I love our church so much! And my Pastor is just wonderful. I am going to write some short notes from his sermons on here to "tickle your brains" a little. He has sooo many good things to say and I want to share them with all who will listen! (also, he is on The Oasis station 90.5 here in Tulsa at 10:30am M-F for those of you who are local. He can also be heard on many other stations in the U.S. as well as on SkyAngel and the internet worldwide!)

-If your mouth will feed your heart faith when you don't need it, your heart will feed your mouth faith when it DOES need it.

-Refuse to let the devil talk you out of God's word.

-The power that Satan couldn't keep in the grave is the same power we have within us.

-Overcomers never desert their posts.

-Move onward and upward in the overwhelming power of God.

-The Lord will only be in us as much as we will let Him.

one of my favorite David Ingle songs is "Put on the Garment of Praise for the spirit of Heaviness." Pastor talked about that verse this weekend, it is Isaiah 61:3. That is a great one to remember when the devil is at your door.

Many blessings to you all!!

I had a WONDERFUL birthday! After Michael and I spent the day with Brittany and Emily, we went to see Kaedy. She was a little tired, but we spent awhile with her and then rocked her to sleep. We were planning on going out to eat and seeing a movie afterwards, but we ended up just seeing the movie and not having time to go out to eat. Oh well, now we have a gift certificate for another time!! We went to see Mr. And Mrs. Smith. It was a fairly enjoyable movie. It wasn't something I would want to own or anything like that, but it was entertaining for the evening. The one thing I have to say is that I am SHOCKED at what passes as PG13 these days. I thought I would be "safe" sticking with PG13 movies to not have a lot of questionable content, but I was very wrong. No PG13 for Britty!! (at least until her 35th b'day! LOL)

Yesterday was the groundbreaking for our new church site. I put pictures up at http://members.cox.net/kahri/Groundbreaking/index.html It was a GREAT time. I am so excited to watch the new building forming. It will be closer to our house, too...about 2 miles away. Have I mentioned how much I love our church? Brittany is going to church camp today. I can't believe all the fun things they are going to do for camp. They are starting out at Incredible Pizza today and then they are also going to be boating, bowling, swimming, fishing, going to a water park, as well as having chapel everyday and baptisms! Britty will be ready to sleep for a few days when she gets back!! LOL

The girls, Michael and I went to see Kaedy this morning. After not seeing her for two days, she was a sight for sore eyes. She is still not feeling that great, you could tell from the way she acted, but she did smile at each of us and we each had a chance to cuddle with her. I was looking for a really great picture of the three girls together, but although we tried several times, I didn't really get what I was after. We will try again next time!!

I have to talk to Dr. Carey tomorrow about the nurse he wants to go with us. She is not a Christian and I do not feel comfortable taking someone that won't pray herself or even agree with us in prayer over the baby. The Respiratory Therapist we are taking is a spirit-filled believer and we like him a lot. He has worked really hard with Kaedy and is part of the reason for her success on the home vent. Michael and I are in agreement that we don't feel comfortable with the nurse going, though, even though she has been on these kind of trips before with the little girl from this area that has been in the titanium rib project for several years. Anyway, that is on my agenda tomorrow.

Also tomorrow, we are going to set up our tent in the backyard and sleep out there. My birthday is on Saturday, so I thought it would be fun to wake up on my b'day in a tent! Michael won't sleep with us out there, though, which is the only bummer. Other than that, I am really excited.

Okay, we are off to bed. I will write more later....leave me a comment and let me know you were here....anyone? anyone? anyone?

Well, I am so sorry I have neglected you, poor blog. I FINALLY have a moment to sit down and try to get caught up on things....

My body tried to catch a cold from Kaedy and I don't feel too great. It's great knowing that I am healed, though, so I don't have to worry about any of these symptoms! But until my body lines up with the word of God, I am taking it easy and I can't see Kaedy - even though she is the one who gave it to me! That reminds me - would you all agree with me in prayer that Kaedy is not sick in any way and is able to travel to San Antonio? I would appreciate it! Then we can stop waiting to witness her healing!

I haven't taken her outside anymore....don't know when we'll have another chance to do that, but we have been to the playroom a few times. She is standing up really well in physical therapy (with help) and is sitting on her own very well! I have noticed MANY changes since Michael and I started the schedule of each of us going everyday. She has developed by leaps and bounds. Especially socially! We are doing sign language with her and while she hasn't signed back yet, she watched us intently. We are also taking food to eat up with her. I realized that she doesn't normally see people eat so I have been taking breakfast up to her everyday and eating with her. It seems to be working really well...she actually ate 6 spoonfulls of cereal!! (she was just putting it in her mouth and not swallowing before)

We did buy a new van...it is a used 2005 Grand Caravan. I LOVE it. It has the stow away seats and the automatic doors and trunk. It is wonderful...it will last us a long time. We were thinking this will probably be Brittany's first car! That's hard to believe!!

