Sunday, April 27, 2014

“How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are toomany flowers.” ― Mother Teresa

When Matt and I got married we wanted 6 children.  We were young and full of hope and vigor.  After being married 3 years our first son was born.  Matt was 24, I turned 23 the day after Mattie was born and our whole lives were ahead of us.  Mattie was a wonderful, easy baby.
Less than 2 years after Mattie was born along came Dean AND Donovan.  Identical twin boys born when Mattie was 22 months old gave us 3 boys in less than two years.  Life was hectic to say the least.


I'm not gonna lie.  We had fun.  I loved being the mom of boys.  They earned the nickname
'The Boybarians'. The idea of six kids seemed less than ideal while they were little.  It was fun but hard.

Fast forward to the boys getting a little older and we think maybe we could handle one more.  God's plan for our family was to add a daughter born in China.
 
Serenity was 11 months old when she came to our family.  Matt was 38, I was 37, Mattie was 14, Dean and Donovan were 12, and we thought our family was complete.  3 Boybarians and our Girlzilla.  Maybe our plan is to be a family of 6 instead of having 6 kids.

Life goes on as life does.  There were first dates, first days of school, and drivers licenses, proms, birthday parties and graduations and then this happened.


Dean got married!  We were happy, we were thrilled.  His wife, Nikki, is a great gal and we feel so blessed to have her in our family.  But where did the time go?  When did we stop being a young family?  We weren't ready to start the empty nest.
So last summer we added Belle to our family.  She was 19 months old when we brought her home.  By now dad is 47, mom is 46, Mattie is 23, Dean and Donovan are 21 and Serenity is 10.  Our claim to fame is having one child in each of the last 4 decades(89,91,91,03,11).
We discovered something about ourselves, we like being parents alot.  More than we thought we did. We liked raising our boys.  Our best times involved our family.  
28 years ago our family plan was to have 6 kids.  Time to finish that plan.  
This fall we will add Betty June to our family.  3 Boys, 3 Girls.  3 bio, 3 from China.  3 adult, 3 still children.  All miracles, all blessings, all ours.