Are we there yet?!

Mud is good for a girls skin.

Here is my husbands burnt apartment. His is on the left bottom. Under the porch with the 2 windows you can our sofa and the upstairs floor on it. The whole building is gutted and they will be knocking it down this week. His bedroom is the far left window with the gutter hanging in it.

My favorite moments....

Those are the words I say to myself alot. Are we there yet? Meaning am I were I want to be as a mother, a wife, a friend, a stranger? I have spent a good part of my life always in the shadow or running in my head the thoughts of am I enough or good enough for?? I became a mom at 15 gave birth at 16. I was young but I knew God made me a mom for a reason and I grabbed that and ran with it. I never gave a thought about what others thought about my parenting. I had my second child at 18. Again knowing full well what I was doing. Never thought twice about a dang thing and my oldest kids are some AMAZING kids! I was relaxed and a free spirit about things. Learning was outside and enjoyable. I was a single mom from the get go. But I had an awesome mom and family for support. Some how I managed to lose my joy and free spirit for a few years and lost the person I was. I lost the feeling of love and became so wrapped up in what everyone thought and on my goodness how I raised my kids. We lost the JOY of what parenting really is. I lost the laughs, the pure awww feeling when my child did something. Until recently. My sister a bunch of weeks ago was talking to me about how she never let anyone tell her this and that about her family and she dont care what others think because its her family etc.... Thats when I remembered well duhhhh what the heck I was I doing for these past couple years. I lost a good 2 years of caring what people had planned for us and what they thought on my parenting. Im not trying to mean but now its like shut up please! I dont care if what we are doing isnt your idea of cool or popular. I dont care if you think we are weird backwoods freaks. We are finally happy, finally we know what clicks and what doesn't. I make the plans, I decide if we watch this or not. We have laughs we have smiles, we have peace and we have LOVE back in this house.Knowing my husband will back home and with is makes our smile a little bigger( maybe after the first few weeks of getting a routine with him.) I have relaxed on alots.Im a loud person in general always have been and that wont change. Although im sure my kids have moments when they wish id be quiet! I need to work on being a little more soft. Ill work on that. My biggest change was the way we school. Again not all my children are relaxed learners. Hannah is very text bookie. But for my Cody its been along 5 years of schooling and we honestly haven't gotten very far. For a while there I was unschooling him and he did amazing and loved learning without knowing he was doing "school". Then those nasty years came in and I thought I was doing it wrong and bam we hit a road. Im not unschooling him now but we no longer use the text books on him. I have an English book for myself and thats it. I have him write bible verses, poems, stories anything to get him writing. HE DOESN'T COMPLAIN! We are doing Prairie Primer again only because HE loves it and I though lots into for him. He likes learning again. Yes thats right my stub burn book throwing pencil breaking child likes his school again! Oh my oh my. People I have to tell you I feel wonderful as a parent again and its so nice to laugh with my kids. The messes are always here and thats just a season for this. I have a house of littles and littles causes messes. If you cant handle that then you dont need to come over and WASTE my time. I cant always have a clean and spotless house and be a happy mom also. If you can awesome, but for me I can do the dishes after they go to bed, im going to take that walk they want. I can laundry later, im going to play that card game they want. Of course we still teach our children we have chores and we must work before play BUT in a relaxed way. Dont like? Thats ok it works for us. We are happy and content.
Ok enough of that. Last week my husbands apartment building burnt down and he lost everything that he had there. Which was alot because he has been in Indiana for 18 months now. He got out and just watched the fire take that building to nothing. It was by far a scary night for me being 4 hours away and not being able to hold him and touch him and know FOR SURE he as ok. But the kids and me did go there for few days and got him into a new bigger apartment for the last few weeks of him working outa state with out us. I got there and had to do the wife pat down on him so I knew for sure he was 100% ok! He was! We also got a new home for our dog Buzz. He is a black lab mix and a guy wanted to train him to be a duck hunter. Praise God for that. We didnt have the time to train him and he is such a good dog. We miss him but know he is in a good home. I got chickens and a turkey now under the light hoping that a fox doesnt come again and kill them all.Last year we lost my whole flock to a wild animal. Not this year! Alright I better go I have wild Indians running around here. P.S...... YES WE ARE THERE :)