Lauren Elizabeth

This is my SPBG (Sweet Precious Baby Girl) Lauren Elizabeth!
Lauren is 21 this year and she is currently living in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
She is my artist! Loves music ....... can play the piano by ear not to mention what she can compose on a computer and you should hear her sing. Oh my, what a voice! Loves drawing and painting ..... won a national art competition with a color drawing that now hangs in my living room. But I believe her true talent is writing. Lauren has been blessed with astonishing discernment. the fact that she can put her wisdom into words so elegantly has always amazed me.
Right now Lauren is expressing her artistic abilities in the bakery at The Fresh Market in Spartanburg, South Carolina and although she is far away me physically she continues and will will forever be near and dear to my heart. I am blessed to have such an amazing daughter who I can now call my friend.

David

This is David.  Where to begin....  David is 11 years old and I can not find enough words to describe him.  He loves to talk, is very creative/artistic, highly intelligent, has a great compassion for others and loves the Lord. (Remember I love to brag on my kids)
So a typical 11 year old he is...... accept last year David was diagnosed with APD (Auditory Processing Disorder) and Diplopia (double vision).  APD is the brains ability to process the sounds that we hear. David can hear just fine but somewhere between his ear and his brain the sound can get lost.  He can not hear in large crowds (to many sounds), he struggles to listen when given a list of things to accomplish and he sometimes finds himself "lost" in a conversation.  For several years we were told he was ADHD/ADD but his grades were always A's and B's, we were told he had control issues, a strong willed child.  We saw several counselors to try and help us, we spoke with our pediatrician, we read books and we prayed.  Nothing seemed to help.  You see although David was making good grades in school he was also acting out, he would not sit still in his chair, he would talk out of turn allot, he would struggle to get his class work completed and at times could be quite argumentative.  this is where God steps in, one day I received another phone call from our school about David, he had reached his limit in behavioral marks and was placed in ISS (in school suspension) I stopped what I was doing and just began to pour my heart out to God, what were we doing wrong, why couldn't we reach David, why couldn't we make him understand and conform to the guidelines at school, why were we going through this? finally after I had placed all my whys in Gods hands I was quiet (not typical for me I am a doer not a listener) in that quiet moment I felt God tell me to look for a Christian counselor on line sounds funny I know but sometimes it is the simple acts of faith that bring us closer to our Heavenly Father   On line I found the name of a local counselor and I again I felt god telling me to give him a call.  So I did.  After speaking with Josh (the counselor) for over an hour on the phone I found some hope.  He was more than happy to meet with David. I wish I could go into more detail but this is already quite a long post. I 'll close by sharing that Josh noticed suggested we have David tested and after about 4 months we had the answers to all our "whys".  David is now in therapy and is improving greatly.  We have finished our second week of school and he has not even received a warning mark!  He is completing all of his class work in school and has made 100 on all his quizzes.  (I only wish Mrs. Murphy could see him now!)
For David to navigate such huge hurdles at such a young age makes me so excited to see what God has planned for him in the future!

Rachel

This is my beautiful Daughter Rachel!
We are about to celebrate her 15 birthday. I love to brag about my children, so here is a list of what my sweat precious girl accomplished in the last 12 months.
President's Education Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence Manager
KISI all league basketball player
Manager of the year (Soccer)
Principles Award
Perfect Attendance
2011 Math Olympiad
2011 ACSI speller
2nd place National History Day - Regionals (For a website design on Cordel Hull)
3rd place National History Day - State
National Junior Honor Society member/secretary
Student Council President
Rachel aspires to be a congressional page and to eventual be a congressional librarian.
She is my over achiever! we read a book 2 summers back that has changed how she thinks as a teenager it is called DO HARD THINGS by the Harris brothers. I recommend this book to any one that has a tween/teen! She is currently reading WHILE WAITING FOR PRINCE CHARMING by Sarah Mully with the anticipation of leading a girls Bible study at her school, as well as at least 2-3 other books (we love our used bookstore McKays)
She is currently the Student Government Chapelin/Historian.
As you can see she keeps us quite busy hopping from one event to the next. We love her wonderful personality! She always has that beautiful smile on her face.

Why a blog?

Well to be honest, with this hurried life we are now experiencing I find it hard to keep up with all our family and friends.  This blog is an attempt for me to communicate with each of our loved ones all that God is doing in our lives.  WOW  has he been working!  The past 11 months alone have been absolutely  AMAZING (as my darling middle daughter would say)  We have gone through numerous testing with our son our David and many answered prayers (more on this in a later post) Our oldest daughter Lauren moving out of state and on her own.  And our every busy Rachel starting high school.  I will take the next few post to try and bring you up to date and then do my best to keep you informed from now on.  This is not just an information blog but I hope a prayer letter,  we would appreciate your prayers for our family and would love to hear how God is working in the lives of each of you too.
with much love
and as my momma says
omk4u
Kristi