My beautiful gifts from God!

And last but not least...

...my baby and third daughter.

Meredyth Alyse, age almost 8 months
Favorite color: any
Favorite foods: fruit snacks and momma's milk
Favorite thing to do: jump

My strong willed child...

...and my funny silly second daughter.

Kaydence Aliyah, age 2.
Favorite color: Blue
Favorite foods: Chocolate and pasta
Favorite thing to do: Torment her older siblings.

My firstborn daughter...

...and my second child.

Jazmyne Alexa, age 5.
Favorite color: Purple
Favorite foods: Spaghetti and peanut butter
Favorite thing to do: Be a drama queen

My first born...

..and poor boy, my only son.

Sean Alexander, age 7.
Favorite color: Yellow
Favorite food: spaghetti and chicken on the bone
Favorite thing to do: watch daddy play on the computer.

Our children

Jeremy is my husband of almost 10 years. He has worked in a freezer warehouse doing various jobs for the last 7 years. Right now he is in sanitation. Just very grateful he has a job right now and hasn't had to worry about it. He also loves to work on computers.

I have been a stay at home mom since Sean was born (except a few months stint as a receptionist in a daycare). I truly cannot imagine doing anything different. We (yes daddy does help at times) homeschool 2 of our 4 children. The other 2 are just too small. When I get a chance I do like to sew for the children and myself. But with 4 children I do not get a chance to sew much without little fingers trying to help.

Tune in tomorrow to learn about Sean!

Meet the family

Meet the family. Jeremy is my husband of almost 10 years. We have four beautiful gifts from God. They are Sean, age 7. Jazmyne, age 5. Kaydence, age 2. And last but definitely not least, Meredyth, age almost 8 mo. I will do a blog each day about the family. Get to know us this week!

My RMG win! Thanks Ju Ju Be

So I love the diaper bags made by Ju Ju Be (see side advertisement). What's even more awesome? They do Real Mom Giveaways. Meaning you go to their site http://www.ju-ju-be.com/ and register for the Pink Room don't get too lost looking at the beautiful bags . Then you find out what this weeks subject is. I won for my Caramel Apple Cheesecake bars with Streudel topping by Paula Deen. So here is a photo documentation of our wait for the UPS truck and the new diaper bag.

Kaydi telling me NO...


Kaydi and Jaz waiting at the door...still no UPS


Yay at 5:20pm the UPS truck showed up


Box


Tissue


Groovy Garden BeSpicy from JuJuBe

Not Me Monday

Today I didn't laugh as my infant who was trying to pull up fell and bruised her face, not me.

I also didn't giggle a little when my toddler fell from the bunkbed and came walking to me holding her rear, saying, "Ow my BoBo!" not me.

I didn't tell my son not to compare adults to children just because I wanted 2 honey buns instead of one, not me.

I don't have a weeks worth of laundry on the couch and another weeks to do no not me.

I didn't eat a bag of Kit Kats all my own, not me.

I didn't just ignore that the baby was fussing because she wanted daddy to put her to sleep and he didn't want to, not me.

So Thankful!

We spent yesterday evening in the emergency room. Jazmyne was standing on the swing. She said she was swinging to high and was trying to stop and fell out. She fell on her arm. A bruise showed up and it was beginning to swell. While I was looking at it, it popped when I bent her arm and the swelling went down. So I called the pediatrician. He said that an x-ray would be best. She didn't use it and complained when she moved it.

We loaded up and met Memaw at the ER. They took an x-ray of it. Just a contusion (bad bruise). They think the pop was me popping her elbow back in place or something like that. We were in and out within 2 hours. We were to ice it and then heat it every so often as needed. She didn't need it when we got home.

This morning, we asked if it hurt. We poked around on it and she said it was fine. She said, "It doesn't hurt at all, lots of people were praying for me!"

So to God be the glory! Thank you Lord for taking care of my daughter.

Fire

We don't usually make it to Sunday school. Church is a 45 minute drive and our family doesn't wake until 9am. No time to get everyone ready and there on time. So we go on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights if no one is sick. We have missed almost 2 weeks of church due to sickness in the kids.

Imagine my surprise when mom calls to tell me that we aren't having church tonight. She said that the cookshack/fellowship hall of our church was burned to the ground. She said it was still smoldering when she got there. (So thankful it wasn't attached to the church.) The firemen suggested removing all of our belongings from the church just in case it was arson and they arsonist come back. All that they left were the benches, piano, and pulpit. We cannot have church until the firemen deem it safe for the gas and electric to be hooked back to the church. Really not sure if we'll get to have church there again.

It's kind of sad to me. I have went there from birth. And it's a small country church with 13 members at the most. But the Bible says, where two or three are gathered... God has met with us many times in that little building.

The good news is that we do have a new church building. It does need work. It was a church given to us that my aunt and uncle paid to have moved. It has been moved. But now it needs work to get it into working order. It looks as if we'll have to rush a bit to get at least a small area ready for us to worship. God is in control. We are asking for his direction in what we need to do.

My little ones

If Meredyth would just learn to crawl! She keeps getting herself into these ackward predicaments and I have to rescue her. She was after the Cheetos bag this time. She loves to hear it crinkle. I don't think it will be much longer though. She's spending quite a bit of time rocking on all fours.

Homemade Babylegs

So I was asked about these today. They are what I use instead of tights for my youngest two girls. I got the idea from everythingyourmamamade.com/2008/01/21/make-your-own-baby-leg-warmers/.




One is on the 7 mo old's leg (the one I'm trying to hold still) and the other is on the 2yr old's leg. I use a stretch stitch on my machine to make sure they stretch well. These in the pics don't stretch well but it's how the socks are are made. Others I have are fine. They are made from women's knee high socks.

