Titus Tea Party

Taylor and I hosted a tea party last Friday night. We have been reading through Raising Maidens of Virtue together and got the idea. This also goes along with my Titus 2 focus. I host a woman's bible study once a month, and my goal is to teach and encourage other women as the Titus 2 woman. Often we hold a woman's bible study and don't include the younger women. How are our girls going to know how to study the bible if we don't include them? How are they going to know how to pray if we don't show them? So we combined my Titus 2 vision and our tea party.

We had about 20 ladies and young ladies. We had a wonderful time of fellowship, encouragement, and teaching. We each made a recipe book for our family. What I will be doing with my books is making one for each of my children. In their recipe book I will include some of their favorite recipes as well as short notes and scripture. For my boys I will give this to their wives when they get married.

We can't wait to host the next tea party! Below are just a few pictures from the night.

Scare with Carissa

Carissa update:

We were finally able to get her 2 month check up. Poor girl has had a rough month. A week or so ago I took her to the doctor because she had a fever that spiked up to 103. She had a fever for about a week. It was low grade and not very consistent. When I took her to the doctor, I was told that under 3 months babies are not supposed to have a fever at all. Needless to say I felt like the world's worst mommy.

After giving her an exam and everything checking out the doctor decided to check her urine (which means she had to have a catheter), and do some blood tests. They checked her urine there and then sent us to the other office for blood work. The other office wasn't able to draw the blood, they couldn't find her vein, so they did a heel stick and were able to get a blood count.

Her blood count was elevated, and the doctor sent us to Duke for more blood work. This "doctor's visit" was turning into a nightmare. Somewhere in between all this I picked Martie up so he could be with me. (as I was very nervous at this point) It was so difficult watching my almost 2 month old endure all this.

They could not find anything at Duke. They sent us home saying it was a virus. Really! All this and it was a virus! We praised God that we were going home and for keeping Carissa safe. We got a phone call from the doctor the next morning. The urine culture came back positive, so she called in antibiotics.

The doctor called again on Tuesday to let us know that the bacteria was E-coli, which comes from stool. We went back to the doctor yesterday so that she could finally get her vaccinations. They have scheduled a test a Duke to check for kidney reflux. We have to be there at 1:00 on Tues., Aug. 3. So we should know more then. Until then she is on strong antibiotics until tomorrow. (Fri.) Then she will be on Amoxicillin until the test. We have to stop those antibiotics for 3 days, and then start them back up after the test. She will be on the antibiotics just to prevent another infection.

So, we are praying that everything comes back fine from the tests. Maybe this is just a random infection from stool getting inside her. I know she is tired of taking these medicines, and I don't like giving them all to her. We are very particular about what we give our children, so this is big for us.

I will update you all as we know more. Thanks for praying with us!

Free Chicken!

The day started out well. We had a playdate with some of our "CC" friends at a nearby park, that had water spritzers. We were very excited to get out especially since it's been so hot. The playdate ended up being very scary.

One of the little girls fell in the equipment and cut her head. There was a lot of blood and it wouldn't stop. One of our mom's is an ER nurse and she said to call 911. Another mom and I came up with a plan to get the mom's car to her at the ER. We had some confusion with the hospital information, but eventually found them.

Our children were all very patient after being in the car for about 2 1/2 hours. :( The little girl is okay, she did get 4 internal stitches and 14 external.By the time we got home, I was exhausted. I was not planning on going to Chick-fil-a at this point. My sister stopped by and convinced me to go get free food. I did like the idea of free food and not having to cook. :) So none the less we threw together our outfits. (literally put some stuff together quickly) Martie came home and said, "I knew you would give in." hahaha

I love Carissa's little cow sleeper.

Our spots wore off on Martie. :)

Tabitha really liked being a cow!

Busy...

We've been very busy lately, so I haven't had much time to blog. Below is a bullet point list of what we've been up to.

• My brother was in town for a week. (He lives in NM) We went to the beach for 2 days with him, his girlfriend, and son Micheal, my dad, and my sister.
• We spent the week trying to spend as much time with him as possible. This included a cookout at my moms house.
• Saturday before the 4th we served the community in the Parkwood Community Celebration. This included snow-cones, cotton candy, watermelon, bounce house, and games.
  
• 4th of July we went to a friends sister's house to watch fireworks and eat homemade ice cream. (yummo!) Will have to do that again next year!
• Martie did end of the year testing with Taylor.
• Martie has been preaching through 1 Tim. He has been teaching on Sunday nights the Elder/Deacon model. He will be presenting new bylaws to the church Sunday.
• Taylor will be in Challenge A with Classical Conversations. We had a parent meeting with her tutor. We're very excited, and can't believe we have a 7th grader!!!
• Taylor is on the Parkwood Summer Swim Team. She has practice everyday and meets twice a week. Her championship meet is Saturday and we'll be done with swimming. Except the 3 little ones are getting swimming lessons in a few weeks. Stephanie that goes to our church will be teaching them.

Can you believe Carissa is 2 months old now? She is a bundle of joy. This is a picture where my aunt had her smiling so big. These days go by so quickly!

I have also been working on the children's lessons for next school year, which really starts now since we don't really take a break. The planning takes a while but is very exciting and worth all the preparation.

So that's a look into our lives lately. I hope you all are enjoying your summer "break."