Happy Resurrection Day

What a whirlwind of a weekend. The best part of the weekend is that Our God is ALIVE and we get to share this news with our kids. Thursday, Joel called me at 5, which is when he gets off of work.  He told me that his car wouldn’t start. Ok a little bit of bad timing since we are saving up to buy a van.  So I prayed that God would provide for us the money to fix Joel’s car.

He had Good Friday off so we decided to try to figure out what was wrong with our hot water heater. It turns out the hot water heater was dying. So we went out looking for the part to fix it. When you buy a house that is now 14 years old your hot water heater will eventually give out. So we needed to replace the hot water heater. Joel worked very hard this weekend to get us hot water.

Friday night Clay was awake almost the entire night crying, crying, crying. We were super tired going into Saturday and we spent some time with our small group to then come home and finish hot water heater stuff. Then to go spend time with our good friends Saturday night. We came home Saturday night and went to bed only to be woken up by more crying, crying, crying from our little wild man.

Sunday I worked all 3 services in our children’s ministry, but I got to go to the service where our pastor shared the death, and the resurrection of our ALIVE SAVIOR. Death defeated death what a great testimony of our God. We came home after 3rd service with our little guy who continued to cry, cry, cry.

I decided to call our pediatrician to ask what in the world to do for him. I took him to Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati. After a long, tiring 4 hours they told me he had double ear infections and one of his ear drums was close to bursting. He hadn’t eaten or drank anything for a little over 12 hours so after working hard trying to get him to drink something we got to come home.

So now I am gazing on the fact that my hope is built on nothing less than a God who is ALIVE and helping us through these hard times.

This is a picture of our poor sick little guy after our time at Children’s today.

Happy Birthday Hubby

So my title isn't very creative, but what I think is funny is how when I post to this blog it shows up as if Joel wrote it.  So it looks like Joel is bragging on himself.  I want to use our blog to brag on him since tomorrow is his birthday.  When I went to college I swore I was there only to get my degree.  I had no intentions of getting married.  Boy, did God have different plans for me.  I met and fell head over heels in love with my hubby, even though at the time I swore I would never marry him.  Fast forward to today.  On the eve of his birthday I have been thinking about all the things I am grateful for concerning him.
   He is an amazing example of a Godly husband and Father to me and our kiddos.
   He is a very selfless guy.  He often asks me how he can help me or what he can do around the house that would be most helpful.
   He works incredibly hard to provide for us.
   He has so much compassion for all off us.

   These are just a few of the many things I am thankful for.  One of my favorite things about Joel is how if you are struggling with anything he shows mercy to them more than I could have ever imagined and that mercy spills over in to patience and love.  What a big blessing God gave to me when we met 10 years ago.  I have learned so much about God in the 8 years we have been married.  I always use to say hey I have a twin I am used to living with someone all the time.  I was so wrong being married is much different than having a twin sister.  Happy birthday Hubby!

Outer Banks

This past nine days we have spent at the outer banks at a house called Ha Sea Enda. It was a blast. We got there on Thursday of last week and we were prepared to spend 9 days with 16 people total.

My dad had to quickly introduce us to the pool table/ping pong table, which dad eventually fixed during the week. See one thing about my dad is he can't sit still idly by and do nothing when there is stuff to fix. So we quickly made a list of stuff he started to fix and the first one was the pool table.

Then on to Friday night when I made my first meal, white chicken chili. My good friend Jessica had made this amazing meal for us that I wanted to replicate. I went to the store, bought what I needed, and put it all together in the crock pot and boy did it ever smell so good.  Time for dinner and I served it up and Joel was setting it on the table and he dripped a spot on to his finger which he licked off as he was coming over to me and said is it supposed to have a bite? To which I responded no and tasted it. Boy, it set my mouth on fire and I said make sure you put sour cream in it. Yvette's family all loved it but the rest of us could barely eat it. Turns out that I put jalapeño peppers in it instead of chili peppers. So it became a running joke to make sure Michelle isn't cooking or we will definitely lose some weight this week.

We mostly just rested for the first couple of days to recoup from the drive down. Fourteen hours in a car was a bit much. Melinda came down on Friday and we went to the aquarium on Sunday and it wasn't big, but it was fun to break out and do something. Each night it seemed like a ping pong, pool table or air hockey game was going. Lydia and Seth loved running around with their cousins and there seemed to never be a quiet moment until they all eventually crashed.

