Welcome Home

It has been a long road. One that has had many hills and valleys. It has been a road that I have contemplated whether or not I wanted to stay on it. I (we) had been on that road 14 months and 14 days....we decided to take another road.

It wasn't an easy decision. We had prayed about it, talked about it, even made a pros/cons list. We have toiled with this decision for months now, but when it was time to make a decision, the pros out weighed the cons.

We would like to introduce the newest member of our family........Romeo
Romeo is 19 months old. His original owners both lost their jobs and couldn't keep him. They gave him to a shelter and he contracted Kennel Cough which turned into pneumonia. They were going to put him down, but Dr Steep a vet in Oxford Michigan asked if he could have him. The original owner's sister worked for him and told him what was going on. The Shelter agreed and that is where Romeo spent the next 2 1/2 months of his life being nursed back to health. During that time Romeo was also neutered and updated on all his vaccines.

Dr. Steep and his staff have been patiently waiting for the right family to come along and adopt him. They have had several families interested in him, but none of them were the "right family" per Dr. Steep. Then we came along.

We had put an application in with Rottie Rescue about a month ago. We figured that if we were to have another dog, that God would have to give one too us. We had talked at length about buying a puppy, but we didn't want to spend the money and really didn't want to go through all of the potty training.

Yesterday we received a phone call from Dr. Steep's office. They said that they thought we might be a great family for Romeo. They asked if we could come to see him.

Kevin had just come home from work and we looked at each other and said, we have the time, lets go meet him and see if he is a dog we might be interested in.

When we first arrived they put us in a room and then left to get Dr. Steep. He came in and met us and told us all of Romeo's history. He also told us that he knows two of the vets we saw with our other dogs. When we put our application in we had to call our vet and release confidentiality so that the rescue could talk to our vets to find out if we were good pet owners or not :-)I guess it doesn't hurt when we owned three rotties (at the same time) and all three were VERY nice. We were kind of hard to forget!

After a few minutes the Dr. told us that he would have Rachael bring him in to see what we thought. We heard him coming before we saw him.

The door opened and we all just looked at each other. The first thing I thougtht was that he could be Simba's brother. He looked so much like Simba it was almost weird..just a smaller version of him. We were left alone with him to play with him and "test" him. The vet and his employee's couldn't say enough good things about him. Dr. Steep even said that his wife had said that they should get rid of one of their other dogs and take Romeo instead.

After about an hour and a half in this little room with Romeo, Kevin and I decided that it was time to bring a dog back into our home. All the employees came in to say their goodbye's. They were crying and hugging him. Which of course I got all choked up. Jilli was very upset that they were all upset. It was an emotional time for all of us.

So I know you are all wondering WHY we would choose to bring another dog in our home. Well, we really missed the companionship. Our house was cleaner...yes, but so much more lonelier. Kevin missed having someone to lick his face in the mornings (sorry, I was NOT going to do that). Our children missed having a dog. Especially Jilli. I didn't realize that until we had Tiki a few weeks ago. We feel that it is a good way to teach responsibility to our children. It is great for their immunities especially since our children are not in school. I really wanted a running partner that wouldn't complain that we were going too fast/slow it was too cold/warm and honestly a running partner that looks scary. We truly missed having a dog these past months.

I will admit that I am not looking forward to the dog hair and all the extra cleaning. We thought a lot about our family that is allergic to dogs and how it has been nice not having to worry about the dog when they are here. We know we will not be able to just up and leave for 2 weeks at a time with no cares. We walked into this knowing full well, what we were doing (unlike when we brought Simba home almost 12 years ago).

I feel that God answered my prayers about getting another dog and whether or not we should.. When I was praying about a dog, I prayed that he would be free....I didn't expect that everything that I had thought we would have to pay for would be free as well. Like having to neuter the dog and update all his vaccines. Dr. Steep even gave us a years worth of heartworm meds for free!

So to those of you that asked when we were going to get another dog.....I guess the answer is....yesterday. Blessings!

