Just Catchin' Up...

Since my posting has been so sporadic of late, I thought I'd take a minute just to catch you all up!!...

DH and I had a wonderful time in Gatlinburg!! It was so nice to just have that one on one time with each other. You don't realize how important that time is with your husband until you actually take the time to do it. You don't realize how crazy busy you've gotten...so busy that even meaningful conversation has taken a back seat.

If you don't already, let me encourage you to take regular time with your hubby just to reconnect. You don't have to go away for a few days, you can take a walk together, go out to dinner (or breakfast, or whatever works for your schedule). You can put the kids to bed early...it doesn't matter what you do, just do something to make sure that you and your hubby have some time just strictly for each other.



A story to share..it reminds me that we've got some awesome teens....

DD and DS decided to get a bite to eat at a local restaurant while DH and I were out of town. They enjoyed a great meal and had a wonderful waitress. They paid their bill and when it got time to leave the conversation went like this:

DS: "What about the tip?"

DD: (Lays a $20 bill on the table)

DS: "I'll match it!!" (Lays another $20 bill on the table)

They leave, slowly, watching to make sure that their waitress buses the table. She does. As they walk by the huge window out front, the waitress looks up at them with tears in her eyes. DD and DS move on to the next store (they were in the mall). Just a few minutes later the waitress catches up with them, gives them a hug and tells them, "Thank you so much!!" and she runs back to work. What a wonderful blessing my two gave someone right here at Christmas!! Let me tell you, this Mama heart is proud!!!

Finally...today is an awesome special day...today my baby turns 17!!!! Oh he is such a miracle and such a blessing to me. You see, he shouldn't be alive. Had God not intervened, this would be a day of sadness instead of celebration.

There is no doubt about when we conceived this man child of ours. We were planning our next child and was coming off of birth control, but using other means of protection while we were waiting for the birth control to get out of my system. Well....let me just say that DS is the poster child for the "There is No Such Thing as Safe Sex". About 4½ months into my pregnancy, my doctor told me out of the blue that he felt we needed to do a sonar. Okay. We were curious about whether we had a boy or a girl, so...no big deal.

As we lay their watching the screen and listening to the nurse things were going just great. Then she became very quiet and began getting really serious about her job. After several minutes, she shared that this little boy we were waiting on had no kidneys and no bladder...but she guessed I just wasn't as far along as we thought. She sent this news and DH and I back to my doctor.

My doctor reviewed everything and looked at us with those all-knowing, all too serious eyes and told us what the plan was. In two weeks I would come back for another sonar, if it showed the same, he would send me to a different hospital with some specialists who would do what was needed to prepare our son for a kidney upon birth...should a donor be available. If there were no donor, then upon birth, our son would die.

Needless to say, I fell apart and through his tears and own turmoil, DH tried to be strong. As we prepared to leave the doctor's office, Doc put his arm around me and reminded me that, "We know Someone bigger than this".

Two weeks of praying and waiting found us back in that same sonar room with that same nurse.

Nurse: "Well, let's see now...here's his head, see his eyes? And here's his spine..look at that little heart just beating away..and look!!!!! There are two kidneys and a bladder and they are functioning perfectly!!!!!!!! See, I told you, you weren't as far along as you thought!"

Us: "No mam!!..that's all God!!! Only He can make organs and put them where they belong!!"

Back in my Doctor's office there were tears all over again, but this time tears of shear joy and thankfulness to a God Who has big plans for this child.
So....
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZACHARY!!! I love you SOO much!!!!




By the way, a few months after he was born I learned that Zachary means "Touched by God"...how fitting.....