Crafting again.

I have missed sitting in front of my sewing machine for a long time. I mean there were some projects that I was able to work on while working but the guilty feeling that came with it wasn't fun. I mean why sewing when you could spend time with Kahlan at the park right?
Anyways I have been able to work on Kahlan's and mine Halloween outfit.  No money spent since my collection of fabrics is crazy right now.  I did buy some gold material for it and it is not quite done yet but for the most part it is.
The one thing I am enjoying immensely is my embroidery project. I had started working on the portrait of my mother in law about 6 months ago, worked it while watching show on TV every once in a while and that's why I haven't finished it.  It usually takes me about 2 to 3 weeks to be done with them. Plus you needs inspiration to finish this kind of stuff. By all means my creations are not as cool as an artist that's out there... but I do what I can and it turns out pretty cool.
We just mailed it out today and hopefully it will get there on time for her birthday.
Warning lots of pictures on this one.

I think the smile came out prefect.

I love the details on her face.

Jobless in Houston

After working for a year full time it finally caught with me and the house, the kids and my poor body and mind started to feel the effects of it.  I honestly don't know how other women do it.  Working full time and having a big family do not mix well for me.  I tried, I mean I really tried.  There were morning when I just did not want to get out of bed and face the reality, leaving my little girl at someone's house even this this house was a safe place where she is loved immensely.... I just could not do it anymore. She missed me and I her.
As mush as I tried to organize myself and the teach my kids how to keep up with everything it was hard.  The poor kids did a lot of growing up this last year. They became more responsible, they looked after each other and prepared meals for themselves.  Even now they still make their own lunch to take to school.
Life was pretty hard, I only got to see my kids for a couple of hours, some times even just half an hour on my late days.  I missed tons of school events and was not keeping up with their homework assignments. Aaron is doing great in school but compared to where his siblings were at his age, he still has a lot to do, I know he can do much better.  They are all very smart, they work hard at school and are for the most part responsible but I know that me not being home made it easier for them to "forget"about some assignments.
The other hard thing for me was when my kids were sick, I wasn't able to stay home with them some times, it broke my heart.  At work they don't really care if your kid is sick puking his guts out, no sir, they want you there 100% making the calls that will bring them thousands of dollars into their clinic and you are not allowed to be distracted or even think about your sick child...
Figuring out meals was extremely hard too, I mean you have to shop based on your recipes or your have to cook based on what you have on hand, shopping??? yeah I hate it now.  It was not enjoyable to come home change my clothes cook a mean and then go out shopping for the things we were missing for the next few days. some times I stopped on the way home but it was hard because all I wanted was to go home and relax with my family.
I know I am a failure because I gave up... I just could not do it anymore.  The idea was to help Dan with the bills but after paying for gas, food and daycare it was becoming impossible.  It was not worth it to keep going through the whole thing and not being able to enjoy the little money.
I kept feeling my place was at home, for months I struggled with this idea but did not want to bring it up with Dan because I knew he would stress a lot. I mean, why would I cut our income by a third? I probably wouldn't seem fair to him.  But the thought came coming back to me, so I did what I knew would be best.
I went to the Temple, fasted and prayed for weeks.... the answer was peace in my heart whenever I thought about it.  Now the hardest part was to let my employers know about my decision and I knew I was going to be judged for it. First of all they already think I am crazy for having 5 kids so that was not fun.  Indeed when I told them about it they could not believe it, one of the doctors actually I don't think she cared that much, right after I told her she made the manager write a post online about my position being available, not even 5 minutes after I talked to her.  The husband though tried to keep me and offered me a raise but I just could not do it.  There are many reasons why it was just not going to work for me.
So the date was set, I gave them my last date for work, September 18th. I was excited to go to work for the last time, the doctor even game me a free root canal before I left that day.  I was ready to text Dan about it and let him know I was OK when I saw his text...."They let me go"
You can imagine what a crazy moment that was in my head.  I was in the bathroom when text showed up on my phone.  I was numb still from the anesthesia and tears started to come down my face.  I tried to stay strong and not cry, started to walk to the back of the clinic when a fellow employee asked me what was wrong and I lost it. The doctor found me and had me sit down, I tried to tell him what happened and I know he was talking but I wasn't listening.  All I now is that he told me I could come back on Monday but I know he was just being nice, he had hired two people already, one took my position and the other one was starting on Monday.  I appreciate his kindness but know his wife would not had approved of it. I told him that I had to leave right away, my face was a mess, could not stop crying and just had to leave that place. Drove home to find Dan's car in the driveway already. Of course my mom had no idea what was going on and I had to tell her, Victor was standing there too and it broke my heart to tell him what was going on.
The thing is, this is all super crazy right?  I mean, my last day at work, his last day at work, one planned and the other one a complete surprise...
I still try to wrap my head around the whole thing and can't understand what happened.  Dan and I spent the afternoon in our room on our bed, crying, laughing and planning our next move.
I am happy to say that was the only day I cried, it has been a month and to me that is a big deal.  I am a big baby, can't help myself.
Last year when Dan was unemployed for almost 6 months it was hard, I cried almost every day. I felt so alone and depression hit me hard.
I know it is all because of prayers, the way I am praying this time around is mostly to keep myself collected, feel peace and calm, I am able to get up and be positive and hopeful.  I know Dan is doing a lot better too.  We both are taking care of each other and making sure everything is in control.  He still supports me with the idea of staying home with the kids, at least until Kahlan starts Kinder next fall, I know it will be easier to find a part time job somewhere and help the family that way.
Dan has been working hard on applying for jobs and we are hoping something will work out soon.
I am not losing the faith, I know Heavenly Father has something planned for us, even with our broken van right now, I know there is something better for us, life is hard yes, but I feel my Savior, holding me tight, telling me it is going to be OK, wrapping me in his arms and making things better.
This is the hardest thing we have had to deal with as a family, I mean the kids know exactly what is going on and they hurt too, they are just as scared as we are and it is because of them that I am trying to stay strong.
I am grateful for the family and friends that I have, for their support and concern and their prayers, I am sure that is how we are able to keep going too.
So for now we keep praying and doing the things we are supposed to do, we keep trying to find the good side on everything and appreciate the little things in life. I have laughed more in the last 4 weeks than I have in the last year, that means something right?

