City life......

Life...in 1 little week...

2010-03-28T20:47:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since I've posted....and I should be in bed, but my mind is going 100 places right now, so I will try to write. ( I hear it's therapy, but I always pitied my teachers at school when they had to read my writing...)

This week I heard the Dr say something to me I never figured I would hear. It's still kinda a dream. He said,(in a deep monotone voice) "It's never easy to say this, but your tumor is cancer." What???? I feel fine, I say. I don't have much pain, just a little every now and then. Sure I have blood in my stool, but thats just from a bleeding ulcer....I mean I have a lot going on in my life, and it's probably just stress. That was gonna be his line....but I heard, what in the back of my mind I feared I had all along....cancer. Colon cancer.
The rest of the day is a blear. You get pricked for blood...to see if the cancer has spread....while your still trying to think that through, you meet with the surgeon who tells you what he's gonna cut out and put back together again....he's kinda like a plumber he says...only that it's your organs he's talking about plumbing. Nice.

We get out of that one and go back to the hospital for a cat scan. The radiologist says that the dye they are going to shoot in me will make me feel all hot, then cold ,then like I wet myself. He's right. It all happens in that order.

I keep thinking how are we going to tell the girls...most cancer patients they know, have died, even though we've prayed and prayed for their healing. But in the end we don't tell them the "c" word. We just tell them Mommy has to have surgery to remove the bad thing in her tummy. But they know something is up. We all cry alot these days.

But this week wouldn't be complete without writing about all the good things that have happened. We have been carried on the arms of love....yes carried. So many people have prayed, and have shown that they care. When you read in the Bible about the "peace that passeth all understanding" that has been the state I have been in. I know what it's like to have JOY in the midst of this. That... only can come from GOD. The sense that GOD is WITH US, has been so REAL to me. And there has been much to rejoice about this week. My tests all came back that my cancer hasn't spread. Thank you JESUS!!!

More than ever, I know that my life is not my own. It is not my story to write. I'm part of a much bigger picture. It's not about me....it never has been. It's about the one who died for me, whose love is much bigger and deeper than anything I can ever imagine. A love I want to know more of....Jesus.

Close to My Heart Specials......

2009-11-04T06:57:00.001-08:00

I love this special that Close to My Heart only does about once a year...and this year it's just in time for the holidays! You can buy directly from my website at savoringmemories.myctmh.com

This is the Jingle workshop that I will be doing in November...it's the first one that I have bought the kit for and I really enjoyed doing it. In the kit you get an exclusive stamp set, twinkle brads, level 2 paper kit and workshop flyer. You learn how to do second and third generation stamping, masking and sponging.
Fun stuff...if there would only be more hours in my day!:)

Fear...

2009-10-30T03:19:00.000-07:00

Fear of the future, fear of sickness, of the swine flu, fear of where the government is going, fear of world events, fear of the UNKNOWN.

FEAR has robbed me of joy. It has sapped me of my strength. I keep fighting it, worrying....letting my thoughts run wild. STOP! It is enough. I am done.

God is my Father...I am his child, since when is that not enough? Has worrying ever helped me? Has it made things better?

And why do I worry, when I am so blessed. I have an incredible husband, 3 beautiful daughters who are healthy and have more energy than a herd of elephants on most days. I love the life God has given me. Love living in the city! Yet I'm allowing fear to rob me of my joy for life.

Forgive me Father for not trusting in you....TODAY I will embrace life! I will enjoy the moment. I will love this gift God has given me in TODAY!

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to an all-knowing God.
Corrie ten Boom

Don't worry about anything;instead pray about everything.Tell God what you need, and thank him for all He has done. If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:5-7

Do these GIRLS have a MOTHER? And WHERE is SHE?

2009-10-19T05:17:00.000-07:00

So its been raining and raining and raining some more...and finally the girls "dressed up warm", they said and played in the rain. They had a grand time....and their fashion....well, at least their fingers stayed warm!:)

September 2009

2009-10-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

The first day at Classical Conversations.....the girls are loving it! It's only 1 day a week, but it's a fun day for all of us. Even though its a lot of work!:)

The girls had a great time making crafts at camp...

Church camping....phil had a great time playing with the church band!:)

Beth and her gang came for Labor Day and helped make salsa--who said making salsa is boring and takes long? Not with like 10 people making it!

Picnic at Reagon National Airport Labor Day weekend~ had a great time with friends and family, playing games and watching the planes!

