Aaahh the sweetness of bedtime and the routines that we have. This book is officially off the "list" of bedtime stories due to its ability to set Miles back a few steps in his "readiness" for bed...oh well. I just can't seem to get enough of the giggling!
P.S. Don't watch this if you don't like laughter, videos of story time, or if you just have a cold heart...seriously.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
36 hours and 3 days later...
Here is a picture of our life this week. Things have been crazy, busy, scary, and most importantly relieving of the goodness of our God.
Tuesday Morning, we sent out this email:
Hey Friends,
Yesterday Leigh and I received a call from her OBGYN asking us to come in to discuss something they saw in the ultrasound taken a week and a half ago. When we arrived, our doctor told us of two things that showed up in the image, both of which seem to have left him scratching his head.
The first is some sort of abnormality on the baby’s head. We do know it is off to the side, and all the inner cranial structures appear to be intact. It’s almost like there’s a sort of bubble on the outside of the skull, and they haven’t seen it (at least like this) before. He told us that it could be a false image, something appears to be there but in fact is not. It could be a cyst of some kind that’s filled with fluid that, once drained, is no big deal. Or it could be something else. Something else is what scares us.
The second is a calcification, or hard spot, in her heart. These are very common in babies, and generally not a big deal. The difference here is ours is not in the usual place. Again, no real ideas on what this means, just that it’s not the norm.
So, today at 2:45 Leigh and I will be going to Forsyth Medical to have a better, more specialized ultrasound done. We’ll be there for several hours, and at the end talk with a doc who specializes in reading these sorts of ultrasounds. Hopefully when we’re done we’ll know more. Our hope is that this is a false image, and that our little girl (if you didn’t know, she’s a girl!) is fine and healthy. For me, I take some comfort in the fact that the doctor can’t explain what he’s seeing.
Leigh and I are about as one would expect. Both of us are afraid, unsure of how to feel, and scared to hope for good news and terrified of bad news. There’s definitely a sense of, “Really God? Can’t this go easy? I can’t do hard any more. It feels like we just finished hard.” We’ve spent all our time dreaming of names, how to decorate, and looking at cute baby girl clothes. You don’t really think about this stuff.
This morning Leigh woke up with the song based on Zeph 3:17 stuck in her head. Which is not normal—I couldn’t tell you the last time we’ve sung that. Which, in our opinion, makes it God at work. This is what the song says: “The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. The Lord will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with His love. He will rejoice over you with singing.”
Please pray with and for us. Pray for a healthy baby girl. Pray for Leigh and I to have the courage to trust God. Pray for us to know how to love each other and Miles in the midst of uncertainty. Thank you for being our friends and walking through life with us.
Love,
Brad
Tuesday evening we sent out this email:
Everything is great! EVERYTHING!
Thank you all for praying for us and our daughter today. For Leigh and I, it has been a place where we've seen God intervene in our lives in an amazing way. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
When we sat with our doc yesterday, it was the only time I've ever seen him worried. The only time he's ever called us in for a special unscheduled appointment. He didn't know what he saw in the ultrasound, and it bothered him. He wanted to be thorough, and we're so grateful for that.
Today, after two rounds of ultrasounds with two different doctors and two different techs, we were given a resounding "all clear." In fact, so resounding that they were baffled as to why we were there to begin with. They kept looking at things over and over, measuring body parts, and asking again and again what exactly the problem was that sent us there, because they could see nothing wrong. Nothing at all!
I don't know if I've ever known relief and release like I did when we left the last doctor. I didn't realize how scared I really was. Leigh and I were both laughing and crying, giddy. And so thankful. We know that God is sovereign over any outcome, but we're so grateful for this one. Thank you for coming alongside us and praying. There's a part of me that wants to share snippets of emails with all of you, so you can see how well you've cared for us. Thank you for being in our lives.
Side note--we came home to a package on the porch. It was the first set of PJ's that Leigh had ordered for our little girl. She was so afraid that we'd come home with bad news to find them waiting. God has been so good to us!
In Him with a full heart,
Brad
3 days later:
I still find myself crying over those 36 hours we experienced at the start of this week. While praying during those hours, I struggled with my faith in this outcome. The "hard" that we went through just a year ago with the loss of my Mom was still such a fresh wound on my heart. I have dealt with trusting the process of prayer and feelings of jealousy in the trials of others that had "better" outcomes, questioned why our results were not different and if my faith was lacking. I have wanted to run away, hide, and more or less stopped praying. If I didn't pray, I couldn't be let down or feel abandoned. But truth persued me. God is good. Always good. We are broken, part of a broken world, and if results don't gratify, it is hard to have faith that it is still God being good. His plan, though not ours, is good and perfect.
