I don't have any great ideas for a title!

Hello all! I pray that all your Thanksgivings were good ones :-) We had a quiet time here with Jeremiah's parents. A traditional turkey (which, by the way was not the traditional foods of the pilgrims.....we'll get to that later), real mashed potatoes, yummy cranberry sauce, a fruit crisp and a no-bake pumpkin pie, plus a few other things. Our tummies were stuffed :-) This week was also the start of our Jesse tree, and the lighting of the advent candles. I feel bad we didn't have a thankful tree this year. Oh, well. We had a productive weekend as well. We got our Christmas tree up. Isabella and Moira single handily brought the tree down and put it together! Not to mention that although I made up the cut-out cookie dough, Isabella cut and baked ALL the cookies! We are talking at least 12 to 14 dozen cookies, at least! I made up four pans of brownies, and two large batches of hot chocolate mix. We have a busy week and month ahead of us. Tomorrow I have a ton of stuff to make and do. I have a call with the homeopathic doctor this week, a well child visit for Jonah this week as well, plus we are having prayer meeting at our house on Wed. and we are hosting a young single man and a family of 5 here at our house for the conference this weekend. Whew! I need a nap just thinking about it all :-)

I also had a wonderful revelation this week as well in regards to parenting. I think it would be a bit much to type it all out. But it took a huge weight off of me. I was praying for a family who is in financial straights when the Lord spoke to me. He basically showed me that I could totally rely on Him to meet our needs when Jeremiah has been without a job, yet I don't trust Him in the outcome of our children. Hmmmmm....Yup, He got me! I think its because with a job there there isn't anything (besides praying) that I can do, yet with parenting there are quite a few things that the Bible itself says I am to do. And so the weight of parenting has been on my shoulders. Not where it is supposed to be. I wish I was an eloquent writer and I could make better sense with all of this. It was a profound revelation for me. My sister also had a profound revelation, which has to do with education, or the lack thereof. Time does not allow me right now to get into it. The basic idea is that our education was lacking in real facts. Like the turkey, pilrgrims and indians. The real thanksgiving did not happen for the reasons we learned in school. Someday I will have to get back to this idea of "education", but our computer is about to lock me out of the internet.

I have come across a very, very interesting article (interview really) on vaccinations. Very interesting. With the web it is so hard to know what is real and what is not, so I try to be careful. However, this is just too interesting not to pass on. The interviewer has some other articles he wrote that were intriguing. Look at the one on HIV. Things that make you go, hmmmm.

I must be off, the computer is about to lock up. We have it set on a timer so if this post is a bit confusing it is because I am in a rush to beat the clock. And with all the stuff I have to do for the week, I won't be able to post again till next weekend.

Check out the article

Wow, a whole week...

I'm starting this post with pictures only because I am too lazy to drag them all down below the post! I asked Jeremiah to take a picture of me with each of the girls when we had our bonfire. This is Saoirse and I.


Moira and I taking a pose before the fire. our fire was multipurpose. We got rid of some movies and books that were not fit to pass on.

Flannery and I all toasty in front of the fire. I think the temps were only in the low 50's! Ha, ha. We've had some "real" winter weather since then, and I have the proof below.

Isabella and I. Is it just me, or is she only a head shorter than me? She almost fits in my shoes!! Very, very strange indeed. I'm thinking she was just a toddler the other day....

Saoirse giving us a very funny look. She and Flannery were sharing a seat, trying to stay warm, in the 'freezing cold'. :-)

Jedidiah and I. This is Jedidiah's new winter coat. He had just gotten it that evening and wouldn't take it off! Too funny. You can see he has a graham cracker in his hand he was munching on. We were making s'mores! Yummo!

Jeremiah just tending the fire, deep in thought, thinking about some deep, deep theological issues no doubt :-) Ok, probably not. He got lots of "advice" about tending that fire! Mostly coming from certain 11, 9, 6 and 4 year olds :-)

Here is a cute picture of Moira. Growing, growing, growing. Jeremiah had taken the time to scan a whole bunch of pictures into the computer recently so I've been seeing a lot of little Moiras and Isabellas. And it is always a shock when I do!