Sleeping was somewhat of a challenge but it all worked out in the end. We all took a drive down the beach to try to see the wild horses but we didn't see any. But we enjoyed some waves and cold water.

My dad discovered a new game called Catch Phrase Scrabble. He was so fun to play with. Between his descriptions of the words/phrases and his body movements we laughed a few pounds off. Clay really loved to see Papa first thing in the morning, dad could always get a good smile or coos out of him.  Lydia, Seth, and Chloe enjoyed morning time cuddles with Aunt Yvette and afternoon cuddles with Mimi.

It was cold and windy most days but we made the most of it. Allyson and Andrew were mega helps to us with the younger kids. We got to play games a lot because they kept their eyes on the kiddos. Adam and Alex spent their time playing hide and seek, dolls and doctors with their 3 younger cousins sometimes playing mediator between the three. I always had a good relationship with my cousin Stacey. Lydia and Chloe are the same age apart that we are and so I am happy for their relationship and how much fun they had together since Lydia is surrounded by mostly boys.

We are looking forward to the next time we can celebrate being together and being thankful for the family God has blessed us with.

Big Boy

So I haven't blogged about Clay in awhile.  But he has now been deemed our Big little boy.  By big we mean fat and by little we mean short but he is a great little boy.  He is super interactive and he is sooo loving.  He smiles and coos and he is living life large.  He is 15 pounds and he if our miracle baby 3 times over now.  God healed his foot and he struggled a bunch with going poop and on the verge of having a biopsy on his colon to see if he had a nerve congenital disease in his intestines the doctor cancelled it because he started to go a little more regularly. So thank you God for providing him relief from this.

This Boy

This boy was my first ever favorite boy until that boy joined in and now I have 2.  Sounds like a fun story.  By this boy I mean our little big boy Seth.  Last week I finally took him for his wellness checkup. After having a baby and then starting school work, doctors appointments weren't very high on my priority list.  He is 32 pounds and weighs more than Lydia did at 3 by 7 pounds.  He is 3 feet 2 inches tall which means he is short.  He is fun loving and very spunky and sometimes says the funniest things that make you just want to squeeze him.  His loves for books is amazing, i hear the request mommy can we just go look at books at the library a lot.  I try to make a habit to get there and let him chose many books that I read over and over again.  His favorite one right now is Dirty Diti Dinosaur.  He can almost quote the whole book which is amazing.  He loves to be a part of school with Lydia so I am currently teaching him the letters in his name.  He has started asking a lot of heart question about hell and if he will go there?  I pray that this is a great beginning for his salvation.  What a gift God has blessed us with in our little man.

Time goes by fast

I just wanted to post this for the stats so I would remember Clay's growth.  Yesterday at the doctors he weighed in at 10 pounds 1 ounces.  He is 22 and half inches long.  I can't believe how time flies.  But then I said that about Lydia and Seth.  Here is a recent picture of all of them.  Lydia 5, Seth 3 and Clay 7 weeks.

Summer is leaving

Well I am sad to see summer go.  Summer is my favorite season.  I love the sun, the heat and swimming and just continually being outside.  A lot happened for us this summer.  We went on vacation in June with Joel's family were I struggled a little bit with contractions. I attended and helped with my first VBS at our church.  Lydia loved it and can't wait for next year.  Then we waited not so patiently to meet our little boy so we could finally tell people his name.  We celebrated birthdays here at our house and with our friends.  Then at the end of July we welcomed our new little son Clay into our family.  Which takes us into the month of August were it was none stop action here.  My mom and cousin Shawna came to visit to meet Clay and to help out around here.  Then just as they left Mom and Dad L came to visit and meet Clay in person as well.  Which bring us up to the last week in August where I started to learn what it was like to be by myself with 3 kids and homeschool.  Sometimes my days just slip by me.  I nurse, teach, clean, do laundry, go to bed and start the day all over again.  It was nice to have a long holiday weekend to have Joel's help around here.  I got to sleep in a little and we just enjoyed being together as a family of 5 now.  This month of September I am sure will also float by me without me knowing it as this is also a busy month.  But for now I will enjoy one day at a time.