Celebrating the Everyday!

2009-08-20T05:04:00.000-07:00

I just love this new card kit that Close To My Heart is offering from now through the end of September, celebrating the joys of everyday life. That's what life is all about, isn't it?

I love the colors, and the stamp set is so cute. You can check it out at my site at savoringmemories.myctmy.com

It's been a while!

2009-08-20T04:03:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since I've posted last, I about don't know where to start! This past month seems like its been extra busy, but then again its summer time and all the fun that goes with it. We went camping in July, the girls LUVED it! Fun times with family.... I staid in OH while Phil went onto Colorado on business. My little city girls:) had so much fun in Grandma's garden...picking vegetables and apples from the trees. We made applesauce too while we were there. Good times!

Mom and Dad with all the granddaughters...

Sandra and Sara with their favorite Aunt!!!

Our family

Come on fire...we want to make smores!

Mom's beautiful garden...
Sandra and Sara had so much fun in the garden and picking apples!

Making applesauce!

Having a bunny, is kinda like farming...

2009-07-07T04:29:00.001-07:00

Yeah, a huh, that's what Sandra thought. I think it's time for a visit to the farm, whatta ya think??
But then, again, if farming is as easy as having bunnies....maybe we should all become farmers!

July 4th!

2009-07-06T06:09:00.000-07:00

We had a great July 4th! I'm so thankful for the freedom we enjoy...for good times with good friends...
We had a cook out in our back yard and then went and watched the Manassas fireworks. They were good, but didn't last very long!:( We came back to our place and had our own little display of fireworks....thanks to Julie!
Ahh....what a fun night!

Good times with good friends...

Pictures of the last week...

2009-06-16T03:22:00.001-07:00

Our family....

Daddy and his girls....

Sandra Ariana and Sara

What to do with a little girl that gets bored???

We love making things with these beads!

Blow bubbles!

Then the ice cream man comes!!!

Sunshine box.....a big thank you!!!

2009-06-15T03:56:00.000-07:00

As you can tell, this little girl does not lack in gifts!!! But it is something she looks forward to getting after each wrapping. It was especially helpful when the wrapping was so intense. Now they are a breeze! The only thing we wrap is her shoulder!

Her burns keep improving......her chest we don't keep wrapped anymore. We keep it covered in creams to help the healing/scaring/itching. Her shoulder is taking the longest to heal, but it was also the deepest burn. Most of her shoulder is healed, except for a little part. It's just taken a while for the skin to come. On deep burns the skin heals from the outside in, instead of the inside up. And thats what has been happening to her shoulder burn. We see it getting smaller so we know its healing!

Another update...

2009-06-04T19:12:00.000-07:00

Sara continues to improve.....but her nights are still about the same. ITCHY!!!! Phil and I take turns being up with her.We decided its about like having a baby again!!! But we know one of these days it will be all better....
Today we tried a different cream to try to relieve her itchiness. It seemed to help for a while. We couldn't wrap it the usual way, because this cream needs to breathe. So her burns got a lot of air today!
On a much brighter note, Sara had her first full body bath today. So you know her burns are healing when they can handle water. She had a grand time! And seemed more relaxed after it.
Now if only our little princess could sleep.......

Sara's face Un-Wrapped!!!

2009-06-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

And taa daaa~ Her face, as of yesterday with no wrap!!! It has been amazing to see how quickly her pigment has come in. She is feeling soo free with her face not having to be wrapped. And acting quite like her crazy self again. So good for all of us to see!!!

She still has quite a bit of itchiness...nights still aren't the best. But we have soooo much to be thankful for....

My Mom and sister are here helping us....our church family is bringing in meals...and we have so many people praying for Sara's full recovery. Thank you so much for your prayers. We can't tell you enough how much they mean and ARE making a difference.
This morning our friends from Harrisonburg were here and saw Sara. They were so pleased with her progress and how her burns are healing. Her chest and shoulder are still tender and will need to be wrapped for some time, but her face. Wow! It's just a miracle!

All bangaded up from chest to head!!! We can't even begin to tell you all of the wonderful care and love we received from the poeple in Harrisonburg. They dropped everything, and took care of Sara and us!

This is Sara right after she was released from the hospital....we left for Harrisonburg soon after this.

We are HOME!!!

