December 29, 2004

This is a day that is etched in my brain. I forget a lot of stuff, but every detail of this day, along with all of the emotions, are still fresh. For those of you who have walked through the last four years with us, I hope this will serve as a reminder for you, as it does for me, of how amazing and full of grace our God is. A verse in Psalms that we claimed for Carson says, "I will not die but live and proclaim what the Lord has done." I want to do that for Carson today; I want to proclaim what God has done, not only with the amazing healing that happened in his life, but also the amazing changes that took place in us as his parents, in his family, and in all that know him and traveled this path with him. We praise God for this hard time in our lives, not because we liked it, but because of what we have learned about our God through it.

Here is my attempt at getting a Christmas picture of the boys at the Christmas Eve Service tonight. It didn't work.

Merry Christmas

A quick post to say Merry Christmas to everyone. We had our family Christmas on Monday morning. We wanted the boys...and Joey and I too...to have time to enjoy Christmas before the craziness of our first service and traveling came. We have had a wonderful week so far celebrating the birth of Jesus, playing with our new toys, and working our tails off for the service tonight. We fly out for Texas EARLY in the morning, and I haven't even begun to pack yet! We can't wait to get home to family!

Corban was my gift wrapping helper this year. Most of our packages looked like this, but this one was my favorite.
And here are a couple of pictures of the boys. Corban FINALLY got to open a present. He was mad after he had opened all of his...he wanted to open more!
And the other two on their trampoline - we surprised them with this one!

Update

Yesterday we went to Carson's monthly clinic appointment. They are supposed to be monthly, but we haven't been since summer. He had a really hard time with the bloodwork. He has gotten out of the habit of being poked all of the time. I'm glad that is not a normal thing for him anymore. I will take a kicking fighting boy any day over one who gets poked so much that it is just a way of life. I realized yesterday just how big he has gotten. I could not get him to cooperate just by physical force. I finally stood up and somehow picked him up and sat with my arms wrapped around him long enough to calm him down so we could talk. He handled the arm poke really well after he finally allowed it to happen. All of his counts were great. We are now one year out from treatment, so appointments spread out to every other month.

Caden went to his third Bird Care and Training class last weekend. We are now ready to begin fostering and eventually adopt a bird. We are (hopefully) getting a Umbrella Cockatoo this week from the Parrot Rehabilitation Society. This is the bird we have wanted to get since we first began the classes.

Corban finally learned to say his brothers names. He has always called them Bubba. If he is talking about them both, he says "bubbas". Now he says "Sarsen" and "Daden". It is really cute, and Caden and Carson think it is the greatest.

Joey is in his church planting groove. I love to see him working hard and loving what he is doing. God has definitly given him a gift and a passion for church planting. Our launch team is meeting weekly; making plans for Christmas Eve and for our Preview Services.

I have been doing the ususal. We shifted grears with our homeschool curriculum - the boys are enjoying the change. I have also been helping Joey with church stuff - designing cards, posters, and programs. And, for fun, some picture taking. I have started putting my photography on a different blog. So, for those of you who like to look at pictures of random people like I do, here is the link.

Home Again

Our Wish Trip was amazing. I would love to tell you all about the entire week, but there is just too much. I must say that Give Kids the World Village is an amazing place. It was founded by a man named Henri Landwirth. He is a Holocaust survivor who came to America at the age of 18. He worked his way up through the hotel business, and became the owner of many hotels in the Orlando area. An experience with a wish child changed his life, and he decided to create a Village so that any child who had the wish to go to Disney World would not be denied or delayed. That dream has grown into a resort that houses, feeds, loves and pampers 7,500 families each year. There are only 150 paid staff there, and 11,00 volunteers come through there each week to serve the kids and their families. They took wonderful care of us and provided us with an amazing "home" during our trip. We left there feeling so blessed. We endured three years of cancer, but many of these families are in the midst of a life time of heartache with their child.

After Florida, the boys and I headed to Texas for a few days. We were able to spend some Thanksgiving time with all of our family. Now we are back in San Diego and gearing up for StoneLake Church. We started this past weekend with a booth at a local Christmas festival. We have had a great response from the community so far.

On a completely different note, Corban drank a glass of vinegar this weekend. It was horrible. I had some glasses soaking on the counter, trying to remove some water spot. He climbs up on the stool and starts drinking one before I could stop him. Let's just say that nothing stays down after a couple of gulps of vinegar. I had the phone in my hand dialing Papa (we call him for EVERY medical emergency) when I decided I would spare him from being awaken and wait it out for a few minutes. Corban was fine, of course, but I think he will be more careful about what glass he picks up next time.