My birthday present...

These pictures were in the card my sister sent me for today. They are of my father, my brother-in-law, my sister, and my canine nephew.

What to do with 26?

tomorrow i will turn 26. the big two six. i don't really know that means. i don't have big plans. probably a quiet evening at home. in fact, both of my roomies will be gone tuesday. one's loving on some kids at camp and the others loving on some kids up the road overnight.

i will go to work, and probably work through lunch cuz i saw court off to camp today...then maybe a run, and a table for one at pfchangs. and no i'm not telling them its my birthday.

i know people who see birthdays as a promise of the year ahead. (courtney.) what will happen, what won't. i look more back than ahead. have i accomplished anything? was my year spent wisely or unwisely?

do you ever have those moments when you're kind of like, hm, i really didn't see my life like this when i was little. no doldrums here. its been a good year. some parts hard, and the parts that make the hard parts more than worth it.

so lets take a look back at 25 for me. i've moved, but not back to texas. i'm employed, no buts there. i get to tell children stories and minus the shaky knees, i love it. i like baking in my kitchen. i know my heart most of the time. i'm single, but love fills every aspect of my friendships. i'm surprisingly ok with nesting. i will fight for everything i think you deserve. i love when kids want to play with me. i saw fatty in florida this year. i still blush. my brother in law finally got to see the real me. my church is a priority in my life. i've realized its not a bad thing to want to care for people. i found out my temper flares when i see something wrong. i try not to take myself so seriously anymore. i am still afraid of getting it wrong. i expect God's best for the ones i love. i still get shy sometimes. i love to laugh and dance around in my house when no one is home...

its been a great year! i know He's blessed me at 25. who knows what He'll do with 26?

Primary Care Giver

Yesterday I had the privilege/challenge of being the primary caregiver of a two year old boy and a four year old girl. It was only 7 hours, but at some moments it felt like the longest times of my life.

I don't have a vast majority of experience with children. I've been getting more experience since moving to BR, but I'm still learning. Things I learned yesterday that exemplify my fledgling mom skills:

• I freak out when my car computer tells me that the passenger side door is open driving down drusilla. the two year old in his carseat behind me has somehow played with the lock and handle simultaneously and managed to get the door open enough for the sensor to go off.

• Kids come with so much stuff. Especially wee little ones. Carseats, booster seats, diaper bags. I thought, do they really need all this? But then I was incredibly thankful for the wipes in that diaper bag when I had to change a pull up.

• They say anything that comes to mind. Whether its comments or questions. Comments like you're not a mommy cuz you don't have a fat belly. And questions. Lots and lots and lots of questions...

• They like to cuddle when they have just bonked heads with someone in the playpen, or when they are tired.

• They don't really care that you're tired. Especially when they want to run around like banshees...
  

So that was my day with the kids. Last night after church I was about to drop. I didn't have time to eat much all day so was getting the shakes and a headache. Which just means my blood sugar was getting low. My roomies go out to eat, I go home. Turn my phone on from silent and read a text message saying my tire is low. Sigh. I get back in the car, exhausted, and go up to a gas station on the corner. I know I don't have a tire gauge for my car, so I'm going to have to eyeball it.

I pull up to the hose and its out of order. I might have started tearing up. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I don't really know what I'm doing with my tires. Anyone in BR I could call was at church or on their way to eat. Chin up allison.

I drive further up to a chevron station. There is a guy there airing up his tires. I get out, take the cap off my tire and wait for him to get done. He says, the hose isn't going to reach. Oh, ok. He tells me to back in. Ok, great! I think please help me do this. Please please. I back up, and turn around to see him drive off. Sigh. Awesome.

Moral of the story? I need to learn how to take care of my tires and I'm not positive I'll be a good mom. I had no idea what I was doing. In both cases.

Punkin Could Use Some Help

It's official. I'm out of shape. After work I went from career girl to novice landscaper in one quick wardrobe change. I got the weedeater out of the shed, set it on the ground in the backyard and immediately called my dad.

