10 Months

Our littlest guy is growing fast. He is 10 months old already. Wow. He sure doesn't know he is only 10 months and he watches his big brothers and thinks, anything y'all can do I can do too.

Asher is 21 lbs. He has a mouthful of teeth and eats whatever we are eating - try and stop him. He has been walking for almost a week now, and by walking I mean he take 10-20 steps at a time but then decides crawling is still faster and has been taking steps since around Christmas. He can climb the ladder and get into the trampoline by himself. He is adorable on the trampoline because he try to jump just like his brothers. He climbed the ladder to Jude's bunk bed and was so proud of himself.

Asher has a great smile and laugh. He is mostly happy unless you do something he does not like - say change his diaper - or do not hold him when he is tired. We are so blessed  by our little guy. We love him bunches!

Our Only Hope

Friday morning held in store for us something we never imagined could or would happen. I am so thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ for being with us every step of the way. He promises us he will never leave us nor forsake us and the last two days have seen him true to his word.

I had fallen into a deep sleep Friday morning to be woken by Chad a little bit after 6 am. He was gasping for breathe and asked me to pray for him. I groggily began to pray and force myself awake. Throughout our marriage Chad has occasionally experienced some sharp pains and difficulty breathing that usually subsides within 5 minutes. Unbeknownst to me he had been in pain for 20 minutes before waking me. He had gotten up and walked to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee when all off a sudden he couldn't breathe and was in terrible pain.

After praying I suggested he get in the shower - I thought maybe steam would help relieve him and help him to breathe better. When that offered no relief we began to pray about what we should do. We felt we should seek medical attention. I had no idea the severity of his pain so I suggested we go to our PCP (primary care physician) though we've never met her I knew that her office opened at 8am. I called Granny and asked her to come watch the kids.

We made it to the PCP office only to be told that the Dr. did not get in until 9am. The nurse receptionist said we should go to an urgent care or emergency room. We decided to go to a free standing emergency room that was close. Thank Jesus for directing us to an actual emergency room and not an urgent care center.

The ER staff immediately took us back in a room and began to examine Chad. After a couple questions they ruled out heart attack but were slightly puzzled so decided to do a chest x-ray. The chest x-ray revealed Chad's left lung had completely 100% collapsed. With urgency they switched rooms and shoved some papers in my hands saying all sorts of risk please sign, we have to insert a tube in his lung, now. I stayed in the room and held his hand and prayed like crazy. I did not watch. It was so hard to see him like that. He was in a lot of pain. If you don't know when a person's lung collapse it is because there is air in-between the lung and the lining of the lung. So they inserted a tube to let the air out - I could hear it. A lot of air. Like letting air out of a tire.

After some more x-rays the ER staff announced that his lung was already back to 98% and they were super happy. It turns out that he had not just a spontaneous pneumothorax (look at me with my fancy medical term that means collapsed lung) he had a tension pneumothorax which means there was so much pressure being created and by his collapsed lung that it was shoving his heart into his right chest cavity and creating so much tension that they told me had we gotten there 5-10 minutes latter his heart may have given out. Yes. He could have died. I kinda want to cry when I stop and think about it. But I won't because I have to much to celebrate: God was with us! He never left us! He gave us wisdom on where to go. He provided trained medical people who knew what to do and acted swiftly. He saved Chad. I am so grateful.

This was a horrible thing to happen but I know that God will use it for his glory. My faith is increased. In one of the in-between moments when I was home after Chad got settled into the hospital and I ran home to check on the kids I read in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, "Isaiah was so attuned to God, because of the great crisis he had just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul...to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed." Crisis tested my faith. But Jesus gave me all the faith I needed and I have come out loving him all the more.

Chad is now resting in the hospital and we are waiting for his lung to be completely restored. He is still in pain and he may be in the hospital for a few days. All there is to do is wait for his body to heal. It is a good thing we know the Master Healer. Will you join me in praying for his healing?!

I will leave this post with one more lesson I learned. While driving back to the hospital that night as I began to process everything that had happened and realize Chad could have died, before I could start to freak out, God brought this conversation to my mind:

Me: "Jude, what is our only hope in life in death?"
Jude: "That we are not our own but belong to God...and Jesus!"

Thank you Jesus for prompting Chad and I to begin a catechism with Jude and Shiloh. The answer to this question comforts me so much. The unabridged answer is, "that we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death to God and our Savior Jesus Christ." Taken from Romans 14:7-8, "For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself, for if we live we live to the Lord and if we die we die to the Lord, so wether we live or wether we die we are the Lord's."

I am comforted to know that no matter what I am the Lord's. And so is Chad.

Another year closer to death...

I interrupt my scheduled blog on our adventures in the Cayman Islands to inform you that I am indeed another year closer to death. What a cheerful way to look at it. Thanks friend who sent me this picture:

I had a birthday! Yay! Avoided being ambushed by Jude and Shiloh (who had been instructed to wake up early and jump on me while I was still sleeping by Pops) - thank goodness Chad was working on the computer and foiled their plans ;) Spent the day at Granny's. We had a yummy dinner (lunch - but Granny always calls it dinner). Granny had made brownies, yummy there was a whole slice missing - hmm she said she needed to test them.  The little boys napped and I took a  bath while Jude played legos. We went to the chiropractor and got a birthday adjustment. We went to HEB so I could use my birthday money of an essential oil diffuser (though I am returning because found one I like better on amazon) and pick up Maleficent at the redox. We were going to get Gigi's cupcakes but alas they close at 5. A bit of a let down - but never fear we still had brownies! And then we picked up pizza from WoodFired Pizza - tasty. I feel as if all the food I ate yesterday is going to bring me even closer to death...

