Packing.........

I am busy packing today. I will probably not post for a day or two, but hopefully will be back up and posting once we get to Tenn.

Please pray for a safe trip for us and my whole family. That we will all have a fun, enjoyable time. We are very excited to leave (I am very excited to be done packing) and can't wait until we arrive safe and sound in the beautiful state of Tenn.

It's Early

Sometimes life doesn't always happen the way you want it too, even with the little things.

It has been a stressful week, with trying to get unpacked from camping, and getting ready for our vacation in Tenn. I have been trying to make (and freeze) most of our food that we are bringing down, so that we don't have to buy that much while we are down there. Organize and pack for a family of 5 for 9 days isn't one of my strengths.

On top of that Kevin has been getting up at 4am every morning to be to work at 5am. I have been getting up at 6:20 everyday as well (which isn't that early, but for me it is) and now, the first morning that we can sleep in, I have had one little one who has waken me up 8 times last night and another one who woke up at 5am with bad dreams and wanting to sleep in our bed.

Jillian has been up 8 times crying and Tyler woke up very upset about a bad dream he had. Both landed in my bed, with a husband who hasn't had a good nights sleep in a week. Now Jilli is downstairs with me on the couch, because she keeps waking up crying, trying to say something, but I can't understand her. I keep praying over her trusting that whatever is bugging her, the Lord will intervene. I keep praying that the Lord will give me energy to sustain me through another busy day.

I just put her back in bed praying that she will sleep peacefully there and as I am walking out of her room Micah is getting up (it's 6:30am). I need to leave in a little while for an engagement session downtown....this is not how I planned my morning to go. I am now exhausted, wishing that I could still be in bed sleeping, but that is not what is going to happen. I hope and pray that Kev will at least get a little more sleep before he has to get up.

Maybe, just maybe, I will be able to close my eyes sometime today, for a quick nap....not counting on it though. I hope and pray that all of you have a wonderful day today.

Blessings!

Promised Post

Here it is....my first real post in over a week!

There is so much that I have to write about, but I will keep this simple today since I have so much to do and just tell you about my run on Fourth of July.

My brother Tim and his wife were here from Chicago and he said he would run the 5k race with me (here in Kentwood). He has never run in a race before, so this was his first. It was a beautiful morning for a run.

We started off running about a 8 minute mile. That is really fast for me, someone who usually is at a 10 min mile. He had no problem, he even stopped to tie his shoe and caught right back up with me....show off :-)

About half way through the race I started to get a side cramp, and had to slow down. Up until this point he had stayed with me....although he was running much slower than he could have. He kept going, then my shoe came untied! Not good.

I finished the race in about 32:53 minutes and he finished in about 28:51 minutes. GREAT JOB TIM! He could have gotten an even better time had he not run so slow with me, the first half of the race:-)

Our family was sitting near the finish line so Laurie snapped some pictures of us as we ran past. Tim, looked like he was out for a Sunday stroll, me on the other hand looked like I was about to die. I really need to work on the "running face", the relaxed, this is not painful, I don't feel like I am dying face.

So here is my studly brother....

Here is my picture.....be nice, this is keeping me humble by just posting it.

Here we are at the end. We look nothing alike do we....Blessings!

Real Quick

I will try and post tomorrow. I am busy trying to unpack from our week of camping and then pack for our 9 day vacation in Tenn!! It is all very overwhelming to me. To add to everything, Kevin has been having to be at work at 5AM!!!!!!! Which means he has to be out of the house at 4:30AM, it is brutal. So I am now trying to be a good wife and make his lunch the night before....so off to lunch making.

And because I hate posting without a picture, here is one from Fourth of July. Kevin is driving his Mustang in the Kentwood parade.

Blessings!

The Sassy

The sassy has been in our family for 6 years. It has become a family staple. Some of you probably have no idea what I am talking about.

6 years ago when Micah was born, he used a pacifier. We called it a paci, when he started to talk, he couldn't say the word paci, so he said sassy. That name has stuck through all three of our kids.

As of last night the sassy is no longer part of our family. Jilli turned three so she is now a big girl and big girls don't have sassies anymore..."but I'm not a big giwl, I'm baby Jiwwi". Ahhh, but she is a big girl and she doesn't need it anymore.

It is a bitter sweet goodbye for me. I loved the fact the it was great at helping Jilli fall asleep quickly and quietly. On the other hand it was a pain to keep track of and make sure I packed for all occasions. I had to pack more than one, because she liked to suck on one and hold the other one. Three would even be better. But alas, the sassy is gone from the mouths of our babes and again, it marks another chapter that is closing.

