Clearance is Great...

Last Saturday, for my birthday, two friends took me to lunch, then we ventured on to Hobby Lobby to see what was on sale. We found these great crosses with the metal work behind them. I thought they would look great beside this picture. The best part, they were $15.99 on clearance for $5.44. The picture came from my grandmothers (my dad's mom) house in Florida. My parents sent her this picture from Germany, while my dad was stationed our there. Anyway, she was a heavy smoker for years, and my grandfather smoked pipes, maybe cigarettes too, I am not sure. Anyway, the frame was in horrible condition, so a $3.98 can of paint to match the crosses seems to have done the trick.


Now, any of you that knows anything about canvas paintings, I need some help. As I stated my grandparents were smokers, so there are some small tar spots on the canvas. You might be able to see them in the picture if you double click on it. Anyway, does anyone know how you might be able to clean that off of the picture?

Jewish Customs...

So do you have any Jewish traditions; not laws or commands that we have to do, but traditions in your home? Do you know what some of them are? One is the "Mesusah". What is that you ask? It is scripture written on parchment paper and attached to the doorpost. This got me to thinking, do you have scripture up in your home. I am in the process of getting scripture up in most of the rooms of out house, as I get them painted. Imagine how much more focused we could be on God if we read his words everywhere we went in our home. Just a thought.

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Deuteronomy 6:5

Questions Answered...

One comment asked, if Little Man was a go for spine surgery after the report from the urologist and cardiologist. The answer to that question is, I think. I am not positive, but we are making the assumption because the reports were good that we are a go. The hubby, I and Little Man will go back to the nuerosurgeon on February 3rd. I assume we will find out for sure if it is a go now, and if so, hopefully we will know when. I will let you all know as soon as we know. Thank you for all the prayers.

Another comment asked if we had found a new home church yet. We are working on that. God has had us back at the same church a couple of times. We have joined in on a couple of different Bible Study classes, because they don't have a traditional evening service. Which the hubby and I like. The children seem to really like the childrens program on the Sunday evening. They do a snack dinner for the kids, then break off into their classes, that way the Bible study classes can last longer. We have heard many wonderful things about the preacher and we met and talked to the associate minister for a while the last time we were there. We will probably give it a try on a Sunday morning before too much longer. The 35 minute drive back to our current church along with needing to be there at 8:30 am is getting a bit exhausting. We will miss our friends from our current church, but we know we will see them, everyone has to eat.

My signature color...is not peach

I have begun the process of making this house, our house. I will be painting most of the rooms in the house. I started with the kitchen and the family room because they were this peach color.

As you can tell, I have change the kitchen to a pretty blue that the hubby and I liked and matched the curtain that we had picked out.

More peach in the family room....is now gone.

The family room is now a deep shade of green. If you look closely, you can tell that the green on the wall matches the green in the pillows perfectly. The hubby really, really likes that I am not a girlie girl. He loved the color when he got home.

Exercise Time

The hubby had the kids stretching this evening when he got home. It was cute, especially to watch Mini-Me. I thought you all might enjoy the pictures of all the kids, in the same room getting along. It was great.

More results...

Subaortic Stenosis, that is the diagnosis exactly. So we found out today that Little Man has subaortic stenosis, which is different then aortic stenosis. There are three forms of aortic stenosis, and Little Man has the middle one in severity.

I uploaded this picture for you all to look at as I describe what the pediatric cardiologist said today. So, if you look at the picture in the red section at the left ventricle, and you will see one set of thick, triangle shaped membranes, then above that is a set of thin line like membranes. The thin ones is the aortic valve, the thick ones is the "sub". Well, when Little Man was formed in the womb he got the extra set (thick pair). So the stenosis he has is not actually of the aortic valve, it is of the membranes that are not supposed to be there. So the good news is that when the heart has to be fixed, it will not be valve replacement. It is still open heart, but it would be the removal of the thick membrane verses valve replacement. The stenosis will most likely worsen as Little Man grows, so will we have to continue with the yearly EKG, and echocardiogram.

