The Golden Girls!

Have you ever watched the show, "the Golden Girls."?  Rose, Blanche, Sophia and Dorothy.  All live in a house together, are best of friends, some are related and they BICKER like crazy.  (I'm dating myself here) When I was young and babysat a lot, that's the show that was on Saturday nights.  And to this day, I can still sit and watch the show and laugh.
My parents and grandparents came over for Father's day.  I found my grandpa sitting in the recliner, laughing and laughing and laughing.  I then realized.  We are a sitcom, to the outside world.  It's funny to watch.  But you live in it?   HOLY MOLY!! 
These children are driving me batty!  As soon as school got done we went camping.  A week of FREEDOM!!!!  There were TONS of kids there.  The kids ran and ran, played, swam, rode bikes, ate whenever, stayed up late.  It was a riot!   Now we are home.  They don't like this life.  As a result they bicker. Like old ladies. 

With all that being said......Leah left for camp and this was the scene.  All girls crying because they love each other so much and will miss her.  It's crazy!  I never had a sister, so I have a hard time understanding these girls sometimes.  My brother just punched me in the arm and said, "see ya later."

But with all the bickering and hugging and loving, I guess it's normal. It's the new dynamic for the summer in the household. Every stage is a little different.  We might as well embrace our Golden Girls and move forward.   Happy Summer!

Answered Prayers!

Have you ever had answered prayers?  I'm going to back up a bit.  About 4+ years ago, Steve and I were at a cross road in our lives, in many ways. We had twins, that brought our number of children to 5.  And one of them had a few issues.  You know the story. 

Steve and I both worked.  We were fortunate that my work gave me a lot of time off and was very flexible.  As well as, Steve took a lot of time off, became Mr. Mom, and our parents helped us.  But we needed stability.  We prayed for an answer.  How were we going to make this work.  We talked about me staying home with the girls, but when I carry the insurance, that was hard to do.  So I cut down to the minimum hours and we prayed.  God has always shown us the next step.  Some one always kept coming to mind.  A friend I've known for years.  But why would she want to take care of my kids?  She didn't do daycare.  I asked her and ya know what, God was putting the same thing on her heart.  Hence came.....Miss Dawn!..

Miss Dawn has been such a blessing in our lives.  She learn to do tube feedings and all of our girls quirky personalities.  She'd cry with us when Brooke was gagging and sick and we couldn't help her.  She taught the girls how to sing songs, play games, crafts, "read" books, play store and she loved them!  She noticed things that I didn't.  One day she said to me, "you're girls don't know how to play store."  She was so right.  The girls never got out, and definitely not to a germy store.  Normal play a lot of kids would have, our girls were taught by Miss Dawn. 


This week is Miss Dawn's last week for babysitting.  Summer will be here and then the girls go to school.  I'm not going to lie, I'm very sad.  I've cried a lot about it the past few weeks. She has partnered with us to help raise them and she's been such a blessing.  We are so lucky that she's our friend and we'll still get to see her.  Just on a different level. 
We LOVE YOU MISS DAWN!!!!!   Thank you for answering God's calling and blessing our family!