HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!!!

Happy Birthday Jesus from 4 Hall Girls

Lizzie and Millie love birthdays so they ask every day if it is Jesus' birthday yet! It has been great to be able to use that to focus on the real meaning of CHRISTmas! May we never forget WHY we celebrate CHRISTmas. I have to remind myself of this a lot! Satan does all he can to change our focus and steal our joy especially when we are focusing on Christ most.

I will not even go into what it took for me to do Christmas cards this year because just thinking about it might steal my Christmas spirit! So I can laugh about it I thought I would share some "outtakes"

Sallie says, "mama, enough already!!!"


And my personal favorite! I think Sallie is ready to hurt Elleigh!
Photo session #2 after church-worse than photo session #1
"Can we please just run away from you?"


Lizzie, Millie, and I went to our small group MOPS party several weeks ago and our discussion group leader was so sweet to allow us to make ornaments and then she fired them for us. I love them!!! The girls were so sweet making them and I treasured that time with just the 3 of us.


I made the star
They made Sallie and Elleigh a snowman and a candy cane but somehow the candy cane pic did not download.

We head to AL in a few days so I will not be blogging but I will be back soon with LOTS of pics.

Wishing you all a wonderful time of celebrating JESUS' BIRTHDAY!!!

Whirlwind Week

This picture of Lizzie really suits our week! WILD and CRAZY!!!

This was made today before Discovery School. Her class wore their pj's which she loved and then they all wore Santa hats which she did not love. She liked the hat but she said it hurt her head and well she IS a princess so... I have no idea what she was doing here! I sent her and Elleigh out to the porch to take some pics while I finished getting ready and this is what I got! Bless their hearts, I make them freeze to get pics since my flash will not work. I am about to resolve that though. I can't get my dream camera but I am going to get something that I can take pics with and not freeze my children to do it!!! WM has some really good deals on a few Nikons right now and I think I am going to switch to Nikon. I have loved my Kodak but it is my second and neither have lasted long.

I do not have any pics of Millie on her party day because she is sick and could not go. She began running fever on Monday and I kept holding out thinking it was a virus that would eventually end. I ended up taking her today and they said it was viral but also double ear infection with 1 ear being really bad. This is her first ear infection. She has been a sick girl but she seems to be getting over the viral part and we have meds for the ears so hopefully she will be back to new in no time. She loves to go to the Dr. I really think it is because she gets to go somewhere by herself so it is special to her. She told me on Monday as soon as she got sick that I needed to take her to the Dr and she got MAD when I told her we were not going then. She loves medicine even more than the Dr. She was getting tired of Motrin so I was very relieved the Dr gave her meds because I would have never heard the end of that!!!

Today was our second trip to the pediatrician this week. I took Sallie in on Monday for an UTI. They said her counts were very elevated. UTI's make her so sick. She threw up like crazy on Monday morning and was running a high temp. Thankfully the meds kicked in quickly and she was feeling better by Tuesday. I am so thankful that she does not react to Bactrum anymore because it does help her much more than anything else.

We had to reschedule therapy on Monday since Sallie was sick so she went today and will go tomorrow. She is doing well. She is slightly (or maybe more than slightly) stubborn so she means she is not going to do what she does not want to do! It really is funny (but you know we can't laugh as much as we want to!)

It is hard to believe it is 1 week until Christmas! I still have a good bit left to do. My plans this week were to get lots done so next week would be carefree. Well, that didn't happen but my babies have needed me so that's OK. Everything else will get done or if it doesn't then it just doesn't.

It is also hard to believe that in 1 week from Saturday the girls and I will be flying to AL!!! YES, I said flying! Last week A called to ask me what I thought about flying home. My response, "well since that is not an option, why are you asking me that?" We never think about flying us all home because of the expense. However, our God not only meets all our needs but sometimes we get surprises and this was a huge one! Someone (who does not want us to know who they are) wanted to fly us all home for Christmas!!! I just can't tell you how much this has touched us! It is an amazing blessing. We had discussed the girls and I driving and A flying so that we could stay longer but we decided we did not need to spend the money for him to fly so we were not going to spend less than a week at home. When 2 full days of that are in a car that is a short time. So, by us flying this allows us to spend several more days. A will fly in a few days after us and then we will all return on the same day. Prayers are appreciated as I will be flying alone with all the girls. A flies back on the same day as us but on a different flight. The person contacted a guy A works with and he was the go between on the whole deal. No one (except our families) even knew we were not getting to stay long or anything about our trip so this was a total God thing! I get chill bumps just thinking about it! I hope that I will spend this holiday season reflecting on the true meaning of CHRISTmas and the many, many, many things we have to be thankful for because CHRIST was not only born but died for us and loves us more than we can EVER understand!

P.S. I miss blogging and hope to be back to blogging more often soon! The girls do and say so much every day and because I am not blogging as much I forget!

