A Christmas to remember

This year our Christmas was radically different than any year past. Mainly, no family. We decided to go away for Christmas this year. There were numerous reasons; an ailing grandfather we needed to see, a grandmother who was spending Christmas alone, scaled down decorating due to apartment living. About a month ago we decided to head north for Christmas and for the first year ever, spend Christmas day just the four of us....no where to be, no one coming over for lunch or dinner. Nothing. Just the four of us. It was magical.

We headed to upstate New York on the 19th and played in the snow and visited Rick's grandparents for a day. The boys had a great time sledding and snowboarding.

Look at my husband! Snowboarding no less. I tried it and after nearly knocking my arm out of socket twice while falling, I decided to stick to the sled! It's sad my 8 year old can do more things than me!!

We ate a ton of great food - especially at Grandma's house and saw lots of pretty lights.

Here are the boys eating homemade pudding at Great Grandmas!

These were particularly pretty in the downtown part of Rome, New York. They had a whole lights display with music. It was very sweet. We intended to leave Christmas Eve and head to Hershey, PA but the boys wanted to have their first "White Christmas" so we stayed and left Christmas Day.

Here is David writing a note to Santa on Christmas Eve.

I am so glad we stayed. Oswego, New York had a white out Christmas morning....basically a ton of snow in a short period of time. The kids woke up to lots of presents under our little tree in the hotel room and snow falling outside. It was a beautiful day.

This was what it looked like outside our hotel room Christmas Day. The snow was falling so hard you could barely see across the river.

This was Jason opening his Leapster 2. I guess he was happy.....he's so hard to read. :)

David was equally happy opening one of his gifts.

It was a wonderful time and one that we will never forget. I'll post more from Hershey next.

Angels among us

I received an email from a friend of mine about an angel at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte. Me, being my normal skeptical self, wasn't too sure at first. But this story IS real and has been confirmed. If you don't believe, take a look for yourself. What a beautiful story for this holiday season.

This email is from Katy L. Field. The following is true:

Diane Bynum works at Presbyterian and she told me Sunday at church about this picture and how everyone at Presby is talking about it. I keep up with a little girl who has cancer on Caringbridge and her mother posted this on Ellie's site today. It was sent to her to encourage them as they fight for Ellie's life.

So many of you have heard me tell the story, but I wanted to pass it along anyway to those who didn't hear it and for those who wanted it in email.

A couple of Wednesdays ago, I got an evening phone call from the pediatric ICU at Presbyterian Hospital, where I work as a child life specialist. Usually when they call at night, it means something bad has happened. This, however, was different. My coworker told me that the most amazing thing had just happened and she just had to call to tell me.

We had a patient who has really grown up in and out of the hospital. All the staff knows her and her family. She had been in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) for about a month, and had been intubated - on life support. She was not doing well. The doctors had approached mom about taking her off life support the Saturday before. Mom was okay with it, and said that she'd been through so much and if was her time to go she wanted to honor that. So they had taken her off. It was Wednesday and she was still alive. Amazing. The doctors approached mom about taking off her oxygen mask. Mom was supportive, and began praying over her daughter.

The mother of another young patient who was in the bed next to her began praying with her. The nurse practitioner went to the nurses station to chart that she had taken off the oxygen mask. While doing so, she looked up at the security monitor that videotapes the double doors leading into the PICU. It records anyone who may be waiting outside the doors to get in since it is a secure unit. She saw a man standing there, and it looked a little funny to her, so she decided to walk down the hall to open the double doors personally.

When she opened them, no one was standing there. She walked back down to the nurses station to finish charting, assuming he had walked away, but saw him still standing there on the monitor. So she opened the doors with a button near the nurses station and leaned over to see him walk in, but no one was standing there.

She pulled over another nurse and both stood staring at this man on the monitor and opening the doors to find no one there. The nurse practitioner leaned in closely to look at the man on the monitor and said, 'Oh my gosh. That's an angel. You can see his wings!' They said that the sun starting shining so brightly and the whole PICU was strangely filled with light. They said he was a tall man and you could see wings behind him.

They pulled over all the staff of the PICU and the two praying mothers and everyone was staring at this man on the monitor and opening the doors to find no one there.

Crying, everyone pulled out their camera phones to take pictures, but no one could get it to show up on their camera.

The mother of the girl pulled out her camera phone and finally got a picture of the angel who was guarding the doors to the PICU. He turned out as a man of light. I have attached the picture from her phone.

The girl was later discharged from the hospital to go home.

A Miracle.

This story makes me so grateful for the way that God reveals himself to us, and the how Great He is really is. We have much to be thankful for this holiday. :)

-- Katy L. Field, CCLS Certified Child Life Specialist Presbyterian Blume Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Clinic Charlotte, NC

I want it and I want it NOW!!!

