The big day

It's been a long but great day. We left the house at 6:30 this morning to go to the ocularist in Memphis. Delie's appointment was at 8:30 and we were actually early - very rare for us. It was fascinating to watch him make a wax impression of her eye and then go through the steps of making the eye to fit perfectly and then painting it to match her good eye. We left the office at 3:30 with the prosthesis in place. Delie looks great.

We met my parents, Beverly's sister, my nieces, and the other children at a restaurant in Memphis, and then 8 of them went to the Nutcracker at the Orpheum. My dad and I took the 3 children (two of ours and one niece) under 3 home. Delie wanted to see the Nutcracker for her birthday. The local performance in Jackson was last weekend, and Delie (and her sisters) were disappointed that we didn't go, although they didn't really show their disappointment. Then Monday night my parents gave Delie (and everyone) tickets for tonight in Memphis. I know they're having a great time. Everyone will be exhausted by the time they make it home.

In other recent news, Thomas (8 months) now has his first tooth. All of our children have gotten teeth fairly late, and Thomas continued the pattern.

And we have a new dog. Yesterday a puppy showed up by our door. He's really cute and must have been well taken care of, but none of the neighbors know where he came from. The children love him and have named him Joseph since it's Christmastime.

Thanks for praying for Delie and for all of us. Delie goes back to the doctor next week for him to check the prosthesis and make sure everything is OK. It's hard to believe that we may be finished going to Memphis for a while. This has been such a part of our lives since September 13. We're glad to have this behind us, and we thank God for carrying us through it all.

Delie's big week

Tomorrow is Delie's birthday! She'll be turning 9. She's excited about her birthday, but I think she's even more excited about Friday. That's the day she gets her prosthetic eye put in. It's supposed to be an easy process for her. The hard part was done when they removed her eye almost two months ago. At that point they prepared her eye socket for the artificial eye. Now that the swelling from the surgery has gone down completely, she's ready for the eye. We go to the ocularist Friday morning. They'll spend all day creating they eye and painting it to look like her other eye, and then they'll put it in Friday afternoon - no surgery involved. Please pray that everything goes as smoothly as we expect it to. We'll let you know how it goes.

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.