It's Friday

 

Thank you all for the congratulations! Chad and I are now starting to talk names. I went through the whole baby name book on the girls section yesterday and wrote down all the names I like, then named them off to Chad and he said all the ones out of that list that he liked. Then we played around with middle names to go with the 1st name. The list is starting to get a little shorter, I think we narrowed it down to 11, but there's one name on that short list I'm really not very fond of and just can not picture my daughter named this name...it's a beautiful name just not my personal choice!

 

 

I did come across a website that gives biblical names, tells the biblical reference which we love! That will definately help us in making the choice as well! God's so good and will give us the perfect name for this little girl!

 

Today was a gorgeous day!! So glad we're not getting the temps and weather that the midwest to the east coast is getting! We enjoyed a beautiful mid 60 degree, no wind day! We took the boys and our friends son to what we call the Airplane park! They have a large wooden structure and it's built like an airplane! It has a slide for the tail, different climbing area's on it and of course a steering wheel and seats too! It's really awesome! There's a lot of other structures there as well. The boys had a great time! We were there for 2 hrs, then walked down to make sure Brandon could continue to stay outside, and we went to our neighborhood park that we go to pretty well daily. The boys spent that time mostly catching bugs! LOL We came in at 7 tonight. Now they're eating popcorn ,for dinner. :X We had lunch at 2:30 so none of us are really hungry. We don't hardly ever do these sort of junk dinners, so here and there is ok I figure. The boys love it and well can't get any easier! LOL

Tomorrow the boys will go to wrestling practice until noon, come home I will have lunch ready, I'm thinking we'll just have sandwiches and then we're going to head outside for the afternoon. Jack will go 2 days without a nap, actually a good chance he'll go 3 days since Easter is Sunday. We need to dye eggs tomorrow so I'm thinking we'll do that when we finally come inside.

 

I need to get the house cleaned up tomorrow too. It's not too bad, but still needs to be done. Easter morning our friends are going to drop their dog off and we'll watch him until Tuesday.  They're getting ready for a deployment, so they're heading to Edelweiss for a few days and they don't allow dogs. We enjoy Sparky so for a few days it's nice! The boys love,love, love to play with him and so does Chad, so it'll be a fun few days.

Well the boys decided they want to have some pizza, so I'm making them a pizza right now. Got to love those frozen ones. I know they're not good for you...we did have a good lunch though doesn't really even it all out, but it helps!

God Bless

The Answer IS.........

                                                         GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I think only one person said boy...we were thrilled to see 3 lines! :) Today my ob gave me a picture of the babies foot! I don't post u/s pictures (I've come across too many getting stolen and freaks claiming them as their own, sorry this is MY baby!). If I know you I'm happy to email you once I've scanned it (which I haven't yet...I'll scan it later this evening.)

We will NOT be sharing the names we are discussing, and we will not tell the name we have chosen until she's born...so you have about 18 weeks to wait on that! Oh my due date did move up a week, so my estimated due date (EDD) is August 16 now. I will have a planned c-section (this will be my 4th) so she'll make her entrance the week before.

BTW....on another subject if you haven't went yet or didn't sign up for updates...Jillian's page was updated today...

www.caringbridge.com/visit/joyfuljillian

Please show them your love, support, and prayers and pass it on. Let them know how many people in this world care and love. Childhood cancer is obviously something very personal and close to my heart and because this family has been such a huge part of our lives I want to share with them our love, support, and prayers.

God Bless

I had my Ultrasound Today

So what's your guess, anyone? I'm going to leave you hanging with a HUGE HINT....give me your guesses over the next few hours and when I get back inside with the boys from playing at the park, I'll say what we're having!

 

Come on....I made it obvious! LOL

 

Oh and we couldn't be MORE thrilled! GOD heard the desires of my heart!!!

Why You Should Let Your Children Get Dirty!!

I came across this article and love it!! I'm a huge advocate about letting your kids go and get dirty. My boys don't get half dirty, or so-so dirty...they go all out and become filthy! A day at the park demands a night in the tub.

I have a friend who freaks when her son gets dirty. I don't get it. She thinks he's "filthy" when he has a little dirt on his face (and only his face)! Ha!!! Even if they have no where to go, the moment they get inside he's got to get in the tub. I think it's a little much personally. Let the kid play outside, get dirty, and just savior being a boy. They grow up far too fast, we all know this. Time goes by and before we know it that tiny baby we're nursing are 6 yr olds reading US story's.

We need to enjoy these moments. The moments of getting dirty, running their tonka trucks through the dirt and sand. It's those moments we'll cherish in our hearts when they become Daddy's and Mommy's themselves.

