Our Monday Evening

Last night was a fun night in our household. We did nothing, but stay at the house...Jadon and Daddy mowed the yard...Haven and I played in the memorial garden, cleaning it out and looking for roly polys...Jude sat in his bumbo seat for the first time. The kids were all in a great mood, which when you have a 2 year old and a 3 year old that doesn't always happen. We did absolutely nothing yet there are so many things I want to remember about last night.

Daddy and Jadon mowing the yard. I think Todd may enjoy mowing the yard with Jadon more than Jadon enjoys being with Todd.

Haven looking for her roly-polys. She cracks me up, she is so scared of any bug, spider, crawling/flying thing, but she loves roly-polys. Every day she asks to go look for roly-polys. She's into the catch and release program too. She will catch them carry them around for a little while and then puts them back where she found them. Then she tells them, "Go make babies, o-hay daddy hohe pohe, o-hay, o-hay daddy hohe pohe." She will say okay several times like she expects for the roly-poly to look up at her and say okay back. And where she got the go make babies and telling the daddy roly-poly.

I love this picture because it shows her shoes being on the wrong feet. I didn't notice that until I was looking through the pictures. Thankfully, I wasn't the one who put them on her feet because I have done that to Jadon before, oops.

Admiring the roly-poly she just found.
Jude in his bumbo seat. Todd and I always thought Jadon and Haven were happy babies, but Jude he's like no other. This little guy will smile at anything.

At the end of the evening when the kids are getting ready for bed this is where I found Jadon. Love the expression on his face!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my sweet husband!

Thank you for leading our home in the ways of the Lord. Thank you for getting up with me in the middle of the night when our kids need someone. Thank you for working so hard to support your family. Thank you for being a romantic husband. Thank you for taking Jadon every Saturday to breakfast, just the 2 of you. Thank you for making Haven the Princess. Thank you for laying in the floor laughing and playing with Jude. Thank you for loving God first and your family second. You are the greatest, most loving father/husband.

Love,
Your Wife
Jadon, Haven & Jude

All I Can Say Is Wow!

I was amazed when I read this about Baby Macie. I always get a little excited and emotional when I see things like this. When God allows doctors to perform these miracles it closes the door even more for people to argue that an unborn baby is not a baby.

We Love...

The people in our new church. We've been there almost 2 months and we have already come to adore the people of Glidewell. They are some of the most sweet and encouraging people we've met. They have taken us in so warmly and love on us. It's the type of church that when services are over people just hang out.

Last Sunday we had an old fashion baptism at the river complete with carriage rides, canoe rides, horse shoe pitching and a picnic. It was a great chance to hang out with the people and the kids loved playing in the river. I think they would have stayed there all night throwing rocks into the water. It really became fun when they realized they could go into the water to get rocks to throw. Because obviously there were not enough rocks on the rock bank they were standing on. Jadon kept "falling" in the water. Little did they know mommy had expected they would want to get in the water so she planned for that very thing. I didn't let on to them though. Haven had a blast playing with her new friends Jeremiah (or Jer-Mi as she calls him) and Mason.

We are enjoying our time with the youth. They are an incredible group of young people. Most of our youth continues to be Jr. High, which makes for interesting times. We just had our version of what Springhill used to call Muckfest. We had a great time of getting super messy and ended with Todd inviting them to all go to the sanctuary for worship. It took a couple of minutes for someone to realize that we probably shouldn't go into the sanctuary all messy. Todd then asked how many of them ever thought about their sin before entering for worship. Does anyone go before the Lord prior to worshipping Him and confess their dirtiness to Him. I have to admit there are times I don't.

A group picture of our youth after the food fight.

Cookies and Chips

What do these two things have in common? Other than the fact that they are both edible and start with "c" they are the 2 things Haven wanted for her birthday party. When asked what kind of birthday she would like to have her response was cookie. Okay, is there any thing else you would like? Her response - chips. So, we had a cookie and chips birthday and I took the liberty to add sandwiches which I think was okay with her.

We had Haven's birthday party on Saturday and other than starting the party off with her dumping all my foundation in the floor of my bathroom and having to go to time out we had a great party. She was so cute opening her presents. Every time she opened one she would tilt her head and say ooohhh. She was such a little girl. Jadon, of course, stood close by just in case she needed help in opening her presents.

This was also the first time that Jadon went and picked out a present from him to give to her. He got to decide on his own what he wanted to give her and then he took it home and wrapped it all by himself. He was so proud for Sissy to open his present for her. That night before bed Haven asked to sleep with the present "Bubby got her".

