What a crazy week!

My poor little adventurous three year old guy has had quite a week! 


Sunday morning I got him dressed and noticed a rash. Upon further investigation I determined it looked like Lyme Disease! With all of the ticks we've been finding, I guess it was just a matter of time. After going to the doctor yesterday, she confirmed that it is indeed Lyme Disease! So, he is now on 4 weeks of Amoxicillin! Whew! At least there is an easy solution!


Now today...I'm in the office talking to Wes and hear "BOOM!" then crying. It isn't uncommon to hear these sounds in our house throughout the day, but Momma's know the difference in cries in their children and I knew I better go and investigate this one. I found my little guy on the floor holding his foot and whimpering. This is unusual for him. He has a very high pain tolerance and never stays in one position for long. I asked him what happened and he said he jumped from the railing like his big brother did. What?! The railing is about 10 feet from the ground in our multi-level house. He landed about 10 feet from the railing in the middle of the room, which means he had about 20 feet of air time! Wow! No wonder his foot was hurting! After about an hour it had swollen to about twice the usual size and he would not walk on it at all. He was scooting around on his behind everywhere. I felt so bad for him. 


We got into the Doctor and after x-rays, determined that he has a subluxation on the third and fourth metatarsals which is indicative of a Salter 1 fracture - ha! How do you like my medical jargon? Basically he probably broke his third and fourth longer bones in his foot. But, because he's so little and his foot is so swollen it's hard to be sure. So...we have to wait until the swelling goes down a little more (Friday?) and re-x-ray. For now, we are immobilizing it in an ace bandage and icing it. He's a little trooper though. He is so sweet and I'm just loving my one-on-one time I've had with him the last couple of days. He just makes me laugh with his inquisitiveness and sense of humor. "What's this, what's that?" all the time. But, I have a feeling this is just the beginning of life adventures with this little guy. We are in trouble. 

BUGS and other stuff

Okay...so I've had to make a big adjustment in my thinking the past few weeks regarding insects. I don't like them at all! I can DEAL with them if they are far away from me, but I can't kill them and I definitely can't live with them in my house! But, I have realized for some reason our new house has them INSIDE as well as outside! I don't know if my three year old bug loving boy is bringing them in, our dog is bringing them in on her fur, or if they are already here!

First my three year old regularly finds these and plays with them all the time...ugh! At least they are outside ;)



Then about two weeks ago I was sitting on the couch and noticed our dog trying to sniff something on the carpet. I went over to investigate and found this!!! A centipede!!!



The day before Mother's Day my 7 year old boy came up to me asking if he could have a band aid because his hand was hurting him. Upon further investigation I noticed it was twice the size as his other hand. Looking closer I noticed two very distinct puncture holes where a spider had probably bit him. He didn't have a fever and there were no red streaks so we decided to wait. It has been a few days now and his hand is almost back to normal, thank the Lord.

A few nights ago my poor daughter woke me up in the middle of night to tell me something big and black fell on her nose in bed! My hubby went to investigate and found this in her covers!!!







It's called a House Centipede and is apparently harmless...except when they cause a heart attack from falling on you in the middle of the night!


The next morning while brushing my 6 year old daughter's hair she screamed "Ahhh, there's a tick in my hair!" It couldn't be...could it? I looked down on the floor to investigate and sure enough found this!!!!

Then...last night it was MY turn! I had just gone to bed and put my head on my pillow when my hair was tickling my neck. That's weird, how can my hair be moving and tickling my neck when I'm laying still? I immediately got my phone and turned the light on and flashed it on the bed to find this crawling inches away from me!!!





Finally...one last notation. I needed to edit this entry because of this! 


Just after writing this blog entry, my 7 year old boy was reading it and looking at the pictures. I turned around to see what he thought and noticed a small black speck in his ear! I thought it was a piece of dirt or something...but, it wasn't! It was a baby tick! Ugh! 

Please help me! Who is next???

Reaffirming our Family Vision through God’s Encouragement!

God is amazing and such an Encourager! 

We were in Santa Cruz over the weekend to visit friends and also to do meetings for my work. We got to go to our old church and listened to a message on Trusting God. God provided four separate events to give Wes and I encouragement to continue trusting Him that day!! 

First event: 

It was so awesome because after church a lady came up to me and asked if she could talk to me! She wanted to know how we came to the decision to have seven children! She even said she had read my blog! Wow! What an encouragement! I was so excited to share with her our testimony of how we came to allowing God to be in control of our family I didn’t know where to begin. So, I started at the beginning of how God slowly showed us the truth of how He feels about life, creation, and children. It was such an encouragement to talk to her and hear how God is working in her life to and how He has been speaking to her heart about children. I shared with her about what a wonderful and incredible journey it has been and how I would never change a minute of it for the world. How contrary to what the world or even well-meaning other Christians would tell us, letting go and giving God control really does bring PEACE beyond all understanding. You would think it would bring fear and worry, but it actually brings the opposite...incredible peace that dissolves fear and worry as you learn to put everything in God’s hands and become ready for each new day’s adventures! It is always so wonderful to be given the opportunity to share our testimony with others and I see it as a gift to do so. It always reaffirms our conviction of trusting God in all ways. It’s so amazing, because as I already said the message for that morning at church was about trusting God! If only others could see that everyone needs to trust God in the area of family planning too and not listen to the lies of the world telling you otherwise! 

Later that day while driving home to Cool we had another encouraging time while eating dinner on the road! God used complete strangers to encourage us and again reaffirm our mission and ministry as a family in three ways! We stopped at our favorite taqueria, Adalberto’s, in Stockton for yummy carne asada burritos and taquitos. We were busy being the “loud family” and enjoying our Mexican food when a lady nearby asked me “are these all your children?” I of course replied with a smile “yes.” She thought we had only five since two were in the bathroom, but I corrected her and told her we had seven. The other two children then walked in and she said with a smile that they were all very adorable - how sweet! Doesn’t it encourage you when people call your children adorable? 

The second form of encouragement came from a man who was alone eating dinner next to us and had apparently been watching us while he was eating. He came up to us after he was done and said “hi, I just want to say something...I am a licensed marriage and family therapist and if every family acted like you did I would be out of business.” Wow! what a nice thing to say. We are always telling the children that others are watching ;) - sometimes we can be quite entertaining!

The final comment came from a guy as we were leaving. He said to me “Are all of these children yours?” Funny how that is the common question...After I told him yes, he said...”Wow! That’s awesome and such a great witness!” I couldn’t believe that he could actually be talking about being a witness to God through the number of children we had. I couldn’t believe it so much that I had to ask him to repeat himself. He then proceeded to tell me that he just had his second child and that he and his wife don’t practice any contraception, but are leaving their family planning up to God!” Wow! I was sooooo encouraged and he looked to be only in his early 20’s! I told him that is such a blessing to hear and then told him that God will bless him for his trust! 

God is so good and what an Encourager He is! Thank you Lord for showing us early enough in our lives to trust you fully. Thank you for revealing yourself to us through encouraging verses in your Word and through the encouragement of complete strangers! You are a wonderful and loving Father who loves to encourage. I pray that I will remember that encouragement each day and also that I can become a better encourager to my own wonderful blessings.