Honor where Honor is due.

OK, everyone, now is the time that I am going to give honor where honor is due and then I will (hopefully) be able to quench my desire to tell everyone when I see them what a phenomenal dentist and artist Doug Milner is!!!! Here is the story:
My wonderful son Nolen was invited to a skating birthday for a friend at the local ice skating rink. Now, the main reason that I know that Nolen is so obviously Scott's son is that he can start any athletic activity and within moments he will master it and then begin to add more rules to make it more interesting, this applied to ice skating on this particular day. He hadn't skated in I don't know how long, and was doing REALLY well less than an hour into it. Well, a friend of his was not faring so well and Nolen went over to help him up and just as he and Nolen were standing up he fell again and Nolen went face first into the hard, cold ice. When he looked up relief filled Nolen's 8year old brain when he realized that he had not just lost his front tooth, just chipped it. Well when he came over to me (I was standing on the sidelines) a white hot feeling burst through me when I saw Nolen, I gave him a hug and said, "Hey buddy, what happened?" on the outside but on the inside I was crying for my son. side note . . . Scott and I have been working with Nolen and his singing for months now, and he has just gotten to the point where he is confident in the voice that God has given him and he SINGS OUT. He has a wonderful sweet voice that has at times brought tears to my eyes. I was afraid that his singing days were over.
Nolen's front tooth was *only* chipped, but it was chipped in half with a jagged point on the right side. The Lord was so gracious to us at this particular moment and emblazoned the Milner's home phone number across my mind. Now the fact of this is remarkable, because I haven't called the Milner's at home in years. Moments after I left a message Doug called me back and graciously agreed (on the Sabbath!!!! no less) to meet us and evaluate Nolen to see if he needed to do something that night or if he could wait until the morning. Now that he would consider rebuilding a front tooth by himself on his day off is amazing, but on a moments notice. Well, after meeting us and looking at it he concluded that it could wait until morning, and that he would call us later and let us know what time we should come in the next morning.
At 8:30ish the next morning we walked into the office and at 10:am we walked out. Nolen with a new tooth that noone has been able to tell was completely reconstructed. Doug added layer upon layer and matched every imperfection. It looks the same as the tooth beside it. In preparation for this procedure God directed Doug to a conference in California where he practiced doing this very thing a mere 2 months before. There are so many things that I have come to realize about Nolen since this happened. And how God loves him and is watching out for him.
#1 ~ God's plan is perfect. Nolen is the type of boy that will help a friend out no matter what happens to him. He is kind and self sacrificial. He is not vain.
#2 ~ It could be worse. Nolen was relieved that he hadn't lost his whole tooth. What kind of 8 year old thinks this way?!?!? He didn't cry because of the relief of that thought. He didn't draw attention to himself looking for pity he was just Nolen. Steady, calm, patient.
#3 ~ God will provide all that we need every step of the way. Where did that number come from?? Trust me I have not memorized the entire Trinity church directory or even a small part of it. I don't even know my closest friends phone #'s. I have a cell phone don't I? That is fodder for another post altogether.
#4 ~ I need to be more like my calm patient husband (and son). When I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible to get it fixed. Nolen wanted to get out and skate some more with his friends and have cake, general party hoo ha. And Scott, he patiently squeegeed the entire rink and scooped up all of the debris into a bucket and melted it down looking for Nolen's tooth. Talk about looking for a needle in a hay stack!
#5 ~ Everything that's important can be fixed, or cleaned up or reconstructed. When Doug looked at what remained of Nolen's tooth instead of a sharp intake of breath or a "Oh MY!!" he said, "Oh, yea we can fix that.". WOW. I am not sure if that response was due to the fact that Doug has been a dentist for so long that he has seen everything, so a boy with a jagged and halved front tooth is really not a big deal OR because he himself has 5 children and has seen it all and so it really was not a big deal or because Doug has been a Christian long enough that he know it is really not a big deal.

I am in no way saying that Nolen is perfect, but he is indeed growing in grace, and it is good to see it. It is so wonderful to see the fruit of a tree that we have been watering for years. And it is good.

Me and Mom on the trolley taking us back to our car. This was at the Animal Attraction in Homosassa Florida. Don't we look hot! (Temperature wise of course.)

Another picture in the Ole' coffee shop.

We went to Leavenworth when my mom was in town, and it was freeeezing outside. So we stopped in this little coffee shop and defrosted. This it little t-bone and mom.

Here is a picture of the fam during Christmas time.

