Being away from home for the last 6 years now has been really hard on me. I am a really family oriented person and I always have been. I love my family, all of them, and I love spending time with all of them. With the military and all of our moves you learn that "your friends are your family, and your family is your friends." In some cases that was true. You see your friends way more, you celebrate with them, you cry with them, you watch their kids grow....at least until one of you moves away. You gain some lifelong friendships and another name to add to your Christmas card list every year. But to me friends will never replace my family, but they will be added to my family. It's hard when you go to see your family and your kids don't recognize any of them, they don't know their names, or really who they are at all. But friends are like "aunts" and "uncles" and "cousins". We've been away from home for so long now and deep down it kills me. I hate that I only get to see my mom like twice a year. I hate that every time we go home our kids have doubled in size since the last time everyone saw them. I do have the most amazing friends here and I know I would miss them terribly if we left, or if any of them left. With the military though you learn that goodbyes just mean new hello's. I think that's why I have a hard time getting close to people because I always feel like as soon as we get close one of us has to say goodbye. It would be nice to settle down somewhere for a while and actually send our kids to the same school for more than one year, and let them make friends and keep them. I wish I could just move everyone I loved into the same little town somewhere so I could see all of them as often as I wanted to. But that's not life. Life is all about the people you love so hold on to them when you can, and miss them when they are gone, and pray that you'll have the time to spend with them. Love your friends like family, and treasure your family....even when they drive you crazy. Life wouldn't be life without them.

Holey Shoes......

I was looking at my shoes the other day, and let me tell you they've seen better days. But I know I'm cheap and I hate to spend money on myself. We just bought the kids brand new shoes for school that I swear cost more money than 3 of my shoes total. (They like name brand already at 3 and 5 years old). We have the money, I could go out and buy myself a pair of shoes and it wouldn't be a big deal. So I've been trying to figure out why I haven't done it. I go to look for shoes, but I usually end up seeing something for my kids and I get that instead. Even when I had a bit extra money and I said I would spend it on me, I spent 90% of it on my kids. They always come first....even when I don't try to put them first. I go to look for clothes and I come out with a whole new wardrobe for them when I'm still wearing clothes from high school (only 6 years ago). I just think it's so interesting how I always put the kids first. It's like when you finally get a date with your husband and you go out to dinner, you spend the entire time talking about your kids. It's your only time away from them and yet it's like they are right there with you. Life revolves around your kids. They drive you crazy, eat all the food in the house, spend all your money, and yet you can't get enough of making them happy. So you go without things just so your kids can have more of what they want. Even if you don't have to go without you still do because instead of thinking about yourself at the store, you think about your kids. I don't understand why some people don't put their kids first. I would rather walk around with holey shoes and watch my kids face light up when they get to wear their new shoes and get that toy they wanted, or take them to the baseball game. Besides.....my feet are the same size they were years ago so I can wear my shoes out. My kids outgrow shoes faster than we can buy them new ones. I think that's why I want them to have everything since they are only little once.

Life....

Life gives you many opportunities. It's really up to you how you see them when they come your way. A lot of situations you could look at it two different ways, one as something horrible, and the other as an opportunity to learn something. Say you're sitting there with your grandfather, or grandmother, or great uncle...someone more elderly, and they are talking up a storm. You can look at it one of two ways and they way you'll look at it will determine how your day is going to be. You can look at it like "oh my god, will he ever shut up....this is so boring. Why do I have to sit here?" and then you can halfway listen as the minutes tick by super slow and it can just bring your whole day down. Then I'm sure you'll complain about it for weeks to come about how boring this person is. Or you can actually listen to the person talking. If you actually sit and listen, and ask questions I'm sure that person has so many interesting stories about "the good ol' days" and things that happened in the past. You may even find that the time flies by quicker than you wanted it to and you'll learn a lot about the person. It could even make your day a great one. You only have so much time with people.....as sad as it is you do. And you don't want to be the one at the funeral listening to stories about them thinking to yourself "wow....he was a pretty amazing person. I wish I'd gotten to know him more." Because then it's too late. I think we should all look at life on the positive side of things as much as we can because we might miss something great and we probably won't be able to get it back.

Ol Wives Tales

So all this week I have had several friends tell me old wives tales to tell me whether I'm having a boy or a girl and the verdict is......It's either a boy or a girl. lol. It's so confusing. One I heard was that you don't get morning sickness with girls because they are more peaceful to carry.....well if that's true I'm having a girl! I had morning sickness horribly with all three of the boys.....for more than 50% of the time pregnant....it was rough. I also heard though the exact opposite of that. So who knows...maybe everyone is different with how they carry the babies and the symptoms that they experience. Another one I heard is that if it's a girl she is known to "steal your beauty" while you are pregnant.....but I had that symptom with all the boys too. I mean they are gorgeous boys, so maybe they stole my beauty as well. I just never felt real pretty while I was pregnant though. So all this talk and I'm still just as uncertain about the sex of the baby. I guess I'll just say it's either a boy or a girl. All I do know is that this pregnancy is completely different than all three of my last ones so deep down in my heart I really think it's a girl.....but that could be because I really want it to be a girl.

