What a Great Night with the Girls!

Wow....we had such fun tonight. A few family members and friends got together at Carraba's tonight to celebrate the up coming marriage of my sister-in-law. We had such a blast with each other, telling stories on one another and watching Marty opening all her gifts and the waiter peaking through the door to make sure it was ok for him to come back in. I'm glad they put up outside on the patio cause we were extremely loud, people walking by outside prolly really thought we were in there drinking as loud as we were. Marty did not want any kind of shower, but I think she really enjoyed herself.

Well I have managed to talk Dustin in to helping me load the car up for the yard sale since I won't have time to do it tomorrow night since we have a singing in Winchester. Everything is pretty much loaded and ready to go. Tomorrow I have a busy day ahead of me, I have a meeting at the school first thing in the morning, then I have interviews from 9:30-2:30 tomorrow afternoon, then I have got to run by Mullins and pick up the racks I rented for the yard sale and be home and ready to go by 4. I don't know how it is all going to happen, but somehow it will all get done. I'll prolly be a zombie at church Saturday night since I prolly won't get home from the singing until over in the morning and then back up at 5 or so to head to set up the yard sale and who knows what time I will be home from that cause then I will have to take the racks back to Mullins. It's also 2nd weekend which means we have to cook for church and it is my time to pick up the chicken. Well we have a busy weekend ahead of us and we will be heading to Birmingham to eye doctor Monday, I'm looking for him to say everything is good with her left eye. I will keep y'all updated. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Happy Easter!

I know I'm behind, but I just haven't had the time to post yet. I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. Started out Friday night going to Higdon's singing to see our friends from the north who were singing and man are they good! Kensley also got requested to sing, and she sang Beautiful Day all by herself and did so good! Saturday was our egg hunt with all the kids from church, but we got rained out, I know it was pretty later that day, but it was still kind of muddy and some weren't gonna get to come if we moved it later in the day. So instead me and the fam went to the mall to do some shopping. Usually Dustin is rushing me, but he did really good and let me take my time. They were sitting in front of Belk waiting on me and I had been in there quite a while and the lines were really long to, but when I walked out Kensley told she had just prayed that I would hurry and come out.....I thought that was really cute! Got up Easter morning and cooked breakfast and then fixed my stuff for dinner that day and got us all ready and was ready by 9, I was really impressed, I can't seemed to do that any other Sunday. :) We went up to Goody's (Dustin's grandmother for those of you who don't know her) and made some pics before church, this used to be a tradition of ours that we did every year and somehow has just gotten away from us. We had a wonderful service that morning and had a great dinner with the family. Here is one of the pictures of all of us, I will try to upload more a little later.


It was back to the grind Monday morning. I have been super busy at work this week and at home. I'm trying to get ready for a yard sale we are having Saturday. Who knew that one family could accumulate so many clothes.....I feel like I'm drowning in them. If you would like to come it will be down at Coleman Machine shop on Hwy 431, it is a multi family yard sale. This morning about 3:45 Kensley was needing to go to the bathroom so I got up and took her and then of course since I was already up I had to go, don't you just hate it when you have to get up in the middle of the night to go, it nearly just makes me mad, I laid there and tossed and turned and my mind was going 90 to nothing of things that I needed to get done and I couldn't go back to sleep for the life of me.....so a little before 5 I just decided to go ahead and get up. I got up and took my shower and then started working on my yard sale stuff again and got pretty much everything priced.

Kensley is doing good, she had her splint off her left hand the other night and she was grabbing Dustin's nose and honking it, and last night she was waving really good with it. I was really worried about the short term memory loss, it just didn't seem to be getting any better, but I have noticed over the past week at how much better it has gotten, she is remembering a lot. She still gets confused with what day it is, but remembering stuff that has happened throughout the day has really improved and all the thanks goes out to all the prayers that you all have been praying for her and to God for answering those prayers!

Konnor is also doing very well. He is doing great in school and last week we had to do a dinosaur project which he got an A+ on. I had gotten him a new suit for Easter as you can see in the above picture and he loved it, he loves wearing them. He told us that he was with "Legacy Five", which is a gospel group he likes to listen to. He is wanting us to get his room moved around so he can set up a studio, he is his daddy's child. All the kid studies is music and fire dept.....and speaking of fire dept, we drove by Big Cove's last night and Mitch was there so Konnor wanted to go by and we dropped him off and Mitch brought him home later, you would of thought you had just given the kid $1000, he loved being with those boys down there. And as far as the music, I hope he takes after his dad on that, he is already doing really good on the drums.


Well I have talked about how Dustin has been writing novels lately on his blog and now I have written one myself. Oh well, I hope everyone has a great rest of the week.

PRAISE THE LORD!!!!

The title of this post is exactly what I feel like doing. I have some good news that I would like to share with everyone. Most everyone knows that Kensley has to wear a brace on her left foot or she wouldn't be able to walk because her foot turns over sideways. Of course Sunday morning she woke up early and I went in there to tell her just to watch tv for a little bit until I got up and she said ok. I was lying in bed and I could hear someone coming down the hall and I thought it was Konnor but much to my surprise it was Kensley walking to my room WITHOUT her brace. Her foot was flat as could be, I was so amazed by this. She not only did it once, but a couple of other times too. I rejoiced all day thinking about it, she truly is a miracle.

