Miss A's Party ~ Keeper of the Faith meeting

A successful and happy three year old party...

In the morning, the Elliott family brought her a gift of new roller skates. She loves them...and the thought of skating in them...so far she's mastered wearing them and laying in the floor yelling 'somebody, come help me'. It's really cute...can't talk her into removing them. Before I know it we'll have another roller skate addict in the house ~~Thank you friends for blessing Miss A!!

Next we had Miss A's 'family' party. We had a good time just opening her gifts and eating cake together. She got new 'big girl' panties, a coloring book, and lots of hair stuff. She was so excited!

We finished the day off with Miss K and Miss M attending their first ever "Keepers of the Faith" Club meeting. This is a Mother/daughter club with the focus of training our daughters to be keepers of our home. Each month we have a devotion, snacks and fellowship, and then on to a craft/learning time.

This month we focused on rubber stamping cards taught by my dear friend Karla M. Each girl was blessed to make a fun lady bug card and a 'Noah's Ark' book mark. They had a GREAT time! They are already looking forward to next month...

*~*HaPpY 3rd BirThDay To Miss A*!*~

Miss A, our baby turns 3 today! She has certainly lived up to the meaning of her name "Our Father's Joy". She daily brings her father and I great joy. We are so blessed to be her mommy and daddy!!

She is truly a girly ~girl... on our recent girls night out she picked out a headband with polka dots and a large pink bow on it. She wears it every day whether it matches or not. She loves anything frilly, fancy, and girly. Her favorite doll she calls 'Alyssa' and she can usually be seen dragging her around. She loves her siblings and always tells me 'I don't want to sleep alone!'

We went to the grocery store tonight for her 'birthday food'. She picked out juice boxes and pop tarts for breakfast. For her cake it was sprinkle cake with sprinkle icing. She'll be on a 3 day sugar high!

shhh....don't tell, but we got her lots more headbands with big flowers and bows on them. Her sisters blessed her with a princess coloring book and new 'Tinkerbell' panties, hopefully that will inspire her to finish potty training. Since we started the M and M's yesterday we've only had 1 accident( yea!!).

I thank the Lord for this special blessing He sent to me. I pray that as Miss A's mommy I can raise her up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. May she grow to love the Lord with all her heart.

A good week...

I've been so BLESSED by friends and family taking such good care of me. They brought delicious meals, yummy desserts, and lots of prayers. I appreciate each one so much!!

I feel 99% better...have to keep some room for improvement (-; Truthfully, I'm glad to be on this side of the healing process. This week has gone smoothly and I've had plenty of REST. We've been blessed with ample work to support us, yet enough free time to get our outside tasks done. My Beloved seeded about 7 acres with wheat today. That will give our cows something to graze on this winter. He is really enjoying the work he can do with that new tractor.

School has gone well this week. Josh brought home a report card with an A on it...yea Josh!! Joe and I are back on track after our week off. The little girls were very blessed by Grandma T. She came to teach them Home Ec classes today. They learned all about food safety and then got to use all kinds of peelers, graters, choppers, and knives. Fun for these two and good experience!!

My beloved's got the hunting BUG. He read about bow hunting that just opened up an Antelope season...excited was not how you described him! He called friend after friend to share the 'news'. Of course these guys hunt too, so they were just as excited as he was. He would love to take a spur of the moment trip to the panhandle soon if he can get his things in order.

Excitement for Miss A this week is a 3rd BIRTHDAY...how can my baby be 3?? She's still so cute and TINY, although she's really growing. I had her almost totally potty trained. She could go for days with no accidents, but alas put mommy to bed for a few days and we have to start over. Unfortunately, she was not motivated this time. Every 30 minutes my timer went off and she had wet panties, but couldn't go in the potty. Tonight I solved that! A trip to the gas station got us a small bag of M and M's. Since we came home at 7:30 we've been potty 3 times (1 m and m per trip) and poopy 1 time (1 more m and m) and NO wet panties!! Not bad for a two hour time period. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

Miss K's newest excitement is her PIANO LESSONS...thanks to Miss Hannah. She can't wait to learn songs and has been explaining how she will keep track of her practice in her assignment notebook.

Grandma Mary was blessed this week with 2(!) phone calls...her son from Georgia and granddaughter from Georgia both called to chat. She is looking forward to them coming to visit for Thanksgiving. She got to go out to lunch today with my dear momma and was blessed by a time at Odell's Restaurant. Grandma does her part to keep them in business which is good I guess...as they do their part to keep our service business going. This weekend Grandma gets to go to her younger son's house for a visit...she will enjoy that greatly!

