Becoming a blended family!

Over two years have passed since Jess and I got married. I was thinking about how my life has changed and the things we have all gone through. This post is mainly about my story in becoming blended!

Before I met Jess I was a single mom of 3 working days and going to school at night. I owned my own home and felt that I had done a pretty good job taking care of myself and my 3 babies. However, I felt lonely and incomplete. I longed for my family to be "whole". For my children to have a father and for me to have a husband to share the responsibilities and joys of life with. Even though I had many people around me at church and work, I didn't have very many friends because I was put in the category of "single mom". I was 25 years old...too young to hang out with some and too old to hang out with others. I was too busy to get together for play dates and I didn't have a significant other to get together for couples night. I struggled with finding boyfriends who just weren't right for me. Being 25 is young enough to date and explore relationships but not when you have 3 kids who look up to you, watching everything you do as you strive to do right by them.

I remember just praying with all my heart a Good man would come into my life. Jess was an answer to my prayers!! We were so in love and caught up in the fact that we finally had found each other that the reality of what would soon be our lives hadn't really sunk in...at least for me!

I sold my house and moved all of my things to Jess' home in Brigham City, Utah!! Brigham City...! A small little town is a huge change from a big city! It was a huge adjustment at first...having no store other than Walmart and only 3 restaurants to choose from. Oh how I love it now and am grateful to call it home! It was hard at first though. Jess started with a company that kept him until super late at night making this new blended family fall mainly on my shoulders. Being a working single mom, my mother had helped me a ton with my 3 kids so I hadn't really realized what it would be like taking on 6!

Jess' home was very nice for him and his 3 boys, but adding a wife and 3 more kids made it feel like we lived on top of each other. We converted the basement family room into our master bedroom and for a while, we had no door to our room!! Oh how grateful I am for doors! You don't realize the beauty in things until you don't have it! Even with a door however, you could hear the daily screams, whines and arguments of the boys as their rooms were right next to ours. When they would wake up, the floor would pound as they raced up the stairs...never a chance to sleep past 6:30am for us!

Our sweet, beautiful, squishy house (=

 

 

 

All the children had their little quirks...Little Ali was only 2 and was still being potty trained.... Clark was still wetting the bed at night.... Aj, although was 5, would rub his poop on the bathroom floor and walls.... Ryan who was 8, would poop his pants and hide the poop under my bed.... Lets just say, I have dealt with poop way more than I'd ever like to in a lifetime!

Meals were a chore because I felt as though I would spend forever cooking, then in seconds everyone would eat. I would spend forever on dishes and then it would be time to cook for the next meal...and repeat! I learned quick on that one. We now eat off paper plates and the children take turns doing the dishes!

We bought a bigger table as well!

School is still a never ending chore. When we were first married, I would take the 3 oldest to school, then have the 3 youngest at home for a couple hours, then take Aj to afternoon kindergarten, then 2 hours later pick all of them up! Two hour intervals in between pick up and drop off does not give you much time to get anything done. Because we lived so close to the elementary school, I would sometimes give myself 15 minutes more of peace and quiet and allow them to walk home instead of me picking them up. This however was not always a good decision since I was informed by one of my dear neighbors that on the way home, my boys would stop in front of her house and pee on her trees in front of her home!! Oh the stories I could tell!! lol

Bedtime is a reward for me! We say prayers and put the kids to bed at 8...they usually are asleep by 9 and I have about 2 hours to myself before I fall asleep and start the day all over! Two years later I feel that I have a slight grip on parenting 6 kids. We have moved into a bigger home and the kids and I have gotten into the swing of a schedule. All 8 of us come from a past. We have all had to deal with things that people should never have to deal with and those things have left scars that we are all trying to work through. Unfortunately the "baggage" in our life still causes a lot of problems and life is not always easy. At the end of the day, I am so grateful for my family! I am so grateful that I am blessed to be a stay at home mom. When I would go to work, I felt like I was missing out on so much with my kids! I love that I can be there for them now! I am grateful that I have a husband that I can share my woes with, who I can laugh and cry at life with. When I look back on my life, I can see that the Lord does knows me and does everything in His timing. I can only imagine how hard it would be to be dealing with leukemia with Ali by myself. It was only 6 months after our year anniversary that she was diagnosed. Life has definitely thrown us a lot these last 2 years but I am so grateful for the good that has come from it.

8 little blessings!

I love my beautiful children!