Our Big News

Ok, before I share this big news with you, I must go back and share with you a piece of an earlier post. So just a warning, this is going to be long.

This is from Sept. 14, 2006:
On Tuesday, after preschool, I got a call from Emma's teacher. So I answer the phone, and I hear, "Dana, this is Missy". Of course, my heart skipped a beat because I was thinking, "oh no, she's been in school for a week, and the teacher's already calling me to tell me we have a problem". This is what she said, "I just wanted to let you know that we pray every day and Emma is praying for a baby sister. She's not just praying it, she's praying it with all her heart. It almost made me cry". It's all Emma talks about. We will be going through a store and she'll see something in the baby section and she will say, "can we get that for my baby sister?" I'll say, "Emma you don't have a baby sister." She'll say, "not yet". I haven't figured out how to explain this to her yet but here's the situation:

In May 2002, I had surgery to remove a cyst the size of a softball from my ovary. When they were doing the surgery, the doctors discovered that I had endometreosis growing pretty much everywhere. The doctor then told me that the chances of me having children was very slim. He recommended me taking a drug called Lupron and said that if I didn't do that, the chances were next to nothing. I remember getting home and lying in bed praying (lying in bed only because I was too sore from surgery to hit my knees) "God, all I've ever wanted to do is be a mother. If it is in your will for me to adopt, I can do that. I know I can love any child but, I really long to know how it feels to carry and nurse my child. If you will only give me one, that's all I ask for". So, to make a very long story just a little bit shorter, After a lot of prayer and counsel from some Godly women, we decided not to do the Lupron. It had some harsh side effects, was very expensive, and I was very concerned about the long term effects of putting something that strong into my body. I started looking into natural ways to control the endometreosis and in October 2002 became pregnant with Emma.

So anyway, I tell her every day that I know God must love me a lot because he gave me her and her daddy. But, I don't think that she's quite old enough to understand the miracle that she really is. And, that I'm sticking to my deal. If God decides to bless us with another child, wonderful! But, I'm satisfied with my one. But, she's praying hard. And, the faith of a child.... I guess we'll see. But, I did attempt to explain a few things to her and this is how it went:

Me: Emma if God decides to give us another baby, He will also decide whether that baby is a boy or girl.
Emma: Then we can have twins and the boy can live with someone who wants a baby brother
Me: No, if we had twins, both of them would live with us.
Emma: Lots of crying with real tears.
Oh goodness, what will I do!

Ok, so it should have been a clue to me when I had to stop 20 times to go the the bathroom on our way to Alabama for Christmas. Well, apparently, I'm an idiot because I didn't figure it out until two weeks later. So we get back home on Wed. and on Thursday evening I'm laying on the couch under a blanket freezing. Adam and Emma are walking around and seem to be very comfortable. And ding, the light bulb comes on. Do you put thoughts in quotation marks? Well, for the sake of this post, I'm going to. So the thinking process goes like this.. "I'm cold. When you ovulate, you have a slight fever. If you get pregnant you're temperature continues to rise for a while. Could I be pregnant? No way". Ok, without getting too personal since this is out there for the whole world to see... Not that I think anyone will take the time to read this book I'm writing here. But hey, this needs to be on record right? So anyway, all my female stuff was all messed up the month of Dec. things weren't happening on schedule so I just didn't think it could happen. So anyway, I got up and went to the bathroom and took a pregnancy test and low and behold... POSITIVE. So in my moment of sheer geniusness.. I called Emma to the bathroom to tell her. No, I didn't consider the fact that I hadn't seen a Dr. and the kind of detrimental effects it could have on her had I told her and then found out that something was wrong. So anyway, the conversation with Emma goes like this:

Me: Emma do you still want us to have a baby?
Emma: I want two
Me: Well, hopefully there's just one but I just took this test and it means that there is a baby in my belly.
Emma: (gasping and shock) Really? There's a baby in your belly?
Me: Yes, can you go tell Daddy that you're going to be a big sister?

