Valentine's Day Blues

I know I'm not alone here and though Valentine's Day has come and gone, it certainly has left its mark again this year. I am not into Valentine's Day. NOT one bit. Sadly, one of my kids made a comment that I don't believe in it...I did correct her. It's not that I don't believe in it, it's just that I don't celebrate it....well I do with the kids, just not my hubby.

I'm sure I'm not the only one out there that can share some horror story of Valentine's past that have gone horrible wrong, ended in tears or just did not live up to the hype. I am not the only woman in America that wishes Hallmark and Russell Stovers would just quit building this day into a frenzy. Pink hearts and velvet boxes and cards and flowers and ENOUGH ALREADY!

Okay, it's really simple for me. I'm not the Valentine's Day scrooge. I just don't want to go out and celebrate with my hubby along side of every other couple in the country to good see some sappy love struck movie in a crowded theater and eat at an over priced restaurant getting horrible service to celebrate our love on one day. My hubby and I have an anniversary to celebrate our love. We have four loving kids that celebrate our love. We have a marriage filled with blessings that celebrate our love. We have extended family that loves and cares for us that celebrates our love. We don't need candy or flowers on February 14th to do that for us.

Plus, I have trauma here. I'm not the only one (hubby does too). There have been too many Valentine's days in the past that ended in fights or tears or food poisoning (not kidding there). There have been too many high expectations that were not met and bitterness because of it. There were too many others in our lives that dictated what we did on that yucky day.

So we skip it. We don't get each other gifts. My hubby may be the envy of the shop being all those men worked really hard to make a nice day for their loved ones. We don't go out to a movie or dinner. We don't do a special anything. In fact this year, we didn't even eat dinner together...hubby worked late. I got a box of chocolate for each of the kids. One of the kiddos made dinner. We ate and watched TV. When hubby finally got home, he came to our bedroom to find three girls and a mama falling asleep in front of the TV. For us, it was just Tuesday with some candy at dinner.

I said that V day left its mark...well that would be the ridiculous amount of candy all over. Yuck!

Oh well...at least my kids enjoyed giving and receiving cards and candy. They certainly don't have high expectations about Valentine's day around here. Maybe they will be able to celebrate with loved ones some day and not have high hopes crushed because they don't have any. ;)

Another happy day

Another one of my friends just got engage this past weekend. I'm so happy for them. She told me the story of his proposal this morning and my heart swells for her. She is so blessed and I'm blessed to be along side of her through this journey.

They set the date for my parent's anniversary. For me, it's another moment when I think about my mom. I see how she colored my world. I am so excited to celebrate another marriage on this date. I think about all the wonderful things she taught me about love, marriage and commitment. This year they would have celebrated 39 years of marriage. Wow...

I pray Sam & Troy are blessed with many years of marriage as well. Congratulations you guys. I can't wait to celebrate with you!

Blessings to you both!

One moment at a time

So life has been a little rough to say the least these past couple of weeks. In that midst of it, I have had many blog posts brewing in my heart and mind. One of my best friends and I talked about the blog post laying in the back of your mind that life doesn't seem to allow us to actually get typed and posted. How long is too long before you just let it go and move on to the next thing happening? Then the thought is that too many things have happened since then and so there are just too many posts that never come to be.

Today, though, I am going to flash back a bit for several reasons. One reason is because it's still on my mind but the main reason is I want to get back into the swing of writing again. It's so much easier for me to write about things that have been brewing for a few weeks. So we are flashing back to Valentine's day weekend.

As I posted not too long ago,  my mom passed away on the 12th of February three years ago. This was one of the hardest days of my life. In the midst of this hard time, my best friend and Ryan's best friend had been dating for a while and on the very day my mom passed away, they decided they weren't going to let life pass them by and made their relationship official. Now, every anniversary of my mom's death is now their anniversary. In a weird way this was good for me. In her death, my mom brought two people together to share their lives. She reminded them that life is short. She reminded them to hold those you love close. So every year, they celebrate another year together, I remember another year without my mom.

This year, on their anniversary, he proposed...and she said yes! I'm so happy for them and excited to celebrate with them. I just wanted to post this to say, congratulations Wil & L. I love you both. I feel blessed that in one of my dark moments, you both remembered to take each moment, one at a time and make the most of it. Now each February 12th, I cry in joy for your lives together and cry for a mom remembered. Please never forget how precious life is. Remember to love each other every moment. Thanks for being apart of our live. Thanks for being amazing friends and thanks for giving me joy on a dark day. I pray God blesses your marriage as He has already blessed your life.

