December 22, 2006

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Adia Faith arrived at the beginning of this year and what a blessing she is. After a lot of walking and some wheelchair lifting, she arrived 2 weeks earlier than her due date. Sometimes I think we should have named this little girl JOY because she’s full of it and she’s brought so much of it into our lives. We were voting for a boy but when I saw the ultra sound, I immediately fell in love with her. God has sure been good to us.

Hope turned 4 earlier this month and has she ever grown up since Landis started school. She’s becoming a big helper, making her and Grace’s beds, putting her folded clothes away and putting clean silverware away. She’s a hearty eater and has been very, very healthy. Hope is our most affectionate child and although she doesn’t know it, she’s teaching me about unrestrained and unreserved love and affection.

Landis is a handsome and clever 6-year-old. He’s busy reading, writing, adding and subtracting and he loves school. Landis helps me the most at this point and I’m so grateful for him. He puts dishes away, moves Grace, vacuums, dusts, makes his bed and folds his own clothes. He’ll make some little girl a very handy husband some day. Just kidding and don’t worry, he’s very good at running around outdoors through the grass, mud and stones, climbing trees, catching bugs and toads, fishing, pounding nails and jumping from high elevations…he’s all boy!

Grace is doing very well in school. That wasn’t the case in October and November. She was getting very frustrated because the communication techniques she was learning at Vanderbilt were a little different from what they were practicing at school. So Grace and I, the Special Ed teacher, and the speech therapist from school, all went to Vandy for an appointment with the speech therapist there so that everyone could get on the same page. Grace has been happy about going to school ever since. She's getting good grades again and is cooperative. As a matter of fact, following the Vandy appointment, the teacher warned me that Grace’s spelling words for the week were very difficult. Grace also had a Social Studies test that same week. She scored 90% on both tests AND she frequently scores 100% in math. That’s my girl!

Bobby is still working for Three Rivers Contracting and is looking ahead to a good year for singing, his passion. As much as Bobby has been gone from home with singing, activities at church and his day job, God has always made sure he was home for the birth of the children. He impressed me so when Faith was born. As labor intensified, he methodically gathered the things we needed as if he’d done it 100 times. He joked about knowing exactly what he was doing. I thank God for this man He brought me to. He’s the most patient, gentle and kind man I’ve ever known and I’m slowly but surely learning how to love him.

I had a hard time getting started with this letter. After reading all of the wonderful letters coming in the mailbox and email inbox about how wonderful everyone’s lives are and how it sounds like they have it all together, I thought, "Nobody wants to read my letter. Besides, it’s not that interesting." But once I got started I found myself sitting up straighter and getting excited about what I was writing. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you everything or I’d be up all night writing and that would make me a lousy mom the next day. And, fortunately, for you, I’ve condensed everything to one page. We’re very grateful and when you stop to think about your life and what God has done, you realize no person and no event is insignificant. I’m always amazed at how He weaves our lives together causing our paths to cross at the appointed time in order to bless and encourage each other. God’s goodness and mercy follows hard after me every day and I haven’t even begun to fathom just how blessed I really am to know Him!

My hearts’ desire for 2007 is to walk closer to the Father in order to be a better friend, mother and wife. But most of all to be a better witness of the love of Jesus. I’ll be praying this next year for you and me that our passion for the lost would become fervent, that our hunger for the things of God would abound and that our faith would rise to a new level so that we would expect to see His miracle-working power manifested in our lives.

When I don't write very often, it's difficult to determine what I should write ABOUT. There are many subjects. Grace had a canker sore that only gave us problems (REAL problems) for about a week. She has suffered with them for as long as 6 weeks. She caught a cold and because of the sinus drainage, her tongue was much more active and she bit it...who knows how many times. Big old sore on the tip of her tongue. We prayed over her, anointed her with oil and gave her colloidal silver (for the cold - but it I think it helped with healing the sore more quickly too).

Speaking of Grace, we've had some trouble with her at school. She chooses to holler out in class and make a fuss. Her second grade teacher asked parents to send a morning snack for the kids this year so I did but we've since eliminated Grace's 9:00 snack. It was a SNACK and when that tiny meal ran out she'd scream and fuss. She's doing much better now that we've taken that opportunity for her to scream out of the schedule.

Last week the teacher mentioned twice that the spelling words for last week were going to be much more difficult. They were to be tested on words like "weather" and "leather". Grace also had a social studies test last week but she got 90% on BOTH tests! I was so proud of her.

Oh and one other thing about Grace at school. Her second grade teacher called me a couple of weeks ago (can't remember why) and in our conversation she mentioned that Grace likes boys. I knew Grace preferred men in her company but I didn't know she liked the shorter, younger version already. The teacher and aide seat Grace between students and Grace prefers to sit next to boys, particularly one named Joseph. Even with her tantrums and drooling, she still seems to maintain a level of popularity at school. Just last night we went to see Hope sing with her PDO class at Bethel Baptist and a student walked by Grace to say hi and told me he was in her class at school. My dad has taken Grace to Wal Mart before and a couple of girls walked by her slowly and told Dad Grace went to school with them. That doesn't make her popular but they don't have to acknowledge they know her or go out of their way to say hello.

When Grace was in Atlanta for therapy her classmates were instructed to write letters to Grace to send to her telling her they missed her and what they thought about her, etc. The one I liked best went like this:

Dear Grace,
I have been missing you. I can't wait until you come back. I wish that you didn't even leave. Since you left I'm really sad. Hope you get to do different things.
Your dude,
Eli

Isn't that great? There were more cute ones and they talked about the thrill of making her laugh and how her laugh makes them laugh.

Well, I've got about 37 loads of laundry to do and I promised Grace we'd get those Christmas decorations out. We're busy at church for the next 2 weeks and it's real easy to get behind here at home. Once in a while I can get the next days' lunches prepared, clothes laid out, coffee and breakfast made and notes to teachers written early in the day and then I'm not up until 10:30 doing those things. That feels good but I don't get to enjoy that feeling very often. That's why I don't sit here and post blogs very much. I don't think it's a waste of time...it's just not a priority. Wish it were because I enjoy writing them and reading them later. I'd like to post several times over Christmas vacation. We'll see.