And she did. And of course, Adam didn't understand what she was saying at first but we kind of got it all straightened out, looked at each other in shock for a little bit and then called our parents and sisters. Emma told them and it was really cute. I let Emma call her teacher and tell her but other than her and a couple of very close friends, we didn't tell anyone here because Adam wanted to tell the teenagers first. So, our plan was to tell the teenagers on Sunday. But then, I started having some pain in my left side. And, in true hormonal pregnant girl fashion, I got freaked out and worried that I had a tubal preganancy or something. So, we decided to wait until I saw a doctor before we told everyone at church. The big problem here was that we had already told Emma. So I asked her if she could keep it a secret until I went to the doctor and she did. I can't believe it but she kept a secret for a whole week. I'm very blessed that my dr. goes to church with us and I told her what was going on and she got me in Tuesday morning for an ultrasound. This is what we found out.. There was in fact a yoke sack where it was supposed to be so, no tubal pregancy. However, there is a cyst on my left ovary. Not an ideal situation. It's a little painful and uncomfortable but nothing that would hurt the baby. So we went on with our plans to tell the teenagers on Wed. So Adam tells them and much to my surprise tells the whole church during primetime. So of course everyone turned to look at me and I got good and embarassed and all of that fun stuff. But, everyone is very excited for us and very supportive so that is really nice. As soon as we gave Emma the ok, she started running around and telling one that "she was having a baby". If you ask her, it's her baby. I'm so proud of her.

So yep, that's the story. I'm pregnant. Eight weeks today to be exact. I'm so much more sick than I was with Emma. I've lost three pounds. A day that I only throw up twice is a good day. Even so, I can tell that my stomach is already growing. I'm not looking forward to that part. But I can't wait for the end result..

On a very serious note.. We have several friends that have been trying to conceive that we've been praying for for a long time. I can't help but to think of them now. I hate to know that our joy is going to be their pain. We have Emma praying for them every night now. Apparently her prayers go higher :). Please pray for them too. And please pray for me to have wisdom with dealing with that particular situation.

Love from Above,

Dana

Disney Princesses Meet "The King"

I thought this was cute and thought I'd share it with you. This is what Emma was playing with this morning. She got the Elvis ornament off the Christmas tree and was using him as the prince.

Emma's Shows letter to Santa

I'm having the hardest time getting a picture for our Christmas cards this year. If you look at the first picture, you'll see why. I'll admit that this isn't my best photograph but it totally captured her sassy personality so I had to post it. The second is a picture of her showing her letter to Santa. He looks a little frightened. Hopefully, I'll have some good pics soon.

Love from Above,

Dana

Emma Sings a Thanksgiving Song

Emma sings us one of the songs she learned for her preschool Thanksgiving program.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My parents, Adam's parents, My sister, and her in-laws came for Thanksgiving dinner. I succeeded in feeding 12 people! I had a little help from mine and Adam's mom but really, I did most of it. I'm very proud of myself. I probably won't cook again for a month but I did it. I'm an official big girl. I had Thanksgiving at my house!

The visit was nice. Adam's parents left on Friday and then my sister left of Saturday and so we had my parents all to ourselves for a couple of days. I cried when they left on Monday... It kind of suprised me. That's the first time that's happened. It'll only be a month before we see them again. I don't know.. I think it's just knowing that if I feel like I need my mom, it's too far to just go.. I really like West Virginia fine. I just wish WV was closer to AL.

Emma's Letter to Santa

She wrote her name and drew the picture. It's sad but her handwriting is almost as good as mine.

Love from Above,

Dana

Halloween

Ok, so Halloween lasted like four days this year. Our town does trick or treating on the Saturday night before Halloween and the town the church is in (which is three miles away) does trick or treating on Halloween. Emma had two costumes: Her choice, the princess and our back up cat since the princess wasn't very bathroom accessible for preschool. Anyway, it was interesting because we had a youth retreat going on this past weekend. I had already worked it out so that we could go trick or treating during the dinner break on Saturday during the retreat. But, I was a little sad when I found out that there was a tea party with Belle and the Beauty and the Beast characters at the art museum on Saturday afternoon. Not to worry, my good friend Julie came to my rescue and graciously offered to take Emma and her little girl Anna. A very large undertaking I might add!! And she also took my camera and so I have lots of pictures from it too. So, just to show all of my friends and family why they sometimes don't hear from me for a while, this is how the weekend went...