Congrats!

Missing mom...year 3

Tomorrow marks 3 years since my mom passed away. In some ways I think it can't be that long and other ways it seems like an eternity of days that I've been without her. I miss her a lot today.

The day that Haley broke her leg sledding, though my dad was with me, all I wanted was my mom. I wanted to call her a thousand times this week and just talk. It's been a hard week and I knew she would listen to me and tell me stories of my childhood sicknesses and remind me that this would pass, I can do it and she's so proud of me.

As I write this, I feel the tears welling up in my eyes. I miss her so much. I would love to have just one more conversation if only to tell her how much I love her and miss her. She was a rock in my life (one of many) but no one replace mom. 

There have been just too many losses in our lives, too many bad days. Today, I just want my mom. I just want her to be here. I want her to share stories of broken bones with Haley. I want her to sign Haley's cast. I want her to sit with Haley on the couch and read stories. I want her to dote on the other kids knowing they feel left out being Haley gets all the attention right now. I want her to ask me what I need. I want to cry to her and tell her I don't know what I need. I want her to tell me that's okay. I want to be the little girl that calls her mom in the middle of the crisis and knows that mom can't fix it but is just glad that she's there. 

I'm the mom without a mom. I'm just glad I had her as long as I did. She helped me in the early days of cooking and now I'm a confident cook. She helped me through the baby years and the toddler years and some of the school years with my girls and now I think of that advice as I head into the teen years. She helped me through being a wife and loosing my husband. Somehow that prepared me for being a wife again.

Mom right after Megan was born

Mom at Haley's dedication

 

Our last Easter...not that we knew that then.

Glad we took the time to take some pics

I feel like the words to describe what I'm feel are all mixed up and are tumbling out all mixed up. I don't even know what I feel or think. All I know today is: I miss my mom.

Broken kids...

So last spring break Megan broke her arm on a ski trip. I wrote a blog post about it but then life happened and somehow it never got posted. To remain an equal opportunity mother...I now have to share the pics from Megan's broken arm before sharing Haley's broken leg pics.

So here they are:

Pointing to where the break was.

Splinted

Comparing the arms.

Came back a few days later to get casted.

She picked pink...no surprise here.

Smiled the whole time.

Haley broke her leg while sledding this past Friday. I guess our family really shouldn't participate in snow activities (yeah like that's going to happen). Just so everyone knows, there is very little that slows this family down. This is just a hiccup in life and we will overcome. 

Haley is doing pretty good though she has discovered a long list of activities she'll be missing over the next couple of months...but such is life. The thing that was the most difficult was telling her she was going to miss some school. She loves school so much and though she was in way too much pain to be at school and not nearly mobile enough, she still wants to go...and right now.

As of today, Thursday, we are one week from injury and she'll still not quite ready to be at school. We hope that will be in her future very soon.

Please pray for Haley that things heal quickly and that surgery is not necessary. Pray also for her broken heart as she is missing out on snowboarding this year as well as a long list of other activities (including school).

Here's some of Haley's broken leg pictures.

Hours after the incident..splinted

Lola's trying to "fix" Haley...sad face for both of them.

Splint removed to get casted...yuck!

Lola's fixing her again after the cast.

Cast pre signatures...yellow & black bumble bee of course.

As always, thanks for listening.

Bubble Gum Factory

My mother-in-law gave my two youngest girls a really neat gift for Christmas this year: a craft kit to make your own bubble gum. Who know making bubble gum would be the highlight in our house this past weekend.

Saturday morning, the kids got up and did a few chores. Once the house was a little cleaner, I noticed the girls had be "missing" for a while and called downstairs to see what they were doing. They had been doing crafts down in our craft room and wanted to make bubble gum from the craft kit they got from Grandma.

With a clean kitchen counter, the girls began to gather everything they needed to make their bubble gum. It ended up being a very eventful day of making bubble gum. I helped a little in the beginning and then just left them to it. They had a blast and still have more supplies to make more another day.

Craft Kit

Measuring ingredients 

Reading directions

Adding water

A little worried because directions didn't say how much water

Not sure if we've done this right

Success!

Super fun...can we do it again?

I'm glad they got a chance to do this. I know I never would have got them a bubble gum factory. Glad we are blessed with amazing Grandparents to buy all the fun stuff!