A Man of God

Although he has a few years ahead before he can officially be called a "man," my little man Schaeffer now has the power of Jesus living in his heart and life. That surely makes him a mighty man of God! God is so good to answer a humble mother's prayers! BJ had the honor of baptizing Schaeffer on Sunday, Nov. 10. Schaeffer actually prayed to receive Christ back in August, but was fearful of baptism. The week leading up to Sunday, Nov. 10 Schaeffer eagerly asked to be baptized. BJ called our pastor and it was all set. Lily, Griffin, and I observed the baptism from the side (Charlotte was in the nursery).

Our pastor observing BJ baptize Schaeffer.

Just about now is when Griffin let out a loud "Whohoo! You did it Schaeffer!"

What an amazing answer to prayer!

Queen of All

Big brother Schaeffer recently stated:

"I know why Charlotte always takes our toys. She is the second baby and Queen of All."

"Off with their heads!"

Another broken arm

Schaeffer is now sporting a bright orange cast on his left arm. On Monday evening he fell in the backyard while playing. The pain never did go away after 24 hours so I figured I needed to get him checked out. The poor guy was tough and didn't even let on that he had a fracture. Several X-rays revealed a minor fracture immediately above his elbow joint. He will be wearing the cast for 2 weeks. Kids heal fast! What's up with my kids and broken left arms?!

Traumatic Weekend

Our weekend ended up being a little scary and a lot exhausting. On Saturday evening, as we were all heading out the door to grab drive-thru dinner and to go see the light show at the Smokies Stadium, Lily tripped over BJ's foot and landed hard on the living room floor. When she sat up I could immediately tell that there was something terribly wrong with her left arm. Her arm dangled from her elbow like a cooked noodle. I started saying, "She has to go to the ER right now!" BJ examined her arm and asked her if she could move it. I knew she could not by the looks of it. I just kept repeating, "She needs to go to the ER! Put her in the van and I'll grab her stuff." BJ soon realized what I had seen and he moved quickly to load her into her car seat in his car. He insisted that he take her. He saw I was in no condition to drive and handle the emergency situation. He was absolutely right. I was panicking.

Soon BJ started giving me text updates while they were at Children's Hospital. First it was "Saw the doctor. L is getting morphine. Getting ready to do xray" I was relieved they took her in so quickly and was able to give her pain relief right away. The next text that came said, "They are keeping her tonight. Surgery at 8 a.m. tomorrow." That's when I called BJ and asked what was going on and why this didn't just involve setting the break, a putting on a cast, and coming home a few hours later. Turns out she fractured her arm just above her elbow joint. The on-call orthopedic surgeon explained that because of the location of the break, the muscles and ligaments there were very strong, and in order to keep the bones in place she would need two pins placed in the bones. That's when I packed my bags and made arrangements to go to the hospital to stay with Lily and BJ overnight. Thanks to my brother who came and kept the boys overnight and the whole next day.

When I got to the hospital Lily was already in a room hooked up to IV and monitors and her arm was in a splint. She looked pitiful. She was clearly drugged, but she still experienced a lot of pain in her arm. She especially had pain when she needed to get up to go to the bathroom, or when she needed to get adjusted in the bed. Her little body shook all over from the pain and she cried every time she moved. Luckily, she was able to rest fairly well once she got comfortable in her bed, and 8 a.m. came very quickly. The surgeon was right on time and his assisting staff was excellent. The surgery only lasted about 20 minutes, and afterward, the surgeon said her arm was fixed. The cast would need to stay on for about 4 weeks. After that time he would evaluate her arm and then both the cast would come off and the pins would come out.

We were able to come home at 2 p.m. on Sunday. We all took a three hour nap before my brother returned with the boys. Lily is doing very well now. Her pain is lessened a lot since Saturday night. She has only needed Advil or Tylenol instead of the other pain meds the doctor prescribed. Lily is doing great with her cast. She complains that it itches underneath and that it begins to hurt if she's up playing for awhile. That's when she lays down on the couch or on her bed and we prop up her arm with pillows. She has been a real trooper through all of this.

