I am Not the Mother I wanted to be....

I read this post on Books and Bairns this morning. http://booksandbairns.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-am-not-mother-i-wanted-to-be.html

It so hit home with me and I wanted to share it with you guys. I had never really "planned" on being a mom. I was too selfish at the time to consider sharing any kind of time, money, emotions with someone else and I was also 19. Thank God, He had better plans for me. There are many days I long to have an even larger family and the next second think, "What am I thinking?" I so enjoy my children and the lessons God teaches me through them. I am so thankful that I can trust God to prepare me for them. As she stated in her blog, "These guys are awesome. I can't imagine how boring life would be without every single one of them."

God has tremendously blessed our family! Each one of us uniquely made to fit in together and to learn and grow from one another. As hard as some days may be I would not change one thing except that I would show more grace to my kids when it does get tough. Have a great day and hug those kiddoes!! If you don't have children yet....contemplate the mom you want to be and then pray for God's guidance and wisdom to make you that much greater!

Great Wolf Weekend!!

Okay, I know I am posting twice in one day...I is a miracle!! =D Clay's birthday was the 19th. I decided to do something for him other than saying he could play golf...(which I don't mind him doing anytime anyways). I asked dad to help me out too. Dad made a tee time for the Tour 18 in Dallas. After that I arranged for them to meet us at the Great Wolf Lodge. For those of you that have not been to a Great Wolf Lodge here is a link. It is fabulous!!! http://www.greatwolf.com/ So Saturday Clay played golf with Dad and Matt. Then they met up with Mom, Christian, Cullen, Clara, and I. Candy (Matt's wife) met up with us that evening after she attended her cousin's graduation. We had such a great time!! We had two rooms. We stayed in one room and Matt, Candy, Meemaw and Pawpaw camped out in the other room. We played in the park until 9 (closing time) then we headed upstairs to get cleaned up and headed back downstairs to look around and get dessert. Here is a pic of the front of the hotel that Candy took.

R to L: Matt, Cullen, and Pawpaw in the lobby.

The next day we woke up, had breakfast, and hit the waterpark again. Clara loves the water. We both rode the lazy river for close to 2 hours. She ended up falling asleep in it. She could have stayed in there all day long!! She also LOVED the wave pool. I am putting some videos up so you need to check up at the top right hand corner to see if they are loaded yet. She ended up losing her balance in the first video and falling underneath the water. I was so worried that she would be all upset and choked up. After Clay yanked her up quickly....she wiped her face off, choked a couple times and then was off again as seen in the second video. She did not want us bothering her at all. We were just in her way....LOL =D The boys LOVE the park so much and ride EVERYTHING. Our favorite ride is the red one. It is a dark tunnel and 4 can ride at once. It ends up opening up into an enclosed cave-type area where you go up and down on the walls and then shoot back into a tunnel and then into the end pool. It is scary and GREAT!!! They also have the toilet bowl ride which is a blast too!! As you can tell by the pics.....the boys were off to ride whatever thus no pics!! I went back and stole some pics from Candy!! Thanks Candy!!

The HUGE bucket starts dinging as it gets ready to dump no tellin' how many gallons of water on the big water playground. It is GREAT!!! I will try to upload a video of it or better yet you can look on YouTube and search Great Wolf Lodge and see videos of it happening.

These are the slides as they exit the building and then end up back inside. The yellow and red one is the scary one...FANTASTIC!!

It was very crowded this time. We have gone before in the winter and it was fantastic. It was like we had the place to ourselves. We would prefer it that way when we go again.

