Faith's Mom's Blog

To continue with our little Thanksgiving tradition, I asked Faith to list all of the things she is especially thankful for this year. Once again, as I looked over her list, I realized it's mostly the people in her life for which she is the most grateful. Since she is such a homebody, she especially loves it when people come to our place to visit. However, the three of us did venture to Grandma and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving Dinner where she had a blast! Here are some of the people she is most thankful for, along with a few other activities she enjoys doing.     "My Whole Family" - One time when I spoke at New Life's Redefinition Cafe service, her grandma, grandpa, uncle and aunt showed up. Afterwards she commented, "I can't believe the whole family came to church." So when she says her whole family, she is talking about her extended family. She especially loves having visits with Grandma and calling Grandmother, Grandfather, and Auntie Joh on th

This Father's Day weekend here in North Dakota started off a little rough with a major storm that swept across the state on Friday night. Faith and I were home alone when it reached Bismarck around 9:00 p.m. Rob was still at the office working and I was on the computer finishing up a few articles. I decided to check Facebook and the first thing I saw was a picture my aunt in Arnegard (8 miles west of Watford City) had posted. Her garage had just gotten demolished in a storm that had passed through. The storm was quickly heading east towards Bismarck. One weather warning I saw stated a possibility of wind gusts up to 80 mph. This tree went down a block from our office in downtown Bismarck It's hard to see but this is a traffic light that also went down I figured Rob wasn't paying attention to the weather so I called him at the office to warn him. I'm thankful he didn't try to come home because the storm hit very quickly. One minute it was still light out

Taking Faith to church on Sunday mornings is my favorite activity of the week but something else I love are our Saturday outings. We normally go to the library and sometimes go shopping at Target (her favorite store). One Saturday we even went to the pet store because she wanted to look at the hamsters. She has made it known that she would like to have a hamster but since I'm not much of a rodent person I'm not too excited about it. Rob and I wondered if we could talk her into a guinea pig instead. For some reason a guinea pig seems less "rodenty"! Faith is bundled up and ready to roll! Yesterday, even though the temperature was only in the single digits, she wanted to go to the The Big Event Carnival . It's held every year at the Bismarck Civic Center and is hosted by the area Child Evangelism Fellowship. We have never gone before because I was never sure if Faith would be able to tolerate so many noisy, crazy kids under one roof. Also, one of the main at

Last year, Faith began a new Thanksgiving tradition of writing down everything for which she is thankful. Since she could care less about eating a huge turkey dinner, I thought it would be great for her to have her own little tradition. Here are ten things she says she has been especially thankful for this past year: Daddy being her teacher - Faith is enjoying her first year of being homeschooled and although she and her Daddy butt head sometimes, she really likes him being her teacher. He is doing a great job at teaching her how to read. I'm thankful he is her teacher too because although I am usually the "patient one," he is better about not jumping in and giving her the answer when it's taking a long time for her to get it. Pastor Marc - Faith really does love her pastor. Her new thing is to ask him to pray for her at the end of each church service. He of course is always more than willing even if he is running behind schedule trying to make it to the ne

It has been a truly amazing weekend! I am feeling tired but have so much peace right now. Today we had the honor of meeting Cal and Michelle Pierce, directors of the Healing Rooms Ministries. They were also the speakers at the Love Unleashed conference held by the Healing Rooms of the Northern Plains. Me, Rob and Faith with Cal and Michelle Pierce Yesterday, Rob, Faith and I ventured to the Belle Mehus for a couple of sessions of the conference. We knew it would take some coaxing to get Faith there as she generally isn't too sure about new ventures. It helped she's been to the Belle Mehus before so at least the venue was a little bit familiar to her.  Faith received a very warm welcome when we arrived. She was happy to see so many volunteers from the Healing Rooms all gathered together at the same time! She also seemed to enjoy the worship. That was familiar to her too since the members of the worship team were from our church! We were delighted to hear Michelle P

As all of the Fourth of July celebrations are coming to a close, I am still thinking about that one Fourth of July that happened ten years ago. It was around this time back in 2004 that we made the move from our home in Watford City to the Bismarck-Mandan area. I will never forget our first Fourth of July in Mandan. Due to getting moved in to our apartment, we didn't take in any of the celebrations. As we were still putting stuff away late into the night, I opened up the curtains and to my pleasant surprise, saw fireworks going off in the sky.  “Look!” I exclaimed to my husband, “We can see the fireworks from here!” He picked up Faith and lifted her to the window so she could see too. We couldn't have known it then but in our next ten years here, we would be experiencing fireworks of many kinds - some bright and beautiful and others complete duds! Faith playing in our first apartment After living in Mandan and driving Faith back and forth into Bismarck for all of

This past Sunday at church I noticed Faith singing along to the chorus with a little more gusto than she has in the past. She seemed a little more confident and really projected her voice once she caught on to the words that were being sung. I must admit, listening to her sweet voice singing the words, "He is faithful, He is glorious, He is Jesus, all my hope is in Him. He is freedom, He is healing right now" was enough to cause tears to stream down my face. Later after thinking about it, I realized that part of her new-found confidence in singing probably has something to do with the integrative music sessions she has been doing with a music therapist. Faith playing the xylophone fun with shakers Every couple of weeks, Jonnica comes into our home and spends about 30 minutes with Faith singing songs and playing instruments. I know how much Faith likes music so I was pretty sure she would enjoy doing this but an added bonus is that the music therapist also does wor

This is my first post of the new year and it is already March - I guess I have some catching up to do! As you can tell by my new blog header, I am ready for spring. It has been a very cold winter here in North Dakota with several days below zero since December. I know though that much of the country has had a tough winter too so I know we are not alone in being anxious for spring and the warmer weather that comes along with it. Faith especially seems to be struggling with the colder temps - it most likely affects her already high tone. It hasn't helped that it is more difficult to transport her since we can't use our van's ramp due to our door needing to be replaced. Rob has had to get her into the other side of our van which entails him sort of lifting her chair up into the van. We are looking forward to finally getting it fixed this week.  Now that I've gotten our weather-related issues out of the way, here is an update on what the rest of this New Year has been