Well my little guy has become a momma's boy. He doesn't want much to do with Daddy. We went to the park the other day and I could only push him. He is precious in his upside down sunglasses and "john eere" sweatshirt! He still loves to farm with Grandpa, but deep inside I think that he likes mommy to lay with him singing in bed at night more!
Many of you have asked about JR (Josh). He is still hanging on, but today he had his first purposeful reaction. He frowned and scrunched his eyebrows when the nurse tried to wipe his face. It is going to be a slow and painful recovery, but it seems that he has made leaps since the accident a week ago.
We are still in need of much prayer. He still has not woken up and still has brain swelling, but no one seems to know the extent of the damage except for God.
His family has been awesome about posting updates on his carepage. You care welcome to visit Josh's Carepage using my login and password - bwillis and ally1234. The page should automatically be on my home page, but if not his page if JRLucky16.
I have been reminded that we don't receive because we don't ask and we need to expect God to do immeasurably more than we ask. God is working miracles right now even though we can't seem to see them.
If you were in the emergency room, would you say...
We were pushing our kids down a hill with gravel at the end in their wagon? They were going fast and all there was to stop them at the bottom of the hill was a gas barrel and a metal machine shed.
If that had happened I told Jason that he would be the one telling the doctor what he was doing with the kids. They love to ride in the wagon fast - who wouldn't? Drew pulls our hand over to the wagon til we come, but he has learned that I won't do pull them down the hill.
I am not sure how we got roped into this project at Grandma's house, but I am going to blame it on Jason. As we were playing with Ally, Drew, and Kaylee, Jason said that it would be a perfect day to empty the pool. Dad went inside and about 15 mintues later Mom came out to sit on the poolside.
Ally and Drew immediately wanted to help so we took off their pants and they jumped on in to the FREEZING water! Finally I asked Drew if he wanted the sagging diaper off - he said with deperation in his eye - please mommy it doesn't feel so good.
Back in July you can see the pictures of us surfing in the pool, but Drew was riding the waves outside the pool. I think that they had so much fun. It wore them out to take a nap when we got home. 
When they finished they put it on a hayrack to dry. Until next summer!
It has been quite a few weeks since you have seen or heard about the house update. It is slowly coming along. Last week they finished painting (almost), put in the wood floor, and started on the cermic tiles. The siders got a couple more pieces on. Six wks and they are about half done. Pretty good timing???? Jason and I painted Ally's room. She is VERY excited and is willing to give anyone a tour!
This week they are starting the cabinets and trim on Monday. The tile should be finishing up this week also. Who knows when we are moving in, but we got authorization from the city today to move in even though the development company hasn't passed all of their requirements!!! YEAH!
My mom uploaded the video that I made for Grandma's funeral. You must have a PC to view it. The songs were "No More Nights" and "I Can Only Imagine."
Enjoy the celebration of Grandma's like....
Grandma's Slide Show
A lot has happened since last week and continues to go on. Our 7th graders took a field trip to Lake Iowa which is a small pond 20 minutes from the school. We participated in activities such as hunter's safety, water fowl, archary, shelter building, and firepit clean up. The highlight of the day was fishing! We only caught 3 fish for 100 plus kids, but they had a blast. My only rule was that I don't touch worms or hooks or untangle finishing lines!
This is a picture of the group traveling with me and Mrs. Wengerd. The are a little crazy once and awhile, but they are a lot of fun. It started off really cold and raining - I had a stocking hat on most of the morning, but it ended up being very humid and hot.
God is really testing my trust and faith these past couple weeks. It seems that a trial comes and I work through it and then something else flies in my face. Trusting God is hard when he keeps throwing in the curve balls.
We celebrated Grandma Arlene's life on Saturday. There might have been lots of tears, but at the same time it was awesome to praise God for a woman that feared and loved him so much. I need to get the letter that my brother wrote about his memories of her - I will post it later. We also have a video that I will post soon also.
My tears for this blog come from a phone call from my principal about an hour ago. It seems that one of my students Josh (JR) was in a head on collision. He said that the doctors have said that it doesn't look good. JR was a kid that was popular and an athelete. I never saw him frown and was always in a good mood. Many of you know that I am not a crier, but death seems to be surrounding me.
