Brandon and Rachael Werner Family

Do They Come Any Cuter?

2011-12-01T12:38:00.000-06:00

On the next three I couldn't decide which edit I liked better. What do you think?

Beacuse It's Already Been Eight Weeks!

2011-11-30T20:37:00.000-06:00

And I want to remember...

He is already ooooing and cooing back at me. Melt my <3!

My handsom little blue eyed man!

The Sirens Blared

2011-11-29T19:44:00.001-06:00

“Raaaachael!” I heard the shrill desperate call come as I just settled in to feed Jackson. “RAAAAACHAEL!!!!” The call came again with an even greater “I’m going to die” sound to it. “Maybe I should go check things out”, I thought. What could be the problem? Had my thanksgiving cooking partner been injured in the line of duty? I could hear our Aunt headed to help but I still felt I needed to go. I wasn’t going to make the mistake of not following that prompting. If Jackson cried for a bit due to the dinner intermission then so be it!

As I came out of the nursing mother’s room the word fire landed on my ears. My pace quickened rapidly to the kitchen. I could already see the smoke coming out of the doorways. Lauren, my sister-in-love and co-chef for the day, had turned off the stove top which immediately stopped the pot of over boiling, now fire burning, milk, butter, and water mixture I had been warming for the potatoes. My thoughts immediately raced to the multi thousand dollar sprinkler system recently installed in the building. “Please don’t go off, please don’t go off!” I said while flipping on the over stove fan. I fanned the area while others raced to open doors. The shrill sound of the smoke detectors began to sound. One step closer to the sprinklers I was sure! I fanned even harder begging the alarm to get enough oxygen to quit its alarming. Didn’t it know things were under control!? But there was no stopping it. No batteries to take out, no reset button to push. This system had a job and it planned to carry out its mission to its entirety. About this time the sound of sirens blaring down the street could be heard. Lauren and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes before she went to greet them with the “Thanks for coming, happy thanksgiving, all is well, go about your business” speech.

They kindly turned off the alarm for us and declined the offer to stay and join us for dinner saying they’d “Pass on the burnt dinner.” J

Fortunately, not even one dish was burned and dinner was still ready on time! Whoop, whoop! And…I didn’t even charge the church for the convenience of testing the smoke detectors…they work. However the sprinkler system might need some inspection. Not that I have any complaints about them not coming on. I just hope not to be the one that gets to test those.J

Observe those mad multi-tasking skills! Just don't ask me to boil the butter/milk AND feed the baby. Obviously I'm a fire hazard!

Twas a memorable time and fun, fun, fun!

Holiday Vacation and Brothers

2011-11-26T21:55:00.000-06:00

Before we headed out for our Thanksgiving festivities Brandon helped me get the house in beautiful order. It was wonderful to close the door behind me knowing that when we returned after being away for a few days I would walk into a home clean and tidy.

We had a great few days out in Tuterville relaxing and taking a true vacation. On Tuesday Brandon flew his hobby RC plane for a bit. It was a touch too windy but still fun to watch.

On Wednesday the weather couldn’t have been any better for the plane. Brandon flew it several times and even learned how to do some really fun tricks! Made fun memories!

Thursday again the weather was a bit windy but Brandon took out hoping for a few more flights. Womp, Womp. The wind won. Repairs now need to be made for the poor plane. I didn’t get pics because I was busy getting ready for the Thanksgiving whoopla. The holiday was fun and great memories were made! I particularly enjoyed the eight whole glorious hours I got to sleep because my dear sweet mother kept Jackson in her room for the night. J

While we were in Tuterville Brandon informed me that his brother had called him asking if he could hang out with some guys at our house for the evening. He informed me he had told them how hard we had worked to get the house in tip top shape and they needed to leave the house equally as clean. I gave an “uh-huh” response knowing immediately things would not be “how we left it.”

Upon our arrival home the house was in good shape. Only a couple cups left out, things I could deal with. And then Brandon opened the freezer. Apparently short term memory loss is a common thing with the Werner men. There were three cans of Coca-Cola on the super-duper verge of exploding in my freezer. Lucky Duckies-Brandon found them before they exploded. I haven’t yet recovered from the last freezer incident due to Brandon's short term memory loss.

Also the Nativity had been rearranged. This did not surprise me. I knew it was coming. It happens every year. I don’t even bother taking my time to set it up in detail and perfection because I know as soon as my brothers come over they will make it look like this. Guard your eyes. Yes, they make the animals mate, sniff, and any other such thing they can come up with.

The wise man has karate chopped the shepherd on the roof of the stable.

Joseph’s head is on his staff (the head broke several years ago and I haven’t glued it back on yet).

Sometimes I am tempted to leave it this way because I know that returning it to its proper state is pointless. I don’t though because I don’t really want to answer the girls questions about it. Nor do I want to really look at it. Let the holiday cheer begin. *Roll Eyes Here* Ahhh, the brothers I never had.

I'll post about our Werner Thanksgiving soon. I helped make dinner. The motto for the evening became "Learn not to Burn" :)

Kate's Three!

2011-11-12T21:05:00.000-06:00

Katie-Kate’s birthday has come and gone. She is already three! To describe Katherine in a simple way I guess the only words to sum her up would be full of personality! I love that about Kate. Although I’m not gonna lie… with that “full of personality” trait comes lots of laughter and fun times as well as pitiful pouty faces and ferocious bad attitudes. Sometimes she gives me a run for my money and in all honesty, as much as I would like to be the perfect parent here, I admit there have been occasions that I have been caught beyond exhaustion and her strong willed little self has won some of our battles. Oh, dear Kate. A princess and a tomboy, independent yet helpless, cute yet crazy, silly yet sweet. She melts my heart and raises my blood pressure. How can a person be so many opposite things so perfectly!? Somehow she manages and it’s what makes her…well, her. I love you Katherine! Momma hopes you never stop being you!

I took a few three year old shots of Katherine. Last Sunday the weather was great and so we went on a girls date and headed downtown. I got them a cupcake at pinkitzle and we had a fun time. Though they were very unhappy about leaving Jackson even when I assured them it wasn’t going to be long. They eventually got over it....after we bought the cupcake!

*Katherine Faith Werner* 3rd birthday on 11-11-11!

I'll try to post a few pics of the birthday party soon.

Days Quickly Passing!

2011-11-03T21:12:00.001-05:00

I CANNOT believe it has already been a whole month since my Little Man was born! Here are some of my notes from the days that have past….

1.) I have a BOY!! AHHHHHHHH!!! It’s amazing to have a boy. Why is it different? Not a clue. But he is amazing. :)

(Jackson at one week)

2.) Some older women, who will remain nameless, cause my son to smell like perfume for days. Even after baths I could still smell them. I’m considering banding women that are old enough for the senior discount from holding Jackson. Actually, I would never do that. They have way to much experience in the field. (Grandma, I am not talking about you here. Although after you have loved on him he definitely has a distinct aroma, I just think its Grandma smell, which is good. :) )

(Jackson at two weeks)

3.) Mommy. Wants. More. Sleep! Although Jackson is doing very well at night just waking up to eat and then going back to sleep I have never been one of those-keep on tuckin’-on 4 hours of sleep kind of gals. Hats off to all of you. A crazy awesome quality to poses for moms! Seriously, sometimes I just want to collapse!

(Jackson at three weeks)

(Jackson at one month)

4.) “The List” has officially been undone in its entirety. L (The freezer incident finished it off.) I think there are more things on the daily to-do list than I have time for. This can equal frustration!

5.) Christmas is coming!!!!! Must. Start. Shopping!

6.) Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

“Good Job Rachael. You can do this! Now, go turn on some peaceful, calm, relaxing music and take a chill pill or you will be sent to time out.”

“Do I get to be in time out alone? Yes please! That sounds wonderful!”

“Raaaachaelllll, not funny. Being a mommy is a great job. You like it.”

“Oh, yes I do! I like this job, I like this job, I like thi…KATHERINE!!!! Do NOT play in that! No, you come here! I’m feeding Jackson right now. I don’t care what Elizabeth did….Both of you come now! Front and center!”

Breathe in, breathe out. I like this job, I like this job…..

(Sometimes I host mini therapy sessions throughout the day.J)

7.) Facebook NEVER sleeps. Always something new to read. Great for early morning feedings entertainment.

Mr. Jackson has already gained three pounds! Doing well getting on a schedule and giving smiles all the time! I am amazed at how fast he is growing and changing. You know, in a blink of an eye he will be actually wearing this tie because it fits him. He will no longer be a baby, he will be a man. He will get his drivers licence, graduate from highschool, have a job, and then....then it will happen. A woman. A woman will waltz in and take my little man from me. She will have his heart. He will no longer be mine!!! Whaaaaaa! WHAAAAAAA!!!! DO YOU REALIZE HOW FAST THIS WILL HAPPEN!!!! Someone bring me a tissue and maybe the contact information for a therapist. I may or may not need it. :)

Doomed

2011-11-02T21:59:00.000-05:00

It was one of those days. The kind where nothing seems right, life seems doomed, and you are on the verge of tears…just because. It also happened to be Brandon’s birthday and all of the great things I had planned in my imagination were far from becoming a reality and failure was without doubt what my future held for me. Time was not my friend either and the minutes were running away from me- quickly widening the gap between me and success. Already behind schedule, already on the verge of tears for no reason, already having tried for days to put the house in some sort of order yet feeling like before I could finish it was already re-messy, I open the freezer to find this.

Now, I'd hate to point fingers and name names but let's jsut say it was one of the men of our household that did this. The six cans of soda that Brandon had placed in our small freezer the prior afternoon had obviously been promptly forgotten about. All six cans had exploded. Every. Single. One. I muttered "Brandon Chasteene!" and shook my head in complete defeat as all my dreams of ever having a clean home, bathed children, bathed me, educated children, trained children, clean laundry, ironed laundry, fed family(all healthy meals of course), etc. etc. came crashing down. Yes, all of that from some exploded soda cans! (Some of you understand. Right?) My next course of action was to promptly send my beloved husband the pictures along with a kind, gentle, loving, text message that read something like this…”you have no idea what you’ve done!” I included the pictures to try to explain the full gravity of the situation. Looking back, in order to bring true clarity for him I should have sent a picture of my sweet face, which was, in a big way, lacking sweetness at the moment.

Fortunately, the world, surprisingly, didn't come to an end, Brandon’s Grandmother, who lives in our neighborhood, was contacted by my sweet mother-in-love, and came to help this poor, poor, hormonal woman. Thanks Maw-Maw!

What was that? Did the incident push my tears over the edge?

Well, I just don’t think that’s any of your business. :)

You just never know...

2011-10-29T10:21:00.000-05:00

Children these days…so smart about the whole electronics thing. My 2 year old could probably unlock, go to the subfolder, start and play angry birds faster than many adults. I’m still trying to decide if this is a good thing. It amazes some people. I laugh. I laugh because they also know how to use the camera on my phone. It entertains them for hours. I feel it is helping blossom their inner photographer which could one day be a source of income for them. I’m a good mom like that. :) On top of that occasionally I find a good laugh while looking through their childlike photography. Generally there are hundreds to sort through and you just never know what you are going to find!

So I have decided I will occasionally post, for your entertainment, photography through their eyes.

Let’s begin.

In motherhood some of the simplest tasks become huge celebrations and joys of milestones reached when, for example, your child learns to dispose of her human waste in the proper location, commonly known as the toilet.
(Some of you are grossing out. All mothers are shaking their head as if to say “yep, I understand.” So you grosser outers can just get over it. It’s a mom thing. Do I hear an amen?)

All that to say, over the spring and summer months we celebrated such accomplishments due to the fact that potty training had been in the works for my second born.

I realized how much of a monumental part of day to day life this was when I came across great documentation of the events.

Step one: Take a seat

Step two: Provide yourself with entertaining material to pass the time...in case it takes a long time.

Step three: Wipe

Step Four: Observe success of your time in the bathroom and place tissue in toilet.

Step next: Dispose of waste and tissue by using the flushing mechanism located near the top of the toilet.

There you have it. Follow given steps above and instantly you will have bathroom success. Oh, and apparently you have a sister with the camera thrown somewhere in the mix! Can't forget that step! Or, maybe we can. Yes, I would recommend leaving that step out completely. It's better for everyone that way.

But seriously, think about. This is a life changing event. Shouldn’t it be documented? Maybe a date of first toilet success would be sufficient without the photographic evidence.

Next I will be teaching them discretion in their photography subject. :)

Thank you for joining us in what has been the first installment of “Photography through Their Eyes” Join us next time for…who knows what!

Photographic Evidence

2011-10-27T18:07:00.000-05:00

*Begin sweet music in head*

Because I am married to such a great man, after having Jackson, Brandon took some days off work to help out around the house while I got back up to speed. He was so helpful in fact I even whipped out my cell phone a couple times so I’d have photographic evidence.

*sweet music comes to a screeching halt*

Wait! Where did that picture come from!? Humm. That must have been Daddy’s break time. Even Daddy’s need rest time! J

Oh, here we go. *restart sweet music*

This is the one I was looking for. See, photographic evidence.

What a great guy!

Thanks Hot Stuff for all the help! Couldn't do it without you! I am one lucky girl!!!! :)

Rachael

Mom of the Year!

2011-10-24T14:24:00.000-05:00

Several weeks ago this little mishap happened. I intended on posting this right after the incident but I misfiled the story after I wrote it. Just the other day I ran across it and thought you still might enjoy picturing the event in your mind. J Here’s what went down…

My two year old's car seat was mysteriously unbuckled from the actual car's seat. Therefore when making a nice turn it tumbles over onto the floor with her still strapped inside. This instantly provokes screams from said two year old who bonked her head and is now scared. I make a gentle but quick turn into the nearest stopping place at which time this 33 week prego mom assumes super mom powers and moves at lightening speeds to asses child’s injuries (they were minor) as well as somehow reach across now empty seat to middle of van and lift two year old child and car seat (which were still attached to one another) back into big seat so I could remove child from car seat and properly comfort her before actually seat belting the car seat into the car, re-strapping her into seat and resuming on to our original destination. It was a blast.

Mom of the year award right here!

Every Boy Needs a Truck!

2011-10-23T18:05:00.005-05:00

Every boy needs a Tonka truck. If for no other reason heneeds one so his mommy can take cute pictures of him with it. J I’m sure Jackson willappreciate the truck as much as I do…someday. J

Thanks Nana and Nanny for the truck!

We were on a retreat with some students this past weekend. We were blessed with great weather and beautiful outdoors!

The Inagural Flight

2011-10-17T19:15:00.001-05:00

Two weeks ago today I was officially “over-due”.
Two weeks ago today my husband decided to start a new hobby.
Two weeks ago today my water broke and it was time to meetmy little man!
Two weeks ago today…life changed….forever. <3

As my due date quickly approached I wondered each day iftoday would be the day. There was no doubt in my mind that I would be having aSeptember baby. I mean think about it, both of my other babies have come earlyand after all I know all of the “things”to do to get labor going! Logical, right? J

I started doing all of those labor inducing things a fewweeks out. The List had been completed, I felt prepared, and if this baby didn’thurry the house wasn’t going to stay clean. JMy contractions were a daily thing always increasing their activity at night.Both of my other labors started in the evening which has proven to make forsome really long exhausting nights! Maybe this little man would be kind enoughto start things in the morning….all wishful thinking! Every morning I wouldwake up feeling the same as I did the day before…pregnant. Several weeks priorto my due date I thought there was no way this little man was going to stay inthere for very long. I felt so ready to pop. My tummy was huge and things justfelt as if they were moving along. Then week or two before my due date thingsfelt better. I didn’t even feel close to delivery and I wondered if he justmight make it to due date. Certainly not though with all I was doing to getlabor going! Then it happened. My due date came and went with no baby. However,I was grateful to be feeling well and continued to attempt to maintain theorder in the house. Some of the “to do’s” on The List now had to be redone. Itfelt strange not having the baby yet, I was excited and ready to meet him but Iwas filled with peace knowing he would come when it was time. I tried to getplenty of rest and enjoy every night’s sleep knowing once my little man washere full night’s sleep would be lacking for a while. It’s a hazard of the job.

