Conversation

After painting Hannah and Mya's fingernails, they walked over to the couch and had this conversation:

Hannah: "Look at my nails Mya!"
Mya: "Oh, that is beautiful."
Hannah: "My Julie did them."
Mya: "Look at mine."
Hannah: "Oh you so beautiful, Mya."
Hannah: "I like your shoes Mya."
Mya: "Oh thanks."

Mya: "You be Ariel."

Hannah: "You be Barbie."
Mya: "Otay!"

Then they took off running through the house chasing after each other. So cute!

Family Reunited

Dan and I had a wonderful weekend in Sugarcreek, Ohio. We attended a marriage retreat through our church and stayed at a wonderful place called the Carlisle Inn. The accommodations were amazing and we especially loved the king size bed. Sara stayed with my Mom and Mya stayed with my Dad and Kim. Mya did great at my Dad's house, but Sara had a tough time being away from us. My mom called us late Saturday afternoon to let us know that Sara was miserable and had a terrible cold. So she was so gracious and drove Sara to Sugarcreek so we could stay at the retreat. Sara stayed the night with us and did great. All the married couples at the retreat LOVED having Sara around. She got passed around all night. She slept through the night and took a nap during the church service in the morning. When we arrived at my Dad's house to pick up Mya we were greeted by Mya and Kim at the front door. Mya was so excited and yelled "Mommy, mommy, mommy!" and ran into my arms. Then she saw Dan get out of the car and yelled "Dan, Dan, Dan!" and ran into his arms. That was the funniest thing ever. Occasionally she will call him Dan because she hears Hannah call him that but she doesn't do that very often. For some reason she felt like she needed to call him Dan instead of Daddy today. Once we picked up Mya we went to the grocery store and headed home to unpack everything. Back to reality! The girls were pretty needy and wanted to be held all the time. Sara even fell asleep in her highchair during dinner. She didn't sleep much when she was with my mom so she was very tired today. She took lots of naps!



The marriage retreat was centered around the movie Fireproof. If you haven't seen the movie yet, please make sure that you do. It is excellent. Dan and I saw it in the theatre, but it was great to see if again to be reminded of how important it is to take care of our marriage. We find it difficult sometimes to focus on our marriage because the kids take up so much of our time. At the retreat we had some great conversations with couples. One couple had a great testimony about how they did not have to go through the 'empty nest' experience when their kids left home. They talked about how they put their marriage first while their kids were growing up so when their kids left home they were excited to have a quiet house and be together. That makes so much sense! Dan and I try to date each other, but we know how easy it is to put that on the back burner.

God is our first love, then we love each other, and then we love our kids. This is such an important concept to keep in mind. The speaker that we had on Saturday talked about how we need work hard at saying five things to our spouse when we have conflict (except I can only remember four things right now). We need to say, "I'm sorry.....I was wrong.....forgive me.......I love you." We talked about how important it is to have your heart be involved with these words rather then just saying them so the conflict can be over. I am so guilty of saying "I'm sorry" so we can be done with the debate rather then saying it because I really mean it. Barriers in your marriage get broken down when these phrases are said from the heart. And we know that when barriers get built up over time it is hard to break them down. This happens in all relationships when we don't want to let go of things. God and only God can be the one to give you a spirit of forgiveness when you don't want to forgive. So if you have God in your heart then He can make your marriage great!

Surgery Date

Dan finally has his surgery date scheduled. His appendix will be removed on April 22nd at 7:30 AM. We would appreciate all of your prayers for a smooth surgery. I am excited for Dan to be able to have his regular level of activity back. I know that he has been missing lifting weights and running. Yesterday he had a doctor's appointment and he got the clear to run and lift so he made sure to do both of those things after work. It was good to see him get to exercise again.

We have some exciting news in our household. Mya is finally potty trained. It was just like something clicked with her yesterday. She just got the hang of it and is doing really well. She is even accident free during her naps. Sara is surprising us with some new developments too. Yesterday she was playing with the girls and I wasn't paying attention to where she was. I asked Hannah where she was and she told me that Sara was upstairs. I shrugged it off and kept typing an e-mail. But then I heard noise upstairs and noticed that both girls were downstairs. I asked Hannah again where Sara was and she pointed upstairs. I turned the corner and there was Sara staring at me at the top of the stairs. She was getting ready to tumble right down all the stairs. I ran up the stairs as fast as I could and grabbed her just in time. I didn't know she could even climb stairs. She also learned how to wave and clap yesterday. And.....she can stand all by herself for 5 seconds. Wow! I feel like she is just going to start talking to me one of these days. I know that I might be partial because I am her mom, but she certainly seems advanced for a nine month old.

