Events

The last day of January already! This month I spent quite a bit of time assessing where I am as a person: physically, spiritually, as a mother and wife and writing up some goals for the coming year. Most of the goals I set this year were spiritual. I've learned that if I keep that area of my life on track and nurture my relationship with God, pretty much all the rest of my life falls in order. So though it's been a busy month, it's not been unreasonably so...until this week.

The week started well enough. We had a huge answer to prayer on Tuesday for a family that we had been praying for. The boys were so excited and it was a faith booster. That evening we had some friends over and had a very profitable conversation on prayer.

Wednesday things started getting a little hairy. They found that my mom has a blood clot in one of her lungs which ordinarily would cause concern but with all the other complicating factors she has going on it certainly isn't anything to take lightly. Wednesday afternoon Stephen started feeling feverish and that lasted the rest of the day.

Thursday started well but about noon Stephen was running a fever again. This pattern has continued through today so I have a feeling we're in for a Dr's appointment tomorrow. The fever gets a little too high (103.8) and has lasted a little too long for my comfort. That evening somehow he and Daniel collided heads and Stephen got knocked out. Perhaps a small concussion ...whatever it was scared us pretty good. We checked on him periodically until about 11:00 that night and he seemed to be fine and was back to normal by Friday morning.

At breakfast Friday morning Daniel leaned over to make a face at Stephen and Stephen reached out and poked him in the eye. To make a long story short, we took him to Urgent Care in the afternoon to find that he had a vertical cornial abrasion so that required an antibiotic and patch.

Saturday I was vacuuming downstairs and all of the sudden lost power. Philip's home office and the guest room are on the same breaker so I flipped it but nothing happened. It's been determined that the breaker/fuse is fine but something has happened somewhere else.

I'm really hoping for an uneventful week! I have one cake order this week and then we're getting ready to fly to Florida on Thursday as a family. Philip is to speak at Hobe Sound Camp this year so the boys and I are going to be with him for part of the time.

For those of you who have nothing else to do...you can pray for us this week. I'm specifically asking the Lord for four things:
1. That every member of our family be well for the trip and the duration of our stay
2. That we have a safe, enjoyable trip
3. That we have enough down time this week so that we can be rested, organized, and prepared so that the previous two can happen.
4. That camp will be beneficial to our family. Pray for Philip as he speaks.

I made some goals for blogging this year also and I hope to share those when I get back.

Buddies

10:30pm: Allan's Bed


7:00am: Daniel's Bed

Christmas Aftermath

Philip bought Allan and Daniel each a cap gun for Christmas complete with belt and holster. They've been playing with their new toys and enjoying pretending all sorts of things. Aunt Charity and Uncle Nathan also got each of them a fireman's outfit that they have been using quite frequently. Stephen opened his presents the day after Christmas and he's enjoyed his little car (though he does tend to sit on it backwards most of the time).

Our Christmas

We had some really nice plans for Christmas this year but because of the sickness had to change/rearrange most of our schedule. Even though it wasn't as labor intensive as last year's Christmas, it was still meaningful and the boys enjoyed it very much.

At lunch on Christmas eve we had a birthday cake for Jesus and shared it with the Brown clan. That way Kathryn and Alex could get in on the celebration. This helped to establish our focus on the real meaning of Christmas and kicked off our celebration of Jesus' birth.

Christmas eve we were going to go caroling and give cookies to the neighbors on our street. I had prepared a Christmas card with a tract that had the plan of salvation in it to go with each plate. The boys helped me this year to bake 25 dozen cookies (this year we didn't have to put them in the freezer...they stayed frozen in a box on the porch!)We put chocolate almond biscotti, raisin filled, cream cheese cutouts, pecan tassies, pinwheels, peanut butter blossom cookies, and fudge on a pretty tray for each neighbor. Since the boys and Philip were not feeling well, we all went in the van for the delivery but no one sang and I rang all the doorbells. Unfortunately, only two people on our street were home and only one of them was a person we didn't know. We'd wanted to make contact with people on our street that we'd never met. So we went to other streets and did deliver all of the cookie trays we'd made. Lesson learned....we need to do it earlier before people get gone for the holidays.

We then came home and read the Christmas story. The boys then picked their gifts from the Gospel for Asia catalog. This year they bought Bibles, blankets, and rabbits. We pray they will be a blessing to those who receive them. The plan had been to sleep under the Christmas tree but I knew it would be better for the boys to sleep in their beds. Thankfully, they didn't remember and so we all got a good nights sleep....too good!

Because our home runs on a regular schedule it means that little people hardly ever sleep in. They're up no later than 7:15 so that we can eat breakfast together as a family. But evidently the busyness of the week and the sickness overruled (except Stephen...he was up by 8:00). Allan was the last one to get up and it was 9:50. Philip and I were sitting in the living room saying, "We can't believe we're waiting for our children to wake up Christmas morning!" I put Stephen down for his morning nap and we opened gifts while he slept.

Here are some pictures of our gift opening. The boys got an aquarium from Pappy and Grandma Slagenweit and then they each got an individual gift from them - Allan, a set of Lincoln logs and Daniel, a large Tonka truck.