give me a calm and thankful heart...

(wishing you all a Thanksgiving full of joy, peace and gratitude)

Father whate'er of earthly bliss

Thy sovereign will denies

Accepted at Thy throne of grace

Let this petition rise

Let the sweet hope that thou art mine

My life and death attend

Thy presence through my journey shine

And crown my journey’s end

Give me a calm, a thankful heart

From every murmur free

The blessings of Thy grace impart

And make me live to Thee

You raise your hand to still the storms

That rage inside my head

Revive my heart with gratitude

Love quell my doubt and dread

Give me a sure and rested soul

From every fear relief

The spirit’s power and presence mine

To ever comfort me

Give me a sure, a restful heart

From every fear relief

Thy spirit’s power and presence mine

To ever comfort me.

Give me a calm, a thankful heart

From every murmur free

The blessings of thy grace impart

And make me live to thee.

-Anne Steele

(a beautiful rendition sung HERE)

grocery shopping with a two year old

..or at least this is how it is with MY two year old. 

You probably have a perfectly behaved one that just sits happily in the cart. :)

so cheeky. :)

this and that

A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

- It was a quite a week. A very dear friend had an emergency c-section, after doctors had trouble finding the baby's heartbeat during an OB appointment. During the surgery and as her baby was being delivered, her daughter's heart stopped beating for a full 15 minutes. 15 minutes.  Baby Tessa was eventually revived, but had to be transferred to Children's Hospital in Boston and was hooked up to every machine imaginable for a few days. For a while it was very unclear as to what sort of brain/organ damage she may have undergone during that long length of time that her heart wasn't beating. After the prayers of many, Tessa had a miraculous MRI that showed almost no brain damage. She has been doing so well, eating and slowly being weaned off of tubes and medications.  She is due to go home tomorrow which seemed unimaginable early last week. Needless to say, there is a lot of praising God going on around here.  

-We had Tessa's 18 month old brother staying at our place for almost a week while his parents were in Boston with the baby.  It was quite an adventure having two toddlers romping around the kettle, but he is a super laid back little guy and Levi loved having a "brother" for a while. 

- Levi is currently obsessed with drumming, drums, and being a drummer.  He is actually kind of good at it, for a two year old. He practices constantly and uses two of my knitting needles as drum sticks. He brings them with him everywhere.  Last week after church he sat next to the stage and just stared longingly at the drum set for at least a half hour.  He often sighs heavily and says "Mama, I just want to be a drummer."  

- "Morning" sickness (yeah, right) has lasted a lot longer during this pregnancy than it did with Levi. I'm almost 17 weeks and still needing to take Zofran on a daily basis...hopefully it will subside sooner rather than later. 

- A couple weeks ago we were able to celebrate our friend's 30th birthday with some of our old friends. Since the birthday boy currently lives in Fiji, our only option was to party in cyberspace. Amazingly enough, we were able to coordinate a big google hangout with 13 (more if you count the unborn!) people living in Massachusetts, Maryland, North Caroline and Fiji. It was so fun to see everyone; technology is just so cool sometimes. 

- the other night (around 2am) Levi was up crying with a fever and bad cold so Brian was tending to him, meanwhile he comes back to our bedroom to me throwing up on the floor, as soon as I finish and we clean up, we hear the cat throwing up in the other room. It was awful and hilarious. Poor Brian.

- it's getting so cold and wintery. (pouty face)

- Some cute Levi things: he calls a sneeze a "God bless you". For example, "Mama, I "God Bless You"ed!"; he can tell a dobro from a banjo when listening to bluegrass music (truly his father's son); he insists on praying for every meal himself and he always has a long list of adorable thanks, on his own he often prays for "our baby" that he/she would be strong and healthy; he continues to be super outgoing and affectionate and often exclaims "I'm so glad to see you!", "I love you!" and "I missed you!".

- our arts ministry at church is already planning for ArtSpeak 2014. Brian just wrote a great article for CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts). Check it out HERE.

- I have about 40 1st quarter art evaluations due on Friday morning. And I'm totally procrastinating by writing this blog post. :)