And then tonight we had another little scare. Schaeffer has seen us giving Lily Advil and Tylenol. When we got everyone in bed, we had left the Advil on the bathroom counter upstairs knowing Lily may need a dose in the middle of the night. Schaeffer sneaked out of his bedroom and we heard him making noises upstairs. BJ went up to check on him and caught him with the Advil bottle open with the measuring spoon used. I immediately called Walgreens and talked with the pharmacist. We think he only drank about 2 1/2 teaspoons because that's how much one measuring spoon holds and based on what was left in the Advil bottle. Schaeffer's dosage would only be about 1 1/2 teaspoons. The pharmacist reassured me that Advil is not toxic even at the dosage he took. The only side effect he may experience is an upset stomach. Whew! I sure was praying that we weren't taking another trip to the ER tonight!

Some days it's awfully exhausting being a parent...

Overheard

Overheard at the Thanksgiving table at Grandmama's house:
Lily turned toward her Uncle Matthew: "Uncle Matthew, who are all these people and why are they still here?" Ha ha! Silly girl, they are called family. I guess we don't get to see them enough.

Overheard during a conversation between BJ and Lily:
BJ and Lily were standing outside in the driveway after dark looking up at the stars. Lily correctly pointed out Jupiter and then asked about some other bright lights in the sky. Then BJ proceeded to ask Lily what was her favorite planet. Lily responded, "Earth. I like Earth a lot. I don't ever want to leave it."

Overheard in the living room:
When I asked Schaeffer why he went poopie in his diaper (he is potty training), he responded, "My bottom just went poopie by itself. I couldn't stop it."

Overheard in Schaeffer's bedroom:
I asked Schaeffer one day, while Lily was at school, "Do you want to go outside and play?" Schaeffer replied, "Nah, I just wanna lay back, play with my trucks, and drink my sippy cup."

Overheard in the kitchen:
Sometimes Ciera, our niece, stays with us on weekends. Griffin threw a football toward Ciera and said, "Touchdown!" Griffin now has about 10 words in his vocabulary. Can you guess what they are? (Hint: He's ALL boy) Answer: ball, vrroom, choo-choo, ball, batman, touchdown, go, more, please, and mama.

RECA Camping Trip

BJ and the two eldest kids are headed to Bandy Creek in Big South Fork for a camping trip organized by Lily's school, River's Edge Christian Academy. There are about 200 students enrolled at RECA and there will be about 100 campers (students and family) going on this trip. Their biggest turnout yet! This will be Lily's and Schaeffer's very first camping trip. I hope they have a blast...and take it easy on their daddy. I hope to have some photos to share when they get back tomorrow night.

Day 1 & 2 a Success!

Lily did great with her first day of school yesterday at RECA. She was exhausted when I picked her up. I'm sure it was a very big stretch for her and it'll be an adjustment for all of us. Today was her first homeschool (homestudy) day. After Griffin went down for his morning nap we started off with devotion time (the prodigal son) and prayer. Then we got right into numbers and counting, the letter "Ii," handwriting, drawing, writing her name, learning about what her name means, and reading the passage in Matthew where Jesus talks about "lilies." Schaeffer got in on the action and stayed right with us the whole time. He's learning to count to 10. If he stays with us the whole time he might learn to read by age 4. There was a bit of arguing over crayons and paper, but everyone did great listening and following directions. I'm praying that we have a lot of homeschool days like today!

And to top off my day, I cleaned out toys (and some junk because my daughter is a horrible packrat!) out of Lily and Schaeffer's rooms. I was able to do some rearranging, decluttering, sorting, and dusting. Yay for productive days!

A Report From our House

Just a quick update on everybody...

Griffin graduated from feeding therapy today! Whoo-hoo! He is eating all kinds of solid foods. He loves bold flavors like Cheese Puffs, spaghetti and Grandmama's green beans. His favorite food is ice cream. The boy can eat his weight in ice cream. So far weaning from nursing is going well. He's down to just twice in a 24-hour period. Sometimes he is able to skip the bedtime feeding which is really nice. I'm thinking he'll be completely weaned in about another month. He's walking and getting into everything. We will be starting him in speech therapy on Aug. 18. Still no words. I know it'll come as soon as he decides talking is a much more efficient way of getting what he wants. The yelling is killing me.

Lily starts school in less than a month. Yikes! Can hardly believe she is starting school. Seems like just yesterday... We are excited about starting at River's Edge Christian Academy and homeschooling. What a God send to have so much flexibility and to have options like RECA!

