HAPPY TRUNK OR TREATING

Every year for Halloween we go to an event our church puts together called Trunk-or-Treat to share the love of Jesus as well as give parents in that neighborhood (kinda rough) a safe haven to take their children for a fun-filled night without the worry. Last year Bear was just two weeks old. This year was much more eventful. He was not dressed up as anything but he was cute! We took him a monkey to hold onto for the theme. I had actually ordered him a costume a couple months back but when we got it it was already too small and it was missing a button so I sent it back and just never replaced it. I am kind of glad I didn't seeing that it was so hot. We would have gotten him something that he would have been miserable in.


We, as a Life Group (a group (15 people or so) of faith-filled or "hungry"people basically in the same "zone" as you such as 20's zone, young adults zone, college... etc.... We meet every Wed night from 6P-8P) I think we are in the young families zone...) Anyway our Lifegroup was in charge of "decorating" a trunk and passing out candy from "our" vehicle. This year our LG theme was "It's a jungle out there... Got Jesus?" So we decorated our trunk like a jungle and hung signs, monkeys and bananas. It got a lot of comments... We were passing out candy from a picnic basket.


The cutest part of the whole theme were the monkey and the elephant infants we had. It of course was so warm here that everyone was miserable in there cozy outfits.

Oh well it was a great turn out and such fun to see all the costumes.

On another note... Bear finally got a new crib today. We ordered it and got it in today. He broke his other one. Well I can't say for sure if HE did it b/c it was a repeated hand me down so who knows where it originally came from. But he now has a habit of SHAKING everything he can stand up to so I thought he rattled the clip so much it broke. I was thankful for the year that it did serve us. Even longer actually. I am looking for a replacement part so it can be fixed. But for now we went ahead and ordered a new one b/c J's parents offered a while back to buy us a crib when we needed one and also we intend on having more than one baby before too long so we are going to be needing a second one. It is way cute.




Just ignore the unfinished painted room. It is still in the works. I have kinda hit a wall as to what color to do the bottom half (and the chair railing still has to go in). I bought khaki for the bottom but am thinking I am not going to like it. I was going to do it with khaki and red stripes at the bottom with blue accents in the room buuuuuuttt. I hate it when this happens to my brain. UGGGHHH. Hopefully I will get it done before he moves off to college! HA!

Hope you all had a wonderful, eventful night! Blessings!

insult to injury

sooooo I have been injured in battle. Sunday night I was in a club with an old dear friend of mine. She had to go to the restroom for a moment and I sat waiting at a table for her. When she came out there was a group of girls standing outside the door waiting to jump on her apparently. As soon as the fight broke out I jumped in and started fighting to my hearts content; I was landing punches left and right watching them fall like autumn leaves. Finally the fight was over and I left for home injured...

now for the good part. IT WAS ALL IN A STINKIN' DREAM... And yes I really did wake up with an injured wrist. Terrible right. I don't even have a fun, valid war story! It was a DREAM! So I made sure that J did not have a broken nose or bruises all over him. He checked out okay. On to our walls to make sure I did not get up and have it out with one of them.... nope! Hole-less. Clueless, I carried on my day with an injured, sore wrist. Not too bad but uncomfortable. So Tuesday comes and I go to the Chiropractor for an adjustment and ask him about my wrist (which is a lot more tender now). Again, I repeat my embarrassing war story (yeah, that dream one...) and then he proceeds to check my "tenderness" tolerance. The bones did not seem sore; it was more right under my thumb area. He told me to wait 3 days and then we could take an x-ray b/c if it were broken then we would not be able to see anything until it started healing in a couple days anyway.

Home we go. The pain at this point is getting untolerable. I go and get a wrist brace to help me not move the wrist (it is starting to swell and be unmovable now). I get the brace on and it is doing much of nothing really. I come home and make an appointment for my Dr. in the morning to be seen and get some pain relief and hopefully get a diagnosis.