We're not a family that carries hand sanitizer around with us. I have a bottle in my van for when we're on trips and stop at rest stops since I've yet to go into one that has soap, just cold, no freezing cold water, or if we're having lunch on a trip in the van...then we use it. Otherwise it's just good old non antibacterial (yes you read that right) soap. A little bacteria is good for our immune systems. As seldom as we're sick (and compared to many families with children around the same age we're never sick it seems!!) I think our method is working!

 

Here's the link: Why you should let your children play in the dirt - ParentDish

and the article:

 

Nolan loves dirt. He loves to smear his little fingers in whatever gooey muck he can get his little fingers into, if there is a puddle he will splash in it, if there's a chunk of thick brown soil he will attempt to insert his limbs as far as they will go. And up till now, I have stopped him: Nolan, yuck. That's dirty.

But he might just know exactly what he's doing. This recent BBC article claims that exposure to dirt might lift mood as well as the immune system. Apparently, seratonin, a key ingredient in the brown gunk, may restore a healthy immune function in people who are depressed and prone to infection.

More study is needed, caution experts, but in the meantime, I guess it wouldn't hurt all of us to learn from our kids and smear a little mud.

Update/website for Jillian

Jessica sent me a very small update with their new webpage, please visit them and continue to pray for them as they make the best decision they can for Jillian.

http://www.caringbridge.com/visit/joyfuljillian

 

I am sure Jessica will update as often as she can. PLEASE do not make any requests on them, they have so much stress and so many decisions to make. I don't think they need anything right now, but prayers.

 

God Bless and Thank you

Locks of Love

Well after growing my hair out for over 9 months it's over long enough to cut for Locks of Love. Although Jordyn never had a wig or obviously desired or even wanted one we met a lot of kids (especially girls) who did have wigs. This is something I think every woman should do at least once.

For those who know me, you know that I normally get my hair cut after a few months because it starts annoying me, but well I have to get past myself. A little girl, teenager, etc would LOVE to be annoyed by hair, but going through chemo and/or radiation they don't get that choice. Some choose to shave it all off so they don't go through watching it fall out.

I'm calling tomorrow to make an apt to get my hair cut. I'll be cutting off 10 inches. I'm going in with it curly (natural state of my hair) and will take a before and after picture! Not sure what day I'll get it cut on, prob. either Friday or Saturday since Chad has a 4 day and will be home to be with the boys.

If you're wondering how you can donate your hair to Locks of Love it needs to be long enough that you can cut off 10 inches to be donated. Go to www.locksoflove.org and it'll tell you everything you need to know about donating your hair!

Oh....and I was thinking last night our Monday is all nice and calm with nothing extra to do..HA! I have to take Jacob to his German language class (he's learning German!!) that's from 4:30-5:30 and then at 5:30 he has tball practice...Chad's the assistant coach for his team. When his head coach called yesterday I told him Jacob would be a few minutes late. His class is literally right here by us and tball field is on the otherside. It's only a 3 minute drive at most or a 5-10 minute walk. So he shouldn't be too late. He'll go to class in his sweats, I'll have his cleats and glove in the van so we can get as soon as he's done in class!

He's excited to be playing again, I'll take pictures of him!!

Have a great Monday!

Hello

It's late...it's 1:08 am. I took a small nap on the couch tonight, I should have just went to bed like I did last night, but my back is still sore. We bought  good mattresses when we bought our bed 5 yrs ago, but maybe they weren't as good as we thought. I know I slept wrong, because my neck hurts still and my back is still sore. But this morning when I woke up, I could barely move. I'm seriously thinking about sleeping in Jack's bed. The boys have the best mattresses ever. Chad and I have seriously been discussing new mattresses because although we paid good money for them, they're just not cutting it. Chad wakes up sometimes with a sore back too. We can't afford the type of mattresses we want...which is the same my parents have. I can't think of the name of them right now, but they are more or less air mattresses that you can each adjust. Hopefully after we move back to the states and have a house we can get them, I'm sure it'll be a few yrs after we buy the house but it's nice to know it's in the future. In the mean time we will settle for regular mattresses, but we really need to do something else, my back can't handle this. We are going to flip the mattress this week when I pull the sheets and bedding off to wash them (well the flipping will happen when Chad's home). Hopefully that will help!

Ok that was so not what I planned on writing about! So off to what I was going to write about! So Sunday's for our family are pretty routine. We had church, it was the 1st Sunday of the month so we also had a fellowship dinner afterwards (pot luck style as always) I brought a Taco Salad, which I got the recipe from a friend of mine. It's so easy and so good! Here's the recipe!

