Brothers and Cousins

Silly Girls

Dressed alike, act alike, look alike...suppose their brothers?

Axies and Allies, Joshua won.

Cousins and Friends

Here are a few shots from our weekend in Iowa. Benjamin and Joshua celebrated (early) their birthdays. They are good friends and only once every 5 years do they get to celebrate their May birthdays together. Joshua is 355 days older than Benjamin.

Spring Concert Pictures

Tonight Jacob and all the 4th, 5th and 6th graders had their spring choir concert. They did a great job. There were at least 100 of them singing.

Brief Update

This sure has been a busy week. I (Kandie) spent several hours at our church's community center helping with some conference meals. I enjoy my work there. School for the children is winding down, we are looking forward to our time together each day and more travels. Tomorrow we head to Ankeny, Iowa to report to our supporting church there. It is also a time to see family again. The girls are especially excited about playing with their girl cousins. We will celebrate Joshua's and Benjamin's birthdays while they are together. They have always been good friends and rarely get to have their birthdays together. Joshua's is the 15th and Ben's is the 5th. Next week my first born with be 16! So...today is the do laundry and pack for the trip day. Since we will be back on Monday night, there won't be much to take with us. We will be visiting FBBC (Faith Baptist Bible College) briefly so that our older children can see what that school is like.

Dressings are off!

Here are some pictures of Rebekah's new arm, it looks fantastic. She is thrilled with the size of it compared to her right arm. Tomorrow she will start wearing scar pads to help reduce scarring. She is also doing lots of bending her wrist up and down to try to keep the tendons below the new skin from sticking (that happened with the inicial surgery). It is still tender to touch so we are gentle when massaging the scars/incisions with vitamin E. She wears an elastic glove (with the fingers tips missing) during the day to reduce swelling and the scar pads at night. She may wear the scar pad for her arm during the day just to cushion and protect it. We return to see the surgeon in 6 weeks, not until June! Her arm does look like a road map with the old scars and now the new incisions. If you look closely you will see the small slice of old graft that he was not able to cover. Rebekah can decide in June if she wants that worked on. The problem is we are running out of time before we head back to Peru. It is so small that, right now, she isn't interested in any more surgeries.

This Saturday at Our House

Everyone takes a turn on the mower.

Doing yardwork and planting flower seeds to improve our "curb appearance"

Rebekah helps with the grilling of supper

Mom teaches Benjamin how to clean and filet the bass he caught. It was delicious!

Update

Just a quick update on Miss Rebekah,

She is doing better today. Headaches are less and her arm was only a bit achy after school. Her spirits are better today too. She was kind of down in the dumps yesterday, understandably so.

She is beginning to itch under the dressing which is always annoying. A week from today the dressing comes off, yah!

Monday

Rebekah is having lots of headaches. She did take one pain pill for her arm after school today. Carrying those bags around all day and putting books in and out of her bag gets to her. Not sure what the solution would be, a personal assistant? I am going to call the surgeon tomorrow about the headaches she has been having since surgery. She has dark circles under her eyes and is tired. Keep praying.