Pray for Madelyn

Please join me in praying for baby Madelyn.

For you local folks, this is the granddaughter of Glenna Bilberry who was the director at the PHBC CDC for a long time. She was born a couple of weeks early, last Thursday 9/24 but has struggled ever since. She's in the NICU at Mother Frances.

Click HERE to read her mommy's blog.

Facing the Giants

I know everyone else in America has already seen this movie, but until tonight, I hadn't. Wow. What a great movie!

I will tell you the truth. I haven't seen it before now because I thought it was a movie about football, and anyone who knows me well knows that I am not a football fan. My favorite part of going to a football game is socializing, smelling the concession stand foods (and eating them!), and just the atmosphere of excitement and fun. In fact, I've sat through a dozen or so games in the past year or so since Savannah's in the band and I can tell you honestly, between all those games, I've actually WATCHED maybe a combined total of 5 minutes of the actual game in all that time.

I tell you that to say this: If you haven't seen the movie because you don't care to watch a football themed movie, rent it anyway. It's not about football at all. Sure, that's what you see on the preview above. And that's what is on the DVD box, but it's not what the movie's about. If it was, I wouldn't have made it to the end of this movie. And I darn sure wouldn't have cried 5 or 6 times.

You see, this movie is about so much more than the football game you see in the previews. The lead coach of the Shiloh Eagles team (a Christian school) is up against some 'giants' in his life. Upon facing another losing season, infertility, a car that repeatedly breaks down, a home in need of repairs and fear that threatens to overtake him, the last straw is finding out that the parents at the school want him fired and he worries about the consequences if that occurs. When he finally allows God control of every area of his life and makes the choice to praise Him no matter what the outcome, things turn around for him. And it's not just the coach who is facing his 'giants'. There are so many other characters in the movie that make the movie what it is -- a glowing reminder of God's infinite love for us, a stark contrast to the attitude & general tone of most movies of Hollywood these days.

The acting is a little strained in parts and comes across a little cheesy at times, but overall, it's an awesome movie.

Please consider watching it if you haven't already. Not because I'm asking you to, but because no matter where you are in your walk with Christ, He has a message for you in this movie.

Samuel's reading for pleasure!

Samuel has always been a little less enthusiastic about academic stuff than his sisters. I am reminded often, however, that boys tend to be that way. It's hard to be the mom of 2 girls & 1 boy in that regard because the girls have both always enjoyed reading, they've excelled at school & require very little (or NO) help at all with their homework. They just sit down & do it...or better yet, they finish it at school and never even bring it home. Samuel, on the other hand, struggles with reading, writing, spelling & handwriting. He has to be reminded 100x to get back to work & quit dawdling. He is not far enough behind to need extra help at school, but he will probably never be an "A" student in those subjects. He has to work really hard to just squeak by. Last year when he had to take the state's standardized test (TAKS) to pass 3rd grade, Larry and I really stressed over it. We were terrified that he'd rush through it so that he could turn his papers over & draw dinosaurs & pirates on the back...and then fail the test. He's just your typical boy. He wants to hurry up & get done so he can move onto better things. Like basketball or TV or skateboarding or just doing anything BUT schoolwork.

And I tell you all that to help you understand my excitement this afternoon. When he got into the car at school, he grinned & said "Mom, I'm now the proud owner of a Diary of a Wimpy Kid book." Savannah read one of these books a couple years ago so I knew it was 'safe'. I just smiled & told him that was great. He drew the book from his teacher's treasure chest today. That alone is pretty huge considering that there were also TOYS in the treasure chest. Seriously...I wonder if he realized there were toys in there also.....because SINCE WHEN does this child choose a BOOK over a toy? I was pleased with his choice, though, and made sure to praise him for selecting a book!

As we drove from his school to Savannah's, then to the grocery store, he was silent. I looked back & realized he was reading his book! He wanted to take it into the grocery store with us, but I made him leave it in the car. The second he got back into his seat to drive home, he was right back in the book. He has to read 20 minutes for school every day & write in his reading log. Today, he read all the way home, then read for 20 minutes like usual. When the timer went off, he looked over at me & asked me to reset the timer for another 40 minutes. I had to giggle & grin & quietly jump up and down. He hadn't done the math himself, but without knowing it, he was VOLUNTARILY reading for a full hour just for fun....that's absolutely a FIRST for him!

Folks, let me tell you....this child has NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER read a SINGLE book for pleasure. Never. In his entire life. He's read things for homework at school but NEVER "just because". I've been stunned all afternoon & evening!

