Ten Years Ago, He Popped the Question

Today marks the ten year anniversary of our engagement.  Look at these happy kids back on July 30, 2004 ~

In case anyone could forget the scale of Steve's proposal, I found this picture in a photo album this morning.  I walked into my parents' house after spending a week camping at Keen Lake (looking stunning in a pair of old lacrosse shorts, a tee shirt, and my hair up in a pony tail) to find the house completely full of flower arrangements and notes, and a bedroom filled with daisies and a note to find Steve at a local park.  When I arrived (thankfully in one piece, I may have run a red light or two) I absentmindedly left the car running on the side of the road and walked over to meet him.  Neither of us really remember his exact words, but it ended with a big "YES!"

Happy, happy memories.  Today we'd tell those excited kids, aged 20 and 22, that-- even with some future hard and sad mixed in with the fun and happy-- it all gets even better as the years go by.  

Flowers for Sale!

Grace and Leah have a new little business venture~ they're selling bouquets from our cutting flower garden!  I've always loved gathering flowers, and it's been so much fun walking out to the garden in the morning with my daughters and picking zinnias and other blooms together.  Our house is filled with them!  Their first customer was Mrs. Schmidt, their beloved preschool teacher; it was a special treat to see her in the middle of summer.

I hope that they'll learn not only to simply appreciate God's handiwork in each bloom, but also a little about tithing and  saving part of their earnings.  Life lessons!

Eight Months already!

Here we are in the home stretch-- this pregnancy has absolutely flown by.  This is baby 5 at 35.5 weeks at the Deterding family vacation in Lewes, DE.  As I post this I'm 36 weeks 3 days, and we're trying to wrap our minds around the fact that we'll have a baby in 3-4 weeks!  I'm generally uncomfortable, tired, and experiencing Braxton-Hicks contractions most of the day (some days they've come every 5 minutes for hours and hours on end), so that means we'd better finish making room for baby around the house.  

We've settled on a girl name ~ Evelyn.  Benjamin is, of course, still our boy name of choice but we honestly think of the baby as a girl!

I guess I need to post the baby due date poll?!  I'm hoping for a delivery on July 30, which is the tenth anniversary of the day Steve asked me to be his wife!

Ten years and five kids later!

Compare 8-month baby bellies here, here, here, and here.