So, all that begin said to get to what you all really want to know which is....Little Man does not have to have heart surgery at this point in his life. God is good, all the time.

Mini-Me

Mini-Me not only looks exactly like his daddy, he acts like him too. Do you see the similarities?
I can't blame all Mini-Me's behaviors on the hubby, he gets some of them from me. Example, his love for ice cream.

A little story....

So at our old house, maybe about a year after we had been in the house, the hubby had went into the attic to run coax for the television to Kid-O's room. Anyway, he had been up there for a while getting all the work done. Well, on his last trip out of the attic with the remainder of his tools his foot slipped and his leg went right through the ceiling in the living room. Praise God he did not fall through.

Well, the story gets better, because when we moved into this house, the hubby was in the attic, placing stuff in its place. The Missinator and I were handing things up to him as we would get them from downstairs. Anyway, the Missinator had gone back downstairs for another load and I was waiting with a load for the hubby, when I heard this noise, this unmistakable noise that I had heard before. The difference was there was no bad words after the sound; there was simply the calm voice saying "Why, Why?" When the Missinator came back up, I was holding my finger over my lips telling her to be quiet, all the while, I am trying desperately not to laugh. I walked her into our bedroom and showed her the hole in the ceiling of the new house that we had own for less then 24 hours. When the hubby came down, I told him there was things we missed from our home in Mississippi, that God gave us in this house, so he did not want us to miss an thing from the old house that we might have missed. Yet again, praise God the hubby was not hurt, and that we responded appropriately this time.
So four weeks later, the hole is still in the ceiling in my bedroom. I am hoping the hubby with get it fixed this next weekend. We will see how that goes.

Kid-O and the Wii

Watch Kid-O play her new Hannah Montana Wii game is a bit funny. The hubby and I don't care much for the show, because of the acceptable behavior of the kids; however, we thought the game was an excellent idea. Kid-O is not big on exercise of any kind, so we thought this game would get her up and moving. As you can tell from the picture, it seems to be working. She does not use just her arms, she gets her entire body into the moves. She likes it and the hubby and I are pleased that she is up moving.

Scrapbook Room Revealed...

Here is the scrapbook room, craft room, office, whatever you wish to call it. For me it is the scrapbook room. I have not had an opportunity to really get it organized yet, or use it for that matter, but it is here and waiting for me. Yippee.

As you can tell from this picture, there is a large built in desk and shelves, which are nice. Room to work, not just a sewing machine in the closet anymore. I can't wait to get down there and get it organized and in use. I have lots of pictures to scrapbook, since I have been out of commission since early December.

Routine update...I am getting there. I have to get up about 50 minutes to an hour before everyone else in the morning to get my Bible and pray time in. I have not gotten used to that yet, but that is the only time I have found that the house is quiet.

Little Man update...We head back to UAB next week for his appointment with the pediatric cardiologist. Depending on what this doctor says, we are a go for spinal surgery. God placed someone in my life this morning whose father has aortic stenosis. She said they discovered the stenosis in her father when he was 14 because he pasted out. He was given a pacemaker at the time, then when he was around 40 the valve was replaced. He is currently in his 60's and still on his first valve. So that is great news, many people with this heart defect have the valve replaced 2-3 times in their life time.

Four Wheeling Fun

Grandma and Grandpa gave Little Man this really cool four wheeler for Christmas. It goes 8 mph, if I remember correctly. Anyway, Little Man loves his new toy. It was 28 degrees when we got from dropping Kid-O at school and he still wanted to go out and ride. Crazy, I know. So i thought I would post pictures for you all to see how much fun he is having.

Look at his face. He is wearing a nice path through the yard. Good thing it is the back yard.

I believe he is really happy.

This one is for Grandma and Grandpa. Just thought you all might get a kick out of the mud all over the four wheeler. We now have a set of clothes that is just for four wheeler riding. The more mud you kick up the better.

Routine Needed...