He had to quit reading long enough to go to Cub Scouts this evening. When we came home, he got ready for bed & climbed into bed with...you guessed it...his book!

This mommy has had happy tears this afternoon. I've emailed his teachers. I've posted the picture (above) to my Facebook page. I am SO proud of him. I am SO happy to see him develop a love of reading ANY book. I am so very thrilled to see him find a book he enjoys. So much so that I've already found the rest of the series on eBay & placed a bid!

Brain Slop...ya know, the random, leftover stuff. Enjoy!

I can't believe that the end of September is already here. Just a few more days & we'll be beginning my favorite time of year! The holiday season is upon us! I realize that Halloween doesn't really fit into the usual "holiday season" that most of us think of, but in my world --that would be the world of children at home & at work-- it does. So yeah, the holidays are a-comin'!

If you know me at all, you know that I don't like Halloween for the yucky, gross, bloody, gorey, icky stuff. I don't do that at all. We don't do skulls & bloody eyeballs & all that sort of stuff at my house. My kids *know* not to ask for blood & yuck sort of costumes. It ain't gonna happen. We have fun dressing up as silly or funny things. Or cartoon characters. We enjoy going to church carnivals & getting loaded up on candy. It's FUN. We don't even tiptoe near the creepy stuff. At my church when I was little, we had an annual "Fall Fest" on Halloween night & for a while, there was even a rule that you had to dress up as your favorite Bible character. That was easy...robes & sheets or scarfs completed the costume for several years there. Looking back, I have to giggle because I don't think my mom ever bought us costumes. We created them out of things we had at home. My great-grandmother died when I was in 2nd grade & we brought home a huge box of costume jewelry from her house. For the next few years, I wore a bunch of her (gaudy) jewelry & heavy make up & was a gypsy. I cut holes in a few white sheets & was a ghost a few years. I painted on cat whiskers with my mom's eyeliner & was a cat several years. We never went "all out". In high school, I had a Tshirt that I wore year after year. The front said "This is my Halloween costume." On the back, it had a whole list of possible things & it said "I am a........." and then you checked a box under it. As a teen, my friends & I would trick or treat down the street that ran adjacent to the church property where our families were attending the church carnival. We'd ring the doorbells & stick out our funny little plastic pumpkin buckets to the odd looks of people wondering why 4 or 5 teens who were not in costumes were at their door begging for candy. Hey, it worked! :)

This year, my youngest has come up with a crazy costume that won't take lots of work. She's going to be a (teen) babysitter. It cracked me up watching her get all giggly while we were in Walmart the other day. We bought some bright pink & green hair color spray stuff. We're going to paint her fingernails black & tape babydolls all over her clothes. I know...silly. She's going to look kinda punk-ish, but hey, it's cheap & it'll work just fine. And anyone who knows my sweet baby girl knows that she is anything but "punk"! That's why it's so funny. Samuel's going to be a ninja & Savannah is going to re-use last year's "slumber party girl" costume--her PJs & robe. Works for me!

At my school, we have pizza & pajama parties for Halloween. No one gets their feelings hurt because they can't wear their costume and everyone gets to do something fun.

Soon after Halloween, my VERY FAVORITE holiday is upon us. Thanksgiving!!! It's my favorite holiday because no one has messed it up. It's not all commercialized & screwed up by anything else that is wrongly attached to the holiday. I like that no one really makes money off of the holiday (other than maybe the turkey people). It's a day about being thankful! I love that!! Family time, yummy foods, sitting around & talking, beautiful Texas Fall weather. Oh, I love it!

And then of course, there's Christmas. Seriously, it'll be here before ya know it. In fact, according to this website, there are only 88 days til Christmas! Larry is dreading it already. He always does. He's got a serious ba-humbug thing about Christmas due to the way it's so commercialized. Every year, he LOVES the things that we do at our house, the way the focus is on JESUS & not the presents & money that must be spent. But he still sees so much of the world getting all caught up in the commercial stuff, so he hates the whole Christmas season. I keep trying to tell him that it doesn't have to be about all of the stuff he hates. He can make it miserable or not...it's up to him to focus on the good stuff he likes. Oh well, I'll keep trying.

Tonight, we arrived a little early for our LIFE group meeting. Since the childcare folks weren't ready for the kids yet, we made a little stop at the church library. I'm so glad we did! I grabbed 3 books. Larry got 2 audiobooks. We got 1 movie for the family to watch, "Flywheel". And Sarah got a book. Later on, before we left, Savannah went back & got a book too! I can't wait to get started on one particular book. It's this little bestseller that all my friends have been raving about for months now. Maybe you've heard about it.


