Bella

The World Is Just Awesome : Discovery Channel

Do you remember this old post?

Here is another great video about the world that I love.

Why do kids make me so emotional?

I love great teachers. hmm. Maybe I should write a song about it.

Bella and I spent our date night watching Boom De Ya Da videos.
Here is one of our favorites:
Go here to watch all kinds of entertaining videos:
This one is for the guys:

What a year.
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So, here is your Christmas card.
If you are a diehard,
you can print us out and put us up on your wall
so you can prove to all incomers
that you really do have friends.

This year was the kind
that we didn’t have a professional photo.
We also didn’t want to spend for the
cost of printing and mailing.

To put it lightly,
our family has been tried tremendously.
To put it honestly,
we have walked through hell
and we are hoping that we are on our way back.

It was the kind of year that made me grateful
for a simple family snapshot.
Even if it was
as an afterthought,
and we ended up with a crappy backdrop,
and the sun was in our eyes.

You see
we were on our way to church,
together.

And together
is
huge.
It’s more than anyone can ask for.

This morning
I realized that I wanted a living record
of the end of this year,
as I looked at my daughters
and the love of my life.
We were all in the colors,
black, white, and red.

And I saw that as a great representation
of a very hard year.

We are all
still trying to do the right things.
Together.
And that pretty much sums it up.
God has held us together
in the palm of His hand.

And I am extremely
humbled
and
grateful.
And happy.

I look forward in faith.
Even if the sun has been blinding.
And what better Christmas message is there?

My daughters would not be any more beautiful
with a professional photo to prove it.
My marriage would not be as strong
without the trials and intense work.
My friends would not have reached out to us
in such love
without our pain.
Our gratitude for loving parents
would not be as deep
without the struggle.
And our testimony of a loving God
would not be as intimate.

I think we have every reason
to
rejoice.

Jesus Christ makes all things possible.
He is love and light.
He will blind you
if that is what it takes
to heal you,
to love you,
and
to know you.

And when you get through it,
you will be grateful for a sun so bright.
Even if it hurt temporarily.

Merry Christmas to you.
Especially if the sun is blinding your eyes.

Lesson With a Flair

Abigail has been making dinner on Sunday nights.

I got really stressed about her learning to cook before she goes to college.
I am not sure why since that is at least 7 years away,
but it’s all good since it gets me out of dinner duty on Sunday.
Abigail loves to search the cookbooks for something.
She is completely opposite from me.
I like to cook the same thing over and over again
so I don’t have to refer to a recipe.
Anyway, last Sunday, Abigail found a recipe for
Chicken Catchatore. Or however you spell that.
I have never made it before, how would I know.
We decided to tweak the recipe a bit
because we don’t shop on Sunday
and we didn’t have all the required ingredients.
However we did have ginger.
Abigail wanted to add it.
LG kept saying to add more.
I told him that ginger is really strong
but he wanted more.
We ended up chopping and sauteeing
what Abigail calls
a whole leg of ginger.
About an eighth of a cup.
We fried it up with garlic and onion
and the diced tomatoes
and added some spinach
and then added the leftover Thanksgiving turkey.
And Abigail declared proudly to her sisters
that we would be eating
turkey catchatore with a flair.
I said, “One big flair of ginger,”
as I secretly added some brown sugar and milk
to lighten up the overwhelming ginger.
Abigail and Bella then got into it
about what kind of noodles were being served.
Abigail assured Bella that they were linguine.
Bella argued back, like she had some kind of authority in the matter
knowing full well that Abigail was
the one to fetch the noodles from the box.
Before I knew it, Abigail and Bella were having it out
about noodles.
I then hollered,
“Fine, you are both right
the noodles are NOT linguine,
from now on in our house
they will be called:
‘Love one Another, who gives a crap what kind of noodles they are’ “.
End of story.
As we ate Bella says,
“So we are having
Turkey Ginger Catchatore over ‘Love One Another, who gives a crap kind of noodles they are.”
And Sophia in typical Sophia fashion.
Always with perfect timing
and always keeping the peace
says “with a flair.”
So from now on, our noodles will remain nameless
(don’t they all taste the same anyway)
and anything that has ginger in it
will be with a flair.
And I call that one productive Sabbath.

How to dress up like a cow
We recently took a trip to Chick-Fil-A
for some free chicken.

All you had to do was dress up like a cow.

It was in this setting that I realized,

that moms can try as hard as they want:
they can make costumes
and help coordinate efforts

but, they can
never
even
try to
replace
dad.

LG is such a good sport.
Or he really just likes free chicken.
Nobody got his costume.
Except for this other dad,
standing close by
in his sissy
jersey spots.
He let out a good manly chuckle
at the sight of LeGrand,
being the man that he is.
I think he is going to rethink
his costume next year.
I wonder how many men
will show up as bulls
next time?
But, remember,
you saw it here first.
LeGrand needs all the manly points
he can get
in this household
full of women.
Like our 4 daughters
always say,
“even our cat and dog
are girls.”

Love is everything
Last week, I kissed my husband at the dinner table
and asked my kids if they knew how much I loved their dad.
All the girls gave a rapid yes
while covering their eyes and giving us the pukes.
I kept kissing.
And then asked,
“How do you know.”
Bella answered eagerly.
“Because you have four kids.”
LG about sprayed his Crystal Lite Lemonde
in the baby’s face.

“Right”, I told her.
And then declared to LG that I was going to have a great blog post.

Happy Anniversary to my husband of 13 years.
Who made this message possible.
With some good love making.

There are certain spelling mistakes that this mother can overlook.
Especially when it comes to love.

