New Year, New Me, New Blog!

Happy New Year everyone. It's the time of year that everyone reflects on the past. It is the time of year in which people make new resolutions. It is the time of year for NEW! It is that time of year for me again also.

2012 was the hardest year my family has quite possibly ever gone through. We had found out our perfect new baby was blind. We found out that her life would always be stunted by this lack of vision. She also seemed endlessly sick that winter. Doctors after doctors, appointment followed by appointments, we sat afraid and alone. My husband and I didn't know what exactly we were going to do. We didn't know exactly how we were going to hang on. We hit some bumpy roads, we had our fights, we had our times of sorrow, we cried, we held on, and we prayed!

Along with that we had amounting medical bills from all the tests that sent us into financial crisis for a few months. It was stressful trying to figure out how to pay medical bills, how to pay our mortgage, and keep food on the table. It was hard! We kept the faith we were both founded in when we were children. We kept praying.

In 2012 the Lord also called us to take in a fourteen year old girl who needed some extra guidance. Although sometimes things were rough we could not have been more blessed! She is growing and so are we.

Kelly also started getting really busy with his own business. He does recycling and trash removal. He has been getting 1-2 jobs a week if not more. On top of working full time this gets busy. Makes him out of the house more then he is in it. When he is home he usually spends a little time with the kids and I and then heads to bed so he can start of the next day.

Throughout everything we held fast the words of the Lord. He would never leave or forsake us. That doesn't mean we wont be going through trails. That doesn't mean that life won't be hard. We hung on. We hung on to that very truth. God was going to carry us through this year, he was going to make sure we came out better on the other side. Every time we called on him and listened for his response we have been blessed greatly!

I have hopes and dreams for 2013. First and Foremost I am hoping the Lord blesses this year for us. I hope that we will be able to do great things for him as a family, but also as individuals. Here are a few of my personal goals.

1. Get to know Jesus better. I have been a Christian for a long time. This year I want to go deeper. I want to be more intimate with my God.

2. Take more pictures! Of the kids, of my husband, of myself, and of our experiences. I am bad at taking pictures and I want to change that.

3. Make the blog more vibrant and colorful. I also want to update more often. I also am going to work on making some tabs at the top for tips, tutorials, and more! Excited to share more of my work with all of you.

4. Get our home school routine more organized. We are doing well with our home school routine, but it could use some adjusting.

5. Turn of the screens in the house before at bedtime so their is no temptation to sit and play games or surf the web till all hours of the night.

I am excited for a new year. I am excited for a new me. I am excited for a new blog look. We are doing so many things this year that I can not wait to share with you.

Life's Journey

Life's Journey is this crazy, unpredictable, sometimes amazing, sometimes crappy road that once you think you have it figured out it takes another unexpected turn. When I started this blog in the wake a very difficult time in life I dreamed of keeping it going. About growing it to something more then keeping those people that we do not get to speak to on a daily basis informed about our sweet Butterfly Girl and how she is doing. I wanted my readers to share a piece of my life with me. I wanted others to feel like they could connect and relate. I wanted other mom's, wife's, daughter's, sister's, and friend's to know that they are not alone in this road so many of us call life. We may not be struggling with exactly the same things or going through the same events, but at the end of the day we can someone relate to each other.

I lost blogging for a while. I took it out of my overly packed schedule and I came to a point the other day that brought me right back to blogging. I realized I blog most importantly for myself. So that years from now I can look back and see my family through a less hectic, busy eye. There are some days that I just strive to make it through an hour of this crazy life we live. So my goal is that if I document what we live I can come back and enjoy those moments a bit more. Or I may be able to come back and heal from the pain I still have from things. I know even today I have read the posts made about my sweet baby girl's vision and it is still very hard, but it is part of the healing process. Blogging is a way for me to feel like I invested in myself and invested in someone else. Maybe one day, someone will stumble across and say, "wow I thought I was alone, but this blogger felt the same way". Maybe that has happened and I don't know. My hope is that someday the blog will be more then just a place I lay my heart, but a source of hope, encouragement, and understanding to someone else.

