Happy Birthday To ME!!!

If you know anything about me you know that I LOVE my birthday! I think my birthday should be celebrated big and maybe even for a whole week! I LOVE IT!!! My family and friends did a super job of making me feel super special on my big day!

My day started out with my awesome friend, Laurie, picking me up and taking me to breakfast! We opted for a little whole in the wall restaurant in downtown Bartlesville that I had never been to before. Breakfast was delicious and the company was great!!! As you can tell from the picture, there was a fair amount of laughing going on! Thank you so much, Laurie! I love ya!!
I thought this was hilarious!
Our waitress said that we should get our picture taken out in front of the "Weezes" sign.

Later that morning Ben had an awards assembly at school. We went to that and were able to take him out to lunch as long as we took him back. I told Ben that we would take him out to lunch, but I got to choose where we were going since it was my birthday! He was ok with that! (Good thing!) Of course, we went to Frank & Lola's! (My favorite!!)
We had to wait for a table, so Jon and Ben got in a round of pool! I never got to do this when I was in school!
Of course, Luke wanted to play with the balls!
This next group of pictures sums up our lunch.....
Doesn't Jon look happy?!
I would love for you to think that Luke was happy, but it just wasn't the case!! He was a POOP!!

Present time!
My sweet friend, Deborah made this up for Jon and the kids to give me for my birthday! So cute!
I think Luke really liked what he got me!
I finally got the Bible I have wanted for a long time!
Abby is explaining the artwork that she gave me. This is one sweet girl!!
My super sweet husband made me a super yummy birthday cake! I think he did a great job!

Wednesday evenings we meet with our small group and this week it just happened to be at our house. It was so fun to hang out with my great group of friends on my birthday!
My friends Jill and Laurie! Love these girls!! (We really missed you, Rena!!)
Laurie brought over this huge bunch of balloons! (This isn't actually all of them as I sent some home with the kids that were here!)
I guess this means the party is over. :(
I had a great birthday!! Thank you so much to my all of my friends who sent me messages on Facebook, or called, etc...
A great big, huge thank you to my awesome husband who made sure to make the day a super special one! You did such a great job! I love you!!!

The Saga Continues.....

Well, I thought the whole kidney stone story was over, but, alas, it wasn't. In my last post I was a day away from getting the stint removed and moving on with life without kidney stones. Well, I did get the stint removed on Friday and had a pretty good day. I got some housework done, had a friend over...all was going pretty normal. Later that night I was feeling a bit of pain and figured I had overdone it. Around 11:30p.m. I got up to take some pain meds, but they never kicked in! The pain became completely unbearable!! I finally gave in around 1a.m. and let Jon take me back into the ER. (My AMAZING friend, Laurie came right over to stay with my sleeping kiddos!) Thankfully, the ER was not busy again and I never even had a chance to sit in the waiting room. They took my right in, got me scanned again and on morphine. Unfortunately, the morphine didn't work like it had before. The pain wasn't going away. It didn't take long before the doctor came in and told me that there were still kidney stones in there and that they were going to admit me into the hospital. I guess the plan was that they would put me on a Demerol pump and lots of fluids in hopes of flushing the stone out. If that didn't work, we would talk to the doctor in the morning and see what his next plan would be. (Possibly surgically removing the stone?)

After a fairly sleepless night and lots of waiting for the doctor on Saturday morning, the doctor said that he would like to wait the day out and see if I could pass the stone on my own. Due to the size of the stone he thought that was a definite possibility. I spent the day in the hospital completely drugged, slept most of the day and made FREQUENT trips to the bathroom. Unfortunately, no stone. My friend, Laurie, stayed at my house with my kids all day!! I know they had a great time, but at the same time, I felt awful that she had to spend her whole day at my house. Jon talked to his parents sometime that afternoon and they offered to come down and help out. NICE!! My family got to have a nice home cooked dinner that night! I was so thankful!

Another crummy night of sleep and still no stone. More waiting for the doctor.....

Finally, the doctor came in and gave me a choice. He could send me home with pain meds and I could see if I could pass the stone at home. Or he could take me into surgery and remove the stone. Hmmm...Not much thinking had to go into that one! TAKE ME IN!!! Within about half an hour I was back in surgery for the third time this year!! I, obviously, didn't care! I just wanted this whole thing to be over! As I was laying in the recovery room coming out of the anesthesia the nurse told me that the doctor had removed TWO stones and had shown them to Jon. She then asked if I would like to see them. Heck yes I wanted to see them!! Those things look just as nasty as they sound! They looked like little pieces of gravel with jagged edges and all. NASTY!! I asked if I could take them home, but unfortunately, she said they had to be sent in. I would love to share a picture with you! I know, you are probably glad to not see them! It wasn't too long after returning to my room that I was released to go home. Crazy!

This is the banner that all the kids made for me! Ben and Abby were disappointed when we tried to come in through the garage when we got home. We had to re-direct and come through the front door so I could see it as soon as I came in. So sweet! Thank you, Laurie!!

Ben's humor...

I asked Ben if this was what he was going to have tatooed on his arm. He didn't think it was very funny...

A bit of love from Abby.

Luke' artwork.

