Say Another Prayer

Please say a little prayer today for Karen's friend Jamie.  Mother to three, including one that is just a few months old, she has gone into the hospital with a blood clot on her lung.  Not only that, but over the weekend she had some sort of allergic reaction to the drugs and went into anaphylactic shock and had to be put into ICU.  I am going to go with Karen to visit her this evening.  Keep her in your prayers and if you have time go on over to Karen's and leave a nice message so we can print them out and take them to Jamie.

A nice Sunday

Today we had a very nice day as a family.  In the morning David went out for a haircut and I spent a little time on my new favorite website The Photographer's Workshop.  We accidentally slept in and missed church, so David and I decided to use the day as a family day.  We took the girls to McDonald's (it was Dani's choice today).  The kids had their lunch and then went out to play on the play area where Kassie proceeded to run into one of the playthings and put a little gash right next to her eyelid and Dani hit her forehead and put a nice little bruise there.  Then we decided to take a nice long drive in the country where we ran into a few open houses and decided to have a look.  We are not seriously looking to buy a house yet, but we are just dreaming a little.  Our dream started out a bit big, as the first house we looked at was beautiful.  I knew it was not in our price range, but I wasn't ready for the 1.2 million that this beauty cost.  So we moved on to smaller things.  We found an older colonial home that we absolutely adored.  4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, 3 acres overlooking beautiful scenery and near the Potomac River.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  I figured being furthur out it would be a lot less.  And it was, only 759,000 for this beauty.  Moving on to newer, but cheaper homes we looked in town.  And we saw a beautiful home with 5 bedrooms and 3 1/2 baths for only 519,000.  I guess we will still be waiting a little bit longer, but we had lots of fun looking!

Our paths

One of the most profound statements ever made to me, was something my mother told me when I was very young, and many times since.

"As you walk, step by step, the path will open up before you..." I believe there may have been more to the statement, but this is the part that really stuck with me as I went out into the world and began my own life.  This is how I have lived my life.  Day by day, step by step, and sometimes moment by moment.  I don't dwell on the things that happened in my past, and I certainly try not to worry about what is going to happen in the future! 

The joy in my life is unequaled!  I am blessed beyond reason.  I have a wonderful husband who adores me and treats me like a queen and I have five beautiful, healthy, extremely intelligent daughters, who bring more happiness to my life than I could have ever imagined.  I have friends and family all over the world who are willing to pull through in a pinch. I never knew what path would open up before me.  As I walk down the road that God opened for me, each day is a wonder, a new blessing to behold.  I never in a million years could have imagined a path this wonderfully beautiful.  Yes, every now and then we hit a bumpy patch in the road, but I have found that God always offers us ways around those bumpy patches.  Interesting scenic detours.  Places we would not have seen and hills we would not have climbed.  And once we are back on the path, we are stronger people and we appreciate the smooth path even more.   

I want to thank all of you, whose paths have crossed ours, those of you who we have had a chance to walk with for a time, and those who we have met and then parted ways.  You have all made our lives a little better and I am glad we are sharing our journeys together!

Weekend Update

This has been a wonderful week in the Wilson house.  Nobody got sick, we didn't have one doctor's appointment.  We managed to get a full day of school in every single day and I managed to get a lot of planning done. 

Our summer is getting fuller and fuller.  My mom and brother are coming in April for a week.  In June it will be my aunt and cousin for three weeks.  While they are still here our child from Belarus will get here.  She will be here 8 weeks and then we will head back home to Nebraska for the first time in over four years.  I am really happy about this. 

In November for our 13th Anniversary, David and I are taking a Carribean cruise.  My Mom has agreed to come and stay with the kids!  I am so excited, as David and I never had a honeymoon, so this will be our first time together alone (with no kids) for more than two days.

Next weekend is the Pure Freedom rally.  And I will be taking Brittany and Gabby and a friend of mine will be driving up and bringing her daughters too.  The rally is based upon the book "The Bride Wore White" and is meant to teach girls about purity and the importance of abstinence in this day and age.  I am positive that it will be a wonderful weekend for the girls and I and I hope they will learn alot!  The rally is sponsored by  LifeLine Pregnancy Care Center.  Which is where I will be volunteering hopefully starting next week.  To learn more about what they do you can go here too.

The rest of this week was great.  I got most of the planning for Dani's birthday party done and I managed to pick a lot of our curriculum for the next school year.  The nexy step is achievement testing again.  Last year they tested really high and I am not worried about this year at all. 

Well I am off to get a birthday cake for David's Dad as it is his birthday today and we will be having a little party here.  (He's the clown in this post).  Happy Birthday Ed!

I'll leave you with one of my favorit photos.  This was last summer after a day of hot sight seeing in D.C. The kids were thrilled to find this pool to cool off in.

Chickens and Ducks and Lambs, Oh My!

