Help Us Pray for our Nana!

Every night at 8pm our church family will be praying for my Mom (Elijah & Annalesa's Nana) through January 4th.  Her appt at MD Anderson is 1/4/13 and I'm so appreciative of the people that intercede for Nana.  Please help us pray each night at 8pm.

I believe the Lord wants us to ask......
John 14:13-14 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

to pray in faith.....

James 5:14-16 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another,that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

 

Mark 9:29 And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.”

 

and, to pray without ceasing and with thanksgiving.....

Philippians 4:6-7 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

 

Sometimes we just aren't sure what to pray for and are scared we may be praying for the wrong things.  But, God knows our prayers before they are spoken.  I pray that he will give everyone who prays for Nanathe ability to pray them out loud without fear of speaking the wrong thing.  My family is specifically praying for complete healing and for the tumors to be gone.  Yes, that will take a miracle but there are miracles all throughout the bible....even in the New Testament.  I've witnessed modern day miracles here on earth and I believe God is ready to witness to others through our Nana.  We are praying for God to impart wisdom and hope within Nana's medical team at MD Anderson and Vanderbilt....specifically that her tumors may now be operable!!  We pray for the side effects (siezures, vision & speech problems, hair loss, etc.) to cease and for Nana's body to be restored! We believe all of those things will happen in Jesus' name because He has overcome the world....all evil will be cast out when speaking his name. 

 

Last night, we had our prayer and worship time at 8pm and listened to the song, "Healing is Here" by Deluge.  What powerful yet simple lyrics....

 

Healing is here healing is here
Healing is here and I receive it
Healing is here healing is here
Healing is here and I believe it

I reach my hands to the heavens
I lift my eyes where my help comes from
I look to You my rock my healer
I trust in You

Freedom is here freedom is here
Freedom is here and I receive it
Freedom is here freedom is here
Freedom is here and I believe it

Sickness can't stay any longer
Your perfect love is casting out fear
You are the God of all power
And it is Your will that my life is healed

 

Christmas 2012

I wish I could tell you about all of the fun we've had over Christmas......so far it has been anything but fun!

The flu must have been on someone's Christmas list because it got accidentally dropped off at our house! Beginning the Friday night before Christmas, Elijah came down with the flu. That was confirmed by Dr. Owens on Saturday morning. It's now Thursday night and he still had a fever today.......and Santa hasn't visited our home yet!

Poor Elijah. He has felt awful! He is missing nana and papa like crazy and they are missing him too! Tony and I are just exhausted from the sleepless nights. But we are so very thankful that neither of us caught the flu bug from Elijah!

In other news, Annalesa is right on track which is much different than my experience with Elijah. I measured 4 weeks ahead with him the last 20 weeks! I have "storked" at the hospital and have almost finished packing my hospital bag. Packing has been much more complicated this time since we are almost an hour from the hospital and we have a 1 year old to drop off somewhere!

And, mom will be going to MD Anderson in Houston next week. Please help us pray for a miracle. We need those tumors to go bye-bye! Prayers also for a safe trip for her and dad.

Happy New Year to all!

Naming our little girl....

How happy we are to announce the name of our soon to be baby girl.

Annalesa Holley Bonds

We wanted to incorporate my mom's name (Lesa) in there, so we chose Annalesa.  What a special name this little girl will have.  She is named after the most beautiful, amazing, and strongest woman that I know. 

Her middle name was inspired by a wonderful lady that we loved so very dearly in Oxford, MS....Janice Holley.  Mrs. Holley meant so much to Tony and I.

We are so happy to incorporate two beautiful lady's names into our little girl's name. 

With Elijah, I think we were pretty much full term before we finally decided on a name.  I'm happy to have that task out of the way with Annalesa.  Now we can talk to her and pray for her by name! 

Let the monogramming begin!

Baby Girl Bonds Coming February 2012

It's a girl!  We don't have a name yet, but pretty sure it is indeed a girl!  Her original due date was Feb 11th, 2012....but as usual it was moved up by 1 week at our last appointment.  I'm sure she will be here sometime in early January! 

Here's the nursery bedding we've picked out:

We are excited for Baby Bonds #2, even if it was a shocker!!!  We know she will be loved by so many!

Elijah Tate + Grass = Interesting

So Elijah Tate now will eat anything. He has fooled some into thinking we never feed him. Clearly that isn't the case. His appetite is much like that of a giant. So we started taking some pictures of him and his favorite "toy box" (that came from Travis & Holly). It's filled with lots of little toys that he can pull out and play with. This box keeps him busy for over an hour most days. This particular Sunday he was practically crawling into the toy box. Enjoy the pictures below. They are hilarious to us!

A big smile after I sat Elijah Tate up in the basket.

Then we traveled outside, which he wasn't too sure of.

What does he find within arm's reach?? GRASS!!  He's like our mini-lawn mower.

If it goes in his hands, it MUST go in his mouth!

This was his face as he was chewing on the first piece of grass (without a single tooth in his mouth).

And then apparently the grass was so good he had to get out of the basket to get more!

This time he wanted a handful of grass in his mouth!

Elijah wasn't very sure of it, but nonetheless, he kept chewing....

Then comes handful number 2....

And, of course, everything is better with dirty fingers...

This was the face after he got gagged by a piece of grass and Mommy stuck her finger down his throat to get the piece of grass!

Getting scooped up by Mommy.

And, finally a happy Elijah Tate again.....all is well with the world!

By the way, this all happened in the course of about 2 minutes.  I didn't let him a bajillion handfuls of grass.