Please stay home when you are sick!!!

It’s the middle of the day, you’ve been cleaning all morning and your phone rings.  You have high hopes that it’s your hubby calling to invite you to eat lunch with him but you turn your phone over and it’s the school’s phone number.  You answer it and it’s the nurse telling you your child is sick.  Crap, you have a hair appointment tomorrow that you have been so excited about (your roots are about three inches too long) and then dinner with your girl friends that you haven’t seen in 18 days because well life is crazy.  

CANCEL IT!  All of it.  It’s not worth sharing your germs with others.  Think of it as extra snuggles with your children!!!  And for Pete’s sake keep your kid home from school until they are at least 24 hours free of symptoms.  I say this in the kindest way possible.  I know some people don’t have or have never dealt with a chronic illness but a little cold, flu, etc. can be detrimental to those who have other health issues.  Please be considerate of others and let’s all try to be a little better about this!!!  Praying this scary flu is over soon and that you all stay healthy!

P.S.  wash your hands often!!!!

God knew..

God knew but we didn't.

That Sunday morning in 2012 we received a phone call saying the birthmom changed her mind after giving birth.  I remember standing in our bedroom taking that phone call.  At that moment I felt as though our world was being turned upside down.  I was upset that God would put her in our path and just take her away before we even met her.  I longed to know how that baby girl was doing..if she was being taken care of properly..if she ended up going to foster care.  I thought about her for years.  I still think about her occasionally and pray for her but it's been awhile.  It's crazy when you are walking through a tough situation to realize God is in control.  He knew months later we would have adopt Adalyn and years later Ansley would be in our lives.  He knew our hearts would hurt but He also knew what would be in store for our family in the future.

Everything is made beautiful in His time.  Ecclesiastes 3:11

Pulmonary Hypertension Awareness Month

November is Pulmonary Hypertension Awareness month.  I was going to throw out a statistic about how many people have this nasty disease but really...even if there is only 1 out of a million we deserve a cure.  There's also a number out there of how long we (people with PH) have to live, I was told 2-4 years maybe and I'm working on year number 10.  The statistics don't mean much to me... Because those statistics didn't write my story....God did!!!  God knew I would have PH, God knows how many days I have left.  Does it worry me that I may leave this earth way too soon because of a lung disease?  Abso-freakin-lutely...but I made a vow when I was diagnosed to not let this disease control who I am and to not Google Pulmonary Hypertension.  Some may see it as I'm naive but I'm not!  I'm choosing to live my life to the fullest and not to let statistics control my fear.

But, with that being said I want people to be aware of this life threatening, life altering disease.  When I was diagnosed not many doctors knew what Pulmonary Hypertension was.  I would say I had PH and they would automatically assume I had high blood pressure.  I went to the ER multiple times and sat there for hours wondering if I was going to make it out alive because they wouldn't believe me on how serious of an issue I was having.  Today more doctors are aware of this disease.  A lot of people don't understand how serious this condition is because we don't look sick but our heart races with little exertion, we get short of breath easily, and if it's bad enough we have passing out spells.  

It took me four years and moving 700+ miles away for someone to properly diagnose me.  It shouldn't have taken that long, it shouldn't have taken me almost losing my life for them to figure it out.  So, if I can share my story and save one person's life..that would be great!!!  

Medicine has come pretty far since I was diagnosed, but there is still no cure.  I'm hoping a praying for a cure but until then I am going to be thankful for the medicine that saves my life everyday.  

110 days

So I wrote this post and then decided to delete it..... 

110 days ago our life went from being comfortable to a world wind of good chaos.  Within a 24 hour period we found out about baby girl and immediately put our lives on hold to bring her into our family.   We went from a family of four to hoping to become a family of five.  It has been a hard road but I would do it all over.  That sweet little face, that is so similar to her brothers, I just can't imagine life without her now.  We have been there with her every second since we picked her up from the hospital.  We were the first ones to see her cute little smile, woke up with her every night, changed diapers, taken her to doctors appointments, worried over every little thing, but mostly we have see Adalyn and Josiah fall in love with her.  Josiah loves to kiss her face off and Adalyn squeals when she smiles at her.  She is a part of this family and we love her so much.