Kevin as a Teenager

This picture was sent to me today (I am not going to release my source) and I wanted to share it with the rest of you. I think Kevin is 18yrs old in this ...maybe he can give me more info about the picture later....HaHa! Can you pick him out???

He thought he was such a stud!

(I didn't come into his life for about another 1 1/2 yrs)

He is going to LOVE that I posted this!!

Our Week is Done!

I figured that I needed to update the blog since I haven't posted since Wednesday.


We are finally on the road back to health, which we are so thankful for. I am praying that we make it a week without anyone else getting sick (which pretty much means me) and then I will consider us all completely better.

Tomorrow we need to get back into the swing of things.....which means, TV off, no wii or computer games and back to school stuff. It will be a hard adjustment for the students and the teacher.

Today we skipped church again. For obvious reasons and hung out here. Kevin and the kids went outside for awhile this afternoon. Kevin got the sledding run going again. It's been a hard winter for that since we get lots of snow and then it melts. Hopefully we will be able to keep the run up for awhile. He isn't icing it this year (too much work) so it will just have to get more icy as the kids continue to use it. I will have to go outside and take pictures so you can all see what it looks like ( I get cold just thinking of it Brrr.)

We played lots of games today. Micah is really becoming quite the checkers/chess player. Family Uno attack games are also a lot of fun. Our kids love to play games!



I was able to get caught up on our laundry (in 3 loads ladies!!! Love my new washing machine!!). Now normally, Sunday is not the day that I do any housework. Kev and I really believe in Sunday being our day of rest. But since we had been sick I needed to do all the laundry that got put aside for the "sick laundry". Jilli was a huge help. We would fold the laundry coming out of the dryer. She would run and put the easy stuff away that she folded (like washcloths and towels). Then I would tell her to empty the washer laundry into the dryer. I would have the next load of clothes in a basket so once the washer was empty she would put the next load in. By the time she got that all done, I had put all the clothes we just folded away. She loves to work along side of me....My little homemaker in the making.


At the close of the day Kevin made us all a wonderful little treat (it was my supper....shh...I am not yet in training for the Riverbank run). Can you tell what it is?? A root beer float. The root beer was half frozen from being in our garage (that's how cold it is here). We took all the pop in to warm up... especially the diet pop since last year we learned that diet pop freezes AND explodes at a much higher temp than regular pop (thanks to my cousin Richard and his Wife Jennifer for the scientific explanation of that.) Haha!

I am so thankful this week is now done. It was longer than I ever imagined a week could be. It pushed my limits in many different areas. I saw areas that I am strong and areas that I am weak and need to work on. God gave me strength when I was too tired to even think. He also gave me my Mom who I could call at 10pm and say "now what do I do Mom?" I usually knew the answers, but it always helps to have your Mom tell you what to do.

I am excited for this next week. We had to put off some plans from last week that I am anxious to do. I am attempting to be more of a home"maker" and my good friend Kaira is attempting to teach me how. So stay tuned for what "I" am going to make.

Blessings!

update

I will be calling the Dr in the morning....Micah started back up again and Jilli hasn't stopped....

Confessions of a tired Mom with sick babies

We are working on 48 hours since Micah and Jillian got sick. Thankfully Micah has stopped throwing up late yesterday afternoon. Jilli hasn't gotten to that point yet.

I am exhausted to say the least. I haven't slept in my bed for two nights. The first night I got maybe an hour of sleep between taking care of Micah and Jillian who were at that point, both getting sick every half hour. Then I took about an hour nap yesterday, but slept through a bout that Micah had and told myself that I couldn't fall asleep again, in case I was not awake to take care of my babies when they were throwing up.

Our TV has had more use in the last two days than it sees in weeks. It has been on almost 24/7. Horrible, but I am thankful that we have cable right now. There is a variety of shows that my kids can watch at any given time. I am even allowing Tyler to watch as much as he wishes.

