Advent- 25 names of God

Every Christmas I try and incorporate something meaningful into the days leading up to Christmas. In the years past we have enjoyed some great traditions like unwrapping a book each night leading up to Christmas and reading it around the Christmas tree. That has been one of our favorite traditions but as our kids get older, they don't so much enjoy story time like they used to. So this year I thought about what I could do leading up to Christmas that would be both meaningful and enjoyable while incorporating the true meaning of Christmas. So I came up with this idea with the help of Pintrest. I'm really looking forward to starting this on December 1st! I bought 25 glass ball ornaments and on each one I used a paint marker and wrote these names of God. As we hang them on the tree each day, we will read the coorisponding verses that go along with that particular name.

25 names of God

1.    Bright Morning Star- Rev. 22:16

2.    Christ- Mt. 1:17, Mk. 8:29, Jn. 1:41

3.    Creator- Gen. 14:19&22, Isa. 40:28, 42:5, Col. 1:16

4.    Deliverer- 2 Sam. 22:2, Ps. 18:2, 40:17, 140:7, 144:2, Rom. 11:26

5.    Emmanuel- Isa. 7:14, 8:8, Mt. 1:23

6.    God- Ex. 3:15, Jn. 1:1, Rom. 9:5, Heb. 1:8

7.    Holy One- Isa. 60:9,14, John 6:69, 1 Peter 1:16, 1 John 2:20, Rev. 4:8

8.    I AM- Ex. 3:14, Jn. 8:24&58, 11:25, 14:6

9.    Jehovah- Nahum 1:2, Joel 2:32, Zech. 6:15 (American standard version)

10. Jesus- Mt. 1:21, Jn. 20:31, Acts. 4:9-11, 2:38, 3:16, Philip. 2:9-10, 1 John 3:23

11. Lamb- Jn. 1:29&36; 1 Peter 1:18-19, Rev. 5:6&12, 7:17

12. Lion- Rev. 5:5

13. Lord of Lords- Deut. 10:17-18, Ps. 136:3, 1 Tim. 6:15, Rev. 17:14

14. Messiah- Mat. 1:1,16&18, 16:16, Luke 2:11, Jn. 1:41, 4:25, 20:31

15. Mighty God- Job 36:5, Ps. 89:8, 50:1, Isa. 9:6, 63:1, Zeph. 3:17

16. Alpha and Omega- Rev. 1:8, 21:6, 22:13

17. Redeemer- Job. 19:25, Isa. 47:4, 48:17, 54:5, 59:20, Jer. 50:34

18. Rock- Ps. 18:2&46, 19:14, 31:2, 62:2&7, 78:35, 95:1, Isa. 26:4, 1 Cor. 10:3-4

19. Savior- Micah 7:7, Lk. 1:47, 2:11, 1 Jn. 4:14, Jude 1:25,

20. Shepherd- Isa. 40:11, Jn. 10:11&14, Heb. 13:20-21, 1 Pet. 5:4, Rev. 7:17

21. King of Kings- Dan. 2:47, 1 Tim. 6:15-16, Rev. 1:5, 19:16

22. Wonderful Counselor- Isa. 9:6, 11:2, 28:29

23. Prince of Peace- Isa. 9:6, Rom. 15:33, Eph. 2:14-15, Philip. 4:9, 1 Thes. 5:23, Heb. 13:20

24. Great Physician- Job. 5:18, Ps. 30:2, 107:20, 147:3, Isa. 53:5, 58:8, Jer. 33:6

25. Great High Priest- Heb. 3:1, 4:14, 7:26-28, 9:11

*All verses are from the NIV unless otherwise noted.

I decided today would be the day I would take the kids pictures. It's been a whole year since I've done a formal photo shoot with them, so we were way overdue. I didn't really have a plan except to take them somewhere in downtown Mesa since the boys had to be down there for an event today. We parked at the convention center and across the street was this cute little historical house that caught my eye. It was closed despite the sign that said it was open for tours but the gate was wide open saying, come on in. So we did. We made sure to see if there were any signs saying no tresspassing, but couldn't see any. But once we stepped foot on the the steps, an alarm on the inside started going off. I thought the police would come check it out since it's right by the police station, but they never did. So we stayed, took the pics, and left. :)

I also did individual shots of the kids.