Saoirse examining sticks to see if they are proper for roasting marshmallows. So many things to consider :-).

Isabella, Jeremiah and Jedidiah all hanging out. At this point Jed was getting sleepy. He did eventually fall asleep in my arms. We had a wonderful time around the fire. It is one of those things wonderful you want to do it all the time, but one of the things that makes it special is that it isn't done all the time! I hope that made sense.

OK, this seems like a total random picture! Ha, like I said I was being lazy!! This is a glimpse of what type of cloth diapers I have. Some people do a whole diaper stash picture, but again.....I'm too lazy! Some were in the dryer, some in my room, some in the bathroom, some....you get the idea. My supply consists of prefolds (the large flat rectangles on the left), Fuzzy Bunz (in the middle, I have mostly white ones, but a few colored), and my new loved Prowraps. We needed to extend the diaper stash so that I didn't HAVE to wash diapers every day. I've been using these diapers for a good two months or more now. I wanted to use them when Jonah was a newborn, but he would literally cry if we put cloth diapers on him as a newborn! He's outgrown that, thankfully.


These are the Fuzzy Bunz and the Prowrap with the prefolds in them. You can see I left some of the prefold hanging out of the Fuzzy Bunz. The FB have a pocket to put in the prefold. With the wrap there is no need for diaper pins. I LOVE the new wraps. I also love the FB, especially for night time, as they wick the moisture away from the baby's skin.

This is what happens when you have given up naps, but still need them :-) I had gotten him down from his feeding and he climbed up in the computer chair to watch the screen saver (it is set with rotating through all our pictures) and he conked out!

Proof that it did indeed get cold here! This is Isabella enjoying the snow. It is a bit dark out because it is only 7 AM. Hey, around here you need to get out in the snow ASAP, as you never know when it will stop and melt away. We woke them all up to get outside for a bit.

Saoirse enjoying the snow. You have to love her winter wear!!! We brought down a large container of shows to pull out what boots or sneakers we had for them to keep warm in and this is what she pulled out!!! She is totally into fancy shoes!

Jedidiah really thought the snow thing was fascinating! After his time in the snow he came in and was looking through the shoe box and had found some red and black snow boots. They are now his favorites and he wears them all the time!!!!! They are only twice his size!!

Flannery contemplating the snow? Unlikely! She usually doesn't stay still for long, so this is a rare shot :-)

Jedidiah all happy about his new found skill.....jumping off the couch.

Here he is mid-air! Too funny! He did this again, and again, and again.....

Jonah looking all cute! Too precious! I love the way he "talks" now. I need to get it on tape!

We had some pretzels and peanut butter for snack one day and this is what Isa did with hers!!

Here are Jed's new prized boots! He can't live without them :-)

We had a wedding here this weekend. The girls were supposed to be folding the laundry, not trying it on! They put on a wedding. This is the bride, being walked down the isle by the bride's disinterested father. An unfortunate byproduct of dysfunctional families....

The happy couple. Brings tears to my eyes (ha, ha,ha). And for the record Flannery was a MAN. :-)

Here is the flower girl with the newly married couple.

Here is Jonah and the ark! At least the animals of the ark! I didn't have a lot of time to write much, I guess that will have to wait till next weekend. I have been tagged by two people to do some meme's (I think that's what they are called). I'll post those next weekend too. This weekend Jeremiah was at a conference, and we had computer problems.
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my actual post:

without the 'net. Except for email. And I lived to tell about it :-) Our week started with Jedidiah eating us out of house and home! Well almost. For two days that boy ate and ate and ate!!! And this was the two days before we started the homeopathy. I have no idea what got into him. The rest of the week he has been eating way more that what he was, but not as much as the first two days of the week. I started him on his remedies on Wednesday. I've started a notebook dedicated to Jedidiah's health/feeding issues. Besides Jed's eating frenzy no other earth shattering news to share. I do have a bunch of pictures to upload. I only hope Blogger will not take all day to upload them.

