Today :)

Today I have watched tv, washed clothes, cooked, played on computer, figured out bills and just thought about stuff. I got news this week that my brother is not doing so good. He will go Wednesday to have an Angiagram (sp?) done on his heart. His injection fraction is 25 right now. They are hoping it is a block and they can put a stint in it, maybe a defilulater too and he will be okay. My sister-in-law is worried sick. He is after all, her best friend, her life. Anyone who has had that special someone at some point in your life understands how she feels. It is hard when you think you may lose that special someone. I know the feeling all too well. I still thank God everyday for Eric. So I pray my brother will be fine and ask that yall please send prayers up to God too. :) This week Matt has talked even more! He continues to amaze us with his curiosity about so many different things. So funny cause it is things that he should have wanted to know years ago. Autism is surely interesting. I can't wait to tell his counselor how well he is doing. :) Katie and her Drama class had their last night for their play this past Friday night. It was called "The Runaways". They did a great job. She misses the practicing already. :) Eric finished up his last week of leg therapy this past Friday. Now he has to wait 3 months for them to test his heart to see if the leg therapy worked. We are hoping that his injection fraction is higher. I was able to get some extra work this past week, which was great. I am still worried about having Easter week off. I really hope folks will need child care. I have been applying at different places, but have not heard anything yet. Need summer work. Well, that's about it here at our house. I hope and pray that yall had a great week and this week will be even better!!! Thank you for your continued prayers for our family! Kimberlee :)

Been awhile since my last post. Life has been busy, crazy and stressed. :( Seems like things get going and boom...something else. But for every "something else", I learn more, I grow more, I trust more, I pray more and I believe more. :)
Soooo the latest is that our health insurance got canceled. After a few weeks of phone calls, I finally got it going again. I think that these insurance companies look for any little thing to cancel you for. But this was their fault. They were like telling me that they were going to listen to the recorded discussions that I had with their workers to see if I was telling the truth. I said, "please do"! They did and found out that their workers had given me the wrong information and started the insurance back up again.
Now, life would be wonderful if things were that easy. :) Nope, not with insurance companies. Even though they admitted they were wrong, I still had to come up with $699.00. But that's ok. I did owe it, I was just told that I didn't and that's how the insurance got dropped.
So, God worked out another miracle for us and we got an unexpected check from AT&T. Enough to pay bills that were past due, due, insurance and maybe a little towards next months bills. God is sooooo wonderful!!!
My next battle is to try and get back money from the insurance company that we had to pay full price for Eric's medicines. We should only have to pay the co-pay. Battle begins tomorrow. :)
Thank you to the many friends that sent money to help us. The money was used to pay for Eric's medicine. And when I win the battle, the money will go towards nexts months bills. :)
Eric has been sick. I believe it is the flu. Please keep him in prayer. I lose sleep when he is sick. (watching him sleep) :) Matt was sick and missed a few days from school which he was soooo upset over. :( Katie missed a couple of days of school when she was sick; she was not upset. :)
I was able to work a lot of hours this past month that has really helped. I have been working extra hours at daycare and subing for elementary P.E. classes. I am so grateful to be able to do the work.
My prayer right now is for Eric to get better and that I find a summer job. I have experience in many different fields. If any of you know of something, please let me know. I really appreciate it. We need prayer that our court date for social security will come ASAP. Eric needs it done before July or he will be fired which means we lose all insurance. :(
Katie's school play is tomorrow, this Friday and next Friday. Pray it goes well. She has worked so hard, along with the rest of the cast. They have been staying till 6 everyday and she comes home to do homework, eat and bed. She does not like missing Wednesday night at church, so that has been tough for her.
Thank you all for your help and prayers. We are so thankful to you all. :)
Kimberlee :)
Jer. 29:11

Faith

Faith. Sweet word to say, everyone thinks they have, but most folks don't. I use to wonder if I had faith myself. I don't any more. Faith has got me through the last year and a half. To trust that God will take care of us no matter what is really hard. We have to have faith in Him and in Him alone.
In July, Eric lost all his benefits. That includes money and health insurance. We finally got the insurance back, but still fighting for the monies he is due. I went in June and got another job to help us get through the summer. My job at LCS is only for the school year. That has always been a blessing to us because of our kids. Especially with Matt having autism, being home helped. I worked the other job until I hurt my back there. Then had no choice but to quit. So the only income we have had coming in was from LCS. Not much, but every little bit helps.
I broke down and went and applied for food stamps. That was hard. It really puts you in your place. Embarrassing? Yep! Humiliating? Yep! But, I would do anything to help my family. It took 3 visits to finally get approved. Thank you God, we can eat! I was very happy! Now what is crazy to me is how much money they give you. More then I ever spend. But I am very thankful and I am stocking up. This won't last forever. I don't understand why others that really need don't go and apply. It is there for them.
So now we have food, some money and wait,how are we going to pay all our bills? I don't know. Anyone that knows me well, knows I pray a lot, about everything and for everybody. I often joke that God says...what up now Kimberlee! :) Well Lord, I need help.....my family needs help...lead me.
We got help from our church and folks we have never even met started helping us! God is amazing and we are so grateful! We live month to month not knowing, but trusting, having faith that God will take care of us.
I have to share this story, I love it! Here goes:
I was at work when one of my co-workers came and asked me how I was going to pay this months mortgage. I said, I don't know. She said, "what are you going to do, wait for a check to show up in the mail"? I said well, if that's what God means to happen, then yes. Sooooo.... I go home that day and check the mail and call my co-worker....hello ye of little faith...I giggle....she says.."shut up! really? A check? shut up!" Yes, enough to pay our mortgage. :) I have never met these folks and God did this. God is the one who lays it on our heart to help others. Apparently this person had told family and friends to send whatever money they were going to spend on him for Christmas and send it to him for our family. I hope I have that part of the story right. :)
I had a pastor ask me if I was embarrassed to share these stories. No I am not. If I don't share, yall won't know how God is helping us. How faithful He is. He is holding our family close and caring for us just as he does each of you reading this. I have no reason to be embarrassed. We did nothing wrong to be in this situation. It is just life. We all go through situations. Most of us don't know someone is hurting because folks don't talk about it. We cannot help each other if we don't know.
We are so thankful to all of you who are blessing our family each month. Eric and I have always tried to help others, something that we love doing. Makes us feel good. We have never been on the receiving end like this before. Our family is loved and we thank yall so much!
Our children will have a wonderful Christmas. Thanks to those who have bought them gifts. Warms my heart knowing that. :)
Merry Christmas and may God bless each of you this New Year! :)

