Count Your Blessings

name them one by one.........

Christian


Dakota


Eli


Faith


and Brice (I never have any pictures of him well or me for that matter)

Baking Bread

Dakota and Faith have some sensitivities to fructose. So they have a hard time with fruits, fruit juices, some veggies, and high fructose corn syrup. It makes Faith look like she has coffee grounds in her diaper. Since almost anything store bought has high fructose corn syrup in it at some point it just becomes cheaper and better to make it homemade. Bread is one of those things and amazingly enough Dakota loves the bread more homemade. But as I (like so many other parents) just trying to get our chores done we forget that they really can help us and really enjoy it. So I thought it would be fun for them to help me make the bread. I was lucky enough to find a bread machine at a garage sale the other week. I already had one, but wasn't thrilled with it to pieces and knew if I was going to take on this new task of making something we eat all the time from scratch I knew I MUST love the bread machine. Some would ask why do you need a bread machine. I have four children two of which are special needs and that should be explanation enough. So here we are making bread.

Let's Get Started


Say Cheese
(Can someone tell me if their almost 4 year old smiles like this?)



Dakota's Turn


Eli's Turn (with mommy's help of course)


Yummy It's Done


It seems to me that our growth with God is like making bread. God adds things to our lives to make us grow and in the end we get to enjoy a fuller life with Him.

The Dentist

Back in January when Eli was in the hospital after his heart surgery, his surgeon asked if Eli had been to the dentist yet. Then he told me how important it was for Eli to go to the dentist and that he maintain oral health. If he doesn't his valve can be damaged even more will have to be replaced that much sooner. It can also cause further issues in other areas of his heart. By chance Dr. M's wife is a Pediatric Dentist. For me the more doctors know and understand my children and their medical issues the better. So if his wife is in the medical picture too that's seems to be a bonus because I can fully give them permission to talk at home. So today was the day of the appointment. And it went great in my terms. The kids squirmed. Dakota almost got sick when the put stuff in his mouth (typical Dakota). Eli wouldn't let them touch them. But their mouths look great. Eli will have to have braces when he gets older and we will have to watch for the need to pull adult teeth to make room. But again their mouths look great. We have a few areas to work on (I'm glad I got the dental flossers for them for Resurrection Sunday), but all in all a good appointment.

I'm not good at taking pictures so here they both are with their balloons, stickers and new toothbrushes after we got home.


But what did I learn from this appointment? Never take them both at the same time. They each needed too much help getting through the appointment. So in 6 months when we go back, I will be making their appointments on seperate days.

The Calm After The Storm?

So I haven't updated since before Eli's surgery and I meant to update right after, but I kept waiting for the follow-up appointments. Then I waited for Dr. C to either give us good news or bad news. So far really we've gotten neither. This kind of makes each appointment difficult because I don't really have positive things to go off of. We do know that his aorta is recoarcing. It's not at a place to go back to the cath lab yet, but it's something we need to be watching and will eventually have to address. He thinks it might have gotten just a touch smaller than his last echo, but again not enough to warrant the cath lab. We think they may be ready to do a stent (they have been talking about it since he was a baby) when they do have to address this since he is older and bigger. We will also be going to neurology because we think Eli is showing signs of brain damage from the heart/lung machine. I have a hard time talking about specifics of what he's doing or not doing. Some of the things I want to talk about or people ask about and I tell them and they attempt to be really positive. But "being positive" doesn't get us anywhere. Having faith is different than being positive. But people have a tendancy to lump them together sometimes. Having faith means knowing that even in the worst possible circumstances God WILL get you through it. It means trusting HIS plan and not your own. Even when that plan means the worst thing you can think of. God WILL get me and my family through this, but not being able to see the big picture that He does is really hard. I think that's harder for me than anything. So as I mention the brain damage and going to neurology it's hard for me to deal with the thought that my poor boy may be suffering something like this. And that as he has more surgeries it could get worse and there is nothing I can do and we have to go through the surgeries. Again "being positive" will get me no where. Having faith will even if it means the worst. But this DOES mean PREPARING for the worst (at least mentally). It means thinking about it, talking about it and coming to terms with it. All parents have these feelings as we see our kids go through these things. Some talk about it and some don't. Some wear their emotions on their sleeves and some don't. I personnally wear EVERY emotion I have on my sleeve. It's quite obvious how I'm feeling. I don't always want to talk about it, but sometimes I do. However, I feel like nobody understands so I stay silent.

As I learned in my ladies bible study this last session staying silent stunts your growth as a follower of Christ and does not help encourage others in their walk. Staying silent also prevents people from knowing exactly how to pray for you. So this is something I'm trying to work on. Talking about the difficulties even when I don't want to. Satan is trying to get me offended at others though. So please please pray for me as he throws his darts at me.

"Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them." Psalm 119:165

"But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison." James 3:8 (God definitely thought of me when He wrote this verse.)

He wants me to fail. But through Christ I will succeed.

"Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." Colossians 3:13

"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." 1 Corithians 10:13 (Christ is our way to escape, but we MUST reach our hand towards Him. He is already reach towards us.)

"Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." Romans 12:17-18

So my hope is that this blog will be my outlet. I pray I can put my emotions and feelings here to speak when I haven't the strength and encourage others through our trials and tribulations. To allow people to pray for me when I'm struggling to speak. I pray that God can use me and my children to glorify Him and His name.