happy birthday my love

friday was b's birthday. he's not much into birthdays but i try to get him to do something every year and this year he chose to eat at pearl's crabtown then over to our friends house for more birthday fun. overall i think he enjoyed his evening and was pleasantly surprised by his gift. for some reason he didn't think he was getting anything.....but of course he did and the kids and i got him some toms. he loved em! so yay for another great birthday!

friday was free day at the zoo so we decided to brave it and go. we met up with some friends and it actually wasn't too bad. the worst part was the parking so overall it was another great visit. kids crack me up b/c they act like they're seeing some of the animals for the first time, so it's always fun. here's the only picture i got (i cannot find my camera charger so all i had was my phone) however, jake is not at all upset when i don't take pictures and ella asked to take one with the "cat family" this time. it was pretty cute. she couldn't decide if she wanted to sit on top of it or stand beside it. so i got her "talking" to it. she's so funny!

saturday was pretty normal. cleaning, mowing, the normal saturday routine. saturday night was a little more eventful than i'd like but hey, what's life without a little adventure right? we went to a couples get together with people from church on saturday night. the house we went to had a pool and i knew the kids would want to get in....and so they did. ella, surprisingly enough stayed in more than jake did. near the end of the evening she was jumping up and down in the pool going under then jumping back up, swishing her hair around, acting silly. b was outside with her and i was inside chatting with the ladies. as b was watching her he noticed her jump up, then go back down and saw half of her face come back up out of the water....he waited and saw her face again, then saw her hands go up......

worst nightmare i think...."watching" your child nearly drown. when he reached her, she was floating face down. beyond scary, i know. at first i had wished i was outside but after hearing the story, was glad b was out there to handle it. he jerked her from the water and praise the Lord she was conscious but wasn't breathing. her eyes were wide and scared. b said he bent her over his knee and started hitting her back and all at once out came the water. she puked water two more times.

jake had come in and told me "ella went under water." i thought that was odd and said "by herself?" he said "yeah and now she's throwing up." i thought to myself how strange that sounded but jake usually tells it like it is so i jumped up to see what was going on. when i got outside, ella was standing there with her daddy looking so scared and even smaller than she is, wrapped in a big towel. i just sat there with her to get her to calm down. we ended up leaving the party shortly there after. we were contemplating whether or not to take her to the ER to get her checked out....she was breathing a little different than normal so after we called a doctor friend of ours, decided to take her in.

she checked out completely normal, nothing in her chest and her breathing was almost 100% perfect. the doctor told us what to watch for during the night, and so we left. that night was a bit rough. she would cough every time she took a deep breath and had a hard time getting relaxed (as did mom and dad) i decided to go ahead and sleep with her that night. after about 3am, she coughed one last time and drifted off to sleep.

woke up sunday morning back to her normal self.

WOW! thank you Jesus for keeping your hand on ella and for giving brandon strength and peace as he took care of her. he stayed so calm the entire time, exactly what the situation called for.

sunday we just rested at home. watched some videos together and relaxed from the weekend.

all is well. God is good.