Good riddance to 2011!

Hello 2012! 2011 was a medically challenging year! On January 1, 2011 I was in the ER. I was diagnosed with a migraine, but it was unlike any other migraine I had ever had. On December 31, 2011, Josh was in the ER. There were also many trips there this year thanks to my car accident, Caleb's playground accident (neck injury), Josh's head tic thing, and Marc's many issues. I am hopeful that 2012 will include ZERO trips to the ER!

Are you curious as to why my oldest child was in the ER last night? My seafood loving...well my food loving child had a severe allergic reaction to lobster. This was not the first time he ate lobster. He was doing the "all you can eat lobster" at Pappa's at age 4. He had steak and lobster for his birthday, and again at Benihana's for my birthday. He had clams, shrimp, and muscles while at Disney world last week. Anyway, last night I was sitting in the living room while Marc, Josh, and my mom were eating lobster. Josh mentioned that his mouth always tingled when he ate lobster. I made a mental note of that, because I KNOW that is a sign of allergy. I didn't bring it up though because he has had lobster many times before. I don't think anyone else immediately caught on to that. They ate, cleaned up, and went outside for fireworks. He came inside and his eyes were watery and swollen. Initially we figured it was because the smoke of the fireworks...cause that happens. I looked at his stomach and sent him on his way. He came back in. His eyes were yuck! He couldn't breathe through his nose, and his throat was swollen. I looked at his stomach again (it was clear) and told him to stay inside for a while. He started coughing some, so I gave him a benadryl. Then I looked at his back. He was covered in hives. Marc looked. My mom looked. I mentioned that I thought he was having an allergic reaction to lobster. Marc thought it was weird, because he had never had a problem. Then I mentioned what Josh had said earlier about his mouth tingling. It clicked for Marc. He told Josh that wasn't normal. Josh just thought it was, because his mouth always tingled when he ate lobster. By this time Josh's lips were puffy and he had bumps on them. I looked at his stomach again. This time it was red with hives starting to appear. I grabbed my keys and we headed out the door to the ER. On the way there Josh started itching like mad. He said he was itchy from head to toe. He was starting to freak out too. He told me I needed to drive faster. I was going slightly over the speed limit, but being very cautious. Drunk drivers terrify me, and there are way too many drunk driving fatalities on the two roads I drive the most, especially on a holiday. We walked into the ER, and the attendant immediately took his vitals. Five minutes later they took them again. Then they took him back while I filled out paperwork. About that time the benadryl I gave him kicked in. He started clearing up some, and could breath normally. They gave him another benadryl, because I could have given him more based on his weight. The doctor did confirm it was an allergic reaction. She gave me a prescription for an epipen and steroids. I am still trying to grasp what this all means for us. I know about allergies and label reading. I know that each exposure causes a worse reaction. I know lots of stuff in my head, but this changes things. Sure, Caleb can't have soy, but if he does it won't kill him. Sometimes I let it slide. I can't let anything slide with this. Does this mean he is allergic to ALL shellfish, or just lobster? Do I really want to try and find out? I know he can still eat his favorite, salmon, but do I have to worry about cross contamination? At what point should I choose the Epipen over the benadryl? How many questions do I have to ask at restaurants? Should we even bother? This is just all so new to us. Can I still give him his omega supplements? I have lots of questions. If you have any experience with this at all, please get in touch with me.

This Epipen is now a part of our lives. I  (or he) must carry this at all times, and be prepared to use it. Scary thought!

 Did I mention that Josh LOVES seafood...all seafood?

Same photo, different years!

We went to Disney World last week. This was not our first trip. We also went Spring Break 2006, and February 2008. This trip we stayed in the same hotel we did in 2006. Here is a photo from that trip.

Here is a photo in that same spot from our trip this year.

Josh and Hannah had to squeeze in to get the photo. I will come back later with more details about our trip. It was a blast, but we are running on fumes, and have Christmas to get ready for. I just thought it was a funny photo. I can't believe how much the kids have grown!

Random photo from Celebration rehearsal

I have quite a few random photos from different Celebration rehearsals (kids, cast, and choir). These photos are from Sunday's Frosty kids rehearsal. These kids were chosen out of the big group of kids to sing two extra songs. Do you remember the Frosty the Snowman cartoon? We LOVE watching it. Do you remember when frosty is marching with the band. That is what this picture depicts...obviously without the costume on Frosty. The kids get to sing and dance. It is so fun. Samantha loves being a part of this group. She is near the middle of the photo. She is wearing a short sleeve dark pink shirt. These kids also get to be on stage when Santa comes. They have worked hard every Sunday afternoon for the last 2 months to be ready. Celebration starts Thursday!!! There are still tickets available. Click HERE to buy them. You can also reserve childcare for your preschool aged children. 

