Faith's Mom's Blog

I don't usually use the old cliche, Thank God Its Friday or TGIF but today I really am thanking the Lord it is Friday. This week has been a bit of a rough one for the whole Bousfield family. Monday - Faith had the day off from school for an unused snow day or something and thank goodness she did because she woke up at 6:30 a.m. throwing up. After getting her changed, me changed and her bed cleaned up, she did a repeat about 30 minutes later. She continued to do so until mid-afternoon until there was absolutely nothing left in her poor little tummy. Later that afternoon, she seemed to be feeling better so a gave her a mixture of pediasure/water and she kept it down. Tuesday - Faith and I woke up to find Rob at home on the couch. Now he was throwing up and had called in sick. I kept Faith home from school to make sure her feedings were going to continue going okay. Although tired, she did make it to occupational and speech therapy in the afternoon but ended up having a diarrhea

Faith has this baby doll that she named Allie. Her friend and respite care provider, Kimberly, was with her when she named her Allie. Her little doll came from her grandparents in Canada. It's the perfect doll for Faith. In fact, baby Allie's tiny feet are the size that Faith's feet were when she was just two weeks old. Also, Allie wears Faith's preemie clothes perfectly. Faith loves playing with Baby Allie. Faith's favorite game to play is "Let's get baby Allie dressed." This means, I get on the floor with Faith, she tells me what color of onsie Allie should wear, then picks out her pajamas then socks and a hat. After we get her all dressed, we lay Allie in her crib. Faith then says, we need to snuggle Allie with her blankets so she can stay warm and healthy. We put Allie's three blankets on her and she barely gets time to sleep because Faith starts yelling, "Wake up Allie wake up!" So we take off the blankets, get her out of her crib,

Can a Woman with a Congenital Heart Defect Still Have a Baby?

My friend and I are currently taking part in a small group Bible study about the fruit of the Spirit. In this week's lesson it talks about being a friend who is refreshing. Yesterday, I was blessed to have a friend who gave me a chance to be refreshed. Once again, Faith has gotten into a cycle of not sleeping well and is up several times throughout the night. Yesterday morning it had just gotten to be too many nights in a row of poor sleep and we were both exhausted. I allowed her to stay home from school to get some rest which meant I couldn't take the nap I was hoping to have when she was at school. I prayed that God would give me the energy to make it through the day. But He gave me something better - a chance to have a three-hour nap! Around mid-afternoon, I called our respite care provider/friend, Michelle to see if she was available in the evening. Instead, she asked if I would rather have her take Faith in the afternoon. (It happened to work out with her job that she

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There are so many words I can think of that describes the Great American Bike Race event which took place this past Saturday: Loud, Fun, Exciting, Crazy, Inspiring, Encouraging, Exhausting but most of all it was just plain Awesome! As team captain, I was required to be there all day, which I didn't mind but my feet certainly did as I did not sit down once! I arrived before 9:00 a.m. to greet my first rider of the day, my cousin Beth. She really knew how to set the pace by biking 17 miles in 25 minutes! After Beth, my former co-workers from Laducer showed up. I am so thankful to keep in touch with many of my friends from Laducer. Jane and Brooke did awesome as well - Jane did especially great with fundraising as she raised over $600! Lindsey and her boyfriend Matt arrived sporting their very cool 'Faith's Fantastic Ten' t-shirts which were paid for by my brother Todd and his oil well consulting business. They were designed by another rider, Liza Kessel. While Ma

The Largest Fundraiser of Its Kind

Two days ago we celebrated the resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday. Many Easter traditions include Easter egg hunts, getting together with friends and family for dinner and going to church. Another family, we discovered, has the tradition of flying kites on Easter Sunday. And this year we had the opportunity to join them. After a wonderful dinner with our friends, Bob and Lola and other members of their family, it was time to get out the kites. Not just a few kites, more like 15-20 of them. These were some serious kite flyers! And it was so sweet when little Kylee gave Faith a purple kite with princesses. That was to be her kite for the day. Unfortunately, though, Faith was more in the mood to stay home. She hadn't slept well the night before and was very tired. But we talked her into going and once at the location, we coaxed her out of the car and into her chair. It didn't take long for her to cheer up once she saw all the kites in the air, she got especially excite

So there I was on Saturday at a women's prayer breakfast thoroughly enjoying the speaker when my friend's cell phone starts ringing. I briefly wondered if it was my husband. I had left him home with Faith. Moments later I find out that yes indeed it was my husband. During a song in the middle of the speaker's presentation, I sneaked outside to the hallway to give him a call. He didn't sound panicky or anxious, he was just wondering if I could get home as soon as possible. I told him the speaker was almost done and we would try to rush out as soon as we could. As I made my way back to my table, I wondered what was happening. He had said Faith was fine and he sounded fine so why would I need to come home right away? I tried not to fret about it and tried to focus my attention on what the speaker was saying. She had an incredible testimony about how God's love healed her after several catastrophic events in her life including having an abortion, getting arrested for

I admit I have some mixed feelings about school programs - like the kind of programs where children invite their parents and other family members to watch them sing and dance and do other activities. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great for kids to be involved - I loved having programs when I was in school. It always made me feel sort of special that my parents would come and watch us sing and perform, especially since we had put so much effort and practice into it. It's a little different with Faith though. She'll come home from school singing the songs she is learning and talks excitedly about all she is doing at school right up until it is time for the actual program to take place. Then she doesn't want to go. But we go, hoping she'll be okay. Last night was one of these events. The kindergartners were all putting on a "Rootin' Tootin' Hoot 'n Nanny event" that was going to be full of surprises for the parents and kids as well. And