April 24, 2008 ~Garrett Wayne~

My best friend since 8th grade, Ashley, finally had her baby boy on April 22, 2008 at 10:49pm. He weighed 8.15 and was 21.5 inches long. He is just precious! After 3 years of trying and 14 hours of labor....he is here!!!

April 21, 2008 ~Our Weekend~

After a rocky start to the weekend, Camryn and I ended up having a great one. The rocky start was due to my grandmother being put in the hospital with pneumonia. I can’t remember her being sick ever in my whole life, much less being put in the hospital and talking crazy. She is always so together and on top of it! It was hard and Friday night I broke down. Guess who happen to call at that time??? The SAH…UGH…yes, the ole ex husband. Kyle had called first and asked about Mimmie and got me going…then Dwight called. I thought he would call for Camryn so I answered to give the phone to her, but instead he asked how Mimmie was and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t hold it in. I broke down on the phone with HIM…of all people! Oh well.
Saturday Camryn and I went to Alltel Arena to watch High School Musical on Ice. I apparently wasn’t thinking about the fact that it is ON ICE and we walk in with flip flops and short sleeved shirts. I’m not the brightest bulb sometimes! However, I do have a cute story about Camryn..imagine that!
She was feeling sassy in her new HSM shirt (yes, I’m one of those mothers who dresses her child in the gear of the show we are going to see..*sigh*!). She wanted to take her silver purse in with her. I told her to make sure she didn’t have much in there, because they will check her purse when we walk in. She told me that all she had was lip gloss and some play stuff. I told her that would be fine. Then she said “…because they won’t take Bibles”. For those of you who know her, this was in her grown-up-know-it-all voice! I told her that no, they wouldn’t take her Bible, that they were just looking for weapons. Then my baby said something that took me by surprise. She said, “They won’t take my Bible because it’s just a weapon for the devil”. OMG!!!! I wouldn’t have even thought of that. She went on to explain that all you do is “beat it on the ground” and it shakes the devil up. She told me how she hates the devil and when she’s outside she likes to stomp on the ground..lol…but then she again told me “…but they won’t take my Bible, Momma, because it’s only a weapon for the devil…so we can stand against the wiles of the devil…like that verse…Put on the whole armor of God so you can stand against the wiles of the devil”. She’s 6 years old, y’all!!! I was amazed!! She said “I always have my Bible so I can fight the devil…he’s tricky…he has lots of tricks…that’s why I have my Bible”. WOW..that’s all I can say!
After that her Aunt Alison came over and helped her with her project that was due today. I’ll have to get some pictures up because they did an awesome job. She had to make a…uh…diorama???? As I told Camryn, like diarrhea..but not. J
Sunday we had to go buy her some new shoes because she has outgrown all of hers! All in all it was a great weekend with beautiful weather!!!

April 8, 2008 ~ Tooth Fairy is a hard job ~

Last night Camryn worked and worked until she finally pulled her bottom tooth that has been loose forever. She was so excited. When she get’s excited she’s all about helping around the house. When it was bath time she got right in there and bathed and then got out and got her pj’s on without me having to tell her 50 times. When it was bed time she jumped in without a fight and slept in her bed all night. So, I go to wake her up this morning and all it took was me turning on the light and she sat up, pulled that pillow back and ….pulled out the tooth. Yes, that’s right, the tooth. Apparently the tooth fairy was…uhhh…busy aka forgot! The look on her face will be sketched in my memory forever. It was a look of utter disappointment. As the tears spilled out on her cheeks I felt about as small as an ant. What’s a mom to do?
While Camryn was eating breakfast, I snuck $2 and went in her room to “look around” for the money. And what do you know??? There it was, on the floor beside the bed. In the most excited voice I could utter at 7:00am I called her in to her room…”Camryn, here it is..you must have slept rough and knocked it off in the floor…and I bet he left the tooth because he knows I like to keep them”. Sounded like a logical explanation to me. Well, not to my wonderful 6 year old. She looked at it and said, “I don’t think so…I think that was already there”. GEEEEZZZZZZ! After a few minutes of trying to coax her into thinking this is what happened, I realized that maybe she was smarter than the average bear. I finally just said “well, if you think that was there then I guess it was…I bet he was just real busy last night…I bet a lot of kids lost their first tooth last night, and since you had lost so many already, he knew you would understand if he couldn’t get to you”. Ya know, couldn’t have just left it at “he was busy”, I had to go into the whole shebang of it all. So, that is what we left it as….SHEESH!!!!! Let’s just hope the tooth fairy has a better memory tonight!

