Blake is 8!

Fruit Ninja Turtle!

Our resident food artist!

Turtle shell cupcakes!  

A couple of the ninja turtles!

Ready to get this party started!

Blowing out his candle!

Pizza time!

Blake with our friend Kristi!

Aunt Brianne

Cool gifts!

Tissue Paper is fun!

More gifts!

Play time!

It is hard to believe our oldest just turned 8!  We had a great time celebrating Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle style!  We served Turtle themed refreshments that included; a Turtle face fruit salad, Pizza, Sewer Ooze (aka lemon-lime Gatorade), Turtle shell cupcakes and other assorted treats!

  The kids had a lot of fun playing for a while after the party while all the parents finished up watching the football game!  :)  All in all I would say it was a great party!  We even had family in from out of town, really enjoyed spending time with them!

  With all we have been through with Blake, from him being our first child, his battle with Leukemia and the fact that he is our only boy, we have really enjoyed the adventure so far!  We can not wait to see all of the wonderful things his next year of life has in store for all of us!

Alexia's First Day of Kindergarten!

Alexia, heading to her first day of Kindergarten!

 Alexia picked out her own outfit, from head to toe, including her hairstyle!

She was thrilled to start Kindergarten and was especially to have

the teacher she requested!

At this point in time Alexia plans to be an Artist and/or a Singer!

Before she started school we had a surprise party for Alexia!

Complete with her very own Schultuete!

Blake's first day of 2nd Grade and Alexia's first day of Kindergarten!

 We are so excited for them!  

Alexia and her daddy!

7 Years and We are Not Slowing Down!

Seven years ago I married my soul's perfect match.  No he is not perfect, which is great because I am not perfect either!  He is just undeniably the perfect person for me.  No other person on this earth is the PB to my J, the cake to my frosting, the Yin to my Yang (or Yang to my Yin if you go with the male/female definitions).  Apart from each other we were complete, but together we are stronger, more focused and better all around people because we bring the best out in each other (most of the time ;) ).

One of our Engagement Photos

We have accomplished things we never thought possible, we have achieved dreams and we have been through soul crushing challenges (namely having our oldest diagnosed with Leukemia and the 4+ years of treatment after that, thankfully he survived!!!) and we've had victories that were so sweet we felt like we had found heaven on earth!  

Happy Family of 4

I've heard the cliche, I love you more each day and in a way I agree.  I feel a love that is so much deeper and meaningful than it was originally.  We know each other so much more completely, we understand each other so much more, we cherish the time spent together even more than we did in the beginning.  It isn't necessarily that we love each other more each day, but that we realize more and more that without each other, life would not be the same.  

Adding our 5th family member!

As I have said before and I will continue to say, it isn't perfect, far from it, but that is the beauty of it.  We are so not perfect, and that brings laughter and tears, it brings hearts so full of happiness that they feel like they will burst and it brings heartbreak we never thought we would open ourselves up to feeling.  With anyone else in the world we would not have what we have with each other, these beautiful children, our wonderful families on both sides that contribute so much to the joys in our lives.  With each day we find more and more to be thankful for, regardless of how hard it is to hold it together that day, there is always something to be thankful for!  

One of our many walks to cure childhood cancer

I never knew that I could love someone this much, I never would have thought it possible.  In another 7 years, 25 years or even 50 years we hope to look back and remember this, and think how much stronger our love is for each other.  I am amazed at how much we have both grown as people in the last 7 years and I look forward to continuing to grow together!  

Our song also has even more meaning now than it did before.  I will close with the lyrics, The Eagles, Love Will Keep Us Alive.  

"Love Will Keep Us Alive"

I was standing

All alone against the world outside

You were searching

For a place to hide

Lost and lonely

Now you've given me the will to survive

When we're hungry, love will keep us alive

Don't you worry

Sometimes you've just gotta let it ride

The world is changing

Right before your eyes

Now I've found you

There's no more emptiness inside

When we're hungry, love will keep us alive

I would die for you

Climb the highest mountain

Baby, there's nothing I wouldn't do

Now I've found you

There's no more emptiness inside

When we're hungry, love will keep us alive

A List of Things I LOVE About My Husband

I have always been a list person.  Blame it on my non-diagnosed OCD, I love a good list.  Right now lists are trending, who knew that would ever be something that was "in".  Anyway, here is a list of things I love about my husband as we near our 7 year anniversary of the day we got married and of course, just in time for Father's Day.  

  I am not numbering these, so if your personal OCD dictates that lists should be numbered, I am sorry in advance!  

