I hope you had the time of your lives....

For the past four years I have been involved with a youth group program at our church called "Godparents". The name is kind of deceiving, in that when most people hear it they do not automatically think "teenage youth group", they think we are training people to be godparents or something. Which is far from what we do. I like to think that we are "training" teenagers to live their lives in faith..with God always being a huge part of what they do...how they live.

We started out with a small group of freshman. We met every Wednesday night during the school year with the same group of kids from the beginning of their freshman year until they all graduated from High School at the end of May. For the most part we had the same 10 kids over the course of four years...at some point we had as many as 12, but no less then 10. I was one of their "godparents". My partner in crime was the mother of one of the boys in our group. We met at their house every week..mostly because she had the room for all these teenagers, and didn't already have a house full of kids like me. :)

I can truly say that this was one of the best experiences of my life. Getting to know these kids, meeting with them every week. Watching them grow in their faith. Sharing their lives and dreams with us each week. I will truly miss each and everyone of them. I wish them all nothing but the best in life and hope that God looks over each of them in all that they do.

Boys Will Be Boys

Last week I pointed out to my oldest step-son that he was desperately in need of a hair cut. This child, who for the last two years has pretty much kept his head clean shaven, was starting to resemble Shaggy; the Scooby Doo character, not the reggae musician.

He was pleased to inform me that not only did he already know this, no doubtedly because we had said it at least a dozen time that week, but that he already had a hair cut picked out. We had already shot down his notion to have a star shaved into the side of his head like some rapper who's name escapes my mind right now, so I was prepared for what he was about to present to me; a head shot of David Beckham...with a mohawk.

I just smiled and said "Whatever", which I think caught him completely off guard. For some reason he was totally obsessed with this hair cut, which honestly surprised me to say the least. We're talking Mr T hair here, from the kid who speads more time in the bathroom getting ready in the morning then me..even when he has no hair on his head.

Needless to say my husband wasn't at all impressed with his idea for a hair cut, but in light of resent events, we've decided that we need to "pick our battles" when it comes to dealing with a 16-year-old. We know first hand that there are worse things he could do.

So here he is sporting the new do. I personally think it's quite entertaining. Makes me laugh every day. My husband just rolls his eyes at it, and pretty much everyone else just thinks he's nuts.

I'm still here, I just have nothing to say.

I've hit a bit of a blogging dry spell lately. Apparently my life isn't as exciting as I thought it was. :) So this post will be very random and all over the place today.

I do have to say that our little taste of Summer on Saturday has me dreading the months to come. I am not a fan of summer. Never have been, and probably never will be. I don't look forward to it at all, which is funny, because so many of the important events in our lives happen in the summer. Our engagement, our wedding, my birthday, Christian's birthday, family vacations to the lake cabin. All fun times, but I'd probably enjoy them more if they were in the nice, cool fall. :)

Things I have to look forward to this week:
1. Short work week
2. Payday
3. Vacation on Friday to spend with the kids
4. SATC Movie!

Maybe I'll clean house and go grocery shopping on Friday. Make myself useful. I've been wanting to do major grocery shopping at Whole Foods and give it a try. We've been there loads of times but just to browse and grab random things that look/sound good at the time. I've never actually walked up and down every aisle and shopped for food. It's probably way more expensive then I think it is, but it's got to be tons healthier, right? Better for you = mucho expensive? We'll see.

I've Decided I Need These...

They are just about the cutest things ever!

Mother's Day Recap

Before I had children, Mother's Day was usually spent out to brunch with my Mom, Aunt, sister and female cousins; minus any children. Kind of defeats the purpose of Mother's Day...although it was definitely all about the moms, and not about any of the little people who made these women moms. But it was always a good time had by all. For some reason the last couple of years we stopped doing this. Probably because my sister usually stays in KC now that she has a little girl, my mom spends the day with us, and my aunts and cousins were probably sick of hearing their husbands complain about how they get stuck with the kids on Mother's Day...my husband chimes in there as well. It probably wasn't all that nice of us to ditch the kids on Mom's day anyway.

