Pray Without Ceasing

Mia had a bad fall on Monday morning.  She had a seizure and fell on her face on the tile floor.  She ended up banging up her nose pretty good.  It swelled up significantly and so we felt like she needed to get it looked at by our doctor.  Our pediatrician saw her that day and felt she needed xrays to make sure that nothing was significantly broken.  Hours later and many xrays later we got good news that nothing was broken.  We are so grateful that God protected her with this fall.  Needless to say, she is still having seizures.  Every now and then we have a few good days, but usually we have 1 a day...sometimes up to 3.  So, we continue to pray.  We continue to resist letting Satan defeat us.  He's really good at beating me down, especially when she hurts herself because of a seizure.  But ultimately, we win.  So....there will be suffering, we are guarenteed it!  But we win, if we accept Jesus as our savior and trust in Him for our salvation.  I've said this before...it's one thing to suffer yourself, but it's totally different to be helpless when your child suffers.  Thankfully, we serve an amazing God and He is in control.  I can find peace in that. 

On a totally different side note, Mia frequently will burst into singing rather than speaking...so she will be talking to you with singing...and just now, Asher came up to me and was singing for me to help him fix the lego.  They are so amusing!

Camping

We are home!  We had a great trip.  We left Monday morning for Morro Bay State campground.  We got their in the afternoon and set up our campsite.  The kids were so excited to be camping.  We didn't really know how sleeping would go with all of us in the same tent, but it worked great.  We fit two queen size mattresses in there and Mia and Calvin slept on the one with sleeping bags and Brad, Asher and I slept on the other with a bunch of blankets.  The kids especially liked having us all sleep together...a big sleepover!

Tuesday morning we got up and rented canoes and canoed across the bay to the sand dunes.  That was Mia's favorite part!  Jarrett and Seth had made their own kayak's awhile ago, so they brought those along and used them.  Asher did not like the canoe because it was "wobbly", but he did a great job of staying seated the entire time.  It took about 15-20 min to get across the bay!  But it was well worth it because the sand dunes were so much fun.  The sand is perfect and the kids loved running down them.  I liked just sitting.  Ha!

Tuesday afternoon we went to a beach by the rock and the kids got to make sand castles and dig holes.  Since digging is their favorite activity, it was a huge hit.

Tuesday night we made s'mores and Asher told us afterward that his favorite part of camping was "roasting marshmallows".  It was just nice to be on our little vacation with family.

Wednesday morning we checked out the museum and headed to town to do a little shopping.  The kids got ice cream and shells at the sea shell shop.  After naptime we hiked out to the tidepools and that was a lot of fun.  That might be my favorite part!  There were lots of little crabs and anenomes...and the kids loved touching all of it.  Calvin loved climbing on rocks with his uncles!

Thursday morning we packed up and did a little hike around camp.  We left around noon and got home in the afternoon.  It was the perfect amount of time for our first camping trip.  I think it was a hit and I know we want to do it again, for sure.  Calvin said his favorite part was sleeping in the tent.  Here are some pics from our trip!

What A Week!

We had a crazy, busy week with VBS at our church.  The kids had a blast.  Little Asher who has been crying every time we drop him off in the 2 year old class went from not wanting to go to crying when I picked him up and not wanting to leave.  His teacher is one of those people who just has a gift for little kids and Asher loved him.  It was neat to see Asher enjoy it so much.  Calvin was in with his usual Sunday school teacher and that worked great for him.  He had so much fun this week that on Friday night when he was saying prayers before bed, he prayed, "thank you God for sunday school."  Which is so not him, he usually tells us how much he doesn't want to go to church.  And Mia, well, we bumped her into the 2nd grade class because my mom, Grandma Cheri, was teaching it.  So, that was a great fit for her and she also had such a fun week.  I, of course, am exhausted.  I need a vacation!  Ha!  And so we are, we are heading to the beach and will be camping with my brother's family for the next few days.  The kids are excited.  This will be the first time in a tent for them and I don't know how much sleep we will really get, but we are looking forward to cooler weather and time away.  :)  Mia continues to have seizures daily, but we do feel like they are not as strong and we are hopeful that they will soon no longer be a daily occurrence.  Thank you, as always, for praying!

Mr. Bob - Last night, we asked Calvin to pray at bed again...and he ran through his typical thank you's...Thank you for Mom, Dad, Mia, Asher, Grandma...etc...and at the very end he said, "thank you for Mr. Bob."  We love your family and are so grateful how you love on our kids!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day Daddy!  We love you!

Today our pastor gave such a good sermon at church.  He was teaching about Philippians 4:1-13 where we are commanded to not be anxious about anything, but in everything to give thanks to God.  We can be at peace about really difficult situations because God is sovereign and His plan is best.  I kept thinking about Mia and all that she's going through/been through.  Brad and I can tell you that we have clearly felt the peace of God during different times of Mia's life.  The first when she was 1 day old and immediately shipped off to surgery.  During those 4 or 5 hours that she was in surgery, we were completely at peace, overwhelmed by it.  There was nothing to be anxious about because God was in control.  And He still is.  He always will be.  It's been a rough few months with all of the seizures that she's going through.  But we don't have to be anxious about it, we can walk through it KNOWING that God is in control and His plan is far superior to ours.  We don't have to understand why, we just have to trust Him.  And we do.  Sure, we don't like to see her have seizures, but ultimately, we know that when she is seizure free it will be because of God and His timing, His plan.  And if He chooses to allow the seizures to continue, that doesn't minimize Him.  We are just going to trust His plan and His time.  He's walked her through so much, He'll walk her through this.  As always, thank you for continuing to pray!

Mia Update

Mia has been at full dosage of her new drug since last Thursday.  When I say full dosage, I don't mean the maximum dosage possible for her, I just mean the amount that the doctor wanted us to get to in order to see if that would stop her seizures.  This drug takes about 5 days to reach steady state in her blood and so it's been a week since we got to that dosage and she's still having seizures.  So, I spoke with her neurologist and the plan is to slowly increase one of her drugs and just monitor the results from that.  We can tweak as we go, but hopefully we should be able to get to a point where she is seizure free.  So, I get to keep making notes as we change things and monitoring her seizures and we'll just go from here.  Thank you for all that are continuing to pray for her!  She had a pretty bad seizure on Wednesday while my mom was babysitting her.  It lasted quite a bit longer than her usual seizures, so that was scary for my mom and concerning for us.  But we continue to trust in the Lord and lean on Him as we work through this time!

Next week is VBS for us.  It will be a very busy week for the kids and me too.  I volunteered to co-coordinate crafts for the elementary kids and well, let's just say there's a lot on the plate right now.  I will be thankful when the week is done.  Pray for us, that the kiddos would stay healthy, that everyone would have fun and that Asher would do well with the little kids.  Pray also for our neighbor, she approached me today and told me she signed her daughter and niece up for VBS.  They are definitely unbelievers and I'm so excited for their kids to be at VBS for the week.  Pray for seeds planted with those kids...with all the kids there!