Good Morning

Just some words on prayer this morning (from Grace for Each Hour by Mary J Nelson)

• When we pray, we often ask for the wrong things, ask with the wrong motives, or we don't ask at all.  And then we wonder why He's silent (James 4:2-3)
• All you need is a humble heart and sincere faith to seek God in prayer.  Give PRAISE because He is an awsome God; CONFESS your brokenness and your need for Him; ASK because He is the giver of all good things.  Pray to the Father, in the name of His Son, in the power of the Spirit.  Ask God to change your desires so they line up perfectly with His will (1 John 3:21-22)
• Ask and expect to receive.  He hears you knocking, and He always opens the door.

And from another reading in the same book:

• James 5:14-15 Are any among you sick?  They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.  And their prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make them well.  And anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.
• All too often, instead of gathering around and praying over us as the Word commands, friends quietly tell us we're in their prayers.  And at church, our prayer requests often slip discreetly into the hands of strangers on a prayer chain.  It's just more comfortable that way... no less effective, just more comfortable. 

That was convicting to me.  I'm not a person that is comfortable praying out loud, I'm quick to say a prayer by myself, but to pray out loud for someone, in front of them is way outside my comfort zone.  I need to work on that. 

Some thing's I'm lovin' right now...

This idea using fabric on the walls!  And this example is super cute!  And, best of all, if you get sick of it, you can peel it right off and do something different!  It's about as good as Command Adhesive!

All of these people!  Look at this team!  Are you AMAZING or what?  I sure do think so!

You will defininetly be seeing my version of this on my walls soon!  My version will be a touch easier and have a black frame!  (when I say soon, think 2011 or so)  To find the pattern go here, scroll down to free patterns and then scroll down that page!

This blog post.  Very convicting.

This wreath!  Her's is for spring, mine may just be for Christmas.  OK, who am I kidding, that would be Christmas 2011.

This bag is awfully cool too.  But it looks time consuming and a bit confusing.  Maybe someday!

Learning to sew some of these would be fabulous as well.  Miss Lila has some BIG thighs that need stretchy, wide leg pants.  Probably w/o the knees though.

A super easy quick craft to do with Bailey would be these!

And, last but not least, I may have to try one of these with a recent Goodwill find.

Oh, and one more.  I think instead of cupcakes or cake for E's party we will have these delicious treats!  (I need to get on that though... yikes!)

Whew!  Are you linked out?  Because I sure am!

WOW - busy busy busy

I've been wanting to update for days, but just have not had the time! 

First, I should go backwards!  Elliot started preschool last week!  He get's to go with his buddy Brecken, which is the coolest thing EVER according to him!

We had a little boy with a big birthday this weekend!  Elliot is now 4 years old!  He's lovin' it too!

Oh yeah, and Lila enjoyed his birthday as well!  The girl enjoyed the cake!  (Suprised???)  Elliot got some fabulous gifts that he enjoyes SO much, he had a great time celebrating with family and next weekend he get's to celebrate with friends as well!  What a lucky lucky 4 year old!

And, did you notice anything new (and shiny) on miss Lila?  She got her ears pierced on Saturday!  What a brave girl.  She cried for a second and then it was sucker time, that took all the tears away!

Lila got a bit mad when I took the greem marker away!

This is an every day occurance!  "MAMA"!

Chemo:  Still 2 left.  They decided to take a break for a week, but instead of skipping one, they are just adding a week to the end.  Bummer, I still have to say two left, but really in the end it's ok.  I'm ok with having a week off, having a bit more energy for the race this weekend and life in general.  We have a super busy week (or at least I do), with something going on every night!  Oh well, we shall survive, we always do!

Off to a football game!  Sorry for the lack of blogging and then the super short update, I'll try to find a bit more time soon!

Who do you say I am?

In Matthew 16:15 Jesus asked, "Who do you say I am?"

If Jesus asked you this question today, how would you answer?

