The Winds of Change Are Blowing…

Here it is nearly the end of summer and I have not posted! It’s been a busy summer.  There is a lot of change going on in our household.  Some of it has been tough…that refining type of change I mentioned in a post some months ago.  God continuously works on our hearts weeding out those things that don’t belong in our lives.  We have watched circumstances in our lives change all around us.  My job at church has changed, my husband’s job has changed, relationships have changed…and sometimes those changes are the hardest to take.  I’m not personally a fan of change…I like my little routine and I like to stick to it.  God has shown us this year that some change is good no matter how painful it is.  Often we don’t see that until much later and are able to look back on the ways God has worked for our good.

Here we are three weeks from the start of school.  That is one area in which there will hopefully be no change this year.  The kids will be part of the virtual online academy again.  They enjoyed it last year and did really well.  I liked being less hands on though I was still right here with them as they did their studies.  I just didn’t feel equipped to take on high school being the principle teacher, so this has been a very good experience for us.  The kids had a phenomenal mentor teacher, and really great content teachers as well.  I especially adored the English teachers.  It was a joy for me to watch them make writers out of my Lovies.  There was some pretty amazing writing going on in this household this past year. I was so proud because I did not emphasize that particular skill while I was teaching the kids…I concentrated more on their actual handwriting and making sure they kept up the penmanship as they both have beautiful penmanship. So I was glad to see them embrace the writing assignments this year, though difficult, and do really well on them.  Both children got 100% on their final writing projects which count as their final exams.  I was a pretty proud Mama.

Probably the biggest change coming up for us is going to be a dietary change.  I’ve been researching wheat and its effects on our diet and our health.  I have several health issues including diabetes and high blood pressure.  For quite some time I have had full body joint pain and headaches.  As I researched wheat and read testimonials of people who have eliminated it from their diets, people just like me were testifying that the same symptoms I’m struggling with were disappearing within weeks of eliminating wheat from their diets.  Some lost high numbers in pounds, others went off all medications pertaining to diabetes and high blood pressure.  Well…that was enough for me to really want to go for it.  I’m tired of not having energy and feeling crummy most of the time.  And I HATE doing insulin shots…four a day people! I also have to stick my fingers four times a day to check my blood sugar.  I’d do almost anything not to have to do that anymore! My mom gave me a copy of the book “Wheat Belly” and I’m furiously reading it and getting ready to purge my house of all things wheat.  I’ve already collected some recipes, and I’m looking forward to planning my first menu and doing our first wheat free grocery shop! I’m hoping this blog will evolve into one where I can share some great new recipes and meal plans and how the elimination of wheat (possibly dairy and sugar as well) are going for our family.  We’re all on board and excited to get started.

As always, August is a tough month for me.  This one has been more difficult than past years as this one holds a couple big milestones for us.  Madison would have graduated with the class of 2014, and she would have turned 18.  To honor those milestones we took some special photos in the cemetery.  We borrowed a friend’s lovely white cap/gown to do our special photo shoot, and it was just between my husband and me.  I will make copies to hang in our home…but it was really just for my Mama’s heart and the fact that I’ll never have a senior picture of her to hang here.  It was a very emotional time for me, but we were able to capture exactly what I wanted and I’m very pleased with the results.  I’ll share one with you…I could not keep my composure, so the emotion is written all over my face, but I love this shot and how the sun was shining on the beautiful gown hanging in her tree. I nearly fell to my knees when my husband hung it there because it was just so extraordinarily beautiful. Here it is…

Ok…one more…this is the beautiful blanket she was wrapped in when she was born.  The hospital let us keep anything that touched her, so this is one of my most precious possessions…

I have recently been in contact with one of the nurses that was with me when I delivered Madison.  She is arranging for me to go visit the room where I had her.  I’ve never been back and I’m certain it will be an emotional visit, but I’m so grateful for this opportunity to be in that room where I met her and held her for the most precious hours of my life.  I’ll keep you posted.

Hopefully I’ll have time to post more often as our family gets back into a routine soon, and life is lived out in our home for the glory of God!

Spring Has Sprung…

I don’t know about you, but I was SO ready for spring this year.  We had one of the worst winters imaginable, and it seemed to go on FOREVER. Finally spring seems to be here.  Soon my lilacs will be blooming, the lawns will need to be cut again, and warmer weather will be here.  I can’t wait!

Life gets a bit busy in the spring.  The kids are in the final weeks of school and are preparing final papers and getting ready to take final exams.  This will be the first year in a LONG time that we get to take a whole summer vacation.  Since the kids are participating in the virtual academy this year, I don’t have to catch up on anything over the summer! WOOHOO! They have gotten great grades this year and have worked hard.  It took some getting used to for me to just be a supervisor, but I was still able to weigh in on some brainstorming for essays and helping with subjects that were difficult.  I actually wish we had done this sooner.  I love that I can still have the kids home, but I’m grateful that the burden of teaching is off of me.

