In the past month, we asked many people to pray and keep their eyes open for housing and a vehicle for us to use during our upcoming stays in Canada and in Arizona. We are happy to say that the Lord responded quickly. Soon after asking for help, the Lord provided a house-sitting gig for us during our time in Canada, which includes a car to drive! As exciting as this provision was, we were admittedly less optimistic about the housing options in Phoenix. We were just having a hard time believing that the Lord would provide something. One day Ben even sat down and started looking through online classifieds for furnished housing, and his mood turned more sour by the minute as he saw the high prices. This morning I was listening to a podcast by a popular Christian speaker while I was working in the kitchen. The speaker was talking about how the Israelites who left Egypt never got to enter the promised land because of their lack of faith, and that sometimes we can miss God’s best if we have unbelief in our hearts. I became convicted of our own unbelief in this housing matter. Right there, I quietly prayed a prayer of repentance on our behalf, resolving to trust God more fully in this matter. Finishing up in the kitchen, I sat down at the computer to check e-mail. There in the inbox was an e-mail with the subject heading, “House for Kuwitzkys.” It was from a couple offering us a fully-furnished 3-bedroom house, ten minutes from our church and family, complete with a huge backyard and a pool! And for no charge! All we have to do, they said, is buy groceries. We are, of course, blown away. That he provided so much more than we ever expected in the midst of our unbelief is a perfect example of his grace to us.

A while ago I mentioned that I am starting a library for young and homeschooling families here. We decided to have it in Ben's office room which he volunteered himself. We have plans to paint the room and fill it with bookshelves, a rug, lamp and a comfy chair or two. Right now we have the one nice bookshelf you see on the far wall. We went to the second hand market and found a really cheap, but usable (for now) bookshelf for some of the other books. I want to get the room in working order by the time we leave this summer.

We have gotten donations from several places and people and are accepting anything anything right now. I wanted it to be for kids mainly, but any book donations are welcome! We have gotten many adult books recently. We need to raise some money for good bookshelves but I am sure everything will come together soon. My vision is that it be available a couple mornings a week for families to come and use. There is a bathroom off that room and room can be a quiet place for study. It seems like it will be a perfect space for a library. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out!

Here is the ultrasound pic of our sweet new little life! We are so happy that God is giving us a new baby to love. I am currently 13 weeks, due on September 20th. The past few months have been filled with morning sickness and lots of emotional stress due to where we live. It has been tough but we are coming out of the hardest point and looking forward to coming back to the states for a good 6 month break. We will have the baby at home and are really looking forward to having family around when this little one comes. Rejoice with us!

I've had to change browsers to get any of my pictures to post, but at least I figured out the problem!

Here are some pics of our bedroom, the before and after. A small group from our church in Kankakee, IL gave us money to do something for our house. We were trying to decide how to use the money. We thought about getting a new (good) mattress but that would be the whole amount of the money. Then we thought about buying a dining room table since ours is still the plastic one we've been using since arriving here, but that would only pay for half a table! So, we decide that we could fix up our room in a bunch of little ways and it would make a big difference.

It did! and it turned out beautiful! Here are some of the things we did -
-put a foam mattress under our futon to make it a little softer
-painted the walls!!!!!
-got an end table made
-little lamp
-new material for curtains and a comforter that I made
-little vase
-mirror

The before picture is seriously what it looked like. We had tried to do special things to a few other rooms in our house, but wasn't able to do anything to ours. The after picture is how we are enjoying it now! It is amazing! We love it so much and can't believe how great it turned out! Thought you all would enjoy seeing it.

For some reason I can't seem to post any pictures! so sorry! I mean, what is a post without pictures?!!

Anyway, to catch you all up December 21st Ben and I went out to celebrate our 6 year anniversary. We had a wonderful time at a really cool restaurant that we had been waiting to try for a special occacion. It was worth it and we had a really special time.

Christmas day we got to open up some packages that Ben's family had sent. We are still waiting for 5 Christmas packages, but at least we had a few to open on the day. The kids were excited about the slide that Ben and I got them - Jamin was on it all morning! We are still enjoying my new teapot, Bath and Body Works bathroom soap, markers for the kids, new hair things, Jamin's train whistle and the first Season of Lost! Yeah, we are officially hooked now... I held out as long as I could, but we succumbed! Christmas afternoon we hosted our group of 27 people and enjoyed a big meal with lots of special dishes that we don't get to eat every day. Ben set up the Wii and got some games going and people stayed around and we were so happy. It is hard to be away from family, but it seems as the years go by (this was our 3rd Christmas overseas) it just gets better and better. God has given us some really wonderful friends to go through this journey with and we can't thank Him enough.

New Years we went camping in the desert. We borrowed a tent and sleeping bags and drove about an hour north of our city. It is completely barren of trees, flat and dry for miles. There is a bit of scrub on the ground and a few huge piles of rocks. It is truly the desert! We picked a large rock mountain to shade us and set up camp. Two other families from our group joined us and the kids couldn't get enough of the rocks. They were climbing them all day and into the evening. We had a fire, roasted hot dogs and some marshmellows we had saved from the states. Had to have our smores!

Sorry for the lack of posting! Our internet has been down for a while, but we can't wait to show you pictures of all we did over Christmas. It was busy and so much fun with lots of friends and tons of sugar cookies.

Several mornings a week Reese and I do a little bit of preschool together. We pull out the books and markers and she loves it! We spend about 20 minutes reading through some classics, poems, another 20 minutes in our reading book "100 Easy Lessons", about 20 minutes in her work book filled with mazes, matching and coloring exercises. We often have Bible memory time, singing time, baking time, and feed the turtle time. She is great about helping me with laundry, watching Jamin and setting and clearing the table. I'm so proud of her. She is getting so mature in all of her 4 years!

Jamin is so precious and finds ways to keep himself occupied while we do school. Other than the shoe basket fun he has, he is also into any kind of moving vehicle. He will drive cars over my legs, onto the couch, try to reach Reese's workbooks and sometimes weave them around Daddy's big drum. He loves to imitate what Reese is doing and has picked up several sign language signs lately. He is so proud when he gets it right and we give him a loud round of applause!

My pictures aren't posting, i'll try again tomorrow...