Always growing and changing...

It seems that Hunter and Morgan are having a race to see who can grow and change the most at the same time.

With Hunter, I come home and feel like a total stranger is standing in my house. He is so tall and handsome. His tan skin is the most beautiful color I have ever seen and it draws out the green in his eyes. When he talks I catch myself staring at him as if he were an alien! What happened to the cute cracking voice of my little boy!? Now he sounds so grown up and well...kinda rude!!! I was not ready for all this. My sweet thoughtful, helpful, brilliant Hunter Bear has turned into a hormonal know-it-all teenager. It leaves me sitting here wish for a whole pitcher of margaritas and asking what happened? Is there a cure for this? Maybe an instruction manual? HELP! Again, I am not ready for this!!!

My little Bear started 7th grade last week. He was so anxious and nervous it was kinda sweet. He is in all four available pre-ap classes again this year. He just took a placement test for math Friday and we received an e-mail that he did really well. We were relieved as it is his least favorite class and I was second guessing my decision to keep him in the advanced class. Now I have to giggle because as a 7th grader he is in a higher level class than his father and I took as a senior in high school. That is just sad! This will be his first year to play football for his school and is thrilled. He hasn't complained once about getting up early to be at practice at 7:15 a.m. He likes to be there early too. We can't wait to find out which team he made so we can see his schedule. He weighed himself the other day and was 175lbs, he is about 5'8-9, and wearing a size 13 Nike (with a little room to grow)!

On to smaller problems, I mean children...Miss Morgan. Let me tell you, this girl is a mess. I know I have said this before, but the mess got bigger! Much like her big brother, she is beautiful and brilliant, and much like him she is hardheaded and well...rude. Seriously? Did I just say that my 15 month old angel is rude? I sure did! She goes from lovingly doting me with kisses to slapping or hitting or just ripping through a room like a lil' Texas tornado. She hates the word "no" and boy does she let us know it. You would think that hearing it a million times a day she would understand the meaning. Apparently not. Actually, that is not true. She has no problem telling me "no" when I am about to discipline her, take something away, or attempt a time out.

Her vocabulary seems to grow everyday and keeps us laughing as she mimics us. She has started calling Wes Da more than Daddy. Sometimes when I call out his name you will hear this sweet whisper of her saying, "Wes" behind me. When Wes was peeling her banana (her favorite breakfast) she said, "me, me,me, me, me, me" while motioning her hands as if to say give it to me! The week before last, she clearly said, "bye" as she hung up her play phone. We have been trying to get her to say Grammy forever and on Thursday she Finally called out to her plain as day with Gram! I think it made Grammy's day. I am sure I will have to come back and add to this list but here is a list of words and phrases she now says: Momma, Daddy, Da, Bubba, Me, dog, dog sit, I did that, it did that, whats that, shoes (shoosh), Gram, Papa, Nana (was nana for banana but she quit calling it anything at all), love, and today she said, "thank you" as she handed me the dirty laundry over and over. She can sign more but not as often as I would like. I will ask Wes and Hunter to remind me of the words I have forgotten in the morning.

As for me and Wes, we are still praying that he finds a job soon. The financial strain puts such a heavy weight on all of our emotions lately. Whenever I want to feel sorry for myself I am reminded of how blessed we are to all be healthy and for our beautiful children. There are so many worse pains and burdens so many families struggle through. This is hard, but we will recover. We still have faith that God has a beautiful plan for our family.