little bits of luallen life

Spring here in the Ozarks has been beautiful! I have been in awe at how something that looked like a war zone during the ice storm in January, start growing in March and then hit a week of frost again in the middle of April (everything new was killed again) could look so beautiful just a few short months later. It is only our all powerful God that could grow new life after everything was put through such a disaster not once but twice. Over the last few weeks we have watched our trees and flowers bud and bloom. We have planted new flowers and are watching them grow and flourish, but the thing that I have loved watching is a turtle dove couple.

On Sunday April 15th (it had snowed the day before) it was in the 60s. We were sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch after church and I looked out the window. I saw two turtle doves building a nest on the roof of our deck. It was neat. After several attempts to begin the building they gave up and left. I think the ledge they were building on was too narrow. I was sad because I was excited about watching baby birds. Here is the male turtle dove bringing a twig to the female bird for her to build with.When I took the kids outside to play on Monday, I found the turtle doves and their new nest on top of our arbor in the backyard. I was excited once again! The momma bird was already sitting on the nest and the daddy was still busy bringing her more twigs. In this picture he hears us playing and is watching out for his woman and babies! What a good man!On Tuesday I was able to get a picture of one of the two eggs that would become a new baby turtle dove.Over the next couple of weeks nothing really happened. We just watched the mommy or daddy bird sit on the nest through sunshine and pouring down rain. On Friday May 4th we were outside working in the yard and the daddy bird got scared and flew away trying to distract us from the nest. Look at the cute baby birds inside the nest!Here they are all snugly with Mommy!Look how much they grew in just nine days!About the middle of last week I noticed the nest was gone. I was sad because I knew I wouldn't be able to watch them grow anymore. They were off and flying. Saturday I walked out on the deck and the whole family; daddy, mommy and the two babies, flew out from underneath the deck onto the top of the fence, then they were off to a nearby tree. I loved seeing the whole family together.

As I type this post about the life of turtle doves I can't help but think of the life of my kids. I am so thankful they are not off and flying on their own in just two short weeks. I treasure every moment with them and love watching them grow and hit new milestones in their lives.

I cannot also help but think that God watches us with that same awe as I watched the baby birds and the way we watch our children. He loves watching us grow deeper and deeper in love with Him. He loves watching us grow from babes in Christ to having a deep relationship with him that is built on the rock.

I have been so thankful for the chance to watch those baby birds and their new lives. What an amazing God we serve that creates everything so intricately and beautifully.

Thank you Lord for giving us beauty to behold within your kingdom. Thank you for Spring and the new life it brings. Thank you for the new life you allow us to start with everyday within you! I love you Lord!

Friday night Jeremy surprised me with tickets for a Springfield Cardinals game for my Mother's Day gift. We dropped the kids off at the sitters and headed for the game! He was so sweet. This was a big thing for him since baseball really isn't his favorite sport. He knows that I love it and so it really was a big surprise when I opened the tickets. We had lots of fun!Our tickets were for the 6th row right behind home plate! They were awesome!!! I have never sat so close to the field. It was amazing! Since we were really close we also got to get a good look at Juan Encarnacion who usually plays for the St Louis Cardinals. He had injured his wrist and before he was cleared to play again with St. Louis he played for awhile with Springfield to make sure his wrist was back in good shape.At one point in the game the mascot was behind home plate and he started mocking the umpire. It was pretty funny!Since we went on Friday night we also got to see fireworks. Every Friday night the Springfield Cardinals have Friday night Fireworks! It was a great ending to a wonderful surprise date with my sweet husband!!I hope all of you had a great Mother's Day!

What a blessing this past year has been!!! Tuesday was the first time I had to buy diapers for 2 children. This may not seem like a huge deal to you but to people who have to buy diapers for two children at one time that money adds up rather quickly. So, I had to share this blessing!

We had a baby shower in Searcy before we moved and then the members at Sunset also wanted to give us a baby shower after we arrived here. It was amazing!! Since we had already had a shower in Searcy and received a couple packs of diapers and several fun baby boy items, when the people at Sunset asked what we needed most I said diapers and wipes. So, on the day of our shower here at Sunset we were blessed with 13 packages of diapers and lots of other fun things!!! It was awesome! We felt so blessed. Many of the packages were the larger ones and so I think we counted up somewhere over 1000 diapers from the 13 packages. If you bought us a package of diapers for Joshua---THANK YOU!!!! So, this was a great blessing this last year and until now our wallet has not known what buying diapers for two children is like. What a great blessing it is to have a church family that showers you with love and desires to rejoice with you when such a wonderful event happens in your life.

Now, I am on a mission to potty train Emma and so maybe our wallet won't have to know the feeling for very long! :-)

Can I just tell you how draining it is for two of your children to have surgery in the same week! I am so exhausted still! So, with that I first want to start out by saying a HUGE thank you to Jeremy's mom for coming to help this week. She was a BIG help and I am so thankful for her helping watch kids, cooking, cleaning and keeping the laundry up! Thank you one million times over!!!

Joshua's surgery on Friday went well. Not that it wasn't hard to hand Madison over to the nurse for her surgery, but it somehow was so much more difficult to hand my little one year old over to someone who was going to be poking around his sweet eye. I couldn't stop thinking about one slip and he could lose sight in his left eye. Thankfully the Lord helped him through and everything turned out great!

