So many blessings

I've been meaning to write this update for awhile but haven't found the right time. Tim has been traveling for work a lot this month, so I've had my hands full. Let's see, I'll go back and start with Halloween. This year I was finally able to put together coordinating costumes for the whole family and it was so fun! I was a 50's house wife in an apron with a spatula, Ben was a doughnut, Micah was a cookie, Maelyn was a cupcake and Tim was flour. We went to a trunk or treat at our church and took the kids trick or treating there. They had a blast and were overwhelmed by the people everywhere and the costumes and the candy! Tim took them home after we hit up a bunch of trunks and the Arvada Fire truck! I stayed and helped with our MOPS bake sale. I went outside and walked around with bake sale items and I think some people thought it was just part of my costume... Then on Halloween we walked up the street, stopping at a couple houses, to Ben's preschool church where they were doing a smaller trunk or treat and then stopped at a few more houses on the way back home. I love handing out candy at our house. It was a beautiful warm evening too, so I was able to sit on the front porch and really enjoy the night. It was a really fun Halloween. The next day we put up the kids Christmas tree, and the lights on the house. The weather here has been so warm this fall that I have not been as eager for the Christmas season as usual. We did have snow this past weekend, and that has gotten me ready! We will be getting our big tree and finishing decorating this week!

This past week both Micah and Maelyn had their specialist followups at the Children's Hospital. I was nervous going into the week. It's been so nice to be feeling normal lately and I just didn't want to get back into 'doctor talk' or for anything to come up requiring more appointments. But they both had great reviews! They are both in the clear for the next 6 months! Maelyn's next visit, in April, will be scheduling pre-surgery testing and surgery for late summer. However we did get to ok to go ahead and plan an early summer vacation. So both appointments went great and left us feeling good about their health and also left us just in awe of the miracles God has done in their lives. God is good, and God is healer. Continue to pray with us for more healing and more medical miracles. 

Maelyn turns 18 months old this week and I'm feeling kind of emotional about it. 18 months is a huge developmental milestone and it is really hitting me that my miracle baby girl is not a baby anymore. It's so good and so huge. It's feeling as big as her first birthday. She's starting to walk more and talking more (it's so cute). She loves everybody's shoes and socks. She is already starting to help dress herself. She loves talking on the phone and playing trucks. She still loves hugs and snuggles and her lovies. 

Celebrating Thanksgiving is so special to me. Every year I have more and more to be thankful for. I am so incredibly thankful to God for my kids and their miracles. I am so thankful for my partner in life, my best friend, my other half, my husband. I am so thankful for our home and our family and friends. I am so thankful for my kitty and my dog, I love them too! And this year I am so thankful for all of our answered prayers. The biggest answered prayer this year is that God has given Tim and I the opportunity to go to Hawaii together, kid free (thanks mom and dad!). I have been praying for so long to get to the beach, to be able to spend time by the ocean. As Ben would say, enjoy the salty breezes. Sink my toes in the sand and just sit in peace and read. And God has blown me away with his fulfillment of this request of mine. Hawaii has only ever been a distant dream, but next week I get to get on a plane (and sit for 7 hours, with no kids on my lap, hallelujah), and then spend 5 days on the beach in Honolulu. Tim will be working for three of those days so I get to literally sit by myself and read on the beach. I AM PUMPED! THANK YOU LORD! I will miss the kids. It will be hard leaving Maelyn for 6 days. But... This momma needs a break and this is the best break I could dream up! 

Busy Busy Busy

Life has been moving so fast. I can't believe it's mid October. We have all be very busy. Ben is loving pre-K, Maelyn is still in physical therapy and Micah's just a three year old. If you've ever had a three year old boy, you get it. Tim has been traveling and also transitioning to working from home. I've been keeping myself super busy too. I've painted almost every room in the house and went through a major sewing kick thanks to Joann's fleece sale. I made the whole family matching fleece pants for Christmas! I'm so excited. And I made myself two other pairs of what I call 'Blanket Pants', they are amazing! When Tim travels I have a hard time sleeping because the bed is cold, so I usually wrap myself in a blanket before I get into bed, but with these pants I don't have to do that! And when I was buying the fleece at the store the lady asked me who I was making a blanket for and I was like, "oh, no, pants, for me". And she was like, "oh, pants? ok...".  Hence, blanket pants. Just wait, it will catch on.

On top of MOPS leadership and bible study, I'm officially joining our churches women's ministry team. I'm really excited to see where God leads me with that. I've also decided that I am going to try to really start writing, like books. I have super basic outlines started but now I have to figure out how to actually write them. I said this when I started this blog, and I still feel the same way, I am not a writer! I've never felt gifted in this arena, but I feel God calling me this way so we will see what comes out of it. I am blessed to have a friend who has volunteered to help me! So I am super excited to see where God leads us with this! Since our big summer trip I've severely neglected my Norwex business and it is on the brink of extinction, so I'm trying to get that going again.