I was scared to continue on through this process and have results, knowing I could be hurt, left scratching my head, throwing fists in the air...again. I had no idea that the outcome would change me again, this time pointing me towards Christ. While talking with an old friend today, he told Brad after learning about our scare, "you can look at this two ways and both with reflect your faith. One is, NOTHING was there to begin with and later ultrasounds proved that fact, or you can believe that THERE WAS SOMETHING there and God's hand intervened. Faith lies in how you receive it." If you ask me, there was something there and then it was not. Right now we are reminded that our little girl is a GIFT....not a promise. I am filled with an overabundance of joy, living in the fact that His compassions NEVER FAIL (lamentations 3:22) learning to be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer (Romans 12:12)
Tuesday Morning, we sent out this email:
Hey Friends,
Yesterday Leigh and I received a call from her OBGYN asking us to come in to discuss something they saw in the ultrasound taken a week and a half ago. When we arrived, our doctor told us of two things that showed up in the image, both of which seem to have left him scratching his head.
The first is some sort of abnormality on the baby’s head. We do know it is off to the side, and all the inner cranial structures appear to be intact. It’s almost like there’s a sort of bubble on the outside of the skull, and they haven’t seen it (at least like this) before. He told us that it could be a false image, something appears to be there but in fact is not. It could be a cyst of some kind that’s filled with fluid that, once drained, is no big deal. Or it could be something else. Something else is what scares us.
The second is a calcification, or hard spot, in her heart. These are very common in babies, and generally not a big deal. The difference here is ours is not in the usual place. Again, no real ideas on what this means, just that it’s not the norm.
So, today at 2:45 Leigh and I will be going to Forsyth Medical to have a better, more specialized ultrasound done. We’ll be there for several hours, and at the end talk with a doc who specializes in reading these sorts of ultrasounds. Hopefully when we’re done we’ll know more. Our hope is that this is a false image, and that our little girl (if you didn’t know, she’s a girl!) is fine and healthy. For me, I take some comfort in the fact that the doctor can’t explain what he’s seeing.
Leigh and I are about as one would expect. Both of us are afraid, unsure of how to feel, and scared to hope for good news and terrified of bad news. There’s definitely a sense of, “Really God? Can’t this go easy? I can’t do hard any more. It feels like we just finished hard.” We’ve spent all our time dreaming of names, how to decorate, and looking at cute baby girl clothes. You don’t really think about this stuff.
This morning Leigh woke up with the song based on Zeph 3:17 stuck in her head. Which is not normal—I couldn’t tell you the last time we’ve sung that. Which, in our opinion, makes it God at work. This is what the song says: “The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. The Lord will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with His love. He will rejoice over you with singing.”
Please pray with and for us. Pray for a healthy baby girl. Pray for Leigh and I to have the courage to trust God. Pray for us to know how to love each other and Miles in the midst of uncertainty. Thank you for being our friends and walking through life with us.
Love,
Brad
Tuesday evening we sent out this email:
Everything is great! EVERYTHING!
Thank you all for praying for us and our daughter today. For Leigh and I, it has been a place where we've seen God intervene in our lives in an amazing way. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
When we sat with our doc yesterday, it was the only time I've ever seen him worried. The only time he's ever called us in for a special unscheduled appointment. He didn't know what he saw in the ultrasound, and it bothered him. He wanted to be thorough, and we're so grateful for that.
Today, after two rounds of ultrasounds with two different doctors and two different techs, we were given a resounding "all clear." In fact, so resounding that they were baffled as to why we were there to begin with. They kept looking at things over and over, measuring body parts, and asking again and again what exactly the problem was that sent us there, because they could see nothing wrong. Nothing at all!
I don't know if I've ever known relief and release like I did when we left the last doctor. I didn't realize how scared I really was. Leigh and I were both laughing and crying, giddy. And so thankful. We know that God is sovereign over any outcome, but we're so grateful for this one. Thank you for coming alongside us and praying. There's a part of me that wants to share snippets of emails with all of you, so you can see how well you've cared for us. Thank you for being in our lives.
Side note--we came home to a package on the porch. It was the first set of PJ's that Leigh had ordered for our little girl. She was so afraid that we'd come home with bad news to find them waiting. God has been so good to us!
In Him with a full heart,
Brad
3 days later:
I still find myself crying over those 36 hours we experienced at the start of this week. While praying during those hours, I struggled with my faith in this outcome. The "hard" that we went through just a year ago with the loss of my Mom was still such a fresh wound on my heart. I have dealt with trusting the process of prayer and feelings of jealousy in the trials of others that had "better" outcomes, questioned why our results were not different and if my faith was lacking. I have wanted to run away, hide, and more or less stopped praying. If I didn't pray, I couldn't be let down or feel abandoned. But truth persued me. God is good. Always good. We are broken, part of a broken world, and if results don't gratify, it is hard to have faith that it is still God being good. His plan, though not ours, is good and perfect.