 I can't believe this kid will be 14 a week from tomorrow! 14! Where has the time gone?

And Michael and I decided to get in a few pictures as well. First was Michael's turn.

 I love this series of pics in black and white.

And then Michael took over the camera and became the photographist (as Anna calls it) and took these ones.

 My sunglasses were on my head for many of the pics with the boys, so I didn't have a lot to chose from.

 And last but not least, Jadon became photographer and took these ones of Michael and I. They needed quite a bit of editing, but I love the final product!

And as I was editing I came across this funny one. This is my frustrated look, Jadon was being silly and taking pictures of everything other than our faces. I was saying something to the tune of, "mom and dad are never in pictures together, so will you please just take a few decent pics, is that too much to ask!" And of course, he chose to photograph such a fine moment. LOL.

And there you have it, pics of my fun family. :)

Halloween Ray style

In all honesty, I hate Halloween. I'm just not into it at all. I get sick of seeing scary stuff decorated all over our neighborhood and seeing the hype that his holiday gets. For our family, we just don't make a big deal out of Halloween. And our kids don't seem to be bothered at all by not going trick or treating. They got a bag of candy from us and that satisfied their sweet tooth just fine. The kids do still enjoy carving pumpkins, kind of. The boys don't like to get their hands in the pumpkin goo and despise cleaning out the pumpkin. Anna doesn't mind and happily helped her big brothers with this part. It's nice that they are all at an age where they don't require a ton of hands on help from the adults in the house. So the pumpkins were carved on Saturday with Halloween being on Wednesday but by Tuesday morning the pumpkins had wilted and were completely rotted. When I touched Anna's pumpkin, the whole thing collapsed and went as flat as a pancake. So Tuesday morning they all went in the trash. I have a feeling next year we won't even bother with decorating pumpkins. On Halloween night, Anna wanted to go to Wednesday night church which was still meeting despite it being Halloween. She was only one of a small handful of kids that went but she had a blast. While she was there Michael and I took the boys out to eat and spent some time with them. Before we knew it, the night was over and we woke up to November 1st! Now the fun begins! The countdown to Thanksgiving, our oldest son's 14th Birthday, and of course Christmas! I love the excitement of the next 2 months! I'll leave you with a few pictures of our Fall festivities including Firefall at our church a few weeks back.

We sort of forgot to have Anna take her shoes off before going down the slide. I love the look on her face, it's pure joy!

 Pumpkin carving day.

 Our thinker trying to figure out what he wanted to do. Camden is in the background working on his design. I'll have to download my iPhone photos to show the completed pumpkins.

 I love the Fall shadows cast upon our house at sunset.

Happy November everybody!

Aldosterone what? And hello Fall!

I love Fall. I love the change of season, the cooler nights, the leaves slowly starting to change and fall to the ground, the Fall decor hung around my house, the pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks, and wearing jeans and a comfy T-shirt. I love everything about Fall. There is just something about the changing of a season that is so refreshing to me. It's kind of like a fresh start, a new beginning, opening a new chapter in this thing called life.

I haven't blogged much lately. We've been a little busy and dealing with a new chapter in the life of our sweet middle child Camden. He has been dealing with some medical issues for the past several weeks. So here's the scoop with Camden. We have seen so many doctors, had numerous tests, and seen Camden (yet again) rise above the challenges set before him and take things like a champ. This kid never ceases to amaze me, and has the best outlook on life. I love him to pieces! So here's what's been going on.