Simon Peter answered this question by calling Jesus the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

The Bible promises those that confess that Jesus is Lord can have:
Faith instead of fear
Health instead of sickness
Hope instead of despair
Peace instead of worry
Provision instead of lack

In the midst of our suffering, we can have a quality of life that knows no anxiety, no doubt, and no hopelessness... a quality of life where no test report, no doctor visit and no chemo treatment, no bad news, no demands, no phone call can penetrate the perfect peace that rests deep within our spirit. 

Do you hunger for peace like this?  Have you invited Jesus into the center of your life?  You should know the Lord is a gentle man, he will not come barging uninvited through your front door like a knight in shining armor, claiming to be your Messiah and demanding that you surrender your life to Him.  You are not a puppet on a string, and he is not some divine puppeteer orchestrating your every thought and every move from a heavenly realm.  He chose you first, to love you and die for you, to invite you into His kingdom to live with Him forever (John 15:16).  But He gave you the freedom to accept or reject His offer.  Who is this Jesus?  The final choice is yours.  Choose wisely... your very life depends on it.

From "Grace for each hour" by Mary J Nelson


Only 2 more chemo treatments and I'm DONE!!!!  Yeah!!!  My counts are continuing to drop.  My white is currently at 2.0 (normal, w/o chemo is 4-11.0), but my neutrophil count is 1.2 (normal is 1.52-7.7), good news though is that I'm not anemic at all.  As long as my neutrophil count is above 1.0 they will continue to do treatments as scheduled.  They say that the low counts could be contributing to my exhaustion, but they are not low enough to do anything about it.  The Ritalin I was trying to use to combat the exhaustion was making me feel very jittery inside, so I'm trying not to take it unless I have to!  Really, I know that I am very lucky, compared to a lot of people I feel very good, I'm still able to go about my day to day, even doing extra things beyond what is required of me as a mom and wife.  I'm not throwing up, I don't seem to have anymore bone pain that can be associated with Taxol, and the neuropathy is getting better/non-existent.  I do have some pretty intense heartburn, like worse than being pregnant heartburn, but that is minimal compared to what it could be!  I am so grateful for all of the prayers being said during this time, I know that without you all, your prayers and my faith in an awesome God, I couldn't have done this!

Landon has a football game tonight, if interested in his schedule you can find it here: 7th Grade Football Schedule

More finished projects

So, for Lilas skirt, I ended up not having a big enough piece of any of my fabric, and I didn't really want to get any more.  I had to improvise.  Like I said, hers is only one layer, I think I like two better for the weight, but for now one will work.  I used about 22 3" pieces, sewed them all together and that was my skirt piece.  Super easy, and this one only took me about 2 hours total!  It's so hard to guess how long it really took because of all the interuptions!  (My model was a little unwilling, can you tell?)

And, Bailey's backpack.  It's been "almost" finished for quite some time, but today I put the finishing touches on and it's ready to go for tomorrow morning!  :)

Happy first day of school to everyone!

"Labor"ing this weekend

There is a TON of laboring going on over here.  If you've driven by our house at all, you may have noticed the rocks that took up a good portion of the driveway ("took" being the key word here), or the huge pile of dirt in the front yard.  My amazing husband has been working overtime to get it all taken care of.  Our landscape was in desperate need of some new rocks.  There were some when we moved in, but they had been there a while and were pretty thin in spots, not to mention the lava rock that was mixed in with the regular rocks was quite an eyesore.  Some of the landscape has been reconfigured, some was added and some just received new covering!  It looks amazing if I do say so!  Did I mention my husband is amazing?  He is also spreading dirt out in the yard to make it even/fill in the holes.  We moved in exactly two years ago now (I can't even believe that), it's finally time we did this stuff, we just never seemed to have enough time.  Is there ever enough time? 

OK, so that's not all he's doing.  He is also going to build some garden boxes so that we can plant a garden next year.  We always have good intentions of doing this, but the boxes were never done, and once again, there was never time, so we figure if the boxes are done next year, we may actually do it!  Matt's got a whole list of things he wants to plant.  I am SO not a green thumb, so this is going to have to be his thing, I'll help where I can, I just don't know anything about any of it!