So, life has changed a lot for us in the last four weeks. We have left one house, moved to another. Left one school, moved to another. Went from riding the school bus to having no buses. From having morning Bible study time and prayer to no mornings for myself. And now the process of finding a new home church has begun.

We visited one church this evening that was nice, but we did not get much of a feel for it because they don't have evening worship service only study classes. We joined in on one though. We will probably go back and try it again. We are finding that many of the churches where we have moved too don't offer evening Sunday service. Many offer study classes, which is great, but you can't get a feel for the pastor that way.

All that said, I ask that those of you who read and believe in the power of prayer, if you would, please pray for routine in our lives, and the home church God would have us to be involved in.

Finally...The New House

Front view

Back view, with hot tub and 16 x 24 deck

0.5 acre, mature trees

Family room from front door
Dining Room
Family Room from dining room
Living Room


Living room from kitchen

Kitchen

Master Bedroom
Kid-O's room

As you can tell, I have done no painting or decoratoring for that matter. I will start working on that in the spring. I did not include pictures of Little Man's room or Mini-Me's room. Mini-Me was napping while I was taking pictures. I also did not include a picture of my scrapbooking room. I will do that after I get it organized a bit. Right now everything is just some what thrown in there. I hope this gives you all a better idea of what the house looks like. More pictures to come as I get the rooms painted the way I will want them.

Camera dumping...

Like Father, Like Son (The hubby and Papaw)
Guitar Time (Mini-Me and Daddy)

Little Man received his first webkinz yesterday in the mail from Santa. It included the following letter: "I heard you ask M______ for her Webkinz pug because you did not have one. I thought I would go ahead and send you a Webkinz. I hope you enjoy and know that I will be praying for you during all of your doctors' appointments. See you in December. Love Santa"

Kid-O was not willing to give her brother the Webkinz that she got, we tried to explain that Santa would concerned highly upon her generosity if she would give it to him. That Santa treasures the kind, giving spirit as God calls us to be, but she would not give in. So we used it as an opportunity to teach our children about giving from God's prospective.

Results

I forgot the results in last nights post about Little Man's appointment with the urologist. The doctor said that there is no damage to the bladder or bowels at this point. So that is wonderful news because God has shown us what is going on with Little Man before there is permanent damage done to the bladder and bowel.

We're Back...

We left here at 5:40am this morning heading for UAB. Little Man had an ultrasound of his bladder and kidneys at 8:00am. Then we went back down to the doctors office and started his urodynamics test at 8:50am. I was not expecting what they were going to do. If you can't handle detail, stop reading right now.

Anyway, they put two tubes in, one catheter tube in the urethra and one in the anus. Little Man was a trooper yet again. He cried a little when they put in the catheter tube, but that was the end of it. Then they filled his bladder with saline all the while taking pictures of the bladder and urethra. After the bladder was full, Papaw and I had to convince Little Man that it was okay to relieve himself in the bed. It was funny to watch him, because we told him that if he would do it he could go home. He laid on the bed for about five minutes thinking about whether he was going to do that or not. He finally decided he would. Then he got to immediately get up and get dress. The funniest part of the whole thing, we get home, then leave to go pick Kid-O up from school and on the way home Little Man tells Kid-O that since his doctors appointment his "peanuts hurt when I go pee".

I am not kidding or exaggerating when I say watching Little Man go through this stuff is a blessing. He handles it better then I think most adults would.

Christmas pictures

What a cousin. Tywee is about to be 13, but yet he will still allow his cousin to put beads in his hair. According to his Mommy, it is only because it is Kid-O, he would not dare let his sister do this to him.

Little Man riding his four wheeler and Kid-O on her moped, that Grandma and Grandpa got for them.

Kid-O excited about her hair beader.

Little Man excited about his new Mario Kart Wii game. He has been playing it a lot.

Mini-Me was the first one up on Christmas morning. He stood there and looked straight at his stuff and asked, "What stuff come from?" That was his words, then he went straight to his pile.