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Today our oldest turns nine! She was born on Thanksgiving day in 2003 in a hospital in Batesville, Arkansas after roughly 24 hours of labor (12 in the hospital) and 30 minutes of pushing. She weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long with a head full of dark hair. She was identical to my newborn pictures. The Lord has used her in mighty ways in Robert and I's lives. A constant reminder of our need of grace as the first born and guinea pig. And bless her heart for her sweet disposition and compassionate heart that is straight from the Lord. Her middle name, Eleora, means "God is my light", which is our prayer for her life. She is in the third grade and is one of Deakin's favorite people. She loves to cook. Every Sunday morning she makes Jiffy corn muffins for breakfast all by herself! She enjoys reading very much! Daddy bought her the Narnia series for her birthday and she is attacking The Magician's Nephew right now. In other news and random family stories: Cal is currently very passionate about being "tough". If I say he's funny, cute, handsome, sweet, basically anything besides tough, I get an ear full! "I'm not _____, I'm tough!" Which I usually say, "Yes, ofcourse you're tough, but you can be (sweet, handsome, cute) AND tough at the same time!" So the other day he asked to see my thumb. The left one. My right one is healing nicely from the violent smashing but I cut my left one with a knife a week before Thanksgiving. So he asked to see my left thumb. When I showed him he said, "Awe.... that hurts, huh? Did you cry when you cut it?" I said, "No." And he responds, "Yeah! You're tough and pretty!" And gave me a hug. Day made. Bryse got her ears pierced while we were in Springfield, MO. So here is a picture of that. She's only been begging for a couple of years! She said, "Ow." on both sides but that was it! The other day while playing outside and racing with her brother and sister she tripped and plowed face first through the grass. Leaving dirt and leaves up her nose, a swollen lip and nose. But she bounced back quickly. Deakin is running everywhere while, strangely enough, windmilling his right arm. Seems he can run faster if that arms is rotating in large circles. He started saying, "Boo!". He has been in a bit of a mood lately with teething molars and some other things. So he is either really fun or really not fun.
And hopefully I will have lots of pictures of our double birthday party on Saturday. Pray for us with that! Gonna be a full house and lots of kids. Things get crazy when all the friends your kids have also have 2-3 siblings to come along too. ; ) Can't complain, we are one of those families too, so the more the merrier! We got back from our trip at 4pm today. Unloaded the van, put away a lot of things, but not all. Then we ran through Arby's and went to the local Christmas parade at 5:30. Which was FREEZING! We left right after with both girls running because they were scared another moment out in the weather and their toes would break off! Loaded kids back into the van, chairs, double jogging stroller and then realized I couldn't find my cellphone. Wandered around the van looking for several minutes and finally walked back up the sidewalk and found it a ways back (praise God, even though it's in a black case). We still need to go grocery shopping and finish unpacking. It's times like these that I sit back and praise God for carrying us through another day and want to pull my hair out at the people that tell me I "make it look easy". Forget how it looks from the outside and HELP ME!!! Ha! Truly though.
