Too precious...

You guys are too precious! Truly...we are so BLESSED by each of your prayers! God is completely faithful and we trust in His perfect plan for our lives. He is hearing and answering the prayers for peace.

We met with our family dr. on Tuesday. He, along with all the other medical professionals God has brought in our paths this week, are blown away by two things....1. He's so young for this, 2. It was an absolute miracle that this was found. Isn't it cool that we have a God of miracles!!

P and I feel heavy hearted that God has allowed this for many reasons but one being that someone we know needs to have a colonoscopy...someone who has been putting this off. We have no idea who that person is. Please...if you or someone you know has been avoiding this test...GO GET IT DONE!!! P's experience was great...honestly, he didn't even cringe at the thought of having to do this again in a year. Don't wait!!!!

P has been networking and sending his resume out so prayerfully we will hear something soon. Please continue to pray for God's wisdom and provision.

Love you guys {{{{HUGS}}}}

How could we not trust God ... Look at these miracles ... each of them have an AMAZING, AMAZING God story ... stories that remind us that:

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Yahoo...HE'S got our future all figured out...I have NOTHING to worry about!!!

Update and prayers still needed

I was trying to decide if I should give you the short version or the long version. If I give you the short version then you will miss what God is doing. How about I give you both....

Short Version:
~P's biopsy results: it was precancerous but they are reassuring us that they got all of it
~More unexpected news: 30mins. before the drs. call, P called to tell me that he was just laid-off :( ~his company has been struggling since the real estate market dove~

Long Story (you have to read this ;) :
This is an email I sent a friend the other day regarding P's testing:
My precious hubby went to the hospital for a colonoscopy this morning. He's been having some intenstional discomfort so the GI specialist wanted to check and see what's going on.

My heart skipped a beat when the doctor said, "Oh good, I was waiting for you...I need both of you to hear my findings..." (I'm thinking 'WHAT FINDINGS...he's only 35...there can't be any FINDINGS'. She went on to show us pictures of P's scope (pretty fascinating, btw). They did find the beginnings of diverticulosis (not a surprise) but she also found 2 polyps...one being "very large". She was very shocked by this and said if they had not found it, it would have for sure developed into cancer. As it is, she said it may have already sooooo now we wait for the biopsy results...they will be in within the week.

Several times she would say that we were "lucky" and "what a coincidence" that he was having intestinal pain. If he had not had that discomfort, they would have never found the polyps & there wouldn't have been a need to do the colonoscopy.. She kept saying he was way too young to even be having this test and was so surprised by all of this.

I soooo desperately wanted to say it wasn't "luck" or "coincidence". I wanted to share with her that it was ALL our Lord. Unfortunately, I didn't want to de-rail her report...I wanted to hear everything she had to say. So, she will be hearing all about our God at our next appt. ;)

Today's update...I called the GI drs. office and they said the soonest appt. they had was in 2 weeks. I calmly said, "2 weeks...you've got to be kidding. Dr. B just told us on Friday that my 35yr. old husband possibly has cancer and she's never seen anything like this on someone so young and you're saying she can't see us for 2 weeks?" Needless to say I was very grumpy about this. I decided to call our wonderful family physician. His office had just received the report with biopsy results. They called me back within 30mins. to confirm that the polyps were indeed precancerous but they are confident it was all removed. We hope to meet with him tomorrow and ask a zillion questions. So, this is still all unfolding!

Now P's job: It's a long story and I won't bore you with the details. P works/worked for a company that heavily relies on the real estate market for business. Since the market has dive-bombed, so has their business. 2008 has been a hard year for many at the company....lots and lots of lay-offs. We knew it was a matter of time since they recently filed bankruptcy but we thought we had a little bit longer. A few days before Christmas we were told he would be taking a 36% pay-cut (YES, 36%). That was a little hard to swallow but hey, at least he still had a job. Well, that bombshell was dropped today...no job effective immediately.

How are we doing? We are still processing all of this but we do have peace. God is our provider and He has a beautiful plan. He has been so faithful to guide and protect us and He's not going to stop now. We have complete trust that His plans are much greater than we can even know and we are kind of excited to see what He's going to do.

Prayer Requests: Continued peace, complete healing, new job ;), God led guidance and wisdom

***Thank you so much for your precious prayers and comments letting us know you are praying. It brings great joy to our hearts! I am often amazed at how our little blogs and yahoo groups can unite families from all over the world and beautiful friendship form. Soooo COOL! {{{HUGS}}}

Calling all Prayer Warriors!

My precious hubby had an outpatient hospital procedure this morning & the 'findings' were not what we expected. Please pray for peace and wisdom as we await test results. We should have results within 7 days.