I also know a lot of women use these on their boys instead of pants for easier access to the diaper. Helps keep baby knees from getting sore when learning to crawl.

So if anyone cannot figure out how to do them on their own, let me know. I can help or can do them for you (for a minimal fee of course).

Ok so I don't know..

I do not know how to change the blog much. Can't figure out how to put things on the left side.

We need a miracle!

My last blog post was about our miracle with Kaydence's ears. We are so thankful for that. Now we are in need of another miracle.

Meredyth, our baby born on April 3rd, is severely allergic to pork. It sounds like a strange allergy but it is life threatening for her.

She breaks out in hives if her skin comes in contact with it. For example, if someone eats a ham sandwich, then kisses her, her skin breaks out.

She is a breastfed baby. If I eat pork, she vomits and cries. For example, we were eating hamburger pizza the other night. I looked it over and did not find any traces of pork. As I was eating it though, I tasted canadian bacon. I told my husband about it and he said, well maybe it's not enough to bother her. She was puking and crying for 3 hours after she nursed. So it looks like cheese pizza from now on.

Her throat swells and she can become anaphylactic if she is in a house where pork is being cooked. And the same happens if she is near a large amount of raw pork such as a ham.

She won't allow someone who has cooked it or ate it recently hold her. She begins crying from the reaction.

It's not been that hard to get it out of our house and our eating. The problem comes when we go other places. So far most restaurants have been fine as pork isn't the main thing they cook.

If we go to visit family, we have to request that they don't cook or eat it while we are there. Some of them think we are nuts I think. Others totally understand. We avoid family get togethers with pork now also.

Pork is in things people do not think about. Things like hot dogs, bologna, little smokies, etc. She will be tested at a year old by an allergist in a controlled setting to see just how severe it is.

We know that God can take care of these things. So I am here asking for y'all to remember her when you pray. Christmas is just around the corner and some of the get togethers always have ham and I'm not sure how we are going to handle that. Right now I have a luggage tag with the allergy information in it and I'm sure we will tie it on her when we are in big groups. Help us pray for another miracle!

Do you still believe in miracles?

I sure do! I witnessed one in my little family recently when we were in revival.

A little background. My 3rd child, Kaydence (will be 2 in Sept) has had problems with her ears since she was little. She's had a few ear infections. But the doctors said her ears were fine and she didn't need tubes or anything. She couldn't be out in the wind without a bonnet on or we would have a rough night with her ears hurting. She also did not react to certain sounds. She could stand next to an ambulance siren and not cover her ears like her siblings did. She just pointed to the lights. We thought of taking her in to get her hearing tested but never did. She also didn't say much more than Momma or Daddy (her older siblings could talk a lot at her age). Everything else was slurred (we're guessing she couldn't hear the words). We were in revival not too long ago with Bro GW Birdsong. When they'd ask for prayer requests, I'd request prayer for my oldest daughter Jazmyne because she was just getting over strep throat. Well Kaydence would always get my attention point to her ears and then herself. I guess her ears were getting worse as the revival went on. She got to the point that she'd stick one finger in an ear and then point to the altar. She wanted prayer. At home she would put a finger in each ear and just cry.

The Saturday night before Bro GW closed the meeting, we'd had a rather slow service I thought. I can't remember the exact detail (maybe Angela can) but sometime after the preaching, the Holy Ghost began to move on my Aunt Wanda. She was shouting (dancing in the Spirit) all over the place. She began to shout and walk by our bench. She'd go past then turn around and go past again. She said she was fighting with the Devil about picking up Kaydence. The Devil told her that my husband wouldn't like it if she did. She finally obeyed the Lord and picked her up. She shouted with Kaydence up to the altar. She put her hand upon Kaydi's ear and pulled her to her chest. When she did this, Kaydence began to scream and cry. She was scared of course so I went up to hold her while they annointed her and prayed. The Lord was so strong that night. After church was over Kaydence was as happy as could be.

We came home and began to notice that Kaydence was talking. She could say about a dozen or so more words than she could before then. She was throwing a fit about something that night also. She used to scream a really high pitch scream. She started to do that and stopped. She had a shocked look on her face as she put her hands on her ears. She heard the scream and hasn't screamed like that since. She was still putting her fingers in her ears. We'd ask if they hurt and she'd shake her head no. I finally figured out that they were probably itching.

The next Tuesday night they were bothering her. So I took a flashlight and looked in them. The canals were bright red and raw. If they were that way the next day, we were going to take her to the doctor. So on Wednesday, I looked and instead of looking raw the canals were covered in new skin. Since we can't really know exactly what the Lord did, we can guess. It looked like He reconstructed her ear canals and drums.

She adds new words to her vocabulary daily. She likes for us to repeat words several times. I told my husband that it must be because she is hearing them clearly for the first time and has to process that. Now if she does stick her finger in her ear, it's because I need to clean some excess wax out of it. Sometimes they itch too.

Praise the Lord for coming by and touching my little girl!

Our oldest daughter is a miracle too. Doctors say she needs a pacemaker to live. They told us that news when she was 2. Praise God she's 5 and still doesn't have a pacemaker. She still has a heart condition. And her heart could stop at any time according to the doctors. But as we told the doctors, our heart could stop any time also. We know the Giver of Life! So pray for her and help us to be willing to accept whatever God has in store for her.

Trying to figure this out.

Just trying out this blogging thing. I figured it might be good to keep track of my children's schooling. And maybe a bit of what is going on in our lives at the moment.