Picture slide show

This is a nice little way to show pictures of my family! ENJOY!!

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

Happy and sad day

Today is happy because it is Marlee's birthday. It is sad because it is Marlee's birthday and she is FIFTEEN yes 15!!! I cannot believe that my precious little baby girl is 15. It saddens me that time goes so quickly! I am so happy that we had a struggle to adopt her, it caused me to cherish every moment with her and I saved all kinds of crazy little things! It helped me to realize how special each moment with a child really is. It literally helped me even with foster parenting. With the first 2 years of Marlee's life being a custody / adoption battle, it helped me to learn to live in the moment. Cherish each one with your child because one way or another you may never get another moment and never a moment like this one! I am ecstatic that Marlee is our little girl and that God chose as us to be her parents. Marlee has made such a change in our lives - all our kids have done that each in their own way, but I have to say that she has been both a world of challenges and a world of joy! She runs the chart from one extreme to the other :)! If you know Marlee you know the love and joy that just radiates from her! I wish her the best year yet as she enters a whole new age and a whole new year of opportunities. She has a new horse in the barrel circuit and I wish her all the best there! And I wish her success in everything she puts her mind to! But she is and will always be no matter how old she gets - My Baby Girl!!! Happy Birthday and I love you Baby Girl!!!!

I have been tagged!!

I've been tagged by Our Adventurous Life. I'm always up for a good game of tag!!!

The rules require me to post a six word description of myself and then to tag five co-bloggers to join the fun. So....let's see.....here we go:

Wife (for almost 20 years)
Mommy (to more than 15 children at one time or another)
Meme (to one wonderful little boy and one precious little girl and we have added another little girl!)
Friend (try hard to be a good one)
Loved (and loving)
Blessed (more than words can say!)



Sorry, I cheated a bit - just like Our Adventurous Life- I feel that some things need further explanation!

AND now, for the fun part of tagging!

Dearest Jessica



I know...I only tagged 1 blogger...but that is all I know for now.

The Rules (whatever that may mean to you!)
Write your own six word memoir
Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
Link to the person that tagged you in your post
Tag five more blogs with links
Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play

Saturday

Well, the weekend is here and I hope that you all have a wonderful time! I am missing Marlee - yes, I am missing my TEENAGED DAUGHTER with all of her drama!!! :) But I am glad that she is gone! I am glad because she is at Acquire the Fire with the church youth group! I am excited for her. She called me this morning to let me know she was having a good time, but she was not feeling very well last night. I have had a virus all week and Sydnee now has it and Marlee is feeling some of the same symptoms. Unfortunately it spreads like wildfire in a close family who hugs all the time! :) But anyway, Marlee is having a good time in spite of feeling badly. Larry and I took Kalee out to lunch today and we went to Sweet Tomatoes. Larry LOVES that place. It is ok to me and Kalee enjoyed the mac and cheese and soup. She was not too big on salads today. It is often hard to believe that I can leave Drae to babysit and things are always fine. It is hard to believe that the little boy that came to us so "damaged" as some say is now so trustworthy! God is good and He gets all the credit for that! Drae has become an amazing pre-teen! We are very proud of him!
We have been blessed by a neighbor. He asked us if we would like to move our horses to his pasture. He said we would have to repair the fence and all, but that they could move over there and graze to cut out hay bill down! We were extremely excited and took him up on his offer. Larry and Bryce took about 3 days this week and repaired the fence and the horses were walked across the street yesterday and must have thought they were in Heaven with green grass about ankle high!!! Then we brought them back home last night. That is our plan to let them graze there during the day and bring them home at night for their nightly feeding and to sleep! We feel blessed that he has done this for us!
Update on Keara and Brianna: they are adjusting well to their new mommy and daddy! They have done great in school this past week. Their mommy - Patrice - emails me daily and calls fairly often as well. We feel blessed in that area, too. I mean they could just shut us out, but they have chosen to maintain relationship with us and that is just awesome!!! So keep them in your prayers - it is working - all is going well!
Kourtnee started her job full time this week. She missed Sydnee - of course - but she knows she is in good hands :). Meme and Pappy adore her! She likes her job. She is teaching 3 year olds. She is still waiting on a job with the school system so keep that in your prayers. Sydnee is growing like a weed as they say!!! She was 10lbs and 10 ounces today!!!! She is getting so big so fast!!! She is smiling more and more everyday and cooing so much now!!!! Love this age!
TJ and Drae won first place in First in Fitness! TJ won the 100 yard dash and Drae won the Shuttle run. So in April they will compete in the county wide competition! we are very proud of both of them!!!
Kalee is getting taller by the day and I swear she is going to be like Drae and be taller than me by her teens!!! Geesh!! Although, I am short so that doesn't say too much :)! She is doing very well in school and getting better all the time with Claire (her pony). All 3 kids are planning to audition for the talent show after Spring Break - I will be sure to let you all know how that goes.
Kristofer hasn't changed much. He is actually getting much better about his fit throwing and we are hoping he is outgrowing that stage! (Thank GOD!!) :) He is so cute with Sydnee. He loves her to pieces!! He rides in the barrel races now. He rides Superman his pony - Kristofer Reeves on Superman - kinda catchy huh :)!!
Well, Larry and I are good - enjoying are family and especially our grandbaby and grandson, too last weekend! I think I fall more in love with him everytime I see him with Sydnee!!! That is one of the reasons I fell in love with him - his love for children and how he is with them! I love my man! I love my family!!!!
Have a blessed weekend!!!!