I blog because I love writing. Ever since I was a young child writing was always my favorite thing to do. In high school I took as many writing classes as I could. Always dreaming of becoming an author was fun, but it always took second place to becoming a wife and a mother. Blogging is kind of like being an author in a way. I get to publish what I want people to read. I get to share my work with others and that is a satisfying thing. I love what I am doing and I am so glad to becoming back!

I blog because I want to keep all of you up to date on the latest findings on Butterfly Girl's diagnosis. Although I have been lacking in that department it will be a commitment of mine to try to keep up. The latest news with our sweet girl is that she sees twenty percent of her day. Her CVI is something that she will live and will learn to adjust to. What got us down most recently was our last trip to the eye doctor. While Butterfly Girl can see twenty percent of the day the vision she does have is very poor. She has a pretty strong prescription in her lens. While this might not concern the average person it concerns us. The reason this is cause for concern is because the vision she does have will slowly get worse, making the prescription in her lens stronger and stronger. This will eventually get to the point were her vision can no longer be corrected. Our baby girl will then officially be blind forever. This breaks our hearts. This makes us so incredibly said. This makes us hurt so deeply. We do have a God who is in the business of working miracles and we know they can happen! We believe that if it is HIS will he will heal our sweet girl. She turned 1 and despite the rocky first year we had an amazing celebration with family and friends.

I love blogging. I am glad to be back. I hope all of you will continue to read. I hope you will all share if you find something that may be an encouragement or source of hope to someone else.

I leave you with the verse my children are memorizing for church. Romans 8:28 "And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them."

How amazing is that! If we live life in accordance to God's calling he will work everything together for good for us, his people. That doesn't mean that God isn't going to let us go through hard times such as Butterfly Girl's diagnosis. That doesn't mean that bad things are not going to happen to us because they will, but when the time is right, when HIS time is right, ALL things will work together for the good of HIS people. I am so excited to know the truth of the Lord.

Vision Update

Well today was a busy day here at our house. Butterfly Girl had two therapy appointments for herself, and the older kids had the lady come that talks to them about having a sibling with special needs. Two of those happened at the same time. It was quite the busy morning.

We saw Physical Therapy first this morning. It was a pretty good visit. Butterfly Girl's large motor skills are getting better. She is army crawling which is good. She still doesn't sit up like she should. Her whole left side of her body is a good 60% weaker then the right side. This is why we need to get into neurology. We need to know what is causing her this problem. She doesn't really hold anything with her left hand. She will grab something and then drop it almost immediately. She just really struggles. Its so hard to watch.

Next we saw the VIT, which is our visual impairment teacher. She is super sweet. Although Butterfly Girl must have used all her vision for PT because our poor VIT didn't get any visual responses from her. We had a 0 minute vision response time out of 45. So frustrating because when she was here last time it was a 10 minute vision response time out 45. I need to remind myself that every day is going to be different. Every hour is going to be different. This is going to be the life we live with CVI.

We are doing a few things to try to increase the amounts of time she sees, but its not really helping. It is very hit and miss. Top that with how sensitive she is to sounds its hard to tell when she is seeing or not. Its even harder for others. I can tell by the way her eyes are shifted that she isn't seeing at that moment.

The big kids loved their appointment. They always do. It is so nice that someone will come to our House and shower them with attention. Its hard when you have a sibling with special needs (I know, I have one) because it can feel like all the attention is on them all the time. This lady comes to the house and does an art project with them. She reads to them. She talks to them about having a sibling with special needs. She talks about how we react to others and about how they feel. She teaches them that when they feel like they are getting left out the need to talk to mommy or daddy. Good, important lessons. We don't ever want to make our kids feel like Butterfly Girl's diagnosis is a burden on them. We don't ever want them to feel like they don't get the special attention they require just because she is blind. Sometimes it happens though. You get so caught up in a diagnosis that you easily forget that your other kids need you more then just to feed them. They want one on one quality time also.

