Why...

Ok.. here is my gripe of the day.. Why is it that bone in chicken is so STINKING hard for me to get right?!!?!? I mean.. I can work miracles with boneless meat!! But put a chicken leg in front of me and lunch is going to take FOREVER! I have had chicken in the oven now for.... 2 hours.. and it is still bleeding... now is it just me or does that seem a little LONG to anyone else!?!??! Yes, the oven is ON... it is on at the temp that the recipe called for! I just don't understand. If it was boneless peices, it would be finished by now and we would have happily full tummies... instead of smelling the deliciousness that we can't taste yet for fear of illness and or death!!! :S Ok... I feel better now.. thank you for letting me get that off my chest! :)

A day of reflection...

Today has been quite a day of reflection for me. This day marks the end of my 14th year as a mom. I can't believe that it has been that long. So much has happened in that time!!!
I like to start the day teasing my kids with, at this time.. so and so years ago.. I was at this stage in labor... Of course, with Ethan that started EARLY Saturday morning the 4th of Nov. and didn't end until a c-sec at about 11:30 Sunday Nov. 5. So I REALLY give him a hard time. haha of course, I tell him the hardest to deliver has been the easiest to raise, so at some point I have to give him a break on the birth thing.. hahah
I went from being a *semi* carefree teenager, to being a single mom. Not as bad as it is for some single moms cause of course my son's dad was super involved and paid for everything so I didn't have to work... We have gotten married, had 2 more kids... I have homeschooled... which I never pictured doing, and anyone who knows me knows it is a miracle that I have made it this long!! I can look back and say.. I taught him to talk, to walk.. I potty trained him.. taught him to read, to write.. to do addition and subtraction. God is so good to give me the time and the ability and giving me His patience to get through and teach him all of this!!!
We have gone through loosing my mom. That was hard on everyone. In some ways, hardest on Ethan. I wish she could have been around to see the man he is growing into. God has blessed me with such a sweet, kind, funny, handsome, playful, cute, helpful, affectionate, all over great young man. I know she would be more proud of my boy today than she was the day he was born.. .and she was REALLY proud that day! hahah 2 rolls of film before he was 24 hours old.. :) Oh if there had been digital pictures then... I think everyone in the US and overseas that my mom had ever met would have had pictures of him!!!
I have grown so much as a mom, and a wife and a person in the last 14 years. I know I owe alot of it to Ethan. Things I see in myself through him that I realize I need to change. Things I want him to know and learn that he can't if I don't teach him. Learning that the best way to teach is through what they see in my life. I really have to be super careful about how I act, what I say, what I do.. and the older that I get.. and the older that he gets.. the more stuff comes up!!
I want to take this opportunity to thank God for my son. Thank God for the blessing that He gave to us 14 years ago in the form of this person that is so incredible that I couldn't be prouder of!!! Thank you to my mom and dad for my life.. and to Rick and LaRee for Jedidiah's life.. without them, I would have no life, no husband and no children to enrich my life every day.
Thank you to my friends that have been here for me for all these years. I would not have made it without them. This life that I have been molding and shaping and loving and nurturing for all these years, only has 4 more years of our guidance till he is an adult and is "on his own". I covet all the prayers and suggestions and help and love that I can get over these next 4 years of final preperation. Out of everything in my parenting life, I have prayed for God to guide me in raising 3 generous, prosperous, wonderful men of God. The closer 18 creaps to us, the more I am reminded of just how helpless and useless I really am in this process ultimately!
Thanks for "listening" to my little speach.
I love you my Ethan.. Happy birthday to my sweet son!!!