Why having no life can be a wonderful thing

So, lets start with saying having no life doesn't mean not living. You are living, breathing, eating, sleeping...you get what I am saying right? Even though meeting Jesus does sound pretty cool. What I mean about not having a life is you are not out every night, you don't go to bars, you rather read in pj's than go to the bars, etc. It's funny because so many people say its such a bad thing and make fun of people that are like that. They might say "You need to get out more, you have no life" or "Staying in again?" Let me first tell you a little bit about myself.

When I was younger I wanted to be one of the popular girls so bad. Don't get me wrong I was friendly and (mostly) everyone liked me but I wasn't popular. I loved cheerleading and sadly I never made varsity even though I really wanted to. I was actually pretty good too. Did I need improvement? Yes, but I was dedicated and wanted it so bad. I partially blamed not making the varsity team on not being popular. I wanted to be one of the girls that got invited to all the cool kids parties. Now I look back and see that it was such a blessing that I wasn't popular and "had no life."

The reason behind that is I made some really good friends. I didn't have 10 girls that I was acquaintances with and that half of them talked behind my back. I had a couple good friends and one best friend. My best friend from high school and I are still best friends to this day. Not being popular made me realize who would be a true friend to me and who wouldn't.

Plus when I finally did get invited to all these parties, at the time I thought they were cool. Now looking back I realize that they weren't cool at all and I made a lot of mistakes at them. Hanging out with people is fun. Drinking and making a fool of yourself might be fun for those couple hours but it's not cool the next morning.

http://meetville.com/quotes/tag/trying/page8

Another fun fact about me is I am 26 and have 3 crazy but beautiful and wonderful kids. I feel like I am always on the go and never have any time to do anything. Right now my kids are napping at the same time so I have a little bit of peace but usually I cannot write a single blog post without one or all three wanting something. I can barely do anything without one child crying or throwing a fit. I am one of those types that love to read and I do read, a lot. I end up having to read books a couple times (or watch tv shows) to really be able to recall what I just read because I have to be doing a million things at once. I am 26 people, I should not have memory problems.

When you get older and have crazy kids of your own, you are going to revel in any peace and quiet you can get. To those people that can just stay home in their jammies and read a whole book in one night, I am so incredibly jealous of you. Going out is even a hassle how. Do I like to go out every now and again? Of course, but its a lot of work and if I could just sit on my butt without having to do anything and "not have a life" for a second, I would in a heartbeat! Especially if there are cookies involved. Chocolate chip to be exact.

When I was younger I always wanted to be doing something. Not homework, that's boring. Reading? That's for losers that have nothing else to do. I want to be out with people and not be one of those weird homebody's and dare I say it? Have no LIFE! Now thinking back to my high school days I really should have been the one reading all the time and doing homework. Yeah going out is cool but being smart is one of the best things you can do in your life. Being smart and dedicated to school gets you so far in life. You learn more and can do so much more with your life. I already had Bridgette when I went to college and I did great but just think if I applied myself more in high school and not think about who I could hang out with or what I can do to not be a loser.

Trust me, what you do in high school besides school work doesn't matter. Stay in, read some books, spend time with your parents (because hey parents are people too), and be one of those ones that have no life. You will appreciate the time out when you get it and you will be 10x more prepared for your future. I know my perfect day now without my children (because hey, my perfect day with kids would be going to Disney World. Holla!) would be spending it in a comfy chair, not having to worry about anything, with a great book in my hands to read, and all the chocolate chip cookies in the world. Especially with nobody to beg me for half of my cookies. Notice how I didn't say going to bars, or hanging out with a bunch of people?

I hope this all makes sense to you guys. I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I just wanted to be able to convey my message right. Even though I have my moment of silence, it's still only a moment. While I am in my moment I am also "watching" a tv show, playing a trivia game, talking to my husband, and making dinner.