I came home to my three happy, smiling, adorable children, a clean house with the laundry done (My father in law and Ben took all of the laundry to the laundromat because the pipes to my washer were still frozen!), groceries bought and homemade chicken soup simmering in the crock pot!! It was amazing!! I don't know what I would have done without all of the help! THANK YOU KEN AND JEANIE!!!

Yesterday was a great day for me. I did absolutely nothing, at the demands of my husband, and felt very little pain! I was able to make it through the day without taking any pain medication! I slept great last night! I am feeling a little bit sore today, but still haven't taken any pain medication! I actually made it to the grocery store today! I am due to return to the doctor's office on Friday to have my stint removed. (He put another one in on Sunday just to make sure everything was draining and to get rid of any remaining kidney stone residue that was left.) Please pray with me that there will be no more stones and no more issues! I am a little bit nervous about getting the stint out, but I'm sure everything will be just fine.

I would be a complete loser if I didn't say what an amazing husband I have!! He is truly AMAZING!!! Jon has taken care of SO much while I have been out of commission! He has run the kids wherever they need to be, done laundry, taken care of meals, cleaned house, sat with me in the ER, waited for me in surgery, sat with my in the hospital through my awake times as well as my sleeping times. Everything! There are so many things I can't even name them all! Jon you are the BEST and I love you SO much!!!

I can't thank everyone enough for everything!! From watching the kids, to bringing meals, to taking care of things at home, even all of the well wishes on Facebook.... I am truly blessed!! THANK YOU!!!

An Amazing Weekend

I had an awesome opportunity to go to Oklahoma City this past weekend for the Deeper Still conference with Kay Arthur, Priscilla Shirer and, everybody's favorite, Beth Moore! It was an awesome time!! The music was amazing! The speaking was amazing! The time spent in an arena with 9,000+ other women was amazing! The time away from home with a friend without any kids was amazing! I definitely believe I heard a word from the Lord!! I am excited to be home and start some things anew! Praise God for love and forgiveness!!

This is my friend, Laurie, who I went with. There was a group of women from our church that we met there. It was so nice to finally meet some of the women from church and now be able to put a name and an experience with their faces!

Kay Arthur: "Rest is the activity of faith for this anxious moment, this test, this tribulation....."

Beth Moore: "It is within me!" Stay faithful!!

Priscilla Shirer: "God is able!!" Ephesians 3:20-21 NOW to Him who is able to do EXCEEDINGLY ABUNDANTLY above ALL that we ask or THINK, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory FOREVER and EVER!!!

I loved how before each woman spoke, the other two would pray over her!

Lunch break!!

On our way back after lunch we had to stop for a photo op in front of some Christmas trees. :)

This was an especially touching thing for me. I know it is really hard to tell what is going on, but that is four panes of glass on the stage. Before the conference started in the morning, those panes were at each of the entrances. If you had something that you were praying for or praising God for, you could write it on the glass. They told us that there would be something special done with them later. During the praise and worship time there was a guy on the stage painting something on each of the panes.

This is how it turned out. I KNOW that God can take care of what I wrote on there! Now it is up to me to trust Him to do it! (Why does that have to be so hard???)

This was actually kind of funny in the beginning, but was also very cool! The ladies were doing a Q&A session and one of the questions was asking what they wanted for Christmas. Beth Moore said that all she wanted was healing for her back pain! The other two decided that there was no time like the present to pray over "Miss Beth"! The funny part was that as they were laying hands on her back, she asked for them to pray for everything from her head to her toes! So, "Miss Kay" and "Miss Priscilla" did just that! Priscella even laid hands on her feet! Amazing women!

The outstretched arms are of the ladies showing that they were laying hands on "Miss Beth" as well. It was very cool! Miracles happen!

Laurie and I decided to stay another night after the conference to just hang out, do some Christmas shopping...whatever. Well, it was FREEZING, so instead of walking around Bricktown we thought we would take the trolley to do a little sightseeing. Maybe we should have asked a few questions! We didn't realize we would be on there for an hour and a half driving all over OKC!! We had a great time and did some MAJOR laughing!!!

This was our trolley driver. And I can say "ours" because we were the only ones on the trolley for over an hour! Good times, good times!!

The riverwalk looks beautiful all decorated for Christmas! I can't wait to back with my family in a few weeks!


This is just way too funny not to share! I have never seen a restroom sign like this one!

Laurie made me.....

Anyway, I had an amazing time!! I really needed a break from all of my wifely, motherly duties! I laughed so hard this weekend and that was greatly needed!! I am praying now that all of the things I learned this weekend will not just be an exciting temporary thing, but that I will continue to learn and grow in Christ!

Twilight

Yep, I am one of them! No, not one of those crazed teenage girls that goes all ga-ga for Edward Cullen and Jacob Black, but I have read the books and have now seen both movies! They are definitely out of my norm, but I wanted to see what all they hype was about and I felt like I was the only one in the world that hadn't read the series.
I had the opportunity to go see New Moon on Thursday night before it had really been released! It's all in who you know! We have a friend that is the manager of the movie theater here and he was showing the new movie to his employees the night before it came out. He offered the girls in my small group to come along if we wanted to! How do you pass that up? Free movie, free pop, a night out with the girls! I'm in! What fun!!