Let's play catch up...

Can I take a minute to catch my breath...goodness this summer is busy.
We have had Father's day, anniversaries and my dad's birthday since I last posted. And I have been busy with work stuff too. So, I am really hoping this weekend will be a restful one.
Okay, let's begin with Father's day.
We went to church and my sister and brother-in-law dedicated baby Micah to the Lord.

Then, after church we all went out to eat at Garcia's. After lunch we went to my parent's house and gave my dad and Kenny their cards.
And here is daddy and his little girl...
And since Father's day I have been working long and hard to get all my 3500 pictures saved onto our external hard drive. It is very extensive and tedious work. I thought it would be very simple but I have decided that I don't just want the pictures on the external hard drive I want them organized as well. So, I am having to rename pictures instead of just going by the number and blah blah blah. I will hopefully be finished with that this weekend.
And some interesting news for the Lawson household...
Kenny is the new Men's Golf Coach at Campbellsville University.
You can read about it here: Campbellsville Tigers Athletics
He will be doing that in addition to his admissions job.

Then, this past Sunday was my sister and bil's anniversary and Monday was my dad's 50th birthday and yesterday was our 8th anniversary. So, we all went out to eat after church on Sunday. Again, we went to Garcia's...it is my dad's favorite here in town. And I think it is the best Mexican restaurant in Campbellsville.
Anyway, that's all I've got for now.

This one's for you, Ryan...

So, Thursday morning started way too early for us...Kenny's cell phone rang at 5:20 am. The really weird thing is is that he already had the phone in his hand before it rang. It was Dave Walters. Is it not uncommon for Kenny to get calls from him since he is Kenny's boss but 5:20 is early even for him.
Unfortunately his call was not work related. He was called to be the clergy at an accident scene. He knew Kenny knew the victim pretty well. It was Ryan Shipp (29, our age). A guy Kenny had become friends with after we moved back to C-ville. When I heard Kenny say, What? I knew it wasn't good. When Kenny got off the phone he filled me in on what Dave had told him. Ryan was driving his motorcycle on 210 and had a pretty bad accident. EMT's took him to the hospital by ambulance (they tried to get the helicopter in to take him but they didn't have a good place to land). But his injuries were too great and he died. Silence and disbelief filled our bedroom. We were at such a loss and did not know what to do. Kenny waited a little bit and then tried to call a few friends who were also close to Ryan.
Ryan had been over to our house several times and ate meals with us either at our house or in the caf. He had been a student here at CU and would stop by Kenny's office between classes just to chat. Ryan loved to laugh and have fun. The kids liked him too and would always give him "5" when he would come over. We always knew when Ryan was here because he would drive his bike around to the front of our apartment and park on the sidewalk so we could always hear him pull up :o). Ryan always had a story to tell, of some adventure or or what not that had happened recently. He was just a fun guy.
The funeral was today.
I'm not sure why I felt the need to post this...I know most of you don't know Ryan but I guess I just wanted to do something in memory of Ryan.
Ryan, you will be missed by so many. You touched so many lives with your fun loving spirit and the charm of your genuine nature. Your death was a sudden tragedy, I hope and pray this is not the end and that we will see you again one day when our time on earth is done. I pray for God to bless and comfort your family as they grieve their loss.
So, this blog post is dedicated in Loving Memory to Ryan J. Shipp.
Okay,

Update on Kaylyn

Okay, so some of you may be wondering what we found out about Kaylyn's ears. We had an appt with the ENT on Thursday and the fluid was worse...I knew it would be because she had an ear infection and had to be on two rounds of antibiotics. But we still had to wait for over an hour so the Audiologist could tell me what I already knew. Then we saw the dr and then we had to schedule surgery for tubes. I was on my last nerve, the kiddos were wearing them thin...very thin. Anyway, the surgery is scheduled for June 20th.
So here are some recent photos of the sweet baby girl. She was having lots of fun in Keenan's Little Tykes car.

