Growing up too fast! Annabelle is 20 months old!

Sweet Annabelle is 20 months old; she is getting so close to two and I cannot believe time has flown by so fast! I took her 20 month pictures in her play clothes at the park because she LOVES the park these days! We try to go to this park most days of the week; it is only a 15 minute walk away.
Annabelle, you love to point up in the sky to the imaginary star you see and then you rock back and forth until I sing you "twinkle twinkle little star." That is by far your favorite song right now.
Also, Annabelle you are just talking away. Anything you tell you to repeat you try to say and most of the time you do pretty well. We are so proud of you and think you are just so smart! You also looooove Dora the Explorer!! You miss your grandparents a lot and often say there names. You say "ya ya" to us all the time which means I love you and it just melts our hearts! You still sleep really well, at least 12 hours at night and your naps are from 1-3 hours in the afternoon. You adore your baby sister and talk and try to play with her all the time. You are hardly never mean to her at all and you are learning to share with her so well!You use your manners so well. The nursery workers at church bragged on you this Sunday saying that you said, "please" and "thank you" and I was of proud of you for being sweet and polite! Annabelle you wear 12-18 months clothes and we can tell you are just going to be a tiny little girl. Annabelle you are growing up too fast! Mommy and Daddy love you so much and are so proud of how smart and sweet you are! We pray for you every day that you will accept Christ at a young age, have a deep love for Him and we pray for your future husband. We could not have hand picked a better, more wondeful daughter!

Sisters

Sweet sisters playing on the couch

Things that I LOVE/make me HAPPY

Kelly does a "Show Us Your Life" post every Friday and this Friday was things you love and/or makes you happy! Here are some of mine!

~Jesus and thinking of His love for me
~my sweet girls~my hubby
~teaching
~having a really great "God" conversations with someone
~missions trips~leading worship with Adam~waking up and walking downstairs to a clean house
~getting really dressed up for a special event
~putting on mascara over and over again :)
~high heels~pictures
~family (too many people and pics to post :) )
~running or working out
~eating healthy foods
~making dinner for my family
~the color purple (the literal color not the play)
~birthdays
~walks with new friends
~long phone calls from old friends
~college memories

~warm weather
~getting a tan with friends
~the beach
~beautiful brick houses in Memphis, TN


~McAllister's Deli and their honey mustard
~chocolate and strawberries

Update & Peanut Butter, Belly Button

Today we had our appointment with the GI doctor. Adelyn was such a little trooper as always. We woke her up at 6:30 to head out the door. She had just fallen back asleep from crying at 5:00 but she still woke up kind of happy which is always good!

Our appointment was at 7:45 which was good because we did not have to wait at all; we were the first patient of the day. The doctor (Robin) said so many things that I hope I remember to write it all down. First off she said that we needed to have the swallow test done because it sounds to her like Adelyn is aspirating. I asked what they would do to treat this problem and they said the first thing they would do would be to try to thicken her bottle. From there we discussed the fact that Adelyn does not tolerate rice cereal well at all, in fact, we think she might have some sort of allergy towards rice because she has gotten a rash every time I give it to her. So, we cannot use rice to thicken the bottle we need to try oatmeal and see if she has a reaction to it and then we will know if we can use it to thcken her bottles and if we can't use that they have this (for lack of a better word) stuff that is called "Thicken" that they can use to thicken (hence the name :) ) babies bottles who have reactions or are allergic to all the other things.

The swallow test and to try oatmeal at home to see if she has a reaction to it are the first steps. Robin also put her on zantac at night and she said we could try a little bit of malox when she is screaming in the night and cannot be comforted. The Malox should coat her throat but she said to use it only at night and in that situation. I told her we would probably use it every night since she cries out in pain every night and she said that was fine. So Adleyn is taking Prevacid, Zantac, and some Malox and she is 5 months old. I realize this is a TON of meds but if we can get her doing better than she will most likely stop aspirating which is good and then maybe she will even grow out of her reflux! Oh, I also asked Robin what the long term damage of aspirating is and she said that it causes pnemonia and can scar the lungs and so needless to say she wants Adleyn to get the swallow test done very soon. Next, Robin gave us further instruction on what to do with Adleyn at night. For instance, we have been giving her bottles in the night a lot because we did not know what to do but she said we really need to work on cutting those out because it is most likely making the reflux worse at night. Adam and I are going to work really hard at this and pray hard that we all can do it!