At the end of September Camden suddenly passed out as we were leaving church. It happened three times in a row within a few minute period but completely took us off guard. He's only passed out once before (when having blood drawn) so luckily we knew the signs to look for and Michael was able to catch him as he fell. He said he was dizzy, said things were blurry, he turned super pale and out he went. We ended up calling the paramedics since we had no idea what was going on. We spent the rest of the day at Cardon's ER and didn't get any answers on what was going on. His blood work came back fine (however getting Camden's blood drawn was not an easy task, his blood kept clotting as they were drawing it so they had to poke him twice and start an IV), but he was orthostatic meaning that his vital signs did funny things when he went from laying, to sitting, to standing. So we left with the advice to follow up with our pediatrician and his neurologist within a few days.

Three days later we had the visit with the pediatrician and he ordered more blood work and wanted Camden to get checked out by a cardiologist. We got the blood draw done but sadly both of his arms were still bruised from the ER visit and it was not a happy experience for him at all. We then got checked out by the cardiologist who said everything looked and sounded great however he was still orthostatic with his vitals. She ordered an echocardiogram and we had that done a few weeks later and it came back normal. Healthy heart- check!

In the mean time we got the blood work back that the pediatrician ordered and it showed that Camden's thyroid levels were elevated so we were referred to a pediatric endocrinologist. Before we saw the endocrinologist, we had the appointment with his neurologist who follows Camden because of the possible NF1 diagnosis that he could have. She in turn ordered many more tests which we really had to pray over and decided that the only one we would proceed with was the MRI of his brain and spine. It's been 3 years since his last set of MRI's and we feel it's wise to follow up with that and make sure there are no neurofibromas growing in those vital areas. That is scheduled for the middle of this month. I don't believe anything going on right now is related to the possible NF1 Camden "may" have but that is my opinion.

Shortly after that visit, we finally got in with the endocrinologist (due to a cancellation) and he ordered more blood work. Luckily this time, it was an easy draw (praise Jesus). We got these results back last week and they showed that Camden was not producing any aldosterone and that his thyroid levels were slightly elevated (those will be checked again in 6 months). Aldosterone is hormone that the adrenal glands produce and it regulates the blood pressure, helps the body retain sodium (salt) and is responsible for the potassium levels as well. This is not something that they see a lot of and it's pretty rare to see this in children. But this could explain the passing out, the orthostatic vitals, along with the fatigue and paleness. However, this only gave an accurate reading for the morning time so another test was ordered so we could see if Camden produces any aldosterone at other times during the day or night. So we collected all his urine this past weekend for a 24 hour period, nothing like having a cooler in the bathroom and keeping urine cold for 24 hours. These test results come back on Monday or Tuesday and I'm sure they will be very telling.

However, as we have been waiting for these results, Camden has been dealing with dizziness again, he appears pale a lot of the time, and his fatigue has been more pronounced than usual. So after a phone call with the doctor yesterday, he would like Camden to start on the medication to replace the aldosterone that his body is most likely not producing. Even though we haven't got the results back yet, he feels we can safely start Camden on the medication to see if we can get him feeling better.

This is the first time any of our kids have ever had to be on a prescription medication of this kind. We hardly ever even give our kids Tylenol, so this was all new to us. After reading up on the drug, I was a bit anxious about the whole things because it is a steroid and a synthetic hormone. But after having a talk with the pharmacologist, the endocrinologist, and praying about it we feel like it's something we need to do to get Camden back on track. And Camden is ready to feel better too and is quite eager to get started on it. We plan on starting him on it tomorrow and continue to wait for test results that should be in as early as Monday or Tuesday.

I still have a ton of questions for the doctor and we will most likely get a second opinion. Because this is not common and quite rare, the doctor couldn't answer why this is happening or what could be causing it. As a mom, I would love to know the root of it and have all my questions answered. However, I realize we may not know why and just have to be at peace with no having all the answers.

If you think of it, please pray that Camden adjusts to the medication fine and that his body will start to feel better, and that we are able to gain some insight when we get the test results back.

I leave you with some pictures of Camden on his skateboard. He started showing an interest in skateboarding this summer and recently started attending open gym at a local skateboard school. He had his first class last night and did amazing. Even though it wore him out, he was all smiles!