Thursday we start Keepers of the Faith a Christian girls club for moms and daughters...another exciting thing going on. We have guests coming in the morning, the R. Smith family who will be bringing a precious new son for us to love on. We'll celebrated with Miss A at lunch/ dinner, then off to the meeting for us 'big girls'.

Life is Blessed, full to overflowing, but Blessed immensely!!

Another 'Mount'ain to climb and valley to walk through

Some days I feel like I climb one obstacle, jump one hurtle, go through the valley, only to have the next 'crisis' mountain looming in the distance. I know the saying if your not in the storm, get prepared, for the next one is coming. My storm arrived this weekend.

Back at the beginning of August I went to my midwife to confirm an early pregnancy, but was instead told I had a 'blighted ovum' and should expect to miscarry. I didn't share the info with too many people as this was the same week my grandma was so ill and dying. Then we had to get through her funeral. There were too many other storms to weather those two weeks.

The following week - week 3, I went in for another confirmation ultrasound. I wanted to make sure they were right. Of course we hoped and prayed for a miracle, but knew that we had to trust God to know best. I hoped to let this go naturally, but needed to see that my baby wasn't growing. This ultrasound confirmed exactly what the other one had said; there was no change in growth and I should expect to miscarry shortly.

Week 4 - Labor Day weekend proved true to it's name. I started the process on Sunday and by Tuesday I thought all was complete. I was sore, but felt relatively good until Thursday at noon. I had a scary episode of bleeding that I was able to stop by resting and by taking Cayenne Pepper capsules. We headed to some friends Thursday evening and didn't get home until 11:30. At 1:30 AM, I awoke realizing we needed to head to the hospital. We went to the local Emergency Room because they were the closest one. Sadly, even though they did the right tests, they did not 'treat' me, simply sending me home saying, "you're miscarrying"...yes I knew that, as that's what I told them going in the door.

After resting all day Friday and Saturday, our family decided to stay home from church and rest one more day. Praise God that my beloved felt led to stay home also rather than taking the children by himself. Shortly before services would have started, I began to bleed heavily again. We did everything we knew to stop it, but couldn't get it under control. As I started fainting we knew it was time to go into the ER again...this time a trip to the city for a better hospital - a 1 hour trip!

After getting an IV with fluids and yet another ultrasound #5 they determined that I had not actually miscarried yet and thought I would need to have a D and C. I'm praising the Lord that through the many prayers of our family and friends, that was avoided. They were able to take care of it with only an exam. This was an answer to prayer!! Thank you LORD JESUS!!

So now I'm officially on bed-rest for a few days, waiting and resting... This should give the next mountain of crisis time to form/erupt (seriously?!?) I am really thankful and have to try and keep a sense of humor. We have been blessed with 6 beautiful living children and I'm thankful for each gift. As the movie "Facing the Giants" reminds me of ~ I will praise HIM in the good times AND I will praise HIM in the bad. Blessed be the name of the LORD.

Girls Night Out...time with the little girls.

Tonight My beloved and Joe were blessed with the opportunity to attend a Red Hawks baseball game in OKC with our dear friends the Elliott's. That left me time with the little girls while Josh stayed home with Grandma.

The girls and I headed to Tecumseh for a stop at the library. We love books so much! We were only there 10 minutes, but managed to fill our bag with at least 12 books. Miss K is working on the step one - beginning to read on her own. I always have a wish list going and the other girls choose whatever looks good. We also got two books on tape that help the drive time go much faster!

Next, we met Grandma T in Shawnee for a quick errand. Lastly a stop at the bank finished my errands. Now it was time to officially start our 'Girls Night Out'.

We headed to the mall, going to Claire's to buy new necklaces. They were so excited that they could hardly choose the one they wanted! Miss A choose a pretty pink headband with a big bow, Miss K got a necklace with a black cat/heart charms, and Miss M went for the pink butterfly necklace and ring. We choose some purple toenail polish (I won't paint fingernails very often!) and a new hairbrush. They couldn't wait to get their new pretties on.

As we left the mall, we spotted a carnival in the parking lot. The girls don't remember ever going to one, so mommy splurged and bought them each 1 ride at $3 a piece. Miss K and Miss M chose the fun house, while Miss A went on the kiddy boats. We also discussed that they didn't remember EVER eating Cotton Candy, so of course we came home with a bag. When the carnival fun was over, we headed to Walmart for shirts for Josh and hot pink flip flops for Miss A at Old Navy. With the shopping done, we were off to dinner.

The girls were very blessed to get to chose a happy meal from McDonalds. Not our usual choice so they were again excited. I think Miss K's words were "This is the best day ever!"

After we got home we took some time to paint our toenails, eat the cotton candy, and read a book together. I pray the little girls will remember that their momma took the time to invest in their lives, having fun with them, and treating them special. Each one is such a blessing to me!!