Here's an update at last!

Okay, okay...I know that it has been a while since I've updated this. But it is not like we've haven't had our hands completely full!

Let's begin with Ronnie...In less than three weeks, he will be one year old already. It seems absolutely impossible that a year has gone by already. He is a lightning bolt at crawling, and he has begun to pull himself up and take some steps, so independent walking is not far away! He is gorgeous, even if I do say so myself. And, best of all, he has a personality that just makes you LOVE him. He is always smiling, laughing, and he loves to tease his brother and sister!

Emma is a regular handful. We found out that her "fits" that she likes to throw DO run in the family quite a bit, both from Mom Ewing, and from Russ HIMSELF! But here is what is driving me to distraction. She gets into anything that isn't bolted down, and even those things that are, and they are always the messy things........makeup, craft paint, soap (liquid especially), lotions, sprays, perfumes, permanent markers...and the list goes on. At least now Daddy agrees to a little painting in this house! Our bedroom right now looks like Jackson Pollock has been practicing! (if you don't know who he is, do a little googling!!!! he was famous for his "drip" paintings!). She will apologize all over the place, and then she is back at it. So I've been spending a LOT of time rearranging the house, reorganizing everything (which I had to do anyway since "the boys" were in the charge of the house last month.....more in a moment), and locking lots of things away. It is painstaking!

Isaac is talking a mile a minute, and singing too! I wish I had the time to list some of the things he is saying and talking about, but it would be shorter to list the things he DOESN'T say! We are so proud of him! His teachers at Wood Lane love him, as does everybody at the school. They did notice some "zone out" periods in him last week, so he had an EEG done Tuesday to check for seizure activity. We should have results in about a week or two. Shouldn't be anything serious. If it was, we would have the results immediately!

Russ has had lots of changes. He is associate pastor at Solid Rock in Oregon now, and he has left Cherry Street Mission (he will, maybe, continue to fill in for vacations, sick time, etc). He is now a school bus driver (again) for Wood Lane. They are even telling him that the chances of him having a full time route of his own by NEXT WEEK is VERY possible. It is so nice to have him home on weekends and at night. He may also do some other work at the school or the industries to add some more hours!

And then....there's me. My last blog was in August, so may of you may not know about my two other surgeries. The first Saturday in August I collapsed after picking up Ronnie. The pain in my abdomen was unbelievable. I really thought it was appendicitis. But it turned out that I have had two very large hernias cooking in my gut for some time. One was inguinal, and shaped like an upside down South America, the other was umbilical, and was more than 5 inches in diameter. That surgery did help with much of the abdominal pain I've been having for months and months now. But then, after a week in the hospital, I was home for the weekend. On Monday, Russ rushed me back because of pain, vomiting, the whole thing. Turns out that my surgery areas had abscessed. That pain was beyond anything I have EVER felt. And I was so sick, and the nausea would not go away. So they performed a surgery where they put a drainage bag in my side. The initial drain (gross, I know) was almost 100 cc of fluid. Bless the Lord, the infection was not bad at all. So I went home on antibiotics, and still carrying the bag two days later. I had that bag for ten days. After that, I was still so nauseous all the time, and vomiting a lot more than I prefer. I was in and out of the ER for some time, until my family doctor and my psychiatrist hit on the answer: I was still on my antidepressants (lots of then). Remember how God had been delivering me from all of that mess? Well, it appears that He brought me to the place where I didn't need the Wellbutrin, and the Prozac, and the Provigil anymore! Once I stopped taking them, the illness went away! PTL for His healing. I believe that, and my doctors do, too!

Now for the latest: I just got over a bout of whooping cough (the second in my life, even though I was immunized for it!). Not fun at all, coughing until you are sick, or until you pass out. But now I am starting on the upswing. I still haven't been to Solid Rock for services, and I am looking forward to it!

Things may be changing even more for us. Solid Rock has been a very hard transition for Russ so far, especially with the fact that I haven't been able to attend with him yet, and we can't afford the gas money to get to some of the services during the week. Also, for some reason, Pastor Keith has not made an official announcement of our "being there" in ministry yet. Since we "tried out" in the summer, there are many who have no idea who we are, and they are giving Russ a really hard time.

Then, just in the past ten days, something else fell into our laps. We have subscribed to "churchstaffing.com" for a few weeks, and it just came up that a church back home in West Central Ohio, a church that houses MANY friends of ours, is in dire need of a senior pastor. they are a missionary church, so they are not very different from the AG. We have contacted them, they are excited, and we have sent them all kinds of info about the family and our ministry. We are looking forward now to their call for our visit with them. Pastor Keith knows about it, and is FULL support, especially since it appears that it is such a GOD THING! We will see.....I'll have to admit, Russ still feels a call to those people, and it would be nice to go home. The only difference in going back to my stomping ground now? My parents aren't around anymore...

Papi Tim is getting his own apartment in November. He is a very sick guy and needs lots of prayer. He has spots on his liver and lungs, and has begun chemotherapy. For a nearly 48 year old man, he looks much, much older......

That's about it. I'm missing chicken alfredo.......more later.........

How was that, Jolene? :-)