Thankful Thursday

For a great-grandmother to read 'Adam Raccoon' 

For princess and super hero birthday celebration

For a bigger sink to hold a growing baby

For laundry sorters (with much enthusiasm)

For a daddy who comes home after a long day and wrestles

For Christmas jams they're gonna hate me for in 20 years

Journeying On,

Turning 5 by His Faithfulness

Birthdays.  Days of celebrating. Making the honoree feel special.  Reminding them how much you love and are thankful for them.  Reminiscing about their lives. We love birthdays!  But to be honest, a couple of birthdays around here are hard on the heart.  And it's taken me 5 of these birthdays to figure out how this is going to go.  

You see, it's strange because as I remember the first time I saw my sweet ones, the first time I touched their precious little perfectly formed bodies, I remember how much I loved them and how perfect they were.  But at the same time I'm taken back to the most traumatic event in my life. When my health was in serious question.  When these incredibly fragile, but totally miraculous two babies were fighting for every breath and on the brink of being too small and too immature to be helped by modern day medicine.

These birthdays are a strange business for the heart.  

But 5 years later I'm finding that the emotions of incredible thankfulness and great joy for the miracles is by far outweighing the heartache that came with their birth.  You see these babies have had every statistic in the book thrown at them and more tests than I can remember come back with less than favorable results.  X-rays that said we would be ventilator or at least oxygen dependent for life, eye tests that said we would loose vision, brains scans that said we would have limited communication and be unable to walk, heart scans showing holes, tummys that wouldn't work right, throats that couldn't swallow and blood that promised leukemia.  

I know there are lots of sweet little ones that don't leave the NICU.  And many who leave with huge health and and developmental hurtles to leap.  And while I don't know all the reasons why these 25 weekers, weighing in at 14 and 18 ounces, don't fall into the statistical norms, I am certain that it has everything to do with Jesus.  I don't know why He heals some on this earth and completely heals others by bringing them into Glory, but I know I don't want to waste one day of this gift of life.

So with hearts full of thankfulness, we celebrate all the chapters in these little lives.  The good and the hard, because it's a story that can't be denied the hand of God as author.  Because He is faithful and personal and the giver of life.  Because He loved me to the cross long before he sustained and healed these little people.  Because of Jesus...life is worth celebrating!  

Journeying On,

Thankful Thursday

For the enjoyment of life

For a super creative Creator and the chance to watch my little people learn to be in awe of all He has made

For hammock days

For contracts on old and contracts on new (amazing story of His perfect timing)

For Frosties and Storybook Bible

For our speech therapy graduate

Journeying On,

Thankful Thursday

That this boy came down from bed requesting a midnight snack 

because he was hungry!!

That the first days of school have been a success

for the way this boy drives his cars

for rolling over

that this kid has gone a whole YEAR without a bone marrow biopsy/aspiration!!

Journeying On,

Thankful Thursday

for indoor dodge ball

for this amazingly encouraging and challenging read...so so good!

that the littlest one has non stop entertainment watching the bigs

for self made waterfalls

for brothers that can give it and take it (most of the time)

Journeying On,

Gotcha Day

Celebrating one year of this kiddo being ours!!

This little man has brought so much joy to our family.

We are blessed to call you ours.

Happy Gotcha Day, Elijah.

Journeying On,

Disney Dump and Thankful Thursday

It's been a few weeks since we returned from the vacation of a lifetime at Disney, but I'm just now getting back into the swing of things enough to download pictures:)  We are so so thankful for the opportunity we were given to vacation the Raby extended family.  And so thankful for all the generosity that gave us such a great week of memory making funness....and here's the picture dump!

So thankful that one year ago today, we met this precious boy for the first time.  We had no idea how much joy he would bring into our lives.  Amazingly thankful the Lord purposed and provided for this good gift!

It was this same week of July three years ago that Ethan was discharged from the hospital with orders for a bone marrow transplant.  Several bone marrow biopsies and dozens of finger pokes later, doctors still can't explain his miraculous healing.  While we know he still has the diagnosis of pre-leukemia, we are so thankful that Jesus has held it's progression at bay (and in case you were wondering, Jesus would be the only explanation here), and has continued to grow and strengthen our little man.

Journeying On,