Jeremiah 29:11 (The Message)

I'll show up and take care of you as I promised
and bring you back home.
I know what I'm doing.
I have it all planned out -
plans to take care of you,
not abandon you,
plans to give you the future you hope for.

As some of you know, this has been by far one of the worst years in my life. It started on New Years Eve actually, like a big fat hint of things to come. One thing after another, to something worse, to even worse , then to the grand finale of them all, only then to find out something just as bad. Every month has held its own little tragedy, sometimes two with no resolutions in site. I know some things are going to take years to recover from, some things may not be recovered from at all. Life is not ever going to be the same for any of us. But that doesnt mean that it wont be better. Much better.

I just want you to know that I could not have made it without Jesus Christ walking right beside me, holding me up, keeping me from going over the edge. Even when I didnt realize it. Even when He was the farthest thing from my mind, He was holding on to me. When I wanted to pack it in and run away from all that was happening he had his arms around me holding me up, pushing me along, making me take care of business.

I will never understand why God lets things happen to people but I do believe he does things for a reason we will eventually get to understand. Sometimes He makes things happen to keep other worse things from happening. And sometimes He does things so we will be forced to do other things. I look forward to some of His explanations :)

I now know and believe things without seeing them with my own eyes, by just faith and that is the first time for me. I am going to be baptized soon. I held off for some time because I dont have a good story to tell about my new belief and life. At my church they play a video of your "story" before you go under the water. I didn't have religious parents or friends who encouraged any type of religion. I didnt have anyone really make me "see the light" so to speak. I only had myself and God. I had to work through my doubts and fears pretty much on my own. I had to learn to believe things I couldnt see. My breakthrough came when I learned of a verse somewhere that said "if you want to believe, God will make it so you can believe" I am extremely hard headed but I KNEW I wanted to believe. I just dont trust people that much. I could not understand how my life after death would be affected by some guy who got himself killed and hung on a cross 2000 plus years ago. When I realized that I dont have to understand it to know its true the walls came crumbling down for me. I convinced myself to have faith in that verse. I prayed and told God it was now up to Him to make me believe and so He did. I really cant explain it but if Jesus came back tomorrow I know I would be gone with him. I now think of eternity in a totally different light. I deserve some good eternity! I look forward to it! I have always found a reason to be happy despite my circumstances and now I am even happier. This life is nothing compared to eternity in heaven. I am not sure what it really will hold but I bet I get that big house on the beach....

My biggest fear and worry right now is that I dont want to go to heaven without my kids and my husband and my grand kids. I must learn and develop into a good role model. My kids are very hard headed like me. But seeing good things happen in my life and hearing my stories of faith and knowledge that it all comes from God will have its effect. I fear life on earth after Jesus comes back and takes the believers with him. But I have faith that he will give me the words and the reasoning to deal with my kids. And my family and friends. God answers all prayers. He can't not answer my prayer that my family and friends be in heaven with me.

God please give me the right words to move those who listen to me in the right direction.

Jeremiah 29:11 (The Message)

I'll show up and take care of you as I promised
and bring you back home.
I know what I'm doing.
I have it all planned out -
plans to take care of you,
not abandon you,
plans to give you the future you hope for.

Flying Lamps Fill the Sky

Here is a nice picture I took of Holly at the hill. I think I may change it back to color. Her red jacket looked nice against the snow. I was trying to practice my soft skin technique.

The circle starts with a 5 year old girl
Maybe loved, maybe just there
Surely not cherished
Or carefully watched out for
No one made sure the monsters were not under the bed
or in them
No one saw the look on her face
or the look in her eyes if they had
they would have seen her fear, heard her cries
They didnt see what was wrong when they left her alone
if they had looked deep enough they would have seen
the horrors that live in her still and invade her home
these people would now die if they were to know
what was going on

She went from one horror story to the next
She spent her evenings in the bar
but too dark and noisy to do her homework
but too little to be home alone
Too small to raise a voice but big enough to be noticed
that she was a little girl alone in the bar
not noticed by kind strangers who would call the police
or her teacher or preacher and ask why she was there
but noticed by those who look for little girls who spend
their nights in a bar, this is where she learned to
send her thoughts so far, just dont think
now they act shocked that a 9 year old is drunk
and act like they had no idea, it was cute when I was 7
and they act like they dont know

now its to hell and the devil was there
reminding her of how she lost all one night long ago
that her mother left her to face the world alone
one girl now 12 needed someone
cried inside and wanted to be loved
all she got was grief when she could have so
easily felt love if those around had cared
not to be so selfish and into themself
so self rightous and cruel to someone
who just wanted and needed someone to care

I wish I could say that this story ended well
but now she lives in her own adult hell
wishing someone had guided her another way
wishing someone had loved her the way
that she loves her own but then she realizes
that the love she has
doesnt mean a damned thing
because all through life the only thing
she learned was how to tune it all out and
be passive and not be heard. Just tried to keep
quitet thinking it would all fix itself someday
now haunted knowing what happened to that 5 year old
little girl has dictated her life
and ruined what was good and could have been right

No hate here. Totally forgiven and turned over to God.