Our week has consisted of staying on top of chores. I also stayed consistent with our family reading. We are currently reading (or read) 1 John, 2 John, Biblical Femininity and Fall with the Moody's. We are also working on memorizing Romans 12. We became members at our church this past Sunday. It has been a year since we started attending Hope Baptist. What a wonderful year it has been! Let's see....I've supervised a couple of the girls cooking dinner. Funny thing was that one dinner that Moira made she was a bit heavy handed with the spices. Jeremiah starts eating it and is raving about how wonderful it is (not knowing that Moira made it). He tells me that I should always make it this way, and then I tell him that Moira made it! So he says, well then make sure she makes it next time :-) Hey, maybe I'll work myself out of a job :-) We also had some SNOW this week.

just some random pictures

Good morning all! This post was in draft form from last week. I decided I would just make a new post with a bunch of pictures in it. However Blogger is having issues with loading pictures. UGH! Sooooo I decided to just bring this post up and add the few captions to finish it. The below writing was written last week, or whenever these things actually happened :-) I'm so detailed aren't I? Ohhh I hear the baby awake! Ok, enjoy these couple of pics. (I even added text in green at another attempt to post this a few days ago!)

We have a busy day ahead of us. Jeremiah and the oldest two girls are out playing ultimate frisbee. When they get back it will be a quick lunch and then to the library and grocery shopping. When we get back from that it will be a quick pick up and prepare for some dinner guests.

Yesterday was so nice out. We got outside for a while. I am very happy that the bee population decided to not be out in force as they were the day before. I do not know what was up with the yellow jackets around here. I am thinking something disturbed their nest? All spring and summer we had no problems. We had a couple get in the house due to the front door being open so I can watch the kiddos playing on the porch. Other than that, we didn't have a problem. Well the other day we had bees land on me, Flannery, Jedidiah and Saoirse. And poor Isabella actually got stung by one in the afternoon. The only reason we were outside at that point was because we found a kitten up in a tree. So now we have two cats!

I wrote this post a couple of days ago. I figured that I would just continue writing in this post since I had it as a draft. No sense starting another post. We had a great day today. For the most part :-) Poor Isabella woke up and said, "I think I have the chicken pox." Thankfully she didn't! She was just having an allergic reaction to her antibiotic she was taking. She had head to toe hives! Even benedryl didn't touch them!

It finally happened! Our boy was dressed in a pink frilly dress. I had suspicions that the girls were up to something. They are usually not that willing to take the baby! Ha ha! They came out saying, "Look ma at your little girl!" Um, yeah......I am sure Jonah will be thrilled to see these some years from now :-)

Look at this adorable baby! This green sweater is like 30 years old!!!! It was one of mine or my siblings sweater! As is the bonnet. It is a bit on the girly side, but it still makes a cute baby. :-) Yes, my girls are having too much fun with baby clothes. They have the girl clothing in their baby doll basket. Jedidiah was a bit too fragile for them to hold and carry, so they are heaping all their pent up baby dressing desires on poor Jonah.

And this was just too funny not to post. This is Jeremiah enjoying tea with the girls. They got all dressed up and fancied up their small round table for tea. This is what happens when Daddy joins in!

