Tax Day Field Trip

On April 15th, tax day, the kids and I took a field trip to the state capital to participate in the Tea Party. It was really a great opportunity for a history lesson. We have not covered American history yet, so nobody had heard of the Boston tea party. We looked up lots of information on line and saw pictures(or drawings) of the tea being thrown in the harbor. We learned about how the governments role is supposed to be to protect the United States not to provide healthcare, stimulate the economy, bail out bad business deals, etc. The kids understand, more than many adults, that they want to be able to keep what they earn and therefore want others to be able to do the same. We also discussed how just like we were all learning about the Boston Tea party, someday they will be teaching their own children about the Tea Parties of 2009. They were apart of history in the making and are also learning how to stand up for what you believe. Here are some photos of our day...

John partying like it is 1773

Jacinta-this Obama nation is an Abomination

Keslee-Don't I get a chance at freedom?

Kenyon-Stop spending my $money$

We had between 3000-7000 people show up in OKC.

I loved this one-Don't socialize medicine-they can't cure stupid!


Looking at the masses of people standing up for freedom!

Kalysa-dont make me pay your bills-I'm just 6

All about Kalysa!

Now that I have downloaded all my pictures from the month, I realize I never posted the photos from Kalysa's encounter on the skateboard so here is what she looked like after we returned from the e.r.

Her lip was SO fat and the gum surrounding the missing tooth was cut and bruised and ugly. For the first few days, every time she smiled I just cringed. It looked so painful. It took me a while before I could get used to seeing that big gap where a tooth was supposed to be. When your kids have a loose tooth for a few weeks, you have time to prepare. You know it is gonna happen and you can rejoice with them when the time finally arrives and the little baby tooth is finally free from is temporary home in your child's mouth and moved to it's permanent home-in their baby book. I just hated the fact that my baby lost her first tooth by blunt force trauma but by the next day (after a dollar under the pillow and the swelling had gone down) Kalysa was proudly showing off her toothless grin just like every other child. The trauma was over and a milestone had been reached! Who cares if it involved screaming, crying and blood squirting down her shirt-forget about the trip to the emergency room and the promise to never get on another skateboard for the rest of her life-trauma over-swelling subsides-She lost her first tooth!! And once the gum healed up, she was still just as pretty as ever!!

And now on to leg news...After Kalysa got her last cast off, she got a new pair of shoes and a splint to help keep her muscle from tightening back up. We also discovered that her left leg is 1/2 inch shorter than the right leg so there is a lift attached to the bottom of the splint. The shoes are made to fit the splint. The right shoe is full of insoles where the left shoe is empty. You can't tell form the outside that they are different at all.

We got a picture of Kalysa without the splint but both feet flat on the ground.

That is a sight we were not used to seeing! If you look you can tell she has the right knee slightly bent to accommodate for the length difference. I can't believe we had never noticed that before. It wasn't until she had the splint and shoes on and was running and playing that I noticed how much smoother her movements were. The limp that I had not realized she had was gone. She was all evened out.

Normally when we do much walking, Kalysa's leg would start to hurt and get tired after about 15 minutes. Now she can go and go! The splint and shoes have taken the pressure off and she does not complain of pain. She loves to wear the splint and even wears it to bed. We did get to see the Shriner Dr. in Oklahoma City. He usually does surgery on kids between the ages of 7-9 so she is still a little young. The good news is that the bones do not seem to be affected right now and he believes with her being so active, she may really benefit from the surgery now. He will be lengthening the 3 muscles in the left leg. Of course, as she grows, there is always the possibility that they may tighten up and the surgery could have to be done again when she is older but he really thinks chances are good that she will not. I guess she may always have to have a lift in her shoe-we really did not get into that so I'm not sure if the surgery will help correct the length difference. So here is the plan-in September we check into the Shriner hospital in Shreveport La. Surgery will be the next morning. The schedule goes from youngest to oldest and right now she is the youngest so she should be first in line. The surgery should last 1 1/2-2 hours. She will be in a cast and stay in the hospital for 1 week. When she is released from there, we will bring her back to the Children's Center and she will be admitted there for 3 weeks of therapy and rehab. She will still wear the splint after it is all done but I am not sure for how long. The tough part will be the 3 weeks in the hospital in OKC. We will have to work out some type of schedule so that she is never there alone-I couldn't take that-especially through the night. They have teachers available so the kids don't get behind in school but I already let them know I am the teacher so we will do school when we can. We have several months to try to get all the details figured out! I am just so thankful that the Lord provided this opportunity for her! Please say a little prayer for us and Kalysa and Dr. Gates whenever you think about it.

