Finally some pictures

I know a lot of you have seen these already because Shellie and Arly have some up, but here they are anyway. We've got some more on our camera, but the battery won't stay charged up. This is going to be short because I am having to do everything one-handed. Left-handed even because Everet is comfy in my right arm for a few minutes anyway. He's been a little fussy lately so if I can't do something with only one hand, it hasn't gotten done. I try to get a few things done when Daniel gets home, but have been pretty tired lately. Go figure.

A quick review of the last 2 weeks: A very quick (for me) surprise labor and delivery, surgery to assure this doesn't happen again, a bunch of family visiting and helping (thank you all SO much), a 10-day vacation for Daniel (so nice to have him here-the kids couldn't understand why he went to work this week), a week of weakness and soreness (I had to hold my belly to laugh), a clingy, slightly jealous 2-year old, supper being brought to us almost every night (incredibly helpful), first times back at church apparently with sick friends, 3 of the 6 of us throwing up (I also can't tell if Everet is spitting up or throwing up-it's been spewing today), Eli and I have managed to avoid it. We had a trip to the doctor today for an unhealed circumcision and yeast infection. Eli also had one a few days after he was born-maybe because of the penicillin I had to get during delivery? The girls didn't get one though-weird. We've had many "get out of his face" scoldings, lots of just sitting and holding, and a bunch of sleepless nights. It has been great though. That's all I can think of right now. Hopefully we'll get into some kind of routine soon. And I think I need to go and get me one of those slings to hold him in. I haven't been to Wal-mart in 3 weeks people! That's a new record for me! And our bank account appreciates it!

As I Fall to Sleep...

Some recent events have caused me to think upon and remember some great truths, some great promises and the love we have (or should have) for each other. It may seem strange to some but these thoughts have been stirred up from depths of my heart by, of all things, a hard rocking alternative Christian band; Skillet. Those who have the enviable pleasure of knowing me also know that Skillet is by far my favorite band - and I listen to every album they have released to date every day. I’m not kidding either – every album, every day. My iTunes library will attest this fact. Maybe it’s the name, the face melting guitar rifts, or the true beauty of many of their songs – I don’t know for sure but something connected with me that fateful day back in 1996 when, at the ACU Campus Store, I gazed upon the music rack and saw for the first time, a CD with a skillet emblazoned across its cover and a band named after a cooking utensil. I was hooked, they had me – and my wife thanks them every day for snagging me.

But today, as I faithfully listen, something came to mind. The song was Will You Be There (Falling Down) and the first few words are:

As I fall to sleep
Will you comfort me
When my heart is weak
Will you rescue me

Will you be there
As I grow cold
Will you be there when I'm falling down
Will you be there

Those words I’ve heard and sung hundreds of times over the years – but this time they reached into me, grabbed hold and shook me, bringing to my mind the recent death of a friend and brother.

He was a good man who loved his God, his wife, his daughter, his granddaughter, his family and all his friends. He had turned his life around, giving himself in submission to baptism to become a child of God and recently had been selected to serve as a deacon in our congregation. About four months ago we played softball in the local church league. About three months ago he found out he had cancer. Almost three weeks ago he fell asleep and almost two weeks ago we remembered his life.

A few days before he died, in Bible class Sunday morning, we asked his wife how he was doing. He wasn’t doing well at all and hadn’t eaten in three days. She was trying to be strong and provide for the man who had provided for her for so long. And through the words we could all feel the depths of sorrow and pain that she suffered. That day I was selected to pray on her behalf. An honor for me to say the least and one of the hardest, most painful prayers I have ever offered to my Lord. I asked for strength, for mercy, for love and above all – healing.

Knowing our God is the Great Physician with the power to restore his body and heal our pain, I pleaded with God, begging Him to give our brother back to us. This is what we want were the words I spoke, acknowledging our own personal desire. Then I asked for strength and understanding whatever the outcome may be, knowing that in all things Gods will is done, knowing that God understands our pain – He gave His Son – and in the end God shall wipe away all tears, there’s no death, no pain, nor fears. Three days later about 7 am, he left this life.