Back to blogging

So it has been a while since I actually blogged regularly.... to make a long story short life happened, decisions were made, some were good, some not so good.  Both Dan and I learned from these experiences and are trying to pick up the pieces and move on with our lives. A lot has happened and I will try to go back in time and share the entire year 2014....

First post of the year....shame on me!!!

This little girl turned 4 just last week. I know I am way late posting anything about it but here she is, at 4 years old she loves to sing and dance and do anything that is princess related. She loves going to school but also loves spending time with mommy and daddy on our days off. She LOVES cowboy boots and thanks to her grandma Brown she was able to get this cute Hello Kitty (on sale of course) at the mall. She was dying to get a pair and waited patiently for the day to come.

Here she is with her adorable penguin that her best friend Payton go for her.

They go together for lunch and had lots of fun playing together.

She also got princess roller skates and has been going around the house and some times outside trying them out.  She feel on her bottom really hard the other day but didn't give up and kept going.

She has a crazy love for puzzles and and of course Frozen, so she was as happy as she could be with this awesome puzzle set we got for her.

Her lame mommy didn't get around making a cool cake for her, but in all honesty, I had made a cake the week before and didn't have the material at hand to do what she wanted and we really don't eat any cake so I found the next best thing, pineapple upside down cake mix that was sitting in my pantry and she like it? kind of? we all had a little bite and the cake was never touched again lol. At least she got to blow the candles.

This picture was taken on her actual birthday and you can tell she was really happy to be four, I took the picture right around the time she was born so she was official 4 years old. Love you so much Kboo!!!!!