As you can tell, she likes to stand up in the seat.

She is always ready to cheese for the camera. And she really loves close-ups :o).
Still more to come!

Man, how time flies....

The past three weeks have been a busy time for us...though I can't really remember all the things we did...must not have been too memorable? I think what I am going to do is make a few smaller posts so I don't over load one post with an overwhelming about of pictures and what not.

I guess I will start with Grant's last day of school even though I don't have all the pictures from that day to share. My dad took some and I took some I and am yet to get the ones from my parents camera and now the camera is in Muncie, IN all week so it will be at least the weekend before I can get them...okay, so I have rambled long enough....here are the pics :o).

Grant climb up to the top, waiting for his chance to slide down.

He is on his way down!

Look at that face! He is having a blast.

Here's the boss telling him to be careful :o).

I thought this was pretty cool, a full action shot...maybe he will grow up to be a stunt man...or a power ranger....heehee :o).

It was a pretty fun day at the carnival. They had games, the slide and bouncer, and a fire truck. And the kids were able to spray the big water hose. Of course my dad has those pics...and Kaylyn even got to spray the water hose.

They also had face painting and a "clown" making the kids balloon animals. Grant had to have 2 of each, all of which were dinosaurs. Dad has better pics of them as well, but this is what I have.

This is dinosaur #1... (that is my dad in the red shirt with the camera in hand)

The kids sang a couple of songs and then we ate lunch and had auctioned off the classroom quilts. My mom bought Grant's class quilt...she wasn't going to let anyone out bid her :o).

It was a good day, fun was had by all. All were ready for a nap when we got home.
More posts to come :o).

Yet another ear infection...UPDATED

Well, no such luck on having the fluid in Kaylyn's ears dry up on its own. She started coughing and had a runny nose on Saturday. So I took her to the dr and big surprise, she's got an ear infection. Only one ear this time but she is also coughing and has some wheezing so she has an antibiotic and breathing treatments. I am calling the ENT to see if we can go ahead and start planning the surgery for tubes.
So, still not sleeping well in the Lawson household...I really hope we (I) will be soon :o).

*****Well, everyone slept all night last night, FINALLY! Thank you, Lord :o).

It's FINALS week!!!

So things are winding to a close. Woohoo! It is always nice to get a break from the normal routine. And so this weeks marks such a break....the summer begins. Finals week is always a chaotic whirlwind of activity with no classes only tests and papers due, people packing and cleaning and checking out and leaving. On Friday this place will be very empty and by Saturday night it will practically be a ghost town. But not for long. Summer school classes start on Monday and the beginning of summer camps will start to trickle in soon after. Summers on a college campus are so different than the rest of the year. I love to see the beginning come and even more happy to see it come to a close because that is when my normal returns.