The song simply asks God will You be there. The answer is a deafening, unequivocal and resounding YES! God will be there, He is always there. And He did answer my prayer. He took the pain away, and He is healing us, every day. We miss our friend and brother, husband and father, but we know there is no more pain, and we know that God is there and will always be there. And I praise my God for again teaching me how great and awesome He is.

As I write this another song has played and ‘stirred the pot’ you might say. The song is titled Rebirthing. Here is the chorus:

Rebirthing now

I wanna live for love, wanna live for you and me

Breathe for the first time now

I come alive somehow

Rebirthing now

I wanna live my life, wanna give you everything

Breathe for the first time now

I come alive somehow

My friend was a Christian. He lived for the Lord and died in the Lord. He had been and has been reborn. Through the terrible pain of his cancer he has now been reborn, where there is no pain. In my mind this has now been compared to birth. As you know Syndi is pregnant with our fourth child, due about October 7^th. As I remember the births of our first three children I can’t help but draw a connection. Through the terrible pain of childbirth a new life is born. I don’t know what it was exactly but something connected with me on those beautiful days when, at the hospital, I gazed upon an infant and saw for the first time, a life with me emblazoned across its face and a child bearing my name. This child is my flesh and blood, having been woven together by God and now placed in my care. I was hooked, they had me – and I thank God every day for snagging me.

From pain, came life. God has taken our sin away and allows us to be reborn and become His children, but this could only happen through the pain and suffering and death of His Son becoming the ultimate perfect sacrifice. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ we are born again, reborn, to be children of God – emblazoned with the blood of His Son.

These events also brought to mind something that happened awhile ago. Syndi wrote about it at the time but it has now come back to teach me. Really it isn’t about the specific event per say, but more about the pain that was endured, can and will be endured, and the ability I have to do nothing about it. I can’t take it away, and I can only try to prevent it. In the end all I can do – is be there.

At the time it happened – Ema had two teeth pulled without the full benefit of anesthetics – I could do nothing but hold her and try to comfort her, when what I wanted to do was take the pain upon myself (and gleefully shove it down the dentists’ throat). But I also knew that I can’t do that, every parent wants to but we can’t. We don’t like it but pain makes us grow, makes us stronger and better able to deal with life. And so we sat, in tears, and I held my beautiful daughter. The following day I couldn’t help but write…

Within my heart was kindled;

So must be writ, the impassioning within.

- Stained with Tears -

And stained . . .

. . . I am.

The tears have come;

And falling hard upon my chest,

they beat . . .

. . . with longing cries.

And cradled in my arms, So tight . . .

We weep;

. . . but why? Why?

I’m here my child,

My love,

My all,

Held in my arms,

My love to heal.

You are my child,

My flesh,

My blood.

For all and ever and aught we bear;

the life, the joy, the pain we share.

And this, my child, to you I swear

I give my love, my all

For you my child, I give my life.

and I – now stained . . .

. . . my tears

. . . my blood.

Something within me drew a connection to the pain I felt through the pain my daughter felt to the pain my Lord and my God felt in knowing we were lost, sinful, dead, yet He gave His Son to suffer the pain of death – withholding His own hand, knowing He couldn’t take the pain the away – so we could be reborn through the blood of His Son. Again I praise my God for teaching me how great and awesome He is.

One last thought. The day before my friend passed away his wife said something I will never forget and hopefully will live and demonstrate on a daily basis. In speaking of her husband and the effects that cancer and morphine had upon him she pleaded with us not to take for granted our spouses and the time we have with them. Three days later she lost her husband. But she knows the love they had and wonderful marriage they shared.

It is my prayer that I have not, and nor do I ever take my wife for granted. Our marriage is truly wonderful. She is my best friend, my confidant, my life, my love, my very self. She is my everything; my angel; my immortal beloved and I love her so deeply, so fully, so powerfully – my soul aches, longing to be near her. From the beginning my love has grown and will only continue to grow.

I will love you, you and no other, my whole life.

