Knitting Looms

 Sister time.

Board games with dad.

The boys accidentally dressed in the same color shirt and pants one day and wanted me to take a picture of them.

My children are growing up.  I have been happy and enjoyed each stage they have all went thru as they have grown.  I love being a mom.  The quiet hours of cuddle time, around the clock as infants, was such a wonderful time of bonding even when they were fussy.  The toddler years, often refereed to as the "terrible twos", was also a time of me learning who they were as they exerted their little personalities.  From age two to five they are like little sponges, learning quickly things we do and don't want them to learn.   By the time they hit those years that they are six to pre-teen there is a lot of character building and learning going on.  Lots of long talks, school work and some discipline thrown in there.  Often just in the form of responsibilities and chores.  I even enjoyed the ones I have had that went thru or are still in their teen years.  They become my children and friends at that point, as we have long regular talks with lots of questions, receiving a lot of guidance, as they are trying to figure out their beliefs and direction for life.  God is so good.  Always.  I love being a mom.

Lately, as I observe my girls, I no longer see them as little children.  Elizabeth came to me a few weeks ago and said she felt she was to old to be playing with dolls and her play cooking toys anymore.  She wanted to wash them all up and put them in the attic.  Sigh.  The girls no longer play dress up, dolls, house or make believe.  When I seek them out in there quiet time, I find them quietly tucked away reading a book or talking in the living room and working on a craft.  They each have a hope chest in their room they make things for and put things in.  All of their sweet hopes and things they would like for their future when they grow up and/or get married.  They really are young ladies in a lot of ways now.

Granted they are not like this always.  There is still bickering and silliness, horse back riding, jumping in the leaves and playing in the dirt but I see them becoming more and more mature every day.

Around the holidays Tim and I got each of the girls a loom for making rubber band bracelets.

The girls loved them and have made so many bracelets for them selves and every one they know.

As I watched them enjoying themselves for hours with these looms I wished there was something like those looms that made things more permanent and functional than rubber band bracelets.  As I was wondering around Wal-mart one day I saw exactly what I was wanting for them.  They are knitting looms.

As a girl, my mom taught me and my sister how to cook, bake, keep house, sew, do needle work, crochet and all those things young ladies in our area were taught to do to be good wives once grown.   My mom was so talented in all those areas.  She made wedding dresses for people she was such a good seamstress and also made professional wedding cakes.  She was taught by her mom who was very talented as well in all those skills.   I will tell you in all honesty, and you might have guessed,  crochet and needle work is not my kind of hobby to spend my time doing because... if my dad was home, I was my dads tool girl and my preference was and is building things, gardening, farm work and home improvement projects.  My sister was the one who loved crocheting and being inside.   She is amazing talented and carries on that lineage.  I don't sit still well.

Anyways, I have had to brush the dust off my skills in those crafty type areas as both of my girls seem to be ones who like those things.  I did not think they were at the level where they could learn actual crocheting or knitting because of their special needs in spacial relations, following detailed instructions and fine motor skills.  Especially, with Elizabeth's cerebral palsy in her hands.  So, I thought these looms perfect.  I sat down with them for just a short time and Carolyn had it.  A little more time with Elizabeth and she did as well.  Carolyn has become a knitting machine.  In two days she made a hat for herself.

Antonio loved it so  much he wanted her to make him one.  She is working on that one now.

She then has an order from Zeke for one as well.  Then she wants to try a scarf to match her hat she made for herself.  Elizabeth is still steadily working away at her hat.  It is much more difficult for her but she is working at it.

I can not tell you how much it warms my heart to walk into the living room and see them knitting away and talking about things.  So grown up and mature.  It brings back memories of my childhood.  Before VCR's, DVD's, video games and home computers.  Days when children played outside daily as the weather permitted and did handiwork thru the winter or on rainy days.  They learned skills in their spare time that would serve them some how in their future.  A time when people had time for hobbies and crafts because there was so much less in life to distract us and idly use up our time.  Not that everyone's life is this way or that way... but I love it that the girls have made the choice to enjoy functional type things that I myself learned as a child.  Now to just get them interested in using power tools!  :)

