Christmas Memories

I love Christmas time. I love everything about it. I especially love making memories. I have three favorite Christmas memories. My first favorite Christmas memory was when I was around 7 years old. My mom came to me and said that Santa Claus might not make it to our house that year. (I loved being a child. I never knew that we were poor.) Momma explained to me that I had been a really good girl that year but that Santa wanted me to give my gifts to other kids that didn't have any toys. Truth was, she didn't have the money to buy anything. She was already working 2 jobs to pay the bills. She told me the story of Jesus and how he was born in a manger. Not a heated room. That he slept with the animals on hay in a tiny bed. I thought Jesus had it made. I mean, I was a tomboy and to sleep outside with the animals sounded awesome to me. However, I understood her point. I learned that Christmas that it wasn't about receiving gifts but giving them. Just like Jesus did for us. Well, we didn't have a tree and definitely couldn't afford to buy one so we found green paper and we cut out our very own paper tree that we hung on the living room wall. We popped popcorn and used a needle and thread to sew them together. We used construction paper to make rings that made our garland. We had the prettiest tree ever that year. My mom and I made it together. I went to bed. When I woke up the next morning I walked into our living room and saw a huge Christmas tree decorated with real ornaments and lights that lit up the room. Underneath the tree were boxes that were wrapped and addressed to me from Santa. And in the tree was an envelope addressed to my mom. My mom's best friend provided Christmas that year for my mom and I. She did it out of the kindness of her heart. No expectations in return, just because. That Christmas I learned about the miracle of Jesus and that Christmas wasn't about getting gifts but rather understanding the sacrifice of the gift that was given to us. However, I did enjoy playing my new Nintendo all day long that day.

The second of 3 favorite memories was Christmas 1999. Joe and I were a couple and had been dating for a few months. Of course, we had known each other for quite sometime. Joe came over to our house that morning and asked me if I could help him carry gifts inside. As I went outside he asked me to sit down. So I sat down in the driver seat of his little car. He got down on one knee and said this "this driveway was the first place I ever told you that I loved you. I do love you. Will you be my wife and marry me?" My mom and dad were looking out the living room window watching it all. I of course accepted with pure joy. We went to my grandparents house afterwards and I loved showing off my beautiful engagement ring.

My most favorite Christmas memory was in 2003! I've shared my testimony before so I will not go into detail but that was the first day that Joe and I got to hold our little boys for the first time. That was our first Christmas as parents. We celebrated in the hospital but it was such a blessing. It's hard to believe that was 7 years ago almost.

I love Christmas. I love memories. I am looking forward to making many more.

Halloween, Anniversary, Thanksgiving and more...

So, it's been a minute. I'm terrible at keeping up with my blog. I have a friend that blogs almost everyday. She's so good at it. I always wonder what the point is and wonder if anyone even reads them. So, I will take my chance and update you on what's been going on.

Halloween: Quite possibly my least favorite holiday. I just don't get it. I never cared for dressing up and going from house to house to get candy from strangers. I mean, we teach our kids not to take candy from strangers. All the same, I refuse to be the fuddy duddy mom. We did the usual pumpkin carvings. The boys picked out their pumpkins and even a carving kit. When we got home I asked them which kit they wanted to use and they both said that they wanted a Christian pumpkin. They wanted thier pumpkins to represent them and who they are. So, with the help from a note their teacher sent home we carved our pumpkins into Christian pumpkins. This is the little poem we used to carve our pumpkins: Dear God,
As I carve my pumpkin help me say this prayer:

Open my mind so I can learn about You;
(Cut the top of the pumpkin)

Take away all my sin and forgive me for the wrong things I do.
(Clean out the inside)

Open my eyes so Your love I will see;
(Cut the eyes out in heart shapes)

I'm so sorry for turning up my nose to all you've given me.
(Cut a nose in the shape of a cross)

Open my ears so your word I will hear.
(Cut the ears shaped like the Bible)-we did rectangles

Open my mouth so I can tell others You're near
(cut the mouth in the shape of a fish)

Let Your light shine in all I say and do! Amen.
(Place a candle inside and light it)

I could not have been more proud of my sweet boys for putting a Biblical spin on a holiday based from paganism. This year Ethan dressed as a Knight, Bryce dressed as a fireman and Maggie was a flower. They were adorable.

Anniversary: This year Joe and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. I cannot believe 10 years have come so quickly. And what an amazing ten years it has been. Joe and I married just a few months after I graduated from highschool so my wedding dress was very small. So to make a long story short, after 2 pregnancies and working my booty off getting weight off, I was able to fit into my dress. I was only able to get it zipped half way but to be tactful, it wasn't because of my weight.