A Few Months in a Nutshell

So my kids have had a great year. They all finished school strong with lots of certificates for being the best readers, good at math, future president... you get the idea.
It was a very interesting school year and we could hardly wait for them to be done with school, for some reason I have been really looking forward to them getting out and to spend time with them and so far I have succeded.  I took the boys to the dentist this week and we spent 3 awesome hours bonding doing word search and drawing and talking about a bunch of stuff.  We take out word-search seriously in this house and I am proud to say that I had personal best at 3 minutes, the word-search wasn't that big but still it usually takes about 6 to 10 minutes... we have gone to the pool already and enjoyed it very much. Shayna and I have found time to go out and do things together and hopefully next week we can get her quilt done so she can take it to camp.
Shayna and Victor both did great in Honors Band this year, I think it was a really good learning experience for Victor and also a great opportunity for him to step out of his comfort zone.  Having Shayna around school made it so we felt better about Victor not being teased, the fact that he is part of band I think will help him stay safe. They already know him and he likes being there.
Shayna is moving onto High school and it is still mind blowing to me that she is that old.  She is planning on enjoying summer until it is time for her to go to band camp in August which is all day long, she already told me how she is dreading that part but I think it will be good for her.
Victor is moving on to 7th grade and looking forward to his new classes too.  He is planning on doing lots of reading this summer and already got started.
Tristan is moving onto 4th grade and Aaron onto 2nd grade. Now this two boys are really excited about going to a new school. As a family we decided it would be best to take them out of their current school and have them try a charter school that is really close to our house, if you follow me on FB you know all about the "awesome" experiences we had to deal with this school year.  Bullying kept happening and the dumb rules that the school has are just so pointless. I had the boys come home many times telling me how they were always missing their recess because of the kids talking in class so for months they were not allowed to go outside and play, getting punished for other kids talking to them, etc etc.  The list goes on and on. The most frustrating part was how much the school really does not care about their students, their struggles or anything. I don't feel like they reached their full potential there and the new school they will be attending will be smaller and hopefully they can achieve more there.  Dan and I went to a parent orientation night and were pretty impressed with it, Tristan who was with us was so excited and I think wanted to start going right away.  We are currently waiting on them to call us with the official news that they made the list, apparently they have a lot of kids wanting to go there and only so many spaces. Last time I talked to them they said Aaron is pretty much in and that we should not worry about Tristan because we turned in all needed paperwork and are ahead the other kids on the waiting list.  Lets keep our fingers crossed. If they do not have a spot for either one of them I am prepared to keep them home for a while and home school until a spot opens up. I am confident that we are making the right decision and that thing will work out.
My sweet Kahlan has been enjoying life and learning a lot, her vocabulary is so extended now and it has been such a treat to see how much she has grown up this year.  We are still working on potty training, sadly she is very stubburn and does not want to get the hang of it.  Other than that she seems to be ahead of her age, when ever we go places people stop me to make comments about what a smart little girl she is and how adbanced for her age she is.  If you start up a conversation with her be prepared to have a very long and fun one.  She will talk our ears off and she is so loving too, I have a friend who has a little girl same age as kahlan and they are supposed to be best friends but I think Kahlan likes the mom more than her frind.... whenever she sees her at church she runs to the mom and tells her "Sister Bales I just love you", you just have to see it, the facial expression and the way she caresses her hair is to die for, cute cute cute.
Some times I tell her I love her and she says "No... Daddy loves me" and when he tells her that he loves her she says "No.... Mommy loves me", she is the reason I forget we have trials some times, makes my day every day.
The other day I told her she was driving me nuts... she replied "I drive you nusts mommy?" I said "yes you drive me bananas!!!"  she then replied "I drive you apples and pineapples...." we all laughed so hard and she got embarrased but it was so funny and I laughed so hard that I cried.
So that's it.  We haven't done anhything exciting, have not gone on vacation, Dan still works on homework all the time and I feel like a single mom some times but the end is near and I just can't wait to be done with this phase in our lives.
Our Brown family reunion is coming soon too and it is now just a couple of weeks before we see everyone here in Texas, we will be driving down to Galveston to a beach house that was rented for the entire family. I really can't wait to go and relax and that will be our offcial vacation for the year.
Life is not perfect at this time, I know things will get better, we pray for a better future and are very grateful for the so many and wonderful blessings, for family and friends and look forward to a lot of adventures. I hope we can stay postive as a new era aproaches for us, for Dan and I am here to support him in any and all decisions, I pray for guidance and strenght to be the wife I am meant to be and together we will get to where we are supposed to be. Every year is something new, every year brings a lot of learing experiences and this year Dan and I are defenetly learning a lot and the kids too, I am amazed at how strong they are and how much they can do.
What have I been up to?? Well  my friends that is another story and will gladly do an update on that soon.

New Year, New Goals.

Since I am sick and no willing do anything at all and basically just waiting for my medication to start working and get sleepy... I am going to bore you with my thoughts.
Last year was a tough year for me, I had a few challenges that broke me down to the core and thought that I would never be able to get up again and keep moving forward. When you add the extra things that life throws at you then it just seems like there is no end to your suffering.
I don't consider my trials and tribulations to be harder than anyone else but in my world they are mine to bear and mine to deal with so yes they seem big enough and more than I can carry at times.
In the process of getting myself to feel better I found out that if you let the Lord help you the load does become a little lighter, if you let people help you by listening then the load does get even lighter.
I have written this post so many times before but I kept myself from publishing it because I was so mad at the time and reading them again I can see that the place where I was hiding was not pretty at all.