Wasting Time

I am trying to find other things to do right now so I don't have to tackle the big mess in the kitchen. You can see that I've changed my blog a little bit. I was trying to get a cute thing on it, and I followed the directions, but I can't get it to work. Oh well. I had a doctor's appointment early this morning. Everything is fine right now. Still waiting for another few weeks though. For those of you who don't know, we are having a boy. I know I got on my soap box about that, but we were pretty sure anyway, and we were having such trouble coming up with names (still haven't decided), and I really wanted to get rid of some things, like the mounds of girl clothes we have. So we are excited that it will work out so well with bedrooms and play mates and stuff. I also figured out that the age difference between Ema and Elena is almost exactly the same as between Eli and this one.

We are hoping to have a yard sale this weekend if I can kick it into high gear. Next weekend is Daniel's birthday, and then after that, I'm just hoping I will be recovering by that time and not still waddling and I won't be able to have a yard sale. We have been putting it off for some time now and I would LOVE to get the stuff out of our garage. I finally ordered our bassinet last week only to find out that it has been discontinued. I found it still in stock on amazon so hopefully we will at least have that soon. I don't understand why it would be discontinued because it has 4.5 stars and is not too high priced compared to some I saw. It also is a multi-function thing. Hopefully it will work out.

Ema is still enjoying school for the most part. We got her 4-week report today and the only area she needs to work on is listening and paying attention. Kinda like at home. I need to go grocery shopping tonight and get busy on some things. I'm just not real motivated right now. I guess that's all I have to say right now.

Elena

Just a funny thing about Elena. She just came in and has her little truck loaded up with people and animals. She said, "My boy is tryin to take my kids." I said, "your boy, meaning Eli?" "Yeeeaahh." (real pathetically!) Last night I was trying to go over Ema's spelling words with her and Elena was sitting there with a little book. She was using it as her song book and kept saying, "GIRL, hing with me." She still pronounces her "s" with "h". I couldn't hardly say Ema's words without her bossing me to hing. She was doing that the other day too, but had her hand moving in the song leading way. She is quite the little ham! At least she's not saying "dude" too much yet like Ema. Ema is starting to say it less, so that is good!

One more kind of funny thing. During my doctor's appointment Wednesday, (Daniel had gotten the day off) he took the kids and went to get the oil changed. I got out earlier than I expected and called him. He said it shouldn't be long so instead of waiting in the cold wind, I just started walking. There is a pretty long road around the hospital and medical complexes so I figured he would be back before I got to the end where it's a busy highway. I got toward the end where some guys were doing construction work and one was whistling at me and kept staring. I was a little creeped out because they didn't quite fit the mold of people that I would want whistling at me, if I even wanted the attention. But I was just thinking, "I am 8 months pregnant people. Just because a woman is walking by, doesn't mean you have to whistle. AND GET BACK TO WORK!" So when I told Daniel that, he said, "They probably just thought you would like it." Thanks babe for your vote of confidence! I can't even get a construction worker to actually think I'm cute! That's just one of those things that I get to tease him about!

Sleep, perfect sleep

I am trying to make myself wake up this morning. If I sit still for too long, I fall asleep. It doesn't really help that Eli likes to just sit with me in the mornings for a while. I woke up at 6 this morning (which I was trying to get into the habit anyway) but Elena had wet the bed. She does really good most of the time, but she kept drinking water last night and I kept having to take it away. She doesn't like to wear pull-ups anymore, so every now and then I get to wake up to a wet, crying child. Anyway, Ema woke up along with her and apparently was still on a sugar high or something. We got her off to school and then I sat down for too long. The kids do pretty well playing or watching TV or something on their own for a little bit, but I still feel bad. I honestly think I could sleep all day and still sleep well tonight. I wasn't feeling well yesterday and the night before. This baby is either really long or likes to stretch out or something. The night before last, it was moving all night long and if felt like it was lower than usual. Every time I moved, I felt really dizzy and my head was buzzing. Then all day yesterday I was so weak and dizzy I was starting to get worried. My blood pressure is normally pretty low, but it was down to 94/49. I kept resting and drinking water all day. It was up to 102/60 last night and is about the same today. I don't know if that's what it all was, but I am feeling better today. Just SO tired I can't hardly stand it. I know if I do something, that will help a little. My house is definitely in need of some tlc. I guess that's all I have to complain about right now. Oh wait-just a note for those other pregnant ladies out there. The "secret fit belly" pants from Motherhood aren't worth all the hype-to me anyway. I tried the mediums and of course I have to order online. I thought they fit really well, took off all the tags and started doing normal things. They kept falling down and looking real saggy and there is nothing to pull them back up with-no belt loops or anything to hang on to. The belly panel doesn't help get them up either. So I took the plunge again and spent the money on a pair of smalls. They do the same thing except not as bad. I just don't think they have enough denim to go around the necessary parts, and the belly panel doesn't fit tight enough (which is probably a good thing for many people) but I want some part of the pant to make me feel secure in my jeans. At this point I have to keep checking the back of my pants to make sure they are still up even though I know there is a panel back there. I haven't taken the tags off yet-I'm still trying to decide if I can live with it. Anyway that sounds like a review I need to post on the Motherhood website-or not.