When I was growing up all I ever knew for sure was that I wanted to be a mom someday. That was my main goal. I played with dolls and barbies all day, naming them, and dressing them in a whole bunch of pretty outfits. I didn't want to have a career, or be famous...I just wanted to be someone's mom. To feel the love that only a child can give, so sweet, and sincere. I'm now the mom of 3 boys, and our 4th baby is on the way and I'm actually a little scared. I love my boys so much, they are amazing, but wow adding a 4th one is all of a sudden starting to scare me. Being a mom is the world's toughest job, and anyone who claims otherwise isn't a mom. You learn to multi-task at every moment of the day. You are a nurse, a maid, a chef, a chaeufer, a photographer....you break up battles, and pick up toys, play games. Your whole life changes when you have a baby and it never stops from the moment they are born. I know I have so much more coming. My oldest is only 5 going on 6.....I'm just in awe thinking about what is yet to come still. When they are babies and crying all day you can't wait to get through that phase and maybe have things a little easier, but once they start walking and talking it never stops. The days seem to fly by with all the sports and toys and fights, and laughs. Life is amazing and crazy all wrapped into one kid....and when there is more than one kid things really get crazy! Being a mom is the best job in the world, even if it's the toughest job. Because as stressed out as the days get it makes it all worth it at the end of the day when you look at your babies sleeping........no matter how old they get!

Something I learned

Something that I learned over the weekend is that there are two different kinds of people in this world. One group of people thinks about others and how they feel, and the other group only thinks about themselves and worries about them and them alone. We were at a baseball game this weekend and we were sitting on the lawn in a pretty open area. There were a few people around us, but not too many. Then all of a sudden a couple and their daughter come up and stand at the fence directly in front of us. They saw us, they looked back and saw that we were sitting there, and they just didn't care. They blocked the way anyways. We have 3 kids with us and we're trying to watch the game and we can't see anything. So eventually we moved since it was raining and when we came back we saw they were still standing there so we sat away from them a little bit in an area where we could see. So then about 10 minutes later they leave and come back, not to the spot they were at, but to a spot directly in front of us again blocking our view once again. We were a little irritated, but the boys seemed to have fun anyways. Then they were doing fireworks after the game to celebrate the 4th of July. We had to move since our seats were blocked by a tree, so we moved and sat down by some other people when a couple of teenage kids came and stood directly in front of us blocking the view of the fireworks completely. My husband got up and asked them to move. We missed the game, we weren't about to let the kids miss the fireworks as well. It's our youngest son's first 4th of July, and first time seeing fireworks. Well they moved, but they did not look happy about it. By this point I was thinking very low of people in general. But after watching people try to leave the parking lot after the fireworks was a whole other matter. Now like I said before some people are polite and they do think about others. You'll see them waving people in and it delays them a bit but they still help and let other's ahead of them. But then you'll see the cars that push and shove their way through the traffic, or go around all the cars waiting in line to get there a whole 5 seconds sooner. We weren't in a hurry, the kids fell asleep two minutes into being in the car. So we just sat with the windows down waiting for the parking lot to clear out. If everyone would have let just one person out and waited in line it probably would have been a lot faster. But there are those people that are just out for themselves and ready to get themselves ahead that they don't think about the people that they pushing past.

Just a thought

Yesterday we were driving around and we saw a funeral recession line led by police escorts on motorcycles. I actually got teary eyed even though I have no idea who's funeral it was, or any of the family members. The line had about 10 cars in it, it wasn't that long, but it still really got to me. I think about all of the people that have been in my life that I have lost, and remembered how I felt on the days of the funerals. I remember watching the news once listening to a hurst driver talking about how rude some people in other cars can be when they are behind the funeral lines. He said he's actually had people honk at him and flip him off because he was driving so slow. I couldn't believe hearing that. How would they feel if they were one of the family members in the car in line and people were honking at them. It's hard when you loose someone close to you and that's really the last thing that you need on a day like that. I want to teach my kids to show respect to those who have lost family or friends, the day is hard enough on them. I think I'll always tear up a little whenever I hear about a death, or see a funeral line, and even when I pass a cemetary. It's someone's loved one, and someone is missing them.