Life & my nephew Adam

So, I've had several posts rattling around in my brain. (my husband would tell you, that's probably all that's rattling around in there.) But, at this point in the game, I'm like, aaahhh, too late to post them now- irrelevant. I just saw a recipe on a blog that I read that looks really yummy. I might have to try it. (I'd steal it & post it on recipeasy, but it's on Emily's sister's, Holly, blog.) Wanted to post on the election, but seems irrelevant at this point. Did get an interesting e-mail from a friend about 77 days of praying for the president. Check it out here if you want: www.presidentialprayerteam.org. I'd do the little linky thing, but I am NOT technically savvy. You show me what to do I can do it. Try to figure it out on my own, not so much.
Wanted to post about halloween, but again, seems irrelevant at this point.
Guess I should give my dad a belated b-day shout out. His b-day was Saturday the 8th. In typical Gail fashion, I bought his b-day card on October 21st,(this year); but when I went to mail it I couldn't find it, so it didn't get mailed until the 6th when my darling husband found it for me.

I do want to say THANK YOU to ALL the veterans out there who served our country. Whether you pushed paper across a desk, or fought on the front lines, it is all still important. And my family & I thank you, because we appreciate our freedoms. May God bless America, & may that be a phrase that NEVER dies in this country. Too many lives have been lost in order that we might be able to say that.

I'm really slacking in this department. My nephew, Adam, had a PET scan last Tu. & then met with his oncologist on Fri, 11/7. According to the doctor, at this point he is considered in remission!!!!!!!!!!!! CAN YOU SAY YAHHOOOOO!!!!! The PET scan came back with no signs of cancer & his tumor markers are normal. He still has to finish out his chemo, of which he has 2 more rounds. He should be done mid-January. 4 weeks after that they'll do another PET scan to make sure still no signs of cancer & then 4 weeks after that, if all is going well, they'll reverse his iliostomy & repair the hernia he got.
What is almost as awesome as that, is we as a family have been praying for him when we put the girls to bed. Well, Wed. nights is our bible study nite & my awesome girlfriend, Viv, comes over to spoil babysit the girls for us. When we came home, she asked me about Adam & said that Emily said we didn't have to pray for him any more, 'cuz he was all better. I didn't get the above report about remission until Friday. Odd?? or God! I personally like to think God.
So a huge thank you to those of you in bloggy land who have been praying for Adam. Please continue to pray for the rest of his treatments & anything else the Lord may lay on your heart.
Well, I think that is about all for tonight. It is late & I must go to bed.
Have a blessed rest of the week.
-Gail

recipeasy

So, Karen, who fixed my blog so lovely, also belongs to another blog, called recipeasy.
Well, the ladies over at recipeasy just let me join their ranks. There are some really yummy recipes on there. Just a couple I've tried and people have raved about is "gooey butter cake" and the no bake cookies. I just added my first post, so hop on over & check it out. You just might find something yummy for dinner(or another meal).
Here's the link: recipeasy.blogspot.com
Hope you enjoy.
-Gail

A HUGE THANK YOU!!!!!!

Like the new blog look??? Wish I could take credit for it, but alas, I truly am not that talented!!!! If I did this on my own, well, it still wouldn't be done. So this is a huge THANK YOU to my bloggy friend, Karen over at snakes-snails-puppydogtails.blogspot.com. I provided the pics and she put it all together for me. Maybe someday I'll be blessed to meet this lovely lady in person. But for now, I am glad to call her a bloggy friend! You should check out her other blog too- recipeasy.blogspot.com. I've gotten several YUMMY recipes off this site!

Karen, thank you again. May you be richly blessed for sharing your talents.

Fall, pumpkins & growing children

Our junior high youth group was suppose to go to a corn maze yesterday evening, but a storm came in; wind & rain. So word of mouth told me it got canceled. Well, yesterday morning it was still nice. Some friends of ours were on their way to above said corn maze, last weekend I believe, when they came across a different farm that had a lot of free stuff, geared towards all ages. With no direction or clue of where we were going, my husband, the girls and I set out to find this place. The only thing we knew was what city it was in. Now I realize being the smallest state in the union you'd think we'd be able to find this place, but no such luck. So we took back roads home and came across my favorite pick your own fruit farm. We decided to stop and get some pumpkins and see if they were still picking apples. To our pleasant surprise, the pumpkins were out in the field so we took a little walk and found two little pumpkins and one larger one that we could carve.
These are my 2 little beauties with their little pumpkins. Rachel is in the pink and Emily is in the blue.

They were also still picking apples, so we picked about a dozen or so. They were very yummy! We let the girls color the two little ones and help carve the big one. Then Dad decided to let them roast the pumpkin seeds. Pictures of the finished product will have to come later.
Hope you are having a great Fall.

