Wow last week was busy…
On Monday Joel, Samuel and I headed in to therapy. My Mom agreed to watch Samuel while Joel was at speech therapy and physio. His sessions went really well, it is fun to see him working hard and having fun.
On Tuesday Elijah and Dave headed off to the Orthodontist and then one of Joel’s therapists came to the house. And of course, we had to have some Valentine’s fun.
Wednesday my sweet Samuel turned one, but it was a busy day.
 We headed off to the dentist Joshua, Joel, Samuel and myself. I am seriously considering finding a new dentist. The work she does is wonderful however… you can get in easily for a cleaning but for dental work that is different. Months and months ago both Joel and Joshua had a small cavity. They booked the boys appointments 3 months down the road. Joel was scheduled in at the hospital for something, it might have been his port removal, and I had to cancel the boys appointment they could not fit them in again until February 14th!! Fine, we will take what we can get, oh and yes it will be with the new dentist that our regular dentist has just hired on. Fine. We go in, and while Joel does not really like medical staff he was happy to be at the dentist. He did not speak to them but he smiled and nodded when asked a question. He hopped up in the chair and did not even flinch when they gave him the needle (can’t say the same for Joshua). Once the freezing starts to set in the dentist tries putting this huge thing in Joel’s mouth to keep it open. At this point I say, “Oh yes, Joel has a huge gag reflex.” Joel is gagging and gagging, he tries to drill and again Joel starts gagging. The dentist says, “Well, we’ll just wait a minute or two and try again”. Again he tries and again Joel starts gagging. Then he says, “We will have to try again another day” and mutters something about if he is in a better mood it might go smoother. What? he was in a fine mood, he just didn’t talk to him. I asked the assistant what they would do differently next time. I said Joel wasn’t being difficult, he has a gag reflex and that isn’t going to change between appointments. She says not to worry, they will book him with the other dentist. Oh and did I mention the little cavity is now a deep cavity?? So they squeezed him in with the other dentist on May 3rd?!?
Then it is Joshua’s turn. Joel is standing mute in the corner and Samuel is making baby noises but he is not screaming or crying. When another dental assistant tells us to please go sit in the waiting room as it will be less of a distraction for everyone. Then she added that it was time that Joshua learned to go in on his own. I sat right by the door and could hear Joshua moaning, he told me afterwards he did not like it when we left but he was too afraid to ask if we could come back  Yes Joshua is 8 years old and his older brother and sister were probably going in by themselves, but I know my children and Joshua needs his Momma still. I don’t expect him to still need me holding his hand when he is 12 but right now he does. Cancer affects the whole family and when I was gone from home for 10 weeks it really affected him and he does not like to be left alone; we are working on these issues but it all added up to a really lousy time at the dentist.
That was not the end of the day we had to hurry home and get ourselves back out the door and off to Ottawa to go to the Children’s Hospital! Joel was going to get his eyes checked again to see if the glasses were helping. The answer to that is yes and no. Yes his eyesight is better with the glasses on, but, no they have not helped to straighten his eye.
From there we rushed home to have a little party for Samuel… a bit of a warm up for Saturday.
 Which brings us to Thursday where Joel, Samuel and I head back in to town for another therapy session this time he had Occupational Therapy. Again he loves going to therapy and it is great to see him being challenged and enjoying it.
Friday we needed to try to catch up on some housework and do a little baking as Mr. Kline was coming over for lunch and coffee.
Ah Saturday, clean house, work on Samuel’s Birthday present, bake a cake and then a ham. We had Gramma, Biba and Uncle Kyle over for Samuel’s First Birthday Bash!
Shortly before my parents and brother came over, Joel came in from playing with his brother outside he was just fine when I looked at him and thought oh no what do you have?? Are we going to have to cancel the party are you contagious?? Then I saw little tiny pin pricks of blood. Joel did you fall? His whole demeanour changed, his little lip came out, “Yes!” Ahh I thought so when I saw the blood. BLOOD???? I need a hot chocolate!!!!
When the snow gets icy it can really hurt if you fall on it. One hot chocolate later and he felt like a new man.
Lots of fun to watch him eat and open his presents.
Fortunate guy he got to have Birthday cake twice in one week!
I made Samuel his own fabric Alphabet! Tutorial coming soon!
That was our week in a glance.
This winter has been anything but normal. It was slow to start and then we got a lot of snow and now it is warm enough to put the buckets up and we are still in February.
