HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOO

This is Boo.  Boo is the only infant we ever had.  I do not believe we set out for it to be that way, that is just the way it happened.  We always joke that we were probably just made to raise kids, not infants.  When the kids do something iffy, ornery etc, we always say we attribute that to the 'orphanage time' ;-P   With Boo, we look at him and realize WE are responsible for every idiosyncrasy he has...and maybe THAT is why we never had any more infant, God knew best! LOL
As of today, Boo is 15.  To look back at where he was 15 years ago today, makes my heart hurt. He has come such a long way!  For Boo I see the future father, the lover of children.  Boo has always had a soft spot for babies and I hope that he finds himself working with them in his future.  He is the most laid back of the kids and tends to be a total tease monster when given the chance.  He is known for breaking into song, rhyming one of the other kids names with something that sounds like fart....Oh, to be a teenage boy!
HAPPY 15th BIRTHDAY BOO!  WE LOVE YOU~

21 Years And Counting

Today marks 21 years of marriage for Curtis and I. We met when I was 14, almost 15 and he was 16. We began seeing each other, which meant he came to the house and watched movies, helped with my homework etc, since I was not old enough to date. This went on until 2 days before my 16 birthday...a Christmas dance put on at school..my first date!

A long time has passed, we have seen ups, downs and middle ground. We have lost 4 babies to miscarriage, adopted 4 times and moved 4 times...never going far from where we grew up.

When we were reminiscing last night, we discussed how we never in a million years, imagined our lives the way they are now. We are happy, celebrating a milestone and have 4 healthy, happy and pretty well adjusted kids. Not saying we are perfect, but we are FAMILY! We laughed when we thought about how you imagine your life when you are young, and neither of us imagined being married to the one we met so young...having 4 Internationally Adopted children (Who look nothing even remotely close to us) and to be here, where we are today. When things were bad, we now know they were for a reason, if we would have had the babies we were 'trying for' we would not have had the 4 we have now. What would life be like for us if that had happened? If we had waited to marry or married even earlier?

We have seen many, if not most, of our friends divorce and move on from one another. I love the fact that even if we have differences, we can still make each other laugh and swoon..something that you don't often find after this many years of marriage. We are comfortable in our marriage, in who each of us is and know that at the end of the day the other one is coming home because home is where their heart and mind and soul is....home makes us happy.

Thank you sweety, for 21 wonderful years...I am looking forward to at least 21 more!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROO

This is Roo.  Roo came home at 24 months of age.  On Jan. 7, 2012 she hit the 12 year mark. That includes Jr. High, Teen years, being taller than you are supposed to be, 7 teachers and a locker instead of 1 teacher and a back pack.
Roo has always been the one who excels at anything she puts her mind too.  Hard exterior, soft interior and fiercely loyal to her friends.  From what we have seen of our lovely young lady is that she knows who she is and no one will change that.
In the future I see Roo either being a Chef or CEO of a company.  She will be known as the har as* boss, but deeply respected by her staff for her attention to detail and know how of just about anything.
Roo, we are so proud of you and all that we know you will become.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY (albeit a tad late on here) WE LOVE YOU~

RIP GOEFER

Today we said goodbye to a wonderful family member. Goefer showed up one day at our old house on KCID. We called local Animal Shelter to let them know and ran an ad in case someone was looking for her. After several days it became apparent that no one was...she was ours. Her name became Goefer due to the HUGE holes she would dig in the dirt. That girl LOVED to dig a huge hole and lay in it to keep cool. When we moved to our new home, she went and was able to have a fenced yard and a new friend, Fizgig. She and Fizzi had free run of the back yard. Still, even with all the grass to get into, she chose nothing but dirt to dig in, pretty smart if you ask me.

Goefer was with us before we had children. We have pictures of Goefer in our home study to adopt Boo. It took 18 months to adopt Boo, who will be 15 in May...Goefer was grown when she came to us, so she is AT LEAST 16 years old.

For a medium/large dog that is OLD..ancient.