Merry Christmas 2007

Merry Christmas 2007!!
Well, another year has come and gone, and here I am, once again typing out our yearly update/thankful letter. I am happy to report that this year has been a really good year for us. The best thing being the birth of our sweet little Nadia Elese on September 12th. She is in the 50th percentile in height and weight, extremely joyful and so gorgeous!! We all love her and the biggest battle is who gets to hold her now.
When we started the year we were home schooling Nolen and Emma and we loved it. It was great to have all of the time with them working together. I started to feel drained and soon realized that I was expecting and that I was not going to get immediately better. My doctor relayed that I was severely vitamin deficient and would have to start taking weekly injections and that should make me feel better. It did, but the weight of accomplishing everything and being pregnant and having a little one under 2 was weighing heavily on us, so we decided to put Nolen and Emma in The River Academy (the school that Scott works at) and the adapted immediately. God has clearly given us the most easy going kiddos ever. They jumped right in without any problems, made friends and finished up a great year. What a blessing the River Academy has been to us and our children!!! Did I mention that at that same time Nolen turned 8!? I can’t believe that we have been parents for 8 years. We all then piled on the plane in mid June, and went to Florida for a month to spend some much needed time with Scott’s family and to celebrate Emma’s 6th birthday and Mia’s 4th birthday ( Emma woke up that morning and declared, “I can’t believe I’m SIX! I love being SIX!”). We connected with a church right down the road from Scott’s mom’s house and the children went to their first EVER VBS. They made some great friends and so did we. We went out fishing with Scott’s grandpa and shopped with Scott’s mom and just in general had a great time. We ate a lot of fresh seafood and a lot of Scott’s grandma and uncle’s home cooking (!!!!), Scott killed a snake ( ask him about the event next time you see him)and we spent a lot of time with family. We came back with only a month and a half before school started, so Scott started serious intense prep work for his new classes that he would be teaching. We wiggled back into our life in Wenatchee by having LOTS of BBQ’s and eating more than our fare share of Scott’s famous burgers. In mid-August Titus turned a whopping 2-years-old . My parents and sister came out to Wenatchee to help at the end of August and stayed until mid-September after Nadia was born and it was an adventure for us all. We played Nertz until all hours of the night while laughing hysterically, went on walks and drank our weight in Frapitas. Did I mention that Nadia was born (like a true teacher’s child and grandchild,) on the first day of school? My parents then came out again to help us celebrate Nadia’s baptism. We had over 100 people over for a huge Baptismal Celebration thrown for my sweet babe by her loving and adoring father in true Welch fashion. This was definitely one for the books. Enter Robin Bowe. With a new baby and the hairy pick up and drop off schedule of having 3 children at the River I needed help. So Robin Bowe, one of Scott’s former students (and an amazing singer), volunteered to help us by picking Mia up after pre-K while she was waiting to leave for Brazil on a Rotary exchange. It was such a help to us and we will be eternally thankful to her for it. We spent another wonderful Thanksgiving week with Scott’s mom.
In short it has been another wonderful and eventful year in the Welch household and the Lord has blessed us richly with laughter and many songs!
Well, I hope you are all doing well. We look forward to hearing how you are doing in your Christmas letter !
Blessings~
Scott, Jen, Nolen, Emma, Mia, Titus and Nadia

Praise be to the Lord our God of Israel because he has come and as redeemed his people!
Luke 1:68

Being a creative and domestic post modern

I do not want to be as post modern as I am. I WANT to bake bread for my family daily and knit and create beautiful things to give as gifts. Yikes. My family likes store bought bread better for sandwiches and toast. I have been taught by my mom to knit many times, but have yet to really get it. I was using my hubby's IPOD to surf the web to find instructions on how to knit and having a lot of difficulty knitting. Argh.

Posting Away!

This is it! The first Post ever. We are in the midst of excitement here at Hedge Parke. Nolen and Emma stayed home from school today due to sore throats and now they are ready to do SOMETHING. They all slept for most of the day and so I tried to get stuff done around here, but when do I ever have that much time on my hands during the middle of the day?!?! I had no idea what to do so I . . . made Christmas cookies and finished up some of my Christmas cards. I need to keep a running list of. Things to do that do not involve cleaning or laundry. I LOVE to have the laundry done and the house beautiful, and I think of ways to do these two things better even in my sleep. I often wake up with my day laid out in front of me and ready to go, but those are the days of my sanctification, God will often have a better plan.

We are working through Advent with the children and I love how it is going. Though still a work in progress, we are all enjoying it.

Nolen broke his front tooth in half on Sunday at a friend's ice skating party. He was helping a friend of his up that was having a rough time of it, as he was about to stand him up he pulled Nolen down face first on the ice. Nolen responded in true Nolen form and was not only gracious to his friend, by not getting mad, but didn't cry either. WOW. The next morning we met Doug Milner DDS at his office and he completely reconstructed Nolen's front tooth. He did an artistic job. I saw a picture of Nolen before the accident and I couldn't even tell the difference. Great Job Dr Milner!!