Pumpkin Patch and Josiah's Dedication

If you read my last post, I don't want to leave you feeling down.  :) Our house may be a mess, but it has forced us to spend more time outside!
This past weekend, we went to the KC Pumpkin Patch.  So we never really made it to the actual pumpkin patch, but the boys had a great time with all the other activities there.

They rode a train, played in the corn box and sand box (their favorites), went down countless slides, and Joel led us through a huge corn maze.

On Sunday, we dedicated Josiah at our church.  Before the dedication, we celebrated with a delicious brunch with Tim's family at Paulo and Bill's.  With full tummies, we pledged before our families to raise Josiah in a Godly manner and to teach him about our Savior. 

 Josiah's name means "The Lord Helps" and his life verse is Psalm 37:39-40.

 "The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord; he is their stronghold in time of trouble.  

The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, 

because they take refuge in him."

We got a few family shots too!

And no event is complete without a trip to the playground.  

House Troubles

I am so behind on my blogging, I don't even know where to start!  I guess I'll just start with our current situation.  For those who need an update, the day before we left for Phil and Orah's wedding, I discovered standing water on my kitchen floor.  We realized it had something to do with our refrigerator, so we turned off the water to the fridge, cleaned up what we could and left it until we got back in town.
When we returned, we filed an insurance claim and soon figured out that it was WAY worse than what we expected.  Our entire basement bathroom had to be torn down to the studs, a chunk of our wood flooring in the kitchen will have to be replaced, and they found mold in the kitchen cabinets.
The mold news is the most devastating since insurance usually does not cover mold remediation and their original estimate for just that part was $7000 (out of our pocket)!  Now our insurance is sending us mixed messages - was told by one agent on Friday that it should be covered and then told to call another number for specifics....who sent us back to the agent.  We are praying that we will hear good news in the next few days so that we can move on with the process.
Our insurance did pay for a company to come out to dry the bathroom and the kitchen floors.  We did not have use of our kitchen for 5 1/2 days!  We had to eat out for almost every meal during that time....and I cannot explain how difficult (and expensive) that is with 3 small kiddos.  I used to dream about eating out once in a while and now I want to gag just thinking about it.  :)  They finally removed everything from our kitchen this afternoon and the silence is amazing.

This is only the beginning.  Please be praying that our insurance will be more generous in this process and that we (especially me!) will have patience.