We need your prayers..

I haven't been writing much.. When this happens, I often get an e-mail from someone saying they have gone to my blog and have noticed that I haven't made a post in a while and have questions of whether we are doing okay. You can usually bet that if I haven't been on here, things are going really well. It's not always that something is going wrong that causes me to turn here. I try to also use it as a way to keep our families informed and to keep a record of the girls childhoods. But it is sort of a therapy for me. And, at times when life brings me to my knees and I'm trying to sort through a feeling, I have found that if I write it here, then people have the option to read it if they choose. And usually, instead of me burdening the wrong person with my struggles, it ends up in the right persons hands. And often, someone has chosen to listen, and the words that have been left here in response and the assurance that others have gone to God on my behalf has been the source of encouragement that has brought me back to my feet.

We're in a good place. I will try to explain the insanity that some of you have witnessed in me. Many days, I sit through church and I hear Adam talk of community and I cry because I now know what community really means. It may seem silly but they are tears of gratefulness, that aren't really all that different from the tears I cried when my girls were born. I am experiencing what I have longed for for so long. Church, in the way that God intended.. Not perfect people, but imperfect people that love me even though I am also imperfect. I've longed for it as much as I longed for love before I found it. We have been in ministry for over 10 years, and this is the first time that I've felt like I've been a part of a church instead of just an employee. We have met many wonderful people along the way. People that have molded us and shaped us. People that we will cherish forever. But, we have now met our church family and it is a wonderful thing to feel like we've come home. This may not be something that everyone knows they need. But, it is something that makes all the difference in the world once you have it. The things that laid heavy on my heart a year ago have shown themselves to have, "Worked together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose". He has, (as he always does), made good on His promise.

Life has been coming at us fast (as it always does) and I've been there, anxiously waiting to catch every pitch. Until yesterday when life (as it often does) threw me a curve ball. Before I rip into this, I want to say that I am very aware that I overreact when it comes to my children. A couple of years ago, I was giving Emma a bath and I noticed a large knot (okay, maybe it wasn't all that large but it seemed so to me) on her neck. Before I even had a chance to think of the minor things it could be, I had a child with lymphoma pictured in my mind and was asking myself how we could endure the agony that would come upon family in that situation. It turned out that she had some sort of infection and that a swollen lymph node is actually a sign that your body is doing what it's supposed to do to rid itself of infection. But, my children being hurt or sick is my greatest fear, and when they seem threatened, that fear grips me and it takes hold like none other. And it is in those times that I know how small my faith still is.

Two weeks ago, Chloe began to run a fever. She ran it for a couple of days. She had no other symptoms except that she was cutting molars. I gave her Motrin and the fever stayed down for about six hours and then it would spike again. When the fever rose above 103, I was no longer comfortable with letting it "run it's course" and made her an appointment with the PA at her doctor's office. She checked her ears and swabbed her throat for strep. When it was neither of those things, she resolved that it was something viral and told me that if she was still running the fever two days later, to call and make an appointment to have blood work done. We returned home and the fever never went back up. ... until two weeks later. Then, we had the same scenario all over again: High fever, no other symptoms. It started on Tuesday and she had her 18 month check up on Friday. The fever lasted for about 48 hours and on the day of her appointment, she broke out with a rash.. Illness explained, mystery over. Roseola. Except, according to the doctor, there was another mystery: an irregular heart rate. I asked a lot of questions.. Does it sound like a heart murmur?.. His answer, No. That is sounded more like it was fading on the second beat. Now that may not be as bad as it sounds but to a mother (or at least this mother), the words "heart" and "fading" are not two words I ever want to hear in the same sentence when referring to my child. I asked if the irregular heart rate could be because of the sickness, his answer.. "maybe".. I asked it the fever could be because their was something serious wrong with her heart, his answer... "maybe"... And the thing to do he said, was to "come back in a month and see if it was still beating irregularly". I think he must have noticed that I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown because when I commented that a month was too long to wait to see if there was something wrong with my child's heart, he quickly changed it to two weeks. He further explained that we had to give her body time to fight off the infection before we could know for sure.

I called every person that I could think of that works in the medical field. We have many medical people at church and I talked to several of them yesterday. One will be bringing his stethoscope to church tomorrow to listen to her heart. They all assured me that this wasn't all that uncommon and told me signs to look for in case of a bigger problem. She's not turning blue and she is not short of breath. She doesn't seem to be in pain. But my faith wasn't strong enough for me to just put her in God's hands and sleep last night. My mind turns to the "class C" antibiotic I was taking before I knew I was pregnant with her...Then to the nexium I began to take in my second trimester because I had lost 14 pounds and was beginning to lose my voice because of the problem I had with acid reflux (see, I have a great need to explain to you that it was something that was very needed). Last night, I waited until she fell asleep in her bed and I put her in mine and laid my head on her her chest. I knew I had no idea what I was listening for but I could hear her heart beating strong, and I needed to hear that. And with us being avid believers that our children should sleep in their own beds, she slept in ours, with my hand on her chest. At the moment, she is napping in her crib. As I have been writing this, I have broken away several times to check to make sure she's still breathing.