Monday, October 3^rd arrived. We had made itthrough another weekend with no baby. Brandon’s Monday’s always start out earlydue to the pastor’s prayer meeting. He headed out like usual just before6:00am. I kissed him goodbye but instead of going back to sleep I headed to thebathroom to empty my bladder…again. For some reason I felt wide awake so Idecided to get some things going for the day. During my morning and my frequenttrips to the bathroom I noticed signs of labor that could be coming. Mycontractions, although lighter than normal, seemed to be coming a bit moreregularly as well. I debated rather or not to call Brandon because I didn’twant to get his hopes up. Due to the strength and regularity of my contractionsin the prior weeks there had been several times I thought it could possiblyturn into labor. False alarms are disappointingbut I choose to go ahead and call him making it very clear it could still bedays away but encouraging him to prioritize his day accordingly…just in case.New signs of coming labor are always great motivation to tie up any loose endsand get things done! As the morning went on the contractions slowed up andeventually even came to a stop. I would occasionally have one of the hardercontractions like I’d been having for weeks but nothing that excited me. Thehouse was done, I took a nap, and Greg and Kim came to take the girls for theafternoon so I could do what I needed to. The house was quiet with the girlsgone and despite my brisk walk, among other things, my body seemed to be doingnothing to bring this baby any closer to his birthday. I felt discouraged. “Don’tget your hopes up.” I had told myself a hundred times but regardless of mywarnings a glimmer of hope had somehow crept in and was now only being crushedas time ticked away with no progression for me whatsoever.

Brandon called during my gloomy afternoon. Throughout theyears of our marriage he had made mention a few times of getting a remote controlairplane. Nothing ever came of the comments and so when he had again brought upthe subject I wasn’t too concerned. His phone call on this day was however aserious inquiry. He was ready to take the plunge and make the purchase. “Areyou ok with that?” he asked. Being in the discouraged state I was in my moodwas one of “I don’t care…do whatever”. I really didn’t mind and I only had one questionand one request, “Where do you plan on keeping it?” “Make sure you don’t make amess or leave out trash. The house is clean and ready and needs to stay thatway!” He agreed to the request and didn’t have an answer for the question but plannedto make the purchase anyway.

With nothing happening and my mood a poor one I decided Ineeded to get out of the house for a bit. Getting my mind off of waitingsounded like a good idea. I got a small treat and window shopped for a awhile.It was getting close to dinner time so I went and picked up the girls andheaded home. Brandon was spread out in the living room putting together hisnewest toy. Plastic packaging and trash were spread around. I took a deepbreath.

Nothing sounded good to eat so I put together a littlesomething together for the girls and Brandon’s brother, who was coming to helpwith the plane, brought dinner for Brandon. I felt blah but was pretty sure itwas just due to my mood.

The plane’s assembly was complete shortly after the 6:00hour. With the sun slowly sinking out of the skyline the rush was on if thisplane would have its inaugural flight tonight! Elizabeth and Katherine were allexcited about “daddy’s plane” and they wanted to watch the show. It did seem asthough it would be fun and sitting at home was doing me no good so we loaded upthe expedition and headed over to a field right outside of our neighborhood. Ipopped the back door up and folded down the back seats. It made a nice placefor the girls and I to sit and watch. After a couple attempts at take off theplane’s wheels had yet to leave the ground. With each try new things werelearned and soon we had lift off. Now, when I say lift off I mean lift off. Thisplane being completely controlled by my husband quickly rose high above theground. It was really cool! I began to feel uneasy as the plane headed towardthe street. “You’re going to hit a car!” I shouted from the sidelines. In acalm, focused, shut-up-your-not-helping-me, tone of voice came the reply, “Iknow baby, I’m trying to bring it back.” From the ground the day felt perfectlywindless but apparently thirty feet in the air was a bit windy and every timeBrandon tried to turn the plan around the wind would catch it pushing itfurther away. As long as Brandon was headed toward the street he was somewhatin control of the toy. So with an amateur behind the controls, the flight pathnow brings itself across the main part of the intersection. I, as a woman,start picturing in my head the crash of the plane into a car that I feel isinevitable and only moments away. I being to laugh at the picture myimagination brings to me. This plane is going to cost us a fortune. I’m sure aswill have to pay for damages, whatever they end up being, and there is prettymuch no way this plane will be landed in one piece. I am laughing uncontrollablyat this point and can’t even see the plane as Brandon tries to get this thingout of the sky with no damage to it or others. It is at this very moment I feelmyself begin to wet my pants. Now, don’t start judging me here. As a very largepregnant woman if you don’t take great caution to control your laughter/bladderlevels sometimes there is just nothing you can do about a little…um… leakage.(I hear that can also happen with old age.)What I was experiencing was way morethan a little leakage however and I could not seem to make it stop. Could itbe! Had my water just broke? I hoped that was the case because my pants werevery wet and if that was all urine I would never live it down! Still laughing,now about the whole situation, I am start praying Brandon could land thatstupid plane! Elizabeth who was sitting near the edge of the back of the caraccidentally falls out straight onto her back. It looked painful. So withsopping wet pants, a child on the ground crying, a husband out of sight with aplane flying over traffic, I hobble out of the car and call for Jonathan to come,“Um, kinda quickly!” I add. When he gets to the car I ask where Brandon is.Apparently the plane had been landed in the field cati-corner from us near aherd of cows. The boys say one of the cows was running from the plane as itcame in for a perfect landing! Jonhollers for Brandon because I say I need him. When he comes running up he islaughing, I am laughing, and Jon is laughing. Before Brandon has a chance tobreak out into his story I tell him mine. “Are you kidding me!?” We load up thecar and head back to the house with a story to tell, joy in our hearts, andlaughter still coming from everyone as we recap the story over and over.Laughter is good like medicine, right? I felt great with no contractions yet.

Some dear friends came and picked up the girls for us. Beforethey left our little family was gathered together to give hugs and kisses andsay our goodbyes. We told the girls Jackson was coming and they were superexcited. Elizabeth seemed to really understand. I asked if they wanted to prayfor Jackson. Katherine, as usual, started right in with a little prayer. “Doyou want to pray Elizabeth?” I asked. For whatever reason she does not like topray unless it is meal time. At the table she is always willing and ready butat bed or any other time she declines the offer. After the question she gentlynodded and quietly began her prayer. “Jesus, please be with mommy and helpJackson to get here safely. Amen” It was a sweet moment and I couldn’t help buttear up. A moment I will treasure forever.

We made the phone calls we needed to and started packing ourbags. The contractions begin to come. My mom and dad came to our house andafter finishing things up we headed out for the hospital at about 9:00pm. With thehospital we deliver at I like to head out as soon as I can when I know labor isfor real because my experience has been that their triage area is very slow andit takes a long time to get into a regular room. We parked in the regular parking garage andwalked because I knew it would be good for me. My contractions were gettingless pleasant now but still about five minutes apart. While in triage the nursewas super nice. She checked me and I was dilated between a 3-4 but the baby wasstill really high. I saw the midwife oncall, Deb. She did an outstanding job! And I decided to get an epidural. WHAT!?Yes, I decided to get an epidural. WHY!? I thought yo….shhh, let me explain.

From the moment my water broke I was at peace. My adrenalinenever came sweeping in, fear wasn’t upon me. I was ready to do this. The reasonI have never gotten an epidural before is because I have never had a peaceabout getting an epidural. I talked about my journey this time around in a previous post. As I satin the triage room the thought of an epidural came to me and I felt…peace. Thethought didn’t come during a hard contraction. It wasn’t based on the anythingbesides the peace I felt about getting it. I discussed the possibility withBrandon and he had no reservations. I discussed it with my midwife and she didn’tdiscourage it either. So I decided to do it. We were going to let things gets alittle further along because they wanted me to walk around due to him beingreally high. I didn’t feel like walking at the moment and could tell thecontractions were doing their job. I could feel him coming down. Shortly the nurse came to take me to my roomin labor and delivery. During the short walk there I had to stop twice forreally hard contractions and they were not really followed by relief. Iinformed the nurse I was getting an epidural so if we could get that rolling itwould be great. If I was going to get the epidural then I wanted to go aheadand get it so that I could actually enjoy this labor. The contractions werecoming hard and strong and unpleasantly from the time I entered my room. Iinformed the nurse things were moving along quickly and we needed to get theepidural now if we were going to do it. There was a lady inline in front of meto get an epidural. The nurse said if she checked me and I was further alongthan the other woman than I would get my epidural first. After being checked Ireally didn’t care what I was as long as it was further along than the otherwoman. I was further along and although a little part of me felt bad for her Iwas really happy for me. If I recall correctly I was dilated to a good 5. Themain thing I remember was that his head was now really low. Trying to breathethrough and relax during contractions was getting harder. Things were stillmoving quickly. After several more contractions and what seemed like foreverthe epidural man came in. “I agree.” I exclaimed before he could even list therisks. “I know, but I still have to tell you the risks.” “Well talk fast” I triedto say as politely as possible. It took three tries to get the epidural in thecorrect place but it didn’t really hurt. The contractions hurt much worse!Shortly after that they asked me how that contraction felt. “What contraction? DidI have a contraction?” “A really big one” the nurse said. To which I promptlystarted singing the Hallelujah Chorus! JIt was a great moment. I would guessthat by the time I got the epidural I was dilated to a seven. It wasn’t butmaybe an hour later and I was pushing. Iwas glad to have the ability to move my legs on my own and could even feeltouching the whole time I had the epidural. Pressure was also felt and it stillhurt a lot when he actually came out. Although pain is never pleasant I enjoyedknowing he was there and could still tell what I was doing without the pain ofthe contractions.

Something else that was different this time around was thepeanut gallery. Normally I have a whole crew of people watching the marvelous miracleof birth. After I got the epidural I asked most people to step out so I couldrest a bit. Then I had to use the restroom. Of course with the epidural I couldn’tget up so that dismissed the rest of the onlookers. From that moment on theywere working on me and then I was pushing. It felt right to not have anyone inthe room. I was comfortable and able to focus on the task at hand. Normally Iam in so much pain it doesn’t matter to me who is in the room. But since inbetween contractions it was just resting if felt strange being on display. Whenthings got close, and I mean really close, I asked for the girls to be let backin the room. Unfortunately there wasn’t clear instruction and they didn’t allget in.LSorry girls! I felt really bad about that. He was still greeted by many of people who love him very much!

Jackson hardly cried at all when he came out. As they laidhim on me I looked him over and declared “It’s a boy!” The thought still seemedsurreal. He’s lungs were pretty wet and they took him and suctioned him out. Hestill never really cried much at all but the nursing tending to him said he wasnever in distress. He’s made sure I knowthat he can cry now. JBut most of the time he is very pleasant.

He has been such a great baby! My recovery has been supergreat! He is always so full of smiles and I think it is more than just gas. Wehave gotten into the swing of things faster than I would have ever imagined.The girls adore their brother and are actually great helpers. I’m a littleafraid of Katherine being over zealous in her willingness and initiative to “help”mommy with Jackson but so far it has not been an issue at all. We have regulartalks about picking him up or putting things in his mouth not being ok. I feel blessed beyond what I deserve. Thewhole birth experience was a fabulous one. I don’t think I would change athing! Even the journey the pregnancy took me on before delivery was one that Iwill always hold dear to my heart. The lessons the Lord taught me, the fear Hehelped me deal with, the peace He brought in His time, and the amazing littleman he has entrusted us with are all things that make me feel like I’ve beenhugged by my maker.

Thank you Jesus for life!

My Heart is Happy!

2011-10-11T10:44:00.004-05:00

Jackson Chasteene Werner - October 4, 2011
7lbs. 12oz. - 19.5 inches long
Born at two forty-four in the morning

I’ve tried to blog many times since my little man was placedin my arms and immediately had my heart. Words just are not enough. They don’tadequately convey the happiness and emotions all bottled up inside. When I holdhim, kiss his little cheeks, look into his eyes …sigh…my heart melts all overagain. The cycle again repeats as I watch his daddy hold him or as I just sit backand observe his sisters care for him in the most loving ways.

After we got home from the hospital the moment the girlsspotted Jackson, still in his car seat, setting in the corner, they quicklysurrounded him to “ooooo and awwwww”. Katherine placed Buckles, her belovedstuffed animal, right in the car seat with Jackson offering the sweetsentiments “here you go Jackson, you can have him”. At that moment I knew wewere going to be just fine. J

So far this has been one of the easiest recoveries for me.I’m not sure what all contributed to that but I have a few ideas. Due tohormones getting back into whack I have only cried about ridiculous thingstwice. All the while telling myself, “This is ridiculous! Do NOT cry about sucha silly thing! Stupid hormones!” I repeat this to myself several times before Ifinally regain control. Unfortunately that control is not regained before atear or two falls from my eyes. Good times. J

We ventured out to Mom and Dad Werner’s on Saturday to watchthe OU vs. Texas game. Boomer! Sooner! Sunday morning after a good night withthe babe I felt well enough to go to church. It was wonderful in every way. Ilove going to church. It’s family. Brandon had deligated his responsibilitiesfor the day because we didn’t know if he would be there. So, we got to gotogether as a family at normal church time, check our children into thenursery, and enjoy a lot of the service together too!

Mr. Jackson is doing very well and already growing andchanging. When born he weighed a perfect 7lbs. 12oz. and yesterday at hischeck-up he already weighed 8lbs 2oz. He is doing well having awake time and I lovewatching his eyes as he is just soaking things in, figuring things out, making simple discoveries like the fact that he has arms and legs. His eyes are so beautiful…theylook like they are going to be light colored. He is sleeping well at night and doing thethings that all newborns do. Eat, sleep, poop, repeat. It’s wonderful. J

The birth story is coming. It was a great experience. I hopeto post about it soon, of course, in between sweet baby kisses and snuggleswith my little man! J

I’m completely smitten…can you tell?

Click....silence

2011-10-01T22:31:00.001-05:00

Click.....silence. The timer on the bomb said ding but nothing happened.Approach bomb with caution.

So this is how it feels. This is how it feels to be pregnanton your due date. Hummm…..it’s interesting. Basically like how you feel on yourbirthday…not really any different than yesterday.

This is how I look on my due date. Basically like I lookedyesterday. :)

Mark it down in the books. I have now experienced a new first. Not that having a pregnancy go to due date or beyond was actually on my bucket list but still...might as well see the positives. :)

I had worried abouthaving a third born. I know several third borns…that are great people. J And in their greatnesscomes a certain complexity that, well, frightens me as a parent. I’m wonderingif Jackson is already demonstrating his unique third born ways. Either that, orhe heard me talking about circumcision and he has decided he’s fine were he’sat! The jury is still out on the subject matter. I’ll get back with you in afew years with the verdict. J

Due date good night kisses from big sisters. I can hardly wait until they get to meet and hold him!

God's timing is perfect and I do not doubt His plan for Mr. Jackson and our family.

'Tis so Sweet!