A few weeks ago we went on a mini spring break to one of our favorite places on earth.  While we were there we broke out our new camera and took a little family photo shoot.  We got some fun shots, and I thought I’d share them here.  Morgan took a couple with her camera as well.  She took a photography class this year, and really enjoyed it.  She is becoming quite the little photographer!

Let’s look at some pictures! My darling Lovies!

My man and his silly kids in the background…

My Love and I strolling along the river (Morgan took these!) Her photo shoots always include a kissing shot, and she says things like, “That’s great! Keep it going! How about another one!” So funny…

               

Another shot of my precious children…

One of my favorites….I love him!

A pretty pine cone…

My Lovies again…

            

And a family shot taken on Morgan’s camera with the timer…Parker is leaning over.  He is really over 6’ tall now, and has passed his dad up!

One more of my Love and I…

Lots going on in the next few weeks, so hopefully I’ll get a chance soon to post! Hope you all have a wonderful spring/summer!

Last Lazy Days of Summer…

It is August, and we are soaking up the last weeks/days of summer.  As usual, this one has flown by! We packed a lot into this summer, and made some great family memories.

Here is a small picture recap of our summer…

My Beloved and I celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary and got to have dinner at a local restaurant we’ve always wanted to try…                                         

      We went on vacation to our favorite place on earth…

Went to our favorite amusement park with two fun new cousins…

We got to see Mr. & Mrs. Kirby together for the first time…such a great couple!

We took our school pictures on the beach and pier…

We got a family picture taken by our favorite marina…

Our beloved AZ cousins came to stay with us for a couple days…

We had lots of fun on the lake…

We saw relaxing sunsets…

We visited a chocolate factory, and celebrated Oma’s 80th birthday…

          

We had a cousin photo shoot…

We went out for midnight milkshakes to ring in Charlie’s birthday…

And then had a super sleepover with the cousins…

The Four Musketeers were together one last time…

We had a family reunion…where we enjoyed great food…

And took a big family picture…

That’s our summer in pictures! We only have a few weeks left before our new school adventure, so we’re soaking in as much as we can.  We’ll enjoy ourselves right through Labor Day weekend, then it’s back to the books!

I hope you have enjoyed your summer as much as we have!

What’s New?

It’s been a while since I have posted, so I thought I’d pop in and let you know what is up with us.  Things have been crazy busy for us, so not much blogging time!

My husband is doing better, but we are still having issues with getting his blood regulated.  He will have a CT scan this week to make sure there are no blood clots hiding in his body, and then he will have a follow up visit with his vascular surgeon.  Hopefully, he’ll get good reports from both.

We are wrapping up our school year.  We’ll be doing math throughout the summer, but everything else is nearly done for the year.  We’ll be doing something different in the fall, but I will wait to share those details until a bit later.  The kids are excited about it, and I am too…so that is all that matters.

We are still watching our little Baby Bird and Gray man.  My daughter loves to snap pictures of them every chance she gets, and then I get to do the fun part of editing the pictures.  For some reason, I just can’t leave a picture alone.  I just have to tweak it in some little way.  It’s so much fun.  Here are a few of our recent pics of the little darlings…

One with my husband…she took a liking to him right away…

This little darling has some seriously beautiful eyes…

One with me…

While she was sleeping…

She ADORES my son…

Gray man…

We love having the kids here…they are so sweet.

This weekend I took on the project of painting our front door.  It was in dire need of a makeover.  The white paint was peeling, and it looked awful.  I covered it up during the winter months by having Morgan create a LARGE piece of artwork to hang on it.  Now that it is warming up, I decided it was time to paint.  We went with a deep burgundy color called “red red wine”.  We have painted two coats, and it already looks lovely…  Here is a before, and 2 coat picture…we’ll probably need another couple coats, and I’ll paint our back door as well.  We have plenty of paint left!

                  

We had a little incident with our neighbor kids this morning.  They were throwing rocks at our house.  I went outside in all of my painting outfit bed head glory, and asked them to stop doing that.  I asked them to help me pick up all of the rocks and put them back in their flower bed, so they didn’t get run over by our mower. An adult came outside and asked me if they were behaving, so I told her they were throwing rocks.  She made them apologize and go straight in the house to bed .  I felt bad for getting them in trouble, but I really don’t want rocks thrown at my house. 

Later this afternoon I heard a knock at the door, and it was my neighbor Stephanie.  I had never gotten a chance to meet her.  She had her boys with her, and they all apologized again.  Then they presented me with two large beautiful violet plants.  I’m not sure what they are, but the color is so pretty.  I have one for each side of my door on my porch.  I almost cried, because I have never had anything so pretty on my porch.  They accent the new door color, and look lovely right next to my little lilac bush that has finally bloomed this year…Aren’t they beautiful???