Catching up - My apologies!

Wow! I guess you never know who is reading your blog until you fail to blog for over a month! My apologies to the loyal friends who do read this! I cannot believe it has been a month since I did this! I know I am busy but geesh! I will TRY to do better but absolutely no promises! :) Life has been busy but wonderful here with The Reeves Bunch! Kourtnee and Sydnee are living with us now and we love having them both here. Kourt has a new job and it seems to be going well. Sydnee is growing so fast, we can hardly believe our eyes each day! She is becoming more and more vocal and smile all the time. All you have to do is look at her and say anything and she gives you the biggest smile ever! She is absolutely precious!! We were blessed this Easter Weekend to have all of our kids and both grand kids with us! It was an awesome weekend, with one exception. Saturday Keara and Brianna left to move to their new home with their new mommy and daddy. Don't get me wrong - we are thrilled about their new family, it was just very difficult watching them go. Keara had a very tough time leaving and that made Brianna have a tough time and it took a while for them to get in the van and go, but they eventually did. I have since talked to their mommy and have heard them in the background and all seems to be going very well thank God!! They have a very bright future and I am so happy for them. We also had Haven and Trinity with us on Saturday. Haven is a young lady who we had in our home for a very short respite while she was in foster care. She was pregnant and now of course has the baby. We had lost touch with her, but now are back and she has been here the past 2 Saturdays since we got in touch with her. We have just "adopted" them both so that is another daughter and grand daughter! we told her that once you enter our home no matter how long you are here you are our child forever!!! Alex, Angela and Aiden were here also. Aiden is getting so big, walking and talking some and just so adorable! We miss them, but are happy to see them when we get to/. Alex and Angela are doing well they are so happy and in love just as they should be! The other kids had a great time seeing their big brother and nephew and they enjoyed Easter. Saturday we had a big egg hunt here at the house and we had about 15 or so kids. we had 2 hunts one - under 4 and one for 4 - 12. It was a big hit. It was so last minute due to the plans for the girls departure that we were unable to invite everyone we wanted to invite. We also had Bryce, Maddy and their mom Penny from our 4H group with us. They have become family as well. I really think we should have membership cards for our family. If we charged membership fees we could get rich!!! :) Nah, we could never do that! We just love people! We love to share our Love and our joy and the blessings God has given us with others! So to recap the last month:
Larry and I celebrated our anniversary in Feb., Kourtnee and Sydnee moved in with us, kids are doing great in school, Barrel season started and Kristofer had his first run, Marlee is training a new horse - Sooner- for barrels, Easter came and went and we had a house full and a wonderful time, Ke and Bri have a new mommy and daddy - a forever family- and we love them! We are blessed!!!
I hope you all have had a wonderful month and I will do my best to blog more often.
Remember God is good all the time!!!