To all who wished me a happy birthday thank you! I am glad for an excuse to celebrate! I love celebrating things!

Beach Days, part 3

My name is Destiny Legare and I am a coffee addict. It's true. I am not however alone in my addiction. Much to everyones dismay decaffeinated coffee was purchased from the grocery store. A mistake that resulted in grumpiness and headaches all around on the second day of our trip - this was soon remedied as we sent my dad to the store that day and we all got our fix the next morning.

In addition to lack of coffee, I unfortunately suffered from lack of sleep. The culprit was little Mr. Asher. After sleeping wonderfully the first night (probably from sheer exhaustion) he did not sleep the next couple of days. We discovered that he slept extremely well outside with the wind and waves to lull him asleep. Consequently I found myself out side all hours of the night. And let me tell you the sky was brilliant. The stars so bright. It was awe inspiring. What a magnificent God we have to create such beauty. I pondered Psalm 19:1 often, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork."

More pictures of our days by the waves:

Beach Days, part 2

Did you know that you can drive from one side of the Island to the other in under an hour - even when you follow the speed limit.

Funny story - on the first day we were driving to Mimi and Pop's house (there is a great debate over who the house and beach belong to but I will not take sides) it seemed to take forever. Especially with  Jude and Haylyn asking every 5 seconds if we were in the Cayman Islands yet (they held the belief that we were not in the Cayman Islands yet because we were not at the house yet) and could we swim in the ocean.

Here is the conversation and events that followed:

Haylyn: "Mimi are we there yet?"
Mimi: "Almost."
Haylyn: "Can you drive faster?"
Mimi: "We will be there soon."
Haylyn: "Drive faster Mimi."
Mimi speeds up and says, "ok."
Haylyn: "How much longer? Faster! Faster! Faster Mimi!!!!!"
Mimi goes faster yet, "is that fast enough?"
Haylyn: "No. Faster Mimi."

At this point we look up and see a police car parked on the side of the road. We are waved down and the police woman proceeds to inform Mimi that she was driving to fast. Mimi, extremely thankful to not be driving her car with Cayman plates and thankful to not be asked to show her drivers license which is in fact a Cayman license gets off with a warning (because she is obviously a tourist) to please drive slower. Mimi pulls back on to the road, driving significantly slower.

Haylyn: "Mimi, did you get a ticket?"
Mimi: "No."
Haylyn: "Mimi, why did you get in trouble?"
Mimi: "Because you made me to go faster."
Me: "But remember Haylyn nobody can make you do something you are not supposed to do."

Bwhahahahaha!

Enjoy some more pictures:

Shiloh helping Pops grill. 

Mimi had a friend make these adorable shark slippers, the kids were excited about them until Chad asked them to take a picture.

Asher's slippers.

A friend of my parents brought us a Wahoo fish and cut it into stakes for us.

Iguana in my parents bushes.

Jude with a fresh cut coconut. Yum!

Looking at the iguana. Can you spot it?

Haylyn helping Asher. She is too sweet! Going to make a great big sister!

Haylyn reading to Jude. She is so smart we read this book once and just by looking at the pictures she was able to pretty much re-tell the story. Love that little girl.

Beach Days, part 1

My parents own a house on the Northside of the Cayman Islands and for the past 4 years they have blessed us by paying our way for a visit. We have enjoyed 4 week long trips to the Caymans after Christmas. It is truly wonderful and I am so thankful for my parents generosity! We love our time every year - I mean seriously who wouldn't love leaving temperatures in the 39's and go to a low of 77 and a high of 83?!

We spent the day before departure bemoaning the rain and cold because the boys could not jump on their new trampoline - sad day. We also cleaned the house, did laundry and packed. Unlike most years we did not stay up until 1am or after packing. We were in bed by 10pm! Hurray! Except Asher chose that night to not sleep - so we didn't get much shut eye before we had to be up at 5am. Thank you Jesus for coffee!

We arrived at my parents house a little before 6am and proceeded to change out car seats, in the cold and rain. I had to take off my shoes before they became soaked through (I could think of hardly anything worse than traveling for several hours in wet cold shoes) and my feet were like ice. I faced my first battle against coveting when I sat down in my parents tahoe and my dad said, "push that button it will turn on the seat warmer." It is very easy to want something that someone else has and much harder thank God for what you have, in my case a car that is paid off, has enough seats and car seats for the family God has given us and whose heater works sometimes - but I am truly thankful for what God has given, so I told God I needed help being thankful for the gifts he has given me and help to not want the gifts he has given others. God gives help when you need it and I found myself the victor over coveting.

We made it to the airport and through security, used a starbucks gift card to get some more coffee and then we boarded the plane! We made it safety to beautiful weather, drove to the East Side and ate our favorite restaurant, Tukka. We had a few minutes of hope when we found out the Texans were winning and the Ravens were losing but alas the Ravens came back so our playoff hopes were dashed.

We spent the next couple of days enjoying the sun, sand and waves.