Surgery this Tuesday!

We wanted to show you these cute and fairly recent pictures of our children and ask you to please be praying for us, especially Noah, as we head to Augusta on Monday for his surgery on Tuesday. We have to be at the hospital at 11am, and his appendectomy will begin shortly thereafter. They expect him to only be in the hospital for one or two nights - we've never stayed such a short time in the hospital with Noah, so this seems like a real treat!! We have some specific prayer requests:

• that Noah will be content to only eat and drink clear liquids on Tuesday morning and nothing at all after 9am...he LOVES his juice and we need for him to forget it during those few hours!
• that the surgery will go smoothly, just as the doctors expect it to, and that God will guide their hands and instruments as they remove his appendix. They should be able to do the surgery laparoscopically, and that is what we're praying for - his recovery time should be much shorter this way.
• here's a Mommy request: that he would not experience much pain or fear or any other thing that a little guy shouldn't have to experience! I'm thankful beyond measure that his IV will be started AFTER he's anesthetized - his veins didn't cooperate very well last time and starting IVs was the yuckiest part of his whole hospital stay in December!

Our family has requested prayer so much in the last 18-months! We truly appreciate your love and generosity in holding us up to the Lord. We are certain that we all are here, healthy and strong, due to God's great mercy in answering your prayers and the prayers of many others. Noah will have such a story to tell one day, won't he?

At Matthew's suggestion, we enjoyed a night out last night by going to Red Robin as a family (it was really yummy!) and then wandering around Barnes and Noble. Well, you only wandered if you happened to NOT be in charge of Noah at any given time...if you were in charge of him, you raced through the store, whispering apologies to the poor patrons that Noah whizzed past as he giggled and squealed. It was fun for us...but I'm sure that store will never be the same! Matthew wanted us to have a fun night out before being stuck in the hospital for a while, and it was a much needed break away from home for us.

I'll post again as soon as I can on Tuesday to try to keep everyone up to date with what's going on. Thanks again for praying!

Love,

Ashley, Matthew, Noah and the girls

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