$2000 for turning 2!

Dear God,

     First of all, I want to thank you for your Son.  Thank you for the sacrifice you made on the cross so many years ago.  Thank you for saving me in 1989.  Thank you for the MANY blessings you have given me.  My husband...he does SO much for our family.  I love him so very much!  Thank you for Godly parents and grandparents who pointed us to you.  Thank you for the 2 BEAUTIFUL children you have given us.  Ian and Ivy truly are gifts from you and we thank you for entrusting them to us.  We look to you for guidance and direction as we parent them and we pray that we constantly point them to you.  Thank you for saving Ian.  One of my biggest prayers answered!  Ian is very smart and such a sweet child.  Wild, but sweet!  Thank you for his gentle spirit and concern for others.  He has such a big heart!  Thank you for Ivy.  I pray that she too will put her faith in you and ask you to be her Savior one day.  She is a feisty little girl, beautiful, and she too is very smart.  I love them both so much!  Lord, you created Ian and Ivy...you love them more than we do...they have a purpose(as we ALL do), and we can't wait to see how you are going to use them throughout their lives!  Although we would not have chosen for Ivy to be born with Cystic Fibrosis, Lord, we know that NOTHING comes into our lives without passing through your hands.  Lord we may not understand everything here on Earth, but Lord we do know that YOUR plan is BEST.  We continue to pray for a cure for CF.  We thank you for the progress that has been made over the last 50 years and for those who have been funding the CF Foundation all these years to make this progress possible.  We thank you that the life expectancy for those with CF has gone from 7 to 37.  We thank you that you have given researchers the knowledge and ability to discover a drug that targets the underlying cause of CF for 4% of the CF population.  We give you the glory for these things!  We are praying now that you will provide knowledge to the researchers to help the remaining 96%.  We are boldly praying for $2000 to be donated to our CFF site (http://www.cff.org/LWC/dsp_DonationPage.cfm?idEvent=20338&idUser=436535) by the end of the day Friday, 9/28, on the day that Ivy turns 2, in order to further CF research!  $2000 is a lot, but we know that with you, NOTHING is impossible!!!

Amen!

Camping at Dreher Island State Park

We just got back from our 2nd camping trip!  We went down to Dreher Island State Park on Lake Murray.  We wanted to have one last hurrah before Ian starts school in a week (sniff sniff).  Oh how I will miss the sweet summer days.

We arrived in the state park around 6:30 Wednesday night and no sooner than we had set the camper up, it came up a thunderstorm.  Ivy is slightly afraid of thunder and the first clap of thunder she heard, she yelled "funder" and jumped in her bubba's lap for comfort.  It was so sweet!  Ian just hugged her and told her "everything's going to be alright."  As soon as I tried to get a pic though, she immediately smiled and said, "cheese."  I love these two so much and love how much they love each other.  Truly blessed.

We made spaghetti, did Ivy's breathing treatment, and then hit the hay.

Thursday, we went for a hike in the state park.  It was a 2 mile walk and half way through we stopped for Jason to give Ian a lesson on skipping rocks.  Ivy took a turn skipping rocks too...although her version was more like "grab two handfuls of rocks/shells and throw them in the water."  She had a ton of fun doing just that though!  We went back to the camper, ate lunch, and then put Ivy down for a nap.  Ian, Jason and I then headed out to swim in the lake.  Ian had a blast!  He even got to know these 2 little girls that were camping with their grandparents beside us, Amber (5) and Julia (6).  The 3 of them enjoyed finding big rocks in the lake and then carried them up to their campsite.  Actually, I guess I should say, Julia and Amber enjoyed standing on the shore as Ian found them some rocks to build a wall.  lol  For dinner, we ate lemon pepper chicken, broccoli, and crowder peas.  YUM!  Afterwards, we ate some smores.  After smores, we all took showers and then settled into the camper for another evening of thunderstorms.  It was so nice to hear the heavy rain...so relaxing!  I cuddled up under a fleece blanket on the couch with Jason while Ian and Ivy shared Ian's fleece Avengers blanket on the beanbag and we watched Tom and Jerry.