Joe and I were able to celebrate our anniversary with another couple that we've become pretty close with. Their anniversary is November 30th so they were able to celebrate at the same time. For our anniversary, we were given a weekend to the mountains. We stayed at a gorgeous cabin. We were told once we got to the top of the driveway NOT to stop and to punch it. WELL...it was cold and damp. I was driving. We were going up and up and up this hill and we reached the top when we got stuck! Tires were spinning and gravel was flying. I was so nervous. Our friend Shanna gets car sick very easily so she got out to prevent that from happening and her husband Jason got out to help me figure out the best way to go. My car ended up at the bottom of the hill with the help of Joe guiding Jason down the weavy entrance. We definitly got our workouts in walking up and down the hill. It made for some pretty good comic relief. We pretty much stayed at the cabin the whole time. We bought groceries and played games. It was nice to get away and relax with friends.

Thanksgiving: Quite possibly my favorite holiday. I love getting together as a big family. Joe's family is HUGE. I will never forget the first time I joined the Wilburn clan for Thanksgiving. He has so many aunts and uncles and then you add cousins/2nd cousins/3rd cousins, etc. It's ridiculous how big his family is. Usually Joe will deep fry a cajun turkey but this year I baked a cajun turkey. It was really good and looked good too. I was pretty proud of myself. I'm not exactly Betty Crocker but I try. I was really hoping to be in a new home this year but I know that God's got it out there and He's just waiting for the perfect time to give it to us.

So, now we're approaching Christmas. I hope that each of you have a wonderful Christmas and I hope that you all remember why we celebrate it. Merry Christmas to all of you!

House update

Well after 3 offers on the house that Joe and I both thought to be our future home, they finally came back to inform us that someone else had outbid us. The house that I already had decorated and could see Thanksgiving at was going to another family. I wished I could say that I was ok with it because this is ultimately what we had been praying for (God to slam doors) but I wasn't. I was truly bummed. My hopes were up and I had convinced myself that this was our future home. I saw our kids playing in the backyard and in the basement as teenagers. Now, I can finally say that I am at peace and I KNOW that God has a plan for us. We're still on the house hunt so if any of you know of a house (preferably in Jonesboro and in the Walt Stephens Rd./Jodeco Rd. area) let us know.

Prayer Requests

There is so much power through prayer. Someone once told me to pray outloud. Satan cannot hear us unless we literally speak outloud (just goes to show you how much more powerful our God is.) When we pray outloud Satan gets to hear our conversation with God which makes him weak. I loved that.

A few weeks ago I posted about my asthma acting up. Let me first say that I am not a hypochondriac. I LOVE being healthy and I DO NOT want to have medical problems but I will not lie, having the Factor V Leiden (blood clotting condition) scares the mess out of me. Maybe it's because I've had a clot and understand the severeity that they can cause. Now that you get my picture, I was afraid that it wasn't my asthma acting up and maybe it was a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs.) So I googled (big mistake) to see what the symptoms of a PE were.

Go figure, the symptoms were exactly what I had. Here I am at 1:00AM, crying because I was scared (I had a moment of weakness, sorry! Hehe!) that I had a clot in my lungs. I woke Joe up and told him, which he responds with, "have you given it to God?"

Nope. I hadn't. So, we prayed together outloud and went to sleep. Joe did offer to take me to the ER but we both knew it wasn't necessary.

The next morning I made an appointment with my hematologist and to make a long story short...NO CLOT! They did find some scar tissue on my right lung which the doctor suggested it could have been from a prior clot or it could have always been there. It's actually quite common for people to have scar tissue without any knowledge or any reason as to why. But what they did find was nodules on my thyroid.

They did blood work to check my thyroid when I was diagnosed as being depressed and all was fine.

So, I am asking for a couple of prayer requests. One being for me personally. I always need prayer, but specifically about my thyroid and whatever these nodules may be. I am going for an ultrasound this Thursday and then I will follow up with my PCP. This could be what is causing some of the tightness in my chest. Especially if the nodules are pressing down on my wind pipe.

The other prayer requests I have is for my family. We have officially outgrown our house. We recently made an offer on a foreclosed home. After a week of waiting, they gave us a counter offer. They didn't budge on the asking price but did agree to all of our other requests. We made another counter offer and are once again waiting for the banks response. We are just asking that if this is not the house that God wants for our family that he will slam the doors shut leaving us without any doubt but that if this is His will for us that this be a smooth process.

Empty space

This past January I had a doctor tell me something that I would have never imagined hearing and I've heard a good bit. After listening to me, making me take several blood tests and other tests he diagnosed me as borderline severely depressed. Apparantly there are 3 stages, mild, moderate and severe. Each stage is through a certain number. For example high moderate depression ends at 69 where severe depression begins at 70. I was that 69! I was one of those people that thought depression was all in your mind but it's not. I was a miserable person. I can remember crying to Joe and telling him that I didn't know who I was anymore. I even remember the moment that I wanted to die. I was that unhappy. I didn't have a reason. I have always been the person that never believed in suicide or wanting to die before your time. It's so hard to describe but I never believed I would have a doctor, one of which is a Christian man that doesn't believe in treating depression with medicine but with prayer, looked at me and said he was going to prescribe me a pill to help me "overcome" MY depression. Still the hardest thing to do was to come home and tell my husband what just took place.

