To the future husbands of my daughters

Well. .. . you are probably only about 4 to 7 years old right now, which makes it a perfect time to hone you into a wonderful God fearing, woman respecting, chivalrous gentleman.

I have been praying for you for a while now, even though I don't know you. I pray that everyday you get to spend with my daughter you treat her as if she is a princess-- because , she is! I pray that you hold doors open for her, that you respect her, that you defend her honor, that you support her dreams and ambitions, and most importantly share her love of God.

I know that someday when I do meet you I will be impressed because I have faith that right now God is molding you into a wonderful soul, full of love and kindness. I also have faith that your parents are instilling in you morals, integrity, an appreciation for telling the truth, and honorable examples of dealing with emotions.

And woe to me if by accident my daughters are veered off their path temporarily, I will be here to love, protect and encourage and kick some butt until you come along :)

Defending the "CoUgAR"

I have to laugh, am I really a "cougar"? Being the "older" lady that I am with my 25 year old husband in tow? I had a reality check this summer when a pleasant lady, who I might add, was obviously vision- impaired, knocked on my door and offered to take my children to her house for "bible"study" because my "son" had told her the day before that it might be okay.

HOLD UP! First off, weird lady-- I do not have a son!-- oh ,you know ,the tall blonde boy? You mean my Fiance??? GULP. . no expression and secondly, WHY would I let some stranger take the fruits of my loins to her house, UN-supervised????? Okay, question my prioritization here. . both were equally disturbing!

So, in true cougaress fashion I made a little appointment with a small needle filled with what I like to call "the fountain of youth", while at this appointment I figured what the heck a little jar of "defy all gravity" might help too! and maybe I'll start lighfting a little weight to ,uh. . bring back to place what gravity has "shifted"

That young boy mentioned earlier, now my husband, thinks I'm crazy. Crazy would be me thinking that I'm going to age gracefully! I will, and I repeat, will fight mother nature! See what I'm doing now is called "prevention" it can't form if you don't allow it to-- a wrinkle that is!

So here I am, paralyzed forehead, grey roots dyed, eyelash regrowth serum applied, limbs aching from lifting a two pound dumb-bell waiting for my next big "idea" on looking more youthful when a message is sent from above. . "dear Marsha, you don't have to do it all! All those things that are prematurely aging you can be applied to "the boy" to expedite his maturity. . " Well slap me and call me Susan -- that is a perfect idea!

So I have said to my dear Derek. . .you look awesome when your face is sunburned-just awesome! You look cool when you smoke! I love it when you inhale a Big Burger Challenge at Pints and Quarts! Did I mention how hot you look with a sunburn?


After all we're in this together right???

I miss summer

Oh warm weather, where have you gone? Actually were you ever here?

Really, this summer was quite ridiculous. I can count on one hand the number of "Peg Bundy Sundays " I hosted . (This is a day, not necessary Sunday, that one spends the entirety outside, bathing suit clad-- occasionally optional, yes Marci I'm talking about you!--eating hot dogs off the grill, drinking lemonade,sitting in a lawn chair with one's feet in a kiddie pool and listening to Kid Rock sing "All summer long") . In fact ,only one Saturday comes to mind that the girls and I woke up, put on our suits and spent the whole day in the backyard "catching a tan" as Abigayle likes to call it. What a fun day! The sun was like a torch and the moods were delightful-- I'd like a repeat please!

Almost a one year anniversary!

So-- on October 12th of last year my oldest daughter, who was 6 at the time , and I were baptized together. That date will forever be carved in my mind. We prepared a few weeks in advance-- which may sound odd, but we had to give a little "mini" speech to the congregation about our journey to baptism. I still get teary-eyed thinking about this because it is bittersweet. It took a difficult divorce (at least for me) to finally realize I was worth something and that God loved me for who I am, and He was my saving Grace. It's so hard to put into words and I don't think I ever will be able to but had it not been for my Faith and commitment to God and knowing his unconditional Love for me I would not have made it this far.

As for Abigayle, how awesome to be able to hold your daughters hand in the baptism water and be side by side for such an amazing event-- she is an exceptionally intelligent young girl who impresses me daily with wisdom beyond her years yet, at that moment in time I felt more pride and wonderment for her than all the A+ papers,educational awards, piano playing, etc. . could ever bring. I love that little girl so much and wish everyone could experience such an awesome commitment together with their children :)

Reflecting. . .

My little Amelia turned 4 this week, where has the time gone? I look at her and think "I am going to blink and you will be off to college" and then I get really sad! It's so bittersweet that God gives us precious gifts called children to raise as we wish or how we see fit and then send them off hoping & praying that we have given them every piece of wisdom imaginable to be productive, loving, empathetic, cautious, caring adults. I know that day will come, but as for right now. . I don't want to think about it!

Each year on the girls birthdays I tell them the "story" of the day they were born, it's amazing what they remember from the year before. . as I was telling Amelia the story this year she looked at me and said "mommy, you forgot the part about the slime" Silly me. . how could I forget about the "slime"-- apparently last year the story was more "graphic" :)

Happy Birthday, my little Amelia!!!

Teresa the "catapapiller"

A few weeks back my little Amelia, thank God for her unending curiosity, found this marvelous "catapapiller" under a milk weed leaf. We decided to keep this puffy little friend in a jar and see what happened. Who would have known that this new friend of ours was ravenous! And when I say ravenous I mean devouring whole milk weed leaves in minutes, the jar fogged up and we could literally hear "her" munching on these delicate leaves.

Within a few days she crawled to the top of the jar and hung upside down for a while, I was secretly afraid our new friend had eaten her self into a state of delusion (which would explain hanging upside down!)-- but thank God for Google!!! this little bugger was none other than a monarch "catapapiller" and she was right on schedule. Soon she arched her puffy self into a "j" shape --

And then to my, Abigayle and Amelia's surprise began to spin an amazing green cocoon before our very eyes-- talk about perfect timing! How lucky were we to see this awesome feat?? The girls went nuts with excitement UNTIL. . . . our new friend spun the cocoon up to the very top of what we think was her head and then KERPLUNK!! her head fell off!!! yet the cocoon continued to wiggle??

It is like Christmas waiting to see what will emerge from this cocoon, I hope we are lucky enough to be home when the beautiful creature emerges :)

An Awesome Book

So, I am reading the most awesome book ever right now--Sacred Parenting, by Gary Thomas-- if you have children you need to read this book-- Thank you so much , my friend, Danelle for "loaning" me this wonderful book!

In case you don't know, every morning while I blow dry my hair I read-- for the past 7 months it has been the Bible-- I'm only as far as Deuteronomy, but at a page or two a day that is pretty good :)-- anyway I have recently detoured from this ritual to read Gary's book and have been so amazed at what a difference this book has made in my own life I want to encourage everyone to read it.

This morning I finished the chapter on "burning love" which gave some amazing spiritual application to dealing with anger when it comes to raising children and in every day life . I now have some pretty powerful "tools" to use when I need to count to 10! I realized that anger is not a sin-- depending on how you use it and apply it-- So watch out next time I'm feeling angry-- it might just benefit me in my spiritual journey!

I can't wait to blow dry my hair tomorrow to see what morsels of wisdom Gary has next :)!!!!