Peace and Love,

Powers Christmas 2014

It's now four days past Christmas and I am finally able to put this post together. This Christmas was a rough one but still a good one for the kids. We are preparing Eli for his surgery so sadly after Bridgette's birthday party we had to tell everyone we cannot have guest anymore and not go anywhere for Christmas. It was extremely hard to do but most people understood.

 One side of my family is dealing with a whole bunch of medical issues themselves so they understood completely and we are all going to have to delay our family Christmas indefinitely. If you could do me a favor and pray for my family especially two of my aunts that are going through a really tough time I would really appreciate it. All I can say is I HATE cancer.

The other side of my family were all able to get together at a hall and have a great Christmas there. I told my dad that I was really sad I couldn't make it and he understood. He knows that getting Eli's surgery is one of our top priorities and we cannot have him exposed to a lot of germs. From pictures on Facebook it looked like a really great time and hopefully we will be able to attend more in the future.

We had two (yes TWO!) Christmas trees this year. I was so excited that my mother in law brought us another one when we moved in. I am also grateful that we had room for both. One Christmas tree I decorated myself (with a little help from Emme) and the other one the kids helped. Here are the trees:

Bridgette had to stand in front of the one she helped with for a picture. For this Christmas we opened presents on Christmas Eve. Bridgette had to go up north for Christmas so we decided to open them when Brad got out of work at two. The kids had a pretty good Christmas. Brad and I decided not to get presents for each other this year since finances are really tight right now. We just bought a house and Brad switched jobs so we wanted the kids to have a good Christmas. We got some awesome presents from his parents though and his Aunt even sent us presents from Alaska! I thought that was cool. Here is our gift opening. Don't mind Emelia, she has been not wanting to wear clothes lately!

Bridgette and I decided to make Brads presents this year too. We made him an after workout cream for his muscles and an after workout bath soak. He has been really dedicated to working out and Bridgette came up with wanting to do that for him. Also Bridgette got a cool paint set from my cousins Michelle and Tracy so we decided to make him a painting.

He loves Mario so I did the outline and Bridgette painted it. I think we have a little artist in the making. Brad loved it!

On Christmas day we left a couple presents for Emelia and Eli to open and spent the day doing not a lot. Eli was a little bit under the weather. His nose was extremely stuffed up so I had to suction it a couple times. Then by the end of the day he had a fever (of 104 degrees) so I rushed him to the ER. He ended up having an upper respiratory infection poor guy. I hate giving medications to the kids. The doctors told me it was viral and gave me a prescription for an antibiotic. I said thanks but no thanks since it wouldn't do anything for him anyways. I did give him ibuprofen but I have him half doses and monitored his fevers. A fever is your bodies way of getting rid of the infection and while they can be serious if they rise too quickly or get too high I personally don't mind them having a fever. 

 I also used Young Living's peppermint essential oil to help keep the fever down to a decent temperature. This time last year I would have been running to get that antibiotic (even though I knew it wouldn't work) and giving him both Tylenol and ibuprofen constantly to try to make him feel better. I am glad that I don't have to do that anymore. He was feeling cruddy for a couple days. I let him sleep a lot! Then on Saturday my essential oils order came in and what do you know, it was all stuff for being sick and for energy. I started diffusing the sickness oils right away and applying them. By the end of the day he was feeling a lot better and his fever only spiked once during that night with that being the only time he even had a fever. I was so happy. He is feeling a lot better now. Here is a pic of the little guy that I took yesterday:

I am glad he is feeling better and I hope this wont change his surgery. They told me he absolutely could not get sick and it seems this is the worst year for it. Everybody and their brother is sick. Not to mention every time Bridgette comes back from being up north she is sick. She has been coughing all morning and has a runny nose. Hopefully she doesn't pass it a long to everyone like she did the last time she came back. 