Friday park & Friends

Friday we went to park day. Our homeschool group has park day every Friday but unfortunately often we miss them because we are trying to get everything done. Well, this Friday we were able to make it. I was so glad because I can have time to talk with the mom's and the kids have their time to play. Wanda and her kids made it!! I was so happy b/c we have the hardest time trying to "find" time to get together. We both have busy schedules and this Friday worked out perfectly. Wanda had a client so her kiddoes were able to ride home with us and swim until Wanda could come and pick them up. Wanda and I even had time to chat and hang out. Not long enough but better than nothin'!! Chandler is the oldest and only daughter, Brennan and then Evan. Here are some shots from swim day. At the park I talked Chandler into doing some quick cornrows. I wish I would have known I would have had more time and I would have been able to do them smaller and neater. Here is a shot of a quick do....I did it in 20-30 minutes. I pulled it back with the rest of her hair into a pony tail. It was nice to practice on someone who actually sat still for me.....LOL Thanks Chandler!!! =D I will fix you up for your swim lessons if you still want me to.

I was trying to get all of them to pose for me.....

We are ready to do it again!!

Christian's 14th Birthday, Jimmer's visit, and Melissa and Sara visit too!!

May 9th was Christian's 14th birthday. I cannot believe my little boy is 14!! Time flies entirely too fast. I remember when he was born like yesterday and I don't remember it like 14 YEARS ago. God absolutely blessed me with my Christian. He is the reason my faith started to grow stronger and stronger. It started out very slowly but as soon as I saw Christian I KNEW there was a God. The questions were gone. I was only 19 when he arrived but man did God know just what I needed. Through the poor decisions I had been making God saw fit to use my poor judgement to grow me into the strong Christian woman I am today. Finding out I was pregnant with Christian was one of the toughest trials in my life. I did not have a clue what I was going to do or where I was going to end up. Never in a million years could I have prayed for such goodness in my life as of today. Christian came into my life weighing 7 lbs 9 oz and then almost 18 months or so later God saw it fit to bless me again!! That is when Clay followed....we married when Christian was 2 and he adopted him soon after in April. God has blessed me multiple times and beyond measure really since then. I have since been blessed with Cullen and now Clara. I never dreamed God could have made my life so wonderful.....a true fairy tale! I don't know what the future holds but I am giving it all to God. He has done a WONDERFUL job so far and I know I cannot even pray for such greatness!!! You go God!!! You are the MAN!! Thanks for blessing my life more than I ever could have deserved!! Here are some shots of celebrating the wonderful blessing that is CHRISTIAN!!

We headed out to Meemaw and Pawpaw's to celebrate the day. We brought Blake, Madison, KK and Josh along with us and met up with Tanner and the other Star boys who live next to Meemaw and Pawpaw. It was a glorious day and the weather could not have been more perfect. If you cannot tell his birthday cake is supposed to resemble an iPod Touch which he wanted. He has since bought one with his saveings and birthday money. The cake was "Too Much Chocolate" Cake from http://www.allrecipes.com/ with chocolate buttercream frosting.

The guys enjoyed tubing. The Stars ended up getting their boat out which is better able to handle more than the waverunner. Their boat got all 3 innertubes hooked up so all the kids could ride at one time. They had a BLAST!! We followed them in Pawpaw's barge.

You think Blake is lovin' it?? I can hear him screaming now.

Madison is barely hanging on. Madison lives 2 houses down from us. Christian and her also take gymnastics together. You can tell they are gymnasts by looking at those arms!!

Clara rode the wave runnre with Daddy. She was almost falling asleep on it.


Christian, Madison, KK, blake, and Josh on one of the tubes.

We had 2 captains on our voyage while watching all the kids tube. Clara helped Pawpaw drive the boat and also learned how to honk the horn!! She loved honking the horn over, and over, and over and over, and over (you get the idea) again. =D




The beautiful sunset!

Jamie (Jimmer) came in to visit!! Jamie is Casey's (Mike's wife/my sister-in-law) sister. She was trying out for the Women's Olympic hockey team again and did not make it this time around. She won bronze in 2006!!! =D God has different plans for her. It was nice to talk to her and hang out with her even though it was too short! Here are a few shots from her visit.

