Hope for Olive

I have shared with you before about my friends the Polinders and their precious baby Olive. They are still currently struggling day to day with medical care and costs for Olive. It looks like they won't be able to move her to the U.S. for at least another two months and so she will be having the surgery for her new shunt there. It has been so amazing to watch their journey and be able to see their faithfulness in Gods work in their lives as well as Olives.
As you can imagine they are racking up quite a bit of bills at the hospital as well as living expenses for themselves. I have been praying specifically for this subject of need and have asked God to show me how I can help them out.
This all being said I was able to get approval from the Chamber of Commerce to have a cocoa and oliebollen sale during the lighted Christmas parade on December 5 with all proceeds going towards the Polinders financial needs. Lynette told me that their bills will continue to pile up for some time yet and they are still going to have to come up with the funds to come home once Olive is stable enough to travel. This will not be an easy task and there will be much labor involved as far as making the oliebollen and serving on the day of. So I guess I am saying or asking rather for help. Now I am not expecting everyone to be able to, so do not feel obligated your prayers would be enough support. But if you are willing to help I am hoping to find people to help cook the oliebollen as well as serve the cocoa and oliebollen during the parade.
If this at all sounds like something you want to help with shoot me an email at jessica@angryblueberry.com.
And in the meantime please keep praying with us for Olive.
rustylynette.blogspot.com

Princess Grace La La La La

Lately I have been a tiny bit stressed, things seem to pile up and I wonder how I will get everything done. Appliances seem to be breaking every time I turn around. And my heart has been heavy with quite a few things. But I am so lucky I have this little peanut Grace with me all of the time right now because even though she tests every fiber of my patience at times, she is also the sweetest, cutest and must lovely little girl in the world. She keeps me grounded and reminds me every minute how thankful I am for what I have right here and right now.
I know I have blogged a lot about her so I will spare you from my normal comments and raves. However, lately she is most definitely 4 and sometimes I actually wonder if she is 12:) She loves to help me bake and we have been baking nearly everyday since school started. She loves to read books and play with all of the normal girl toys. But lately she is really into story telling, which is so funny because she is so serious about what she is telling you that if you didn't know her you would probably believe her. Just today she was singing a song that she is learning for Christmas in Preschool its about the shepherds going to see baby Jesus but instead of going to Bethlehem Graces shepherds were going to Bellingham. So I took the chance to challenge her and I asked her are you sure its Bellingham not Bethlehem and she said yes Bellingham mom and I then I asked where in Bellingham did they go and she replied a field somewhere. Well there you have it folks. There was no changing her mind. She did add though that Jesus' moms name is Mary so if you find her you will find Baby Jesus. At least she has that right and the rest will come later.
Her new nickname is sassyfrass and that is the best way to describe her. I am just so thankful for these two little ones that keep me sane as much as they make me insane sometimes:)

Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween. I totally believe that holidays such as these are what you make them. We invite everyone over make homemade doughnuts, treats and crafts. I love the feeling of my house being full of life, love and happy faces. There is really nothing greater to me than being surrounded by the ones I love and enjoying this life to its fullest.
We had Luke Skywalker and Aurora this year. They were adorable as usual.. Especially my Elliot because he so serious about his costume it has to be just right. Well unfortunately he left his costume belt out and the puppy ate it so at the last minute we had to to talk him into wearing a regular belt and Brian fashioned him a "ammo belt" out of any empty cantine holder. In the end of course it was totally cool and he made some grenades for his ammo belt:) Kolby and Savannah were here to so we had Darth Vadar and the cutest little girl pirate you ever did see. The boys even treated us to a light saber show in the living room with all of the lights turned out.
This was the first year Brian had to work on Halloween(and the last) so my did and Jaime took the kids out trick or treating and my Mom, Kristin and I finished the doughnuts so the kids would have a warm treat when they got back. Bill did the door answering and MomL did the dishes.
These are really what memories are made of and that is what we are going for these days.

Olive Hope

Lately my heart has been really heavy in prayer for some friends of mine and their oh so tiny little one Olive Hope. She is the child of Rusty and Lynette Polinder who are missionaries in Thailand. Their baby was born about 2 months early and is suffering from many complications. As a mother I can not imagine the heart ache Lynette must be feeling right now. I am going to include their blog address(which is public) so if you wish to pray for them you can read about their journey and follow them in order to know exactly what they need. It has been amazing to watch God work in their lives.
The Holy Spirit has been keeping little Olive at the forefront of my mind and I just thought what better than to get everyone I know to pray for her as well.
http://rustylynette.blogspot.com/

He Got The Job...

Some of you already know this but for those of you who don't....he got the job. Praise God!! They made the offer yesterday and after some negotiating we were able to arrange a salary we could deal with and woohoo its done.
Now we are negotiating a start date and wouldn't you know they have come up with a rule that people can't change positions within the fourth quarter.? I had some interesting words and thoughts when I was presented with this news, however that won't do us much good. It looks like best case scenario he will start on the 1st of Dec.worst case scenario it will be the 1st of the year. Really?? Uhhhhh...didn't they know this momma was really counting on her first year of holidays without 12 hour shifts and working until 11pm or midnight.
Now that I have that off of my chest I will sit back, relax, wait, breathe and pray that we will get the soonest start date possible. But he got the job woohoo!
Thanks to all of you who were praying along with us for the change it is much appreciated!! Brian is so excited and I think a bit relieved for a change of pace. And after 8 years of retail (although don't get us wrong it is an amazing job with amazing benefits and compensation!) we are pretty pumped.

Our Last Preschool Pumpkin Field Trip.

Grace invited me to go along with her class to Stoney Ridge Farms today. We had so much fun. This is my fifth trip as a mom on the field trip so I know the presentation fairly well:) Grace did so well and it was great to watch her learn and as always she is the first one to raise her hand to answer a question. I don't have a whole lot to write because I have done this post so many times but I did get some cute pictures:)

I want to be four again!!

Grace is such a girl..I know I have said this before but I will say it again! The other night after dinner I had her in the bathtub and she told me we needed to make a recipe (oh man she is so my daughter) she said we needed some ingredients...water, powdered sugar, curls and some sunshine. This make rainbow princess water in case you want to try it out sometime:)
Today she had her friend over and they were playing princesses as usual. Aren't they cute in there matching purple dresses and Bindi stickers?
I love my four year old girly girl!