Update(4/30/09):

I got a call from the shriners hospital today. Kalysa and I will being going to Shreveport on August 27 for her Gait analysis. They will hook her all up to electrodes and the doctors will be able to see what ALL of her muscles are doing or not doing when she moves. This will tell them exactly what needs to be done in the surgery and how best to do it.

Keslee Gillian

On the 12th of April, my Kessie-Boo turned 7. I can't believe she is already seven years old. My own birthdays don't make me feel near as old as my kid's birthdays do! So almost 8 years ago, I was pregnant with my second baby. Kenyon was almost 4 years old and ALL boy. That kid never stopped and was into (and on top of) EVERYTHING! That is why it took me sooo long to decide I was ready for another baby. I wanted a baby girl so bad. I just knew this time had to be a girl. When I was only about 11 or 12 weeks pregnant, the doctor was concerned about the place the placenta was attached so he ordered an ultrasound. This was a MAJOR bummer for me! Maybe I have mentioned before but I have a high tendency to be a control freak. I like to plan. I need a plan!! How could I PLAN on having this baby without knowing the sex!? You know insurance companies only pay for 1 ultrasound and 11 weeks was too early to tell much about the baby(well except for hearts beating and major organs all where there should be but that stuff I already knew! I needed to know-BOY OR GIRL!) I was also planning on have a v-back. I had a c-section with Kenyon and really did not want to do that again. I wanted to do it the normal way. Well my doctor was not really big on that idea. He did not like to take the chance. He explained that there is about a 1% chance of the uterus rupturing and although that seems so minimal now, while I had a baby growing inside of me depending on me to get it here safely-1% all of a sudden sounded like a HUGE risk that I did not want to take with my baby so I agreed to another c-section. This pregnancy was not going as PLANNED (and of course my next one was even MORE off the plan!). I had a pretty uneventful pregnancy for the most part. I wasn't sick like I had been with Kenyon. I felt good most of the time until the third trimester and then she was laying in a way that really KILLED my hips! I couldn't sit, stand or even lay comfortably for long. One of my favorite memories of being pregnant with Kes was at about 8 months along during a thunderstorm. I was laying in bed when a HUGE thunder crashed. You know the kind that shakes the house and feels like the cloud is about 2 feet over your roof when it hits? Well my sleeping baby awoke and JUMPED about a foot inside my belly. It was the strangest but most awesome feeling! We definitely knew there was nothing wrong with this babies hearing! Well since God new about my need to know things so I can plan accordingly-the company I worked for changed insurance companies in the middle of the year. Whatta ya know! New insurance company=1 paid ultrasound! I had the next ultrasound at about 37 weeks and it was very clear that YES! it was a baby girl. A baby girl with big chubby cheeks and big enough to see EXACTLY what she looked like on the fuzzy ultrasound. It was the most awesome sight! Ultrasounds are just really cool anyway-getting to see a developing baby months before you would ever meet them but to see one the size of a newborn and big enough to see every detail of their little face-AWESOME! The test also estimated her to already be over 8 pounds so we scheduled her delivery for the next week. There is something to say about having a baby with no labor and really no pain. I went into the hospital that morning and my doctor came during lunch and we had a baby in a matter of minutes-12:21pm only weighing 7lbs and 7 ounces and GORGEOUS! I got to be awake this time and Monty was in the delivery room with me. I got to hear her cry and Monty got to be with her as they did her apgar tests and then she was handed straight to me. I got to hold her as I was wheeled back to my room. It was so peaceful and calm and not anything like the emergency c-section I had with Kenyon. Since my muscles had not been contracting at all before the surgery and the epidural had a 24 hour pain block in it-I literally had NO pain! A few hours after she was born I was sitting indian style in the bed and never felt uncomfortable at all.(also I had stitches this time where as I had staples the 1st time. If you ever have abdominal surgery-request stitches! I believe they made a world of difference!!) Keslee likes to hear the story of how I had her and never had pain but with Kenyon and Kalysa I was in pain for hours. Keslee was an easy pregnancy, an easy birth and has really always been my easiest child-so tender hearted and loving where the other 2 have a definite stubborn streak!

