And now, some good news...

Ashley got her LOA for M's future BFF, Piper:)

I can't believe that after a combined total of 2 1/2 years waiting for our girls to come home, we're this close!

Some sad holiday news

We got a phone call this morning and my mom's oldest brother passed away during the night. It wasn't completely unexpected, but he had been recovering and so we weren't expecting it now.

I spent the morning booking a flight down to Florida for my mom for the funeral. Unfortunately, she has to fly out on Christmas day.

Just keep us in your prayers this week, especially my mom.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it...okay enough already, I'm over it!

Well, since we moved here in April of this year, this is our first winter spent in the KC. So far, it isn't winter yet and we have had 2 snow days and a total of 8 inches of snow in 3 1/2 weeks. I'm over it:)

Snow was so cool when we lived in Georgia and even more so in Florida, because it was generally a once a year, or in Florida once a decade, occasion. It was neat and fun.

Now, I live in a true winter environment. Our high on Sunday is supposed to be 7 - THAT IS 07 DEGREES...FARHENHEIT!

I told E that I am already ready for a Florida vacation to escape the cold and we haven't even started winter yet.

Right about now is when I remember E telling me that KC's average temp during December, January and February was only 8 degrees below the average temp during those months in Georgia. I think the site he got that from must have been referring to Soviet Georgia and not the peach state - or they were measuring the average temp for Georgia from the top of Brasstown Bald.

Only 3 more months til' spring...right?

Please keep praying for M

She's doing a lot better. There are some good things happening, but I'm not ready to share all the details yet. Just keep praying for her healing:)

Finally, some pictures

Well, finally I have access to some pics I can post, so here goes:

We will start with a couple of birthday pics...

This is M, K and S at Great Wolf Lodge for M's 3rd birthday.

This is M and her chocolate extravaganza dessert from T-Rex Cafe. M LOVES chocolate! She gets giddy when she sees it:)

More pics later!

As far as an update, M's mouth is better. The infection still isn't completely gone, but she is eating again and acting like herself. Her surgeon wants us to consult with an infectious disease doctor before he operates again, but we don't have to go this month. We will meet with the surgeon and the infectious disease doctor in January.

Pray for her surgeon as he leaves this week for India for 2 weeks to do cleft surgeries on kids over there!

Friday Update - Date Night!

We had a good Thanksgiving around these parts. Ate our warmed up Thanksgiving Feast from Bob Evans - very yummy! Then, took all 3 kids to see Madagascar 2 at the movies. Everyone had a great time. M sits and watches movies like a pro. She is less antsy than S:)

Friday E had to work, so Granny, the kiddos and I braved Target. We did wait until the real insanity hours were over though. Picked up some Christmas presents and some more drinkable yogurt for M.

Friday night, E and I went on our first date night in over a month. Granny kept the kids and we went to see Quantum of Solace, the new Bond movie, and then to Outback for dinner. The movie was very good - one of the best Bond films in a long time. Daniel Craig gets better with each movie he does. Outback was good too!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

We are definately giving thanks for our many blessings this holiday. Happy Thanksgiving and may God bless you every day!

Wednesday Update

Today we seem to have turned another corner. M's mouth looks much better and her ear seems to be clearing out. It looks like we will have the aforementioned larger sized hole and a smaller hole that has opened up in the middle. Not too bad all in all. Hopefully, the worst is over for now. M played a lot more today and even went to the grocery store with Granny. Of course Granny guarded her like a hawk to make sure no one came too close:)

We picked up our Thanksgiving meal from Bob Evans. With it being just us for Thanksgiving, we decided to order their Farmhouse Feast. It ends up costing about the same. Looking forward to a relaxing day with the family.

Tuesday Update

Well, today was S's Thanksgiving feast at school, so thankfully M was acting more like herself and I was able to leave her with Granny long enough for me to go to S's class. The feast went well and S ate 3 turkey sandwiches and then came home an hour later and wanted lunch. He went to the doctor for his checkup last Friday and the doctor said he should end up 6 ft. tall. I think he's trying to get there before he turns 6:)

M's throat still looked kind of yucky, but she just started the new (third) antibiotic. Hopefully this will clear it up for good.

