A City Life For Me

I have dabbled with a few essential oils over the past couple of years.  I have used mostly herbs, and herbal remedies.  I make this Elderberry-Echinacea syrup and we take it daily during cold season (only 2-3 times per week otherwise).  I even carry it on the road in deputation!   I have made some other herbal remedies including my own salves, lip balm, boo-boo cream, anti-itch cream, and diaper rash cream.  I also have quite a few herbs for tea.  The essential oils I have were mostly for homemade cleaning products.   However, with traveling so much this year, and not being able to go to the doctor because we are out-of-network, I wanted to have something else to help boost our health. But the amount of information online about EO's is vast, and conflicting, and confusing.  Each company claims to be the best, or to have a superior method of extraction.  Each have different methods of application.  I didn't know which was...

Today I want to share something that Lord has been doing in our hearts over the last couple of weeks.   During our short time in Brooklyn in April, I went to see the midwife for a baby check-up.   It was also my 20-week anatomy sonogram.   Baby boy was breech, so it was difficult for them to get all of the pictures they wanted, especially of his heart.   I returned ten days later for a follow-up sonogram.   At the second visit they discovered that baby’s kidneys are retaining fluid.   This is something that is more common in boys, but it can also be a marker for more serious health problems.   I was so thankful that the midwife I was seeing that day was Jeniffer – she delivered Nolan and the twins, and I have a really good relationship with her.   I felt comfortable asking my questions and talking with her about this difficult issue.   I decided to have a blood test done which is 99% accurate in pin-pointing the potential problem...

Last night we were busily settling in to a new "home" for a couple of weeks.  Ben was helping me with something downstairs.  When I came up to the room I smelled a new odor in the air.  It didn't take long to realize it was baby powder!   Upon further investigation we found that the twins had secluded themselves into a bedroom and found a bottle of baby powder, and had a lot of fun shaking the bottle!  They smelled good, too, and looked as if they had dressed up as 100 year olds for a 100 Days of School party!  Good thing it was bath night!   These two definitely enjoy the "double trouble" aspect of being twins! 

From last week, but I never got them posted.  We were driving by a corn field and there was a bald eagle waiting to eat something on the road.  As we paused for it's picture, it took flight!      Twins first time in Sunday School (at our church) Morning walk in Ladysmith, VA Our first pet, a turtle affectionately dubbed "Tiny Tim" My Chick-fil-A cows! Playing together at the playground in Matthews, NC

This "twin trouble" story needs a little background.  We are in Virginia en route to Charlotte, NC.  We don't have a Wednesday night meeting, so we are taking our time and spending a couple of days at a Prophet's Chamber in Blackstone, VA.    As we left Ladysmith, VA we stopped and rescued a turtle from getting smooshed on the road.  We saw it, turned around to get it, and then watched as another car almost hit it.  The kids were uber excited about having a turtle in the car, but the poor guy was scared to death and locked tight in his shell for a long time.  At the gas station we got a box and "Tiny Tim" slowly came out of hiding.   We arrived at our destination and let Tiny Tim wander in the grass, fed him some strawberries and gave him a turtle bath of water to play in.  He really perked up!  In fact, as we peeked out the window after supper, we found him climbing out of the box onto the deck railing.  He ran around the...

He just couldn’t take his eyes off the big guys playing basketball, and he inched as close as he could to the court! …so the next day Daddy lifted him up to dunk his basketball, but he refused to relinquish the ball from his hands! Something makes me think he was told to sit still and fold his hands in class… Liberty got a new baby and accessories from Grandma Godby for her birthday.  She even found it in her heart to share with Nehemiah! Hanging from the slide together…this is a new “trick” they have discovered. My mother’s day card from Elaine!  She had help knowing the letters for the greeting, but the “Love, Elaine” part was all on her own!

Today I had a follow-up ultrasound, to get some more pictures of the baby’s heart.  He is breech right now, so it’s hard for them to see everything they want to see!  Though this is only my fourth pregnancy, I have had a lot of ultrasounds!  (One or two every month with the twins!).  Yet I always stare at that screen in amazement – that we can look at our unborn baby and see his development, movement, and anatomy, and detect any possible problems – weeks before the baby ever takes his first breath of air or utters his first cry.  I think if I ever had a job in the medical field, I would want to be a sonogram technician! Ten days ago the first thing I saw on the screen was our baby boy taking his thumb out of his mouth and then stretching his leg to give me a giant kick.  Today I saw all four chambers of his heart pumping.  I guess sometimes as a mom of four little people, I get all caught up in the daily moments that make up life.  Wiping nos...

We celebrated the Twinsies birthday on Monday night.  It started off with a lovely walk down the Shore Parkway path to the playground.  This is one of the first family outings where we haven’t taken a stroller! We came home to a favorite meal – Chicken Nuggets and French Fries.  Then we opened presents and had cake.  They knew exactly what to do with the cake, and had been asking for it all day!  And of course, there were presents! The Presents The Birthday Boy & Girl Trying to open their gifts Enlisting help – to the delight of the bigs     Liberty with Mrs. Potato Head (Nehemiah gave her the bruise under her eye), and Nehemiah with his “ha” and “ba-bit-ball”.  Nothing else mattered after the ball was opened!   Two small cakes (we don’t want to get too fat with two whole birthday cakes!) This didn’t go so well, so we tried again!   Nehemiah would not relinquish the ball for bedtime, so we let him sleep with it hi...

:: Elaine gave me the night off from dishes :: 150th Anniversary of the FDNY – so we got to touch the truck! :: Making Mini Pizzas for supper :: Wrestling with Daddy