Broken and Busy

I am not enjoying not blogging very often! Not only is my computer dying, but my camera is broken! Yes, my camera and my computer. This is not easy for me!!! My camera will work but the flash will not and even on pics that do not need a flash they still are not quite right. You can only imagine how I am handling not having a working camera. Christmas cards should be in the mail eventually! I borrowed my friend Rebecca's camera today to take the pics . Thanks Rebecca!

We have been unusually busy with holiday stuff and life. I decided this year to attempt to do something special and Christmas related each day of December leading up to Christmas Day. Of course, no pics :( We have made Christmas cookies, somedays we just read a Christmas story, etc. Today our MOPS discussion group had our Christmas party and our discussion group leader makes pottery so she allowed us to make ornaments with our kids. We had a lot of fun doing that. Maybe I will be able to post some pics of them once we get them back. They were so cute!

A is almost finished with this semester! One more to go!!! He is itching to get several things started at church and will begin some of those in January. It seems strange that we are already looking at dates for VBS. Summer will be here before we know it. We are also looking at dates for another trip to Africa this summer. A begins a radio spot in Jan as well so lots going on but he is loving all this "going on" and I am loving watching him be able to do what he has been called to do.

For some reason I have not been in the decorating mood this year. No reason, just not as into it this year. I think it is maybe the feeling of having 2 houses or something. It is strange but it is like I am already disconnecting myself from this house. Weird, I know! We did finally get our tree completely decorated this week. I was not as picky about it as usual and pretty much let the girls do it and they loved it and are very proud of it. I only put up 1 tree this year as opposed to 4! I do already have plans for our new house next year though and look forward to entertaining in our new home next Christmas.

The girls LOVE the tree. They are constantly looking at it! They have moved lots of ornaments around!Because I know you all wants pics on my posts I took these yesterday morning as the girls were on their way to Discovery School. Bless their hearts it was cold and I had to take them outside to have light for the camera! I did it for you all!!!

This is the only smile I can get from Millie these days but this is classic Millie!

Too funny!

Sallie's therapy is keeping us busy as well. She is doing great in therapy.We participate as much as she does so it is tiring! It is as much a learning process for us as for her. Please pray that we will catch on quickly and always be mindful of how we are supposed to interact with her. It is difficult to train yourself to always be in teaching mode for Sallie which is different than normal conversation. This week she had testing and 2 days of therapy so 3 trips this week. Yesterday she had some booth testing with the BAHA and she did really well. It appears that she is hearing a good bit better with the BAHA band than with the aids. Major Praise! I know we have LOTS of people praying for her. I know it! We feel it! So, the audiologist is trying to get insurance to cover the band and then we (along with her ENT and the audiologist) will more than likely proceed with the surgically implanted BAHA which of course first involves getting insurance to cover it. This will mean several surgeries. As far as the method of communication, we will proceed in therapy as we are now and then see how things go from here. The big deal is that according to the test she had yesterday she is hearing a lot more of the speech sounds with the BAHA on. Another major praise is that she has become comfortable with both the audiologist and speech therapist which makes life easier on all of us! Please continue to pray!!! Whatever happens we have a long road ahead of us but we are ready!!!

THANKFUL for Thanksgiving!

I know this post is late and I have some pics of our Thanksgiving but I do not have the time or energy to try and get this computer to upload them so... you get a post without pics. First of all we did have a great time of spending time with each other and LOTS of food! The first few holidays we were not with family were so hard for me (and I still get very homesick on holidays) but after a couple of holidays of sitting around feeling sorry for myself I thought I just have to make the best of this. It is what it is and this is not fair to Aaron or to the girls or to myself for that matter so we started our own traditions and we all look forward to those every year. It is much better than sitting around crying all day!!! So, this Thanksgiving was no different. We did not have guests this year (which I missed) but we just relaxed and wore our comfy clothes (and no makeup!).