Proverbs 31: 10-31
¹⁰ Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
¹¹ The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
¹² She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
¹³ She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.
¹⁴ She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
¹⁵ She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.
¹⁶ She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.
¹⁷ She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.
¹⁸ She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.
¹⁹ She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.
²⁰ She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
²¹ She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.
²² She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.
²³ Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.
²⁴ She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.
²⁵ Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
²⁶ She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
²⁷ She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
²⁸ Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
²⁹ Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
³⁰ Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.
³¹ Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

Blessings, 
susan

Ok, I Had a Birthday

Many of you caught me.  I was just going to ignore the fact and not blog or mention it, but Yes, I did indeed have a birthday.  Not that birthdays bother me or getting older.  I just don't think about mine much.  If you put me on the spot and ask my age I seem to never know it and actually have thought I was 46 for the last two years and actually turned 46 this year.  Funny, I know, but that is how much I pay attention to it and my age.  Also, my daughter passed away many years ago on Valentines day so I think I just like to block the whole week surrounding that day which includes my birthday.  It is never an easy week for me.

Thank you, to all of you who wished me well and a happy day.  Each and every mention to me, by each of you, made me feel warm and loved and that means so very much to me.  Actually, I have made so many friends thru blogging and it has been a wonderful blessing to know each and every one of you.  When you all leave a comment or read the blogs, it just makes my day.  Often God has used one of you to bless me and say just want needed to be said to teach me something, bless me or cheer me up.  So thank you again. 

I got up to a sweet Happy Birthday card left for me, by my husband, by my bed.  I was given several hand made cards by the children.  An e-card from Carolyn and a special Happy Birthday stop animation card, made by William, left for me on my computer! I can not upload the whole video but here is the first frame.  He is so funny.

Stephen sent flowers and a note.

The next day all the blooms opened up so pretty.

I actually cleaned my house all morning till I got a call from Tim at noon asking if I ate lunch yet.  I told him no I had not.   He said not to, that he was coming home from work early to make me lunch.  Steak and sweet potato fries!  YUM!  My favorite!  With all my food sensitivities their is no restaurant I can eat at, so my wonderful husband made me a fabulous and delicious lunch and spent the rest of the day with just me.  I am so very very blessed.

Isaiah 46:4  And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.

 

Blessings, 

susan

 

Our Kitchen Part 2

I recently wrote a post about how God miraculously gave me my kitchen.  Put it together perfectly as only He could do.  It once again, at that time in my life, taught me lessons in trusting Him and how perfectly He provides for us in the big and small things of our lives.  Every time I think about my kitchen it builds my faith and helps me in things we might be going thru now.  God is so good.

I absolutely am grateful and love our home.  I could tell story after story about how God provided for the building of our home just as He provided for my kitchen.  God put my kitchen together for me back in 2008.  The only thing we did, was a nurse that was working for us, put a coat of paint onto the cabinets for us when we got them.

When I am out antiquing with my dad, the furniture and types of things I love are cracked and peeling, old, worn and well used.  I have never minded peeling paint or worn looking things.  As a matter of fact I am drawn to them and appreciate them.  When I buy things and bring them home I know I will never yell at the children for scratching them or being to hard on things.  I mean we try to be careful but my children are special needs and there is a lot of us.  It is not ever in their mind to not set a wet glass or damp cloth on a piece of wood furniture no matter how many times I could tell them.  We live in our home 24/7 and are just hard on things.

Just as an example look at my kitchen floor.

We did a lot of research as to what flooring we wanted to put in the addition when we added on.  This flooring was tough, water proof, easy to put down and had a 15 year warranty.  We put it in the whole addition.  They were not figuring on our family before putting that warranty on it.  It started wearing thru the top layer of "wood like appearance" in just a few years.  We live in our home every day with farm life and a wheel chair.  We spend a lot of time in our kitchen.  So the whole kitchen floor, thru normal wear and tear, looks like this.  "Character"!  That is what my dad and I say about furniture that is worn and peeling.  My life and furniture has "Character".

So back to the kitchen cabinets...Over the years the hinges have slowly started to break.  Since I am not a picky person and make due a lot, here has been some of my fixes...Now don't laugh, I am being real and honest here.

 Yes, that is a finishing nail.

And...heh hem..that is a paper clip.