2011-09-28T16:16:00.001-05:00

I am officially more pregnant than I have ever been. Ourfirst born came 7 days early and 5 days before the due date our second bornmade her debut. Here we are, due date quickly approaching, just a few moredays. I feel like a time bomb with a count- down timer. Will it explode at zeroor will there be an empty sounding click as nothing happens when the time “runsout”? Although I am so ready to holdthis little man in my arms and kiss his cheeks there has been a certain peacethat has come with each passing day as I wait.

This pregnancy has been quite the emotional journey for me.The Lord and I have had many talks about this whole baby #3 thing. See, I amwhat some of you would call…well, stupid. JBoth of my prior pregnancies I have had “natural” deliveries -meaning noepidural. (Side Note: I am not against epidurals for other people. In factthere may be a day, could even be this time, which I choose to get an epidural.I just personally, for me, haven’t had a peace about it yet. But I am totallyok with, never for a second judge, and am even happy for all women who do getepidurals. Ok, side note over.)

With my first pregnancy my labor was fine. Yes, painful but completelymanageable and even what I would describe as a great birth experience. Mysecond pregnancy the labor and delivery were difficult - an unpleasantexperience- with a much greater level of pain than I occurred during birthexperience #1. Something I wasn’t just jumping up and down to experience again.So when I got pregnant this time I really was torn rather or not the epiduralwas for me. And thus the inward battle began, as well as the long conversationswith my Lord on the subject matter.

As I was reading in the Book of Numbers the Lord gave aclear mental picture/comparison for me of the fear the children of Israel feltas they were afraid to face the giants of the land.

My Giant was the fear of battling labor.

The story continues and the leaders encourage those who wereletting fear hold them back from receiving a greater good by saying “…the Lordis with us. Do not fear them! (the giants)” (Numbers 14:9)

Unfortunately this story ends with the people missing out.They had fear, they lacked trust, and in turn they saw no reward.

Of course the verses always are great such as “I can do allthings through Christ who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13” But this time aroundI needed verses about fear.

Many times my conversations looked something like this:

“…I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldlysay: THE LORD IS MY HELPER; I WILL NOT FEAR. WHAT CAN MAN DO TO ME?” Man cancause great pain, that’s what man can do to me! My inward self battled.

“…Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed for the Lord your God iswith you wherever you go.” Even to face the giants? Again I would argue - yeseven to face the giants!

Fear. Peace. Fear. Peace. The cycle has continued for weeks.Then through the journey I find surrender and trust equaling lasting peace. “Isought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.” Psalm34:4

So, as I wait, ready to meet my little man I can’t help butsee all that the Lord has taught me through this journey. As my spirit hascalmed, my faith has grown, now my journey continues. I haven’t overcome the “Giants”that await me yet but I have taken the first step of trusting in a perfect God’s,perfect design and as He leads (even if that is to having an epidural) I willfollow so that I may have the reward that awaits me.

In the early morning hours I found myself awake. Justthinking and soaking up the movements of life within me. In the quiet darknessof the room a smile crept across my face as the words to this old hymn came tomind

’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word;
Just to rest upon His promise,
And to know, “Thus saith the Lord!”

Jesus, Jesus, how Itrust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er;
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
Oh, for grace to trust Him more!

Yes, I can trust Him.Not only through the uncertainties of what labor and delivery will hold butevery day as life takes its course.

Through the exhaustionof sleepless nights… I can trust Him!

Through parenting…I cantrust Him!

Through loss and pain…Ican trust Him!

No matter what…I cantrust Him! Oh, for grace to trust him more!

There is no questionin my mind that through this pregnancy I have walked through the refiner’sfire. Am I excited about the pain of labor and delivery? Not really. But I amat peace about it and I will trust Him through each breath, each second, which willresult in each contraction. I will face the giants I see in the land. I willrun the race set before me. I will trust the God who supplies all my needs. Iwill let His strength be made perfect in my weakness. I will not lose heart. I willallow my shepherded to lead the way. Ahhh, peace.

Isaiah 40:11
“He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm,and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young.”

What a perfectthought!

Family Fair Trip #2

2011-09-27T20:42:00.000-05:00

Werner family tradition has it that we always go to the State Fair for a fun family outing. This outing is especially fun because Dad pays for it. J (Is that shallow?) We always get lots of food, community plates, which we all nibble on. Normally the day is ended with yummy cinnamon rolls and funnel cakes. Delish!

Last year we were even able to make the traditional trip despite the wreck. It is AMAZING how far dad’s recovery has come since last year’s trip to the fair! God is so faithful!

Ran into some family friends while looking around at the mobile homes. I think the theater seating works rather well here, don't you?

When our own little family went to the Ice Capades the girls asked about riding rides. I told them they would have to wait until they came with Papa and ask him. Elizabeth had her heart fixed on the biggest ride there. We did go to check it out but much to her sad heart she wasn’t tall enough. Next best was “the biggest slide EVER!” according to Kate. Aunt Lauren bought the tickets, never dreaming there would be such a ridiculous height limit for a slide. I would have done the same thing. Unfortunately after the purchase was made the height limit was discovered and neither of the girls was tall enough for the slide either. L This led into a rather long series of events trying to find a ride they could both do. Long story short they ended up enjoying the chair lift ride with Aunt Lauren and then they also got to ride a kiddie ride. The girls LOVED the airplane ride and their giggles and glee was, to me, worth the hassle.

Excitment before boarding the plane ride.

All smiles after the ride was over too!

I had a really great time with the family at the fair! It is always something we look forward to and each year looks a bit different. Thank you for the tradition Nanny and Papa! We love you!

View all our great photos on our Picasa Web Album:

State Fair

State Fair: Trip One

2011-09-26T09:24:00.000-05:00

Over the last year there have been a number of moments that I have cherished as a parent. About a week and a half ago we went to the Great State Fair of Oklahoma with our little family. We really enjoy the fair and normally go more than once.

(The girls got choosen to do the duck race. They were even on a short clip for the news as their duck tied for first place!)

It was a cloudy rainy day and despite the 102 temperatures just two days prior this day required long sleeves and a jacket.

For me the joy started when jumps and shouts filled the house after Brandon asked the question “Who wants to go to the fair?” When pulling in the parking lot the excitement couldn’t be contained and again giggles and squeals filled the back seat. After getting in the gate as a parent we had to take care of “business” before getting involved in all the fun. Brandon pulled the girls off the main path out of the way and knelt down to their level. “Do you girls know what to do if you can’t find me or Mommy?” He began helping the girls make a plan should we become separated in the crowd. “Elizabeth, who can help you find us?” “Ummm” Elizabeth began as she contemplated before giving her confident answer “Jesus!” Brandon smiled “Yes, you could pray and ask Jesus to help you find us…there is another person here….” Brandon continued his safety speech. I couldn’t help but smile as my imagination saw little Brandon standing there years ago getting the same type of safety speech given by his dad to him.

We ended up getting tickets to the Disney on Ice show that evening. We came into the building where the show would be and excitement was in the air. Getting settled into our seats over the loud speaker came the announcement in that deep voice “Ladies, and Gentlemen, boys and girls the show will begin in five minutes!” Elizabeth gasped and quickly looked at me with glee on her face and sparkles in her eyes. Soon after darkness filled the arena, music began to play, and the show was underway. My heart smiled, and call me ridiculous, but tears even came to my eyes as I watched my little girl so filled with wonder, engulfed in the lights, music, and action of the show. She sat there, cotton candy in hand, completely amazed. It made me happy as I remember being the little girl, filled with amazement and wonder completely engulfed in the show, setting next to my Aunt Rhonda who year after year took us to the ice capades at the fair. We would always ride in her blue Camaro, and she would spoil us rotten with the souvenirs from the event, cotton candy, a snow cone, and often times a ride on the camel out at the fair before we headed to the car. I had no idea how much money she spent on us and I’m sure I was never grateful enough! But the memories are beyond dear to my heart and I love getting to be in the other role now finding myself filled with joy as I watch…discovery.

There have been so many moments that I have been able to witness this wonder, excitement, and just plan joy as new discoveries are made. Memories are made. It’s priceless. Words don’t describe it but my heart holds each moment and fills in where my words can’t explain.

Truly, one of the joys of parenting!

"My You've Grown!"...What's your Guess!

2011-09-14T10:40:00.004-05:00

Well the full moon didn’t do its job this time around. Honestly I’m ok with that. Sunday night, the night before the full moon, I seriously thought I was in labor. I kept telling myself it wasn’t real but then the contractions were getting harder and not seeming to stop. I felt blah and my back hurt a lot too. Could this be? Brandon and I were just getting into bed and Brandon decided we ought to time the contractions, 7 minutes apart lasting over a minute. Only 5 minutes later came the next one, nice and strong. Maybe this was the real deal! Shortly after they spread themselves back apart and I was able to get a full nights rest with only a few contraction interruptions. I am ready to meet Little Man but, wow, it revealed a few things I needed to deal with before baby comes both on The List and Mentally. Monday I awoke with a new motivation to finish things up! Ironically, Monday, the actual night of the full moon, I had few contractions than I have had for weeks. (Normally at night I have several “Braxton Hicks”.) And in the days since then contractions have been fewer than they have been for several weeks! I feel better about things now though. I am really excited and I feel more ready.

It’s always fun to talk to others about their pregnancies and birth experiences. Here are a few weird things pregnancy does to me:

1.) Rather LARGE protrusion out of my mid-section. :) Let's look at the progression shall we...

0 Weeks

21 Weeks

24 Weeks

29 Weeks

36 Weeks

37 Weeks

2.) I LOVE the smell of laundry detergent. Doesn't really matter what brand either...just scented. The unscented stuff doesn't have the same effect. :) Yep, I enjoy it so much I literally will sniff each handful of clothes as I take them out of the washer! Mmmmm, smells good!

3.) I LOVE the smell of clean cars. When I get into the vehicle, large inhale. Ahhhh, refreshing!

4.) I crave ice in ridiculously large amounts.

5.) It makes me organize shelves, cabinets, closets, sheds, and make To Do Lists that must be done! (It’s actually quite rewarding and fulfilling to accomplish so much. I enjoy the motivation!) And yet with all of that organizing the house still remains to get clutter and piles around! Job security for sure! :)

I am curious to know when you think Jackson will make his big debut. So, I plan to bribe

you. Here's the deal - from now (Wednesday, September 14th until Sunday, September 18th, 2011) leave a comment with your guess of Baby's Birthday and Birth Weight. Closest guess, without going over, receives a $5.00 gift card! (Makes me feel so "real blogger" to be doing a give away! *Blush*) There will be two gift cards...one for birth date and the other for birth weight. In the event of people with the same guess the prize will go to first entry. Also, if I go into labor guessing is immediately closed! Given due date is October 1st.
Happy guessing!

P.S. We moderate the blog comments so your comment will not show up immediately. Winners will be announced after Baby Jackson comes! Isn't this fun!?!

First Week is in the Books!

2011-09-11T15:44:00.001-05:00

A new chapter in my life started this past week as we began the adventures of homeschooling. Elizabeth loves to learn so we decided to go ahead and start Pre-K with her. I had never really thought about exactly what all I would do for curriculum and such. So many things sounded good and I had collected a mixture of different activity books throughout the years that it left me with almost too much to choose from. As I started planning what our Pre-K education would look like it became apparent to me that I was not going to be capable of teaching Pre-K and that my children would have to find an education elsewhere. Besides, if I was having these overwhelming feelings in Pre-K what in the world would it feel like to be teaching a middle school or older student!? My mother made so many things look so easy!

But, I decided to shake off the feelings of overwhelment, and go with a motto I knew my mother would approve of- K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Sweetie!). So what are my basic goals?

Elizabeth loves to learn – Nurture and keep that love alive.

Reading, writing, and arithmetic.

We are working in simple ways on all of those things. I have two basic books that I am working out of right now to accomplish those goals. Last week things went great as we began our adventure. I have a feeling I will learn a lot over the next several months. There are things I would like to add to our curriculum. However, I feel right now I need to be realistic and just work on getting into our groove with the basics. Lord willing, I will have an infant around soon too which will make things a tad more challenging. Maybe next semester we can branch out even more into all the extra possibilities!

It is really great to be able to learn from my mom, mom-in-love, and close friends who have walked this road already. Learning from others mistake and successes makes things a bit easier. A tradition that my mother-in-love had was taking a first day of school picture of the kids starting school. I liked the idea and hope to keep it up!

Elizabeth Grace- September 5^th 2011-Pre-K

The Photo Shoots from The List...Check!

2011-09-07T21:43:00.001-05:00

There were a few photo shoots I had on The List to accomplish before Jackson arrives. Both have now been checked off The List! I thought you might want to see a few of the shots from these accomplishments. (FYI-It’s an accomplishment because it was on The List.)

The first was to take some pics for my cousin Brittany who is turning 16!!!! I was really excited to do these and it was just as fun as I was hoping. She is such a beautiful lady! She is quite a bit taller than I am and so I had to use the step stool for almost all of the shots! Hehe.

I was glad she brought along a friend. It always helps to have someone else to get real smiles out of the one having to pose and Sam was more than willing to help carry props for this rather large pregnant woman. :) It worked out nicely.

I still can hardly believe Brittany is sixteen. She was the first baby I got to watch being born. I was nine years old. The age at which I first watched a baby being born only occurred to me this year. Seems a little young but I loved every second of it. I wasn’t in the room alone either there was a small cheerleading squad of about 17 of us including nurses. It was definitely an experience I will never forget! I really feel as though a lot of the reason I open my labor and delivery rooms to so many people is because of the experiences I had watching babies be born-starting with Brittany. I also feel as though it just fueled my fire even more to want to be into the nursing field. To this day I still have dreams of going back to school to get my RN (later in life). Labor and delivery is still a field of great interest that I would love to work in.

It is perfectly understandable that not all women are comfortable with having a peanut gallery in the room but I am comfortable with it so I try to take the opportunities to give people who might not otherwise have the chance, the opportunity to watch the awesome miracle of birth. (I’m interested to know how many of you are thinking “Oh, Rachael, that’s just weird letting lots of people in the delivery room. Birth should be a private event.” vs “That’s really cool to let others have that experience. I might do the same thing.” I am fully aware both sides are out there but I will refrain from taking a poll. J )

Anyways, Happy 16^th Brittany! Love you bunches!!! Don’t forget in your 16^th year of life. Think before you act…you don’t get do-overs. Just do right! (As my mom always says.J)

The other photo shoot was a final maternity shoot for me. I also wanted to include some family shots. My friend Morgan came out to take the pictures and it was lots of fun! The weather was AMAZING!!! We got some fun shots and, of course as with all of my photo shoots, learned along the way. Practice, practice, make adjustments and then practice again. Here are a few shots from that day.

Brandon wasn’t the most thrilled about taking part in our “fun” photo shoot. Therefore I had to put up with attitudes like this...

But he was a good sport and complied with my requests to get into sweet poseslike this: J

And here are some more shots from the evening...

Here are some of the photos edited a bit differnetly...

And then after all of the posed pictures let's just keep things real. This is the parents this child is really getting. Classy...quality...good parents are hard to find these days! :)

Will our children survive us? TBA!

And He Shall Be Called...