On to the Dr. Wednesday. Again... humiliating war story re-told. I came out of there with a sprained wrist, some feel good prescriptions, and a rigid splint. I was feeling great. I stayed on top of the pain medicine like a mother hen. Every 4 hours was what it said and every 4 hours I was downing pain meds. At this point I could not move my hand without seering pain, nor any of my fingers. So as soon as the 4 hours was up I could start feeling a tinge of pain again and I could not bear to be in that pain. It also kind of created a barrier. I could not feel my pain after the medication so I could use my hand more and get things around the house done. I think I probably over did it but I cannot stay still or not do anything.

Today was much better I woke up with the splint on and didn't really feel much pain at all. I got up and was able to go back to taking Ibuprophen instead of the prescribed pain meds and my anti-inflamatory med prescribed. I have been able to do a lot more today. I even made hommade pizza dough (which requires kneading for 5-8 minutes)... I felt great. Every once in a while I will turn it the wrong way or put too much pressure on it and remember that I am still healing but oh how good it feels to be able to do things again. Especially pull your own pants up!

My sweet hubby was wonderful with Bear. He was getting him up and changed (hahaha he had some rank diapers during my break... hahaha.. I love my honey!) He was getting him dressed and fed. I of course had to not say anything about his clothes not matching or that he should have a bib on when he has breakfast in his jammies. I just stayed quiet and thankful that he was indeed taking initiative and caring for our son. Yay me. It was humiliating to say the least though... You really can't do much for yourself either when you are dealing with one hand... Yep I had to get help getting dressed and pulling up my pants after going to the restroom, I had to have help in everything... drying off after a shower. Terrible! I hate not being able to help myself. I have a new burden in my heart to pray for people with these PERMANANT issues.

So if you are wondering. I am better and I am doing things myself again and YES I DID WIN THE FIGHT!

Where to begin...

Just to warn you... Lots of pictures in progress!

So sorry I have been away for a while. I have been busy, busy,sick, busy,sick hubby, sick baby busy, I have missed you all! I had a women's conference (rocked my face off GOOD!) this weekend...(Fri, Sat) Sunday we had Bear's second b.day party (for my side of the family and all of our adorable friends... love you all!) and also a "Gotcha day" celebration. One year ago Saturday (the 25th) we received him into our newly moved into home. So we celebrated our having him a year and getting to love on him for a whole year! So... where to begin.

****Women's conference****

Every year our church hosts a women's conference that some of my dear friends are in charge of putting together (we were sadly informed that this was her "last year" to do this... hmmmm wonder if she'll stay if we tell her it was WONDERFUL AND NOBODY CAN DO IT LIKE SHE CAN!!!!) We will have to talk later then Ü! Anyway this year's theme was "Rain" out of Hosea 6:3...Oh just to read that. MmMMMM makes me want to drink it in DEEP into my dry soul (actually from beginning from verse 1-3 is GREAT)! I love these conferences. They give me enough to press on with my DADDY even longer. It is just what I need to continue on in the dry seasons! I love the community I am surrounded by!

The guest speaker happened to be the woman that led me to receive Christ as my Lord and Savior 6 years ago. A fun story really (some day when I am feeling up to a long fun story I will tell you all how it happened). So anyway She and her husband have moved from our church to do a church plant in Wheaton, IL and she came back to speak at the conference... How wonderful it was to see her again and hear the faith that drew me in in the beginning! I love that woman!

She was speaking at one point (because remember I am terrible at the whole picture I can only remember little segments and barely that... so bear with me) on us knowing God as our "owner; we belong to him" but do we know him as "our MASTER"?. OUCH! um probably not! I know I belong to Him but am I obedient like we wish for our children to be? Not by any means am I. She gave an analogy about a puppy they have recently gotten and she was talking about how she took the puppy out for "puppy time" and living on an extremely busy street they have to keep a very close eye on the puppy. She mentioned that there was a neighbor across the street that saw the puppy and was talking in an excited voice about her and it lured the puppy her way. Amy (The Speaker) had to run after the puppy before she got ran over to protect her and pull her back to the safety of their yard. After this she said she later was in prayer and God gave to her this analogy and told her " your puppy knows you as her owner but she does not know you as Master!"WOW! Makes me really think of where my walk with MY GOD is these days! How often do I "dismiss" my Father's voice just because I am "busy" with my own life and get into so much "trouble"? Too many for me to count. I want to hear God in my every action. Oh how I long for that day.

