Big Dreams!

Big things are happening here at the Rus household.

 First of all my oldest baby is turning 6! Only a few more days and we can celebrate that day my sweet girl was born. Her birth was rough, her start to life jeopardized by health complications. I feel as though we are celebrating a whole new stage of life. She is learning to read, she is so artistic, and has a heart for the Lord.

Some big changes work wise are happening around here as well. We will be getting slightly busier, but for good reason. We are so excited to share with you what will be happening around here. We are picking up more work. One of these days my husband will quit his day job. Until then we will be leading a very busy life. This next venture in life will be a family affair. We will be teaching our children a lot through this next venture and also learning a lot from others also.

We are praying that Proper Disposal will pick up even more. Creations by Mommy has been doing wonderful at craft shows. Hopefully those will pick up as well.

I feel like this week is a quite before the storm. Not a bad storm, just a busy as busy can be type storm. We will use this busyness for good. We will be hitting the ground running.

I should be doing dishes, laundry, and other things. I sit here instead dreaming of big things to come.

Please continue to pray for our family. Please pray that we will be a blessing to others. Please pray that we continue to make the right choices for our family.



Weak, yet so Strong

I suffer from depression. It started out as just a seasonal thing. When the winter months hit I could feel myself in a sad state of mind all the time. I just couldn't get over things I would normally let slide. I could never feel happy because the sun was missing and the days were short. I felt so helpless, so weak. I couldn't overcome this sadness. I must have been weak right?

Then my seasonal depression turned into Post Partum Depression after my youngest two girls were born. With Monkey girl my PPD was so strong those first 6 months. I was helpless, I cried. I was sad, I felt like I was a horrible mother. It meant I was weak right? I had to seek the help of my doctor, who in turn prescribed me the right medicine to help me get through those times. With Kinsley I knew that I would fall into that PPD and to top it off my seasonal depression would make it worse. I talked to my doctor ahead of time and decided we would start on depression medicine before our sweet baby girl was even born. I so thankful that we were going to be proactive. I never would have guessed the PPD and the seasonal depression would have ganged up on me so hard. It was as worse as my depression has ever been. We adjusted my medicines a few different times. I felt defeated, I felt weak.

These feelings of being weak amplified after we found out about Kinsley. I fell straight to the pit of depression. Farther then my medicine would help. Farther then any one will ever know. I was weak. I brought into the world a baby that would live her life with a disability that would affect her everyday. How could I do this? Why did I want just one more? How could I have not known she was going to have to live her life this way? So many questions have raced in and out of my mind. In and out of my heart. I felt so weak. So helpless. There was nothing I could do to change back the time. There was nothing I could do to give my baby back her vision. I have been holding these fears, the what ifs, the worries for the future deep in my heart. I have been carrying the burden of the thinking its my fault in my heart. I want people to think I am fine. I want people to think all is well. Truth is I am weak. I can not do this one my own.

I learned something a week ago. I am weak yet so very strong. I can be strong because I have a heavenly father that loves me so much that he will carry my burden. I can claim victory over every issue in my life. I can claim victory over depression, over fears, over worry. I can claim victory in HIS name because he loves me. Because I believe in him he will help me overcome anything I ask him to help me with. One thing I have learned with this. I need to proclaim it to the world. If I just keep to myself that I claim victory over depression, over blindness, and other areas of my life I don't believe. If I say it out loud, on facebook, here, and people read it AND I believe it can happen, the world better watch out! I have felt so much better in the last week since doing this. I have learned that if I don't do this; if I don't claim victory I tend to look at the bad side of life. I start to focus on the things that can get me down. I don't want to feel down. I don't want to be at the bottom. Its not fun there. I know I am weak. I know I will fall. I know that life is not going to be perfect or easy. I know the affects of Kinsley's blindness will never go away. We will always struggle at some point. I will tell you though, I can shout to the world that I CLAIM VICTORY!!! I can pound all of those things into the ground because I have a savior that loves me and cares about me enough to take the burden of this life.

While I sit here listening to the amazing wonder of a the storm passing over head I feel peaceful. The thunder and lightening are those feelings the devil is trying to get me to believe. He is trying to get me all angry and sad. The rain that comes down is washing it all away. The rain washes all those fears, all those insecurities away.

Please continue to pray for our family. My asking for prayers will never end. Praise the Lord with me that we finally got Early On and the like all on the same page. The vision consultant will be out here tomorrow. Pray that she will get us set up on the right path to best help Kinsley grow and develop as close to her peers as possible without her vision. Please continue to pray for Kelly and I. Kinsley's diagnosis is still a struggle. One that we are both handling in different ways. May we give each other the space to grieve in our own ways and yet may we come together and hold strong to what we both know. God will carry us through.