After our appointment, Robin sent us to have some blood work done to see if Adelyn was anemic from having blood in her stools. This would also mean she has a severe allergy to something, most likely rice cereal. Even if she wasn't anemic, it wouldn't rule out an allergy. Adleyn had to be poked in the arm this time to draw blood. Daddy held her (because I HATE needles and blood) and she only cried for a second. I have a feeling she has a high pain tolerance from all of this. We did not get a call back today and so I am going to call them in the morning and see what the results were.

If the swallow test comes back negative, then she wants us to switch to neocate formula and see if that doesn't help with some of Adelyn's in tolerances. This formula is soooo expensive, even worse than allimenton and so we pray we don't have to do this, but anything to get sweet Adleyn better.

So, we have some steps to go to find out what is causing Adleyn's pain and sleeping/eating problems but I feel like we are on the right track. Please continue to pray. Oh and thank you so much for your encouraging calls, texts, e-mails, and comments! They are appreciate more than you know for sure!!!!!!

We still know God is in control and that he formed Adleyn's body and knew all of this was going to happen. I have to chose to trust Him daily with her life.

Also, I found out today that a girl that was in my sorority that was 6 months pregnant lost her baby today. Please pray for her; they had tried LOTS of things to get pregnant and they finally were pregnant. I won't mention her name right now but please please pray, I cannot imagine how hard that would be. I know it makes me extrememly grateful for my two precious ones.

I want to end this post with something happy; it needs it! Here is a video of Annabelle and her crazy hair saying Peanut Butter and Bellybotton. Love that little girl; she is getting so smart!

I wait for the Lord

I am writing to update everyone on Adelyn's situation. Dr Justin got Adelyn in to see the GI doctor tomorrow at 7:45 am at Nationwide Children's Hospital in downtown Columbus.

Dr Justin suggested that Adelyn have a swallow test done to determine if there is anything wrong with her swallowing and since when we had the other test done on her GI system she aspirated. We did not think it was a concern then but just in case it is we have to have it checked. He told me that the GI specialist would most likely then do an esaphagus test in order to see if her esaphagus is in bad shape causing her to have reflux esaphagitis. They do that test as a last resort because they have to put the baby under anesthesia. I have mixed emotions about everything but ultimately I want to find and fix the problem.

Dr Justin was encouraged that from last Thursday when she had lost weight, she had now gained that weight back. He said he was also sure it was not a neurological or brain issue which is a good thing!

Funny story, last night at 2:00 Adelyn came to sleep with us. (Yes, I used to be one of those moms who said she would never do this! Haha my how things change when your baby is so sick!) Anyway, I left our bed at 3:00 because I couldn't sleep, I simply did not have enough room and so I went to sleep in out guest room. Adam said Adelyn woke up several times but he kept his eyes closed and put her paci back in and went back to sleep but at 5:00 she woke up screaming and he kept telling her, "Adelyn mommy went to make a bottle, shell be right back." Well, obviously I never came back because I wasn't making a bottle, I was sleeping in the other room so Adam got up to look for me and make a bottle and he said she took it ok which is rare these days but definitly a good thing! This morning I woke up having 5 hours of uninterupted sleep, the first night in 3 months! Praise Jesus; He knew I needed it bad! I am just so thankful for Adam and all he does for me and Adelyn; He could have come and wake me up but he didn't!

Anyway, please pray for our GI appointment tomorrow at 7:45 am (6:45 am central time.)

Psalm 130:1,2 & 5
Out of the depths, I cry to you, oh Lord; O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy....I wait for the Lotd, my soul waits, and in His word I put my hope.

5 minutes

Many things going on today and so little time but I did want to share something with anyone who decides to read this. I saw this video the other day and thought it was so amazing. It really puts things in perspective as far as my "problems" go. PLEASE if you have 5 minutes watch it; it will rock your world!


Obviously it is a challenge to change, change the world by what we do. As stated in the end, the tragedy would be to watch this video and not do anything different in your life knowing everything you just saw. I feel like the same concept applies to mission trips. My soul is longing to go overseas again to share Christ to somewhere where people have never heard. I am not saying there are not people like that where I live because BELIEVE ME there are plenty! I meet them all the time but there is just something about going out of your comfort zone to a place that makes you a little uncomfortable to serve and share Christ.

What can I do, how should I change my life after watching this video....I will be thinking on that today....................