Our Christmas trees are all taken down and now Christmas 2014 is just a past memory. Emelia has been telling people Merry Christmas still but I think that is cute. I am excited to be able to have many Christmases with our three kids and hopefully next year will be more merry instead of being sick! I hope everyone has a good New Year's and as always if you could please say a little prayer for Eli, especially now, I would appreciate it. 

Peace and Love, 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BRIDGETTE!

Today is my 7 year old's birthday! I cannot believe she is already that big! It is 7 am right now and I decided to take some of the extra streamers and a balloon that I used for her party and decorate the door. Here is what it looks like:

I am so excited for her to wake up! We had her birthday party this past week and 7 of her classmates showed up a long with my two nieces! We made some crafts which I am starting to post about in my other blog. If you want to know how to make Elsa's Magic Snowballs click here! Here is a pic of Bridgette opening up her presents:

I decorated our whole entire house in streamers too. I think I am going to make this a yearly thing where I try to come up with new ideas to decorate with streamers. I was going for a royal/ castle looking theme in the frozen colors. Here it is: 

I think it turned out really good. I am excited to see what else I can come up with! I decided that I was going to write what I remember about Bridgette's birth. It was a really rough birth and pregnancy so I really don't remember a lot. Bear with me. Okay, here we go:

The first three months of being pregnant with Bridgette I threw up every day multiple times a day. I lost about 20 lbs! It was crazy but I would have dreams that I was having a little girl. I just knew she was a girl but I actually didn't find out that she was until a week before I had her. 

When I was around 4 months pregnant we got into a really bad car accident. I was the passenger and all I remember before it happened is seeing blue and gray. A truck with an empty trailer hit us head on going 50 mph. I remember getting out of the car and feeling wet so I put my hands down where I was wet and all I could see was blood. 

I was terrified and an ambulance took me straight to the hospital. Luckily, the seat belt and Bridgette were positioned just right where instead of hurting her it got my bladder. It flattened my bladder like a pancake and I peed myself/ was bleeding for a couple days but other than that I was fine. I just remember being so mad at the other driver because he almost killed Bridgette. That is until I found out that the other driver passed away from the accident. 

After that I didn't drive for a couple months and had to go to therapy for it. I am still terrified of driving and vehicles. On December 19th at a doctor appointment I found out I had preeclampsia. I had to go into the hospital and get an ultrasound to make sure Bridgette was okay.That is when we found out Bridgette was indeed a Bridgette. I was scared but happy that I was having a little girl. I also had to get a steroid shot for Bridgette's lungs to make them ready if she was born early. She wasn't due until late January/early February so they wanted to make sure if she was early she would be fine. I had to immediately go into work and tell them I was on bed rest until Bridgette came. I was working at McDonalds so bed rest was fine with me. 

At three in the morning on December 23rd I woke up in extreme pain. I couldn't talk and I could barely breathe. They had me come in immediately. I was put in a triage room and they did an ultrasound on my abdomen where they found out my gallbladder was twice the size as it normally would be. They also did a check on my urine and found out it had a lot of protein still in it. All I remember is the doctors talking about if I would make it to Saginaw hospital (about 30 minutes away) by ambulance since it was a high risk hospital. They were too afraid I would have a seizure and then they would loose both of us. They decided to take me in for an emergency c-section. Bridgette was 34 and 4 out of 7 days gestation so my 19 year old self was extremely terrified. 

At 10:40am she came into this world. Her crying was such a wonderful sound. That's how I knew she was okay. Bridgette was 5lbs 4oz, and such a little thing. They didn't let me see her or hold her while I was getting put back together and they immediately put me in a room afterward. They hooked me up to really strong pain medications and I really don't remember much. According to my mom I was not in good shape. My vitals were going crazy and they even had to kick my dad out of my room. I do remember one thing though. I still didn't get to see my baby! Luckily the nurses took a picture of her and I was able to see that. Here is that picture:

On Christmas eve a day later I got to meet her because I was doing a lot better and wanted to breast feed her. That was an awesome Christmas present. She ended up getting jaundice and we were in the hospital for about a week. It was awesome to be able to take her home. 