"Hey al-gal, what's going on?" Dad I need some help with a weedeater. I describe what the weedeater looks like, the switches on it, etc. He then proceeds to tell me how to start it. I hang up, and call him back in about three minutes. It would start, but then it would putter out. He told me to release the trigger on the back cuz it was getting too much gasoline now. I turn it and sure enough it starts and stays on. I get the backyard done. Then move on to the side of the fence close to our children's garden. Um, nothings' happening.

"Hey punkin." Dad the string broke off. My dad sits there on my speaker phone with me as he walks me through taking the head apart, restringing it, and putting it back on. The only hard part was holding one end of the string that I'd managed to finagle into the hole and trying to work the other string through the 2nd hole. Hmm. So I was definitely holding the string with my teeth while working my fingers in between the head and the coil to get it in through its corresponding hole. But we did it. He sat there patiently on the phone with me through it all as I'm trying to understand and figure this weedeater out. (My dad is a good man.)

So the weedeater is ready for use again. I go ahead and finish the side of the fence, trying real careful like to not hurt the flowers. But none of them got beheaded so that was nice. Then it was time to move across to the front of the yard. I did the edging, then realized two things. One, I'm dirty. There's grease on my shirt, grass all over me, and I smell like the gas/oil mixture for the weedeater and sweat. Yummy. The second thing is how out of shape I am upper body strength wise. Its been quite a while since I worked shift work lugging 36 bottles of coke every 30 minutes, and even longer since I spent hours a day aiming at a bale of hay until my mom told me to put my bow down cuz it was getting too dark to see.

But the lawn only needs to be mowed now. And I've got the weedeater for a few more weeks so I'm sure I'll get more practice with it. As long as my dad is still available I think we can get it done together.

Man who would be Different...

I get asked why I'm not married alot. Sometimes out of care, concern, nosiness, or rudeness. I don't mind people asking. Obviously I'm an open book. So why am I not married? A few reasons. One of them is fear. And its not that I don't think I'll ever get married, its just that any type of romantic attachment for this heart is going to require God holding one hand and "him" holding the other. And it'll have to be a lot of small words and gentleness cuz I'm not the most understanding of all that kind of stuff.

You see, coming from my background, marriage isn't exactly something I'm just itchin' to jump into. I think they take commitment, trust, all those very adult words that in the end mean two people, as well as God, decided that we are better serving Him together than alone. And yeah, for all my nerves over the mere idea of the sanctity of marriage, there is an ever increasing amount of hope that one day, maybe, I'll get to support a man who God has chosen for me.

In the meantime, I write him letters. Its nothing sweepingly romantic. Just me and my heart talking to him. Little things that like wondering if he's having a good day. If we've met before. If we'll meet in 5 years. How long God is going to continue preparing us for each other before He tells him to care for me. And no, I'm not posting one on here. They aren't for you. They are for him. And me. Like this blog. Its for our kids. Assuming by the time we have some the internet is still up and running and there's not some new fangled way to read about whats going on in everybody's world...

Plenty of Pictures...

This weekend was my sisters’ one year wedding anniversary. So crazy that its been a year. Its really flown by. Well, the first year anniversary tradition is paper, so she gave her husband a book. It was a photo book of the past year. She’d been on the phone with her ol’ sis about which company was good, what prices were reasonable, etc. She made it and it really is spectacular. Of course when she saw the finished product in hand she wanted to add 20 more pages. I’ve done a few photo books before and I completely understand where she’s coming from.

Well Sunday she gives it to him. He liked it. A lot. He might or might not have teared up as he flipped through the pages of memories that she’d caught the edge of with her camera. I think because our family moved around so much we learned to pack light and bring only the most important things with us. I don’t have a lot of furniture or nicknacks, mostly just a few things that have been passed down from my parents or grandparents. A set of mini Japanese vases from my mother, a grandfather clock (from my father’s grandfather), a Princess Diana doll... But I have pictures. Boy oh boy do I have pictures.

