Miracle of Her Heart

We were having dinner out 2 nights ago with our kids. It was a nice time after work and everything was fine. Suddenly, Noelle started choking, her face got red, her eyes were distressed and Jamie said, "Brian, she's choking!" I was sitting next to her so I started fishing in her mouth for the food. However it was a stringy piece of food and it broke off in bits and stayed buried in her throat. I frantically was sweeping the back of her throat although Noelle slightly fought me in the process. I urgently said, "Noelle, you are choking..daddy is helping you get the food out!"

In a split second out of the corner of my eye I saw Maddie turned to the side wall kind of burying her head and I was irritated. She tends to be very uncomfortable around medical-type situations and certain other situations, I can't completely describe the pattern to you. I was frustrated with her for tuning-out in this way for some reason although now if I think about it of course she would be scared and disengage from the situation. Oh well, I have a lot of growing to do, I admit it.

Anyway, Noelle suddenly choked in a different way, a piece came out and I wondered if she was out of danger so I asked her to say something. (if someone is choking but they can speak it may still be somewhat of an issue but it shows they can get air) She said something and we could tell that the last piece had become disloged.

We were so relieved and explained to Noelle, "We have to be careful when we eat. That is called choking, that is why we have to take smaller bites and chew it up good," etc, etc.

I didn't notice Maddie whispering to Jamie during my coaching of Noelle. After I was done with the coaching I turned on Maddie slightly irritated and said, "Maddie, why did you turn away like that when your sister was choking." Jamie said, "Brian, Maddie has something to tell you." I said, "Ok, what is it." Maddie said, "When Noelle was choking I prayed."

I was stunned. Oh my gosh, as Jamie and I were wild-eyed with fear Maddie turned her head away from the real trauma of the situation, turned her heart to God and called on him for help. (I am so touched while writing this) I praised Maddie up and down and held her hand across the table and squeezed it and shook it over and over and told her how wonderful that was and how proud I was of her.

I said, "Maddie, today you fulfilled your name before the Lord! Your name means "Strong Tower." (she is well aware of the meaning of her name and if you have followed our family at all you remember some time ago a challenge that came to us around that topic) I said, your Bible verse that goes along with your name is, "The name of the Lord is a Strong Tower, the righteous run into it and are saved." I said, "You ran to the Lord Maddie, that is so amazing, we are so proud of you!" She just beamed and beamed over this.

Honestly, the truth is the Lord DID answer Maddie's prayer- I was failing to fish that out of Noelle's throat and I don't have any reason why it suddenly sprang out like that. So, I credit the Lord with answering Maddie's prayer which is a wonderful miracle but the most important miracle here is far more important.

The miracle of her heart is the miracle I care about here. I so want my children to call upon the Lord in their time of need- and at all times for that matter. This miracle inside of my sweet six year old daughter is one that, with God's help, I will never stop remembering with thankfulness to God.

Noelle's prayer plus a little update

Last night everyone was in the family bed right to talk, laugh, and then say our prayers. We don't do this every night but have a few times lately. Its a neat bonding time.

Well tonight, Noelle wanted to pray so we let her. She proceeded to pray for everyone's feet in the entire extended family which is an ongoing funny thing she does. After that she prayed something serious. She said, "God I give my heart back to you." That was so sweet and shocking to hear out of her and such a blessing! That is all we want for them- to know, love, and walk with the Lord.

Yesterday, Maddie had her first cheerleading performance with the Crusaders, a neat Christian-based Cheerleading group with multiple teams of all ages. Maddie's group, "The Halos" went second and it was neat. They did a dance, 2 cheers, and 2 special group-based Cheer/lifting poses. It all worked out well and she did great. Well, as part of this there was also a tumbling exercise which involved doing a cartwheel. Maddie did AWESOME, she looked like a thirteen-year old who had been training since she was six years old! Then later every girl and boy in the Crusaders got to do an individual tumbling "show-off" and Maddie did her cart-wheel. You should have seen her legs seem to defy gravity like a fast-spinning ferris wheel. It was SHOCKING. She is incredible! Thank you Lord for blessing her and also keeping her and all of the girls safe!

