Laurie's Life

I heard something on the radio the other night and I don't have this exactly right but Nancy Leigh DeMoss said something like this," What if your supply tomorrow depended on your thankfulness today?" I thought this was great. They talked about thanking God for everything. It is good to be home tonight. We left town for nine days to visit our families. We really enjoyed our time together. We spent the first part of our trip in South Arkansas with my folks and the second half with Steve's folks in Memphis. We left crazy Kristen the cat alone for all those days. I am happy to report that she did survive but there is cat fur EVERYWHERE. When she is stressed, she pulls her fur out. She is bald on the left side tonight. The majority of my packing for our trip was a medicine bag. Yes, I took everything we had for sick children. Of course, the one drug I did not bring was Emily's cough syrup that she was prescribed a couple of weeks ago. We left town with a ...

We could not make it through the week without a trip to the MD. SK has a had terrible cough runny nose and found out today she has a double ear infection. Oh My!!!!!!!!!! She got good and healthy last week and here we go again. SK has acted very normal until this afternoon and she started running a little fever. I knew she had a little cold. I have just worn my girls out with all the activities we are involved in. I am going to have to drop something. SK has to be in the nursery for everything I do and she just cannot handle it right now. We need to slow down. Last week was so nice because we did not do any of our activities. Emily never questioned a thing about missing her stuff and she got to snuggle in bed with me every morning and sleep late. It was nice! I just want to make it through one week without a MD visit. Good news: I think we have hit our deductable!

Emily has a new expression that she says all the time, "Mama, my hair is really growing up!" Thank goodness it is" growing up" and out! I have not had it cut since the mullet cutting in April. Truth be known, Sarah Kate's hair is actually longer than Emily's. My girls are growing up too! Makes me sad. I am trying to enjoy each day that I have with them. The girls are always so excited when their daddy gets home at night. When they hear the door open , they stop what they are doing and run to him. They like to play a game that Emily calls "mean bear." Steve pretends to be a bear and chase them. I tried to get some pictures tonight of a game of mean bear. I want to always remember it. The mean bear was about ready for hibernation when I took these pictures.

My head is spinning, literally. I have some sort of upper respiratory infection or a cold. I am not sure what I have, but I have been feeling very light-headed for the past couple of days. My head is also spinning from the crazy week we have had. We made another trip to the MD last night. I made appts. for both girls to get checked out. SK's finger was still bleeding yesterday around 4:30. She has a terrible zit on her cheek I wanted checked out and she has a runny nose and cough. Emily was still running 102.9 fever late yesterday afternoon. I knew I could not sleep until they saw their MD. The MD said that he would have put a stitch in SK's finger, but at this point it was too late. He put her on an antibiotic and he said it would cover her face and congestion. He also gave us Bactroban to use on her. Emily STILL has an ear infection and croup. He put her on a Z-Pac. I am happy to report that both girls have had good days!!!!!!!!! I think Sarah Kate's finger l...

I will post more details when I am not so tired, but we made a trip to the E.R. this evening. Emily now has croup. She has wanted to be held all day. I was holding her on the couch and SK got in the trash and cut her hand on a can I had opened at lunch. It bled soooooooooooooo bad. Our house looked like a crime scene. Steve met me at the E.R. The DR. did not sew it up. It is still bleeding off and on. Our prayer is that she will keep a bandage on it for 24 hours. A sixteen month old and a bandage is not a good combination. She keeps pulling it off.

Thank you again for your prayers and concerns about our health. My finger is almost perfect. It began peeling on Wednesday. The Dr. said that was very normal. The Lord healed me! I am so grateful! I have met and heard of some people that had the same thing and it did not turn out as well for them. Emily's ears seem well now too. SK is still very congested sounding. The Dr said she had the down hill slide of a cold. She has a terrible sounding cough. Thank you for telling me about putting my phone in a bag of uncooked rice. I took your advice, but it did not work. My phone was too long gone from water damage. Soooo.........now I am back to an updated version of my old 13 year old phone. It cost $40. I just could not and would not pay $300 to replace my new fancy phone. This phone makes calls and takes calls. That is about it. ha ha!

Thank you again for praying for my finger this week and praying for my family too. My finger is MUCH better. It is not sore and it is not numb anymore. It still gets a little red and swollen as the day goes on. It always looks good in the morning. I am back on the Bactrim. We got called out of church this morning because Sarah Kate was sick. She has a terrible runny nose and cough. I am taking her to the Dr. tomorrow. Here is the kicker to top off all that has happened......... I washed that new cell phone in my jeans this afternoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cried. I just broke down and had a pity party. The phone is DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SK in the shirt my cousin sent her for Halloween. Emily as Marie the cat. This is NOT the costume we had bought her for Halloween this year. I had gotten her a horse that she would ride as a princess. Her legs went in the horses back legs and then she was to hold the front of the horse up with the reigns. This costume was a splu...

I breathed a breath of relief a little while ago! The Dr said that my finger is HEALING!!!!!!! He said that he was just going to let it do it's thing. Then he said,"whatever you are doing is working." I thought..."what I am doing is PRAYING, having lots of people PRAY for me, and taking my medicine." Thank you again for praying for me and my family!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Continue to pray that my finger will be normal and infection free very soon. I am just soooo thankful to have my finger and hand and arm. I just feel like a new woman now!!!!!!!!!!!