Our Weekend Fun

I was making breakfast on Friday morning and I heard something hit the floor and it scared me to death because I thought Adelyn had fallen out of the swing but this is what I found instead. The 3 in 1 book had fallen because Annabelle was in the process of sharing all of her books with Adleyn. :)On Friday we went and got our family picture taken. I think they turned out pretty good; I will post it later. Annabelle was smiling but Adelyn did not want to which is quite opposite from usual and because Adam HATES to do things like that afterward we went to Chili's (one of his absolute favorite restaurants to eat. The girls did soooo good and it was actually really fun! As usual, we were both in charge of one and then we switched in the middle of dinner. :) Here is Adam with Adelynand me with Annabelle. We got queso and she LOVED the chips!!Adam taught Adlyn to drink from a "big girl" straw. He did this with Annabelle and now she does really well with drinking out of sippy cups with straws so we thought we could try it again. :)On Saturday we went to baby Abby's first birthday party! She was sooo cute! I am sad I did not get a picture of her in her birthday outfit!!
Annabelle LOVES baby Abby!! She walks around our house and says her name all the time.

Adam, Adelyn, Carol, and CaraKim and sweet MaddieAnnabelle loved the bubbles!and then we came home and crashed! I was so glad Adelyn took a good nap! There is nothing sweeter than a sleeping baby!!On Sunday, we went to church and it was really really good this morning! This was the first Sunday afternoon we have all spent together in a while. I snapped this picture if Adam being Super Dad! He is seriously the best dad ever ever ever!

Our neighbors had a big water slide thing out in theri backyard and so we got Annabelle in her bath suit and took her to play. She loved thier sandbox which makes me really excited for the beach in a couple months!
I took this video of Annabelle to show them how much she has changed recently and to show off how cute she is in her bath suit!!!



What a great weekend!!

Happy 5 Month Birthday Adelyn!

Yesterday was Adelyn's 5 month birthday and she took a visit to her favorite place on her bday, the doctor, just kidding but you might think so as much as we go there. I liked both of these pictures and I could not pick one so here are both of them. Annabelle's hand is in the last one which I think is funny; she loves to pull off Adelyn's bows and hats!
Adleyn you still have reflux issues but when you feel good you are sooo laid back and sweet. We can tell you are going to be a very kind natured person. Your blue eyes are just captivating and your smile is just the sweetest.
Adelyn you are sitting up by herself in our laps now but you always put your arms out to balance; it's too cute. You know what your bottle is and reach for it and can hold it by yourself if you want to. :) Adelyn you also giggle if you tickle you and you are starting to get some hair!
You tried her first food this month, carrots, and your sister got jealous and ate some with you. Daddy wasn't home that night and it was a bit crazy but we made it through.
This is Annabelle at 5 months and it is crazy to see how much they look alike and then again how much they don't. For sure if you glance they look alike but I can see so many differences. Annabelle's head was quite a bit bigger. Their eyes are different shapes and so are their noses. They pretty much have the same ears and mouths though!
Adelyn, you are getting soo big. We pray so hard for you every day that you can get better and we have LOTS of other people praying for you too! We love you more than you know! Happy 5 month birthday!

Reflux Esophagitis?????

I talked to the doctor this morning and he says he thinks Adelyn might have this rare condition. He is working on getting us an appointment a GI doctor at the Columbus Nationwide Children's Hospital. He has also increased her medicine because if we can get her to stop spitting up this condition could go away. Thanks for your prayers. You can read about this condition by clicking on the link below.

Reflux Esophagitis

I heard the best message about waiting last night at a lady's event. I know God wants to heal Adelyn we just have to wait on Him and give it over to Him, even if He decides not to heal her we have to believe He is doing what is best for her and us and that He will only allow this to go on as long as He needs to for His purpose to be accomplished and not one second longer!

Love you all and again, thank you so much!


You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You.Isaiah 26:3

Trust in God

So I am sitting here in my car waiting for sick bay to open. I have to be honest because I am a little discouraged right now.

As documented in my last post my intention was to get up thirty minutes early to spend time with the Lord and well that has been next to impossible and it's not that I think I have to follow that rule or else I'm not a good Christian or I think the Lord is mad at me, I am just disappoointed that I couldn't spend that time with Jesus.

Let me bring you up to speed. Three nights ago Adelyn was just having a bad night. (A bad night for Annabelle was like being up for two hours in the middle of the night and going back to bed. A bad night for Adelyn is being up crying pretty much from 10 pm to 5 am even if I'm holding her :( ) Sooooo, bad nights 2 nights in a row nights in a row and then last night at 10 she was screaming so bad she couldn't catch her breathe and I almost took her to the ER to get some meds because I had already given her Tylenol and it didn't even touch the pain cry. Adam talked me out of the ER trip and I'm so glad he did because I am finishing this post at home having been to the dr and they were no help except to say that her ears looked great. Sooooo I am requesting to see GI specialist in hopes of some answers or direction.