Oops
Look, Sophia got baptized.
We are so proud of her decision to take upon the name of Christ.
And, she is gorgeous.
Can you believe she picked this dress
at the thrift store for $3.
She HAD to have it.
It’s so Sophia.

“When was the big day”, you ask?
“In October 2009, on her 8th birthday.”
Oh, it’s August 2010; I must be late posting.

No, I just took this picture 2 weeks ago.
Because I realized that I had forgot.

Lucky for me, Sophia is really easy going.
And she can’t be mad at me for forgetting.
Because she covenanted to be Christ-like.

I wonder how long it will take for me to
remember child #3’s baptism picture?

Have I ever told you that mothers lose
brain cells with every pregnancy?
I am pretty sure that this old wives’ tale is true

(I have to say that my stone house makes a perfect backdrop.)

It’s too bad that Caroline was only 4 months old back then.
I may have gotten away with it.

No Brainer

While recently spending time at the local K-Town gem
I had an epiphany.

If God gave us some snapshots of life before we came to Earth.
Any snapshots of what our future would hold.
And He let us a choose a gender.
(I know that’s not how it really worked,
as I am pretty sure our gender was part of our creation.)

I am 100% certain that I chose girl.
I wanted to be a girl.
And if I could only have one or the other,
I wanted daughters.

It was pretty much a no-brainer.
Don’t you think?

Codependence

Most people I know have no idea what codependence means. In fact, blogger does not even recognize the term. Here is the short definition from the wikipedia link:

Codependency or codependence is a tendency to behave in overly passive or excessively caretaking ways that negatively impact one’s relationships and quality of life. It also often involves putting one’s needs at a lower priority than others while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of others.

This post may not be really entertaining, as it is meant to be informative. I wish I would have heard of codependency a long time ago, as my recent study of codependency has made me an extremely healthier person. If you have known me for any length of time, you know codependent behavior. I fit the “controlling” part of codependency to a tee.
Control patterns:

  • I believe most other people are incapable of taking care of themselves.

  • I attempt to convince others of what they “should” think and how they “truly” feel.
  • I freely offer others advice and directions without being asked.
  • I lavish gifts and favors on those I care about.
  • I have to be “needed” in order to have a relationship with others.

Here is a little blossom analogy to help myself past trying to control. A few years back the girls and I were at my friend Valerie’s house. Her tree was full of gorgeous blooms. I lined my girls up for a great photo op. For over ten minutes, I kept telling them EXACTLY how to sit, look, and act. I got some good photos. It was so important to me to have that picture perfect photo. At the time, I wasn’t in touch with WHY this was so important to me. Through therapy I have finally discovered my need to be loved…part of that is my need to look perfect. I perpetuate that onto my family.

Aren’t they just about perfect? God has been good to me.


Well, after we were through with the torture session, the kids were free to be themselves again.

I kept shooting. They got into a blossom fight. It was so enjoyable to watch them have fun. It dawned on me that I had controlled them out of having fun for ten minutes. I was now getting BETTER photos with REAL expressions. And they were HAPPY. At that very moment, I realized that I was my own worst enemy. I had issues.

It was an ah-ha moment. I didn’t get to put a name to it until a year or so later. Codependency. Codependency has given me so much grief throughout my whole life. It has kept me from being happy so many times. It has also kept many of my loved ones from the happiness they deserve.
Codependents are people who need to be loved. Pure and simple. Many codependents are closely involved with addicts. I am not talking about the addicts in my life in this post. Maybe another time, but I am addressing my co-dependency. Why? Because people need to understand. Why not?
It is hard to know which comes first, a codependent or an addict. It is almost like that old riddle about the chicken or the egg. It is however easy to understand why codependents and addicts are attracted to each other like teenagers on Friday night. Addicts are a mess. Codependents are a mess. They feed off of each other. Codependents pick up all the pieces all the time. Addicts dish out all the problems. Codependents thrive on being needed because that makes them feel loved. Addicts need a codependent to help them to remain an addict. There is no one better to love or need a codependent more than a person with a bunch of problems.
Sometimes codependents create addicts. People get sick of being controlled and they rebel in form of addictions: alcoholism, abusiveness, sex addiction, gambling…they turn into addictions as a way of escaping the damage that their codependent loved one has etched into their sensitive soul.
I am working very hard at not being a codependent. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be the one who needs to be needed. I don’t want to be the one who has to control. I also don’t want to enable others. Most assuredly, I don’t want to negatively impact the people around me, especially the people who I love the most.
I mostly don’t want to be the crazy witch that goes nuts when everyone and everything she has been trying to hold together falls apart. I don’t want to take responsibility for others’ actions. I want to take responsibility for my own.
I don’t want to need to be loved. I want to love myself. I want my love and God’s love to be enough because anything I get on top of that is like an amazing overtime paycheck. I don’t want to suck all the energy from everyone in my life because no matter how much they love me, it’s never enough.
I will not be codependent any more because I want to be whole. I don’t want to be broken.
And more than anything, I want my children to be able to live lives full of carefree fun. I don’t want them to have to worry about their old mom who needs them so badly. I want them to be able to make mistakes and know that it won’t destroy their mother. I want them to know that their mom is happy, confident, and healthy, and that they can rely on her.
I encourage you to go to the link at the top of this page. Read about codependency. Educate yourselves so that you can recognize bad patterns and stop them before you do irreparable damage to yourself, your spouse, or your children. I think everyone has codependency to one degree or another, so it wouldn’t hurt to learn about it. And, even if you aren’t a codependent, I am sure that you know one, or two, or twenty, and it will help you to understand and love them better to be more aware of their challenges.
And you gotta admit it, you know you love me even more after reading this post. Even if I don’t need you to love me any more.