Zadyn

We went to see our niece, Zadyn, tonight and she is still in need of much prayer. She is doing better and is on the road to recovery, but is still very ill. The following two pictures are from her surgery, so I am warning you now in case you are squeamish when it comes to those kinds of pics.



This picture shows one of two stones that they found in her appendix. They think that the dehydration from the flu caused her to develop these stones and then one of them perforated her appendix....OR they blocked it and the fluid built up and it burst. If you look closely, the stone is circled.
This is a shot of the underneath part of her uterus. Apparently, when her appendix burst, it fell down into her pelvic area. The white stuff is infection. They had to flush all of her belly out. They are waiting for her stomach to "wake up" now.

Here she is visiting with us. She is doing very well, for the amount of pain she is having. They are keeping her well medicated for that.

Everything is better when Grandma is there!

Keep praying

Wow, it's a new post!

Hello All! It's been a long time! We've been busy, busy, busy up here in the north. I hope you are prepared to see lots of pictures because, well, you about to.

I will start off this post with a prayer request for our niece, Zadyn. She is very sick and had to have an appendectomy today. Her appendix is believed to have burst around Thursday. She is on the mend, but will be going through a long healing process. Please pray for her and her family, specifically that she will not pull any of the tubes out that are bothering her. She has a central line for meds and she is not too fond of it! She is 3 years old.


Next, I will tell you that I made my first round of cinnamon rolls ever. Have I told you this already? Man, I can't remember! I guess I could look back, but I won't. :) These rolls turned out surprisingly well.

We even let the kids get up and eat a little bit before they went to sleep. How mean to make them smell them baking and then not letting them taste!

Fast forward to about a week or two ago.....after 3 years, yes...3 YEARS....I finally got the windowsill painted! When we painted our house a few years ago, we left the air conditioners in so that we wouldn't get too hot. WELL, my thought was that I would paint where the air conditioner was after we took them out for the winter.

That so did NOT happen!

So, 3 years later my husband brings in the paint and says, "Look what I found!"

Well, to make a long story short, the windowsill is finally painted. :)

Ok, what's next?

Oh yes, last Thursday was had our Youth Pastor and his family over for dessert and games. We had fun talking smack to one another while we played some game that I don't even know the name to. In the end, the men were victorious (whatever) :P.

The kids were thrilled to get a chance to hold the newest addition to our youth pastor's family. He's so precious.

Pastor Brian ran in his first marathon on Saturday. Because of the early wake up and drive time, we kept the kids for them Friday night. We had a ball with them! We are so going to miss having them around.

On Saturday night, we went to the annual hayride for church. This is by far my favorite activity of the year.

After helping with the clean-up, a few of us to a nighttime hayride. We had one whole wagon for couples only...and Barb. :) Her husband was driving, so we allowed her on our wagon ;).

Finally, last night we sent our youth pastor and his family off to their next ministry with a big fellowship after church. I can't even describe how hard it was to watch them pull out of the parking lot this afternoon. So much harder than I ever anticipated. The Lord is good though, and we know that whatever He has in store will be so much better than anything we could ever imagine. We love them so much and will miss them greatly. If you could pray for our church and our pastor as we begin our search for the new man that God has for us.

Pastor Brian and Ethan

Here, Pastor Brian talks to my nephew about continuing the use his talents for the Lord. My nephew has a definite gift of piano playing. Pastor Brian's wife was his teacher for the last several years.

Ethan getting a chance to hold the baby. He wasn't home when they came over and he wasn't about to miss out on holding him. :)I put this one in here for Aunt Mary. I know that she would like to see a picture of Ginger. Ginger is our secretary at church.

Our two families, one more time. They are so special to us. We have enjoyed them so, so much. We look forward to stopping by to see them when we travel south to see my family. They just happen to be right on the way!

My parents, with Pastor Brian.

This picture totally cracks me up! She couldn't stop blinking with the flash, so she just held her eyes open~ so funny!

So, that's our past few weeks in a nutshell. We've been through a myriad of emotions, but we know that in the end, God's will will be accomplished in it all.

Sarah's Birthday

I don't have much to write tonight, but I wanted to share some pictures of Sarah's birthday. She was 9 on September 11th. We celebrated on Friday with banana splits at home and then at Piz.za Hut on Saturday with family.

