EEG part two.....

Snow days, turkey sightings.

(From Eric's phone)

EEG night..... Part one

Open season one,
Open season two,
Open season three, on the movie list. She's wide awake, for now. We may shut the movies off and switch to playing video games if we start falling asleep.

EEG for Riley

Tomorrow is the day we check Riley into sacred heart for her EEG...... this has been the dreaded test. We have to keep her sleep deprived all night...... It's gonna be a long long long night....... Praying the neurologist is right and that the results become a road map for how to help Riley.....

Little mermaid

We went to see the little mermaid play this past weekend. Our friends' two daughters were in the play. It was a lot of fun! Here are a few pix. Caelan didn't want her picture taken :( but Riley sure did! One of the pix has Clementine in the pix with Riley! She's the sister to the girls in the play. We adore their family. (Will is the community pastor for our church)

{ a prayer for healing }

God is near. He waits for us to call on His name.
I have drawn so near to Him.
He is so faithful at carrying us through our deepest hurts.

I am so blessed to have an amazing husband. He is so supportive and loving....
My parents getting divorced has been so hard on our family.

I know God is going to bring healing.
I just cling to the cross and know that in time, God will use all these things for His bigger purpose.

Pray for my family. Pray for all of us.
We are going to need a lot of prayers.

Thank you, to all of you. Who are reaching out.

So very blessed. and seeing the good in all things.

Photo booth

Snowing..... More

Snow!

It snowed a ton last night and we are going to get another 8 inches this afternoon. It's beautiful! But come on spring time! ;)

The view from the exam room

Sacred heart medical center in Spokane, Washington.

A one year wait.

We have waited year to see this pediatric neurologist for Riley. This doctor is always busy and the wait time was a year. Today is the day..... The day we have waited for, for so long..... The paper work is always never ending..... Getting this appt prepared has been overwhelming but here we go..... Waiting in the waiting room to see what comes of this appt........ Praying all the way through, each step we take in life. Praying for God to be ever present.

Traditions

Our Friday night tradition..... Riley goes to "Sunday school" class, eric and I go to church and Caelan has her small group bible study at church with five other girls..... After church we go to pizza factory for salad and pizza! Every week. It's our favorite little tradition as a family. It's a great time to talk about the week, to enjoy good food, celebrate that it's the weekend.... It's the best day of the week! Love the little things we have found as a family to celebrate..... Find ways to celebrate..... Make a little tradition..... It has built great memories for us and now there are other families that have joined us. Paige and her family go every week now and that makes it so fun! ;)

Hair cut!

Lola looked like a lion! So I gave her a haircut and I think she lost five lbs after getting rid of that hair! ;) she's the sweetest dog ever! Love our dogs!

New water heater

Well..... Nothing like water all over the floor in the basement.... Discovered the water heater cracked! Yuck! What a mess and what a lot of calcium build up on that thing. Wow! Well, the guy that still owns this house put in an electric one in place of the gas one..... We HATE it!!!!!!! Gosh I wish we could move from here. So many things are irritating..... Well, we are trying to hang in there while we try and make things happen on the buying front. We are so ready to own again. Sorry this house didnt work into the purchase like it was set up to do, but have faith God is gonna work something out and all this stress and worry will prove a great ending when we land in our next home. Praying continuously. Keeping our eyes fixed on God and His plan for our next steps.

Courage and faith

Brielle Murray, a 13 year old that inspired many of us in life, and still continues to inspire..... She is the daughter of our friends, friend (lisa and jim).... Rob and Joy Liefeld, our friends from our church in california, introduced us to Brielle's story and for months our lives have been enriched, touched and changed.

Go to Briellemurray.com and have your children go to Brielle's bible studies on the site. This young girl is set to change the world one person at a time.

Brielle went to be with Jesus this morning and my heart ached..... But, then I felt a peace that she is in the presence of God. How amazing that must be. She was a 13 year old who was diagnosed 3 1/2 years ago when in 5th grade.....

