did you know?

here is something you may not know about me. i have been married twice. now before you start racking your brain trying to figure out how, let me explain.
we were married twice. my husband and i. the first time was after our oldest was born. in fact he was 9 mos old and at our wedding. we were married in a church, not our church, but just a church. i wanted a church wedding, you see. not necessarily a church or religion, just a church wedding. did this wedding mean anything? of course it did. you see, i love my husband. i wanted to be his wife. i also had some mixed emotions about marriage and men (thanks to my parents' nasty divorce). i also had some trust issues to work out. so this first wedding helped me toward being able to believe my husband loved me and wanted to marry me, not just because we had a son together. so anyway, we were married again in 2001. this was the year i went thru RCIA (rite of catholic initiation for adults..i think). i became catholic. which means that i went thru 9 months of classes to learn about the catholic faith and decide if it was really what i wanted. the night before easter, at the mass, i was baptized, given first communion, made my confirmation, and was married again, all in one night and in front of the entire church. i was the only one who did all of this. there were others who received some of those sacraments, but i was the only one who had to receive them all. it was a god-filled night. my two oldest children were there, my grandpa was there (and also became my godfather that night), and people i hardly knew, (but now know) were all there for that night. my first wedding was stress-filled. this one was awe inspiring. god was there for me, took care of my fears and worries, and the following month i found out i was pregnant with my grace. sometimes i forget He has a plan for me, and that i need to trust him. i guess i need to remember those 2 wedding days. thank you god. thank you for those you put in my life, and those you have taken from it.

crazy???

now i know that's not the pc way to put it, but since i'm talking about myself, i figured it was ok. i have been trying to pay more attention to myself lately. i have noticed that during certain times of the month, i am a total horn dog. which my husband appreciates, but worries me some. you see i become way more visual. i start checking out men...any men. i have always appreciated the male body. you know strong broad shoulders, big (but not too big) biceps, nice butt. but that particular time of the month, i am like a moth to a flame. not that i would ever even consider acting on it...but i worry that it could be just a stepping stone? i don't know. then, of course, at other times of the month i get angry. not just crabby, but "want to make someone cry" angry. so i have decided it is time to get checked by a "female" doctor. i saw my family doctor last year, but he really wasn't helpful. all he could say was it wasn't my thyroid, and all my blood work came out fine. i know my mom (i love her dearly) had issues after 30 (ok she had them before then too), and family members that are bipolar or addicts of one kind or another, i am scared to death it could be me too. so hopefully i am going to head it off. this is so hard to talk about. i have talked a little to my friend jen (the nurse). she said it sounded more hormonal to her, and maybe it could be a case of that ppms (?) or whatever the really bad pms is. so i am hoping and praying that's what it is.

ok, enough of that stuff. here's what you really want to hear about. WE ARE DOWN TO 3 PUPPIES!!!! two boys and one little girl left. today, there might be one more person coming to take a puppy. YIPPEE, WHOO-HOO, YAHOO!!!! can you tell i am a little excited? this has been a great experience, the kids have loved it. the pups are so sweet and good with the kids. still, i am ready for them to go to homes other than mine.

4H was last night. i brought 4 kids because alex had basketball practice, and jeff had to work. grace actually does clover kids. that's for kids 5-8 years old. they learned about worms. they got to make a worm habitat and bring home worms. josh and zack were very interested too. they got to make habitats too. so did haley. so we have 4 containers of worms in my kitchen. am i not the luckiest woman on earth? crazy hormones and worms. what i life i live!
alex had his first basketball practice last night. it went well. he loves it. i am not a basketball person. i never really liked watching it as much as football... soccer... paint drying. but i must say, i love watching my kids. i don't care what it is, how boring i may think it is, i love to see them playing.

summary of today's post. i am hormonal. i still have puppies. i have worms.
yeah, that sounds right.

last night, my hubby and i read this http://ofallonjournal.stltoday.com/articles/2007/11/10/news/sj2tn20071110-1111stc_pokin_1.ii1.txt
and i have never been this angry. read it and then come back...i will wait.


ok, now what kind of person does this to a child? i can understand that she wanted to make sure her daughter was being treated right...but these are kids. adults can't get involved like that. but what really burns me up is the total lack of guilt this woman felt. even if she thought the girl had tried this before, wouldn't that make most normal people feel more guilty? to push someone, especially someone that is already fragile, over the edge...and at 13 years old! my heart aches for those parents. to have a child taken in an illness or accident is horrible, but for that child to have chosen death! it scares me that a child would see no way out. i remember when this happened. we had meetings at our school about internet bullying and warning signs, but who thinks of a parent being the bully. i can't even come up with a reasonable punishment...of course she isn't going to be anyway. how is this not a crime? i am sorry i am all over the place with this, but i was up pretty late (not able to sleep) and i am still pretty angry about this. what does that show their children? "sweetie lets not tell the neighbors i pushed their daughter into suicide. what did they give you for your birthday?" i guess the part that scares me the most is these families were friends. what kind of sociopath can cause such havoc one moment, and then ask for favors the next without any guilt? please pray for the meiers, i am sure they could use all our prayers. pray for the daughter of the other woman too. i pray the other kids at school don't put together that her mom caused all this, and i pray she understands that this is so wrong.