Another loss to our family

Today I received a phone call from another foster and adoptive parent. It was not a friendly call. Our first foster son had siblings that had been adopted out and this friend was the adoptive mother to his twin sisters. She called to let me know that Kathem's (our foster son)mother - Brandi - had passed away last night at 11 PM in Jordan. Brandi was very special to us. After Kathem went back to her she was in our lives for more than 3 years. We had her other son with us by her choice -meaning we had both boys - a lot of the time. Many of you know these boys. I loved Brandi with all of my heart and we did all we could to help her with her addictions and problems. Sadly we couldn't save her and it was tough for me to learnt hat I cannot save everyone! But she went to Jordan to be with her husband's family because he thought taking her over there would get her away from drugs and help her get better. But instead she found other addictions, legal pain killers, valium, alcohol. Her furnace blew up and because she was intoxicated she fell into the fire. She suffered burns all over her and lost 4 fingers and was placed into an induced coma. She lost her daughter that she was 8 months pregnant with and then died. We are grieving the loss of her and praying for her fmaily and her 3 children that she still had custody of. Her other 5 children had been taken by social services and adopted. Kourtnee and I had just been saying that we hoped we ran into her or something so we could tell her about Alex getting married and about his little boy and especially about her having a baby girl! But now we realize that we will never run into her and we will never again have the chance to say we love her! It is just a reminder that life is fragile and if you have someone you love tell them! Tell them everyday! Don't hold grudges - let them go! Forgive, forget and love!!! No, I did not have a grudge against her of course not, but I just know that I can never tell her I lovee her again and because of a situation with Social Services that kept us from being there for her and her kids in the end and the relationship had to end the way it did it hurts! I loved her and I can never make sure she knew that! Everyone tells me that she did know and that I did all I could and that some people just do not want help, but it doesn't really help right now! My pain is deep! She was a hurting woman and we wanted so much to see her healed! I hope that she found that peace before she left and made things right with God and is now in THE place of peace!!!! Brandi used to come to our house all the time - stayed with us many nights! But rather she was with us for a night, a few days, or even a few minutes she would always ask us - no make us :) sing a song for you - that song was THE ANCHOR HOLDS! She would cry the whole time and then hug us. We spent time in prayer with her many nights and she would go to church with us and just cry! I know she loved the Lord and I believe she made things right and is with HIM now. I love you Brandi and you will be forever missed!!!!!

Valentine's day

Today was Sydnee Renee's First Valentine's Day! She is so precious!!! She is laying on my lap as I type this! Grand children are such a joy!!! I love her more with each passing day!!!!!!!
Larry and I went to a banquet at church tonight and had a wonderful time! But the our wonderful time begins about 2 tomorrow afternoon!!!! We will be taking a short vacation for our anniversary!!!! Just the 2 of us!!!! Cannot wait!!! There are a lot of things going on right now that I am not free to blog about, but just keep our family in your prayers for great opportunities!!! I hope that each of youa re with someone you love for this special little holiday! I know that since we have children we still try to always go out on this date, but it is also a special day to show the kids an extra special love with little gifts and candy! The kids love it! Every holiday around here is done to the hilt so to say!! I do have news about the 2 little girls - we will not be adoptiong them. We are sad and hurt for them especially so please keep them in your prayers!!!!! They will be here until a forever family is found though! I just pray that we can put all the love that we have into them while they are here and let them see how special and wonderful and completely lovable they truly are. We are going to try to stay a part of their lives if they are adopted locally!!! We feel that maybe God closed this door for us to focus more on our grand kids now and the kdis we have already adopted! I know as I llok into the face of my precious grand daughter right now I am moved to tears with the love I have for her and her mommy!!!! I am truly blessed and I know that God lvoes me and he loves Keara and Brianna and will always have them in His hands no matter who they are calling mommy and daddy! We are sad as I said, but more for them and the hurt they will feel, but we also have a peace that God is still in control!!!
happy Valentine's Day to all! Hae a wonderful weekend - I know I am going to :)!!!!!