When you have children, you know there will be “incidents”. You can plan on making some trips to the ER for stitches or x-rays or casts. It’s an unfortunate part of parenting. You always just pray that nothing terribly serious happens and that the ER receptionist doesn’t know you on a first name basis because you frequently show up there with bleeding children.

Thankfully up until now, we’ve only gone in a few times for stitches…and once for croup.

And well…when I think of all the “could have beens” with our broken window last Thursday…all I can do is thank God over and over that all we had was a broken window.

All four boys were upstairs playing when suddenly Matt and I heard a tremendous crash and saw a huge amount of glass fly all over our yard. I was shocked and frozen for exactly one second before I took the steps about twelve at a time to go see what had happened and to make sure our four boys were okay. Talk about heart stopping.

Matt and I made it into the boys’ room at the same time…counted heads…all four boys were breathing, not bleeding and just fine. Well, fine if you consider being white as a sheet and shaking with fear as being fine. Compared to what could have been…a little fear and shaking was absolutely fine.

After comforting the boys, we got the story. Two of the boys were just playing and wrestling on the bed…trust me…this is an everyday occurrence. Then, one of them kicked at the window accidentally and BOOM. Out it went. He must have hit it just right.

And we’re not talking about a tiny little window. This window is about 36 inches wide by 40 inches tall. 

Our child could have flown out the window and crashed onto cement. Or glass could have slammed down and cut him severely. I can hardly breathe when I think of it.

But he didn’t even get a scratch. 

Thank you God for protecting our boys!

It’s hard to see exactly how much glass was shattered all over the place, but here’s one shot I took of the cement slab directly under the window. Picture that all over the surrounding grass and you get the idea. Matt and the boys have spent hours trying to pick up pieces, yet I don’t think we’ll be letting anyone go barefoot any time soon.

This might give you an idea of how high up they were. 
Here’s me sticking my hand out the window and waving to the boys picking up glass below.

Can I say it again? Thank you God for protecting our boys.

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Tonight while my husband and I were getting dinner ready to put on the table (and munching on the food as we went), we were both struck by the variety. And Matt said, “THIS is a regular cornucopia. It should be your Gratituesday post tonight.”

So if our cornucopia is my Gratituesday post, that would make this a Graticopia…a CornuGratitiduh…a

Yeah, okay never mind. That doesn’t work. 

Anyway, having an incredible variety of food is seriously something to be grateful for. Many people all over the world are just happy to have one thing to eat…and they eat it day after day after day…hopefully.

But for our one meal tonight…we had chicken fried steak strips, potatoes, gravy, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, chocolate milkshakes and yogurt with honey oat crunch cereal. One meal.  (And yes, I veered off of our planned menu just a bit…I sometimes do.)  (And no, we didn’t over-eat like it sounds like we did with all that food…there were just little bits of each of the above, so our portions were small.)  Oh, and then since Daddy was home for the evening, we played Family Cranium and ate a special treat of popcorn and Easy Butterscotch Bars.

So much variety. So many great choices. So much food. 

We are spoiled. We are blessed. 

We can not take this for granted.

What are you thankful for this Gratituesday? Write about it on your blog, then come link up with us here. If you don’t have a blog, be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for!

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I’m sorry if it appears that I’m stuck on the subject of eczema, but while I’ve been writing during the past few days about our battle with Malachi’s eczema , I have been amazed at all the emotions it has brought out in me.  I’ve been bawling over the keyboard like crazy.  One of the biggest emotions I’ve felt is thankfulness! (Is thankfulness an emotion? I sure am feeling it!)

Those were some tough years. Many days we felt like we were fighting a losing battle. We got little sleep. The kind of sleep you get when you first bring a newborn baby home from the hostpital? We got that kind of sleep for three years. After Malachi turned three he finally started sleeping through most nights, only occasionally waking up scratching and crying. He slept the most peacefully if he was in our bed, so that is exactly where he slept until about a year ago (he’s five now).

At about age 3, the eczema gradually began to clear. It started healing first on his head and slowly moved down his body until now he mostly just suffers from sores on his legs. How I wish he didn’t suffer with eczema at all anymore…but WOW am I thankful that it is “only” on his legs now. He is not nearly as miserable as he had been. And he’s now able to sleep the night through and feel healthy and rested.

As I’ve been writing about our fight against chronic eczema, I’ve sifted through his baby pictures so that I could post one or two for you to see the severity of his problem. I’ve just not been able to post one though. Those pictures are painful for me to look at and I’m sure they’d be painful for you to look at too. The poor guy. What a tough kid. 

BUT, because looking at all his baby and toddler pictures reminded me of how far we’ve come and made me so incredibly thankful to be at this point in our battle, I decided to go ahead and give you an idea of what we’ve been fighting against.

This picture was taken on Mother’s Day ’07, almost three years ago when Malachi was about 2 1/2. It’s not a super close up pic, because I just couldn’t post one that was. But, you get an idea of how the rash covered his face and neck (also arms and legs, but you can’t tell that in the picture).

Incidently, while we were fighting Malachi’s eczema issue, we were simultaneously fighting a battle of stubborn-ness with our then five year old Elias. There wasn’t an easy remedy for that issue either, but I think we’re on the winning end of it now.. ;)

And now here we are, three years later…

I am overjoyed with thanks that Malachi is feeling so much better!! Is it any wonder I can’t stop kissing those soft cheeks?! 
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What are you thankful for this Gratituesday? Write about it on your blog, then come link up with us here. If you don’t have a blog, be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for!

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please copy and paste the following link into your post! Thanks!

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