Jacob has a blog!

For those of you who don't have facebook, Jacob has been keeping a regular blog of his updates that he has written since beginning treatments.  You can check there from time to time to see how God has and is carrying us through this time of dealing with cancer.   Love to you all. We can't tell you how thankful we are to have so many good friends and family who have helped us with prayers and support.  You all have been such a blessing.

http://vjdoran.worldmaybelieve.com/blog/

Good Bye Uncle David Jenkins

Saturday a wonderful, God-fearing man went to see his savior face to face. Uncle David, we love you and will miss your steadfastness and wise cracks that always brought a chuckle and smile. I think of you walking those streets of gold and can't help but think that you had the most awesome Valentine's Day walking hand in hand with the One who loves you the most.

http://m.missoulian.com/news/local/obituaries/david-allen-jenkins/article_43a6fb2c-57e5-11e1-9191-0019bb2963f4.html

My heart is with my family today.  Wish I was with you all but my prayers and thoughts are with you even if my body is not.  Love you all.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech

Yep, that is what we found out in January that Josiah has. We have known for a while that he needed help with his speech, but now we understand why. It has nothing to do with being “babied” and the parents “talking” for him. He is not stupid, retarded or brained damaged. (Thank the Lord!) It is basically a muscle weakness of the mouth area. The brain sends the messages to the mouth of what to say but the muscles don’t respond normally. Thankfully it is nothing serious or permanent. The way to overcome it is lots of practice and repetition. LOTS. Basically we are having to train the muscles how to respond properly to the brain’s speech signals. Repetition is the key. I found it interesting that one of the signs of Apraxia is no cooing or babbling when they are infants. That was Josiah. He never made those normal baby sounds. Now I know why. Apraxia children are more texture sensitive when it comes to food. Now I know why he is my only “picky” eater with a bad gag reflex that even made nursing a challenge the first month. Everything makes sense with him now. We have worked hard to overcome the gagging and he is doing so much better. We are working on not being so picky. He is better but still has a ways to go. He is doing great in his speech therapy and is talking so much more now. He is even saying WHOLE sentences on his own!!! I think learning how to read has helped a lot too. The repetition it takes to learn the alphabet sounds and then having to put it into practice again and again when reading has made a big difference. He is a very good reader and I think has picked it up faster than my other kids have. :-)

I just can’t but being thankful for where God has brought Josiah from and for putting the pieces of the puzzle together for me. For bringing us to this town that brought us to meet Mr. Bunke (Josiah’s speech therapist) who diagnosed Josiah with Childhood Apraxia and is VERY good with Josiah. I just love how God works ALL things out, don’t you?

Here is a web address with more information if interested.

http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/childhoodapraxia.htm

I know, I know. I NEED a new look for my blog but that will have to be another day and another time. :-) Here is a new picture though. It was taken this summer in July at my brother's wedding. This is my whole family that was there. We had such a great time. I have the bestest family (both in Ak and in MT) in the whole world!!!

The Winds of CHANGE

Wow, three months since the last post here. A LOT has happened in those months, thus the title of this blog. Let me back up to Dec. to fill you all in.

Beginning of Dec a good friend, Kalena Byrne (Parent), came over and asked if I would be her babysitter for her 3 very well behaved children. I told her “Yes” and started the next morning…early, early the morning, like 5:30 in the morning early. After 3 months we have all adjusted well to getting up at that unearthly hour. I think that Jacob has really enjoyed it if for no other reason then I now cook breakfast just about every morning. The ages of the babysitting kids are 8, 5 and 4 so they fit in well with my kids. The two older girls get on the bus at 8:40 and then I have the boy for about another 2 hrs before his mom picks him up. After that we hit school, squeeze in eating and then around 5pm we start getting ready for bed so the kids can have 10 – 12 hrs of sleep. The kids sure enjoy playing with friends just about every morning. God is so wonderful. We were going to be needing some extra money to pay for the propane bill that was coming up. Jacob and I had just talked about it a few days before. We weren’t really worried since God has always provided for us, I for one, was just wondering how He was going to do it this time. I am so happy with how He provided! I’m glad Jacob didn’t have to take on another job like last year and that instead it is something I can do in my own home and still homeschool my children! God is just awesome like that. J Also it is a Monday –Thursday sometimes Friday job. Can’t get much better than that.