• I love how funny he is, this was the first thing that lured me into his arms.  He and I could spend hours just laughing, because we are both that hilarious and neither of us takes ourselves too seriously.  Being in a relationship with each other has seemed like second nature because we can find the humor in almost anything.  
• I love how he does not allow gender roles to define him, or our relationship.  It is crazy to me how, in the year 2014, there are still people who think certain things are a "man's job" or a "woman's job".  That has never been us, in our relationship many times the stereotypical gender roles are non-existent.  He happens to be wonderful at vacuuming and horrible at putting together furniture.  I happen to be great at cooking, I'm a master builder.  We both excel at taking care of our own children!  Neither of us is a big fan of laundry, so we split the work load on that particular chore.  
• I love his desire and ability to be a family man.  When we met, he had a ten year plan that included getting married and having children, my ten year plan was to work and make lots of money.  We wound up going with his ten year plan, obviously, and it turns out he is a good planner!  He is involved in the lives of our children, he even took a pay cut to spend more time with us on evenings and weekends.  That is one of the things I admire most about him.
• He makes me crazy.  This apparently is essential to our relationship, either one of us, given a spouse who did not speak up for themselves or who was not stubborn, would probably walk all over the other person.  However, we both have a certain line that cannot be crossed, we both know what we will and will not compromise on and luckily for us it has really worked in our favor.  While for the most part we are easy going and don't require much from each other, we know our boundaries and I feel that has been important for us.  
• He doesn't leave his family.  This one is a big one for me.  He does not go out boozing, he does not pretend that his only "job" for the family is making money and the rest is my job as the "woman".  He has his hobbies, that he can do during the day time, sometimes alone and sometimes with me when we can find a sitter.  It means so much to me that he does not spend every spare moment at the bar or at sporting events.  He makes an effort to be present in his family, which to him includes not wasting time drinking excessively at a place he can not take his family to.  
• When our son was diagnosed with Leukemia, he only left the hospital in order to work.  Both my husband and I (and our infant daughter once she was born) spent EVERY SINGLE NIGHT at the hospital with our son.  Every time he was hospitalized.  Whether it was for a routine extended chemo treatment or due to low counts and/or illness.  While it may be hard to understand or believe, we actually had a lot of good quality family time while staying at the hospital.  We drew stick people with ports and IV poles, we met other families going through the same or similar circumstances.  We laughed, we cried, we did what we had to do to survive that storm in all of our lives.  We all rejoiced together, equally when we no longer had to stay in the hospital and when our son SURVIVED leukemia!  
• He has an awesome family, okay, so this one might not necessarily be just about him, but his family is pretty awesome and I have to give them some credit here.  I just can not get over how much fun his family is to be around.  I love my family, but our families are very different, and I love that too.  I love the relationships he has with people in his family, especially his older sister and his brother-in-law, his parents, many of his cousins and aunts and uncles!  While I've only been hanging out with them for roughly 9 years, I feel like I've always been a part of their family.  It blows my mind how many great people we are lucky enough to be related to!
• He and I are very similar despite how opposite we are.  It is so funny how much that oxymoron is true here.  He tends to be a pessimist while I am more of an optimist.  I love to help people and he.... secretly loves to help people, but acts like he hates helping people.  He likes fashion, I like yoga pants.  ;)  He has a few close friends, I have a few more close friends.  However, we have the same taste in decor, color combinations, the clothes our kids wear, vehicles, houses, medical decisions etc.  We have NEVER argued about any of those things, not once.  It is amazing to me how different we are in other ways, but how similar we are when it counts.   It is not that one of us makes the decisions and the other one goes along with them, we genuinely have the same taste/opinions on all of the really truly important things.  

Honestly I could go on and on and I strongly doubt my list will ever be complete.  My husband is far from a perfect man, and I am far from perfect myself, but somehow we are so perfectly compatible that it is scary sometimes.  I have always been one who laughed at the thought of soul mates and doubted that I would ever want to get married and this man completely changed my mind.  The longer we are together the more I wonder if maybe we were actually somehow destined to find each other.  We have grown together and pretty much grown up together and while we were not in the best places in our lives when we met, we somehow came to this place where we have brought out the best in each other.  Call it God at work, call it what you will, but we recognized that we are very blessed to have what we have and we hope to cherish it for a lifetime.  

A Visit with Family!

Miss Briana with her Brown Bear

She found a whale

Walking with Great Grandpa

Playing in the leaves

Trampoline with cousins

Nature Reserve

Coloring with cousins

Research

Enjoying the outdoors with cousins

Father/Son picture

Father/Daughter picture

Well this post took a while to get done, but we enjoyed a visit with our family in Joplin in March.  

We went to the Precious Moments Chapel with Great Papa Bare and Great Mama Bare, enjoyed lots of cousin time at various locations in Joplin!