Speaking of Britty, she is going to be going to church camp next week for 4 days. She is SOO excited.

Well, I'll write again more soon....here are updated pics of Kaedy http://members.cox.net/kahri/kaedypics.html.

Today I put Kaedy in a lid from her toy box, filled with water! It was cute, she was splashing a little bit, but mostly sat there looking around. I am going to try to find her a little blow-up pool to take up there and then we will be able to play more! I am also going to get her some rubber duckies and other floatable toys. I think she would like those!

Brittany spent the day with Mickey and Susan's granddaughter Oksana today. She had a wonderful time and can't wait to see Oksana again. Their grandson Arik is a little cutie! He likes to laugh and has a great big smile.

We are going to go search for a van tonight and go out to dinner. I will let you know how it goes!

I can't believe I haven't written in 5 days...I am always "talking" to my blog and I have ideas everyday of what I am going to write, I guess I just don't have as much time to write it down. LOL.

Kaedy is doing well...really stable (although they have her on an antibiotic, they did a culture and said she came up with some "bugs")...and lots of fun. The girls and I did physical therapy with her today and she was weight bearing on her own again and she was laying on her tummy just fine until she laid her head down on my wedding ring and started crying. That pretty much ended the tummy time. She also sat on her own, unhelped for several minutes at a time. Then she would start to tip so Micah would just use a finger or two to direct her back toward the right way and she caught on really well. She learned to correct herself when she felt herself falling. The girls and I also fed her "real" food today. She didn't mind it in her mouth at all, but wouldn't swallow it. I had to leave her with a nurse trying to get her to swallow it since we were lunching with a friend and Kaedy was taking her own sweet time! :-) Michael had a lot of fun with her tonight, too, they rocked, sang, prayed, and blew rasberries.

The girls and I had lunch with dear friends from church - Mickey and Susan. I stayed and chatted with Susan for a few hours while the girls played and watched a movie. I am so glad to have them in our life, they are such a blessing. Susan and I are both from New Mexico and it is nice to be able to talk to someone who knows where I am from! We are different in other ways, she has great faith and just believes what she learns and I question everything. I think we will be very good for each other. :-)

My car had some problems this week. It had been shaking for a few weeks and been getting worse and worse. On Monday, after I left the hospital, while talking to Michael on the phone, my car started shaking wildly. So much that I was scared to stay on the highway. He told me to get oiff and to go on city streets. He called our mechanic and asked if I could drop the car off there so I drove it across town to Broken Arrow and dropped it off with him. He said that the shaking was the tires and that it also needed a new power steering pump and rack and pinion steering. When Michael got off of work, he went and got my car and took it and bought a new set of tires. It drove incredibly better after that! We took it back to our mechanic's and left it there overnight for him to work on in the morning. We got the estimate the next day - it was going to be around $1200. We decided that my car was not worth getting that much work done, being over 145,000 miles. So Michael is taking me to buy a new car this weekend. (we had been rolling the idea back and forth for awhile, anyway, he wanted me to have a vehicle with less miles.) I want to get the same kind because I love my Dodge Grand Caravan. Unless we find a GREAT deal on something else, that is what we are going to get.

We went to Big Splash (our water park) yesterday. We had a really great time, although I was hoping to hang out with Paula while we were there but we lost her after lunch and never found her or the boys again. We figured out today that we must have been at opposite attractions and just switching places at the same times. Next time I am going to stick with her like glue! :-) Part of the reason we got these season passes was so we would have time to hang out! I got sunburnt although I was wearing the same protection as the girls and was in the water for the same length of time (I bought the extra-super waterproof all-day stuff so we wouldn't have to reapply.) Just before the time we were going to leave I could feel myself burning and figured I was in trouble. Paula's head got sunburnt, though, and her poor scalp is almost purple it is so burnt! Purple is our favorite color, but.......... I think we'll wear hats next time!

I need to head to bed, just one more thing before I go.....I have been on Atkins for 17 days and I have lost 10 pounds so far!!! YEAH!! I feel great and I don't feel deprived at all (okay, except for Susan's banana bread, that has been the biggest temptation so far). I have not had to worry about feeling starved or missing out on good things or anything. I found a new comfort food last night.....creamed cauliflower.....in fact, I may eat it for breakfast, instead of the grits I used to eat. It is almost the same consistency!

See ya later, alligators!

Today was another AWESOME day with Kaedy. I got there late, even though I got up at 6 am this morning to get going......I went grocery shopping first - hubby wanted me to stay home yesterday to hang out with him, and I don't shop on Saturdays, so he convinced me to get up early and go. Since we are still new to the Atkins diet I am checking every label, so it took a looooong time to shop. I got out of there, came home, unloaded and put everything away, took a shower and FINALLY got to the hospital.

