Sunday, July 31, 2011

a great P.S.

So, as a P.S. to my last blog. After I set up the blog to post, I went to get the mail. We got an anonymous note in the mail.

It was addressed to Steven, but I couldn't wait for him to come home and read it.

I opened it up and it was a card from the lady that I wrote about in the last blog. She wrote us the sweetest note about how nice it was to meet us that day and how she was praying for us and wanted to send us something.

Isn't God amazing? I love it when he's not quite finished with a story.

Friday, July 29, 2011

National Conference

While we are the Brethren National Conference, Steven was asked to speak on a panel about how to partner with schools and be more in the community. He has done a good job building a relationship with Maggie's school's principal and getting our church involved at the school.

There were two other groups from other church's talking about ministries they are involved in.

The first lady had started a ministry for people who were developmentally delayed. She talked about the fun activities they did and the classes she set up for them. She showed pictures of the group and they were all happy and smiling. There had never been anything for her son who was developmentally delayed and she decided to start something. There were lots of people in her community who could participate.

The other group was from a church that had become more aware of slavery in other countries. They spoke passionately about raising money to rescue children enslaved. One little boy from their church builds birdhouses to sell to raise money for the cause that he is passionate about.

As the session was ending, the lady from the first group of people asked if she could pray for our family and families in ministry. It was very moving that she would want to pray for us. She said that she remembered us from the year we were at conference.

It was so rewarding to be at this session. I am continually amazed at the passion that people have about things that aren't even on my radar. I think that is the thing that makes me the most hopeful about church. There are people out there doing amazing things for Jesus.

It was a good reminder to me about how even the smallest churches can impact others. I'm hopeful after hearing what churches and people in the church can do.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

NICU

Today, I went to see Danielle and Michael's new baby girl, Sunnie. She was born at 27 weeks along.

We were out of town last week, so today was the first chance I had to go see her. She is adorable and perfect and itty bitty. She is perfect, just tiny. She is on tiny bit of oxygen and has a feeding tube, but is doing amazingly well.

Her parents are so cool. They moved in with a cousin with lives a couple of miles away. They walk to the hospital 3 times a day with milk for Sunnie and to bond with her. She is a blessing and adorable. This little family has a tough road ahead, but they are really trying to do the right thing for their little girl.

While we were in the NICU, there was a white haired lady wearing her pink lady uniform. She had to be close to 80 years old and she was rocking babies. Her volunteer job every day is to rock the babies who don't have people there to hold them. While I can't imagine a parent not wanting to be there with their child, there are babies who are just left in the hospital.

An important part of a NICU baby's recovery is to bond with a person. They have to feel human contact. This allows them to bond with people later on in life. It actually speeds up their recovery time, too.

I was just overwhelmed with appreciation for this lady. She was taking her retired time to go and love babies that she might never see again because she knows that it's important for this little baby. What a loving thing to do.

Friday, July 22, 2011

The beach


After our 2 week vacation, we are headed home tomorrow. Patrick is still white as a ghost, but Maggie got a great little tan! We had so much fun and were really, really spoiled on our trip. Details to follow....
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Sunday, July 10, 2011

Rocks



We are packing up for a big trip. We are headed to Ohio for national conference, then to Florida to meet my dad and family at the beach. It's kind of hard to figure out everything that we need and pack it all up. We will be gone for 12 days to two different locations and it all has to fit in airline approved luggage. Whatever, I'll stop complaining about getting to fly across the country.

Maggie is in charge of packing her carry on bag. I told her the maximum number of stuffed animals allowed in her bag.She was going to pack quame, paper and colors and a few toys.

She came out of her room and let me feel her bag. She asked me if I thought it was too big. It wasn't, but we weighed it for good measure. She seemed satisfied with her bag and went back to her room.

She came back out of her room in a few minutes and asked Steven to check it's heaviness.

It was really heavy.

He asked what she added to the bag.

She said, "well, I added some rocks to it".

I had to leave the room cause I was laughing so hard.

She had added 4 big rocks to her backpack. It was so stinkin' heavy. Luckily, she let Steven take them out so we could pick up better seashells at the beach.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Kisses



(picture taken by Maggie)

Today, this adorable two year old decided that a ten minute nap in the car was all he needed.

His mama didn't agree, but didn't have a lot of choice in the matter.

Needless to say, it was definitely bedtime at 7:30 tonight. I put him in bed and kissed him and covered him up with his blue blanket.

I told him I loved him and turned to leave.

He called out, "Mommy?".

I turned around and he pushed his blanket out through the slats of his crib.

He wanted me to give his blanket a kiss good night.

So, I kissed it good night and gave Patrick another kiss for good measure.
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