1 lb ground beef (cook, drain, and rinse with cold water)

2 cans of kidney beans (heat, drain, and rinse with cold water)

1 head of lettuce

2 tomatoes

1 onion (totally optional...we don't because I hate raw onion)

1 bottle of Italian Dressing

1 bag of mexican cheese

1 bag of Dorittos (crushed up, but not tiny crushed...just into medium/small pieces)

Ok in a large bowl..add ground beef, beans, chopped up veggies. Once that's mixed up add cheese and 3/4 bottle of dressing, mix up. Add chips and rest of dressing right before you're ready to serve. We don't like it for left overs as the chips are all soggy after a while.

It's so good and really easy!

So we came home from dinner and Chad and Jacob went and invited one of his friends to Awana. He just needed to invite a friend to get his last green jewel to finish his Skipper Handbook. He's a kindergarten so he can only do the Skipper book, but he's already started going back through as a review. Next year he'll be able to start in the Hiker Handbook. He's excited and wishes he could start it now, but a review is great and will put those verses deeper into his mind and heart so that he'll remember them hopefully for the rest of his life!

Jacob's friend did come with us and he had a great time and can't wait to go back!! Sadly we only have 2 more meetings left...we have the next 2 weeks off for Easter and then Spring break (which is nice) then the next meeting is Store Night and the last meeting is Awards Night and Party which will be at the Skating rink here on post! I could kick myself for not having Jacob invite our friend sooner. Next year I'm going to make sure that every week he asks a friend to come. I know that they will not always say yes, but if he can get just one friend to come week after week then that means we've brought Jesus into one other child's life and that's the goal! To lead children to our Savior so they can learn his word and hide it in their hearts!

Jack had a great time at Cubbies! They made Easter Eggs (got to die eggs). He was sooo excited and had to show them all to me! He pulled out his green one and said "I love t his one" and kissed it! I was cracking up! He's so funny and so sweet! He had to go potty so his leaders' teenage daughter (who's babysat for us) took him and she said he was going potty and singing "Jesus Loves Me" and singing loud! He wouldn't be Jackson if he wasn't singing as loud as possible!!! That's my boy! LOL Bless that sweet boy!!

Tomorrow we don't have a lot on our plate. Jacob will do his school work and then when he's done and Jack's up from his  nap we'll be going to the park! I love spring and getting to go to the park and just outside in general so the boys can burn their energy!!

Tuesday I have 2 meetings. One in the morning for a PWOC board meeting and then one in the evening for an FRG meeting. We of course have school in between there and hopefully some park time.

Wedneday will be PWOC. It's a special week we'll be putting boxes together for children in a Christian orphanage in Poland. I need to go to the Euro store (Germany's version of the dollar store!) and get some toys (our class was assigned toys). So I'll get a few boy toys and a few girl toys. I also will be making Soup (on Tuesday) for our lunch on Wednesday. It's supposed to be a very easy recipe and all the ingredients will be provided so I'll just have to make it and bring it Wednesday!!

Thursday, Jacob has an eye apt in the morning. A while back he was saying that he was having trouble seeing when he was reading. I really don't think he is having issue's, but he hasn't had an eye apt for a while and no matter it was time and needed! Then in the late morning I have my 20 week ob apt. I'll be having my big ultrasound and hopefully the baby will cooperate and we can find out if we'll be rejoicing over a daughter or a son!!

Friday I don't know what we'll be doing. Chad has a 4 day weekend because of Easter. We bought our Easter dinner fixings so that's set. We are all ready for the Easter Bunny to drop by Saturday night! ;) We'll be going to have Easter pictures taken of the boys after church Sunday (the photographer will be open for a few hrs Easter after church!)

We need to go buy our Easter outfits still, we've definately waited until the last minute. Hopefully I can find something. I'm going to go downtown and look for me and maybe we'll find something for all of us down there, otherwise we'll go to the PX and see what we can find there. Hopefully we can find it off post, so we don't match everyone else at church!! I'll share a picture or two of us all dressed up!! :)

Well, I need to get to bed. I hope you all had a good Sunday. If you didn't spend some time with Jesus today. Praise him, pray to him, just talk to him. Get out your bible and spend some time reading it. Just let it open up where ever and read some passages. It seems when I do that, those verses speak to my heart so deeply. Sometimes God convicts me all over the place and sometimes he just wraps me up in his arms with his word. No matter what it is, it's always what I NEED to hear. We all need to read the bible. We all need to know Jesus, believe in him, and realize he's the ONLY WAY to Heaven. The ONLY WAY. He's not only the Son of God, He IS God!

 

Have a lovely Palm Sunday.