That same week, I find out that both my neighbors are moving and that very weekend one of young couples in the church moved 5 hrs away to Kenniwick to pastor. They had a very good reason for moving (pastoring) and all but we do miss them. Our church isn’t very big 18 in Sunday school and everyone misses them. But it is neat that that same weekend they moved, that Sunday we had a new teen boy start to attend. He has been coming pretty regular since. Isn’t neat how God works things like that? We loose one young couple and gain another young person that same weekend. Not only had Jorge been coming to church but has started teaching Jacob how to play the guitar! Jacob has been quit the diligent student too, I might add. He has advanced much more quickly than Jorge ever expected him to. Jacob played his first special in church two weeks ago. It has made me very happy to see Jacob get so into playing the guitar. He practices so much. He has even start having the kids gather around and sing with him which make my heart so happy. Jorge asked me to play with them a couple weeks ago. It was a lot of fun getting to play the piano while my husband played the guitar. It was a great feeling to be able to play with them both. Can’t wait to see what all God does with all this. I can tell, far as my playing goes, that it is easier to play songs in church and even a little by ear now. That is very excited for me. I sure do love playing the piano.

I guess this is long enough for now. I hear my bed calling me, so I will have to write more another time. Hopefully sooner then 3 months. I sure enjoy time on the computer but I haven't been getting it much in the last 3 months, but that is ok. The Lord knows what we need. So for now, good night.

Thankfulness

Sometimes I just stand in amazement of what God does for us. Well, really, it is quit often that I am amazed.

I love our not too little home we have here in Washington. It truly is the perfect size for us. One huge boy's room and one huge girls room with an attached bathroom couldn't have been more perfect for the kids. Our living room is just enormous. We have plenty of space for having guests and entertaining. Our view is sooo beautiful. We are surrounded by trees and away from town a bit which makes for a nice quiet place to raise a family. The above picture is taken right next to our house on the hill that the house is built on. The PERFECT place for sledding. And it is right next to our house! I'm thinking it will make for a great water slide too if we bought a few more hoses to reach way over there. :)

The kids love it here. They have tons of room to play both inside and outside with the perfect paved circle to ride bikes around and around and around, safely away from the traffic on the road. A huge big yard that even haves little frogs for them to find and catch all summer. That is a major highlight for them. I love how God does that, sets His people in the perfect place. He knew the desire of my heart, to have a big enough place for our kids to move around in and lots of room for company, and He gave it to us. Our house in MT still hasn't sold but I know God has His reasons. I wonder if it did if it would have kept us from getting this place. Jacob said when he was looking around that we would have only been able to get a 2 bedroom house for the size of loan we would have been able to get. (Housing is really high here.) That sounds rather crowded for a family of 7.

I don't have anything to complain about in all reality concerning our housing situation. We have some good renters in our MT house that is making our housing payments for us, so God has really taken care of us in that area. Other blessings of renting, we don't have to mow! lol Our landlord has a big mower that he keeps this spacious piece of land mowed with and in the winter he even plows our drive circle for us.

Elijah has been doing Switched on School House for school this yr. He loves it and so do I! Ever morning he does his school without me having to tell him to, it is GREAT! His grades are good too. I am seriously thinking about putting Alana in it next yr. as long as she is able to read well enough which I'm thinking she will be fine. It will help to free up my time as next yr I will have two 1st graders who will be needing much more attention and practice with reading.

Josiah and Moriah are doing very well in K. They really enjoy being able to do school with each other. They are starting to sound our words which is very exciting. They love everything about their school too. It sure makes it nice when kids love school.

Alana loves school too. She just loves handwriting which Elijah just can't understand. lol Alana is STILL missing her two front teeth. Maybe she will get them for Christmas. :)

Tabitha gets a bit bored when everyone is doing school but is getting more use to finding things to do on her own. We got her a leap pad for $10 at a yard sale which she has spent many hrs on. She also colors and loves to look at books.

Jacob has been real busy here the last few months. He has put up a new web page for our region which looks very nice. Here is a link if you haven't seen it yet.

http://www.tcognorthwest.com/

That took alot of his time, but we are all pleased with the results.