2011-09-06T14:08:00.005-05:00

I always thought picking out a name for my children would be so much fun and to a certain extent it is. But it has proven to be a far more difficult task than I would have ever thought! It’s not like when I was a kid and for a span of time this doll was named one thing and then when I found a name that I liked better the dolls name changed as well. No, this child in my womb will have this name for his entire life. ENTIRE LIFE! No take backs or do-overs. Talk about serious pressure. Do you understand the gravity of the situation here? At about six weeks into this pregnancy I mentioned to Brandon a name that I like for a boy. I say it with the middle name (a generational name that we want to continue passing down) and Brandon says “Yeah, I like that too. There it’s settled!” “What!?” I exclaim, backtracking; now offering other name possibilities too. It’s not that I didn’t like the name but what about all the other name choices out there? We hadn’t even cracked the cover on a name book! How can you possibly settle on a lifetime name for your child after a three minute discussion? I mean, seriously, a boy doesn’t even get a last name change! We didn’t even know what the name meant! What if it meant something awful!? (Actually, although I did consider this “problem” I wasn’t too concerned about it…there are so many different places to find meanings of names certainly I could find one meaning that wouldn’t be awful. Who decides what a name means anyways?)

My other name suggestions were not even getting Brandon to budge. He liked the original and so the original it stayed. After the gender reveal party something clicked and the name just seemed to be right. It still took me some time but I would always refer to little man by his name. In a few weeks I hope to put a handsome sweet little face to the name we have chosen, after much thought (3 minutes), for our son - Jackson.

Jackson Chasteene Werner

So what does the name mean anyways? Really it’s not that difficult. Research shows Jackson to mean…son of jack. Helpful, I know, and completely not true in our case! Actually, it’s like Jack, which is apparently derived from John, which means Gracious gift of God or God is Gracious. See, it’s all about where you look. Again I pose the question, who decides this stuff?

Chasteene is a long, long time family name in the Werner family. It has been passed down for many generations and although we were given complete freedom to not use it I was very glad to pass it on. Besides that was one less name I had to decide on! J

And for those of you who will ask, the reason we are holding Jack is because the set of letters we had lacked the letter "O". Yes, we plan on calling him Jackson. Yes, it is perfectly ok if you just call him Jack.

Counting the days until Jackson arrives!

Four Weeks to Go!

2011-09-04T22:29:00.001-05:00

The winds of change are in the air! Today the cool weather was amazing although truth be told with my extremely, ridiculous, massive, ice cravings for the past 20 plus weeks I haven’t been too bummed to be pregnant in the summer. Yes, it’s been quite a little over kill on the heat factor but I can’t imagine eating all the ice I have in the winter months!

Sixteen weeks ago I started working on “The List”. Experience from the past made me feel the pressure to start early if I had any hope of accomplishing what needed to be done. Things started moving along quite nicely as I was able to slowly check a few things off The List. It was a strange phenomenon however; as things got checked off more things also got added on. That just didn’t seem right but everything on The List HAD /HAS to be done and time continued/continues ticking away so I press on. Having a deadline provides real motivation for getting things done. And now it’s here. I am four, let it sink in…. 4, here it ring out in your ears… F.O.U.R!!!, weeks away from my little man being here!

If the list isn’t finished certainly my home will never have any sort of order ever again. Ok, maybe that’s a little far but that’s how my insides feel nonetheless. :) So, I press on, finishing the final things on The List. The carpets are shampooed (even the car), the junk room is now organized and holds a perfect little place for Little Man and his belongings, Elizabeth’s first year of school is planned and underway, my hair has been cut, clothes have been gone through for the cooler weather months for the girls, the kitchen cabinets have been rearranged and cleaned out, labor books have been read, the house has been cleaned…and recleaned…and cleaned again. (Actually I kind of gave up on that one being done in advance, maintaining a house is ridiculous and is a whole other blog post completely. The current goal is to have the house good enough that when I realize I am in labor I can clean the house before I leave…and it will be clean before I leave for the hospital. I’m so weird about these things when I am pregnant/in labor. Maybe some of the motivation will stick around after little man gets here.) Truly it is some of the best motivation I have ever had. The thought process of I could go into labor tomorrow so I have to complete this task now… so much more gets accomplished. Weird how when you don’t procrastinate but instead actually do things…things get done. Wisdom beyond the ages, I know. :)

So now I just wait-finish the smaller less pressing things on The List, attempt to maintain the home, drink lots of water, eat more ice, enjoy every full nights sleep I get, focus on a successful labor and delivery, and let the fact soak in that I am approximately FOUR WEEKS AWAY FROM MEETING MY LITTLE MAN!!!!! YAHOOOOOOO!

My Saturday Evening

2011-08-17T16:23:00.000-05:00

It’s been a long time. A very long time. So long in fact that I cannot remember the last time I enjoyed its luxury. But Saturday, oh sweet Saturday.

When Brandon and I got married one of the great things about our little home was the large bathtub in the master bathroom. It isn’t a jacuzzi tub but a large garden tub great for soaking in a relaxing bath. Over the years I have enjoyed it many, many times. Slowly however the hot water pressure in the tub began to dwindle until at last it was nothing more than a small stream. I used to start the water and do other things while the tub was slowly filling but I made the final draw when I filled the bath with nothing but hot water and it took so long that by the time I could get in it the water was already cold. It was a sad day and an awful way to bid farewell, for who knew how long, to the relaxing baths I’d grown to love so very much.

As I said earlier I can’t even remember how long ago this was but if my memory serves me correctly I believe this would have been in December sometime. I hate having to call a repair man for things that can be rather expensive. I was hoping I could get someone who knew something about plumbing over and at least give me an idea of what was wrong. Was it a big or small problem? Would I be paying a plumber for 2 hours or 10 hours? Anyways, I never was able to find a person that could give me an idea of the needed repairs so showers became the norm. That was not a problem until I became pregnant. I knew I should immediately start pursing more diligently the repair of the tub. Shaving in our tiny shower is challenging enough when I am skinny but with a basketball in front of me it proves on a regular basis to be ridiculously difficult.

Now, my no tub days are over. I had talked with a few men about the tub problem and got some ideas of what the problem might be. Saturday my dad came over and he and Brandon did the necessary tasks to locate the problem and make the repairs. I sat on a stool in the bathroom occasionally overseeing their work while enjoying watching Brandon’s muscles flex when the bath tub needed to be lifted. :)

Then after the repairs were complete I cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom.

Lit a candle or two

Began my Christmas music

Got my extra-large cup of ice, dimmed the lights, and reunited with my sweet tub.

As I lowered myself into the tub I cannot really explain how wonderful the feeling of a warm bath on my sore body was.

You know how you flop onto your bed after being away from it for a trip and even if you’ve had nice places to sleep there is nothing quite like your bed. It makes your body kind of melt into a puddle of perfect…ahhh. That is the closest description I can come up with about how I felt slipping into my warm bath that night. Just…ahhhh. No words. Just…..ahhhh.

You fellow bath lovers know exactly what I mean.

And this is how I spent my Saturday evening....and my Sunday evening....and Monday evening....and Wednesday morning....and well, you get the :)idea!

Climbing Shoes

2011-07-17T08:01:00.000-05:00

I love it when I happen upon a good deal. It just excites me. Such excitement came the other day when I found a cute pair of pink converse sneakers in Elizabeth’s size at the local Salvation Army store for only a couple bucks. Liz wasn’t with me at the time but I knew she’d be thrilled with them when I got them home. Much to my disappointment she didn’t find them as interesting as I did and even went as far as showing no interest, actually even disinterest, in the new bargain shoes. I didn’t make a big deal about it because that generally just makes things worse.

Later that day we were going somewhere and it just so happened the sneakers matched perfectly with what she was wearing. I gave her the option between the pink sneakers and her white sandals. She wasn’t thrilled with either choice however at some point, I have no idea when, she claimed that these new shoes were her climbing shoes!

Not sure where she got the idea from but with these pink sneakers on she could now apparently climb high up into the trees. These shoes were not the average everyday shoes; they had special climbing abilities that could make tree climbing a cinch! I wondered for a minute if the picture in her mind was as dramatic as she made it seem. I felt as though the pink sneakers should have come with some kind of cape so as she stood proud at the top of the trees it could blow in the wind to show what the sneakers had allowed this wonder woman to accomplish. Whatever her visions were I was very happy the shoes had become her new favorites in just a matter of seconds.

The first day she wore them we didn’t have any trees to climb; same story on the second day. But she was diligent to look for any tree that the climbing shoes could help her climb. On Friday we went out to Tuterville and I was sure there would be the perfect climbing tree for Elizabeth and the sneakers to take on. The entire day went by without a word about tree climbing until we gathered our things to leave.

“Mom!” Liz exclaimed “We have to find a tree!” I couldn’t let her down this time. Tree climbing was on the agenda for the day and the perfect climbing tree we would find. I also thought that at 29 weeks pregnant I probably should not be the main one assisting with the climb. Grandaddy would make the perfect climbing partner and was available and willing to take part in the Great Tree Climb so off they went to find the perfect climbing tree.

The pink sneakers did their job to perfection and up, up, up she went.

Katherine was having none of this staying on the ground business. So as soon as Liz came down she began to make the climb up in her own version of climbing shoes. I think Grandaddy made the magic happen in Kate’s shoes and she was as happy as could be climbing with Grandaddy!

It brought a smile to my face as the girls were filled with such happiness and wonder at the accomplishment of the Great Tree Climb! These simple joys are things I don't want to let pass by as I spend day after day mothering my children. It's so easy to overlook them. My kids find such happiness in the small things. A lesson we can all be reminded of from time to time.

What brings a small smile to your face today? Be aware of the simple things and count it all joy!

The Dreaded Appointment

2011-07-15T20:11:00.000-05:00

I am well into my 28^th week of pregnancy! Wow! Besides being a bit more tired than I remember and besides eating as much ice as I can possibly get my hands on I have been feeling pretty good. Feeling very pregnant but I guess that is how I am supposed to feel at this point. J My little man is pretty active in there and I love it!

My last appointment with the midwife was an appointment I dread each and every pregnancy. It includes my glucose test and a shot that I have to take because of my blood type.

The glucose test includes drinking 8oz of cold liquid sugar in two minutes and then having your blood drawn one hour later. This drink pretty much taste like a very very very sweet flat sprite. It causes me to think nothing even remotely sweet will ever touch my lips again. This thought is always changed though in a couple days as a delicious chocolate treat is bound to show up eventually that I just can’t resist. J (Although right now I crave ice OVER chocolate!)

The first time I took this test things didn’t go so well and as soon as the blood draw was over I couldn’t keep the sugar drink, or my breakfast down, any longer. Yeah, it was unpleasant. The other times I’ve done the test I have managed to keep things down…barely. I have to fan myself as waves of nausea rush over me. Blah, no fun!

And then the shot. Oh, the shot. I love the medical field. I enjoy giving shots to other people. But I despise getting a shot myself. It’s always worse in my mind before it actually happens but …oh, how I dread it.

This time around the nurse walks in to give me my shot. Now, this shot is not your average little stick in the arm. Oh no, this shot is given in the “you know where”. Ok, actually it is given in the hip but it seems more dramatic to say the “you know where” and getting a shot is always a dramatic event for me so it is only appropriate to call it as such.

So the nurse comes in. I let out a small groan and ask with hesitation and dread in my voice “are you good at this?” She says “Well, this is a big shot…”

WOAH there woman. Watch your language! Big and shot should never be in the same sentence before striking your victim. Furthermore in response to the question “are you good at this?”!!! Your confidence overwhelms me.

She kindly goes on to explain that the reason they give this shot in the “you know where” is because it is too big to go into the arm.

Fortunately the event was a normal, worse in my mind that in reality, and the correct answer for “are you good at this” would have been yes. She did a great job and even gave me a little pep talk during the poking process about how I was being the best mommy by getting my shot. And she even gave official “Doctors orders” for Brandon to treat me to something special since I had done my part for OUR baby now he was to do his. Reasonable don’t you think? I thought so too.

(psst-Brandon…that’s your que! J)

I’ve survived the dreaded appointment once again. As always…it was a close call.

Because I Laughed Until I Cried

2011-07-13T15:17:00.002-05:00

Meet Katherine -also known as Kate or Katie or Katie-Kate. She is my second born. She adds…spice in my life. She snuggles sweetly and laughs contagiously. She is strong willed and independent…most of the time. She reminds me constantly that I will not survive parenting her without Jesus. Her blessed little personality makes me run to the foot of the cross often as I ask for wisdom and patience, patience, patience.

Notice her ornery expression.

She loves playing in the dirt before returning to her proper princess state!

Even when washed on a regular basis most often you will find Katherine's face looking something like this.

One of the things I love most about my sweet Kate is the way she makes us laugh. Rather with an expression or comment she brings laughter into our home.

Now, to fully appreciate the comedy of this situation you first need a little back ground for the terminology used in our house hold concerning a certain subject matter. When I was a little girl one of my aunts had a friend from Canada visiting. We hit it off with this friend and one night during her visit she was at my house. At some point during the course of that evening she said asked this six year old little girl “Did you fluff?” I giggled and asked what she meant. It was at that moment I introduced to the word fluff as a substitute for any other optional word for flatulence. Are you feeling awkward here? Don’t. Flatulence is a normal part of life. The term fluff stuck around my family and I have done my duty to pass it on to my children. It is great because most people have no idea what you are referring to so when in the grocery store my two year old proudly and loudly exclaims that she just fluffed. People don’t giggle or stop and stare. Let’s face the reality that kids don’t generally say words like flatulence or “I passed gas”. We all know the terms that have brought many children (or adults) laughter for years on this, for whatever reason hilarious natural bodily function. Until my kids learn a bit more discretion I’d rather them be using the term fluff…that’s all I’m saying here.

Ok, now that we are all on the same page let’s get to the good part.

Last Saturday morning, our little family was having a great weekend breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and eggs. We had sat down together at the table and the giggles and laughter began to flow as Brandon started to make up songs about the girls. I don’t recall what brought about these lyrics exactly but to the tune of "Frere Jaques" (you do not want to know how long it took me to figure out how to spell that!) Brandon began to sing:

Who’s a fluff face?

Katherine is! Katherine is!

Katherine is a fluff face, Katherine is a fluff face.

Yes, she is. Yes, she is!

This song of course brought about lots of laughter especially by Elizabeth…until it was her name inserted into the song. “Nooooo! I’m not a fluff face!!” This brought about rebutting arguments from the girls “Daddy is a fluff face!” The songs and giggles continued well into our morning meal. Soon we finished our breakfast and went on to other things.

Kate still in a happy mood and full of joy came running up to Brandon to tell him something of great importance to her. In mid-sentence out of her two year old princess body came this unexpected man-sized burp. It caught her off guard. Brandon cracked a smile as he said “Whoa! What was that!”

Without hesitation, or even a second thought Katie-Kate wisely declared “It was my Fluff Face!”

Bahahahahaha!!!!!! I would have enjoyed seeing her two year old little brain process that information as she came to that rather logical conclusion! I laughed so hard I was crying!

I quite like Kate. I am beginning to think I’ll keep her around.

Just Go With the Flow!

2011-07-11T18:57:00.000-05:00

There is this friend that I have that always does a great job of getting the kids out of the house to beat the heat or cold with some kind of fun activity. Often times I talk about great ideas but let all the household chores, which never seem to end, keep me from actually putting things in motion and getting out there and doing these things. So I am grateful when this friend calls and actually puts things on the calendar with me and we get out there and have an adventure.

Friday was one of those very days. We originally had plans to take our crew of kiddos, there are five among the two of us…soon to be seven, to sulfur/turner falls area. However, in an effort to save some gas and car time we changed the plans to head out to a local lake. To me spending the day on the beach letting the kids play their hearts out while I ate an entire ice chest full of ice sounded delightful. (Been craving LOTS of ice…yes I am taking steps to improve my iron levels.)

