Happy Monday everyone!  Libby here sneaking in just a bit late with today’s blog post.  I blame my forgetfulness on pregnancy brain… which brings us to the topic for today!  Changes!!

When Jeff & I got married last November, we talked about how we loved our life together.  With me working from home and Jeff being retired from the military, we are together pretty much 24/7.  Our kids are teenagers and don’t live with us all the time (previous marriages), so we have a lot of time just the two of us.  We’ve always been able to come and go as we please, stay up as late as we want, sleep in whenever the mood strikes… you get the picture.  In short, we’re blessed.

Early in our marriage, we decided to rededicate ourselves to God and find a church where we could grow as a couple and as Christians.  We found a church that we loved and started praying that God would bless our lives.  Well, we soon discovered that God doesn’t always choose to bless us in the way we were expecting (I’ve gotta admit there was a teensy hope of a lottery blessing in there somewhere!  LOL).  Instead, God decided to bless us in two areas of our lives that we never would’ve imagined!

First, Jeff had the opportunity to go back to school.  He’d been talking about it for some time but never really put things in motion to make it happen.  Well, this past summer, he found the perfect program for him and it all started falling into place.  He began classes last week and couldn’t be happier.  After being out of the classroom for 25 years, this was a pretty major shake-up for him.  So far, he loves the classes he’s taking, and as a full-time student, this is a definite detour from our carefree lifestyle that we’d become accustomed to!

Secondly, and probably the most surprising change of all came in the form of a blessing that we didn’t even know we wanted… a baby!  Now we are over the moon thrilled and can’t believe that God chose us for this little miracle.  We feel so blessed and can hardly wait til February when we meet the newest Pritchett.  Even through the morning sickness and overall “ickiness” that comes with the first trimester, we have enjoyed the entire process.  We’re very much looking forward to finding out our baby’s gender so that we can get started with some serious name-selecting.  And I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that any pregnancy-related changes I’m going through aren’t going to even compare to the newborn-related adjustments that are to come!  LOL

So, that’s what’s going on in the Pritchett household these days.  We’ve got some major adjusting to do, but I think we’re handling things very well.  We’ve got a ton to do to get our house ready for Baby P, and with our kids being teens, we are starting completely over with the baby purchases.  So when you couple that and Jeff’s school schedule with some exciting stuff that we’re working on behind the scenes at Sweet Shoppe, it’s a pretty wild time around here!  But you know, I wouldn’t change it for the world!

On that note, what would Monday be without a layout of the week selection?  This week, having baby on the brain, I was immediately drawn to this beauty by ltarbox.  Those of you who are forum-regulars may know that Lydia had baby Kaylin just a little bit early, and after 9 days in the hospital, she finally got to join her family at home!  When I saw this layout, it just made my heart melt.

Lydia, as being selected for our LOTW, you’ll receive a Sweet Shoppe coupon!  Look for that in your PM inbox later today!  🙂