Thank you so much!! {{HUGS}}

"LOOK! WE'RE FEELING BETTER"

THANK YOU FOR PRAYING FOR OUR FAMILY!! Your precious comments of prayer has blessed me so much!!

Not on the mend..yet..

I sure thought we had kicked all this yuck but we've been given MORE antibiotics. Baby S was getting symptoms of SF again and Baby C's amoxicillin rash was not going away. Sooooo, back to the drs....

~Baby S has a really bad sinus infection (still don't know how that happened since she just finished antibiotics for her SF) sooo, oral and eye antibiotics
~Apparently baby C had been fighting something viral so some topical medication for her :(

All in all, we are doing well...this mama is ready for her happy babies to be back, that's for sure!

Do we have a GREAT God or what!!!!

This is one of the most amazing stories I've seen....soooo clearly our Lord!!!! I don't even have adequate words to describe this...simply awesome!!!

Baby born "Twice":
http://www.comcast.net/data/fan/html/popup.html?v=764076744&pl=979271298.xml&plc=979271298&launchpoint=Cover&cid=fancover&attr=default_headline&config=/config/common/fan/default.xml

Favorite Adoption story book...

I don't know about you but I am constantly on the search for fabulous adoption story books to read to my kids. I want to fill our library with books that represent our family (I think I'm gonna write our own ;). I had started losing hope that the perfect one existed but then I found this one.......

I Wished for You by Marianne Richmond:

Get your kleenex out...SERIOUSLY!!! I still can't read this book to my kiddos without crying. The author has done the most beautiful, beautiful job capturing this sweet one's adoption story. All the way down to "what about the mama who grew me in her tummy..." I have read many adoption story books and I have yet to find one that can compare to this sweet book! It truly is a MUST HAVE for adoptive families.

"Of all the children in the whole world, God picked you for me."

On the mend?!?!?

I tell ya...when you have 5 kids, it can take a LONG time for everyone to be healthy!

~Thanksgiving...6 out 7 of us got the flu...took 2 weeks for it to pass then we went right into.....

~Baby S got scarlet fever
~Mommy got really bad strep. throat...OUCH!!
~Brother T got a fever..was in bed for 24 hours
~Daddy not feeling good..spent most of the day in bed
~Brother I had/has persistent nasty boogies
~Baby C got a nasty ear infection..given Amoxicillin
~TODAY!!!! Guess WHAT...baby C is allergic to penicillin (nasty itchy body rash)
~Baby C still has ear infection (even after 5 days of amoxicillin) now on Zithromax
~So far big sissy Tr. is staying healthy!

Praying we are getting past this...I MISS church soooooooooo bad!!!!!!!!! These are all LIGHT afflictions. So many precious friends come to mind as I grumble about our silly aliments. We LOVE you guys are praying continually!!!

Christmas!!!

We had a great time talking to the kiddos about the beautiful TRUE reason for Christmas. How can you fully explain all that Christ did when He chose to come as a baby...chose to leave heaven and come to save a sinful world...the pureness of Christ's love for us is unfathomable!! It's a beautiful, undeserving love I can't comprehend. Thank you, Jesus, for loving me just as I am and for coming as a tiny baby to save us!!

Talk about a blast!! There is nothing more precious then to experience Christmas through your children's eyes. Our 2yr. olds were a crack up. Baby 'C' kept saying, "I lub Christmas presidents!!" as she would hug every 'president'....Yes...she calls them presidents. Now I'm calling them presidents :) Baby 'S' was soooo excited to see what everyone else got. She would scream, "Wooooo....wook it....wook it!!" What a precious heart!! The 3 older one's really enjoyed seeing everyone open presents they picked out and of course, loved everything they were blessed to receive.

Christmas day proves to be extremely busy. We have brunch at dh's parents and dinner at my parents. A couple of years ago we couldn't take it anymore...more like our kids couldn't...by the time we got to my parents, we had very sad, very tired little one's that we had to force to open presents. Soooo, we started a NEW tradition. Hubby and I decided that Christmas Eve would be OUR family Christmas. We would take all morning opening presents (we do 3 each plus stockings) and spend the entire day playing with our goodies. Then we wake up Christmas morning, get ready and head to dh's parents then my parents. Talk about a blessing...both days are awesome fun and everyone remains happy and thankful!

I pray each of you had a precious time celebrating our Christ's birthday!!

Christmas Eve Blessing!

I am excited to announce the arrival of my precious nephew, Joseph Ethan. He was 9lbs. and 21 inches. Baby and mommy are doing great!! He looks just like his daddy. Because of our germ ridden family, we haven't been able to love on this little peanut, yet. I can't wait to see him!!

Congratulations David and Erika!!