Happy Thanksgiving Update

Hello everyone, we hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. We are doing well. We have a lot to be thankful for but Brian's job situation was a big one that was resolved favorably this month. The company he has worked for, for 9 years - Network General was acquired by its #1 competitor, Netscout Systems. We thank the Lord because Brian's entire office will be able to keep their jobs with the new company! Jamie's company has re-organized and it looks like her job will be ok as well.

The girls are doing well. Maddie is loving first grade, reading like crazy, and doing well in her gymnastics, cheerleading, and dance. Noelle has started a little dance class at her daycare and she likes it as well.

We are enjoying the girls and each other so much and thank the Lord for all his blessings, protection, and joy!

Maddie's book about how she feels

I spotted a few sheets of printer paper in a storage shelf in Maddie's room with some writing on them. They had some words written in color marker and in black ink pen so, being the curious dad that I am, I picked them up. There were 3 sheets. The first one said, "I feel prowd", the second, "I feel excited", and the third was the cover sheet and it said, (have to go double check but this was the idea) "Maddie's book of how I feel", by Maddie Howard.

Oh my gosh that was not just cute but heart-touching! Sometimes, I really want to crawl into my kids heads to see how I am doing. I always wonder what they are thinking about. Do they think about when I really blew my temper that time? Do they think about any other failures I've had as a dad? Am I spending enough time with them? Am I teaching them enough? I have a lot of questions. This stuff is too important and you don't get a do-over. I feel the responsibility.

I am so glad I have God at my side. I am so glad God is interested in my family and in my kids. I am glad he is willing to teach and guide me. I genuinely trust the Lord with my family and prayerfully expect his help and blessing in my marriage and raising my kids.

So anyway, those sheets of paper gave me a lot of joy and peace because life for a kid is not easy and we correct our kids quite a bit though we try to do it in a teaching way. But we praise them and love them a lot too. I want her to feel proud and excited and the sheets are a signpost to me of how we're doing. I love my girls and I won't forget Maddie's book..

Tinker Bell is Tall

The kids are so cute. Maddie has had some conversations with us recently and she is proud of herself because she has figured out that Tinker Bell is not small but actually tall. She has seen her fly off of the roof of the castle at the Magic Kingdom in Disneyworld and in general "Tink" is one of our favorite characters. Well Maddie says Tinker Bell is really normal size but since she is flying up in the air it only looks like she is small. So cute!

Noelle is so cute, when she says how much she loves you she says BIG MUCH, so cute!

Cute Cousins!

When it Blogs, it Pours-Happy 6th Birthday Maddie!!

Wow, two blog updates in a week! Ok, it is Maddie's 6 year old birthday today- Happy Birthday Maddie! I'll show a couple of pics at Maddie's "Sweet and Sassy" birthday party- it was awesome! She chose a Rockin Pop Star themed party. Both girls were too cute!
Today was also Maddie's first day of school for 1st Grade! Jamie and I both took her for the first day and it was a lot of fun. Her teacher is Mrs. Ivy and she is awesome.

Praying for Feet, Family Time, and an Appendicitis

We have been trying to have little family devotional times. Its quite interesting with a 2.5 year old and a 6 year old! We are so busy and zonked that we haven't been doing it a lot but we'll stick with it.

Well tonight, I was reminded of something funny that Noelle does. I guess her first memory of prayer must have been praying for Jamie's feet. Jamie had some pain in one of her heels and so we prayed as a family about that probably 4-5 months ago. Well Noelle remembered it because now, whenever we pray, she gets a serious look on her face, lightly puts her hands together in an awkward and crooked prayer posture and through half-closed eyes prays for "mommies feet better, daddy's feet better, Maddie's feet better, Poppa's feet better, Grammy's feet better," and on it goes... it is so cute and precious.