I am an instant gratification kinda girl. If I work out - one day - I expect to see immediate results. If I eat a salad, my thighs had better be smaller. When I pray, thy will be done...and so on. I'm not this way when it comes to clothes - if I see something I like, I don't buy it all that often. I do have a budget you know. But when it comes to food, and my weight, I have this very unhealthy attitude. So imagine my excitement when I joined Weight Watchers a month ago. My weight has taken a nasty turn this last year....like the last time I put on this much weight in a year I had a living, breathing soul living in me. That's not the case this year - or any year hereafter. So I joined and was psyched! I lost 4.8 pounds in the first week. Then week 2 hit and, well, not such good numbers. Week 3, even worse. Week 4, yikes. I told my husband I was ready to quit. At this rate I was paying $10 a pound......I can buy lobster cheaper than that! He laughed at me (we've been together 22 years......he knows how I am). But I was serious. I was doing everything they told me too. I mean, for crying out loud, I had lunch with a friend at the Cheesecake Factory the other day and I ordered a salad. A SALAD I TELL YOU!!! AND NO CHEESECAKE! I expect to see some serious fat coming off for that kind of sacrifice. Still, nothing. So here I am, a few pounds lighter, a bank account with a few less dollars in it, and me - disappointed. Very disappointed. Why am I like this? Do I really think I am 16 again and if I skip a meal or two my jeans are going to loosen up? Maybe that's it. I just can't accept I am getting older....and fatter....and my metabolism is slowing down. My body just doesn't respond the way it used to. I tell ya, this stinks. I would feel better if I were growing more mature with age and that was the trade off - but I'm not (as you can tell by the title of my post). So I've decided I'm going to give it a few more weeks, ramp up my work outs, and resign myself to the fact that I am older and this is going to take a little longer....or it may never come off. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any. Anyone have a magic pill or something?

I have a niece!

My first little niece was born last night! Elliana Grace was born ahead of schedule late last night. She is in the NICU so please pray for her. She is doing very well and is expected to come out of NICU tomorrow. We are so thankful the Lord has blessed our family with this precious baby....a girl...finally! After 5 boys in this family we're not going to know how to act!

Thanksgiving

For the major holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, my husband likes to find something significant, or scriptural to read before the event. If led, he will share it with our family and it always proves to be eye opening. Here is what he found and shared with us on Thanksgiving. There are many people that believe the first Thanksgiving was with the Pilgrims and the Indians. It wasn't necessarily that way. They celebrated the first Feast of Corn. The first official Thanksgiving Day was designated by President George Washington and the following was what he said about making this an official holiday: George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation "Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:" "Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us. "And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best." Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789. Isn't that beautiful! Thanksgiving and Prayer. That is what this holiday should still be about. Thankfully for many of us, it still is.

Awkward spelling bee words

My son was the top speller in his class and will represent them in his school's spelling bee. This was a really big deal in our house, until we got the list of words. Yikes! I can't spell a lot of these words....all 6 pages of them. I realize that's not saying much...... We are spending 30-60 minutes a night on these words that range from easy to difficult. He's doing pretty well, but some of the words are, well, weird. The faces he makes when I say the word for him to spell have been downright comical. Like babushka...or meddle. The meddle one was frustrating - he spelled it metal, medal and finally looked at me and, in total frustration asked - "just how many ways can you spell it? I mean, really Mom!" Like I am the master inventor of all words and decided there needed to be 3 ways to spell a word! Geesh! I'm thinking Eve gets credit for the dictionary. While Adam named all the animals, Eve got the fun task of making all the words? If someone's going to get the blame, it's always going to be mom, right? Alas, I digress.... The best reaction I got was for one word I will never forget. Abreast. Take a moment and imagine telling your child that's a word in his spelling be and he has to spell it. Imagine their reaction. You get the picture. I won't bother to tell you the fun we had spelling assess.

A sick child....and why I love Harris Teeter

After dropping my son off at school today, I ran into the Harris Teeter for some items. My son's class is having a Pilgrim Picnic tomorrow and I signed up to make a few things so I needed to get going - I had the whole day planned to bake and cook......the best laid plans....... I was in the check out line when I heard my son make a strange noise. Then it started. I've never had a child throw up in public before (that I can recall - maybe I blocked it out). My sweet little boy was throwing up - thankfully just water - as I was trying to figure out what to do. Another mom from our school was in the check out line in front of me and asked me what she could do. I thanked her as I was pulling Jason out of the grocery cart and heading to the bathroom. I yelled back "sorry to leave my groceries there - I have to go!" We made it to the bathroom but not before he threw up all over me and himself. Thankfully he stopped. That's when my HT angel arrived. She followed me to the bathroom and got me wet paper towels and handed them to me, talking to Jason, telling him it was going to be ok. She said how sorry she was for me - and him - and recalled a time it happened to her. Tasha, my HT angel, offered to grab some ginger ale and crackers off the shelves. She then followed me out of the bathroom and asked if she could bring my groceries out for me. I told her I didn't even have time to check out. "I'll get them for you" she said. I tried to calculate in my mind if I should just leave - but I did need some of that stuff - not the baking items - no baking going on in my house today to infect other children. But I knew I wouldn't make it out of the house again today. She took my VIC card and my credit card and told me to go wait in the car. I put my sick baby in the car seat and waited outside in the van. Out comes the manager and sweet elderly bagger. They loaded my car up and hoped my son would feel better. I'll be honest, when some stranger starts throwing up - I run for the hills. No way do I want to be around that. What a selfless thing a perfect stranger did for me today. I'm ashamed to admit I may not do the same. I will never forget her. I pray the Lord blesses her and protects her from the virus. It may not seem like a big deal to her - but to me - it was a "God" moment.

Here's my little boy - towel and bucket near him - dead asleep. Thankfully no more "incidents" yet. Hopefully there won't be.