Haven with her Birthday Girl tiarra on.

See her pretty slippers? She absolutely loves them and wants to wear them all the time.

This is how she likes to wear her princess hat. If you turn it around she puts it right back like this. Who put the princess hat on Jude?!The sand box Nana & Papa got her. The first time Haven came in the house after playing in the sand box, took her shoes off and dumped the sand out of her shoe in my floor I suddenly realized why they hadn't had a sand box before this. Oh well, her enjoyment or my floor?

The car that Mema & Pappy got her. Jadon was nice enough to open and shut her door for her. A gentlemen just like his daddy.

Praise The Lord

We have an awesome praise in our household. I just have to say that God is so good and His goodness is not contingent on whether He answers our prayers the way we want. So, even if He had not done this incredible thing in our lives we would still think He is good. I just wanted to make that statement before I went on to the answered prayer.

Some people know about Jude and his genetic condition. For those that don't we found out when Jude was about 8 weeks old that he has a genetic condition where his body lacks the full enzyme to break down a sugar in lactose called galactose. Thankfully Jude did have part of the enzyme, there are babies that do not have any of the enzyme at all and these babies can have serious problems. With Jude we were looking at problems with his liver and/or kidneys and/or possible cataracts. The problems would arise if he continued to have high levels of the galactose in his body, because high amounts of galactose turns in to an alcohol, which is what could cause the problems.

In a normal person the level of galactose is below 1 in the body. When we first did blood work to check Jude's levels he was at 18.5. Which is very high, I had to supplement him with a couple of soy formula feedings a day. That in itself was very hard for me, I love to breastfeed and did not want to give that up even for a couple of feedings a day. After 2 weeks we went back and took some more blood and his levels had gone down to 6.8. Good, but still not great. So, 2 weeks ago we had our appointment with a geneticist and did some more blood work. I have to say that after our appointment and being able to hear what he had to say Todd and I felt much better about the whole situation. We did find out that in most cases like Jude's after they turn 1 we wouldn't have to do a special diet or anything. He turns 1 and it's like it's gone, so, it's until then that we will watch his levels to hopefully prevent any damage to his liver or kidney or causing cataracts. This news was very exciting to us and would have been the answer to our prayers. But God is bigger and better than anything we could ever ask. While we thought God was done and answered us God was doing even more.

We got the results back Friday from Jude's latest blood tests and his levels were at .8. Okay, let me just rejoice in the Lord and go through this again. We started off with Jude's levels being at 18.5, we did 2 bottles a day with soy I continued to breastfeed the other feedings...we did blood work again after 2 weeks they went down to 6.8, I didn't change anything in the way of feedings...we went back 3 weeks later and did more blood work and now his levels are at .8, a normal person with the full enzyme is below 1. Only God can do this! When the geneticist called me she was amazed, I was on the other end smiling and rejoicing. We don't have to have anymore appointments where they have to try to take blood from his tiny little veins and I want to cry because it breaks my heart watching them search for a vein...Jude will not have to be put on a lactose free diet...we've been given a victory.

I want to end with saying again how good our God is and we are so undeserving of His kindness. The night before the appointment with the geneticists Todd and I prayed that God would do something, what we didn't know, but that He would just take care of Jude. People He did better than just take care of Jude.

I Think It's Time

Since Jude was born he's been sleeping in the cradle that Pappy made for our kids when we were pregnant with Karis. He's made cradles for each of his kid's families and they are absolutely beautiful. He definitely has a gift for wood working.

Because of our children being close in age and still having the need for one to have the crib we try to stretch out the stay in the cradle. Well, yesterday morning I went to get Jude up from his nap and I found him asleep on his side with his arms hanging out the side and sucking on the bars. There's been times I've found him with both legs and arms hanging out of the cradle. I think it is about time for us to transition Haven to a big girl bed so Jude can have the crib. You might pray for us in this transition time. There may be some sleepless nights ahead as Haven learns she can freely get out of bed at any time.

On another note Haven had her first, that we know of, nightmare. We heard her crying in the middle of the night last night so Todd went to check on her. When he got in there he found her still asleep holding onto her bed and she was crying and kicking. Todd had to wake her up to get her to stop crying. When asked if she was having a bad dream she said bees were chasing her. Poor little girl, that would scare me too. This morning she told me that bees were chasing her and flys were chasing bubby. Daddy will have to take care of all the bees and flys tonight before she goes to bed.