going to try to spend a bit of time updating today.  Patrick's contract position fell through, so if you could keep us in your prayers as we figure out where to go, what job to pursue, etc, we would appreciate it.  The unknown is so scary and uncomfortable sometimes, but we're also just really excited about what God has for us next.  We'll keep you posted (pun intended).

___________________________________________________________________

In June, we had a Nolt family gathering at my Uncle Clair and Aunt June's house (also known as the farm where my dad grew up).  Here is a picture of my grandmother (my dad's mom) with her 15 great grandchildren.

 June had lots of fun activities for the kids including sidewalk chalk, play dough...

 a pedal tractor...

...and a piñata!

Of course the food was amazing.

 ...as was the fellowship.  I love my family.

Quick update...

It's been a while (as several of you have pointed out) since I've posted anything.  For those of you who don't know, Patrick separated from the air force at the beginning of June.  He had a contract position lined up, but it fell through about two weeks before his separation date.  To make a long story short, he found another contract position PTL (in flight medicine at Andrews AFB), but he's had some time off in between jobs.  We are in full summer-play-with-daddy mode!  ...except for that week when we were all sick.  Our friends here affectionately titled it, "the toddler plague."  2-3 year olds were sicker than others who were infected....and most kids (and sometimes adults) we know were down for the count.  We quarantined ourselves for about two weeks.  Anyway, back to summer...

There have been princess tea parties...

...LOTS of ice cream...

...trips to the pool...

...and Father's day.

Our garden is growing...

...as is our son.

 There's more to post, but for now I'll leave you with two of my favorite recent pictures of my favorite guys.  I think I'll have one of them made into a large canvas print like the ones I have of the girls with me.  

Hope you're loving summer as much as we are!

Random Updates...

Patrick built a garden box this year.

He had some help doing the planting...

We are hoping for a lot of peas.  They planted them in intervals to spread out the harvest season.  We were very excited when they sprouted.

Patrick built a pea trellis so the peas would be happy...

I love that he involves the girls in the process.

Our excitement grew as the peas quickly started wrapping their tendrils around the trellis.

Stay tuned for more gardening updates.  We've Patrick also planted peppers, cherry tomatoes, squash, zucchini, lots of herbs, tea, and flowers.   

In other news, a bird family has been building in our bird house.  How cosy.

 This little guy is still stealing our hearts.

 He is more alert these days.

and still gets LOTS of love from his sisters.

Wednesday marked 9 weeks.  He had his 2 month check up on Tuesday.  As we suspected, he's growing.  11 lbs, 5 oz to be exact...

 He has also begun smiling and "talking" which is awesome.  We've yet to capture a smile in full bloom on camera, but this is close...

 He does still does plenty of this though....which makes mommy very happy.

Patrick's cousin, Tina, sent the cutest package from Hawaii.  How sweet are these hula skirts?!?  We are going to have to host a luau this summer just so Nathaniel can wear his adorable Hawaiian duds.

Camille has transitioned to a "big girl bed."  She started taking naps in Adeline's room a few weeks ago, and then we decided we should turn our guest room into a room for Camille.  We just purchased an ADORABLE daybed from Craig's list.  I'll try to post pictures soon.  She loves to do all things "big," so this was an easy transition for her.  If only the ease would carry over to potty training (which we haven't started yet)....sigh.

Two year birthday pictures coming soon...

Pregnancy Update...

I am 38 weeks today, and yes, still pregnant.  At my last appointment, we found out baby is/was breech.  I've been trying some positions to get him to turn, and we think he may be head down now.  The other concern is my platelets have been dropping.  Apparently this happens in pregnancy sometimes, but it is a concern.  I am going in again tomorrow morning to have my blood checked again and check baby's position.  They also want me to see a hematologist (apt on Thurs morning).  This puts me at risk to not be able to have an epidural (which I've done before), but it also means that if I need a C-Section, I would need to be knocked out (no needles in my back for fear of bleeding and not being able to clot).  Please pray that baby boy will come at the perfect time, in the best way, and that we would both remain healthy.

***UPDATE***

I had my OB apt today.  The baby has turned and is now head down!  Yeah!!!!  My platelet levels went up as well.  They are higher than they've been for the past two weeks (103,000 for you medical types).  Thank you for your prayers.  Please continue to pray for baby boy's safe arrival.