We have a baby girl!!

Just in case some of you didn't hear, after 10 weeks on her back, which included 50 days in the hospital, Karen (Joe's niece) gave birth to a healthy baby girl on July 2nd. She weighed in at a whopping 4 pounds!!! Not too bad for being 8 weeks early.

Here are a couple pictures of Katelyn:

We are all thanking God for a healthy baby, and for His protection of Karen. He is truly awesome!

Are women born this way? - Snotr

This video is too adorable! Hope it makes you giggle just a little today.


Are women born this way? - Snotr: ""

WE DID IT!!!

Here's a couple of shots from graduation night. It turned out great, everything ran smoothly, and I only cried a tiny bit during the slide show!

There were 14 seniors this year, that's double to what we had last year. I was very excited!We were one proud set of parents!

My Mom had just returned from a week at my brother's house the night before. I was glad she could make it. I didn't get a photo of her and my Dad with Justin, though.

Aunt Joyce came down from Muncie to be here just for graduation! That was a great thrill for us.

Here's Justin posing with "his boss!" I'm so glad all this is over, but also a little bit sad. It's hard to explain my conflicting emotions!

That's all I've got time for today. I may post more photos and blog a little more later on about "stuff" surrounding this event in our lives. Hope everyone has a good week!

Today's the day...

I have about 5 minutes to spare and thought I'd just post a couple thoughts here...

Today is graduation day. It didn't start out like I would have liked it to. There are many stressed nerves around our house right now, and everybody seems to be emotionally over-charged. But tonight we will celebrate JUSTIN, and tomorrow night we will party hard with all his friends, and on Sunday we will recognize all the church seniors and celebrate with a picnic, and then on MONDAY, I will collapse!!!

So, if you think of me, say a prayer? And don't forget to check back here for pictures from all the above-mentioned events!

My Senior...how time flies

It seems that having a photographer for a mother can come in handy when you want senior pictures! We did a bunch of photos in the fall with 2 or 3 different shirts, then did more with his letter jacket, and then last week we decided to do some cap and gown photos and some basketball stuff, too! Then this weekend he informed me that he also wants pictures with his truck AND motorcycle! When will it ever end???

I was going through the basketball pictures and remembered that I had a similar photo from when he was about 2 years old, so I thought I'd post both of those here:

Still a Phoenix Suns fan, after all these years!

Here's MY favorite cap and gown photo:

Here's HIS favorite:

We have just a little less than 3 weeks til graduation, and so much to do!!! I know the time is going to go speeding by, but hopefully we'll make time for some special moments. And just so you know, I've not officially broken down and cried...YET!

Urgent Prayer Request

I'm posting today to ask prayer for my niece Karen Coleman. She is expecting her first biological child and is having some serious complications. The following is taken from an e-mail from her husband:

We found out that Karen has a high risk of pre-term labor because her cervix is half as thick as it should be. Her cervix is closed tight, but is much thinner then it should be at this stage of pregnancy. The doctor said that she did nothing to cause it. These things just happen. She is at 22.5 weeks and our first goal is 24 weeks. At that point the doctor said we would have a 60% chance of survival. Every day and every week we can keep the bun in the oven is extremely valuable.

The doctor implied that we are not going to make it 40 week, but that is the miracle we are praying for. The cervix is a muscle and can thicken back up some. Karen is going to be getting a Progesterone shot once a week in hopes that will help hold off the labor.
Karen spent the first two months on the couch because she was so sick. Now the doctor is ordering her back to the couch. Last time, if she felt good for a few hours, we could go do something. Now she has to stay still no matter how she feels. I told the doctor that tonight was date night & she said that date night was going to consist of the kids leaving and us on the couch together watching a movie.

She told us that all the sitting could cause a risk of blood clots. I asked if Karen could slowly walk the driveway. She said, “I don’t know how long your drive is, but no.”

We are also going to really miss church. The doctor said we needed to make child care arrangements because Karen is not allowed to lift the kids. She said I have to live as a single dad for “hopefully” 18 weeks.

Some of the craziness in the paragraph above should ease up if the cervix were to thicken. We can not tell you how much we appreciate your prayers. We are human and at times we have a tendency to ask God, “why”. It is hard for us to understand why it would be His will for us to feel so stressed out, worn down, and overall drained.

We know that God has received glory through our hard times. We are surrendered to His will and hope He can find a way to get glory through this chapter of our lives as well.

Please help us pray for a healthy birth of our baby girl and that we (Including Debbie, Karen's Mom) will be able to properly manage the stress and worry that we are going to be dealing with.

God is good all the time and as crazy as this may sound, He continues to bless us more then we could ever deserve. He has provided all of our needs and many of our wants.

Justin's TWO Senior Proms

Well, we are finally past the weekend of what I lovingly called "Prom-A-Thon 2009!"

Justin had his senior Spring Formal with our homeschool group on Friday night. It's always THE event of the year, and all the high school kids look forward to it. They have line dancing classes and ballroom lessons for most of the year, leading up to this event.

It's very different from a public school prom, as Justin found out this year! The kids are all friends, they all know everyone, so it's like a great big party where everyone just has a blast. And moms and dads can come, too! Which is always fun!!!

But it looks like this year will be our last one for a little while, at least until Clayton gets into the teen group. Unless, of course, they ask me to do the photos again next year...we'll wait and see.

Anyway, Justin got his outfit all coordinated with his friend, Cayce, who accompanied him. And they looked so nice together, and had such a great time, too.

Here's a couple photos from the Friday night event:

There was an after-party, and Justin finally got home sometime around 3 a.m. Saturday. He was pretty tired, but got up to go do some errands with Dad, grabbed some lunch and then started to get ready for another prom!

He was escorting a girl from church to her senior prom at one of the local high schools. And it was at the very same location he had been to the night before! That was pretty neat.

They have a tradition that they all meet at a park close by the high school to take pictures. It was a CRAZY mess there! Here's a photo of PART of the crowd:

We were very thankful that he could wear the same outfit for both events! Since he owns his tux, all he had to do was buy an all black shirt and get his tux dry cleaned, and we were set!

Nine of the kids went in together on the cost of a limo, very cool for Justin since he'd never been in one before. They went to Knoxville to dinner at a place I've been DYING to go to...Wasabi! He said it was awesome food, and they had a great time watching the chef cook it there in front of them. It's like dinner and a show!! :) He said they stopped at Wal Mart on their way back to the prom...for a bag of marshmallows!!! I'm sure they made quite a site, all piling in and out of that limo and traipsing through the store in their formal wear!

Since I wasn't involved with the photos for this one, I couldn't take any pictures of Justin actually there, but I'm hoping his date has some for me at some point! There was another after-party, and he got home around 3 a.m. but HE DID get up and go to church!! There was no question about that!!

We all were looking forward to a long nap on Sunday afternoon, and it was rainy and cool, just perfect sleeping weather. I'm glad this weekend is over, and now we can move on and focus on finishing up school work, there's field day and a graduation party, then the big day!!! Not much longer now.