End of Summer Craziness!

Isn't Carese adorable in her little denim jumper?

I have had very little time for the computer as we have been so busy!  Busy is great though - I'm so thankful to be active again.  I've been off crutches for over 6 weeks now and every week I'm getting stronger!  I was even able to walk through Woodland Park Zoo with out any knee pain 2 weeks ago - that was 5 hours of walking!

Here are some highlights of our last month:

The Mummy Mystery - can you guess who this is?

We decided one morning late in August that it would be fun to take a trip to the Woodland Park Zoo, but if we waited a week it would be exceptionally busy due to the Labor Day Weekend, so we decided to go that day, and within an hour we were packed and waiting for Daryl to come home from work.  

We left at noon and got there at 2:30.  At first we couldn't find a parking place in any of the parking lots, and due to my knee and Daryl suffering from Plantar Fasciitis, we wanted to park close.  So after going through all of the parking lots, I said to the kids, "Let's all pray for a parking spot.  Let's pray for a really good spot close to the entrance and that will be in the shade when we leave."  One of the kids said, "Can we ask for that?" and I assured him that we can!  I then prayed that God would build their faith through answered prayers!  As we turned in the main parking lot, I went for the gusto - drove right to the entrance, and low and behold, a family was just getting into their car...at the VERY FIRST PARKING SPOT, closest to the entrance!  Praise God!  But the best was yet to come - when we left, our van was indeed in the shade!

We had a wonderful time at the park - the kids behaved beautifully, no whining, no "I'm tired" and no"I'm hungry" heard the whole day (I did pack portable snacks and water, so that helped!).  We left the park just minutes before it closed, but we had seen everything that we had wanted to see and were more than ready to go home, tired feet and all.

 We saw some amazing animals and many of them up close.  We even got to see the elephants get their hose down and play with the game keeper and his hose!






The giraffes were amazing, and we got to watch one walk - incredible movement in such a tall animal!  And behind the giraffes were ostriches and zebras, but I couldn't get a good picture of those!






the lions were so awesome - this male was amazing to see so close up!













We watched some episodes of "Meercat Manor" last year, so it was fun to see them in real life.  They are much better fed at the zoo, however, and were actually really cute!















 We even got to see a real Ostrich Nest!  Boy those eggs are big - I think they'd even feed out entire family for a meal with just one egg!










Late in the day, we found some of the old cages that I remember from my childhood days, only they were empty and there were signs explaining the all the tigers had passed away and they were working on making a new habitat for them before they get anymore.  Then I suddenly recognized the fence as one that Daryl's siblings had lined up on for a now infamous family photo - they all looked like mafia or something like that.  So we decided to try and replicate that.  Only we had one serious problem....even though we were tired and hungry (we had a snack right after the photo), the kids just couldn't stop smiling!

The essence of the old photo was no smiles, not one - and we wanted to do this photo as a hats off to the original.   So this first photo is one of the epic fails...we had some great laughs as they all did their best to not smile, and failed miserably!

This second is the best we got.  I regret that I didn't notice that Jessica was in the light, but I might try to photoshop that one day!  Here's the original we were trying to recreate:




Anyway, we had a wonderful time.  The highlight was the otters - they were playing with Esther through the glass!  They would swim away and hide and them come back and surprise her!

And she was also very entertained by the penguins later.  Their antics are always so entertaining!

fter the Zoo, we picked up dinner at a local Safeway and I showed the kids where I took my driving test, and signaled to turn left and went straight.  Also where Pizza and Pipes used to be.  We eventually found the freeway again (roads closed, on-ramps under construction and such).  Daryl and I were marveling at how well the day had gone and how well behaved the children had been.  

 We decided that a stop at Dairy Queen in Marysville was most decidedly called for.  We acquired out cones/blizzards and were heading out when we found that we only had first gear.  Uh Oh.  We stopped in at Jack in the Box (Daryl's new favorite place to get milk shakes), and we talked to kids about praying for the van's transmission.  We drove around the block, and still just first gear.  We stopped and shut off the engine and asked the kids to pray once more....we left and tried again...and then the tranny went "Ka-Chunk" into second gear, and then into third.  We turned around and headed for the freeway!  We held our breath until each gear change!  But it worked and we made it home, safe and sound!  I was so thrilled that God had answered our prayers yet again!  What an amazing journey of faith for our children.  Sadly, our van is now parked until we can afford a new/rebuilt transmission for it.  Thankfully our truck is still running well!

The very next day was our church's annual picnic.  We had a great time, but I only got around to taking a couple of photos - this is Elizabeth's best friend Ruby!









And here's Elizabeth with a few other church friends!