Monday Update

Well, today was road trip day. We drove to STL to see the surgeon again. It was 8 hours of driving and 1.5 hours of doctor appointment:) The good news is the infection doesn't seem to be worse, but it isn't gone. So, he spoke with the infectious disease doctor there, and they switched her to antibiotic number 3. This should clear it up completely. They took cultures of her palate and we will probably meet with the infectious disease doc in December to try to figure out where these infections are coming from and where to go from here for planning surgery round 4 (6 if you count the neurosurgery and the lip repair:)). M's surgeon will be in India for most of December doing palate surgeries on kids their. HOW COOL IS THAT!:) I think it is awesome he is still going on these types of trips with all the years of experience he has. He has another surgeon there, who saw M the day after her surgery, who will be available if we need him. He also asked me to keep him updated on M via email. He actually apologized to me for not being able to fix M's palate this time and I felt bad. I certainly don't blame him. He made every effort to make this a success and he is leaving no stone unturned to determine what is causing all these breakdowns of M's palate.

Weekend Update

Hey, isn't that a feature on SNL?

Well, things were fairly uneventful around here this weekend. M is not as bad as earlier in the week, but pretty GRUMPY:( She has been acting ill (as in bad 'tude). She has moved to eating a couple of bites of yogurt, but still mostly only eats broth from french onion soup.

Tomorrow is the big day. We go back to STL to see the surgeon and see how this infection is coming along. Pray for us and wish us luck!

News Flash

For some awesome good news, check out this. Yay!

Thursday Update

So, today's update is brought to you by the letters X and B and the number 11:)

Today was better than Tuesday, but not as good as Wednesday. M continues to do well with drinking fluids and she eats soup pretty good. Her throat doesn't seem to bother her as much. It still looks about the same as yesterday. She was more whiny and clingy today. Hard to tell if that's cause she misses her Daddy, who is out of town until tomorrow, or cause she's still not 100%.

Our awesome church family has organized dinners to be dropped off for us and tonight was the first one. It was chicken, rice and cabbage with brownies for dessert and it was delish. It really has turned out to be a Godsend, because M is so clingy that it's hard to get dinner made. I felt kind of guilty about accepting it at first, but someone once told me that when someone offers to help you in a way that let's them exercise their gifts, you should let them. So thanks, we really appreciated it.

Speaking of appreciation, thanks to everyone out there who has been praying for M and for us. I really do feel those prayers and it means a lot to me. Let me know when you need me to return the favor.

BTW, I just noticed we are up to over 500 folks having visited the blog. It seems like just yesterday it was 100. Thanks for following along!

A

Wednesday Update

Today was much better than yesterday. M woke up more like the M we all know and love. The back of her throat still has a yellowish appearance around the sutures, but at least it's not oozing yellow goo anymore. She ate 2 small bowls of french onion soup sans the onions. She drank quite a bit of apple juice. We did have an unfortunate throwing up incident in the morning, but only one. She is still sleeping a lot, but she is up more and playing and giggling when she is up. I think we may have turned a corner.

BTW, our surgeon actually emailed us! He gave me his card Monday and asked me to email him to update him on M. I sent him an email Tuesday and he responded today with a request for another update. He has been a really awesome doctor. I can tell he really cares about M. He said if her palate falls apart, he will lose sleep over it. I am totally in awe of the doctors who dedicate their lives to helping kids. It is their calling in life and you can tell.

Well, more later. Peace out:)

Tuesday Update

I'm just hoping I don't repeat myself, because at this point the days are running together:)

Today was the worst day for M so far. When she woke up this morning, I noticed blood in her ear, so I took her to the pediatrician here in the KC. He confirmed she has a pretty nasty ear infection in her left ear DESPITE being on A STRONG ANTIBIOTIC. He prescribed another antibiotic to cover the positive grains because the one she is on should cover all the negative grains...whatever that means. He also looked at her palate and said it is definately infected, rather yuckily (is that a word?). There is yellow goop in her hole in the suture line. The hole has gotten larger. Probably won't repair on its own. They said if she starts running a fever, we need to go to the emergency room for IV antibiotics.

