Blessings Unknown

On March 22nd, Caleb had his first seizure, three days later he had another.  Two days later, we began a journey that neither of us could ever have imagined.  That journey continues even today (4 months later) and it has been FULL of blessings unknown!  When we left our house, we never even considered that we might experience our greatest pain and sorrow as parents to date.  We never considered that we might feel completely and utterly helpless.  We have experienced some intense emotions in the last 4 months.  Chief among those emotions has been gratitude!  God has blessed us in ways we could never have known.  He has drawn us close and we are forever grateful for this journey!

Here are some pictures of those blessings unknown.  Give glory to the Lord who loves us immeasurably and is worthy of all of the glory and honor and praise!

We arrived in our hometown on May 5th and there was snow on the ground!  Caleb asked us all winter long when it would snow, and of course, in our current hometown (Siliguri, India), it NEVER snows.  Caleb was ecstatic...Noah just wanted to go inside and get warm!

Grandparents.  As a parent, it is such a blessing to watch your kids interact with your own parents.  They bring so much to the table (literally and figuratively!)!  This has by far been one of the greatest blessings of our time in America.  Our parents have been our prayer warriors, our sanity as we began to unwind from from the huge ball of tension that had formed in the 5 weeks prior to our arrival, our children's joy as they play and laugh and hug and our refuge as we rest and allow someone else to help shoulder the burden of caring for a sick child.

Cousins.  Our kids are all still pretty young, but we are so grateful for this time to build those relationships and set a good foundation.  We are so glad that the Lord decided to lead us to an amazing doctor in my sister's hometown!  We have been able to spend some really great, quality time with them.

We originally didn't think anyone in our extended family would get to meet Anna Kate until she was at least 18 months old and maybe older!  How incredible is it that she gets to meet all of our family during her first year?!  Her great Aunt got to love on her and snuggle her up for a nap while we were visiting.

I have such fun memories of playing all kinds of musical instruments with my Uncle John when I was a kid.  It was fun to watch my kids play with him as well!  Caleb was pretty good on the banjo!

Catching fish with Grandad!  I listened in yesterday as Caleb taught Noah how to "fish" using his googles as a bobber!  So many memories are being made and treasured!

Baby girl is in love with water.  She loves her bath time in a real bath tub and has been splashing and playing in a pool all summer!

The house that we usually stays in during our STAS times was already booked (and it is almost never booked).  It has turned out to be a huge blessing though.  We have stayed with my mom and our kids have snuggled her every morning she is home and every night before bed.  They have LOVED this time with her (and she hasn't minded it too much, ha!).

This is the baby girl that I babysat all through college!  Their family is among our most cherished friends in all the world.  It has been such a blessing to be near them during this journey.

This boy.  This boy is such a breath of fresh air!  He is oh so funny (and he thinks he is the funniest person alive) and full of life!  It has been fun to see him blossom over the summer.

I might have told Jared that if I had had a recliner with all of my babies this parenting thing would be so much easier!!  We all fight over who gets to sit in this chair because the kids love to snuggle whoever sits in the chair!  The "ease" of day to day living in America has been a huge blessing as we have dealt with many struggles and issues surrounding Caleb's illness.

Before we ever even knew we would be in America, my sister asked me to be the god-mother to her daughter.  What a blessing to be there for the dedication!

I hate to say it, but we appear to have aged in our time overseas!  Ha!  We don't often get out together as a couple without our kiddos.  I haven't been good at letting go.  God used a night away to totally refresh and revive our marriage!  Jared and I couldn't remember a time when we had laughed at nothing  and just so thoroughly enjoyed our time together!  What a blessing to have a mama I can trust so easily with my own kids.

The boys have enjoyed so many fun outings with friends, cousins, grandparents!

Caleb has had lots of fun with water this summer.  He loves to swim and has enjoyed all of the water games, slides, sprinklers, etc.

Now all the girl cousins finally have another little girl to play with!  Anna Kate has loved having other little ones to play with her (and carpet to crawl around on!).

The boys have discovered the FUN of bubble baths!  This was a particularly fun one in Nana's huge jet tub!  They ask for bubble every. single. time.