2009-05-29T04:46:00.000-07:00

It is so wonderful to be home! We came home yesterday afternoon around 3:30.
We have seen a huge improvement in Sara since Wed. That's when Sara's personality started coming back. She's walking around, coloring, making little quirky jokes again. And her appetite is back! It feels like the weight on our shoulder's has lifted so much!
We did our first wrapping last night, without the help from our experts in Harrisonburg. We did have help from our Pastor's wife Susie and Julie Toth. They helped so much. Sara's face is healing beautifully! We are amazed and are seeing a miracle in front of our eyes! Her skin is already coming in and its a beautiful baby skin. The pigment is already changing. We figured this might take months....and it might, but its already changing and we believe God is doing a miracle for her!
Her chest and shoulder aren't healing nearly as quickly. It's looking good....but her shoulder burn is right at the crease where her armpit is. It's hard to wrap, and last night it was pretty painful for her when we changed it.
We could write a big book on the care and love we received from the people at Harrisonburg. They were angels sent from God to minister to us! It was overwhelming to us the way so many people came and helped.......nobody knew us, but wanted to help.
Thank you all so much for your prayers......we need them, feel them and know God is doing a miracle for our dear little Sara!

Monday...God is with us

2009-05-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

Sara's fever broke last night around 7. What a relief! She was fairly comfortable till around 11 when the itching became unbearable.
We thought we would try to relieve her discomfort with other creams, only to have each cream make her scream with pain. Finally, we just covered her burn with a cream and wrapped it. We tried to comfort her. She was screaming and crying the whole time. We called people and asked them to pray. After 20 minutes she mercifully fell asleep. We have so felt the power of prayer and the need of it for our dear little Sara. We covet your prayers on her body. She is so itchy most of the time and it makes her very uncomfortable.
This morning a man that works with a lot of burn patients at a hospital in Michigan came to see Sara. He said her itchness is probably due to all the morphine she got in the hospital, and now those toxins are coming out of her body. He also thought her burns were looking really good. Like they were healing real well. That was a big encouragement to us!
Sandra and Ariana have been doing well. It has been so good that we can all be together as a family.
Pray that Sara would get relief from her itchiness. Also, pray that we can learn the process of wrapping her burns quickly, so that we can bring Sara home....Although, we can't thank the people in this community enought for all their kindness and support they have shown us.

fevers & answered prayers

2009-05-24T14:12:00.000-07:00

Last night Sara had a restless night....a lot of discomfort, itchiness, and so on. The itchiness (we are hoping) is coming from rapid healing. A different cream was used with the leaves and later discovered that they should not have used the leaves with the cream. Sara also has very sensitive skin (always has) and we are hoping this is not a reaction to the salve and leaves.

A *whitish film* has appeared on her burns....this is a good thing as it is part of the healing process and following that a brand, new layer of skin! It is all such a slow, learning process for us as well as Sara's healing will be!

Her dressings are still a long, learning process and is very scary for her.

This forenoon she developed a fever and is so listless. So uncharacteristic of her....no smiles....little response, etc. It breaks our hearts to watch and see her in this way. We are once again reminded of the power of prayer...we sent out text messages to friends and family of her fever and within minutes she fell asleep. Praise the Lord! Her fever has not broken....so continue to pray! Thank-You for standing in the gap and praying for the healing of our sweet Sara.

Carrie....for the Masts

Sara

2009-05-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

Where do I start? These last three days have been the hardest days of our life. On Wed around 1:00 PM, Sara was helping Mommy make some macaroni and cheese. She is always such a good little helper around the house. She was standing on a small step stool and the stool tipped, she instinctively reached out her hand to catch herself and splashed/spilled the boiling water over her face and chest. Emily called me at work and i immediately came home and we rushed her to the ER. after a few hours in the ER they transfered her to Childrens medical center in DC where they have burn specialists. While there, we have had to watch our wonderful little princess endure extreme pain and terrible fear. Everytime she would hear the door open she would start crying and ask us what they were going to do to her now. Twice a day they had to clean and redress her burns, each time removing more dead skin. She has lost around 70% of the skin on her face and most of the skin from her neck down to her belly button. We were discharged from the hospital around 1:30 on Friday and so we got home around 4 PM. We left for Harrisonburg VA around 6 where we are treating her burns with B & W salve and Burdock leaves. there is a wonderful family in the area who have opened there home to us for as long as we need to be here with Sara. We are here with our other girls as well. The girls are having a good time playing with the children here and are being great little nurses for their sister. Sara is feeling quite a bit better but it still really scares her when she knows that it is about time to change the dressings. it takes 3-4 people about 1 1/2 hours to get everything cleaned and redressed. We have greatly appreciated everyones prayers and support through this hard time. We have felt the hand of God a lot the last few days. Please continue to pray for Sara that she would not be scared of the bandaging, that she would not feel the pain, that she would be able to sleep good at night and that her skin would heal in a miraculously quick and complete way. Also pray for Sandra and Ariana, it is especially hard on Sandra to see Sara suffer like this. And also please pray for mom and dad that we would be strong for her and have the wisdom to make the right decisions that will be best for Sara.
Phil and Emily

