The blessing of life

I don't have long to make a posting. But I just want to say thank you to all of you who have prayed for us and loved on us during this time. God has been so good to give us peace in the midst of confusing times. I have seen His hand on the whole situation since the seizure occurred early Sunday morning. I know that God, in His sovereignty, could have chosen things to go much different, but I just thank Him with all of my heart that He has brought Keith through this so that I get to enjoy more of this life with my wonderful husband. I have wrestled with Him a lot during the past couple of days knowing that I would still have to praise Him even if Keith didn't come out of his unconscious state or if there had been permanent damage to his brain.
But, as of today, it seems that He has graciously chosen to give us the Keith we all know and love back. He is still not all with it, but we are seeing HUGE improvements hour by hour. He doesn't understand why I cry when he says my name or lets me curl up beside him in the bed. He doesn't know that just this time yesterday I was begging God to give me those things again.
Keep praying for us as we still have a lot to process and Keith has a lot of healing to do. We are waiting right now for him to get out of surgery to relieve the sinus pressure on his brain that may have caused the seizure in the first place. Pray that we do not lose sight of how God is growing us thru this valley and that we grow in our faith as we remember His faithfulness to us. I have to admit that I have felt very lonely these past couple of days not having my husband to talk to even though the Lord has been so kind to surround me with not only His presence but the presence of many precious family and friends.
Remember to enjoy every minute that God gives you with your family. I want to close by posting some recent pics of moments to savor - like Steven Curtis Chapman's song says, they are "moments made for worshipping."



I love you all and thank God for you!

Brynlee three month photo shoot...

So, I am a little behind in posting these. Brynlee turned three months on October 2nd. We have a sweet friend, Rachel Parkhurst, who is a wonderful photographer. I have tried my hardest to narrow down the pics to my absolute favorites, but there are still quite a few that I want to post.







I did not think that having a daughter would be a big deal to me. I mean, I have loved being a mom to three boys and thought that having another boy would have been awesome. I am the mom that wants to poke people in the eye when they say things like, "Are you hoping for a girl?" or, "Three boys, wow, I'm so sorry!" I have seriously had so many comments like these made to me - with my boys right there listening!! I can't even recount how many times I said during my pregnancy, "I love having boys and would be thrilled if this one is a boy too." But then she arrived. Her first two months were a little rough - her brothers definitely beat her at being easier babies. It doesn't matter though because she's my daughter. Something inside me wants to shout "thank you" to God so many times throughout the day when I look at her or hold her. She adds just the right amount of feminity to our very boyish home. I love the mix of three boys and one girl. I couldn't have planned it better if I had tried - I'm so glad that God's plan always prevails over what I think is best.

Thank you Lord for the gifts of family and life. Thank you for a home that is filled with laughter and sweet memories always in the making. Keith and I just pray that we will be good stewards with the incredible gifts we've been given.

Family Bowling Night

I am trying to figure out how to make a collage of pics for the blog when all the pics are of one event. I am so behind in posting pics from the past couple of weeks - I have pics from when we went to see the grandmothers at the end of last month, recent family pics, family bowling night, trip to Atlanta for the Catalyst conference, Brynlee's three month pictures, pumpkin patch play date and t-ball pics that I so want to share with our friends and family, but I can't seem to find the time to post about them. Plus, I still would like to make use of the Flip video that I recently purchased to be able to provide videos of the kids for the blog. If anyone has a step-by-step process that they use to take pics from Photoshop Elements to their blog in a collage format - PLEASE SHARE! I have to go now to get the kids up for Leadership Community at church tonight or else I would try to figure out how to make my first collage attempt bigger so that you wouldn't have to squint your eyes to see the pics. Sorry!! Hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weather today!

Brynlee's Baby Dedication

So, I mentioned in my last post about Brynlee having friends and not even knowing how many yet. Here are some pics from her baby dedication yesterday...



There were thirteen babies dedicated on Sunday...is that not awesome???!! All of the staff couples were represented at the dedication...yes, we now have ten kids between the Shocks, Hallams, and ourselves. We are definitely doing our part to grow the church :) Here are a couple of pics from Keirah's 4th birthday that show all ten kids. We are so incredibly blessed!



Our precious neighbors and friends, Mike and Dawn, dedicated both of their sons and Truly, Brynlee's inutero friend, was also dedicated.



After the dedication service, we took Brynlee and Truly to celebrate at Fuddruckers...I don't know if they liked it, but their brothers sure did!


Mike surprised us by showing up at church for Bryn's dedication. We had really been missing him, so it was a treat to get to spend time with him.

Another fun surprise of the day was that our awesome neighbors, Jose and Keri, came to our church. We were so excited to have them at worship with us and then they joined us for the Fuddrucker fun...

Every dad had the opportunity to pray over their child being dedicated. Keith prayed Psalm 139 over Brynlee, that she would always know that she is fearfully and wonderfully made. He also prayed Proverbs 31.30 over her; that she would truly believe that "Charm is deceiving and beauty is fleeting, but the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." I so pray that I will live out these Scriptures for her. It is so different having a girl and knowing that I am modeling how to respond to life and to God for this precious little girl. I don't just want to tell her to love God and seek to please Him only...I want to model that for her. I could use all of your prayers in being a godly example for Brynlee.

It was a wonderful day and now we are living out another fast-paced week!

God bless...

Randomness

Brynlee turned three months old today! She has captivated Keith and I. Her smile always starts in her eyes. She looks at you like she has a lot to say to you or either it's the look that says, "you're strange." Either way, it's really cute. She is starting to roll from her tummy to her back - and she gets so mad when she gets stuck on her back. Her smile goes like this: her eyes twinkle, then she gives a little side smile and then a full blown open mouth smile that just lights up the world. She is a drooling machine - you would think she was already teething. She is sleeping 12.5 hours at night and eating 5 times a day. She has found her thumb and uses it to go to sleep every night - following in the footsteps of her brothers, Kamden and Kale. She already has some really good friends and she doesn't even know it yet. We are dedicating her at church on Sunday and I'll post pics afterwards to show you all of her sweet friends that are also being dedicated. She loves her brothers. She is really getting spoiled to their attention. She coos and sighs after she eats - I love it! She is still very dainty and her eyes are still blue. So far, they are looking pretty big, like mine. I am so excited to have a daughter and thank the Lord that Brynlee is a part of our family.






Kade is about to be five at the end of this month. I have to post this so I'll remember - he threw a rock at a car this past Monday at t-ball practice. If only you could have seen mine and Keith's face when we heard the hit...very humbling. After we told the man what had happened and gave him our information, Kade told me that he remembered what color the car was and that he could go buy the paint color at the store and paint the spot he scratched. Oh, thru the eyes of a child. He had no clue why Keith and I were so upset - he just thought it would be a chance to perfect his painting skills. We just had a sweet friend, Rachel Parkhurst, come take some pictures of him to capture this precious age. I've had a couple of friends tell me that this is the perfect time to have portraits done of your children - captures the preschool stage before they start losing their teeth :)


We were all inside yesterday when Kamden just got up and walked out the front door. I went after him to see what was going on and he was by the bushes pulling up his pants. I asked what he was doing and he said, "I had to go pee." ???? Did he forget that we had a room in our house just for that? I mean, I could understand if we were already outside and no bathroom was nearby, but to walk past the bathroom to go find a bush? Yet another humbling parenting moment.



I have more random thoughts that are filling my brain tonight about my precious family and our life, but I'm sure this posting is already a little too long. But I will be so thankful when I get around to scrapbooking these moments to have journaled about them!