God granted us some much needed encouragement this morning.  On Thursday, I had to pick Sarah up from school because she had a fever.  I took her to the pediatrician and the preliminary test they did showed yet another UTI.  A never-ending UTI was what alerted us to her kidney stones.  My heart sank as we went to fill a prescription for antibiotics and all weekend, even though we had fun, in the back of my mind I was starting to obsess again about UTI, kidney stones, water intake, low sodium diet, and citrus fruits.

Fast forward to just an hour ago.  The doctor’s office called with the final lab results which were NEGATIVE for a UTI.  Soooooooooo grateful!

She’s getting over the fever and a bad cough but otherwise she is fine, and by the way she doesn’t really wear glasses.  The ones in the picture are just for fun from Claires so she could be “just like Grace”.  Her dad read her a Narnia story book on Sunday morning and we spent the rest of the day getting ready for a super Super Bowl gathering of friends and relations.

MENU:

Pizza ordered out (three party sized) meat, mushroom, and plain cheese
Tossed Salad brought by Isaac and Cassandra
Cocktail meatballs made and brought by Louis, one of the wrestling boys
Homemade cupcakes brought by Dom which were made by his Mom
Caroline’s Taco Dip
Caroline’s chocolate chip Blondies
Homemade chicken wings using this recipe
Barefoot Contessa’s outrageous brownies (sure to give anyone a chocolate coma)
chips and dip and salsa
crackers and cheese
fruit tray
veggie tray

They were watching a youtube video….Caleb and Grace (young love)…Dave, Caleb, and Sarah

Rich and Zak greeted one another with a handshake

Zach, Michael, Ethan, Jacob, and Dom

The basement full of kids

Portrait of all of us—25

Me and my brother Isaac

Me and my mate

Emily wasn’t in the group photo because she was at work (young love pic #2)

Ethan and Tessa (young love #3)

Ethan wasn’t mad, I think this is his “I’m tough and cool” face.

Parker the dog snuggled with the company as much as possible.

*****

The children had a snow day on Friday and guess what?  They are home again today for another one.  The snow just started and the flakes are numerous but small.  The sky is solid white and each time I look out the window the snow is blowing in a different direction (usually straight down or to the right).  It’s a cold, dry snow and supposed to last all day.  Ethan made a fire in the fireplace, Grace and Sarah are having sister time, Caleb and Seth have been playing but just turned on a show “If you give a Mouse a Cookie”.  Jacob went and got Emily before the snow started and they just made eggs for breakfast.  Rich went to work but we’ve been texting each other.

*****

It is thus, in little days — that our years come to us. We have but the one small fragment to fill and beautify at a time.

The year is a book, and for each day — one fair white page is opened before us.

And we are artists, whose duty it is to put something beautiful on the page.

Or we are poets, and are to write some lovely thought, some radiant sentence, on each leaf as it lies open before us.

“That we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.” 1 Timothy 2:2

~JR Miller