Reader beware! Not a happy post!

For the first time in 22 yrs I am dreading Christmas! Why you ask, well it goes a little something like this. Becki (my sister) and I buried our mother 22 yrs ago last week. Although I have had some pretty amazing stand in , in the Mom department, I am missing her something terrible this year. My mom wasn't a mom in the normal sense of the word. She was more like my big sister. She protected us the best she could and she loved us the best she could!
My kids are growing so very fast and have had to endure a lot of hardships, more than most kids there age have had to, but I wonder what it would have been like had I had my own mom!Would I have suffered the heartbreaking news of having that chance that I would lose my own family as valiantly, would I have fought as hard not to leave them motherless or wifeless? Would she have loved them and spoiled them like my own grandmother did for me and Becki? I know that she would come and see all the silly little plays and concerts, just because I asked her too! I would LOVE for my kids to know the kind of woman she was. She was very talented. She cooked gourmet meals, she baked cakes, that would make even the cake boss drool! She knitted, painted ceramics, made dolls etc,,, The list goes on. Oh for one moment for my kids to see her. For the look on Avery and Zackery's face to know that there Nanny is coming to love on them and no one else for a whole day. For them to not only see the talent, but to have the fruits of that talent in there rooms, or on there backs, or in there closets! They really are missing out on the best part of me, and that is my mom! 22 yrs ago I lost a friend, and a mom!
I have always loved this time of year! The baking, the gift buying, the trees, the feeling of peace and happiness. I tried my hardest for a long time to continue some of the things that she did, and this year, I just can't. I don't want to bake, I don't want to put up a tree, I don't want to shop. All I want this year is to feel her arms around me and to love me and I can't have that. I will never walk into the house again and smell her baking, I will never be able to put on another sweater that she made me, I will never again in this life feel her arms around me, rubbing my back and telling me that she loves me and that things are going to be OK! Like I said before I have had some amazing stand in, my Nanny, Jane and Aunt Joyce, Doug's grandma and even my mother in law have all had an impact on my life and the woman that I have become, but I still miss my mom!, I still have that little 13 yr old girl in side of me who desperately wants to understand why me? Why my mom? I know the answers to most of the questions already, but it doesn't mean it hurts any less, and for some odd and strange reason it hurts more this year than that first 3 weeks without her. It hurts more than on my wedding day, and on the day my kids were born. It even hurts worse than the day they told me that I wouldn't live to see my own family grow! 22 yrs is along time to miss someone that special! I know that there are going to be people reading this thinking that I have lost my mind, that I need medication or that I just need to let it go. I have been letting go allot in my life, it has made me a stronger person, however painful for you to read, think of how painful it was to write, to put all my feelings out there. I have needed to do this for me, and for my sister. I needed her to know that I hurt too and that I wish the same things she does. That I love her! I am human too. Sometimes I need to vent and let my world no that I am not OK today, that everything is not roses and sunshine! See Beck, we are more alike than either of us has ever known! Love you!

My Little Man Turns 11!

Well Another year older and wiser? Maybe! Avery turned 11 this weekend. I can't belive that he is 11. He has growning into a very nice young man! He wanted Applebee's for dinner so off we whent with Grandma and Grandpa Berry. We had a great time. The waiters and waitresses all sang Happy Birthday to him and he did turn a little red. Zackery chose the moments before to have to go to the bathroom, so Doug missed the sining. Luckily grandma was qucik and captured it with her camera. Thanks mom!

WOW

I look back to the last time I bloged and relized that alot has happened, and I have not blogged about anything! WOW lets correct that now! Please remember if you are reading this, this is like a journal for me and if you don't like what I have to say then PLEAS DON'T READ THIS!!!! It's not to late TURN BACK NOW!!!!! OK you have chosen to read on, here I go! This summer has been one of confusion, contention and unbeliveable moments!!! I have the most amazing husband, and really he has put up with alot! I am at times a very high matinence kind of wife! You would not think so to look at me, I don't need the new car every 6 months, I don't need the high priced home, shoes or clothes or even food! What I do need is a house that runs smooth, routine and some semblence of order and good grooming! I demand the best behavoir out of our children, and MANNERS!!!! So yes when you toot in public I cringe, when you smell like a public restroom I DEMAND you shower, and when there is ripped clothing beyond what I can fix, weather I can afford it or not I throw it away! Deal with it!

DARKNESS and then comes the LIGHT!

