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I hate sending sympathy cards in December...

And I hate sending Get Well cards to people who's lives were normal just last week and now great uncertainly is ahead.....

And I hate the things I've had to pray about lately.....

And if Christian could read he would tell me that I shouldn't use the word "hate" (we're not allowed to in our house), but the Bible tells us that Satan comes to steal, to kill and to destroy and man do I hate him.

But JESUS came that we might have life and have it more abundantly!!! I guess all this grief just makes the gift of Jesus even sweeter. Heartache is what reminds us of the HOPE we have in Jesus. Heartache makes us tired of this earth and creates in us a longing for Heaven.


Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
2 Corinthians 9:15

2010 Christmas Card

Lovely Leaves Story Christmas 5x7 folded card

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I just wanted to share our 2010 Christmas Card. We didn't order a ton of them this year (aren't cards gettting so expensive) so we mainly sent them to family that's out of town! But I love it! I think you can click on it and read the inside (it's so cute!!)!! Enjoy!

"Ken Ken"

McKenna and I were shopping the other day and when we got in line the lady waiting behind us asked McKenna what her name was. Without missing a beat McKenna said "Ken Ken." Apparently the nickname Christian has given her is going to stick. Not sure if I love it, but it does sound awfully cute when she refers to herself as "Ken Ken."

And speaking of names, we still don't have one for this little boy. I think we're close, someone just needs to give in (and it's not me)! Ha! Well, one of us will compromise at some point. If Christian had his way we'd call this boy "Andrew" and be done with it. I will give Christian some credit. He does come up with pretty decent names. So far his favorite names have been Thomas, Micah, Carter, Joshua and Andrew. Not bad, although he's pretty much just copying off of his friends names, but that's okay.

Ryan and I pretty much have a name discussion everyday, but it only lasts for about 2 minutes when we both tell each other the name we like and then realize that we still don't agree and we drop it. Clearly we are just awesome communicators that always put each other's ideas before our own :) Oh but seriously, he's been such a good sport about this pregnancy. I would not say that I have been the most pleasant person to be around. My body just aches so bad by the time 6pm rolls around (I think this might have to be my last baby in my 30's, I don't think my body could do this again) and that's right about the time he shows up. I'm sure he loves it.

Well, I've gotta go get Ken Ken up from her nap :)

She's A.W.E.S.O.M.E

I love this picture of McKenna's sweet face as she concentrates on her Leapster. She's growing up so fast, I can hardly stand it!

She's started something new this week that cracks me up. Here's a list of a couple things she's said lately:

"Mom, it would be awesome if I could have some bananas on my cereal."

"Did you see that commercial? Wouldn't that be awesome to get for Christmas?"

"I'm doing an awesome job with no binkie! Daddy will think it's awesome."

Are you noticing a trend?

Christmas in Illinois 2010

The kids always look forward to celebrating Christmas (during our Thanksgiving visit) in Illinois!
And we love getting a chance to celebrate with our cousins!
That's Zavier. He's McKenna's age and he did a great job sharing his toys with Christian and McKenna.

Does he look thrilled or what?? He was actually wishing for that Lightning McQueen race track! It's been played with a ton since we've been home!

McKenna loved her snuggly new bear with it's personalized blanket inside.

Grammy and Grampy gave Christian some special snacks for the car ride home!

And they gave him an air hockey table. Oh my word he thought he was so grown up!!! He loves to play and is actually very aggressive about it :) What a boy! This was such a great gift because he doesn't have anything like it!