Speaking of Tyler. Yesterday he ate cereal for breakfast and lunch, dinner he finally had about 8pm. Today he ate cereal for breakfast and is working on his lunch of crackers and chips. I just have no energy to do anything except keep the laundry going, and keeping the "throw up pots" clean. Which by the way, my new washer and dryer has been such a wonderful blessing! They have made being sick so much easier.

Last night Micah was able to sleep in his bed since he was no longer throwing up. I was upgraded to Micah's vacated spot and I got to sleep on the couch. Jilli slept on a makeshift bed on the floor. It was another long night, but I think I slept about 4 hours which was wonderful. This morning I woke up when Kevin came downstairs to get ready for work, but that was the last thing I remember until Micah was waking me up telling me Jilli needed help in the bathroom. Uhhh, sleeping so hard that I can't hear my daughter calling for me....that is so scary and frustrating! So again I have adopted the rule of no sleeping today.

I have yet to shower, again because I can't leave for fear of Jilli getting sick and me not being able to help her. Although I have brushed my teeth and washed my face....but those things can be done down here with both ears listening for cries of help. Oh and I am still in my jammies....just cuz they are comfy.

Kevin has been wonderful through all of this. Diarrhea and vomiting doesn't turn his stomach, so he is right in the trenches with me. The first night when both kids were sick he would run down here if he heard things getting "messy", just to help even though he needed his sleep to go to work. He doesn't mind that all I have been doing is taking care of the kids and laying around on the floor/couch. That I didn't make him supper last night or that I am still in my jammies with no make-up on when he arrives home at the end of the day. He is loving me through it all.

I hope that tonight I will be able to sleep in my own bed, and that all the kids will sleep through the night. Continuing to pray that Tyler and I don't come down with this and that we didn't pass this on to anyone unknowingly.

Blessings!

Sad Mommy...

Micah and Jilli are both sick. They started within an hour and a half of each other. Between the two of them Micah has is so much worse. Poor kid is at it every half hour. He told me that there was "no fun in throwing up Mommy". It breaks your heart to see your babies struggling. Micah wanted me to pray with him, he wanted Jesus to come and heal his tummy. I prayed for him and when I was done he said..."what about Jilli and "N" (the friend who was dx with diabetes), if God could heal him, why wasn't I praying for Jilli and "N" too? Duh, Mom...how could I forget!

As I type this it's 12:45am, Micah is awake and trying to be brave and Jilli is trying to make her demands even while sleeping (this only works when she is sick)...this part of motherhood is so hard! No one ever warned me that sick children would break your heart so much!

Sick Hubby :-(

Kevin woke up at 2am to violent vomiting and...... It was a long night for us. I believe that he got food poisoning from a quick stop he made to McDonalds on his way home from work yesterday. He spent most of today in bed. He is at least no longer vomiting, but feels really, really sick. Praying for his quick and speedy recovery cause it's no fun when Daddy doesn't feel good!

Blessings!

Our Visitor

We have had an unexpected visitor come over yesterday and he will stay with us until tomorrow (Lord willing). It has been kind of nice to hear the pitter-patter of little feet walking around again.




This morning Kevin came into our room to kiss me good-bye and asked me where Tiki was. I had no idea, where could the dog have gone? He is small, but to just disappear?? Then Kevin lifted the blankets up and to our surprise he was sleeping in the middle of the bed...halfway down completely covered by the (layers...if anyone knows Kevin) blankets.


The kids have been all over him. They can't seem to give him enough love (or should that be "leave him alone"??). It's amazing how much our kids miss having a dog... So why do we have this visitor?

Our good friend and neighbor's son, was very sick yesterday. To make a long story short, he was admitted into the ICU at Devos Children's Hospital. He was diagnosed with Diabetes. When he arrived at the hospital his Blood Sugar was over 1300. That might not mean much to many of you, but a normal person should have a BS of 70-150. "N" was in very serious condition. At one point yesterday, he couldn't walk, his eyes were rolling in the back of his head and he couldn't breath. Had his mother not taken him to the doctor, he could have died. We are praising God that he is now doing fine and Lord willing he'll be able to come home tomorrow. But as you can guess, life will never be the same.



