My Beautiful Day

I've been thinking a lot lately about my role as a step-mom.  From the start, my role consisted of getting to know the kids as individuals and as a whole.  It involved lots of time learning about their personalities and their individual idiosyncrasies, what made them happy and what triggered meltdowns.  It involved playing and reading and snuggling, and oftentimes learning to accept the fact that they wanted their distance.  It involved loving completely while that love was returned at arms length.  It involved learning to be a parent, while not overstepping the boundaries of respecting their mama's memory.  It involved many hours of intense prayer - times of crying out to God to show me how He wanted me to be a parent, and times of learning His love for me and my family and, in turn, showing that love to my kids. But how could anyone NOT love these kids?! Photo taken in 2009, courtesy of Moments In Time Photography The reason this has been on my...

This past weekend we were all supposed to be heading up north to visit my mom and step-dad for the weekend.  We were looking forward to time spent fishing on the lake (well, the boys were, anyway), time spent relaxing and chatting with my parents and time seeing Kaylin, a dear friend from high school, on her wedding day.  It was going to be such a wonderful weekend. However, it all came crashing down when my mom called early on Friday morning to say that my step-dad was really sick.  She said that it would be just fine if we were still to come and stay, but she wanted to forewarn us in case he was contagious. Now, if you've followed my blog for awhile or if you know me, you are aware that Ethan has this awesome ability to get sick and to hang on to that sickness for a LONG time.  Colds attack him, sink into his chest and stay there for a month.  So, this decision was a really hard one for us, as we all REALLY wanted to go, but yet we knew that it wouldn't be...