Hopeful's: 2009

Sorry, it's been so long.....

Month before surgery at Cowgirl national hall of fame (Free on friday afternoon)

Lilli is cute.

Some of the best friends we've had, with all the kids together. Love you Zim's!

Lilli's 3rd b-day at Chick-Fil-a.

Kids stole our bed at Beavers Bend. Notice Ethan sleeping comfortably.

We are good.

I am finally feeling better.

(and Bruce is not so stressed because of it)

The older kids are settling into school.

I am trying to scrounge up the money for (the 2 youngest) preschool 2 days a week.

There is the financial tweaking that happens continually. We are trying Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover",

with about 1/3 of it progressively driving me crazy.

We will be in Utah for Thanksgiving, here for Christmas.

Enjoy the pics.

Hellur!
Much to say but feeling like I need to temper that urge with the need to do something.
We are trying to make our own laundry soap- first batch was a disaster!
The kids are trying to convince, guilt us into buying babay chickens!
We can only get 4, no rooster and who knows when they start laying!
We are trying to save money by buying in bulk but that gets expensive cuz we get an enormous amount of a few things.
Does that sound like I'm complaining? I love bulk foods, but more so when it doesn't get wasted!
I also recently joined the healthy chocolate company and am hoping to throw a chocolate party before the kids get in school.
Which is another topic; the kids are probably going back to a local public school, in Aug.
Thank you everyone in the family for coming out for Eva's big day. It went very well and I really appreciate everyone's help and support.

Love you all, Elisa

I will post pictures soon.

more info

For all those curious;

I was bleeding for 3 weeks so I went to the Dr. on Mon. @ 3pm

to see if there was something going on,

after a painful exam, they did a sonogram and a found a gestational sac in my right Fallopian tube.

The Dr. had me do a blood test to see if I was really pregnant and if it was positive then we would proceed.

On Tuesday, the pregnancy test came back postitive and the Dr. said I had 2 options;

1- A chemotherapy drug that would prevent the cells from dividing. I would then have to go into the office every 2 days to make sure my blood level of HGH were going down and not up.

2- Surgery to take out the gestational sac before it ruptured my fallopian tube.

I chose the Surgery despite being terrified.

We went to the hospital on Wed. morning about 11am and waited till 2:30pm.

I was very nervous but Bruce was so great about hugging me and talking to me.

We said many, many prayers. I got 2 blessings and I am so grateful for everyone's prayers.

They rolled me out of the room and then I remember waking up in pain.

My nurse was mad at me because I wanted so badly to see Bruce and I wouldn't let him finish his paperwork. But he was a good nurse, did everything I asked.

After a couple hours drifting in and out of sleep, they finally wheeled me back to the same room where I had waited with Bruce for a few hours.

Somebody (don't remember) got me dressed and we went home.

I felt pretty crappy all day, mostly drowsy but the night wasn't too good.

I guess they pump your stomach full of Co2 gas to see better into your abdomen, but they don't take the gas out.

Instead it goes into your body and hurts and aches all over. It actually hurts to breathe.

So I am eating & drinking normally, even walking slowly. I am sore and achy all over but some wonderful sisters from church have been so kind to help by bringing food and watching the kids.

I am so grateful that God spared me because I know that He was pushing me to go to the Dr. ,

they found the sac in time and that I was able to get into surgery so soon.

The Dr. said that the sac was bigger than he expected and he had to cut out a piece of my tube and consequently, my right Fallopian will no longer be functional.

That means to me that God truly blessed me because it could have ruptured if we had waited any longer and I could have bled to death.

So needless to say, I am so grateful to be typing this instead of ........

you know.

Anyway, I want to thank everyone for the postive thoughts and prayers.

I love you all and hope to return the prayer blessing someday.

prayers

It's crazy how fast life can change,

but I love the way God tells me to slow down.

Always nicely, always gives me a chance to repent.

