Simple and Delicious

What is a girl to do when she goes for a root canal, on a tooth, that out of the blue makes her wake up with a swollen face? Then gets to the dentist only to find all of the infection is not gone (even though she was on antibiotics and was already numbed up with so many shots that she couldn't eat for 8 hours?) I'll tell you what I did-feel sorry for myself and make an awesome recipe(since I could finally eat) that I found on Pineterest the other day.

Chocolate Chip Oreo Brownies-yummy-no calories here (wink)

Really easy-starts with this

First layer-chocolate chip cookie mix

Second layer-Oreo Cookies

Third layer the brownie mix

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes-this is what the inside looks like in all of it's yumminess.

Scoop it in a bowl with some yummy ice cream on top and enjoy!



So simple and absolutely delicious.  I don't think it really made my tooth feel any better but it was so yummy to eat after going all day with nothing that I enjoyed this bowl of sweetness throughly. :)

On this Pathway

Jill

"She is worth far more than rubies."

I was asked to be a part of a project supporting Women's History Month at McMurry University here in Abilene. "100 Women 100 Words" women of all different walks of life were asked to create something on a 6X6 canvas-"What is your perspective on being a women-the women around you.  I turned mine in today-this was my description and my work-Photo-black/white with color (my 4 kids hands-holding rubies)   The works are going to be photographed and complied into a book and they are holding a reception in the gallery on March 20th for all the participants involved. It was so much fun to be a part of this.  I wanted to share what I did.


               “She is worth far more than rubies” Proverbs 31:10b

The Proverbs 31 Woman is a woman of strength, kindness, generosity, goodness, righteousness, and purity.  All of these words describe her-“for her price is far above rubies.” Proverbs 31:10b  
She is made strong by wisdom, grace and her fear of God.
The Virtuous Woman that God describes in Proverbs 31 illustrates the importance of allowing everything we do daily to flow out of our inner life with God.  Doing everything each day as if it is unto our Lord. 
I believe she is so valuable because she strives to be a woman of Christ and serves others before herself.  I am none of these things outside of Christ, but in Christ I pray that I might be a virtuous woman whose soul is filled with the “fruits of the spirit”, one whose worth to her family and friends, is far above that of rubies.

On This Pathway-
Jill

Analeigh is 4

Analeigh (grace or favor) Kate (pure) Jones 1 day old

Minutes after you were born

Our sweet baby girl-I can't believe you turned 4 this week on the 21st.  It just seems like yesterday that we were bringing you home from the hospital-so thankful and so blessed after the loss of one of our precious babies before you.

You are such a sweet, funny, precious, happy girl and we are so blessed to be you mom and dad.  Our whole family is blessed by you being in it.

My prayer for you is that you will come to know Jesus one day as your personal Lord and Savior (you tell me every night when we pray that you love God and Jesus more than anything in life and I believe for as must as you can understand that at your age you do) and I pray that you will ask Him to come into your heart one day and that your will dedicate you whole life to Him.

You are my favorite brown eyed baby girl (we have one with blue eyes and one with brown so we can say that :) )

We love you are with all our heart our sweet Analeigh Kate Jones.
You are our joy-I pray this year being 4 will be one full of blessings for you.  (If you read our lego post from today-we are off to a crazy start to being 4-ha!)

The Daddy Daughter Dan 2-14-2012-your first year to go with daddy

Our beautiful baby girl

Leaving for the dance with daddy

On your birthday-you and me celebrating your 4th  b-day with our family

Love you pumpkin

Love Your Mom

Our most expensive lego ever!

Well today was an eventful day-we haven't had many or those days lately-ha! I was getting ready to go to PT today when Analeigh came running into my bathroom and said she had a bug up her nose.  I said "a bug-up your nose-did it fly up your nose?"  Not thinking anything about the lego set she got this week for her forth b-day and the fact it had cute tiny little flowers, bugs and butterflies on it.   Then it hit me and I went running out to the lego set and sure enough-one of the two little lego ladybugs was missing and she was still crying.  So I rush her back into the bathroom and with a flashlight look up her nose.  Sure enough the other lady bug was up her nose!
We tried blowing it spray nose spray up it and even tweezers-but nothing made it come out.  A quick call to the Dr. Office-drove there like a crazy women and ran in only to be told to have a seat and wait because she was breathing ok.  We waited a hour and half to be seen, by this time it had swollen some and they could not remove the ladybug without pushing it in further, so a call to a ENT in town, who could not see us until 3:30.  Mind you she hadn't eaten and now was a mess, crying, scared, tierd and hungry.  She still was my brave, sweet, happy girl.
We came home and waited for 3:30 to arrive.  We got to the ENT and he checked her out and took all our information.  He put her in this chair that went all the way back and took out this really long, skinny, hook like tool and dug around and pulled and it came out.  PRAISE THE LORD.  I was really scared we were going to be going to the hosptial for surgery.  I was never so excited to have something come out of my child's nose. lol
It has been an exhausting, very stressful day, but I am so thankful that God got us through this and everything came out ok-literally. :)

