Thankful

This morning I was reflecting on both God's sovereignty and mercy and it led me to pray for Suzie and thank Him for how well she is doing. I was convicted that I am not nearly thankful enough for how kind God has been to our family. I was convicted that I do not give all the glory to God in my conversations with others. Suzie's therapists are constantly saying how well she is doing and it is the perfect opportunity to tell them how thankful to the one and only true God I am. I interact with high school students a couple times a week and I want to praise our gracious God to them as well. I asked the Lord to grow me in verbalizing a heart of thanks to Him for His incredible mercy, so I thought I'd start here, on our blog. I am SO incredibly thankful to Him and humbled that He has chosen to answer so many of our prayers with a yes! I know that should He say no to these requests, He is just as merciful. But I have every reason in the world to constantly grateful to Him, and I pray that I would share that so much more with other people.

Yesterday we went to the neurosurgeon for a follow up and got great news. Suzie's head size has decreased a tiny bit from the last visit and her head size has now gone from the 80th percentile to the 50th! Her shunt seems to be working well and we are so grateful for a good report. Here are a few recent pics of our family. Thanks for keeping up with us!
Suzie playing with her friend Kaitlin at a High School Staff meeting.

Suzie has her very first cold right now:( The only thing that will comfort her at night when she's all stuffy is being with momma. Needless to stay we have had a rough few nights.

Suzie in a box!

Trying to escape:)

Chilling with mama

I wonder what she's up to...

Daddy bringing the Word!

She looks like such a big girl when she's kneeling!
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Suzie's new thing is to make this very funny face every time we try to take a picture of her. She does it as soon as she sees the camera. The good pictures above are hard to get now! Here are several shots of her funny face.

Deal of the Week

So my great steal of the week is the Airwick Mini Freshmatic from CVS. I put these by Suzie's diaper pale and it spirts off freshness every 15 minutes. It makes her room smell fresher:)

Retail:
$9.99 each
Total for 4 with tax: $43.86

What I paid:
Sale price $4.99
with $4 off $20 purchase from CVS
and four $4 off coupons for the Freshmatic
from the paper and internet
My Total: $1.90

And since I had extra care bucks, I really got them for free:)

One Proud Mama

I am so often looking at other babies Suzie's age and am so amazed at all they can do. They so easily flip around from sitting, to push themselves onto their hands and knees, to crawling, back to sitting, to standing, to cruising, back to sitting, etc. They are super flexible and make all this moving around look so easy. For Suzie, these things that most babies just naturally learn to do are a huge challenge for her. Her therapists spend hours a week trying to just get her to tolerate staying on her hands and knees. Getting her to just keep her hands open has been an obstacle. I'm sure most parents are so proud of their babies any time they learn a new trick. But for people who have children with any kind of disability or delay, I think we get proud at even the smallest bit of progress, because for these kids, the small things are really huge!! I have just been so incredibly proud of my little girl lately. She is so expressive, curious, and learning so much all the time. I am proud that she is starting to stick her little tush in the air when she army crawls. I'm proud that she throws things with both hands now (although it’s usually inadvertent with her right hand). I’m proud every time she grabs for something with her right hand. And I’m so proud that she has now begun signing “more” when she wants more of something! Suzie is a little miracle, a precious gift from God. The doctors told us that she would be moderately to severely mentally and physically disabled due to the extent of the brain damage that she has suffered. So we are so thankful to God for His grace in allowing her to progress so much, and so proud of her for every little new thing she does.

Here is a little video of her with her latest trick.

I also want to make a quick mention of how proud I am of my wonderful husband. This weekend we went to San Diego as Kyle was the guest speaker for a retreat for a small church in Cerritos. He spoke on how we need to use spiritual disciplines for victorious Christian living. He did such a wonderful job and was such a blessing to the people. We had a great time as a family and I'm so thankful that God gave me such a wonderful husband and Suzie such a great dad!

What's New

Well, it's been a while since I've posted an update on how we're doing! To tell you the truth, not too much is new here. We're doing very well and very busy! Kyle just started his semester and has been super busy the past six weeks with his summer class, a few weekends away, and preparing for a retreat that he is speaking at this Labor Day weekend. Hopefully things will slow down a bit for him beginning next week. We are so blessed the the Grace Book Store has decided to keep him employed part time this semester! So work is keeping him busy as well. We're still in the candidating process and are praying for God's wisdom and direction as we seek where the Lord would have us serve.

Suzie is doing very well! She is sitting up much better and I can finally leave her alone while she is sitting. She still hates it so most of the time she gets out of it fairly quickly. She can use her left hand to help her get out of it and when she falls to the right side she just kinda rolls out of it. She is now getting 5 hours of therapy each week which is keeping her busy, but I think it is helping her improve quicker. She has become a pro at combat crawling and will leave the room when I'm not looking:) She says, "Ma Ma" sometimes for me and "Ma ma ma" for more. She says "Da Da" for Kyle sometimes too. She is laughing a lot and usually in a good mood as long as she gets her nap. We think she's teething right now so sleeping at night is a little tricky. Hopefully that will pass soon!

Here is a little video of her sitting and smiling at Mommy.