Jacob also puts together The Beacon Light now. (Our Regional Paper) It took quite a while getting is all figured out and all but it is looking really good. Like other papers he figured out how to get it up online. Exciting stuff for sure. :)

Jacob was also in charge of his first district convention earlier this month. The Lord really blessed greatly. The presences of the Holy Ghost was very strong and we all came home ready to work and desiring more of the Holy Ghost anointing and leading in our lives.

We are hoping things will calm down a little around here now (as in not so much traveling) and be able to spend more time with the people here and reaching out.

I have been volunteering early (like 6am) Monday mornings at the food bank. We all work to sort the food accordingly to the different food banks in the area. I have enjoyed getting to meet a few more people and helping out in that way.

Aside from that I stay busy schooling 4 kids and keeping up with the local church work. (I'm a Sunday school teacher, CPMA leader and the church treasurer.)

I can feel and see God moving in the people here in our region, (I feel Him working and changing me!) it is very exciting. Until next time, God bless and stay WARM! :)

Finally! A New Look

Isn't it great! I love it! Many, many thanks to my brother Micah and his wonderful wife Megan for making this layout up for me. I think my sister did most of the work, I think.... :) Beautiful flowers and those I love, can't get much better then that. Thank you M&M!

I guess that it is time for my monthly blog. Seems like it has been a whole lot longer then a month with all that has been going on. Summer is just WAY too short! I can't believe that we will be starting school next month.

Moriah Update - I just looked and realized I never posted anything on here about her surgery. In the middle of June she had her tonsils and adnoids taken out in hopes of it "curing" her monthly, high fevers. She has gone for 9 wks now with no fever. Yeah! I'm so glad that God kept His hand on her through all this. I know so many was praying for her and me! Thank you!

So we had Moriah's surgery and 10 days later went to our convention. Moriah wasn't looking so good that first night. They all prayed for her and she was fine the rest of the time. I was even able to quit giving her her pain meds. PTL! Convention was good with inspiring messages. I'm so glad that we were able to go with all that was going on with Moriah and all.

We had a church fund raiser on the 4th of July, right before the parade. It didn't go so well due to the COLD weather, but at least we did make back what we put into it and a little extra. Hoping next yr the weather will be better for selling cold drinks and otterpops. I think the ONLY reason we sold anything was because of the cute kids. When Tabitha got hurt it helped the selling even more. lol

In the middle of July we got to go see the Shulers sing. It was GREAT! We loved it and I know that other members of our church enjoyed it too. It was fun and exciting to see, met, and get to know the Shulers more. Would love to get to spend more time with them. Those two young men are awesome. I love watching them play their different instruments and sing. We are hoping to have them come up and hold a revival for us sometime next yr. That would be awesome.

It looked like Jacob might not get much time off for the family reunion the last wk of July, but God worked it out that he got 8 days off. We had such a great time there. It was wonderful and great to see everyone and oh so fun. Talking with everyone, playing games, watching a magic show, getting to float the river and climb a mountain (6 or 7 miles one way) was most of what we did. Nathan and I beat the rest of them to the top of the mountain by 25 min. (We would have easily beat them by an hour if they didn't keep telling us to wait up for them. lol) Regular exercise really did pay off for us that day. It was worth the soreness then next few days just to beat the other. lol! No, I'm not competitive at all. lol ;-) Plus I loved having that time to spend with Nate to talk. Nice brother - sister bonding time. :-)

Here is a picture of all us hikers. Matt had to fly out that day or he would have been with us too.

Micah was using the water bottle cover to shield his head and back of the neck from the sun. lol

Back - Josh Davis, Me, Micah Peter

In Front - Tanner Davis and Nathan Peter

Jacob and I at the top. Isn't is beautiful?!

That pretty much brings us up to date with the happenings here. Our church here is looking into different ways to reach out to those in our community, making new contacts and hopefully growing the church. I think I'm going to start volunteering at the Sedro-Woolley food bank Mon. mornings. I'm excited about that. I think it will be fun and a great way to met people.

