Corinne!

I love this kid.

If you've considered voting Obama this year

Well, guys, I'm not really that much into the political thing, and didn't even know how I was going to vote this year. But this article on Obama's stance on premature babies' personhood as it relates to abortion rights has sealed the deal. It's pretty grievous. Please read.

Pretty stinkin' cute.

They're here--Corinne's new specs! And the Breitensteins have finally come into the digital age, so expect a lot more pictures!

Man, with kids, sometimes the outtakes are as cute as the real thing.

He is so good.

This week was concerning for us. Early Tuesday morning John woke to severe chest pain and a number of other symptoms. Without asking questions, the doctor recommended the ER. Having three young kids who would also be riding along in the middle of the night (and no fresh money on the money tree in the backyard), we first called my sister, a cardiovascular ICU nurse. After calls back and forth and some relief for John, we waited until morning.

He's been diagnosed with pericarditis. A visit to a cardiologist today confirmed the best-case scenario: treatable with Aleve, no permanent condition or effect, and we gained some knowledge from an echocardiogram and some labs that will help us avert the heart disease in his family history. We are so full of thankfulness!

God gave us great peace from the beginning. John longs for heaven like no one I've met, and even got a mischievous gleam in his eye when we didn't know what the outcome of this would be. (What a turkey.) God reminds me to number our days, and that all the days ordained for John were written in His book before one of them came to be.

On that note, I had to share this wonderful quote from FamilyLife's MomBlog with you.

Suppose you are a gardener employed by another. It is not your garden,
but you are called upon to tend it. You come one morning into the garden, and
you find that the best rose has been taken away. You are angry. You go to your
fellow servants and charge them with having taken the rose. They declare that
they had nothing to do with it, and one says, "I saw the master walking here
this morning; I think he took it." Is the gardener angry then? No, at once he
says, "I am happy that my rose should have been so fair as to attract the
attention of the master. It is his own. He has taken it, let him do what seems
good."

It is even so with your friends. They wither not by chance. The grave
is not filled by accident. Men die according to God's will. Your child is gone,
but the Master took it. Your husband is gone, your wife is buried—the Master
took them. Thank Him that He let you have the pleasure of caring for them and
tending them while they were here. And thank Him that as He gave, He Himself has taken away.

Those who know Christ can say, “If I should lose all I have, it is better that I should lose than have, if God so wills: the worst calamity is the wisest and the kindest thing that could befall me if God ordains it."

"We know that all things work together for good to them that love
God." Those who navigate little streams and shallow waters know little of the
God of tempests—but those who do business in deep and great waters see His
wonders!

remember them with me!

Please remember with me to pray for our Chinese brothers and sisters as the persecution there may be heightened during the Olympics as China seeks to maintain its image. Pray for their endurance for the joy set before them, and their testimony.

Right now I'm in the thick of Randy Alcorn's Safely Home, which I'd definitely recommend. It gets a little preachy, but it's a good read and a good story. (Gets 5 stars on Amazon!)

little familia update, #...I forget

Baden had his four-year-old checkup, and times have changed--this now means four shots (OW). He didn't cry till the second set, but he was pretty brave. The hardest part of the visit was actually a blood draw for Corinne, when both brothers burst into tears! But we all thoroughly enjoyed our annual trip with FamilyLife to Wild River Country.

Really the biggest news is that we took Corinne to an ophthalmologist; she's had an eye that crossed when she was tired, but as she's gotten older and tried to focus more, it happens more often. The opthalmologist explained that this is actually because she's farsighted (so patching won't fix this--even if the eye gets stronger, then the good eye will turn in to try to compensate).

So our little thirteen-month-old is getting glasses! I was a little discouraged, to be honest, but I've actually had a cousin Nicole (the wayward flowergirl at our wedding) who had four surgeries to correct this (yes, this comes from my gene pool, and two of my sisters had trifocals for it) so glasses are a fine option. We're catching it early, so surgery is less likely--another thing to be thankful for. She may grow out of this by the time she's a teenager, at which point my nearsightedness will probably kick in and she'll need them anyway. :)

As a side note, I'm thinking that sometimes babies with glasses are treated with extra compassion, and even though glasses will be on that pretty little face, it may develop compassion in her and maybe even limit some vanity. ;) Getting them to stay on is the first big trick (they'll wrap around her ears).

As we tried them on, she's still pretty stinkin' cute. We will have to wait a year or two until her noggin's big enough to fit in my favorite, the little tortoiseshell ones. If you want a preview of the little wire frames we got her, scroll down to the red ones: http://zennioptical.com/cart/product.php?productid=497&cat=5&page=1

To put things in perspective, some of you may be interested in this poignant clip from Good Morning America of Steven Curtis Chapman's family that aired Wednesday; it's posted on MomBlog (www.familylifemomblog.com). It made me a mess.

We have so much to be thankful for!!