And on a totally unrelated front--2 things for you to add to your prayer list. (See, I told ya this was a really random post!)

Early last week, Larry's aunt called to ask him to do a funeral for her mother in law. He agreed & made the trip to Lafayette, LA to perform the service. He loved the time with his mom's family that we don't see nearly often enough. Please keep that family in your prayers as they begin to heal & move forward without their mom, grandma, mother in law.

Tonight, Larry's mother called him, very upset. Her brother, Jimmy Glenn ("Uncle Jim") has had cancer for a couple of years. I think it's stomach cancer, but I might be wrong on that. I've only met Jim 2-3 times in the 17 years I've known Larry, so we're not really close to him. Anyway, he's gone back & forth for a while now on his health. But tonight, my mother in law's call was pretty sad. Jim's on a ventilator & is not expected to make it. It appears that the cancer is winning. Her sister, the same one whose mother in law died this past week, is coming to pick her up in the morning & drive her to the town where Jim is in the hospital. Nikki (my mother in law) is devastated. This is her older brother. Please keep Nikki & her siblings in your prayers as it appears that they're losing Jim.

Time for me to say goodnight & hit the shower. Sleep well, my friends!

Savannah's Neopets story--part 2

http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=469597&issue=410

Feel free to go take a peek. This is part 2. Part 1's link is in my Sept 13th post.

Flu day #3-4

Thursday went much like Wednesday...lots of resting & Gatorade. By Thursday afternoon I felt confident in going back to work today. So I did! I'm about to pass out on the keyboard at this very moment, so I'm going to keep this short. Just wanted to check in & say I'm better!

Flu day #2

6:10am - woke up, Sarah told me she'd coughed some during the night & her throat felt tight. In listening to her talk, I realized that she was having some trouble breathing clearly, so I set up her nebulizer & got her started on a breathing treatment. Not really a full-fledged asthma attack, but definately something we could treat & take care of right away without a trip to the doc. Thus, the life with an asthmatic daughter.

By 6:15, I pointed toward cereal & toast for the kids' breakfasts...after all, I didn't want to actually TOUCH anything they'd be eating. Everyone got settled on what they wanted to eat, then changed their minds. Well, 2 of the 3 did. Sarah ended up waving her arm around telling Savannah something & hit her cereal bowl, tossing milk & cheerios all over the floor. With zero energy to clean it up (she was sobbing & upset that I'd be mad), I told the kids to go get towels & sop up the milk. When the cheerios dried later, I'd sweep them up. Until then, towels on the floor would suffice.

6:25 Samuel swore his toast was burned & he couldn't eat it. After asking to "help" me make a dozen other things (none of which I had the energy to mess with), I told him to get a cereal bar & drink his milk. He got a cereal bar & sat down with it & proceeded to goof off for another 30 minutes. I sat there eating my yogurt & taking my medicine & prayed that they'd get it together and out the door w/ Larry on time.

By 7:15, Larry was rounding them up to finish whatever they were doing & get out the door on time. As they went out the door about 7:35, I heard Samuel saying how he'd never eaten his cereal bar. Grrrrr!

I sat down at the computer for a few minutes to check my email before getting drowsy. By 8:15, I was crawling under the covers. I slept for a little over an hour. I woke up hungry & realized that I'd never finished my yogurt this morning. I went looking for a snack & couldn't find anything that didn't require effort to prepare so I got the hummus & crackers out. I ate about 4 or 5 crackers' worth before I was done. I drank some powerade with it & layed back down. I couldn't really sleep, but I was too tired feeling to get up & do anything either. About 10:45, I put my book down & fell asleep again.

I didn't sleep a long time, only til 11:30 when someone in the neighborhood cranked up their lawn mower or leaf blower or something. Whatever it was woke me up.

The rest of the day was spent between the bed, the recliner & the computer chair. I go in waves of having some energy to having zero energy, from feeling "ok" to feeling like I've worked out every muscle in my body & ache pretty intensely. The coughing comes & goes. I can tell the med for that is working. And I'm not feeling the 'tightness' in my chest like I was yesterday so the antibiotic/steroid/antiviral stuff is helping with all that.

Mom brought us supper (it was good, thank you mama!!!) so that I didn't have to be up, cooking (or touching anything that the rest of the family is eating!) tonight.

I'm reaching the end of my day now. And I can feel it. It's only 7:20 but I'm already ready to get in bed for the night. It won't be long now........

About time for the nightly disinfecting. Clorox wipes & Lysol all around!