I had a thought as we were sitting outside this afternoon. My baby, when she can see, doesn't experience the beauty of this earth the way we do. Even when she is seeing she doesn't have the best quality vision. This got me a little down. A little sad that she will never know the world to the beautiful extent that it has. She will never see the Lord's creation as it was intended to be seen. Then God send a slight breeze. Butterfly Girl smiled as the wind blew past her and I cried. She is experiencing the world in a far more intimate nature then those of us that see ever could. She feels every breeze, she hears every bird, she feels the crisp grass. Those things make her happy. Those things bring out the big smile she has. They bring the twinkle in her eye to the brightest it can go. Tears, yes, but happy tears. Tears knowing that she is not hindered by blindness. She will know the marvelous nature God has made and she will know its beauty, she will just know it on a different level then the rest of us.

I will have ups and downs for a lifetime. As normal as it seems now to know that her eyes aren't as they were intend and that she has thrown us the biggest curve ball we can imagine, I will still feel in shock some days. I will still feel sad about what she can not see. I just need to lean on my Heavenly Father for support. I need to lean on the prayers of friends and family.

Blessed are those who follow the path of the Lord. I will stick on his path. He knew we would see Butterfly Girl as a blessing. We just never knew how much she was going to be blessing us when we had her.


My Baby Girl

My baby girl is an amazing! She is a huge gift from God! Blindness will not tear our family down! We have a MOVER! Yes you read that right. Our baby girl is crawling, army style that is. It's amazing to watch her move, but so sad when she cries because she has run into an object that she can not see.

Butterfly Girl has what is called CVI, which means that she can see some times and other times she can not. We have noticed that for Butterfly Girl, her vision is not there more then it is. With CVI Butterfly girls vision can change minute by minute and day by day. This is difficult. I so badly want her to see 100% of the time, but that is not what God gave us. God gave us an amazing girl, full of smiles, with eyes that have an amazing hope in them, but can not see.

Butterfly girl is behind developmentally. She still isnt sitting great on her own yet. She is having some feeding difficulty. She doesnt really enteract with toys that she has in her hands. All of these things are due in part to her not being able to see. When I start to feel down about one of these things God goes and gives me the best gift of all. He reminds me of what she can do and then shows me something new!

I am over joyed by the blessing she has been in our life. The road traveled is long and hard, but the Lord rewards those who stay on his path. Please continue to stay with us on this journey. The Lord is guiding us to do great things for him. The Lord is calling our Butterfly Girl to use those beautiful blue eyes and amazing smile to do his good work.

Kicking Depressions Butt

As some of you may know I suffer from depression, both seasonal and post partum. I have been suffering from one form or another since I have been in high school. I never in a million years thought there was an escape to this horribly hindering disease. I assumed it was going to be something that would haunt me forever. I mean I take medicine, I talk to a counselor, and the whole nine yards, but I never thought there was a way to do it without those things.

I have just completed a book called Overcoming Depression by Neil T. and Joanne Anderson. It is a Christ centered way to kick depression in the butt. I can truly say I am happy. I no longer need my medicine. (and yes I had my doctors permission to wean off them) I am going to have days that are harder then others, but who doesn't. I have an amazing heavenly father that is doing wonders in my life. Together we have kicked depression in the butt. Depression will no longer rule me!!

How did I do it? I get into the word of my Lord every day. Sometimes in the morning and sometimes at night. I PRAY constantly. I feel like I am always saying a prayer, either little or big. I pray for the kids, my husband, God's guidance, and so many more things. I started to give God my worries, fears, and failures. Knowing I can not do this journey of life without Him lifts a huge burden.

I have also learned over the past month or so that praying for my husband and my children has changed them without them seeing it. Or it has just changed me so much that I tolerate them better. Either way I will continue to pray for them every day.

