Our God is an awesome God,

He reigns from Heaven above,
with wisdom, power and love,
our God is an awesome God!

I don't talk much about my faith here on my blog, but it is a defining part of my life.

Jack has been in the hospital all week.

First the doctors thought his appendix had burst.

Then they said the CT scan and x-rays said it was fine.

Then they told us they saw what they thought was a large tumor and they suspected he had colon cancer.

Jack was in absolute agony. The pain meds weren't touching his pain.

He developed a fever.

He looked horrible.

As Jessica and Brandon, and Nathan and Crystal took care of the other kids, I tried my best to not be eaten alive with fear.

Our friends and family prayed for him. They visited him and laid hands on him and prayed even more. And through all of it, I prayed; a rambling prayer that just ran repeatedly in the back of my head.

Please, God, make him well. Please don't let this be serious. He doesn't look good, Father, please, please bring him through this.

Then the doctor said he really had no idea what he was seeing on the scans. It could be cancer.It could be Chron's Disease. It could be diverticulitis.

So he performed a colonoscopy. He didn't find anything.

He decided to do a laproscopic exploratory surgery.

He found that Jack's appendix had burst, a full three days after it had ruptured.

He found that Jack's colon had literally wrapped itself around his appendix, and in doing so had saved his life.

He said he had never seen anything like it before.

He doesn't know why it did that.

But I do.

Tonight Jack is home early because a huge winter storm came in. He is still in a lot of pain.

He has a long recovery ahead of him.

But he is home. He is alive. He is resting with Daniel curled up napping next to him.

My heart is full of gratitude.

And praise.

And tonight, I just had to share that with you.

Our God is an awesome God.

Candlelight Service

Silent Night.

Holy Night. (Even if my girls are wearing Santa hats with their Christmas dresses.)

All is calm. (Until Daniel sees the communion chalice of grape juice and jabbers "mine, mine, mine!")


All is bright. (Except Jessica who is getting worried about Daniel talking and oohing and aahing through the service. "Look, Grampa, I have one too!")

Son of God.

Love's pure light. ("Jessica," I smile and whisper,"Jesus was a baby boy too.")


Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia.

Christ, the savior is born.

Please leave the sanctuary in silence. (It makes it easier to hear the precious sounds of the squalling newborns and happy toddlers in the congregation.)

I love the Candlelight Service.

Happy Halloween...

from a silly little raccoon,

the headless horseman

a couple of deer hunters,

a stunning witch,

Achilles and his defensive line girlfriend,

and a cute little skeleton who

spent most of his time trunk-or-treating transferring candy from his grampa's bowl

to his own pumpkin.

We hope you are enjoying rifling through your candy as much as the raccoon has.

Simple Saturday

I took Chet and the girls down to Memphis on Thursday, so I will be updating Chet's blog in just a minute.

On Saturday, Crystal (married to Nathan) came over to scrapbook, but we ended up cleaning out my freezer and fridge instead. It wasn't supposed to work out that way, but I ended up scrubbing and cleaning the whole kitchen and got all of my downstairs deep cleaned. It was the first Saturday I have been able to spend at home in a long time, so I don't know what possessed me to spend it cleaning! Perhaps Crystal and my other scrapping friends will come back soon while everything is still sparkly and we can really scrap!

Jessica, Daniel and Brandon came over for dinner last night. Daniel rode on his grampa's shoulders to go watch the boys play Trampoline Dodgeball and then to visit McClacken.

Zachary has been here visiting Matt this week, and he has enjoyed getting to know McClacken.

McClacken has enjoyed chewing on Zachary.

Daniel watched his Uncle Todd and Uncle Kyle playing Trampoline Dodgeball. They played a gentler version than the older boys did.


Daniel also supervised his Uncle Matt and Tyler playing. This was a game we watched from a further distance to avoid being hit by flying volleyballs.


Then we shooed everyone off the tramp and gave him a turn, only he didn't actually play the dodgeball part. He really did like trying to walk on the tramp, though.

Soon afterwards, Sammy discovered that the trampoline was full of all the boys he adores so much, so he jumped up there to get there attention. Everyone needs a little love sometimes.

We have had a full-house this weekend, but it was nice. Now we are all cozied in the living room and watching movies, and I am trying to mentally prepare to return to work and our regularly scheduled weekdays tomorrow. I did get one layout scrapped this weekend while we were at St. Jude, though, so I will share that with you before I sign off again. (I will fix my typo before I print it.)

Happy Birthday, Daniel!

Daniel is one now, and getting big! Well, he started out big, but he is growing even bigger by leaps and bounds!
He is a fast little guy, and is getting ready to start walking here pretty soon.

Happy birthday, Daniel! We all love you!