I guess I sound a little too dramatic but I really do need your prayers ASAP.

I will post about what is happening later, need to see what our options are.

thanks, Love to you all

Elisa

Debt- Free!

Just wanted to testify to anyone that wants to listen that when we do our best to follow God's commandments, He will bless us in our efforts to follow His guidance.

As I'm sure you all know, our stake Presidency asked our stake to get out of debt by 2008.
We had a very slow and rebellious start, but we did and we kicked into hig gear when ever we
could, and WE PRAYED LIKE MANIACS!
There have been a few amazing miracles in the span of debt repayment and we are truly grateful for each one.
We are of course, a year and 5 months late in reaching that Stake goal BUT......
We are here and we are so grateful for the counsel given to us, it was such a blessing!

We are now looking into ways to grow a succesful Etsy shop! We got a new camera so pictures will be coming very soon!

Homeschool!

I'm sure many are curious as to how it's going so.....

here is some of the fun we've been having.

Our first field trip; to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens-the Conservatory is only a $1 to get in!

We got a cacao pod and I tried to make chocolate. Didn't work, but it smelled good!

Neighbors fence caught on fire and the firemen spent a few minutes with the kids. They were nice.

Doesn't he look crazy? They were having a mud fight.

for Kenzie....

Bruce built a fort.

We take a field trip every week (we did miss one week because of misbehavior but only happened once). Usually local, usually free. The best part is not the flexibility, like i thought would be the greatest- but all the learning opportunities and to see them grow and develop in different ways.

Eva can now make us boiled eggs, Dylan is really improving on his handwriting , Lilli seems to be potty-training herself and Ethan is so nerdy cute that I have to refrain from nibbling constantly;

Ethan; "MOM, I am going to make a science experiment, can you help me?"

Of course, he says this 1 to 6 times a day. Sometimes he just shows me his experiments. So far, we have documented some of them in his journal.

Of course, there are no pictures of the unfun things; that would just be torture; 400 lbs of laundry, me being allergic to our new dog, some loved ones falling off the planet cuz of......,

then there's always the gnawing hunger to socialize with everyone-when they are busy.

Oh well, we are doing great and thanks for your thoughts/well wishes.

Ahh, Ice day!

Just the break I needed....
For all the 2 people who read this; we are homeschooling and have been for...............
2 days and yesterday doesn't count because it was an ice day.

We are still looking for curriculum and ideas on what we want to focus on but it is way more complex than I thought. I know it would be hard, but I also think it will be worth it.

I feel pretty wasteful for my former state of mind; in thinking that I couldn't wait for my kids to go to school, then I'd have some ME time but I realize how selfish that was and I am slowly learning that I never get that time back with people I love.

Speaking of people I love, 2 of them are moving far away and soon, so I am actually hoping to have my kids spend as much time with them as possible before they leave.

Really there are alot of reasons why we choose to do homeschooling, but that's just one.

So whatever people think, I would truly appreciate no negativity and talk of insanity.
(because putting my family above the opinions of others is pretty important to me
and frankly, I won't take kindly to those comments.0

As I'm sure you can tell, I'm feeling a little off today so let's get right to the good stuff;

Pictures!

These are of our New Years' trip to west southwest texas (border town-airforce base)

last ice storm! Poor honeysuckle is perfectly preserved.

Dylan went and snuggled a napping Lilli and ended up falling asleep himself.

Dylan and Phil! On a hike

I don't know how to fish!

These evil little cacti were out to get us, they hide in a soft patch og grass, then ram right thru your shoes. Pretty hard to get off and out of your soles.

On the boat

Super foggy when we got there

Thought this was an interesting way to eat

on a hike

Administering 1st aid to Ethan after Dylan beaned him with a rock.

They don't know how to fish EITHER

That was an amtrak railtrack. We saw one go by a few minutes later. Wasn't super fast but you could see the people on it. I would love to go on a cross country rail trip (no, not like a hobo)