Earthquake

Did you hear that we had an earthquake? Kris and I were laying in bed after our alarm went off, not wanting to get out of bed so early and our bed/house started to shake. Kris jumped up b/c he thought that our dog was have a seizure and was laying against our bed making it shake. But he was across the room. We said what was that? When we got in the car the announcer said that it was a 5.4 earthquake at 5:39 that was in Illinois and was felt thru Indiana, Michigan, and up to Chicago. No damage reported. The last one we had was in 1987, which I remember. I was playing softball and didn't feel it but the parents on the bleachers felt it.

Children today....

Kris dropped Addy and I off at 6:20 yesterday at school b/c I had a parent teacher conference with parents who did not want to meet with us but we said we could not continue care if they did not meet with us about thier child and come up with an action plan, just this month he has had 25-30 incident reports where he has hurt teachers, students, or broken resources. Something has to give.
This year has been the toughest year ever for me teaching. I have 22 students, more boys than girls and very dominant, I want to be in charge, and not made to do anything personalities in my room. I have been bit, hit, kicked, spit on, head butted to where I saw black then stars, scratched till I bled, and had to hold them in bear hugs so they could not hurt others or me. Our school prides itself in working with children and not kicking anyone out, which I agree with. Have you seen the stats of children that are kicked out of preschool and how it spirals the rest of thier lives? It is shocking. We have to teach them self coping skills/anger management now instead of dealing with it later when they show up with guns. I have always had one maybe two strong personalities that I have had to work one on one with but not so many in a class that feed off of each other like this class. Only a month or so, then we are splitting them up for the summer when the offical school year is over. It will be less stress on them and us.

An injured Kris

So we were going to have an art auction/show at my school. I have been showing my students different art pieces and they have been really excited about painting and creating. Kris had an idea that we should make them framed art canvas for them to paint on, so we did. Well we had to make 22. I helped him with most of them but I had to give Addy a bath and put her to bed while he was finishing up the last of the frames. Well long story short, Kris shot a nail thru his thumb on the second to last frame with the air nailer. He pulled it out by himself and almost passed out from the pain. He didn't tell me until I came downstairs and saw blood on the kitchen floor so I cleaned it and wrapped it up for him. The next day he got a tetanus shot, which made him run a fever, feel horrible, and not able to lift his arm up, he even took a half day off of work. Then after all that the art fair was cancelled. He wasn't happy but we are going to paint them for the summer social so it was all not for nothing. We made some longer canvas pieces for Addy's class to paint on and they did theirs yesterday.

Our 100th post

Our neice Maddie is 11 months now and not crawled. She will scoot herself backwards but really has not shown an interest in tummy time until last week. She was in daycare for her first week and by the end of the week she started crawling. Isn't is amazing what children will do when they watch other children? On Friday Maddie couldn't go to school b/c she had a fever and pulling at her ears. Sue took her to the doctor and she is on her first antibiotics for her first ear infection. She has been really healthy but whenever children start daycare they get sick. But children that go to childcare in the early years have a healthier Kindergarten year.

Cars...

We spent yesterday car shopping from 11:30-6. I was exhausted afterwards. We drove 9 or 10 cars. We found some we like but trying to fit our bucket car seat in the back and still have room to sit comfortably in the front is hard. We will keep you updated with what we get, we are still looking and going to retry two of the cars again. There is no rush but gas is eating us alive so the sooner the better.

New car again?

So we are leaving in a few minutes to go car shopping again. I love my Explorer but I don't love the gas mileage of 15 mpg in town with Kris driving a minimum of 50 miles a day. So we are going to downsize to a car with better gas mileage and a lower monthly payment. G-pa is watching Addy so we can test drive cars today b/c taking a car seat out of many different cars is not our idea of fun. We have narrowed it down to Honda (great car they run forever), VW (my favorite), Dodge (cute mini SUV), Nissan (Kris gets a corporate deal, no haggling over prices). So we will have a car for a few years but will go back to a SUV when we have 3 children. We are also looking at Hybrids, great gas mileage but a little more money up front. So wish us luck.

Lots going on and on and on

It's been a month since our last blog. A lot has happened since then. I don't have enough time to go into all of it. Addy has had a sinus infection with pink eye, then I got a double ear infection with the flu, then Kris got a upper respiratory infection. We were OK for a few days. Then on Friday, Addy ran a temp of 104.5 so we took her to the Urgent Care, they pumped her full of Tylenol, Motrin and an antibiotic. It was scary, she just lay in Kris's arms, not moving, not wanting to drink (which is what she needed to do), finally it went down and we went home before they put her in the hospital. She slept the rest of the weekend, was awake for almost 8 hours collectively for 2 days. She went to school on Monday and broke out in a rash all over her body. We had to go to the doctor again and we are trying different meds and it has cleared up. Needless to say we all have been sleeping alot to try to get better, with no energy, and our house it starting to show the signs of it too. (We really need to put away clean clothes and vacuum :-)

Sickness issues aside, one of Kris's paintball buddies was murdered on Sunday night, shot in the head for his wallet, ridiculous, what has our world come too. A friend of the family that are a couple that have been together 30 years have decided to divorce. Not to mention two sets of my cousins are getting divorced from their wives after many years of marriage.

Seems bad right? Well we have been doing 40 days of 24/7 prayer at our church and things have been changing with us and with church. Twice I have had to leave service to go to the prayer room and intercede for people. Once for a family member, which was uplifting for me to pray and I had lots of peace afterwards. The second time was different. I had to go find a girl's mom so I could pray for her daughter with her then I went to the prayer room and just cried, bent over a couch, couldn't stop sobbing, crying out to God. I haven't cried like that since..., I don't know if I have ever cried like that. I just kept getting that God's heart was breaking. You know when you are praying or interceding and God lets you feel or see a glimpse of what is going on, well that happened and it was horrible, his heart was breaking for this girl. I didn't know what was going on in her life just that she is not following God.
I keep thinking since then 'Break my heart with the things that break your heart Lord'. You see the world differently when you pray that, I have started to see what is wrong with things around me and the people and it saddens me. But then it just takes worship to make it better, not everyone gets what it is to be a worshipper. It is the most wonderful thing, to be in God's presence and tell him how much you love him, I wish everyone could take the barriers down and just worship. If they could know that freedom, that emotion, that love, that joy, if the world could just see his face.
The other thing that i have learned in this 40 day fasting and praying is how blessed I am. Kris and I were talking about marriage. Kris asked me 'do you think people are like us and love each other like we do?' I said I hope so, I hope everyone feels like we do for each other. Unfortunately we know that some have not married their best friend, or appreciate each other, or desire to spend every waking and non waking moment with each other, or talk on the phone every chance they get when they are apart, or simply touch each other all the time. We are sappy people who would be lost without each other and it saddens me that not everyone has that. I believe each person deserves it.
In the last five years Kris and I have not prayed together alot, we pray separately but that has started to change. We have had prayer time together lately and it has been great. I feel God is preparing us so we can minister together.
So that's our life in a nutshell right now. Crazy, busy, tiring, but full of love and God.
Good Night.