Over the last few years she has become hard of hearing and her eyesight is not the greatest. She was still great with the kids, always smelling them and then realizing they were 'her kids' and never harming them or getting grumpy with them. She would smell the girls rolling on the grass trying to practice their tumbling and she would promptly go over and sniff their hair and lick their faces as they hung upside down.

Goefer-we love you, we will miss you so much. Fizzi will be lost without you. We know you were tired, sore and not having as much fun as you used to. You were able to spend your last day laying in the afternoon sun eating treats...what a good end to a wonderful life.

My Family

This is a Picture of our Family on 12-31-10. All of us tired but smiling. Hoping for a repeat this New Year!

As the new year approaches I think of so many blessings, struggles, changes that we have had through out the year. Boo is now a full fledged Teen/ Young Man.....Roo is becoming her own Teen/Young Woman, C-Man is entering 11 and Mitch will be 8 soon. We have not had any new children come home in 5 years. Hard to imagine that 5 whole years has passed since C-Man and Mitch arrived, it seems like they have always been here.

All 4 kids have bonded well, grown tremendously and are healthy inside and out. Not that they are without issues, but they all know that

THIS is HOME

THIS is FAMILY

THIS is FOREVER!

Broken Hearted

As a parent I have always wanted to shield my children from any heartbreak, bad moments, bullies and the like. Lately, I have seen that it is IMPOSSIBLE to do this, and may not be the best for the child in the long run...although it is NOT easy to see your child hurt, it is something they need to experience to grow as a person.
Case in point:
Mitch has a girl at school that is mean to her. Now, if you know Mitch, you know that it is hard to NOT like her...she is friendly, kind and loving to everyone. She sees no enemies and truly wants the world to be the perfect place it should be. We have explained to Mitch that this is not so, and that there will be mean people all over the world...just to avoid them if possible and live her life the best she can. A mother bear moment took a hold of me when Mitch came home and told me that this girl told her 'she hated Mitch and would stab her in the head and heart until she died'. Yeah, NOT HAPPENING you little punk-ette! Mitch did the right thing by telling the Teacher, Principal and us, and anyone who would listen. Now the school is aware but the Principal wants this girl to 'confess' what she said (although 4 other girls have come forward with the same info) so she can adequately punish the girl. I have made it known that THIS is NOT going to matter, that is that child says this to my kid again, I will call the cops! Lesson learned....

Boo is having his teen issues...Oy Vey ;-P Boo decided to try out for Basketball. Very proud of him for trying! His High School is big, over 110 boys tried out for Bball and only 14 spots per team (Varsity, JV, Frosh) were avail. Some of those were taken due to returning players....after 2 days of try outs, he did not make it. To see your son stand there and NOT be chosen made my tummy hurt. I wanted to kick the Coach and ask him why my son was not picked, he was just as good as other boys....according to my hubby, THIS would have been embarrassing to Boo, so I did NOT do it. hehe
Boo was bummed, but I know he will recover. He knows what he needs to work on and hopefully will try out again next year. I however, still want to kick someone.....

I wish I could take all the hurts, the brokenness my children see and experience....I know it cannot be done, and probably should not be done....however, this does not make it easier.

On The D.L.

I have been staying off my blog and staying Down Low....trying to keep things inside and work thru them...not sure it is helping. I do not like to write things that could hurt others feelings so I tend to bottle them up until my chest hurts-physically hurts....not good.

Just say a few prayers for me-that I can work thru extended family issues, that may all be me and in my mind, but may also not be just me and my mind.

Hurtful things have been said and done and I have let them fester without saying things to the offenders...need to rectify this with God and myself so I do not hurt the people that I do LOVE, but often times do not LIKE 100% of the time. Need to remember, we are all but humans

Two Adults, One House, No Fun....