The retreat started on Friday evening. The planning of this event was an undertaking of one of our wonderful parent volunteers and the kids in our youth group (Thank God!!). So anyway, they invited up a couple of small groups from Virginia that don't have a full time youth minister or the facilities that we have etc. And they put on a retreat for them. So on Friday night, I went to the youth house to hang out and prepare for the other groups to arrive. Around nine, I brought Emma home so that I would have plenty of time to get her to sleep before the 23 girls from the retreat showed up at my house to spend the night. It worked.. Some how I got Emma to sleep and managed to fit 23 girls into my tiny little house. I can't say that I slept much considering the three or four girls that decided to jump on top of me and my friend Erica at three o clock in the morning because they "were hot". Did I mention that it was 26 degrees outside? They were begging me to turn on the air. They had to settle for me breaking ice trays over their sleeping bags. And I guess staying up late could have a little something to do with the fact that I myself got the chance to act like a teenager again by having one of my friends my age (ok she's a couple of years younger) there and laying awake all night chatting. It was so fun! But, it is more fun to blame it on the teenagers.. On Saturday morning, we went to the youth house, had breakfast and a devo and then headed up to OVU to play in the gym. I stayed there for a couple of hours and then came home to get Emma dressed in princess attire for the grand tea party and got to Julie's house just in time to rush back to OVU to be a driver for the scavenger hunt. We finished the scavenger hunt, took the teens back to the youth house, went to get Emma to get her ready for trick or treating and then at 6:00 our community group from church came to our house to do a little group trick or treat. So I think we had 11 kids and probably nine parents. I think the last person left our house around 10. After church on Sunday, I crashed and slept all afternoon and on Monday, I took Emma to a magic show that they were having for the four year old class at her school and to dance and in between times I tried to repair my house from the weekends events. On Tuesday, Emma had a party and a program at her preschool. And pretty much this is how our live is. So, if I haven't called you, please don't be mad at me. Rest assure that I still love you. And, by the way, I don't think being busy is a virtue. I just have a hard time managing to not do it. But, at this moment, my husband is at the youth house doing a fifth quarter with the teenagers. And I, stayed home and put my child to bed at a decent hour and now I'm writing this for you dear reader. So see, I do love you.

Ok, so when I started this, I was just planning on posting the pictures and not writing anything. But I have to say, if you are bored enough to read this whole thing, you need a second job or something. ;).

Love from Above,

Dana

Cute thing Emma said.

There really hasn't been anything real revolutionary to post lately. I just wanted to share something that Emma said last night. We were saying her bedtime prayer. We've been trying to teach her to actually talk to God and not just say a recited prayer. I think it's working.. The other day on the way out the door to preschool, she said, "God please help me stay on green all day today". But usually, when we are telling her to thank God, she's looking around her room and saying, "Thank you God for my barbies, thank you God for my polly pockets, thank you God for my jewelry box" the list goes on and on until we've named every item in her room. Well, it's hard to instill in a three year old that it's good to be thankful for our material things but there are other things to be thankful for. But we try to get her to thank God for the people in her life. So last night, I said, "You haven't thanked God for your friends at preschool" and so she said, "Thank you God for my friends at preschool." I said, "But you didn't name them". She said, "But they already have names". LOL, so Adam and I laughed and laughed and laughed some more. And I have to think that God was laughing with us. She'll get eventually. But, then it won't be so much fun.

Please pray for us. This time of year really seems to be hard as far as ministry goes.

Love from above,

Dana

My Little Ballerina

Vacation

Create Your Own!



Create Your Own!


Our trip down south was wonderful. We went to my class reunion on the 23rd and then on down to the beach where the weather was beautiful. I must say that we have such great friends and a wonderful families. It was so nice to see everyone. Now we're back in time to see the beautiful falls that we have in WV.