Well now my baby is SEVEN! My how the time flies! This year, since the month has been so busy anyway and her birthday was on Easter day, we just had some cupcakes at home with the family after church and gave her the one present she had wanted since the 1st time she saw it(about 4 years ago!)....

BABY ALIVE! (which I found on sale for about $20 off the regular price;)) She named her Kate.

Of course after being in that box for so long she must have been hungry and being the good little mama that Keslee is-she had that baby eating within 2.3 seconds of getting everything out of the box!!

Missions conference

As promised at the first of the month, here is some news from our missions conference. We had the best time ever. Our preacher has 4 missionary families come. We had a dinner at church every night from Saturday until Wednesday. We had a missionary headed to Australia, one going to Venezuela, one headed to the inner city of Philadelphia and one that travels around America helping others plant new churches. Preacher had us decorate the walls of our new fellowship hall for each of the mission fields represented. We had a great time of fellowship and really got to know the missionary families better than ever before. We had a different missionary preach each night. They all taught different Sunday school classes on Sunday morning and teach each class in children's church. The kids were all involved with getting to know the missionaries and where they were going and why. It was truly the BEST conference I have ever been to. On Saturday our preacher had arranged for some special guests to be there is honor of the missionary families and the fields they are going to. Every one of the messages we heard that week was really great. I am not going to try to relay each message here but there was lots of teaching on the whys and hows of missions, faith in God and trusting God for everything! Here are some photos ...

Preparing the "Eucalyptus tree" for the Australia wall.

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The Australia wall with the tree and Kangaroo

duck billed platypus, Australia map and flag

The coral reef

The Koala bear

OUR SPECIAL GUESTS
riding on the back of a large tortoise


Keslee with the baby alligator

Mrs Connie with the HUGE snake

Keslee with the cockatoo

The best(in my opinion) was the baby Kangaroo. He was still in a pouch and would never have been out of his mother's pouch if she were not sick. He was SOOOO cute and softer than anything I have ever felt-softer than rabbit fur.

There was also a baby wallaby in a pouch but that photo did not come out. It was such a special time and something we(especially the kids) will not soon forget.

Confession is good for the soul

I had said before that the reason I had not been posting much lately is because we have been so busy. Well that is true. I am pretty sure yesterday I was hearing about April fool's tricks and then look up and a new month is starting in just a few days. I REALLY don't know where this month has gone. We have not slowed down for a minute. Now on to the confession part....busyness is not the only reason I have not been blogging. I have been in a funk lately. I have allowed the problems of this world to completely overwhelm me. I have not been fun to be around and I would not have been able to post anything that anyone would have wanted to read. You know-"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything." Well I did not trust myself to say anything. I know I have been awful, especially to my husband, and I have been praying alot for forgiveness and guidance. Monty is just a great enough of a guy that he forgives me and has welcomed my old self back with open arms(boy am I lucky!) and God has started showing my the error of my way and lighting the path for my return. We have been blessed sooo much and the devil hates it. They always say "When God is Blessing-the Devil is stressing" so what does he do. Well he starts working overtime on me(the emotional control freak part of me) and I am ashamed to say I failed the tests too many times in the last few weeks. It has mostly been about money which I know is the stupidest thing to stress about but I did.
God clearly tells us that he will provide our needs.
The devil tries to convince me some things are really NEEDS and not just WANTS and since God hasn't provided it yet He is not going to.
God says to have faith.
The devil tells me I have lacked faith so often God has given up on me.
God says he will always be with me.
The devil says God Can provide but I am such a screw up why would he want to?
God said He will never forsake me. He loves me with an unconditional Love that I will never understand. No matter how much I love my kids or my husband or my sister or my brother-it will never be the same as the love He has for me. I have never decided to not be there and help my own family even with my limited conditional love for them so there is no way God would do that to me.
Then I stop arguing and beg forgiveness.
So there ya have it. That was my month in a nutshell-at least internally. Now that I have that out of my system I promise to catch up on posting about our month externally-and there is a lot to tell about. Hope someone has actually stuck around with me to read all about it!