And now for our latest adventure!  We have chickens again!  Last Friday morning, I asked the kids if they would be interested in getting layers again (the last time was over 8 years ago!).  By noon we had talked to Daryl and had decided that it was time to try it again (we have recently watched Food Inc, a movie about our food industry).  I put a notice on FB about layers, and by that night these beauties were in out newly re-modeled, former coop turned playhouse turned coop!

We had "farm fresh" eggs the next day!  One of my good friend's has a new batch of layers starting to lay and they wanted to find a newhome for last year's models, so for a little cash, we found ourselves the new owners of these little ladies!  We now have 5 Rhode Island Reds, 3 Barred Rocks, 2 White Leg Horns, 2 Aracanas and 1 Orpington Buff!  When we used to have layers, I loved to have different breeds for both the look of the chickens and the colors of their eggs!  So far we've gotten brown, green/blue and white!  And someone contacted me yesterday and they want to give us 4 Americanas and a mobile coop as well as 40 pounds of feed! We'll be picking up those on Thursday.  We have also ordered 25 Red Ranger Broilers that we will be raising for meat.    God is just blessing our socks off around here!

Carese finally got to meet her daddy's twin brother!

Carese is sitting alone!

And counting blessings, we joined a gleaners groups this summer and have been so blessed with all the produce we get there.  I have been canning and freezing and dehydrating!  I haven't done that in over 8 years now (since my business took off), and it's so great to be able to teach the younger ones to help with this important job of putting up food for the winter!  So far we have 28 quarts of plums and peaches canned, 5 gallons of beans frozen, 3 gallons of tomato sauce frozen, plum and apple sauce frozen (great baby food), and tons of bananas frozen and ready to make wonderful smoothies.  We also have strawberries, blueberries and raspberries in the freezer too! I also contacted our local butcher and have ordered a 1/4 grass fed beef to split  with a friend of mine - we'll be eating better than ever this winter! I've been making good use of Daryl's overtime, so when he's working normal hours again we won't be to strapped for groceries - we'll shop in our own garage!

 

This past weekend we got to visit with Daryl's twin brother, and Carese thought he was just fine!  She even showed off and sat up all by herself for a good long time!  Carese is lighting up our lives with laughter, squeals and fun antics these days.  She's just over 14 pounds now and so healthy!

We are about to start school around here, but need to finish up a few projects in order to have the school room prepared and all our harvest preserved.  I wish we could start right now, but I just can't yet - the computers aren't talking to each other!  Daryl will be fixing that soon and then I can get their school set up.

I'm hoping to blog more regularly soon, but I can't guarantee it!  I hope you are having a wonderful fall too!

Contemplating Charis

Charis, pronounced "Khar-ees" is a Greek word found in the New Testament and is often translated as "Grace," "Graceful," "Gift of God" or "Gracious Gift."  It's definition as found in the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance is "The divine influence on the heart as manifested in the life."  This is where we got the name for our little baby girl, Carese.  She is the physical manifestation of God's influence in our lives.  The faith that He has granted us to trust Him.  To put our lives on the line and follow His leading where ever that may take us.  Do we ever doubt, struggle or fall?  Yes.  But He's always there to pick us up, dust off the dirt and forgive us.  When we trust Him whole heartedly, He give us gifts that we would never dream would be so good for us.  Sometimes those gifts are things we would naturally, unknowingly avoid.  Others we fear.  But God is always good, in every thing and in every way.  He has proven this in our lives through the conception, pregnancy and birth of Carese.  Let me share with you how God worked to bring her into this world.

At our church camp out last week, there was the sharing time that happens every year on Saturday night.  I began to think through my last year since that event last year and my heart was full.

You see, last year at that event my husband shared that we were expecting our 12th blessing.  We had no idea what the future held.  I was already experiencing some unusual pregnancy problems, like accelerated heart rate/dizziness.  We had no idea how the next year would go.

The first hurdle was making it thought the first trimester without experiencing a miscarriage.  I experienced spotting on almost a daily basis, along with the feeling of being very fragile - like going up and down stairs might cause me to miscarry was the kind of feeling I was having. After some early blood work, the OB (who I hadn't even met with yet) prescribed progesterone suppositories for me and the feeling of fragility went away as did the spotting.

I got to meet the OB at 9 weeks, and had an ultrasound that showed Carese's little heart beating away.  The OB was surprised that I had conceived at my age (then 47), and even asked if we had been using fertility treatments!  She said something about it being amazing that I had conceived so late in life!  She was not terribly optimistic though, as she said she wanted me in for another ultrasound in 4 weeks to confirm if the pregnancy was still viable.