Some more birthday shout outs

Well, I actually wanted to post on October 13th, & give a shout out to a dear friend of mine (and former roommate), Sharon. It was her birthday, that day & I am blessed to be able to call her a friend. Also my nephew, Jaden turned 4 last week on the 16th.
Hope you had great birthdays, Sharon & Jaden.
A wonderful bloggy friend is helping me(okay, she's really doing ALL the work!)to update my blog, so look for a face lift coming soon.

I love to read blogs and spend time on the computer, but some how I need to find a balance to doing that and the rest of my life.

God has been showing me lately, just how forgiving and loving He is; and how incredibly blessed I am. Thank you, Jesus for dying for me.

shout outs & dining out

I'd like to give a shout out to a couple of bloggy friends I have who encourage, inspire and pray for me. Thanks Karen & Peggy for sharing your lives through blogs; thus helping to inspire me to be a better wife and mom, but also letting me know that I'm not alone in some of these "battles." Thanks for your prayers and kind encouragement when you haven't heard from me in "forever." It's nice to have blog friends like that.

Dining out:

Last summer when my husband was unemployed he started to do some secret or mystery shops to at least bring in a couple of dollars to the house. This year I decided to get in on the action. Some of these shops are at eating facilities; whether fast food or fine dining. Let me just tell you. I just did one for a fine dining establishment & OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! First of all they allow you $60.00 just for lunch, to give you an idea how expensive this place is. But the food was out of this world. We ordered an appetizer of calamari, our own separate & different entrees and dessert, which was coconut creme pie. From the first bite of calamari, to the last bite of pie, all of this food literally melted in my mouth. If this is what the food tastes like in heaven I can't wait!!!!!

Another year older & other stuff

okay, Okay, OKAY!!!!! A faithful few have been saying oh for about 3 months now, that I haven't posted in a while & when am I going to do so? (see, if you look at the date I wanted to post the video closer to my b-day, but just never got around to blogging. The husband started it for me, so I could have the video.)

Well, to be quite honest a lot of things have been going on. As I'm sure any mother can tell you or agree with me, life has just been busy; and I've been "trying" to spend less time on the computer. (My husband will totally disagree with the last part of the previous sentence.)

My birthday is the end of July & my husband put together this lovely video for me. So I thought I'd share it with y'all. It's a little long, almost 10 minutes. I think for my 2nd mother's day my husband put the video together and I've been asking him to put it on my side of the computer. So he redid it this year, added pix & some new songs. The first song really gets me. Talks about changing the world, one little heartbeat at a time. Thanks honey!



Let me see, quick recap of our summer. The husband has been out of work since the end of June & diligently looking for a job; unfortunately not finding anything. God, however, is still God & has totally been meeting our needs. Thank you Jesus!

Fourth of July (& Columbus day) fireworks are literally in our back yard. So we decided to try to let the girls stay up this year. Unfortunately it was a bit loud for them. This is one of my favorite photos my husband took this year.



I went to the Women of Faith conference, up in Boston, on my birthday weekend. That was a blast.

August was an incredibly busy month. We had a wedding to go to in NH the first weekend in August. Then the girls and I took the train down to Dover, DE to visit my best girlfriend, Renae & her husband, Dan. We were there for about a week & a half. During that time my husband & his best friend took a weekend motorcycle trip up to NH & the Kangamangas highway. (Which is why I got to go to Delaware!) We came home from that, were home for about 2 weeks and went off to western NY to my nephew's wedding. The wedding was lovely and it was great to see some family I hadn't seen in a while.

For those who have been praying for my nephew, Adam he's doing okay. He's finished his first round of chemo & now has a blood clot in his lungs. Fortunately they caught it quickly and are treating it. Our prayer is that he would be completely healed, and be a testimony to our Lord Jesus Christ.

The girls are a lot of fun. Outside of the temper tantrums & attitudes I absolutely love this age. The other day Rae hit Em. Bill told her that wasn't nice & asked her why she did it. Her response was "Emily was antagonizing me." It absolutely amazes me the things they come out with. I will joke with my husband & various friends and tell them they're slacking or call them a "slacker." We were eating breakfast a week or so ago & Emily out of the blue says, "Daddy, you're a slacker!" Funny how it doesn't seem so bad when I say it, but to hear it out of my 3 year old's mouth, uummmmm, it sounds like a cuss word! We also have Yogi Berra living at our house. The girls will frequently say things like: "If I like it, I like it." (pointing their little fingers in earnest) Okay, Yogi! :) Or another one of my favorites; there is a show on Disney channel in the morning called "Handy Manny." If you haven't seen it it's sort of a cross between Bob the builder & Dora. My girls can say both words, but when they put it together, it comes out, "Handy Bambi." Or think- they can say "thank you," but when they say think it comes out "sink." Children -go figure!

Well, that is about all I can think of right now. So yes, I'm still here, & haven't given up on the blog. Thanks for still checking in.