I sat on our bed and as he held me in his arms I cried and I cried. I didn't want to get the prescription filled but did so anyway because I was scared of things getting worse. I made the "executive" decision that I was going to try something else. Joe and I prayed together for God's strength and comfort during the next few months and also for the will for me to lose weight.

So, we didn't have the "extra" money for me to spend going to weekly Weight Watcher meetings and I had pretty good success with WW and with also doing the South Beach diet so I came up with my own plan. I ate somewhat what I "wanted" and a little extra things here and there but I ate until I was comfortable and tried to never get "full." Then at the annual CFA seminar I signed up for personal attention from a nutritionist and a personal trainer. They put me on a new plan that included a workout routine and meal plan. Before I was focusing on weight loss and now I have learned to focus on staying fit and healthy. Which I need to be doing anyways. Because of my blood clotting condition I have to keep weight off so I don't have an extra percentage of developing a blood clot.

Well with the cold weather quickly approaching I literally got to go through my closet and completely clean it out. Leaving me with NOTHING to wear. I refuse to keep those clothes because I refuse to ever be the size I was again. So, Joe took me for a mini shopping spree. I am so excited to be my new size. I am a size away from being the same size I was right before Joe and I got married. I would love nothing more than to put on my wedding dress for our 10th anniversary in a little over a month.

Mi familia

When we went on our trip to the Dominican we promised each other that we would get together every so often to play games. We played cards each night in the DR. We would play garthapotamus, Bull and spoons.

This past Friday we got together for our "familia night." We call it that most in part because at the camp in the DR, the children would constantly ask if the younger girls were our children. Ours meaning mine and Joe's and the other married couple, Jason and Shanna. So, since we were the "adults" of the trip, they became our daughters! Shanna adopted Claire. Claire is 16. Joe and I adopted Raegan who is 22. Yes, that would have meant that I had a baby at 6! Joe and Shanna became brother and sister (which I will discuss in a minute). Anyways, silly or not, we call it that and we enjoy it.

Well we played the games we played in the DR and we played a little Nert's (which Shanna and I KILLED the men at!) We had such a good time. We love being with our "children" and spending time with each other.

So, like I said. Joe and Shanna are brother and sister. Seriously, this could so be true! I don't think I have EVER seen so much in common between a female friend and my husband. They talk sports (especially baseball. Shanna is a pro at softball) and even some of the things they do is so in sync. We have truly enjoyed getting to know Jason and Shanna. They actually have twins as well. In fact, they are backwards compared to us. They have an almost 6 year old little girl and 1 year old twin boys. I love seeing them all together. It reminds me so much of my family and it reminds me of the boys younger days.

The DR has forever changed us and I'm so thankful it did!

They'll say anything and give you anything

So a few days ago I blogged about my experience and purposefully left out the name of the hospital. Most in part because I'm sure there are some good doctors there and because I have a few friends that work as nurses there. They do not work in the ER but still, out of respect I didn't say anything. Well...yesterday I went back to the doctor. This time, to McIntosh Trail Family Practice which is my primary care practice. I told the doctor about my experience in the ER and he shook his head. You know the kind of head shake, the one where he is in disbelief. Well, anyways. To make a long story short the ER said I was having an anxiety attack sent me home with nerve pills and vicodin for chest pain. This doctor said that you could clearly hear that I am struggling to bring in oxygen. All though my oxygen level is in the normal range my lungs and surrounding muscles are working twice as hard to make it that way and had the ER doctor listened to my lungs he would have noticed this right away. So, to make a long story short, I was having an asthma attack and wouldn't be in as much pain as I am now if the ER doctor would have paid a little more attention.

This isn't the first time our family has had a misdiagnosis with Southern Regional Medical Center! The first time was in 2005 where because of the doctors misdiagnosis, Ethan could have lost his little life. Ethan had a severe case of the roto virus and the ER doctor at Southern Regional said he had a urinary tract infection. He gave Ethan a double dose of antibiotics and sent him home with the same meds. Ethan was so dehydrated he couldn't even keep his head up and they didn't do anything about it. Instead, the antibiotic they gave to my son caused him to have diarrhea which made him more dehydrated. We ended up having a 3 night stay at Egleston. They doctors told us if we had waited just a couple more hours, Ethan might not have made it. When I called to complain I had to wait a month to hear something back from SRMC. The doctor was terminated but they would not refund me our co-pay. They did, however, tell me that I had a case to sue the doctor for negligence.

After these experiences, I'm really wondering where they get their doctors from. One would think they would have doctors in the ER that actually cared. So, needless to say, I would not ever recommend anyone to go to Southern Regional's ER. Next time, I'll take the advise of my friends and go to Fayette.