8 days till Christmas

Only 8 more days, I can hardly believe it. Time is flying by so fast and still am not ready. Today at church the kids had their Christmas program. It was so cute and special because it was the first church program they were in. I did shed a few tears with joy at seeing them participating and singing along with the others. Alex was a little shepherd he was so cute. I did not get pictures because my camera has been missing, and I finally got the girls to locate it for me so I won't miss anymore kodak moments, it was hanging on the tree, wouldn't you know. Here I have looked in their room, underbeds, in drawers and everywhere else over the house.

Emily was updating her Christmas to me and told me, I want a babysister in pink clothes for Christmas. I really don't think that is going to happen right now. She kept telling me I can change its diapers. I do think babies are nice but she might have to wait for her own little girl in pink.

Well I am going to sign off for now I will keep you updated on our Christmas progress.

Is it winter yet?

This the question my kids ask when they out the window and see large snowflakes falling. No its not winter yet but it sure feels like. Actually it makes it feel a little more Christmas with the snow. It is canceling some of our activites but probably not all. The kids didn't get to have their junior church Christmas party today. But I made pancakes and sausage for breakfast and real treat in our house, a favorite all the way around. The pictures you see of the snow are about 2 hours into it and it keeps coming down. It may warm up and turn into rain, hopefully not freezing rain. I don't thing our trees can take another year with freezing rain. I hope you are enjoying your weather wherever you are. And we will try to enjoy our( I know the kids will)

We have had a big day today, Lorinda Frankenberry came over with her girls and we baked cookies all afternoon. The kids ate about half of them, or so it seemed. We did make quite a few and I continued after they left. I was able to make three kinds today, sugar cookies, russian teacakes(my favorite) and gingerbread men. I might make more tomorrow if I have any energy left. I am pretty exhausted, my night wasn't great to begin with. Emily diecided to have a fitful night not condusive to sleeping. Another exciting thing we went to go do today was to see Cincinnati Zoo's festival of lights. Well that didn't happen they just so happened to be closed this evening. They were nice enough to have a young man outside tell everyone who came by. The really sad part is we had really warm weather today, about 60 degrees. The next chance we get to go it will probably be freezing. Oh, well. We still had a fun day. When I get pictures I will share them with you of our fun day. So long.

Thanking God for his protection.

God provided his protection and the strength to stand against a potentially dangerous situation I was in today. I was staying with one of our hospice patients who has had abusive behavior towards our staff and others recently and after spending almost two days with her I felt it had all gone really well. She had been calm and pleasant until about 5:30 today when she decided to take a walk in the nursing facility she is in. I happily held her hand to help her and we took a walk, well little did I know she was on a mission she was trying to find a way down stairs. When she did discover where the door was to the stairway she tried to open and I tried to stop her and then she tried the key pad beside the door and when that didn't work she went for the fire alarm. All the while I am trying to talk her into going back to her room and get ahold of her hands so she can't set the alarm off. Against my best efforts she pulled the alarm and the loud siren only made matters worse she went crazy. Leaning all the way back on me and when the other staff and I got her to her room they left me there with her to get her some medicine to help calm her down it took all the coordination and strength I could muster to keep her from grabbing whatever she could get her hands to hit me with it. I knew my well being was dependent on keeping her hands in mine all the while yelling for help but no one could hear me because the siren was going off. I remember praying when I could remember to and even tried to encourage my patient to pray. After a few minutes, but seemed like hours, someone came in and helped get ahold of her and got her into bed and then gave her a shot of medicine. I was no hero in this, in fact I was shaking like a leaf and thought I was going to have a panic attack but God held me up and I do praise him for his protection. This patient told the facility staff if I could get ahold of her I'd kill her. They, and I truly believe she would too, or anyone who tried to stop her be it staff or another patient. I know that God was watching over me today.

I was working today and the sis-in-law of my pt. was talking about how she had lost her mother 3 months ago yesterday and then it hit me that it was 2 months today that my dad passed away. Sometimes if feels like a life time since I watched him cross over to the other side. The family I was with expressed joy over knowing your loved one is at peace with God and it is wonderful when you know they have made it to heaven. I know how it felt to when dad died and how wonderful it was when God made his presence known to me with assurance that he had made it to the glory land. I will forever remember that. I think at this time that is what stands out to me the most. I feel such a longing to call and share with him the joys of my life and I do get sad thinking about him and how much I miss him. I will cherish the memories and think of them often and, and tell my children how my father led a life of godliness before me and the legacy he has left us.

Well, we managed to get our tree up. It is bright and colofully lit and decorated with a lot of homemade decorations. I love it. The kids did most of the decorating and as you can see Alex discovered how to reach the top, so thankfully the tree was decorated from top to bottom and not just the bottom half. Christmas is so special to me this year because I can provide the kids 'with the true story, from my heart, of Christmas and Jesus' birth. I am hoping that somehow I can show Randy how important Jesus is to us and why he is more improtant than anything in the world. No sporting event can rival him. I am so glad I have given him my heart and surrendered my will to his.

Does your heart just sing when you know God is at work. I have had so many revelations this week as how God works in our lives. One of which come from reading the deviontionals from "My Utmost For His Highest", and what I realized is we are able be the most for God, we just have to be willing to let God do the work. Megan is so open to learning what God wants from us and I have been having many battles with her will lately and last night I was reading a children's version of this devotional book and I tried to explain to her that God was able to help us do anything even overcome our anger and frustrations and be able to handle things calmly. I think I was able to plant this seed in her mind and heart. Another thing I have learned is to completely lean on the Lord for an upcoming situation. The song on my heart is "Faith Is The Victory", and I truly believe that. I know that God is able, all things work out for good, and his grace is sufficient. I love the Lord with my whole heart, he is leading me down a wonderful path of holiness.