I started writing this blog entry during nap time today and now it is 8:30 PM and I am finally getting around to finishing it. Whew! It was quite an afternoon with the girls. When both of them are fussy it gets intense. I finally put them all in the car and drove them to Mansfield to pick up my ring that was getting fixed. They enjoyed getting out of the house and it was good for me too. Sometimes I just get so frustrated when I can't meet their needs. Mya is at a tough age where she is trying our patience all the time and Sara needs me for just about everything. And we want a third child. What??????? Even though some days are very tough, I STILL love being home with our children. I consider myself very blessed for what I have. Being a christian certainly doesn't mean that life will be happy and easy all the time. It is important to remember that God sharpens us through trials. If we didn't have trials then we wouldn't have opportunities to learn things about ourselves or others. Trials are good and at the end of the day I praise God for giving them to me!

Dress Up

The girls decided to play dress up this morning. It was quite comical! Here are a few snapshots of their gorgeous outfits.

Loving Arms

Veggies

I recently got this great idea from a friend in my bible study. Now I LOVE my husband very much, but those of you who know him know that he is a picky eater. So of course I work hard to make sure that my girls eat a variety of foods and like them. I want my girls to be just like their daddy in many many ways, but not in the way of eating food. When I was talking to my friend at bible study one night, she suggested that I have a plate of fresh veggies that I put out every day at dinner. That way I can make sure that the girls eat vegetables and can make a choice of which vegetables they want. This has been a fantastic idea! Not only do I put it out at dinner, but I also have it available for morning and afternoon snack, in addition to other snacks. I also offer a variety of dipping sauces sometimes like peanut butter, ranch dressing, and cream cheese. Below is a beautiful picture of my veggie tray. You will also see a picture of Mya enjoying her veggies during her bath today. She would request a vegetable, Hannah would go get it for her, and then she would eat it in the bathtub.

"I made a lellow!"

That is definately not a typo in the title of this entry. It is just Myanese talk. We are working on potty training her and she gets so excited when she goes. She yells to everyone in the house, "I made a lellow!" In translation that means, "I made it yellow." She learned from Hannah that when you go to the bathroom your pee is yellow and that is a very cool thing for a toddler. Mya successfully goes to the bathroom right before her bath in the evening, but we haven't mastered going in the toilet during the day. We are still working on that, but it will come in due time.

I wanted to dedicate this entry to Mya because we have seen so much growth in her lately. She is changing constantly and we are so proud of her. She hasn't been the easiest two year old. We have definately had our ups and downs with her, but I am seeing signs of maturity this week. She is responding to discipline much better and obeys us more often. She has not been quite as clingy and we have seen less tantrums. Today she sang the whole alphabet song by herself for her Daddy. He was so impressed with her knowledge. He always tells her, "Mya...you are so wise." Today at the dinner table she told him that she is wise. Those two crack me up sometimes. There are stories of Dan eating chapstick when he was a toddler. Guess what I caught Mya doing today? Oh yes....she was hiding in a corner eating her chapstick. Blah!!! She is very much like her Daddy in many ways.

Husband Challenge Update

So I totally forgot to update my blog once I finished the 30 day husband challenge. I did finish it! If you are interested in trying it, click on this link: http://www.reviveourhearts.com/pdf/30DayChallenge.pdf

It is amazing what God can do in your marriage when you commit a whole month to speaking positively to your husband. The best part was that Dan didn't know that I was doing it. So if I messed up and said something negative I could only turn to God and ask for the strength to do better next time. It was amazing how my thinking changed. I learned how to be more positive and looked at Dan differently. Those little things that drive me nuts didn't bother me quite as much. However, it is important to know that when you start this challenge Satan wants to join too. It was most difficult during the first week because Satan found ways to keep me from being positive. But God overpowered him and carried me through.

Dan and I had a really neat moment one night when he was in the hospital last week. I usually found a babysitter in the evening so I could spend time with him when there weren't any visitors. One night we were just sitting there looking at each other, trying to decide what to talk about. Dan said to me, "Tell me something that I don't know about you." And I said, "Last month I did a 30 day husband challenge." Dan wanted to hear all about it and was so excited that I took the initiative to do something like that. He said he knew something had changed with me, but didn't know why. He said that I was much more positive with him. That made me feel so good, although I did not do the challenge to get a compliment from him. I wanted to do it for him and for our marriage.

