Josiah's First Youth Camp!

Today is the first day of Tennessee Church of God Junior Mini Camp!

This is Josiah's first time going to camp.  He was pretty excited!

Some of the kids from Park West met at the church to ride the bus together to camp.

The kids were also super excited about riding the bus.

I hope they all have a wonderful week & pray God does something powerful in them!

I'm so proud of & excited for Josiah's first youth camp!

Cookout at The Cove!

Today we had a Floodline High School Ministry Cookout at The Cove!

Today was so fun to just sit back, relax & hang out with our teenagers.  We had great food, volleyball, a playground, soccer, Frisbee, badminton, football & ducks to feed.

Ethan loves to be outside, but especially loves The Cove.  He was loving playing football!

After lunch, we went down to the lake & fed the ducks.

We even saw baby ducks & that is exactly who Ethan wanted to feed.

We love our teenagers & loved spending time with them today at the Cookout at The Cove!

More Money!

Josiah was so excited to go to the mailbox today to find that he had another Get Well card from Papa & Meme.  He's been getting them every week his arm has been broken.

Thanks so much Papa & Meme!  Josiah loved getting more money!

Ethan's Healing!

Today is June 24th & our son Ethan was supposed to have surgery today. He was scheduled to have his 3rd set of tubes put in his ears, his tonsils removed & possibly his adenoid removed for the 3rd time.

As you all know, Ethan has been sick off & on for his 2½ years of life. He has had 23 ear infections in 25 months (since he was 3 months old until his last infections in May). In May his doctor said his tonsils were angry & very infected & his ears would really need a third set of tubes. Also because Ethan was sleeping with his mouth open again & shifting so often in his sleep, he’d need to possibly have his adenoid removed again. They would know for sure once he was in surgery. We took Ethan to his ENT doctor because his behavior went from precious to very aggressive, angry & whiney overnight. You could just tell he didn’t feel good & was mad about it. For over 2 years, we have prayed, had others pray & he has had some relief from time to time.

Two weeks ago, on June 8th, we were in our contemporary worship service, Cultivate, at Park West Church. Pastor Jeremy said he believed God would have him ask the group if there were some who needed a miracle. Ethan just so happened to be with us in service that Sunday morning because he couldn’t go to the nursery for one month prior to surgery. Dustin & I walked down to the front, with Ethan, to pray one more time corporately for a miracle to take place in our sweet boy’s life. Jeremy stayed on stage & prayed a beautiful prayer for everyone who came down. Nothing magical happened, but we had at least placed it in God’s hands. We returned to our seats & enjoyed the rest of the service.

After church that day, we went to lunch with some friends & talked until almost 4:30pm. Ethan didn’t have much trouble staying in a high chair for over 3 hours. This was noticeable to us because I don’t think I could have sat in that hard highchair as a child for that long while adults talked. Ethan was an angel all day Sunday afternoon & evening. Monday he woke up so happy, without any scratchiness to his throat. He had also not shifted much in the night & slept with his mouth closed. Monday afternoon the ENT’s office called & said they needed to schedule a pre-surgery appointment for the next day. We were quite excited to have a pre-surgery check-up because we wanted to see how he was doing.

Tuesday morning arrived. All four of us were sitting at breakfast eating & laughing together. Ethan was so happy. Our eight year old, Josiah, then said, “If I didn’t know any better, I would think that you picked up the wrong child from the nursery on Sunday morning.” This wasn’t a significant comment to him because he was in Kid’s Church that Sunday morning & didn’t know we took Ethan down for prayer. So, we told him about the church service & his response was, “Well…God healed him!” Dustin & I were so excited that even our eight year old noticed the difference in his behavior without us telling him a word about the things we were noticing. A few hours later, we all four went to the ENT pre-surgery appointment to see what was said. His ears looked perfect. His tonsils were NOT infected. He saw no reason why we couldn’t come back in six months for a check-up. Amazing!

We didn’t cancel the surgery that day. We’ve been in this place several times where we canceled an appointment, just to end up having to go anyway. So, we waited & prayed. Over the course of the next three days we had several people confirm this healing & they didn’t even know this had happened. Even a friend of mine told me about her daughter’s story not knowing how similar it was to Ethan’s.