Now to recap our weekend. We went to the singing at Stevenson Friday night and it was good, Kensley got anointed and it seems every time someone anoints her you can see a dramatic change in her. I don't care who anoints her as long as the Lord is in it, it will be proven out and so far that has be evident in Kensley. I thank the Lord for everyone that has sent a prayer up for our angel. Saturday I got up early to go look for Easter outfits and then took Kensley to Sydnee's birthday party at Spoiled Rockin Kids, and for you that don't know what that is it's a slaon for little girls and they had a blast. Kensley's hair is still really short but they made her up just like the other girls and she was so excited. Of course she picked bright blue eyeshadow, which was really hard to get off, and purple fingernail polish, which she bit all of that off before I had a chance to take it off before church, she said she didn't want Granddaddy to see her with it on. We to church last night and had a wonderful meeting. Now I'm back at work this morning, getting ready for a busy week ahead. I'm in charge of the Easter Egg Hunt, so sometime this week I have to go and buy the prizes, along with trying to finish up buying the rest of our Easter stuff for this weekend, but it'll get done, I'm a last minute person anyway most of the time. I work better under pressure.

Hope everyone has a blessed day!

If it's not one thing, it's another.....

Wow....yesterday was an eventful day to say the least. I came to work thinking everything was going good. I met Dustin at lunch at the car dealership to look at a car and we were there for a couple of hours when I got the call....Kensley had fallen Monday night and she said she thought she broke her arm, but we all kept saying "Your ok, it'll be fine", but she went to therapy and the therapist said I needed to get her to the doctor, so I called and got her in and left Dustin at the dealership and met mom and Kensley at the doctor's office. They sent her for an X-Ray and we waited around for the results and sure enough her wrist was broken. They got us in at the orthopedics office and in the meantime Tasha had called me to talk to me about something else so I told her about Kensley and she said that her and Darrin would pray for her, so we headed over to TOC and got in there and was waiting on the doctor and by this time Kensley was so delirious, she was sooooo sleepy, she was cracking us up....she would just start laughing at herself and being very silly. Dustin and Suzie both asked if I had given her something to make her like that, but I hadn't she was just being silly. The doctor came in and showed us the x-rays and it wasn't bad at all, you could barely see it. I told him about her new arm brace that we were getting and they had just called that morning to let me know it was in and he seemed to think that would work just fine for the healing process. So I called and got my appt moved up and he put her in a velcro splint until we get hers today. She is doing very well with, she actually likes the splint and she hasn't been crying with pain either.

I was supposed to help cook for Darrin and Tasha last night and I didn't think I would have time since all of this happened with Kensley, but it worked out to where I was able to run home and fix my stuff and take it over there. When I got there I told Tasha that their praying had worked because Kensley's break was not bad and they didn't have to cast it. Prayer really does work and I'm so thankful that we have Him to call on. And Darrin was doing really good last night, he was moving his feet while we were there. God is so good and our church has so much to be thankful for, we've had many obstacles over the past several months and He has been right there with us all.

Oh and by the way I did get a new car....well it's not brand new, but new to me. It is a 2007 Sequoia.

Follow up appointment

I had hoped to post this sooner, but it has just been hectic since Thursday. We went to the doctor in B'ham Thursday and we were looking for some good news. They were pleased with her progress, but we all know that they are there to point the bad out in things. They were pleased that she was walking, just not the way she is walking. Her left knee is bowing in when she walks and her foot is dragging when she tries and picks it up. They have increased her medicine and want us to watch and see if that helps any, but they are not confident that it will, so then they are wanting to do some botox injections, this will weaken the muscles that are stronger and help her strengthen the ones that are weaker, so we will probably go back for that in about a month. They will have to put her to sleep, but at least it is just an outpatient procedure. One of the doctors did make the statement that she is the reason he does what he does, and that made us feel pretty good that he was pleased with where she was at. Other than that there was much else discussed. She did get to go back and see her therapist and nurses, and they were amazed at how far she had come.

We headed home a little before 4 that afternoon only to get stuck in traffic due to the sink hole on 65. It took us over 3 hours to get home, for me to only have to turn around and go back to a seminar Friday. I met up with one of the girls from work in Decatur Friday and we headed down to a seminar next to the Galleria, just wished I would have had time to shop a little while I was there. We headed home around 4 and luckily the traffic was not bad at all, I think they had come up with a better solution for re-routing traffic, so it didn't take us near as long to get home. Got home and ran in and changed clothes and ran back out the door to go eat with some of Dustin's family. Then we went by to see our friends that have been in Atlanta for the past month. They were so excited to get to be home and we are so proud to have them back.