So, off we went to Target for the 2nd time in 2 days. I gave her the antibiotic, which luckily is once a day, and then got some broth soup for her lunch. She ate about 1/3 cup of soup and liked it as long as I shot it into her mouth with a medicine dropper. After that, she got worse. She cried pretty much from 3-9 except for a brief respite for a one hour nap. She is hurting so bad and it is so hard to watch. The new antibiotic should kick in tomorrow, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

There is good news. It looks like no new areas have opened up at this point, so if we can get over this infection we might just be looking at a largish fistula that needs to be closed up and not a full-fledged repair job again.

I have to end this post with something that weighs heavy on my heart right now. I am so, so lucky and I know that I am. This is not life threatening. This isn't her last shot at a repair. She shared a room with a little girl who was 5 years old and had been in the hospital for 2 months. She had a heart transplant in December. Yet, she and her parents weren't bitter or depressed. They were hopeful and they tried to be encouraging to us. That is so humbling. Sometimes it is hard to put everything in perspective when your baby is hurting so badly, but I feel it is important that I try.

These past few days I have been ministered to by two songs in particular - the new version of Yours by Steven Curtis Chapman with the verse he wrote after his youngest daughter died at the age of 5, and Held by Natalie Grant. Both of these songs deal with the loss of a child and learning to praise God and how loved they feel in the midst of all that pain. Next to that, this is nothing. M is God's child. God made her this way in his image and he was there with her even when I could not be there. I hear him speak to me so clearly to let go of trying to make M better. I can't do it, but he can and I need to let him. It is so hard to let him be God sometimes. I feel like maybe she is lost in the sea of all of those who need him, but he reminds me she is not and he is holding her and ministering to her as only he can. So, today I kept singing "M is yours Lord, Yours Lord, all of her is yours. From the top of her head to her little tiny toes." I know I'm no Steven Curtis Chapman, but it reminds me of the point:)

Please continue to pray for M. Pray she has peace and comfort and healing. Pray for me that I remember whose child M really is.

From the mouth of babes

This morning my mom was taking S to school and he asked me why I was tired. I told him I had trouble sleeping last night because I was worried about M. He took me by the hand, looked in my eyes, and said, "Mama, you don't have to worry about M. She will be okay during the night." Then he patted my hand.

Sometimes he is so sweet. I love my little man.

Monday Update

Well, after nearly convincing myself that I was totally overreacting, this morning M wanted to eat a banana really bad, but it hurt her mouth so bad she cried. I looked at her mouth and saw more yellow/brown and a hole. I called the surgeon's office and they fit me in right away. He looked and said the repair is coming apart. All is not lost yet, the hole is about 1 inch in diameter and it may end up healing closed anyway. But, it is not what he wants to see. He gave us an antibiotic rinse for M to swish with and spit out 3 times a day. Surprisingly, she is really good with the spitting instead of swallowing.

I am praying that God will hold her palate together. I don't want her to have to go through more surgery. She is so much better off than many of the kids we saw at the hospital. We were in a semi-private room with a girl who was 5 years old and got a heart transplant last December. She nearly went into rejection and had been in the hospital since September. If M's palate breaks down, it's not life-threatening. It's just heartbreaking to see her have to go through all this pain for naught.

Please, please, please keep praying for us. We really need it!

Sunday update

Well, today was not as good. Last night M didn't sleep well at all. She couldn't breathe good through her nose and kept waking herself up coughing and crying. She's slept most of the day today and hasn't really wanted to eat or drink. We've gotten enough in her that she shouldn't get dehydrated, but all in all it has been quite deflating after how well everything was going.

I am a total basket case about everything. I look at her palate repair and see yellowish lines and think it's getting infected, but maybe not. I am overanalyzing everything and generally just stressed and worried. I'm not a big worrier as a rule, so this is driving me crazy.

