My wild and crazy life...

It’s been a while since my last journal entry but I think it’s time… I got a lot to type about… lots of news and experiences to share!

First of all… prepare yourself, sweet ladies, for when your beautiful angel kids turn in to teenage raging hormone monsters! Lol… actually it’s not all bad and Austin is highly entertaining. I swear sometimes he came from us… he just has a mixture of me and Jimmie’s personalities, mannerisms, and quirks. And then there are other times when it’s obvious that he didn’t come from us and we haven’t had him that long otherwise he would have a different outlook on life and very different, ingrained morals and character. He and I have had religious discussions and I have gotten to share my Faith with him but those moments are few and far between and mostly we hope that we are living some sort of example about Christ’s love to him. And he does go to church with us and he seems to be listening to the preacher fairly well so I know seeds are being planted.

Austin really has made tons of progress since he has been with us. All the social worker type people in his life keep saying that me and Jimmie must be doing sometime right and wonderful but I think Austin deserves a lot of the credit himself. He stumbles and messes up but for the most part he just seems determined to succeed.

That being said, we have had a lot of parenting opportunities as well because when Austin messes up, he messes up… and he doesn’t lie well but he kinda lies often, which can be irritating. A realization hit me a few weeks ago though, sometimes he lies to protect us from stuff because he hasn’t learned and doesn’t trust that he can lean on us and we’re the ones that should be protecting him.

I love this story because who knew catching your kid in a lie could be so fun! So a few weeks ago, Jimmie gets a phone call from the school asking if Austin is home sick because someone had called him in as sick but the lady said that whoever called sounded like a kid. So Jimmie calls me (I was still at home) and asks if Austin is there with me… nope, he had left with his girlfriend about 45 minutes prior to Jimmie calling me. So Jimmie told the school no he’s not home and then asked if the girlfriend was at school, the school couldn’t tell him that, but he said if she’s not there, they are skipping.

Now, my immediate reaction was to text Austin and ask him where the cronk he is. I had the message typed and ready to send and Jimmie told me, actually forbade me to send it. I was mad at Austin and furious with Jimmie at that point, but I trust my husband so I begrudgingly went along with his plan. He told me to drive by the girlfriend’s house on my way to work and in the meantime he would head home from work. So I drove by gf’s house – her car was not there. Jimmie and I actually passed each other on the road there. He went home and parked the truck behind the barn and basically waited.

Around 11:00 I get a text message from Austin. Here’s a rough recap:

Austin: How is your day going?
Me: Great! How is your day going?
Austin: It’s going ok. This class is boring and it’s going slow
Me: well try not to fall asleep
Austin: How are you feeling? (I had been sick) Did you go to work today?
Me: I’m feeling better. Yes I went to work… it’s going slowly here too
Austin: Are you taking me to grandma’s after to school to mow or is dad?
Me: Jimmie is when he gets home around 4:30


My hands were shaking I was so giddy to be in on the joke! Lol Of course I was also extremely mad but when you’re part of one-upping someone that really takes the edge off the anger!

So I called Jimmie and told him that if I was a betting woman, Austin and Hannah would probably be showing up there in about a half an hour. He texted me about a half hour later and said he found them! Lol He was in the barn and he let them get in the house before he went inside too. Hannah was coming out of the bathroom, in mid-sentence when she saw hubby and her face fell… I wish I’d been there to see their faces when they realized they had been busted and outsmarted! I had to hand it to hubby… that was brilliant! He made them miserable the rest of the day… he enjoys that… lol

So there’s just a preview at the joy and mirth your children will bring you when they are teenagers! Lol

But we’re having fun with Austin too and most days are non-eventful or great so it’s all good.

He asked our social worker last week about the possibility of us adopting him. We hadn’t pursued that because I figured he’d be 18 before they could make that happen but apparently it can happen a lot quicker than any of us knew. So the ball is rolling on that… we’re going to officially be parents of a bouncing baby boy! Lol

The other news is that next week a 3 year old named Matthew and a 18 month old named Callie (her name could be spelled Cali – I really need to get that straightened out) will be coming to live with us for a while. We kept them this past weekend and after we took them back to their grandparent’s house on Sunday, we had a family meeting and we all decided that we wanted Matthew and Callie to come live with us. So exciting! They are so stinkin cute too!

On Sunday morning, my family filled a church pew… me, Jimmie, Matthew, Callie, Austin, and Hannah… it was a proud moment for me and as we stood to sing that first hymn I was just overwhelmed with blessed feelings… God has brought me so far in one year’s time. It’s truly amazing. Last year I was facing cancer and this year I’m filling church pews with babies and teenagers… God is so Awesome! His ways are so mysterious and don’t make sense at times. But He really does know what He is doing and His ways are excellent in the end. I shared this quote on Facebook but it’s worth repeating because it’s so profound in its simpleness… Sometimes God should say to us, Look, until you can make a hippopotamus, just trust me… I got this!

Well… I could ramble on but I think I’m done for now…

Oh wait! Hold on! I have to write at least one paragraph about our cruise. It was sooo much fun! I don’t know how we could have squeezed one more fun moment in… my mother, who has been on at least 10 cruises, said that she has never gone with a group of people who just seemed to so thoroughly enjoy every second of their time! I thought that was a pretty high compliment! For starters, 2 of our 4 mornings on the ship, I was the first one up and on the balcony… I am so not a morning person but when I’m on the ocean, I just can’t stay in bed cuz I want to take in the beauty of God’s creation… there is just something so magical to me about the ocean and the sun and just the air is cleaner out there or something… it’s just wonderful. So there was that and then there was just so much to do and see… Key West was so cool… coulda spent a whole lot more time there.. I think Jimmie would enjoy that town so we need to go back there… and Cozumel – Playa Mia more specifically, is what my back yard will look like in Heaven… lol… it was just so much fun and so relaxing, although every part of my body ached when we got back… but that was probably from all the dancing… there was a wonderful band who played every night in this little smoke-free (yay!) bar and we loved them and they loved us! We also spent some time in the karaoke lounge. On our first night we went to the karaoke lounge and then to our band’s bar and then to a piano bar and so we were able to joke later that we went bar hopping with our mother! Lol the karaoke lady was rather bizarre… she sort of reminded me of Drew Barrymore’s character in Never Been Kissed. Only a lot less cute and likeable… just the nerdy part… she was odd… and she would burst out in song at random times…

But anyway… we had an absolutely fabulous time and I will smile about the cruise memories for a long long time…

Ok now I seriously need to go do something else… toodles!