**these photos were taken from the top of the 3rd floor

Funnies!

Hannah funny-

It has rained quite a bit the last few days. We went to my dad's house today for Thanksgiving/Tracy's 40th birthday celebration. Hannah decided she wanted to play outside. She came back in and said, "There are fish in the water." We all looked confused, because...well, there are no fish! Our adult minds figure it could be tadpoles or mosquito larvae, so we sent Josh out to investigate. Hannah came back in the house with this attitude on her face. She looked at Josh with this "look" and said, "Josh said they are squitos. They are not. They are fish!" We of course all laugh. She was very matter of fact about it. In a 4 year old mind it makes sense, because mosquitos fly, and fish swim in water. It was just the "look" and the way she said it that had us cracking up.

Caleb funny- This is more of a "you know me so well" statement, but it had me laughing.

Samantha said, "Mom,  are we doing anything today?"
Caleb replied, "It's black Friday, we are going NOWHERE!"

Thankful

I am going to start this post by saying that I originally started this blog post Saturday morning. I typed out a whole three sentences. Now here it is Thanksgiving day, and I am just now getting back to it. This is precisely the reason why I am doing all 30 at one time...instead of doing a post a day.

I know I am a little late on the 30 day thankful thing, but really I am not. I have learned that lately life is crazy. I can't seem to do anything consistently, so I decided I would do it all at once.

30 days on Thanksgiving- (these are in no particular order)

1. salvation
2. family
3. kids
4. laughter 
5. love 
6. church
7. food
8. family time
9. joy
10. football (let me clarify by saying that all 4 kids will sit down and watch football with me and Hannah will even get into it and cheer)
11. church
12. friends
13. God's love
14. God's faithfulness
15. pets
16. health (particularly since this has been a rough year for both Marc and I)
17. facebook (I love being able to reconnect with old friends, and stay in touch with family we don't see very often)
18. holidays (I love all holidays and being able to spend time with family)
19. choir friends
20. singers friends
21. Mother's Day Out (if you have read my blog lately, it needs no explanation!)
22. Jesus
23. the ability to replace and repair all the junk that broke this year
24. kids sports (I personally believe it builds character and teamwork) 
25. auto insurance that took care of everything after my accident
26. the teachers and the elementary school nurse that love on my kids all year
27. the man next door who always brings treats for the kids and the dogs...sometimes I get home grown veggies too. 
28. vacation
29. my chiropractor (needs no explanation)
30. Prayer (I love getting to pray for others)

I am sure there is lots more. I tried to not focus on the material stuff...like my iPhone, MacBook, and car. It doesn't mean I am not thankful for those things, but I would like to think I would still be thankful without all of those things. 

Miss Social...or Mrs Social

HUH??? Well we all know that Hannah is the social butterfly of the family. Everyone is her friend, and she wants to talk to them...all of the time! She even has friends at the grocery store...THE GROCERY STORE! If you have not gotten a chance to meet Hannah, you should take the time. She is funny. She has a HUGE imagination. She has imaginary friends sometimes. She has the absolute BEST laugh. Her laugh can make anyone smile. She can also talk your ear off.

Well, tonight something clicked in me. I am not that social. I like to talk to people, but I am uncomfortable starting a conversation. Even with friends I tend to feel uncomfortable. I generally prefer to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself. If I am praying for you, I probably won't tell you, because it sounds so cliche. I just do it. I can do a quick "hi" on facebook, but that quick "hi" in person is just weird for me...I know I am strange. Actually, I think the word is introverted. I am the definition of an introvert. I have no idea what got into me tonight. I feel like I chatted with everyone. I don't mean the "hi, how are you doing; I'm fine" in passing. I was just chatty tonight. I mean chatty, and not with people I normally talk to. I even went out of my way to talk to people. It was kind of fun!!!! I had something I wanted to say to each person I talked to, and I actually did it! I can't even count on my fingers how many people I got to talk to.  Really, I  do know some pretty cool people. I am thankful for each and every one of you.

We all know Miss Social Hannah...maybe I will try harder to be Mrs Social Jennifer.

Time is flying!