Kaedy was asleep but as soon as I said "hi" she opened her eyes and gave me a HUGE smile. Raj came in to give her a breathing treatment (he said he had already been waiting for me to come for hours so he HAD to do it then) so I couldn't pick her up. I sat her up in the crib and we played with her dancing monkey (and she danced again) and we played with her little yellow guy that laughs. Everytime the little yellow guy laughs he says something like "woohoo" or "yippee." I would copy him and say the same thing and Kaedy would laugh out loud! It was SOO cute. We also sang, played patty cake, and read. After an hour or so we started to get tired so we put the mat on the ground and slept for awhile. I love sleeping with her. I love feeling her hot breath on my face and I like it when she plays with my face. She likes to put her hands in my mouth...she is exploring!

She had another milestone today - she took a toy and put it in her mouth! They have been wanting her to do that and she finally is!

I bought the girls a slip and slide this morning at Walmart. I knew they would be excited and that way they would have something fun and cool to do in this hot weather whithout leaving home. They hooked it up and started to use it and it broke immediately!!! I have to take it back this week. They did have fun on it, anyway, though. Brittany spent the last few days at a friend's named Averi. She had a GREAT time over there and got to relax and really have some fun. It is nice to have great friends!!!

I have to figure out how to make my schedule work a little better. I need a "little" fine tuning on it. I am still having problems figuring out childcare for my kids while I see Kaedy, getting everything done at home, getting school done and feeding my family home cooked meals! I WILL get it all together though. I have the mind of Christ! (1 Corinthians 2:14-16)

We have taken Kaedy out of her room two days in a row now. Yesterday we went to see Bunny - one of our nurses who is having a surgery herself. She was up a few floors from Kaedy. Today Emily and I took her to the play room and we showed her some new toys and had a good time with her in there. I can't believe she is over 20lbs!! She is HUGE! Emily was 20 pounds around one year. Kaedy can't even come home in the backwards facing car seat. She is already too big!

Brittany is spending the night at a friend's house tonight. She was so excited. She also had a Keepers of the Home meeting today. They were learning about quilting. She has already quilted some, but now she can get her quilting badge. :-)

Tonight is church...I am so excited! I love our church. It seems like such a long time between services from Sunday to Thursday. I would be happy with another service in between those two! I love being filled with The Word. There is nothing better!

Today was the first day of our new schedule...it went really well. We both really enjoyed spending time with her and Micah said that she would be there around 1:30 to do physical therapy with her. I had fun today playing with her and reading to her. She is getting SOOO big....over 19lbs. I tried to do "ride a little horsey" with her on my knee but she is too heavy!

For the past three days she has been "dancing." She has a musical toy and we turn it on she starts bopping back and forth. Since her head is so big, if she starts getting too excited, she falls over! LOL It is so cute. I have video of it that I will put on our picture-page as soon as I have a chance!

Our Doctor finally feels that Kaedy is big enough and doing well enough on the vent to go to San Antonio. He called them and they asked for an MRI. She had one done and it was overnighted to them last week. Our Doctor kept thinking we would be going any minute. (they had said they would squeeze us in) As of today, he talked to San Antonio and found out that Dr. Campbell is out doing surgeries around the country for 2 weeks, so our doctor won't even be talking to him until the 29th. He told me just to pray. He really wants her to get seen in soon because as she gets older one of the problems she has is getting worse. (paradoxical chest movement) He is worried if we wait too long, she will actually get worse.

I am not worried because: Kaedra is the Body of Christ. She is redeemed from the curse, because Jesus bore her sicknesses and carried her diseases in His own body. By His stripes she is healed. We forbid any sickness or disease to operate in her body. Every organ, every tissue, every bone functions and is formed in the perfection in which God created it to function. HALLELUJAH!!!!

We got great news today from the physical therapist - Micah. Kaedy (for the first time) put weight on her feet while held up! Micah was so excited and the excitement was contagious. She was thrilled that Kaedy made that step in her development.

We decided to change things around in Kaedy's (and our) life. She is not getting out of bed enough or having enough stimulation during the day, and Michael and I want to change that. We don't want her development to be slowed. We decided that I would go every morning 9-11, physical therapy will go every afternoon and Michael will go every evening. That, along with the nurses putting her in her exersaucer every day should get her *closer* to a normal life. If she was at home she would be out of her crib all day, except for naps, so I really want her out as much as possible there. I mean, if a baby was at home and kept in her crib all day long, DHS would come and take the baby away from the parents!!!

Anyway, it will make Paula happy who thinks all babies should be on schedules! ;-)