Me and Winnie - the - Pooh

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries."--A.A. Milne,author of "Winnie-the-Pooh"

Spring Break

This is spring break week for my kids. You would think we would fill it with a bunch of fun activities to reward them for all of their hard work in school. Well instead of that silliness I decided to schedule Sydney's ear surgery this week. She needed both of her eardrums repaired. Her left ear had a small hole and her right ear had a large hole. The left ear was simple to fix, they went into the ear through the hole that God gave her and put in a patch. The right ear however, was a little more difficult. They had to get to her eardrum by cutting behind her ear. It is hard to watch your child be wheeled away from you and know that they are about to put her to sleep and preform surgery. This is where, as parents, we have to realize that God is always with them and he loves them even more than we do. Two hours later Dr. Shirley came in and told us that the surgery went well and that she would be in the recovery room for about 30 minutes. Just like clockwork, 30 minutes later she was wheeled down the hallway to her room. When she got in there she was in terrible pain. They had maxed her out on Demerol in the recovery room and she was still in excruciating pain. She just laid there looking at me with tears running down her face waiting on me to help her. If I thought letting her go to an operating room by herself was bad, this was 100 times worse. There was nothing I could do except hold her and wipe her tears. They eventually gave her some Lortab which helped tremendously. She was finally able to relax and sleep for a few minutes. This was an outpatient surgery so right when she fell asleep they came in and said that we could dress her and take her home. She wasn't excited about the car ride, but she was ready to get home. The evening was tough, she was still in a lot of pain but she made it through. She has been recovering the rest of the week, slowly adding some activity to her life. Today is Friday, 4 days after surgery, I thought it would be a good idea to get the kids out of the house. But after her surgery and medicine, we could not afford to do much so we took a picnic to the park. I thought Sydney would be really bored because she is not allowed to do much so I brought the camera with us and she took pictures the whole time. I think she really enjoyed it! Well that is the end of our spring break. I hope next year's spring break will be a little more fun for all of them.

I also want to say thank you to everyone who prayed, called, stopped by or brought her a gift. It truly meant a lot to her (and me) and made her feel special!

A win, A lesson, and A little pride

OK I know people will start saying all I talk about is baseball. Because this is only the second time I have blogged and both times were about baseball. As I just told Jamie about 10 minutes ago baseball is pretty much all that is on my mind right now. But anyway on to last nights game. I had been anxious about the game all day yesterday because we got spanked Tuesday night 16 to 1. Our team is much better than that, but we were in a slump hitting. Not taking anything away from the other team, even if we would have been hitting, we most likely would have still lost that game. That team will most likely be the best team we face all year. Moving on…. Last night started with us having to pick up a kid from the other Leeds team. I was very thankful that there was someone willing to play with us. We were home team so we had last bat. We were doing great and holding the other team and scoring when we needed to, but the other team was hanging in there. We had a little bit of a lead and it was getting late in the game and as my team has done a couple of times in the past, got relaxed and just didn’t make some plays starting the fifth inning. We went into the 5th inning with an 11-10 lead. After making many errors we were going in to the bottom of the 5th with a 16-11 deficit. So I was like ok we can come back from this no biggie we just have to hit the ball. Like I said earlier we have had a couple of kids in a slump hitting, so we went up to bat. My first kid got up to bat and got a base hit. My next 2 hitters two of my best hitters (ones in the slump) both struck out. The ump says time is out on the clock, so this means that this is our last chance. We don’t get to play our 6th inning because 1 1/2 hours have passed. So now I have 1 runner on base 2 of my less consistent hitters still in the lineup, 2 outs and a 5 point deficit. My heart sank. I was thinking here we go we have held the team, and been in the lead the whole game and now we are about to walk away with a loss. The next batter comes up third pitch gets a base hit. Now we have runners on 1st and 3rd. Next hitter comes to hit gets a double 2 runs score we are down by only 3. I am still not felling a comeback yet, because I have a kid coming up who has struck out more then he has hit. Oh and I forgot to mention the catcher on the other team was a talker. He had some of the kids really rattled and the one coming up to bat was really easy to get shaken up. Ok 3rd pitch he hits a base hit. 1 runner scores, down by only 2!! OK I’m feeling a little better now. The kid I picked up, the last batter in the lineup comes up to bat. I am thinking if I can just get past him I will be at the top of my lineup. He gets up there gets a base hit, another run scores and we are down by 1. Top of the lineup, Alex my son comes to bat. He has not hit that great the rest of the game. He has hit a fly ball for an out, and a couple of infield base hits tonight. He comes up to bat I look at him and I said this was his turn lets win this game right here. He looked at me and said yes sir. First pitch he smacked it. I turn to see the ball sailing in the air. I think it is gone… Going… going ….. going…. Hits the top of the fence about an inch from his first home run….. The kid on base scores!!! Alex is rounding 2nd and the ball is still in the outfield. He gets to third, they are throwing the ball in, we send him…. He gets home well before the ball got there. An In the park homerun!!! We win the game 17-16. I was so proud…. I was proud of all of the kids, but as a Dad I would be lying if I said that I was not overly proud of my son. Because I was!!!! He came in and got the job done. I learned a lesson from this game though. And that is the point of my blog today (well with the exception of bragging on my boy!!!!!) I gave up when we were down by 5 had 2 outs and only 1 runner on base. Not giving up is something I preached to these kids every practice and every game for 2 months now. And I did exactly what I told them not to do I gave up. Fortunately the Kids did not. They fought, they hit, they battled back and had a big come from behind win. I am so proud of all of those guys, and I will never give up again.