Now that I am a mom, I couldn't imagine not wanting to spend the whole day with my husband and boys. It's a special day for me even if, according to Scott, "Everyday is Mother's Day in this house". He's probably right. But at least on the REAL Mother's Day I get cards, and hand-made pictures from school, and even flowers. THAT doesn't happen everyday.

This year we spend our Sunday together, for the most part just the four of us. The older boys always spend Mother's Day with their mom, as it should be. At least one of the three remembered to call me. I won't hold it against the other two...they are younger and were probably oblivious to the fact that it was even Mother's day until they wondered why they were going out to breakfast with their mom's side of the family. My mom, who is usually a staple in our house on Mother's day...and pretty much every other day...was home sick in bed all weekend thanks to Christian and Noah...and Scott and I... since we had her to come watch them while they were sick last week. Scott's mom stayed in Kansas, recooping from being in the hospital a few weeks ago...although I heard a rumor she may be driving up this weekend. That will actually be nice. I don't recall having seen her since Christmas; which is actually pretty good for us. Usually we're lucky if we see her twice a year. She sticks close to home and we've tried to avoid any long car trips where all five boys are involved. We're getting to the point where we like you to come to us.

We did pop down to my dad and step-moms house yesterday for a short visit. Every visit there is usually short. Mostly because they have the most unkid friendly house you can possibly imagine. It's like walking into an episode of Antique Roadshow. Doesn't really go very well with a 2 and 3 year old. Although Christian did score big and came home with a old tambourine, much to Scott's chagrin. I mentioned to my dad that Christian had requested a tambourine for his birthday, for reasons unbeknownst to me, knowing full well that my dad would head down to the basement and dig one out amongst his various musical instruments. I think Scott is sick of me singing Tambourine Man and watching Christian dance around the room shaking his new "toy". Oh Well. It made my day. He probably won't like it either when I tell my dad that Noah needs something too...maybe maracas!

All-in-all it was a great day spent with my little family and I couldn't ask for more.

Open House

This Saturday I'm having my First Open House to display my Cookie Lee Jewelry. Here's a sneak peak at some of the items that I will have there to show:

If your intersted in finding out more about the Open House, email me for details!

shannie21@cox.net

Thanks for looking!

"Hey Lady!"

Those of you that know me know that my youngest son Noah has some speech and language issues. At the age of 18 mos our Pediatrician was concerned about his lack of vocabulary and suggested that we do a hearing test on him to make sure that that wasn't causing his issue. He passed with flying colors and so it was determined that we would contact our school district to get him involved in a early childhood developement program.

He turned 2 in September and that's when we started home visits with a early childhood development teacher and also a speech pathologist. At first he was very upset about these strangers coming into our home. He'd have little "meltdowns" and just would not cooperate with them. Now they are his best friends. And their services have done him a world of good. At one point I was afraid that we would never talk. Now he doesn't stop. He's moved onto classroom based sessions with them and that has also done him a world of good. He's able to be in an evironment of his peers and interact with children his own age who need similar help.

We've been working with him alot on Names. Trying to teach him is name, and his brothers names. He's always been able to "say" Christian, and since he and Christian are together 24-7, that name came right away for him, but it sounds more like "Ish". He does pretty well with the older boys names as well, but sometimes all three of them are all "Cody". That's just the easier name to say I guess. Mom and Dad have always been easy for him too.

This morning we met at our home with Cheryl and Denise, his "teachers" to discuss the plan they had developed for him for the classroom this summer and into an actual pre-school next year. We were discussing our goals for the next year and I mentioned how we had been working on names with him, and that I'd like him to be able to address people by their names. (For awhile everyone was "MamaDaddy". ) They laughed and said that they too had tried to get him to call them by their names. He did pretty well catching on to saying "Cheryl". I assume that is because he saw her most often, but just recently has been spending more time with Denise. I asked if he addressed her by her name to which she responded, "Usually if he wants to talk to me or get my attention he just hits my arm and says "Hey Lady!"