Carseats.  In India we don't use them (and if we do, we certainly don't use the belts on them).  So the kids have had to adjust to being in them all the time.  Apparently, the parents have to adjust to remembering how to use them properly!  Haha!  One of us (I won't say who) forgot to actually attach the car seat to the car - but we did remember to buckle at least one of them into the car seat!

The boys have gotten so much closer over these last 4 months.  Noah loves to hug on Caleb and it usually winds up in a wrestling match.  Reading lots of new books has been fun too!

Playing together often brings mischief to our doorstep.  Caleb came in one day to tell me that they "made it snow".  I told him it wasn't snowing outside...but he informed me that was why they made it snow in the garage.  They took the shredder trash and "made it snow"!  They had fun cleaning that up with daddy!

It has been nearly 8 years since we have enjoyed a summer in America.  There is NOTHING better than fresh from the garden (my grandpa's garden to be exact) corn on the cob!

These last two weeks, we have been working with one of our partner churches in Miami.  I will admit, Jared has been working hard and the kids and I have been working some but mostly enjoying this amazing house we have been staying in while here!  Noah likes to nap in the pool.

Both of the boys have been learning to swim here.  They are getting more and more brave in the water and making lots of progress.  They love it when dad gets a chance to get in with them as well.

They are hysterical when they jump into the pool!  At first they were quite literally, hysterical, as in screaming and flailing their arms as they most certainly thought they were going to sink to their demise. Now they are hysterical because they are so hilarious as they find all kinds of fun ways to jump into the water.  And Oreo (the dog on the right) has provided hours of entertainment!

What can we say about this sweet pumpkin.  She is truly a blessing.  All of our babies are incredible.  It has been so amazing to see how God has given us such a blessing in her personality.  She has by far been my easiest baby.  She is sweet and loves to sleep and smile and giggle.  When our journey has been particularly tough, her sweet cuddles have soothed my soul!  Blessings unknown!

Our Stay in Thailand

It is so incredibly hard to believe that we have been in Thailand for nearly one month now.  We leave Friday for our long trip back to the States.  We haven't really done a whole lot since we have been here.  We have either been in the hospital or going back and forth from there for appointments.  This last week was more calm, but with Jared in India I didn't venture out a whole lot on my own.  Here are just a few pics of the kids since we've been here.

There has been lots and lots of snuggling!  While being still has been hard for our boys they have also enjoyed this time of just snuggling up and watching movies or reading books.

Praise God for this wonderful ice pack from the hospital.  It stays soft even when it is cold and has an elastic/velcro strap.  Also, praise God we haven't had to use it in nearly 2 weeks!

It is a LONG walk to the end of our road before we can get any kind of transportation.  The boys have had fun riding in the stroller together when it is too hot and sticky to run.

Still loving on his sweet baby sis!

He has never complained about the helmet.  The doctor here thinks we are crazy, but we love the security of knowing he isn't going to crack his head open on the pavement if he has a seizure.

This sweet bundle of joy has been incredible.  Just another example of how the Lord knows the bigger picture and all the details of our lives.  If she was a typical young baby my life would be infinitely more difficult right now.  Since she is sweet as pie it has allowed me to focus a lot more energy on Caleb.

My mom sent us to the aquarium.  Caleb was absolutely in love...Noah just thought it was fun to run around like a hooligan!

In our month here, this is the only sit-down restaurant we visited.  It was great Mexican food!  The man next to us offered to take our photo.  Then he commented on how incredibly laid back Anna Kate was. I realized at several points in our meal I had forgotten she was parked next to me in the stroller!  Ha!

This...this was a blessing straight from the Lord.  One particularly rough night I was crying and just laying my heart before the Lord.  I was asking Him if I would ever have my little boy back again.  I was remembering how he had just started to really love doing the dishes in Siliguri.  A few nights later, Caleb got up from the table and asked me if he could do the dishes.  The Lord has been sweet in His care over me.  I am so unworthy of His grace.

Lavish Love

Sometimes the seemingly small blessings in life are when we feel the most lavishly loved!  The fact that the Lord orchestrated all of this for our family still blows me away.  As many of you know, we were quite in love with our home, church and community in Kalimpong.  Moving from there was one of the hardest journeys we have made so far.  Moving from a gorgeous, mountain village to a large plains city was hard for us.  God knew that!  He blessed us with a house that still has a yard and is actually in a Nepali village outside of the BIG city.  Other than the crazy weather, we feel so at home here.  Jared has been traveling a lot recently so the kids and I have had lots of time to just play.  Almost every day we go for a walk to the creek.  I thought you might enjoy a glimpse of what that is like for us. It is the highlight of our day right now.  Soon it will grow too hot and we will start swimming instead of walking.  For now, enjoy the beauty that He has surrounded us with!