She also discussed with me that it was very likely that this baby would also have Down Syndrome since I had already had a child with Trisomy 21.  According to statistics, 1 in 100 babies born to mothers who have conceived a child with T21 who are of advance maternal age (AMA).  For the rest of the population of mothers conceiving, it'a 1 in 1000 births, and for women over 40 it drops to 1 in 100, over 45 1 in 30.  So that means that it was probably 1 in 3 that this baby would have T21.  She encouraged us to have testing done, but we refused.  I shared with my daughter's pediatrician "What's so scary about this" while I pointed to our daughter Ester:

I did agree that the health issues with a child with T21 can be difficult to deal with, but that I would welcome another child with T21.  Esther is the best nature baby/toddler/child we've had yet!  We did decide that it would be a good idea to get a good look at this baby's heart to rule out a heart defect, but that was much later in the pregnancy.

The next 11 weeks went fine - I was feeling tired, but that was about it.  I did have some problems with feeling my heart beat throughout my upper body/head when lying down at night, but didn't think much about it.

Starting at the end of October I came down with a bad cold.  After 2 weeks I shared with a friend that I was so done with being sick, that I wanted to be active again, but that I felt that God was giving me some kind of message about slowing down and taking it easy...I had no idea!

At my 20 week appointment, we had the next ultrasound and also found out that we were having a girl.  They were concerned about my BP so they asked me to come in again in 2 weeks.  I did, and in the meantime I was still sick (1 month after my comment to my friend).  I was also having stomach problems that I thought might be the beginnings of an ulcer.  The OB I saw that day poo-pooed the idea.

One week later, I was working at the computer when I felt like I was going to pass out, which I did right after calling my daughter to get her help.  After being taken to the hospital in an ambulance, they determined that my sinus infection had moved into my ears and caused me to be dizzy, adding to that my stomach ulcer, I passed out.  I was told to go home and not do anything that would cause me to get dizzy again - no computer/movies/reading....nothing that causes the eyes to move rapidly!  That's some pretty strict limitations.  After getting on antibiotics and stuff, I was off those restrictions in about 2 weeks.

The following month, just after having those restrictions lifted, they determined that my BP was significant and sent me to a specialist at the University of Washington.  I was told there that I had high cardiac output and high blood pressure.  These two indicated that it was likely that I would develop Preclampsia, a potentially fatal pregnancy complication.  I was put on strict limitations - I was not allowed to do anything that would elevate my heart rate!

We also had a fetal echocardiogram to check for any heart defects, and these was something there.  The cardiologist, whom we had worked with at Seattle Children's Hospital when Esther was there for her heart surgery, saw something that could be either nothing or a small VSD.  But she said that is was so small that the worst would be that she would have a heart murmur.

So, it was amazing/miraculous that I got pregnant, miraculous that I didn't miscarry, amazing that she had no heart defect, and now it would be miraculous if the pregnancy would not be ended early (via induction) due to pre-eclampsia!  We also possibly faced having to deliver at the U of W!

Well, I was a good girl, and the meds they gave me worked.  I had to change a lot of things with the kids chores and such to basically do nothing for the next 4 months, but we made it work.  Everything continued to go fine, seeing the specialist once a month and the OB every 2 weeks until we hit the last 6 weeks.  Then I had to go in every week for non-stress tests and ultrasounds as now we face possibly placental compromise (common in pregnancies with chronic high blood pressure).

Here I am about an hour before the coded me.
I had no idea what was about to happen.

At 36 weeks, Carese started showing sign of distress, so an induction was planned.  They told us about the potential of her needing to stay in the special care nursery for up to a week or so due to coming early, but that was better than her staying put and getting weaker.

 It took a few days to get into the hospital, and then a 2 day attempt at induction, going home for one night, and then things started to progress during the second attempt (but not until after another 36 hours).  I wasn't in labor, just mild infrequent contractions on pitocin.  They broke my water and everything was fine for a couple of hours.  Then I had a gush of fluid and after that her heart rate would decellerate during and after every contraction.  The checked and found that her cord had gotten trapped between her head and my cervix.  This is not something that happens often, but when it does it's life threatening.

They called "code purple" and in about 5 minutes I was being wheeled down the hallway to the OR.  Five minutes later (5 of the most difficult minutes of my life), they came and told Daryl and our daughters that Carese was born and doing fine!








She only weighed 4 pounds 14 oz, but she was a fighter.  She had great apgar scores and was held by everyone while they were waiting for me to wake up!  She was very serious about eating, as she had no baby fat whatsoever.  She was so incredibly perfect, but so incredibly tiny!







I've heard moms lament about not being with their baby for that precious bonding time, but I did not experience any such problems.  I knew she was mine, all mine, sent straight from the hand of my Father.  A precious gift to confound the specialists and fact finders and statistics.