Basically sap starts running when temperatures climb above freezing during the day and drop back down at night. Your best sap days will be when you are just above freezing and the sun is shining bright! Yesterday, David and some of the children headed out to hang a few pails. Later this week they will hike into the bush and hang the other pails.
I love making syrup and I’ll post pictures and how to’s later once things get running. This will be our third year making maple syrup and it is something we look forward to each year.
Here on my blog I try to keep certain things compartmentalized, this is a post about homesteading, that is a post about gardening, and that one is about Joel. Somehow life spills over and I find it impossible to separate things.
Hanging the syrup pails is one of those things that I cannot separate. Two years ago in March 2010 when we hung our first ever maple syrup pails I pulled out the camera and we took pictures. It was our first time, did we angle the drill just right? How far apart do we put the pails? The children were so interested most of the pictures I took had the backs of their heads as they were so interested in what Daddy was doing.
These were the last pictures I took of Joel before our lives changed so drastically.  The next picture I took would be a couple of weeks after his surgery. It took me two weeks because I was afraid that someone might think I was exploiting him or something like that I didn’t want his life to become a whole bunch of medical pictures. As we look back there are very few medical pictures of Joel most of them are of him painting or snuggling in the hospital.
Some how Maple Syrup seasoning has become a marker for me. Here is a picture of his beautiful little head, his big brothers were growing rat tails (I am not sure why that was the fashion rage at the time in our house) and 4 year old Joel was the last to jump on the wagon. When they shaved the back of Joel’s head for surgery they put his little tail in a ziploc bag.  
Last year was really hard, we hung the pails and Joel was too cold and tired to come outside for the hanging of the pails. On a warmer sunnier day he did go out to check the sap. Taliah held on to his hand and tried to steady him as he stumbled along to the pail. Then he sat on a piece of wood to catch his breath before heading back into the house. I looked at the pictures from 2010 and saw those full little cheeks and my heart broke as I looked at my sweet bald and so skinny little guy.
This year while his gait might be slightly wobbly as he maneuvers the uneven ground he marched out to the tree all by himself, once again his cheeks are round. He is wearing glasses (when we can find them) now and there is the tell-tale scar at the back of his head. He still has a long road of recovery ahead of him, but there is already a little part of me that looks forward to the Maple Syrup season of 2013 to see how far we have come. Sweet.
How can it be that you are already one?
Samuel you have been an amazing gift to our family. God sent you to our family when we were dealing with some very tough stuff. I remember your first trip to the Children’s Hospital when you were only 8 days old, even at that young age you cheered your big brother on as he did battle with all those nasty cancer cells!
You have brought a million smiles to our faces already. We do hope that this coming year you will sleep more at night-time, and we look forward to watching you continue to explore the world around you. We love you so much! God Bless You my Sweet Little One.
Samuel will be celebrating his Birthday on Saturday, but as today was his actual day we did a test run Here are the highlights…
After a very busy day of going to dentist appointments and then off to the children’s hospital Samuel was happy to be home and stretch his legs. I am trying to do the homemade thing and I stayed up really late last night making this sock puppy for Samuel! I think he really likes it!
We also gave Samuel his first taste of Birthday cake and he liked that too!
Although he wasn’t too sure about what to make of the candle!
 He did know what to do with the cake!
After a bath and some playtime it was time to cuddle up with his new-found friend! Sweet Dreams one year old!
Happy Valentine’s Day
 Eggs, we are so loving having our own eggs, our family loves them and we would go through 3-4 dozen a week easily it is so nice to not have to buy them anymore.
We have had our challenges with our chickens mainly too many roosters. Our first 3 chickens were 9 week old barred rock chickens they said they were pretty sure that they were all hens as none of them were showing any signs of rooster behaviour… sure enough they were all roosters.
I really wanted to get some Americaunas and found someone selling chicks we were supposed to get 15 Americauna chicks a few days before getting them she emailed me that she didn’t actually have that many but had a bunch of rare breeds that she would give us a mix of. We get there and there were only 12 and some were sick, we got home and counted them and there were only 11. Two ended up dying before we could get the med that they needed. So we were left with 9, of the nine 6 are roosters! (You can read more details about the chick saga by clicking on chick saga!)
We finally gave up on ckicks and bought 5 laying hens.
We knew that having roosters together was not a good idea but as we went into the winter they were just starting to show their roosterness (I made that word up.) Our fear was if we got rid of all the roosters the few hens would freeze we needed their body heat. There really wasn’t enough room in the other coop for all of the hens.
