A Tribute to my Sister and Brother in Law

Many of you know but some may not that both of my parents and my brother are deceased and that leaves just me and my sister. My sister lives a long way away and we don't see each other as often as we would like. When I ran the Boston Marathon in April 08 I really wanted her and her husband to come watch; but it didn't work out.

We talked all about it and I knew they were really happy for me. I knew they thought it was cool; but my Christmas present from them pictured above just helps solidify how much they love me and how proud they were that I did it. My sister went out and ordered the professional pictures and then went to a frame shop and worked with them to create it. How cool is that. Plus with the knee surgery I have been a little depressed about my working out and it will be such a motivator.

I love them and praise God for letting me have a wonderful sister and brother-in-law. It also reminds me that we serve an awesome God that allowed me to stay injury free while I accomplished the goal of getting to run the Boston Marathon.

A little taste of Christmas with the Martins

This is just a few shots of our Christmas. I got the New Canon Rebel XS camera for my Christmas present so we had a blast taking lots of fun photos. Now I will just have to learn how to really use it.

Merry Christmas from the Martins

We had a great Christmas at Rod's parents house. All of his siblings and their families were there. We started at the Christmas Eve service that was really wonderful. The kids got super spoiled as always with JD favorite being his Ipod. Andrew loved his new bike and DS Games. Josh got a DS and other cool toys. Elizabeth got a great new baby with cool outfits, a horse, a puppy and a bed.

The adults played Deal or No Deal and we all laughed so hard most of us cried. It was a great time. We feel very blessed by the Lord to have some many wonderful gifts and a loving family to share it with. Our prayer is that your Christmas was as blessed.

Christmas Dress

Grandma and Papa bought Liz a beautiful new princess dress for Elizabeth. Of course, we had to try it on and of course Liz loved it. She has asked to wear it everyday; but we are saving it for Christmas Eve night. Then we will be able to wear it more often. So Elizabeth is so excited for going to Papa's and Grandma's. Plus she loves to see herself on the computer.

Jerod's Birthday Bash

We had a great party last Friday for Jerod's 13th birthday. We had 10 boys spend the night and we played video games, ate lots of food, elfed ourselves, and just hung out. Jerod got some cool stuff from his friends and had a great time just being silly and hanging out. I hope to post some more pictures of the party soon.

Hard to believe Jerod is 13 already. He is a great kid and we are so looking forward to the years to come.

Walking Again

After 8 Weeks of not walking I got to start the process. My PT Justin said that the knee was looking very good and the strength in the leg was doing well. He thought both crutches until next week and then I would go to one crutch and hopefully no crutches by Christmas.

Here I am doing a mini squat and then I had to stand on that leg. It still feels weak in comparision; but it will get better. Lots of work to do still.


This is a picture of me walking backwards on the treadmill. It helps to get the full extension of the knee.



I got a whole new set of exercises to do which makes me very happy cause I was really sick of the same old 4 set of exercises.

Tomorrow is the big day

Tomorrow at 8:30 am I will begin the walking process again. I am very excited to be entering this next phase of rehab. I have gone to the pool 3 times in this past week and have been able to do some walking in the pool. It is definitely healing.

Tomorrow is also Jerod's birthday party. We are having any where from 10-12 boys coming over which including our own kids should = chaos. Jerod is very excited. It is a great bunch of boys and it should be an exhausting good time. The plan is lots of junk food, video games, movies, outside time. Just a good time in general. I will hopefully post pictures soon.

What's been happening?

Well we decorated for Christmas, pictures coming later. Mostly life has been basketball and school. We are having fun reading a ton of different Christmas stories and finishing up math, science, phonics and handwriting for this semester. We of course enjoyed the snow day and the kids made Chilly.

Happy Birthday to our Cincess

We had a great day starting with yummy pancakes, swimming at the Y, McDonalds for Lunch, Mac-n-Cheese and pigs in a blanket for supper. Then we had yummy cake and ice cream and then presents galore. Now her and daddy are at Walmart cause the pink tree was broken. We still need to decorate it and get it into her room. I think she had a very happy birthday. Wish we could of all been together to celebrate.

Happy 3rd Birthday to our little princess

Andrew's EEG

As many of you know Andrew had an EEG on Wednesday. It came back normal like the previous ones have and we have begun weaning him off his medicine. It will be a 3 month process and then as long as he has no more seizures we are clear. So please continue to keep Andrew in your prayers that the medicine has done it's job and we will be seizure free.

A Big Thank You To A Real Sweetheart

Not only is this beautiful young lady creative with cookie dough she is a real sweetheart. We are currently calling Liz the one little girl destruction crew add her brothers and look out. Then the little girls played in Liz's room all day it was a bit messy. Well you would never have known if you would have gone in the next morning b/c this sweet young lady went in and cleaned up Liz's room and made it beautiful. I guess it is a tribute to her wonderful mother. We love you both.

Thank you very much

Christmas Fun Play Day

On Tuesday, the Hinzmans came over and we had a Christmas Fun Day. We made lapbooks about some well known Christmas Symbols. We also made lots of Christmas Photo ornaments and yummy fun sugar cookies. Grandma Pam had lots of fun little craft items for the kids to use to decorate their Christmas Trees. Grandma Jill had sent colored dough since she could not stay and play. We ate Cici's pizza for lunch and had a great time.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Andrew has an EEG tomorrow so since we have to be up late tonight I decided to do a little blogging.

We drove to St. Louis for the weekend. Rod's parents were very generous and transported some of the little ones so that I could have the back seat to put up my knee. We had a good time.

We started with some pretty new nails for Thanksgiving. Jordynn painted them for Liz.

Next we ate yummy food. Mom and Aunt Becky did not let me help at all. It was a little strange to not do anything all day. Except eat and watch football.

