Happy New Year and negative temperatures.

So, what do you do in Northern Minnesota when the temperature highs dip below the negative 20's, you are kid (or teenager, Taylor actually instigated this) and have tons of energy? You go sledding...inside of course. For the last three days all I can hear through out the house is clunk,clunk,clunk at an incredibly fast pace down the stairs. They must have made over a thousand goes at it (slight exaggeration)and at one point Ethan was caught "snowboarding" down. Riding the rail to be exact, which is almost ripped out of the wall, and was still standing on both feet when he got to the bottom. This was a battle I chose not to fight, until the house started to fall apart. The snowboarding was banned, but the sledding is still going on.

Another fun project on cold days. Well, Gracie and Christian chose to draw fun pictures like teddy bears, ducks and volcanoes. But,  Ethan's picture was of the most original. An outhouse, with all the extras like bees and two toilets! Very creative Eth, Dad and Mom are so proud!

That is some of the happenings around here since we began 2014. It has been too cold to go do much, and everyone is starting to go a little stir crazy. I would love to have the energy to go do something creative but being 33 weeks pregnant doesn't help. I would love to just "plant" it on a big comfy chair and wait out the next six weeks, but no can do. There are still meals to make, school to do, a 19 month old "busy as a bee" little boy to chase after. As well as laundry, discipline, and cleaning up after the stomach flu. Yes, we have had that in our house as well this week. Ick... I am ready now for spring, new life, the sun and being able to do stairs again without having pain in my hips and back and ready for a nap immediately after going up or down. The fun part about this season is that  we have really enjoyed our wood stove and the heat it has given us on these chilly days. The ambiance is great as well as the dry heat and it gives everyone something to participate in. It has not seemed to effect Taylor's asthma or allergies which we are thankful for and it has saved quite a bit of money on heating our heating bill.

Now I will rewind and go through the last month since I posted last. Sorry if that confuses anyone. I want to update on Jordan who has been the main concern around here these days. We have had a long several months and are really tired. Yet these are the times in which God has the focus of our attention and that is a good thing. Right now we are in limbo with Doctors and are just waiting for some more answers. I am so not knowledgeable about the medical field, but from my gatherings over the last several months is that there are still so many unanswered questions in modern day medicine on the human body. We have come a long way and are thankful, yet there still an element of the unknown that continues to push us back to the Lord to seek His wisdom in all of this.  I know Proverbs 3:5-6 are very popular verses to "claim" but they continue to lead us through this journey as we continue to lay more symptoms, fears and worries before the Lord. Some days I feel like by His grace I have accomplished that and some days I fail miserably. Forgetting to go to him at all, thinking that someone else out there must have the answers. We are now in the process of waiting for our appointment with the neurologist as well as a pediatric pain and palliative care doctor. The first one is on January 20th in St. Paul and the neurology appointment we are waiting to find out when that will be. I am hoping to get what we can figured out before "Baby" comes, but that is another area I will have to submit to the Lord and trust Him for His timing. Jordan has been in pretty intense pain continually for the last month and now is experiencing numbness in the left side of her body as well. Her middle finger, ring finger and pointer finger have stopped working and are contracted in to the hand, so we have splint coming that will hopefully keep those fingers open before any permanent damage takes place. That is a very brief synopsis of what is going on and I will try to be more specific as we find out more information. This has been a great test and learning experience for our family, sanctifying yet hard.

We had our annual Lifespring Christmas Eve service this year in the new building. While it is not yet "our" building, or in Lifesprings ownership yet, it looks like we are headed in that direction. We have to wait for the final state Presbytery vote in February and then Lifespring members will vote to make a motion to buy. So far all the doors have been opened very easily everyone seems to be in agreement that this is where God is leading. When the presbytery first offered us first dibs on the building the price they gave was in the high 200 thousands. A price we knew we could not enter in to. But through a series of meetings an offer was made by our church for $150,000, and they took it. At least so far. Like I said we will have the final answer in February. Anyways, back to Christmas. We had a good Christmas Eve service and the reminder of God coming in the flesh to not die, but walk through deaths door and live so that we might have life and have it abundantly, through repentance and faith. That gives us everything we need to be thankful for. Then my mom came over and we celebrated with her for the rest of the evening with snacks and pizza. Christmas day we stayed put and had a very relaxing time with just our "not so little" bunch and enjoyed watching the kids' excitement over their gifts and food, of course. We were suppose to travel down to Fairmont where Eric is from on Thursday, but with all the health issues with Jordan, medications she is on, and me being up at night with her and being uncomfortable in any position I am in at night with pregnancy, we requested that we not travel. The family did not feel like it would work for them to come up this way so we all just stayed put. It all worked out well however since we ended up in the clinic the next day for Jordan since she was experiencing very intense pain and some new symptoms of numbness (mentioned above) that we were unsure about. They did an MRI to check for MS, but that came back ok. Thankfully. Then Eric went to work the rest of the week and we had a sweet time with some friends from out of town that came over and visited on Friday night. He is a pastor in another state and was up here visiting family. He was going to preach at one of the local churches in the area but Eric got a message from him on Saturday night saying that church had cancelled due to weather(I think) and since he had a message prepared would Eric like a week off of preaching and he would deliver the message. Eric trusts this pastors Theology and knew us and our people would be well fed with the word and it was a sweet gift to have that offered. Then we had an easy week that included Eric and I being asleep by 9:30 on New Years Eve. I do not feel like suffering with tiredness for a week after just to say we stayed up to bring in the New Year, wow I sound old! Then on New Years day we headed over to my Dad's and had our final Christmas of 2013 over there with my brother and his fiance' Anna. It was a very un busy (if that is a word) Holiday season but that is what was needed at this time in our lives. We hope you all had a Christmas that reflected Christ in your hearts, and that if you didn't you would come to a place where He is.

(This last picture was so cute I had to add it. Ethan got annoyed with Simeon getting in to his paint so he put him in his high chair and gave him a cat.)

Enjoy your week,

Miriam