Passion meets purpose – Part 2

I cannot talk about passion and purpose without talking about my family. When I
was a little girl my favorite thing to do was to play house. I wanted to be married as
soon as possible and I wanted to have kids, ten to be exact. Of course when I started
having kids as an adult and realized that real babies are a heck of a lot more difficult
than dolls are, not to mention way more expensive, that number went down. Way
down! As a child I also wanted to be a lawyer and a singer and star in the Mickey
Mouse show. Well I can’t argue to save my life and I can’t carry a tune (what’s a
tune?) in a bucket, so mom it was!

Before I can really talk about my kids I must talk about my husband because of
course without him, they would not exist. I met my husband at the age of 19 at
church and we honestly could not have been more different. He was a farm boy from
a small town and I was a city girl. I did not understand his world of living the farm
life and he did not understand a world that consisted of having neighbors five feet
from your home. He wore skintight Wrangler jeans and drove a big orange Chevy
truck. I loved to shop and hang out at the mall. Despite our differences, he claims
that the first time he saw me he knew he was going to marry me. I was wearing
overalls at the time and a red bandana in my hair…. Looking back I cringe at my
fashion choices and question his sanity! Even though I definitely did not share his
feelings at the time, we did end up spending a lot of time together due to our circle
of friends. Over the next few years we became best friends and I realized that he was
one of the funniest people I knew. I looked forward to seeing him and would be
disappointed if he didn’t show up somewhere. He had and still does have a way of
making me laugh harder than most people. I tend to get overwhelmed easily and he
has always been able to calm my chaos. Even when he has created the chaos, which
is pretty impressive!

I soon realized I loved him and since he already knew he loved me the rest is history.
Just like he predicted we got married at the age of 23 and started our family at 25. I
wasn’t one of those girls that wanted all girls or all boys but I definitely knew I
wanted a girl at some point. Of course my favorite thing to do with my dolls and
Barbies as a young girl was dress them and do their hair. I had big dreams of doing
this with a real baby! After we got married my husband informed me that he was
going to have all boys and he wanted five of them. At the time I laughed because
what are the odds of that and didn’t he know we aren’t in control of those things?!
Silly, silly man. Patience has never been one of my or my husband’s strengths so
when I got pregnant with our first child we chose to find out the gender as soon as
we could. Our baby was kind of shy the first time we tried to look but the second
time our baby BOY was very obviously showing us what he was. We were both so
excited and happy that our first child would be a big brother to the rest of our
children. When he was a year old we knew it was time to make him a big brother.
Once again we found out the gender as soon as we could and we were thrilled that
we had another boy on the way. We just knew that they would be best friends some
day. Of course having a toddler and a new baby is a lot of work and a lot different
than playing with dolls. A few years went by before we were ready to add to our
family.

Once we got the hang of having two kids and had a pretty good system down we decided it was time for more. At this point I would have loved to have a girl but at the same time all I knew was boys and I really couldn’t picture life with a girl if we actually had one. Of course during the ultrasound for this little one the technician started laughing and I knew right away what that meant! We were blessed to be expecting our third son. I laughed along with the technician because what else would it be?! My husband was well on his way to being a dad of all boys, just like he always wanted.

I had some complications with this third pregnancy, it didn’t go as smooth as the
first two and our sweet baby boy had a rough start the first two weeks of his life. He
was a fighter though and came through it all just great and is perfectly healthy
today. At this point, due to how the pregnancy went we weren’t sure if we were
done having kids or if we still wanted more. We didn’t make any decisions right
away but after a couple of years we knew we wanted one more baby to complete
our family. It seems all I had to do was think about being pregnant and I would be so
it didn’t take long at all before we found out that we were expecting our fourth baby.
At this point I absolutely knew that my husband was going to get what he wanted,
all boys. He is the type of person that seems to get whatever he wants in life. He got
me after all! There was no doubt in my mind that the child growing inside of me was
indeed our fourth boy. During the 20-week ultrasound (we had to wait that long
back then…) I felt so bad for the ultrasound technician. She knew we already had
three boys. As she was staring at the screen she got this concerned look on her face
and in a sympathetic voice said, “well, I know you probably wanted this baby to be a
girl…” I’m sure she expected me to break down in tears but I immediately started
laughing and reassuring her that is was ok, I already knew it was a boy. We all had a
good laugh and she was able to relax. We had some complications with this last
birth as well and our fourth child had a little fight on his hands but like our third
child, he was a fighter and came through it just fine. After the complications of the
last two pregnancies’ though we decided we were definitely done and our family
was complete. It wasn’t a basketball team but my husband did get four healthy boys.

People often ask me if I ever feel disappointed that we didn’t have any girls. I can
honestly answer that with a definite NO. My boys are amazing in their own ways and
are all so different from each other. I have loved seeing all four of them grow into
the young men that they are. Would I have loved a girl at some point? Absolutely but
I am completely happy and content with the four boys that I am blessed with. I can’t
imagine life any different. I do expect granddaughters though!

Our four boys are now ages 17, 15, 11 and 8. Our home is often loud, messy, and
chaotic and sometimes resembles a wrestling ring. At times it looks like I decorate
with random socks and toy guns of every variety. There is much discussion about
bodily functions and spontaneous laughter can only mean one thing. Someone has
just passed gas and they are PROUD of it! Our home is often full of other kids and
teenagers and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Before we started having kids my husband and I decided that we wanted our house
to be the place that our kids hung out at with their friends. We wanted a home that
could entertain large amounts of people and one that everyone would enjoy being
at. We both love our friends and family, we love to entertain and we LOVE to have
fun. No matter where we have lived or the size of our house we have always made a point to have people over and have found any opportunity we could to throw a party.

I said earlier that when I first met my husband we couldn’t have been more
different. What I didn’t realize at the time is that we both had a passion for people
and a passion for giving. We both love to give of our selves, our time, our resources
and our home. We love to make people happy and bring smiles to their faces. Food is
not only my passion but it is part of my family’s greater purpose to bring people
together. Just like in my home, I hope to make you feel welcome here on my website
and I hope that you can take something away that blesses you.