A brief summary of me:

I’m a Christian SAHM swimming in a sea of Testosterone!  I have 4 boys (born in 1997, 2000, and twins born in 2005).  I’ve been a blogger since 2003.  I am still trying to find my niche in the blogging world.

The extended version:

I’m Annabelle (aka Ann). I grew up in a small town Village (it’s too small to be called a town) in Ohio out in the middle of nowhere! It was a 1 x 1 Mile square (surrounded by fields) with 2 stoplights, a movie theater, a school, 2 grocery stores (just 1 now), 2 bars, 1 drive through, and numerous factories. I graduated with 36 kids in my class (yep, that small).

I met Kevin the summer before my Sr. year of High school. He worked at one of the grocery stores in town…I shopped there after school for my nutritious snacks junk food! We started dating with the idea that neither one of us were ready for anything serious. How quickly that changed. 1 year later, we were engaged and 2 years after that, married.

Kevin and I moved to a nice sized suburb after we got married (45 minutes away from where we grew up). We had Michael 3 years after we were married. When Michael was 18 months old (1998), Kevin got a new job and we packed everything up and moved to Colorado. That was difficult. We moved away from everyone we knew, I stopped working and became a stay-at-home mom. However, as difficult as it was, we grew closer together. I truly believe God moved us out there for those 2 years so that we would strengthen our marriage…and it did!

Noah was born while we lived in Colorado (2000). The 1st week home from the hospital, I spent my time packing stuff up. We moved to Minnesota when Noah was 2 weeks old! We knew this move was coming before Noah was actually born, but we weren’t sure if it would happen before or after he came. We lived in Minnesota for 4 years. Again, we grew, and I am thankful for what God has done in our lives while we were there.

After a long time dealing with the selling of a house, we moved back to Ohio (2004) and we were grateful to be back in our home state (even if it was 1 1/2 hours away from family). Shortly after moving here, I found out I was pregnant (we moved here in late June…early August I found out). This was an unexpected surprise. Kevin and I had decided that our family would be complete with the 4 of us.

In November of that same year (I was 18 weeks pregnant), I found out that we were having TWIN boys! That was a shock to my system! I couldn’t imagine taking care of 2 babies at the same time, along with dealing with 2 other boys!

God is gracious and provided where we needed. God has given me the Grace to be able to handle 4 boys and still keep my sanity in the process. Daniel & Andrew were born at 31 weeks and spent 4 weeks in the NICU, believe me when I say, it was through prayers and God that they are the healthy boys they are!

Ministries I’m involved in:

I sing on the Praise & Worship team at our church. I am also a Kindergarten/1st grade Sunday School teacher a couple times a month. This past year I was Co-Director of our church’s VBS. There are ministries that I’m really interested in, but I am waiting on God to show me the right time to become involved in those ministries.

Why I blog?

My blog is about my life, things that are happening in my family, and the changes that I’m making with God’s help. I would like to be able to encourage others out there in the process. I have been through a lot in my short life and God has brought me through it all. I have tasted death twice, but God saved me from that near death twice (Kevin told me that I need to stop testing God, though…LOL).

I am working on being the person God has created me to be. Some day, through the Grace of God, I’ll get there!