The Forgotten Carols & A Christmas Tree

One of my all time favorite Christmas stories and albums is this. If you haven't read the book or listened to the music, you need to get your hands on a copy and indulge for a night. It's amazing!

Our upstairs tree. Now that it snowed 8 inches last night, it finally feels a bit like Christmas!

Last night we put up our Christmas Tree. I know, it seems way to early, but since I'm heading to Utah next week, and Sunday was the only day Kevin had off before I left, we figured we shouldn't pass up the chance to do it together. We pulled out all our Christmas Tupperware, and hauled the tree trimmings up the stairs to the living room. Since we're back to an artificial tree this year it was really quite easy. We put our 3 sections together, plugged in the tree, and voila...practically done. It's the 1st year we haven't had to string all the lights, which is my least favorite part. The kids and I had a good time decking the tree out with all our fancy ornaments while Kevin read to us from "The Forgotten Carols" I forgot just how much I love that story. I wish Michael McLean would bring his show towards Grand Rapids one year. It is one of my favorite things to do at Christmastime, and definitely one of my favorite Christmas albums to listen to. I love Michael McLean...everything he produces has a spark of magic in it. Once he came to New York and put on a special Family Home Evening for a few of the nannies who lived in the area. He made each of us there feel special, loved, and worthy to be called a daughter of God. He has a true talent, and I'm so happy he has chosen to share it with so many others. I'm excited to finish reading the story with the kids and teaching them about some of the lost aspects of the Christmas season. I hope each of you has a wonderful Thanksgiving and a marvelous Christmastime!

Happy News for our family!

Kevin has been working his tail off at work lately (well, at least he would have had he been born with one) ,but for good reason...Today was PROMOTION DAY for us, and Kevin is now the Store Manager of the Holland store. Yippee for us! We thought for sure we would end up moving to another state for this opportunity, but some major, and unexpected changes happened this past month making it possible for Kevin to apply right here in Holland. Of course this means a bump in pay for our family, but even more important, Kevin will now be able to post his beautiful picture in the store PLUS his name gets to be scrawled across all those store receipts...LOL!!

I'm really proud of Kevin for all the hard work he put in to making this dream happen. He is an amazing worker!

The Detroit Zoo

It seems our family can't go on a trip without hitting at least one zoo along the way. Here are pictures from our recent trip to The Detroit Zoo and a few of our favorite animals.
There was a really beautiful green hummingbird in the pavilion.

Caleb checking out all the butterflies in the butterfly pavilion

This is Kyler's favorite part of the zoo since he loves learning about different species of butterflies and moths.

In the background you might be able to see Jordan's favorite animal which is the giant anteater. Just last week Jordan taught his class about this animal for Sharing Time.

Detroit Zoo has one of the coolest Polar Bear displays we have ever seen. They have a huge outdoor display as well as an indoor aquarium where they literally swim over your head as you walk through their tunnel.

Caleb's favorite animal is the zebra so he took this picture with the last of our camera battery.
They had a little giraffe that was so cute.
A couple "playful" rhino's. They were gearing up and taking charge at the visitors who passed by.
The Tiger was out which is sort of rare for us, and quite magnificent.

Halloween 2008

Our kids had a great Halloween this year. It seems like the parties were non-stop for over a week. We partied at the church, friend's houses, the school, and of course the neighborhood. I decided to forgo spending a lot of money on costumes this year, so the kids dug through our buckets and pulled together their costumes. Jordan had three different outfits this year: A Pirate, Darth Vader, and Peter Pan. Caleb insisted on being a Zoo Keeper at all times (party or no party), and Kyler went as a Forensic Crime Investigator. We had to buy a couple things for his costume since there are no hand-me-downs when you're the oldest, but we had a couple coupons making it a very inexpensive Halloween for us! And now...I can officially move onto the holiday I love. You know the one... It involves a bunch of songs about Christ. Others about reindeer, and of course, Santa!

Another Ethan Update

This is Ethan. He was in some pain during this picture waiting for his next dose of medicine, but as you can see he is doing great. The redness on his face is not swelling from the surgery. That's one of the side effects of his Sturge Weber Syndrome. He's really doing incredible from what we could see, and is set to be released from the hospital on Wednesday or Thursday if everything continues progressing the way it has been.

Yesterday we were able to visit with Travis, Mary & Ethan at the Detroit Children's Hospital. It was so great to see them all, and I must say, Ethan looked **fantastic**. If he didn't have stitches covering his head, you would never know he underwent major surgery a couple days ago. Ethan has virtually no swelling, and yesterday was suppose to be the worst day for that. His personality is reemerging and he is starting to talk to his mom, dad, and the doctors and nurses. While I was visiting with him he made all his animal noises for me (except for cow...Trav says they must have cut that part out LOL) He also had a moment with one of the nurses that walked in where he decided to smile and became googly eyed with her. It was his first post-op crush! Ethan is continuing to amaze his doctors at the rate he is recovering. He has had a couple seizures, so they upped his dose of anti-seizure medication, but hopefully they will be able to wean him off of that over the year. They are also starting to wean him off of his morphine drip, and withing the next few days he should only be on Tylenol (I am amazed by that...Tylenol within a week of having a portion of your brain removed...how crazy is that??)

I am in awe at how far the medical field has come in the last few years. The doctors have given Ethan a whole new lease on life with the surgery they performed. I can't believe how well he is doing, and I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father heard and answered our prayers on Ethan's behalf. I know things could have gone so differently, and often times do, but for whatever reason I know our Heavenly Father blessed Travis, Mary, and Ethan throughout this ordeal, and Ethan is well on his way to a full recovery and life that is vastly different than the one he was looking at just last week.

Thanks to everyone for thier prayers on little Eakers behalf.

An Ethan update

I've had a lot of people ask me how Ethan's doing so I thought I better give a little update. I just hear tidbits now and then, but this is what I know as of last night. Ethan's surgery went as well as could be expected on Thursday. He was taken in around 8:30 that morning and surgery lasted until 4 o'clock that afternoon. The doctors discovered a bit more diseased portions of his brain once they started the surgery than they originally anticipated so they had to remove a couple additional portions, but everyone is hopeful there won't be any long-lasting effects due to that.

Last night Ethan had a little setback, but it was a setback the doctors were prepared for. He had a seizure while Mary was holding him. That held off plans for him to be released from the ICU because the doctors want to watch him there a bit longer to make sure he doesn't have any more seizures which could signal a blood clot. Mary and Travis are taking turns staying by his side at all times making sure he is as comfortable as possible. He's still on a morphine drip to ease some pain, but it looks like he is able to move all his body parts which is happy news. Paralysis could have been an issue with a surgery of this magnitude. Our family is heading to Detroit tonight and I will get some more updates once I talk to Travis and Mary. If Ethan is still in ICU we won't be able to see him, but at least we can see a couple incredible people who have had to be pillars of strength this week as their baby underwent something most people could never dream of. They are staying strong and are incredible parent's!