THANK YOU!

A huge thank you to those of you that donated to our Stroll for Epilepsy or walked with us last night! We had a great turn out and I am so appreciative to those who took time out of their day to walk for a cause that is hugely important to us! We had a lot of fun and I will get pictures up soon but for now I'm packing because we have our church family campout this weekend and tonight I'm going to see Beth Moore!! I'm so excited! It should be a great conference and great to get away with other women for a couple days!!

Cure Pity

A friend of mine posted this link on her caringbridge site and I wanted to share it too. It's http://www.curepity.org.

The basic premise of the website is this: "...to look beyond the challenges children with disabilities face, and instead realize the enormity of what they can accomplish through spirit, sheer willpower, and leading-edge medical care. I refuse to focus on the obstacles that children with disabilities may encounter; but rather on their determination to face—and overcome—them."

Maybe you know a child with special needs and if so this message is one to remember. I know from experiencing pity in regards to Emeric's situation that it's the least comforting of anything someone might want us to feel. We don't look at him as pitiful so we'd hate for someone else to either and yet I understand too that it's common to react this way because we don't know what else to say or do sometimes. So, for that reason I share this site. I like to get others thinking and I like to be challenged myself!

Did you know?

Since I've been in a blogging slump lately I decided to steal this from my friend Jessica's blog...

1. What Color Is Your Toothbrush? White with purple

2. Name One Person That Made You Smile Today: my kids

3. What Were You Doing At 8 Am This Morning? sitting with Emeric

4. What Were You Doing 45 Minutes Ago? talking on the phone

5. What Is Your Favorite Candy? maple nut goodies

6. Have You Ever Been To A Strip Club? never have. never will

7. What's the last thing you said out loud? "don't spill"

8. What Is The Best Ice Cream Flavor?I'm not a huge ice cream lover but I suppose something with pecans and caramel

9. What Was The Last Thing You Had To Drink? Coke

10. What Is The Longest You Have Gone Without Sleeping? 3 days

11. Have You Ever Made a Promise You'd Die to Keep? I don't think so

13. The Last Sporting Event You Watched? basketball

14. What Is Your Favorite Flavor Of Popcorn? caramel

15. Who Is The Last Person You Sent an email to? Nena

16. Ever go camping? yup

17. Do You Take Vitamins Daily? No, but I should

18. Do You Go To Church Every Sunday? yes

21. Do You Drink Your Soda With A Straw? if it's a cup with a lid, or at a restaurant yep. Otherwise nope.
22. What Did Your Last Text Message say?"Will you return the movies?"

24. Where Is Your Dad? in the woods

25. Look To Your Left, What Do you see? an old breastpump, guitar case, towel, papers, ok too much to list
26. What Color Is Your Watch? Don't wear a watch.

28. What did you do yesterday? went to Menards, babysat, worked on finishing my basement

29. Do You Go In At A Fast Food Place Or Just Hit The Drive Thru? Depends

30. What Is Your Favorite Number? I guess I'm not really partial to any specific number

31. Who's The Last Person You Talked To On The Phone? A doctor

2. Any Plans Today? nothing worth listing

34. Biggest Annoyance In Your Life Right Now? myself

35. Last Song Listened To? From the Inside Out because it's on my blog

36. Can You Say The Alphabet Backwards? Probably extremely slowly.

38. Favorite Pair of Shoes You Wear All The Time? flip flops, unless it's winter and then random pairs of shoes

39. Are You Jealous Of Anyone? yes

40. Is Anyone Jealous Of you? Not that I know of

41. Do You Love Anyone? yes

43. What Do You Usually Do During The Day? take care of the kids, do laundry, bring Emeric to therapy, clean, waste time on the computer, eat...

44. Do You Hate Anyone That You Know Right Now? no

45. Do You Use The Word 'hello' daily? mostly when answering the phone

46. Meaning of life? Loving

47. Do You Like Cats? NO.

48. Have You Ever Been To Six Flags? nope.

49. How Did You Get Your Worst Scar? I don't have any major scars but I do have 4 on my ankles from playing hockey two years ago and my skates were rubbing on my ankles.

50. Last big talk? today.
51. Last Cd Played? Sara Groves
52. Last Bubble Bath? last week
54. Last Meal? Subway... Pizza and mt. dew
55. Have You Ever Dated Someone Twice? yes
57. Have You Ever Fallen In Love? yes
58. Have You Ever Lost Someone? yes
59. Have You Ever Slept Until 1pm?I don't think so
60. Have You Met A Famous Person? I've met Charlie Pride. LOL
61. List Four People You Can Tell Pretty Much Anything To? Anna & Karri... Can't really think of 2 more

62. List Three Favorite Colors/shades: Pink, Purple, Blue

63. Laughed Until You Cried? yep.

64. Went Behind Your Parents Back? yes

65. Who Posted This Before You? Jessica

66. Opinion on Abortion? I probably have a stronger opinion on this issue than any other... I very much disagree with it.

