First of all, thanks mom for watching Daniel so Joshua and I could go on a date while we were in Texas!
While on our date, Joshua and I started talking about birthday traditions. Daniel's birthday is coming up soon and we have not thought about what kind of traditions we want to start. I read Noel Piper's book about family traditions and treasuring Christ in those traditions but that was a while ago so I don't really remember specifics! We both decided that I should look at that chapter again and we can talk about this topic again. But we did continue our discussion. Some of the things we talked about were what is the point that we want to get across in the celebration of birthdays? > It seemed like that was a good question to start with because then that would drive what we decide to do. We decided that we want it to be a celebration of the person (kinda obvious!) and a way to treasure the gospel and Christ. So with that, our next question was what are things that we can do to make it a celebration of the person, but make sure they don't think the world revolves around them? What things can you do honor Christ or make much of the gospel in a birthday celebration?
We also talked about the importance of having traditions because it gives stability and expectation for Daniel and any future kids that we have. We are probably going to be living overseas and might have a somewhat varied schedule, so we think having traditions would help give continuity to a child's life. So we want whatever we do for birthdays to be something that can be easily replicated with multiple children in varied settings.
We don't like the idea of giving other siblings a present on the birthday of another sibling as seems to be the current trend. It seems like it would be a valuable lesson to teach the children who's birthday it is not, to rejoice for their sibling who is getting gifts and having attention given to them.
And we didn't get much further than this. We are having a hard time coming up with tangible things you can do and not just say that will give a birthday celebration more meaning than only the celebration of the persons life. So we decided to ask our parents and others what they did/thought on this subject. So if anyone actually reads this and has traditions that they do, or ideas they have heard of for birthday traditions we'd love to hear them. We are specifically looking for ideas about how to have a gospel centered, Christ exalting birthday celebration.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Friday, December 25, 2009
Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
We here in Texas enjoyed a rare thing-SNOW!!! Yesterday my dad got up saying, "It's going to snow." Joshua and I thought he was crazy since the day before we had thrown Frisbee in 70 degree weather! No, he insisted, "It's going to snow." Thirty minutes later what we saw out the window proved him right! It snowed just about all day. What a treat for us to have a white Christmas.
We enjoyed a Christmas Eve service at Hillcrest Baptist-my parents church. Daniel enjoyed the music and playing with the candle before it was lit. It was great to sit down and think about the greatest gift of all- Jesus Christ. We are amazed at God's gift to us, that he would give His Son to live on earth and then die for our sins. Praise God for the resurrection too!
A fun family tradition that we introduced Daniel to after the church service was opening one Christmas present. This Christmas Eve present is always PJs! The PJs are to be worn that night and the next morning we open our presents in them! Daniel enjoyed the paper! We also had some chicken noodle soup and a tradition from Joshua'
s family--onion sandwiches!
Daniel in his new PJs...they were nice and fuzzy and warm!
Daniel got up at about 7:15, so we all got up and started making breakfast. After breakfast we read Daniel's advent Christmas story and then started opening presents. Daniel made it about halfway through the opening of presents and then went to bed for a couple of hours, during which we continued opening presents and then started putting finishing touches on food!
Gregory and I made dressing balls and green bean casserole. We also had turkey,ham, rolls, cranberry sauce, potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Yum-o!
Grandma Rannels joined us for lunch. She really enjoyed Daniel's antics!
The rest of the afternoon was spent by various people taking naps (Daniel included!), playing Rock Band, watching some home videos circa 1987 (gotta love those clothing styles), playing games and chatting with each other and other family members who aren't here.
It's been a great Christmas day and we are blessed. In the words of Dad Greever, "being together is the best part!"
We here in Texas enjoyed a rare thing-SNOW!!! Yesterday my dad got up saying, "It's going to snow." Joshua and I thought he was crazy since the day before we had thrown Frisbee in 70 degree weather! No, he insisted, "It's going to snow." Thirty minutes later what we saw out the window proved him right! It snowed just about all day. What a treat for us to have a white Christmas.