Friday, we took the kids to play on the campground playground and for a walk on a nature trail right near the playground.  We saw the the chimney remains of Billy Dreher's home.  It was neat seeing a chimney that was well over a hundred years old.  We found a couple of wild muscadines on the path that we ate and Ian thought they were DELICIOUS!  After we ate lunch and laid Ivy down for her nap, Ian, Jason and I went outside and cut a watermelon.  It was so good!  For dinner, we grilled hamburgers.  Jason made some yummy potato salad and slaw to go with our burgers.  If we did nothing else on this trip, we ate GOOD!  lol  (one of my favorite aspects of camping other than family time...EATING!!!)

After supper, we went for a quick rangering trip (this is where we take a walk around the campground and make sure everyone is abiding by the campground rules.  Ian has a headlamp that he wears which makes him an "official" ranger.  If we come across someone doing something that they are not supposed to, we write them a "citation").  Luckily, everyone was following correct protocol and no citations were necessary last night!  :)  We then made our way back to the camper for showers and bed.

This morning, we woke up to another thunderstorm.  Normally, I would be upset if thunderstorms were messing up our vacation, but there is something very relaxing about being in a camper during a thunderstorm...so I was loving all the thunder/lightening/rain!  Especially since the rain didn't mess up our daytime activities!

We had a wonderful time and look forward to MANY more camping trips.  Here are some pics from this trip:

Incrediworld Amazement Park

Last week, we had our VBS at Bethlehem!  It was AWESOME!  The theme this year was Incrediworld Amazement Park.  Jason was the Park Director and Bryan Rice and Brian Lynn were the Park Rangers, Bo and Scout.  They did a FANTASTIC job!  They are hilarious!

Jason worked extremely hard on the set, along with Bryan, Brian, Johnie, Grace, and several others.  The popcorn was cut out and painted by yours truly!  lol  Hey, at least I contributed a little bit!  ;)  Most everything was painted cardboard.  Jason created the rollercoaster our of pvc pipe and painted it silver.  He also drew the dinosaur by hand.  SO talented.  I am so proud of him!  Here is a pic of the incredible stage:

Several times throughout the week Scout used Ian's big wheel to drive into the sanctuary.  Ian thought that was super cool!  Jason led music, while me, Tina, Jennifer, and Carol did the motions behind him.  We had so much fun!

Most importantly, the kids learned about our great creator God and the AMAZING world that he created.  I think about God's creation a lot!  He created everything...from the tiny mosquito and flea, to the HUGE whale, to the massive oceans, to the stars and other planets.  I am in AWE of His creation.  And to think, he created us, man, on the 6th day in His image.  He didn't create birds or fish or anything else in His image.  He created US in His image.  He LOVES us so very much!

Here is a picture of all the kids and a video recap of our week:

I think the highlight of my week was when Ian came home after the first day and said, "momma, let's count the money in my elephant bank...I want to take it to church for my offering."  How sweet!  Ian has such a big heart and has such a sweet caring spirit about him.  I hope he'll always be that way!  Here is Ian counting his money:

And here is some of what we rolled:

He ended up with $59.51 before when we were done!  

We had a blast this past week!  I truly believe it has been the best VBS we've ever had at BBC!  I am really looking forward to next year.

Friday the 13th a few days late...

(DISCLAIMER:  A couple of slightly graphic pictures below!)

Sunday, July 15th was a slightly traumatic day for the Thomas family!

Jason has to be at church early on Sunday mornings to get the music ready for the service.  So, I have to get both kids up, fed, dressed, Ivy's treatments/medications done, get myself ready and get to church by 9:30am.  Therefore, Sunday mornings are always hectic and a bit chaotic.  And on this particular Sunday morning, I could not find my car keys.  So, I called my mom and asked her if she could stop by to pick us up.  I sat my iPhone on top of my mom's car as I was loading Ivy into the car seat.  The next thing I know I hear a BAM...my iPhone had slid off the roof of my mom's car onto my driveway and shattered the back of the phone (bad thing #1).  On the bright side, my phone still works and can be fixed for around $13.  Whew!

