Branson Bound!

So it has been a long past 6 months. God has blessed up each and everyday and each and everyday we have also learned many valuable lessons for life. Learning to BUDGET in a serious way with this crazy economy. Making things stretch when normally we would have thrown them out. At first it was really hard for me, I mean to not stop and get Starbucks if I really wanted it. There are so many things in life I guess I take for granted and then we had to scale back a bit. After few weeks of feeling sorry for myself :) it became like a game. How much could I save at the store using coupons, what kind of deals could I get at Walgreens, etc. Well as luck would have it business has picked up a bit and we have nested some money away to take a much needed getaway! Nothing too fancy or exciting just a road trip to Branson and we are all thrilled! Just a few days away. No cooking, cleaning, wood from the storm to cut and clean up. Just some good ol family time! We plan to do some summer shopping for the boys, new clothes, shoes, etc. and of course a few new things for Momma and Daddy as well! As long as there is some indoor pool time penciled in that is all they care about. So the top three pics were as follows:
Ian and Carter-SWIMMING!
Momma-shopping
Daddy-a BIG breakfast buffet
Doesn't take much to please us does it??? So we are headed out tomorrow afternoon and won't be back until Thursday night. I can't wait and I know we are going to have a GREAT much needed time!

Ladyback Fun!

So last Sunday they had a big elementary school day at the Ladyback game. All of our 3rd-5th grade students got family tickets and 2 tickets for free popcorn and drinks. So lucky for us the teachers got them too! So we loaded up the boys and went to watch the game. There we met up with lots of my teacher friends that also have little ones, so we had a great time and so did the boys! Ian got his picture made with Pork Chop so he was happy!



Carter on the other hand met Pork Chop and gave him 5, but that was about as far as he would go! So needless to say we had soda, popcorn, and thanks to Clarisa cotton candy! Now you know in our house it is ALL boys, so when Carter had Clarisa's two little girls sitting right in front of him with pig tails in, he just couldn't resist! He was mesmerized by their ponies!!! He kept touching them and spinning them around his finger! It was too cute! Not cute enough to give him a little sister of his own....but it was cute!




Then some really good friends of ours adopted a baby this past year and they were sitting right by us and Carter decided he needed to feed Brady his afternoon snack, so you will see Brady chowing down with Carter assisting!!!





Ian ate the entire bag of cotton candy! As you can see from the pics it was really yummy! The only reason I know is because he gave me one bite!


Then as we are headed to the car, Carter decided to play a little hard to get! It was a battle of the wills and he was gonna run! So basically it ended in a standoff!

Here is the stand off!!!



Daddy won, but Carter was giggling the whole time!

The Ladybacks did win and a good time was had by all!

We Survived!

I can honestly say that the ice storm that hit us was quite stressful for me and my family. However we are so thankful for all the luxuries we have in our life......electricity being the main one! So the ice storm hit on a Monday and our power blinked off and on a few times that night, but by Tuesday morning it was GONE! and didn't come back until late Saturday night. If you aren't clear on this it was 5 days and 4 LONG nights! Yes the nights were longer than the days and colder too! However I can honestly say that we bonded as a family and were creative with our time. We played Monopoly, read books, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows in our fireplace, listened to the radio, danced, and of course complained! The hardest thing for the first 2 days and nights was keeping warm. By our 3rd night we had the luxury of having a generator that would run our heat! Still dark but we had heat! Praise God is all I could say! At that point I realized that I could actually live without lights as long as we had heat because I was so tired of being SO cold and having to get up and put wood on the fire to keep us all warm. We generated ALOT of laundry in those 5 days, between us all wearing 2 or 3 layers of clothes and having blankets and pillows everywhere I felt like I did laundry for 5 days after the power came back on! One of the funny things I noticed though is that in those 5 days Carter's vocabulary took off! I guess because we laughed, giggled, and visited so much he just soaked it all in because now he is just talking up a storm! It is so cute! So needless to say we survived, by Saturday my sanity was few and far between but we survived! All in all we survived. We have some damage to our roof, storage shed, fence, gutters, and of course our trees look crazy and broken. Our insurance adjuster came this weekend, so we should hear back from him this week. Luckily my husband is quite handy so he has already been cleaning our yard on his own and will fix most of our damage on his own. I do LOVE having a HANDY husband. One of the many things I love about him! One of the most painful things was all the food we lost, I know it's replaceable it was just hard throwing out 8 garbage bags of perfectly good food. Just thought I would share a few pics of our ice storm. The one that caused me to have a week off work that was not a week off by any means!

Trying to eat as much as we could out of the fridge and freezer! We were desperate and it made for some crazy meals!!!