I know that I should trust God and that he will take care of her no matter the outcome and that he can hold her palate together, but I just can't seem to let go of the worry. I need the doctor to look in her mouth every morning and say that everything looks good or that it looks like the palate is breaking down. I thought I would do better this time, but I'm not. Looks like it will be a long 3 weeks.

Pray for M that she is more like herself again tomorrow and that she has a better night tonight. Pray for me that I can stop worrying so much:)

Update

Just a quick update. M is out of the hospital as of yesterday. This is the quickest and best she has ever done in 3 palate surgeries. The surgeon went out of his way to try everything possible to make this one take. They did not do morphine this time, per our wishes, and I think it made all the difference. M was not agitated this time at all. She did awesome.

Please continue praying that her palate will hold together this time. The surgeon said if this doesn't hold he's not sure what we'll do next.

Big day

Tomorrow, the 13th, is a big day around these parts. M is turning 3 and to celebrate, she's having a palate revision:) Just kidding on the celebrating part. Her palate is still open to the point that she still can't make most of her sounds. With the move came a change to a new doctor - in St. Louis. We finally were able to schedule the surgery and the only time we could do it before December was on her birthday. Hopefully, she'll forgive me:)

So, tonight we have checked in at the Haven House in St. Louis and early tomorrow morning we go to the hospital for M's surgery. K and S have school, so they stayed behind in the KC with Granny. Pray for M tomorrow that she will be peaceful. She gets really anxious and fretful around doctors and hospitals.

I will update later in the week - hopefully with pictures:)

Vote

No matter who you vote for, just vote! It's awesome that we have the opportunity to choose!

Clarification

Just to clarify, at no point has any furniture, big or otherwise, been thrown in my house, so I have no idea where that comment came from:)

Good news!

S said tonight ,

"Mommy, when I go to heaven, I am not going to send any tornados to Missouri."

Me: "That's good."

S: "And also, I am not going to throw any big furniture at Missouri either."

Me: "Uh, okay. That's probably a good idea."

:)

Finally a new quarterly fundraiser

I know it's a little late, but only by a month:) As I explained in this post, I plan to hold a quarterly fundraiser on my blog.

This quarter's fundraiser will be for Eagles Wings. Eagles Wings is a privately sponsored wing at the SWI where Piper is. Ashley explained a little about the wonderful work they do here and you can read more about them here.

Ashley has set up a foundation to help Eagles Wings over at Piper's Promise.

She is currently raising funds to pay for a Christmas/Holiday party for the kids at Eagles Wings.

So, that is my new challenge to the approximately 11 of you who read my blog regularly:)

I have put the Chip In at the top left corner of the page so you can check the progress.

By the way, our last quarter project - The Great Strides Walk for cystic fibrosis - contributed to over $15,000 being raised for cystic fibrosis research as part of the herculean efforts of Nate over at CF Husband.

Go team!

Pray! Pray! Pray!

Just saw that Tricia and Nate over at Confessions of A CF Husband just got horrible news. Pray for a miracle folks. We know that God can do it. Remember Susannah?

More fun with S

I know I haven't written much about M lately, but it's coming. She's mostly a physical comedy gal, so I have to upload the pictures of her craziness:)

S, on the other hand, is at that age where he tries to reason things out, sometimes with rather humerous results, such as today when he told me he needed to go to the library. I asked him why and he told me he needed to check out all the books on running, so he could become the fastest runner and win candy at Awanas at church:)

At least he knows how you should be able to learn things:)

One year ago today

My friend Ashley lost her mother to pancreatic cancer.





Ashley told the story best back in June in this post from her blog. I also lost my grandfather to the same kind of cancer. It is amazing to me that with all the progress we have made in fighting cancer - my mom is a two-time cancer survivor - that a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is an almost certain death sentence. Ashley, I'm thinking about y'all today.

Pray for Susannah

She is having open heart surgery tomorrow. She went through so much to get here, pray the doctors can do their stuff.

Are there any movies he can watch?

Tonight's movie was Nim's Island.





We were doing okay until Nim's Dad's boat gets bumped by a shark. The shark doesn't eat him mind you, just bumps his boat.