More Than Enough

My heart has been burdened for my brother-in-law and his family. It seems like things in their lives are falling apart all around them. His father is in the final stages of cancer (my brother-in-law, Matt talks about this in his blog http://www.whostheman-mattd.blogspot.com/). If that wasn't enough,they are now dealing with other battles in their life. I know God never gives us more than we can handle, so I know this will only make them stronger.
I was church Sunday thinking about the pain Matt and the whole family must be feeling when we started singing a song by Chris Tomlin - More Than Enough.

All of You is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You is more than enough
You are my supply My breath of life
And still more awesome than I know
You are my reward worth living for
And still more awesome than I know
All of You is more than enough for all of me
For every thirst and every need
You satisfy me with Your love
And all I have in You is more than enough
You’re my sacrifice Of greatest price
And still more awesome than I know
You’re the coming King
You are everything
And still more awesome than I know
More than all I want More than all I need
You are more than enough for me
More than all I know
More than all I can say
You are more than enough for me

God is more than enough. This is true for all of us not just someone dying of cancer or the family left behind. We must all look to God to supply our every need.
Please remember to pray for the Davis family.

Shane's Day Off.....Well Sort Of

Yesterday was an eventful day with the weather, wasn't it? Our day started just like every other Friday. I took the kids to school, came home and then got Jackson ready for his nap. He has gotten so very mobile lately that I can not get anything done while he is awake. After his bottle, I placed him in his comfy "bed" in Alex's room. His bed consists of a blanket placed under Alex's desk. I did a few things around the house and got in the shower. And that was my morning. About 10:30 SURPRISE Shane came home from work. He had taken off most of the day to spend a quiet afternoon with me and the little kids. We picked Kenzie up from school at 12:00 and decided to go to Santa Fe for lunch. We were having a nice time visiting and watching Jackson. He has gotten to be such a big boy lately. He sat in a highchair and ate a little from the table, I am not entirely sure that Shane did not slip him some tea while I took Kenzie to the bathroom. Yes, the four of us were having a fine time! Then the phone rang.
We found out that the schools were letting out early due to the weather. I called Heather and asked if we needed to keep her boys...and we did. We met her at Adam's daycare and got him. Kenzie was so excited to see him. While we were there Dawn called and told us that she needed someone to pick up her girls from school because she was driving to the eye of the storm oh I mean Anniston to get ready for her schools prom. Shane volunteered to go and get them while I took the others home and waited on our kids school bus to get there and Heather to bring Jake. By 2:30 I had a house full. If you lost count, That was 8 kids and only 2 adults. We were heavily outnumbered. Luckily, they did not realize this so we did not have a hostile takeover. The afternoon went pretty good, as good as it could with this many people in one house.
I don't know how glad Shane is that he took of work yesterday, but I sure was happy to have him!
Again.. a wonderful day filled with family time! Lots of family!