ummm i dont have a title

So my husband and I went on a date last night. Even my kids recognized it had been a while. No complaining , just encouraging us to have a good time. Well my daughter thought she should come. That is how she processes things. Yep totally rational that the three boys stay home and dad, mom, and Ashley go out. Well we left her behind. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and went to see the movie fireproof. I liked it. Some christian moral movies can be quite cheesy. This one had minimal cheese. My husband said that some of the arguments scenes made him uncomfortable. Very realistic. So it was good discussion time as we went to bed. I think it would be cool to do a movie about reworking your marriage post children. It would be interesting to see how they suggest doing their idea amongst the chaos of ever changing life. Just an idea. Last Friday I went geo-caching with friends for my friend Karen's birthday. Didn't know what to expect but had a blast. It was fun especially because it was at night. Anything is fun in the dark. I took some funny pics so enjoy!

Hi

Well four weeks is a long time. I just make my posts shorter and sooner. Boulder Creek had its home meet yesterday for cross country. As coach I was in charge and you would be surprised at how mad people can get about minor things. Thank goodness that wasn't the case at my meet. It was a huge success. At one point I just looked around at the hundreds of people milling around, the rain keeping the temp perfect, listening to Mr. Porter start off the races and thought this is amazing! I love coaching. I love being active with my kids. It is to funny how being in a role like that makes other kids just want to be around you. I have a lot of instant little friends. They all come show me their ribbons and tell me how they raced. It is amazing. The volunteers I had were awesome. Mr. Porter, the principal makes me want all of my friends kids to go to Boulder because he is so amazing! Ok enough. I have work to do! I have an upcoming jewelry show and my website to prep for. More about that later. Ill post some photos of our meet at Alta Mesa. I was to busy to take pictures at our own meet.

I did fall off the face of the earth! Just kidding!

Well I think my problem with blogging is that I always have some much to say and no time to say it. Just ask my husband . I need to follow the examples of other great bloggers and keep it simple sometimes and expound when I need to. The kids are back in school much to my sadness. I really enjoy summer with them, they are so fun. We are back at full speed and I think that is what I dread and in some parts enjoy. I do not like homework! I am not a teacher and do not like to teach! I would have followed that avenue if it was my calling. Alas I find myself teaching during homework time. I would be much better at just doing the homework myself than helping someone do it their way. Very frustrating for me. I am good at homework.....if I do it. Not what the teachers want apparently. I also am coaching k-6 cross country. That my friends is fun! If I could coach this and that year round I would. To bad I am not all knowledged in sports. Running is pretty easy. Run far..... all the way to the end. Good job! See you can call me to train your kids. ( I really do more than that but that was funny!)
To close I will leave you a picture of my kids on day 1 of their 2008/2009 school sentence! Wherever the picture decides to land!

Who am I called to be?

Nathan did an amazing job on Sunday with the message. Ephesians 4:1 was his verse point.
"As a prisioner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received."
My calling is what? Who am I called to be?
I have grown up attending church, been involved in youth group, Sunday school, Woman's ministries, bible studies, leadership, etc. Is that who I am?
I am the second born in my family, lover of sports, reading, camping, games and any fun activity imaginable. Is that who I am?
I am Darin's wife, Mrs. Beaver, mom to four, cook, cleaner, driver, activities organizier, and family rallier. Is that who I am?
I am a procrastinator, a yeller, a cryer, a laugher at all things corny, and lover of life.
Is that who I am?
The problem is that at this my point in life shouldn't I know who I am and what I am called to do? Well newsflash I don't know who I am or my purpose.
So I will put this before the Lord and wait patiently for his answer. Mmmm probably not so patiently as I am who I am.

p.s. funny sidenote ...I know who I am not. (I am not perfect, polished and politically correct)That at least is a starting point.

Holy Cow!

I can't believe it has been 21 days since I last posted on here. It seems like it was only last week. Ok. This Monday it was my 33rd birthday. I love my birthday. I love getting older. Yes it will be fine to leave belated birthday wishes as my husband claims my birthday is actually a birthweek. Jealous! Anyway I have let the house rest this week and it looks like it needs help. I guess since no one has knocked on my door to clean for me it shall be my own adventure.
My kids are awesome! I have such cool kids. I really enjoy every year more. They all have such fun personalities. My junior higher Alex is becoming more and more mature. He tolerates my goofiness with such great aplomb. He has learned to balance sports and school this year. His grades did a roller coaster in mid year but he kept plugging away . Now he is on honor roll and on two baseball teams. Unfortunately the girls are also realizing what a great guy he is. For now he seems to be dodging the crazy girl bullet. Besides as he tells me he doesn't have time for them and he says you only date to find your wife. Good job! Alas I know personally how persistent girls can be...... so does my husband. Five years of stalking my prey and now thirteen years of marriage later my husband claims payback will be stalking this mama! Not with my boys! " Look! Over there! A bunny!" It worked when they were three!
My Kaleb or as he is called by his sibs KK, is so smart and sweet and talented. When I pick him up at the bus top he is ALWAYS happy! His fifth grade teacher loves him. Yeah.. because he is awesome! He is the star player on his baseball team and such a leader. He always rallies up people around him. A very positive friend to have. He will be joining Alex in junior high in June. Crazy!
Ryan. What words do I have to describe Ryan. Highly intelligent. Scored 100% in math on state testing and in the 97 -98 for reading. He is a third grader in a fifth graders body. He is so tall. I tell everyone HGH. We thought we would try it on one of our kids. joking! He would give away all of his possessions if anyone asked. Loves everyone and always makes friends where ever he goes. His soccer abilities have really shown how he is gaining control over his ever lengthening body. His high energy is amazing, sometimes overwhelming. If you are up for playing regardless of your age or gender, Ryan will show you how to have fun.
Child number four... Ashley. My creative artist, awesome ball player, my rival for daddy's attention, my fashion fun girl. What that girl can't do I have yet to see! She loves a challenge and she loves to win. Daddy's girl all the way! If she is this driven at 7 good grief! Her teacher said she will own her own business or be CEO someday because of how driven she is. Lucky girl has a kickback loony lady for a mom! As luck would have it they all think I am great....for the moment. I am neither naive or blind. I am however hopeful. Hopefully that by following God and praying hard for and with my children they will grow up to be close to God. If they are successful at that, I will be sooo glad! No job, profession, status or salary will make me as happy as their relationship with God.. I am forever feeling like I am failing them spiritually.
I know this is satan begging me to give up. If he is trying so hard to make me feel a failure then God has something awesome planned for them. I know he has given me the greatest gift of raising these wonderful creatures. Every day I will plug onward. Keep the Beaver family in your prayers, with this many of us we need it!