Theres something magical about them. Pictures freeze time. Nowadays time is rarely a servant and more often a master. But not with pictures. You can see my mom on a camel with the pyramids of Giza behind her. (One of these days I’ll recreate that shot). Dad when he was my age, me and my bald head till I was two. Or my sister with her Junior Ms. West Texas Crown…

So I’d encourage you to stop and smell the roses. And maybe even take a picture of them. You never know who will cherish them as much as you do…

Almost...

I just got off the phone with my mom. I screened her call. I knew what she was going to say. But I called her back anyway. Hoping maybe this time would be different. I could tell her I was having a rough go of it and she wouldn't tell me what she usually tells me.

Nope.

I said I was having a hard time emotionally over the past two months. She recommended I back away from my church, get a part-time job, meet some new people and reminded me that I was alone. Mmm. Don't get me wrong, my mom has been very influential in helping shape who I am. She introduced me to Jesus. I'll always be grateful for that. I love her. And she loves me. But I've fallen short. Not so much that I'm a complete failure, I just don't quite measure up. Hair's too short, skin's too pale, still in Baton Rouge, don't make enough money, not a wife, still a part of the Ring. I'm almost a beauty. But not quite.

This week has been a bit of a refresher course that I don't measure up. I've gotten like 47 things wrong. This ain't no pity party. The only one who can claim responsibility for it is me. It stings but its true. I'm not below average intelligence. I complicate things. It doesn't start out that way, I just end up sticking my foot in my mouth. What is that saying about the road to hades being paved with good intentions?

I think its gotten worse as I've gotten older. There have been a ton of examples where the consequences of my mouth have hurt myself or ones I love. The newest examples are the hardest. Where I've damaged friendships that I held close, and I'm not a lady anymore to a group of people I respect. Oh, that one still hurts sometimes. All of it just reminds me of the selfishness that stares me in the face when I look in the mirror.

I might not be a lady, a wife, a perfect 10 in this world, but I'm worth something. My Lord thinks so. He made me the way I am. Even with my naive heart and foolish mouth...

But now, this is what the LORD says
He who created you, O Jacob,
He who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are Mine.
Isaiah 43:1

Secondhand Solos...

Last night I was going over some songs for the worship leader for our kids cg. We don't have one yet, but we have a prospect. Hopefully God is leading him to our little group. The thing is, he doesn't like to sing. So Court and I said, no problem! We'll totally belt out something if it means we'll have someone to play guitar for our little ones...

As I was going over the songs, picking and choosing age appropriate, fun songs we know, I came across my first adult solo I sang. It's called the Potter's Hand. I was helping with worship in the sunday morning overflow service in the gym. Extremely long story as to how I got roped into that. I had signed up to help as backup, not solos. Moving on...

I remember wearing flats cuz I knew I was going to shake. I'm like a leaf in the wind when I'm scared. I think its part of the reason God being steady is one of my favorite attributes of His. Haha. So silly. Anyways, my parents came to hear me. The music begins very softly, and then I chime in. O gosh. Just typing it takes me back. I remember thinking, ok, God, its just You and me here. I hope You like this, because its a very insufficient offering. (What can I say, my God is worth my best effort.) Deep breath, and sing...

I don't remember what I sounded like. After I was done, everyone chimed in and we sang the song through. I remember my dad being upset. He wanted me to sing the whole song alone, not have everyone else involved... My dad. He thinks I'm beautiful and can do pretty much anything. Thats one of the perks of being a dad I guess. You get to think your children are the most splendid little wonders. Which is fine. I fully believe he's a superhero.

Its very cool that God can have random things show up in your life that spark a memory, a face you love, or some blessing that came out of nowhere...

Maybe she can be held...