4am Saturday morning came WAY too soon. I doubt going to bed at midnight had anything to do with it! However, that’s when my day began. Alison and I hit the ground running. Up at 4am, showered, and began hauling everything outside for the yard sale. I knew we had tons of stuff and I knew I had saved tons of stuffed animals and clothes, but I don’t think I realized just how much until it was all over my driveway and carport (pictures to come). Camryn woke up around 5:30ish super excited to help. I believe we got our first customer, Erma, my neighbor, around 6:30am. I am NOT a morning person, however, Erma was. She talked our head off, God love her!!! Anyway, she started us off good and we went pretty strong until around 2:00pm with a few stragglers after that. We ended up having a good day and getting rid of a lot of stuff. We still ended up taking 2 car loads to goodwill and two big totes of clothes will go to my sister’s church for their clothes closet! It was apparent to us that we have certainly been blessed through out our lives. God has given us way more than we deserve and we are extremely thankful for what we have!
I went straight from the sale out to Carlisle to my friend’s cookout. We ate and sat around chit chatting until about midnight when I just couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. On top of little sleep, I’m getting sick with a very sore throat. I headed home and slept in on Sunday until 12:40pm. AHHHHHHH!!!!
When I did finally get up, I went to buy groceries and other items we needed. I came home and began to clean. I cleaned out my refrigerator and was putting stuff down the garbage disposal when it started to sound funny. I looked under the sink to find the red button and much to my dismay the dang thing had disconnected from the sink. SO, I plugged up that side of the sink so that water wouldn’t run everywhere. Then I decided to do a load of dishes. Well, guess what?!?!? The dish washer hose is hooked up to nothing other than…..the garbage disposal bucket, thingy! How did I discover this you may ask??? When I stepped on the rug in front of the sing and it squished. It was soaked as well as the floor around it. UGH!!!! So, I took everything out from under the sink, dried it all up, dried up the floor, and threw the rug in the washing machine! Thank goodness for home warranty’s!

Finger nails?? Who needs Finger Nails???

Camryn went to the dentist for her cleaning yesterday. My mom had the joy of taking her for me, so she got to answer the 507 questions over and over and over again…”how long is it gonna take?”, “Is it gonna hurt?”, “what are you doing now?”, “Is it gonna be quick?”…all the while she got to watch my baby pick at her finger nails like a dog desperately digging a hole for its bone. My poor child has a severe case of the worry warts!
While at this visit it was discovered that Camryn has two small cavities. WHAT??? My child has cavities??? The news hit me like a heavy weight being dropped on my head. For some reason I felt as if I had failed as a mother because I obviously haven’t been making sure Camryn brushed her teeth good enough, or maybe she had eaten too much candy. But she doesn’t eat much candy and I stand there and watch her brush her teeth, I even brush them for her once a week to make sure she’s getting everything…sorry, that was me trying to justify my parenting, got lost for a second…regardless, she has 2 cavities.
When I picked her up from dance we all went to eat, my mom, dad, sister, Camryn and myself. I will give you one guess as to the topic of conversation at the table?!!? That’s right…CAVITIES!!!! Lovely isn’t it? We all got to listen to the million questions this time about getting the cavities filled and what they do and what they use and will it hurt and how long will it take and, and, and, and….UGH! Should be a FUN visit to JFK Dental that day…once this is all said and done, I hope Camryn still has some finger nails!