The most expensive lego we own-$75.00 later we have it in our hand and not our nose anymore.

Analeigh, so excited that the ladybug is now in her had and not her nose.

Actually not so little-I was shocked it fit up that cute little nostril. 

 On this Pathway-

Jill

Blessings during my Absence

Oh, I feel like I have been gone forever from the blogging world, I have been on for a few minutes here and there to catch up reading all the blogs of my sweet friends I have come to know from here-if I don't I feel like I am missing out on great conversations with you all, but I hadn't enough time to sit and write posts about all that has been happening in our lives these last few weeks.

 So stick with me-I will try to keep this short and sweet and fill you in on all that has been happening around the Joneses household lately.

First, the update on my sister-THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR PRAYERS!!  Jackie finally had her surgery three weeks ago to remove the two tumors at the base of her neck (when they got in there they were at the base of her brain.) They removed her adenoids at the same time (she has them removed when she was 10 and they grew back.)  Before going in she was sent to the oncologist and he had given her a PET scan because he assured her it was the only thing that would tell them 100% that it was cancer.  The spots radiated and the Dr. diagnosed her with having Nasopharyngeal  Carcinoma. The plan was to operate to remove them and send the off to be biopsied and in a week and a half she would come back to find out the plan of attack after the removal- either radiation or chemo or both.  After coming out of sugery the Dr. informed her there was only ONE tumor (not two-praise God, miracle #1) but he said the one tumor did not look good and it was very close to the brain stem and he was very concerned. 

Well, she returned a week ago Monday to the Dr. and he scoped her nose and throat to see how it was healing, it is still very raw but healing.  Praise the Lord.  Are you sitting down? 
The Dr. sat her down and said he had some news he thought might make her feel a bit better-THE BIOPSY CAME BACK AND IT CAME BACK NON-CANCEROUS!!!!! PRAISE THE LORD! !  We are beyond excited-beyond grateful, humbled-God is so good-we have witnessed another miracle in my sister's life.  Thank you for your prayers.  She has to make an appointment for the two spots on her ovary and pelvis checked but they did not radiate and they believed that they are just masses.  She has to see a different Dr. for that and we are just praying that will be a simple procedure too.  :) We do not have any details on that yet.

Next, was me.  I had been dealing with knee pain for about 5 months.  I woke up one morning and could barely walk, not knowing what I did or how I did it. I let it go for a few months and then finally got into the Orthopedic Dr to have x-rays and then an MRI .  We found I had a torn meniscus and a baker's cyst.  They no longer remove the cysts becuase they tend to me caused by the tear or arthritis and it sometimes will go away on there own.  So two weeks ago they sent me in your surgery to repair the tear, The surgery went well and I have been doing Physical Therapy for two weeks now and I am excited about being able to sleep, walk, and function like normal again (well, as normal as I am-ha!)

Finally I was so blessed this week by a sweet  package that arrived at my door from my blogging friend Janette from Janette's Sage.   I met Janette two years ago now (not in real life-although we are planning a get together at some point-we are only about 3 hours from each other) from finding her blog through another blog we both follow-I had read a sweet comment she left and thought this is someone I want to get to know.  I joined her blog to follow and was delighted I did.  We started corresponding back and forth and when I decided to pull Alyssa from school to start HS with her, Janette was kind enough to send me a bunch or books to borrow and materials to keep to get her started.  Her husband was going to be in Abilene on business for a few days and he actually came by our home to drop the homeschooling supplies off.  It was such a neat experience to meet him and visit for a little bit.  Now if Janette and I can ever slow down enough to clear our schedules to meet I would be beyond thrilled.
That is how this all started-so for two years I have had a wonderful pen pal that God has truly blessed and enriched my life through her friendship even though we have never actually met.  She has prayed me through some major hurdles in our life these last two years.
If you have never read her blog, you should.  She has inpired me many times through her posts.  She is so talented and such a sweet follower of Christ.  I am blessed and often challenged  in my walk with Christ from her posts.  I know you would be too-Anyways, back to the goodies she sent me.