Well............believe it or not, my mother in law got the terrible stomach virus Tuesday night. I lost my wonderful help! She is better this morning. Emily has a pretty painful ear infection and SK came down with something yesterday. She has runny nose, congestion and the runs. OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am VERY encouraged that I don't have too much fever in my finger. It seemed to have gotten better around 8:00 last night. It is still purple. Hummm??? I didn't have fever either when I woke up this morning. I slept great, thanks to prayers and Tylenol P.M. I am so overwhelmed with all the encouragement you all have given me this week. I read all the comments last night and I felt so much better about everything. What a blessing you have been to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was also a blessing to me that two of my favorite church members came to visit me, Kelly and Susan!!!!!!!! Made my day! I will be looking into to those vitamin...

I began to get a VERY sore right index finger last Tuesday. I didn't think too much of it. On Wed it was worse and my parents, who were visiting, encouraged me to see my Dr. I had been on an antibiotic for several days because of my tooth and the root canal. I thought it was strange to have this finger infection while on an antibiotic. I saw my Dr on Thursday and he wrapped it and gave me another antibiotic. My finger has just gotten worse everyday. My Dr was pretty certain it was staph. Sunday my finger was REALLY bad and I went to a walk in (wait forever) clinic. This Dr put me on another antibiotic thinking it was strep. Monday I saw my Dr and he said he wanted me to see a surgeon. I saw a surgeon yesterday afternoon who looked and acted and talked just like Dr Oz!!!!!!! He examined my finger, put his hands in the air and said," I am not touching you!" He was concerned that there may be an infection in my bone or joint. He said he wanted me to see a hand s...

Steve and I have been married 5 years today! I am so thankful to have him as my husband. We have so much fun together. I was looking in the mirror this morning thinking,"I look very different than I did five years ago today." I have gained lots of weight, but I have also gained two little girls that we think are wonderful. (Babies are not the reason for my weight gain, I just don't know when to put the fork down.) Guess how I have spent my anniversary? I have spent a majority of my time getting a root canal. I have been in terrible pain for over a week after getting a temporary crown. I had an x-ray on Thursday and it was determined that I needed a root canal ASAP. The root canal did not hurt at all, in fact I welcomed it because I knew it was going to make me better. It was exhausting to have to keep your mouth wide open for two hours as he worked on my very back tooth. I am numb still but I know I am going to be so much better off. I love you Steve and I am so t...

I just wanted to put into words why I love our church so much. In my life, I have been a member of three churches. I have loved them all for different reasons. I have attended other churches, but did not join them in membership. I don't think Steve and I could find a church anywhere that is as special as our church. It is filled with people that have an authentic, strong love for Jesus. It is filled with people that serve without complaining. The people are loving and kind and growing in their faith. I can't speak for everyone in the church, but the people I know are the same Sunday morning as they are during the week and on Friday night. They are sharing their faith and people are getting saved. We baptize people most every week. It is very rare not to have a baptism. It is very rare not to have people walk the aisle at the invitation. I love the fact that our church has a clothing give-away in August and a toy give-away at Christmas. Our pastor and staff never t...

Emily with her friend Brigham. I love buying pumpkins and gourds for our mantel. I also bought this chest at the pumpkin patch. They have a country store at the farm. I loved the design and size of this. I am going to paint it and put new knobs on it. I love projects like this. I may do it something whimsical and put it in Sarah Kate's room. A friend at church did these shirts for my girls. Although, it was NOT smart to wear white shirts to a pumpkin patch. They are soaking in Shout as I write this. They may never look the same. Emily managed to get into oil on the tractor. Sarah Kate wanted to pick up all the pumpkins. She tried so hard to pick up some of the huge ones. Natalyn and Neely. I love Fall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Emily is at pre-school today and I have just enjoyed some alone time with Sarah Kate. It has been good not to have anything on the agenda today. I am really burdened that Emily is too busy. I am a very laid back person and I don't have to be doing something all the time. I think my family needs a day or two with nothing to do each week. This is what our week is looking like these days: Pre-school twice a week Dance Awana Women's Bible Study group once a week. Children's choir MOPS Church playgroup MOPS playgroup Seems I am always saying," Come on girls, get in the car, Emily where are your shoes?" "Hurry up, come on!" Life is too complicated to have a 3 year old be this busy. I am praying and thinking about what we need to cut out, if anything. Feeding Blue's Clues. She was saying, "yum yum umm!"

When my parents came to keep the girls while we went to Gulf shores, my Mom brought Emily Pinkalicious. It has been a daily read ever since. I asked Emily if she would like to make some pink cupcakes on Saturday. She hesitantly said , " I guess so." She was afraid that she might turn pink like the little girl in the story. When I convinced her that she would NOT turn pink, she became very excited about our little cooking project. I always loved cooking with my grandmothers and mother. I hope Emily will share this love. This was her favorite- the sprinkles. I don't think I will ever get them all cleaned up.