January 30th, we will celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary.  I realize the accomplishment that is, particularly in our current times, however, please don’t think there was pixie dust sprinkled on us, spreading joy & happiness every day.  In fact, several years were quite the opposite and I think we both gave each-other the ‘what did we get ourselves into’ look many times.   But then we remember…….our love and our vows.

When I look at this photo, I remember two things; being happy and being sad.  I was 16 and 5 months pregnant with Tyler.  I was happy because I was with the man that I loved.  And I was sad because we lived away from anyone and everyone and I was clueless on how to be a wife, much less a mother.  But our love for one another and our vows got us through those times; the times where we ate at Dairy Queen because I didn’t know how to cook, our heartbreaking miscarriages, and even the moments when we’d wonder how the heck we were gonna feed our kids when payday was still two more weeks away.   We made it work because we loved each-other and because we made a vow to be true to each-other in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, for better for worse, for richer for poorer til death do us part.

One of the great illusions of our time is that love is self-sustaining. It is not. Love must be fed and nurtured, constantly renewed. That demands ingenuity and consideration, but first and foremost, it demands time.

I truly believe this statement.  I think that so many times, couples give up thinking that there is something better out there that would require less time & work and perhaps that’s true, but then what’s the point of the wedding vows?  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to work through and appreciate the bad with the good because it has made our marriage substantial, our love for one-another stronger, and that only makes us more powerful as a couple.   I have always given my husband credit for us being happily married. He is so slow to anger, he believes the best in people, he is as steady as a rock, he works from sun up to sun down to take care of us, and he is as faithful as any man could be.  It took me a long time to truly appreciate those qualities, and instill them in myself, but I did and still continue to work at it……and more recently, when I turned it around and started to love my husband as God loves me, that’s when I knew that there will never be anything that will ever come between us.  I began focusing less on his faults and more on my own… and my own need for God’s grace in my life.   While I may dislike my husband at certain times (like when he promises to bring me a Dr. Pepper but then forgets), I completely love him with all my heart. There are no words to express my gratitude, only actions, actions of respect, honor and devotion until death parts us.

To live happily ever-after does not mean there are no struggles. It does mean that when you choose to die to yourself, to your SELFishness, your demands, your rights, and seek to really love, to be joined together as one, then you can start to live happily ever-after.

For every hard moment, there were twice as many happy & joyful moments and all I can do is smile when I think of them.  I pray that God blesses us with 19+ more years.

• Seeing my son be crowned football king and fall festival king
• all their sports moments from football to basketball
• being their for my son during his knee surgery and therapy
• silly moments in the car with my husband
• birthdays
• seeing my son in his play
• being with my son as tossed the glasses and got contacts
• watching my boys with their horses
• helping decorate players lockers
• my son’s first day of pre-k
• watching my son coach peewee football
• taking my son to the park
• mother and son moments
• father and son moments

and my favorite……watching my boys just be together.  No music, just reflections.

Walmart has launched Mater’s Secret Mission on their Facebook page and movie vouchers, exclusive downloadable coloring pages, Disney Mater’s Tall Tales Videos are just some of the prizes you could win.  All you have to do is send a coded message!   There’s also exclusive Cars 2 merchandise that can bought through the Mater’s Secret Mission app but that’s something I’m gonna have to try and let Truett NOT see!  He’ll want it all!

And if you’re like me and LOVE Mater, you can receive your very own call/voicemail from Mater!  You can send a text to 63257 and be sure to use one of these trigger words: Buddies, Secret, Spy, Mission, Mater, Charge

If you guys go see the movie, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it! We are super excited to see and might I add, we also love the Fast and the Furious movies so I’m sure this will be a hit in our family.   KACHING!

Disclosure: I am an official Walmart Mom. Follow me and my fellow Walmart Moms as we share our experiences and ideas! Walmart has provided me with compensation in return for my time & efforts to create this post. My participation in this program is voluntary and my opinions are my own, always have been, always will be.

SO WHAT’S GOING ON WITH ME?

I’m actually sitting in San Francisco as I write this.  I had the opportunity to hang out with the folks from Blurb and I have to say, I walked away with inspiration and creative ideas for me, you, and my local community.   Blurb allows you to create books - Photo books, Text books, or Photo & Text books.  The quality is OUTSTANDING!  I’ve always wanted to make one with our cowboy photos but today, I knew that creating a cookbook with all my family’s recipes would take priority of wants.  How cool is that to self publish your own cookbook?  Anyways, I’ll get into more Blurb later on because they are coming out with some more fun things and innovative apps that I can’t wait to share.  And just to keep in full disclosure – I was asked to be an ambassador or Blurbarian and proudly accepted.  They flew me out (at their expense) and shared their story and it’s pretty great I have to say.  I think you’ll love the ideas I came up with for creating a book!!

Easter was great!  Truett had a blast hunting eggs with friends and came away with tons of candy and fun toys.  I love seeing their excitement.  We went to my friend Sheri’s house, who is a great cook!  She had so much food that I left feeling like a stuffed pig.

How was your Easter?

My 17 year old had prom recently and looked absolutely handsome.  I can’t believe he turns 18 this year and will be a senior.  I FEEL OLD!!  Truett starts Pre-K this year and I have to say, I’m COMPLETELY EXCITED!!  I love him to death but my goodness, he’s a handful right now and really needs physical & mental stimulation that school can provide.  Socializing & playing with kids, learning all sorts of new things, and just being around others will be great for him.

My weight is going okay.  Because I’ve missed several sessions due to a busy life and travel, I’m not where I want to be but I’m still on track and will reach my goal. I’ll get you a more detailed update soon.