We had to arrive at the surgery center at the bright time of 6:30 am. Unlike Madison's, since Joshua was first on Dr. Atkinson's list for the day it didn't take us long to go back to the room. They marked which eye was to have the procedure done and had us change him into his little gown. It was time to say bye, bye goopy eye! YEAH! I am so excited about him having a normal looking eye and to not have to answer people's questions about if he has pink eye or what is wrong with his eye.Even though he sure is cute in the gown, I am very thankful he doesn't have to wear one on a regular basis. The stretcher he is sitting on is the actual one they roll into the surgery room and do his surgery on. I was thankful they took that separate and allowed us to hand him off in arm at the yellow line just outside the surgery room. I would have never made it if I had to watch my baby being rolled out of the room on the stretcher. Before they took him back for surgery the nurse gave him some versed and Tylenol. This of course was to help knock him out so they wouldn't have to hold him down while they put the "sleep mask" on him. By the time we handed him off to the nurse he was very sleepy and staring off into space. So, with versed in his system and any other kind of medication they gave him he was very disoriented when he woke up in the recovery room. He cried for about 30 minutes in the recovery room. Nothing we did made him stop crying. It wasn't until they told us we could leave and we actually walked out of the door before he quit crying. It was amazing though how it automatically stopped when we walked out the door. It was like he had been crying the whole time for us to get him out of there. Sad and a little funny all at the same time.

The bear in this picture is a gift from the hospital to him. It is interesting how the two different departments within the same hospital handle surgeries. Madison did not get an ID bracelet (which she was very disappointed about and I was very surprised at) and Joshua did. Also, Joshua was given this teddy bear as a gift from St. John's to him. Cute!

As you can probably tell in the above picture he is not totally off the effects of the medication. He was hysterical for about an hour after we got him home. He acted like a drunk one year old. Check out this video. He laid on Jeremy because he couldn't even hold himself up.

Since he couldn't even hold his head up it was hard for him to do anything. He is an on the go boy as I have said before. He was desperately wanting down and so after struggling with him for about 10 minutes I decided to put him down. When he tried to crawl, he just fell right over onto his head and check out the mark it left. Needless to say, no matter how much he fought, we held him until about an hour later when I put him to bed. He was much better when he woke up 4-5 hours later.

I am so thankful that my children's surgeries are over. They are both doing well. Joshua was fussy only for the day on Friday and by Saturday was a happy camper again. Madison is still doing great. It is everything we can do to keep her from not doing hard activities. She is suppose to rest and not do anything strenuous for two weeks. Yea right! She's five. It is very hard. So, these next few days are the most critical since it is when the scabs are supposed to be coming off. I think she will be watching lots of movies. It is the only way I can keep her still and calm!

Thank you all for your prayers and Thank you Lord for protecting my precious angels during their surgeries this last week!

On our way to St. John's Surgery Center! Madison's surgery yesterday went really well. She was ready for the surgery until it was time to leave the waiting room and go get ready. She did not like the idea of putting the hat on. They did let her decorate her "sleep mask" with stickers and she got to bring it home. Thankfully, they start her IV after she has gone to sleep! She also got to take one baby/animal to surgery with her. She choose her Ariel baby doll. I think it is wonderful how they try to make surgery easier for kids!
The surgery itself lasted less than 20 minutes. We had barely sat back down in the waiting room when they called us into the consultation room for the doctor to talk to us after the surgery. It was amazing. Dr. Highfill said they were some pretty big tonsils and he also said said she had very little bleeding if any at all.

Check these out! I can't believe she had both of them in the back of her throat. No wonder her ears and throat were always bothering her. It is amazing that she was even able to swallow! They were a 4 on a scale of 0-5. When they term your tonsils a 5, they are obstructing your airway.
Five minutes after we finished speaking with Dr. Highfill, we were in the recovery room once again holding our sweet girl. She did so great! Thank you Lord for taking care of our sweet girl and for guiding Dr. Highfill's hands along with the nurses!
The recovery time for tonsils is the long wait. Madison can only have soft foods for two weeks. Yesterday when we got home she was starving. Since she couldn't eat or drink anything before surgery, she made up for it while her numbing medicine was still working. We couldn't get her to quit eating yesterday afternoon. She also had some of her pain medicine which not only helped her pain stay away, but it also helped her stay awake. The doc gave her Tylenol with codeine. The codeine evidently does not help her sleep, but makes her hyper. We were constantly telling her she needed to calm down and rest. She didn't even act like she had surgery earlier in the day. It was amazing! Last night about 8 she did start complaining about her throat hurting. I guess the numbing medicine and the pain medicine had all worn off. So, we have been sticking to plain ol' Tylenol so she'll be able to rest better. Today her throat has hurt her a little more and it is harder for her to eat. She is enjoying lots of popsicles and ice cream. What more could a five year old want?!?! Movies, popsicles and ice cream!
Emma was so sweet when Madison got home yesterday. When I carried Madison in the door she enthusiastically exclaimed, "Hi, sister!" and then she came and gave her a big hug and kiss to help her feel better. Every time Madison has watched a movie the past two days Emma is right there beside her with her head on Madison's shoulder watching the movie too. They are so cute! I am so thankful for my sweet girls who not only are great sisters, but also great friends!