Snowed In

Mike says this is easier than CaringBridge. I am not as adept at change as he is and so I find this is not so easy right now. We are snowed in. Praise God! Yes, I who usually root for no snow days so we can get out earlier, have been rooting for snow days. It is nice to be around Hannah and get aquainted with her. I also got caught up on my grading. Now all I need to do is get ready for my evalustion on Friday -- if we have school! Life with four is settling into routine and I think I might be able to do this. I do know the only way I can do all that I want to do in raising these children and teaching is to fully depend on the strength that can only come from God. I have my weak days and still break down when remembering Levi and the events of last year. Those times though are getting farther between. With Mike working at Wal-Mart and all the business of school and babies, maybe I just don't have time to think about it. I figure no matter when you lose a precious prayed for child it hurts. Whether that is just 9 weeks into the pregnancy, 7 weeks after birth, or 7 years or further, it is a part of you that is ripped away and waiting in a better place for you. A friend of mine got confirmation this week that she has lost her pregnancy. She had to go in today for a D and C. To my thinking that is insult to injury. She has one precious little girl who turned 3 this year and she has trouble getting pregnant due to endometriosis. She prays for another miracle and I grieve with her in this tremendous loss. When I don't get out for a while, I start to have more time to think.
Clara and I will be putting together her doll house andI hope to get a few stitches in on Levi's blanket. I really want to get started on Hannah's blanket -- well at least the middle. I could get used to this stay at home mom thing. It seems like a nice pace.

The birthday boy

Nothing like realizing your baby boy is now 11 to make you feel old, and that's what today is all about. Today is our oldest son, Arthur's, birthday. He is excited because he is going to a friend's birthday party on Friday, and then to his Grammy and Grandad's house for a party of his own on Saturday. Mom was quick to tell him that he wasn't going to get a 2-week-old baby sister for his birthday every year. I was going to post a baby picture of him and then his most recent picture, but I'm having trouble locating the baby picture. The picture above is his most recent school picture, and the video is from early December when he helped me with a sermon I was preaching. He wants to be in the Air Force, but I'm sure he'll do some public speaking as well.

One Little Click

With one little click of the mouse, our computer changed forever, and to some extent, it was more than just our computer; it was symbolic of a change in our lives as well. Earlier this evening, I deactivated Levi's CaringBridge website. That was very difficult to do, because it held so many memories for our family, however it was a necessary part of moving on.

CaringBridge provides a lifeline to many people, who are dealing with serious health issues in their families, and it provided that lifeline to us as well. With that said, both Carrie and I felt that we needed to move on from CaringBridge and find another home that would allow us an outlet to feel comfortable to post things about our entire family, while still having the opportunity to have the support of our CaringBridge friends and family. We just didn't feel that CaringBridge was the appropriate venue for normal everyday blogging; it was like we felt a necessity to bring Levi into every update just because we were on CaringBridge. I hope that makes things a little clearer to everyone. If not, feel free to post a response to the blog or send me an email. We hope that everyone does continue to support us and pays attention to this blog.

Anyway, we got Hannah's 2-week pictures taken today (a day early, but momma wanted to be there, and since I was off work...) The 2 pics above are some that were taken today. If you want to see more, let me know.

One more thing, Carrie is returning to school tomorrow, so keep her in prayers, since she hasn't been back since right before Christmas. She may just have forgotten how to teach (probably not, but you never know). I know that she is a little worried about being sore or in pain, so pray that she does well. Thank you all for your prayers.

Looking Back...Looking Ahead

If you have managed to navigate here, then you either know us personally or are finding us from our Caring Bridge website. Today is a day for looking back at the last year since Levi passed away, but it is also a day for looking ahead. There are a lot of lessons that we have learned in the last year, but believe it or not, I learned the most in the last week and a half. When Hannah was born, I cried. I know, big deal, dads cry all the time when their children are born, but I honestly don't remember crying when our other 4 children were born. When Dr. Grechus handed me by daughter, I could feel the tears on my face. Why? Because I was able to hold my baby in my arms, without much fear (more about that in a second) and knowing that Carrie would be holding her soon as well. It truly emphasized the greatness and majesty of birth in a way that I might not have understood without losing Levi.

By no means am I saying that Levi's death was a blessing, or that it in itself was a good thing. It wasn't. It was a tool of Satan to get us off track, and to an extent, it worked. God has used this bad thing to help us see his goodness, to help us see his greatness, to help us understand how great his blessings can be. Life is not always good, and the "unfortunate" goal as Christians is to see God even when our lives aren't good. I say it is "unfortunate" because the world only sees the bad, and they are quick to ridicule us when they see us rejoicing even when bad things are happening.

Enough philosophy for one day. You are probably wondering why we are switching away from CaringBridge. Carrie and I discussed at length how long we would keep the CaringBridge site up, and we had decided that the best way to handle it would be to leave it up until after the year mark had passed, and since we wanted an easy way to keep in contact with everyone, we (actually, I) decided to open up this blogspot page, mainly because we saw the blog of a friend of ours (thanks, RK) last year when we were going through all the hospital visits and thought it looked like a good idea to continue our updates to our friends and family.

We will be leaving the CaringBridge site up for a little while longer, but we won't update on it any longer. We will be trying to pull most of the information from it, and we will move some of the pictures over here. We will provide updates on our family at least 2 or 3 days a week, and we will be posting more pictures as well.

We are truly thankful that you followed the link to our blogspot page and we hope that you continue to check back and see how we are doing. God bless each of you, for we know that you have blessed us tremendously.