Feed your faith and your fears will starve to death.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Fashion Faux Pau

Faith was strut'in her stuff around the house in her big sister's high heels.  When she turned to walk away we all had a good laugh. 

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Mother's Day Hooray!

I am a little behind on the ol'blog.  But I did capture a few pictures from our busy events that I will get around to...eventually. 
I just love being a mom.  Over the last few weeks I have been in full mom mode, with two birthdays ( Dallin and Spencer), Mother's Day, six gifts to buy, volunteering and root beer float making, planning Kylee's high school graduation day and party, doctors' and dentist appointments, spring cleaning, two photoshoots, enrolling Faith in pre-school, getting Spencer to Utah for a funeral, along with helping him job hunt, coaching Kylee's church basketball team , going to regionals and taking 1st place ( yes I am proud of that ) etc. etc. etc.  Those are all the extra things I do besides the normal cooking, shopping and cleaning for 7.
I was talking to a friend the other day about family life and I realized that I have 5 children in 5 different schools.  Talk about a scheduling nightmare?  And yet...I love it!  I love being busy, I love being involved and I love having a life. 

I called my mom last week when I literally had 10 minutes to talk.  She told me the story of when I was born.  She said , I was so eager to be alive,  I didn't cry but just took everything in.  Looked at the lights, the doctor, her , the nurses.  I was ready to be here and live my life! 
Thank you mom for sacrificing so much to bring me into the world, thank you mom for always telling me I could do anything I set my mind to, for allowing me to dream big.  Growing up my mom always believed in me and encouraged me.  I really felt I could conquer the world when I graduated high school.  I obviously didn't, but her early confidence in me helped me weather my failures and press forward with a can do attitude.

I am also blessed with a wonderful mother in law who constantly shows support and encouragement to us.  She is fun to be around and has a wonderful laugh.  She is talented and crafty.  If you want to learn a homemaking skill she's your gal.  She is easygoing, a good listener and slow to anger.  She is amazing.  I see many of these same wonderful qualities in my dear husband Jeff and I thank her for raising a responsible and righteous son.

Being a daughter was effortless, I didn't really have anything to do with it, but becoming a mom is a different story.  Motherhood to me is amazing, rewarding, exhausting, heartbreaking, intimidating and quite the roller coaster ride.  I don't think I can even effectively put into words the emotions attached to motherhood.  If someone had told me before I was a mother that every success and failure experienced by my children would equally effect me I wouldn't have believed it possible.  When they have a success my heart sores, and when they hurt or have a failure my heart aches. 

Each one of our children have brought joy and a unique personality.  Spencer for his trust and obedience, Kylee for her attention to detail and her awareness, Jensen for his quick wit and his easy going ways, Dallin for his hard work ethic and his curiosity, and Faith for her imagination and her pure heart.   As a parent I knew how much joy another child would bring to us.  What I didn't realize is that our older children would experience that same joy when we adopted Faith.  They just surround her with love and affection.
My sweet children when they were younger...
Faith bringing joy and laughter to our home by putting both her feet in Dallin's one shoe and hopping around the house as a baby mermaid.
I am blessed.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Easter Best

What is Spencer's Amigo's?

Our oldest son is Diabetic type I, insulin dependant.  It was the summer before he would start middle school as a 6th grader.  I remember well the realization that something was wrong.  I sent him shopping for school clothes with a friend.  He came home with a size smaller jeans than he wore the year before.  By the end of the summer Spencer had lost 20 pounds, and was so lethargic, spending all his days and nights in bed...too tired to play with his friends, too tired to do anything but eat and sleep.  He was always starving and thirsty.  He ate 5 hot dogs and was still hungry.  He drank 2 1/2 gallons of water in one day.   My sweet boy  was dying.  I was scared and desperate.  Everyone kept reassuring me that he was going through a growth spurt and that is what teenagers do...sleep and eat.  I knew in my heart that something was terribly wrong.  Jeff and I decided to fast and pray for an answer. 
That same day my husband Jeff heard the still, small whisperings of the Holy Ghost.  Heavenly Father had answered our prayers. While driving home from church my husband said, " I know what is wrong with Spencer.  He has Juvenile Diabetes."  This prompting from the Holy Ghost led us to the Internet when we got home.  We read everything we could about the disease.  My husband then gave my son a blessing.  In that blessing I remember Spencer being told that Heavenly Father loved him,  that he gives us trials so we may become stronger and closer to him.  Spencer was told that Heavenly Father will bless him with the ability and strength to manage and live with this illness."
Tears were pouring down my face as I silently cried;  Silent because I did not want Spencer to know or see how scared and sad I was.   The blessing confirmed to me the fact that this illness was a lifetime disease, which meant a lifetime of struggles and suffering.  I mourned for my son, for the quality of life he had just lost.  For his youth, and freedom.
Diabetes is an all consuming disease.  Once you are diagnosed, you life becomes subject to numbers; highs and lows.  Peaks and Valleys.  You are governed by time, food, calories.  The freedom that was lost that day was immeasurable, not only for Spencer...but for our entire family.  I jokingly would tell people I am now his Pancreas.  I took over the roll of his ailing body, planning...preparing and measuring everything he ate.  I learned how to administer shots, and gave them up to 4 times a day.
Spencer went into shock.  He missed his first week of middle school.  Because of this he had no idea how to transition  from elementary school with one home room to now 6 classes a day.  At lunch instead of eating with his friends, he was in the nurses office...checking his blood and treating his new disease.   It was so traumatising for him; I remember offering to pay him a dollar a shot to give him something to work towards.  He said "No way, it's not worth it."  We ended up agreeing on two dollars a shot.  Times that by up to 4 shots a day.  I paid him a lot of cash that fall.  His grades slipped and it didn't matter to me.  I told him, just focus on your health this year,  you get a free pass for school work and stress this year.  We will refocus in 7th grade.  And we did. 
Spencer was 12 when he was diagnosed.  There is no cure.  They are getting close...which is sooo exciting.  Every year we walk and raise awareness and funds to cure this lifelong disease.  My daughter Kylee is the team captain and I couldn't be prouder.

This year we walk May 7th, 2011.  Please join our team or support us by making a donation. 



Here we have our happy models Kylee and Spencer wearing our team t-shirts.

Sunday, May 1, 2011