Christopher is up to 3 lbs. 11 oz. They put him in an open crib yesterday. Jennifer (Ryan's wife) said he has discovered his hands and he's funny to watch. Taylor seems to be doing better with her breathing. They are going to try and change Taylor's ventilator to a cpap which is placed over the nose. Then they could hold Taylor.

I don't know much about babies. But it appears they like to be held. The older I get the more I realize that there's comfort in hugs, handshakes, high fives. Everyone needs to be cuddled once in a while. I guess I'd never realized that little one had never been held before. Maybe that will change soon...

"Taylor's still here"

This morning, like most mornings, I woke up to my clock radio. The DJ was doing a phrase of the day win a trip somewhere competition. I know this because they've been doing it all week. This morning the first word was "Taylor." I only caught the first word. Tonight my roomies and I are sitting in the living room just chatting and I tell them about the word I woke up to this morning which had me yet again praying for Taylor. Courtney says yeah, the whole phrase was "Taylor's still here."

Do you believe in coincidences?

Baby Dedication...

Last night was baby dedication at my church. It was lovely. Definitely one of the "top services I'm thrilled to be a part of" list I keep tucked away in my heart.

One of our elders talked about the miracle God did with his little baby boy. It was a bit scary what they as a family walked through, but God was faithful throughout it all. They have a perfectly healthy baby boy as testament to that. As he was talking about what God had done for his baby, it made me think of Taylor. I've thought about her a lot lately. Last night she was heavy on my heart. I wasn't sure if she had made a complete recovery or if she'd been gently cradled back home to heaven. I do know that the stress of the past weeks have pulled me so much that tears are always near the surface. And that when I start crying its really hard to pull it back together and stop. Its a clear indication that means I'm truly exhausted.

Sunday nights at church are a response for me. Whether its for the past week, in anticipation of the next week, or just the moment of being near Him, there's always some sort of reaction. Last night were tears and incoherent thoughts and feelings. Every time something was said about Him or His character, I'd just lose it.

I have no idea what happens next. My parents are waiting for a phone call about a funeral. I think I am too. I can't tell anymore. I want His will, but I honestly don't want her to hurt anymore.

I don't bear suffering children gracefully.

Baby Update...

Sounds like Taylor is a little more stable now. Yesterday one of her lungs was closing up but they have done 2 breathing treatments and it is fine now. She is still draining and passing fluid. She's hanging in there. Jennifer (Ryan's wife) said she opened her eyes a lot last night when they were there. She did have a little poop which means her intestines are working some anyway. Who would have thought that would be important news? Even though the PDA (hole in heart) has opened back up, she is not having any symptoms from it. They will leave it alone until she is more stable and then they will do surgery on it.

Christopher is doing great...

The Newest Millers...

This is my brother Ryan and his newborn son, Christopher. I would show you a picture of his twin sister Taylor, but they are too disturbing. They were born a few months early. Christopher is doing great. I even have a picture of him sucking his thumb...

Taylor, however, is not doing good. In fact, she's not ok. She's got hydrocephalus. Which is a big long word for water on her brain. All of her bodily functions are completed through tubes. She's got bacteria in her belly which makes her tummy stiff that they are trying to knock out. She's been taken off feeding because her esophagus is not attached to her stomach. You can't pump a baby full of morphine, so while she is sedated all the time, she is in pain.

Hearing all this yesterday all I could do was cry. Cry for her. For her parents. I don't know this child. I've only recently talked to Ryan. And this little girl is tugging on my heartstrings. As I was painting last night she was on my mind. Can she, would she, survive being brought into the world like this?

I have random verses of scripture that hold me accountable, encourage me, and spur me on taped to my computer and desk at work. One of them has Isaiah 30:15,18 on it:

In repentence and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength....
The Lord longs to be gracious to you:
He rises to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for Him.

