eat sleep and farm

I love seeing God at work in His people. Its especially encouraging to me when we see God shining so brightly through His people when they're in deep trials. This update from Ryan was really very encouraging to me, so I wanted to post it here. __________________ I just spent the last few minutes reading through all of the responses and all I can think right now is that I am a blessed man with so many family and friends. To think of all of the people praying for my daughter brings a hope to my heart, because I know we have a Father in heaven who hears the prayers of His children and delights to answer them. As you can well imagine, these past few days have been a jumble of emotions and fears. And as I have fought these feelings of helplessness, it has driven me to the One who holds all things in His hand, the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens and the earth, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I was reading Philippians 4 earlier today and had to preach this passage to my own heart,...

(this message is from Ainsley's Mom, Jen) I appreciate all of the messages that were posted! I sure love our church family- past and present! I know you all truly do care and are coming before God in prayer for our needs. Right now I feel calm. My heart is heavy and I tear up a lot, but I don't feel despair or overwhelming anxiety. I am trying to live in "today" and trust that God's word is true when he promises his strength for "now". Ainsley is doing well. Because her heart condition was discovered before she became symptomatic, her vitals are doing well. This is good going into surgery. We're so thankful that she had that appointment with the cardiologist. We see that as something to thank God for. Right now her pressures are lower on her lower extremities because of the decreased blood supply coming out of the heart. Because of this the doctors don't want her to take anything by mouth before surgery, because it could potentially cause issues ...

Many of you know about our Pastor's 3 week old baby girl, Ainsley, but many of you don't, so I thought I'd post this here and that you can all be caught up to speed. That way when I give updates you won't be wondering what on earth I'm talking about. :-) Ainsley is the youngest of 5 children and was born on February 7th. My sole purpose in posting this is to ask you all to pray. Ainsley is at UCSF Neo-Natal ICU due to issues with her heart. She has been diagnosed with Aortic Coartation due to narrowing of the Aortic leaving the Left Ventricular Chamber, a heart murmur and Left Ventricular Non-compaction of muscle tissue. Ainsley is in very stable condition with all her vitals and organs really good. The doctors have tried PGE Hormone to open the Aortic area but it didn't work and was discontinued tonight. Ainsley will need surgery to correct these issues which will probably occur on Monday, we don't know the time yet. Ainsley will probably stay at UCSF fo...

For Ethan's 4th birthday we went to a local play place called Scoops Play 'N' Cafe with lots of his friends. The kids all had a blast and its definitely a place we'll be visiting again. our cousin Emma with our friends Alyssa and Austin Dulkevich Jason wanted to be there so badly, but he had to work... so he brought his laptop! Ethan and his buddy Caedmon. I showed Ethan this picture and asked him what they were talking about... his reply was "Oh, we were talking about our favorite toys and stuff like that." Rachel with the gift bow on her head :)

Rachel got to have her first sleep over with her 3 year old cousin Emma! The girls played dolls and dress-ups to their heart's content. I got the biggest kick out of hearing them pretend and speak like they were little Mommies. They had so much fun - we had a fun dinner, took bubble baths, played hide-and-go-seek and then blew up the air mattress and let them sleep on the floor with that. Rachel is still talking about this event and keeps telling me this is what she wants to do for her birthday when she turns 3. :) playing dress-ups "Beauty and the Beast", dancing Notice Emma looking at Ethan... the next picture was completely out of the blue and I love the way these two pix tie in. :) SMACK! Cousin kisses :) After bath time -- we didn't prompt the hug. I asked them if they love each other and the hug followed their answer. they're 6 months apart in age, so they get along quite well. Going nite-nite waving bye-bye to the camera!

In keeping with Betti tradition, we do treasure hunts for our kids on their birthdays, starting with their 3rd birthday. Ethan had a blast doing his this year and did really well with the clues. You get however many gifts as the age you're turning and then with each gift comes a clue to where the gift is hidden. He did a really good job! the Nerf Wii game Pirate Lego set this was his favorite gift :) Playing cars with Aunt Trisha

Kara is growing up so fast! She's coming on 5 months old and I'm trying to remember what happened to her entire 4th month. Seriously, February went by way too fast. We're enjoying Kara's baby days so much. Ethan adores her, Rachel says she wants another baby sister (already) and Jason is... well... smitten. :-) She's doing much better these days and I think we passed up a rough hurdle. She is very much a home body, so I'm learning to adjust my life a little bit. We do less traveling and I'm not nearly as social as I used to be, just because life gets too hectic for her when we're out a lot. She loves to be home and on a nice routine. She's a happy baby when she gets long naps, so we're typically always home for those. She's still doing the up-si-down army crawl (I need to catch this on video) and rolls all over the place. If you help her a bit, she sits up very nicely and is getting good control of her back muscles. She tries to copy everythi...

I have been so behind on getting pictures up here. I'm mainly sorry to our relatives that have been waiting to see them. I'm kind of uploading them as I find time, so I do apologize that they're not in any real order. More to come soon!

Back in 2007 Jason's Grandma Anita bought the kids an amazing gift; one that is sure to bring them hours and hours of fun times and lasting memories. Its our very first play structure and its huge! She presented it to us Jason and our good friend from church, John Pisahl spent MANY hours building the fort and we're very happy to announce.... ITS COMPLETED!! I will never forget the morning we brought the kids out to the back door to take their 1st peek at the finished fort. Oh, the excitement. :) These pictures are taken on the first day they actually got to play on it. I want to say they were out there until dark and then I had to go and physically bring them inside. :) Needless to say, they love the new fort and we've decided its just the best gift ever. Rachel and her cousin Emma (played "house" with their dolls in the fort) climbing up for the first time! they love the swings (right now we have a perfect number of swings, 2 big kid swings and a baby swing!) Rac...

To celebrate our birthdays we went to the Spaghetti Factory with both sides of our families. Such a fun night! my Mom with Kara Ethan, wearing Papa's hat me with Kara Our Grandma Anita "Uncle" Brock Jason's Mom (Grandma) with Ethan he loves the big Tonka Truck from "Uncle" Brock my little sister, Emily cousin Joe cousin Emma being silly in Papa's hat Rain boots!! Josiah, Jason and Ethan