Thank you, Lord

Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."
The LORD is good to those who hope in him,
to the one who seeks him...
Lamentations 3:22-26

It is easy to read a beautiful scripture and think about applying it to one's life. To be put in a situation where a faith is really tested puts a whole new perspective on things. God truly does provide all that we need--even if, like manna, it is sent one day at a time.

In the last three months, countless people have told us about their daily thoughts and prayers for us. Others have been there to hear me cry or be scared or angry. Others have taken us out to eat or sent food to us. All of these things have truly been ministry to our family.

I want to thank all of you who have been praying for us. We are so thankful that God has opened up an opportunity, and Jon accepted a job offer Tuesday afternoon! He starts next Friday to fill out paperwork, then Monday for work.

Great is Thy faithfulness,

O God my Father;

There is no shadow of turning with Thee;

Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;

As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,

Sun, moon and stars in their courses above

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth

Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,

Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

My diaper broke!

There are many things that have a specific purpose. There is one job that they are intended for, and they hopefully can meet the expectations held for them. For example...phones make/take calls. Soap cleans. Cars drive. Towels dry. Cameras take pictures. Beans make you fart. (Ha, ha...just kidding :) Back on track...)

You get my point. When things don' t work the way they should, people get frustrated. Things go crazy. Messes happen. (Sometimes beans work overtime! Ha ha again! Sorry! :) Anyways...calls drop. Cars break down. Towels don't always work...at least new ones...they're so slippery!

And diapers break.

You heard me. Diapers break.

What, you ask? How does a diaper break? Well...For some reason, about 1/3 of the diapers in the last case I bought seem to fall apart. The velcro stays stuck to the front belly part and the back part is left to hang freely in the breeze. (This is because my kids never wear clothes. The boy is on a clothes ban, and the girl makes too much of a mess to bother dressing her!)

Diapers are pretty futile things. They are only made to last a few hours. BUT....I dare say that their function during those hours is VERY IMPORTANT!!!! Imagine my frustration when I tried to check Jordan's diaper through her onesie and felt the outline of her itty bitty butty! Yep...the diaper was about 4 inches lower than its actual preferred position--rendering it completely useless to perform should the opportunity present itself!

It's gotten so bad that Lawson comes up to me now to tell me "Mommy! My diaper broke!" And he's always right! I'm finally to the point of frustration that I want to storm back into Walmart and say "These diapers don't work!" Bu-u-u-t...I fear they'd say "Then why'd you use more than half the case???" Good question.

So...I'll drudge on through the rest of the box...And hope the next one is better. If not, I guess we'll give the potty another go around!

This is my cousin!!

Preliminary note: This news story is about 4 men, none of whom the press has names for...therefore, it gets pretty confusing when they keep talking about this man and that man, etc!
The "19 year-old Mt Pleasant man" is my cousin. My mom called and told me that my cousin Larry was walking down the street with his friend when some gang members came and jumped them. (Not 100% sure that they were "just merrily walking along, minding their own business, staying out of trouble!")

Larry started fighting to defend his friend, and he ended up with a pretty bad beating, and he was stabbed 3 times. X-rays showed that one stab wound was less than 1 inch from puncturing his liver! He seems to be okay now--just sore and recovering.

This is not a good year for my cousins!! Just be glad you're not one!
______________________________________________________

Fight leads to stabbing
Monday, June 18, 2007
MECOSTA COUNTY -- A dispute Saturday morning left two men with missing teeth. Police arrested three men and are looking for a fourth suspect in Mecosta County. Police responded to a felonious assault call around 6 a.m. at 220th Avenue and Eisenhower Road in Aetna Township. A 22-year-old Newaygo man and a 19-year-old Mount Pleasant man were assaulted by several people. The Mount Pleasant man was stabbed multiple times and both men lost teeth as a result of the altercation. The Mount Pleasant man was taken to Mecosta County Medical Center and the Newaygo man was taken into custody on a fugitive warrant. Also arrested were a 19-year-old Pierson man on multiple alcohol violations and a 19-year-old Cedar Springs man on a felony fugitive warrant.

Roll Call...

Okay...I have only had this blog for about 6 1/2 weeks and I have over 1700 visits (and I AM blocking my own ISP). This tells me that so-o-o-omebody is reading this stuff. I'm FLATTERED!!!

So, humor me here, if you would...

If you read my blog once a week or more, would you just post a comment here and let me know...It can be as brief as just your name. I would love to know who's out there checking on me and my family and what's going on with us...

Thanks!! Have a great week!! ;)

News in General

Several points of interest going on in our lives...

1. A big CONGRATULATIONS to our good friends Jason and Sunny on the birth of Jackson Cash. He was born Monday, June 11. He was a very strong and healthy 6lb 12oz, 18 inches long. (Congrats to big bro Joshua and big sis Abby Kate, too!) You can see more adorable pictures at Jason and Sunny's blogs.


2. On June 6, our college friends Ryan and Katrina Cook welcomed their sweet daughter Abigail Grace into this world. Born at only 23.5 weeks, though, she is fighting for her life. Check out their blogs for updates, and please join us in prayer for this family.

3. Jon is still looking for a job. He has had a few gleams of interest this week, so please be prayerful that one of these opportunities will work out.


4. Yesterday in the midst of visiting Sunny and trying to get home to get Jordan to the doctor, Lawson got some kind of crazy virus/bug and threw up 3 times! It's really a good thing that Jon was home with me, because both of the kids were sick and neither one of them wanted to be put down!