We enjoyed a Christmas Eve service at Hillcrest Baptist-my parents church. Daniel enjoyed the music and playing with the candle before it was lit. It was great to sit down and think about the greatest gift of all- Jesus Christ. We are amazed at God's gift to us, that he would give His Son to live on earth and then die for our sins. Praise God for the resurrection too!
A fun family tradition that we introduced Daniel to after the church service was opening one Christmas present. This Christmas Eve present is always PJs! The PJs are to be worn that night and the next morning we open our presents in them! Daniel enjoyed the paper! We also had some chicken noodle soup and a tradition from Joshua'
s family--onion sandwiches!
Daniel in his new PJs...they were nice and fuzzy and warm!
Daniel got up at about 7:15, so we all got up and started making breakfast. After breakfast we read Daniel's advent Christmas story and then started opening presents. Daniel made it about halfway through the opening of presents and then went to bed for a couple of hours, during which we continued opening presents and then started putting finishing touches on food!
Gregory and I made dressing balls and green bean casserole. We also had turkey,ham, rolls, cranberry sauce, potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Yum-o!
Grandma Rannels joined us for lunch. She really enjoyed Daniel's antics!
The rest of the afternoon was spent by various people taking naps (Daniel included!), playing Rock Band, watching some home videos circa 1987 (gotta love those clothing styles), playing games and chatting with each other and other family members who aren't here.
It's been a great Christmas day and we are blessed. In the words of Dad Greever, "being together is the best part!"
Friday, December 18, 2009
Back at it
After taking along break from the blog, we'll start back at it! Here's our Christmas letter for a quick run down of what's been going on with us this year. And I'll post some pictures from this morning...we opened our Christmas presents this morning. We will be traveling to my family's home this Christmas so we wanted to celebrate here with Daniel his first Christmas. We had a special breakfast, read our advent story and opened presents. Daniel loved the wrapping paper and understood that we wanted him to take it off of the presents! Here's our Christmas update!
Merry Christmas from the Greevers! This year has been full of change, and we are so thankful that in the midst of it all we have the hope of eternal life through Christ, whose birth we celebrate. Here are a few highlights from our year.
On February 4th we welcomed Daniel Abraham Greever into the world. He was born after a difficult labor—we are so thankful that the Lord protected both baby and mom. We thought when we took Daniel home from the hospital that he did not have any significant health concerns, but we found out when he was 9 days old that he needed to have surgery to fix a narrowing of his aorta. He had this surgery when he was 17 days old. God was gracious in causing this surgery to be effective and, when Daniel was 6 months old, the cardiologist said Daniel could go a year before another check up! Another health concern we have dealt with is that while Daniel was in the hospital they started some genetic testing to rule out any syndrome as a cause for his heart defect. God saw fit to grow our faith in Him over about 8 months of waiting for final results of this testing. We are thankful that all the testing has come back normal. We will have a check up with the geneticist when Daniel is a year old and we hope that no additional testing will need to be done. On the lighter side, Daniel frequently practices words like “ra-ra-ra” and “da-da-da,” as well as rolls around on our carpet! Soon he will be crawling and (even!) walking. We are thankful for and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him!
In May Joshua graduated from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Louisville with his Master of Divinity. He was interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in New Testament studies at the seminary, and in September he was accepted. He took German this fall in preparation to start his studies this coming spring. He continues to work the weekend night shift as a security guard as well as weekdays at our local mall’s Chick-fil-A. Also, our church started an internship program that Joshua is participating in until May 2010.
Amelia is enjoying the joys and trials of motherhood. She is thankful to be able to work only 3 days a month at the hospital, which allows her to be home with Daniel a great deal. This fall she has been able to attend a women’s Bible study at church. She has also been able to participate in a Bible study for the wives of our church’s interns. She has greatly enjoyed both.
We are continuing to meet with our small group from church, which is a blessing. Joshua is co-leading the group since the previous leaders are now doing mission work.