Until just a couple of weeks ago all our roosters were getting along roaming the property. Two of them started fighting and it got rather nasty so we broke up the fight and now one is living in a dog kennel in our summer kitchen. I realize we could kill them all and have chicken dinner but they are all rare breed roosters and they are lovely looking. We are hoping to find new homes for most of them. 
Of the 3 hens one is a bantam polish cross and is really more of a pet to the kids. The two other hens have started laying one we believe is a mix of two rare breeds and she lays a smallish brown speckled egg. The last one is a black copper maran and she lays the beautiful chocolate coloured eggs.
We have 3 black copper maran roosters so we have decided to keep one and breed the 2 black copper marans. We also believe out of all those chicks we have one Americauna rooster so we are going to keep him to breed with our poor black copper maran to see if we can get some olive eggers. 
We are also hoping to find someone who has rare breeds that are willing to sell young proven hens:)
We are wanting to raise some meat birds too, the black copper maran are supposed to be a good dual purpose bird, anyone have experience with them as a meat bird? I know they take longer to reach their desired weight than something that has been ‘engineered’ to put weight on fast but we were hoping to work with birds that aren’t going to break a leg from putting weight on so fast. I have heard good things about Freedom Rangers for meat birds but have not found anyone in Canada carrying them. I’d love to hear meat bird suggestions.
linking this post with Homestead Revival 
The Voice New Testament
I recently had the opportunity to review, ‘The Voice New Testament.’ Oh boy, have I struggled with this review. It wasn’t that it was a difficult read because, ‘The Voice’ for the most part is a smooth read. Where my struggle was, was that I usually love a book or hate it, occasionally I am somewhere in the middle, but with, ‘the voice’ I do not feel like I am in any one of those places. I will do my best to explain.
‘The Voice’ is considered a translation of the Bible, and while I believe that the intent behind this translation is to make an accurate and engaging translation, it is my opinion that in places they perhaps may have gone from translation to interpretation. I realize they address this in the Preface, “First, every translation is an interpretation. Anyone who has studied translation theory recognizes that it is impossible for a translator to get outside their skins and objectively render a text.” Alright fair enough, we understand there are words that can be translated to mean more than just one thing and a translator has to look at the context and how it has been used in other passages but my problem is not that interpretation was used to translate a single word or even an idea. What I struggled with was their need to add text.
Now if the reader reads the Preface they will learn that anything in italics is added text to, “assist in completing ideas, and often provide readers with information that would have been obvious to the original audience.” There is also Delineated material which is not taken from the original text but is in another colored text or has a colored line dividing it from the rest of the text. “It may include cultural, historical theological or devotional thoughts.”
I struggle with this added material I will give an example, here is Matthew 1:19-23 in the NIV translation
Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Here it is from the New King James Version,
Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
Now here is Matthew 1:19-23 from the Voice
Joseph, because he was kind and understanding and honorable, wanted to spare Mary shame. He did not wish to cause her more embarrassment than necessary. Now when Joseph decided to act on his instincts, a messenger of the Lord came to him in a dream.
Messenger of the Lord Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to wed Mary and bring her into your home and family as your wife. She did not sneak off and sleep with someone else – rather, she conceived the baby she now carries through the miraculous wonderworkings of the Holy Spirit. She will have a son, and you will name Him Jesus, which means “the Lord saves,” because this Jesus is the person who will save all of His people from sin.
I guess I am old fashion but do we really need the added text about Mary sneaking off to sleep with someone else? If there was any doubt then in the added Delineated material which is placed right between verses 19 and 20 we read,
This is remarkable, because Mary has never had sex. She and Joseph have not even spent much time alone, but they are pledged to each other and their wedding feast has been planned. She has never even kissed a man. She is a virgin, yet she is pregnant. Miraculous! On the other hand, Joseph suspects that Mary has cheated on him and had sex with another man. He knows he will have to break their engagement, but he decides to do this quietly. Mary understands that it is God, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, who has made her pregnant.
My concern is if you are a new Christian and are handed this New testament and then, you dive into this Bible without reading the preface, will you then think that everything that you are reading is God’s Word when it isn’t. I said I felt they went beyond translation to interpretation, we really know very little about Joseph and Mary yet there are a lot of assumptions in the above text, yes it is likely that Mary and Joseph had not spent much time alone yet it is stated as fact. I could go on but I think the differences in the text are obvious.