I was scared to continue on through this process and have results, knowing I could be hurt, left scratching my head, throwing fists in the air...again. I had no idea that the outcome would change me again, this time pointing me towards Christ. While talking with an old friend today, he told Brad after learning about our scare, "you can look at this two ways and both with reflect your faith. One is, NOTHING was there to begin with and later ultrasounds proved that fact, or you can believe that THERE WAS SOMETHING there and God's hand intervened. Faith lies in how you receive it." If you ask me, there was something there and then it was not. Right now we are reminded that our little girl is a GIFT....not a promise. I am filled with an overabundance of joy, living in the fact that His compassions NEVER FAIL (lamentations 3:22) learning to be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer (Romans 12:12)
Thursday, April 1, 2010
ACK Indeed!
In the past years, I have slowly been gaining momentum in my passion towards food. Lets just say, I have really strong opinions about the misuse in labeling, governmental food priorities (food that is bad for you is inexpensive to buy...food stamps aren't helping make us healthy...), and don't even get me started on school lunches. The whole truth surrounding the food industry is stomach churning. The country as a whole, is set in this rut of obesity, unhealthy living and habits, as well as being apathetic about it all.
I stumbled upon this Colbert Report and could not quit laughing. He makes light of the issues, but is dead on with the points he makes about us (as a country) and our view of food.
I stumbled upon this Colbert Report and could not quit laughing. He makes light of the issues, but is dead on with the points he makes about us (as a country) and our view of food.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Thought for Food - Corn Diapers, Fatty Foods & Jamie Oliver | ||||
| ||||
Friday, March 5, 2010
Praise God for Sesame Street
So, as a child I hated Sesame Street. No, I think I actually loathed it. I always wanted to keep up with my brothers and do things big boys do. (Yes, I said "boys") By the time I was of Sesame street age, I didn't want any of it...at all. (Well, from what I can remember at least.)
Now, most days at 10, I have PBS on, and that wonderful show that has aired since 1969, finally gets my attention. Maybe it's because it entertains Miles all the while being a stimulating resource for his brain. Maybe it's because during the time I can clean up the breakfast mess, and get some laundry in the machine. Maybe because it's wholesome (though I have heard the phrase "poo poo head" used recently)... Or maybe because it lifts my spirits....
I'm ready for spring, ready for scenes outside the walls in my home, ready for new life and fresh air....AND ready for some Jason Mraz.
Now, most days at 10, I have PBS on, and that wonderful show that has aired since 1969, finally gets my attention. Maybe it's because it entertains Miles all the while being a stimulating resource for his brain. Maybe it's because during the time I can clean up the breakfast mess, and get some laundry in the machine. Maybe because it's wholesome (though I have heard the phrase "poo poo head" used recently)... Or maybe because it lifts my spirits....
I'm ready for spring, ready for scenes outside the walls in my home, ready for new life and fresh air....AND ready for some Jason Mraz.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Go Dog Go!
Miles likes books. Actually Miles LOVES books. One book in particular has been getting a whole lot of reading time these days. In fact, yesterday Brad and I must have read Go Dog Go at least half a dozen times.... Our son is absolutely in love with the classic by P.D. Eastman. When you step back and think about it, it totally makes sense. The vocabulary contained within the pages of this book are many words that Miles has been speaking daily. Dog, go, hat, car.....are just to name a few. I had no idea that when we picked this book up a month ago, it would never be set down for a lengthy amount of time. In fact yesterday while cleaning up "toys" before bed, I realized that there were no toys to actually put away, just a massive basket of books scattered about the house. I guess we have a reader on our hands.
While reading about her birthday on my friend Leslie's blog, I discovered that many Dr. Seuss readers are on YouTube! Yay. Now we have yet another avenue to enjoy the book through. Thanks Leslie!
While reading about her birthday on my friend Leslie's blog, I discovered that many Dr. Seuss readers are on YouTube! Yay. Now we have yet another avenue to enjoy the book through. Thanks Leslie!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Man your Man could smell like
So, this is hands down my new favorite commercial. Makes me laugh every time. Enjoy!
Monday, February 1, 2010
Photo of the day Recap: Jan 23, Great Wolf Lodge
This is a recap of a conversation Brad and I just had about 30 minutes ago. Once again, evidence that though I mean well, I never can communicate just how I intend to. Classic foot in mouth disease....
Me:
You know Brad, this photo of the day is not that bad. I mean, I'm not disgusted or anything with you having your shirt off.....
I mean, P90X is working...
eeeerrr, what I meant to say is, its not like I was ever really disgusted by you....
You just look good. Not that you looked bad....
What I trying to say is you don't look fat or anything....
uh. Never mind.
******
My loving husband's response:
I'm glad that I have confidence that you love me.... a lot.
Otherwise, My self esteem would be about zero after that compliment.
Thanks Honey...
I love you too.
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