"EverGlades Santa"

When I asked Drew what he was doing in these pictures he said "I'm the Everglades Santa"...long pause...and then to himself "I'm thin and I have no beard". I thought it was pretty cute and imaginative. He used a laundry basket, the paper role from my "glue dots" (I had just finished hanging all the Christmas cards on our pantry door) and his stuffed alligator for his reindeer. :-)

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Can you believe it?

Looking at our sweet Abby Grace you would never guess that just 1 week ago she had such a major surgery!! All of the swelling is completely gone and she is doing GREAT!! Yea!! Thank you again for praying...God is so faithful and we are so thankful! She is even almost back to a normal sleep schedule...now if Lizzy would join her we'd be set!:-) Here she is today...



I thought I would show you what everybody else has been up to too...This morning Lizzy had a tea party with some of her "friends"...

Yesterday she was all dressed up and ready to go on our "date" to run errands...

Drew and Sam have been working hard on their "camouflage bomber"...

And mom and dad have just been trying to keep up with everybody. Brent is finished with his classes for the semester and is waiting to here what pharmacy he has been assigned to work at...so in the meantime we are trying to nurse everyone back to health and enjoy the beautiful weather we have been having. It has been upper 60's and low 70's this week. So that is nice:-) It's not always like that...last week it was in the 40's...so it does get "cool" sometimes too. Hard to believe its Christmas next week. We are ready to celebrate!! Thanks again for praying...we love you! 

Thankful heart...

Yes, I have an overwhelming thankful heart for so many things right now...I wanted to share them with you all...

Thank you Lord for protecting, healing, watching over, and caring for Abby Grace during her surgery and recovery...

Thank you Faith E Free for your loving support, prayers and financial help during this trying time in our lives. Thank you too, for preparing us by faithfully teaching us the Word of God which has helped us to walk by faith and trust in the Lord at all times...

Thank you Howard and Jeanne Hendricks for your wonderful doctor referrals. Wow! What wonderful help we have received...we are so thankful that you knew who to connect us with to help Abby get the care and help that she needed...

Thank you family of God for your prayers! Wow what a privledge prayer is and what miraculous things happen when His people pray...

Thank you mom for watching the other kiddos and taking care of things around our home while we were with Abby...

Thank you friends at the seminary for your prayers, gifts, and encouraging words...we truly feel blessed to be here and have been overwhelmed by the "family" feel we have felt here...

Thank you to Brent's Greek class for always checking in on him, for praying for us and for your kind gifts that you gave to our family...

Thank you to whoever left the "anonymous" gifts left by our door and in our mail box...

Thank you to my homeschool friends for the wonderful care package of food and goodies that you delivered to the hospital on the day of Abby's surgery...and for helping our family to feel a part of the community with your friendships

Thank you to the families who have brought our family such wonderful and delicious meals this past week...

Thank you to the bible study group that last night "showered" our family with gifts for Christmas...what an unexpected and overwhelming blessing that was to us...

Thank you family and friends for your kind words, notes of encouragement, gifts, and love...we love you too...

Thank you Dr. Fearon, Dr. Sacco, Cindy, and Dr. Blakely, for taking such wonderful care of our baby girl. We are forever grateful for your giftedness and the careful attention that you paid to our Abby...

Thank you to Dr. Lunn and Dr. Blair for being such great pediatricians...

Thank you Drew, Sam, and Lizzy for being such great big brothers and sister to Abby...and for the JOY you bring to my life...you are all such wonderful gifts...you too Abby...

Thank you Brent and daddy for the wonderfully beautiful white roses that you brought to Abby and I in the hospital...and for the nice card...our little girl is blessed to have a daddy that cares so much for her and I am blessed to have a husband that knows what will encourage my heart when it is heavy...

And finally thank you Jesus...for coming to this earth...for being our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Our Prince of Peace...for your death and resurrection...for making a relationship with God possible by paying the price for our sin. We love you and want to live our lives for You!! Thank you Jesus!

Merry Christmas and THANK YOU!!!

Friday night update...