That was enough for S to swear he was never going in the sea, and why in fact did God even make the sea. (That was what he said too, the sea, not the ocean:))



That was when I told him this was all make believe and by the end of the movie, I just had to promise to never take him to Nim's Island. I was pretty safe with that one, I think:)

200 visitors!!!

Yay!! I'll try to do better with the pictures.

John 3:16 - Kindergarten style

"For God So loved the world that he gave his only forgotten son, that whosonever believes him shall have everforever life."

Per S, who had to memorize this verse for Awanas. (I'm thinking they were a little liberal on the memorization thing:)).

Also, tonight's prayer for S -

"God please help me to get my morning work done and stay busy."

Oui, we Wii ( Couldn't resist the pun:))

Yes, after 30+ years, I have actually purchased my first ever video game console, the Wii. I know this is kind of sad, but I have never owned a video game system and for the most part have never wanted to own one. As a kid, I wanted the Atari or the first Nintendo, but somehow never ended up with one.

We decided on the Wii because it is so active for a video game. We are getting more exercise than we have in years:)

On the down side, S, my 5 year old, has already beaten me in bowling:)

BTW, if you are looking for one online, this was the best place we saw. They get them in pretty much every week and though you do have to purchase accessories as part of the package, they are accessories you're probably going to want anyway.

It's a Miracle - Susannah is coming home!

Susannah is on her way home. Miraculously, God has healed her enough to travel and they sped all the paperwork through so she can head home. She has to go see a heart surgeon in the U.S. when she gets here, but hopefully the healing will continue and her heart will be repairable. Continue to pray for her and her family.

More confessions of a 5 year old

S today got in trouble for spilling grape juice all over my beige carpet, after which I told him we would not be purchasing any further grape juice until he reaches at least adolescence. After hysterically crying for a few minutes S calmed down and told me that was okay, because I would forget tomorrow:/ Little does he know, that by saying that, he pretty much insures that this will be one of the few things I manage to remember. Plus, it's not like the image of yourself on all fours scrubbing grape juice out of your carpet is not going to come to mind every time you look at grape juice:(

Urgent Prayers Needed

This family is in China right now and just met their new daughter in the hospital where she is critically ill. They are praying for a miracle so their daughter will be well enough to be released from the hospital so they can take her home for medical treatment to save her life. Pray that she will get better enough to travel and that they will release her to her parents' care.

Candid thoughts of a Kindergartener

You know, there's something about a 5 year old. They really start to try to figure things out and they can say some pretty interesting stuff.

We took S to see Journey To The Center Of The Earth in 3d tonight. He really wanted to go, but then he got scared when they were demonstrating the 3d effects in the previews - go figure:) After a trip to the snack bar with Dad to purchase some gummy candy, he decided he could handle the movie after all..until they ran into some man-eating venus fly traps.

That part kind of freaked S out. He told his Dad he wanted to go just to home after the movie. Dad asked him what he meant and he said he didn't want to go anywhere that had plants. Then, he decided he would settle for a promise from us never to make him go to the center of the earth:)

Also, at church today, he was trying to figure out deep theological issues.

Me: "S, remember we need to be on our best behavior because we are at God's house."
S: "Okay, but I have a question. Where is Jesus' house?"
Me: "This is Jesus house too."
S: "But why do God and Jesus live at the same house?"
Me: "Because God is Jesus' Daddy, so Jesus lives with him just like you live with your Daddy."
S: "Do you think he'll ever get his own house, like me when I grow up?"

Also, to follow in the vein of A Legacy of Hope and her "Harrison's prayers" segment, I give you S's prayer this week.

We have been trying to get him to understand that God can help him with life's struggles - such as listening to Mom and Dad or not fighting with his sisters. So, when we were praying this week, I asked him if there was anything he wanted to ask God to help him with.

His response: "God please help me not to color outside the lines."