I leave to Chicago on Sunday to meet with the folks from Gatorade.  I’m really excited because I’m sure many of you already know how much I love sports.  I think it’s the perfect company to get to know!  I believe we even get to meet NBA Kevin Durant’s Mom!  How fun! Although, I must admit that I don’t watch basketball so much.  My boys are super excited about me hooking up with Gatorade so I’m the cool Mom of course…and that makes me squeal! It’s hard to look cool to your kids when they’re 15 and 17.

So that’s what’s happening with me.  What’s happening with YOU?  I want to hear! I want to know what you’ve been doing and what you have planned.  SHARE WITH ME!!! I want comments! My new goal is to comment back!!!

Until next time……..

Here are the Junior’s hands, wearing their senior ring.  Anyone want to guess which hand is my son’s?

I’m excited that all three of my boys will be in school together for at least one year.  How neat is that?  I mean, with the huge age difference, it will be pretty cool to have my older boys looking out for their little brother and Truett being able to hang out with his older brothers.  He’s totally ready for school by the way. I wish he could have gone to Pre-K this year. I think he needed it.  He tried on a backpack the other day and you can see the excitement in his face.  He’s soooo ready.    The only problem will be having explain why he can’t wear his hat…no clue how that will go over.

Gosh I feel old.  And sad to know that one is so soon to move off, but filled with excitement to watch my little guy learn so many cool things.    All these things are just some of the reasons I haven’t been blogging as much as I once did.  I sure enjoy every single moment with them.  It’s way cooler than blogging…….

Directly after the awesome laser show, he talked about our Anthem and the story of our Flag.  Now I’ve heard the general story about our men dying for our flag but the way he told it, well, it gave me chills and this vivid image of what it truly meant.  I’m ashamed to say this but I never truly knew the story like he told it.  He talked about Francis Scott Key and the war and how during the war, they Flag never fell because there were piles of dead men who died trying to keep it up and when those men died, more men came to hold the Flag up, and so on.  It truly inspires me to know that those men had that much pride in our men, the Flag, and what they were fighting for.    That my friends, is why I’d whip my son’s ass if he didn’t take his hat off during the anthem. Luckily, I don’t even have to tell him to though because he knows it’s important to us. How important is it to you? Do you take your hat off? Do you put your hand over your heart and sing that anthem with pride, thanking those who have fight, and are fighting for our country?  We do.

Then came the rodeo!  There were some top names here at the rodeo this year like Rich Skelton, Blair Burke, and Allen Bach.  We saw bulls, roping, and really enjoyed the clown entertainment.

Then after a while, we had a tired cowpoke.

After a very long Saturday, we took Sunday as a day of rest.  Friends of Toby & Tyler came over again this weekend. We love having them here. We know they’re not anywhere else getting in trouble when they’re at our house so they are always welcomed.  Anyways, we all cooked outside, ate cheesecake, and just enjoyed family (and friends) time.

We had a great weekend…how ’bout you?

He hates when I take photos of him!!  Was he outside? not for long….

My gangsta look…..sorta

And then in all fairness, I let my husband take one of me to post…….no shame in my game!!

So how was YOUR day?

Just sharing……

He’s gonna kill me for sharing this one. heehee

Play-doh on his lunch break!

On the town, both up to no good!

We started out with a Ziti recipe, some ice cream from Lovin’ Scoopful (which is actually for an ice cream party I’m hosting but thought tonight was such a great night to have it), and finished it off with popcorn.

We all sat in the living room to watch with popcorn in hand.  The boys NEVER moved for the entire showing and didn’t even text either! It was awesome.  The movie was really good.  It kept you on the edge of your seat, made you tear up for the girl because we’ve all had some kind of embarrassing high school moments, and it made you laugh.  It was educational with the history info and the characters were just easy to fall in love with.

We loved the trivia questions and I’m sad to report that my husband beat all of us and answered the most…even though I AM smarter than him. hehehe!  We were shocked at the sponge one…ew!  Here are a few if you missed them.

• How many germs build up on a sponge in ONE DAY???  ONE BILLION!!  EW!
• How many pounds of laundry does the average household wash during one week?  My husband said, “not many here” hahaha, so funny…not!  The answer, 50lbs!
• What President was advised by an 11yr old girl to grow a beard? Abraham Lincoln

So much fun answering the questions. We all sat and thought about them and gave our answered….and went “BOOYAH” when we got it right and someone else was wrong.  That’s how we roll around here!

The other that we enjoyed were the little series commercials of the same family.  Of course, we especially loved the toilet paper one. Living with a lot of guys and having two boys who HAVE called from the bathroom needing toilet paper, we thought it was hilarious.  Literally all of us were laughing out loud on that one.

The only thing that I’d like to see different is changing up those little series commercials because even though they were different, they seemed the same since they started out the same with the parents bringing in the Walmart grocery bag…which of course was reusable..RIGHT-ON Walmart!  They did get a little carried away with the Great Value products at the beginning of the movie too but we told them that when we got to see it exclusively with the producer.  They said they’d work on that and I believe they will.

Overall, we loved it and ALL gave it thumbs up. I was so tickled to watch a move with my family where I didn’t have to worry about what commercial or not so clean scene was coming next.  Remember those Herbal Essence commercials with the moaning?? I HATED watching those with my boys in the room. I was always very uncomfortable with those.  I didn’t have to worry about anything like that during this family movie night.

Thanks Walmart and P&G for bringing Family Movie Night back! We look forward to the next one!

Did you watch it?