You know...I have a busy house full of children.  A child opens a cabinet door and it partly falls off. I look at it and see the hinge pin wore out and grab the nearest thing that fits.  It works now so don't give it another thought.  A lot of my hinges looked like this.  Some other ones broke beyond repair and a run to the store got me a hinge that didn't match but worked, so I put it on and went on with my life. 

A few weeks ago I went to open one of the bottom cabinets in the kitchen and the whole hinge broke in two.  I started looking around at the cabinets and chuckled a bit to myself.  So many hinges were patched or damaged.  Really they held up well for many years.  As they were given to us and used by the previous people and then us.  So the poor hinges were just wore out.  I thought about it and decided to do a project and replace all the hinges.  Then I thought.  Well, I will have to fill previous holes with wood fill anyways as the new hinges wont match up, so  might as well sand, prime and repaint the cabinets. 

I looked around the house and had the primer and still had the rest of the paint used the last time in good condition.  So I just had to buy the hinges.  I decided to do just the bottom ones all at once first, in case life happened and I needed things back together sooner.  Oh Lord, bless Tim good for putting up with all the things I do around here like this...

I took all the doors and hardware off all the fronts.  Took everything out of all the cabinets and put it all over the rest of the house.  The next day I was going to sand everything down.  I was going to do the doors out side on the porch so as to keep the dust down in the house. The next day (this is the end of January)  The snow hit.  Hmmmm.  So as not to waste time, I pulled up all the old contact paper from under the cabinets and put down vinyl tiles that I already had around.

Now I don't know about you...but it is very hard to function with a large family with ones kitchen all apart!  So, we dealt with it, I was patient and the snow was about gone by Friday.  I was going to do it then but that little foster baby arrived that spent a few days with us.  Now, I was not going to take a moment away from that delicious baby and the time I could spend with her.  So, the kitchen stayed apart and all over my house.  The baby went home and I started working on it all that week.  I prayed before I started and all along as I worked, as I can't afford to waste materials or make costly mistakes.  He is always so good to me to help me do these things.

It has taken me two weeks with all the drying time in between coats but the bottom cabinets are about finished!  I went with strap hinges as they look country and sturdy.  Sturdy is good!  While I was putting up the doors, You can see where on one of the cabinet doors, I had to flip it to make the hinges fit, after I had already painted everything.  I had to remove the handle and move it up, so filled those handle holes  They are on the bottom second cabinet from the left.  I will paint over that when dry.  No biggie.

So the bottom is about done!  Now I hope to get to the top ones done before the bottoms start to show to much "character"!

God is so good.  He helped me with this project 100% and reminded me of His faithfulness and provision thru the whole project.  As I rely on God to help me do and complete this project I will post agian once the upper ones are finished.

Joshua 1:9  Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

 

Blessings, 

susan

Our Kitchen. Part 1

God is always so faithful.  He is always so good.  He provides for us so perfectly, when, how and exactly the way it needs to be done.  I have seen time and time again in our life, the unmistakeable hand of God do the miraculous.  Not always in just the health of us and our children.  But also in our needs and sometimes even in our wants or secret desires.

In our life and home there is a lot of love.  A lot of good times but usually not a whole lot of extra money.  Unexpected doctors appointments and surgeries are just some of the things that pop up and eat any extra or put us into a bit of debt.  Also our vehicles we drive are always older.  I can not tell you how many transmissions and engines we put into our old buses and extended cargo vans that we drove to haul our family around, thru the years.  We are happy and always have our needs met.  We always have a bit when we need it to do a little something special.  We are simple and the things that make us happy are usually not to expensive anyways.

When we first moved to the farm we were very heavily in debt from Tim's being sick and us finding out he had Addisons disease and some debt from our life style choices before he got very sick.  Glory to God Tim was saved by God and he is here and alive.  When we got settled here on the farm, we had very few worldly possessions and a huge amount of debt from hospital bills.  We got settled into life again and opened back up for foster care in our new home, a single wide trailer.  It was a four bedroom single wide but we had a lot of children.  We went years with Tim and I eating at the counter in the kitchen and the children eating at a very small table that would fit in the kitchen.   We went years with no living room furniture.  We needed the space in the living room for school areas and a play area for the children.  We sometimes even had to use that space as a bedroom.  We were a bit squished but very cozy and happy.  Everything was put into perspective in our lives for good back when Tim almost died.  So just knowing God, having salvation, Tim being here and having our family all well, was enough to keep us happy and grateful.