We've been very grateful for this medical lull we've been in, where we can feel more normal and can be busy with things other than medical appointments. Both Micah and Maelyn have their appointments at Childrens in mid November, so start praying for those that they both get good reports and prognosis. We are hoping Maelyn's appointment will give us more information about the upcoming surgery. As much as we are dreading it, I think both Tim and I are anxious to get it over with and move past it. Having this major surgery, major life event, looming ahead of us but not really knowing when or what to expect has been hard. I've been bugging Tim for a beach vacation for years now because I love the beach. I haven't been in years and I feel like I need to go to refresh and ground myself to prepare for this next big life event. I'm to the point where I was looking into going by myself and leaving Tim home with the kids. We are trying to figure it out logistically and financially. Having a love for the beach is not ideal when you live dead center of the continent. But again, we will see what God has planned. These last couple of years has really taught us to just trust God for the plans and the bigger picture. I like to think we are getting good at it, but really it is never easy.

Behold, blanket pants!
And yes that is a little front pocket for my phone.

October 1

One year. This year has been long and hard but full of healing and growth. It has been one year since Maelyn's first surgery. Maelyn has come so far and grown so much. She started walking this week. She is starting to talk a ton. She has a pony tail! She is a toddler now. She is almost caught up on all normal developmental milestones. She is a miracle. Her oxygen saturation is still in the low 80's. She will have another hard open heart surgery in the next year. But she is strong willed, courageous, determined, self aware, silly, loving, affectionate and trusting. And those things make for an incredible warrior.

I've been wrestling with how to share my story and is it even my story to share, or is it my kids? But God has been showing me that I have my own story to tell and He has called me to do it. And Micah and Maelyn will have their own stories to share in their own time and they are going to be different than mine. I need to share all that God has taught me these last few years. God is calling me to tell my story, well actually His story, our story, of a mothers heart break but God's faithfulness, God's strength, and God's goodness. I have been trying to tell God that it's not time, I'm not ready, and He has been saying, it is always the time to share about me and of course you are not ready, you will never be ready, but I am ready to use you. So I'm going to start to write more and for the first time I'm going to stand up in front of a (small) group of women and share about my mothers heart. And I am so excited/nervous.

Not only is this the one year anniversary of her surgery but we also just had the two year anniversary of Micah's diagnosis. After my last post I realized that, as much as I love fall, fall has always been a hard season of life for me. It always brings the most change, which I hate, and it bring that sense of life and death, of mortality. But the reason I love fall regardless of all of all of that, is Jesus. God was able to give hope, beauty, new life and hope in the face of death. And isn't that is basically the story of our lives? With Jesus, there is no fear.

Let it fall

One of my favorite kid books is so simple but I just love it. It is called Let It Fall, by Maryann Cocca Leffler. It gives me warm fuzzies because it reminds me of Pennsylvania and I love fall. As I sit here editing this post, sipping tea, the wind is blowing, the leafs are rustling and the grass is covered in yellow. Fall just has a feeling in the air that I can't put into words. This year though, I wasn't sure I was ready for fall. This summer has been a whirl wind and it has hugely significant in my life. I feel like I've come out of my shell shock and stepped into the light again. I feel like I'm back, but I wasn't sure if fall would be too much to handle. As much as I love fall, I wasn't sure I was ready for the business of fall or the anniversary of Maelyn's surgery. But getting back into routine and getting involved in things has made me realize more and more that I am back and I am surprising ready for fall! Ben has started preschool, MOPS and Bible study have started. Maelyn is still in PT and Micah just had a birthday! The anniversary of surgery is not looming over me like I thought it was going to. Granted, I've been pretty distracted... 

I had been intentionally putting off updating the blog because August and September were, well, crazy. Tim and I realized that our life was just never meant to be low key, we will probably always be in a little bit of crazy, and I need to be ok with that. We literally sat down one night and had a discussion about how I would like this coming year to be uncrazy, settled and restful, while investing in our community, before we approach another surgery in the spring/summer. I can not make this stuff up folks, the very next morning, Tim went into work to find out that his company is shutting down all of Denver. That's right, all SMA America employees in Denver are going to be let go this fall. All, that is, except the 4 product managers (= Tim). At first they told Tim that they wanted to keep him on but move him to California. So I went into a little bit of panic mode, we are not, can not, move to California! Then the same day (again I can not make this stuff up) a friend sent Tim a message about a potential job on the east coast. So in one day it went from, let's really settle in here in Colorado, to, oh Lord what are you doing!? We have to move? California? There was also talk of a job in Washington (state.)? Or east coast? Can Tim just find another job locally? Do we want to stay here? Do we really want to move? Needless to say it was a huge shock but God is good and He has been giving us so much peace and as much patience as I can handle. He has been opening and closing doors and changing our hearts in the process. As of right now Tim has negotiated with his current company to stay on with them and work remotely from home, here in Colorado. This has been a huge blessing and relief. Tim is still keeping an eye out for possibilities to move us back east, however, with fall here and anticipation of another surgery, we are not feeling eager to move. This has all been so confusing. Since we moved to Colorado I have been begging God to either get me back east, or change my heart for Colorado. And after two and a half years of waiting on that prayer, it feels like He kind of gave me both and showed me how much my heart has changed for Colorado. But seriously, what do I do with that!? Isn't God funny. He always answers our prayers but almost never how we ask Him to. So the last 6 weeks or so we have been trying to figure out what we are doing. We've been getting the house ready, for either selling or staying. We've been praying for wisdom. We've been celebrating Micah! We've been busy. We've been kind of crazy, and I'm sure there is more craziness to come...

It is autumn, let it fall.