A New Year

 This past year has been a whirlwind to say the least.  Changes all around.  If someone would have told me last year at this time what 2013 would hold I would have laughed.  New additions to the farm, hand injury, 14 yrs married, becoming foster parents and adding 2 boys to our family, going through a last minute deployment and now Chloe being a teenager.  It all seems surreal.

  It is always amazing to me to see how much you can grow over the course of a year.  Learn something new, over come heart ache, take on new challenges.  We have done that this year for sure.  Dealt with family strife, learning about our animals and how to better take care of them, gardening for the first time on a large scale.  Even just having Kayden and Ethan in our home has been a learning experience.

 I have absolutely no clue when it comes to boys.  I have one sister, grew up with girl cousins, yes I had guy friends growing up but never paid attention to what made them tick.  Watching Kayden come out of is shell and start to "grow up", for lack of better term, into an actual 4yr old boy who can communicate and convey his needs and wants and what he doesn't want has been wonderful and odd at the same time.  Trying to decipher what is normal little boy behavior as opposed to the possible signs of autism his workers claimed he has or just the result of years of neglect has been hard.  Along with his special diet of no Gluten or Dairy and when Travis was on the other side of the world I was left asking co-workers and friends, "Is this normal?"

  Now, let's take Ethan, he is a healthy little guy with a healthy appetite and is now moving around pretty well.  He is a mess, getting into things and knowing he is not supposed to.  Again boys!  He actually started climbing up on the hearth around our wood burning stove and after being removed a couple times and telling him no he finally got the picture and actually put himself in timeout.  Now, I couldn't help but laugh, where he couldn't see me of course.  But I had asked him "do you need to sit down?" and he walks over to Kayden's time out corner and sits down.  Boys!

  Marriage, 14 years to be exact.  We have had ups and downs and way downs and ups again.  Today I am proud to say we made it through so very tough times.  God has been good to us and I am excited to see what 2014 holds.