The Joy of Christmas!

This past Friday, our life group organized a night of Christmas Caroling and parties. I was in charge of most of the caroling details since not many people had ever gone before. It was such a joy to hear people say, "Thank you! No one has ever done that for us." The first few stops I could hardly sing because I was getting slightly emotional. It felt so good to do something for the "Super Saints" of our church. We were only able to stop at 5 houses but that in itself was enough. We had a group of 10 adults and 13 kids. It was a big group to take around. It was a lot of fun!!

After we were done we had our parties (kid's at one house and adults at another house).
Some pics of our party:

After we stopped at the first house, we put Amaya back in the car seat and she basically screamed all the way to the next house (about 10 min away). Neither Chad or I had the patience and kept telling her no which made her cry more. Ahhh the lessons of parenting. We then had one of the older kids ride with us. The ride was much more enjoyable after that.

Tonight, I got Amaya's Christmas gift from my family. I bought Amaya this cute playset with a stroller, pack'n'play, play gym, bouncy seat, diaper bag....all the things that you would get for a "real" baby. I know she will enjoy it b/c she points to our pack and play (I use it when I baby-sit) and says, "Shhhhh....baby sleeping." I can't wait for her to open it. =) I had quite the ordeal trying to find it. I've seen different sets at Target, Wal-mart and Sam's club but I saw this one online at Toys R Us and I immediately liked it. Well, last week when I went to purchase it, it was out of stock. I had them email me when it was back in stock. By the time I got the email it was out of stock again. I did that three times and each time, it was out of stock by the time I got the email. One time, I saw the email 10 minutes after they sent it and it was already out of stock again. (Popular gift - I think). Finally I checked to see if there was any at the Toys R Us in South Bend and there was so I check closer to me (in Greenwood) and it said it was in stock. I called this afternoon and they had ONE left. They held it for me until I was able to get it later this evening. Whew.....that was close. =) I'm sure she would have liked another one just as well but Mommy really liked it. (hee hee)
I was walking around the store and I came to the kitchen section....I sent a text to Chad and said, I want to be a kid again...they have little stainless pots and pans....so cute! Ok so I really don't want to be a kid again but they have come cool toys.

No more bandaids

So last night we took off the bandaid (hopefully for good). It's such a small hole right now. It's amazing what happens to the body as it goes through the healing process. God is a good God!!
Right now we are just keeping some antibiotic salve on it so it doesn't completely dry out and scab but otherwise it looks really good! It's been just over a month since Amaya had her surgery and to think that it's almost completely healed is such a relief. Thank you for all your prayers for us and for her during this time. I know I've said it over and over but it's truly from the bottom of my heart!

Laughter is good medicine......

Tonight we had our leaders meeting at Pastors Kim and Renee's house. It was so fun to laugh about days gone by and I got to thinking, doesn't it feel good to laugh. This has been a hard week for me. I've had a lot going on and being pregnant, it just seemed to totally stress me out. I've had to make decisions that I'm not ready to make and so breaking down in tears was quite easy. I am also planning a party for my life group which I should have shared the responsibility more...anyway, it all seemed to break down at one point and it was just stressful. So tonight hearing funny stories was quite a treat. One of the other pastors was doing an impersonation of a guest minister we had a few years ago and it made everyone laugh and laugh. I felt like a load of stress had been lifted off. Have you ever felt like that? I think that's a little bit of what the joy of the Lord feels like. That's why the Bible says "REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS AND AGAIN I SAY REJOICE." There is a reason and a purpose for all in life. I felt refreshed after laughing. I told Chad, there is a reason we have memories - so we can laugh and have fun with them.

Here is Amaya on one of her last days with a bandaid - I love this picture b/c she's just having a good time.

"Do it Again"

Amaya has been saying, "again" for a while now when we do something that she wants us to do again. Today I was playing with her and she looks at me and says, "Do it again."

I can't believe she is saying small sentences already. I know she knows a lot but I didn't realize how much she knows for her age. I'm thankful to be home with her to teach her. I know Daddy teaches her a lot too and during this time that he is looking for a job, he watches her too. It's fun to see how much she is learning just from our talking.

Last night we she got another "boo boo." She was trying to get off the treadmill and to go see Daddy when she fell off and hit the edge of the coffee table (which is covered in a nice thick blanket). The blanket helped but it didn't keep her from splitting her lip a little bit. She cried for a while but it wasn't too bad. A little bloody but nothing major...looked better already this morning. She has a little bit of a swollen lip. (We have to document these happenings b/c otherwise we'd forget about them.) =)

Here she is sporting her Colts outfit and my pink Colts hat. =) I don't think you can even see that her lip is bruised. (Maybe a little bit - it's on the right side if you are looking straight at her.)

Amaya loves her "Chismas Chee." She likes to go over to it and run her hands up and down along the branches.

Here is a recent pic of me. I'm 29 weeks on this day. This was taken a couple weeks ago. (I'm 31 1/2 weeks now) He's coming soon......

The other night Amaya was all quiet and I went to look for her and here is what I found:

This was her a little bit later.

Amaya Updates

Seems like I've been updating a lot on Amaya but that's good because the news is getting better and better each time.

Here are some pictures of the recent progression.

This is from Friday November 19....kinda blurry but the best we could do. This is one where you can still see the hole in the middle.

The next two are from Wednesday, Nov 26. My mom took those while we are in Shipshe.

If you look closely at the following one, you can see where the tape has caused her to have really red skin around the wound. We're hoping that will start to go away now that we are just using band-aids.

This picture was taken tonight after the band-aid from our Riley check-up had started to come off. It's pretty gross because it has the silver nitrate on it.

Our Doctor Appointment Today:
The doctor said everything looked good but it had "overzealous healing". So basically there is too much tissue there right now so we have to burn it off. It's not a literal burning but we use these sticks with the silver nitrate on them to kill the cells. It turns the area a gray/black/brown color. The good thing is we only have to do it every other day. He said that I should just have to use 2 more of those sticks. (So basically we would be done with this process on Friday) The sticks are just the applicators. She doesn't like them too much because it does sting but they gave us some numbing gel to put on before we use them. After we put that on, all we have to put on is a band-aid....that is great news. It's nice to see her with just a small band-aid and not a huge bandage. We've come a long way!!