while i'm on the topic of prayer...

since i was dishing out prayer requests in my last post, i figured i'd keep it up and dish out one more.

meet the gillons.

this sweet family goes to our church, too.  the daddy is justin.  he and chase coach t-ball together.  last month, they discovered that he has a brain tumor.  as i type this, they are sitting in a hospital room in nashville at vanderbilt where he is about to undergo the gamut of tests to figure out how best to proceed.
 

the middle one is kim.  (hayley is on the right for those of y'all interested!)  she's the wife.  the mom of two small kids.  the one keeping everything together.

saturday, we spent the afternoon loving on their oldest child, noah, and celebrating his 5th birthday at the fire station.

even though i know most of  y'all don't know them, can y'all please love on them now and pray for them?  travel mercies for them...wisdom for the doctors taking care of him...overwhelming peace for whatever the future looks like.  just take your pick!  i know they appreciate it!!

thanks, blog-o-sphere!!

pizza and prayer

this is patrick and amy o'mara.

(photo by ceresa caudill)

he graduated from med school with chase. she's my workout partner. they go to our church.  golf...food...friends.   you get the picture.

that itty, bitty baby girl with the chubby cheeks in the picture is evelyn.  she's their daughter.  and as of 720am tomorrow morning, they will be headed to south korea to bring her home.  it's been a long, hard process.  there have been bumps in the road.  tears.  more bumps.  more tears.

and now we shed more tears.  happy tears.  because after the almost 2 years this process has taken, they are a few short days away from becoming a family of 3!

and friday night, a few of us gathered to eat pizza and rejoice with amy for the last time before she officially has no time on her hands!  because did i mention it has been a long time coming?!?

a quick apology to anna polsgrove and nicole kilman...who arrived after the picture was taken!

after we ate and talked and laughed and cried, we all went back to evelyn's room and lifted them up in prayer.  you'd think we would know by now that somebody should have passed out the kleenex beforehand.

so....since i know that i have quite a few praying people who read this blog, i'm asking y'all to please pray for them this week.  for travel mercies in a foreign land, for health, for all the details to run smoothly, for evelyn as she begins a whole new life, and that the transition home would be an easy one.  and for half of north mississippi as we travel to memphis to see them step off of that plane next sunday!!  i can't wait to share that picture with the blog-o-sphere!

her blog should be kept up to date with pictures and news while they are gone (at least it better be!!), so you can click on "the o'maras" on my side bar to follow them on this journey!  to god be the glory!

forgiveness

william's sunday school class talked about forgiveness this past sunday.  he came home with this little diagram. 

his teachers told me that he explained it liked this..."that's me.  that's the castle that i built.  and that's my medium sized brother tearing it down."

he has forgiven wes for tearing down his castle...just not enough to call him by name, i guess. 

baby steps, people!  baby steps.  :)

bad equation and an apology

church league basketball + injury = not cool.

at all.

on a different note, i believe that i owe an apology to the groundhog for a statement i made against him in one of my last posts.  despite injuries, we have really enjoyed being outside this week.

maybe that little critter really did get it right!!

dance party

the other day, i hear william in the kitchen...

"i wanna celebrate and live my life. sayin' hey-o. baby, let's go!"

me: "what are you singing?!?"

william: "it's that song. you know. can you download it?"

can i download it? my 5 year old is asking me to download it. hello, 2011.

so yeah...i downloaded it for him. sad to say, but i think his taste in music has been influenced by one too many trips to the skating rink! :) ok, in all fairness, they do play this at msu basketball games, but homeboy really knows all the words. yay.

i was in the den that same night, and i hear music coming from my bedroom. that same 5 year old knows how to work my computer better than i do. great. they were having a post bath dance party. reed can get down.

dynamite from laura henson on Vimeo.

and now i have to go because wes is hiding in the pantry with my phone playing angry birds. please come back, 1980s!!

it's like we live in antarctica

i mean, really??  the 5th snow of the winter?  stupid groundhog.  somebody needs to shoot him.  

we went out to play this afternoon in the 1-2 inches that was already out there.  we thought this might give reed a chance to play in some stuff that he could actually walk in!  that 7 inches we got earlier was too much for him.  funny how my kids thought this was no big deal.  like we see snow all the time.  oh yeah...we do.  

after a playing in the snow, everybody got a nice, warm bath!

i'll let y'all know the final tally tomorrow on how many inches of snow we ended up with.  but for now, i'm going to look online at real estate in south florida.  

glory days

last weekend, we headed to jackson for chase's high school basketball reunion.  we all ate at a local mexican establishment (complete and utter chaos) and then went to the game where the former state champs were honored.

as an aside, can any other husband and wife out there say that they both played on undefeated teams in high school?!?  surely, at least one of my kids will get some basketball genes!  i really want to sit in the stands and watch this...

except maybe william, wes and reed will have uniform shorts that are a tad bit longer! :)

at the game...

the honorees...(sorry.  that's the best i could do with my phone from the bleachers!)

apparently coach triplett gave a riveting speech at some point in their high school careers about pro-creating because hello....kids everywhere!

and now...can we please have a pillow basketball reunion?  SOON!  my kids are still toting these red pom-poms around in the car.  and all this jackson prep patriot talk is unsettling.  i think they need a good green and gold fix!  :)

genes

he got the mad ball-handling skillz from his mama. the above-the-rim play came from his daddy. move over, blake griffin!

stylin'

homeboy would have made a good girl.  he loves to dress up!!

but give him props...he is pretty cute when he does!!  :)