Bronwyn's Adventure

A couple months ago, I noticed a purple-ish lumpy mass on the top of Bronwyn's right foot. I figured she had fallen and bruised the bone or something. But a month or two later, it was still there, which seemed a little weird. Then other people started noticing it and commenting on its weirdness, which really made me stop and take notice.

And so I decided I would give her foot 2 more weeks to go back to normal or bring her to the doctor.

The lump resolving on its own would have been too simple an adventure, I guess, because it was off to the doctor's we went on the 9th. I was guessing that it was a cyst of some sort and that she might have to have it drained.

Well, that would have been too simple, too.

The doctor looked at it, commented on never having seen such a thing before and how I seem to enjoy bringing her new and obscure issues, thought she was able to hear Bronwyn's pulse in the lump-- indicating that it might be a tangled mass of blood vessels-- and said we would need to see a specialist. Seeing a specialist basically means traveling since we live in a very rural area.

So, on July 7th, Daniel will bring Bronwyn down to Syracuse to see Dr. Timothy Damron at Upstate Medical University. Yes, this is the same hospital Aubrey was admitted to at the end of December when she was sick.

I really don't think it's anything serious-- that's certainly not the vibe I'm getting from our doctor-- but even if it is, I know the One who knows exactly what it is and what Bronwyn needs.

You can kind of see the mass of... whatever it is... on the top of her right foot.
It's more purple in person.

This Monday

I wash away the grime of the weekend from around the bathroom sink. Soapy buckets and prune-like hands remove sticky filth to reveal a spotless floor. The clothesline is heavy-laden with diapers of pink and yellow, white and blue and green. Little people diligently attend to their chores, inspired to get their daily check-mark because this mama is freshly inspired to see that they do.

A card is dropped in the mail, along with medical paperwork for Bronwyn's upcoming trip to an orthopedic oncologist.

I finish my Bible-reading, breathing a sigh of content in knowing that for the first time in several months I am consistently working my way through passages without falling behind. My journal, my record of what I see and treasure and meditate upon, is a little thicker after receiving today's prayers, thoughts, and bits of magazine artwork that I cut and paste in.

The red 34oz water bottle that accompanies me always has been drained once. It will be refilled three more times before the sun sets, which is just enough to quench my thirst these days.

Another perusal of my Homeschool Wishlist yields further satisfaction to my soul. I am slowly but surely narrowing the choices, growing increasingly excited, finding good bargains.

Enough with looking ahead, though; now I start sorting through digital photos, uploading the ones to be developed and put into family photo albums. I wonder at how I can cling so sentimentally to certain moments, all the while willing others away, and I purpose to better give thanks in everything this Monday.

P.S.

I tried posting this short video clip earlier, but it wouldn't upload properly. I've got it working now and thought Daniel's family might especially enjoy seeing (or hearing, more accurately, as it's not a great quality film by any means!) him blow out his candles.

Of which there were not 28, just for the record.

A Bit of June, in Photos

my bathing beauties


watching Little Bear and enjoying a Sunday evening snack


Jackson entertaining my 5-month-old cousin, Leah, one morning at our house


cute kiddies


my bright-eyed miracle


my siblings and me


watching one of Uncle Merrick's Little League games at the local park


my pretty princess


Louissa, Liana, and me performing at a local Historical Society fundraiser


Liana, Louissa, and me after the performance


my silly little man


some of the crew at Daniel's birthday celebration


Daniel opening a birthday gift

It's Been A Week

And so I tell myself to write.

It's good for me to get thoughts on paper, err... blog. It helps me clear my mind, remember what's important, get a quick breather from flurries of activity. It helps me connect with others.

But, even knowing these things, there is nothing.

I'm too busy. In a good way, I think.

I'm enjoying green grass and blue skies and rainstorms through which the sun keeps shining. I'm nursing a baby and baking muffins and sharing meals with friends and eating too many strawberries with whipped cream. I'm taking walks and meditating on Scripture and savoring the specialness of pouring out my heart before the Lord. I'm appreciating having Daniel around lots of evenings.

And you can be sure I'm still reading what others write (blogs and books). I'm still challenged and blessed by the many who strive daily to see Jesus more clearly in their lives.

Soon, I'm sure, I'll be back.

You can count on more pictures shortly, at any rate.

