 |
 |
| Make a Smilebox scrapbook |
Friday, December 26, 2008
Christmas 2008
Here is a smilebox of our Christmas morning. We had a wonderful Christmas. We are so blessed. Turn the music off of the blog on the left to hear the Christmas music of the smilebox!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Finally an update!!
I am sorry it has taken so long for me to update our blog! We have been so very busy….too busy. I guess I will just try to pick up where I left off and update. I do the blog for our friends and family out of state but also for our girls. I wished I could have kept a diary with the boys of all the happenings of our family. I would be so neat to look back on now. OK, here we go…
We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Indiana with Scott’s family. We had a nice time and the girls loved being with all their cousins. We stayed at Uncle Wade and Aunt Mitzi’s new house. They have no children of their own and have a room just for their nieces and nephews that include games, coloring books and crayons, dolls, trucks, a real swing hanging from the ceiling, tv, computer, and much more!! Scott drove home that Sunday after Thanksgiving and left the girls and I there since Makenna had a checkup at Shriners in Chicago on Wednesday. There was no reason to drive 5 hours home just to turn around and drive it back on Tuesday. Mitzi, Makenna, and I left Monday night for Chicago and spent all day Tuesday and the outlet malls north of Chicago for lots of Christmas shopping! I did get quite a bit of shopping done that day which was very nice. Mitzi made reservations for us at Rainforest Café which I had never been too. It was wonderful! Makenna was very excited to see all the animals and they sat us by a big aquarium and she was entranced with watching the fish. We went back to our beautiful hotel room Mitzi got for us, she works for Westin and got us a 2 room suite for 40 bucks a night, and fell fast asleep. Makenna had to be at Shriners by 8 the next morning so we were up very early. Makenna did very well for her check up. They were very impressed with her speech progression and said she far exceeded the goals for 6 month post surgery! The speech pathologist was very impressed and stated she feels as though Makenna will speak with no impediment at all. She also had a new tooth come in since surgery to fill in the gap where her gum clefts. They said they are not sure if she will have a permanent tooth come in but it is a good sign. She does not need to go back to Chicago until September. They will re-evaluate her lip repair then. Dr. G said that she is borderline as to if he should re-do her lip or not. He things with her talking more and using that upperlip the scar should go down more. He also said there were 2 little holes in the roof of her mouth that he thinks will continue to close. He said they were not fistulas. Scott came back to Indiana the following Friday and had Ryan and Jess with him. We had a nice weekend and finally came home! There is no place like home! We started off the week with working and going to see my new baby niece. We then had pictures to take of 3 lively children! It was quite the trip to photograph a 7 month old, and 18 month old, and a 4 year old. We all felt exhausted when we were done but we got some great shots!
When our clients left the studio, Scott shared with me about his day at work. He was called into his boss’s office that afternoon and told he was being laid off. He was allowed to work through the week and that was it. No severance pay no nothing. After 12 years with the company he was getting nothing. We were expecting his hours to get cut to 32 hours a week but he had the most seniority and thought, as did everyone else at the company, that Scott would be the last one standing. Needless to say the last 2 weeks have been a series of ups and downs. We have a couple of leads for him but nothing really stands out for him. He is looking at possibly going back to school for something in the medical field, the only career that will always be needed, just not sure how to survive while he does that! I was lucky enough to be able to pick up more hours at work, enough to get insurance for us. If anyone out there in blog land has a lead on a good job we’d be interested! We have been trying to decide if we stay here in Ohio with our church family and all our friends or move back to Indiana with Scotts family. Our first choice is to stay here in Ohio, the schools are so much better and we hate to move the girls from their friends and all that is familiar to them. Please keep us in prayer as we seek God’s will for us.
On the Hannah and Makenna front! These two have finally bonded! It took a year but they are very close now. You often see them hugging each other and looking out for each other. When we were in Chicago they called each other on the phone and talked to each other for a long time. It was too cute to listen to them saying they loved each other and missed each other. Last night we met my dad for our annual Christmas dinner and Makenna did not see TJ come and get Hannah out of our van to take into the restaurant. As we were walking into the restaurant she began frantically pointing to the van and yelling Nah Nah, what she calls Hannah, thinking we were leaving her there. So sweet. That is all for right now. I must clean up the house. We are having a realtor come to give us some advice on selling it quickly. We know there is no way we can make the payments. Our little town has lost over 300 jobs in the last few months so the housing market will only get worse. God has reminded us that our home is just stuff and He will take care of us wherever we go. Part of me is scared and part of me is so excited to see what God has for us. I will keep you posted as God moves in our lives.
