Happy Halloween!

   Four of the five....

the fifth is in Austin

competing in a drumline competition!

ORGANIZATION!

I'm exhausted!  I am having a hard time getting everything done....actually a very difficult time.  I can't keep the house clean, taxi the kids around, go to work, and manage the photography business in a way that's suitable in my eyes.  I am afraid something is going to have to be eliminated from the above list!  Can you guess which one?

I am extremely excited at the idea of having some bids on getting work done in our bathrooms and kitchen....yippee!!!  Merry Christmas to me!  Looking forward to getting something done to the house....FINALLY!  I am going to start laying out plans for the family closet soon.  Until we get the remodel going (if we ever get the remodel going), I'm going to use our master closet as our family closet.  It's going to take lots of clearing out and strategizing, but I think it can work.  Unfortunately for NPayne, he will have to do most of the clearing out!  I will probably start this soon, but it probably won't be complete until spring.  I am hoping to have the carpenter guy build a door from our closet to the breezeway, so I can have the washer/dryer moved out there which will also extend some space for the family closet!  I'm so excited about getting more organized.  Living in chaos makes me grumpy and very irritable, so I bet my family will be glad to get more organized too....or maybe they won't, since the majority of them seem perfectly fine with creating clutter!  ;)  But you know what they say...when mama is happy, everybody is happy!

Sad

I am sitting here editing photos, and the house is quiet...except for a few small sounds.  I can barely hear "The Parent Trap" playing on the ipad as Bryna and Elliot watch it.  In the distance of another room, I can hear Cal and the sound of his trains rolling back and forth.  I look at him through the window that separates the rooms we are in, and I suddenly become overwhelmed.  As I watch him and the thoughtful intensity that he maneuvers the trains, I listen to him talking to them; and all of the sudden I'm sad.  There is my 13 year old boy....happily playing with his trains.  Why would I be sad?  If I'm going to be honest here, and I am...sometimes it happens....a sadness overcomes me when I picture my boy as an adult.  It's difficult for me to picture him as an adult or what his life will be like, because his future is so unpredictable.  I have a vision for what the girls' lives might hold.  Of course, they might be very different than I imagine; but my vision comes from the dreams they share with me.  Cal doesn't share those dreams with me....he is not able!  Sometimes sadness overwhelms me when I wonder if he will ever get married or have children or have any sort of companion besides his sisters, his daddy, and me!  Of course we will always be there to be his companion, but for most typical people...there comes a time when your closest companion may be a friend or a mate.  Maybe the sadness overcame me tonight, because of the talk we had in the car earlier with Elliot.  She and Bryna were talking about how I would have had many many more children, and how I had told them once we would just get a passenger van if our family outgrew the suburban.  Tonight I said I had hoped we would need a passenger van when we started becoming grandparents.  I had hoped we would have so many grandkids, that we would need a van to transport them all.  Then we started talking about Thanksgiving, that's my favorite holiday, and I told them how Addi had mentioned that she thought Thanksgivings, when they were all grown and had children, would be so wonderful.  We would have a house full...not like we don't already...but an even bigger house full of family here.  Elliot was asking me if she would move out and live with her husband and kids, and I told her she would; but we could all have Sunday lunches together after church and spend all of our holidays together and many other days together.  It was a nice vision when I thought more about it later, then I heard the trains rolling back and forth; and I saw my boy from the distance of another room.....I wondered if he would ever have a companion to share his love and life with.  Usually when it comes to worrying about my son, I worry about what high school might hold or how he will react when we go to a new restaurant.  I haven't worried much about his adult life...that is until lately...when I realized that he is realizing that he isn't seeing some of his friends much anymore.  It's not that they don't still love Cal....it's that they are 13 year old typical boys with busy lives and are becoming more interested in things that Cal can't relate to.  I see kids his age doing things that typical 13 year olds do, and I feel like he really wants to do so many of those things; but he just doesn't know how!  Sometimes I see it in his face...the longing....to be like them...and he's just not!  And it makes me sad!

Sisters...I Still Wish I Had One!

This has to be one of my all time favorite photos I've ever taken!  I love it so much, perhaps because I love them so much!  It's a living in the moment shot, and those are my favorites!

Summer........

I can't wait for summer.  Sounds crazy to hear that in October....just when it's starting to cool off....but I can't wait.  I don't long for the 100+ degree temps, but I do long for the lazy summer days.  If we could skip from Thanksgiving to summer, with a few dates to celebrate, in between....I would be a-okay with that.  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, so I would never want to skip that!  NPayne's, Drew's Addi's and Cal's birthdays are all in Jan., Feb., March, May; so I wouldn't want to skip those...and of course there's Mother's Day too.  I miss sleeping late, eating all my meals with my kids, hanging out with them every day, having time to sit down and rest, swimming, staying up late, blogging, reading, editing, creating....I miss it.  Busyness exhausts me, and not in a good way!  I wish I could figure out how to balance the busyness of everyday with caring for our house, cars, yard.  I wish I could figure out how to balance the busyness of everyday with spending quality time alone, with my husband, with each child, with God...each day!  I'm giving it my best, but I still feel it's lacking in many many ways!  Balance....that's one thing I haven't conquered yet! I don't know if I ever will, so I am hoping I can continue to live in the moment!!

I Believe

I believe....
-happiness is a choice
-someone always "needs" more than I do
-serving others is as much of a blessing to those who serve as it is to those who are served
-a good cup of coffee can change my attitude
-winning is not always all it's cracked up to be
-children are the best gift ever
-the meaning of Christmas is oftentimes forgotten
-the journey to perfection is more about the journey than the outcome
-living in the USA is a gift
-God doesn't make bad things happen, but He does allow them to happen
-Adam should have never eaten that apple
-good friends are a necessity
-TV is overrated, but music is not
-joy should be shared
-beauty flows from within
-we are all created perfect...in His image...but sometimes things interfere with creation
-LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED!

XOXO

Just in case you need a kiss and a hug....here you go!

And on that note, my weekend has been a good one so far.  

Partly because I get kisses and hugs from her.

That endoscopy thing was quite uneventful....

except that now I'm waiting for some results!

The best part of the weekend....

it's a three day weekend!

Boy I sure could use those every weekend!

My Week

It's been a week.  Drama, challenges, sadness in all aspects of my week! It's been such a week that I'm actually looking forward to the endoscopy tomorrow just so I can escape (through anesthesia) for a few hours! :)
On a serious note,my week has been challenging, dramatic and sad; but its been wonderful, special and full of blessings as well! I am looking forward to sleeping the day away tomorrow though!

Baby Fever

You want one.....you know you do!

Well I know I do!

Latest photo session....

sweet baby, 

sweet big sis,

sweet big bro, 

sweet mama and daddy!

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