Joel's Journey: christmas party pictures!!!

Monday, December 13, 2010

christmas party pictures!!!

ready for the party!!

all the deer antler folks!!! hilarious!!!

Lucas!!!!

Josh, a pay back from all his "youth games!!"

donut game!!!

my friend Natalie and my interior decorator.... :) her husband
Paul had to work and their oldest son Dalton was not there either!!!

new friends from church, vb folks!!!

us, with a few extras, Jessica, Kristen and Sid!!!!

our dear friends the Burnetts!!!!

Dave and Kate and Lilian

Chappell family, we play vb with them and this is Lucas' family!!!

our dear friends of 24 plus years!!

Jessica and the donut game!!!

Bill Stinson....u figure em out!!! ahahha!!!

Josh....minister of students at our church!

"gifts" they got!!!
Dave, Caleb and Sid!!
a head band, a necklace and a hat!!
i think they traded with other people!

this is our pastors family!!

girls enjoying the party!!

The Christmas party was alot of fun!!! Our friends, Jessica and Kristen made it in from Dallas and Maryland!!!! We had I think bout 60 people here! What a blessing for the space to host it! We ate first, and wow, a ton of food!!! Everything was so delicious! Then teh crazy games began. I will tell you about them in case you want some ideas for your party! I found them on line under group Christmas games! One was "reindeer antlers." We had 7 teams and I gave each team a pair of panty hose and 8 balloons! The winner would be the first team to blow up the balloons, putting 4 in each leg without popping any! And of course we had to get crazy pictures wearing the antlers!!! It was hilarious! Another game was a relay, unwrapping kisses with mittens on and racing back and putting the kiss in the next ones mouth. The last game was with a donut tied on a string and hooked to a dow rod and one team member had to feed the dangling donut to the other team member laying on the floor and no hands allowed!!!! Not easy for sure. If played, I would suggest the person not to lay on the floor but sit on the floor. It almost had a gag effect!!! LOL! We also exchanged gifts with a story that was read which had the words left and right and everytime the word was said, you passed the gift that direction until the story was finished.

What a great time and great friends!! I made posters for each family to hold up with silly things that represented their families and we took pictures!! So thankful for the friends the Lord has brought into our lives. Some are new friends we have met in the fellowship of our church here in town that we have joined and several of the families are long time friends! The Stinson family we have know for 26-27 years and the Burnett's we have been hanging with them for 10 years! Our family is blessed with amazing brothers and sisters in Christ!

We had a great weekend with Jessica and Kristen's visit. I will post some pictures of that another time!!!

Have a great Monday!

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Joel's Story

Joel, our 11th of 13 and a twin of Josiah, at age 3 was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer, on December 6th, 2006. Joel had three perfect years of health and he and Josiah celebrated their 3rd birthday Sept. 13th, 2006. The first of Oct. Joel started having unexplained fevers for a few days and would return to active play. After the fourth round of fevers we took him to our family Dr. which they said his iron was low, so we treated that for a few weeks and took him back only to have his hemo. showing lower than before. We were referred to a hematologists and saw him a few weeks with blood checks twice a week. At a visit on Dec. 4th we showed the Dr. the bumps, (which were tumors but we did not know at the time) on Joel's head and he was very concerned and we were told we needed to admit him immediately and start extensive tests the following day. Joel went through rigorous testing and then the dreaded results were given. Joel was at a stage IV the most extensive stage, but we were hopeful that the Lord would use the means of Chemotherapy treatments to restore Joel's body. Joel endured 8 1/2 days in the hospital, came home for Christmas, and returned for his second round of chemo Jan. 3, 2007. Joel had a seizure that night after midnight and went into a coma due to a tumor bleeding in his head area and causing his brain to swell. After tests the following days, the Dr. declared Joel "brain dead" and took us to court to force us to take Joel off life support, as we did not agree with the medical field's definition of death. Our family sought to stand with the scripture, "life is in the blood,"and until Joel's heart quit beating naturally, he was living. We were making arrangements to bring him home and on January 23, 2007 his little heart stopped beating and he went to be with the Lord Jesus in heaven. Our lives are changed forever. God is faithful in the midst of this trial and we look with great hope to be with him someday.