After years of paying things down we had adopted Antonio and realized that his equipment took up a lot of room and that we needed to plan carefully for his care as an adult and as Tim and I aged.  We needed to make things as easy as possible as he was growing rapidly and getting heavy to lift in and out of a tub or put onto the toilet.  The small trailer bathrooms had no room for a lift and the bed rooms no room for a hospital bed.  When we had gotten our debt very low we decided to start saving to add onto our trailer.  I drew up plans and we decided we did not want to go into great debt to do this but would save till we had a enough for each part and do it in stages as we could afford it.  We would add down the back of the trailer making a room for the boys big enough for all Antonio's equipment and hospital bed and design a bathroom that would make his care easier and allow room for his lift.  We also would add a few bedrooms and a bigger kitchen and laundry room.

I spend a huge amount of time in my kitchen.  There is the making cheese from our goats milk to grinding wheat and making bread.  To doing things with produce from our garden all summer.  I really needed a larger kitchen.  My trailer kitchen was 16' X 12 feet!  With the cabinets in there and fridge and we had a deep freeze too.  Then also the washer and dryer were in there!  I was grateful for a home at all after Tim was sick and we lost our house.  So no complaints here all those years with that kitchen.  I just felt very blessed to have come to a time I could have something larger someday.  So we added on over many years.  Things still aren't all finished to this day.  But it is almost done.

Once we had the whole addition on we slowly finished off the rooms by priority.  The boys bedroom first.  Then the other bedrooms and handicap bathroom.  Then the laundry room.  The kitchen...well we just never seemed to come up with the amount of money to do the kitchen.  Kitchen cabinets and such are so expensive.  So we used it as a play area/schooling area and I just used the trailer kitchen as always.

In the above and below picture you can see it was ready to be a kitchen, plumbed and everything but was a play room for years.

I prayed about it once in a while but not fervently.  I figured eventually we would put it in and it was not of a huge importance so didn't think to much about it.  We were just so grateful for more space!

Then one day (2008) I got a call from a lady that had been Elizabeth's nurse several years before.  She asked if we had ever gotten around to putting in a kitchen for me.  I laughed and said "No, it is still a huge playroom."  She said she was remodeling her kitchen and wondered if I wanted her old kitchen cabinets.  She said they were well used and they were dark forest green.  I was excited and said, "Of course! Thank you so much!"  Tim and a friend went over and picked them up and brought them home.  When we set them up...They fit the space we had designated for cabinets perfectly!!  I also had been carrying around a huge, old, white, porcelain, kitchen sink for years every where I lived.  I kept saying someday I am going to build a kitchen around this sink.  We trimmed out the sink hole that was in the counter tops and the kitchen sink fit perfectly on the cabinets where it was supposed to be.  Yippee!  I had cabinets.  I had the paint matched and the nurse we had working for us offered to give them a quick new coat of paint and we were just thrilled.  We had the beginnings of a kitchen.  I was thrilled.  We moved the stove over from the old kitchen and brought over the refrigerator and we bought a family sized table and had a kitchen!  I gutted the old kitchen and turned it into a school room.

Here are the cabinets. This picture was taken a few weeks ago.  You can see we are hard on our kitchen and they could use another coat of paint.  I love the country look of them and am so grateful for them.

I was just so pleased with my new kitchen.  One day Tim and I were just sitting around casually dreaming about stoves.  He and I both do a lot of baking and the trailer oven was very small.  It did not hold a large sized casserole pan or large cookie sheets.  We actually went to Home Depo and looked around at them but saw the prices.  Tim looked at one and said, "that is the stove I would want if we could afford it."  It had a huge oven with a convection cycle and had one of those flat glass tops.  It was pretty but cost a pretty penny.  With in less than a week I got a phone call from our speech therapist saying her neighbor came over excited that she was having her kitchen remodeled in stainless steal.  She never used her white oven much and it was in great shape but her new one was being delivered today, did she know anyone that needed one.  It was 100 dollars.  She knew we had a large family and did a lot of baking... were we interested?  Tim and I went right over to get it.  It was just like the one Tim wanted at Home Depo!  Our kitchen just could not get any better!

