Stretch marks and my Savior

So as a Mom to now 5 children I have acquired a few stretch marks, to say the least! I was having one of those days, as I stared at myself in the mirror noticing each and every stretch mark and was beginning to feel extremely unattractive.Then I was blessed with the thought, that could only have come from my Heavenly Father, the thought was " My Son and your Savior Jesus Christ also had/has marks, He has them because of each of us and He does not look at them as ugly or shamefully or that He is no longer attractive, instead he kept those sacred marks to remind Himself of Us and to remind us of what He did For us!" Suddenly I looked at my stretch marks and wanted to keep each one, each line, each love handle, each spot that had previously made me feel ugly, now made me think of each of my 5 children and how I want to cherish and savor each mark that brought them to me each mark that made them mine. So in the future when I look at myself I will see the sacrifice that I made for them and when I look at my children and at my stretch marks I will remember the sacrifice my Savior made for me and the marks that He carries with Joy over the Sacrifice He Made for Me! Something to consider when you are feeling down or notice a stretch mark.

Name choice!

I thought I would share why the name Logan meant so much to us and why we chose it. Logan means "in the hollow" this immediately made me think of the song "in the hollow of thy hand" which I remember hearing my Dad sing often during my childhood. This song talks about being in the hollow of God's hand as we grow in this life and I really liked that idea for the meaning behind our Son's name. I also feel that now at this time when he is struggling that God is mindful of him and truly holding him in His hand! Also the middle name will be Samuel, this name is from my Fathers side of his family going back many generations but it is also a boy prophet in the bible who listens and obeys God when he calls. The meaning for the name Samuel is "God hears you" and I truly believe that he does, when times are good and when times are tough-so thank you again for your thoughts and prayers for our Logan Samuel Elford.

Baby Logan

So this is baby Logan, as he is affectionately referred to at our home. I am at 35 weeks and was just informed yesterday that his wee little kidneys are not functioning as they should. :( we had an ultrasound about 6 weeks ago when they noticed a little fluid in the kidneys but the Doctor did not seem concerned and scheduled a follow up ultrasound for this past Monday just to confirm that everything was ok. Yesterday is when we got the results of Mondays ultrasound "Hydronephrosis" I know I had no idea what that meant when they said it either. So basically somewhere below the bladder there is a blockage which lead to backed up fluid collecting in the kidneys, they were more swollen this last time which is slightly concerning. If it was only one kidney that was swollen than the blockage would me most likely above the bladder but because both are swollen they don't know where the blockage is. I do like honesty from Doctor, eg. if you don't know something say "I don't know" but at the same time don't find it overly comforting when there are lots of questions that end with " We don't know" as the answer. So we are being referred to a specialized OB in Calgary who has access to better ultrasound and specializes in matters like Hydronephrosis. We are heading there this coming Thursday to meet with a nurse, have and ultrasound and then meet with our specialist to see how best to proceed. There will most likely be an immediate ultrasound in Logan's future after he is born as it is not always easy f or them to see through me to see inside him. If things get worse they could induce me to be able to work on him sooner- fortunately we are far enough in weeks that his odds are fantastic if he had to come early. I do believe that God can still work miracles, he doesn't always have to things may get better they may not but we will continue to pray, hope and work for the best outcome for our little boy!So if we can request your prayer and faith for our little Logan we would greatly appreciate it! Here is a link to a site that may answer more questions about his condition and we will keep you all posted as we get more answers ourselves. http://www.childrenshospital.org/health-topics/conditions/hydronephrosis

Ouch!

So today after we got home from school Mr Ry was in a bit of a mood. He was yelling and screaming at me at the top of his lungs.I informed him that his consequence would be that he had to wait an extra 10 min to join us for his lunch. This of course brought on a whole new level of yelling and I asked do you yell like this to your teacher? His response cut like a knife, "no!, but you are not my teacher" I said "no,I'm not your teacher, I Am your Mother!" Ry"no! your nothing!!!" Wow! I'm grateful for good days and clinging to the thought that he most likely did not understand what his words truly meant. It is not an easy job being a stay at home Mom and it has its ups and downs with out much praise. Just yesterday I was so grateful that I was a stay at home Mom because this same child had decided to confide a fear/insecurity he was dealing with, very spontaneously in the middle of the day.I told Big Daddyo had I been a working Mom I would have missed that precious moment. Today I could have done with out the moment of being refereed to as "nothing" in the eyes of my son! But I guess that is one of the hazards of my current occupation, there are some great highs and some low lows- hopefully today will get better and there will be many more highs than lows in the future. Good thing I love my Son regardless of what words leave his mouth.