Other small tidbits of news include that we moved off campus in May as Joshua was no longer a seminary student. Our new apartment is a few blocks from our church so we often enjoy walking to the services.
We have gotten to see our families at various points throughout the year, for which the grandparents are very grateful!
We have seen God’s faithfulness in the midst of the small and big changes of this year and we look forward to His continued faithfulness in the coming year. May God richly bless you as well!
Joshua, Amelia, and Daniel Greever
Merry Christmas from the Greevers! This year has been full of change, and we are so thankful that in the midst of it all we have the hope of eternal life through Christ, whose birth we celebrate. Here are a few highlights from our year.
On February 4th we welcomed Daniel Abraham Greever into the world. He was born after a difficult labor—we are so thankful that the Lord protected both baby and mom. We thought when we took Daniel home from the hospital that he did not have any significant health concerns, but we found out when he was 9 days old that he needed to have surgery to fix a narrowing of his aorta. He had this surgery when he was 17 days old. God was gracious in causing this surgery to be effective and, when Daniel was 6 months old, the cardiologist said Daniel could go a year before another check up! Another health concern we have dealt with is that while Daniel was in the hospital they started some genetic testing to rule out any syndrome as a cause for his heart defect. God saw fit to grow our faith in Him over about 8 months of waiting for final results of this testing. We are thankful that all the testing has come back normal. We will have a check up with the geneticist when Daniel is a year old and we hope that no additional testing will need to be done. On the lighter side, Daniel frequently practices words like “ra-ra-ra” and “da-da-da,” as well as rolls around on our carpet! Soon he will be crawling and (even!) walking. We are thankful for and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him!
In May Joshua graduated from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary here in Louisville with his Master of Divinity. He was interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in New Testament studies at the seminary, and in September he was accepted. He took German this fall in preparation to start his studies this coming spring. He continues to work the weekend night shift as a security guard as well as weekdays at our local mall’s Chick-fil-A. Also, our church started an internship program that Joshua is participating in until May 2010.
Amelia is enjoying the joys and trials of motherhood. She is thankful to be able to work only 3 days a month at the hospital, which allows her to be home with Daniel a great deal. This fall she has been able to attend a women’s Bible study at church. She has also been able to participate in a Bible study for the wives of our church’s interns. She has greatly enjoyed both.
We are continuing to meet with our small group from church, which is a blessing. Joshua is co-leading the group since the previous leaders are now doing mission work.
Other small tidbits of news include that we moved off campus in May as Joshua was no longer a seminary student. Our new apartment is a few blocks from our church so we often enjoy walking to the services.
We have gotten to see our families at various points throughout the year, for which the grandparents are very grateful!
We have seen God’s faithfulness in the midst of the small and big changes of this year and we look forward to His continued faithfulness in the coming year. May God richly bless you as well!
Joshua, Amelia, and Daniel Greever
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Daniel Abraham Greever
God has taken us on a very different journey in bringing our son home. This post is long in coming, because a lot has happened in the past month. Here is a letter that we sent out to our church to let them know what was going on right around the time Daniel was born.
Thank you so much for your faithfulness in praying for us for this past week. It has been so comforting to know that our God is in control and that He has a plan for His glory to be displayed in the most unexpected ways. This is a letter letting you all know what has recently transpired in our lives and how you can pray for us.
