A few days with friends and family...

We got to spend a few days with Lolli after our training and even got to get together with some of our friends.  It was soooo good to see all of them and the kids especially have missed each other!

Best buds!!!

Best buds!

Best buds!

I have missed these dear friends....

LOVE these sweet ladies!!!

The boys!

We were so excited to get to see these sweet cousins...and I think they were excited to see us too!  

We went and saw my parent's fellowships Christmas play and saw my dad play the drums!

And I got the sweet surprise of seeing this sweet friend!

We love our Lolli!!!!

Deer in my mom's backyard just hangin' out!

My daddy is in his element...just missing a grandbaby!

Live nativity...

Between three of us, we survived 4 doctor's appointments in 2 days...glad for healthy reports!

We visited our old home...lots of memories here!

We have missed our friends and family and so glad to spend time with them!

End of an era

We have wrapped up our time here and here are the last bits of pics I have left.  We are beyond blessed to have such wonderful training, friends, and facilities for these past few weeks.  We even were treated to some really yummy food...

All the quilts were hanging up and it was so neat to see mine hangin' with the rest.  Alot of love, time and hard work went into it!

Grateful He is all I need!

We had s'mores one afternoon after school with camping burners....we will take them however we can get them yum!

One night we got out and look at lights...wow this is a great example of a "tacky lights" and "neat lights"...Yikes!

We enjoyed a package from Melinda...thanks!

Last day of school...we will miss our friends!

We will miss our friends!

LOVE this man!

First snow of Winter 2013

Well we thought we would wake up to snow this morning and were disappointed when it didn't happen, but later in the morning it didn't disappoint.  It started snowing when we were eating lunch and the kids came screaming to the windows, "It's snowing!!!!"  It wasn't much, a mere dusting of sorts, but it was enough to bring some excitement to our day!  We will take it!

11 years ago...

I had gone shopping with my friend Christie and headed to Jay's apartment for a date night.  When I arrived, he had candles lit, roses in hand and got on one knee and asked me to MARRY him?! 

Of course I said YES!!!  It was one of the happiest days of my life and I would say YES! all over again!

This week's randoms...

Our time is coming to a close here and we are excited to be back home with family in just a week!  This past week a friend showed us how to make snow slime out of glue, glitter and borax.  The kids have had more fun with this stuff and I have never seen so much glitter everywhere in my life! :)

It is a treat for us to get out and about and we went on Tuesday night to Kids Eat Free night at McAlisters!  It was so worth it!  Lucy's laughter is so contagious and I love to hear it!

I love this time of year but this year seems so different.  I miss being home during this season and all the cozy Christmas trees and decorated mantles make me homesick!  Trying to keep in mind this is what it is all about...

My girl has been a reading machine lately.  I bet she has read at least 20 books while here in 8 weeks.   They have 4 kids in her class and they are having a reading contest.  For every book they read, they get a sticker on this board.  As a class, if they fill it up they get whatever picture is formed (ice cream sundae).  Her teacher told me that Karis alone has filled up more than half of the board herself!  So proud of her!  She fell asleep the other night reading with her light and clothes on!

We survived shot clinic 3 out of 3!  Woohoo!  Barely a tear...we are pros at this point!

Several of our friends all celebrated a birthday this week so we celebrated Jay's too since his is next week (the 18th).  Happy 38th to my special man!

Today we went to Five Guys for lunch and ended with yogurt from Sweet Frogs (after all those shots, we needed some ice cream, right?!).

Good week!  Headed home Thursday and looking forward to hugging a lot of necks!!!

We witnessed a MIRACLE!

We have been hesitant about giving Lucy nuts although we weren't sure she was allergic actually.  With a nut allergy in the family, we have always "assumed" she did.  So since we are about to move overseas, we decided to go ahead and give it a try so we would know.  I literally dabbed the tip of my finger in the Nutella and wiped it on Lucy's tongue and within 10 minutes she was coughing pretty badly.  I decided to take her home and watch her closely and soon after she was saying my back is itching soooo bad!  I looked at her back and this is what I saw...

I gave her TWO benadryl and scratched her back non-stop until it kicked in.  It got worse before it got better.

By 6:30 it was at the worst.  She even had whelps on her face and all over her scalp.  Even her lips were looking tight, but no trouble breathing.  I had the epi-pen in hand if it was to be needed but thankfully it never got that bad.

Finally the Benadryl kicked in and she fell asleep for about 30 minutes and I thought we were out of the woods.  The redness was still there but the hives were gone. 

Then she woke up wide awake which I thought was strange since she had been given TWO benadryls and usually one knocks her out.  We were watching a movie together in my bed and I noticed she was scratching again.  I paused the movie, turned on the lights and saw this on her legs (which was NOT there before).  I kinda panicked a little bit.

I called a nurse friend over and she said it was good that her hives were gone but it wasn't good that she was still reacting even on Benadryl and that she didn't think it could clear up without a steroid.  Since I knew I would get NO sleep if we went to bed like this, I decided since the minor med was open for another hour at that point, we were gonna go ahead and get her seen tonight.  So we booked it to the doctor 10 minutes away (and gave her NO more meds) and by the time we got there she looked liked this...

We could NOT believe it!  It was seriously a MIRACLE! 

God healed our daughter, there was no other explanation!

She was perfectly fine, no itching, hives and not even redness!  When the doctor walked in I told her it was a miracle...that God had healed her and that we probably didn't need her anymore.  She went ahead and looked her over and sent her home with no meds!

OH and gave her a pink popsicle while we waited on a strep test (precautionary since her throat was a little red...she had been coughing earlier in the night.  Strep test was negative.).

So thankful for all the prayers...HE heard them and chose to heal our little girl!  We know this could have been so much worse and we are giving Him all the glory!