Top Five Moments of 2013...

2013 was obviously the very BEST year we have had to date! We had so many amazing moments, experiences, changes, and witnessed God's amazing hand at work in so many areas of our lives. As this year comes to a close, I am thanking God for the amazing blessings we have had this past year!

#1 Tucker and Adelyn
Of course our #1 blessing this year was the SAFE and HEALTHY birth of the cutest and sweetest twins in the world. Tucker and Adelyn fulfilled our hearts' desires and have filled our lives with SO much JOY and LOVE. Since their arrival, we have not stopped thanking God for His perfect plan in our lives, for taking His time to make them so amazing, and for blessing us with parenthood. Everyday is filled with love, kisses, smiles, laughter, joy, prayers, more love, and God's grace. We can't imagine what our life was like before them and are so thankful that we have many years to come with these two!

#2 Master's Degree
A major accomplishment that I was able to experience in 2013 was the completion of my master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction. I really started my master's on a whim after quitting coaching and finding myself at home alone a lot while Derek was traveling. Instead of being sad about not having babies, I decided to start my master's and figured I would complete it sometime while I was staying home with babies. Thankfully, in God's perfect timing, I was able to complete my last assignments while on bed rest with the twins. I am so glad that I was able to finish this degree, even if I won't use it for awhile, because I have absolutely no idea how I would do it now that I am chasing two crazies around!

#3 New Job for Derek (and me!)
A significant blessing in all of our lives is Derek's new job at Miles. We prayed and prayed for Derek's job situation for a long time. We felt that it was time for a change, but didn't want to be taken away from San Angelo or our home. After several failed applications, interviews, and pursuing other career paths, the job at Miles fell into place so quickly and effortlessly that it can only be attributed to God's hand in our life! Derek loves his new job and we have fallen in love with the Miles school district. We are thankful that they have accepted our family, that Derek is able to coach and teach at a smaller school, and that we hopefully have a great school for Tucker and Adelyn to attend in the future!

I am also SO BLESSED to have a husband that works so hard everyday so that I may stay home with my babies! After resigning from teaching, our family was blessed with an opportunity for me to teach part-time. While I wish that I was home full-time, I am so thankful for the extra income that it provides, the health insurance for me and the twins, and the blessing of my mom to watch our babies while I am at work. It may not be my ideal situation, but I truly believe that God has blessed us with this opportunity this year. This job has helped tremendously in completing moment #5 (see below!)...

#4 Reading through the Bible
Ok this one may sound weird to some of you, but I truly feel like this is a big accomplishment. As part of my mom's bible study, I have been reading the chronological bible on a daily basis. While sometimes I have to read several days at once, I have kept up! Which means tonight I will finish reading the entire bible! I have NEVER done this before and I am very proud to know that I have read the entire bible all the way through! I highly recommend this task to others and especially like the chronological lay-out. It makes the bible come to life in a whole new way! I am super thankful for the Mom's bible study group for accepting and supporting me as I struggle to figure this whole new mom thing out!

#5 DEBT-FREE
This one is SO EXCITING!!! As of a couple of weeks ago, Derek and I are officially DEBT-FREE!!! About 4 years ago, we attended Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and put his principals and ideas into practice in our lives. Our main goal was to be able to get out of debt, pay for in-vitro, and allow me to stay home with our future children. After four hard years of work, I am so proud of being able to say that we are debt free. Since FPU, we paid off Derek's truck, went to Jamaica, paid for in-vitro, and paid off the very last of Derek's student loans to ACU. God has been so faithful and provided so much during this process, especially during the in-vitro process. We are thankful to be able to enter 2014 with NO DEBT and are looking forward to saving for the twins' college now that Derek's is paid for. Praise God!

So what is in store for the Schoen family in 2014???

I pray that God continues to work daily in our lives in this year to come. 2014 looks to be another exciting year for our sweet little family. We are looking forward to celebrating the twin's FIRST birthday and my (gasp) 30th birthday! Derek's basketball season is continuing and we are hoping for a great one. Derek will have surgery sometime this year on his ears and we are looking forward to implanting our precious frozen embryos sometime in the near future! Who knows...we could be celebrating another pregnancy at this time next year!

One thing we have learned for sure is that we will set all of our plans aside and are praying to allow God to work freely in our lives. God's plans always far exceed our own and we pray that our family may glorify Him in the year to come.

May God bless you and yours in 2014!

"May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy, and peace." 2 Timothy 1:2

Enjoy the pictures that the WONDERFUL Jessica Boling took of our families this December!