So, the plan was made and Friday morning set into motion. It started out the way most of our planned days do with one of us calling the other informing her we will be late. Neither of us minds though because we’ve both been there and completely understands. J As a matter of fact I think in my mind the “I’m late” phone call is actually an unspoken part of the plan. It works out better that way.

I made a last minute stop to borrow a few things from my parents-in-love. They are always great to loan me stuff that they keep in the garage that I just don’t have space for. I love them. Anyways, while we were there Dad informs me that the lake we planned on going to had closed its beaches because of a bad e-coli breakout after the 4^th of July. Good information to have before I drove to Edmond! After a few phone calls we confirmed Dad’s words to be true. Although, they did still have one beach opened. Which, apparently I don’t understand how that germ spreads cuz that didn’t make much since to me. Regardless, as pregnant mother’s we decided it wasn’t worth the risk for us or our children being sick.

So with both of us sitting in parking lots on opposite sides of the city, in swim attire, with children looking forward to the swim also in swim attire, we started calculating at a rapid speed another plan.

Plan B fell through.

Plan C fell through.

Plan D,E, and F all flopped.

Continue through the alphabet until you reach Plan Z. Now, Plan Z was a winner! It actually began to be comical to me as nothing seemed to be falling into place. I was so grateful though to be able to discover the flawed plans through simple phone calls though rather than millions of gas miles and broken hearts of little ones expectations. It was bad enough to pull the lake plans from their hearts.

So, plan z was to go to the zoo, which was free due to my friends zoo pass. I laughed as Kate said her bed time prayers pretty much summing up the amount of animals we saw at the zoo - “Jesus, thank you for the bugs.” Truth be told we really weren’t there for the animals. It was a good place for lunch and we killed several hours letting the kids play in the little stream in the children’s area. Also, don’t forget the attire we were in. The zoo was one of the only places we would probably be accepted. J We had prepared to go to the lake…and we looked the part. Unfortunately while the kids stayed plenty cool the mommy’s were still quite warm. For some reason I couldn’t get my entire ice chest of ice carried into the zoo. L So, in the afternoon we headed out for part B of plan Z which was swimming in Uncle Cecil’s pool.

So, all in all, the day was great fun! Not at all what we expected as we headed out that morning but equally as fun and now we have something else to do on another one of these hot summer days! J

When at all possible just go with the flow. It’s much more enjoyable that way! J

Thanks friend for a great day of fun!

Rachael

P.S. – there are no pictures of the day because while I did remember to bring my camera the first time I pulled it out to capture some moments I discovered I had not put my memory card back into my camera. Upon that discovery I had to chuckle because it only seemed fitting for the day. J

The Parking Lot Adventure

2011-07-07T21:48:00.000-05:00

Our 4^th of July weekend was splendid! After a week of Falls Creek we hit the ground running with our annual church 4^th celebration taking place the day after our arrival at home. It was well worth the hard work though and fighting through the sleep deprivation for an awesome and exciting time of worship and teaching with other believers followed by several baptisms! Praise the Lord! We met with a few other local churches in a school gym and had a pool on site for baptisms. There is nothing better than watching the Lord move in people’s lives and hearts and seeing the captive set free!

Sunday night my family headed out to Tuterville, our 4^th of July tradition, to get some r&r and enjoy the holiday. I went to bed early, slept in late and then had a good nap the next day as well. I was more exhausted than I even realized. The rest was wonderful and by the time we headed home on Tuesday afternoon I felt I was back on track ready to get back into the swing of things. It was wonderful.

On Monday night the women folk took the older kiddos to a 4^th of July celebration at UCO. We got there about 3 ½ hours before the fireworks were set to begin and enjoyed some of the festivities. We got a parking place near the exit of a lot close to the main street. I figured we could head out quickly after the show. What was I thinking!!!!

The kiddos enjoyed the inflatables and the firework display.

They loved photographing the fireworks. Their pictures looked something like this...only about two hundred more shots. I decided to only upload two. Your welcome. :)

After all the great fun here’s how things went down. We had four children with us. The fact of the matter is that we can’t load the car as fast as some people. It was 10:45p.m. when my reverse lights came on. Certainly one of the cars would let me out of my parking place. Again, what was I thinking!!!

Slowly I would back out. Maybe if my intentions were made known to the cars, because my reverse lights obviously weren’t stating my intention of backing my little self out and joining the flow of traffic with enough clarity for these blessed American people, then maybe my movement toward their car would. I thought wrong yet again. Do you know what they did? Do you know what these cars did!? Well, let me just tell you.

The car pictured here apparently wanted to practice his freedom of selfishness one this great american holiday by not letting me out when he could have.

This car here moved so close to the car in front of it you couldn’t have even slid a piece of paper between their bumpers. How rude! Where are the kind souls in America!?! I looked and looked but there was none.

Now, this truck...this truck. Mmm-mmm. Oh, the shame. This truck had every opportunity to let me out of my space. But no. This caused me to have a flash of the movie, The Grinch, run through my head. Remember the scene? "Hate you, Hate you, Hate you, LOATHE ENTIRELY!!!"

It was about this time.

I was still in this gear, going this speed.

When this child (photo taken earlier in the day) starts claiming she needs to do business in the bathroom. Serious business. She is two years old and can only hold it for so long. Come on people, where are the good hearted Americans!?!!! I just need to back out of my parking space.

The thought crossed my mind of waddling out of the vehicle to inform people I was having contractions. This wouldn’t have been totally untrue. Braxton hicks are technically contractions. But then again, where are the good ole Americans? If no one else was to show good character, I would. (Queue patriotic music here.)

I would not be angered that no one was being kind. I would simply take action.

Those actions consisted of putting a pull-up on the poor child in need of a potty pronto. A preventative measure I was sure I would not regret.

Action #2 was to open the camera app on my phone and document this moment for your enjoyment. And so that when, if ever, some kind soul was to let me out of that blasted parking space that I could publicly recognize their kindness.

Let it be known that this was the kind soul! What do you know…there are still American’s in this country that care!

Let us learn a lesson here. Have you ever heard of the phrase “Each one, Reach one”? Well in the parking lot that simply translates into “Each one, let one out”! Haven’t you people heard of the zipper method!? Let’s lay down our selfishness, yield some of our stinking rights, and all play nicely!

It was this time...

...When I got to slide the gear shift into this gear.

Next time you are sitting in a parking lot that is backed up consider my situation and think to yourself, I could be that one. I could be the kind hearted American this person needs to see right now. Think about the fact that the children in that car could in fact need to potty pronto and may not be able to hold it. Furthermore, not all mothers carry extra pull-ups. You do the math. The results of your kindness could be monumental.

(Queue quiver in bottom lip. Visualize the whites of my eyes glass over as the tear ducts begin to swell. Hear my voice begin speaking softly before moving to a desperate sob only to return to the quiet sniffles as I end the challenge.)

Will you be the one? Please? PLEASE!? PLEEEEEAAAASSSSE! *sniff* I just want to back out of my parking space.

The end.

As my children say,

Happy Birthday Fourth of July, America!

With a Tripod and a Timer

2011-06-23T10:39:00.000-05:00

Practicing photography is a tricky thing. Some of the greatest photographers I know can take some of the cutest pictures in the “ugliest” settings. Anyways, my children although do enjoy having their picture taken as well as taking pictures they aren’t much for the letting Mom practice on them.

I really enjoy reading and looking at the photography of this talented mom’s blog. She inspired me to try taking some shots of myself.

Let’s just say things turned out better in my mind. :) Not that these are bad but it was quite challenging and I didn't get a lot of shots I had dreamed up in my mind.

How do you decide how to pose yourself? It feels so awkward.

Why, yes, yes I do stand in front of short doorways with my arm stretched to the top of the door frame and think about...stuff. Like the fact that touching the top of a door frame with such ease normally doesn't happen for me. :)

As the timer counts down I assume the position of beauty....until the buzzing wasp make a bee line toward my head! Then I just look like a dork. Which is a much more natural look for me. :P

The above "dodge the wasp" picture is unedited which brings me to another subject. I was a bit bummed at how dark all of the pictures were. Yes, I do know of some settings I could have changed while actually taking the photo but on my little screen they looked better than this. It's hard to tell when you are outside. Sometimes I can't see my screen at all, other times the shots look good until I get them on the computer. Yay for editing programs. Currently I edit in lightroom.

Anybody have any good websites or books to read about editing photos? I have a hard time making them look right when I do a "natural" color.

There were two I tried to do a colored edit on but, when I did the exact same edit one of the pictures made my skin look very red. I shall keep learning-trial and error style...heavy on the error. I need to find my groove. This was my favorite color edit.

Well, it was a fun practice session anyways. And my best at documenting week 24 of my little man. Time is going by so quickly and I am more motivated to get stuff done! I set up the crib yesterday. Little man's room is almost ready! All I lack is finishing!

Sleeping Beauty

2011-06-17T08:50:00.000-05:00

Psalm 139:13&14

For You formed my inward parts;

You covered me in my mother’s womb.

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Marvelous are Your works,

And that my soul knows very well.

Hayden Reese Small

Is photography something that everyone can learn? I believe all of the technical side of it could be obtained by anyone who truly want to learn. Although I would say it comes easier to some than others. A friend posted a picture on her blog the other day of a t-shirt that read "Owning a camera doesn't make you a photographer...it makes you a camera owner." So true. Many people, including myself own good "big" cameras and would like to be a bit more than that "point and shoot" photographer. I have decided for me the best way to learn is to practice. I don't think photography comes extremely natural to me. I figure the more I practice, hopefully, I will learn more about the technical side of things as well as the creative side of picture taking. The pictures above were a little practice of my sweet niece Hayden.

Editing is a whole nother realm of photography that I am not supurb at...yet. Currently my motto is - When in doubt...go black and white! :)

He Restores My Soul!

2011-06-16T08:46:00.001-05:00

Just thirty miles east of the hustle and bustle of the city was my oasis growing up. I even enjoyed the drive to get there; a drive that some city dwellers might consider annoying. As a child the drive wasn’t made as much but as I got older it became almost a daily trek to a job, or extracurricular activity. Of course, as the business of life increased so did my love for my oasis. The drive helped me unwind and as I stepped out of my car I would allow a deep breath to fill my lungs, let my eyes rest on the beauty set before me and the world slowed down a little bit.

As a young child, in the wintertime especially, my imagination was allowed to run wild as the dense vine covered woods became my fortress. I explored the depths of the secrets that those “uncharted lands” held. It was never dull.

I still enjoy my ventures into those woods and my walks alone or with loved ones on the quiet country road. The drive still gives me time to unwind and the view still helps me take a deep breath, slow down, and thank a Creator that is so much greater than I but yet still chooses to include me in what He is doing. Wow.

(Picture taken at the river just a short walk from the home where I grew up in Tuterville. AKA Mcloud, Oklahoma)

You know truly it isn’t the creation that restores my soul- it’s the Creator.

May you choose to let Jesus Christ fill you today no matter where you find yourself!

Psalm 23
The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
² He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
³ He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell^[a] in the house of the LORD
Forever.

Oh, Taste and See that IT IS GOOD!!!

2011-06-12T14:41:00.000-05:00

Growing up I was always a fruits and veggies kind of girl. Not that I didn’t like all of the greasy and sugary things too but as a general rule I enjoyed almost all the fruits and veggies I was served. One of the veggies that didn’t make the cut for some reason was avocado. I didn’t like it on sandwiches or mashed up in guacamole. I didn’t completely despise the avocado I just didn’t care for it. Maybe it was a texture thing; I could never quite put my finger on it.

Anyways, Brandon’s taste buds have seemed to expand recently and as they do I am always trying to support that with new healthful yummy meals. He asked me if I could learn to make guacamole. My family liked guacamole growing up and so I had seen it made several times but wasn’t sure of the correct formula for guacamole perfection. I told him I should be able to figure it out and would give it my best shot.

Time out. Back up several months. In February, only a few weeks into this pregnancy, I was at my nieces birthday party. My sister had made some guacamole that looked very appealing. For some reason I had the urge to try guacamole, yet again. To my surprise it wasn’t too bad. I couldn’t stand over the bowl and eat a bunch but I went in for a second taste and maybe even a third. The flavor wasn’t bad. Texture, I could handle it. Still it seemed to be a bit rich.

Ok, back to present day. On Mother’s day we were at my parent’s house and the ingredients were all present to make guacamole for Brandon. My mom is a great cook, among other things, and so I knew she could teach me the winning recipe. Making the guacamole was even easier than I thought. The hardest part was knowing if it actually tasted good since it is a food I don’t like. (I also have this problem with seafood. It is one of Brandon’s FAVORITES but I don’t have the slightest idea how to make it or if it tastes good or is even done or still raw when I make it. Please send helpful tips my way.) After Brandon gave it a taste test he gave his stamp of approval. It looked yummy and I felt as though maybe if I tasted it I could memorize the flavor so in the future I would know if it was good. You know, making guacamole is a delicate balance of salt and lime. It took me several chips worth of guacamole to “memorize” the flavor and Brandon was right. It was quite good.

And then it happened. A couple days later early in the afternoon I had a thought. Guacamole. It sounded rather good at the moment. Maybe I could make up a batch to have with dinner, which was in no way guacamole related. I had all the ingredients…but the cilantro. Oh, well it wasn’t that big of a deal anyways and I would just make some next time I had cilantro on hand. The problem was that the craving intensified. When the girls nap ended I made the decision to run to the nearest store and get that cilantro. After the decision was made I was toast. My mouth began to water; the guacamole was to be mine. YUM! Problem is this store was out of cilantro. OUT!!!! That was bad news for everyone. I called Brandon and got his voice mail at which time I informed him I was in crisis. This momma wanted guacamole and I wanted it now! I enlightened him to the seriousness of the situation by telling him if he couldn’t come home with cilantro in hand than he might as well not come home at all! It was an intense moment. Just as I was about to pull into our driveway Brandon returned my call- it was bad news. He was already at our house when he got the message. Not cool! He said “Sorry” and acted like the world could go on. I SAID I WANT GUACAMOLE!!!!! My visions of guacamole had been torn to smeetherens all because 1.) the store was out of cilantro 2.) Brandon hadn’t answered his phone 3.) At $3.75/gallon of gas Brandon wasn’t willing to go get me some.

Ok, correction. He said I could go get some and after I pouted about it he said he would go get some. But I told him no. I could be mature about the situation. It was, after all, only a food we were dealing with. Certainly the craving would subside.

As I began to prepare the evening meal Brandon commented about how good dinner smelled. “yeah, whatever.” I quietly replied. “Doesn’t matter” I added sarcastically in a dreary voice. Shortly thereafter I decided to invite over one of our friends who was in the city and out and about. She could come join us for dinner…if she brought cilantro. And she did just that.

And I was very happy.

And my mouth finally was at peace.

And I ate almost the whole batch of guacamole by myself.

And it was delightful.

And now we have guacamole on a regular basis.

And I am still loving it.

I have high hopes our relationship will last far into the future.

Now, if you will excuse me…the avocados are calling my name.

Not included in this picture is a roma tomato. An imortant factor in making MY guacamole!

Because Yesterday was Dad's Birthday and I wanted You to Know

2011-06-10T15:20:00.001-05:00

(Picture taken 2010)

As a child I wrote an essay. Not as an assignment for school or as a punishment but rather because I wanted to remember. I wanted to remember the people in my life who made a difference for me, those who impacted my life in a significant way, and those whom I watched even when they didn’t know I was watching. I saw character - true character come out. My findings were that those people who profoundly influenced my life were human. At times, though not often, I saw them react wrongly to situations. But again I grew to love and admire them all the more because I saw them correct their wrongs in right ways. What an encouragement to a young impressionable teenage girl! God was first in each of their lives. It was evident and I longed to mirror their example.