I (Amelia) am doing so much better the past few days than I had been doing the end of last week and weekend. While I was giving birth to Daniel I had to be put on medication that was supposed to keep my blood pressure down (the concern with my blood pressure being high was the risk of my having seizures), because it was still very high when they began the inducement of labor. This medication was given in order to relax my body and thus lower my blood pressure, but a side effect was that it also makes contractions stop. As a result, they had to put me on another medication to keep the contractions going. We praise the Lord that I was able to deliver Daniel without having a C-section, which this was my number one desire (apart from a healthy baby and healthy me). After Daniel was born, I had to be kept on the medication for my blood pressure for about 24 more hours. This medication made me feel like my whole body was on fire and I could barely lift my arms and legs; this meant that the medication was working, but it made it very hard to do anything but lay in bed. Even while on this medication, my blood pressure would rise if I just sat up or tried to talk too much. Friday morning they stopped the medication and moved me from the room that I had delivered Daniel in to a regular post partum room. Even though my blood pressure was a little bit better, I still could not sit up or talk for long because it would make my blood pressure rise. We are thankful the Lord has begun lowering my blood pressure via a blood pressure medication pill that I will probably be taking for the next month or so.
Ways that you all can be praying for me specifically is that I would be able to get better rest. We do praise Him that I was able to sleep for 4 1/2 hours straight last night. (I have been pumping milk for Daniel and this has been tricky to figure out how to organize my day around sleep, eat, pump, and feed Daniel).
You can be praying that I would not worry about my blood pressure or about Daniel’s health. Sadly, I default to worry about what has happened or about what is going to happen rather than trusting our sovereign Lord. Trusting in the Lord would be my number one prayer request.
Now to tell you about Daniel, we praise the Lord for his life. Because of my having high blood pressure, which is a symptom of pre-eclampsia, I also had intrauterine growth restriction, which caused Daniel to not be able to grow. We praise the Lord that Daniel was able to withstand labor. For about the last 5 minutes of my pushing, they could not find his heartbeat. I did not know this at the time, but I could tell from the way they were telling me to push that it was very important for him to be born as soon as possible. The cord was wrapped one time around his neck as well, but once he was out he was fine. We are so thankful that even though he is small, he is definitely a fighter.
Because he is small and what they call a “late preterm” baby, he has had trouble knowing how to suck, and we have been concerned that he get enough to eat. I am planning on nursing him, so we did not want to confuse him with a bottle. My mom and the lactation consultant have taught us how to “finger feed” him, which means that we have a bottle that has a tube attached to it. The end of the tube gets taped to the pinky finger on which Daniel then sucks. In the 6 days that he has been eating this way, he has learned to suck a lot better and he has started gaining weight. We praise the Lord for this visible progress.
Daniel has had some trouble with jaundice because his bilirubin level has been high, which has kept him in the hospital longer than we expected. I think since Saturday (the days run together!) he has been off and on in the ultraviolet light that helps lower his bilirubin. We found out this afternoon that he will be under the bilirubin lights until 10 pm tonight, and then (if his levels are down) he will get to go home in the morning. Lord willing, he will see the pediatrician tomorrow morning. Even though I have been officially discharged from the hospital, they have let me stay here in a room right next to the nursery for free. We are very thankful to be able to stay close by to Daniel.
You can be praying that his bilirubin would not go back up whenever he is discharged and that he would continue to eat well and gain weight.
For Joshua, you all can be praying that he would be able to get rest as well. Pray that he would be able to balance work, school and taking care of us.
We would love to start having visitors; hopefully that will be when we get home in the morning. If you are really eager to see us, you could still see Joshua and me tonight—even though you probably will not be able to see Daniel. We are at Clark Memorial Hospital (Jeffersonville, IN) in room #4410 (remember, we are not actually admitted into the hospital, so you might have to hunt down the room number on your own!). If you choose to come by our apartment, please call beforehand so that you know we are at home. Amelia’s cell is 214-282-4780, and Joshua’s is 972-217-9364.
Thank you for all your prayers and thank you for understanding my need to rest so much and not have people come see us. We are so thankful for all of you and for all your prayers.
I don’t think we have had time to get our pictures off of our camera, but there should be a picture on this website, www.our365.com on which you should be able to do a search by our last name and see our little guy.