First of all let me start by saying that I do not consider myself the perfect human being, I am far from it and I have never portrayed myself as perfect.  If you take a good close look at me you can see that I am needy, whiny and annoying.  My poor husband has to deal with me on a daily basis and that is how I know he loves me because he puts up with me other wise he is just plain crazy. I might seem a little over achiever at times, too much going on at once. Lots of projects in the works, lots of them sitting on my shelves undone and lots more in my head. I was telling a friend this week that this is my way of keeping things off my mind, if I think too much then I can go back to getting all depressed about my problems.

In the process of trying to find a good friendship I pretty much lost myself and affected my family as well. Last year I had a best friend and lost her all at once. It all happened so fast and it almost feels as if I was hit with something and suddenly I woke up trying to make sense of what happened.
It will forever be a mystery to me how things went so wrong so fast. For months I blamed myself for everything, things were said to me that made me feel less than scum, the behavior from this  person showed to me that I was never a true friend to her and that all I had done that was good was being turned into evil somehow.  I started to believe this person that I was not good enough, that I was a bad mother, wife and friend and thus had a bad husband, bad family and bad friends. The picture that was painted of me seemed like a monster and it scared me so much. That's when I hit the bottom and entered into what I could see as the beginning of a deep depression.  I felt so alone even though I had my family right there with me. Sure I talked to Dan about it and he understood me and while trying to make sense of it seemed difficult to him too. I mean the whole thing affected the entire family.
I was spending my days laying down on the couch with no desire to do anything, talk to anybody, I just wanted to sleep every day for a long time.  Eventually I told my mother about what was going on and slowly started to accept things as they were. My mom was able to point out that I was not that evil person I thought I was.  I was able to go back and see how the evil had been done to me instead and how this person had so much poison to spread around about EVERY single person she came in contact with and that is how my eyes were opened.  Finally it kind of made sense, after taking a hard look at the trail she had left behind I could see that others had suffered and were suffering just as I had been. It gave me the strength to rebuild myself and dig myself out of that hole that was not very pretty.
It took months to get better, Dan kept listening to me, my mom kept talking to me and cheering me up and although I had vow to never ever have friends again I let myself out of my shell and started to trust others again. I have found that there are some good people out there that are willing to listen and be kind and loving, people that are what they seem and do not hide behind a fake smile.
I had to be strong for my own daughter who ended up down the same path I did as her best friend happened to be my best friend's daughter and sadly chose to follow the same sick and strange behavior that was damaging not only to my kid but several other friends. 
She is also struggling with this issues still but we are doing it together and coming out stronger than before.
So this is my story for last year, the one that will probably remain in my head so vividly and the one that has taught me so much in the end. 
We truly need to remember to follow the commandments, to do onto others as we would like to be treated. Love one another... as simple as that.
And so my main goal for this year is exactly that, to be kind to others no matter what, not expecting anything in return just doing it because in doing so we are showing our love for Heavenly Father. I can only imagine how disappointed he was with me when my behavior was not what it should have been. I can only imagine how much he suffered as he saw me in pain because I could see that with my own kid. 
This year I want to be able to look back 12 months from now and say that I was able to be kind to many and create a never ending chain of good deeds to others, I am going to be open to opportunities to serve and seek out those who are alone. I will surround myself with kind  people to strive to lift others up not bring them down.
My goals are many but they are doable, I have written them down for my personal progress but this one on this post is my own personal theme for the year. I want to be better than I was last year, I want to do better.

The Zoo and My Birthday

I am doing a special post about my birthday but the reason is because it was the first time for Kahlan as a toddler and she actually enjoyed the

Aaron woke up sick that day so we took him with us and he did pretty good for a sick boy. I told Dan we didn't have to go anywhere but he wanted to me to have a good day and I am glad we went, it was fun. Aaron only threw up once in the car and he enjoyed the whole day, it had been a long time since we did something with just him anyways.

 We found a fat squirrel, it was really fat!!

 Dan admiring our cousins the monkeys.

 She was so happy to see all the animals in real life.

 I love these pics, they are priceless.

 We were in for a treat, the lions were being fed and they got pretty close for us to look at them. It is kind of scary to see them eat those bones though.

 Rediscovering the drums.

 So fun to be the only ones getting all the attention :)

 Even us the adults were enjoying the Zoo and the weather, it was so nice to not melt at Zoo for once.

 My and my littles.

 We were able to pet a couple of critters and see some interesting looking things on display.

 Of course we had to do the tunnels in the prairie dog area and let Kahlan run around in the playground.

 The elephants were the big thing for her, she really likes them and she even got to see one poop right in front of her lol. And last but not least Aaron enjoying himself in the tunnels by the fish tanks.  That was pretty cool and funny.  Once again, thanks Dan for a wonderful day!!!