Happy Birthday Abby!

Abby's 2 today!

Nate = Murray Wiggle

Jenna doesn't like to go in the nursery anymore, so she usually sits with me in church. But tonight, she REALLY wanted to sit with Nate. That couldn't happen because Nate did a reenactment type thing of the Last Supper and played the part of Jesus. So he wasn't sitting in the pews. Jenna went up to Nate before the service started, and the conversation went something like this:

Jenna: Daddy, can I sit with you tonight?
Nate: Sorry, sweatheart, not tonight. I won't be sitting in the pews.
Jenna: Well how about tomorrow night, we have church then too. Can I sit with you
then?
Nate: No, I have to sing with the band tomorrow night.
Jenna: So that makes you a Wiggle then? (Obviously since he sings in a band.)
Nate: Which Wiggle does that make me?
Jenna: Murray Wiggle, since you play the guitar and sing on stage:)

Three Things I Can Never Find In My House

#1 I can never find muffin cups when I want to make cupcakes. Why? My children think that they are to be used for all kinds of art projects. They especially seem to make good snowflakes. Abby constantly tries to use them to carry snacks around, although they constantly fall out because they are only paper. Even if I put them somewhere where I think the girls won't find them, they always seem to sniff them out.

#2 Band-Aids. Everytime I buy new Band-Aids, they are gone within 5 days. As I speak, Abby is unloading the new box of Barbie ones I just bought and put all 35 on her right foot. All this in less than 10 minutes.

#3 My underwear. I really think that I have a lot of underwear. In fact, I know I do. But I have had to hunt for one clean pair every morning the last few weeks. I was lucky enough to find a clean pair in the load I did yesterday. I have an idea where they go . . . I recently found about 12 pairs in a backpack that Jenna conveniently packed. The backpack was buried in her closet. So, I know my underwear is in the house, I'm just not sure where Jenna has put them.

Update on Abby

We are home from the hospital and Abby is doing well after her surgery today. She's a little groggy and not too happy about the bandage on her hand where the IV was, but she's eating and resting on the couch with Jenna watching Barbie, the Magic Pegasus. We'll know she's back to feeling 100% when we catch her scaling the bathroom counter again:)

Before I give you the details of our day, I just have to say that I absolutely love our health insurance. We have Kaiser Permanente, which is an HMO, and it is the best healthcare we've ever received. Guess how much we paid for Abby's surgery today? $5. Yes, $5. That's it. In addition to the low costs for us, they have excellent doctors. In fact, doctors compete to be on staff with them. Kaiser is awesome and our church selected a great plan that is top notch--so yay to both of them. And for those of you wondering why our LCMS church isn't with the Concordia Health Plans, it's because they are way more expensive for the church and for us. I know most LCMS churches wouldn't even dare go someplace other than Concordia for their health plan, but our church does their own thing sometimes and we are grateful that they did.

So I got all the information in the mail regarding Abby's surgery earlier this week. On the sheet, it said that Abby had to stop eating at midnight the night before, but could have clear liquids (which includes Jello, juice, water, popsicles, etc.) until 7:30am. They wanted a 3 hour time frame of no eating at all before her surgery at 10:30am. Then yesterday, I got a phone call from some nurse telling me that she couldn't have anything--no clear liquids at all after midnight. I freaked out a little bit, because I couldn't imagine not feeding Abby something in the morning. She demands gogo (yogurt) the second she wakes up every morning. So, I called the pediatric surgeon's office who sent me the paper saying I could give her clear liquids before 7:30. She said, absolutely yes. She can have a cup of Jello before 7:30.

So, I gave Abby Jello and a little bit of water at about 7:15am. When we got to the hospital, our doctor was ahead of schedule and wanted to take Abby in early, but coudln't because it hadn't been three hours since she had her Jello and water. The doctor and the nurses treated me like I had done something wrong by giving her the Jello and water before 7:30. I kept telling them that the sheet they sent me said I could and that I even called the nurse to make sure. Our doctor was visibly annoyed that I gave Abby Jello this morning and the nurses left the room talking about how awful it was that I did that. So, I felt like the worst mom ever, even though I was told twice it was okay to give her Jello before 7:30.

We had to wait an hour and a half for them to do surgery on another baby while Abby's Jello digested. They brought in this sedative medicine that made Abby act like a drunk little baby. It was so funny! She was talking slowly and slurring her words. Her eyes were rolling in her head and she was giggling at nothing. Pretty funny.

After Abby came out of surgery, the doctor apologized to me about the way she and her staff had acted earlier and said that they needed to all be on the same page about food before surgery. So, I gave her the sheet that was my proof for Abby to eat Jello before 7:30. Needless to say, I felt better about the whole thing after I realized that I hadn't done anything wrong. It was a communication problem between the pediatric surgery department and the anesthesia department.

So, we are thankful for a successful surgery and that it wasn't wasn't a terribly serious health issue. The nurse told me that our doctor was performing 7 surgeries today, all on children under 3. As I saw them coming in an out of the waiting room, I wondered what their condition was. Their parents had scared looks on their faces, much like mine, and I prayed for each of them as they went in. Abby just had a little cyst that had to be removed, but I'm sure that some of those kids had surgeries that were more complicated and scary than hers. We have a lot to be thankful for.

Thank you for all of your prayers today!