All of this to say, my 30 minute mornings have not gone as planned but I was able to read a Psalm before I got out of bed this morning and it was so encouraging. I chose psalm 20 beccause it's the 20th (and Adelyn's 5 month bday!!) and here's what it said "...may the Lord answer you when you are in distress..may he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans suceed...we will shout for joy when you are victorious and lift up our banners in the name of God. May the Lord grant all your requests...we trust in the name of the Lord our God!!" How perfect and God appointed is that message today!! I want you to know, I write about these things because I want to remember. I want to remember what God taught me through the hard times and how he delivered me from them. I write for God to get all the glory from this situation. Please hear my heart in this.

I am not going to beat myself up about not following through with getting up early yet! God knows the desire of my heart and I'm pretty sure Satan knows it too and will do all he can to stop me!

How is it going for ya'll??

Oh and can you please continue to pray for sweet Adelyn and that we will have wisdom and that the doctors will as well. Also that God will just heal her of this pain and whatever is causing it!

Thanks! Can I just say one more time that I love the support of the blog world! :) (I stand corrected, "blog friends" is a better term!!)

Will you join me???

The seminary Adam and I attended in Memphis, TN had a quote throughout it that I love. It is actually a bible verse, what better place to get a quote from than the bible?! Colossians 1:18 says, "That in everything He might be preeminent." or in modern day language that He (God) may be first place in everything. I want Christ to be first place in my life, in everything I do. I feel that in order to do this I must make it a priority to spend time with Him and I feel (just my personal belief...not trying to shove it on you or judge you if you don't believe this) that I need to spend that time with Him in the morning for it to be giving God first place in my life.

That being said, I have to tell you this waking up thing I talked about in this post is not as easy as it seemed! I had a great first few days and then the last couple days I just could not get out of bed sooooooooo I am asking you to join my in my adventure of waking up early to spend time with the Lord. (Can you tell I am try to make it sound fun??) I feel like the days I have woken up earlier to spend time with Jesus my day has just been soooo much better for so many reasons and the most importnant reason being my mind was fixed on Him throughout the day!

I am not saying I have to wake up at 5:00 or even 6:00 in the morning. For me 30 minutes is great! I don't know what it is for you but I do know that I need your help and support. Like I said in the post before, I am doing a Beth Moore bible study, To Live Is Christ and the first lesson was on having a teachable spirit. I want that so bad for my life right now, to learn, really learn about Christ and study the bible. I want to commit to wake up early (not super early just earlier than my kids) and spend quiet time with the Lord. I always do everything better if I have a parter to push me along so will you commit to do it with me?

Ok so here is what I am really asking. If you will commit to wake up ealier than you normally do (even if it's just 5 minutes) to pray or spend time with the Lord will you comment below and just say you are going to do this with me and if you already wake up ealry to spend time with the Lord then that would be encouraging too so will you just post and say you are with me in this. I don't care if there is one person that comments below and wants to do this with me, one person would be great! I just need the support and accountability and isn't that what we Christians are supposed to do for each other??

So here goes, for the next 10 weeks, I am waking up early. I can't wait to see what God is going to teach me! "...that in everything he might be preeminent!"

I love them!

Yesterday we went to Millie's house for dinner. It was fun. Annabelle plays so well there and it is all child proof because she has a 20 month old too! I gave her a Message bible so that she might could understand our bible study better because she mentioned it was hard to understand the King James Version with the language barrier and I told her it was hard to understand without the language barrier! :) Anyway, she wrote me a "thank you" note today that was so sweet. These are some pictures we took right before we left and I just LOVE them (the pictures and the people!)

John Ezra Fisher

So, this little sweet baby is my new nephew John Ezra Fisher. You know how I've mentioned that Annabelle and Adleyn are getting three new cousins this year..well...this is one of them.!Adam's brother John Mark (the 2nd oldest) and Dottie, his wife (seriously one of the nicest people ever) had this little bundle of joy last Friday. Dottie got toxemia and had to have an emergency c-section and Ezra (that is what they are calling him) was born 4 and a half weeks early but we are so glad to say that he is ok and he was just taken off oxygen yesterday! JM and Dottie had been trying to have a baby for over a year and so we are all soooo excited to finally have this little baby here!! You just have to know John Mark but he is one of the funniest people you will ever meet and he is going to be such a good dad!! If you think about it please say a prayer for sweet Dottie; I know she is going through a lot right now just with her baby still being in the hospital and her having to pump and having had an emergency c-section. Adam and I were talking about how cute he is and decided that we think baby boys just naturally have "harder" look (if that is how you would say it) than baby girls do. What do you think??This is the four of us at JM and Dottie's wedding. She looked so beautiful and I loved his cream suit! (I am 2 weeks from having Annabelle in this picture....just so ya know...:) )
This is the wedding that me, Christi, and Riann (the sister in laws) missed because of a GPS that took us to the wrong place and we were an hour away when the wedding started :( but we got there just in time for the reception....what can ya do?