When she was two months old she ended up getting RSV and was in the hospital for another week. She stopped breathing a couple times and that was terrifying. It was a rough first couple months for her. I am still amazed that she is as strong as she is today. It's amazing what our little ones can endure. I still cannot believe she is now 7. Well everyone is up and someone (hint:me) has to make breakfast. Here is a pic of the birthday girl:

Happy Birthday Bridgette, we love you so much!

Peace and Love, 

The final countdown!

Yesterday was an extremely long and stressful but at the same time great day. It definitely didn't have the best mom moments, I did a lot of mom fails yesterday. 

I got to go to my MOPS Christmas party which was the great part of the day! I got to make some cute little crafts one of this was this: 

Isn't that so cute? I also made some sugar scrubs and got to eat. My only regret is not eating more because the food was so good and I didn't have to make it which makes it 100x even more tasty. We also did a white elephant gift exchange and I got a cute little frog statue that said welcome. The best part of the holiday party was I got to meet Amanda! The inspirational woman that I wrote a post about a few post back. You can read that post here. We gave each other a hug and it was so nice to put a face to the name. I am looking forward to growing our friendship and helping out with whatever she needs!

That was the fun part of the day and I should have just stayed there at ate but alas I had to go to a hematology doctor appointment for Eli. First of all I forgot to grab an extra plate of food for Emelia since the doctors appointment was at 12:30pm. Total mom fail right there and let me tell you I got an ear full from little Emelia about it. So, we arrived at the doctors and little man got his finger poked. He did not like that and it seemed to have bled forever! 

After we got the blood needed we got to go meet the doctor. Nicest man ever! If your child goes to Beaumont for any blood issues I HIGHLY recommend Dr. Berman. We found out little man needs to have an iron supplement daily and has to have three shots a week to increase his blood count. The great news about that is since I am a certified medical assistant, I get to give him the shots instead of having drive to Beaumont (35-40 minute drive) three times a week. It is both a good thing and an absolutely terrifying thing! I am very nervous to start doing that. 

If you know me personally you know that I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. After high school I decided to wait until college to figure stuff out and then got stuck in that limbo and ended up having Bridgette a year after I graduated. She is what really pushed me to be better and do better. I have always loved health sciences and anything about the human body so I decided to start off with going to school to be a medical assistant. Well my last semester and during my internship is when I found out I was pregnant with Emelia (I actually found out at my internship!) so Brad and I decided that I should be a stay at home mom for a while. It seems like God has things happen for a reason though because even though I am not an active medical assistant, having that training has helped so much with Eli's craniosynostosis. I actually understand the Doctor jargon and now I have found another way to be able to put my training to use. 

Our appointment got out at around 1:30pm then we went straight to Beaumont's pharmacy to try to fill out the prescription for his shots. Well sadly I didn't have the right card that I needed to fill the script and I had to make a bunch of calls and finally they went to go see if they could fill it. By the time we got home it was 3pm! Emelia still didn't each lunch and she was not a happy camper. Plus I totally failed in the dinner department and couldn't make the slow cooker chicken that I wanted to make. Luckily Brad understood and stopped by Meijer to get dinner stuff but I felt so bad about everything! 

Sadly they couldn't fill my script at that pharmacy and hopefully we can fill it by today with a specialty pharmacy so I can start him on it. He has the perfect blood cell count which is 11 and we want it to be in the 14-15 range to try and prevent a transfusion which always happens with this type of surgery because its a very bloody surgery. That is a good thing though because the healing rate is quicker because of that and there is less chance of infection but still hearing the word transfusion is terrifying. 