Abby's Surgery

We would appreciate prayers for Abby tomorrow. She is scheduled for surgery to remove a urachal cyst. She has a little bubble of skin on the end of her belly button that is growing bigger ever so slightly as it fills up with fluid. Apparently, when babies are born, something inside of them in the belly button area (sorry I don't know the technical terms) closes off, but Abby's did not. So, she has a tiny little opening that is leaking fluid into the cyst (or bubble of skin) on the outside. If it becomes infected, it could infect her insides and that wouldn't be good. So the cyst comes off tomorrow.

I first noticed it when she was a few months old and asked our doctor about. He told me it was nothing and not to worry about it. That doctor turned out to be AWLFUL for many reasons I won't go into, but we switched doctors and when I pointed the bubble on Abby's belly button out to our new doctor, she took one look at it and said, "Oh yeah, that's a urachal cyst and it needs to be surgically removed." Needless to say, we LOVE our new doctor and am happy to be rid of the other one. It's taken a while to get into the pediatric surgeon and get surgery scheduled, but here we are--it's tomorrow.

It's not a major procedure. They have to take the cyst off and tie up the inside, but they have to put her under for it and that's what makes me nervous. Actually, the fact that she can't eat or drink much of anything tomorrow morning makes me really nervous. The doctor says she can have Jello and water before 7:30am, but that's it. So, I am hoping that Abby is okay with Jello and water for breakfast. She loves those Danimals drinking yogurts and the first thing out of her mouth in the morning is usually, "Mommy, I wan a gogo!" (Mommy, I want a yogurt!) So wish me luck trying to convince Abby that the gogo is all gone tomorrow.

Abby will be home tomorrow, but she probably won't feel very good after the anesthesia, so we plan to spent a few days at home recooperating. We'll let you know how it goes tomorrow!

A few fun pictures

The first one is of Jenna trying to imitate me putting on makeup. Doesn't she look beautiful? She'll learn someday that the eyeliner actually goes around the eyes:)

The next one is of us right before we left for Princesses on Ice. It was fun to walk through the streets of San Jose with our little princesses. A fun night!

Miss Independent

Notice the pants in this picture of Abby? Miss Independent. She insists on doing everything herself and accepts no help unless defeat is inevitable.

So, this week, Abby potty trained herself. No, I am not pushing her to be potty trained by two or anxious to get her out of diapers. Jenna wasn't trained until she was 3. I'm a big believer in letting my kids do things when they are ready. She just did it by herself. She sees Jenna and wants to be just like her. About every thirty minutes or so, Abby is MIA and I know exactly where to find her. In the bathroom. Her diaper is neatly thrown in the trash, half the roll of toilet paper is on the floor (why? I don't know, but it happens every time), and she is proudly sitting on the potty saying, "Mommy, I see pawee." (translation, "Mommy, I sit potty.")

I'm pretty excited about the fact that diapers may be a thing of the past in our house and looking forward to the raise that will come in our monthly budget because of it.

So, our little independent, I do everything myself, my way or the highway, go getter, sweet Abby, continues to live up to her personality.

Yay for no more diapers!

Living in the Fishbowl

Thank you to all of you who commented on the post about pastor's wives. I learned that I am not the only one interested in this, and I wonder if maybe there's a need for more communication between pastor's wives and church workers in general about life in the fishbowl. One comment from Megan said she gets to talk about her frustrations with other pastor's wives in the area. I don't have many of those. We don't live in Lutheran land or even Christian land. Only 5% of our community here in the Bay Area even knows of Jesus Christ as their savior. So, these conversations are definitely good for me.

So here are a few more things to discuss. And feel free to ask your own questions. There are probably other issues out there that I am not hitting on.

Finances--It's sometimes hard for me that everyone in our congregation has the opportunity to know how much we make (if they happen to be at the voters' meeting). I've had someone offer to pay for our dinner while we were out with them "because they know how much we make." (It's one thing to do it and another to say it!) Most people our age out here don't own a home because it is crazy expensive. It's almost impossible unless you make a ton of money. We are able to own our home because the church recognized the fact that if they don't help with housing, they would have a hard time getting any pastor to stay here. We are blessed to be in the house that we are, but I often feel weird about it. I guess I feel a little strange that we have a house and so many of our friends and church members are dealing with the crazy cost of both real estate and rent. That is my own issue though.

Tithing. I fully believe that God wants us to put Him before everything else. He wants us to trust him and he wants to take care of us. I am a big believer in tithing--not only because we've seen the blessings that come from it, but most importantly because God tells us to do it and through our giving, others know Christ. But finances are often an issue for all kinds of church workers. We come out of Concordia with more debt than we make in an entire year--and that's usually only school debt. Let's face it, we did not get into this profession to make money, and falling into the debt trap is so easy to do.

My question is--is it okay for a church worker's family not to tithe? That's a hard question to answer, but all I know is that I'm not sure Nate could preach a sermon on tithing, tell his church members to obey God in that area, and not be doing it himself.

Have at it!

Seriously . . .

I was watching the news today and learned that Barack Obama raised 50 million dollars in a month lately and Hillary Clinton raised 35 million in one month. Why can't people donate that kind of money to get rid of poverty, bring clean water to third world countries, or help get rid of the AIDS crisis? Seriously . . .