After church, the kids and I rode home with Jason since we didn't have a car there.  As we were driving down Old Georgia Rd. we had a little accident (bad thing #2).  Jason briefly reached back to mess with Ivy's leg and the next thing we know, we are heading off the road into a deep culvert.  Jason fortunately had the presence of mind to just continue on off the road instead of jerking the steering wheel, straddling the deep culvert (otherwise, we would have flipped).  The next thing I know we are headed towards someone's driveway which we went up and over and were airborn briefly before we came crashing down into someone's front yard.  Everyone was buckled except me.  I know I know, shame shame.  I usually buckle as soon as I get in the car, but this day, I had not buckled up.  Therefore, I was bounced around, hit my head on the ceiling of the truck and scraped and bruised my arm.  It was VERY scary!  Thankfully, noone was hurt and no other cars were involved.  I praised the Lord for taking care of us because afterwards I began to think about the what ifs...and I just cried.  My mom was behind us and saw the whole thing.  She stopped to make sure we were all ok.  Then, another white truck who must have witnessed the whole thing stopped to check on us (or so we thought!)  The man in the truck pulled up beside us and Jason rolled his window down.  The man said, and I quote, "You know that man?"(Talking about the mans yard we had just ran into.)  Jason said, "No."  The man said, "He aint gon like that."(Talking about the chunk of yard we took out and tire marks).  SERIOUSLY?!!!!  I was still in shock at the moment or I would have said, "Nah, we're all alright!"  He NEVER onced asked us if we were ok.  What was he thinking?  That we were having a good ole time going off road in our church clothes with our babies in the back?  Um, NO!  We did end up pulling into the man's driveway and asking him if we could help fix his yard.  He said not to worry about it.  Accidents happen, and we are so thankful that it wasn't worse.  Jason's truck's front end was messed up pretty good...stripped the license plate off the front and caused close to $1000 worth of damage...but trucks can be fixed/replaced, lives can't.

After that event, we went and ate lunch at my mom's and road down to my grandmothers house in Union to visit like we do most Sundays.  The kids all went outside (Ian, Anna, Emma, Morgan, Ryan) like they always do to play.  Anna had setup a rope swing in a tree in my grandmother's front yard and they were all taking turns swinging on it.  I was in the house, and Anna comes running in saying, "we need a towel."  I got up and went outside to see why a towel was needed.  As I go out, I see my mom holding the back of Ian's head and he is crying...a lot.  I just kept saying, "WHAT?!"  "WHAT?!"  She lifted her hand and her entire hand was RED with blood.  She then told me Ian had fallen off the rope swing and hit his head (bad thing #3...you know, b/c bad things always happen in 3's).  Finally, we got the towel and held it to Ian's head...and after what seemed like forever, the bleeding stopped.  The towel was saturated.  We were finally able to look at it close enough and this is what we saw:

After seeing that there was a pretty big puncture wound that looked like it probably needed stitches, we decided to take him on to the ER.  We (me, my mom, Ian and Ivy) left Union and drove to Spartanburg to pick up Jason and then went on to the ER at the Village at Pelham (we figured Sptbg Regional would be slammed).  So, after an hour of driving and a 3 hour wait at the ER, we were finally seen:

After flushing it with a cleaning solution, they taped a cotton swab with numbing medicine to the area and we waited for 20 minutes.  Then, they came in and put 2 staples in.  Ian screamed at first (I would too!).  Then, he said, "I didn't even feel it."  Here are the 2 staples:

Since we were all starving, we stopped at Cracker Barrel at 9:30pm to eat supper and let Ian pick out a little treat for being so brave.  I also took him to Tutti Frutti the next day per his request:

Boy, was I glad that night when we were all home and safe in our beds!

Potty Training Round 2

Yes, Ivy is ready to start potty training.  No, she has not actually used the potty yet, but she is ready to start trying.  For the last 2 weeks, she has been consistently saying UH OH and patting her diaper each time she goes.  I take her to the potty and sit her on it, but obviously she doesn't do anything since she just went in her diaper.  BUT...we are one step closer...and she has already tackled one aspect of potty training...realizing she is wet/dirty!

So, Elmo's Potty Time video has started playing in our DVD player again and Ivy and I have been dancing to all of those catchy potty songs!  They really do get stuck in your head.  We've been having a lot of fun with it over the last few days and really brings back memories of when Ian was potty training...seems like yesterday.

Going to work with her a lot over the summer.  My goal is to have her potty trained by the time she turns 2...a whole year earlier than Ian!  I hear girls usually grasp the concept sooner than boys...and I am hoping that is the case!  :)