thankful thursday

Thank you will never be enough to say for all of the prayers and thoughts and words you have sent up for me and for the Griffies family.
I'm thankful for:

• laundry, dirty dishes and piles of toys
• getting to be here to take care of all of those things
• my hubs whom I adore. everything about that man makes me giddy and lovesick today
• a God who gives us a home in Heaven and gives me another day to try to 'get it right'
• curly red hair, straight copper penny hair, and curly golden brown hair and the heads all of that hair resides on. i'll sniff it and run my fingers through it every day.
• friends who pray for you and for families they don't know
• that i knew susan. she was a good friend, a wonderful wife, mom and Christian. she was also a wicked prankster! there are too many laughs to count.

no words

susan was a wonderful Christian, wife, mom and friend. God, wrap your arms around the three angels she has left behind to find her home with you. no words will ever bring them complete comfort. only You can be their solace.

URGENT PRAYERS NEEDED!!

susan and claire

tony and jonah

i have a friend from college who underwent a surgery today on her brain. i'm thinking she was going to have angioplasty. there was supposed to be a really low incidence of complications. however, a friend from troy called to let me know that susan has had a stroke. she called a few minutes ago to let me know that they have taken her back into emergency surgery because she is having swelling in her brain and they need to relieve the pressure.
Update: The docs are having difficulty getting Susans BP stable. She does have increasing pressure in her brain and they don't know why. They are considering putting a drain in. The CT results will be in an hour to an hour and a half. With ...the blood thinners she has been on prior to today, all this is "tricky."Her Doc said he "does not like what he is seeing." Tony is hanging in
there but we DESPERATELY need your prayers.

this couple is awesome. tony was micah's roommate at the christian student center. we were very close. they struggled with infertility for years. we prayed for them fervently during those years. they now have twins that are basically 8 months older than ally claire. they are actually some of the first people we told about her (it was when they called to tell us the twins were born.)

please please please pray for susan and tony. she is young and healthy, so has that in her favor. but she is extremely critical right now. you can find her blog on my blog listed as susan. here is a snippet of the background on her issue.

I have been having numbness/tingling in my fingers on my right hand for a while. The doctor thought it was carpal tunnel. I had a couple of times when my whole right side went numb so he finally sent me for an MRI and then an MRA when the MRI showed something going on in my left middle cerebral artery. With the MRA, they found some narrowing of that artery that was causing TIAs. 2 neurologists later they have decided to send me to a neurosurgeon in Tampa at USF (September 2). He will decide whether to do an angiography to determine the severity of the narrowing and decide where to go from there. In the meantime, I am on a full dose of aspirin, Plavix (blood thinners), and Crestor (my cholesterol was high last time they checked). I haven't had any symptoms since I was put on these lovely drugs (I was having symptoms a few times a week before that).

buying time rewind

i posted this before, but in my crazy life, sometimes i just don't even know what to say. i am lucky to have a complete thought most days. we have 3 kids with 2 in soccer, one in 1st grade, one in preschool and one into everything! our house is back up for sale, which isn't all that great considering the state of the housing market right now. but hey, He will provide, right? oh, did i mention that i was asked to be a substitute school nurse? how cool is that? i hope i'm able to do it a few times a month. it would be a seriously awesome way to get my foot in the door for that when all of the kiddos are in school.

so, when you know you need to pray for these little ones, but you're not even sure what to say, here is something you can stick on your fridge when you are fixing the umteenth sippy cup of the day or standing there by your microwave cutting those hotdogs into itty bitty bits.

it's a calendar for praying for your kids.

ps--if you'll notice the date, i started this post 2 days ago. who wants to tell me an easier way to get my pics to upload to this piece of you know what?

it's about that time of year...

still to come...the rest of our summer.

summer in review (part 1: AC's bday)

i started this post august 2nd. it's now the 13th. do the math folks. as per usual...blogger fail with picture uploading. i have been a complete loser in posting since...we'll go with january. i don't know that i have ever let it go a whole month without posting, but now i have. and because of that, i decided i'd just make this one EPIC and HUGE and tell you all about our summer. i'm hoping i can remember our summer, it has been so crazy and i don't tend to have the best memory. hence the reason i started this little blog.
it all started back in june with this little punkin' lovin' right here.

On June 10th, she turned TWO! I have no idea where the time has gone. June 10th is always a little bittersweet for micah and i b/c of her rough start, but God blessed us with a strong (willed), healthy, beautiful angel girl and we have cherished every stinkin' moment with her. She is just so different from the boys. it has been the most fun watching her. she talks a mile a minute (as long as she knows you and is comfortable with you) and i think she actually talks pretty clearly. On her birthday, she went from sleeping in her crib to sleeping in her big girl (toddler) bed.

then she ate her breakfast holding her birthday balloon (cause isn't that how you do it?)

on her actual birthday, we had cupcakes (where instead of trying to blow out the candles, she thought she'd be cool and pinch the flame out...no fear.)

then, she hosted a "tea pahty". they happen daily around here. if you are lucky, you can dress up in fairy wings and plastic heels and a tiara. (brothers, be glad i have opted to keep your future egos in tact by not producing evidence of such dress up demands.)

a few days later, we had a Dora "pahty"...

and JoAnna (and her mom Monica) came to stay the weekend with us...

and we had a bouncy house that even daddy enjoyed...

and we played in the pool...


so, thanks for hangin' in there with me...if anyone still is. and if you are, please leave me a comment b/c this has been aggrevating to say the least. all of these pics were loaded one by one with my fingers crossed. so, at least tell me how cute sissy girl is. and yes, that is what she calls herself...sissy girl. up next, the month of july where we went to tybee island.

bookworm

a week or so ago, i strolled through books a million during a much needed night time mental break. i had no idea what i was going in there for, but it's rare that i need an excuse or am looking for anything specific. i picked up 4 books for my summer/beach reading. i haven't read a single review as of this posting, so i'm hoping i picked well. i'd love to hear if any of you have read these or if you are interested. click on the link to take you to amazon and you can read the reviews.

Love The One You're With by Emily Giffin
The Same Sweet Girls by Cassandra King
Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson
The Sweet By and By by Todd Johnson

i don't usually make book recommendations, but all of these sounded like good summer reads. i'll be sure to let you know. what i did figure out is that i must have been feeling my roots that night because they are all about southern women or have some tie to the south. what can i say? i love it down here.