We have 5 days until court..  I feel like the countdown for this day has taken forever.  I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared or worried sick over the whole thing.   We won't know if the birthfather will be in court until we walk in that courtroom on Wednesday morning.  Best case scenario is that he doesn't show at all.  Worst case is that he comes to court and we have to wait another month or two to go back to court.  

We are so thankful for all of our family and friends (old and new) that have prayed for us, called to check on us, sent text messages, and have supported us financially.  We have been truly blessed and love each and every single one of y'all.  We are just continuing to pray for God to do what is best for my sweet girl and that the birthfather would also see what is best for her.  We have seen God's work throughout this and we know that He isn't going to stop here!!  No matter what happens on Wednesday I know that this journey is exactly where God wants us to be.  He chose us to love, care, pray, and protect her and I won't ever stop doing that.  

–Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  Proverbs 3:5

(I didn't use her name for safety reasons)

After posting this I thought....I made that seem like we weren't struggling, like everything was just hunky dory (is that how you spell that?!)  I have been completely honest with our peeps from day one so I don't want yall to think this is easy, but I'm not one to have a pity party.  We need prayers...and although I feel like a complete basket case at least a couple times a week I really do believe that God will take care of us. ( And just maybe our struggles can help someone else going through a tough time.) It just might not look pretty...there may be some ugly crying going on but we will get through this with the support from our people and love from our God. 

M&Ms and School Talk

Josiah started kindergarten this week!!! OMG...I can't believe it.  I will do another post later about that (hopefully...ha!)

 

I don't know about your kids...but Josiah never wants to tell me how his day went.  Last year in Pre-k I would ask him and he would say "I can't remember."  Thankfully, before we moved I had friends that their kids would tell them about their day so I would get the scoop from them. 

 

We had an incident when we first move here that one of the kids were being very mean to Josiah and I didn't find out until the teacher conference at the end of the year.  Well since we are new here, I don't have anyone to ask yet.  I was determined to get a little bit of information out of him.  I decided to have an M&M Questionnaire.  I would let him have one fun size pack of M&M's and he had to tell me a color and I would ask that question on that color that I previously made. 

 

 

This worked great and he even opened up about some other things they did at school!!!  I posted a picture of it on Facebook and Instagram and everyone loved it so I thought I would share on here so maybe it will help out other parents too!!! 

I think I am going to try to do this once a week in hopes that I can get him to start talking to me just a little bit about school!!! 

Beach Week in Pensacola

Last week we headed back to Pensacola (the kids and I were there for three weeks prior to this!!)  We rented a beach house as we do every year!! 

 

Josh and I decided to have our friends over the first night!  It was so good seeing all of them!!!  We miss them like crazy!

 

The rest of the week we spent with the family. 

One night Josh and Josiah went to  Blue Wahoos game with our friend Porter. 


We fished and fished some more.  I don't know when I started to like fishing (it's new), but I could literally do it all day long!!!!




Uncle Bobby loved sitting on the front porch watching the ladies errrr....maybe the blue angles too!!!


One of the days Josh, Josiah and I went on a charter boat in the bay!  It was the first time Josiah went and he did great!  He caught some great fish.  Captain Tim was amazing with Josiah and very patient. 



Josh and I stayed up WAY too late at night to fish but it was so much fun!!! 





We were lucky enough to see the Blue Angels fly a few days which was pretty cool.  Josiah loved them but Adalyn said they were "too loud!"

I am so sad that we had to come home but we had such a great time!!!  I love the beach and the memories that are made there!!  Till next time Pensacola Beach!!!!

Razorbacks

We were trying to think of something fun an inexpensive to do this weekend.  They have a drive thru safari close by and we were thinking about doing that when someone at Josh's work told him about Kids' Day at the Razorback stadium.  We ran out and got us some razorback attire because we didn't want to stick out in the crowds.  Man, I'm so glad we went!  It was beautiful out and we had so much fun!  Vendors had tents set up handing out free samples of stuff like yogurt, cereal bars, hand sanitizer, etc. and then they had at ton of blow up slides/bouncy houses for the kids!  

I hope everyone had a good weekend!  We are supposed to get really bad weather in a few hours.  Bring it on first severe storm since we moved.....jk please just pass over with some light sprinkling.