Prayer request...

Isaac has blood work tomorrow for his follow-up appointment in the Cities which is this week. Please pray for the numbers to show improvement. I do see some good things in Isaac lately. To be specific since I've been quite open about this already, he has been having less bm's. If you are up on what that means for Isaac, well, the less he has the better chance he has of absorbing more nutrients. The more he "goes", the more nutrients he loses. We do see less blood and that is a praise. Keep praying for no blood! Heal me, O Lord and I will be healed, Save and I will be saved, for you are my praise.

The bathroom project is progressing. It was a lot more work than I anticipated. Of course I think it should be a couple hour thing right?!?! :) We live in a bit of chaos. We look forward to linoleum on the floors again and drains that actually drain :)

Friday we spent the day with my friend Kim and had a great time catching up. Life got in the way and we don't see each other much anymore.

Please also pray for my Grandma Edie. She isn't doing very well health-wise lately. She isn't really eating anymore and some doctors say it won't be long. I pray she is turning her eyes on Jesus and putting her hope in heaven.

Please call the White House...

Today the Senate is again discussing health care and on Dec. 8th voted to table an amendment that would do away with Federal Funding of abortion. Thankfully my ND Senators voted no on that but we need people in all states to call their Senators today to ask them to vote NO on CLOTURE. Cloture would put the Health Care Bill up for an immediate vote and then they don't need a 2/3 majority they would only need 51 percent. It is a way they can get something passed that they don't have enough for a vote. They have been trying to get this passed since April and the new bill was written by Ted Kennedy's office and pharmaceutical companies. These companies stand to make BILLIONS of dollars if this health care plan is voted in the way it is. Nevermind that there are a hundred other problems with this bill. Over 1 million abortions are performed per year and adding federal funding would increase that figure. This healthcare plan will cost our country several trillion dollars. I though we were in a financial crises!!! Please urge your friends to call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. I've emailed my Senators this morning and plan to call also urging them to vote no on cloture. It is a sneaky tactic. You can go on www.senate.gov to find your Senators and see how they have been voting.

Something new...

Our house has a few needs. We have a couple broken windows, now three because the glass fell out the garage door last night. We had ordered a window for the living room last year but when Isaac got sick we had to cancel it. It is large and broken in two places. The problems are too numerous to mention. We could definitely qualify for an Extreme Home makeover but our story isn't really that unique. We have been working on painting the floors in the basement and getting rid of old ceiling tile and moldy smelling carpet. We think that may have contributed to Isaac's illness. He did test for mold and/or fungus back in January and we recently moved him back to his old room without redoing it so we are going to move him back upstairs until we at least get the 30 year old ceiling out of there and floor painted. But, that's not what I was writing about.

We are redoing our bathrooms! Not really because we want to (we do want to) but not because we can really afford to do it but because we can't afford not to. We are having major issues with each bathroom and not to complain because we do have almost three bathrooms but they are not very usable right now. "Dad's" bathroom as we call it no longer has a toilet because it leaked all over and ruined the floor. There is a hole going into the basement. The sink in there does not drain (spent a ton on drain stuff) and the shower is just plain gross. I can't get it any cleaner. Everything is corroded and leaking into the basement! The "middle" bathroom has it's own problems, the sink also doesn't drain, the toilet won't flush much anymore, and the tub is corroding around the drain, thus it gets moldy pretty fast. The faucet on the tub has leaked into the basement for some time so we fixed it with a rubber band and a plastic bag so when you are really quiet you can hear drip, drip, drip off the plastic. And the last bathroom which has been a huge blessing through 6 pregnancies is in our bedroom. If you add a 1/2 cup of water to the tub the water overflows in it. It does not drain. Plus the water spout just fell off last week! The toilet won't flush with a square of toilet paper in it sometimes. When I open the curtains parts of them fall off each time I open them. Everything is 30 years old.

Normally, I am a go with the flow and try to be content with what you have. But last week my husband said we are fixing all the bathrooms and I didn't say "No, we shouldn't do that". It was his plan and idea and I figure he knows what's best. He is also putting a bathroom in the basement for the 7 kids who sleep down there. I really think he doesn't like being awakened in the night anymore with their pattering right next to our room. Our friend Bill the plumber is coming and two bathrooms will probably be completely finished by Saturday night! What a blessing it will be! I pray it will all go well and that our house will be "safe" and "clean" for the kids if these things were causing health problems. I pray we can really tackle the basement. Kev's just so busy and doesn't have time for these things and I just get swamped with school and kids and everything else so it's been a year and we haven't done anything with the boy's room downstairs. They have to do plumbing in the ceiling there so we should be able to close it up with sheetrock at this time after spraying with bleach water.

Pray for continued healing for Isaac. He is doing well. Still has some issues that need to be cleared up for healing. We have appointments in the Cities next week. I'm really praying they would clear up before we went.

A Day with the Orchestra...

Jordan had her concert Sunday and it was wonderful. I love string music. There was a tuba soloist from Minnesota (Uncle Kenny would have liked it being a fellow tuba player). He was wonderful and only practiced twice with the group. The whole group did a wonderful job. Jordan wrote in the Christmas letter that she couldn't have dreamed this 5 years ago that she'd be playing violin let along playing in an orchestra. It is a dream come true. She truly loves the violin. We listened to the Junior High Orchestra before Jordan's group and Emily wants to practice more so she could try out next year. We'll see what she can do. She would need to get real busy (not because she's so bad but because she doesn't love it like Jordan does so it does not come as easy). She doesn't spend as much time on it. We are all like that. We spend time on those things we think are the most important to us.

Chicken nuggets...

We made homemade chicken nuggets for Isaac tonight and it was a big hit. There wasn't enough. I only had a little bit of chicken cooked up otherwise I would have made more. I started with making cooked homemade mayonnaise. It started turning out and in the end flopped but for this recipe it didn't matter. The mayo is made with egg yolks, lemon juice, water, honey, dry mustard, salt, cayenne and olive oil. Grind the chicken with a little of the mayo and make little nuggets shapes on a cookie sheet. Bake 35 minutes and out came chicken nuggets. Isaac really liked them. I liked them. They tasted like the real deal. I used a potato peeler and made noodle like strips of zucchini and sauteed in olive oil and he salted and ate them with the nuggets. Gourmet food. I'm trying to increase the amount of food he eats and knew I had to dig into some new recipes for him. There are great resources online for his particular diet. I got online looking for pesto sauce and ran into testimonials on Healingcrow.com and most of the them were Crohn's/Colitis stories on how this diet was the only thing that worked for them, as opposed to supplements, medications, surgery, etc. I still know God is bigger than any diet. He just may use this diet to do the work though.

I feel a bit better tonight. Nothing has changed with Isaac. I was able to find some time to get into God's Word and read Joshua 1 and some of Hebrews 6. Thanks to a friend's call to help lift me up too. She was able to pray with me and encourage me. I was feeling like God had left me and after our call I was able to renew myself somewhat and look outside myself. Oh, to tread an easier path!

Trying to feel encouraged?

I would really like to see the good in anything that I am doing for Isaac but he continues to show signs that he is not healing. I don't know what else to do and would really like to just disappear and not face any of these issues again. I wish there was someone else who could take over. I wish I knew the answers. I thought God would show them to us but that doesn't appear to be his plan. Like David cried out to the Lord, "How long O, Lord will you make me wait?"