It has been a busy week for Grant as well. This week they learned all about the farm. They had two field trips scheduled for this week but Wednesdays was canceled because the guy who was coming to give the Head Start classes a wagon ride was sick and could not come. But on Thursday they got to go to a farm and see all the animals. And pet some I am sure. And they even got to ride a horse. The teachers had gotten all the kids cowboy hats to wear while they were there. I did not get to go however, I had to take Kaylyn to the ENT for a consult visit...she has had 5 ear infections in the past 9 months. So we were talking about tubes. They tested the air pressure behind her ear drum and tested her response to voice. Her ear drums were moving some, which is good and she was responding very well to the audiologist voice in the sound booth. Both are very good signs. She has a small amount of fluid in both inner ears so we (the dr and I) decided to test her again in 4 weeks before making the surgery decision. I am hoping her ears will be totally clear when we go back next month and surgery can be averted, at least for now. Then we will see if fluid becomes a problem again in the fall.
Kaylyn is still having trouble sleeping though the night. She has been teething off and on for the past 3 weeks...ugh. But I noticed today that the tooth that has been giving her so much trouble has finally started to break the gums surface, praise the Lord. I gave her a precautionary dose of Motrin before she went to bed...so we will see how she does tonight. She woke up 3 times last night and Grant woke up once. So momma didn't get much sleep, though I am sure if you are a mom you know it goes without saying.
I am doing a womens Bible study called Walking by Faith. On Wednesday night the instructor on the video talked about 1 Thess. 5:16-18. She said that in order for us to find the blessing in the trial we must learn to rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in EVERYTHING. So I am trying to practice that this week when the kids wake up in the middle of the night. I am not happy when going on interrupted sleep, especially when there are several interruptions in one night, but I am trying to look for the things I can be thankful for when I am having to deal with this difficulty. I can be thankful that Kaylyn calms down in my arms and goes back to sleep. I can be thankful that I have to beautiful children to love and care for.... I can be thankful that I have a nice comfy bed to crawl back into. And I can be thankful for all of this while I am praying, Lord, please comfort them and help them sleep ALL through the night or at least the rest of the night
But you know what really struck me about this is that we can rejoice in the Lord, pray/talk to God about it all, and give thanks to Him in every situation, as hard is it may be and it is still okay to be sad and grieve and be heart broken. I guess a part of me always felt guilty for feeling that way. I always knew God was in control but man was I devastated and filled with sorrow and unanswered questions and whys and I'm not worthy, and what ifs...But now I can see that when I had no strength the joy of the Lord was my strength, He carried me through the raging waters for what seemed like miles but we finally reached the other side and the clouds finally started to part and I started to get a glimpse of sun light again.
Goodness, how quickly the past two years have flown by. And I can't even begin to express how wonderful it is to see the great progress Grant is making. He still has a lot of ground to cover but the gap has finally started to close.
You know, I'm never really sure what all will come out when I start a new blog entry but I am always sure that the beginning and end will be at far apart from each other as the East is from the West.
Well, if you are still reading this post God bless you! You are a true friend to entertain my ramblings. I thank God for you, my fellow blogging mommas!

PS. Kaylyn did not sleep all through the night...she fell back to sleep in my arms as I finished this post. It seems her mouth is still bothering her. Thank you Lord that I can still hold her cradled in one arm and type with my other hand :o).

Five things...

A friend of mine, Jennifer, tagged me to be the next to fill out the survey below...so here it goes :o)

Found this on another blog, and thought it might be fun...

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
Going to school at CU and working at Kmart

2. Five Things on my To Do List Today
Post this blog message :o)
Wash up the sink full of dishes
Clean the bathroom
Work on my Bible study workbook
Download the pictures to the computer from my camera, and make a cd of the field trip pics for Grant's teacher

3. Five Snacks I enjoy
Special K cereal bars
Crunch'n'Munch
Yoplait Strawberry yogurt
Vanilla Ice Cream cone
100 Calorie Packs

4. Five Things I would do if I were a Billionaire
Create a will :o) something I should do anyway
Pay off the loan for our church building and set up a missions fund for our church mission trips
Pay off our college loan debt
Buy/build our dream house
Set up college funds for the kiddos
Donate money to the local crisis pregnancy center (I'm on the board)

5. Five Bad Habits
Procrastinating
Being late
Staying up too late on the computer
Not putting my clothes away after Kenny does the laundry (he gets mad about that)
(sometimes) Not respecting my husband's authority as head of our house (I really like to do things my way :o)) Submissiveness is not my first thought when we don't agree

6. Five Places I've Lived
My parents house in Campbellsville
North Hall at CU
My grandparents house (after Kenny and I got married) in Campbellsville
Brookridge Village Apartment in Louisville
House we rented off of Arnoldtown Rd in Louisville
The Village at CU

7. Five Jobs I've Had
File Clerk at Cox's Cabinets
Sales associate at Kmart
Teacher's Aid in 2yr old classroom at CCDC
2yr old teacher at Child's Day Out
Office Coordinator for KCI at LLCC
Dorm Director

OK - I tag Amy C