He will now have to check his BS regularly, get insulin shots at least 4 times a day, completely change his eating habits, the list goes on. Please pray for "N" and his mom, pray that God gives them both strength. The road ahead of them is a long one with some difficult twists and turns.

I will leave you with two more pictures of Tiki. All he wanted was to be curled up next to Micah...it was very sweet.

Then Micah put his hat on him...



Blessings!
...don't forget to pray

We Made It To...

January 3, 2009 @ 10:01pm, when the flu erupted in Tyler's bed.


This has been a good year for us, not one cold as of yet and no flu....until Saturday night. Last year (2007), we started with the flu the first week of October and battled it the rest of winter. I am attributing our healthiness too two main reasons.
1. I have either kept the windows open a crack at night or I open them in the morning for about an hour. This helps get rid of stale air and brings in fresh healthy air.
2. I have been giving my children Vit D pills (crushed and sprinkled on cereal or homemade bread) every morning. They don't even know I do it.


Here is an article on Vit D...read it and be informed! http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller27.html
(in case you are wondering....I, after many years of getting the flu shot, have decided not to get one or have my children get one.)


Back to the flu thing. Thankfully so far it hasn't spread to the rest of the family, but the general rule is you are still contagious until you have gone 5 days without symptoms (which include diarrhea). I have a long 5 day wait, in hopes that no one else will come down with it.


In the mean time we are having fun watching our new washer and dryer. They were installed on Dec 31st and it has sure come in handy with all the laundry the flu generates. I am still wondering how the washer can clean so well without very much water or agitation.

Obviously these pictures are of Jilli, but imagine...if you will... a 30 something mother of three, doing the same thing the 3yr old is doing.....comical, good thing there are no pictures of that!!! Blessings!

New Year

The first day of the New Year, (also my Dad's Birthday).

How many of us look back to see where we were at the beginning of 2008 and where we ended? Take stock of where we would like to be at the end of 2009?

This has been a big year for me. I started things that I never thought that I would or could...like running. At the beginning of the year I couldn't even run (downhill) to the end of my street, without breathing so heavy that I had to stop to catch my breath. At my peak this year I could run 6 miles. I plan on going even further in 2009.

This past year has been a year of reflecting on my beliefs. What I believe and why I believe them. Just because it's tradition doesn't mean that it is Godly... Getting into my Bible and finding out what the Bible says about different situations. Having the courage to question God and except his answers.

Learning to let go of "things". God has been teaching me about what is most important in my life. Thinking about Abraham and how God told him to sacrifice his only son....HIS CHILD...and Abraham obeying him until God provided another way...how selfish and foolish of me to want and desire the things of this world and not be willing to give it all away for the sake of my Heavenly Father. When Abraham was willing to KILL his own child for God....I know I don't have that faith....but that is the kind of faith I am working towards.

Learning more and more what it means to be a homeschooling Mom. Loving my days with my children. Loving the role that I have in their life. Forever grateful to my husband for his support in this journey.

Taking a serious look at the health and safety of my family. Taking steps to ensure the health and safety of them for years to come.

Some other small but not any less significant changes. My oldest started losing his baby teeth (four to this date), all signs of the baby years has left the house. Tyty riding a two wheel bike. Becoming an aunt (by birth) for the first time. The boys discovering the wonderful world of swimming underwater. I could go on and on.

Looking ahead to this next year, kind of scares me. I know that my Father has everything in control. It is my job to listen to is voice and follow his plan for us. Some of the things I am feeling called to do is be a louder voice for Christ. To continue my journey on becoming more reliant on God and his provision. To use what God has blessed me with to it's fullest, not taking anything for granted.

Watching and waiting to see what God has for us in this next year... Will this be the year that He comes again??? Are we ready for His return??

Have a blessed New Year!