Update on My Mom

My mom had her appointment with her neurosurgeon on Tuesday. She definitely needs surgery. It will not be till sometime in June so that is a praise. When I called her today she was out shopping for hats and scarves as they will need to shave her hair. I almost cried. She told me that the doctors now might think it is cancerous. They will not know until they do the surgery. My mom is so concerned right now about my dad. It is going to be a ten hour surgery with her in the hospital almost a week. My dad does not do well with waiting, especially in the hospital. Leave it to my mom to be more concerned about all the rest of us instead of dwelling on the fact that she is having major surgery on her brain! I guess if she dwells too much on it then she will get depressed. She just kept telling me on the phone that the Lord knows what he is doing and he will see us all through. She is ready for whatever happens and that is an encouragement to me. I have tried to explain to the kids about all this. The older ones understand and the boys actually think it is cool that they are going to be inside her head. I have yet to see my mom and dad since her appointment so I really don't know how they are handling everything. My dad is our main concern right now. He has such a hard time without my mom around and he can't stay with us because we have a two story house. His heart and lung condition causes him to not handle steps well. Be in prayer for my mom and dad and my two sisters. Kellie is in CO it is painful for her being so far away. Jen is in VA so it is a little easier for her to come down. Hopefully between the two of us we can make sure my dad is taken care of. I will have a very new baby right when the surgery happens so that is a concern too. Oh, does this post sound depressing. I thought I just posted like this about my dad and his leukemia. No wait, I did last year. I keep telling my parents that they are giving all of us girls gray hair or in my case white. After everything settles down I am banning all sickness for at least a year. Can I do that? At least it keeps us all on our knees and close to the Lord. I don't think I have grown so much in my relationship with God as I have these past few years with my parents medical issues. God has truly blessed us in how each circumstance has come to pass. If my dad had not had heart problems that day last spring then they never would have thought to check his blood levels and find the leukemia. If my mom had not fallen and hit her head that day last month they never would have done the 2nd MRI to find the brain tumor. God is good. He always gives us just enough strength for each day. No more and no less. There is no sense worrying about tomorrow because I have not been given the strength for that day yet. I need to paste that to my forehead as I have a lot on my plate these next few weeks.
On a lighter note, Carl finally came up with a name for this new little one.
CALEB ASHER TRAUTMAN
I think we have a theme going on with a few names. The initials CAT or KAT for four members of the family.
Alex wanted Reuben Asher because the initials would be RAT. He could be a CAT chasing a RAT. Carl did not think that was too funny. He has this thing about initials.
I think that is enough rambling for today. I think I am going to take a nap before our home school co-op family night event.

Nesting and Other Miscellaneous Stuff

I have finally hit the nesting stage of this pregnancy. I am 36 weeks today. I have spent the past three days throwing things out and reorganizing the kids rooms. I am just about done upstairs but I am worn out. I have a huge pile of stuff to give away. The kids have been great through it all. They even have done it without the use of the TV as a babysitter. I have banned the television for the next month. We have been three days without the television and they have not really missed it. William built a K-Nex roller coaster set that I bought two years ago and was about to get rid of because no one had put it together. The last time I checked on them they were pretending to be in heaven and they were describing what their mansions looked like. I could not help laughing at that one. I get a break tomorrow as we have SEEK in the morning and then my mom is going to watch the kids. Carl and I are going to a Dave Ramsey web event being held at our church. Poor Carl is on day 5 of his 10 day cleanse so we can't even go out to dinner. I am so proud of him though. last night was tough because he went and bought me a steak sub and cheese fries (I know real nice when your husband is on a cleanse). He had to leave the room because the smell was wonderful. I will have to update you all on how the entire cleanse is going. He is really committed to a better lifestyle for us. He is int he process of planning our garden for the summer. He is so good to me and the kids.\
I do have a prayer request that is really causing stress on me right now. My mom was supposed to watch the kids this week so I could get some stuff done. I was on my way to meet her when she called me and told me she was at the doctors. She had to have some routine blood work done (monitor her magnesium levels) and immediately her mouth and tongue and lips went numb. She went right to the hospital. She fell and hit her head last week and they were afraid she was having some bleeding in her brain. They did an CAT scan and then an MRI because they found something they did not like. They did another MRI with dye and sent her home. This morning she found out that she has a brain tumor. I know it sounds scary but it is not the cancerous kind. They explained it as more of a hamangeoma (like Daniel has on his wrist). The problem is that it is pressing on certain parts of her brain. That is why she has been having the muscle twitches and the memory loss and the loss of balance and the other symptoms that the neurologist could not explain. The MRI she had a month ago showed the tumor but somehow they missed it. SO here I am due in a few weeks having to deal with the possibility of my mom (and babysitter when I deliver) having brain surgery. I know the Lord is in control but the timing, in my eyes, stinks. I know everything will work out but my hormones are telling me something different. Just pray for my mom and praise God that her mouth went numb or we might not have been able to catch the tumor. Oh, her mouth issues ended up being a latex allergy which she developed all of a sudden. I think that is enoough rambling from me for now.