67. Lowering The Drinking Age? nope.

69. Who Are The Best Huggers That You Know? I don't really like hugs all that much but I guess the best huggers would be those that give side hugs and do it genuinely and not out of awkward, not know what else to do, kind of thing...

70. Do You Believe In Love At First Sight? no

71. Is There Something You Want To Tell Someone? yes

72. Something that makes you go "hmmmm?" I agree, Jess, fake people. And lots of other things.

73. Would You Kiss Someone you just met? Only if it were Patrick Dempsey ;)

74. How Many Kids Do You Want To Have? 3

75. Do You Want To Change Your Name? no

76. Last Time You Saw Your Father? 5 years ago

77. What Time Did You Wake Up Today? 7:00am

78. How Old Are You?28
79. What Were You Doing At Midnight Last Night? sitting with Kaydence on the chair holding a heating pad around her legs because they hurt

80. What Is Your Favorite Thing In Your Room? the carpet. Since I rarely see it my heart has grown fonder of it.

81. Where is your bffae? I don't know what this acronym is... I'm assuming it's Best friend forever and then something else??? Anyway I don't really have a "best" friend.

82. What can you not live without besides food and water? My family. Oh, and the internet. And pizza. And Coke, in a can.

We're just a little over half way through our Bible school so we've been really busy this week. We've also picked lots of raspberries, done a lot of laundry, cleaned out the van(Yes, this was such a huge accomplishment it gets it's own mention) and finalized details for our trip to Houston. Kylie is coming with me and she's really excited! Kaydence is excited to stay "somewhere". She doesn't particularly care where she just wants to go somewhere alone.

A week from today Jake's sister and her husband will be moving in for 2 years. We still have a lot of work to do on our basement but hopefully it will be finished soon!

I'll leave you with a couple pictures of the kids.

Overwhelmedness.

I finally settled on keeping Emeric's appt. in Houston in August. I was going back and forth but needed to commit to it so it was one less thing I was worrying about doing. Just him and I are going to go and for just 3 days. He has a follow up appt. with the Mitochondrial Disease specialist and then hopefully *fingers crossed* we don't need to go back there.

He has a few other appt's coming up and another EEG which I just got word of today was pushed back to the end of October.

Kaydence has to go back in next week for another sinus xray because we're pretty sure the sinus infection is back. I don't know what to do if she has it back after 6 weeks of antibiotics because I don't plan on putting her back on antibiotics.

I've been busy preparing for Bible school which I'm helping direct this year so that's been a lot of work trying to get it all together. I'm also preparing to send Kylie to school in just over a month and we're still working on finishing the basement.

So, needless to say we've been staying busy! I'm looking forward to fall actually because while it's still busy it's more of a routine.

Like father, like son

"I'll be right there dad, just let me get my shoes on."

"On second thought, just one shoe will do."

"This sure does match nicely with my shirt."

"Alright dad, I'm set."



" Nevermind, I can't get this stupid shoe to stay on my foot!"

"Forget that shoe, this one is much easier to work in."

"On second thought maybe shoes are overrated."

"Hey dad, is there anything else I can help with?"

"I wonder what's in that tool belt?"

"Nails? Those aren't nearly as much fun as shoes!"

"Bye dad!"

Some things you might see if you came to our house...

Raised garden beds

(this is actually my mother in laws but since we live approximately .2 feet and the kids insist on going over at least 2x a day you'd likely see it if you came to our house)

Horses

*Yes, this is a photographers nighmare but it was way too light and everything got washed out so I just badly edited the heck out of it so you could see the horse sniffing Emeric. It was pretty adorable if you ask me and being that you're all nice people you can forgive bad lighting, editing and the like. Right?

Kylie freezing after swimming

(Which means there was a lot of whining involved)

Emeric's goofy grin

My sister refusing to let me take her picture.

I suppose it's possible she gets that from my mom?

Jaymen and Emeric(who are 12 days apart)

Kylie, Baylee, and Kaydence. Oh and Betty, the doll.

Children wrestlingChildren posing for a picture

A rainbow after a rainy day

Stay tuned for more "things you might see if you came to our house" photos!