We cancelled the surgery a few days after that & are still at home with a happy & healthy boy. He is sleeping beautifully without a lot of shifting & without his mouth open, snoring. He has been a complete angel & we all comment on how nice it is to have our sweet Ethan back.

We give God all the Praise & Honor & Glory for this Miracle that has taken place in Ethan’s life! 

Short Cast!

Well...it happened!  Josiah finally got on his short cast today.  It is even waterproof.  He was so excited he could hardly stand it.  He can finally bend his elbow, get wet & go to camp.  He was over the moon.  I couldn't get him to stop laughing.

We are so happy Josiah now has a waterproof short cast!

Happy Birthday, Zack!

Tonight we went to Zack's 9th Birthday Party!

Josiah loves Zack & was afraid he wouldn't be able to go to his birthday party.  Zack, however, chose a Lego themed birthday party at "Bricks 4 Kids" to make sure the activity was something Josiah could do with a broken wrist.  What a sweetie!  We had a great time!

Happy Birthday, Zack!

Josiah lost his 4th Tooth!

Josiah lost his 4th Tooth today!

Happy Father's Day 2014!

Our wonderful family on Father's Day!

We are so blessed to have Dustin as the father of these two wonderful boys! 

We started the day by jumping in bed with Daddy to give him our cards.

Ethan went first & loved giving Daddy his Lightning McQueen card.

Josiah went second & gave Daddy a funny card from the movie, "Up!"

We then gave Dustin a framed poem with his baby's footprints on it.  It's about following in Daddy's footsteps.  It's very sweet.

I loved getting a shot of this sweet tender moment with the boys.

This picture, however, captures more of how these two are at our house.

These are the cards & gift we gave Dustin for Father's Day!

We got out of bed after some wrestling & made Daddy coffee cake, bacon & raspberries for breakfast.  Some of Daddy's favorites.  We then went to church  with everyone in green & navy without planning it that way.  How funny!

After church we treated Daddy to a wonderful meal at Outback.

This afternoon, Dustin got some amazing snuggles on the couch from his boys.

We then baked him a yellow cake with chocolate icing.  Yummy!

We spent the rest of the day watching whatever Dustin wanted to watch & had a blast!

We are so thankful to have children & I'm so thankful to have a Godly husband to lead them.  We hope you had a wonderful day, Dustin, & we love you forever!

Happy Father's Day to my Dad, Edward Moody.

Happy Father's Day to my Father-In-Law, Larry Lee.

We pray blessings over you both today!  Happy Father's Day!

Hanging with the Sagraves!

Tonight we had our precious friends, the Sagraves, over for dinner & some hang out time.

Brad, Kerri, Lizzie & Ben are friends from church.  We had a great time eating, talking, laughing & playing outside.  We even went for a walk together around the neighborhood.

While we were playing outside, the guys got out the air soft gun & shot at Josiah's target.  Eventually, it started getting darker & the lightning bugs came out.  Dustin then shot a lightning bug out of the air.  He was pretty proud, so he wore his tail on his shoulder as a badge of honor.  Boys & their toys, I guess!  We had a great time hanging with the Sagraves!

More Money!

Papa & Meme Lee are spoiling this child.  So far, they have sent Josiah a $5 bill for every week he's had a broken wrist.  Super sweet!  Josiah loves to get more money!

Family Day!

Dustin & I had decided a while ago to have a family day today since "How to Train Your Dragon 2" was coming out.  Then we planned on making sure it happened to celebrate Josiah getting his short cast on.  Since he didn't get his short cast today, we are really thankful we had this planned to cheer our little man up.  God knew...

After Josiah's doctors appointment, we surprised him by taking him to the movie theater to see "How to Train Your Dragon 2."  He was so excited he could hardly contain himself.  The movie was awesome!  He said it's better than the first.  Then we went to lunch at Five Guys.

After lunch, we went to Baskin Robbins for dessert.  These guys were loving it!

We ended our little outing by enjoying the sights & sounds of the fountain next door.  The boys enjoyed walking the path around it.  We had an awesome family day!

He's a Trooper!

We went to the Orthopedic Doctor again today & Josiah got his long arm cast off!

These are the pictures I took while the nurse was taking the cast off.

Josiah was disappointed, though, because he didn't get his short arm cast today.  His bones still need a little more time to heal, so they put back on a long arm splint for one more week.  Hopefully at our next visit, he'll be able to get his short arm cast.  He's a trooper!