OK so for most members of the church you normally see other people struggle and never think that that will happen to you! Well it has for us. It started a few years ago and I had more than one life changing event and I guess the last one was more than I could handle. I had just watched my brother and sister in law get married in the Salt Lake Temple, an amazing experience in its self and you sit there in total awe of what is going on all around you! Things are going well, The doctors tell me that I am to healthy to be on the transplant list, this was the most amazing news that they could give me. We plan a family vacation and we are loving life, then bang it happens and I can't really say what happened because it is way to personal still and Doug and I have to make some choices. Choices I thought that I would never have to make. The choice is made and I am in the hospital again for some minor surgery and am starting to feel the resentment of choices that are made. That seemed to be the down hill that I have watched people around me go through, but thought that I was strong enough to weather. Boy I was wrong. I started working outside the home, and even though I was a mom and a wife I was resenting it all. I had to work Sundays to start out with and so that meant no church, which was mistake #1. Personal prayer was the second and family prayer was eventually scarified as well. SO mom's not going to church or reading or praying or going to the temple. WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING! Doug finally followed suit and then it was no church for anyone, no prayer for anyone. I was failing as a mom, as a wife and as a sister. I have struggled to think of how we can get back on track. I quit the job that made me miserable, and we tried to quit the material world cold turkey, that didn't work. We went back to church really good for a while, but then there's that little stone that you trip over and fall flat on your face and can't get back up. As I am lying there wondering how am I going to get back up and become that woman, wife, mom and sister that I know that I am, most of all trying to figure out that I am a DAUGHTER OF GOD and doing all that I need to do to be worthy of his love.... Do you know how hard all that is to figure it out? TONIGHT I had one of those moments, Avery asked me about all the wars that are going on now and why. So this sparked a conversation about the SECOND COMING, and some of the signs of the second coming, it also sparked a conversation on worthiness and what we have to do to make sure we are worthy of such an Honor, and it clicked, not only for me did it click, but the boy's and Doug. Our kids have had some amazing example and were we have failed they have inspired and taught them, more than I ever realized, and I don't think I can ever say thank you enough! TOMORROW is a new day, one in which things will be different, one in which I KNOW that I am loved and even though I have had to make hard choices, I know those choices were the right ones and that I have a father that loves me and approves of those choices. I don't think it will be so hard to go to church now that it has finally clicked and the kids understand the importance of being there.

Easter Pics

WE had Easter with the Berry's this year. The kids had a blast looking for eggs and doing a cute little craft. Really it was a craft meant more for the little kids, but the big kids were great sports about it and I think they had fun too.

Yes I am mean and scary, but one day you will thank me!

SO for the last little while both Avery and Zackery have decided that I am just to mean to be a good mom. It started with a question like this, Can I have my ear pierced? "NO" why not? " cause the lord said to treat your body like a temple and not defile it! Plus boy's don't look good with earrings" this entire conversation lasted way to long if you ask me. I don't know about your childhood, but when an adult told me "NO" that really was the end of the conversation unless I wanted to be grounded for eternity. THE next question was WHY won't you let us buy what ever we want when we want it. Why do we need to wait for birthday and Christmas and end of the school year to see if we pass to the next grade? My friends get what ever they want! This one I couldn't even answer right away. I was blown at the question to begin with and thoughts running through the mind at the time should not have been shared at all. So I took a min and tried to explain that you can't have what ever you want in life, just cause you want it. You need to work hard for what you have and if you don't work hard then you don't get it. INSTANT gratification is not the answer to anything in life. At this point I was told that I was a mean mom and that he wished someone else was his mom cause she gives her kids what ever they want. At this point I just told him that I LOVED HIM and that one day he would thank me for the lesson's that I am trying to teach him. He said not likely and walked out. I really love my children and they don't understand yet how hard I have fought to be worthy to be there mom, or how I have fought to stay there mom here on earth. I know that one day they will understand and that the little bit of heart ache I feel now will not last for ever! REALLY the things that my kids think about in a day blows me away! I LOVE YOU AVERY AND ZACKERY XOXO

AMAZING!

TODAY I got to have what I considered one of the most amazing experiences of my life! I mean it is right up there with getting married and having our children.
WE were invited to a celebration breakfast to WELCOME Kent home from Iraq! That's right one of my favorite people in the whole world came home this week from Iraq and he made it safe and sound.
VETERANS in Kent and Rashells ward hosted a breakfast in his Honor to say THANK YOU, and they invited immediate family to share in this.
THERE was a flag ceremony where there were veterans from each branch of the service there. They carried in there branches colours with there song and saluted not only there flag but turned and saluted Kent 5 flags, 5 songs, 5 personal salutes.
THIS hard headed Canadian cried silently as she watched those men who fought not only for there country and families, but for other countries as well to enjoy the freedom and protection that we now have.
AMAZING is all I can say, simply AMAZING.
THANK YOU KENT! for your willingness to fight so that we may continue to enjoy the freedoms that we have. Your personal sacrifice does not go unnoticed in our house.
THANK YOU RASHELL! for sharing your amazing husband with the rest of the world, for being the TROOPER that you are, the sacrifices that you have made, I stand in awe of. THANK YOU Logan, Anya, and Mark also for sharing your Daddy. He is our hero.