There was so much to process... I think I am still drinking it all in. I bought the CD's from the weekend of the whole conference so I can listen to it over and over again. There are break out sessions that we can attend and I attended the "Drought" one on account of that's what I am feeling right now. So on the CD set you can have all the sessions and get to hear them all! wooohooo. I am sure certain things will continue to press in my heart to share from time to time (especially as I listen to them over and over again)... but my mind is jumping on now before I forget everything that happened this weekend. So here we go.

****B.Day party/Gotcha day celebration****

The conference was on Fri night, and Sat from 8A to 3:30 P (but seeing I could not leave until I spoke with Amy and hugged her neck I stayed a lot later. I am so glad I did!). And then Bear's party was Sunday from 2-4. Talk about a BUSY weekend. On top of I HATE PLANNING PARTIES! I don't know if anyone has caught on to that yet from previous posts. Driving home Saturday after the conference I had to stop off at the grocery store to pick up last minute things and I felt real exhausted (you know how it is when you have been crying all weekend and have just met with Jesus! MAN THAT'S SOME GOOD STUFF!) and I used to be a pot head.... let me just say for the record JESUS IS WAY BETTER!!!).

Well I just seemed to keep fading! I got home and J fed Bear and bathed him and put him to bed. I was going to take a nap and then get up to do all the food that could be done ahead of time... and the cakes. I went to lie down and figured I had better not because I always feel worse when I nap ( I also dislike naps for some weird reason hmmm.). So I was going to relax on the couch and watch a movie to "veg out" for a moment or two until the "fog" wore off... but it kept getting worse until I literally felt like I was going to faint; puke and then faint. I took some pepto and rested on the couch and J... my wonderful Hubby, proceeded to make the cakes for me. I had to get up to separate the egg whites but other than that he made me stay on the couch until I felt better. So we got the cakes baked and I got to spend some good QT with him while I was made to sit still. Very rare occasion. Eventually all the cakes were baked and it was time to go to bed!! yay! The next day we were in the full swing of things. The theme for his party was bees... I got the idea from a magazine of a bee hive cake and it was too cute and witty not to do so I dared to make the beehive cake. I thought "what would be better than a little Bear digging into a beehive b.day cake???" so fun. It was complete with little pipe cleaner bees I made about a month ago. Then I made cup cakes with bees on them and two bears I decided we needed at the end of the decorating. We also made an 11X13 cake that had his signature Bear face on it (Thanks to Misti's wonderful brain. I was going to just leave it blank... She talked me into doing "his face".) All in all everything turned out great! LOTS of food and LOTS of cake.... and LOTSA, LOTSA PEOPLE! Here are some fun pictures of the whole Blessed event! Take in what you can and come back for seconds if you have to! I am still having to. I am thankful for the people using my camera to take pictures... I would not have had any if it were not for you!

*** Last but not LEAST ***

Bear finally got a hair cut! It was getting way unrully and I have been wanting to trim it but we have to have permission to cut a "foster" childs hair. So I got permission to have it cut. My mother is a beautician so she got the privilege of giving her grandson his first haircut. (We of course saved his little curls for a keepsake). It is SOOOO adorable on him. Such a little man now. I love this little man!

There is so much more I could fill you in on but I will save your eyes for now and leave you to digest all this. The time is coming that I will give you more to fill up on.

Blessings to you all my friends and family! Love and peace be plentiful in your homes tonight (or today for those of you reading this in the morning.)