Really????

Really??? I say that because I cannot believe more then a year since Eric's heart attack we are still stuggling. The crazy government has denied his SS disability cliam. Are you kdding me??? Their doctors even said he couldn't work again. Unreal. So, I have had to go apply for food stamps and thankfully got them. And have applied for Matt's SS. Never had to do that before. Trying to figure out how to survive without losing our home while waiting up to 18 months to appeal SS. And most of all, trying to keep our kids from knowing how bad things are. :( So far, they know nothing and please my friends and family, let's keep it that way. :)
Please continue to pray for our family. Especially Eric. I worry that the stress of everything that is going on could lead to more pain for him. We have been through a lot and we continue to keep a smile on our face and joy in our hearts! :)

Life

Well Eric seems to be doing great with his new device. He is feeling better every day. My sister Judy just had to have a stint put n. That was a surprise, since she just had 3 put in last October. Thankful that she listened to her body and friends... :) and got to the the hospital right away. I am job hunting for a summer job. Matt is in summer school and loving it. Katie is enjoying her summer vacation, spending time with her friends. She got her school of choice, thank you God! We were thrilled about that. She is going to be with her brother. First time we will have the kids at the same school. :)

I want to say thank you to everyone who sent money and deposited money into the Wells Fargo account. It has been a huge help. The Wells Fargo account is now closed. We are so thankful to all of our family and friends who have helped us out.

We are still awaiting the decision from AT&T on Eric's permanant disability. We will know on July 13th. Which is a year to the day that he had his massive heart attack. Please pray with us that he gets it. We really need to keep his health insurance. Not sure what it will do to our pay, because we keep hearing different things. We could lose half his pay or it will stay the same. Of course we pray to stay the same.

Thank yall again so much! Kimberlee :)

Praying

Well we have come to another bump in our road. Eric needs a difibrillator. This is suppose to be a comfort for us and it is. I think we were just hoping we would not need it. But it will help Eric if anything happens to him and for that we are very thankful.
Eric will also go on permanant disability. This will be life changing for us all. Eric has always been a very hard worker. I pray that he sees how much he is needed here. I really believe God is slowing him down to have more time with his family. The kids and I have loved having Eric home. He is such a huge help with the kids. He often asks me how I was doing it all. :) Hummm, I am a mom..... :) I will need to find a job for the summer. I pray I can stay at the school and find another job thats allows that to happen.
Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and support for our family. I will update in a couple of weeks. :)

Our story continues.....

Life at our house is always busy. Half the time I forget if I am suppose to be going to work or take Eric to a doctors appointment. And always towards the end of the school year, our kids lives get busy, which means, we get busier. :)
We had two doctor appointments last week. One with the heart doctor and one with the kidney doctor. The heart doctor wants to put a defibulator in Eric within the next two weeks. We were kinda expecting this, but in the back of my mind I was praying Eric wouldn't need it. But, it is a good thing. If something happens with Eric's heart, it will take over and shock him right away. The other thing the heart doctor said was that there is not enough oxygen getting to Eric's heart. He said it was not something that would lead them to open him up right yet, but something to watch. He really did not want to give us much info on that, but of course...if you bring it up, I want to know more. He said let's not worry about that just now and let's just get the defibulator in. Okay, you win doc...I will go google it. :)
I did....google it. Should have left well enough alone. :( It could cause another heart attack, so now I see the rush to get the defibulator in.
As I said before, at the end of the school year, things get busier. But it is also those things that take your mind off of other things. Matt had a field trip to the beach with his L.A.F.F. group from school. L.A.F.F. is: learning acceptance through fun and friends. I took the day off from work, I shouldn't have, because we really need the money right now. But some things are just way more important. :) We had a great time at the beach with these kids. They don't let their disabilities stop them from having fun and enjoying life. They are such a joy to watch. Their smiles are the biggest you'll ever see! :)
Katie and I went to see her friend Abbie in a play. Abbie was Peter Pan, her mom played the mom, her sister Hannah played an Indian and her sister Nastia played a lost boy. They were all amazing! How fun it was for Katie and I to get lost in Peter Pan's world for a couple of hours! :)
So life is busy, but life is good. Our God continues to surprise us and take care of us. We thank you all for being a part of our lives and this journey we our taking. Keep bending God's ears with your prayers! He is listening!