Use Your Head!

I just happened to be outside with my camera taking pictures of the breathtaking fall foliage, when I saw Daryl weaving around our driveway and back yard. I called to him asking him if he was alright. He answered to tell me that he had hit his head. I came to him and pulled back his hair to find what you see above. He had no idea that he was beginning to bleed everywhere. He just knew that his head hurt. I quickly pulled up and took a shot. I don't normally run for the camera when my kids are bleeding.

This skid was in part, the reason for D's injury. Mark and Daryl had just begun to build what will be a small cabin on a skid. This cabin will be used as a scene prop for our church's live nativity in December and then as storage for other nativity props throughout the rest of the year. The skid allows the cabin to be pulled from the end of the property to position for the nativity and back. Well, something was supposed to be anchored down on the underside so Daryl used his head and came up with a plan to use a lever to lift the sides in order to complete the job. It was a great idea, but he forgot to move the cement block he had used as his fulcrum point and when he bent over, he smacked the top of his head on that cement block. We cleaned him up and Mark took care of him. Mark has had emergency medical training and used to run with an ambulance. Daryl showed no signs of being concussive.

The next morning, the "Doctor's Office On Wheels" parked in our church parking lot as it does one day each week. When I saw Daryl's head, I didn't like the looks of it and suggested getting the Doc to look at Daryl. They told Mark that they would accept Daryl's insurance and we took him in. Talk about convenient. And talk about God taking care of His own. Upon examining Daryl's injury, the Doctor discovered that Daryl had hit his head directly on top of a cyst that needs to be removed. Wow! This time God had to literally "smack" Daryl on the head so that we could have a potential problem tended to. I'm telling you!! There is absolutely no other way to live this life than with God included in every aspect of your daily existence!! That accident was not mere chance or coincidence. Our family practitioner is The Great Physician and we go on His referrals.

HELP!! It's Got Me & I Can't Get Away!

Our almost crawling little miss somehow maneuvered herself to a position of major hang-up as far as she was concerned. I was sure that her brother would be so willing to get her out. Wrong!!

He decided to show her just how much fun it is to hang out under these things. As you can see, Nevaeh still was not impressed. Something had a hold of her leg and wouldn't let go! With a little bit of prodding from Mama, the red-head finally dug deep and had mercy on the fair maiden in distress!

Out On The Town

I am exceedingly annoyed with myself for not having a couple of pictures to share on this post. The ironic thing though, is that I took my camera in the diaper bag to take some shots and still forgot. Never mind that I dug in the diaper bag to get the things that I needed to feed the baby (1), changed a messy diaper (2), and then dug again to change the baby into her jammies (3)!!!!!! Three whole times I got in that bag pushing the camera around and somehow that little gray thing failed to ring my bell!! Now I know that I have set myself up for all kinds of scenarios, but hey, why not? Have at it. I'm an accommodating kind of gal.
We were invited to share evening dinner at the home of Steve and Leslie Blackwelder. The evening was the nicest evening out that we have had in a long time. Steve and Leslie's home was so beautiful. It's a shame I can't show you. Leslie cooked a wonderful meal and we dined Italian style. The lasagne was delicious along with the complimentary salad and bread. It was so nice to simply share time well spent together and then end the evening with pie and coffee, followed by prayer next to the fireplace.
Thank you ever so much, Steve and Leslie. We're so glad you are among our circle of friends!

Adoption News!!

This is Samantha. She is our incredible caseworker. We believe that God picked her out just for us. Samantha is a Believer, too. She shared with me that the last thing that she does every night before she goes to sleep is to pray for Nevaeh. As you can see, Nevaeh loves Samantha too. She interacts with Samantha on a weekly basis and shows Samantha just how happy she is to be living here. Samantha doesn't have to come to the house every week but she loves Nevaeh so much and she loves coming here. We love that Samantha has a genuine interest in our little girl and she loves what she does. She is definitely the BEST caseworker! She's always there for us and truly works with our best interest in mind. We are grateful for everything that she has done in our behalf and thank God for His wisdom and loving care in bringing us together. GOD IS SO GOOD!

This is Mary Lou. She is the worker who represents Nevaeh's birth mother. She is also the powers that be where we are concerned since she is carrying the case that removed Nevaeh from her previous situation. Mary Lou is a very sweet girl as well and has Nevaeh's interests in mind. Mary Lou is the third representative for Nevaeh's birth mother and she is the best to date. The caseworkers were labeled "incoming", "ongoing", and "takeover" due to maternity leave. We believe that God has had His hand in lining up the right people in the right place at the right time. We can't say it enough. God truly is so good.