We are pressed but not crushed, by the grace of God. And this month will be tough because next Saturday is the double birthday party and then Christmas all without Daddy present. Been a little more emotional today. Counting my blessings this Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for all the hardships that weaken me so that I will lean on Him who is more strong. I'm thankful for a deployment that leaves me running to the cross to remind myself that my security is in Christ's atonement for me and not in how well I do everything else. Thankful for when I snap at the kids and the Lord uses it to convict me and draw me to repentance. Thankful for a calling to homeschool even though I would not choose it because there is no doubt that it's from selfish ambition. Thankful for a loving God who loved us so much that He took our son Home early so that He could sanctify us in a new way. Thankful for a sleepless baby boy who struggles with unknown food allergies because it is a constant reminder that HIS grace is sufficient. And I will be His annoying daughter that keeps asking for help. This too shall pass but meanwhile I will be thankful for the trials because my God is so great that He uses even the bad. After things simmer down I will get back into posting more. : ) GOD BLESS!! He is so good!! But meanwhile, this... this... this... this: http://www.thevillagechurch.net/the-village-blog/erasing-anxiety/ Look what I got to do this morning! For about twenty whole minutes they cuddled with me watching a video on line. Here is what they watched (a few times in a row), followed by a few other animated videos about the gospel: We are finally getting back into a good routine with school after many interruptions a couple weeks back. Deakin is pushing up two molars. I have been asked to lead a short bible study for the women at church on Saturday. Bryse is healing very nicely and has a doctor appointment back in Kansas City on Monday morning. We are headed to Springfield for a few days after that appointment and then on to Pea Ridge for Thanksgiving. Hoping to be back in Kansas the day after Thanksgiving (maybe) and then on December 1st we are having a joint birthday party for Darby's 9th and Cal's 4th! After that we will mail out Christmas presents to Texas family and then things should calm down nicely. : ) I've already finished all Birthday and Christmas shopping. Well, there is a quick update and here is a lovely quote that I found very encouraging.
"We must say to ourselves something like this: “Well, when Jesus looked down from the cross, he didn’t think, ‘I am giving myself to you because you are so attractive to me.’ No, he was in agony, and he looked down at us—denying him, abandoning him, and betraying him—and in the greatest act of love in history, he stayed. He said, ‘Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.’ He loved us, not because we were lovely to him, but to make us lovely. That is why I am going to love my spouse."” Tim Keller Here's a recent picture of Robert! He traveled a couple times last week and sent this today of where ever it was he traveled.
I also heard (from what I consider to be a reliable source) that mail stops on the first of December. So if you want to get your soldier anything for Christmas then you have to have it mailed by November 15th! So me and the kids are kicking it into gear in order to get him some treats for Christmas. So if you wanted to try and get something in the mail for him for Christmas, do it soon! In our last package (for his birthday) I tried homemade goodies again. I did puppy chow and it made it fine without getting stale. Also I tried sending a frozen loaf of banana bread. I wrapped it in a gallon ziplock bag, and then a towel, and then an old reusable freezer bag. It took longer than usual for it to get there, 10 days. He said that banana bread looked good and was still cold! He hasn't tried it yet because he says the puppy chow is the greatest thing he's tasted in forever so he can't put it down! We will have to make some more of that. I will also try some peanut butter truffles that he likes and maybe some other frozen baked goods. We will see. In preperation for Bryse's surgery we had a short, kid-friendly book to read on line telling us what to expect. I read it by myself first and cried when it got to the part where the child said goodbye to mommy and walked away with the strange nurse into the OR. Our favorite thing about the book was that we found out that Bryse could take her favorite stuffed animal or blankie with her. Well, puppy is hands down her favorite, hence her full name: Puppy Chow My Favorite (puppy is a girl, as I am so often reminded of). So that made both her and I feel better. But I wanted to go back there too! So I started thinking... Whenever we send daddy a box of goodies and colored pictures we include a picture that says Sealed With a Kiss and we all put some bright red lipstick on and kiss it and put it in the box last. That way it feels like we all sent him a kiss. (Btw, even Cal does this, even though every single time he says "NO!". But somehow at the last minute he just has to send daddy a kiss and puts that lipstick on!) So thinking on this problem I came up with the idea of sewing a mama kiss on Puppy to go with Bryse in the OR. She picked a fabric, I painted my lips with read tempera paint and kissed the fabric, we cut it out like a heart, and sewed it onto Puppy's back right where Bryse told me to. By the way, the injury up by her left ear is from the time that Bryse decided that Puppy had lost too much weight and needed more stuffing. I helped Bryse very little on that project! I just ripped the seam and she did the rest, stuffing her and sewing her back up all by herself.
And, on a side note, today is Robert's 32nd birthday! Happy Birthday, My Man!!! Love you and miss you. |
LindseyI'm the mama and wife. Updating you on our life! Archives
January 2022
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