Hey there wonderful people:-)

Abby is continuing to do so well!! In fact, she can see again! Yea!!! I felt so bad for her not being able to see from her swollen eyes, but tonight she is able to open them both up. It is nice to see those bright blue eyes again! She likes it too...she loves to smile back at everyone. It will be a few weeks before the other swelling completely goes away. She is also pretty pale, but as her blood levels build back up, she will regain her color. And she may get more black and blue...but for now we are just so glad that she can see again!

The other kiddos are doing good too. They are glad to have mom and sister home again...and tonight they were so glad she could see. They kept saying "I think that eye is more open" or "They are almost the same open now" and thikngs like that. I think it kind of bothered them that she couldn't, but we kept reassuring them that it would happen. It is so nice to be home again and to be all together!:-) The other kiddos are fighting a cold, so we have been trying to keep from spreading the germs to Abby. Lots of hand sanitizing and washing and wiping down things being down by this mama and papa!

Grandma and Grandpa are here with us now, so the older kids have been having fun playing with them. It was rainy here today...we even had a little thunder and lightning, so they spent the afternoon downstairs playing "Flippin Frogs" and "Uno". They like having their grandparents here:-)

Here are some pictures we took of Abby tonight with her eyes newly opened!! Thank you for praying for her!! Thank you for the wonderful meals too...what a blessing they have been! Thanks for the gifts and encouraging notes that have been sent our way...we are so incredibly thankful to be so well cared for. 

We're Home!!

Hey all! It is about 11pm on Thursday and we are home!! I can hardly believe it. The pictures above are us leaving the hospital. Dr. Fearon told us today that her swelling and everything were completely normal and there was no reason that we couldn't go home! So here we are...thank you for praying for us.

Abby is doing great. She doesn't look that great, but she doesn't look so bad either. Her entire head and neck are REALLY swollen. Her eyes are completely swollen shut and they are black and blue. So when she is awake, she is sometimes a little agitated I think because she cannot see. Tonight for awhile though she laid here and smiled and cooed...which was So fun to see!!

My heart is completely overwhelmed with thankfulness to our Heavenly Father. Psalm 34 pretty much sums up how I am feeling...I will just share with you the beginning here and some of the verses in the middle...(you can read the entire Psalm yourself:-))

"I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the Lord; the humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me, And let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me, And delivered me from all my fears....The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them. O taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!...The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry...The righteous cry and the Lord hears And delivers them from all of their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers him out of them all..."

Over these last weeks and months the Lord has heard my cry, been with me through the pain and delivered me from my fears! Praise the Lord!! My heart has been broken...but never without Hope! Isn't this the life of a mother? Parent? I am so thankful I have a loving Heavenly Father there to walk with me through those times of heartache and rejoice with me in the times of sweetness...and somehow, sometimes, these two things (heartache and rejoicing) are possible at the same time. Right now would be one of those times for me. Thank you again for your prayers...we are forever grateful!!! 

Wednesday night update...

Hey again-

Abby is still doing great! We were transferred out of PICU at 3:00pm today. She may even go home tomorrow. Whoa! But that is great. She has been nursing well and sleeping in between. Her swelling has gotten a quite a bit worse, but as I said before we expected this. It is all a normal part of having this type of surgery done. Isn't it amazing that they can do this! I am still just so overwhelmed with thankfulness...it seems as though I have cried much more today. I am for ever grateful to The Lord for the care he has provided to the children He has given us to take care of. Thank you Jesus. We love you all!! I cannot even express just how thankful I am for all of your prayers...so I guess I will just keep telling you!!:-)

Abby update...

Hey all! I am thrilled to say that Abby is doing awesome! She nursed well this morning and as I type is being unhooked from all of her lines. Her blood levels stayed up, so she hasn't needed any transfusions. She will have her blood checked again now and if the levels haven't dropped she will not need them checked again! This would mean NO transfusions:-) Yeah!!

And she looks AMAZING. Wow. The incision is so perfect and so "well stitched"...its just amazing. It is fun that they didn't shave her head too...she just looks great! She is pretty swollen, but we expected this and it will go down with time. In 3 weeks or so it will be mostly gone.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Lord! And thank you, thank you, thank you for praying!! Here are a few snapshots...

