Forty Two- Strong as Glue

Well that is the best rhyme I could come up with for Greg's age. The other choices that rhymed with "2" were: blue, poo, new, jew. Nothing else seemed to work or seemed appropriate.

The is a new year and a new way of celebrating. Like so many others we have felt a bit of the financial crunch and so things are a little tight. Therefore, for Greg's birthday we decided to be creative using our minds instead of our pocket books. For me this does not come naturally. Not that much does when I truly think about it.

So after some good thought I decided to create a slide show of pictures of his life over the last 42 years put to a copulation of timely songs. It seemed like a pretty easy thing to do, but being that I am not the technical goddess that I think I am it took much more effort than I had anticipated. Making it a labor of love. I give thanks to God for his never ending forgiveness and grace over my children during that week. It was not pretty and I was definitely not winning any awards for the mom of the year. But we are passed that now and all if forgotten, I hope!!

I really had a blast creating it and the kids seem to really enjoy the end result. They all wanted to watch it over and over. I think I however enjoyed it the most finding so many precious pictures that we had of his life that I didn't even know existed. They are treasures for sure. I was able to find several of him and his father when he was just a lad climbing trees, playing with electric car tracks, and fishing. They are priceless memories that neither one of them remembered. So were the pictures that I found of Greg from the 80's with his big bad hair and cut off shirts. There weren't too many I could incorporate for many of them included too many alcoholic advertisements. In years to come I might be able to use them for a scared straight video, but the kids are all to young for now. I think if Greg and I had a show off of big hair, he might have won. I am not sure who was laughing louder me or all the kids put together. Now that I think about it maybe I laughed a little too loud. Here it was to be a sweet slide show down memory lane for him and I turned it into some sort of a roast. Actually it did turn out quite sweet. I only hope Greg found it to be a sentimental gift filled with both laughter and cherished moments of his life.

I am so amazed by this man I been blessed to be married to. That after all these years he is still the man of my dreams. He truly gets better with age and I am so thankful to be the one he comes home to. He is my glue- my super glue, always keeping our family strong, safe, secure and fixed on what matter's the most in life - God, family and friends!!

Thank you Father God for your precious gift of Greg in our lives as a husband, father, friend, and son. We are all the better because he is in our lives.

Bio-Adopted is there a difference?

The other day I caught myself reacting to Parker's attitude a little more sternly than I had with Reagan who had just committed the same crime. It got me to ponder do I treat both Parker and Helena differently. I tell myself and everyone that I don't but do I?

After some deep thought and reflection I realized that it wasn't because my heart loved them less or differently than our bio kids. I love all our differently for each one of them is a uniquely woven individual. Sometimes I admit that when they act out I take it more seriously. I think it is because I don't have the history with both Parker and Helena that I do with the rest. So I question normal age appropriate acting out behavior as adoption/adjustment issues. In addition, I don't have the memories, the warm fuzzy ones that I had with our other children from the first breath of life in this world with me. Which has made me realize that they are probably missing those memories as well. So I have been very conscious of creating them in my mind and sharing my thoughts of how precious they must have been. And how I can picture them as babies and how I would have loved them and adored them. Creating the pictures and memories in our minds, if nothing else, to give us a little more to pull from. It seems to be making a difference with Parker. He really enjoys my stories of his younger years, especially when Blake, Reagan and Caitlin so often ask me to replay their stories. With Helena it is definitely more for me and in doing so I am finding myself enjoying her terrible two's with a little more sweetness.

I without a doubt love Parker and Helena as much. They are our children in my heart just like the Blake, Reagan and Caitlin. I would walk across fire for all of them. They are all so precious and different. The only difference in my love for them is their uniqueness and not because they were from my womb or from my heart. Each one holds a special piece of my heart!!

What do we do when we're bored?

A couple of weeks ago we took a Sunday and made absolutely NO PLANS. I believe for the first time ever since summer and we found ourselves spending most of the day doing not much more than what you see. I don't know if the kids had more fun dressing the dogs or Helena. It was sweet to watch Caitlin tend to her little sister making sure she looked just right. It was a wonderful way to spend the day and I look forward to making more memories like these in the years ahead. I am sure we could have put our time to better use by working on house projects or school projects but sometimes you just need to unwind a little without purpose.





Thank you God for allowing us to sneak in a little mindless fun!!