March 25, 2008 ~Kids say the darndest things~

Camryn got to go with my mom and dad to visit my dad's parents in Alabama. After being away from me for 4 days I thought she might miss me. She claims that "of course" she missed me. However, after I picked her up and got home I was changing clothes. Camryn decided to tell me that my "underwear was too small because my bottom was so big". AHHHHH...can you believe it?!?!? I said "Camryn Olivia!!!" and with disbelief on her face she said "WHAT??? It is!" I know, I know, how dare I get on to her when she's just telling me the truth...UGH!!!!

March 24, 2008 ~Amazing Grace~

I knew I absolutely needed to let go and forgive, however, deep down in my sinful human nature, I really didn’t want to let go. I wanted to hang on to that anger and get revenge. In my mind, letting go and forgiving my ex husband was somehow a way of giving him the control over me that I fought so hard to get back. I wanted to be mad forever (I’m not gonna lie, I wanted to pull a Lorana Bobbit). I was not only mad at my ex, I was mad at men in general. I was also mad at God. I can remember lying in my bed many times, crying my eyes out asking God why He let me go through this. Telling him I was mad at Him and not understanding how and why He would allow those things to happen to me. There were times I did not want to talk to God because of the pain He let me go through. Because of the fact that Camryn was cheated out of the life I had, with my parents together. I was mad at God that Camryn would never know what it was like to have her family together. When I finally came to the realization that I had to go through the process of forgiving and letting go of the pain and hurt from my marriage, I had no clue where to start.

At that time, I was either given a book or found a book written by the GREAT Sandi Patty. There was something she had written in that book that I know was directly from God to me. She wrote that she had come to a point in her life where all she could utter was for God to let her be willing to be willing. That simple statement hit me like a ton of bricks. When we have no strength to stand and really deep down don’t want to let go of those things that are weighing us down, but know we need to it makes all the difference to just ask God to help you be willing to be willing to do whatever He asks of you. I began to pray fervently for God to please help me be willing to be willing. It was in one of those prayers that God began to break down the most important walls I had built up, the walls between me and my heavenly Father. I was struck by the fact that God indeed was my Father. God began to reveal to me the connection that I had with my own daughter.
As a mother, or parent in general, most of would never desire harm for our children. We, in fact, want to do whatever we can to protect them from danger and hurt and pain. We do our best, but ultimately it’s up to our children. We can tell our children over and over to stay away from the stove because it’s hot and it will burn them. Then they just walk right over and touch it. Of course they then come crying to us for comfort. It’s the same (although on a MUCH grander scale) with our heavenly Father. God can tell us over and over what He wants from us. It’s that still small voice that keeps tugging at our hearts. Then, like the child who touched the stove, we go away and do the exact thing God has instructed us not to do. We did not place our child’s hand on the stove on purpose, just as God doesn’t place us in circumstances of hurt and pain. The burn on those tiny hands is a direct result of disobedience. If our baby would have just listened, he wouldn’t have gotten burned. Just as if we would only listen to God and be in His will, we wouldn’t get burned. I’m not saying we will never come upon bad times, however, if we are in connection with God and if we are willing to do His will, we will understand that whatever we are going through will somehow do the one thing we were created to do. Bring glory and honor to God. When our children disobey, get hurt and then come crying to us for help, what do we do? We pick them up and give them comfort. We hold them and wipe away their tears and kiss away their pain.
I can just imagine God sitting on His thrown telling us not to do something, and shaking His head as we stubbornly go on with OUR agenda, get hurt and come back crying to Him for comfort.
As I lay there that night in tears with this new understanding of the love God has for me, I could feel His arms around me, wiping away my tears and kissing away my pain as slowly the walls of bitterness and anger began to crumble down around my feet.
I have no desire to see Camryn go through pain, but she will. She is going to disobey and end up getting hurt. And when she comes to me with those big ole tears streaming down her face I’m going to pick her up and love her just as God does to me. He had no desire for me to go through the abuse I went through. However, when I disobeyed His will for my life and went on with my own agenda, I got hurt, and then went crying to Him. He picked me up and loved me just as He always will. He is now getting the glory and honor for putting the pieces of my life back together. Praise God for His infinite GRACE and MERCY.
“…Through many dangers toils and snares I have already come
T’was GRACE that brought me safe thus far and GRACE will lead me home…”