I pray that on April the 3rd, I come back here and relay to you that I am a silly girl that overreacts. I will do so gladly! But as small as this might really be, the next two weeks of waiting are going to be hard for me. And my faith seems shaky. So please, pray for her on our behalf!

Blessings,
Dana

Baby Evan

Check out the lips on this sweet little guy. I didn't get as many different shots as I would have liked because moving him kept disturbing his sleep. Couldn't you just eat him up?

Sweet Maggie

Maggie is really coming into her own these days. She's developing quite a little personality, smiling and giggling. She's been babbling some sounds that sound like words for a while now. She has "Mama" down and I could have sworn that she said "Emma" a few times this morning before Emma went to school. I've been working on teaching her to say "Dana" so watch out Bucky! When she starts to say "Dada", I'm going to claim it as "Dana". She's started fighting me a little on changing her diaper and wiping her nose. It sounds crazy but with my girls and also with Maggie, I was relieved when they started to those sort of things. In my opinion, the only thing worse than a strong willed child is a child without a will! She's still an easy baby and very laid back but I think it's a good sign of development when they get some ideas of their own.

I'm having a hard time getting pictures of her these days as she is on the move! But here are a few that captured her personality that I thought were worth keeping.

Signs of Spring

I go through phases where I take pictures like crazy and then I don't for a month of two. I think it mostly depends on the amount of pictures I have waiting on my memory card to be edited. I realized that it had been around Christmas since I got any pictures that I would call frame worthy so I thought we'd give it a shot today with the beautiful weather we're having. I guess I'm back in a picture taking kick with hopes of staying on top of them.. We'll see how long that lasts.









As I looked at these pictures, I began to wonder if maybe Emma looked like she has grown up more in the last six months than even Chloe. We went to a birthday party for one of her classmates yesterday and a mother of one of the boys in her class told me that he had asked her to get Emma's phone number and ask if it was okay for him to call her. Emma seems oblivious. I have to say, he's a cute little boy and smart and polite so at least she's attracting the right kind but still, I don't think I'm ready for this.. Someone please tell me how to make time stand still!

After the Motrin Kicks In

For those of you not on facebook where I posted these earlier today..

Chloe is having a terrible time cutting her one year old molars. After a terrible morning of non stop whining and me trying to remember why I opted to be a stay at home mom, I came upon this. She was so engrossed in her play that she didn't even notice me.... NOW I remember...

ATTENTION: DANA WILL BE ON HIATUS UNTIL SHE RETURNS FROM HER GUITAR HERO TOUR WITH HER HUSBAND

Chloe moves like lightning and Maggie is gaining on her so no time during the day and Adam got me addicted to Guitar hero so now every night after we get the girls to bed, we play instead of writing in our blogs. And I don't want any sas. My children will survive if I don't have every second of their life documented. Quality time with my husband is a good thing too. I did get some video of the girls though that I will try to get posted if I can pull Adam away from the guitar long enough to format it for me.

Now back to poisioning my head with that rock music.. No wonder I listened to country when I was a teenager.


Blessings,

Dana

February 2009

And the Winner Is...

According to random calculations at Random.org. After 134 entries (included the ones that got 10 entries for blogging about my drawing on their blog). The winner is Jay at Janey and me, Happily! Congratulations Jay! and though I do love you with all of my heart, this was a totally random drawing and cupid smiled on you today!

I wish I had a copy for all of you! Thanks for those of you that participated! I hope to do more of these in the future. The book is not yet available in stores but you can order it from amazon by clicking on the icon below.



Happy Valentine's Day to you all! I hope you steal a kiss from your honey!

The Most Expensive Free Vacation Ever

Emma at her school Thanksgiving program before we left

For some reason, God has found it fit to wake me up every day at 4:30 a.m. When Emma was a baby, I was just convinced that I was a hero mommy because I followed the instructions of "On Becoming Baby Wise" to the T and she was sleeping through the night by six weeks. Six weeks! I was so proud of myself. And if I ever begin to feel proud of myself... In steps God for what you can be sure will be the most humbling experience. Don't get me wrong, I still think "Baby Wise" is a wonderful book with a great philosophy. But, it just so happened that when I had Chloe, we had some circumstances in our lives at that time that gave the flawless plan a run for it's money. Lot's of traveling, an older sister that brought home lots of colds, ear infections, stomach viruses, you name it. And Chloe, like her mother gets stuck in these little cycles and something done once becomes a habit.. So, after many different times of letting her "cry it out" (which is not easy for me), she is back to sleeping through the night (until the next crisis). I don't mind waking up with a newborn for feedings in the middle of the night. Somehow, though exhaustion does set in, I treasure those in the middle of the night feedings when everything is quiet. I don't mind comforting a child after a bad dream or being up with a sick child (if they are truly sick the drama that a five year old brings to the table makes you really evaluate these situations)But waking up in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep, now that's just wrong...

