A view of our Family

Well this past week was a busy one. I am glad to say the stomach bug is out of our home and hopefully gone for a long time. Everytime I turned around I was cleaning up messes. I am so glad that we have a washer and dryer in the home, I have never done so much laundry. However, through all the stress of having Anthony and Spencer passing the stomach bug to each other, Grant and I taking turns with head colds; we were able to see the Tender Mercies of the Lord. While we were all sick, Madeline never got sick. We prayed every day to protect Madeline from getting sick, and the Lord truly answered our prayers. With Madeline's back surgery tomorrow, the last thing I wanted was her to get sick and the surgery get post poned and then that would trickle down to her heart surgery geting postponed. However, the Lord watches over us.

On Friday nights we have a little tradition in our family. The kids get to sleep in the living room on the sleeper sofa. They get so excited when Friday comes around and they can sleep in the living room. When Grant went to go make sure everyone was tucked in before we went to bed, he came back and told me that Anthony was sleeping on the floor under the sleeper sofa (couch) and Madeline was sprawled out all over the top. I had to laugh. They get so excited to sleep on the couch and then in the end the hard wood floor under the couch is much better. It was as if our couch turned into bunk beds.

Also on Friday, Grant and I thought it would be nice to get out of the house and do something as a family. We were tired of being cooped up in the house and everyone was finally feeling better. There is a outlet mall (outdoor) in a town called Denton which is about 30 min north of us, and we thought since it was a nice evening to go and walk around the outlet mall and then go get a treat afterwards. We get to the outlet mall, and it is gone except a few antique shops. We were thinking what do we do now, we came all this way and there is nothing there. Well we saw this one shop called jumping party and it had a bunch of inflatable jump houses. Grant inquired how much it cost and I was surprised that it was pretty cheap. It was empty which was nice we had the jump houses to ourselves. Anthony was all for it, ran right in and started running around and jumping. Madeline was scared and it took 30 minuted of pushing her a long to get her warmed up to it. Spencer did not like it all and prefer the little toddler play area. The kids and the parents enjoyed chasing each other and jumping around for about an hour. After that we were all exahusted and hungry. We took them to McDonalds had a little dinner and then went home. It was a nice simple family activity that got us out of the house.

Today in primary, the kids were learning Tell Me the Stories of Jesus and as part of teaching the kids the song, the choirster asked a couple of kids what would they ask Jesus if he were here. Anthony was one of the kids, at first Anthony was stumbling over what to say and then he said he would asked Jesus to bless him. I just thought that was perfect and it brought a nice image to my mind of the Lord blessing the children and the joy on his face.

Well that is our week in a nutshell, now time to post some pictures.

My pile of laundry after a week of everyone being sick

Madeline tucking her baby in for a good nights sleep (notice the diaper on the baby)

Madeline and Spencer playing trains (I love the look on Spencer's face)

Madeline loves playing trains with daddy

In the morning Madeline has what we call "crazy hair"

This is how I found Madeline one morning, apparently she didn't want to go to school

Pictures of Madeline at the hospital after her pre-op appointment

Anthony decided to sleep under the couch sofa, and he stayed there the whole night.