McKenna got a new baby doll that pretends to eat bananas and drink juice. It's one of those Baby Alive babies and we asked her what she was going to name it and all of us were suggesting names. She kept telling us "no" whenever we mentioned a name, so I just dropped it. A few minutes later McKenna found me and told me that her name was going to be "Apple Dumpling." And that made perfect sense since this baby had apples on her shirt! So cute that she just needed to think about it for a few minutes before naming her! And she adores this baby and takes it everywhere with her. She loves to look at toy catalogs and find her in the magazine! I think she thinks Apple Dumpling is famous ;)

What I don't have pictures of are the awesome presents the kids got to open from Aunt Angel when they got home. I've got to get some pictures because Christian got a radio control 4-wheeler! Oh my word he adores it! He drives it inside and outside. It has working headlights on it, so you can even drive it in the dark! And McKenna got a set of baby gear that has just been perfect for "Apple Dumpling." She now has a bouncy seat, pack-n-play, booster seat and stroller!

Thanks so much to all our family in Illinois for being so generous to our children! They are most certainly blessed to have you in their lives!

Yippee Jesus!!

This morning there was a period of time where I thought I was dealing with some pretty bad news, but just wait till you hear this story of great blessing.

Today was my six month check up screening for Glaucoma. You might remember my eye doctor visit from six months ago when it looked like I was in the early stages of Glaucoma. Glaucoma is basically when the pressure in your eye is too great and over a period of time you can begin to loose your eye sight and eventually go blind without treatment. It's a disease that runs in families, so my sister's eye doctor actually was the one first noticed that the pressure in her eyes is too high and that news was what sent me to the doctor.

This morning they checked the pressure in my eyes and it was higher that it had been in June. Not good. I had been hoping for no change or even a lower level (since these levels do fluctuate a little bit even throughout the day). But mine was higher by several points. Ugh. I sort of felt sick.

But my doctor is on top of her game and she told me "We're not going to worry until we're sure there is something to worry about." Which immediately made me think of Matthew 6:25 in which Jesus basically says the same thing. Good advice. Thankfully my doctor is awesome because she continually educates herself by going to conferences and she had been to a conference on Glaucoma just three years ago where she learned about some awesome new technology. So she did another peripheral vision test. It came back fine. So there was one more thing to check. Apparently the thickness of your cornea has a lot to do with the pressure in your eye.

((Have I lost you yet???))

So she wanted to check the thickness of my cornea (oh yuck) and if it would happen to be unusually thick then my pressure readings are probably off and the pressure in my eye is probably just fine.

I actually wanted to run out of the office because I was not excited about them probing my cornea. I think I actually told them that I would rather give birth (which I now know is not the truth because the test wasn't bad at all and just for the record: childbirth is no walk in the park). They probed all around my eye (it's sort of like a mini-ultrasound of sorts for your eye). The numbing drops really worked because I didn't feel a thing. I just wanted to blink but couldn't because they were holding my eye open.

And guess what???? I have thick corneas!!! Yippee!!!! Like I have super thick corneas, which means the pressure in my eyes is probably normal! Which means I am not in the early stages of Glaucoma! WooHoo!!!

I will continue with Glaucoma screenings for several more years (they've got a good baseline for all the tests now), but this is really, really good news!

Did you know that the thickness of your cornea is one of the most hereditary things in your body? Who knew! I can't wait to tell my siblings. Amy is going to have to get her cornea probed (Ha! poor girl!!) because chances are she doesn't have anything to worry about either! But she needs to find out for sure!

So this is a very, very exciting answer to prayer! Whew!

Notice anything missing??

That's right? He's lost a whole bunch of teeth lately. I haven't even been able to keep up with him on the blog. He's very independent about the whole thing, which I appreciate. He wiggles them and pulls them himself without too much drama. The bottom two middles ones are "grown up" teeth and he's got another "grown up" tooth coming in down there too. I'm getting worried because I don't think there's enough room for all the new teeth, so we'll see what happens!

I will also say that Christian really does know how to work the system. He is not a believer in the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny or Santa, but he still likes to pretend. Lately he's been giving me messages to tell the Tooth Fairy and to tell Santa. Apparently the tooth fairy should know that he does not like money, he just likes toys. Specifically Disney Cars toys. So far the tooth fairy has not been a disappointment :)

And the stocking were hung....