That's theological, right?:)

Cooper's Garden

You'll notice a new link under my blogs of importance for Cooper's garden. Cooper was a little boy in K's grade in school who was diagnosed with a rare brain cancer that is always fatal and lost his battle a little over 2 years ago. His family set up a foundation to support other families facing a similar diagnosis and provide a scholarship for a student of the arts at the University of West Georgia. Every once and a while K still brings up Cooper. I know how she feels to face the death of a playmate at such a young age, because a friend of mine when I was little died of a heart attack when he was 12, but it is hard to see kids have to face the reality of mortality so young. Cooper made a big impact on the world in a short time.

The end of a perfect record

Well, Sunday marked the end of an era. Up until Sunday we had not had to take any of our kids to the hospital for stitches. They had all remained stitch free.

Care to hazard a guess as to which of our crew broke the record?

That would be M. She was pushing her chair back from the table at Sunday school and the chair fell backwards which caused her to hit her head on the back edge of the chair behind her. She got 3 staples.

For those of you who have not had the surreal experience of watching a doctor staple your child's scalp, you're missing out, I tell ya' : ?

I'll spare you the pictures this time.

Meet Baby Sissy

My friend, A, over at A Legacy of Hope finally got her referral for a beautiful little girl from China. We cannot wait to meet her and my family and I are over the moon excited for our friends. Yay:)!!!!!!!!!!!

A shot in the arm for vaccinations

Okay, this post is probably my most controversial yet, but this is my blog, so I'm going to post it anyway:)

I read a lot of other people's blogs and there are quite a few that mention why the blogger has chosen not to get vaccines for their children. Also, it is all over the news, especially stars in Hollywood who have children on the Autism spectrum who believe it is due to vaccines.

I am not one of these people. I understand the argument and I don't deny that there does appear to be something to the possible link to vaccines that needs to be investigated and is being investigated. On the other hand, I know what devestating diseases these vaccines are meant to prevent. Our generation was vaccinated for nearly every childhood disease that our parents were at risk of having. Therefore, most of us have no idea what these diseases are capable of doing.

I ran across this article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution today.

This is my issue with the vaccination debate. I see it the same way I see smoking in public places. Everyone is entitled to choose how they want to parent and whether they want to vaccinate their kids, just as they are entitled to choose whether they want to smoke or not. However, where I have a problem is when your exercise of your freedom to choose puts me and my family in danger. I don't think smoking should be allowed in restaurants and public buildings, because my entire family suffers from asthma and smoke greatly bothers our ability to breathe. Similarly, I don't think kids should be able to come to school without vaccinations and be in a class with kids whose parents have chosen to vaccinate, because if my child's vaccinations didn't fully take or if they carry the virus they are exposed to home to my toddler who has not finished their vaccinations yet, my school-age child or my toddler could be seriously ill, disabled or even die. I know there is a risk even if everyone is vaccinated, but that risk is much smaller than when you have a large and growing number of children who have not been vaccinated.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox. I'm not going to attack any moms/dads who don't vaccinate their kids, I just thought the other side of the coin should get a chance to be heard too:)

First Day of Kindergarten

First Day of Kindergarten - Author Unknown

Everyone has a "first day"
when they feel sad and all alone;
It can be so scary
when you're out on your own.
And I know that a "first day"
can be full of doubts and fears,
But they're full of new beginnings,
Take my hankie, dry your tears.
You'll find lots of things to do
and you'll probably make new friends.
I promise we'll be together
when the school day ends.
Here comes the teacher
blow your nose and be brave.
Come on now and wipe your eyes,
this is no way to behave.
Well good morning teacher.
We really must beg your pardon.
No, MOMMY doesn't always act this way,
But it's my first day of...KINDERGARTEN!

S started Kindergarten today. Tears were shed. 'Nuff said:)

What's in a name

A good friend of mine has finally picked out a name for her baby to be and she won't tell me what it is. Now, to her defense, she didn't tell anyone, even her parents, the name for her last baby until the little one arrived. She and her hubs decided not to tell anyone what the name was so no one could try to change their minds. This is an interesting concept to me. We told everybody the name we had picked out for all three of our kiddos, but it did kind of leave not much of a surprise with S and M. With K, we didn't know if she was K or S until she got here due to her extreme lack of cooperation at the ultrasound:) I have heard of folks keeping the name secret so there would be some element of surprise.

