Bless The Lord!

Wow, it's been a long time since I have done anything on my blog, I am sorry to all you blog readers! Last week we have been busy trying to get over colds, Andrew got a really bad cold last Monday and I got it on Friday, we both feel very much the same, like sleeping, the only difference is that I don't cry about it. :) Andy was feeling better but then he started coughing again yesterday, the poor guy catches everything. But so far he has been able to fight it on his own for which I am very thankful!!

Having had to deal with colds got me thinking of how often we take our health for granted. If any of you are at all like me, you never really think of how you're feeling unless you are sick. And is it not that way with so many of God's blessings to us, we don't really notice, and we hardly ever think to say thank you for all that we have been given, but as soon as our world is shaken, even a tiny bit we start to worry and complain, asking God why He did this to us. I have often wondered to myself if God does take things away from us just to see if we will then remember from who we have received these gifts and if it will then cause us not only to be more thankful, but also to encourage us live each day praising Him for all that He has done for us.
Andrew will always be the perfect example to me, all through my pregnancy with him I always thought about having a "healthy" baby, sure in the back of your mind you do carry some, "what ifs", but you never think of them for to long, Until God blesses you with a special baby that needs extra care and love right from the start. But did God send us Andrew to us so that we would learn to trust Him more? Did He see that some where down life's road we would need to have a strong and solid relationship with Him and He wanted to strengthen it now? We will never know why we have to travel this road, we only know that God has a very good reason, and we want to make sure that we don't miss out on it. God has given us such a sweet blessing, we are still amazed at the love that we have for our son, and we do not want to take any kind of blessing for granted! God knows what He is doing, we just want to make sure we will be ready at all times to be a part of whatever it is!
So as I carry on with my day and continue to cough and listen to Andy cough and keep on wiping noses, I want to praise my Lord for the beautiful son that He has given to us, for the health that we hope to soon enjoy again, for the love that so richly flows from above and that we serve a God that gives and takes away, so that we will continue to remember how blessed we are! We truly do serve an awesome God, may we never forget to praise Him!!

Bless the LORD oh my soul and all that is in me bless HIS HOLY name.

Bless the LORD oh my soul and forget not all HIS BENEFITS.

WHO FORGIVETH thine iniquities, WHO HEALETH all they diseases.

WHO REDEEMETH thy life from destruction, WHO crowneth thee with LOVING KINDNESS and TENDER MERCIES.
Psalm 103:1-4

Thank You for Your Prayers!!

Andrew is doing fine, the appointment went very well. The specialist did not sound worried and said that all we can do for now is to watch Andy. The lump he has is in between the two veins that pump blood to and from the brain and right now is kind of pushing them apart. But there really is nothing they can or want to do as long as it is not causing any obstruction to the veins. The specialist thinks that the reason that it has grown is because he is a baby and everything in his body is being told to grow. So he will be going in for another MRI when he is a year old and we will see if it has grown more than it should have according to how much he has grown.

They have only found 10 other cases like this in babies, more in adults, the reason for this is most likely because not a lot of babies have MRIs done, but in both babies and adults they do not want to do surgery unless it would for sure be worth it. The most common symptoms of this growth are head aches, dizziness, fainting and in the worst case a stroke, so not until any of these symptoms get really bad do they do anything.

So we really don't know anything more than we did before the appointment other than to watch Andrew closely and to keep praying. we are so thankful that so far it is nothing serious and we can only pray that God's will is going to be done in his life and in ours!

Little Boys...

Little Boys bring so much joy to your heart. Every time that I look into those trusting eyes I am amazed that God would allow us to privilege of taking care of such a beautiful child! To have the opportunity to train and teach him to be a man after God's own heart, to raise him up in a way that pleases our Savior, it makes us want to make the most of every day that we have Andrew in our care. I would not trade a minute of my time with Andrew for anything, he such a precious gift from God.

Things may not always seem to go as we would want them to, but we would not want to be anywhere else other than in God's will, and we know that Andrew is special and it makes us love him all the more!

Once again we are asking you to pray for us as we go into the city on Friday, we are going to meet with a cancer specialist, I do not know what the plan is for Andy, how many tests ect... he will have to go through, we only know that God will not lead where He will not be with us.

We are so thankful that we have a heavenly Father that holds us in His hands and will never let us go, no matter what happens, He is in control!! I have been asked by some how we are handling the MRI results and I can truly say that I am at peace, Josh has been helping me grow through this experience since the morning we headed into the hospital, and honestly not much surprises me anymore! Yes I do think about it from time to time but really as Josh has said over and over, God is in control and worrying about it does not change what He is going to do, it only makes it harder for me to live with it. Thank you God for the wonderful husband that I have!!
I would not be where I am today without you Dear!