Upside Down and All Around

Please excuse my break from blogging. Oh how I have missed it. I needed to take a slight break to deal with life. It has kind of gotten out of control. So where do I start? Let me think about this.

I hope all of you had a very blessed Easter! I spent mine with family. Kinsley also go baptized. And it was her daddy's birthday. It was a packed weekend, but full of fun. Enjoy a picture of her in her outfit made my mommy!

Well this diagnosis is hard! The day I think it gets easier I get knocked right back down. Its hard to think about some days. With Kinsley being the only baby her age that we really know I don't ever seem to think of her as behind or delayed. She is just who she is. While this is still true. She is her own person, she is behind others her age. This was brought to my attention today. It was a smack in the face so to say. This life is hard. There are still days I want to cry.

After much hassle with the insurance company and the eye doctor Kinsley will have an MRI on April 23rd. I am scared and elated at the same time. I am so glad it is happening. That we will get an even clearer picture of what is happening in my poor baby girl's head, but I'm scared.

As I said, I have had a rough go about the past week or so. Life has brought me down. I have not been handling things well, which is what brought on the hiatus from blogging. I did realize the other day that blogging does help and therefore hopefully these breaks wont happen often.

Since Monday I have been doing something on my facebook wall to help me with this life I am trying to make sense of. I have been claiming victory in the name of my heavenly father over certain aspects of my day and feelings. Boy has this helped! If I say it out loud and share it publicly I have been more apt to actually feel that way. It has in turned made this house more peaceful, fun, and joyful. I have been able to release some of the pains I have been suffering.

A verse that I wear on a hat says this "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9

The same thing goes for my Victory over statements. If I confess what I have victory over and believe them my life will be better! Not 100% free from the attacks of the devil, but I will be able to better handle life.

Please continue to pray for us. This journey is far from over. This journey has just begun. We are still dealing with it on a daily basis. Please continue to pray for strength and understand for my husband and I.

Great Day

Today has by far been the best day I have had since Kinsley's diagonsis. I will no lie when I say it has been a hard road for me to travel and I needed to catch a break. I needed to just have one really, really good day. Today was the day.

I got to start the day by going to Crazy Bounce, a local bounce house. It was a blast. I got to bounce, climb up giant slides, and play like I was a kid again. My nephew beat me up in the bounce house that has the over sized boxing gloves. He wanted me to go every where with him. I loved it. I got to take my little ones all over to. Myla was not scared at all. She was off on an adventure and nothing was stoping her. My kids enjoy being there with their cousins and friends from church. Oh, I had a blast also! It was perfect.

After that we went back to my brothers house and ordered pizza. It was great. I came home to clean the house a bit before a lady and her daughter from our church came over. They came over to deliver the best present any parents could ever ask for. A NIGHT OF BABYSITTING!

Oh my word, they will never know the true blessings they were tonight. They will never understand how the timing of their request to babysit was the best timing ever. Kelly and I have been bearing the weight of so many things. Life is hard. I was blessed with their phone call on Monday. They wanted to offer us a night of babysitting at no charge. AT NO CHARGE! Oh my word how amazing. Babysitting for four kids costs a lot. We never go out unless we can find free sitters. This usually means unless our parents are willing to baby sit we stay home. Their offer brought me tears. I couldn't believe someone would want to help us out by watching all four of our children.

I so often feel like I am burdening other people by asking them to watch my children. It was my choice to have four after all. Although I can not help that Kinsley is blind it is a lot to ask someone else to take on that care.

They came right when they said they would. I gave them a tour of the house, changed the girls one last time before we left, and then headed out the door. Our  date night wasn't anything magical, sparkly, or fancy. It was perfect for us though. We went to dinner where we actually sat down and talked inside instead of going through a drive through some where. Then we ran errands without our four little bundles of joy in tow. Best part yet; they were all in bed and sleeping when we got home! This is huge! I love that I for one night got the break of struggling with them to get their jammies on or asking for just one more book or one more drink. I came home to peace and quite.

Before they left we were able to share life together. I showed them some of the things I have made. I showed them Ondrea's Easter dress. We talked about Kinsley being blind and this journey we are on as parents. How we feel we need to make each child in our family feel special. I am amazed at the faith and compassion this young girl has. She has a heart of gold. Her mother does too. I am beyond thankful for the two of them blessing us with the chance to spend time together as a husband and wife without having to be mom and dad at the same time. Before they left they prayed for us! This mom and her daughter prayed for us! Their words were so awesome. Just the prayers we needed to hear. I could feel the truth of their words and how badly they want our family to be blessed. I could hear in their hearts that even they know what we are experience is struggling that they truly want God to bless our family. It is huge. They listened while we were talking because they prayed speically about some of the things I had mentioned and that is awesome!

Please pray that they will continue to be blessed for being a blessing. Like I said; They will never truly understand the gift they gave us, they will never truly understand how perfect their timing was.