Despite so many things in this life that are up and down, I am happy. Kelly's job is stable and great, but a little different then the job he had prior. This job has him home at different times then his other job which is a blessing. It is giving him time to work on his own business, but it also causes for some stress with when he will be working late or not. Trying to figure out if he will be home for dinner one night and not the next as often he doesn't know until about 3pm if he will be working extra late. He has ha job and this is a blessing.

We have been working on something else here in the Rus house. I so wish I could tell you what it was, but until it's final our lips our sealed. We are so EXCITED to be following God's lead and taking a step into the direction he is leading. This step in life is providing my husband and I with deep conversation on how we can be a blessing. We are out to make these next steps a family project.

Butterfly Girl's lack of vision no longer has me down. We are kicking blindness out of the way. It will be a part of our life, but NOT our life. The lack of vision is only a part of who she is, but does not define her. She has bright blue eyes and a smile so big you can not help but smile yourself. She is full of life and joy. She is not letting blindness get to her so we should not either.

I have been doing many craft shows lately. It has been lots of fun. It gives me a sense of joy to sell items that I have hand created. It is fun to see people delight in items that they have picked out. Being able to sell these items at shows is a joy I have not experienced. I love it.

Our home school year is coming to an end and so is Bunny Girl's year at school. We are going to be enjoying our summer. We have lots of structured activities we will be doing. I am excited for this. I am really going to try my hardest to maximize our time this summer doing as many fun things we can fit in. I am going all out this summer partly because I am sad they will both be going to public school next year and partly just because. We have had an awesome school year with tons of learning and fun.

I am so glad that I am on the mend. I am so glad that I am so happy. I am so excited that I can kick depression in the butt. 

Mother's Day

I had a rough week. I ended up getting sick even after I willed myself not to. I got behind schedule on lots of things. The house got really messy. Plus we went to the two local parades in town. After that I had to set up for a craft show this weekend and do that. I was so sad my weekend was going to be so full. I didn't know what I was going to do. I did however have the most FANTASTIC Mother's Day.

As I sit here contemplating what a wonderful day I had today I realize so many things.

I am at peace with life. Everything is so enjoyable today. My kids were extra fussy, but that didn't seem to damper the mood. I get to be called Mommy by four wonderful children. Each of them are so different and unique. Each one has their own personality and gifts. God choose ME to carry them in my belly for nine months. God choose ME to give birth to them and then to be their provider for during this life. God gave me each of my children to teach me different things and while they are teaching me how to be a better person I also get to teach them. I am so blessed to be called their mother.

Bunny Girl was given to me as a first born. She taught me that no matter how rough life gets family always sticks together. She has taught me no matter how down life gets someone always has it worse. She has made me grow more in love with Jesus. She has taught me how to love, sing, and dance. She warms my heart with her compassion for other people, yet she keeps me on my toes with her immediate dislike for a situation. I am so glad that she calls me mommy.

Alligator boy, oh my sweet alligator boy. He is my soft hearted and gentle boy all while being a very boyish boy. He loves his dirt, trucks, and tractors, but he truly has a heart of gold. He has taught me how to be gentle. How to treat his tender heart as though at any point it could break. I needed to learn this lesson because it is how I need to deal with any one I come in contact with. You never know when something you say to someone might be hurtful even if it is not the attempt. He has taught me all I know about tools, about trucks, and about playing in the dirt. Having a boy is different and amazing. He has a heart that loves everyone, cares for everyone, and never wants to see any one sad. He loves his sisters better then any other big brother could. He is curious. He has questions for everything. He has taught me that it is okay to ask questions about life, about anything. To think that I he could no be here with me today is sad. My life wouldn't be where it is today if I would not have had Parker. He has truly made me a great mommy. I am so glad he calls me his mommy

Monkey Girl has taught me how to be crazy! How to enjoy every moment of every little thing we do. How to do everything with a smile. She has taught me patience. She has taught me overwhelming joy. She is so busy all the time. I get tired some days with her, but no matter what she always shows me her love. My favorite is when she comes up to me, squeezes my cheeks, and kisses me. She loves giving hugs and kisses. She LOVES books. Monkey girl has taught me how to sit and play or read. She has taught me that house work can stop and I can sit and play. She brings me great joy and I am glad she calls me her mommy.