This afternoon we went to SuperTarget to get a few things we needed.  Kassie had $5 so she went to the dollar aisle and picked out something nice for each of her sisters.  For Dani she got a baby sheep that says "bah" when you squeeze it, for Bela she got a baby duck and for her and Brittany and Gabby she got notebooks.  The older girls often quiz their younger sisters to help them with their learning.  So Gabby said, "Bela what is a baby chicken called?"  Bela answered, "Actually Gabby it is not a baby chicken, which is a chick, but this is a baby duck, which is a duckling." Not to be outdone, Dani piped in, "And I got a lambling!"

DUH!

Me: Daddy is on his way home now.

Dani: Yay!

Me: Daddy is a pretty nice person isn't he?

Dani: Daddy isn't a person!

Me: What is he?

Dani: A DAD!

If it looks like a duck

Kassie thought she was a duck this morning!

Poor Grandpa

The girls went to David's parent's house for the weekend.  This is what they do while they are there.  Of course Grandpa was only pretending to be asleep...or was he?

Thank you Everyone!

Having been through this with the lump the past few weeks I have realized how wonderful it is to have a good support system and how thankful David and I are for our children, our family and our wonderful friends all over the world.  The day I found Danijela's lump, I sent out an email and within a few hours I had 42 responses, which later turned to 56 and ended up at 71 total responses.  Some of these people I met online through blogging, Thank you Phillip, Tim, Judith, Julie, Catherine, and Kristal.  You have all been very faithful along with my family members and friends I already know, my dear cousins Amber and Len and our good friend Trish.   Everyone has been so wonderful and David and I really appreciate it!

Long awaited pictures

It's been a long time coming, but I finally got motivated to put up some pictures.  First Dani says thanks for all the prayers.  She is happy her lump is disappearing and she won't have to have surgery now.

Secondly, a lot of you have asked to see pictures of what the doctor did to Bela's foot.  Well here it is.

As you can see the liquid nitrogen ran down her foot from the wart.

Here is the premier picture of Gabby with her glasses.

She looks so pretty!

Kassie wanted me to include a picture of her.

Bela's hair is growing a lot.

She only looks tired because the flash was too bright.

Here is a picture from our trip to the Air and Space Museum when the Brittany and Gabby's friend Tiffanie was here.

Brittany will be getting her braces on April 6th, I will post her pictures then.

We have been sick.  The flu hit us just about two weeks ago and Danijela and I literally spent days in bed recovering.  At the tail end of the flu I ended up with sinus infection and bronchitis.  We have finally recovered and are really enjoying this beautiful weather that has hit our area.  For a couple of days it was in the 80s.  It feels warmer than a British summer already and it isn't even the end of March yet.  Bela has spent four days practicing riding her bike and she has become quite proficient also Dani has learned to peddle her tricycle and they are both very excited to be more independent.

Now for the best news yet.  Yesterday I was feeling the lump on Dani's back and it is almost gone.  I had her in to her pediatrician, who is a bit baffled, but feels like it is okay to cancel the surgery and just keep a close watch on it.  We are so happy and grateful to all of you who sent us your prayers!

All the paperwork is now in place for our Belorussian child to come and stay at the end of June.  The girls are getting really excited about it.  Also my Mom and brother will be here in April and my aunt and cousin are coming for most of the month of June.  We are looking forward to going to some new places and getting to know this area a little better while they are here. 

Praise God

I just want to thank you all for the wonderful support you have given us over the course of this week.  We have been worried, but tried to have faith and receive comfort in the fact that God holds us in his hands.  Thankfully today went well at the surgeon.  He has decided to bypass all the extra tests including biopsy and MRI and just go straight to removal.  He will then send the lump off to a pathologist where it will be analized.  The surgeon is positive that it is not cancer and is probably a hemangioma or some form of benign fibrous tumour.  He has also told us that it will be possible for us to have her tonsils removed at the same time so she only has to undergo anesthesia once.  Thank you again for all your prayers and wonderful emails I do believe that your prayers kept me going this week and may be the reason for our wonderful news.  Praise God for the news and for our beautiful little girl!!!

David will be home this evening!

A lump

Yesterday was a challenge and I am asking all of you to add us to your prayers lists.  Yesterday morning I discovered a lump on Danijela's spine.  I immediately took her to her pediatrician who sent us to get a sonogram.  The lump is right on her vertebra at the upper back between her shoulder blades. 

The radiologist could not identify the mass through ultrasound, though she did give us hope by saying it didn't look like cancer as usually cancer would invade the tissue around it and this mass is actually pushing the tissue out of the way.  We thought that it might be a lipoma which is just a fatty mass that is benign, but the mass is embedded in her fatty tissue and is a different color they are sure that isn't what it is.  Our pediatrician set us up with a pediatric surgeon for Friday morning.  She said he will probably want us to get Dani an MRI and a biopsy and then possibly remove the mass as it is really close to the spine.  Please keep us in your prayers as you are going about your week.  I have been a nervous wreck and of course David is in Georgia this week.  He will be home on Friday.

The highlight of my morning was the older girls making up and starring in their own LIVE episode of Dora the Explorer to "cheer Dani up".  They are so sweet and I love every minute with them!