Thank God for Spring....

2009-05-11T04:10:00.000-07:00

I was looking at these pics this morning and thanking God for spring. It has been so wet and rainy and dreary lately, that I forget how BEAUTIFUL and green and lovely the earth is!

Phil's very BELATED Birthday Party....

2009-05-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

Wade and Alphy agreed to come to our house and cook up a feast of Thai food for us and our guests.....It was a great afternoon and evening! It was a surprise for Phil. Yep, I managed to keep it a secret from him!!!

The night was perfect and we were able to eat out on our deck.

The food was delicious. The chefs did an amazing job....and Phil had a great time helping them and learning more about Thai food.

Thanks so much Alphy and Wade for doing this...

My life.......

2009-02-10T06:14:00.001-08:00

OK.......so I have been very true to my word and have done a horrible job of keeping up with this blog.......maybe in my next life I will like be very organized, and have a set time where i will come and daily post my happenings. AND tell you all the exciting and adventurous things we are doing as a family. I will like so have my life all together and you all will be soooo jealous of my life. But like I said, that's another lifetime away.......
So today, I will just be very honest and tell you that my life is indeed very crazy and kinda like out-of control right now, well, ok, I'm being honest--- like usual. But at least you get to see a picture of our soon-to-be new house that is soon going to make my life even crazier. But then again, I'm the type of person that if my life would be too normal and routine, I would also go crazy. So I will take my crazy life and run with it and enjoy it........

loosing teeth and making money.....

2008-10-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago Sara lost a tooth and yes, the tooth fairy left her a dollar. I think a dollar is a little steep for a tooth, but they say with inflation teeth cost more than they use too.
This past week I heard an interesting conversation between Sandra and Sara. They were discussing their money situation or the lack there of. They were trying to figure out how they could buy some candy, when I heard one of them pipe up, I guess we just need to loose more teeth!!!
With this economic situtation,
it got me thinking.....I wonder how much my teeth would bring.......

2008-10-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

Well, this is my first attempt ever to keep a blog! We'll see how this goes......
I'm not the greatest at staying in touch with everybody, although I have great intentions too.:) I have a wonderful husband and 3 beautiful, energetic(understatement) daughters. Sandra and
Sara are twins and in kindergarten and Ariana is 3 and told me the other day she just wishes she
would be 7. I guess she thinks her lot in life would be much better if she would just be older! HA!
We have lots of fun together, but there are many times that I also feel like I'm gonna loose it if I don't get a break....and I guess that's where God's grace plays in.
This past week, I've been reminded again; It's not my life to live. It's for God. It's all about
Him. So often I want it to be about me and what I can get out of it. I'm a slow learner...
Anyway,
This past week was a little crazy, but then again, I don't know when it hasn't been crazy.
On Monday we had playschool with the Mother's of Mulitiples group. We had a policewoman come in and talk to us about child safety. The police lady asked the kids if anybody knows why they should always buckle up. Ariana was happy to pop up and say, so the police don't stop us! Yeah, I turned a couple shades of red!
I've been homeschooling the twins this year. It has been a learning experience for all of us!!! Somedays I feel like my laundry barely gets done. But I have enjoyed getting to know my daughters in a whole new way, and for that, I wouldn't trade this experience.
I also had a vendor fair on Saturday. I sell Close to my Heart which is a scrapbooking and stamping company. Love the products! I was busy all week getting ready for that.
Friday afternoon my good friend Dawn came and helped me keep my sanity with getting last minute things ready.
The vendor fair was a good experience and I met some wonderful people.
Today was church with communion tonight. Which reminds me, I gotta get going.:)
Have a wonderful week with HIM!