Butterfly Girl has changed my life forever. Being the last in our family had a special place. She will forever be our "baby". Then she changed our world even more. She is special in her own way because she has no vision. Her eyes have failed her. Other parts of her body are failing her and not allowing her to be the seven month old she should be today. She has taught me to lean on the Lord. She has taught me that without the strength of the LORD I can do nothing. Life will be hard no matter what, but I do not have to carry this burden alone! Butterfly Girl has a sweet demeanor about her. So gentle and loving. Her smile when she hears your voice is contagious. When she knows your their the glimmer in her eye is priceless. She has taught me how to channel my stubborned, strong willed personality towards helping her get the help she needs. She can not talk yet, but I am so blessed I get to be her mommy.

I also comtenplate the mother I am today in credit to my mother. She is truly an amazing women. She has a heart of pure gold. She loves each one of us to no end. She would climb mountians and swim a thousand seas for her children. She raised us for so many years as a single mom. Although we knew our parents were divorced my mom also made sure that we felt loved. She always made sure that we felt cared about. My mother has the strongest faith. Stronger then any one I might know. All of these qualities she has passed down. I try my hardest to make sure my children each feel loved and cared for. I try to make sure that no matter what we are going through emotional and fiananciallly. She never once made it seem like she didnt have enough money. She is an amazing women. Her faith has been passed down as well. I admit that I am not half the women of faith as she is, but she is my fole model. She is amazing. She has helped shape who I am today.

Its been a blessed Mother's day! I am so thankful to have a mom and to be called mom. 

May Brings

May has been a month of changes and it just started. May is a time for transition for me as we will start our summer at the end of the month. May also means that OG will be getting another year older. May is when things start to get hotter. May, May, May...

I sit and listen to the rain storm. Fresh flowers bloom, grass grows, new life develops from these tiny drops of rain. Life is the same. As I continue to pour the word of the Lord over my life and the life of my children I see them grow, I see them bloom, I see new ways develop in myself and in them.

May has brought peace. It is odd to me how in such time I can find peace. I have come to terms with Kinsley's condition. We have handled three months of this life we what is another 100 years? We will dominate blindness. We will kick it in the rear and tell it that although it is present it will not bring us down. May brings lots of therapy for K. We are praying May brings sitting, more use of her limbs, and eating solids. We are praying big changes for K in May.

May brings chaos. How can you have peace and chaos? I have peace with K's condition, but chaos will start as OG brings down the school year. We have last field trips, end of the year parties, and graduation. We have parades and picnics. OG thrives on routine so our adjustments from school to home are always rough. I spend a good week mapping out a plan for how the summer will run so that we can be on a routine that fits for everyone. Not wavering from the routine is important.

May brings joy and celebration. OG turns six this year. She is just a joy. We are having a birthday party fit for an aspiring artist. We will have lots of fun. OG was born on my birthday so we can grow older together. Recently OG has matured, she has become this older child instead of still having a younger mind set. There was just a light that clicked that made her see the world from a higher thinking. I am excited as she continues to bring us joy and as we get to celebrate all that her life means to us.

May brings a lot of things. It is certainly one of our busiest months. We may be changing things around here even more. A couple meetings away from being able to announce anything officially, but it is a great opportunity for our family to be blessed and be a blessing. I am so thankful to the Lord for all his blessings. My business (Creations By Mommy), my husbands business (Proper Disposal), and his full time job have all been a blessing. Each one is growing and bringing forth more opportunities.

Pray with us that May continues to go as peacefully as it has been. Please pray that as we continue to seek official report of anything more that might be wrong with K in regards to her vision and in regards to her lack of motor skills that we will stay at peace. Knowing in our hearts that God gave us a wonderfully created child, made in his image, who will do his work, sight or not. Please pray that our transition from school to summer will be smooth. Pray that we all adjust quickly. 

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.