To my son:

I remember the day I brought you home
So sweet, small and soft smelling like that baby smell I love
smooth black locks of hair and soft brown eyes too beautiful for words
I would have given my life for you without a seconds hesitation
and still would if truth was told
who would have thought way back then
The hell you would live and the pain and fear you would put me in
Somewhere along the line you showed me how real failure felt
The worse failure in the world is to fail what you brought here
You gave me false hope a couple of times
You made me so proud and I thought I had beat the odds
The odds of someone so young who had been through so much
who couldnt possibly know how a good parent acted because she
had never seen one
I tried most of the time to be a good parent, I guess that meant very little
and it sure wasnt enough
because here I sit again with my heart broke and tears falling
not knowing what to do as usual but cry tears that do nothing
I would cut my heart right out of my chest and hand it over to
someone if they said they could fix you
I will never understand how you cant see how much you have and what you could be
you look past all the people who love you and would help you attain the world including me
somewhere I must have commited the ultimate sin to be given 5 chances and
never be allowed to win, not one win
The love I have for you, your family, your friends, our ignored advice, our talks
our heart to hearts, your broken promises, your sins
the sum of your life in my eyes
a strong smart loving man with a heart of gold that no one sees
now my mind can spend its time wondering what you could have had
what you could have been, how good you could have lived
how happy I would have been, you could have had it all
if not for the love of alcohol

There really was snow!





Here is a pic of Evan with Santa. There wasnt any of Brenden so I will assume he was afraid of Santa. He is about that age. He wasnt afraid last year though....


WEll, Christmas is over. I hate the anti-climax of it every year. We had a mild toned down Christmas. Kevin and I even woke up alone because the kids were all in Ohio. I look forward to this long New Year weekend. I have spent time alone in a nice quiet house for the last 2 days. Ariel is with her mom Yay!! She doesnt go back to school until the 7th. After I am done playing on the computer I am going to scrapbook !!! Yay :)

Ariel's Christmas Program




Some family pictures.




My favorites

Holly found her car yay! That is a big burden lifted off my shoulders. She found it in the ER at Bon Secours. A friend saw it there and called her and Kevin went and picked it up. It is in pretty good condition except filthy and smelly. We think someone was living in there. Lovely :)

Here is our newest friend.... Got him on our shopping excursion :)

We can finally talk about Alex new boyfriend. She has given the official nod to call him a boyfriend now. They have been "friends" for a while but couldnt actually use the official "boyriend" title. Now its okay. So now he is subject to me taking his pictures at any given moment and posting them on my blog :)

I had a great time loving up my new baby neice and taking a million photos of her last weekend. So we spent the weekend in Ohio shopping and Kevin and Allen putting on my sister Tammy's roof. Sorry Kev. While they were doing that Coral, Amy . I and baby Abby shopped and talked. Then we went to BWW and had a big family dinner. And here is a few pics of the cutest baby on the earth!

Another one bites the dust.....

Why cant my kids get in a normal accident. They cant just back into a pole, or dent a panel or rear end someone. They can't get in an accident that doesnt include tv cameras and the jaws of life. Alex was the latest victim. Or should I say her poor jeep was. She totalled it. Totally crushed it. No way to salvage it. And once again God proves to me that he is sitting right here next to us making sure nothing happens to me and those kids. She got out of it with some soreness and nothing else....

Halloween....
I finally talked Ariel into being something other than a princess, she was a witch!! A very cute witch. Pictures to follow....
We were all excited about giving candy out at our new house this year so I went and bought about $50 worth of candy and put it in our big popcorn bowl and there was a little left for a smaller bowl. Well the doorbell rang and I dropped the little bowl and stopped to pick it up and Ariel went on to the door to pass candy out from the big bowl. It just so happened to be 6 or 7 people mostly older boys. Well they took the entire contents of the bowl and ran. The lady who was with them stood there and watched the whole thing and had the nerve to stick her bag out and say trick or treat.... I said are they with you and she said no and I said well as you can see we are now out of candy. The boys passed out the little bowl to the kids in the neighborhood after we left. Well I saw the lady with those same kids while Ariel and I were out up the street.
It sucks that this was our first halloween here and that was Ariels first experience passing it out. Bigger issues go on in the world though....

Eliminating Toxic People

I cant recommend this highly enough

There are encounter we have every single day of our lives that are not good for us. They are malicious, they are dangerous to your self esteem, they are destructive, they are toxic.

I cant tell you what a change this has made in my life. I see so many people every day that need to do this. It is really something to think about. You scan your computer for viruses so scan your life for them too. There are miserable people who want to spread their misery into your life, your marriage, and your parenting. They are a virus to your dignity and to who you are as a person. They use their words and their attitudes like a knife to strip you of your dignity and your self worth. You need to get rid of encounters in your life that not productive, that are secretly malicious, and that are not respectful. Just cut them out of our life and you will start to see things so differently. They cant persuade you or manipulate your or intimidate you or guilt you into doing something that you dont want to do or make you feel bad about yourself if you dont let them in your life.

We took our annual trip the pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins and eat apples!

Look whos in the apple tree, its Ariel and Jordie :)

Allen's lookin hot in that uniform and sunglasses isnt he ... :)

If Chris gets a new toy, I guess Allen get's a new toy....

Ariel and Brenden cruising Gateshead! They dont need MTV to pimp their ride, its pretty cute already!

Chris and his new toy...

Look at this little angel. It's abby with her Marine hat on and dog tags!!!

Here are a few shots I took recently near the house.

Finally made one of those clear albums I was crazy about. I kept it kind of simple.

The cutest thing ever!!!!