Just to maintain some element of surprise, I have decided to keep my weight a secret until further notice:)

Home again, home again

Well, the long, long vacation odyssey is over. We made it home in one piece. I'll fill everyone in on our goings on in a few days once the kids get back in school and I have some time again. We went to open house for school yesterday and met K and S' teachers. They both seem nice and I think both the kids will be happy to start. M kept wanting to see her room:) She doesn't start Mother's Morning Out again until September, so for the rest of this month, she'll be home with me everyday.

For AML

:):):):):):):):):):)

100

100 folks have now viewed my blog! Hope I wasn't too boring:/

Just cause I know y'all been missin' the cuteness

Here's a pic from our recent trip to the Jacksonville Zoo



This was my zoo when I was a kid. It is totally different now, but in a good way:)

And no, we didn't add two more kiddos while we've been on vacation, those are my cousin's kids, M and L:)

Bloggy shout out

My friend Ashley taught me how to do this today! Thanks, Ashley! You are always there when I need ya:)

Hey guys, Check this out!

Nate of Confessions of a CF Husband and part of the duo forming the inspiration for my first Bloggy fundraiser - as seen in the top left corner of my blog - is raising money in support of his wife's and brother-in-law's fights with cancer. He promises he'll shave his head if he raises $3000.

Make him do it:)

I know, I know

I've been a bad blogger:( We are going to be out of pocket for at least a week, maybe more, as we travel to visit family in Florida. Pray for us as we drive 18+ hours with 3 kiddos:)

Read this post!

Even before I decided to start a blog, I wanted to use it for more than just cute updates on my kids, adoption info and my random thoughts. Way back when some of my bloggy buddies were fundraising for their adoption on their blog, I thought that I would like to do something to raise money for someone else with my blog when I got it up and running.


I have decided to have a quarterly fundraising challenge. Originally, I thought that I would want to raise money for adoptions, but for this initial challenge, I feel led in another direction.


For the past several months, I have been following this blog -


http://www.cfhusband.blogspot.com/


Nathan and Tricia are currently raising money for the Greatstrides walk for Cystic Fibrosis. I know there are probably only 10 people at best who follow my blog, but I challenge you to click on this site

http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/dsp_DonationPage.cfm?walkid=5614&idUser=120208

to donate. I am donating and want to see what we can do as a blogging community.


If you donate, let me know. If you add it to your blog, let me know.

Please don't make me look dopey for doing this:)

Ashley, you know who you are, this is a personal challenge to you to add this to your blog and donate:) You have at least twice as many readers as I do:)

I'm back

Well, I didn't actually go anywhere, I just seemed to stay really busy and really tired last week:) I have been trying to get our house unpacked and organized, but I think our boxes are actually reproducing in the garage and the basement. We had our patriotic program at church Sunday, so there was a lot of practice for that.

I leave you with this

because I know you only really come for the cuteness:)

T-Rex Cafe

Saturday, we had to pick hubby up at the airport, so afterwards we decided to head over to the T-Rex Cafe in KC, Kansas.

We have been meaning to go, since S really likes dinosaurs. The kids had a blast. We have been to Rainforest Cafe before and this restaurant is by the same folks who created that, but E and I agreed that the food is better at T-Rex. Attached to the restaurant, they have a little dino dig area the kids can go in for an extra $2.50. M set to work brushing the dirt off dino bones and herself.

Another child came in and started digging with his hands and M promptly went to the bucket and got him a brush and brought it to him. She's such a stickler for the "rules":)

Camp Rock

Tonight was a night that K has been looking forward to for several months. It was the big premiere of the movie Camp Rock on the Disney Channel.

http://tv.disney.go.com/disneychannel/originalmovies/camprock/index.html


Yes, I will admit it, K has been swept into the High School Musical, Camp Rock phenom. I did screen the first High School Musical before I let her watch it. In general, these movies seem to boil down to the message of being true to yourself rather than trying to be something you are not just to be liked. That is something I want K to learn. Camp Rock was pretty much in the same vein. We watched it together and it did provide us the opportunity to talk about being yourself and not pretending to be someone else just so you'll be popular.

