Emileah and Kenna

(pronounced Emily)

There have been times in my life when I have called on the Lord for mercy, love, forgiveness and grace, I have been so humbled by His willingness to offer it and by how much he has offered me. Every once in a while, there is something so important that I feel the need to enlist everyone I know. I am asking you to call upon all the love, mercy and grace that the Lord would normally offer you, and ask him to give it to someone who is in desperate need.

Emileah is Wanda's 24 year old daughter. I have known her since she was 6 months old. She is my foster sister. She has always been the sweetest person. Even as a teenager she was so sweet that watching her get into trouble was more amusing than worrisome. She fell in love and married her husband at 20. She supported him finishing school, and became pregnant. After her incredibly cute high maintenance son was born she became a mom full time. She became pregnant shortly after with baby #2. Last year her sweet baby Kenna was born. Emileah was thrilled and ecstatic at how low maintenance baby number two was. A month after Kenna was born, a serious medical issue became apparent. Kenna's liver was not functioning, at all. Kenna was very jaundice and terminally ill. She needed a liver transplant.

They were told that a liver transplant could not happen until Kenna was 'more sick' (close to death)...so Emileah and her husband have actually waited for their sweet baby to become more and more sick since she was born. Emileah and her family were here in April, and Kenna was happy, but very jaundice, with a swollen belly. Since their visit, Kenna has gotten more and more fussy as the pain became greater and she became sicker. The past few months have been incredibly tough for Emileah with a sick baby and a high maintenance 2 year old and a husband finishing school while working full time.

Kenna had finally progressed to the point where a liver transplant was possible. Not wanting to take their chances and wait for a donor, Emileah was tested and found to be a suitable live donor for Kenna. (In liver transplants, they only need a small portion of the liver)

On Wednesday, their incredibly dedicated doctor worked for five hours carefully removing a portion of Emileah's liver, and then transported the liver personally to another hospital where Kenna was waiting to recieve it. The same dedicated Doctor worked 8 hours to transplant the liver into Kenna, finishing at 1:30 in the morning.

The surgeries were successful. Emileah is a small person and her liver was perfect size for Kenna.
If this transplant takes, Kenna's chance of survival went from 0% to 60% for the next 3 years. The next two weeks are critical for Kenna.

We have come so far with this, I am asking for your prayers and your faith to help them get through recovery and to help Kenna's body accept this transplant.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and thank you for your prayers.

two posts in one: "human experiments" and "Melissa's party"

My mother in law was the science coordinator at a school for several years. One of her responsibilities was to run the annual science fair for the school. She would recruit people as judges for the science fair each year. I did this several times and I learned a few things about elementary school science projects.


*they need to include Hypothesis, procedure, materials, data, conclusion, research and acknowledgements

* they should not be a survey(i.e. "the most popular soda in 6th grade")

*they should not be a display (i.e. "an erupting volcano")

*and they definately should NOT be experiments performed on humans



When Alex decided he wanted to do his science fair project on "Which drink is best before physical activity" , the science fair judge in me saw all sorts of issues with it.

"How can you prove this without testing humans?"

"How would you measure the data?"

"There are to many variables"

etc etc



He and I went round and round about this, I highly recommended he select another project, he highly recommended I let him do what he wanted to do for HIS project. After getting exasperated from not being able to change his mind, I did what every good mom would do, I told him to ask his teacher..(surely SHE would shoot the idea down and THEN I would help him come up with a better idea)


He asked his teacher, she allowed the project. I backed off and began my duties as "Alex's goffer for science fair project". I checked the list "milk, gatorade, soda, display board"...his plan went as follows: he would consume 8 ounces of one of the liquids(water also) and run as far as he could. He would measure not only the distance he ran after consuming the liquid, but how many cramps he would get! Thats right...he was inducing cramping as part of his experiment! He would have to repeat this 4 times for each drink and 4 times for no drink. He ran over 2 laps( 600 feet) after drink number one, and he had to repeat this 19 more times! All I could think was, "I tried to tell him that this experiment wasn't such a good idea", but I had lost the battle and now I just had to sit back and watch this crazy kid tortue his own body for science.



I was chuckling inside as I said "ok, so you are going to drink 8 ounces of milk in this heat, and then run as far as you can?" His reply was a very proud and cheerful "yup!"



he enlisted his siblings for support and they all chased him as he ran, but even they got tired after a few laps. In the end his findings were as follows..


After graphing all the data he discovered that drinking soda before physical exercise induced cramps. Drinking milk before physical exercise induced cramps. Drinking nothing was ok, but then you would be really thirsty afterwards. Drinking water worked the best with no cramping.


I was reminded of an important lesson with this science fair project. The mom in me did not want Alex to do this project for a few reasons:



*I didn't want him to get a bad grade

*I didn't want him to have to subject himself to physical hardships in order to do this project

*Having judged a lot of projects, I just didn't think it was that good when he mentioned it to me and I wanted him to do something that he could be proud of




What I Learned from this project;


*He is more proud of it if he does the whole thing himself

*just because I wouldn't want to subject myself to drinking milk and running on a hot day doesn't mean I should prevent my kid from doing it (he loved it!)