With in a week I got a call from the builder that built our home.  He and his wife are amazing kind and he patiently built our home in stages as we could afford to do it and pay him.  He said he was remodeling his kitchen for his wife.   She wanted him to build her new cabinets.  Did we want the old ones?  He said they were the ones he built for her that went around the fridge.  We had absolutely nothing down the wall of the kitchen with the fridge on it.  We tried and tried to pay him and he would have none of it.  He brought them over and installed them for us around our fridge.

I was so humbled with what I was seeing.  God was building me a kitchen.  Every piece given to us or provided low cost and it all fit perfectly as if designed just for my dream kitchen.  How amazing when God does something how perfect it all is.

In a few months we got a call from that same builder and he asked if we had cabinets for over our stove.  We did not.  He wondered if we wanted some that went over the stove as his wife wanted something different.  He said that he had built these to match the part he gave us already!  He brought them over and installed them as well.

Can you see how the green cabinets that the nurse gave us stopped exactly right so this unit lined up perfectly over the stove!  God is truly amazing.

Over the years God has put my kitchen together for me with nearly no effort at all on my part.  He has blessed me with wonderful inexpensive pieces of furniture I have found antiquing with my dad or were heirlooms and given to me by family to fill the rest of my kitchen.

My favorite kitchen in the whole world is my own kitchen.  It is spacious beautiful and functional but the best part is it was a gift from God.  I am grateful for it every day.  It is a testimony to God of His hand and faithfulness in our lives!

Philippians 4:19  But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

 

Psalm 37:3-4  Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.  Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

Blessings, 

susan

 

Stop Animation

William is getting very good at his Stop Animation hobby.  His videos are getting longer and more advanced.  I love watching them.  To do stop animation one has to have a lot of patience.  Taking a picture, moving the character and things around him, take a picture.  Slight movement frame by frame.  It takes hundreds of picture frames to make a short clip.  One has to have a complete story in  mind and know what needs to be moving and how, all at the same time and then move them frame by frame.  It amazes me how he does this.  It is amazing to me how some of the things he struggled with in his youth having autism, such as seeing every detail in life and certain of those things bothering him, to thinking and seeing in pictures in his mind (his words, not mine)...have come to serve him well in his hobby of stop animation.  I think his attention to detail is just stunning at times.   Here is his most recent film.  Enjoy!

Thank you God for William and his sweet and obedient nature.  For all his amazing talents you have given him and his unique way of seeing things in life.  He is one of my greatest blessings!

Psalm 127:3-5  Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.  As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.  Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Foster Care

Tim and I have been retired from foster care for about five years.   

This is what we looked like as a family about that time!

We closed for many reasons.  We closed because we were overflowing in all areas of our life.  Our schedule and hours in our life were so full of child care (daily care, appointments, therapy and homeschooling) for medically fragile/special needs children, we had no more time to give from anywhere.  Not to mention normal household upkeep and a farm.  We were stretched as thin as we could handle, in the areas of sleep, money, energy, just every avenue there was.  I often felt as if Tim and I had a life of spinning plates and when one thing went down (hospital stays, surgeries, illnesses)  it was a struggle to keep the rest going.  We clung to God thru it all. 

I came to a place I could not do one thing more.  I started to have major health issues and we had to close.  Had to.  If it were not for God, I do not know how we ever would have lived the life we have and survived.  Don’t get me wrong.  Life was always good and we saw Gods hand in all things, at all times.   When we say that God helped us daily get everything done and it was not us that did it, we meant it.  There was no way humanly possible for it all to get done without Him doing it thru us.

  

Once we closed our home to foster care, life became ours and the most settled it had in a long time.  No more children coming and going all hours of the day and night.  No more case plans, visitations and crazy decisions by a judge.   We had adopted five times over the years.  When we closed, who was here was our family and we went forward as that family.  Stephen had just moved out into his own apartment and we had five still at home.

It was so nice to just be us but so many years of doing foster care put us all in a situation of trying to process the years of all that went on while working with the system.  We had lost count after over 40 children had went thru our home in the 9 ½ years we did foster care.   Tim and I had neglected each other and our relationship, at times, trying to meet all the needs and do all that needed doing.   I went thru a time where I had to discover who I really was.  If not a foster mom, than who?  Really I did.  It was hard to make the shift from all that constant change to stability and routine. 