That's the end of the letter...we found our two days after we got to take Daniel home, that he had a narrow aorta and was going to have to have surgry to repair it. That as a hard time as well. Our son was so little and the thought of him having hart surgery was scary. The Lord has been so good to us in this though. We had great doctors and nurses and we had so many people praying for Daniel. We know that Daniel was then and still is in the Lord's hands. Daniel is two weeks out from having the surgery and he is doing really well. We went to the cardiologist today for a post operative checkup. The cardiologist said that he is very pleased with how Daniel is doing and he is very confident that Daniel is not going to be affected by this any more in his life. Another exciting thing to me was that they weighed him and he weighed 5 lbs 11.5oz!!
Here are some pictures of him!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
God Provides
We have been blessed by God in Him providing a part time job for Joshua. As we are planning on having this baby, part of what we are thinking about is my work situation and the need for Joshua to work as I can cut back or hopefully stay at home full time. God gave Joshua a job as a night security guard at a local business. It's tough, because he has to stay up for 12 hours two nights in a row, but he gets 23 hours of work in very quickly! Pray for his endurance. Here's a picture of him in his uniform watching a snatch of football before he leaves for work!
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Baby Happenings
My parents arrived in Louisville today. They came to bring us a changing table that my Dad made and for my Mom to attend a baby shower with me this Saturday! Joshua and my Dad put the changing table together this afternoon! So exciting to see the baby room coming together!
The hungery catapillar book and stuffed toy from Grandma!
A friend, Mrs. Murray gave us a little hippo for the baby and my dad was practicing putting on cloth diapers!
Fun times!
Boomer Sooner!!!
The hungery catapillar book and stuffed toy from Grandma!
A friend, Mrs. Murray gave us a little hippo for the baby and my dad was practicing putting on cloth diapers!
Fun times!
Boomer Sooner!!!
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Celebrations
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Here are some shots of our celebrations!
Our beautiful Christmas tree.
I won a gift card to a one night stay at the Galt House, one of the nicer hotels in Louisville. These were some of the Christmas decorations in the lobby.
More decorations in the lobby-the house is made out of all real food! Yum-o!
We were in St. Louis for Christmas day! This is Josiah opening some gifts.
Jonathan opening gifts.
Jeremiah opening his gifts.
Joel REALLY likes Coke, which is what he is opening now-our gift to him!
Opening gifts from my parents. We were sad we could not be with them during this time.
A very nice fleece for Shua from my parents.
Mom Greever with the scarf we gave her and the necklace from Kim and Jonathan.
Dad Greever with quality reading, given to him by us.
Sitting down to Christmas dinner. Extra yum-o!
On the Saturday after Christmas, Trish and her sis, Tiffany, were passing through the Fenton area and we met up at McD's to chat!
Josiah had given us giftcards to QickTrip, and we loaded up on the goods before leaving the St. Louis area.
Diet caffiene free cherry vanilla Coke and the best chips ever!
Preggi picture-31 1/2 weeks along!
How excited we are to be having a baby soon!
A picture of our baby!!
Our beautiful Christmas tree.
I won a gift card to a one night stay at the Galt House, one of the nicer hotels in Louisville. These were some of the Christmas decorations in the lobby.
More decorations in the lobby-the house is made out of all real food! Yum-o!
We were in St. Louis for Christmas day! This is Josiah opening some gifts.
Jonathan opening gifts.
Jeremiah opening his gifts.
Joel REALLY likes Coke, which is what he is opening now-our gift to him!
Opening gifts from my parents. We were sad we could not be with them during this time.
A very nice fleece for Shua from my parents.
Mom Greever with the scarf we gave her and the necklace from Kim and Jonathan.
Dad Greever with quality reading, given to him by us.
Sitting down to Christmas dinner. Extra yum-o!
On the Saturday after Christmas, Trish and her sis, Tiffany, were passing through the Fenton area and we met up at McD's to chat!
Josiah had given us giftcards to QickTrip, and we loaded up on the goods before leaving the St. Louis area.
Diet caffiene free cherry vanilla Coke and the best chips ever!
Preggi picture-31 1/2 weeks along!
How excited we are to be having a baby soon!
A picture of our baby!!
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