Giving Thanks

We should be thankful every day for all we have been given. Our family is blessed to live in a country where we are free...free to give thanks to the One who has blessed us far beyond what we deserve. I hope we can all remember to give thanks today...for our families, our friends, our freedom, our faith. There are so many scriptures on thankfulness. I've included a few that touch me. Thank you Lord for choosing me, for loving me, for forgiving me, for blessing me even though I deserve none of it. To You be the glory.

"Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe." Hebrews 12:28

"I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart; I will tell of all Your wonders. I will be glad and exult in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High." Psalm 9:1-2

"Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name." Psalm 100:4

"Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting." Psalm 118:1

"Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving." Colossians 4:2

New Projects

With the rapidly approaching Christmas season, I've been busy working on all kinds of stamping projects. I've made Christmas cards, gift tags, gift bags, gift card holders, ornaments, all kinds of fun things! My favorite part about being a Stampin' Up demonstrator is having a class and watching peoples faces light up when they see how easy it is to make such fun, cute things! I've always thought it makes a gift so much more meaningful when it's made with your own hands. Here are a few things we did at my class this last weekend.

The larger card is a pocket card...the white card with the tab pulls out.

Two little gift bags. These are really cute and so easy...a lot of fun to make.

Gift card holders...you pull the tab and the gift card is attached to it. Again, super easy and so cute!

A cute set of gift tags. I think I'll be using these on my Christmas gifts this year.

Today I got out of Christmas mode to work on some birthday, thank you and baby cards I need to get sent out.

This one is so cute! I copied part of the idea from another card I saw. If you click on the picture, you might be able to notice the detailing on the bottom. I scored on the white every 1/4" so it looks like wainscoating (sp?).

These are the same...only one is a birthday card and one is a thank you card.

And I couldn't very well post without putting a picture of our sweet Lily. Here she is after her bath tonight. She is just the cutest thing ever!

Lily Update

Lily is still doing incredibly well, all things considered. We had another follow up with her doctor today. She wasn't too excited about seeing him, but she was "a bwave guhl". She is still on the full prescribed dose of predisone until the 30th. Starting in December we get to start lowering the doseage to every even day. We have an appointment with the specialist in January, so I'm sure we'll get more detailed information then as far as weaning her off.

I took some cute pictures of Lily at the park the other day. They are pretty good, by my standards.;o) Of course Lily is an easy subject and extrememly photogenic. The first picture is Lily in her ladybug costume at Halloween. At this point she had not been on the predisone very long. It was just long enough for her kidneys to start functioning properly and help her lose all of that water weight, but just before the prednisone started puffing her up. You'll notice quite a big difference here. Either way, she is perfectly beautiful, inside and out.

By the way, we had a very beautiful melt-your-heart moment this morning. I was getting ready for the day as Lily was watching "Bob" (also known as "Veggie Tales"). Out of the blue she said to me, "I keep mommy forever!" She just kills me. I know I've said this before, but I can't say it enough...we are so blessed.

What a sweet smile.

I love this picture...she looks so deep in thought.

Airplane arms...she learned that at gymnastics class.

Pointing at the clouds in the sky. She is so fascinated by everything...I love it.

Weekend Getaway

Last weekend we took our annual trip to Palm Springs. The three of us along with my mom headed out late Wednesday night and got into town around 10:00pm. After getting settled into our rooms, we got Lily ready for bed. She was sitting on my lap with a very concerned look on her face, and then her lower lip started trembling. I asked her what was wrong. She looked right into my eyes and said, "Go home?" Uh-oh. I had been explaining to her about us going on vacation, and this wasn't her first time going away with us, so I wasn't worried...until now. I told her again that we were on vacation and told her about how much fun we were going to have. We turned her music on, prayed with her and put her down. As we walked out of her room we feared the worst. But she was out like a light. She was one tired little girl! She did great the entire trip with only a couple of major meltdowns. One was as we were leaving the Living Desert. She did not get her way so she screamed her head off the entire way to the car. Boy was that a long walk! As we hit the road to grab a bite to eat, she was out. Her other meltdown was on our last night. She disobeyed mommy and had to stand in the corner. Once she calmed down, she apologized and was fine. Thankfully she usually recovers quickly...and I have noticed that they mostly seem to happen when she is tired.