We are finally coming to the end of this whole ordeal and I am both relieved and terrified. I have been under so much stress with this all and having to deal with many doctors but in the same breath I don't want my baby to have to have a surgery. I have felt like such a bad mom to Emelia and Bridgette because lately I have had a short fuse and I have had to spend so much time worrying about Eli that they are suffering because of it. I feel like I cant be spread out anymore than I am. 

Right now my kids are crying bloody murder so I guess my blog post is done! Those kids make great timers!

Peace and Love, 

All Good Things Come To An End

Yesterday was the last day of growth group with my current group. I know my church does growth group every fall and winter so our next one will be in January but it still makes me sad that for now our Wednesday nights just became open.

This falls growth group was about parenting and it felt so nice to be able to sit down and talk with parents that are a lot like us. It is nice to know NOBODY knows what they are doing! If you are like me you see all these parenting blogs that tell you how to do things and be a better parent. You think "Wow! They really have their act together!" but really behind closed doors they are probably just as lost as you and I. Being in my growth group I was able to see that through the other parents that I would have thought had their act together. 

Moving 2 hours away from everything I have known since I was in first grade was really hard for me. What made it harder was the fact that I was a stay at home mom so I really didn't have much opportunity to make a whole bunch of new friends. I was blessed that Bridgette started Kindergarten and I was able to volunteer there to be one of the class party planners and was able to make friends through that and through my daughters friends parents. Some of my very good friends now I made through her school.

Now I have been blessed again to join a great growth group with awesome people! I was so nervous about starting this growth group because I  have made many mistakes and haven't been going to church my whole life. Would I be able to open up? Would I be judged? It really did terrify me to join. I was so blessed to choose the group that I did. They are fantastic people and I opened up a lot. Actually I opened up a lot more than I should have but I have that fantastic thing called diarrhea of the mouth and I always tell people my whole life story. 

I was never judged once, even though I have made a lot of mistakes. I had gotten so much encouragement and prayers for Eli, that has truly blessed me. Best of all I have made new friends, which being a stay at home mom has been very hard to make friends. It also opened up my mind to different things. One mom in my group homeschool's her kids. I never in a million years would have even thought about homeschooling my kids. Sending my kids to school= freedom for me! I will take it and Bridgette has been flourishing in school. It is nice to be able to talk to her and see that not every kid is same and some don't flourish in public schools because they learn way to differently. I am way more open minded to homeschooling my kids now. I really commend her for doing that for her kids. 

Another mom we found out is expecting her second baby, well third if you count her step-daugher. Her and the group leaders, which are the children's pastor and his wife, were the ones who I thought had their act together. They still are wonderful parents but with talking with them they tell me about the struggles they have had. The parenting struggle is real, people! It was nice to bounce off ideas of what we do back and fourth off of each other. Nobody is a perfect parent, but as long as your trying you are a great parent. Another couple has teenagers so it was nice to hear things from veterans in this whole parenting arena. Having teenagers both excites me and terrifies me. 

We have had so much fun doing this. If you think twerking is something that shouldn't be done at a church function, you are wrong and should go talk to my husband. We love to play this game called head's up and twerking was one of the things they had to act out. It was men vs women and that came up to act out. Well my husband did it and I have never laughed so hard! It was nice to have our kids play with other kids and be able to have a little bit of adult time. Eli's surgery is next month right in the middle of the new growth group series but we are still planning on joining as soon as we can. The new message series and growth group is called "Transformed" its a whole church wide thing so if you wanted to see what the Bible and God is about come out to Heritage Church (www.experienceheritage.org) if you are in the Macomb, MI area. 

This has been an awesome experience for us but as they say, all good things come to an end. That isn't a bad thing though, it just means that you get to have many new beginnings. 

Peace and Love, 

Finding Strength When Your Heart Breaks

My thoughts and prayers have been with a family at my church for a while now. The mother is in my MOPS group and even though I haven't really gotten a chance to know her, she is such an inspiration to me. She has given me permission to share her families story because it really has been on my heart for a while now. Here we go...