But since it has happened as it often does, I'm going to use this opportunity of quietness to record a vacation that we had a while back. So go with me if you will, back to Thanksgiving. Adam's parents have a timeshare in Gatlinburg. It is at a super nice place that has recently added an indoor waterpark! Since everyone's lives have been crazy with having babies and stuff and they hadn't been able to vacation much in the past couple of years, they had banked a few weeks at this timeshare. They offered to us, our own cabin with a connected studio apartment and told us that we could invite whoever we wanted to come with us. So, we invited my parents and since my sister was on a trip to be in the Thanksgiving Day parade in New York with the dance team she coaches, it worked out great that my nephew, Justin was able to spend Thanksgiving with us. It had also been quite some time since we had had a vacation because all of our vacation time while we lived in WV was spent visiting family. I thought we were going to get our cake and eat it too! And really we did. We got to spend Thanksgiving with both of our families and have a vacation at the same time.. But as you might have learned about me by now, nothing can ever go that easily so, let me tell you about how we got to Gatlinburg...

We never map out a destination. Adam got me a GPS for Mother's Day and we now heavily rely on our trusted friend (I call her Beyonce because she's always saying, "to the left"), so we punched in the destination and pursued on. So, after five and a half hours of travel, we see a sign that says, Gatlinburg, 30 miles. I turn to the children in the back seat and trying to build their excitement just a little more, I exclaim, "Thirty more miles until we see Nana and Papa"! And then, just a few minutes later, we saw it.. THE SIGN.. "Roads closed due to ice". And so... I kept driving of course. I mean surely this had to be some sort of mistake. They must have left that sign out by mistake. It's not THAT cold out is it? But then, the road became more narrow and the sides became more steep and I began to have visions of my family plummeting to our death in our little silver minivan and so my motherly instincts won the battle over my will and I turned the minivan around. We turned to our trusted friend again, punched in a detour route and there you have it... two and a half hours.. "This must be a mistake", Adam exclaims! So we stop and a convenience store to have our lot confirmed finding that the only way to not go over a mountain is to go around it. Hmm, who would have thought it. Thankfully, my children have gotten pretty used to having to be flexible and it wasn't long before they were both sleeping soundly in the back seat. Determined to not let our vacation be ruined so early on, I say to Adam, "not a big deal! we haven't had a chance to talk much lately and the kids are almost asleep" It will go faster than we think.. So, I got Adam's dad on the phone and laughingly told him the situation saying that we were having a "National Lampoons Vacation". And at that point he said, "well, I'm glad you didn't go on the icy road because if you have a wreck, on a closed road, your insurance won't cover it". To which I said, "oh, speaking of insurance, I hope we don't have car trouble because I left our roadside assistance cards on my desk at home". I hung up the phone and Adam and I continued our conversation about life and death and heaven and hell becoming more and more convinced that in our brilliance, we had discovered the answers to all the deep questions that brilliant people have asked for centuries.. and then, not five minutes after hanging up the phone, it happened... I pushed the accelerator to go up a hill and there was no acceleration.. It just wouldn't go. I pulled over to the side of the road. I distinctly remember thinking... Did this sort of thing happen to Confucius? I mean seriously, I have heaven and hell pinned down, couldn't I remember to put our road side assistance cards in my purse? Adam dug through his wallet and thankfully had his card. To spare you a lot of details of what happened while we sat on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere North Carolina by a "flea market" (and by flea market I mean a little shack with a lot of broken toilets and camper shells in the yard) for about four hours, I'll just sum it up by saying, that Adam's dad made a long trip to come get us, our van was towed to a transmission place, we arrived at our destination at 3:30 a.m. just 7 and a half hours later than Beyonce predicted and Adam and my dad made a trip back to NC to get the van a few days later and we came home with a new transmission and a $2600 charge to our credit card.

I told Adam that we might as well live it up because after the Disney trip (which I already had booked and paid for or we wouldn't have gone) we were going to be sitting on our tails. And so we did! And I was so proud of us because through the whole ordeal, we didn't say one unkind word to each other... Did you catch what I said earlier about what happens when I start feeling proud of myself? Well, stay tuned for the piece of humble pie that I ate on the Disney trip...

Oh and in case you didn't catch the fact that my comments about figuring out life and death and heaven and hell were seeping in sarcasm.... The topic boggles me. I have lots of theories on the subject that come and go, some which might get me disowned by The Church. But the only thing that I'm quite sure of is that any small idea that I have about God's wonderful creation is more wrong than right..

Anyway, here are some pictures of our trip and our attempt to have $2600 worth of fun.




And, because it's difficult to be both a mother and a photographer, as I usually do, I missed getting pictures of some people that were there with us. So... not pictured: Pawpaw, Justin, Uncle Kevin and Aunt Vicky and Paul.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!

We now have pigtails. Being the child of both a barber and a beautician, this is a monumental time for us!


And since I didn't start blogging until about a year later, here is a picture of Emma sporting the do for the first time. Both of them at right at 17 months.. See how much bigger Emma was. You would never know it looking at her little string bean frame now. Oh and see that sneaky look on Chloe's face? Perfect depiction of her personality!


PS: Don't miss my give away in the post below!