Until next time. :)

Cheesy Sausage Stromboli

The other day Elijah got some cooking schooling in. For breakfast we made baked oatmeal with frozen peaches and raspberries. Mmmm. He loved getting to cut and measure and stir. :) After that good breakfast we had our devotions and then started on the Cheesy Sausage Stromboli. Elijah learned how to measure flour etc and had his first real try at making homemade dough. He LOVED getting to punch the dough down. lol Next came the cooking of the sausage and mixing all the filling together, followed by patting out the dough and putting in the filling. Getting to cut the slits was something Elijah couldn't wait to try. (I'm thinking he loves getting to use the sharp knife.!) lol Lastly we brushed on the egg and sprinkled on the cheese.

Here is Elijah proudly showing off his Stromboli. I kinda broke it trying to get it off the pan. Sorry bud!


Alana, Elijah and Josiah anxiously awaiting to eat.


Mom's Stromboli.

Toothless Alana

About two weeks ago, Alana lost the first tooth. It was the first time that I had to use a tread to put it out for her. What an ordeal that was! lol When it was all over Alana realized that pulling a tooth out with a thread was super easy and quick. So when the second one was very loose she justed about BEGGED me to pull it out. Here she is smiling her pretty "toothless" smile.

Suburban Trouble

After enjoying a wonderful convention and taking care of a few other things, we headed off to a park to let the kids use up some energy before the drive home. However, before we got to the park our suburban began making a high pitched noise. We quickly pulled into an hotel's parking lot where the the engine began smoking. We wasted no time in parking and got out to take a look under the hood. Come to find out a major belt had snapped because of our conditioner pulley freezing up. Jacob called Bro. McMahon and soon a bunch of the men were over trying to figure out what to do about it. Sorry kids, no park today. It was after 9 that night before we finally figured out what to do. There was no way we were going to be able to go home that night. Our wonderful overseer and wife let us crash at their house after we all got a very late bit to eat.

The next morning more phone calls were made and we found an air conditioner to buy and another church member offered to put it in for us on Monday (today). Another member offered to let us drive their mini van home so that Jacob could go to work today. They had a family member pass away Sat. and will be having to drive up this way for the funeral. I'm not sure of the day they will be driving our suburban up, but we will meet them there to exchange vehicles.

I just love how God works all things out and am SO THANKFUL for all the kindness and help that we have received at this time. We truly have some of the most loving people in this region. God knew what He was doing when He let it all happen in town instead of on the freeway. (That would have been a huge headache and an expensive towing bill.) God is just so good! And His people are SO wonderful.

Tulip Town

When we first got there, one goes inside a building. They have every kind of tulip it seem on display. I had NO IDEA there were so many different kinds of tulips! SO PRETTY!


I had to of course take pictures of the kids with them..... Here is Moriah infront of some very interesting ones.


A close up of them. I've never seen frayed like edges on one before. (click on the pic to see the larger version of them.)


Josiah and Alana








I thought these were so pretty.











Celeste and I.

All the Kids

Here is a picture of all the kids. Boy, we had to work to get this picture taken. :)

Josiah, Isaac, Alana, Moriah, Tabitha, and Elijah

Pride of Washington tulips.


I thought these were so neat! They are called ALASKA STAR.


"World's Favorite" tulips.

On Our Way to the Tulip Fields

They were flying quite a bit of kites that day. It was fun to watch them all. Here is Jacob taking a picture of them while the kids look on.








This kite was a twirling kite. It was pretty neat.



Right when you reach the fields, they had this stand one can go stand on to have a pic taken with the fields in the background.

Those Fun "Stick Your Face in the Hole" Pictures

Our smallest tulip. :)


Tabitha was the first to notice the picture thing (can't think of what they are called at the moment). After she went, everyone had to have their picture taken too!

Moriah



Josiah

Isaac



Moriah, Josiah and Alana

Dad got in one too.

In the Fields

Jacob taking a picture of the kids.


All the kids together.


Elijah consenting to one picture of just him and the tulips.

Alana and the Tulips

Alana just LOVED the tulips and so such a willing subject for picture taking. :)

Moriah with the Tulips

Moriah for some reason didn't get many pictures taken with the tulips. She didn't want to stand still so much. She thought these tulips were pretty though and asked us to take this picture. :)

Tabitha with the Tulips

I LOVED the brightness of the yellow tulips.





Smelling the tulips.





My favorite of Tabitha with the Tulips.