Lots of clean up done and lots left to do!

Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow

Baby Jackson had a few more bumps along the way, but now he is home! Of course with the ice storm I was without internet for a little over a week and then of course it took me a week to get our house back to normal and get rested up. More on the ice storm later. Jackson continued to be on the antibiotics and they begin teaching Baby Jackson how to eat again. At first he was a little reluctant to the idea, but was warming up to it slowly. After a few days Scott and Christina discussed being transported back to a hospital closer to home while Jackson learned to eat because Children's did not have a room available for them to be with him 24 hours a day, so he had to continue to stay in NICU which they knew he no longer needed. So he was transported by ambulance back to Mercy where he was born. Needless to say Scott and Christina finally felt like they got to be a mommy and daddy! They had him to themselves in their room. Of course we couldn't stay away and we were up at the hospital the day they arrived! We had waited a long time to hold that cutie pie and see him up close without lots of tubes and monitors hooked up to him! Well after only a few nights in the hospital at Mercy, Jackson was eating with no problems, so he was released to go home! What a blessing! The good news is that this whole time we have been praying for Baby Jackson and Baby Harper which were by coincidence were born on the same day and Praise God from whom all Blessings Flow.....they both got to go home on the same day!

This is Jeremy asking Ian if he wanted another baby! Ian of course says yes and daddy says he is CRAZY!

Sweet Precious Jackson is doing so GOOD!!!

Upon arriving at Children's they discovered that one of Jackson's tubes that was in his belly button had attached to the wall of his liver. This plugged off Jackson's liver and it filled with the lipids they were giving him for nutrition and they overflowed into his abdomen. This is what caused his belly to bloat up and get so big so fast and also why he had so much bile in his stomach. Since arriving at Children's on Thursday his belly has already gone down and they immediately ruled out 2 life threatening diseases. God is so good and prayers are being answered everyday. This morning they removed the oxygen out of Jackson's nose!!! His lungs look good and the pneumonia has healed! For the first time since he was born they got to put a real outfit on Jackson. They want him to be on the antibiotics they are giving him for 10 consecutive days, so he still has at least a week left at Children's but he has already made so much progress.

Psalm 4:3 Know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself; the LORD will hear when I call to him.

Praise God he heard our calls upon him. Jackson is looking better, acting better, and feeling better. There is actual talk now of him getting to come home. Thank you for your continued prayers. The picture above was taken this morning. You can see in all their faces love, happiness, relief, and joy!

Update on Baby Jackson

I am asking you to please keep the prayers coming. Baby Jackson was sent by helicopter today to Children's Hospital in Little Rock. They found pneumonia in his lungs and his stomach was very big and bloated this morning. The doctors at Mercy still could find any answers, so after discovering that he has developed a hernia in his tummy they have decided it is time for him to be sent to Little Rock. Christina and Scott had to drive there of course with Christina's mom following them. They have made arrangment to stay in a hotel until they know how long they will be there. They are both at peace with the move there and feel like Jackson will definetly get the care he needs. They are nervous but have faith in the Lord and all the doctors and nurses that are already caring for him. At this time they are thinking that there is something going on in his belly or digestion, but they are not sure. Tomorrow will be a day of tests and lots of waiting. Once again thank you so much for your continued prayers. I will try to update tomorrow.

Baby Jackson in his tanning bed and his oxygen tent.

Baby Jackson

Baby Jackson has been on a roller coaster ride since my last post, but as of tonight his oxygen levels are good and he is now out of the oxygen tent. He is so precious and his mommy and daddy are so proud. Jackson is still being fed by a tube and is under a "tanning light". He will be in NICU the rest of the week, but we are all hoping and praying that by next week maybe they could begin thinking about maybe going home. Yesterday they found a leak in his lower right lung, so he spent 24 hours in an oxygen tent. Praise God, they think that the leak has healed on its own. God is so good! The hardest part for Christina has been not being able to hold her newborn baby and feeling like he needs her and she can't be there to comfort him. This morning she got to hold him for 20 minutes and he smiled and opened his eyes. I know Christina's heart was filled with so much love and hapiness. I am posting a picture of mommy with her brand new sweet precious baby!

Another blog that I read faithfully http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/ also had her baby the same day that Jackson was born. Their little girl's name is Harper and she immediately had trouble breathing after she was born. She was air vac'd to Tulsa and is in intensive care. Please lift little Harper up in prayer she has a long road ahead, you can see by their blog that her parents have a very strong faith and fully believe in the strength of God and power of prayer. Please pray for both these precious babies. Both their parents have long awaited their arrival after having infertility and/or miscarriages.