In some ways, I like the Disney channel. Most of their stuff is pretty good for preteens like K to watch. They don't fill their shows with tons of toy commercials like Nickolodeon does. But, there are some shows we don't let K watch. These are the ones where the girls are very materialistic or everything revolves around the "romantic" lives of the kids. What about you? What guidelines do you have for shows you let your kids watch?

A Big Congratulations to Stefanie, Chris and family

Check out http://www.wheneastmeetssouth.blogspot.com

They are in China and just met their eighth child, sweet little Shepherd. You guys are a huge inspiration to me!

Check out this site - They really need our prayers

I've been following http://www.cfhusband.blogspot.com for a while now. It is the blog of a husband and father whose wife is living with Cystic Fibrosis and they have just brought home their baby daughter from the hospital after she was born several months premature. His wife just got a double lung transplant and had recovered enough to come home, but they got some bad news this week and really need prayers.

New Haircuts

The last week has been full of big change in the hair department. Our oldest daughter, K, has been growing out her hair for quite a while because she wanted to donate it to Locks of Love.

Finally, it got long enough to cut off the requisite 10 inches.

The result is her uber-stylish stacked bob.

She really likes it and has been receiving lots of compliments. My only thought was how much older it makes her look:)

Yesterday, we got haircuts for S and M as well. S went from shaggy haired preschooler to clean cut young man.

M on the other hand...she has to have the SLOWEST growing hair I have ever seen. We are trying to grow it out to the same length, so she just got a trim. Not as dramatic of a difference. At this rate, she may have long hair by the time she graduates from high school:)

I just love this picture

Where did he get this from? He's like some heavy metal singer from the 80s:)

A Cause to Believe In

A good friend of mine over at www.alegacyofhope.blogspot.com lost her mom last year to pancreatic cancer and I too have lost a family member to the same kind of cancer. The cancer of years gone by, when just the very word was a death sentence, is not the cancer of today. Luckily, many times a diagnosis of cancer today is not a death sentence as evidenced by my own mom who has twice been diagnosed with uterine cancer and twice come out a survivor. Her odds of long-term survival are greater than 90%. But even as I heard those odds with my own mom, I wondered about the other 10%. Worse yet, there are still cancers that are a certain death sentence. Pancreatic cancer is one of those. By the time people have symptoms, it is too late and they are lucky to live another year.

Please visit www.pancan.org to read more.

Fridays are for fun - sometimes

Today was hubby's day off. We took the kids and my mom to McDonalds and then this evening we went to our town's little downtown festival. Everyone had a great time. Once again, M proved she is pretty much fearless as she insisted on going on the big slide at the carnival ride section. That child will go on any ride she is tall enough to go on:)

Who are we?

Hubby, E, works for our US government. He doesn't like pictures of himself, but he looks roughly like this:)

I am a former real estate attorney who is now semi-retired (at least temporarily) to stay home with the kiddos. I am not particularly fond of pictures of myself either, so lets just say I used to look a little like this:)(at least in my dreams:))

And currently I look more like this:)

DD#1, K, is an 8 year old going into the 3rd grade. She loves all things pink and frilly, anything High School Musical or Hannah Montana and fashion. In other words, she is the direct opposite of her mother:) Fortunately, she doesn't mind pictures of herself, so here she is:)

DS, S, is a 5 year old ball of energy. He has never met a stranger and loves all things cars and action figures. He can be the sweetest, most considerate person you have ever met:) Here he is:)

Last but not least is M. She is 2 and a half and totally a mama's girl. She is from Jiangsu province in China and has been home with us for 14 wonderful months. She was adopted through the Waiting Child program and we can't imagine our family without our sassy little ladybug:) Here's a pic:)

This is our little family:) My mom also lives with us:)

Introduction

Well, I am finally joining the 21st century and starting a blog. Hopefully we can update all our faraway family and friends on the goings on out here in Missouri.