Customized Recipes

Yesterday, while looking for cheesecake recipes (tonight is Daniel's birthday celebration), I found this cool tool. I had no idea what kind of cheesecakes I wanted to make, so this was perfect. I started messing around with ingredients-- chocolate sandwich cookies vs. graham crackers, mint vs. vanilla extract, chocolate chips, peanut butter, strawberries, instant coffee granules, etc.-- and was given simple recipes based on what I had on hand.

Nice.

Amazing

In case you haven't watched this already, please do. You'll be so glad you did.

She's only eighteen, can you believe it?

My little sister rocks!

(If you've got a slower computer, wait out the download time. It's definitely worth it.)

These Summer Days...

...have been as random in their activities as they've been in temperature. I'm enjoying the change of pace, though I have recently buckled down on some routines in order to restore the peace of predictability to the household.

Our days aren't as packed as they are the rest of the year and have afforded time for Daniel to begin running regularly, for us to make the short trek down to one of Merrick's baseball games, for watching movies in the evenings, for revamping chore charts for the kids, for lots of picnic lunches in the yard, for spending an entire day at Mom and Dad's, and more. For whatever reason, it feels right to be more relaxed about life in the summer, and that's a good thing for this uptight, slightly-OCD, cleaning maniac. Believe it or not, I even let Bronwyn go to the bed the other night with dirt all along her scalp leftover from Jackson throwing handfuls of sod at her.

Tomorrow night we'll celebrate Daniel's birthday. He turned 28 on Saturday, but we wanted the celebration of the day to be Julia's graduation from highschool, so we postponed for later. I'm making two cheesecakes, per the birthday boy's request. I just have to decide which kinds. Suggestions?

For right now, this season I'm in is providing very routine and pleasant morning minutes for quiet Bible reading, which is so great. Unless you're a mom of little ones, I don't think 15 uninterrupted minutes are so hard to come by, but it sure does make you appreciative when they do.

Happy Birthday

I am thankful for so many things about Daniel.
Today, I am especially thankful for his friendship.
There's nobody I'd rather share life with.

9 Months

:: Grins the cheesiest baby grin ever. All the time.
:: Loves her mama dearly. She would be happiest if I would hold her all day everyday.

[Confession: I would be happy with that, too.]

:: Has the most petite hands. Seriously.
:: Got her first sunburn last Sunday. (Bad, Mama... )
:: Has 4 teeth in and 2 more on the way.
:: Kicks her feet excitedly whenever someone talks to her, even in response to strangers' greetings.
:: Is healthy and pleasant and altogether remarkable!

A great report

Aubrey had a great appointment today. The cardiologist was extremely pleased, and then accordingly relaxed about how to handle her care. In the end, he doesn't want to do a thing differently with her right now because she's doing so well. In fact, this is the first time that he's mentioned the possibility of even delaying a heart catheterization and further testing beyond this fall, which has been the plan up until now.

She weighed in at 14.5lbs (3rd %-tile) and measured 26.5" (25th %-tile), with a head circumference of 17.25" (25th %-tile). This continues to show steady and consistent growth and is very satisfactory.

Thanks for praying for Aubrey. At each step along this journey, surgery and risky intervention has been further postponed due to her good health and development. This is the grace of God! Aubrey is a miracle before our eyes, and we are thankful!

Prayer Requested

Aubrey will see her cardiologist in Syracuse today at 10:30am.

If you think of us, please pray for a miraculous report.

*sigh*

I know: I've been pretty quiet around here.

Trust me, I have pretty good excuses. Lots of 'em. Impressive ones, pathetic ones, and fun ones. But really, if I'm totally honest, the reason for my quiet is that I'm tired and don't have many thoughts to share.

After two sleepless nights due to a whirlwind, knock-the-stuffing-out-of-you bout of the stomach bug (yes, Gabriel graciously shared with me), we launched into some pretty sticky, humid weather. Which means the baby doesn't sleep. Need I write more?

Let me just tell you that today I'm having to remind myself that everything will look good when I'm old and can sleep through the night again in the morning. Today, between tears, I told Daniel that "everything simple seems to be so hard, which can only mean that there must be something wrong with me." Talk like that just means I'm tired and need to be quiet for a few days.

The weather is really beautiful and I truly only mind these unseasonably hot temperatures when the nursing baby thinks her sweaty body should be up close to mine all. night. long. While she thrashes and fusses and complains because she's hot, I might add. Poor baby. On top of the heat, she's got all four top teeth coming in at once and she's congested and coughing a lot.

Anyway, in the end, there are a few things I know:

1. God is good.
2. I am blessed.
3. Coming up short usually gives me a good opportunity to re-evaluate my time and energy investments.
4. I shouldn't keep a blog if I don't intend to write in it for a week at a time.

