Our weekend

Well, I was wanting to post pictures from this weekend but forgot the USB port to transfer the pictures from my camera to my computer at my brother's house so no cute pictures of the kids. :(

Friday James and I ate lunch with Madison at school. Friday evening we went to a carnival at our previous church in Odessa and saw some old church friends. Gage won a cake on the cakewalk so he loved that. Madison is at the age where she can run around with friends and left us the minute we got there and we did not see her again until we had to hunt her down to come home. Gage completely wore me out--he was a bundle of energy plus he demands all the attention and loves to show off for everyone. He has a personality plus-we entered him in the costume contest and he walked right up the judges table and pulled out his shot (he was a doctor for Halloween) to show them and he did that to everyone we saw. We then went home and did some trick or treating to a few houses in the neighborhood.

Today we went to Fiddlesticks Farm. They have a corn maze, hay rides, slides, a cow train, corn shooter, hay jump, and goats to feed. The kids had a blast. I will have to post pictures once I get back to my brother's house. It was nice that we got to spend this last time as a family of four since once Autumn comes home there will not be much time that we can go out and do things with just Madison and Gage. Even though I had a wonderful day I was still constantly thinking of Autumn being in the hospital and being sad at the same time that I was not standing there next to her bed letting her grasp my finger. I miss her so much. My parents and brother though spent the afternoon at the hospital and my mom was able to hold her so that was comforting to know that she had people there with her and made me feel a little less guilty for leaving her. My sister-in-law went to visit with her on Friday so knowing she constantly has family checking on her makes me happy.

Autumn is still doing about the same. She is having a few desats and only a couple of actual apnea episodes last night and today. She is eating so much that she has already gone through all the breastmilk I left for her so tomorrow they will have to give her formula until I get back. I know when they were letting my mom hold her she went all the way down to 6 when they were moving her but that is because they completely unhooked her from the vent and I think that gives her a shock since she is not practicing breathing on her own and then goes from having breaths given to her to nothing at all and so they had to bag her. She will be completely weaned from her methadone (sp) tomorrow and they are going to try putting her back on auto mode so hopefully she will do good. The nurse said she was throwing fits today and was getting mad when they were changing her diaper so I guess that is a good sign showing that the pain med is getting out of her system more. It could be though that she is mad they took her heroin away. :) (Methadone is just a synthetic heroin).

I am getting more and more anxious about the meeting on Tuesday and what the outcome will be. Honestly, if we have to give her the trach I will be able to handle that decision and I will know at least she will be home by January. I am getting anxious about going to have to figure out about the kids, the animals, and James working while we are suppose to be getting trained on learning how to take care of the trach and not having him there everyday during those stressful times. I am constantly asking God to just give me peace and to help me not get anxious or overwhelmed by it all. I just have to keep quoting scripture in my head over and over reminding me what His word promises and that He will take care of it all and everything will work out. I don't see how people go through life without having the hope that Christ provides. People have made comments to us about our strength through all of this but we don't have the strength to do this--we are making it through each and everyday only because we wake up in the morning and ask God to provide His strength to us and each day He blesses us by offering Himself to carry us. If you are reading this and you don't have a personal relationship with God then you are missing out what it feels like to truly live in freedom. I am not talking about being a church goer or even saying you believe in God. I am talking about when you come to the realization that you only take each breath because God is providing it for you and that in return all you want to do is try to get to know God in a deeper and more meaningful way. Every morning that I make my long walk from the parking lot through the skybridge to the hospital and up to the 11th floor I think about my life in Midland. I realize that even though I am loved by so many people and I am probably always in someone's thoughts that I am still completely alone during that walk. I know everyone is going on with their own life (even my own kids and husband) and I realize that the only person who is constanly there with me is my God. I pour so much of myself into my kids, my husband, and my materalistic life and then I realize that I give so little of myself to the one who is constantly thinking of me and walking beside me. I find myself being a Martha but all God wants is for me to be a Mary and focus on living a life devoted to Him completely. So, waking up every morning and knowing that the creator of the universe wants to talk and walk with ME each day gives me a peace, joy, and hope that can never be experienced by anything else this world has to offer. Isn't God just so amazing?

I forgot to mention that our wonderful friends, Sarah and Bill took up a collection from people at our church who wanted to help us out and blessed us with a generous amount of money. I love how God shows us He wants to provide our every need. Thank you to everyone who donated money to help our family out. We love you all!!!!