Answer to Prayer!

We got the call today (ok-just looked at the clock-it was actually yesterday). Kalysa has an appointment to see the Shriner Dr. in Oklahoma City on April 22nd. When reading up about the Shriner hospital, I learned that the one in Shreveport(where we will go if and when it is time for surgerty) is THE BEST orthopedic hospital. When kids are accepted as patients, they are shriner kids from that time until they turn 18 so anything that may arise later will be taken care of by them as well. It really is an anwer to prayer!

I am back with Spiritual Gifts for Everyone!

Okay! So I have been gone from the bloggy world for a little while. We have been SOOOO busy, I haven't had time to take a breath(not to mention no time for laundry, dishes etc etc). We had our missions conference at church from Saturday thru Wednesday. It was A LOT of fun and I will post more detailed stories later, only problem was the fellowship. Don't get me wrong-it was great. I really had a great time with the missionaries and their wives. This time they were all involved in our church while they were here-they taught Sunday school and children's church and worked in the nursery. It really made them more part of our family and you know what you do when you have family that you will only get to see for a few days and maybe NEVER again-you stay and hang out and talk and play games and ya don't get home until 11:30pm EVERY. NIGHT. FOR. FIVE. NIGHTS. IN. A. ROW!!!! I Just Need A Breather!! I did find this really cool survey for you ALL to take. You just answer about 100 questions-it really does not take very long-and it will tell you about your spiritual gifts. It tells which ones are your strongest ones and which ones are your weakest and then gives you ways to use those gifts in your church. I learned somethings about myself that I did not realize-I don't know why I did not realize, they made perfect sense and even now that I look at it, my strongest gift is the one I naturally use a lot at church but never realized I was really using a gift. It always was just what I like to do and I guess I just thought of it as "That's just how I am" instead of "That is a gift God gave me" which really is the whole point of spiritual gifts anyway right!? They are who you are!?! Not sure if I am making any sense to anyone but myself so yall go over and take the survey and we can discuss more later about what each of our gifts really are and if you knew yours without the survey.

TEA-Taxed Enough Already!!

If you get your information only from main stream media than you probably have not heard much about the tea parties that have been popping up at state capitals all across the country in rememberance of The Boston Tea Party. I know that there has been one already at the capital in Oklahoma City and I believe there are plans for more in the future. Just like early Americans took a stand against taxation without representation, it is time for us to take a stand and let our government know that we are Taxed Enough Already!! It is time for them to STOP THE SPENDING and start representing the people in this country. I think that the tea party protests that are occuring on state capital building steps all over America are a great place to start and I am hoping to be able to participate in the future. If your are interested, all you have to do is search the web for "tea party" in your state and I'm sure you'll find tons of info. I also wanted to encourage all of you to mail a tea bag to the president this week. By April 15th, the white house should be FULL of tea bags from all 50 states with notes to STOP THE SPENDING! Help send a message to President Obama that we are TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY!

update
TEA PARTY IN OKLAHOMA!! (invitation)

My name is Tessa Breder and I'm currently serving as Chairman of the OU College Republicans. We're having a campus tea party Monday, April 13, 2009, at the University of Oklahoma. Invitation: We would love to have ANYONE who is interested in attending--this is NOT limited to students. In other words, enraged citizens of all ages are encouraged to come out and join us. OU's Tea Party shares the same goal of gaining attention to protest the outrageous way in which our tax dollars are being spent, but also to promote the Oklahoma City Tea Party which will take place only two days later. We'll have some great speakers, too! Many students are under the impression the current spending won't directly affect their generation, little do they know it will affect them more than anyone. I ask you to help us get this message out come rally behind this country was made to be run by "WE THE PEOPLE" and not THEM IN WASHINGTON!Time: 10:00 a.m.Location: "South Oval" of The University of Oklahoma's campus (the corner of Lindsey St. and Van Fleet Oval E.)Parking: The Union parking garage is located at 900 Asp Avenue and is only a short walk north from the South Oval; There is also metered parking a little closer at the football stadium parking garage located near the corner of Asp Avenue and Lindsey Street. Parking will be tight just about everywhere but these will probably be the easiest to get into. Claim the first spot you find!