Ten years. This Spring marks ten years since the bite that infected me, and my unborn son, with Lyme disease and co-infections. Ten years of sickness for me and for him. Ten years of pain and sorrow, weakness and fatigue. Ten years of a long fought battle. Ten years in the trenches. Ten years of it affecting my parenting and marriage. What can I say? It’s been a long journey. But the whole time, He’s been with me. Even when I got mad at Him for not healing me quick enough. Even when I doubted His goodness. Even when I…

He’s my last boy that will want to wear his Halloween costume for a walk around the neighborhood before Halloween. It’s so bittersweet to watch your children grow right before your eyes. Of course, mostly sweet – but still a little sad to leave the fun little kid stage of life behind. He’s the only one who will still give me a big hug in public without becoming embarrassed. He’s the only one who brims with joy when I walk into the room. He’s the only one who still has that little boy thing, that spirit, that complete sweetness. I’m…

My sweet, smart, caring, and funny Zane won the Super Scientist Award today at school. His Daddy and I were there to cheer him on. This is his second time winning this award in his time here in Texas. He really is my little scientist boy. I’m so proud of him.

This is Nick’s third year in band and his last year in middle school band. Such a big deal. My oldest boy will be a high school freshman next year! It’s hard to believe. And I hope he’ll be in band. I have no idea how that works in high school. Do you try out? Are there limited spaces? I don’t know. I need to find such things out. I want him to continue with band throughout high school, if possible. I’ve found band to be a positive experience for him. We are going to make sure the other two…

Every year our neighborhood has a celebration for the 4th, a week before the 4th. There’s always a parade, where they throw candy, and other goodies out to you. The parade is my favorite part. Then after the parade there are bounce houses, vendors, food, fire trucks, face painting etc and so on. The kids weren’t thrilled at first because it was super humid out, but once the candy started coming out, boy that changed their minds! We ended up staying an hour and a half and then walked home. It was a lot of fun, but of course, the…

Talking about cancer treatments is scarier than I thought it would be. And much more overwhelming. The oncologist was really nice, though, which made it better. We are getting another appointment with a different doctor soon to go over if he qualifies for a certain kind of radiation that lowers the risk of a secondary cancer down the road. And it does look like the cancer is in the stomach nodes. But even with it being in the nodes (stage 2) the oncologist said more than once he is confident it’ll be cured. It’s just a matter of Adam getting…

19 years with this guy. Most wonderful years of my life. He has given me so much. He has given our children so much. He truly is my very best friend and my partner in life. Through the ups and downs, we’ve hung on for the ride, and remain partners in this crazy thing we call life. I am so blessed to be his wife. We have so much history together and, to think, we still have a life-time longer to go! I look forward to being two old gray haired people, sitting on our front porch, laughing, and talking…

I count it a real blessing that I’ve been able to work from home since 2004. Never did I imagine I’d be a work from home mom for 13 years and counting. When I worked outside of the home, I was just never happy. I’ve always wanted to be my own boss, and work from home. I’ve always wanted there not to be a ceiling on what I could make, or do. In fact, I quit my full-time job outside of the home before I even had children, taking a chance on a telecommuting job. It was a huge risk…

I was thinking today how grateful I am that God decided to create us, even knowing all the bad in the world that would come at the fall of man. I am so thankful to be able to experience life, even with the bad mixed in there with all the good. I, like us all, have experienced a lot of bad, but with God’s help, I’ve gotten through it to the other side, and am stronger and closer to God because of it. I am also thankful to my mother for giving me a chance to be born and live…

I’ll be 38 this year. In a couple weeks I’ll be two years away from 40. You can see it in my face. In the wrinkles around my eyes. They get deeper and more pronounced each year. Every year I look older. Because I am older. But I still can’t hardly believe how much my face is changing. But my word how blessed am I to be alive? How blessed are we all to be alive? To experience the wrinkles and changing faces and changing bodies and even the aches and pains and limitations of growing old… we’re alive. We’re…

We hadn’t done a car selfie in a long time. Probably hasn’t been since last school year when I was driving to get the kids instead of walking them. I miss our car time together. Instead of a 20 minute walk together with small talk, we had 45 minutes in the car waiting for N to get out of school and for us to drive home. We’d laugh, talk about our days, I’d watch them play out of the car in the grass, we’d take carline selfies, we’d play with snapchat filters and just cut up. I miss that. But…