Bathtime Fun

I haven't posted a picture in a while so I thought I would put up a fun one. This is a picture of Mya taking a bath with her cousins. Mya spent most of the evening yesterday at my sister's house while I was at the hospital with Dan and Sara.

"Ouch"

My poor, poor husband. He has been through so much in the last week. Yesterday (Friday) we got a call from the doctor regarding Dan's CAT scan that he had that day. The abcess in his appendix needed drained so we were asked to come to the hospital for the procedure. Neither of us knew what this entailed, but we went to the hospital hoping it would be easy. The procedure took about an hour. They had to insert a catheter, while he was in the CAT scan machine, in order to drain the infection. He needed additional pain medication because of the discomfort. He said it was extremely painful. When the procedure was over, he was instantly nauseous and it was severe. They laid him back down and took him to a recovery room. It was very hard to see him in this state. We waited about an hour with the nurse and tried to get him up again. Once again, he was hit with a wave of nausea. As long as he didn't move he was fine. They decided to take him to a room upstairs to keep him under observation until the sickness passed. We were in the room for four hours and then just like that he was fine. I was able to bring him home around 10:00 last night. To top it all off, I had tooth surgery in the morning and left my pain medication at home. I hadn't planned on staying at the hospital that long. Luckily I knew someone at the hospital who gave me some motrin. And to add more fuel to the fire, baby Sara decided to cry from 1:00 AM-4:00 AM with no break. So I was up with her most of the night. I have gotten little sleep since this whole thing started with Dan's appendix rupturing so I pray for some sleep tonight. We both decided that we need a nice vacation after all of this is over. We have our marraige retreat coming up and I pray, pray, pray that we can go to that. He is supposed to have his appendix taken out sometime around that date. On a positive note, the girls' colds are getting better and we have been fever free for the last 24 hours. I am so grateful that I can open the windows today and let in some fresh air. In the midst of all the trials, I see that God is so good to us.

Home Sweet Home

The girls have their daddy back and I have my sweet husband home at last. I brought Dan home this afternoon around 1:00. We had a fun afternoon with the girls. Dan sat in the lazy boy chair while we watched a movie and he watched the girls play. We are so happy to have him healthy, although he is restricted in what he can do. He can not lift anything over 10 pounds and it still hurts him when he is up walking around. I am just grateful to be able to take care of him all the time now that he is home. It was sweet to see Mya sit with him in the rocking chair this afternoon. We just pray that he continues to heal with the oral anitibiotic. There is a chance that he could regress since he is home, but we are only hoping for the best.

Dan May Be Coming Home

This morning Dan woke me up with a phone call at 7:00. He was calling to tell me that he was going to get a CAT scan and then the surgeon would review the results with him. About an hour later he called me and sounded down. He proceeded to tell me that the surgeon wanted to keep him in the hospital for at least three more days. Ugh! I wasn't prepared for those results. Things are healing just fine, but he needs more healing time at the hospital before he can go home. Needless to say we were both pretty bummed. But, I went to visit him this afternoon and the surgeon came in with a different story. He decided that if Dan does well with starting on solid foods today and tomorrow then he might be able to go home tomorrow (Wednesday). Yeah! The girls and I can't wait for him to come home. Unfortunately Mya is getting over her cold and Sara spiked a fever today (103.5) so I am hoping that the girls feel better quickly before their Daddy gets home. That's all we need is to get Dan sick when he comes home. The girls and I are doing much better with Dan being in the hospital. The first couple days were tough emotionally, but we have adjusted. They will have a tough time when they find out that they can't sleep with mommy in the bed at night. I started a bad habit to cure my loneliness. Oops!

Surgery Still to Come

I thought I would update everyone on Dan’s condition. He is doing much better. He was very sick when we took him to the ER on Friday, but we are grateful for modern medicine and doctors. Tomorrow (Tuesday) he will have another CAT scan to see how the infection is doing. As of now, the surgeon is talking about sending him home this week on antibiotics and doing surgery to remove his appendix in a month. He should be able to return to work next week. Dan has handled everything really well, although he is pretty bummed about not being able to run and lift weights. The kids and I are hanging in there too. It was a tough weekend emotionally for me as I had to adjust to not having him home and know that I couldn’t take care of him 24/7 like I wanted to. I wanted to be at the hospital all the time, but the kids needed me too. Mya is sick with a high fever and cold today so I feel like I am being pulled in many directions. But we are so grateful for God’s grace and for all support from friends and family. We appreciate your prayers!