The first paragraph of this paper was about Greg and Kim Werner. At first I was only going to write it about Greg but then as I thought on the matter I knew Kim was such a huge part and success of who Greg was. And let’s face the facts, as great of a guy as Greg was/is it takes a special someone to be his wife. God knew what he was doing there for sure and Kim does the job very well! I’m sure dad agrees. J

Why did I write about them? How did they “make the cut” for this not required paper? Was it because we were great friends with their family and their oldest son had a crush on me? No, remember this paper was written out of my own initiative and was meant for nobodies eyes but my own.

Most people who read this blog know who Greg Werner is. As I grew up he was THE get-things-done guy. And he could infact get almost anything done. Even if it was a “womens” task like cleaning a house to serve a family he could get it done faster than any woman could because he would recruit 10 women to clean the house and he was only there to delegate, encourage, keep things moving, and of course, but our lunch afterwards. :) Things just always got done. But that was what most people saw in Greg Werner. I saw something more; something that’s still is so engraved into my memory that I couldn’t let it go if I tried.

Prayer. I loved to hear Greg pray. Not from the pulpit or in some other large public setting. I loved to hear his prayers at his house. Mostly during home church when it was just a quaint gathering of friends. I wish I could describe it to you. This get-it-done macho man melted in the presence of a Holy God. When there were not words he simply had tears or groanings and I have no doubt the interceding still took place.

He was quick to prayer. Even over the “small” things he would pray. If I had a headache it was common for him to pray for me right there wherever we were and ask the Great Physician for healing. As needs arose no matter how small, we stopped and went to the Great Provider. It was natural for him, second nature. It wasn't just show. He led his family to do the same with or without company there.

I loved that he always pointed me to Christ; not only through his council but also through his actions.

I saw that he was a man of purpose; advancing the Kingdom of Christ. It was his sole purpose and it was evident. It fueled a fire in me to do the same. I am confident that he could not and would not repent of that call. He witnessed to many of his co-workers on many occasions. I watched him work many, many hours serving the church before he was even on staff. In fact he had a full time job. In case you can’t do the math that equals lots of extra work with only eternal reward. (Again where Kim comes into the picture as an amazing person of Godly character.)

I also admired the way he led his family. Yes, there was an attraction between his older son and I. But that has nothing to do with what I am talking about here. Time and time again I saw Greg stop the family to point out a way that God had done an amazing thing. How he had provided, healed, or moved in some other way. It was often that he pointed out to those around him “The blessing of the Lord is a person’s greatest asset.” A quote that remains one of my favorites to this day.

And yes, I watched his oldest son. Growing in the ways of the Lord that I saw no other young man doing. I knew he had long, long, talks with his dad about subjects both practical and spiritual that helped him grow into a man. I saw Greg trying to impart Christ into Brandon, not Greg. If it were God’s will for Brandon and me to marry I wanted to know God would be first in training our children as well as our bases for each decision. Obviously this came to pass and I am more grateful than ever for the spiritual values Brandon embraced through that training time in his life and continues to impart to others.

I could continue on about the character and service I saw from Greg Werner but the list is too great. The incidences will be forever memories I hold in my heart as a person changed by the actions and life of Greg Werner.

But I would consider it a loss to you if I didn’t also point out that Greg can cook a seriously good omelet, pull a water skier like a machine, can be fun and crazy, sing like a real man, and makes a pretty darn good Papa too!

I guess what it boils down to is this. Even though when I wrote that paper as a teenager I didn’t know what the future held. I am grateful to call Greg Werner my father-in-love. I’m glad that writing Greg in all the above places felt weird because I get to call him Dad. And if my last name had never changed to Werner, this I know, I would still be a forever changed person because of who Greg is. And I would still be grateful.

On April 10^th 2010 life changed for dad and our family in many ways. But you know what hasn’t changed? Dad’s legacy. No, his legacy will continue on. His Godly heritage only grows. His mission continues. I love that this Greg Werner still loves God and is willing to follow Him even in the hardships. (Again, may I point out Mom’s example here!)I love that God still hears the prayers of this Greg Werner. I love that this Greg Werner is still doing what he can to invest in others, even if at times that looks differently than it did. Trust me, it still makes a difference. Just ask my kids!

I love you Dad! Thank you for loving the Lord! Happy Birthday!

Rachael

A friend is someone who always stands beside you!

2011-06-07T12:33:00.003-05:00

Something I have never had to deal with is people in my life moving away. Almost all, and I mean ALL my family is here is the great state of Oklahoma. And I have a HUGE family. Some of Brandon’s family lives out of town but the majority of them is here too.

There is this girl; not related by blood but a kindred spirit. She kind of means a lot to me. We met at church and have been “best friends” since her tenth birthday.

We told each other secrets. Had a billion sleepovers. Laughed about stupid things until we cried. Cried about stupid things until we laughed. Got each other into and out of trouble. She was there when I got my drivers permit, I was there when she got hers. Went to Africa together more than once. We walked the graduation isle together. Worked at the same job. We were bridesmaids in each other’s wedding. (She tripped in my wedding and I was glad because that is who she is.) We both married men in the ministry. She witnessed the birth of my first born and was there just seconds after my second born. I witnessed the birth of her first born. The list could go one for miles.

We just get each other.

Yes, this is Brandon, Alisha, Lauren, and myself. :) Oh, the good old days! I have many more old pictures but they are not on my computer. Maybe I will dig them out and post them on Alisha's birthday. :)

After I got married we didn’t get to hang out as often as we had in the past. The phone calls stopped coming like they did when we were kids. But regardless of how often we talked we made an effort to get together every now and then to catch up. It was never awkward when we got together. We simply picked up right where we left off.

Do you understand the kind of friend I am talking about here? A rare treasure.

My friend is leaving; her family it moving out of state. It’s not that I saw her even once a week while they were here. But it is merely the fact that I can’t see her even if I wanted to that makes it so difficult.

We spent some time together at the zoo this past week before she left.

It was weird to say good-bye. How do you bid someone farewell who is actually moving for good?

Because I feel in my heart this is a rather dramatic matter I shall quote Anne of Green Gables as she speaks to Diana after she has been forbidden to see her dear friend.

“Farewell, my beloved friend. Henceforth, we must be strangers living side by side... but my heart will be ever faithful to thee.”

This card pretty much sums up our friendship in the most perfect way.

I have nothing more to add to the beauty of our friendship.

Someone get me a tissue.

Love you Alisha!

Rachael

Twenty-One Weeks

2011-05-30T21:56:00.000-05:00

There are many things pregnancy does to a person. First, there is the obvious belly bump.Which while on the outside may seem cute underneath lurks an unsightly....sight. Fortunately, most of you only see the cute part. :)

Then come the cravings. There has only been one thing I would say I have actually CRAVED. I will tell you about that in another post. However before this craving hit I would say I craved these things.

Something about the tang of the mustard. Yum! I never felt as though I HAD to have this to eat right now but a yummy sandwich almost always appealed to me.

And while this post has been somewhat random and rather short in nature I will end by completely changing the subject and post a picture of the girls I took the other morning at church because I was early and had time.

Pause. Enjoy the rare moment. I was early and I had time. :) I even like that this picture is somewhat blurry. To me it captures the moment. I can hear the giggles and see the twirling. Sweet moments.

Isn't He Cute!

2011-05-23T08:51:00.000-05:00

When I found out Brandon and I were expecting for the first time I was sure it would be a boy. One day while my mother-in-love and I were out garage selling we hit a jackpot for boys’ things. This sale had really, really cheap prices but cute gently used items. Some things could be used for a boy or girl but all the clothes were boys. Of course much to our surprise it wasn’t a little boy growing in there but instead a girl. I found a storage place and decided to limit myself to that specific space. Growing out of that space was unacceptable. If it began to get full and I found something I must have for my little boy then something else had to go. Thus the collection began. I didn’t spend much money on anything. A few quarters here and there at a garage sale, most of the things were given to me. Regardless of how I acquired them my space has been full for some time now. Not all of the things are for newborns either. Oh, no. I have some things that are 24 months. I have been preparing for this “it’s a boy!” moment for quite some time. But it’s never too early to be prepared…right?

I had things in a variety of seasons. It was such fun to go through and look at the things that could actually be used on my little man. Wow. This is real people! I'm having a boy! Yay!
Yes, even blankets made their way into my collection.

It has always been so cute, to me, those little boys that seriously look like little men. I don't know really how to describe it and while I'm sure my little guy won't always look like a little man, just like my girls didn't always wear a hair bow, I hope to accomplish this look some for my little man. I thought these onsies where so cute. I must admit....I bought these the day of my ultrasound at a garage sale. What? I had a feeling it was a boy. :) Aren't the adorable!

And of course since winter will be upon us hats to keep my little man warm were pulled from my collection.

And I ooood and awwwd at how cute my little man was going to be, imagined myself holding him in my arms, and the world was quiet. Until I had to go discipline one of my other children who was screaming. Then reality sat in...I AM A MOTHER OF THREE!!!!

Trying to keep it together,

Rachael

P.S. I promise I will eventually post about something other that having a boy. :)

It's A BOY!

2011-05-18T11:34:00.000-05:00

Wow. I have sat down to blog many times but the words just haven’t come. A boy. A. Boy. B-O-Y! I am having a BOY!!!! It does seem real but the emotions of it are just…wow. We are all really excited.

As soon as I found out we were expecting again I knew I wanted to have a gender reveal party. After all, this is baby number three and we all know he (I can actually say he!) won’t have the same amount of pictures as baby’s number one or even two. I felt the need to do something different and fun and special. I imagined it to be just a fun evening of fellowship and fun with the “icing on the cake” being the reveal of baby Werner’s gender. The evening turned out exactly as I hoped. We had a great turn out, beautiful weather, fun fellowship, and the gender was revealed.

None of my ideas are original. Any time I am planning any kind of party the web surfing starts. There were two ideas that had come up for how to reveal and I tried to merge the two. My amazing Aunt Tammi was so sweet and made all the cupcakes for the guests. Each cupcake had blue filling inside so all the guests could have one. A fabulously creative friend decorated a big box that I had in blue and pink and then my Aunt picked up some helium balloons to put in the box.

The party started at 6:00 but the reveal didn’t happen until 7:00. Waiting an hour may seem ridiculous to you but you have to understand I had my ultrasound done a whole week before the party! Waiting one more hour wasn’t going to kill me. Why did I do it a whole week before? Because that is just the way it worked out. The results were sealed in an envelope in my purse and then given to my Aunt a couple days prior to the party. She was the ONLY one who knew the results and did such an amazing job of honoring me by keeping the secret a secret until reveal time.

So at 7:00 everyone gathered together outside. Cupcakes were handed out and then the countdown begun. 5,4,3,2,1. It’s a…..the balloons began to float toward the sky. A yellow balloon is what I saw first. What is that supposed to mean!? I was a bit confused when a white balloon is what came into sight next. Really? White and Yellow!!! What in the world is that supposed to mean. The ultrasound tech said the gender was very clear. White and yellow do not say clearly to me boy or girl! I was hoping someone had bit into their cupcake and could tell me the gender of my baby! But then they began to show blue, blue, blue. A boy. It was really a little boy in there! Are you KIDDING ME!?!?!?! A Tuter sister is actually capable of having a boy! This is uncharted waters in my family you know. MOMMY, HELP ME! Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, not even my own mother knows how to mother boys. WHAAAAAH! I CAN’T DO THIS!!!!! What do boys wear to church anyways? The thoughts began to run through my little mother-of-girls head. A few hours later an even more daunting awful thought entered into my head as the word slipped from my lips forever to be a part of my vocabulary…circumcision. I shook my head in defeat. Really? Lord, you really think I need a boy?

I have decided I will learn how to raise a son rather it is easy or hard. We’ll make it. I do know one thing I can give my little man. Love. Something every child needs and something I can give.

I love you little man! Mommy can hardly wait to see your sweet handsome face! (See, I’m getting the hang of this already!)

Rachael- Mommy to two girls AND a boy!

Before we found out the gender Uncle Justin said he was going to jump into the pond if it was a boy.

Update on Dad: First Knee Surgery

2011-03-31T17:25:00.002-05:00

Dad's surgery went well yesterday. This is the update I received via text message from my mom yesterday:

"Greg is out of surgery and in recovery. He will be in a lot of pain. There is a lot of damage to his cartilage. They did a lot of clean up to his knee. They also took off extra bone. He will need a knee replacement at some point. As soon as six months, or it could be years. It will depend on him. Recovery and pain will be a factor in that decision. He might come home tomorrow. Thanks for your prayers."

Since that time I learned that dad said that he "was in the most pain he could ever remember." They have him on a lot of pain meds but the pain is still extreme.

Today Dad text messaged me and said he was on his way home. I asked him how the pain was and he replied "Ouch! Tolerable."

Thank you for your continued prayers. We greatly appreciate your support. God is doing great things. We will trust in Him.

My New Mommymobile

2011-03-09T15:05:00.004-06:00

I started to title this post "Until You are Smashed...I Will Love You". But then I started thinking about how bad that would be if Brandon or someone else I love died in a car accident in the near future. So instead we shall just call this post "True Love is Hard to Find". (Or feel free to make up something else in your mind as equally as cheezy.)

When my van got smashed back in September I was sad because, well, I liked my van. We had a connection and things just worked for us. After driving a rental car for over a month and then driving Dad’s truck for a few days we finally got our check from the insurance company.

We found a van that seemed to be a great deal on Craig’s List and bought it. I tried to love this van as I did my last.

Not trying to replace the feelings for the old one. No, those would stay forever but rather making room for the new within my heart. But, the more I spent time with this new vehicle I saw its true character come out. It was ugly. I have hope for this vehicle in someone else’s life but our lives just did not mesh well. The relationship just could not be saved; especially after my new true love entered the picture. The van I am now driving brings out the best in me. We just get each other. I have hopes that we will have even stronger bonds that my first sweet van.

The blinker has a beautiful tone, the ride is smooth, the gadgets work, there is space for the back seat to be functional, I can haul stuff in the back, the mileage is low, and the heater is hot and the AC is cold. The gas is…well let’s just not go there. I don’t care what car you have, if it takes gas your budget is toast.

I hope to sport this mommymobile for quite some time. That is, of course, if I can avoid those other cars on the road that don’t play nice.

In other breaking news:

2002 KIA SADONA FOR SALE

BEAUTIFUL VAN

LOW MILEAGE

I'M SURE IT WILL BE GREAT FOR YOUR FAMILY! :)

P.S. I sincerly apologize to those of you who recieve this by email and are commanded to commit. Commit people! Commit to our blog! Obviously I didn't write that sentence and as soon as I can get the person who did to tell me how change it I will stop commanding you to commit and will kindly ask you to comment. But feel free to commit too, if you wanna. :)

My Experience with Toilet Repair

2011-03-06T18:36:00.000-06:00

The toilet has been broken in Brandon and I’s bathroom for some time now. Not all the way broken, just broken enough to only flush occasionally. The problem was that it took hours to fill the tank so many times it didn’t have the necessary means to flush. Anyhow, after talking it over with my dad it was concluded that the float thingy part needed to be replaced. A job that was certainly simple enough for this housewife. Why wait for someone else to do the job that needs done when you can most likely figure it out? Well, I now have the answer to that.