This is an arbor over our front gate.  It is absolutely gorgeous!  By the time I finally took a picture the colors had begun to fade some, but it is still incredibly beautiful.  People stop as they are walking down our road to look at the flowers.

Anna Kate loves to go for walks.  She kicks her feet and just takes in the world!

They boys are just goof balls at this stage!  They crack up at each other constantly and say random nonsense to each other and just fall on the ground laughing.  I kept trying to get them to look at me for a picture but they were too involved in making faces at Anna Kate so she would laugh at them.

Most all of the plots of land out here in the village are separated by these short concrete walls.  The boys like to use them as their balance beams.  They think it is such a huge feat to balance on that short wall!

We go to the creek to throw in rocks.  A few weeks ago, they decided that they would find the biggest rocks along the way (we live on a gravel road) and put them in the stroller for me to take down to the creek for them...haha...thanks boys!

They love to show me how fast they can run!

Noah really likes to push the stroller himself.  He just isn't tall enough to guide it in a straight line.  So, he usually pushes it until he runs into something and then takes off again!

Would you ever believe that we live 10 minutes from a city of half a million people?!  See how God loves us?!  One million people would swallow me up and spit me out...yet he gave us open fields, cows grazing and creeks to throw rocks in!

Just relaxing and enjoy the breeze!  She would sit here and look out at the creek forever it seems.

Caleb always tries to find the biggest rocks to throw in the water.  One day he came up with a HUGE brick and I had to draw the line.  No bricks...just rocks and sticks.

This is in our front yard...I just couldn't resist though.  Is she not the most gorgeous little girl you have ever seen?!

***You can click on any of the pictures and they will enlarge.  Some of them seem hard to see...sorry...I am not a savvy blogger!

Christmas Time!!

We had such a great holiday season this year!  We truly felt at home and were blessed tremendously.

Sweet baby girl loves this toy our precious friends sent her!  She even manages to pull it on occasion and set off the jungle song.

Finally getting some chubby cheeks!  She did a great job while we were traveling in Patna.

Both boys, with the tree, BOTH smiling and looking at the camera.  Now that was a Christmas miracle!

Caleb got to put the angel on top this year!

This is such a classic Noah face...he IS as ornery as he looks!

Our attempt at all three wasn't as successful.

This was an unfortunate holiday accident.  We had company one night, but I decided I couldn't wait for the perfect moment to give the boy's haircuts before Christmas.  So, I chose bedtime while daddy was busy with company.  That combined with the fact that our clippers weren't charged...we ended up with this disaster of a haircut!  I cried...Jared loved it...story of our hair cutting business thus far!

I was soooo tempted to just make some cup cakes for his birthday and do something easy, but I was more determined to not them him be the non-birthday boy because the holidays are just so crazy.  So he got his cars cake after all!

The boys and I made Christmas Cheer plates (or tins in our case).  They stamped fun greetings on the lids in Christmas colors.

They made sugar cookies with Grandma when she was here in October.  We pulled them out of the freezer and they "painted" the icing on their cookies.  They did an awesome job!

Of course, they needed to taste all the candy to make sure we were giving out the good stuff!

They had a lot of fun filling the boxes for our friends!

One of my favorite pictures from the holidays.  Just makes you want to squeeze him tight, huh?!

Our sweet friends came caroling to our house.  Anna Kate LOVES singing.  She just sat there all comfy cozy with Esther.

We served them hot chocolate and popcorn while we sang.

Our sweet friends came over for Christmas Eve dinner.  We had such great food!  It was truly like being at home with great family!

We took family pictures by the tree.

Great friends that are like family to us...so many great memories here!

I took a cake to our church for Christmas.  This is certainly different than anything they have seen before but they loved it!

This was after Christmas was over but before we took down our tree.  This little one is the sweetest!

What a precious Savior that we celebrated this season.  It was a great time to simply reflect on the person of Jesus Christ.  May we never forget the sacrifice of His birth!