I really want to be a good blogger. I think I just need to accept the fact that life just keeps happening. Did you know Thanksgiving is next week...NEXT WEEK! How did that happen. It feels like is should only be August. Did we lose a few months this year? Thanksgiving means the kids are out all week. That means I need to try and finish (and start) my Christmas shopping this week. Celebration is approaching very quickly. If you haven't bought your tickets now is the time. Go to http://thefirstchristmas.org/ and buy them...today! It is only 23 days away. I did get some shopping done tonight. Three kids are taken care of for Christmas. Thank you internet!

I just had a perfect example of how side tracked I get. While waiting for this photo to upload...not sure if it should do it automatically with iCloud, I clicked something in iTunes. Not sure what I did, but I ended up with 3 extra copies of every calendar entry. I like to think of myself as somewhat tech savvy, but this whole iCloud has thrown me for a loop. I think it is GREAT, but Marc and I have always used the same account. When you plug into the computer the checked stuff syncs, and it is all kept separately. Now I have all of his contacts, and he has all of mine. I can't delete them until I set up a new account for one of us. Of course I didn't know this initially, and I deleted some of his friends off my phone. The next time his phone did the whole iCloud thing, those contacts were deleted from his phone...oops. Anyway, I ended up deleting all of the extra copies off my phone, because I don't want them to do the iCloud thing and put a gob of "guitar lessons" all on the same day at the same time on both computers.

The church is now decorated for Christmas. It looks so good. Hannah is super excited!

Now this photo...

Sunday after church Hannah very very excitedly ran to the tree and said, "Momma, take a picture of me by the tree." How can I not? Here is the photo.

She then walked around the tree pointing out EVERYTHING! She even found a bird. She talked to it. She pet it. She asked me take a picture of it...I didn't. Then she looked at the stuff on the wall. She was so excited about the snow. She kept touching it and wanted to play with it. Then she found a pine cone. If you remember a while back, we had a collection. She would pick one up every day when we left the YMCA. She asked if she could bring the pine cone home. I told her no. Then she went back to inspecting the snow. I sat there and thought about it. Hannah has never seen REAL snow. I think she thinks the stuff on the tree and other decorations is real snow. (I am giggling just thinking about it) When... or if she ever sees real snow, she is going to be surprised because it is cold...and wet.

I know it has snowed here like 3 years in a row, but Houston snow is not real! You can't even see it in photos. It is just tiny little flying flakes. It doesn't stick, and it doesn't really accumulate anywhere.

I swear I am not ADD, but this post is all over the place. I think I am going to stop now.

Hannah, Hannah, Hannah

How on earth did I have such a social child? She just talks and talks and talks. Those of you that know me know that I am not much of a talker. There are times when I crave silence. Let me rephrase that, I NEED silence!!!! In a group of people I am content to just sit back and listen to everyone. Occasionally, I will have something to say, but I am just not comfortable speaking up most of the time. I am not the kind of person who will walk up and introduce myself to someone. It is just way out of my comfort zone. That is just me. That is my personality. Hannah is NOT like me! She makes friends everywhere! While at Josh's football game she walked up to a girl and said, "I'm Hannah. I'm four. Wanna play?" Then they took off to  play and picked up every other little kid in the area to play with them. Hannah had her softball friends (kids at Sam's practice), and her baseball friends (kids at Caleb's practice). She talks to every person we interact with...well, we might not have interacted with them until Hannah initiated a conversation. It amazes me at how comfortable she is socially. Her constant talking leads to some funny things. I have blogged in the past about the funny things she has said. We had one of those today...there were probably more, because she talked almost non-stop all afternoon. I had to turn up the car radio to preserve my sanity.

Here is a Hannah funny. We were sitting in the drive thru line at Starbucks. She wanted her window down...can you guess why? She wanted to talk to the people at the window. Anyway, it started to sprinkle just a little...rain has very been rare the last year. Hannah said,

"Mom, something is spilling on me." Then very excitedly (or just shocked) said, "IT'S RAIN!"

Seriously...gotta love it!!!!

Thankful for the little things

This week I was reminded of something. A friend of mine posted on Facebook about her little ones happiness at being able to touch a cat while wearing gloves. He is allergic. Well, just in case you are one of the few people who don't know about the boys struggle with eczema, it has been a hard road for us. You can type "eczema" into the search box on the top left and get some details about our struggle.

