Life Adventures and Day Dreams: June 2013

Friday, June 21, 2013

always humbled

Oh my sweet friends ;)
What a blessing the body of Christ has been in our lives, you all have been continuously kind and thoughtful of our family and Levi! I am always so amazed ....

Recently I have been praying so much for different things as usual, and I have just come to the conclusion that this journey has completely humbled me in all ways.
For one, doesnt becoming a mom do this to us anyways? Well I never thought the thoughts that I have had recently would ever enter my brain, because I am someone who is full of pride haha....
But, a while back I sat down and just wrote out all the "change" that took place when I became Levi's mom....one thing that changed in a big way was becoming a stay at home mom which I hadnt planned on doing because I loved my job and had been there 10 years, and I felt good at it! But through prayer during that time God showed me that I needed to move on to something that was very unknown, and it was a big leap of faith to say yes to the idea of staying home....many that know me know that my job was a huge part of my life, you know I had a drive to work harder if needed and that I loved getting to be with so many people everyday and loved getting dressed up for my job =)...oh and so much more that i loved. But you stay at home moms know that its not just about the choice to stay with your child, its about giving up many things that you loved in sacrifice for your decision!!Well I can say that 2 years ago when I made this change, it was extremely important and the best decision I could ever make, and had no idea the amount of fulfillment and benefit this would be in our home....The amount of change in my heart i would say is immeasurable because the things I now value are night and day. (praise God! haha)

God has been rocking my world lately, in a way that is funny kind of...I have been realizing that He provides the body of Christ to show us His love for us, and I keep on being like choosy of who I think should help, or I keep thinking I can do it on my own... but He keeps on bringing people alongside of me, and I'm like "oh we are fine!!"( bla bla bla...).because you know, I wouldn't want someone to know that I am human... So recently when i have been struggling with a few things, all these times that I have said "no thanks" to others who have offered something have been popping in my mind like crazy! So first of all sorry to all of you, you are amazing in your obedience in serving others!! Its kind of embarrassing to think how my pride has gotten in the way of letting God show us how He loves us(.and its kind of embarrassing to share this too haha!!)...
So I am now feeling extremely humbled, knowing that God can use ANYONE and he can do ANYTHING to show us who He is, but I have been sort of standing in the way filtering what I think I may need...

So here is one need that I need to be honest about, and that is that Mike and I have worked very hard at being on a single income, we have learned to budget, we have maintained being out of debt (praise God!), but the reality is that it is a very small budget and Mike makes a modest salary.( that I remind myself is more than many people in the world if I can have a global perspective) The fact that I have been able to stick to a budget is by the grace of God if anyone knows me, but we have done an amazing job of only having what we need, and cutting out the rest for about 2 years! (in fact I never thought I would enjoy the challenge of the creativity that that brings! haha). That being said, although Levi has great insurance there are many daily needs that we run into to help him keep up with everyone else. Just a recent example of this is that in order for him to go to the splash pad, he will need waterproof socks ($20-$30) for under his braces, waterproof knee pads($15) and water shoes that I can find to fit over his braces($20-30) to protect him from skin breakdown and also allow him to wear his braces in the water...
There have been many things recently in addition to this, and as he is growing the we are realizing that we will have to wait and save up for those things or go into debt to purchase for him, and that these "extras" will always be a part of his life.
I have been really praying about what we need to do to make this work with what we have, and the Lord keeps reminding me "you do not have, because you do not ask" (james 4:2b). So although this is the hardest thing to do, I feel that I am being obedient in asking and allowing God to work how he wants to with this (without pride getting in the way this time). So now you will see on our blog that there is a "Donate" button on the right side of our page that is linked to a separate account that we can use for these extra things for Levi. This is through pay pal, so its a secure site to donate to. Please pray about it, and I have no idea what will come of this, but I want to allow for the opportunity to let others be obedient while I am learning to be obedient as well..
We also built in a comment box on the right side which emails us directly! We have been so blessed by your kind words, it truly makes a big impact every day, so we welcome your emails as well. And as always, thank you for continued prayers as these are the most important of all.
"With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”- Matthew 19:26

Love you all, I am praying over this post that you will understand my heart in asking this as its extremely uncomfortable to do ;)

God bless you!