12 Long, Wonderful years!

On this day in 1996, Daniel and I became official with our first kiss. We had spent most of the weekend together while we were dropping Shellie off for college. He helped us find our way around Abilene, ate lunch with us, and helped carry all of Shellie's stuff in. Saturday night he and I got to watch "Independence Day" at the theatre. Sunday we got to walk around campus with our handsome tour guide, Daniel. We got to walk around the park for a while and talk and we went to Schlotchky's (I don't know if that's how you spell it.) oh and we shopped for a birthday present for his brother. Then, knowing that I was leaving early Monday morning, he kissed me outside of Shellie's dorm where I was staying. The dorm mom kept yelling out the door for everyone to get inside because it was curfew, but it was so hard to tear myself away from him. I cried quietly for a LONG time on the way home-partly because I was leaving my sister, one of my best friends behind, and partly because I had finally gotten to spend some time with this guy that I had been head over heels for, for over 2 years, and I had to leave him behind too. These crazy pregnancy hormones are making me tear up just thinking about it. I feel a little weird about posting this because it seems so personal-especially the kissing part-like I need to apologize to our parents or something! ANYWAY-all that to say, we try to do something a little special on this day. Tonight we are celebrating by going to a 1st grade orientation. Woohoo! Hopefully we can have a nice dinner or something too.

Anyway, I just wanted another chance to brag on my wonderful husband. He is so helpful and sweet, a great spiritual leader for our family, funny, a wonderful daddy, a hard worker and a great provider. We had a teen devo at our house last night so we had a busy weekend. We have a planter on our front patio that was driving him crazy, so this weekend, he smashed that up and got it out, he helped my parents tear out a couple of walls at their house, he fixed our toilet that needed the insides replaced, AND he helped me cook and clean. Talk about a great guy! So, happy 12 years to you, Daniel and I look forward to many many more. I love you so much!

An expensive drop of water

Last week, Ema had a friend over. They were using the computer to listen to itunes and Ema spilled a little water. I didn't realize it at the time, but it had gotten onto the keyboard and shorted it out. So we couldn't really do anything on this computer unless we just had to use the mouse. We tried everything we could think of to make the other one work, but it just wasn't happening. So, since we have a wireless keyboard, we got to pay $80 to have a new one shipped to us. We just got it today. I was glad it didn't take as long as my books from amazon that I ordered July 18 and they just shipped today. The new keyboard is nice though-exactly the same as our other one except without the dirt and grime!