And by way of ending this long over due post, Andrew is doing very good, he is a growing boy, I'm thinking he weighs around 12 pounds now, he has really been enjoying the out doors these past few days, helping me in the gardens and so on. :) He smiles a lot.

One Year And Counting!!

So today marks one year of blogging for me. Wow, it has been one busy and interesting year!

We want to say thank you to everyone who has prayed for us in the past year, you have stood beside us, reminding us that God will always be there.

I apologize that I have not posted anything lately, Spring has come and brought with it many things to do, but I hope to be able to get something up here soon!

6 Months?!?

Well it's true, Andrew has been a precious part of our lives for half a year now; I could not imagine life with out him, he fills my days with smiles and coos, and our hearts with a love so strong, we want to do our very best to train him in the way he should go.

And to celebrate the day Megan did a another absolutely sweet photo shoot, but I'm going to do it the easy way and send you to her blog. :) Enjoy!

Mother's Day

Last Mother's Day Josh and I shared the very wonderful and exciting news that we were going to have a baby!! Who would have guessed what God had in store for us, it's been a year that has been filled with a lot of charitor building, not one that I would choose to go through, but one that I would never trade for anything!

To celebrate the day we went to my parents place. Andrew, resting up for the big day.

For lunch Dad had bought a delicious ice cream cake that Ryan and Josh served to everyone. Only after I tried to cut and it and failed cause it was so hard. :)

Everyone waiting for their piece of cake.

Andy and Grampa.

Here it comes!!

And then Andrew surprised me with giving we a beautiful bouquet of flowers!

Thank you Josh for making it a wonderful day! I am so blessed to be a Mother to this wonderful gift from God. Being a Mom is the best!!

Thank You for Your Prayers!!

We just want to say a great big thank you to everyone for the many prayers that were prayed on Andrew behalf, the surgery went well and we got to go home the next day! They said that he would need to be monitored for 24 hours, but by Wednesday morning he was off of all monitors and out of PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) and by 5pm he was discharged.
The MRI on the other hand is a different story. Andrew`s Doctor called on Thursday and told us the lump in his neck has gotten bigger, so he is making an appointment for us to see a cancer care specialist as soon as possible. We do not know if it is cancer but we are hoping that this specialist will be able to tell us. The Doctor also told us that babies with 22 q deletion syndrome have a much higher risk of getting tumors so once again it looks like our little guy might be going through surgery, we don`t know why God is leading us down this road, or what lies at the end but we do know that we will trust Him no matter what, for He always knows whats best.
I also want to apologize for not posting sooner as I said I would, our truck got broken into and our laptop got stolen so therefore I have not gotten to this sooner, that is also the reason that this post has no pictures, I had no back up disks or flash drives so all our pictures are gone. But thanks to my sister and sister in law, blogging and scrapbooking we still have pictures to look at and now I will just get busy and take more!
Speaking of pictures Megan did Andrew`s 6 month photo shoot today (already)!! so I will be posting those pictures shortly.
Once again we want to say thank you for all the prayers, we really felt God`s presence with us and we know that no matter what happens He knows what is best and we know whom to trust!

O come let us sing unto the Lord, let us make a joyful noise unto the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. Psalm 95:1-3

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20

For the which cause I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have comitted unto Him against that day. 2 Timothy 1:12

Let's Try This Agian!

So once again Andrew surgery day has arrived, tomorrow, May 4 at 2pm. This time though we have got the MRI also scheduled to be done right before the surgery and for this we thank God!

Last Thursday when Andrew had his pre. opp. the Dr. that was checking him out and listening to him said that as long as his cold wouldn't be getting worse he figured that we would be able to go ahead and get the MRI/surgery done. As far as I can tell Andy has been improving, another great blessing, and we thank you all for your prayers!

But we have a few more things that we ask you to pray for, they are:

That Andrew will for sure be healthy enough

That there would be a monitored bed available for him for after the surgery ( if there isn't one open then everything gets canceled)

Wisdom for Dr. Wisemann who is doing the surgery

That the lump in his neck will not have grown or if it's God's will that He will have taken it away.

And for peace for Josh and I, that we will know that God's will is going to be done and that He holds Andrew in his hand.

So we thank you once again for lifting us up in prayer, and we hope to bring you all good news later on tomorrow!