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Levi and buddy owen

Painting with grandma

Swinging

a change ;)

Okay so first of all thanks for alllll of the kind words and prayers from everyone recently. I appreciate how many people truly care. Man I felt stuck for a minute thinking about whats ahead, and I am reminded about how many times the bible talks about worry and its in there for a reason because man if we dont focus on one day at a time we are just paralyzed!

So here is the deal, following that therapeutic post, i had said that the next day at therapy he did amazing...well since then he has done amazing!!! But still in my heart I was thinking about how can I get him to feel as normal as possible? and also although yes this is our family, and not everyone's responsibility to accommodate our needs...we actually have many people who love us and just want to know what they can do...and I want to say THANK YOU!!!
it means so much when people want to make life great for Levi. So many times I forget to be specific and then I feel alone in my journey, but as soon as I ask so many people are ready, and so many times I dont know what to ask for...I have had so many friends of mine so casually offer to be a part of helping Levi be motivated to keep going and I cant tell you how God has blessed me with so many thoughtful people recently.
I was thinking about, if there are events that Levi cant really participate in, that its my responsibility to plan things that he can do! I mean, why not have reasons to plan parties hehe, i love doing that anyway, i just need to be his advocate and not find myself in disappointment over things like this. Also, I have to realize that lots of kids Levi's age are on the go and have no reason to maintain the attention span he has learned to have...so ya know what? I dont have to feel sad when he doesnt keep up with other 2 year old, but he actually loves talking and playing with older kids....so ahhh ha! (not to say dont bring your 2 year old around anymore, its just that I had to change expectations to accommodate!) So there is one problem figured out...

So also part of the problem was that this old walker he had wasnt getting him where he needed to go....so we finally have it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay, this is so awesome, and it is actually very different which I said in my brief post because its a reverse walker which will help him learn to stand straighter and walk independently...it was hard hard at first and that was scary to me, but I adjusted some things and its a breeze now and he loves it!! My favorite thing about is that he can walk up to something and transfer to another surface and i love this!! (and that it has a parent bar, and that it goes over bumps well and is portable!!!) So we got the walker on tuesday, and the day before we saw miss carrie levi's Pt who had known my heart had been sad over levi realizing that he cant get where he needs to go recently...and she said "I usually wouldnt bring this up right now, but what if we consider a wheelchair for Levi sometime, not because he wont walk but since he is so smart and is figuring this out earlier, it would boost his confidence... what do you think, if it takes as long as the walker did it will be several months from now but what if we get the ball rolling?" Let me tell you that I had envisioned the day this would be talked about as the scariest day of my life!! But I totally get it!!! So we asked our friend with SB who only uses a chair for long distances (and walks and runs everywhere else) if we could have a "play date" with his siblings at the park and check out HIS walker, just to see....
Well he figured it out right away...which is this clip I posted....Wow did it make me happy! I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD BE HAPPY TO SEE THIS, and when I found out about Levi's SB when I was pregnant, this was the scariest idea for me.

So here is the deal...miss carrie saw how levi was doing with his new walker and was thrilled, and we even took off some "extras" we added but he doesnt even need already on day 3...and I think this gave us a great optimism for him getting around..so we are going to try this for a while and then I think we will make decisions on a chair in the nearish future but only as a back up so that he doesnt take the easy way out (meanie momma) But its so hard because you see him get in there and he can zip around and I love that!!!
But it was fun to try Owens wheelchair, and for now we are gonna use our set of wheels to keep staying motivated but its a big deal when you see your baby happy because he can get where he wants to go.

Thanks for the prayers my friends...I am thankful for having such clarity on problem solving this week..Lots of smiles and motivation all around over here!!

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Levi has a new walker!!! This is so exciting!!

So much to say about this, but it brief....we have been waiting for this since February and it is here!! This is such a great walker that is portable and helps him get anywhere him where he needs to go when he wants to go unlike his other walker that was big and bulky and not portable....MOMMA IS SUPER EXCITED to see how this gives him mobility and the joy that gives him!!! It is a rear facing walker so its essentially pretty hard compared to his last one because it uses different muscles but promotes him to be in the upright position so he will have a better chance of standing unassisted and walking. It was tricky at first, but here is day 2 and he is crusing! and we took it to the zoo!! yay! There are lots of different ways he can use this as his abilities improve =) so happy!!