Then there was yesterday. We always have great mornings together...it's my favorite part of the day. We watched a little Curious George and then had some breakfast. After breakfast we headed out to her gymnastics class. The kids play around for a few minutes until the teacher is ready and we have circle time. Lily usually likes this part, but this morning, she did not want to do circle time. She wanted to play. When I told her no, the tears started flowing. The teacher looked over at me and said, "Oh! She does cry!" It's not a usual occurrence. Once her teacher started singing, Lily forgot she was upset and had a great time for the rest of class. After class, we headed over to Target. We needed to get a refill of her prescription and I had to pick up a few other things. Lily's favorite thing to do now is to look at Christmas trees. Anytime we go to any store she wants to look at the Christmas trees. I told her as soon as I was done at the pharmacy, we would go look at the trees. As I was talking to the pharmacist, Lily kept grabbing at my wallet. I looked over and told her no. She kept grabbing it. I took it away from her and told her no again. I told her she needed to apologize to mommy for not obeying or we would not look at the Christmas trees (I know...I am so mean!). Then it happened. Our first temper tantrum in the middle of a store. Why is it that a toddlers screams never seem so loud as when one is in a store full of people? I pushed her around in the cart as she kept screaming. When she is like this, there is nothing anyone can do to calm her down...she just needs to work it out for herself. As I was debating whether or not to leave, I picked her up from the cart and she started calming down. She looked at me and said, "Sorry mommy". She just kills me! Someone had commented on Robert's blog about how we will have our hearts broken and melted many times by this little girl. Boy was she right! Anyway, we of course went over to the Christmas section and looked at every single tree.:o)

Here are a few shots Robert took on our trip.

In her footie jammies and ready for bed.

Running around the resort and having fun!

Lily playing with daddy's new magic trick.

What a beautiful smile.

The cutest butterfly in the Living Desert!

Some great shots by Robert.

We love this place for breakfast. We stop there every year on our way home.

Enjoying a BIG bowl of oatmeal. No, she didn't eat the whole thing.:o)

I Voted...Did You?

Big Steps for our Baby Girl

First of all, we have very good news to report from the doctors office. We went to see him on Friday with a urine sample from Lily. The three of us were in the office when the nurse came in with the results. The doctor looked shocked and took off his glasses like he wanted to be sure he was reading it correctly. He very excitedly told me that her urine had negative traces of protein. YEAH!!! This means she will still need to be on the full dose of prednisone for 30 days and then we can start weaning her off of it. I will be so glad. While part of me knows this medicine is obviously helping her, there is another part of me that feels like I'm giving her poison, knowing all of the possible side effects. The only ones the doctor is really worried about is weight gain as her appetite will continue to increase, so we will need to continue to monitor her diet closely. There is also a possibility that she may get diabetes as a side effect. While this would go away once she is off of the prednisone, we would have to treat her as a diabetic until then. We pray all will go smoothly and she won't experience that.

And then there is today...a VERY big day. For many weeks, months even, Lily has been practicing sitting on the potty. I have been telling her that if she goes pee-pee in the potty, she will get M&M's. She repeats it to me all.the.time but has never gone. Today, she came up to me and said, "Mommy...go pee-pee in the potty RIGHT NOW!". I said ok, thinking she was just going to get in another "practice" session. I took her clothes off (yes, all of them. For whatever reason, she likes to be naked on the potty) and set her down. I started cleaning in the bathroom and as I looked over to check on her, she was standing over the potty looking down into it. I looked in and could not believe my eyes. My big girl went pee-pee in the potty! I got so excited. Robert heard and came down the hall to check it out. We both started cheering and clapping. Lily just kept looking at us saying, "Go pee-pee in the potty, get M&M's." So she got her special treat and enjoyed every last one. She was still running around "nekkie" as I was shaking the kithen rugs out back. She came out with me and proceeded to pee on the patio. I explained to her that we only go pee-pee on the potty, not outside! She looked at me and said, "Shayna (our dog) go pee-pee outside!" Aye. We still have some work to do, but what a big day/week for baby Lily!