*As much as I try to keep my little ones under my wings they need room to make decisions.

*Even though we can say a hundred times "soda isn't good for you...blah blah blah" , sometimes it's ok for kid's to figure stuff out themselves

*I really enjoyed taking a backseat and watching his creativity come to life with his project

*He took full credit for his grade, a 95%!

Melissa's Birthday

Melissa wanted her birthday "party" to be in the tree house. (I know, I know enough with the tree house already!!) but she was so excited and it was actually kinda cute to do her party out there! Shawn brought out the kiddie table and we had pizza and salad. The kids did a pinata and Melissa opened gifts. We came back inside for cake and ice cream.

Little lady opening her gifts

Grandma Holder, Shawn, Alex and David

Dale (thrilled that I snapped a picture of him with the Hannah Montana pinata)

Melissa with her "take"

Melissa out of breath after trying to blow out the trick candles. (mean mommy!)

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Two recent studies have looked at how much people are connected to their moms. One was regarding the number of people who had recently talked with her, and the other was regarding who Americans spend the most time on the phone with...I was suprised at how many people have so much contact with their moms.

I was born to a mother who I considered amazing and wonderful and sweet. We were extremely poor and she had 9 children in 12 years, (one of which died at the age of 3). I always interpretted her disconnection from her children as a result of all her trials..I always loved her and cared for her. Her ability to be disconnected from her children left us to make our own decisions about life at very early ages...we were very capable kids and took care of ourselves pretty well, but definately got into more trouble than most kids were allowed to get into...At some point my mother's disconnection from her children and her husband, and my father's busy work schedule that kept him disconnected from our family, and my parent's inability to secure housing for us, left my siblings and I, on our own. We were familiar with making our own decisions, so the next step of finding places to live seemed natural..I was young, about 12 when I started bouncing back and forth between Wanda and Kevin's house and my parent's house. In the fall of my Sophmore year of high school, I was back in my parents house, and they decided to move 8 hours away...we had moved often, so that was no suprise, but they did not plan to take the 4 older kids with them this time..they left and we had a month to stay in the house before the lease was up. Eventually, after bouncing around again, I ended up in Wanda and Kevin's house.

I always called Wanda, "Wanda", despite her suggesting I call her "mom". I always felt that someday I would be connected to my own mother, and when that day happened, I wouldn't want my biological mom to feel sad that I called Wanda, "mom"...I did call Wanda and Kevin my foster parents, for lack of any other good explanation when people asked who I lived with. I kept the hope alive that I would one day be reunited with my own mother and that she would be able to connect with me and we would have a family again. Through all of this hope I have kept alive, through all these years of me waiting for my own mother and I to connect, let me tell you about Wanda...

When I moved in with her, she had 5 children. (2 were step, but she thought of them as hers) She eventually had 3 more children. 8 children, plus me! (after I was married, she adopted a ninth daughter, Jen) Our home was very warm, and very friendly. She was always available for me, no matter what time of day it was. She was always faithful, and polite. She always looked beautiful. The house was always clean and she was always smiling. She was, by every definition, my mom. She worried for me, she prayed for me, she punished me, she loved me. She even knew that I liked strawberries and not cherries on my crepes! She knew to buy me brown eyeliner when mine ran out. She made sure my bras fit right and my shampoo was restocked. She did my laundry and fed me. She helped me with teenager problems (even the pimples)...all the while I called her "wanda", I continued to reserve the title "mom" for my own mother, who I was sure would one day want to be my mom. I continued to look to Wanda as she showed me the kind of woman I hoped to be one day.

As I started having babies, she was always there. She would fly or drive great distances to be there when I would deliver. (My own "mom" called 1 week after my second child was born to say that she heard I had a baby, she lived 2 hours away)
Wanda immediately took the role of grandmother (despite only being 35 or 36 years old!!) She loves each and every one of my children as if they were her own. She can tell you more about them than most people. She truely loves them. And they truely love her. She always remembers their birthdays (usually before I do!!) and always has such creative things to do for them, (I am a little hesitant about the frog aquarium for David's bedroom, but I am sure it will be great!!)

She is mother to 10, Grandmother to soon to be 14, mother in law to 7, aunt to many, sister to 4, and she still has time to show concern and keep up with my 8 siblings, their spouses and all our 30+ children...she is the very definition of mother.

In thinking about those recent studies of how many people are in contact with their moms, my initial reaction was kind of sad that I didn't know what it was like to have a mom, then I immediately realized that I can be numbered amoung those in close contact with their moms. Depite Wanda having a full time job and such a huge family to keep up with, a week doesn't go by where she and I don't communicate somehow. She talks to me for hours if I am in need, and she continues to teach me through her faith and love each and every day.

This post has been long over due. I had lunch with Wanda on Monday to celebrate her birthday, she was babysitting her granddaughter. We talked about how I was doing the whole time...only a mother is happy to spend her only day off, and her birthday lunch boosting one of her daughter's spirits while babysitting her other daughter's child. I just want to say to you, Wanda, I love you, and Happy Birthday, MOM!!