My lack of posts

I'm still here. I've just been busy lately. We've had appointments, a bonfire, park days, errands, etc. There seem to be a million things going on around here. Jeremiah and I have been having a lot of discussion about the children and their discipline and education. There are so many things tied in together that it is hard to know where one thing ends and another begins. For a time you will see less of me here. In order to seek answers to some pressing questions we have to address some of the issues and direction that we need to go in with the girls I will be fasting from the computer. For me fasting from food is not a big deal. And with nursing I didn't want to attempt it. However the computer does have a hold on me, so I wanted to give it up to focus on crying out on behalf of my children. My goal will be to write in my real live paper journal :-) and then on Saturdays to come on here and catch you up on things that are happening. My goal is to dive into God's word, to pray, pray and pray some more. Not only do I have things to call out to God about my children but about myself as well. In the last couple of months I've just been feeling uncertain about where I stand before the Lord. His word says to test ourselves. And I've been doing that with some hesitation. Right now it is a bit hard to explain. I just know what the Bible says is the mark of a Christian and that my life does not seem to match up to well with that. There are just some very elemental things like.....yelling at my children, that has me concerned. No, we will never be perfect. I do believe that the Lord did not die for us so that we would continue on in our same manner. I know there has been change in my life, but there are also some very deep seated issues that have remained. And one thing I know is that the Bible is clear about anger. So I just really need to call out to the Lord to show me what I need to be doing. My anger IS affecting my children. It IS affecting my marriage. And that is for certain. The Lord died to forgive us our sins, and when we ask for forgiveness we are to also repent of our sins. Repent means to make a 180 degree turn. To turn totally away from it. I can't say I've repented if EVERY day I am yelling at my children. I know I have said that I have forgiven my husband for past things, but I am NOT living like I have. And these are concerns of mine, as they should be. So between my concerns and the pressing needs of our children I will be offline during the week, and check in here on Saturdays. Do pray for our family if you are led. I would appreciate that.

In Jedidiah news....I talked to the homeopathic doctor today. I want to be very excited about what he had to say, and I am, at the same time I'm nervous that this may be another dead end. However since no one before has had a single clue as to what may be going on with him, the fact that he seems to have an idea AND that he has remedies for this has made me a bit hopeful. He has also cured other children who were 3 to 6 years (!) behind in growth and they are now at a normal height and weight. This has been a very long road. I have to say I need to be thankful that in perspective and relative to what other people may have gone through it really has not been that long. But at the same time, for almost two years we have known that something has been wrong but have not been able to figure out what. The major factor he believes is contributing to Jed's situation is mercury. The other is the allergy meds that I took while pregnant with him. So we will be doing remedies to purge his body of those things. Quite a few of his symptoms (teeth grinding, sensitivities with his mouth, the profuse sweating and the supposed milk allergy) he believes are from mercury toxicity. We will see what happens. We should be getting some of the remedies in the mail very soon and will start on the immediately. He told me though to not expect an overnight change, as homeopathy takes time to work. At least in these cases of purging the body of the toxins. He had some very interesting things to say about systemic yeast. He does believe Jed has that, HOWEVER, yeast is not the problem. He believes that the body is using the yeast as a defense mechanism. He says that the body is using the yeast to get rid of the mercury. I'm too tired to go into it all right now. But it is fascinating. So to get rid of the yeast would not be good as his body would try to resort to some other means to rid his body of the toxins. If we get rid of the toxins we will get rid of the yeast. I'm very worn out emotionally from all of this. The highs, the lows, the waiting.....I really want to be done with this. If it was me suffering from something that would be one thing, but for it to be with my child....I'm just not so patient. But I really don;t have a choice now do I? :-) I'll make sure to tell you all how he makes out with this. I really can't wait for the day that I can post a picture of a healthy Jedidiah! Oh, the thought just makes my heart jump!

Have a wonderful night. I am going to post a separate post with just pictures and captions. I would love to blog about it all, I just don't have the time right now. Enjoy.

Sense and Sensibility

I'm not sure how many of you have been over to Sense and Sensibility before, but there are gorgeous dress patterns there! And now they are going to be selling their patterns through instant downloads (ePatterns)!! How neat is that? I've always wanted to Edwardian Apron pattern. As some of you know I love aprons, and this has been on my wish list for some time. Do go check out the patterns:
Sense and Sensibility ePatterns


As a side note I have a couple of posts that are in draft form right now. I've not had the time to get to them. It seems something always comes up.