P.S. Yes, I pointed out and praised the positive in my children. 1. Because rarely in this world do moms rejoice publicly about their children, most complain. 2. I am human and I will rant in the future about further mishaps. Lets start on a positive foot.

Now I am accountable

When I started to blog I thought ' Nobody knows. I can be as random as free money in the mail.' Then I told my bff ( I told her I would call her that) Diane and now she wants something to look forward to. Well I think I am pretty boring but this diamond of a friend seems to like me. She is one of those rare people you can be on the surface of conversation talking about the crazies in our world and then dive straight to the depths of 'What do you really think God has for me to do?" I really love her. Many a time we have caught up in the little spaces not really carved out for anything. She is my bouncer. I bounce all of the things I probably wouldn't tell another soul to. She feels around my ideas for all of the rough edges and bounces back to me my ideas in many different scenarios. I feel I do that for her also. She and I always push the boundaries of our imagination on planning what would be a great trip, spring break, summer activity i.e just about anytime you can plan. We always seem to see our plans through rose colored glasses no matter how many times our plans end up a fiasco. We press on for the next better time. I think if we clued our kids in on how our plans were imagined and how we viewed their roles as idyllic angels who request nothing but air to breathe maybe we could pull off a fantasy excursion. Knowing our kids I doubt it. They have we too many ideas of their own. Darn those intelligent freethinking individuals. Where are the robots we signed up to raise! Inevitable a sleep over is always planned. And not for Diane or I! Its starts as the conspiratorial whisper and furtive glances in our direction. We are constantly obvious to it until it is too late. We are usually grateful for a moment of chatter. Then they dive bomb us with such intricately laid out plans the pentagon might want to interview this mere mortals on their planning tactics. Rare has been the occasion that we have been able to outmaneuver their rebuttals but the victory is usually short for we have appeased their cries of 'unfair' with promises of a later date. They do not let you forget. I wish I could program their unrelenting memories to reminding me of important dates like ... bill due dates.. tax appointment dates... trash day. They are selective in remembering what is important in their realm of fun.. Sounds like someone else I know who should be doing the never ending chore of laundry, sweeping, cleaning something at this moment. Oh don't get me wrong my children are individual gems of amazing personality. But that is for many more blogs on other dates. I will sign off and go tend to the offending tasks of my house. Bother! I just remembered it is minimum day and need to dash to walk two of my beloveds home. For my friend Diane I will end this in a way to make her laugh! PEACE OUT!

Well I am new at this blogging thing so hold tight..... or something like that. Isn't it mandatory that you preface your first blog with words something to that effect. Oh another thing as I am usually a good speller typing makes me see all words that are normally spelled as funky! Oh well I am up way past when I told myself I would be in bed but oh well. Everyone is asleep and I am rocking out to my new favorite xm station, the Message. It's funny because I have had this xm Delphi for going on four years and I still am finding new great stations. The fact I have a Delphi is a funny situation anyway. My husband has a funny way of finding new, cool things he is sure I would want when in reality I have never heard of the "cool " item. The Delphi was one of them. Valentines Day 2004 this radio type thing shows up as my gift. "What the heck am I supposed to do with this!" I just wanted a mp3 player not some stupid broadcasting satellite thing a majiggy! Well four years later and I am still finding cool things I like about it. Kudos to the man who knows what I'll want four years later. He is a good man. He just took our sweet seven year old daughter Ashley to their first father/ daughter dance at boulder creek. They closed the place down! He sure does things for her he would roll his eyes at me for. When we were dating he would tell me to find someone to dance with, he would just sit and wait. That is how much he did not like dancing. Well tonight they stayed late and learned the waltz together. She loved every minute of it. This is a man who truly values every minute with his daughter. I was at home with four boys enjoying a gorgeous night just hanging. Alex had a baseball buddy spend the night so we ate hot dogs ( crap), chips (crap) and soda ( even more crap). Not a nutritious evening. We closed down the evening with a s'more roast when dad and Ashley got home. The fire I started was a rager but it settled down eventually. I need to knock it off because we have insane day tomorrow. Little League opening day ( lasts forever), soccer game, softball practice, baseball game, another baseball game at the same time and the mother/ son dance. Fun days being the beaver six :)