Over at www.dreamingbigdreams.net Jamie wrote about loving our husbands and our children. I enjoyed her post and read it feeling quite overwhelmed and guilty. Curt and I do NOT make time for Date Nights, not once a week, not once a month and we barely squeak by with once a year (I think it usually ends up being his Companies Christmas Party). I am ashamed to say that our children have taken over our lives. :-(

I guess it isn't bad to be involved in your children's lives, but I think we have been overrun with them and their activities...we have become two adults just living in the same home.
We commented to each other the other night (a rare stop and talk to each other moment) that we each felt in a rut...Football x 2, Cheer x 2, AWANA's x 4 kids etc....it goes on and on. We both feel that we spend so much time running from activity to activity, barely meeting in bed at a late bed time, that we never get to enjoy each others company or just 'be'.

I feel we have begun surviving life, not living it.

It has been 4 years or more since we have gone camping....a vacation-YEAH RIGHT! I cannot remember one, alone or with our children.

I hope this changes once Football is over...that we can make it a PRIORITY to spend time with just us...to remember that we should not and can not wait until the kids are grown to do this. It must be important, to be taught to our children that we are as important to ourselves and each other as they are to us. Hopefully in doing this, we will cement their worth in themselves and future spouses.

Daily Life-Every day I'm Shuffling

Daily life around here has been going crazy-what is new?? My new Calendar reminder on my phone plays the funky LMFAO tune-'Everyday I'm Shuffling', definitely fits!!!

On a sad note, we lost our dear neighbor, Isabel Pena. Isabel was a GREAT lady. She made tamales every Christmas and always had special treats for the kids in the cul-de-sac every Halloween. The kids would always go over and take her mail in when the weather was bad and scoop her sidewalk when it snowed. We will miss you Isabel- your smile, your kindness, your belief that the Saints were with you every minute of every day, your ornery giggle that you gave while hiding your mouth and shrugging your shoulders while we talked about the crazy neighbors...RIP!


Football x 1.5 boys is in full swing (I will explain the .5 in a minute) and Cheer x 2 is in full swing.

.5 Football=Well, about 3 weeks into football, and before the first game, Boo was completing 2 a days and working his fanny off..he made it to Starting Running Back for the Freshman Team...he.was.STOKED!
He came home one day complaining that he had 'jammed' his left pinkie finger, and could I ice it for him. After examining it, I felt that more damage was done than 'jamming' but what do I know....I was an EMT and Instructor, but when I talk to him I am just 'mom'. We iced and buddy tape for almost 2 weeks...me moving it and checking it every day, him telling me "it was fine and did not hurt...to quit making a big deal about nothing". One day, almost 2 weeks later, he comes to me and says "mom, my finger REALLY hurts and every time you move it to check it, frankly it makes me want to vomit!" Ok...into the doc we go-several x-rays and a Hand Specialist later, we have a severely broken pinkie that cracked into the knuckle and growth plate; surgery is a MUST.
Fast forward now to today, surgery was done Sept. 12 and required 2 pins into his knuckle, pinkie is healing and we are still waiting to be cleared for play in football...eh, maybe we will just be ready for Basketball when that season starts...haha
C-Man will be wrapping up his first season of Tackle on Oct. 8th...just in time to begin the newly formatted Basketball League our School District puts on. Not sure how I feel about it, since we are going away from 'Teams' and just having 'Clinics' on Saturdays for a couple of hrs. with 2-3 Saturdays being 'Game days'. Will definitely free up the week nights, which have been crammed with activities for 2 months now...YEAH!!!!!!

Cheer will begin Competition Season and our first one requires the girls and I to travel to a small town in the upper part of the state-great weekend getaway (I tell myself this and if it is a lie, don't remind me..)

If we were not busy enough, we have a new kitten, Gimli. Gimli's mama kitty is a wild stray at work. She had 3 kittens and while moving them, abandoned Gimli in the conex box for 2 days. After 2 days, the guys were sure mama was not coming back so they brought the 2.5-3 week old, hungry and matted kitten to me...now I am mama. Bottle feedings and washing her to get her to go potty has taken me back to the old days of Squirrel rehabbing, but it has been great. Daily Gimli goes to work with me and either sleeps in a cat carrier (or on the desk if she is whiny..ha) Rich people have purse dogs, I have a purse cat!