VACATION!!

Hi, faithful blog readers!  : )

I didn't fall off the face of the earth...we are on vacation!  We are praising the Lord for the blessing of this trip.  After a crazy year,  we are having the best time, and Sarah is honestly having the time of her life!  I'm not sure when I will get to another blog post, since we are packing all our time with family fun and soaking up the sun, but when I do, there will be lots of pictures, and you will want to see the ones of Sarah's face while she's jumping in the pool!  (Into Daddy's arms, of course.) 

Have a great week!  God is so good.   : )

Asking for prayer...

I'm sorry that this is going to be kind of a sad post.  It's not about Sarah or our family.  We have had such happy news.  Sarah took her first tub bath yesterday since her tubees site all healed up, and she had a blast.  : )  That girl loves the water.  Tonight all four of the younger kids were down in the family room playing tag with a ball wearing jeans and no shirts.  It was so funny.  Sarah kept stopping in the middle of the mayhem and looking down at her belly button. She would just stare at it for a while while the boys laughed and tumbled all around her.  My funny, crazy kids.

If you are a mom (or a dad) you know what I mean when I say that my kids are just the world to me.  They are like a magnet when I am in the room with them.  I just want to squeeze them!  (Yes, a couple of them have been known to get annoyed with my loveyness.)  Sarah often tells me, "No kiss you!"  (She means for me not to kiss her so much.)  Sorry, sweet girl.  I can't help it sometimes!  I am just hopelessly in love with my kids! 

I know that I am not the only mom who is in love with her kids.  But some of these moms and dads have children who have cancer or other illnesses, and they have not been having good news like we have.  The purpose of this post is to ask for prayer for a few of these kids that I have been praying for.

Please pray for Savannah.  She is about ten years old, and she has been battling cancer for five years.  It is not looking very good at this point.  She needs a miracle.  Please pray!

And please pray for Jared.  He is nineteen years old, fighting cancer for the second time.  Instead of shrinking, it had been spreading.  But thankfully, he just recently started getting good news that some of the tumors have begun shrinking now.  Please pray!

Please pray for Rochelle.  She is in the hospital as I type this, having a high dose of chemo and a bone marrow transplant.  It's the second time she's had cancer.  My heart is heavy for her and her family, going through this again.

Dear friends, sometimes it seems that life on this earth just isn't fair.  And you know what?   It really isn't.  No one ever said that life on this earth would be fair.  Not even God. This world, as beautiful as it is, is tainted and stained by sin and all the ugliness that comes with it.  But what He did say is that it will not always be this way!  Evil and sickness and death will be defeated for good someday, and I believe it will not be in the far distant future.  We have the hope of an eternity that will be absent of every horrible thing we have grieved over during this lifetime.  No one will have cancer ever again.  No innocent child will be hurt or neglected.  And God in His infinite love has made a way for you to know Him and enjoy this eternal life with Him.  Click Here to know more.

So, hug your kids a little tighter today.  Be thankful for every day, the boring and the not so great included.  Keep kissing those cheeks, even if they get sick of it. ; )  And be thankful for our great God who loves us so much, He will make everything right in the end, and hug us and kiss our cheeks forever and ever.

Revelation 21:4-5--  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow , nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain:  for the former things are passed away.  And He that sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new."

Brand New Eye...and Brand New Year (in China) : )

On Friday we went and got Sarah's new prosthetic eye!  We left early in the morning and drove 3 hours to the ocularist's office.  He had  made a wax form based on the impression he had taken of the eye socket, and he tested it to see if it fit.  And that was really fun......NOT.  When he was satisfied enough that he could paint it correctly with the iris/pupil in the right place (even though it was very difficult to tell anything from all the crying), he took it out and we were free to go spend a few hours killing time while he created and painted the eye.  It's amazing, really how they do it so perfectly!  So, Daddy Mommy and Sarah had a lovely time walking around stores and relaxing at a restaurant, just the three of us.  Then we went back to the office, put the eye in, and that was that!  We were thrilled with how it turned out!  She doesn't even seem to notice it's in, and it does move some with her other eye.  Amazing!!  Also, once it's in, it takes barely any care at all.  We don't even have to remove it unless it gets goopy or something.  She even sleeps in it.

Then yesterday, we went to a Chinese New Year celebration put on by a local church.  It was really fun, and I am glad that Sarah will have these types of opportunities to see and learn more about China as she gets older. 

Having snacks and drinks.  Ben said, "Chinese lemonade is good."  ; )

 Here we all are!  We wore red for the occasion!  (Even though Ben's is a USA shirt.)

 Making crafts...

 Getting ready to watch the performance

 The dragon part was cool!

 No CNY celebration is complete without fireworks, so the kids did the next best thing.  They made fireworks SOUNDS on a whole lot of bubble wrap!  Sarah loved it.  (And just look at that perfect eye...)

Happy New Year!

Guess Who......

Guess who has a BRAND NEW EYE?! 

I think you know who (since most of us don't need one)... : ) 

Check back tomorrow, and I will post pictures!  But I am too tired tonight. 

Night Night!

Pony tail please?

Poor Sarah.

Cassandra likes to wear her hair in a pony tail quite often, and she was wearing one yesterday.  Sarah tried to grab at it.  When Cassandra explained that it doesn't come off, Sarah said,

"Buy pony tail for Sarah at store?' 

Poor baby.  It won't be too much longer.  But, yeah....it kind of will be. : (  I watched the Duggar show the other night, and they had the cutest thing for their baby.  A head band with little pony tails attached to the sides!  I am going to try to find one of those...or maybe make one!

Anyway... the tubees are part of the past now!!  Sarah took it much better than I thought she might.  Last night she was yelling, like usual, "TUBEES DRINKS TIME!"  I reminded her she didn't have any tubees any more.  She paused a moment, and then smiled and said, "Swim in the cool!"  She gets it.  Whew!  (We will be going on vacation soon, and she will get to swim in the 'cool.'  I can't wait!!

 Sarah's very last tubees drink.  We had to flush them every night with a saline solution.

Tonight--She was shouting, "No more tubees!"  She is pretty happy about it!