I've been meaning to get on here and post some pictures from our weekend. Since Ema starts school on Tuesday, we decided we needed to do something fun so she might have something to say other than "My mom is pregnant so we laid around all summer." Daniel took last Friday off and we went to Carlsbad. There is a neat park there with a castle and everything that the kids have enjoyed so we were going to go there, but it was being repainted and worked on. So we played at a smaller park for a little while and realized how hot it was after 45 minutes. We got something to eat and headed for the caverns. It was nice to be "outside" but in a very cool place. We rode the elevator the 754 feet down and walked around the great room. It was really awesome and the kids enjoyed it. Elena fell at one point toward the end and Eli's legs were hurting. Daniel was carrying him and I carried Elena. Of course it had to be the part that actually had steep ups and downs. My hips felt like they were going to crack. Daniel offered to take both of them and put one sitting on each shoulder, but there were some deep pits, and I got a little too paranoid about one of my babies getting too squirmy and losing their balance. Not that Daniel would let that happen, but I guess that's just a mom's way of thinking. We finally got all the way through it-I think it was a little over a mile, we sat down to have hot chocolate and saw some bats deep in the cave. Then we went on to Pecos.

We spent the evening with Daniel's parents eating hamburgers and relaxing. Then we went to the ice cream shop and made a big mess. It was good though! Saturday we had heard about a fun place in Fort Stockton that had bowling, putt putt, a movie theatre, and arcade. So we all went there and were disappointed in it for the most part. We still had fun bowling, but the arcade games weren't working right, the bowling thing broke down in the middle of the game, but they got it back up, and it was kind of expensive for just a fun outing. We had read that the builders had wanted to have a place where families could come, and people could have something to do in a small town, but with their prices, I don't know how you could do it very often. Maybe we are just cheap, but I like to actually get something when we use our money instead of using it and only seeing the effects for a few hours. The kids had fun. Elena and Eli and I shared our turns at bowling because I knew none of the three of us would be interested or capable of doing it all. When it was Elena's turn, I helped her roll the ball and as soon as it was out of our hands, she would turn around and jump and yell really loud, "YEAH, I DID IT." It was cute. We even had the video camera and didn't use it. Bowling in real life is definitely not as easy as it is on the Wii.

I fell asleep when we got back to Fred and Nyla's house. The girls chased the turtles around for a while, baked cookies with grandma, and then splashed in the little pool. Eli had a really bad headache, so he fell asleep for a while. He was pushing on the sides of his head and crying. He's never done that before which broke my heart. We didn't know if it was just too hot, or if the tejano music that was blasting at the bowling alley made him have a headache. We also wondered about the elevator ride from the day before. He was better on Sunday though after 3 or 4 doses of tylenol. We got to go to church on Sunday morning and enjoyed seeing all the familiar faces. We went to Daniel's grandparents house on the way out of town and visited them for a while. The kids love to go there because of the loft. They like to stick their heads through the rails and wave and scare us all. This time they got the futons (or flutons for some of you that know this joke) and blankets down and were playing house. They were all tuckered out on the way home, so Daniel and I actually got to talk for a while. It was a really nice weekend though and hopefully the kids will remember it.

Now we've just got to be ready for school in 5 days. Oh and Ema has 5 more days to practice the whistling that she finally picked up on today. She's been trying so hard lately and today-during nap time-you could just hear her blowing and blowing and whistling a little, then blowing. . . . Then she got the hang of it, and is now whistling one note. I think that's the way I learned to whistle too, I just think I might have to work on showing her how to make different notes. She even had her roller skates on (that I just got put back in the garage) and was whistling. Talk about talent! I will try to post pictures later.

Oh and I almost forgot. I had my doctor's appointment today. My titer count went from 4 back down to 2. I didn't know it could do that, but it's great news. We don't have to take the trips to Lubbock for now. I am at 30-31 weeks. (I can't keep track of the days-weeks are hard enough for me to remember) My next appointment is in 2 weeks now. I can't even tell you how excited I am to be going down to just two weeks. Not that I want to sit in the doctors office, but it's just getting closer and I'm so ready to not be pregnant anymore. On a side note, I really enjoyed being at the Pecos church because people were saying things like, "you're just as small as can be," and one lady said, "you just look better and better with each pregnancy." Here people say things like, "OCTOBER! I don't think you're going to make it." or "you look like you could pop any minute." And nobody is trying to be ugly and I feel the same way, but sometimes it is nice to hear the Pecos compliments! Now I've given you all too much to read so I am closing now. (Shellie is that what Grandma always used to write in her letters? "am closing now") It just sounded familiar.