Josh had his first eczema rash at 8 weeks old. When he was about 18 months old, we did our first (of many) round of allergy testing. We had a cat at the time, and Josh's skin was always just horrible. He immediately tested positive for cats. They don't even read the test until 10 minutes and another 20 minutes, because the allergy can take a while to show up on the skin test. I did what any good mom would do, and found a new home for my cat. The damage was done though. My son was a cat lover. After our cat was gone for a while, his cat allergy became VERY obvious. He would immediately break out. His eyes would run something that looked like snot. They would also turn pink and swell up. He was just miserable. His cat allergy was so bad that if he sat next to a kid who had cats eyes would do that. It took a few times at school to figure out what was happening. He would sit next to a kid on the bus who had lots of cats. He would get sent to the nurse as soon as he arrived at school, because his eyes were pink, swollen, and goopey.  We took allergy eye drops to the school, and he couldn't sit next to that boy anymore.

Why the background? All those years I prayed for healing from eczema, so did Josh. Josh also prayed for his cat allergy to go away. I thought he was nuts, and would gently reassure him that a cat allergy as bad as his does not just go away. He kept praying anyway. Josh tested 4 times positive to cats. The doctor quit testing him for cats, because it was obvious he was highly allergic. We prayed for healing for eczema for years! Josh still prayed he would be able to have a cat.  How little was my faith? Back in the spring a cat hitched a ride in Marc's engine. It was a kitten...about 3 months old. We couldn't just leave it outside, so it became our cat...while we tried to figure out what to do with it. In the long run it didn't matter. The cat got out and ran away. After A LOT of prodding from the kids we adopted a shelter cat a few months ago. Would you believe Josh has had NO problems at all? The cat even sleeps in his room! I can't begin to tell you how happy he has been.

Through it all I had been praying for the "big" thing...to be healed. Josh had also been praying for something that seemed so small, and in my mind impossible. Amazing how sometimes we forget that God does care about the small things.

Out of the words of my friend John at our chiropractors office "WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE"! How many times have I heard those words? Three times a week since my accident. How many times have those words really sunk in? Not enough!

What moves you?

That is an honest question, and I would love an honest answer. What moves you?

There have always been things that move me and bring me to tears. Not necessarily tears of pain, but tears of joy, or tears of WOW, or just tears! One of those things is baptism! It used to just be the ones with the amazing stories that got me. You know the ones...those that have literally been pulled from the pit of hell and lived to tell about it. Then it was the baptism of the really old people...I am talking 80+ years. I mean really...it shows that it is never to late to give your life to Christ. Then it was the baptism of the young children, because....well, they are so young. They gave their life to Christ. It doesn't mean they won't have to walk through the fire, but it does mean that God has their back! Well, now I just cry at EVERY baptism!  It doesn't matter the story or the age. Baptism is a public profession of an inner change, asking Jesus to be LORD of your life. I get teary at every baptism, because it represents a life changed! That person will NEVER be the same. I get teary just thinking about it.

Sunday something else moved me. We had a boys choir from a University outside of Nairobi, Kenya come and sing. These 4 young men could sing! I can tell you that during the first service I just bawled through the whole thing. It is hard to explain why though.  I mean here in America there are churches every where. I truly believe everyone has the chance to hear the gospel, many just chose not to. I don't even like the term "Christian", because it gives off a negative vibe. I prefer Christ follower. Christ followers here in America have it easy. It is not very likely that we will be beat or murdered for our faith. Most of the time we don't even take a stand, because of fear about what others will think. Then here we have a group of men from Africa...AFRICA come to sing to a bunch of stuffy Americans. Yes, I just called US stuffy. I personally LOVED it when the young men started to dance, but it was obvious not all did. As I sat there and watched the faces of these young men as they sang "show me the way" with their whole hearts, I was just in awe. These men didn't grow up like we did here. They might have been orphans. They might have been persecuted back home. Really, I have no idea about their lives, but I do know that I saw a genuine love and adoration for Christ. Honestly, it was a love that is absent from most Americans. Not because we don't love Christ, but because we are so worried about finances, kids, retirement, health, etc. that we tend to put Christ on the back burner. I know I am guilty of this, and surely I can't be the only one.

Yesterday was also Orphan Sunday. I didn't take part in anything, but I have has a stirring in my heart for quite a while now about orphan care. My heart breaks for children. I want all children to be loved and cared for. I want all children to have a family to call their own. My heart breaks for kids who are hurting. I was just reminded yesterday how much. I am not sure what God has planned for us as a family, but I feel like God didn't break my heart for nothing.

So, back to my question...What moves YOU?