Good-bye sassy...

Chapter Closing

It's late, I am sitting in bed, the only noise is the fan and Kevin's soft breathing. I am thinking back, remembering. Remembering 3 years ago when I held a little baby girl in my arms for the first time. Looking at her amazed, she had 10 fingers and 10 toes. A beautiful head that was so perfectly round. A face that was so angelic, my Doctors told other Doctors to come and see this beautiful child. She was my perfect miracle.

I was told 6 weeks prior, that this perfect miracle might not be born...and if she was, she would be mentally handicapped, her head too small they said. Do you want to continue the pregnancy? I was asked...by law that has to be discussed. 6 weeks left. End this life? My Doctor knew my decision before I even said a word to him. This is the life God gave me, and I will carry it and love it until God decides to take it away.

More testing...now we are told that our perfect miracle was malformed. No hands the Specialist said. Feet are questionable. Head might be a little bigger than we thought...

More testing...

More testing...We see a beautiful hand waving at us on our ultrasound! Was the specialist mistaken? Could she have seen something that wasn't really there? She ran two scans on me just to make sure. Or...could it have been God answering the hundreds of prayers going up on our behalf? We believe in miracles.

July 8, 2005 at approximately 1:15pm. I delivered my beautiful perfect miracle. My Doctor just smiled...Perfect, he kept saying, Perfect... Kevin and I checked her over, she had all her parts (missing one, the boys thought). God's blessing on our family.

One week later in the Doctor's office. My Doctor looks at me and tells me that she truly is a miracle. I said that I knew, and he told me the other half of the story, the part that I didn't know.

4 months pregnant and I got the flu, for normal adults that is not much to be concerned with. For a pregnant women with diabetes, it is life threatening. My body could not hold anything down. Ketones were building in my body to dangerous levels. I called the Doctor. He told me that if we couldn't get my vomiting under control in one hour, I was going to the hospital and would be put into intensive care. Was I truly that bad?? Praise God, with medicine, my vomiting was now under control. I had to call the Doctor and report my blood sugar level and ketone levels every 30 minutes. I had to drink 8oz of Gatorade every 15min. My Doctor was so adamant that I follow what he said exactly. Why?? I did not know I had DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) a life threatening condition. My body was poisoning me and my baby.

My Doctor told me that 98% of diabetic mom's that have DKA lose their babies. Their bodies abort them. He was sure that I would be part of the 98%. God was cradling by baby in His hand. Protecting and loving it, when my body was poisoning it. It was not luck that I made the 2%, it was God's blessing and choosing.

God has great things planned for our Jilli, otherwise why would he have spared her, not once, not twice, but three times while in my womb. I am excited to see what those things are, but I want to hold tight to my baby, not letting her grow-up too fast.

She is three today...not a baby anymore...the baby chapter in my life is seemingly closing softly, a new chapter beckons me. I am sad to leave this chapter behind, it went too fast. My tears silently fall down my cheeks. I hear voices of sweet elderly people telling me, to cherish this time, it goes by too quickly. They are right. It went by too quickly...

changing out hard drives.....

Okay, I am now ready to swap hard drives out. It has been a week full of battles between my computer and external hard drive. I will save you the specifics, but lets just say I have a huge digital mess that needs to be cleaned up.

Now, I need to swap out hard drives, and reload ALL my software....this should take me a few hours. Then I have to load all my pictures back on (that should take...hours). After that I need to customize photoshop and then hopefully I should be fully functional again.

I have lots to write about....Jilli's Birthday party, Running a 5K with my brother, the parade Kevin drove in....all of these wonderful topics have wonderful pictures too, so I am hoping to get this swap done as quickly as possible, so that I don't leave my readers bored!

A special thanks to my brother Paul, who has been fielding my screams for help in regards to my computer and has very graciously spent time at the house and on the phone to help resolve my issues.

Here is one last picture before I say good bye to this hard drive....

Blessings!

Just a few more

I just had to post a few more of my Tyty and his smiling face.

Just looking at him makes me want to smile! These were all taken about 6 weeks ago while staying out at the cottage. I have about 600 pictures from this day, and have had a hard time picking and choosing my favorites. Got to love digital, could you imagine how much it would cost me if I had to print them all??? Especially when I am trying to capture Tyler at his truest moments...half the time I wind up with a picture of his butt he is moving so fast:-)

But the pictures of his smile are well worth the occasional butt shot!

Blessings!