Pass the vitamin D

We've been home for a couple weeks and I still feel like I'm working on getting into a routine. Bryce got sick about right away when we got home. He was down for a week and then it sorta passed around to the others. No one got it as bad as Bryce though. Matthew and I managed to stay healthy through it all. So now Tara is still a bit under the weather and the rest are just congested. So the end is in sight. I think we will be more diligent in taking our vitamin D3 now.

When we got home about 2 weeks ago the Toews left for Colorado the next day. They just got back tonight. They brought Mandi with them. Mandi spent a month here last summer and now she is back for a month or 2 to help out. She will be helping with children's ministry, visitation to the elderly, domestic help for Cyndi and I...etc. That is a real blessing. I'm excited about having an extra hand around for a while.

Bryce is now old enough for his permit. Other than feeling old, I'm kinda excited about it. (except for when I'm nervous) Maybe I'll let Jim do all the driving with him. He was going to take his test on Tuesday, but the DMV said he needed a "birth certificate" for id not a "certificate of birth" which is what we got from Indiana. :( What? According to the Phoenix DMV what we have is acceptable but Flagstaff DMV won't accept it. So we may have to order a different certificate from vital records or we may try going to Tuba City DMV and see if they will accept what we have.

I had this "wonderful" idea to re-root the hair on Sharayah's 18" doll for her birthday because it is such a mess. So I researched it online and ordered what I would need to do it. I now have the supplies and started the project. At this rate I should have it done for her birthday next year. It is quite time consuming. I guess I can't quit now since her doll is now bald. It was a good thought while it lasted....so we'll see how it goes and if I don't post in a while you'll know why. lol

We have been in touch with a few of the people here in the community that we haven't had much contact with in the last year or so. It is heartbreaking to here their struggles and we continue to pray that they will be drawn to God and make the right choices.

Seth and his moat.

Ducky Matthew

One of the babysitters. He's probably getting spoiled. :)

He's starting to smile a lot now.

We’ve been out and about…

and that’s my excuse for being absent on here. We are on the way home from our travels. We left around the first of September and spent a couple days in Kansas on the way to Indiana.

We were in Indiana for 2 weeks; visiting with family and friends there when we could. It was a bit more difficult to do that this time, with all the baby things that kept us busy and Jim was also working while we were there. The time went fast as usual but we were glad for the time we did have.

From Indiana we went to Wisconsin for 5 days. While we were there we enjoyed my family reunion on 2 of those days.

Matthew is doing well and it seems he finally got the nursing thing figured out. Yay!!! He is sleeping pretty long stretches at night now so that helps too.

When we get home it will be time to focus on school and get into a routine….if that’s possible where we’re at….we continue to seek God’s direction in that.

For now here are some pics...in no particular order

Farmville on FB

Tara riding horse at my cousins in Wisconsin

Dutch Blitz

Bryce, Brett and Tony building rafts

Ping Pong tournament

Seth and Matthew

Matthew and cousin Daniel

Matthew with Great Grandma Beachy

Matthew and Uncle Dave

With Dody and Great Grandma

Matthew with Aunt Alta and cousin Destiny

Grandma Miller with almost all of her grandchildren

Home Sweet Home

It sure is good to be home. I just wanted to add some pics without the tube...he looks so much better this way.

We just got done cleaning up after Matthew. Tara said she heard explosions while he was laying on the couch....sure enough all the way up to his armpits. I just have a moment before he eats again so here are some pics.

"Knock, Knock, peep in, turn the latch...."

Basking in the Arizona sun!

baby pics

Baby News

Our baby boy arrived...5 weeks early! Matthew James was born August 8th, in a Phoenix hospital. He weighed 6 pounds. (Not exactly what the home birth we had planned, for sure) I had been having contractions for about 3 weeks prior to delivery and we found out after he was born that I had placenta abruption. He was born healthy though and we praise God for that. What a blessing he is...a gift from God.

However, even though he had a good birth weight he still acts like a premie. He has not been eating/sucking well. So I was released on Monday and he is still in neonatal, which has been extremely difficult to leave at nights...it just doesn't seem right. We have not found any place close to the hospital to stay at this point so we are staying about 30 minutes from the hospital at Jim's cousins place. What a blessing to have someone down here who doesn't mind us camping out indefinitely.

We try to get him to nurse or take a bottle but then they have to tube feed what he doesn't take...which happens to be more than what he's taking by mouth. :( We had a glimmer of hope this morning when he took the entire feeding by mouth and it was certainly a step in the right direction. As a whole he did better today but still has a ways to go.

Anyway that is the nutshell version and I don't have lots of internet opportunities when there is a baby to hold and feed and sleep to be gotten...or not...etc.

Please pray for all of us. It does get discouraging and our family seems so disjointed as we try to juggle all of this. Pray that Matthew will learn how to suck soon so we can go home and be together again.

Pics to come soon via Bryce, I hope.

Exciting Times

Just a quick update for those who are wondering.

Jim got back from his California trip early Sunday morning. I seemed to be having a lot of contractions and pressure on Sunday, so I made a call to the midwife who advised resting a lot. Things seemed even moe intense on Monday so I called the doctor. He said I was having signs of preterm labor and needed to be checked. So.....to make a long story short we ended up in the ER down in Phoenix since the doctors office wasn't open by the time we got there. After spending half the night there being monitored I was released. I am now taking something to stop the contractions and have to be on complete bed rest for 2 weeks. This will get me to 37 weeks, at which point it should be fine to go into labor.

So for now we take one day at a time and see how things go. We are praying things still work out for an Indiana birth.

busyness....

I feel like there is less and less activity in my brain these days...I would like to say the baby is sucking up my brain cells...but I suppose that is not the case. So it seems my posts are more facts than anything else right now. Maybe they will get more interesting in a few weeks.

In the meantime....

We got back from Kansas a week ago and are busy with kids ministry here and final preparations for our Indiana trip and the new baby. I am so glad Melissa is here visiting and helping out with children's ministry. She has taken over my kids time responsibilities for now while I try to focus on getting things ready to head out in 3 weeks or so.

Jim is leaving this weekend for California for about a week. He will be taking a family out there to visit family and take care of some other things. They have asked him to go along and hopefully it will be a time of growing and learning amidst potential difficulties.

To update on the serger, we got the part that was needed and it works beautifully. I made swimsuits for the girls and Tara sewed an apron and did a great job. Sometime I will try to get some pics on here of some of our projects. I am thrilled to actually have a serger that works, it is a blessing.

For now I need to get my rest.