Drowning..

Sometimes I feel like I am barely able to stay afloat this thing called wife/Mommy. As of right now and for awhile my husband(active duty Army) works what seems like a million crazy hours and on top of that is taking FIVE (yes 5 classes, working full time and has a wife and 4 kids, how does he do it?) classes. This means I am juggling stuff by myself a majority of the time. I realize it could be a lot worse. He could be deployed and I thank God he is not. But that doesn't seem to make the everyday battle any easier. September was a crazy month for us and things have not slowed down in the least bit. We closed and moved into a new house. Our third child (Jackson) turned two a week labor and I went into labor during his birthday with baby #4(Knox). So I didn't really have the time in that one week to get our new house settled and under control. And on top of all that... Knox had some major health issues. He was failure to thrive for over two months. At 9 or 10 weeks he was only at his birth weight. Well since he was failure to thrive he ate constantly. No exaggeration here. He was attached to me 100 percent of the time. And if I hadn't let him nurse all the time he probably wouldn't have made it. Thank goodness I didn't do the "cry it out." So as you can imagine our sweet little two year old probably hasn't gotten all the attention he needs and deserves. (This is me feeling terrible quilt.) Being the best Mom I can be and giving all of my children is one of the most important things to me. I think I am reaping the affects of that now. He has got the WORST attitude known to mankind. I mean it's really a good thing I birthed the kid otherwise I don't know how I would handle it. I am really not even sure what to do about it, but it is driving my batty! I really don't need to be anymore batty than I already am! ;) So right now I am trying to figure out how exactly to handle him in a graceful, loving manner. And take care of everything else. This should be interesting!

Amazing whirlwind

Our life has always been a whirlwind and that just seems to define us. From the very beginning when we got married, had a baby and Daddy went to war within a 4 day period.

Having said that we just celebrated 7 years of marriage and 7 years of parenting to our sweet little girl, Shayleigh. She amazes me. I know that I am better person for having her in my life.

These are just some things that make her, Shayleigh.

She has one of the biggest, caring, giving hearts of anyone I know. For example, recently she said she wanted to pray for those people that don' have homes, food, warm bed. Well so okay praying doesn't say all that much. Anyone can say they want to pray for someone. But she continued on to say that she wants to take food to them. So now we are going to get together some stuff and take it to the shelter. She always wants to help people. All people. I mean really she's only 7.

She is funny. She has such an awesome sense of humor. And a laugh that is contagious!

She loves to read. And I love that she loves to read. I didn't grow up enjoying books. I wish I had but I didn't. I don't remember having a lot of books that I actually wanted to read. She reads to her little brothers and stays up in bed reading until she falls asleep. So cute!

She has her very own since of style. There may have been a point when I tried to fight that, not anymore. As long as she's presentable I let her choose her outfits. What's the point in fighting it? I want her to find who she is. So if she wants to wear cowboy boots with shorts, so be it.

She loves music, especially Christian music. One of my most favorite things that have happened recently was this. Sean uploaded whatever music we had on our computer to her IPOD and she came up to me and said, “I love this birth music. It's beautiful." If you know how much I love pregnancy and birth you will understand why that just melted my heart. I think she is a little midwife in the making. How did she even know that it was or could have been birth music? It is the song "Amazing" by Janelle. She goes around dancing and singing all the time.

She LOVES her brothers!

She is (pretty much) always eager to help me.

She LOVES to be outdoors. I think she has pretty much always been this way.

She might act shy for a second but can make a friend anytime or anywhere.

She writes notes and I love that.

She's very curious and always wants to know more.

Another thing that she is so very eager to do is cut her hair which is getting very long and donate it to "Locks of Love," so a little girl that doesn't have hair can have hers as a wig.

And she's stubborn.

I could go on and on but that is just some stuff about the little girl who changed my life!