She has set out to do so much at a tender age...... and Jesus knew Her work here was done. And when the Lord brings someone home, to be home with him, he shall say, "good work my dear and faithful servant" and she was just that. She served him with everything she had. May we all learn from her example. And from the example of Lisa, Jim and their whole family. They showed a great deal of courage, faith, and trusted in Gods plan.

They always went to God first and foremost.

May we live a life to trust God's plan as they did and are doing. May we serve God with all we have, every day.

May we no coward down, but stand up in our faith to allow God to use us to minister into the lives of others we come in contact with.

May Brielle leave a legacy, that we all strive to live a life according to His purpose and not our own. May we worry more about others than ourselves. May we love. And love like God loves us. a true and genuine love.

let's seek the lost. and love the lonley.

and I pray God would use me. Use my kids. Use my family to serve His purpose.

Rileys half birthday at school

Check out what two of the boys in her class made her! Lol

Happy valentines day!

{ is this it? }

We have never stopped looking at houses and that is exhausting at times and exciting when we find a good one. We thought we had the first house and that proved to not work, as we lost the silent auction by 5k..... The second house we thought was better than the first house we lost..... Then lost the silent auction by 1,000...... We kept looking and have kept praying, the whole way through...... My uncle Ed has been so helpful. He's helped be a sounding board too which is helpful!!!!! Love that!
Anyhow, moving along in my point...... We have looked the last few weeks with the realtor and have made appts on several showings and have made full days out of it..... Over the past 2 weeks we narrowed the search down to 3 houses...... All similar in a lot of ways, yet so different in a lot of ways..... Older rancher, a brand new rancher and a tri-level..... All three houses on the exact same lot sizes. Several days we spent talking it all over. Eric and I made a list of priorities and really talked about "what we wanna be about" as a family......
I had a bad injury snowboarding and haven't recovered all the way..... And on friday I fell again. Down the stairs at our house. It was awful. I have been sick for years and in the past year my symptoms have really escalated! I get dizzy, migraines are frequent, nausea, having balance and walking troubles etc..... I have had chronic pain and inflammation in my joints which has escalated.......
Basically, we have realized through these course of events we need a smaller house with a smaller yard. I love gardening, but realize now that I need a smaller scale of that hobby then the gigantic yard we manage now! I also know we love being out on the lake and the boat in the spring and summer, we don't want the huge house and yard and keep up. I want less to clean, less to manage. We looked at this house last week and fell in love. Of course we felt passionately about the 1st house and then excited about the 2nd house..... But this is once again, excitement. But different excitement. It's not about adding square footage, or an even bigger yard, it's about having a nice open floor plan, on one level with a perfect sized yard for what we need. It's an excitement for our needs. It's just what we need, not more, not less, it's just right. Over 1600 sq ft and it was JUST built!!!!! No one has lived in it! It's got huge huge windows in the great room that I drooled over upon walking in. It was one of those houses that the realtor, Eric and I all sighed and gasped and our eyes were widened! It was stunning! Dark stain on all the trim work, nice carpet that I fell in love with and I'm not a carpet person but I loved it! Eric and I both said "we would have handpicked every one of these details and built it just like this". The bonus is that it's brand new, yet they offered a building bonus and landscaped, put grass and fences in! So cool.
We'll see. We are gonna talk about it some more, pray some more, and go into the house again..... But hopefully this week we make a decision.......
If it's meant to be, it'll be. And gosh, I hope this is it. It would be so great. ;)

On the hunt.....

Still missing the rest. These things are so very hard to find around here..... In time we'll find them for her ;)

Still after "cars" cars.

Riley and I had a lunch date. I haven't been out of the house much and today made it a point to get out with riley after school. We split a sandwich at subway and walked walmart for groceries and "cars"..... Today was a wry successful day in "cars" world for riley. She's been an the hunt for the "maters tall tales" collection and today we found two from that show!!!!! Yeah!

Kids and iPhones

So, the kids took my iPhone tonight when we were at bible study and when they play on it I find all sorts of things.... Well, I found this in my picture folder. Riley said she'd like her hair like this. Just like this. Um, no. Sorry Riley. Lol.

Lots of snow!!!!

Woke up to snow blowing sideways. Lots of snow fall today!!!! ;)

My helper