Nine months old!

The twins are NINE months old today. NINE MONTHS OLD!!! How is that even possible??? They have been outside my body as long as they were inside! It's CRAZY! Everyone said it would fly by but I wish it would slow down just a teensy bit! I love this stage that they are in but they are EVERYWHERE!!! This mama is on the move ALL the time! I am thanking God for this wonderful snow/ice day so that we can slow down a little bit. It is so nice to have Derek home, a fire in the fireplace, and two babies snuggled up warm in their bed. I love these times!

Lately, our lives have been in OVER-DRIVE with basketball, holidays, traveling, and trips to the doctor! We had a great Thanksgiving break and really are cherishing each moment that Derek is home with us. Basketball season is always busy…but it is different now that the twins are here. We miss Derek so much while he is gone for games, practices, and tournaments. We have been traveling to as many games as we can and love supporting our favorite coach. Traveling with twins and sitting through basketball games is a whole new experience for this mama, but we are making it work! We are so proud of the job he is doing with his Lady Bulldogs and excited to see him start district next week.

We have also had to make a couple of doctor visits as well! Poor Tucker got his first ear infection two weeks ago and was waking up 3-4 times a night screaming. We got an antibiotic and seemed to be on the mend when apparently he picked up a cold. They switched our antibiotics to see if it would help and poor thing had an allergic reaction to the new medicine! Thankfully, his ears are clear and we are off all medicine. Hopefully, his cold will clear off soon and we will be back to 100%!

Both babies have been changing so much and learning SO many new things! Both Tucker and Adelyn are pulling up, crawling, sitting, clapping, babbling, and starting to eat more solid foods. Both babies CAN sleep through the night, but rarely do on the same night. On good nights, I am up one time. On rough nights, it may be 3-4 times. Its definitely more challenging with two because the can tag-team and alternate being up every 2-3 hours! However, I still and praising God and am thankful for two little blessings that wake me up at night! The HARDEST days or nights with these two are still SO MUCH BETTER than the best days before them. I thank God constantly for them, even when times are tough. I also thank God endlessly for HIS plan for me, because I think I am SO blessed by having to wait so long for these two. They are my joy. They are my blessings. My cup runneth over again and again.

This time of year was always SUCH a struggle the past six years. I wanted to enjoy the holidays and time with my family, but I always focused on what was missing in my life instead of how blessed I truly was. I have been overcome with emotion several times this season simply by God's good and faithful plan. He loved me SO MUCH that He had these precious two babies in waiting for me to reveal in His perfect timing. I find it hard to convey to others who are still struggling to hang on to the hope and promise that He gives. Mostly because I remember the bitter feelings I felt and how hard it was to have hope when it felt that other people kept receiving the blessings that I desired so very much. All I know is that God had a VERY specific plan for my life. I didn't understand it while I was going through it. I don't always understand it fully now. But I know that God was faithful and true. EVERY story of infertility in the bible ends up with God granting the woman a baby. The desire of her heart. EVERY ONE! I believe that this is a promise from God that He WANTS to make barren women happy mothers in their home. In HIS timing. In HIS way. With HIS plan.

The other thing I hold onto is the idea of WAITING. Waiting was never (and still isn't) my strong suit. But the bible speaks over and over on the discipline of waiting. Wait for the Lord. With all your soul. Strength will rise as you WAIT on the Lord. How true these words are! In my waiting, God was strengthening my heart, my desires, my ability to love, and my endurance, all of these things to prepare me for the task of motherhood. I believe my heart is BURSTING with love and joy from these two. Would it have felt the same if I hadn't had to wait? I'm not sure. I will never know. But I believe that the waiting strengthened me in ways that I needed desperately. I am THANKFUL beyond measure for the waiting the Lord made me do. Every time I look at one of their sweet faces, I am overcome with God's goodness. And His love for me. What a good and mighty God we serve!

We have not had our nine month check-up yet, so I am not sure on heights, weights, percentiles, etc. I do know that they are growing and changing like crazy! We are thankful for their continued health and pray that God keeps all sickness from our house during this cold season! Enjoy the pics of our little Christmas loves! Hope that you all stay warm and safe during this crazy weather! LOVE!

To wait on God means to pause and soberly consider our own inadequacy and the Lord’s all-sufficiency, and to seek counsel and help from the Lord, and to hope in Him (Psm. 33:20-22; Isa. 8:17)… The folly of not waiting for God is that we forfeit the blessing of having God work for us. The evil of not waiting on God is that we oppose God’s will to exalt Himself in mercy. - John Piper