A little bit about me...

I have been a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend, a wife, a mother, and a grandmother.  I have been married, divorced, a single mom, married again, a working mom, and a stay at home mom.

I have 13 children(5 natural, 4 by marriage, 3 by mutual consent), I have 7 grandchildren,  the oldest being 6.

We have dealt with Autism, ADD, Physical Birth Defects, Allergies, Asthma and me who is unbalanced, in the physical can't walk across a room kind of way (good thing they didn't name me Grace). For example, Oct 30th carving pumpkins I totally cut my pinkie tendon and had to have surgery to reattach my tendon and am still in physical therapy trying to get the thing to move.  Then the day I got back from a sunny California vacation at midnight I slipped on the ice in my driveway and tried to brake my leg(didn't know it bent that direction) luckily I think I just bruised the bone really bad. I'm special!  Two freaky accidents in four months.

I have had two sons go to Afghanistan as Army Medics, one son go to Kuwait, Iraq(twice) and now is serving in Afghanistan with the Army National Guard, a daughter serve in Kuwait and Iraq in the Army National Guard and now my husband is on his way to Afghanistan for his job supporting the mission there.

Four of my kids decided to get married in a 15 month time frame.  That was fun! Then four grandkids in a 17 month period.  Whew makes me tired just thinking about it.  This is when I thought my Christmas tradition of making a new stocking for each addition to my family and buying them each there own unique stocking holder plus making pajamas for everybody every year to open on Christmas eve was going to make me a basket case! For a split second I thought about giving everybody a gift card and telling them to do it themselves, but that is not me, I LIKE doing stuff for them, so I did it and it made me happy to see them grateful that I had spent the time to make them something.

I have 5 of my children attending college.  Every one of my married natural children at different times have come back to live with me after they were married because of illness, finances or deployment. So this has given me the joy of being able to bond with all of my grandchildren and my by marriage kids too.

There is never a dull moment in my life, something is always going on.  I am an avid reader, I usually read 2-4 books at a time.  I love history and research.  I have been doing Family History since I was 7 years old.  My idea of a good time is going somewhere where there are old books or records or microfilm and researching.  My husband says I'm sick because that is the last thing he likes to do, in fact I think he would rather cut off his own arm than research for even one hour(which for me passes like the wind when I'm in the archives).
I like cooking and baking.  Quilting, sewing, scrapbooking and crocheting.  I've toll painted, done ceramics and photography.  I sing, play the flute, learned to play simple songs on the piano and even wrote a song. You might say I'm a renaissance woman.  I was taught you can do anything you set your mind to, if you put in the work, then anything is possible.  Of course, I am no master at any of the above, I do well enough but among my friends and family are true artists and masters.  I learn from them and love them!

I hope you find something helpful and I hope you and I both have FUN along the way :)!