Glaucoma?!

I have had to wear glasses since the sixth grade, ugh. So I am very familiar with going in for an eye exam every year to every couple of years. Well, today I went in for a regular eye exam and to get contacts. Everything was going as usual, then the Dr. tells me my eye pressure is very high. Then I hear the word, glaucoma. I don't have glaucoma (thank you Lord!!!), but I am at high risk of getting it in the future. I don't know too much about it, besides it can cause blindness (I think). While I wait for my next appointment (in 4 months), I will surely be looking into it. I looked it up once today as soon as I got home and what I read made me kinda scared. As I sat here wondering if one day I will become blind or have to have some kind of eye surgery, I looked over at the calendar on the wall. Do you know what it said? At the bottom, it has a verse of scripture: 2 Samuel 22:33 God is my strength and power; and He maketh my way perfect. I thought, how silly I'm being. I was getting myself so worked up over what might one day happen. If it does or doesn't happen, God will be there giving me the strength to get through it. 

Thank you Grandma Spence for sending us those calendar's every year!!!!

Home Sweet Home

We made it back home on Monday evening. It has taken a few days to get settled back in at home. It always surprises me how much work it is to get all of us unpacked and then get back into a routine. We had a great time visiting with the McDowell family, it was truly a great blessing to spend New Years with them. God is so good to us and gives us exactly what we need, when we need it! The drive was so beautiful, I took tons of pictures and it was hard to choose which ones to share in this post. So I picked a few....

On the road, leaving Okanogan

 The boys checking out Samuel

 On the road, leaving Oregon

 Gave the girls gum and Olivia got it stuck in her hair!

 With not many options and no peanut butter, we

decided to just cut it out. I thought she would be upset

but she was more ok with it than me, lol.

 Learning how to drive at 6 months :-)

Pictures over the past few days...

The day before Christmas Eve (friday), we went to Wenatchee. Wow was it busy! The girls were VERY tired on our drive home.

And here's the proof!

These poor children were so tired. They really did fall asleep like this. I woke Lilly up and got her to put her seat back a little bit because her neck would have really been hurting by the time we got home.

We spent Christmas Eve (saturday) at home, opening our gifts from friends, family and one another. We were very thankful to have recieved some games. We LOVE playing games! We also watched some Christmas movies and just had a nice relaxing day at home.

Chip being a chihuahua is always cold in the winter and anytime I have my electric blanket out he comes to snuggle. 

"Ahhh! Finally, I am warm!"

Then, Christmas Day (sunday), we headed over to Twisp and spent the morning/afternoon with two very dear ladies, Kimmie and Ruth. Chris had a great bible study for us on the birth of Jesus. The girls and Samuel behaved very well and I was able to hear the whole thing! We also sang some songs and Chris and Lilly played the piano for us.

Kimmie, Olivia and Lilly

 A very sharp/pointy icicle hanging off the office roof.

 Chris trying to prick his finger on the very sharp/pointy icicle, lol.

After we sang songs, I asked Chris and Lilly to play the song they played at the recital because I didn't get a great view. So here is Chris and Lilly playing the same song.

(In case you were wondering, at the end of the video I noticed I was

standing way too close to the heater)

It was such a beautiful drive over Loup Loup pass that morning. On the way home I had Chris pull over so I could take some pictures.

A view of the Methow Valley 

Look closely and you can see deer in the field. 

Deer tracks in the snow.

After we got home we got busy cooking our Christmas Dinner. We had a very tasty turkey with all the fixins. Here is something new I tried this year (pictured below). We paired this with some whole wheat Ritz crackers.

Holiday Feta Cheese Ball

I hope you all had a great Christmas! Now I must stop blogging and finish packing. We are taking a trip to Oregon to visit and spend New Years with some friends. What do you have planned for New Years?

Lilly's Christmas Recital

Here ia a video of Lilly playing at the Christmas Recital. Next time, I will definately try to get a better view.  They played at the Apple Springs retirement community this evening.

 Samuel is getting both of his two front

 bottom teeth in at the same time.

May God bless you and your family this Christmas!

Trip to O.H.

We got to Oak Harbor early yesterday evening. Belive it or not, we got here exactly when we wanted and planned on getting here. If you have ever traveled with 3 little ones and 2 dogs, you know how difficult it can be. It took us almost 6 hours to get to Oak Harbor from our house. I'm still surprised that we got here on time with all the snow on Stephens Pass and then the rain/traffic after that. We had plenty of time to relax and stretch out our legs before church and even have dinner! Thanks so much for dinner Sherri!  Brother Hower preached an excellent message and then there were great testimonies of how God is blessing in peoples lives. Then to top of a great night in God's house,  there was pie and fellowship with some much missed friends!

Also, I won the Family Daughter book giveaway that I posted about a couple days ago!!! How cool is that? I can't wait to read it.

Now some pictures....

"I can grab things with my hands now."

 "Now just to figure out how to grab things and

put them in my mouth at the same time."

 "Is this how you drink out of this thing?"

 Stevens Pass when we drove over it yesterday.

 Levi (the Vaughn's doggie)  checking out Samuel.

 On the blanket...

 Off the blanket, lol.

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!

My Sweet Lillian

Today, Lilly celebrated her 7th birthday! God has blessed us with such a sweet and loving little girl. I am so thankful for her and would like to share some pictures of her. I realized after I started looking through pictures this was not going to be a quick and easy post like I thought it was going to be. We have tons of pictures! So I tried to pick out some of my favorite. Now I must turn off this computer and get some sleep :). We leave first thing in the morning to Oak Harbor, to spend the week there for Thanksgiving.









The Family Daughter Giveaway

Sarah L Bryant and KBR Ministries are giving away a copy of the book The Family Daughter to one select lady. To find out how to enter the giveaway click on this link: 

 http://www.aboverubies.net/2011/11/family-daughter-review-and-giveaway.html

 Or you could go to the KBR  website and fill out their annual survey to be entered into the giveaway.

http://kingsbloomingrose.com/2011survey.html 

There are only 3 days left!

Rumble & Shake

This morning around 5 a.m. we awoke to the house rumbling and shaking. Chris and I both sat up in bed asking each other "What was that? Was that an earthquake?" We were so convinced that it wasn't an earthquake, that we even thought maybe someone had had an accident on the road behind/above our house and came rolling down the hill or something. We looked around out the windows upstaris but nothing was out of the ordinary, no cars had crashed into our house. So after getting the girls and Samuel back to sleep, I got online and found out that yes, indeed we did have an earthquake! I don't know much of anything about earthquakes, but if you follow this link it will tell you all about the earthquake we had this morning. There are some very interesting things on this website about earthquakes, if you have time to check it out.

 http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/uw11181309.php

http://www.omakchronicle.com/nws/n111118a.shtml

we also have another 2-4 inches of snow in our forcast for today!

A Snow Day

Brrr! It sure has gotten cold quick. I'm not sure what happened to our fall weather but it seems like we've skpped right over it and jumped right into winter. Yesterday around 2pm it started snowing and kept on going. When we woke up this morning we had almost 2 inches in some areas. Not much I know, but we have more snow in the forcast. The girls were very excited and wanted to go play in the snow right away. So we decided to have a snow day!

yesterday (looking out over our driveway)

this morning 

our very miniature snowman

the girls trying to make a bigger snowman