We had wonderful church services this weeked and Kensley headed back to school for the first time since the accident this morning. She was so excited to get to go. This is a picture of her clapping because she was so happy to be with her class. It was so hard for me to leave her there, I kept finding myself telling her teacher and the other teacher she would be with what to do and how to do it, not like they don't already know, but I just couldn't help myself, I just wanted to make sure they know all her needs while she is there. I emailed her teacher to see how things went today, cause Kensley is not the same Kensley, she is a motor mouth now and I was worried she would talk their heads off, but she said she did great, she read a book to her class and then took two different test and made 100's. I'm so thankful that the Lord has brought her this far and has allowed her to go back to school. She will be going on Monday's and Thursday's for half a day. My mom picked her up and said she was asleep before they even got home.

Konnor is doing good. The week before Spring Break he did have an eventful week. He had fallen at school and busted his lip and then that afternoon it was really pretty outside so he rode is dirt bike and had a wreck in the ditch full of water, needless to say he dad was not real happy about it, but at least he wasn't hurt. The next day they were playing on the playground at school and a little boy was swinging and Konnor didn't see him so his foot hit Konnor right on the side of the face and left a shoe print on his face, it was so pitiful. I know that had to hurt. We are getting ready this week to start his school project which is due next week and it is about dinosaurs.

I'm having a Celebrating Home party Thursday night @ 6:30 at my house for anyone who wants to come or you can go look at the website if you would like. Hope everyone has a good week!

We have had a busy weekend.....Friday night Kensley had a birthday party to go to (which I had almost consider not going because of where it was and Kensley really not being able to participate much) and it was at Kidnastics. It started out ok and then it got to the point to where Kensley wasn't able to do the things that the other kids were so she started crying and I just couldn't handle it, so I then I broke down myself. I really hated to cry in front of everyone and I tried to be as discrete as I could about it, but I had just had all I could take at that moment. We gathered ourselves and she was able to go back in and participate some more with everyone. It's at these moments that I don't know how to explain to her that she can't fully do the things that the other kids can do. I want her to be able to do those things, but I know in her situation it is going to take some time, but there are just moments that you can't seem to take anymore and I have those breakdowns. No one can stand seeing their kid upset because they don't fit in with the other kids and how do you explain that to them? I haven't figured it out yet, I just try to comfort her and let her know that real soon she will be able to do those things again and hope and pray that God will grant these things for her, we always seem to take the small things for granted until you are put in this type of situation. I had rode with Alyson to the party so once it was over we went back to her house and let the girls play together some.

Saturday Alyson brought Sydnee over to play with Kensley some more and I was scrambling around trying to find Konnor something to wear for Easter pictures that I tried 3 different times to cancel but Marty just wouldn't let me and I'm glad I didn't because they turned out gorgeous.

The girls played that afternoon and then we had to get ready for church. Dustin got hung up at the studio, so it was just us girls going to church and Konnor of course didn't want to go if he didn't have to so he talked his Aunt Marty in to letting him stay with her until his dad got home. Church was really good and several got help.

It was second weekend so I got up and cooked my dinner along with breakfast and got everyone ready for church. We had a really good meeting Sunday morning and Sunday night.

Mom called me a little bit ago and said that Kensley walked to the bathroom all by herself and was able to pull her pants down all by herself. I know these things sound so small but to us these are big accomplishments. We head back to Birmingham Thursday for our follow up with the rehab doctor, I think that he will be really impressed at how far she has come since the last time he saw her in December. Her therapist wanted us to get a hand splint made for her left hand so she went and got fitted for that last Friday, and the doctor that saw her was not impressed at all with how she was walking, and that came as a shock to us because we thought she was doing so well, but to us we didn't know anything different. He said that her left knee should not be turning out to the side so much when she is walking and she is starting to drag her left foot some. So he is wanting to make her a new brace for her foot that will help all of this, so I am hoping that I can get the doctor to give me a prescription when we go on Wednesday. I am happy to know that there is something better for her and hope maybe that the new brace will fit better with shoes because right now I am just having a really hard time with the shoes that I have looked at and tried on her.

Hope to have some good news when we return on Thursday, I will keep everyone posted. Hope everyone has a good Spring Break!

Stumbling Blocks.....

......is not something we all want to encounter, but they do happen occasionally. We have encounter a couple over the past few days, but the Lord was right there us. Wednesday night Kensley hurt her bad foot. We thought she had twisted it, but that wasn't the case. Thursday she couldn't walk on it at all and I was really wanting her to be able to walk for her singing Friday night, so I emailed a few to pray for her and Friday she started walking on it some. I took her to therapy and the therapist thought she might have stretched a tendon in her foot, which is really easy to do with all the tone that she has. It was still a little sore come Friday night, but she was able to walk on it, and I'm so thankful for that.

Now today we have encounter another stumbling block.....we have went all winter without catching any of these nasty bugs going around until today. I went in there to get her ready for her first day of school and she said the dreaded words "my belly hurts." I knew then that this was not going to be a good start to the day. We continued getting ready and walked in to the bathroom and then it was all over from there. I felt so bad that she had to miss her first back to school....she was so excited about going back, but if all goes well she will still get to go back at the end of this week.

I will try and post some pics from the Praying for Kensley concert later on.....it was a success, the singing was just outstanding. Thanks to everyone who participated, we love you all!