We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Indiana with Scott’s family. We had a nice time and the girls loved being with all their cousins. We stayed at Uncle Wade and Aunt Mitzi’s new house. They have no children of their own and have a room just for their nieces and nephews that include games, coloring books and crayons, dolls, trucks, a real swing hanging from the ceiling, tv, computer, and much more!! Scott drove home that Sunday after Thanksgiving and left the girls and I there since Makenna had a checkup at Shriners in Chicago on Wednesday. There was no reason to drive 5 hours home just to turn around and drive it back on Tuesday. Mitzi, Makenna, and I left Monday night for Chicago and spent all day Tuesday and the outlet malls north of Chicago for lots of Christmas shopping! I did get quite a bit of shopping done that day which was very nice. Mitzi made reservations for us at Rainforest Café which I had never been too. It was wonderful! Makenna was very excited to see all the animals and they sat us by a big aquarium and she was entranced with watching the fish. We went back to our beautiful hotel room Mitzi got for us, she works for Westin and got us a 2 room suite for 40 bucks a night, and fell fast asleep. Makenna had to be at Shriners by 8 the next morning so we were up very early. Makenna did very well for her check up. They were very impressed with her speech progression and said she far exceeded the goals for 6 month post surgery! The speech pathologist was very impressed and stated she feels as though Makenna will speak with no impediment at all. She also had a new tooth come in since surgery to fill in the gap where her gum clefts. They said they are not sure if she will have a permanent tooth come in but it is a good sign. She does not need to go back to Chicago until September. They will re-evaluate her lip repair then. Dr. G said that she is borderline as to if he should re-do her lip or not. He things with her talking more and using that upperlip the scar should go down more. He also said there were 2 little holes in the roof of her mouth that he thinks will continue to close. He said they were not fistulas. Scott came back to Indiana the following Friday and had Ryan and Jess with him. We had a nice weekend and finally came home! There is no place like home! We started off the week with working and going to see my new baby niece. We then had pictures to take of 3 lively children! It was quite the trip to photograph a 7 month old, and 18 month old, and a 4 year old. We all felt exhausted when we were done but we got some great shots!
When our clients left the studio, Scott shared with me about his day at work. He was called into his boss’s office that afternoon and told he was being laid off. He was allowed to work through the week and that was it. No severance pay no nothing. After 12 years with the company he was getting nothing. We were expecting his hours to get cut to 32 hours a week but he had the most seniority and thought, as did everyone else at the company, that Scott would be the last one standing. Needless to say the last 2 weeks have been a series of ups and downs. We have a couple of leads for him but nothing really stands out for him. He is looking at possibly going back to school for something in the medical field, the only career that will always be needed, just not sure how to survive while he does that! I was lucky enough to be able to pick up more hours at work, enough to get insurance for us. If anyone out there in blog land has a lead on a good job we’d be interested! We have been trying to decide if we stay here in Ohio with our church family and all our friends or move back to Indiana with Scotts family. Our first choice is to stay here in Ohio, the schools are so much better and we hate to move the girls from their friends and all that is familiar to them. Please keep us in prayer as we seek God’s will for us.
On the Hannah and Makenna front! These two have finally bonded! It took a year but they are very close now. You often see them hugging each other and looking out for each other. When we were in Chicago they called each other on the phone and talked to each other for a long time. It was too cute to listen to them saying they loved each other and missed each other. Last night we met my dad for our annual Christmas dinner and Makenna did not see TJ come and get Hannah out of our van to take into the restaurant. As we were walking into the restaurant she began frantically pointing to the van and yelling Nah Nah, what she calls Hannah, thinking we were leaving her there. So sweet. That is all for right now. I must clean up the house. We are having a realtor come to give us some advice on selling it quickly. We know there is no way we can make the payments. Our little town has lost over 300 jobs in the last few months so the housing market will only get worse. God has reminded us that our home is just stuff and He will take care of us wherever we go. Part of me is scared and part of me is so excited to see what God has for us. I will keep you posted as God moves in our lives.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Introducing Isabelle Carolyn!!
I am an aunt and Hannah and Makenna are so excited to have a new cousin! They will forever call her Bubbles (Hannah started calling her Bubbles as soon as Kayla announced they were pregnant!) She was born early and weighed in at 7 pounds 9 ounces! Aunt Tina must get making bows for her hair!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)