5. Speaking of being sick, our Jordan has been fussy for about a week. She woke up Tuesday from her nap with a fever of 101.5, and then woke up yesterday with almost 100. I finally decided to call in for an appointment with her pediatrician. We verified that she currently has her FIFTH ear infection! At only 10 months old, this has given our PD reason to refer us to an Ear, Nose, Throat (ENT) specialist. We went today, and the dr. said that their criteria for recommending tubes is 5 or more infections in 12 months and/or continuous fluid behind the ear drum, even when uninfected. Jordan's right ear is currently infected; her left is not. After a pressure test, they found that both ears have an excessive amount of fluid behind them, and she is a strong candidate for tubes. They seem to think that the procedure to get tubes poses less risk long-term than having repeated infections and antibiotic treatment.
Anyhow...she was scheduled to have surgery tomorrow, but we found out that our current insurance will not cover this procedure. We cancelled, because it will be over $3500!! We are praying that Jon will be offered a good job with a good insurance plan so that we can try to get her poor ears straightened out!

I think that's all for right now...It's been a busy week--I jsut wanted to let everyone know what was going on...

Where did you get that???

My sweet little 2 1/2 year old boy just came up to me with his mouth open, tongue out, and said...

"Da Gum Ish Schtuck!"

Ahhhh....toddlers!

Look What I Made!!!

I got a sewing machine for my birthday...and look what I made!!! Jon's mom helped me sew this dress a couple of months ago when they were here. We didn't have time to put a zipper on it, and it has just been sitting ever since, just waiting for a zipper. For those of you who know me well, this is no surprise...I am the queen of not getting things done!!! Anyhoo....Jordan's gonna wear this sucker tomorrow, because I spent this afternoon getting the zipper and making little matching "fancy pants"!

Four Things

Four Things about Stacy
I found this on someone else's blog, and I'm posting my answers. These are some things things you may not have known about me.....

A) Four jobs I have had in my life:
1 Little Caesar's
2 Taco Bell
3 Harding's Media Center
4 3 daycares

B) Four movies I would watch over and over:
1 8 Seconds
2 Notting Hill
3 Where the Heart Is
4 For Love of the Game

C) Four places I have lived:
1 Warren, MI
2 Searcy, AR
3 Madison/Huntsville, AL
4 (Despite the small number of places, I have moved MANY times!!)

D) Four shows I love to watch:
1 Regis and Kelly
2 Leno
3 Oprah
4 Amazing Race

E) Four places I have been on vacation:
1 San Cristobal, Tachira, Venezuela
2 Cozumel, Mexico
3 Dyersburg, Tennessee (woo-hoo!!! This is where I went every vacation of my childhood life!)
4 Berlin, Ohio (honeymoon!)

F) Websites I visit daily:
1 www.hotmail.com
2 My entire Blogroll
3 www.yahoo.com (I don't google!)
4 www.weather.com (because of the papers!)

G) Four of my favorite foods:
1 French Fries
2 Cheesecake
3 Lucky Charms
4 Olive Garden Breadsticks

H) Four places I would rather be right now:
1 BED!!! :)
2 on a towel by a pool
3 Venezuela--just to visit, though
4 on vacation anywhere!!! :)

Off His Rocker!!

Last night while I was driving around, I was listening to Mike Gallagher. He is a generally conservative talk-show host who touches on a variety of topics. Contrary to other popular hosts who can only seem to talk about politics, Gallagher talks about any social topic that raises his hairs a little. He is very willing to voice his opinion on issues, even if it is not the most popular one. I usually agree with him.

Last night, however, he had me talking back to him. Outloud. In my van. By myself!! Ooohhh..I am pretty sure he was way off base.

He was talking about Dateline NBC's series To Catch a Predator. Most of you probably have seen this show...but basically it's a sting operation where decoys pretend to be 13 or 14 year old kids and try to lure sexual predators to a house for a sexual interaction. The predator arrives, often bringing alcohol, gifts and condoms, among other disgusting stuff. He is met not by a 13 year old, but a journalist (Chris Hansen), a video crew, and a gang of police officers. Hansen presents the chat log, which always proves that the predator had good reason to think that if he came he would get to have sex with a minor. Then he is arrested on his way out because he chatted with, and then came to meet, a minor who doesn't even exist.

Gallagher had a news story about some DA in a small Texas town named Murphy who had been in contact with a decoy whom he believed to be a 13 year old boy. He did not actually go to meet the boy, but the police were pretty sure he would have. When police came to his door to serve him an arrest warrant the DA shot himself and later died at a hospital.

Even though the DA didn't actually try to physically contact the "boy", online solicitation of a minor is an offense in and of itself. Therefore, the police were not serving him for something he hadn't done. I'm pretty sure that he shot himself to save himself the embarrassment of being caught in such a nasty situation. I'm really sorry he died because of this situation, especially because a child was not hurt, but I'm not sorry that he was involved in a sting operatoin trying to catch perveted child predators.

Anyhow... Gallagher went OFF about how this is SOOO not fair. He said the poor guy didn't really do anything wrong. He got in trouble for talking to someone who didn't even exist. Sting operations are not fair for anyone...a cop posing as a prostitute, someone posing as a minor trying to get someone to buy alcohol for them, or decoys pretending to be 13 or 14 years old.

WHAT???? I think sting operations are a GREAT way to catch some nasty predator BEFORE they hurt an innocent child. There are disgusting pervos sitting at their computers all over the world talking to kids. Gaining their trust and trying to become their friends. Then, if the opportunity presents itself, they will accept an invitation to come meet them. Or in even worse cases, they come uninvited.

As a parent, I am thankful that Dateline's undercover investigation has exposed over 200 potential child predators--all without bringing physical, sexual or emotional harm to any children.

Come on...I know you've got something to say about this...how do you feel about sting operations? How do you feel about To Catch a Predator? Do you feel that it's the show's fault that the DA killed himself because he was caught doing something despicable?

I think Mike Gallagher was off his rocker last night!

You tell me...Am I right, or am I the one who's way off base?