Here is my little lilac bush.  I’m not going to cut any flowers this year, because there aren’t very many.  I’m going to my mom’s for Mother’s Day tomorrow, and she has several lilac bushes in full bloom.  I’ll cut some of her lilacs to bring home for my table.   Pay no attention to the big green tendril that is reaching for my lilacs.  I have hated that bush since the day we moved in.  That bad boy’s days are numbered.  It will be out of here as soon as I can hire someone to chop it down.

And just one shot of the lovely tree in our front yard…

Well, super long post, but that is it for us right now.  Happy Mother’s Day to all of my mommy friends! I hope you all have a great weekend.  Be back soon as we move into summer vacation! WOOHOO!

One Month Ago Today…

On January 28th, around 10:30am, I got a call from my husband.  I sincerely thought from the tone of his voice that he had lost his job.  That was not the case.  Andy said he was having severe, sharp pains in his lower right abdomen.  It came on suddenly while in a meeting, and felt as if someone stabbed him with a 4-inch knife.

Andy works in the city.  It is a city that I won’t even drive to unless I HAVE to.  He works in a pretty unsafe part of it, so I’m always a bit worried about him.  He talked about going to a hospital just a few doors down from his office, so I KNEW the pain was REALLY bad.  I told him that there was no way he was going to that hospital…what if they admitted him?  The kids and I would have to drive there to see him, and that wouldn’t be good.  I offered to get someone to come with me, and bring him home myself.  That was our plan when we hung up.  Andy called me back a few minutes later, said he couldn’t wait, and he was driving home then. :(

God protected him, and brought him home safely.  When he arrived, I was outside to meet him.  His face was a gray color, and I had to help him into the house.  I lay him on our bed, and started palpating his abdomen.  I was looking to see if the pain was surface, or deep.  It was deep.  Here is where I should have called 911.  He would have been seen immediately at the hospital.  Instead, I drove him, and we waited for 30-45 minutes in the waiting room :(

Once seen, things moved very quickly.  Tests were ordered, blood was drawn.  A few hours after we got there, Andy got sick to his stomach.  Some of the worst wretching I have ever heard.  I thought he was going to throw up his lung or something.  He spiked a fever, and his WBC count started to go up signifying an infection.  Doctors suspected appendicitis, but he had more symptoms.

They admitted Andy to observation, and there we remained for the next two days while they did tests to try and figure out what was wrong with Andy.  On the second night, a CT scan with dye was ordered, and we found the culprit.  Andy had suffered a kidney infarction, or “heart attack of the kidney” as the kidney specialist explained it to us.  It killed 2/3 of the tissue in Andy’s right kidney.

The next 10 days were spent doing tests to figure out where the infarct started from, why it happened, and treating the damage it did to Andy’s body.  He suffered extreme fatigue, relentless fevers, severe pain requiring many doses of dilaudid, and headaches.  Several specialists were called in. He saw a urologist, kidney specialist, infectious disease doctor, a hematologist, a cardiologist, and a vascular surgeon.  The last doctor told us that if this had happened in Andy’s heart, brain, main aorta, or carotid artery it would have killed him.  It is very rare to happen in the kidney, but this time it did. Thanks be to God!

Andy was put on coumadin, which is a blood thinner, and had to remain in the hospital until it was at a therapeutic level.  He has it checked every week, and they lower/raise the dose based on the blood work results.

After 10 days inpatient, Andy was released, and came home to recover.  He was released on February 6th, and is still home 2 weeks later.  He has just this week started to be up most of the day.  Up until then, he was still extremely tired and fighting fevers, so he spent most days in bed.  He is seeing his doctor tomorrow, and is hoping to return to work on Monday.

What a month! Andy will remain on the coumadin for 6 months.  If he makes it through that time with no more incidents, he can go off of it.  If there are anymore incidents, and he lives through them, he will be on the medication for life. 

Phew! Please pray for Andy, that God will continue to restore him to health, and protect his body from anymore infarctions.  Please pray for me…I’m a nervous WRECK about him going back to work on Monday.  He is 45-60  minutes away, and that is causing me great worry.  He’ll have to change his job a little (no more lifting, or working with sharp objects).  We have to watch every little scrape, cut, bruise, bump, wall, whatever.  It may look like nothing, but Andy could bleed internally. Our ENT doctor even told us that he would be treated in her office as an emergency if he gets a nosebleed.  She’s worked with coumadin patients, and would know what to do.  That was comforting…

Here’s my boy when he started to feel a bit better…

One of my favorites with his sweet girl…she was so worried about him…

  
And another…

Getting ready to leave the hospital…

Walking out with my man…a bit blurry, but I love this picture…

Morgan took this last one.  He was smiling because he saw the van pulling up to the door, and was so glad to be going HOME!

I’ll keep you posted, but for now we are on the road to recovery, and I almost have my boy back to his normal self. Praise God for that!