I think we need to be very careful when translating the Bible to not add to, or take away from, it. I believe to read this Bible without doing that you must read the preface so that you understand clearly what is added and what is the actual text.
So far it sounds like I hate it and as a translation I think I give it a thumbs down…but…
It makes me think a little of The Message, and I like The Message. What? Isn’t that a doubled standard? I don’t think so. The Message was never intended to be read as The Word of God but as something to get people excited about God’s word and help them to think about it in today’s language. Eugene Peterson was quoted as saying, “When I’m in a congregation where somebody uses [The Message] in the Scripture reading, it makes me a little uneasy. I would never recommend it be used as saying, “Hear the Word of God from The Message.” But it surprises me how many do!”
On the cover of The Voice it says, STEP INTO THE STORY OF SCRIPTURE. See it as just that, and I like it, see it as the STORY of Scripture. Use it to inspire you to dig deeper into The Word, but don’t use it as your only source for God’s Word.
“New Testament has been provided courtesy of Thomas Nelson and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.
Available at your favourite bookseller from Thomas Nelson“.
I cried today…
We were in the car driving to Joel’s therapy session when he was talking about, when he grows up. He was telling us that the job he wants is to drive a big truck that would bring food and toys to kids that don’t have any. Then he talked about his son and daughter and things he would give them. Finally my 6 1/2-year-old Joel said,
“Know what I can’t wait for?”
“What’s that Joel?”
“To get married!”
I quietly cried at his sweetness, but I also cried about my fears. We all want the best for our children, we don’t want them to experience disappointment. When I share the things he says here I don’t add in how many times he repeats a word looking for the next or how many umms he says the above conversation about his job and future wife probably took about 10 minutes for him. If I was having the same conversation with Joshua it would probably taken Joshua a minute to say the same thing.
The doctors and therapist cannot make us any promises if Joel will ever improve maybe…
Is there a girl out there with that much patience, to fall in love with a boy who has a wonderful heart but has trouble getting his words out? Not to mention his cognitive issues?
So I cried wondering how many disappointments he may face. The silly part is we all face disappointments. I have friends with grown children. They have watched their children make mistakes, lost a job, watch as their child’s marriage fell apart, a daughter miscarrying. We live in a fallen world and we are told by Christ himself that we will have troubles.
But there is HOPE…
I know it. I don’t know Joel’s future but God does, once again I need to lay my little boy at His feet and pray not MY will be done Lord, but YOURS.
The coolest thing was I came home and checked my email and there was an email from a girl who has a little boy about the same age as Joel. ( I belong to a Yahoo group called cerebellarmutism which deals with kids that have experienced Posterior Fossa Syndrome which Joel has.) Basically, the side effects Joel has experienced from surgery are all part and parcel of Posterior Fossa Syndrome (PFS), muteness, loss of motor control down the right side, eye turning in, facial paralysis, ataxia etc. these are all things Joel dealt with and to some degree still deals with. At any rate back to the email, this girl’s little guy’s PFS was worse than Joel’s and he is receiving some different treatments than Joel is and he is making amazing leaps and bounds in recovery and she is willing to share all that they are doing with their son. I know that no two children are the same and just because it is working for her son does not mean it will for Joel but it was so encouraging.
It felt like it was straight from God, I had not even laid my worries before Him and I felt like He was saying to me, “See there is always HOPE.”
Whatever you are going through the message is still the same, there is always HOPE, no matter what.
I started this post on Monday and now it is early Tuesday morning, I did not forget about The Clean Heart Clean Home Challenge I am still slowly plugging away at it but as I have not made the headway I was hoping for I decided to post next Monday and there is always HOPE that this is the week I will finally catch up!!
I remember 13 years 364 days ago, very late in the day around 11 pm my water broke. Dave and I were over the moon with excitement. We hurried off to the hospital where they confirmed that yes my water did break and I was in the early stages of labour. They encouraged us to try to get some sleep, I think we did try but we were very excited it was hard to sleep. I felt my first contraction around 2am on the 5th of February. By morning things were really getting going. Our little guy’s heart rate dropped and they thought they might have to do an emergency C-section but thankfully at about 2:30 in the afternoon our first-born entered this world. Elijah David how you changed our lives.
I can still close my eyes and see you all curled up in my lap, and I marveled at how fearfully and wonderfully made you were. I can remember feeling so undeserving of this wonderful opportunity I was given by God. Of all the Mommas in the world God picked me to be your Mom. That God would trust me, and your Dad, with the awesome responsibility of raising you.  Here you stand 14 years later on your way to becoming the man that God wants you to be.