You know as seldom as we've had these prayer times it is actually quite remarkable the answers we have had in prayer. We keep a little journal (pink, cuz well the girlz kind of rule around here) and we write down what verse we read, what we're thankful for, and what our prayer requests are. I am ashamed to admit that before tonight, the last time we pulled off having one of these times was August 5th! But anyway, tonight we reviewed the last time's prayer requests. At the time we had been having problem after problem with our daycare and with Noelle in that daycare. It was quite stressful and we did not know what to do. So, we prayed for a decision on the daycare situation. Well, 2 days later Jamie met an old friend who told her about a Christian-based daycare that is only 5 minutes (vs. 15 minutes) away from our house. We checked it out and Noelle started that next Monday. And we are saving a lot on top of it all! Noelle is like a different child after going here for a few weeks and we love it! So, what a neat answer to prayer!

On another note, late last week Maddie challenged Jamie. She was demonstrating a cheerleading high kick to Jamie and told her she couldn't do one. Jamie said, "oh yes I can" and proceeded to do the finest free-standing front kick you've ever seen. You could barely even hear Jamie's hips pop as her foot swept the near reaches of space. You could hardly notice her grimace for the gleam of victory in her eyes.

Jamie took her victory in stride and kept up with the busy day. That night we had a dinner out with some family and Jamie was able to sit down for awhile. When she stood up her right abdomen locked up with extreme pain that took her breath away. It was so sudden and unexpected she was worried.

The next day she called our sister-in-law and they decided it was either a brazilian tape worm, an appendicitis, or somekind of freak tumor, or yes they agreed- there was a possibility it could have been a pulled abdomen muscle from the kick earlier in the day. Much research was done on the Internet, doctors were called, people were consulted and a doctor's appointment was set.

The doctor "could not rule out an appendicitis" because Jamie's white blood cell count was up. They had Jamie fast and not eat anything for 24 hours and then come back the next day.

I was shocked by the coincidence of it all. It was the most amazing medical phenomenon that she did a high kick and the next day had an appendicitis!

We went to a different doctor the next day and the doctor pretty much laughed at her the entire time as he pictured her doing a high kick and then having to fast and not eat food for a day and as he thought about doing a high kick and then thinking it was an appendicitis!

Funny!

Molly Bunny

Hey everyone, its been awhile since we had a chance to blog. (have you noticed we always start our updates with that) Its been a busy, crazy summer but a fun one. Maddie has been in swimming lessons and is getting very good. She can do the Freestyle(crawl) and Backstroke. She is also continuing with Gymnastics and Cheerleading. She will be 6 in only two weeks and will be entering the first grade on her birthday. Oh yah, we have also been getting some extra reading tutoring this Summer from her awesome Kindergarten Teacher Mrs. Munson. She wasn't behind, we just wanted her to be ahead of the game.
Noelle is 2 1/2 years old now, and has integrated perfectly. She is smart, sweet, and a little fiesty- but she's 2 so she's entitled! She is speaking a lot better now and we feel she has caught up to her age group (after having heard Chinese for the first 9 months of her life) and has potential to even be ahead in her speaking soon. We've had a lot of fun with her, she is just amazing!

The kids get along great and their friendship is just the delight of our hearts. We will strive to foster that throughout their lives.

Last week at my work was "take your kids to work day", Network General is a very good company to work for and this is not an uncommon type of activity for them. I brought both kids, by myself....long pause for applause... and yes it was tiring but oh my gosh it was sweet and fun. I'll put some pics on this blog entry so you can see it.




Maddie got her ears pierced this summer and she loves it, she got some cute pink flower earrings from Claire's.

Molly is the name Maddie gave to our little brown bunny in the backyard. In Texas everyone's yard has some bunnies. I included a pic of her. I can't figure out why my watermelon and pumpkins won't grow in my yard. Hmmm, I guess its a mystery.

Maddie's Dance Recital

June 2nd was Maddie's dance recital. She takes a tap, ballet, and jazz class. She had 3 songs to perform and did such a great job. She is so beautiful and so comitted to each dance and every move. I am so proud! Here is a pic we took afterwards.