Trust. Oddly enough its a hard thing for me in my life. One of my top three. I trust Him to completely take care of everything for you. I ask Him in full confidence believing He'll work wonders in your life. Flip it to when I'm praying for me and asking for miracles, signs and wonders, and I feel selfish for asking. He says to wait on Him. I know He knows what is going on here. Nothings taking Him by surprise. That's one of the things I love about Him. He's even keel. No sudden letting go of me, or pushing me away when I just need Him to listen and hold me close. My tears don't catch Him off guard. He gave me this heart and isn't surprised when the crap of this world breaks it.

I may not be laughing at the days to come, but He'll do His will in this. So I will wait. I will trust.

So Far Away...

My sister has surgery this week. I can't be with her. That drives me crazy. I remember when we were little how we couldn't wait to grow up and do adult things together. Now that we are "grown up" we're hundreds of miles away from each other. I don't see her face for months. MONTHS! Sigh. I ache that I can't hold her hand through this. Yet I know she's cared for. Her husband is there. More importantly, I trust God with her. I know He's got her in His hand. He has big plans for that young lady.

Big Boys Like to Cuddle too...

Another picture of Higgins. He's a good dog. He won't win a speed race or anything, but he'll definitely take a nap with you. He likes to cuddle.

"Yep, you're a fainter..."

I'm not faint of heart. Ok, most of the time I'm not faint of heart. But I do faint. Last week was a record. Twice in two days! Over the years I've fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint, fainted a lot. I've gotten better at it...

The first time I fainted, I was at an FFA blood drive. We were in a firehouse garage. I remember both of those facts clearly for a few reasons. I didn't know I was a fainter at this young age (15). However, my FFA teacher had just had her blood drawn. I saw an empty tube attached to her arm and then it slowly fill with red. Gulp. And then I realized that I didn't like watching someone's blood come out of their body, voluntarily or otherwise. She gets through being a hero and graciously giving her blood and turns to walk with me to go get a hotdog. I took a few steps, grabbed what I thought was her hand, and then woke up on the floor with lots of people around me. I didn't recognize any of the faces or why they were all staring at me so. What had really happened was that I had grabbed her leg on my way down to the floor and hit my head on the metal grates in the floor of the garage so when they wash the fire trucks the water has somewhere to go. At the time, they figured I hadn't had enough food and that I was hypoglycemic...

The next time I can remember was when I was at a high school football game. We played 6 man football. My dad was a ref, my sister was a cheerleader. It was a relatively nice afternoon. Around dusk. That ol' west texas wind had died down and it was going to be a great night for football. And then I passed out and that handy dandy ambulance they bring in case of athletic injuries was used for a pale shaky girl who doesn't have the common sense to pass out on something soft. Instead I passed out in the stands, boink!, my head making contact with the aluminum bleacher on my way down...

My high school yearbook is a testament to how I don't faint gracefully. Each comment mentions something about how I passed out in english class. Every one of the seniors was in there, all 17 of us. People began telling stories of "this is how I broke this, this is how I broke that, wanna see the scar?" kind of stories. One of the guys was talking about how he'd broken his arm. How the bone had pierced his skin, how he just stood there with his arm bone hanging out, and somewhere around there I passed out. Like a ton of bricks. We were sitting in school desks so I fell out of mine when I lost consciousness. This is one of the first times I passed out cuz I empathized with someone hurting and not actually having seen any blood...

We were all going to San Antonio to see a movie. Blair Witch 2. We were in college, sophomores, I think. We all get into the movie, wondering what its going to be like etc. I lasted about twelve minutes into the film. In the movie a girl is pregnant and has a dream where she loses her baby. There is blood all over her sweater and she's screaming. The next thing I remember is waking up on one of those banquettes they had outside of the theater. What had happened was I passed out, started to seizure and leaned over on my friend Ross. He completely freaked out. And all my friends carried me out of the theater. This was of course during the movie and I was really upset I had caused a commotion. I said I was fine and we could go back in and see the rest of it, but they anti-ed that idea and we drove the 45 minutes back home to campus in Kerrville...