 The journey is not always easy and you have a lifetime of lessons yet to learn, but keep your eyes on Jesus, Elijah, and you will be amazed at where the Lord will take you. You are a gift to each one of us and you have enriched our lives. We love you, Happy Birthday!
Note: Scanner isn’t working so I had to take a picture of a picture and most of my great baby pics of Elijah are in our scrapbook
A friend of mine and a fellow blogger is going to be having a chance for you to win $50. and asked me to share about it. Why don’t you head on over and check out her lovely blog, ‘Ramblings of a Christian Mom.’ Bookmark it, subscribe to it, follow her on Facebook and then when she has the giveaway later in the month you’ll be sure to know. Right now she is looking for other bloggers to be a part of the Giveaway. If you have a blog and are looking for ways to increase your readership or Facebook likes etc. Head on over to her blog to find out how you can participate!
Here we are on Tuesday yet again…
Excuses for this week;
- Still sick
- Computer issues
- Might have been able to post last night but got caught up in the book I am reading to the kids and when we finished I was too tired!
Which brings me to Tuesday evening. I am still chugging along at this challenge… baby steps. I keep telling myself that even if I am not attacking this at the rate I would like things to be moving at, I am making improvement and working at maintaining it. I am not even sure which rooms were on the list for this week but I will give you a quick run down of where I am at.
Kitchen
We have a window seat in the kitchen that opens for storage I still need to sort through it and the top shelf of my pantry and then the kitchen is fini!
Bathrooms uuumm! Still need to work on those
Girls Bedroom
The girls jumped on board and went through their room and it is looking pretty good would love it if Hannah would part with a few stuffed animals but we are working on that! I am tempted to just remove a few and see if she asks about them!
My Room
I have cleaned under the bed got all the little dust bunnies, and began working my way through dresser drawers. I have one drawer in the dresser left and two in my bedside table to go through and my closet!
Boys Bedroom
Well, the boys jumped on board too, and have not got to the end of it despite me working with them for almost a whole day! In their defense, they have a crazy huge room and all the children play in there sometimes. HOWEVER, they are pack of pack-rats. We carried a whole garbage bag of garbage out of their room. Papers and packaging they were holding on to, broken toys etc. Glad to see it go. Joshua is the least of the pack-rats and he has actually given up some things. Elijah is moving in that direction as he gets older some of the things he has been holding on to he is beginning to see them as childish but wants to save them for his kids  . Joel on the other hand, well, he likes his stuff!
As I have been working at organizing drawers I decided to take these little boxes,
cut off the tops of them,
and use them as drawer organizers, umm, worked great for my ahh, unmentionables, er ah under garments. I’ll spare you the pictures of that, however, I also used them in Samuel’s drawer and it helped to corral all his tiny socks and onesies.
I found rolling his onesies fit more in and I could see them better. I have one drawer of shirts that I am always trying to cram another shirt into, I decided to try rolling my shirts too!
I was amazed at how much room it opened up in that drawer, I don’t have to dig to find what I am looking for anymore! Yes, I know, there are far too many stripes for any one person in that drawer!
Now extra bedrooms are not on the list until next week, so if I finish off the bedrooms this week then I could switch it with next week and still be caught up…maybe.
To Catch Up, I need to finish;
- My room
- The Boys room
- The Kitchen
- The bathrooms
Start cleaning;
- Guest bedroom
- Laundry room
- Stairway and Hallway
Anything is possible!
This weeks devotional, drew the picture of an unexpected guest stopping in. Would you be ready? I remember after Samuel was born friends stopped in to see the new baby. We had been up all night and had gone to church, came home, and made lunch, and just crashed because Samuel was finally sleeping. There was stuff everywhere I was actually in bed when the children yelled, “there is someone here.” There were toys on the floor, dishes piled around. I was so embarrassed, I remember my Mom saying, “Oh Cheryl they didn’t come to see your mess, they came to see you and the baby.” True enough but I think we all like to put our best foot forward. Anyway, the devotional goes on to say what if those unexpected guests started opening closets and cupboards how would you feel then?
Of course, it was then turned back to our hearts. God cares very little about your pile of dishes but He does care about what is piling up in your heart. Have you been stashing things away in your heart to deal with later. Now is the time to unpack those things and clean them out before God.
How are you all doing, anyone cleaning their hearts and homes???
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