heartache

so my heart is heavy and very sad tonight. i see that the inevitable has come to pass and barack hussein obama will be the leader of this great nation. along with him, congress will have a commanding majority of democrats. you know the last time that happened? lets see... well i can tell you what happened - the great depression.
that is what i am feeling. im not hiding my head in the sand, or feeling shamed. i feel strongly that if you know what you believe in is right, than that is all that matters. truth prevails.

i will work to find positive things about liberals. i know there is something they believe in that is in line with my beliefs. help me. i can't wake up every morning with this feeling in my heart.
so give me positives.

my husband made a great observation. you can't control what happens in the country, but you can control what happens in your home. focus on your family, love your children, go to church, instill values in your family. teach your children that there are definitely absolutes. there are rights and wrongs. this country is headed in such a direction where nothing is absolute anymore, its just a little bit wrong, or only wrong in certain cases. i don't agree. i will teach my children that is not the right way to think. i will keep morals in my home, even if they are sliding away in the rest of the country.

for tonight, i will allow myself sadness. i will grieve the loss of what could have been...
but tomorrow i will wake up and put on a happy face. i will find positives in what can still be.
it is just four short years, right? i mean, how much harm can one liberal president, congress and supreme court do in four years? don't answer that. every problem has a solution.

halloween

it sure seems like there is a lot of preparation for something that goes by in a blink. after shopping for four costumes, buying four pumpkins, carving four pumpkins, roasting seeds, buying treats, snacks and goodies for three parties, attending three school parties and two trunk or treats we did manage to save up enough energy to dress four children in costumes and go trick or treating in the neighborhood for a little bit.



here we are.


some scary



some tough




some mean




and some just stinkin cute.

lammers

ashton has a beloved lamb he calls appropriately "lammers". it is dirty, flat, holy, stinky and gets worse with each washing. i found one on ebay and ordered a "back up" lammers.
don't you wish every thing you loved came with a back up?
lammers number two made the long trip from chicago and arrived at our house yesterday.

when we opened the package, there was this lovely, fluffy, soft, snowy white lamb like we used to have. funny thing is, ashton snubbed him and went back to old lammers. maybe replacements to those things we love isn't such a good idea after all.





the princess took a quick liking to him and has claimed the clone her own. not a single dollar wasted my friends. this little face doesn't really look like somebody who deserves a new lammers in my opinion.

goose bumps and a little bit of a black eye

i have such goose bumps right now and not the spooky halloween kind, but the holy cow what a miracle kind.
the gal i call cool mama had her baby! this was the little guy that doctors told her long ago was not a viable pregnancy and would not live to delivery.
well go see how he is doing!!
how can any body not believe in miracles?

now, another story.
for those of you who have been anxiously awaiting it, here is the picture of my big fat black eye.
you can giggle now, because i am ok, but it was not funny at the moment of impact.
as you know, i had strep throat last week. i was home alone with the children and starting to feel a little bit better so i got up to do some laundry. jeff was at carson's football game, i was a little woozy, and then i turned around to grab a towel and BAM. this nearly six foot tall girl dropped like a brick into the door frame. whoops. so now i am trying to get to and from schools, grocery stores, church, visiting with neighbors all the while hiding my boo boo.
as if the stress of the election wasn't enough to worry about.

try and look under the crazy large forehead and there you go. like i said, you can giggle now.

it will all be over soon

eight more days and it will all end. after that all of my political posts will be deleted, and the blog will return to a historical account of my daily family life, its true intention... really.

until then, watch this short tiny little video.

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=e46U8zvkuz

pretty eye opening.

so i can't tell you how to vote.

vote for the economy, vote for health care, vote for the war. vote for taxes.

i can tell you im voting for morality. the rest will fall into place.

pumpkin patch and strep throat

so i am down for the count with strep. can you remember how crappy that makes you feel? its a rare occasion that i haul my own self out to the doctor and i did just that yesterday after waking up with stridor due to my ever so swollen and bleeding tonsils. yuck-o. but i am going to give a "shout out" to the little walk in clinic at CVS. the nurse prac. who saw me had been a flight nurse for over ten years and was tired of the excitement of traumas, so shepou started working there. she was fantastic and i was in and out in about 30 minutes. granted, there were some interesting souls waiting with me, but still handy. then you just hop two feet to the pharmacy and get your scripts. ingenious.
so i went home armed with my antibiotics and lidocaine to a restful house where i could just lay around for days... resting and recuperating. ha ha.... well, close enough.
so with nothing really to blog about, i will just throw up some pics from the pumpkin patch. you definitely don't want to see pics of me at this point.

16 months ago today

here is a story some may know, some do not. i feel it is important to share, so that you never do it to your own child, or that you do not pass judgement on those of us who have.

my family has a long history of going to bennett springs to fly fish, and they were planning to meet there just shy of 6 weeks after i delivered baby maggie. we were itching to get out of the house, so it was pretty easy to be convinced to join the rest of my family there for a relaxing weekend.

it was hard managing all four of them, but when we drove somewhere down there i would be in charge of maggie and carson, jeff would take over molly and ashton. that way we each had one big, one little.

my mom was really good about watching maggie so that jeff and i could take the bigger three out to do stuff like walking, fishing, swimming, etc. on the second day we were there we loaded up and headed to the pool. it was hot and steamy that day, and looked like it could rain. a muggy miserable day. my dad told us there was a little nature center that the kids would enjoy and that would be something for us to do until the rain passed over.

we loaded up and went down the street to the place. we are walking around inside, enjoying the icy cold air conditioning, showing the kids the fish and things that live in a stream.

i remember it vividly.

jeff came around one of the exhibits and asked me "where is maggie?"

confused, i responded "i don't know"
i felt panicked, in a way i can't ever describe. panic in a way that eats through your heart like acid. i still can't find words to convey what my body felt at that moment.

"where the h#ll is maggie?" he asks again, calm but with anger washing over his face.

my mind swirled and tried to answer. think jen, think. where is your baby? i had no idea. wasn't she with my mom? was she in here somewhere? did i leave her in the entry way where we came in? where was she?

i had no clue. none what so ever. jeff looked panicked. pale.

i felt like i was going to pass out, the room was spinning. why couldn't i think?

he looked at the car keys i was holding in my hand. sh#t. sh#t. sh#t.

he said something about the van and i just threw the keys at him and said run.

hot, muggy. i grabbed the kids and ran out to the parking lot. in my head i was thinking, how do i resuscitate her? how long has she been strapped into her car seat suffocating?


my stomach started trying to empty its contents, my heart started racing, and my eyes couldn't focus. tears sat in my eyes but couldn't come out.

he opened the van door and all i could see was that her eyes were closed.

"she's fine" he said.

"are you sure?" immediately i fall over and sob uncontrollably. my breath is gone, i can't see and jeff is telling me she is ok. molly is asking why i am so sad.

here is the kicker. as i reach in to touch her sweet sleeping face, the van is cool. it is cool and comfortable, and she is sleeping and not the least bit hot.


we were parked in the blacktop parking lot, out in the sun, middle of a midwest summer.

the air is so hot and muggy it is hard to breathe kind of hot.


but the inside of the van is cool.

we drove back to the cabin, sobbing, shaking, and knowing sweet maggie has a guardian angel.

everyone makes mistakes, sometimes giant ones. the only thing that separates me from that poor dad who left his baby in the car at the train station is that i was given another chance.