VBS Week

Sorry it's been so long! This was VBS week and between that and the Olympics, I have been totally preoccupied...in a good way!

But let's see, these photos begin, oh, with Emily's recent skin pigmentation issues. :) Since Em can't drink water, her primary drink is a mixture of carrot juice and blueberry juice. When I noticed her skin changing color last week, I looked it up and according to the ever so reliable internet, your body can store two years worth of Vitamin A in the liver and then after that, the excess turns your skin orange. Conclusion? Emily has an excess of Vitamin A. My reaction? Good!  As I also read that Vitamin A helps with general growth and the cell health of the eyes and lungs. All things Em could use. Take it or leave it, we have backed off the carrot juice although it could take months to leave her skin so I hope you enjoy the new hue to our youngest. :)

This was supposed to show you all of Em's new bruises.  You can see the scratch on her nose and a little of the bruise up higher on her nose but the rest must be covered by that strange orange hue.  Anyway, we always know when Em is testing her limits again as many, many, many falls occur in very, very, very short periods of time.  Her recent escapades have been due to her attempts at running in unfamiliar places...a problem when you don't see in 3D and have no depth-perception.  Poor girl is bruised from head to toe.  I finally started dressing her in pants even though it's a hundred degrees here every day just so she would stop scraping her knees.  Crazy girl!  No one has ever accused her of not being brave!  She will learn her limits again and hopefully stop looking beat up soon.

K, on the other hand, our big girls who is growing up so fast, took her first ride on her "real bike" this week.  It started out so well!

She even posed for me.

And then she got hot...and not highly motivated to begin with, she decided she was done.  Mommy didn't appreciate her "quitting attitude" (yes, I realized later that she is only three) and we may or may not have had some words.  As that is always successful, this was how we ended up.  We did eventually make it home, through many tears.

We left the bike outside and today she was out back secretly practicing on her new bike when I walked out, so she smiled and declared, "Look Mommy!  I am widing my big girl bike and I'm not throwing a fit!"  I dully congradulated her and left her to do it on her own.  Momma has learned that sometimes Momma just interferes instead of helps. Especially with this one...she is so much like her Father!! :)

Oh, dancing with our spatulas...I mean wands.

Doing our "nagsticks" (gymnastics) as K calls it.  The entire time gymnastics was on for the Olympics, she kept asking me if I could teach her to do that.  I told her no but that I could find someone who could and she is very excited.  I'm not excited as that sport scares me but what else do kids under the tenth percentile in size do?

Reading while dancing while carrying around tongs...whose kid is she?

SO this was our VBS.  I think we had about 150 kids each day.  It was a lot of fun but long hours for the girls.  We left the house at 7:30am and got home between 1and 1:30pm.  Em was wasted!  I was one of the teachers at a station so I stayed put while the kids rotated through.  At my station we did the 5min video, memorized our memory verse and raised money for mosquito nets for kids in Mali, Africa.  Sound fitting?  Yep, I grew up just south of there and, no, the director did not know that when she asked me to teach.  It was a lot of fun giving the kids my personal experience with malaria and mosquitos and they responded by "saving lots of kids".  It was fun!

The girls only had to come on three of the days but when they did, we would take snack break in my room and have a picnic.  They had to spend all five hours in the nursery so I would take them into the music at the beginning and here for snack to try to break it up.  My ceiling was covered in stars so they loved it!

M also took advantage of the child care and finished the side yard.  We now have an apple tree, avocado tree, lemon tree and orange tree.  Doesn't it look fabulous?  I am super duper happy to have our yard looking so great!

We finally got smart and started with a tree already bearing fruit.  Better to pay up front for quicker results, that's for sure!

I just LOVE these moments!

Someone asked me this week if I don't just look at Em every day and see a miracle.  The answer is YES!  I typically well up with tears at least once a day.  Usually it sneaks up on me...like when she gets up early and crawls into bed with me and we cuddle for a while or when I am putting her to bed and she holds my face because she can't see it in the dark or at times like the above, when the girls are playing together.  It seems like I randomly well up with gratitude and it surprises me because rather than it waning in intensity as we move away from the original events, it seems to be getting stronger as time carries on.  I think that may be because I am now far enough removed to start admitting to myself just how horrible and how hard it really was and as I am honest with myself, I cry - in relief that it's over and we survived - in gratitude because I know what should be but I look at our lives and we are not what was spoken over us for so long - in a million emotions I have yet to put words to.  These things hit me in waves and this wave has been deep and strong.

I ran into someone this week who took a look at me, then at Em, then burst out, "That's the baby!  Oh my, look at her, she's beautiful!" and she instantly started crying.  She gushed about how long she had spent praying for Em and how amazing it was to see her right before her eyes, an answer to prayer.  And do you know what I said?  Nothing at first, I started crying with her, it was such a genuine display of emotion and joy that I felt it to my core.  Then I just said, "Thank you."  What I wanted to say is, "You, and people like you saved her life.  A million thank yous would never do.  Please know that I never, not on a single day, take it for granted or forget those who carried Emily before God's throne day and night.  He was never allowed a moment without requests for her being made to Him.  I know she is alive today because of Christians around the world and I stare at her - a gift - a gift given to me by family, friends and complete strangers but above all by God Himself - a gift I can never repay and for which words will never say enough."  If you are one of those people, I wish I had more to say than just thank you but as that is all there is, thank you will have to be enough.  I will never forget.

Thank you.