One hard thing will be that my kiddos have grown up together since kindergarten and many before that. We are in a small community that knows everything and is everyone's friends. Please pray for these kids as they come to understanding that they might lose their good friend. Pray for me as I comfort them and think about how JR even affected me in the few short weeks that I have gotten to know him.
In the above picture, Josh is the boy orange Broncos sweatshirt. Please pray for the boys surrounding him. They are the ones struggling with understanding what is going on around them.
Have a good night and may you trust God that He is the one true comforter.
Oh for some good news for the week!
Today was a day to pray for our schools and it was wonderful! A few weeks ago I told a student that we went to the same church. He came up later and asked if I would go to "See you at the Pole." I said yes and then asked if I wanted a shirt. I was really excited.
The kids planned it with one of the mothers and they did a great job. It would be really hard to stand up, pray and sing for God in front of your school as everyone was arriving. So many of my kids were there leading it. Some parents came also which was encouraging to have them know that I was there to pray with them for our kids and the relationships around them.
They sang songs, read the Bible and prayed. My prayer for the kids and the others around me is that they see Jesus in me - that I will show grace and mercy and most importantly love them as Jesus loves them. I pray that my actions will speak louder than my big mouth!
I just wanted to let you know that Grandma Arlene went to be with Jesus today right before noon today. I can't believe it, but I know that she is happy. I wish she wouldn't have had to suffer for so long. We know that without a doubt that she is in heaven with Jesus. She gets to ask him all the questions that she has always wondered. She is singing with the angels. She has healthy knees and lots of red blood cells - if we have them when we get to heaven!
Pray for Grandpa. 66 years, 4 children (plus some amazing spouses), 12 grandchildren (plus some amazing spouses) and 25 great grandchildren. I know that they can rest in knowing that all of their children and all of their grandchildren know Christ and that the great grandchildren are being taught who Jesus is!
I love my Grandma Arlene and wish that I could spend another minute with her but I know that I will be with her some day singing and playing dominos or Racko in heaven.
There are many things that I hate about the farm. One Sunday night while Ally and I were eating with Grandpa, we were discussing mice. I told him that I was scared to death of going up stairs in the farm house because I don't want a mouse to jump out and get me - like it would hurt me - it is probably more scared of the screaming lady. He assured me that he had never seen a mouse up there or on the main level. The basement he said was another story. He had seen and heard them running through the ceiling tiles. A lot of comfort that gave me. Ceiling tiles are only a few inches from the main floor.
My trust in Grandpa's word has lessen.... If you aren't familar with the traditions of mice, let me tell you that as the break of cold comes, the mice search for a warm place for shelter. On a farm many times it happens to be the house in most cases - well maybe not most, I should be glad that all the mice out there aren't in my house! As a child I remember them in my closet and running over my pillow and over my leg once.
As we were snuggled up watching a movie last night, Jason jumped up as if he was gling to tackle the tv. He said cover you face. I thought there was something bad in the movie. If you can't figure out where this story is going - a mouse ran across the kitchen and behind the tv. I am not sure what Jason thought he was going to do??? 200 pound man takes on 3 oz mouse and win??? Wrong - mouse won. After many blockades and Brenda screaming to get it to go the other way - he ran around the blockade and into the toy room. I am sure Ally will get a surprise soon.
We got some traps that I have vowed to never change or look at.
In the past 6 years, there have been many times that my mom has called me and said that Grandma wasn't doing well. This time it seems like she is farther gone than every other time. Today is Grandma and Grandpa Smith's 66th wedding anniversary. My Grandpa sat holding her hand while she lay in a hospital bed struggling for every breath.
Right before Ally was born, Grandma was in the hospital. I wanted to go home so bad, but was close to the end of the pregnancy so had to stick close. I had the name Ally picked out but her middle name was still out there. Ally Renae or Ally Arlene? The second didn't sound as "cute" as we wanted. As she was born and we found out it was a girl, Jason said, "Ally Arlene." It has obviously stuck. It is absolutely precious when my little girl says it. Throughout this email are pictures of Grandma and her Ally cat - I think that Ally was her favorite - or at least her favorite name. I think she has 17 favorite great-grandkids and 20 favorite grandkiddos and 8 children.