This is us at the Rehearsal Dinner.
We love you John Mark and Dottie and we pray John Ezra is a wonderful baby who loves to sleep and doesn't have reflux (or any other problems for that matter!)

Adam and his girls

I love it that Adam comes home for lunch a few days a week! It makes the day so much better for me and Adelyn and Annabelle obviously like it too!!

Playdate, Update, and To Live is Christ

Today our good friends Mary Emily and Oliver came over to play. Mary Emily had sent her daughter to Memphis for the week and so we missed Ryley a lot today! Isn't Oliver just the cutest!!



and later this afternoon we had a play-date with one of my friends Autumn and her boys Caleb and Luke. Luke is 2 and a half and Caleb is 8 months and so they are very similar in age. Caleb had severe reflux also and he is just now getting out of it which gives me hope!!


I took these pics of the girls right before we walked out the door. I love them. I put them both up because one is better of Ab and one is better of Ad. Annabelle just looks sooo big in her jeans! She is growing up too fast!!


Also, I wanted to update ya'll (I just love ya'll; I refuse to quit using it) on Adleyn's situation. Adam and I decided to switch her to Almention formula. She is not doing any better as of yet but she has only been on it for a few days; we pray this helps her a little. Thanks again for your prayers! I truly cannot tell you how much it means to me to have such support and encouragement.

On to a new subject, yesterday I was a little down in the dumps. I guess it is just that it has been raining here all week and we had really not been out much and Adam came home and I told him that I needed some more activities for me and for me and the girls. Well, tonight a bible study started at my friend Kim's house (the one who has sweet Maddie who had the heart surgery.) It is a Beth Moore study and I was so excited to go! I had no idea that a new bible study was going on at my church until she texted me today because I was gone on Sunday. So, the bible study is a Beth Moore To Live is Christ and it is already so good and funny and by that I mean that it was filmed 13 years ago and so she her hair and clothes look very dated. I love it. She had on a lime green dress; OK so you just had to see it in person but the study was so awesome. She talked about the Potential Learning Disabilities in the Christian Classroom. These included: Spiritual Attention Deficit Disorder, Spiritual Hyperactivity, Spiritual Dyslexia, Vision Impairment, and Hearing Impairment. I could relate somewhat to all of them but I best related with the Spiritual Attention Deficit Disorder. This involves crying out to God for help and needing Him and being so close through the storm and then immediately forgetting Him when things get better. Beth said that God is not only in the business of rescuing but also in the business of restoring. The time after a storm is such an important learning time and we must not neglect God during this time. She also said that if we suffer from this God often times brings us from crises to crises so He can have our attention. He wants us moment by moment and not crises by crises. Wow. Can I say convicting?!

Another thing that really spoke to me tonight was Beth's discussion of the the Hearing Impairment Disability. Beth explains that we say we want a fresh word from God but we don't really listen to Him through the reading and studying of His word. It says in

Isaiah 50:4-5

⁴ The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue,
to know the word that sustains the weary.
He wakens me morning by morning,
wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.

⁵ The Sovereign LORD has opened my ears,
and I have not been rebellious;
I have not drawn back.

Wow. So He could have wanted to give as a "word to sustain the weary" or an encouraging verse or insight for someone we know who we will talk to that day that needs it but if we miss that time with Him we will not have that word for the one who needs it. It also says He wakens me morning by morning to listen like one being taught. This to be speaks of spending time with Him in the morning. I am THE WORST about doing this. I would love to sit here and say, "Well, I don't ever sleep because Adleyn is up and so I need that time to sleep" but come on do I not believe that the God of the universe, the one who made the heavens and the earth can restore my body with the sleep that I miss if I wake up just a tad bit before the kids to spend time with Him?? I know my God can do that; if He couldn't the He wouldn't be God. All I have to do is be faithful to spend time with Him and I know he will give me everything I need to make it through the day and probably more for honoring Him with my time. After this has come up in many conversations and things I have been reading lately I truly feel I am being led to wake up early. If you know how much I love sleep you know this is a huge sacrifice but I am going to do it for the next 10 weeks and see what the Lord does. I cannot wait to find out!

That's all for tonight. I probably need to start going to bed earlier too! So goodnight!