One of our traditions each Thanksgiving is to make a list of the things we are most thankful for that particular year. It is a time for us to stop and be thankful and to realize just how much we have to be thankful for. This year this tradition meant more to me than it ever has. It has been a tough month or so. I haven't mentioned anything because I just haven't been able to talk about it. I wrote on here a while back that we had taken Sallie for a speech evaluation and received very good news. The therapist thought 6 months of therapy a couple of times a week and we should be good to continue therapy at home and all would be well. A little over a week after that appt I received a call on a Thurs. nt from the speech therapist. There had been a mix-up with Sallie's files and another child's hearing tests had gotten in Sallie's file. So, she was basing everything on those tests in giving her plan for therapy and the future. She informed me that Sallie was not hearing about 1/2 of the consonants (aided) which means if she can't hear them she probably will never be able to say them. She said that we needed to proceed with a total communication approach (using sign, verbal communication, and possibly devices to allow her to communicate with us). I have to tell you I was numb. I told her I did not understand why we had never been told this before, etc. I really do not remember a lot of the conversation after that point but I did tell her we needed to talk in person. So the next week A and I went to meet with the speech therapist and the audiologist. The night I got the call I completely lost it. I have not been that torn apart in a really long time. I felt that all the hope I had for her had been snatched from me and that everything we had worked so hard for was all in vain. I spent a lot of time just telling the Lord how I felt about it all. As usual, because our Lord is wonderful and He gave me Aaron to share this responsibility, Aaron was holding it together. I am always amazed that we lose it at different times. The Lord gives us each other to be strong for the other because if we were both a mess at the same time things would really be bad! For the next week although I did think about our meeting often I did not dwell on it and I think handled that time pretty well. However, on the way to the meeting was a different story. That was a very hard drive for me. We got to the meeting and it went really well considering what we were being told. They told us they were not giving up on Sallie. The deal is that her latest tests are showing she is not hearing a lot of the consonants that are necessary for speech that is good enough for communication. The change from the past is that it very likely that when they removed everything from the middle ear it has affected her hearing negatively. She is wearing much higher powered aids now and is responding so much better but it still could be that there are a lot of speech sounds she simply is not getting. The issue is her testing is obviously from behavioral responses and we are not sure how accurate that is. They both were very sensitive with us but factual. Aaron lost it several times which in turn caused them to nearly lose it. I mean the dad is sitting there crying and telling you how badly he wants everything for her, it is heart breaking. A BAHA (bone anchored hearing aid) is a possibility however the audiologist does not seem to think she will benefit more from the BAHA. It is a surgically implanted device and of course insurance does not cover it. We applied for insurance to cover it one time in the past and it was denied. There is what they call a temporary BAHA which they wear on the outside and the audiologist is beginning the process of getting insurance to cover that. This would be for her to use any time she is not able to wear her aids. If we need this and insurance will not cover it I know Sallie will get it somehow. The Lord has provided in great ways time and time again and I just am not going to stress over this one. If she needs it, HE will make it happen! We also have testing scheduled to try and see if she would benefit from the BAHA as well as some more extensive testing to determine exactly what sounds she is or is not hearing. We greatly appreciate your prayers through this testing. We pray that she is calm and that she does indeed respond when is aware of a sound. At times the fear takes over and I know she is not responding accurately. So, our greatest prayer is that she respond accurately so that we have the best possible info to work with. We do begin therapy 2 times a week beginning this Friday. Basically the therapist is going to try several means of communication and we are going to figure out what works best for Sallie. Aaron, Elleigh, and I will begin sign language classes in Jan so that we can use sign to the extent we need to with her. We are not giving up! We are still going to do everything we can to do what is best for her-whatever that means. We know that we serve a God who is able to do anything and if it is His plan for her to verbally communicate then she will and if He has other plans for her then He will be glorified through that and we will accept that. I know this post is already so long but this is my journal and I know we have some prayer warriors who read this and we need all the prayers we can get. We will be traveling about 30 miles each way for therapy 2 days a week and one day we have to be there early and will have to fight traffic so our travels each week is another prayer. Just pray, please!

All of this to say, that this year I am more THANKFUL for Thanksgiving than ever before. I was forced to think about the things I have to be THANKFUL for (and it was at a time I really needed to be forced) and there is so much I have to be thankful for that it was difficult to come up with a list that was not incredibly long. No matter how tough life seems right now I am THANKFUL.
I have said this a million times before but I will say it again. I can never thank God enough for giving me my husband. I can't imagine dealing with all this with any one other than Aaron. As hard as this all may be, we draw closer together through it all because we draw closer to God.
I am thankful for friends and family who accept Sallie. I will be honest the older she gets the harder her acceptance becomes. I have had several incidents lately in public of people looking at her like she was crazy because she tried to "talk" to them. It upsets me so badly I can't explain it and I just want to tell them what I think but I know that God made her and it doesn't matter what they think. She is His and He has given her to me for now!
I am thankful for a church that has taken us in and is so good to us and that God has placed us there. There are so many who wait so long to have their first full time church and we feel very blessed that God has led us there before Aaron graduates.
I am thankful for all my girls. They are all so different and have different strengths and weaknesses and am thankful that God entrusted them all to us! They all bring me joy every day!
I am thankful for provisions in so many ways.
I am thankful for life and for all the things that Sallie is able to do that we once thought she might not be able to.

When Sallie was in the NICU they took her picture and made cards for the parents which said Happy Thanksgiving from your little blessing. Sallie was stronger than they ever knew and we were home with her before Thanksgiving but that card still hangs on my fridge as a daily reminder of my blessings and of how strong she is, and of how far she has come. I need to see that. I need to remember to find what I have to be THANKFUL for every day not just on Thanksgiving!