And me.  Well, I'm working on pictures this weekend, lot's of editing to do!  I also started another project.  Did I ever tell you that I DO NOT sew?  I've never had the patience to actually follow a pattern, that and I didn't understand what a pattern was telling me to do.  So I always gave up.  This weekend I got an itch to try it again.  Matt always rolls his eyes when I get these urges.  His exact words were "I feel like you are going to be extremely frustrated".  Thanks Matt. 

But, I found an easy pattern on "The Polka Dot Chair" blog and was able to follow it almost exactly.  I made one change to make it a bit easier, but nothing that would be noticeable!  The skirt is FAR from perfect, but I think it looks great anyway especially for my first time!  Bailey loves it as well!

With any luck, Lila will have a cute matching one tomorrow, but hers won't be two layers, just to save a few steps, and hopefully an hour or so.  This thing took me approximately 8 hours to make (there were breaks in there to pick up kids, play with kids, cook dinner, eat dinner, bathtime, bedtime... so maybe 4ish hours really).  You can bet that by 10:00 when I got done my eyes were hardly open anymore and my head was spinning, but I just HAD to get it done!

I hope that everyone is enjoying thier labor day weekend.  Enjoying this chilly, but beautiful weather.  I noticed the clouds yesterday were really looking fall like.  All fluffy and gray.  It really made me want to eat chili and got to Cranes and pick apples.  But, that will have to wait!  A few weeks at least!

It's official...

the school year is about to begin.  We did our picture/packet pick up day yesterday with Landon (who claimed I talked to much while we were there, but it was great to see so many people that I don't get to see all the time or only see on facebook) and Bailey's open house at New Gronigan as well, where I guess I apparently talked quite a bit as well, but it was wonderful to finally meet Lindy there, and see many many other familiar faces as well!  I really am ready for the kids to go back to school.  Mostly right now because I feel bad for them.  My energy level is very very low right now, which means we do a lot of sitting around, inside the house, being bored.  It will be good for them to get back out with thier friends and moving around, doing things. 

Elliot get's to start school the following week, which will mean lot's of running around, but he is SOOo ready.  Although, I'm not convinced he is ready for school as much as going to school WITH BRECKEN.  Either way, it will be good for him!

I also am ready to start BSF.  So ready to get back into some regularity and to study Isaiah.  I've found so many meaningful verses in that book just from the bible studies I've done this summer. 

For the most part I've been sleeping great, but I seem to wake up around 5:30 or 6 every morning.  I'm wide awake and I know that it's God's way of getting me to do some extra praying and studying.  I actually end up enjoying this time, it's quiet and I'm able to go through my prayer list and pray specifically for everyone and everything I can think of.  This morning though, I was resistent.  It was gray outside and surely didn't feel like morning.  But then I got a bloody nose, so I had to get up.  That took a little while to stop, and I was just going to go back to bed, I was tired.  I walked back to my bed only to see my insulin pump light on, telling me that I was out of insulin.  So I had to refill that as well.  God was NOT going to let me settle back in to a good sleep until I spent some time talking with him.  He's a persistent guy like that!

My energy level is getting lower and lower every day.  A simple trip to get school supplies is exhausting to me.  I tried taking some medications to help it, but I don't like the way they make me feel either.  Just something I have to deal with for a few more days I suppose.  My stomach has also been a bit upset so I'm not eating much, not that I can't stand to lose a few pounds, but this may not be the best time to do it either. 

A BIG thank you to everyone that has offered to help lately, and those that have helped.  Even the little things get noticed and I appreciate it all so much.  Seriously, I am so grateful to have such amazing people in my life!  Thank you!

Enjoy your last summer weekend!  We have a driveway full of rocks that need to be spread out, if you get bored I'm sure Matt wouldn't turn down any help!  ;)