On Friday, we took a trip to the St. Louis Zoo. It was fun. We rented a motorized cart for me; but I had to share it with mom and do a little crutch work cause it was no fun.

We got to see lots of cool animals, took a train ride, watch a couple of 3D movies and rode the Glacier Expedition. It was one of the simulator rides. It was very fun but a little chilly. We were ready to head back to Uncle Mike and Aunt Becky's for the night. Saturday we drove home in mostly rain and then snow. The roads were not bad and when we stopped for dinner the snow was beautiful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Knee Update

Okay most of the weekend I did okay on my exercises; but Sunday I decorated the house.for Chirstmas. I was up alot and the knee felt stiff Monday morning. I kind of thought PT would be bad on Monday; but I also thought that the joint swelling had gone down. Guess what I made 129 degrees with ease. So no more PT appointments until December 12 when I will get to start learning how to walk again. However I am not off the hook for the exercises that I still need to do. Funny enough you really do forget how it is suppose to work.

I will posting some pictures of our weekend and today's fun.

Not the news I had hoped for

Okay went to the doctor today. You guessed it another almost 3 weeks of toe touch weight bearing. So no walking yet. But the rest of the visit went really well. He thought everything looked great and even told me my range of motion was so wonderful that as long as I kept it there for the next 4 weeks he would be very happy. So instead of 3 PT visits I will have one a week. However, that doesn't get me off the hook. I still will have to do all my exercises consistently on my own. Okayed for pool time as well. "Walking" acrossed the pool that is. Are you jealous?

Elizabeth of course saw the camera when I was taking a picture of my knee. Here is one picture of my knee now and you can see that it has improved greatly. The large scar is where they went in to fix the acl and the small scar is one of the portals they used. I have 4 small scars and the one big one.

Thank God for Great Neighbors

Today the kids were out playing with our neighbors. They were all decked out as army men. My neighbor called and said she looked out her kitchen window to see the soldiers making their way secretly acrossed the back fence approaching the "enemy". Then a little ways behind them came the princess soldieress in her pink coat and purple dress followed by the crazy Penny dog. She said they enjoyed a good laugh as they watched the wild bunch on their "mission". What a blessing to have wonderful neighbor kids and neighbors that love the Lord.

The Weekend

The weekend is here. Dad is at a men's retreat and we are working on some stuff around here. We hung out last night and watched Wall-E and ate pizza. Okay movie, but not as good as Kung Fu Panda. Today we are doing a little laundry and doing some lapbook work. We are doing a little Thanksgiving study and decided to do a little work on our lapbooks. The boys weren't so sure but enjoyed it once we started. We are reading a book called "The First Thanksgiving" by Lena Barkesdale. We got our lapbooks from Hands of a Child website. They have great stuff.

Here the boys are writing and cutting out some things to put in our books.

Well Dad is home already so we are going to spend some time with him now. The blog is updated again and Liz will be very happy to see herself on the screen again.

Good news I did make it to 121 degrees Wednesday. Back to the doctor on Monday hoping for weight bearing that day.

Have a great weekend.

The week in a nutshell

Wow, it has been awhile since I posted. Basketball games started this week for Jerod. He had a win on Monday and a great game. We played in a tournament on Thursday and Friday. We won one, lost one on Thursday. Then we won on Friday to place 3rd in the tournament. Jerod played a box in one for part of Friday's game on one of the best players. He did a great job of helping take the kid out of the game. He played good on Friday which was awesome cause his grandparents were there to watch the game. Maybe next time I will have some b-ball pictures to add.

Saturday we hung out here. My wonderful husband did lots of laundry and took Elizabeth and went grocery shopping. The boys are really stepping up still and helping out. Although, we will probably call in the reinforcements, known as Mandy, one more time. Hopefully one more week and I will begin getting to learn how to walk again. Sunday, we had church and lunch with the Bernings. I napped cause I felt icky. The kids cleaned the van and then had lots of outside time. Now Sunday is almost done and it is back to the school tomorrow. I can't say back to work for Rod cause he had to do that today too.

Friday I started a new exercise at PT. It was nice for a change and hopefully it will help my ROM. Still only at 117 degrees. Protocol calls for around 125-130; but of course I am not normal with all they did. In your prayers, please continue to pray for the joint swelling to decrease and ROM to come back fully.

God Bless. Have a wonderful week.

Progress

The knee is doing better. I made it to 112 degrees without too much manipulation today. Getting to ride the bike for 15 minutes now. I need to take a new picture cause most of the strips are off the incision. Rod is out of town for the weekend so the kids and I are on our own. I know I can call lots of you if I need help. We will see how it goes. We don't have anything on the schedule for the weekend except for church so it should be nice. Have a super weekend.

Andrew footbal

We finished Andrew's flag football season at the East Y. He got his medal. He had a great year and a lot of fun. His team ended 6-1 as well. This was his first year so it was a little frustrating at times; but he worked hard and is looking forward to next year.

football wraps up

This weekend Jerod had a bowl game to wrap up his season. They lost Saturday and won Sunday. Jerod had a great weekend. We also had great friends and family come to watch. Jerod team ended the season 6-1 . Great job this year Jerod.

Thanks for the support. We love and appreciate each of you.

Halloween

We had a great day. We met the Hinzmans at the pumpkin patch. We went to Applejack Pumpkin Patch out past Andover. It was so fun. They had a variety of things to do. We started with a hayrack ride to get our pumpkins. Then kids rode the zipline, the slide, went through the corn maze and shot the gourd gun and the gourd sling shot. Andrew and Kamen both won funnel cakes when they shot the gourd through the hole. The little ones played on the equipment, rode the trikes and Liz and Keely took a ride on the train. We stayed until they made us leave. I think we will be back again next year.