What I love to write about most is my family and running. It seems all my Facebook posts have to do with one of these topics, almost always. Not sure why I decided now to start my blog considering I am almost certain I have a stress fracture in my foot and will not be running for the immediate 6-8 weeks if the X-ray (which I have not had yet) proves me right. Good news is my family provides for enough material on a daily basis so that my lack of running stories won't make for a complete waste of time for any reader who chooses to follow me.

Just to give a little background on my family, my husband and I have 4 children; Logan (15), Levi (6), Luke (4), and Layton (3). When I spout out these ages to people it seems to always follow with the same inquiries. First, they comment on how far apart in age our first two kids are. The simplest answer is I had Logan from a previous marriage. I do not often mention this and you'll probably never hear me mention it again. Logan's biological dad chose not to be apart of Logan's life and therefore doesn't deserve mentioning other than this explanation (which I know I didn't need to give but wanted to provide for a background). My husband is for all intents and purposes Logan's dad. Logan calls him dad and refers to him as his dad, and that is because Keith is everything a dad should be and we are very lucky to have him. The second inquiry is that our last two children are very close in age. The simple answer to that is our little Layton is what you would call an "oops". I've had several people attempt to correct me when I've referred to him as an "oops", stating that he is a "surprise", rather than an "oops". I assume they prefer that I call him a surprise to remove any negative conotation. Although this is thoughtful of them, the fact is he was an oops by every definition of this word. By no means does mean that we don't love him just as much as the other kids, and we honestly couldn't imagine life without him (this is what every parent says of their "oops" children), but he was the furthest thing from a planned pregnancy.

Now on to our whirlwind romance. Keith and I have been married for 8 years this May. We met through a mutual acquaintance and when the timing was right, we fell in love and got married two months after our first "date". It was the fastest, hardest and most deepest love I ever fell into. And with that said, I am more in love with him today than the day we got married. My love for him stems from the good man he is, the good provider that he is, and truly the best father a wife and child could ever hope to have. With 4 boys, having such an amazing role model for a father is essential in them turning into responsible, caring men. I have no doubt that's what they'll be.

Today is the 4th of July and I volunteered to work, only for my own sanity so I could process payroll and not be stressed with the deadline tomorrow. The hard part about this is I hear my kids upstairs with my husband laughing and playing, but mostly crying and fighting. This is probably why I am choosing to stay down in my office rather than be in a hurry to join them just yet. Yes I do feel guilty about that but I've found that I quickly get over these moments of guilt, thankfully.

This day will involve a trip to get fireworks from the reservation across the way. Still not sure how it's "legal" to buy "illegal' fireworks from the reservation but it seems no one really cares and it's not enforced. Each year at dusk on this holiday you would think WWIII broke out with the amount of fireworks, bombs, M80s, and all the other explosives that the men in the neighborhood ignite in attempt to show how masculine this holiday can be. I personally find this holiday, once dusk appears, quite annoying. I think any mother who has young children could somewhat relate to this, being that young children don't do well staying up late and all we really want is for them to go to bed and not have the war right outside their window keep them up. Now this may be just my anal rententiveness that causes this to annoy me, but it is what it is.

So now that I've provided a background into what I'm about, hopefully my blog will not be a complete waste of time for others to read. It will serve as my therapy so some good will come out of it. The stories I can tell with life in our house could publish for many books. But for now, I'll just concentrate on this blog and see where it goes. Happy Birthday, America!