Emma's first dance class, The Facts of Life, and A Kingdom Assignment

Emma had her first dance class on Monday. We found a lady that does it in her basement and it's only $14 a month. She had a ball. They do a little of tap, jazz, and ballet. She's taking it with her little friend Anna "my little friend Anna" is what Emma calls her. We have a big Anna in the youth group. Anyway, she and Anna both had ballerina buns in their hair. It was fun to watch. They were hilarious. They followed the teacher more than I had expected and threw in their own little spins when it wasn't exciting enough. Emma has been practicing with her tap shoes on my kitchen floor ever since.

On Tuesday, after preschool, I got a call from Emma's teacher. So I answer the phone, and I hear, "Dana, this is Missy". Of course, my heart skipped a beat because I was thinking, "oh no, she's been in school for a week, and the teacher's already calling me to tell me we have a problem". This is what she said, "I just wanted to let you know that we pray every day and Emma is praying for a baby sister. She's not just praying it, she's praying it with all her heart. It almost made me cry". It's all Emma talks about. We will be going through a store and she'll see something in the baby section and she will say, "can we get that for my baby sister?" I'll say, "Emma you don't have a baby sister." She'll say, "not yet". I haven't figured out how to explain this to her yet but here's the situation:

In May 2002, I had surgery to remove a cyst the size of a softball from my ovary. When they were doing the surgery, the doctors discovered that I had endometreosis growing pretty much everywhere. The doctor then told me that the chances of me having children was very slim. He recommended me taking a drug called Lupron and said that if I didn't do that, the chances were next to nothing. I remember getting home and lying in bed praying (lying in bed only because I was too sore from surgery to hit my knees) "God, all I've ever wanted to do is be a mother. If it is in your will for me to adopt, I can do that. I know I can love any child but, I really long to know how it feels to carry and nurse my child. If you will only give me one, that's all I ask for". So, to make a very long story just a little bit shorter, After a lot of prayer and counsel from some Godly women, we decided not to do the Lupron. It had some harsh side effects, was very expensive, and I was very concerned about the long term effects of putting something that strong into my body. I started looking into natural ways to control the endometreosis and in October 2002 became pregnant with Emma.

So anyway, I tell her every day that I know God must love me a lot because he gave me her and her daddy. But, I don't think that she's quite old enough to understand the miracle that she really is. And, that I'm sticking to my deal. If God decides to bless us with another child, wonderful! But, I'm satisfied with my one. But, she's praying hard. And, the faith of a child.... I guess we'll see. But, I did attempt to explain a few things to her and this is how it went:

Me: Emma if God decides to give us another baby, He will also decide whether that baby is a boy or girl.
Emma: Then we can have twins and the boy can live with someone who wants a baby brother
Me: No, if we had twins, both of them would live with us.
Emma: Lots of crying with real tears.
Oh goodness, what will I do!

CHURCH:
This is going to be a really long post but I also need to share with you what's been going on at church.
On Sunday, Joe did a lesson about the parable of the talent. He was basically saying that we are responsible for the gifts, money, ect. that God gives us and it is up to us whether we use those things to further the Kingdom and to prosper more or we can hide them away and have them never become anything more. My translation of all of that: Make the most of every opportunity. If one passes you by, you may not get a second chance. Ok, so back to the sermon. Then Kevin gets up and says that he needs people who are ready to take on a "kingdom assignment". He didn't tell us what it was but he asked 100 people to come forward for an assignment. Tons of people came forward. So much that some of them had to sit back down because there were more than 100. Then, they gave each of us 1oo dollar bill. We have 90 days to do something with it and then report back to the church what became of our $100. Of course my business mind started working and I think I've come up with something really good. So check back. I'll be reporting back as this thing progresses.

Most importantly, It was awesome to see how many people were willing to step forward, not knowing the task ready to serve God. I think it's exactly what we need. Something to make us look outside of ourselves and into the world where God wants us to be. Please pray about this! Please pray that we will be focused on God's dream for the world. That we will be fishers of men and that we will show the love of Jesus to this community we're living in. How awesome would it be if the whole church could actually grasp that concept. Think about how lives will be effected!!

Love from above,

Dana