It all started as a simple “I can do this attitude”. I made the purchase with confidence. Only $9.99 and my problems would be solved! Upon coming home I placed the new part on the back of the toilet and let it set for a few days. No one took the bait and fixed the toilet so I took a few deep breaths, gave myself a pep talk and proceeded to get the camera. (An important tool in toilet fixing.) I would photograph my time and give all other women out there with broken toilets easy to follow picture instructions on the simplicity of toilet repair. This in turn would give them the needed boost in confidence to fix the toilets in their own homes.

It didn’t take long for me to ditch the picture of each step idea. Have you ever tried to take pictures without a tripod of yourself doing repairs? It’s not easy especially when your hands are wet. I thought just a few pictures would suffice when showing my success. One of the first steps in toilet repair is to empty the tank. Of course flushing the toilet and turning off the water accomplishes most of this but then you have to sponge out the rest with a bucket and a rag. I know this is probably a plumbing impossibility but I just kept thinking backwash. What if some of the soiled toilet water had backwashed into the tank?! Blah! Anyways, after emptying the non-backwashed tank you remove this thingy-ma-jig, screw on that dilly whopper, and ta da the new part is in! It took me longer than it might have taken a professional for the above technical steps but keep in mind this was my first dance with toilet repair and I did accomplished the job. Well, that part of the job.

Now, of course the toilet needs water in order to run. And that is where I found the answer to my question stated at the beginning of this post. “Why wait for someone else to do the job that needs done when you can most likely figure it out?” BECAUSE YOU MOST LIKELY CANNOT FIGURE IT OUT AND INSTEAD OF HAVING A TOILET THAT IS ONLY BROKEN PART OF THE WAY NOW YOU HAVE A TOILET THAT IS BROKEN THE WHOLE WAY!

So the apparent last step in toilet repair is to post a sign on the toilet stating “TOILET NOT FUNCTIONING AT ALL PLEASE HOLD IT UNITL A LATER DATE. Thanks, Mngt wanna-be.” Now call your daddy with all bargaining chips on the table. “Hey Dad, I will make you a yummy hot meal if you come fix my toilet.”

And that my friend is my official review and encouragement to all people in need of toilet repair. :)

Just Having a Little Fun

2011-02-06T21:08:00.001-06:00

Do you let your beloved children do crazy things in your house? You know, those things you were never allowed to do like jump on the bed? Tonight my girls had gotten all the pillows off of our bed and had them in a pile on the floor. At first when I walked in the room Kate was jumping on the bed which is a known “no, no”. Liz asked in that first born do the right thing voice, “We can just jump on the pillows right mom?” In a reaffirming tone I said “Right.” But what I had in mind and what they had in mind were two completely different things. Technically they were just jumping on the pillows and after considering the horrible long term consequences of not being a Mother of my word, (being a Mother of your word is important people!) consequences which would be far greater than the consequences of their new found past time. (Those consequences would only possibly equal broken bones not mauled images of their Mother’s integrity.)

So what’s a Mom to do? I chose to use this to my advantage. Let’s look at the facts:

First, I warned them they could and would probably get hurt. The fine print read…these injuries include but are not limited to broken bones, permanent paralysis, and or death. I made them both sign on the dotted line stating I was not responsible. I would also get to say “I told you so” when they did get hurt reaffirming their Mother’s knowledge and all knowingness in their minds.

Secondly, Either I could use up MY energy telling them no and breaking their little hearts or let them completely and entirely wear themselves out before bedtime. (This winter weather has made bedtime a bit of a chore. They aren’t worn out enough by bedtime and it takes them way too long to go to sleep. This results in spankings. So Grandparents before you go judging me for letting them do this activity think about the spankings I was actually saving them from getting. I did this for you…really.)

Thirdly, it was just a no brainer….sometimes mom’s just gotta be an awesome and crazy mom!

So our evening entertainment was jumping off Mom and Dad’s bed into the pile of pillows on the floor.

I forced them to jump off shouting “Our Mom is the COOLEST!!!”

At one point Liz jumped off and after landing said “If we die we go to heaven.” I really don’t even know what to say about that. I just laughed. I’m going with the fact that she was reviewing her Sunday School lesson, not determining if this was a safe thing to do!

(No, She is not doing a face plant. The picture was being stubborn and wouldn't turn. But check out that hair action!!!!)

“I’m all right, I’m all right!” Name that quote! That's for you Dad. And, yes, Kate is in her dress from church still. Or as Brandon call it her costume. :)

(Also please note that Awesome Mothering saftey feature of the uncovered outlet behind her. Mom of the year!)

Both sets of grandparents are on their way over to our house right now to take the children! They now understand why I don’t flinch when Kate stands on the bar stools or when they fall over on their bike.

Unless they are actually hurt; then I run, (que dramatic music, may I humbly suggest Chariots of Fire), quickly to their aid and nurse them back to health with popsicles and other sugary things. Why? Because, their Mom…is the COOLEST!

Sometimes you just need to have a little fun! :)

This, That, and the Other

2011-02-04T15:30:00.001-06:00

I feel maybe I have been temporarily blogged out. Over the summer my blogging fingers flew from one blog to the next giving update after update for many prayer warriors. The Lord came through is a serious way too!

Such distance in between posts causes me to struggle to know what to say. So much to write about yet is any of it interesting enough to read about? Finding the time to blog the text and add the pictures is more difficult than one might imagine. Although, truth be told there are plenty of times I come to blog but end up reading other’s blogs or facebook stalking instead. It’s fun to peek in on people. Oh, please, don’t act like I am the only one who does that! Sometimes I think of giving a quick update without pictures but really, what is the fun in that. You know who you are…skipping all the words that came pouring forth from my heart just to look at the pictures that tell the story better anyway. Let’s face it; no one wants to read a picture less update except Grandma. Grandma is a faithful blog reader picture or no pictures. You could say she is one that keeps me blogging. And I have to admit, it is a good thing to keep Grandma’s in the loop. When Grandma knows what’s going on Grandma prays. And God listens to Grandma! Trust me. It’s true.

Shout out to Grandma! Hi Grandma! Love You!

I thought about doing some video updates but I am a little camera shy. It seems so weird to sit in front of a camera and talk to it as though you were carrying on a normal conversation. But at the same time it might be faster than the whole typing thing. I don’t know, I’ll think about it. I wish I could hear you read my blog updates. I want you to read it the way I would say it. It is much more interesting that way. Another plus to video blogs would be for my blind supporters. (Haha, I wrote blond instead of blind at first…that might be a good reason too. Some struggle with the large words I use.) What you don’t think I have blind followers? I might. And if I did they probably have some monotone voice read them the text. That would make my posts super boring. Again, it’s not so much what I say; it’s how I say it that makes it mine.

Now look at me, so much to report and I have used up my word allowance to just blab. So, I guess I’ll update more next time!

Just kidding. Seriously though the random blab is over…the real update starts……now.

An obvious thing to start on would be the holidays. Oh, I hating with obvious. Let’s start with not obvious. Let’s start with the month of October. Don’t skip over this part…it’s important!

Did you know:
More American Presidents were born in the month of October than any other month (6)

October is: (I have taken the liberty to make the items bold that maybe you ought to actually pay attention to.)
Class Reunion Month, Frugal Fun Month, National Crime Prevention Month, Family Health Month, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, National Cookie Month, National Positive Attitude Month, National Seafood Month – National Dessert & Cookie Month – National Popcorn & Popcorn Poppin’ Month – National Pretzel Month – National Pork Month – National Stamp Collecting Month and National Chili Month.

I find it funny that there are so many National (insert bad for you food here) month, declared in October and yet it is also Family Health Month. How is a person supposed to recognize and honor both? I'm so confused!

NOW THIS IS INTERESTING!
October 1st:
1908: The Ford Model T was introduced to the public. Known as the "Tin Lizzie,"

And according to my research October 1st is Raccoon Appreciation Day. Really? Really. I am unsure how official that report is but I’m just passing on the info.

AND October 1st 2011 is when another little member is due to join our family!

I’m pregnant…SURPRISE!!!!

Shout out to Brandon! Way to Go!

Ok, back to the holidays. All were lovely. I cooked my very first Thanksgiving meal with my partner in crime and favorite sister-in-law. Lauren Clay. I thought it was very tasty and I know it was bunches of fun!

Shout out to Lauren! Hi Lauren! Way to go!

Christmas was also fantabulous. (Did you know that is a real word? Spell check recognized it! Wow.) We had fun at all our family’s houses and after Christmas is over we are partied out! It was also extra fun this year at our house because the girls are getting older and were so excited. A lot of us had been battling a bad virus that went around but fortunantly we were able to still get together. Here's a little video of our family fun!

Shout out to Jesus! Thanks for sharing your birthday! You’re Awesome!

Katherine celebrated her second birthday. I was really happy with her cake! It was SOOO simple and yet so cute too! I loved it! I always try to incorporate cupcakes for her.

My sister Kristina who is expecting their third child in May found out she is having another girl. That makes three girls for her, two for me, and one for Amy. That makes SIX granddaughters (maybe seven) for my parents and no grandsons! We are just following their example I suppose. Who will have the first boy? I guess I’m back in the runnings!

A seven night cruise is a lovely way to celebrate 5 years of marriage! Brandon and I really enjoyed it! Our official anniversary was December 31st but we headed out for our cruise early January. We left from New Orleans and stopped to port in the Florida Keys, Freeport Bahamas, and Nassau Bahamas. Each place had its own beauty and I loved soaking up some sun! Those getaway trips are so much fun. It is fun to fall in love all over again.

Greg is doing very well. He continues his road to recovery daily taking the next step. Sometimes it can be discouraging because this part of the process takes SO long. Hours upon hours of therapy and sometimes I’m sure it feels like the progress should be moving along faster. I see improvements all the time though and am always encouraged by his determination. He is still waiting to have surgery on his knee. This is one thing that should really aid in his walking. It should take two separate surgeries at least and the time table on those is unknown at this point. Dad developed a blood clot in his arm for some reason so that has to be resolved before they can move on for surgery. He is anxious to get that taken care of so we can get the ball rolling for the knee surgeries. Of course these holiday’s were celebrated with a new level of gratefulness for each of our family members. We were all so glad to have Dad and Justin there.

Well we have been getting record setting temps here in our great state and I will try to post pictures of our sledding fun soon!

Wisdom for All

2010-11-18T19:54:00.003-06:00

Like any good Christian parent my children listen to fun bible songs in the car quite often. Each time the old song about the two men (a wise one who built his house on the rock and a foolish one who built his house on the sand) plays Elizabeth wisely proclaims “We don’t want to be like the foolish man Mom!”. I smile and reply with a voice of pride “That’s right sweetie!”

Tonight the above scenario took place on our way home and I respond with the usual “I have a wise child” voice tone but tonight I added a quick question I was confident she knew the answer too.

“Liz, your right we don’t want to be like the foolish man. Who do we want to be like?” Her response was quick,
“We want to be a woman.” Her voice tone one of prim and properness.

For some reason the first thought that came into my head was a scene from “I Love Lucy” where Ricky says “LUCY, Yuv got some splanin tu do!”

Lesson learned: Follow up questions are always a good idea! Particularly before thinking your child is going to be a wise Bible scholar. :)

Rachael

Doing Well

2010-10-06T14:08:00.000-05:00

Dad's surgery went very well. The doctor's feel like the surgery was very successful! Dad lost a lot of blood but they were able to recycle his own blood and give it back to him. They feel he will now have 90 degree mobility in his hip. Last night we went up to see him. He seemed to be doing well. He had walked to the door in his room and back earlier that day. Of course pain managment one thing they are trying to stay on top of right now. The Doctor said that sometimes they open up the patient and really can't do alot for them. But they really felt they were able to get most of the extra bone that had formed and it would be of great help for dad's recovery.

Thank you so much for the prayers!

Greg is Having Surgery Monday Morning! Please Pray!

2010-10-03T18:54:00.001-05:00

I apoligize for the delay in reporting this prayer need for Dad. Monday morning (10/4/10) he is scheduled to have surgery on his hip to remove the calcification build up. This surgery is a big deal but should help him tramendously with his ability to walk. We are not sure of the expectations of his walking ability after this surgery though because he has lots of damage in his knee on the same side which will be fixed by surgery later in the spring.

Please Pray for:
1.) Peace for Dad (and mom)
2.) The Surgeons
3.) Dad's recovery to be quick and as painless as possible (For his and Mom's sake :) )

Below is a recent article Dad wrote for our church newsletter:

Greetings to my wonderful church family! God is good all the time! All the time God is good! It has been a long time since I have written a Harbinger article. It’s been so wonderful to see each of you over the past few weeks. How can I ever thank you for the incredible love and support you have shown to me and my family. Kim has shared with me from her journal records all the visitors that have come to see me and have offered prayers on my behalf since my accident in April. You are all so very important to me. Thank you seems so inadequate. As many of you know, Justin and I were in a rollover collision April 10th. That day will go down as one of those life-altering days. Our lives will never be the same. As so many different people lifted prayers to the Lord, He has answered them so amazingly. Justin has almost fully recovered and may have one more surgery to remove the screws that were placed in his ankle. Praise the Lord! The Lord did not cause our accident but He has certainly been with us throughout the entire ordeal. He promised in His word that He would never leave us or forsake us, He is Faithful! My injuries were a little more severe. I was thrown from the vehicle (wear your seat belts!) and landed 75 feet in front of the car after it stopped rolling. I do not know how I came out of the automobile, but I do know that God caught me and caused me to land easier. I was told that I did not have but one scratch on my shoulder. Unfortunately I did have some internal injuries. My pelvis was broken in half and had 8 other major breaks in it, I had 12 broken ribs, both of my lungs collapsed, I tore the ACL and MCL in my knee, had a perforated bladder, and sustained a brain injury. They only gave a 20% chance of survival those first few days. I praise the Lord for His goodness and love for me. I have never been closer to Him than I am right now. He has sustained my life and blessed me more than you can imagine. The enemy, Satan, tried to destroy me and keep me silent. He was unsuccessful in those attempts because of all the prayers offered for me. God once again thwarted the attack of the enemy and has given me life! What Satan means for evil, God will turn to good! Praise His holy name! The road to recovery will not be an easy one. I was in a coma for the first little while. I had 3 surgeries during that time period and do not remember anything about the wreck or treatment until early June. I am so glad to be at home now after 111 days in the hospital. My family is so amazing as they offer me care. I can hardly do anything for myself. Even picking up something that I drop is almost impossible. Kim is God’s choice for my wife. He has given and continues to give her unbelievable grace to serve me over and over again. I am so thankful for such a wonderful bride! Today Kim and I went to see my orthopedic doctor. He told me that I had done very well in my rehab and looked like I was getting much stronger. He had me do a CAT scan while I was in his office so that he could more clearly see my hip. They took over 1000 images of my hip and treated a 3-d image on the computer. As we looked at the image he smiled. We could tell from his face and words that he was encouraged! He said that the surgery ahead would be a difficult one, because they will have to go in and actually remove bone from the hip area that grew while I was motionless in the coma. The position of the bone is what encouraged him. He said that he thought he could get to the” extra” bone without cutting through any muscle. This will make for a much easier recovery. He is working with the other doctors to schedule a time for surgery but would like to do it the first week of October! Praise the Lord, again He has changed the schedule and is moving the surgery forward. I will be in the hospital for at least a week and then perhaps be able to come back home. It all depends on how I recover, so I ask you to keep that time in your prayers! After the first of the year I will need to have some surgical work done on my knee. I have 3 ligaments torn or damaged. We will once again trust the Lord for the results and the timing. Today we are simply rejoicing in the Lord! I attended Pastor Jerry’s class last evening and we learned that God called himself Jehovah Kennaw, which simply means I am a jealous God. We saw through scripture that the Lord is always pursuing us simply due to the love that He has for each of us. His love and goodness continue to overwhelm me. He is such a great God! Thank you again for all of your prayer, love and support for my family! If not for the Lord this would have been much worse. God is good all the time, all the time God is good! I am resting at home doing some research on the upcoming surgery. I have sent Kim to a day spa to have a lady there give her a full back massage! She deserves so much honor and credit for where I stand in the recovery. She has been with me every day since the accident April 10th. We both prayed for you today just before she left. You are on our minds and in our thoughts. We are so grateful for your love, compassion, and most of all your prayers. May God reward your efforts and may we see His hand together in a complete and quick recovery.