A Three Man Sling Shot, A Tool Set, And a Skateboard

I found out while enjoying the beautiful weather this week that it does not take much to keep 8 boys occupied. All the kids were outside playing the other day and my neighbors two boys came over with a friend. Now you need to take into account that my neighbors one son is a teenager and so was his friend. The boys had a blast playing nerf guns, sling shot (using rocks to try and hit our stream), skateboards, and a tool set. The results were hilarious as Alex and Daniel took a part our cozy coupe and then had to reassemble it. Samuel had a blast on the skateboard and yes he tried to do it the right way. The other boys had a great time flinging rocks to the backyard with our three man sling shot (a great investment by the way from Vision Forum.) The yard looked like a huge nerf gun battle had taken place, no wait, that is exactly what happened. There were darts everywhere. We are still finding them as some ended up on the roof and the wind today blew them down. We all had a great time. Even Esther who got involved as much as the boys would let her. I love being outside and the people who drive or walk by always enjoy watching the kids play. Although I always see them counting the number of kids playing. Isn't it amazing that kids will always gravitate towards where there are adults around? I sometimes end up with 10 or 15 kids playing in and around our yard. Half of them are over the age of 11. I don't mind though. That is how I grew up. Everyone always came over our house because they knew that Miss Judy (my mom) was always home and would welcome them in. She was the secondary emergency contact for a lot of our friends because they knew she would always be around. I don't mind the kids of the neighborhood knowing that I am always home.

Happy Birthday Alex

For Alex's 10th birthday we took him to Florida. It just worked out that we got great tickets and Carl had to be down there for the Army anyway so they paid for the hotel. He got a five day pass free for the military. He was able to buy up to 5 other 5 day passes for only $99 each. That is a great deal for Disney. We ended up paying a little bit more for the fun package which enabled us to go to the Disney Quest at Downtown Disney. It is a five story arcade. It was Alex's favorite place to go so I am glad we paid a little extra. While Carl was at meetings all day Alex and I explored all the parks. This was a great week because it was just time with Alex and we were able to work on some things he had been struggling with. One of his problems is a fear of new situations. He was really out of his comfort zone on this trip because everything was new. He did a great job and only had two really bad outbursts. One of the places I made him go (after three tries) was the T_Rex restaurant at Downtown Disney. Imagine the Rain forest Cafe only with dinosaurs and much louder. It was very loud with animatronic dinosaurs everywhere. We sat in the ice cave where it was not so loud and he fell in love with it. He even did okay when the meteor shower began and all the dinosaurs started being really loud and the ice cave went from blue to red with lots of thunder and lightening. We ended up going back again with Carl because he was unable to join us the first time. It was great. I will write about more of our adventures in Florida in another blog.

SNOW!

Finally some snow down here. It is still snowing as I type and we already have about 5 or 6 inches on the ground. The govenor has declared a state of emergency (Ha!). They have so many accidents on the road right now that the police can't keep up. They are encouraging everyone to just stay home. The kids have already played outside for about an hour. Esther cried because her hands hurt when they started to warm up. A couple of neighborhood kids had some sleds and in our backyard is a great hill. It ends in a stream at the bottom so mean mom made Carl stand at the bottom to catch fast sledders from landing in the water. I stayed inside and cooked up a lunch of cinnamon rolls and pancakes. Carl made some scrambled eggs with veggies and we had hot chocolate to drink. The kids are now playing the WII we got for Christmas and enjoying a day of daddy not going to work. Although he does have one crazy coworker who went in to work and keeps calling him with questions. Carl took a bunch of videos and some will make you laugh. Here are my favorite.

We Are Supposed to Get Snow!

The weather this year in NC has been weird. Cold one week and then warm the next. This past week it has been freezing, and I do mean the coldest weather that NC has seen in ten years. We have had flurries already for several days but nothing has stayed. Tomorrow we are expecting 2 to 4 inches. That is big deal down here. Everyone is freaking out. The grocery stores are packed and so are the gas stations. The last snow we had was a surprise storm that came in the middle of the day. Schools freaked and let kids out. Buses got stranded on the road because no one knew how to drive in snow or ice. There were abandoned cars on the side of the road for a week. People were trapped at work and the some kids were trapped at school. Everyone is being very cuatious this time around. Luckily the storm is suppopsed to come overnight so the schools should be okay. I need to go out and buy hats and gloves for the kids. It is not something we use a lot down here. I know I have some but I can't find them. The kids have probably outgrown them anyway. Last night Carl and Alex stood back to back and Alex comes up almost to Carl's shoulder. Wow! Time flies. Just wanted to let you all know about our white forecast. I will take pictures for everyone if it really does snow.

Cd I Highly Recommend

I bought this CD at the home school fair this past May. I like to listen to it every couple months because it is just so good. It is Doug Philips A Wise Woman's Guide to Blessing Her Husbands Vision. Talk about a kick in the pants. It is absolutely fabulous and very convicting. One of the things that struck me this time I was listening to it was the fact about the bricks. He said that our husbands have bricks on them from their jobs, church, family, other people and circumstances around them. It is our job as wives to try and ease some of the pressure from these bricks. The one thing that he said that really made me think was that as wives we sometimes add more bricks to his pile without even realizing that we are doing it. It could be just a passing comment to our husbands but in their mind it is another brick added to their pile. Wow! How many bricks have I unintentionally put on Carl? I decided that I am really going to try to not add any more bricks to Carl. I am going to put a note on my bathroom mirror that simply says NO MORE BRICKS. I hope that it serves as a reminder to build up my husband and not tear him down. I highly recommend buying the CD or trying to get a copy from someone else. If you have it already, listen to it again.