kids and puppies and a couple of jens

my friends, the jens, just left. jen f. is a nurse with 4 kids and a great hubby. she stays home during the week and works weekends in the oncology ward. she has a definite calling. i don't know that i would be able to work there. she came over with her 2 youngest. benny is an adorable newly 3 year old boy. he will be in my zack's class. and meggy (meghan) who is around 7mos. beautiful kids. jen s. is our vet. well, she and her hubby are both our vets. she has 3 kids. she brought over joe (who will also be in zack's class), cora, and syd (he is her friend jessica's boy). this was the first time they had gotten to see the pups. they were all very impressed with the size and friendliness of the whole litter. jen s. said she thinks they will be at least 80lb dogs. if you have ever seen a newfoundland, that is what our fluffy pups look like. if you haven't, just google it, and look at those pics. adorable, i know!

rachel, thanks! i hope i didn't sound like a total freak in my last post. it's just with guy friends, you can get that male perspective. i love my husband, but it's hard to talk to him about him. my friend chris was fun to talk to, but when he started on the whole "well amy, if you stay home, maybe you should do more things like keeping up with all the house work, and doing laundry". i totally dropped him after that. i mean really! he's supposed to be my friend. i'm just kidding chris! you are still my #1 back-up plan if jeff decides that he can't handle the dirty house and annoying kids. (you can still afford a maid right?)

i hope anyone reading this gets that i am just joking about that. (unless it's you reading it chris)

i guess i could go into a little more detail about alex, haley, and grace's report cards and my meetings with their teachers.
i'll start with alex. he made high honors. what that means is he had all a's and only 1 b. (basically a 3.9 gpa) now this is impressive even if you didn't know how much harder the grading scale is in a catholic school. 90% to 92% is a b+. lower than 70% is failing. i was very very happy with his grades, and his test scores on his iowa basics test. that is the standardized test all catholic schools in the arch diocese take. he scored better than 98% of all the 5th graders nationally. congrats alex!
haley didn't make honor roll only because they don't start honor roll until 5th grade. she had all a's. her teacher said she is a great student and always very dedicated to getting her work completed and very neat. the teacher is also going to start her and some other students with some harder math. she said that haley is doing so well, that she is afraid this math that she is teaching is way below their level, and they need to move up to multiplications now, before they get bored. and she was the kid i was worried about. she is my child that has a hard time sitting still. always fidgeting. not in school apparently. she also took the iowa basics test and scored better than 98% of the 3rd graders nationally. who would have thought i would have such intelligent kids?
now we come to grace. kindergarten doesn't have letter grades, but the teacher was very happy with her progress. she is now bringing home books to read, by herself, every night. how awesome is that! she is a reading fiend now! all the time, this book, that book. it is awesome!

i am sooo proud of those kids. not just because they get good grades, but because they try hard and are just good kids. i was so happy yesterday when one of the moms from the field trip told me how good alex was. not that i was surprised he was good, but apparently he was great. he helped her out with directions (he's been there enough, he should know his way around), watched out for his 1st grade buddy, and just a huge help to her. i am so happy with that. it's nice he's that good for strangers. now if only he could do that for ME once in a while!

nov. catch up

boy it has been a while. i haven't had much to post about. the puppies are growing, and four will be going to their new homes this weekend. six will still be in my home, atleast until i find them homes, or give them out as christmas presents (lol).



kids are all doing well. alex and haley had good reports from their teachers, and alex made honor roll, so i am very happy about that.



we had a bonfire last friday. it went well. the kids had friends come over, and alex ended up with 4 boys spending the night. they were all surprisingly well behaved. not that they are bad kids, just when you have 5 boys at the ages of 10 and 11, you are usually expecting a little more noise and ruckus. several of our friends were there too, and it was nice to hang out with grown ups for a change. i even got a home for a puppy. one of my little brother in law's friends decided to tell her parents about them. they are coming over friday to pick up their little boy.





i have been thinking about my friend shawn again. how i miss him. well not just that i guess. i miss having a friend like him. a guy friend. one you can talk to, talk totally dirty and raunchy, complain without getting advice you can use, just a total goof off type of friend. i never had a girlfriend i could do that with. girls are different. well, maybe nike is pretty close to that type of friend, but she lives too far away...and it's kind of hard to complain about my hubby to her when she knew him first and was always way closer to him. i miss having a guy friend that is MY friend only, not my hubby's friend. i guess, in a way, i miss working outside of the home for that reason. i don't have friends that are mine. they are friends that have kids the same age as mine, or kids play on the same team, or know jeff. to these people i am so-and-so's mom, or jeff's wife, or debbie's sister-in-law, or so-and-so's aunt. not just me. i miss that. some times more than others. i miss shawn because he was someone i could totally be honest with and tell some messed up stuff to because i never really worried about what he would think of me. he was just as screwed up in the head as i was (maybe a little more) and he didn't judge me...well, i take that back, he did. but usually in a laughingly type of way. (that totally doesn't look right, but you get my drift i hope) i had other guy friends i could hang out with in high school, but it always seemed like they ended up thinking it would lead to more. tom, jd (not rachel's hubby, a different jd), joe, joe, chris, were all great guy friends. but things never really worked out. we didn't have the friendship connection shawn and i did. i really miss that.