August 24th is when I first heard Amanda's story. We have a group on Facebook for MOPS and she made a post on there. This is her post that she shared with us:

"This week has been a tough one. At the beginning of summer we learned that despite me getting the paraguard placed shortly after meghan was born I became pregnant. With a successful removal and numerous ultrasounds following we thought we were in the clear. I was given the option to abort this baby but trusted God had a plan for this child and even though with the high demands of Meghan and my other three children I put my full trust in God. My pregnancy has been uneventful and as I looked forward to finding out if our baby was a boy or girl my excitement grew.

We opted for the screening test to screen for genetic disorders. It came back positive for trisomy 18. But I was assured by many those are typically false positives.

I promptly made an appointment at u of m for a level two ultrasound last Monday where we received the devastating news our baby has what is called Limb Body Wall complex. In our baby's circumstance that means he has a small head, tiny chin, his heart fills his very small chest cavity, his lungs are not developed, all his other organs have formed outside his abdominal wall. He has severe scoliosis, and two club feet all of this is due to a lack of umbilical cord forming. This is not a genetic disorder but rather a anomaly that happens 1/40,000. There is no cure and it is 100% fatal.

Again given the choice to terminate him I am choosing to carry him as long as God allows. His heart beat is strong and he loves to put his precious hands on his cheeks. I may go to term which will be January. I have to believe God chose me to be his mother for whatever little time I have with him. We were able to find out through a blood test he is a boy.
Please keep our family and my other kids in your prayers as they are very sad we won't be able to bring him home.

Owen Isaac Plunkett"

She also posted this picture of him

After I read that post my heart just broke. I just thought how strong of a person she was. To be honest, I really don't know what I would do in that situation. I don't know if I could have the strength that she has and not going into a deep depression. For her instead of thinking "why me?" she decided to put her sadness into something to help others. Let me tell you, I know I would have had the "why me?" moment. Eli has his condition that I have cried and prayed over and even then I have asked "why him, why me?" and then put all my time and energy focusing on what I needed to do for him. I haven't even thought about how many other babies are affected by crainiosynostosis and what I can do to help them. Amanda was not like me, her heart flowed outward to help others. She has become an inspiration to me and I hope now that I can have my heart flow more like hers instead of just focusing on my issues. 

Amanda started a page on Facebook called Owen's Gift. The link to it if you want to find out more is https://www.facebook.com/owensgift after finding out that precious little Owen wasn't going to survive outside of the womb she started to think about other families that have to go through the same thing. She was worried about what to dress little Owen in, if he came early. She was lucky to have friends that know how to knit and crochet and could make something for him but she started to think, what about the other moms that have to go through this? That's where she came up with the idea of Owen's gift where people can make and donate handmade baby items to be given to grieving families. 

Please if you can go to that page to find out more and if you can help out at all Amanda can add you to a group on Facebook too. I have been praying for Amanda and her family from day one. I couldn't even imagine going through what she has gone through. 

On December 5th little Owen was born. She made a post on our MOPS group a long with the Owens Gift group and page. It read "Owen Isaac Plunkett went to heaven at 12:52am. Shortly after my water broke. After a very hard labor and delivery he arrived into this world at 5:59am. Surrounded by love. He is 3 pounds 15 oz and 13 is inches long. And Amazing. Thank you for support." I cried for most of that day. My heart just weeps for her and her husband. Here are some beautiful pictures of Owen that she has shared: 

He is so perfect and just a gift from God. He has touched so many lives around him. Amanda was telling me that its amazing how perfect he is for how sick he was, I couldn't agree more. He is one gorgeous angel! Since Owen's passing this family has been on my mind a lot. Its hard for me to write a lot of blog posts but it is a sort of therapy for me. Today I decided was the day I was going to post about this and with Amanda's blessing I am so glad I am able to. With everything that is going on in our daily lives I just pray that each of us can take the time to think of others. 

Peace and Love,