Cousin Love

Over Easter weekend, we traveled to Michigan. We were excited for Adriana to be around her one and only cousin, seeing as she loves babies and as we hope they'll become gal pals. In the end, all Adriana cared about was the dog. It was Elijah who took a special liking to Trinity, and she was quite intrigued with him.

Peek-a-boo:

Hannah Update

After five days in the hospital, Hannah came home yesterday. We have seen some improvements. She is now able to freely use her hands and arms, and her convulsions have become more like involuntary tremors. The biggest problem is she cannot use her legs at all. She is in a wheelchair right now since she cannot even stand on her own. A physical therapist will be coming to try to re-teach her legs to stand and walk. She is also experiencing back pain and severe headaches.

This morning, she was sharing with me that God has been faithful to give her grace for the day. The Holy Spirit is reminding her not to worry about the future, but to trust her Shepherd as she follows Him. She told me another verse that has held a lot of encouragement is Isaiah 41:10, "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

When I questioned her to how people could be praying for her, she requested prayer that her headaches and back pain would go away. She also asked for prayer that God would sustain her and help her to continue trusting in His sovereignty with joy. She also added, and I quote: "I feel like I don't need as much prayer as Mom and Dad do, because they're doing all the work. I feel overwhelmed by the kindness everyone is showing to me in praying."

I love that girl!

Hannah

During a missions trip to Mexico last week, my sister Hannah fell backwards about four feet and hit her head on cement. After a lot of drama, including an ambulance ride to El Paso, Texas, she was able to fly back home to Virginia. She has been in the hospital here for the past three days. Stimulation to her brain causes her to convulse; and, at present, she has very little control over her legs and cannot walk. All tests have come back clean and, so far, we have no answers to why this is happening.
Hannah is truly finding a lot of peace and joy in God's sovereign control over her situation. I'm moved to see the genuineness of her faith at this time and how thoroughly God has been "our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." (Ps. 46:1) As a family we've had a chance to recount the ways that God has shown His kindess through all of this and the list is long!
I write this to ask for your prayers. Please pray first for God to be glorified in this situation. Pray that Hannah would be healed, and that God would give wisdom to the doctors to discover the cause of all of this.
Let me end this post by sharing a verse that Hannah has been clinging to- Romans 8:31-34:
"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us."

Horton

This morning our local theatre was showing Horton Hears A Who at a discounted price for moms with small kids. The cost was a matinée price for me, a dollar each for the boys, and free for Adriana...right up my wallet's alley. So we snuck away from the busyness of preparing for tomorrow's trip to Michigan and went to hear Jim Carrey's voice coming out of an elephant.
It was Adriana's first ever movie theatre experience. With the help of an entertaining big screen and a bag full of animal crackers, she did surprisingly well. She even started laughing at a comical scene and looking up at me said, "Funny!"
Elijah is always bursting with questions about everything in life, so we had a pre-movie talk about just watching and not talking.
A couple of times he turned and asked me something, realized what he had done, and loudly said, "Wait, I'm not supposed to ask you any questions!"
At another point he declared, in a volume level that the whole crowd could hear, "Mom, I just accidentally ate a booger!"
It was a fun morning, and now my tired kiddies are down for a nap to dream dreams of Who-ville and mean kangaroos. And I have a trip to pack for...
See you next week!

Happy St. Patty's Day

Once again it is time for traditions like wearing green, pinching those that don't (though we'll have to have a "no stranger pinching" talk before going grocery shopping), eating our yearly Irish Casserole, and taking goofy photos...

I ♥ Baby Boots

I asked her yesterday what she was doing and she replied, "Stuff."

Stuff! I didn't expect to get answer like that for at least ten more years...

Soccer Cleats

Isaiah is going to be starting soccer in a couple of weeks. And, while I am not sure I'm ready to be in the stage of life where I drive my white minivan to soccer practice, my son is very excited to begin playing sports.
Yesterday, to his complete delight, I bought a little pair of soccer cleats. To quote him word for word on his opinion of them: "These are so slick!"
He felt big and bad and asked me in a serious tone if before games he would be getting "dressed in the lock." I told him that I didn't believe they had a locker. Still using his eighteen-year-old voice, he wanted to know, "Do I have to polish them or something?"

Geese and Random Bits

Some warmer weather has been here, and we've enjoyed some sunny walks. Our community has two ponds which the geese frequent. And even though Elijah is deathly afraid of getting "geese poop" on his shoes, all my kids love to bird watch.

I recently found out that one of my photos was stolen from Flickr *sniff* and used on someone's site. They even covered my watermark with their own. It was weird to see my artwork on the Internet claimed as someone else's, but I know it's all too common. Steven and I talked about what to do and decided that, while I'll do what I can to have it removed, I should not let one person's actions change my internet photo-sharing.

We took Adriana to a check-up at the doctors this morning. As my daughter stood wide-eyed and shy, the doctor asked me child development questions. One of them was, "Does she say any words?" I almost snorted and wanted to respond, "Give her an hour to warm up, and she'll have bared her whole heart to you." But I held my mommy-pride and answered with a simple, "Yes."

On the subject of talking, I wanted to share a few little boy quotes. We've had a couple anatomy questions from the boys (help!), but I'll spare you and only share the cutesy ones:

-We were discussing race cars when Isaiah concluded, "But God is the fastest in the university!"

-As Isaiah was drawing a surprise picture for me he said, "Don't look, Mother, [I've been "Mother" since he recently became obsessed with the book Farmer Boy.] It wouldn't even be remotely funny if you saw this."

-Elijah told me that he knew what he wanted to get Isaiah for next Christmas. I told him to keep the idea to himself and that maybe he could use it when we go Christmas shopping nine months from now. He asked, "Can I tell you?" Since Isaiah was standing right next to me I told him that I didn't think that would be a very good idea. Bursting with the secret, he said, "I'll tell myself in my room!"

My Big Girl