She has been "sick" for awhile but Grandma has come out of it every time. She is a fighter and a trooper - even when I think she would have loved to give up many times. I think she turned 86 at the end of August. Please pray for God's will. No one wants to see her gone, but we want the best for her. If God wants us to keep her for a little longer, we would gladly. But at the same time, I hate to see her miserable. I know that she will see her maker and sing with him in glory. I hope that she smiles for God more than she does for us in pictures.
Please pray for comfort for Grandpa who can't be with her as much as he would like. Pray for him as he watches his best friend suffer.
Ally wanted to go see Grandma Arlene tonight, but we all knew that wasn't such a good idea. Hopefully Ally will remember the good Grandma Arlene that smiled when Ally sang her the Bumblebee song. We luckily have been there the last couple Sunday nights to spend with them.
Yes all these pictures were of Ally and her Great-Grandma Arlene!
We cleaned out the summer clothes and decided some kids needed some new pants. Ally's waist seems to be getting smaller and it is all going to her LONG legs - same with Drew surprising enough. Drew ripped his only pair of jeans this week - thus off to the mall. Old Navy had a lot of cute and CHEAP jeans!
We also had to pull out the winter jammies. Fall in Iowa has hit and highs in the 50s and 60s are here to stay it seems. I love to wear jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt. Grandma Rhonda bought new hats one night at Wal-mart since we have no clue where our hats are. We thought we had kept out all our winter clothes, but the hat box must still be in storage. Drew wears his Cars hat to bed, for supper and anywhere else he needs to go.
Have we mentioned that we are deep in the terrible twos and we are still a solid month away from two?????
This Saturday Drew was around for the picnic. We were sadly glued to the Iowa vs. ISU football game which was lost by the Cyclones by seven. Uncle Ken says that he always subtracts 7 points from the home team for home field advantage - which makes it a tie game. 
The kids were making stew. For some reason more was getting on the floor than in anyone's mouth. We ended up locking both bathroom doors to keep them off of the sink and out of the tub. Luckily no one thought of "eating" the toilet water! I guess the floor dries and no one was injured except for fighting over the spoon to stir the stew!
Wow I looked at the camera tonight and realized how much had happened this week and the fun that we had.
We were making apple crisp for a church potluck on Sunday night. Since we hardly got any - Ally and Drew helped me on Tuesday to make some more. They enjoyed peeling the apples and eating the "chips" as Drew called them.
We don't typically dress our children like this, but the were staying out of trouble while I was working. I think it is very stylish.
We had warm apple crisp for dessert tonight. The kids liked making it, but decided that they didn't like it and ate only the ice cream.
We have a tentative move in date which is Oct 12th!!! We are thrilled. Last week they got the dry wall hung, electrical, gas and telephone to the house. They also got the drive way, sidewalk and basement patios poured. The slider might be the slowest guy in the universe, but oh well he isn't slowing anyone else down.
Here are a couple of picts for this week. They are working on taping it and putting in the door and other stuff!
Jason is taking the picture while standing in the "kitchen" and you see the family room - just like our STL house but backwards!
You know you live in a small town when a OLD local guy comes up to you at a gas station and asks how to use the elctrical pumps....
We decided to have family night. It was so relaxing. Ally and I went to get pizza and got some snacks. Grandma Rhonda let us borrow the Chipmunks Adventure. (I know many of you are wanting to know where to rent that one!) We popped some popcorn and opened some carmel popcorn to mix in with it. We had fruit snacks. We got our jammies on and all four snuggled on the couch with blankets to watch the movie.
Thanks to my dad we were also serenaded by the cows that had just been seperated from their calves - I hope that doesn't last long!
Did I mention that I can eat my cereal with a spoon? I am almost 2 and can do almost as much as my sister!
You can't do all the fun stuff with Drew around, so when Drew was out Ally made a picnic complete with real "tea." I think more dumped on the carpet than made it into her mouth. Jason and I sat down and had some stew and ice cream with her. Arabella ate for a little bit with us, but then she needed to take her nap - according to Ally. Her imagination is growing everyday and has continues to amaze us!