I can't believe how big my girl is getting!

Oh, these pictures are in reverse order because I forgot that Blogger does that for some reason. So you can start at the bottom and work your way up if you want! :)

The Last First Tooth

Ben lost the last first tooth of our little family on Sunday. He tried so hard to keep them all in because, well, he's my baby.

I was a little sad for me and very happy for him. He' s growing up on me.

I tried my hand at sourdough cinnamon rolls tonight.

Guess what? They turned out great! I even let the kids get up and try one. It was 10:30pm, but we don't do things like that on a normal basis, so they were thrilled to be able to come down and eat a half of a cinnamon roll with us. I mean, how could I make them smell that wonderful smell and then not let them have a little? I'm not that mean. :)

(this is a before picture)

Well, this one is short and sweet and to the point, but I have had a busy few days and I am going to bed! Good night :)

A Few Changes...

Change.
There are so many different views of that word. Some people love it, some people hate it. It's your choice.
It can be good, it can be bad. It's your choice.
No matter how you choose to view it, it will always be there. So why not choose to embrace it, go with it, be thankful for it?

The first change that we have experienced over the last two weeks is the change we made in the kids' schooling. We have decided that it would be a great change in our family's life to put our kids in the Academy at our church. We are very thankful for the option to do that. I work there so it has given me the opportunity to be very involved in their education, acedemically and spiritually.

Obviously, this was a welcome change...one that we have looked forward to for over a year now. The Lord is good.

The next big change in our lives is that our youth pastor and his wife have felt the call to move on from our church after 5 years of service. They are nothing but a huge blessing and the whole church will miss them terribly. How thankful we are that they are willing to go where the Lord wants them. What a privilege to be able to help them, as a church, through this exciting yet emotional time. Many tears were shed when they read their resignation letter and many more will be when they do leave. We are so blessed to belong to a church that bears one anothers burdens, prays faithfully for each other, and loves one another in Christ. We are losing 4, well almost 5, beautiful "family" members soon. How thankful we are for the friendship that we have been able to develop with them. We won't be saying "goodbye", but "see ya later".

We wanted to have them over one more time for pizza and games, so we made that happen on Sunday. We had so much fun laughing with (or maybe it was at) each other! :)

Our teens love Pastor Brian, I think you can understand why....

We had fun teaching them how to play Garbage.

I love this kid! I had so much fun watching him while his mommy gave piano lessons every Tuesday. He's a hoot and a half!

We are going to miss Rebekah's piano playing on Sunday mornings. To say she is a wonderful player would be an understatement.

We are so thankful for the memories that we have been able to make with this family. They will always be precious to us. I mean, how could you not love that? :D

The Best Deal in My 34 Years!

School will be starting for us on Monday, so this has been one busy week for us, er, me. My husband ALWAYS has busy weeks. I am fortunate enough to not have to have busy weeks all the time. What a blessing! :)

Anyway, I have been putting off getting my shoes for work (school) all summer. I knew that I needed some, but I just put it off. Mostly because I am too cheap to spend too much money on, well, ANYTHING!

Well, I decided last night was the night to go and accomplish this task. After all, I did have a $10.00 coupon from Pen.ney's, so I HAD to use it and thought I might as well use it on my shoes. I made my way to the clearance rack (of course) and found some cute, black, somewhat flat shoes. They had just enough heel to not be totally flat, but not so much that my toes are going to hate me by the end of the day. :) I looked at the price and they had been marked down from $50 to $9.97...great deal!
I looked around some more, and they had another pair in brown. I decided that I would get those, too. My total for both pairs would be about $10, after my coupon. I could handle that. :)
So I went to check out and the sales clerk rang up the first pair....$5.88! I asked, "Is that right?" To which she replied, "Um, yep. Great deal, huh?" My total was $12.10!
So after my coupon, I paid.....drum roll please......$2.10 for two pairs of shoes!!! That's 2 dollars and 10 cents!! Can you believe that?
I was so thankful for that because, truthfully, with school tuition and a possible India trip in my future (oh yeah, have I told you about that yet?), any amount of money that we don't have to spend is a blessing! :)

Hope everyone's back-to-school days are going well!