Curriculum

I'm lost in a world of figuring out what to purchase for our official homeschool kick-off this fall. (I've been homeschooling all along, right, Lisa?) A few weeks ago I was seriously overwhelmed by the multitude of options. Honestly, I just wanted to cry and have someone else decide for me. Thank goodness for veteran homeschooling moms who will share thoughts and walk you through the process, because now I'm feeling more aware, a smidgen more confident, and less nervous.

Actually, at this point I'm really enjoying all the research and browsing.

As I plug away at my choices, I'm honing in on the key areas I want to invest the majority of our time in: phonics and character training. For phonics, I'm still vacillating between a super laid-out program like this, or something much simpler but very well proven like this. (The price comparison of $90+ to $4 is definitely coming into consideration, too.) In addition, I'd like to get some sort of simple handwriting program that Bronwyn can also jump on board with since she is itching to be included in everything Gabriel does (and already showing some signs of readiness, which is still shocking to me), but I'm still sorting through recommendations. (Any ideas???)

I anticipate buying some things from here to help with training in character and diligence, particularly their charts. In addition, I'm planning on buying these books for Gabriel's daily devotions and Bible training.

I plan on purchasing basic science and social studies textbooks, and then I will utilize Sonlight, Five in a Row, and Beautiful Feet reading lists for ideas of books I can borrow from our public library to help flesh out the subjects covered in the textbook. For math, I'm going very simple.

Curriculum purchasing is a whole new world for me and there's a lot more to it than I ever imagined. When I was little, the curriculum choices were pretty straight-forward: A Beka or Bob Jones University Press. Now there are multiple unity study curriculum choices, tons and tons of phonics and reading programs and schools of thought, various approaches to science, etc.-- all just for kindergarten! While a unit study curriculum (like Five in a Row, My Father's World, etc.) appeals to a big part of me, I'm just not in a season of life where I can spend a lot of time on that sort of thing in addition to being diligent with phonics/reading, which I personally have decided is important. Maybe in the future, when my children are beyond the Learning to Read stage and have entered Reading to Learn, right?

Besides browsing curriculum this morning, I'm tending my oldest boy, who seems to have come down with the stomach bug that's been going around. Ugh. Oh, and Aubrey's been teething again for the past week or so. One of her top 4 teeth has broken through; the others are pretty close behind. Poor kiddos...

The Reunion

Last night we said our farewells to Daniel's sister and her three little ones, who will be joining Daniel's brother-in-law in Texas on Friday. Saying good-bye is never easy, especially when you're not sure when you'll next see each other.

It was less than a year ago that we said our farewells to my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew who moved to California. Now my sister's expecting her second baby and the realization that their baby will do a lot of growing that I won't get to see firsthand is dawning.

This life is full of changes and distances and separations, most of which are at best bittersweet.

And so this is another reminder to me that our real reunion is in heaven. He's preparing a place for us. Isn't it good to know?

Re-arranging the Budget

I guess we're probably all trying to figure out how to spend less on other things as gasoline and food prices rise. I'm determined that I'll not give in to the frenzy and panic that $4/gallon of gas can cause in one's "security gland" (that goes out to all you Dave Ramsey fans!), but I'm also aware of the fact that the budget and/or our lives have to be somewhat adjusted to accommodate more expensive food and travel.

Right now, I'm pretty glad I got on board the cloth diaper bandwagon when I did. That alone will help reduce many trips to the store. Not to mention that we've eliminated a $60/month line in the budget caused by diapering 2 children with disposable diapers.

I've been figuring out ways to stretch foods, like by making lentil & rice tacos instead of beef or chicken. And eating less salad and more frozen veggies with our dinners. This week I'm hoping to sit down and figure out how to make the most of our grocery $$$ without increasing the monthly budget too much. I've not been ordering in bulk because my kitchen doesn't have great storage, but I'm about ready to say it doesn't matter.

We're also really hoping to get our car sold soon. We don't really don't need 2 vehicles in this season of life. Selling it will reduce our insurance cost, of course, but it will also force us to cut down on the amount of driving we do. Daniel figured it out and even though the car gets about 27mpg and our van only gets about 22mpg, we'll still save money in the long run.

What are some things you're doing to make room in your budget for increasing food and gasoline costs? I would love to hear your thoughts and get some tips! [Edit: I'd also love any recipes that are inexpensive, nutricious, and yummy!]