Schaeffer is still all boy. Lovin' trucks and Batman. He's smart as a whip. He has begun asking all kinds of "why?" questions. His brain is absorbing at rapid speeds. My favorite thing he said this week... when asked, "What is Jesus going to give you, Schaeff?" His reply, "A sword, a shield, a belt, a helmet, and flip-flops." Ha ha! He always forgets the breastplate, but it's a big word and he's only 3 so I'll give him a break on that one for now.

Baby Four is doing well. This week I'm 12 weeks. I went to Dr. B on Monday and got to hear the heartbeat again. Baby Four was active because the nurse had to chase him/her down with the Doppler and then once she found the heartbeat it was 165-170 bpm. Most of the time when they are resting it is more like 140 bpm. The nurse said it's most certainly because this one was a wiggle worm. I'm not feeling all those wiggles yet but I'm sure I will in another few weeks. I was ecstatic on Monday after my glucose test was completely normal. Dr. B tests me early since I'm higher risk for diabetes (having had it before). I've always failed the screening at 12 weeks. But this time I got a completely normal test result (mine was 109 - below 130 is good). Dr. B will test me again at 24 weeks. And he's not letting me off the hook that easily. He still wants me to follow the diabetes diet because it's a "good diet for everyone, especially pregnant women and those at risk for diabetes." But I admit, I ate a scoop of pralines-and-cream ice cream last night! Par-tay! Dr. B reminded me to not get too excited because he says it's still too early to tell if diabetes really will be a problem in this pregnancy. I'm hoping for the best though.

Schaeffer's 3rd Birthday Party...and a BIG surprise!

Check out the photos Grandmama posted of Schaeffer's 3rd birthday party. We surprised him by asking some friends of ours to bring over a big piece of heavy equipment, you know, the kind a 3-year old boy would drool over. And they delivered! They brought the Peterbilt out to play! Schaeffer was in awe. He could not believe his eyes when the rig backed into our driveway, and then he realized he could climb up in it and try 'er out. He nearly wet his pants...oh, wait. He did wet his pants! Sorry Shane. Hope it dried ok. (We are still potty training). My little man was in heaven...I'm sure God will have big rigs in heaven for all the little (and big) boys up there. It was such an awesome evening with family and friends. We are such lucky people to be surrounded by such awesome people all the time!

Busy

It's getting busy up in here! And I'm not neccessarily talking about my relationship with my husband. (I know, eeewwww!) Our home is getting seriously busy, much busier than I am used to handling. We have some homeschool co-op meetings and such coming up. Griff has had a speech/feeding evaluation which resulted in more appts weekly. BJ is trying to get as much school complete as he can. He just completed the spring semester and now has 2 more classes checked off. He has already enrolled in an online Greek class that will begin this month. In June he has plans to attend the SBC in Orlando and a 1-day course in Kentucky about the SBC in order to get 3 hours of on-campus credit. And then he'll transition right into the fall semester and possibly a week-long mini-term on the Kentucky campus sometime. We continue to serve at Sevier Heights and stay busy in that capacity. We love our church family and we find that serving there is such an awesome gift.

Just to update you, Lily is doing great with her glasses. She has come to rely on them. She wakes up and puts them on first thing because she can see when she wears them. She has another loose tooth which will probably fall out in about a week or so. I asked her if she were excited about the tooth fairy coming and giving her money for her piggy bank. Her reply, "No, mom. Fairies aren't real." I told her it could be fun to pretend anyway. I got a big s-i-g-h in response as if she might be willing to put up with my silliness.

Schaeffer (aka Schaeff or Schaeffey - names given to him by his loving sis) is full of himself lately. He says nearly anthing that comes to his mind. Sometimes it's pretty funny and sometimes it can be downright embarrasing. But it's cool to hear his thoughts and connect with him that way. The other night when we had lots of storms rolling through, he peeked out the window to see. The sky lit up with a flash of lightening and then he said, "Why did Jesus do that?" He's such a little man and I luuuuve him!

Griffin just celebrated his 1st birthday. We had a little party here at the house (photos coming soon). We were hoping for an outdoor cookout but weather did not permit. Instead we had bar-b-q chicken inside. We got to celebrate with Nana Kaye and Nana Faye. That was a special treat. Griffin is so sweet, and he's proving to be pretty fearless. He perpelled himself off the rocking chair and down a couple of steps all in one day. The bad part was that I was holding him in my lap when he did a nose dive off my lap and onto the floor. He's quick! Thank goodness babies are so resilient.