These yummy Valentine's Cookies that she makes.  So delicious!

Analeigh had fun playing with her cookie first. :0

This beautiful pillow for my bed.  It goes just perfectly with the pillows I have on there already.  I am a pillow girl-more the better!!  I was so exicted to get this-I will treasure it always.

Down the side of the pillow are inspirational charms-Faith-Hope-and Love.  I just love this.

I wanted to show you the sweet things she blessed me with-I was so excited.  God has blessed me in so many ways through so many of you on here.
Thank you so much Janette-you truly are one of those blessings.  Thank you for making me feel special and for adding a ray of sunshine to my day on Thursday.

I have been gone so long and so much has happened.  I have lots to blog about-hopefully things will slow down just a bit so that I can do that more this week.  The kids have off from school for President's Day and so we are home (daddy had to teach-the college didn't have off) and so we are chillin at home today-the weather is warmer and sunny (praise God we had rain-we had it for 3 days though so we were ready for sunshine) today but oh so windy-I think we will have to play games indoors because it is stirring up allergies around here.

Thanks for stopping by today.  I am so thankful for each of you and for your prayers for my sister and my family.  I pray for each of you as well.  Thank you for being a blessing in my life.

On this Pathway-

Jill

Thank you for your prayers

Thank you for your prayers. 

Jackie is out of surgery-they found no blockage and 

they DID NOT have to put a stint in. She is getting 

ready to get discharged now. 

She is going to be staying the night in Buffalo at a 

sister's house of the people who took her to 

Buffalo to rest and make sure everything is ok before 

they go back home. Praising God for His grace and 

mercy today. Not sure why her stress test came back 

so bad now is the only thing. Keep praying. She can 

now reschedule her surgery on the tumors in her neck.

Thank you for your prayers,  not only for Jackie but for my family as well.  God is so good-I am so grateful for today and for the grace and mercy God gives us every day.

Love to you all!

On this Pathway-

Jill

Blessings

"Don't worry about anything;  instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done."  Philippians 4:6 NLT

God is bigger than any fear we face.  We don't need to anxiously search for a solution.  The best thing to do when we're afriad is to fall to our knees.  He'll hear our prayer, meet our needs and help us face our fear with the courage only He can give.

"We know that all things work together for the good for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose."  Romans 8:28 NRSV


God promises to work everything out for our good.  There is always a new way to see God, a new lesson to learn, a new way to prune us to help us grow.  God doesn't prevent us from experiencing struggles but He walks with us and helps us grow through them.

They are two verses that have become very dear to me these last few weeks, with seeing my mom worry about her mammgram (praise God it came back fine-they are just going to watch the small tissue area the Dr. in NY was talking about-it has not changed in 4 months-he wants her to just have a follow up in 6 months) and all the struggles my sweet sister has gone through and is still going through.  She could not have her surgery last week on the two tumors in her neck becasue they didn't like the results of her EKG.  So she met  last Friday and today to take stress tests to see if the cardiologist will clear her for the surgery this Thursday.  Being this far away and knowing what she is dealing with all on her own is hard.  I have had to cling to God and His mighty plan for our lives and that ultimately whatever the outcome of all of this is, He see the whole puzzle-the "bigger" picture and it is always the greatest plan there could ever be for our lives.   I am trusting this, believing this, and so thankful that I know that my sister is a child of God.  Our Heavenly Father knew before she was even knit in my mother's womb what plans He had for her life, the good and bad times, the things that would not only grow her in her faith and make her stonger in her walk with Him, but that her testimony would touch so many lives and one of them would be mine.

I look forward to 2012 and all the blessings that God would show us-whatever form they come in, because even in my deepest trials, when I look back and see the greater picture, I can see the blessings overflowing in those times too.  I am most thankful that I can rest in the hope that only God can give us and that every day iin 2012 is truly as blessing from Him.

Praying for each of you and what God has instore for 2012 for you and your families.

On this Pathway-

The whole gang at Christmas.  My mom and dad and Mike's dad and us.  We had a blessed Christmas season.

Jill