We had our meeting today and God just went over the top. He has taken everything that we had been told was impossible and made it happen above and beyond. We were informed today that we can indeed adopt Nevaeh. This was voluntary and actually the idea of the birth mother. Birth mother had just two requests. #1. That we would accept unborn sibling into our family at birth, and #2. That though she will not have visitations or interaction with the children we would be willing to send photos via postal mail through the caseworker, so that she can watch the children grow up in our family. You know it! We agreed. Her requests were reasonable. So now we are looking at a projected date for a finalized adoption to take place sometime in April of 2009. Our caseworker is amazed at the short time for such proceedings. Our new baby is due to arrive at the end of March. Hopefully, it can be worked out to finalize the adoption for both children at the same time. Hey, that's small stuff for our God, right? We cannot express what is in our hearts. I know that I have said it before in this post, but will you allow me to say it again? God is good all the time. All the time, God is good!

TOOFERS!

Nevaeh wants you to know that she is a big girl now! She has her first wittle toofer and the second one is not very far behind!!
Of course you can't see it in her smile yet but she doesn't know that so we won't tell her! She'll also be crawling before too long! What fun!!

Some of you wanted to know what her room looked like so I took a couple of pics. Her room is decorated in country antiques with distressed finished furniture. We use shaggy bears and the old shaggy Raggedy Ann and Andy. The diaper stacker is an old fruit box. And it took me 26 hours, I think, to braid and sew together the braided rug in front of her dresser/changing table. The old keg is her hamper!

The dresser and crib were not a matching set but with a lot of stripping, sanding & refinishing, I was able to make them look like they were meant to be together.

Robert made the wooden plaque for me for Mother's Day and my birthday which are close together. He used his carving tools and wood burner and then stained and varnished it! A lot of little boy time and love went into this precious gift. Nevaeh's room was the perfect residing place for a gift of such value. Yes, for those of you who noticed and were wondering. The spools of thread are on the old wooden spools with the original wrappings. The price was only 35 cents. I found them cleaning an attic that no one else wanted to.
Please don't forget to pray for Nevaeh. We have an important meeting scheduled for Thursday morning @ 10:30. We don't know exactly what the meeting is about, so we are a little apprehensive, however our caseworker said that she believes the meeting will be good news since "bad news" has to be passed through her in advance. Still, we'd like you to pray!
THANKS IN ADVANCE! Y'ALL ARE GREAT FRIENDS!

HOME - Where Our Hearts Are!

This is Evangelistic Tabernacle, our beautiful church.

This picture shows how our home is situated with the church.

Here is our home! It is a beautiful parsonage provided by our church family.

This is the rear view of our house. This picture was taken from our church parking lot. The above pictures were taken after our clean-up day. Below are some pics of the fun in process!

Workin' all together makes it so much more fun! Even Nevaeh was part of the team. We have three large flower beds that we take care of and it was time to cut off all of the wilted, frostbitten posies! We also remove the solar lanterns and some of the garden ornaments, and shut down the fish ponds. And it's time to put away the hummingbird feeder. It gets quite cold here and we do experience some of the "lake effects" snow. We also experience alot of gusty wind. We had a great day together and wanted to share our time with you!

Me and my babe!!
















Our priceless treasures!












The beds after clean-up.

Move Over, Leonardo! He's At It Again!

This is our son, Rob. He's 11 1/2 years old now and our aspiring artist in residence. One of his first assignments for art class this year was drawing a self portrait. Rob grieved, fretted and lamented over what he believed to be his lack of ability. "I've never done anything like this before," he said. The examples of self portraits that were given were not his idea of self portraits. His assignment was supposed to take around 1 hour to complete - a sketch with color. Rob spent two days, but his results were amazing! He critiques his work harshly and insists that he still doesn't have everything right - the eyes need help and there's no color.....
"It still doesn't look like me!"
Well, Rob's mom is sooooo impressed. I believe he has great potential. Besides, how many of you would like to stand and look in the mirror and draw what you see?!
THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT!

Is It All It's Cracked Up To Be?

THIS....

....TURNED INTO THIS!

AND THIS....

....TURNED INTO THESE!!

NOW WE WONDER.....IS WHAT STARTED OUT TO BE SUCH AN EGG-CELENT IDEA, ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE?

Thankfully, we have been able to sell our farm fresh brown eggs and those 102 chickens are finally beginning to pay for themselves. We are attempting to separate the roosters from the hens and are planning to slaughter some of those roosters off. Lotta' chickens!! Many of our church family enjoy brown eggs so they are buying many and I finally convinced Mark that it was a great idea to check with our little store in town and make arrangements to sell eggs there if at all possible. This was a successful attempt and so "Jim's" is selling our eggs. A few of the chickens died and so we are now down to 94 combined roosters and hens. They were supposed to be a mixed lot with half of each, but we suspect we've got way more hens than half. We are presently picking up at least 5 dozen daily. Lotta' eggs!!

Ole' McFultzy had a farm. E-I, E-I, OHHHHH!