please pray

UPDATE: silas was out of the PICU for a few days, had his chest tube out and everything... was playing and getting close to being back to his normal self. they have now moved him back to PICU and placed a new chest tube because they have determined that the right middle lobe of his lung is necrosed. it will either heal itself or the necrosed part will have to be surgically removed. he is still smiling and playing but not out of the woods. shirin has asked for us to share their prayer requests and thank you for your prayers.



PLEASE PRAY for a sweet little 2-year-old, adorable blonde-headed boy named SILAS. he has been very sick with pneumonia and had surgery on sunday to remove the fluid that was surrounding his right lung. he is currently getting much needed rest and is sedated and on a ventilator. they plan to wake him up this afternoon or maybe still tomorrow. he is doing well, but has been a sick little boy. please also pray for peace and rest for his parents, mark and shirin. (shirin and i work together.) i appreciate you for praying and i know they appreciate the prayers.

crafting for christmas

so, many of you may or may not remember this post from january this year. i made a yarn ball wreath. it is wintery, not christmas-y. and, if you remember correctly, i made it because i was inspired by this wreath, which found itself in probably every starbucks in america...






it is loved by many knitters all over the country and beyond. (just google search "starbucks yarn wreath" and see what you find, if you are curious.) so, as i may or may not have stated in my january post, i was determined to make one for this christmas.

and i did just that. it definitely isn't as big as the one pictured above, as mine only needs to be one-sided. but, it's pretty big in it's own right. it didn't take too much time, and if styrofoam balls were cheaper, it would have been fairly inexpensive. not that it was expensive to make, but i digress. i have gotten the blog ready for christmas because jay and i will be celebrating some of our family christmases this weekend, but i plan to hang up my wreath when we get back from nashville. want to see it? i like how it turned out.

view with a room

well, the painting is completed. it only took 2 days and 3 coats and a 10-ft. ladder and the step ladder. and lots and lots of patience. and an air matress. i love the color. it is the color of wet sand, appropriately titled "beach." i should have the new bedding in a couple of weeks, so i will post more pictures then. and speaking of pictures... i need to get some things up on the walls. they are very bare aside from the paint. i did think the darker color might make our big room appear smaller, but it really doesn't. that wouldn't necessarily have been a bad thing, but it does warm it up a bit from the cold off-white they were painted.

here is a photo tour around our room. it begins in the doorway and goes clockwise:

the girls proudly show off their corner.

looks different on every wall, doesn't it? sometimes it looks grey. sometimes brown. sometimes it seems to have a greenish hue. i love it! i can't wait for phase 2.

new project

hey there, readers. thanks for keeping up with the blog even though it's been ages since i've posted anything. okay. so really just 3 weeks, but that is a pretty big lull in activity. truthfully, not much has been going on around here. just the same old stuff. work. sleep. clean. cook. play with dogs. exercise. speaking of exercise, i had been stuck at the same weight for about 3 weeks. this is called "hitting a plateau." well, i definitely did that. so, finally, this week, i lost a total of -1.6 lbs. yeah! moving on past that weight feels great. now i just need to keep on that trend and find some good workout dvd's for winter (or today when it has rained all day- thanks, ida). i'll take your suggestions anytime on those.

next week i am going to tackle painting our bedroom. i have also found some very cute and fabulously inexpensive bedding to give us an updated look, too. i love finding something i can just toss into my washer instead of having to have it dry cleaned or take it to a laundromat. surprisingly enough, i found it at kmart. it'll be great having our room look like, well, a bedroom instead of a mix and match of what it is now. the paint color is in the eddie bauer collection. it is called "beach." our room is pretty big and i think the darker, warm brown will make the room feel more cozy. i will definitely post pictures as it all comes together. (i think painting our room will serve as my indoor workout for next week...)