Thank you, God!

Our poet-in-residence, Joy, wrote a tribute to the upcoming holiday. We are especially grateful this year and hope that you all have a great thanksgiving remembering how great our God is.

Thank you, God!

Let's give thanks to God who has given us these things:
Leaves that are a'changing and birds with spreading wings,
For leading Pilgrim fathers to the land of faith and promise,
For brothers and for sisters all the way to Baby Thomas.
For parents that are kind, faithful and true,
Thank you, God! Thank you!

surgery follow-up, etc.

We went to the doctor again on Thursday just for a follow-up to the surgery two weeks ago. It was an extremely quick visit, and the doctor said everything looks great. The swelling has gone down a lot since the surgery, and Delie has great movement of her eye implant. She just has a clear lens in now (no prosthesis yet), but the ball that the prosthesis will attach to is already connected to the muscles, and the muscles are moving great. This means that her eyes will move together once she gets her prosthesis, so it will look very natural.

Delie is scheduled to get the prosthesis on December 14. It takes all day for the ocularist to create the eye, but she should have it in by the time we go home that day.



Last week I told you that the girls had to miss dance on Wednesday because some of the children were sick. We had gotten over all of that until Wednesday morning when Georgie got sick again! At least one of the girls cried they were so disappointed about missing dance again. But George got better throughout the day, and Beverly was able to work something out so that the girls could go. When they found out they were going, at least one of the girls cried again. How sweet. Delie loved being back at dance for the first time in two months.


I mentioned our friend Callie's birthday party last week. Callie got a "Little House on the Prairie" dress and bonnet for her birthday, so we dressed up to help her celebrate. Here's a picture of some of the children that night. Samuel is the only cowboy in the picture, surrounded by his sisters and Callie and her sisters.

playing in the rain

We had a really big rain a couple of weeks ago. The children got all dressed up and went out to play in the rain and the puddles. They had a great time.
Our dog, Amos, came with the house when we bought it in January. He's lived here for a while, and he was nice enough to let us move in. One of his front legs got run over before we moved in, and we had to have his leg amputated, although you can't tell it in this picture. He gets around great on three legs.

We've been free of the stomach bug all weekend. We went to our friends' house Friday night to celebrate Callie's 8th birthday, and we had our church here tonight. It's great to have everyone healthy.

this week

We've had sort of an eventful week even though we haven't gone anywhere since Sunday. Georgie and Anna both got sick in the night on Sunday. They seemed to be better even by Monday morning, though, and nobody else got sick then.

Monday night just after we finished supper, a storm knocked the power out. It flickered a couple of times before it went out for good, so we had time to get flashlights ready. The children thought it was great fun to light candles. We cleaned up the kitchen by candlelight and then read for a long time. We try to keep most of our evenings pretty quiet, and having the lights go out made things even quieter than usual. Fortunately the power came back on before we went to bed.

George got sick in the night again Tuesday night. Delie and Anna also got sick Wednesday morning. That was a big disappointment because Delie was planning on going to ballet class for the first time on Wednesday. Everyone was much better by Wednesday night, and no one has gotten sick today. We pray that they don't start again in the night tonight.

Other than that, not much has happened this week.

family pictures

Some of the children drew pictures that we scanned into the computer. We told them they could draw something to put on the blog. I hope you enjoy them.

George's picture. He says: "The blue thing is a pond. There's a fire burning beside the pond."

Anna's picture. She says: "These are the names of everyone in our family."

Delie's picture.