To God be the glory! He is good all the time!
Pastor Greg

2010-09-23T11:38:00.000-05:00

Our family LOVES the tradition of going to the state fair. We normally go more than once. Opening day Brandon and I brought the girls. It was a bit hot outside but we all had a great time. Tickets for the ice capades were on sale for the opening night so I bought two and Elizabeth and I had a “Mommy, Lizzy time” . Traffic was HORRIBLE on the way there and so we were thirty minutes late. I was quite frustrated considering I had already allowed myself an extra thirty minutes than what I needed to get there, but we still had a great time and it all worked out ok. My Aunt Rhonda always took us to the ice capades when we were little. I have great memories of those times and so I think it was a bit sentimental for me to take Liz. I didn’t take my camera to the show because I didn’t think they were allowed. So they are just memories in my heart.

Then on Tuesday evening the Werner family went to enjoy the fair. We enjoy fair food during this visit. We like to look around and watch a few shows and just enjoy each other’s company. Nanny and Papa are the stars of this trip since they, well, pay for it. J Elizabeth and Katherine LOVED riding the horses and Elizabeth enjoyed the camel ride with Uncle Justin too.

With the events of the year I think we all cherished our Family Fair Tradition a little more this year. Thank you Lord for Your goodness to us!

THE Event

2010-09-05T12:30:00.000-05:00

Many of you have already heard that I was in a car accident on Friday evening just after 5:00 p.m. The weather had been absolutely amazing on Friday and I wanted to get some clean quiet country air to go along with the beautiful day. So, I headed out to one of my all time forever and ever favoritest places, Tuterville. My dad is home from Dallas but with mom still there I thought a visit from me and the grandbabies would be a welcome surprise. Originally I had planned on going out early in the afternoon but I had some things that needed done at our house so I finished those things up during the girl’s naptime. The entire day had been shaping up to feel like a Saturday. Brandon is off of work on Friday’s so he had been in and out of the house all day and had even helped me with a couple of projects around the house. When I got on the road headed out I was again reminded that today was not Saturday but rather a Friday evening just about rush hour. The thought of slow traffic didn’t bother me much though because after all it was a beautiful day and I was really in no hurry. No reason to let a little thing like traffic ruin my day. To make the trip more enjoyable, the girls and I began bobbing our head to some Veggie Tales tunes. Everything was splendid.

Not far past Anderson Road heading East bound on I-240 two interstates combine. It is a common place for traffic to slowdown and I’m pretty positive there is almost a daily “jam” in that location. This day it seemed backed up a bit further than normal. I’m not sure of the reason. Elizabeth let out a small giggle with a “Whoa” accompanying it as I noticeably hit my brakes to slow with the quickly stopping traffic. Naturally when traffic comes to a quick stop after getting your vehicle to an appropriate speed you check your rearview mirror to make sure the guy behind you has done or is doing the same thing. The view in my mirror wasn’t a real pleasant one. A truck. A big truck. Going fast. Very fast. “Slow down, “I thought. He was approaching at speed limit or greater and had appeared at no attempt to even slow. My suspicions were confirmed the moment he did see me and hit his brakes but it was all over. Too close, too fast. He took a quick swerve right and then a hard swerve left. In an attempt to avoid collision I went to the right a bit trying to get to the shoulder creating enough of a gap for us to remain on track for our original destinations, body parts and vehicles intact with nothing more than a tale of a super close call. But our attempts were somewhat in vain and crash, bang, whiplash and all our vehicles would never be the same. The impact was hard immediately shattering my back windshield and driver’s side rear window. Glass was now accompanying me in the front seat and my babies were shrieking in fear complete unaware and unimpressed with what had just happened. I’m sure at some point the words “oh gravy” slipped from my lips. I waited for a second impact not sure of where the other vehicle was currently at or what other cars might come flying my way at any minute. I feared he was a roll over as pieces of debris and dirt began to fly in all sorts of directions. I am unsure of what all came off of his truck but I do know he lost his tire. Yes, his tire came sliding across the road taunting me of April’s events. I realize I may be overly sensitive to flying tires but I feel I am justified in that sensitivity given recently family occurrences. The tire never became anymore of an issue besides a mere piece of debris and it came to a peaceful rest without causing further insult or injury.

Upon realizing all vehicles had come to a complete stop, mine about 25 yards on down the road from the initial impact now resting in the grass rather than the pavement. The truck was now facing south bound in the center median still upright not having rolled. I turned my head in an effort to check on the girls. All visible signs gave me a peace that they were nothing more than scared. I reassured them we were fine and proceeded to do the next thing, call 911. No Brandon. No 911 is who you call first. I forced my brain to work the fancy features on my phone and begged my brain to send loud and clear messages to my hands to calm themselves and stop shaking. A touch screen is very difficult to use with shaky hands. Even dialing 911 can be the most difficult of simple tasks. My brain demands worked and my hands steadied enough to dial in the numbers, 9….1….1. “Wait, what if they want me to stay on the line with them until they get here because they hear screaming children in the background? I think I should call Brandon first. Yes, I need Brandon. He can do the thinking for me.” Backspacing the emergency numbers I had worked so hard to enter I dialed now the digits to my love. My hero.

Starting the conversation with “We are fine, we are all just fine.” He cut me off before I could get to the point of the call.

“Have you been in an accident?” he asked

“Yes, a pretty bad one, but we are all just fine. The car is not fine but we are.”

The conversation ended and he was on his way to help.

By this time passersby were stopping to check on us. I couldn’t open my door and the girls continued their screams. Trying to prioritize things I decided we needed to exit the vehicle. But how was I going to get out? I had already given the man checking on us a “thumbs up” that we were ok and he was headed over to check on the other guy. His back was to me. How would he see that we were stuck? As I looked to try and get someone’s attention I saw fluid pouring from the other guy’s vehicle. What if my car was pouring fluid? What is it was gas? Our situation could go from just fine to dead in an instant! I’ve seen the movies. No one, and I mean no one survives those explosions besides Jack Bauer, who was not currently present, and we all know Hollywood’s main goal is to make those scenes realistic. Yes this could get bad! It was then that I realized my car was still running and I could in fact just roll down my window and ask for help. I told my brain to stop the drama and to think rationally. I would reward myself later with a cappuccino chunky chocolate shake made with coffee instead of milk from Braum’s. The bribe worked and the following events were dealt with in a non Jack Bauer manner. The kind passerby opened my door and then when to the passenger side to help me get the girls out. I discovered that Liz was crying mostly because the impact had caused her to lose her snack bag of pretzels which had fallen to the ground. Her tears quickly subsided after I had reunited the two of them together. Kate also calmed quickly after I had her out of the vehicle and in my arms. She also had “buckles” her trusty steed, that she takes with her everywhere, to provide an extra measure of comfort. All parties involved were ok besides jolted and sore. Soon I would discover muscles I didn’t even know existed had been tensed up during the ordeal. These muscles introduced themselves to me and I have thrown them a welcoming party with Loratab. The two are getting along beautifully. My hero showed up about the same time as the emergency vehicles. He did exactly what I was hoping and took care of things for me. We ended up transporting Liz by ambulance to the hospital to get check out because she was complaining about one spot on her back and because these things always tend to happen on Friday’s after doctors offices close and Monday is a holiday. Go figure. If something was wrong I’d rather nip it in the bud.

She was thrilled to ride in an “ambilance” and before her hospital discharge she was more concerned about going out to see and play with Nanny and Kate than the spot on her back. The doctor and Brandon encouraged me to get myself checked out too and by the time we had gotten to the hospital I was rather sore. So, after Elizabeth’s discharge transport took me to the presby tower to be seen by a doctor. I feared we would be there for many hours as I heard people in the waiting room complaining of waiting for three hours without being seen yet. Fortunately I didn’t have to get an official room and within the hour x-rays had been taken, prescriptions written and we were on our way home, all in one piece thanking the Lord for his protection over our family. On the way to the hospital the paramedics told me when they got the call on the wreck medi-flight was in route because with the sight of the wreckage they were certain someone would need it. Greg and Kim took our girls for the night and so I was able to get a good night’s rest and sleep-in in the morning. I snuggled up next to Brandon that night grateful I wasn’t in a hospital bed or mourning the death of one or both of our daughters. Today I took an extra minute to tuck my girls in bed to look them in the eye’s saying “I love you”.

After you read this I hope you will take a minute to go snuggle up next to your loved ones just because you can and look them in the eyes and say “I love you”. Not to bid them farwell as you rush out the door with a million other things on your mind but in an effort to savor a moment. Because the truth of the matter is that the chances of that happening to me are no less than the chances of that happening to you and not everyone is blessed enough to walk way. Cherish each moment. Know your eternal destination. And always pay attention to the traffic in front of you.

You know what? I still owe myself that shake from Braum’s.

Rachael

A Note From Greg Werner

2010-08-26T22:05:00.000-05:00

God is good… all the time!!!!!

This is the long awaited update that I wanted to send. I am so happy to report to you that after 111 days in the hospital and rehab I have been released! I am currently undergoing outpatient therapy and waiting to see my orthopedic doctor to help make a new plan. I have two surgeries still waiting for me. The first will be on my right hip to remove calcium making my hip unusable. The second surgery will be to repair torn ligaments in my knee. I am not sure when we will schedule these, but the first should be sometime this winter. We will know more after we see the doctor.

I want to take time to thank those of you who have stood with my family through this ordeal. Many of you have given money, food, comforting words, cards, and prayer. How can I possibly begin to say thank you? This has been the longest tragedy that I have faced to this point in my life. April 10th will go down as a life changing day for my family. The vehicle accident is forever etched in our minds! Though we would never choose this event, God has been faithfully reminding me to count my blessings. I am so grateful to be alive and sending this update. I could easily have been killed in the accident. I was ejected from the rolling car more than 70 feet down the highway. I have had three surgeries to date to repair my pelvis, which was shattered, and to remove my spleen. I was in a coma for many days and can’t remember any of the accident. That within itself is a blessing. I slept through some very difficult procedures and days! My greatest blessing is my amazing family. From the very first day my boys have risen to the need! They have served me in numerous ways. Brandon and Rachael took on all of bill pay duties personally and for the church, and kept an ongoing blog to help keep you updated. Thank you so much! Jon took care of things at home and really became the man of the house. I am so proud of him, he also took over my Glory Seals class. Lauren called and visited me often and loved me unbelievably. Justin is still healing but spent many days under the loving watchful eyes of Terry and Cyndi Myers. You guys are amazing!

The blessings don’t even start to end there. God has been so faithful. He has provided the most amazing staff of doctors and therapist to help me. So many men stayed with me through the night. Odus Compton visited me often; Pastor Jerry gave me incredible love, support and council, and many of you served us, all so amazingly. My mom and my younger brother stayed with me constantly. They have provided me with unbelievable support throughout the entire time I was hospitalized. So many of you have loved me and served me through prayer and acts of kindness that they are too many to recognize in this article. Let me just say thank you all so very much for loving us and giving us support!

I would miss this opportunity if I did not recognize my bride Kim. No one has loved me more than she has. She has been with me every day since the wreck loving and encouraging me. She is a rock! The Lord has given me the perfect help mate! We have laughed and cried many tears together. She has always been there to encourage me and to love me.

I still have a long way to go. I can’t walk without a walker or help. I still have the surgeries ahead of me. But through it all I have learned to trust Jesus more and more. He didn’t cause this to happen to us, but he has been with us every second of the day. His word says that he will never leave us or forsake us. He is faithful! I certainly could not be here today if not for His blessing. He remains the greatest blessing that I can count. I have often said that the greatest asset of our lives is the blessing of Christ. He is good all the time!

Please continue to pray for us and keep us in your minds. We still have a long road ahead of us. God will provide and protect us giving us everything that we need. Thank you for loving us so much and praying for us so often. May God richly reward you for your investment in our family.
God bless you all! Greg Werner

Dad also asked me to include with theses pictures a huge thank you to Ken Haywood and the Hobby Lobby team who did a GREAT job on the remodel of the bathroom. It is beautiful and will be much enjoyed long after the "need" for it is gone.

Double sinks with the vanity built in such a way that dad's chair can slide right up to the sink!

The shower is awesome with no ledges so that there is nothing to step over. It is AMAZING!!! I love the colors and designs of the curtains. Courtesy of Aunt Tammy Werner.

Please Pray with Us Tomorrow!

2010-08-22T21:20:00.001-05:00

The following is the latest from "Ella's Journey". Please be praying for her tomorrow!

Surgery is scheduled again for tomorrow. They say Ella will be first case in the morning, maybe second case. That is hospital time in case you didn’t know. :) The plan is for the surgeons to complete the procedure they began last week. As I am sure many of you remember last week’s procedure didn’t go as planned. They began the first of a three part series to fix Ella’s heart. However, once they got started there was more swelling and damage than they originally thought and so they did a very temporary fix and closed her up. They wanted to more seriously consider a heart transplant. After reviewing the options they decided to continue pursuing the three surgery series fix. So, the goal tomorrow is to complete the first of the three surgeries. This is a very high risk surgery. It should take several hours and her recovery will tell a lot about the surgeries success.

Here are the specific requests:
1.)The Lord’s hand to be guiding the surgeons and giving them wisdom
2.)Ella’s healing and protection
3.)Ella’s other organs to be protected and to continue functioning properly
4.)Peace for…well, everyone. :)

I will let you know as soon as I hear when Ella goes into surgery. Please pray tomorrow when you are prompted!
Psalm 10:17O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear.

In the meantime enjoy, with a tissue, this video we made for sweet Ella. Then go and give your kids a hug and kiss. Each child truly is a blessing and a miracle!

Ella Likes to See Mommy Getting Kisses!

2010-08-17T08:39:00.002-05:00

Ella is currently stable. She had a procedure yesterday that didn't go exactly the way it was planned. When they started the surgery there was more damage than they anticipated and so they only did a temporary fix adn will be making a decision on how to proceed within a day or two. This video was taken after Ella's surgery and was good way to end a somewhat difficult day.

Praise the Lord!

2010-08-09T20:29:00.000-05:00

Update from elladawn.blogspot.com
We never recieved official word of when Ella's surgery started. She went to OR right away but last we heard the doctors where talking about the best approach. However, I just recieved word that Ella's surgery is complete! The doctors are very happy with the outcome. There were a few things that were a bit more complitacted than planned but it all went well and they did not experience any of the major complications that can sometimes come with these surgeries. Ella is doing well. Oh, my goodness I love her!!! Thank you Jesus for all you have done today! Please continue to be with Ella throughout the night!

She will continue to be closely moniotored throughout the night.

Amy is hurting pretty badly. She so badly wants to see Ella. She is trying to find the balance between taking enough medication not to be in intense pain but also not taking too much to make her recovery time to seeing Ella delayed. Please pray for her.

Thank you all for your prayers today. Take a minute to thank the Lord for what he has done and keeping praying!

Aunt Rachael