She did not have Down Syndrome, she did not have any heart defect whatsoever, and she did not spend weeks in the special care nursery.  I would have loved her the same if she had come to us with all of the above, but I was amazed that God would do this to confound the experts.

Throughout the pregnancy, my dear husband, Daryl, prayed for three things - the easiest labor yet (got that as I never got into labor), Carese would be perfect and that I would be an example, encouragement and inspiration to other women.  God granted all his requests.  I tease Darryl that he should have prayed for an easy delivery, but even there God knew best as now I can relate to other women who have experienced emergency C-Sections.

So, my time of being "on the shelf" was far from over back in October when I was tired of being unable to do much.  In fact, just when I started to recover from my emergency C-Section, I twisted my knee and ended up dealing with  crutches and such for 4 months.  I am now, a year and a month after discovering that I was pregnant, finally back on my feet and able to start doing normal activities with my family.  I have learned much, especially to appreciate the little things like being able to carry my sweet Esther, or making dinner for my family, or actually walking into church holding my precious miracle baby.

She is our miracle, She is our gift.  She is our statement of faith.

I couldn't imagine going through a pregnancy at my age before I did.  I would not have thought I was strong enough.  But God knew that I could with the grace that He alone could give me.

With God all things are possible.  God can do anything, anytime, anywhere.  Statistics only show us how God has chosen to act in the past, and are no indication of how He is working or will work in the future.

We are so thankful!  And I think she is too:

Church Camp Out Part 2

So, I finally found another hour, give or take, to finish going through the camp-out photos,
and I've found some gems:

Isn't she just the most beautiful baby ever?????

My super man of a husband and one of his
 awesome round-house volleyball serves
(in case you can't read it, his shirt says
"My Real Job is Being a Dad")

Esther made new friends - they were dancing in the sprinkler together!

Esther having a quiet moment around the campfire

Lots of hair styles were tried out around camp,
but I think this was the most elaborate!

Sweet cuddle time - Jessica is an expert at putting Carese
to sleep when she's fighting sleep!

And then there's the SCBC Camp Olympics!
Jump roping made for the best photos!

The "medals" were awarded during the evening get together!
Reuben's team came in third place
Rebekah made all the medals this year and I think she did a great  job!

Ring Around the Rosie with super cute/helpful friends
They helped Esther go through the sprinkler too!

And I saved the best for last!
Carese was experimenting with stretching in her Bumbo Chair and it was so cute
I decided to take a photo and this is how it turned out
It just so looked like she was praising her Creator that I had to do something special with this photo!

Camp-Out Part 1, Knee & Orphan Auction Updates

First of all I want to update you all on our fundraising for the Reece's Rainbow Orphans - Alexandra, Kimberly and Gemma (see the side bars).  We started an auction about 2 weeks ago, and most of the auctions have completed.  If all winning bids are paid at winning value, we raised over $375 - but many of those paying have already given above and beyond what they bid!  Praise the Lord!  Once all the payments have been processed, I'll post updates on their adoption funds!

Update on my knee - I'm off crutches!  I experimented with going around without my crutches starting with just not using them at night and increasing more everyday and over the course of a week I was able to go an entire day without them!  Without pain!  I even made it through an entire week of camping/walking on uneven ground without them!  You have no idea how happy this makes me!  I still have to work to get stronger, but camping/walking/biking sure helped a lot!  No surgery for this momma!!!

Last week was our annual church camp-out.  We are one of the zealots that go up early - this year we went up on the Sunday, the camp-out officially started on Friday.  We had family time until others started arriving Tuesday.   More people than ever came up early, so by Thursday night the campground was nearly full already!
I'll let the photos tell the story, at least for the most part (they are not in order, as I just don't feel like working that hard tonight):

Carese loved camping, even when we
had to put socks on her hands to keep them from getting cold!

She loved having the girls try their hand at portraits!

Experimenting with objects close in focus....

A whole new way to have tummy time - she loved it!

More experimenting - the rose was made by Jessica out of playdough!

I love the sweet, loving expression on Jonathan's face....

But this one was better of Carese

My attempt at a portrait

The resident camp bandit - who needs racoons?

camp bandit assistant

Our camp charts - animal to represent each child
charts for camp clean up/cooking as well as Esther patrole
and on the right is the menu for the week

More close up focus experimentation - Dayton made a cool robot face in playdough!

Home sweet home for 7 days!
We ended up with 6 tents total by the end of the week!

Our sweet little camper!

A little help?

morning routines at camp

more focus practice

taking the girls for a ride

everybody gets into the riding thing!

That's all for tonight - I'll try to get to the rest of the photos tomorrow!