Meemaw took the boys tubing again and this time with it being just the two of them they caught some major air!!! Then they went alone and went even higher!!! I posted some videos on YouTube so check the videos up at the top of the blog on the right-hand side. It is amazing!! They had a blast!! Jimmer went tubing with the guys too. I think she enjoyed herself and wore herself out at the same time. ;)

I know, I know...I am cramming a LOT into this post. My cousin, Melissa, came in to visit this past week too. She had her daughter, Sara, almost a week after Clara was born. I remember being in the hotel room with Clara in Utah when I got the call from my mom that Melissa had her baby too. Melissa is legally blind and Sara's dad is too. I cannot tell you how proud I am of Melissa and what a wonderful mom she seems to be. It is most impressive to watch her care for Sara and to love her so well!! I enjoyed the visit Melissa and hope to do more of it in the near future! They live in Oklahoma and are a good drive from us. Her dad or mom has to pick her up and drive her back down for visits and then back home again. So to say visits are not often enough is an understatement. Sara is a sweetie and I don't think she knows a stranger. She would just come to us and cuddle with us. Clara could learn a thing or two from her in loving others and not just hanging on Mom's leg.....=D ( I wouldn't change it for anything. I always said I wanted at least one of our kids to be a Momma's girl and I got it!!!) I am downloading video of Sara and Clara playing in the pool. It is taking forever but should be up sometime tonight and fairly soon I would hope. It is too cute to watch the two of them together. Just check the top right-hand corner of our videos to view it.

Jampa's 87th Birthday

Yesterday was Jampa's 87th birthday. We were invited to celebrate his birthday at his house on the lake. We wouldn't have missed it!! We really enjoyed the evening. Jampa has a caregiver named Dorothy. She had helped out before with Mamie before she passed away. Jampa could use some help at home so Dorothy is back. She cooked a wonderful roast for everyone and everyone else just brought some of Jampa's favorites. Jampa loves food...so Robin (his daughter) brought Red Lobster biscuits, his new daughter-in-law, Debbie, brought a squash casserole and we brought Key Lime Pie cupcakes, while Kathy (Taffy) brought her great pineapple pies. It was a great evening! Here are some pics from the party.

This first pic is from left to right....Aunt Robin, Uncle David Mac, Kathy (Taffy) and Papa Dave. Jampa is the handsome man in the middle looking wonderful at 87!!Clay's cousin, Dustin, and his wife are building a house right next door so the kids had a blast in the dirt. They are also expecting their first baby!! Woo Hoo!! I cannot wait for them to experience how awesome it is to be parents!! Here are the 3 cousin living it up in the mud!! In the first pic notice KK is actually in the process of sliding through the mud!!

Christian is lobbing a handful at KK. Here are the aftermath pics of the dirt wars!!
Clara went for a quick dip too. She actually was the first one in. She loves the water!!

Here is a view from the deck from the house. It is really beautiful!
I was able to get in some shots of Clara in the flowers. Here are a few of my favorites.

Okay..so Clara is not in this one but I loved the shot of the flower with the lake in the background.
I also fixed Clara's hair up for our big weekend. It is of course Mother's Day on Sunday, but better yet......drum roll please!! My first baby is turning 14 on Saturday!! Yes, Christian will be 14 YEARS OLD!! Time flies!! We plan on celebrating this occasion at Meemaw and Pawpaw's house inner-tubing to his heart's content with a handful of friends and family! I think he is wanting to make his own cake so we will see how that turns out. =D

Here are some shots of Clara's hair from this evening. The white in her free hair is from conditioner. She was about to go to sleep. I made cornrow bangs and then made some cornrows to the midpart and then put them in two small pony tails held by the barrettes. I am very pleased with it. I am amazed at my baby girl's patience with me while I try to get faster and better with her hair. She seems to fair better when she is sleepy. For the most part she sat still for almost 2 hours while she watched some of her shows and then had blueberries and popcorn.

Both boys go for eye appointments tomorrow. We are hoping that they will be able to get contacts. This should be an adventure. I will try to post about it tomorrow but I know things are about to get busy, busy with this weekend coming up.