Praying

BACK ROW: Chase, Ashe, Kadyn, Amy

FRONT ROW: Davyn, Austin, Kalie(Tink), Kyndall

This picture was taken Christmas day at our family get together. Pictured are my two children, Ashe & Amy. My brother's three children (that have been born, remember he has twins on the way!) Kadyn, Davyn, and Kyndall. The other three belong to my cousin Malisia. Chase, Austin and Kalie, or Tink as she is known by family.

A little bit of back-story is required to tell this story. Malisia moved back to Texas late summer this year to leave her husband and his abuse and cheating. The man, though I've never met him, is a real piece of work. He was very abusive verbally, has major anger issues (such as throwing game controllers when a game did not go the way he wanted), and has on more than one occasion cheated on my cousin. She moved from North Carolina back to Texas to be with her family for support through what she knew would be a troublesome seperation and most likely divorce. She spoke with her husband regularly, allowing him to speak to his children daily, all the while he would tell her that he was not ready to start divorce proceedings. Then out of the blue, Malisia gets slapped with divorce papers. Her husband had filed in NC and was petitioning for custody. The papers stated that there would be a hearing in 2 days to determine Temporary Custody until the divorce went to court. The trip itself would have taken 2 days, so there was no way for my cousin to make it to NC in time for the hearing. She faxed over a letter requesting an extension to allow her time to make arrangements to get there, find a NC attorney, and someone to watch the children since school had already started. They granted an extension, she recieved notice of the new hearing date in the mail, it had been for earlier that morning. The court had granted her husband temporary custody. The younger two children were required to go back to North Carolina with their father. The older child, not biologically his, would remain with Malisia. For all intents and purposes, she was screwed out of any chance to fight at the temporary custody hearing because she was not given enough time to do anything.

She was able to get her kids for Christmas, which is why we were able to take the picture above. She started the journey to return them to their father the day after Christmas. Last night I was recieving text updates on the trip from Malisia and another cousin, Taree, who travelled with her. The children were both stating how they did not want to return to their father, they wanted to stay in Texas with their mother. This of course made it that much harder on Malisia to return them. She is paying a NC attorney $4000 to handle her case while she is out of state. She has come close to giving in and just returning to NC to be with her children and even to go back to her husband. This would not be in her best interest. I am asking anyone and everyone who reads this to please say a prayer for my cousin, that she will have her children returned to her permanently and soon. She is under a lot of stress right now and I am sure depression is setting in if it hasn't already.

Happy Birthday, Amy!

Today my baby girl turns 12. Where has the time gone? I don't feel old enough to have a tween and a teen! It seems like only yesterday they were just babies. I don't mind them growing older though, really. The older they get, the more able they are to do things for themselves, which I am grateful for. I do however mind that my daughter seems to need new pants every month at the rate she's growing. She is nearly as tall as me already and she's only TWELVE! Jeans her size are so expensive nowadays, and she's at the age where shewants the 'cool' stuff. I have told her numerous times that she needs to stop growing and she refuses to. She claims that she can't! Go figure. We will have her party this weekend, Twilight & New Moon theme, by her request. It won't be too much of a theme party as funds are low, but we did buy red velvet cake mix. I figured that could fit somewhat with a vampire theme. Happy Birthday, Amy!

Happy Birthday!

We celebrated Ashe's birthday yesterday and it was a great day! Keving got up early to bake a cake for Ashe. It turned out so cute, he started with triple chocolate cake, made two layers. It was frosted with cream cheese icing. Then a 'grave' was dug out of the center and a small inexpensive action figure was 'buried' into the cake. And of course there was a headstone, to mark the grave of the fallen. That may sound sick and demented to some, but if you are a gamer (D&D) you would understand a little better.

There were lots of friends to enjoy the BBQ with us, plenty of food to eat, presents, cake and of course ice cream. Ashe enjoyed himself very much, which is all that matters. And he only had to open one duct-taped gift this year. He also had a prank gift which is always fun. The look on his face was absolutely awesome!!

All in all it was an excellent day finished off with some gaming time. Good friends and good times, can't beat it.

'Tis the Season

Well, it's getting to be that time. Christmas is right around the corner, and for most people it is stressful, for me it is more so. Not only do I have Thanksgiving followed closely by Christmas, I have my son's birthday November 19th, then my daughter's birthday December 9th. So I get slammed with two birthday's worth of presents as well as Christmas. My budget is tight at best, and this time of year it is downright non-existant. This coming weekend will be our "Backyard Barbeque Birthday Bash" for my son. He is turning a whopping 13 years of age, a true teenager this year. We have managed to get him some nice gifts that we hope he will thouroghly enjoy. Kevin will be baking the birthday cake and he and I will work to come up with some off the wall crazy way to decorate it. Here is a picture of him taken not too long ago. He made this face and while it's not suitable for hanging on the wall it suits him well if you know him.

We also had to take our poor Drizzt to the vet yesterday. He had been acting a little 'off' for a few days and yesterday his entire lower jaw was swollen up. Kevin and I rushed the poor baby to see what was wrong. The vet couldn't tell me for sure what it was (he wanted to do x-rays but I didn't have an extra $70 to shell out for them). It is possible it is just a really bad bruise, he could have fallen, ran into something really hard, or been hit. The likelyhood of him falling or hitting something is very small, which leads me to think he was hit. Now I am trying not to speculate, but I'm half afraid some hooligan has decided to use my loveable cat as a soccer ball. The idea of that has me decidedly worried. Kevin and I are on the hunt for a guard dog now. We would like to start with a young puppy to train him properly, but at this point, anything is better than nothing. See Drizzt below, he may look innocent in the picture, but he's after my food!

I seem to be having some difficulty with my daughter of late, I am not sure what her deal is, but she pouts about everthing, and has started getting an attitude with me of late. I assure you this will not last! I do not put up with moody children and she will be made aware of this fact once again (yes, she has tried the 'attitude' bit with me in the past) and she will behave like a...hmm...well behaved child. Sounded odd saying it that way. Most of the time I can count on Amy to be loveable, crafty and fun. For the most part she is very easy to get along with and always willing to help out with things. It has just been recently that she has tried to start attitude with me, perhaps part of her 'growing up' is to blame for that. I am sure it's just a phase and she will (hopefully) go back to being the sweet helpful child I know. Here she is in a recent picture.

I think I will have to close for now. Be sure to check out the blog of my love Kevin, and also that of the Crazed Mind. I'm sure they have something much more interesting or inspiring to say, me, I just whine a lot.