My friend Courtney's sis, Kris, was having surgery on a hernia. I was 24. Court, her mom and I were sitting there with Kris in her pre-op room before her surgery. Kris was on the bed, already having taken her pre-op pain meds. She was laying there, and then she started to cry a little bit. It wasn't wailing and gnashing of teeth. She was holding her mom's hand. And she was scared. To me her fear was palpable, I could feel it in my bones. I was standing there praying for her silently and then realized that I was beginning to feel something else. That tickle on the back of my mind that says I'm about to pass out and I need to fight it. I try and fight it, every time. I've never won once. I go under every time! But I tried, leaned against the wall, told Court I wasn't feeling well. Court moves me to a chair and I've already begun losing consciousness. She holds on to me so I don't hit my head against the wall as I shake. I wake up to doctors around me. Pretty sure it scared Courtney but it was quite a bonding experience for the both of us. Nothing says friendship like holding my head as I shake and shiver and try to come back to life. At that point I realized I will never be on the hospital visitation list for my church. It doesn't bother me much until my friends start having babies and I can't go see the little ones because of the hospital. Sigh...

There have been other times. College dorms where I faint, doctor visits where I faint. Too much medication and I faint. Feeling someone hurt and I faint. I'd like to think I've gotten better at it, if you can get better at it. I'll tell you what to do. (Before, I'll try and call attention to myself in some way. Grab your hand, grab your hair, grab pretty much anything to let you know I'm going to need you to hold me for a few minutes. I never stood up while passing out, so if you've got the upper body strength to hold on, go for it. I'd enjoy not slamming my head against a floor, a wall, a metal grate... During? Roll me on my side and make sure I'm breathing. Don't call an ambulance, I'll come out of it, I always have. Hold my head so I don't slam it against anything too hard. I don't bite my tongue, the seizures aren't that strong. I think its more of my body fighting to come back than anything. After, I can't move for a few minutes. I will be hunched over and really really really pale. I will have no strength. You can give me a coke for the sugar or juice works just as well.)

There are a few things I hate about fainting. One, the headaches. Oh my, after you pass out, your brain hurts so much! Like all the blood is rushing to fill the void of oxygen thats been depleted from it. Yeah, it hurts. Two, its completely humiliating. Its not like the movies. People don't fall gracefully. Its like a ton of bricks. And you can't get up and walk it off, you have to rest a little while. And three, the attention it causes. Holy moly. I hate it. Waking up to someone who you don't know from Adam, you don't know where you are at, you just want to hide.

One of the great things about fainting? I've only maybe once fainted where someone wasn't there to care and provide for me. That's a lovely blessing He's given me considering I moved around a lot. When I'm weak, He's made me a part of peoples' lives who can be my strength in that moment. And that, is a very, very beautiful thing.

Cake that showed up at my door today...

My sister sent this today. Its a multi-purpose cake. It makes me smile, helps me gain a few pounds, and lets me know my sister has the tenacity to pretty much get anything done anywhere in the world...

Pretty for her Prince...

My sister came into town for a few days. A few days being monday morning to wednesday around 2pm. In and out. We laughed a lot. We tend to do that...

Anyways, we were getting all of her stuff ready to go. Packing her suitcase, she's fixing her hair, just kind of hopping around. Fatty, what's going on?! Well, she says, I'm going to see Munch in Houston because we are flying home together and I want to look nice when I see him. How sweet is that? They've been together for years but it was still kind of cute for her to want to be pretty for her husband...

Something in the Water...

When I was little we lived in Oklahoma. On ten acres of land, 5 of which was a vineyard. We had horses, a goose, ducks, dogs, as well as two little girls running around. We moved there when I was three, and my sister was two. We moved back to Texas when I was eleven. Time will play a part in this story as I tell it. Come to think of it, time seems to play a part in a lot of life...