Well, I think that's it for now... I hope to update more often but it's not looking very promising.

Builder Man

Schaeffer just keeps cracking me up these days with the things he says. For the past week our neighbors have had contractors working in their backyard adding a covered porch to their home. Today while we were all playing in our backyard, Schaeffer said, "I wanna be a builder man when I get big." I said, "Do you want to be a builder man so you can build houses for people?" He replied, "Yes, I wanna build houses...and Batman toys."

I Be Daddy

Yesterday Schaeffer was enjoying driving his John Deere gator around the backyard. He would come into the kitchen where I was working and act like he was going bye-bye with keys in hand. As he headed out the door he would say, "I'll be back later. Love you!" And out the door he would head to take the gator for a few laps. Then he came in and said, "Kiss me. I be Daddy." Talking about melting my heart!

Growing Up!

Lily has a loose tooth. Is it that time already to start losing baby teeth? I can't believe that she's growing up so quickly.

Schaeffer went potty today (both kinds - I'll spare the details) all by himself. He has a little frog potty that sits near the big potty in the kids' bathroom upstairs. I was busy getting things together for us to get ready to leave the house (that's always a feat). He was on his frog potty and Lily was on the big potty. She was coaching him, which was very funny to overhear. And then next thing I know they are both yelling for me to "Come and look!" We did the potty dance which sort of resembles Ring Around the Rosies. Both Lily and Schaeffer were stark naked as we danced. If these walls could speak!

Don't Be Fooled by the Blocks That I Got

The newest craze in our home...

Side by Side

Here's a fun side-by-side comparison of all my babies at around 7-8 months (L to R: Lily, Griffin, Schaeffer). Who looks more alike? Who looks like their daddy? Who looks like their mommy? Who looks like the mail man (hahaha!)? One thing is for certain, these babies definitely swam out of the same gene pool!

Funny Kids Sayings

Funny things my kids have said lately:

Schaeff: "I wanna go to Donald-Mc!!"

Lily: "That's not how Daddy do's it!"

Schaeff: "Sssnowman" (The "s" sounded thru his nose). I loved it when he said "I sssmell sssmoke." There's no letter of the alpahabet to properly depict how he makes his "s" sound.

Little Man, Big Personality

Little Big Man's nickname has grown to fit him perfectly. Schaeffer is a little man with a big personality. At bedtime we read a few books together in his rocking chair. We squeeze into the chair side by side so we can both see the pages of the book. Last night when we finished reading, I got up to put the books away. I turned around and Schaeffer was lying across the chair with legs tossed over one arm of the chair and his head propped up on the other arm. He then said, "Ahh, much better." He cracks me up!

Schaeffer's language skills are quite quirky and funny. He says things like "oh, sure!" when asked to do something. And he copies his big sis all the time. My least favorite is how he has picked up from her the word "FINE!" when he's mad at us for telling him no. I love to listen to him do make-believe play and making his action figures talk to each other. Most of the time it sounds like a bunch of garble-de-goo, but it's so conversational I know he must be deep into meaningful communication.

Being the middle, sometimes he gets overlooked. But he is still my baby boy! I still rock him like a baby in my lap at naptime and bedtime. It's snuggle time and I think we both really love it. I sometimes imagine what it might look like when he's 18 and we are both trying to fit into the rocking chair.

Some Favorite Photos (May-July 2009)

Schaeffer's 2nd Birthday Party (June 5, 2009)

It was a little bit of a whirlwind getting Schaeffer's 2nd birthday party planned just 6 weeks after having Griffin. But I would not in a million years skip out on celebrating such a momentous occasion in the life of my Little Big Man! Schaeffer loves cars and trucks and really anything with wheels on it. Our good friend Casey made Schaeffer's cake with all his favorite things: TRUCKS and edible dirt (cocoa)! Schaeff took the opportunity to drive the trucks around on Birthday Cake Lane, and I didn't have the heart to stop him. After all, it was his birthday!

Christmas Miracle!

My back is healed! I'm feeling so much better and looking forward to a relaxing Christmas. Now I just pray Schaeffer heals from his ear infection and fever. He's been such a sick little boy and so miserable. I hope he will feel well this week and enjoy opening his gifts. I hate it when my kids are sick. I'd much rather be the one to suffer - not them.