God taught us so much in the years we served as foster parents but God has taught me so much thru those years after we retired too.  Tim and I have grown so much in our marriage.  I have been pruned by God in many areas and am such a different person than who I was just those short five years ago.    My goodness…the children have grown and God has stabilized their health so much in those years as well.  I now have a house full of young adults!

We just reopened with foster care again not that long ago.  We reopened wondering if God had any more children for us to raise, as unto Him, before we get any older.   If He does, we pray He brings them to us and if not, we are content and will just foster for a while. 

We had a visitor over the weekend.  

I didn’t share it with hardly anyone as I just felt to embrace the time with this child.  She was a newborn straight from the hospital and she needed my full and constant attention.  It was a beautiful and wonderful weekend and experience.   I could feel God in it and His help and hand, from the feedings every two hours around the clock, to seeing my children hold and love on one so small, with such gentleness and tenderness. 

But…it brought back to remembrance many feelings and thoughts that I knew about  but had not remembered and lived or felt in a long time.  The honest fact is foster care is full of ups and downs, twists and turns.  Not only in the cases but in the emotions you go thru as the caregiver of a child that you are fostering.  I forgot how quickly we bond to children and how hard it is to say good-bye.

The number one comment I have heard time and time again over the years while doing foster care is… “It takes a special person to do foster care…I could never do it…I could never let them go once they were in my home.”

Seriously, that is the most said comment to us and part of it is very, very true.  Letting go a child you loved and cared for as part of your family, is one of the hardest things about foster care.  There is no way to control the warmth that washes over your heart and mind as you nurture, bath, feed and pour love out to a child as you would your own.  There is also no way, I have ever found, to stop the ache in your heart when they leave.  You just have to grieve it and walk thru it.  Not pretty and not fun.  But the bottom line is this is not about us.  It is not about me or how I feel in it all.  It is about the child.  We are doing this for a child and for God.  If you do this for the wrong reasons and God is not in this, than it will not go well.   You will get caught up in coveting someone else’s child.  In speaking evil with our mouths against parents struggling with addictions and things in life we have never faced, instead of praying for them.  We will get caught up in cases, judgments and the dark sticky mess of the world we try so hard to keep away from as Christians.   If we get caught up in all of the above, our hearts and feelings are going to not be in love and our lives are going to be stressed, we will fall into sin.  If we get caught up in the worldly part of it, than our gift to God in doing foster care,  is not going to be a beautiful sacrifice and service to Him as it should be. 

If we can…If I can…remember to pray hard and leave it all in Gods hands.  To simply love a child while it is in our care and leave the rest to God.  To trust God with all of it.  I know all will be well and He will help us at every turn.  With every child as they come, thru their stay, at every visitation, court date and to help us process the grief of them leaving when they do.

God is so good to us always…May we serve Him, trust Him, give Him, all areas of our life, all the days of our life.

Lord be with little baby "T".  Keep her safe and may her parents find you and be led by you all the days of their life.

2 Timothy 1:7  For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7  Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,  Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;  Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;  Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Blessings,

susan

And Their Off!!

Monday was a big day for Elizabeth.  The day to take her braces off.  Yes, she only had them on since July.  But because of the big scare we had with her braces and an infection related to bacteria, in her mouth, that could have destroyed her heart.  We all decided it would be safer for her to cut down as much as possible the amount of bleeding and such in her mouth from heavy flossing and any metal. The largest part of reshaping her pallet has already been done and those appliances were due to be removed anyways.

So off they came.

She will be getting Invisalighn which is much less invasive and will reduce the risk of any sores developing from metal and the in depth flossing after every meal the metal braces required.

As we were leaving the dentist office I got a phone call from Tim asking to speak to Elizabeth.  He proceeded to invite her out on a date that evening if her mouth was not to sore from taking the braces off.  Since she had never been asked on a date with him before she was just extremely excited.  She was more than ready when he got home from work.

She chose Longhorn because..

One of her favorite foods is...

Steak!!  We don't eat it very often at all but it was on her list of things she could not eat with her braces on, so that was the first thing she wanted to eat once they were off.

They had a wonderful time.  Just look at that smile!

Then they went out for ice cream.

Elizabeth had the most wonderful day!

I give glory to God for our daughter and her life and health!  Thank you God!

Romans 15:13  Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

 

Blessings!

susan