A little clarification

Just a clarification on my last post, most specifically the wording of it. It was brought to my attention that the wording may have given the wrong impression. I guess I was on such a high from the good news that I wrote it out quickly. The wording of the title gave the impression that we did not have hope for Jedidiah in the past. Or where that hope came from. So to clear that up I wanted to say that our hope has always been in the Lord. I am a very poor writer, and I usually stumble for words. The word hope that I used was in relation to the hope of a cure from a medical nature. It is hard to put your child into the arms of God. Even though I know that He can take better care of them than I. I have been praying for healing for Jedidiah. And to see that the healing may be at hand is a glorious feeling. The Lord has been very, very gracious to us. There are times I ask, why, why is my son still sick? Why does he have a tube? Why is he not growing, why....why....And you know what...I still don't have any answers :-) I will say that I know the Lord uses all things of the believer for good. And I can rest knowing that good will come of this. Maybe he is preparing us for helping others with medical needs. I really don't know. I do know that at present I must persevere in the things He has shown for me to do. And that happens to be why I have not been on the computer so much of late. I've been getting the house organized, and making sure the girls are doing chores. We have a very exciting season ahead of us. One of training and tying heart strings. I will share more on that later.

As a side note (I think my whole blog is a list of side notes :-)) we got out early today to vote. No lines, it was in and out for us. There has been so much talk on the elections. I don't get into all of that "stuff". Not that politics is not important. But truly, it is only the Lord who can change the heart of a king. And no matter who wins we will need that divine changing! I have heard about people fasting and praying for our country these last few days. I do believe we will need more of that even after the elections. I think there is a very good reason that the Lord continually told the Israelites to remember His deeds AND to tell them to their children and their children's children. It is easy to loose hope for our country, with all the news that we hear. However it is proven that when a people come together and humble themselves before the Lord that He will intervene. We are prone to forgetting. I can't tell you how many times when I have read a passage that I thought, now HOW could they have done that!! The Lord did this and this and this and they STILL went off and rebelled, etc. Then I have to stop and realize that we (I) are NO different. I have these amazing testimonies of the work of the Lord in our life and I will still loose hope or fear. I turn my attention elsewhere. When what I really needed to do was to proclaim the works of the Lord.

Jedidiah's speech therapist will be here soon. I need to go put some food together while the baby is sleeping. He's not been napping too well as of late.

Hope for Jedidiah

I don't have a lot of time to post right now, and not sure when I will get some! So I thought I would put up this encouraging news we got. As a side note I do have a lot of other things I want to write about and pictures to post, maybe one of these evenings. Ok, the other day at church someone told me about their homeopathic doctor. They were concerned about telling me as some people are a little leery of alternative medicine (not at our church, just people in general). She told me some remarkable stories of their family's success with homeopathy. She gave me the number for the doctor. She told me he would be honest about whether he thought he could help us. After all money doesn't grow on trees and spending more money on something that may not work would be depressing in many ways. So I got to talk with the doctor himself. At first as I was telling him Jed's history there didn't seem to be anything this doctor could grab onto and say, hey, I can work with that. I was getting very discouraged. I did, however, have a list of all sorts of "symptoms" that Jed has and figured I just needed to keep on going with it. There has been one mystery symptom that Jeremiah and I felt was a clue to Jed's problems. However any of the doctors we have seen have either dismissed it, or admitted that it meant something, they just didn't know what. Jedidiah used to sweat a lot. When he stopped nursing he stopped to sweating. Then after I started pumping milk to give to him through his tube after Jonah was born he started the sweating thing again. This is a lot of sweat, and it's toxic tasting. I mean I've tasted sweat enough to know that this wasn't normal sweat. So I tell the doctor this and finally, FINALLY we may have something to work with!!!!! He says that sweating and the fact that it was worse with milk is a sign of mercury toxicity!!!! WHOA!!!!! I told him that Jed has not been vaccinated. He asked me if I had any fillings, I said no. Then he asked if I was vaccinated....yes. He said, that's where he got it from. His whole life we felt he was allergic to milk, but a recent blood test ruled that out. Now we have a reason for why he reacts to milk. Milk makes a mercury reaction worse. The breast milk would have had the mercury in it, making him have a higher reaction when he was on it. People, people, people you have NO idea how excited I was to hear this. I have not been so excited about a possibility than I am of this. I know I should be reserved and wait and see, but I am literally bursting at the seams. So I had to share. Get ready for another loop in our roller coaster ride----one that I am hoping is the last loop :-) Ok, need to go make lunch. Like I said I have a bunch of other things to post later. Stay tuned :-)