Abby's doing so great!

Hey everybody!

I am thankful to say that Abby is doing great! When we walked into the room we couldn't believe how much she looked like Elizabeth. Her facial shape has changed a lot. What a miracle that they can even do this. Thank you again for all of your prayers and encouragement. We are so overwhelmed at God's goodness and faithfulness. I am so glad that He knows what is best and we can rest in that. It is no wonder He had us come here now...and not later. What great care Abby received today! Thank you Thank you Thank you for praying for our sweet little girl.

The next 48 hours Abby will swell up incredibly. This will last for a few weeks. I don't think I will post any new pictures tonight...but tomorrow I will try to put some on again. If all continues to go well with her healing, she will probably go home Friday.

We are SO thankful! Thank you Jesus...we love you!

She's back...

Hey there you all she is back from surgery! Yeah, praise the Lord!!:-)
They should be coming anytime to take us to see her...we already spoke to the doctors and they said that everything went great! We are so thankful for them and for all of you prayers. So far she has not needed any transfusions. they will monitor her overnight, as there is a possibility that she still may. I am SO excited to see her...I should say we are so excited to see her. Thank you for praying for us! We love you! Jaci and Brent

She's doing great...

We just checked in and they are doing great! They were doing the bone grafting now. Her bleeding is normal (not abnormally high)...so far so good:-) They told us it would be about 1.5 more hours. We'll keep you posted...thanks for praying!

Written at 6:15pm

Abby's on her way...

Hey all...they took her from my arms at 3:35pm. So she is on her way to being prepped for surgery. Our anesthesiologist, Katie Blakely, met with us and said though she has already had a long day she is feeling "unusually" full of energy. What an affirmation this small comment was to Brent and I...thank you for praying...the doctors are at their best:-) Dr. Fearon met with us upstairs too (about an hour ago) and said he was feeling great...along with Dr. Sacco. So now we just wait to hear. They asked us to call at 5:00pm for our first update. Hopefully by then the surgery will have started. About 3 hours is the expected surgery time.

Thank you so much for praying! Abby has been absolutely perfect while we have been waiting. For a baby that hasn't eaten anything since 7am, she has been incredibly content and smiley. What an incredible family to be a part of...we appreciate all of your prayers so much and we'll keep you posted as we know anything! Love, Jaci and Brent

Here are some pictures from today...the one at the top is Abby and I before they took her...still so happy:-)...Written at 3:40pm

We're Still Waiting...

We are still waiting for Abby's turn for surgery...the family of the other little girl Addison, who is being operated on before Abby, said that her surgery just got started. I guess they had trouble getting all of her lines hooked up... So that means it will probably be a few hours, in the mean time you can pray for little Addison. Abby hasn't eaten since 7am...so I am not sure what they will let us do. She has been perfect to this point, so just pray that this continues! We are doing well...just really ready to go!! I will be able to let you all know when they get started or shortly after...Love, Jaci

Written at 12:40PM

Twas the Day Before Surgery...

...And a good day it was. It was a day full of appointments...but not without smiles:-).

Abby was measured and poked and weighed and examined (by many)...but as you can see she was still happy as can be tonight:-)

Abby did great (mom and dad did too:-)) and she looked so cute in her new jogging suit from grandma. She received many compliments throughout the day!


We feel blessed and encouraged by the care that Abby will receive tomorrow. She will be in great hands...first the hands of Our Heavenly Father and second in the "hands" of those that He hand-picked to do her surgery. We are truly thankful! We will keep you posted...thanks for your prayers! Keep them coming...I know Abby will be forever grateful...along with her mom and dad.

Love, The Jackson's

It's beginning to look a lot like...

...FALL...everywhere I go!!


Yes, for us North Dakotans we are in amazement that it is December 7 and we are still having 75 degree days. The forecast says 80 tomorrow. The last I checked that was about a 65-70 temperature difference from Grand Forks. For those of you from home reading this...at least you have the pretty snow!:-) You can visit us ANY time:-)

Here are some of our "fall" pictures from last week. The leaves are just now turning and beginning to fall off. It is sort of strange...but that is not a complaint!!