We lived outside a small town called Tuttle. It had a bank, dairy farm, school and not much else. My sister and I had loads of adventures playing all over the place at our house. Two little girls with vivid imaginations... Building snowmen, learning what living in Tornado Alley meant. One of my favorite/most terrifying memories was watching a twister slowly form and begin to touch the ground a few miles down the way. Oklahoma is flat so you could see for miles and miles...

We'd run around and every time we got hot or needed something to drink, to the water hose we went. Mom was big on us drinking our water. She tried to train us to appreciate good ol' water, but I didn't like the taste of it. So I rebelled and didn't drink as much. My sister however, drank it all the time...

One day my sister got sick. Time went by. She stayed sick. I remember lots of nights waking up to hearing her throw up. My dad telling me to go back to my room as he held her up because she didn't have the strength to sit up and vomit in the toilet. I'd go back, but I'd lay there with my hand on the bedroom wall that was also the back wall of the bathroom. She slept on the bottom bunk of our bunk bed so she could hopefully make it to the bathroom if she got sick. I started sleeping on the floor just so she knew I was close and she could touch me if she needed me.

It got bad. We didn't have insurance but my mom took my sister to the doctors anyway. They could not figure out what was going on. She had these bumps all over her. She couldn't keep much down and was getting more and more sick. Then I started getting bumpy and sick. I wasn't as bad as she was, but it was miserable. Where you are exhausted and weak and throwing up stomach acid that burns your throat.

My parents were getting frantic. We were both getting more sick as time went by. My mom thought something was in the water. No, the doctors said; that couldn't be it. She kept saying she wanted to have them test it. Nope, no need, they said. So my mom talked to a private lab in Tulsa and sent a sample of our well water to them. In the meantime, she started giving us bottled water...

The results came back a few weeks later. The water was almost pure manure and rust. Apparently the dairy plant up the river wasn't disposing of their waste properly. My mom immediately had a reverse osmosis water system put in and from then on out all we drank was filtered water.

My sister and I got better, but it took a toll on our bodies. There's not really a way to tell exactly how much heavy metal poisoning we absorbed. Five years of that stuff. If God leads me to fall in love one day, I will let him know of possible faulty plumbing. That way he can make an educated decision about sharing his heart with me.

This is not a doom and gloom story. On the contrary, I believe God had, and still has, plans for those two little girls. We're not quite as little anymore. And He didn't go anywhere no matter how sick we got. There's something amazing about faithfulness and loyalty from the Healer of a broken world. Even when you're a little girl.

So...If we go out to eat and I ask if they have filtered or bottled water to drink, now you know why. I'm not a water snob. Just learned from my experiences...

The Year in Pictures 2006...

Visiting the folks in West Texas... Yep, those are my mom's shoes I'm wearing...

I compiled a little fanfare for Meg's birthday this year...
I bugged every person I could think of to throw a picture or a story into that book...

My 2nd annual fundraiser for work in April of 2006...

Some of my guests of honor who came to play at the plantation that day...

Ah, Eli, the little spitfire. I met him in Eben-Ezer this year...

Some of my team members...

Looking at this picture makes me smile...

So does this one...

This picture I just stuck in here randomly...

Threw a party for Misty, here are a few of her ridiculously good-looking, photogenic guests...

I had a caricature artist do portraits as the guests' party favors to take home...

Another random picture I just threw in here...

My sister got married in June...

I was the maid of honor...

Another pic that makes me smile...

Jake teaching my Dad washers at mine and Carla's birthday this summer...

Our cakes I made up in my head and found a bakery to do it...

A party I put together for Courtney's Golden Birthday...
(I didn't have a picture of the acrobats...)

I was very honored, and mildly terrified,
to read in Lauren and Jeff's wedding...

A few ladies from my community group I love, having fun at the fair...

Christmas Tree 2006...