The Verdict - Casey Anthony

Well...not really sure what to say about it, other than I am completely blown away. I followed the trial and I would have voted her guilty on all charges. Some will say that the prosecution did not prove their case but they did. They supplied the dots for the jurors to follow. It is simple. My Kamdyn is roughly the same age as Caylee would have been and I look at her and think of the injustice. That poor baby had to look up at her mother as she suffocated or cried for her mother while she was in the back of her car dying...all the while her mother was driving around partying. Seriously makes me sick. I know that there was "no" physical evidence that put Casey killing Caylee but we all know that she did it. As a Christian I know I have to pray for Casey and love her no matter what she does. Judgement day will come for us all. I hope she is ready for it. RIP little Caylee. Sleep in Jesus's arms and have no fear anymore. You are where we all long to be.

Thankful

I need to post while it is fresh on my mind. I have stumbled upon some blogs that I have just been totally engrossed in. Call me morbid but all the blogs are about kids that have passed away from tragic accidents. One is about a little girl named Lucy who choked on an apple when she was 23 months old and died, another about a little girl named Preslee who fell in a canal at her grandparents house, drowned and ended up dying 7 days later. Both these girls were born the same year Kam was. When I read these blogs and see what the mother's say, it makes every tantrum that Kam throws and every difficult moment priceless to me. These mother's would do anything to have to deal with their daughter's tantrums right now. Please cherish every moment you have with your loved ones, be it your sons/daughters, husbands, mother's, father's, sister's, brother's anyone whom you love. They can be gone in an instance and all you are left with is pain.

Just Me and Kam

So now it's just me and Kam. The kids left on Friday and as soon as they got picked up Kam and I met up with Nana (my mom) and Payton (my niece) and drove down to Galveston. We stayed in my Aunt's beach house with her and my Grandmother. What a fun girls weekend! Kam and I really enjoyed the beach and just relaxing. We spent a lot of time on the front porch just enjoying the breeze.

Got home Sunday and got to see Daddy(Michael) for a little while...Yay! We hadn't seen Daddy since Monday night so it was almost a full week...not fun. Monday night we had dinner at my mom's OMG did we eat and eat. Mom made hamburger steaks wrapped in bacon, cream peas, potatoes, fried squash and corn bread...along with fresh tomatoes and onions. So good I ate and ate and ate! Now Kam and I have the rest of the week to chill before Michael comes home again. Not sure what we will do but I am sure we will swim a little and clean a lot. I have lot's of house plans for this summer while the kids are gone.

D-Day Tomorrow

Tomorrow's the big day. The kids leave until August 6 :'( seriously sad today. Every time I think about it my eyes start to water. They will be gone for 44 LONG days. Mom and I are packing up Kamdyn and Payton and taking them to Galveston for the weekend. It really kind of helps if I am not sitting at home walking through their (empty) rooms feeling very melancholy. Colton is taking Keaton so Payton is being left behind for a week as is Kamdyn. They are both going to be so sad tomorrow morning when the 4 other kids (Taylor, her friend Emily, Colton and Keaton) leave, but hopefully will perk up when we see the ocean. Kamdyn is already afraid of sharks, probably shouldn't have let her watch Jaws, so I am hoping that I can actually get her in the water. My sweet aunt Debi has a house there in Galveston and she is letting us stay there with her so it will be a relatively cheap trip.

Colton has gotten very clingy lately, I think he is reacting to Michael being gone and him being the "man" of the house. Sweet boy worries about his Momma. He spent the night with Mom Tuesday night and called me 2x...he never calls me. I hope he forgets about me while he is in Utah and doesn't worry. I think he will be ok but he is such a lover and protector, I want him to have a wonderful time and not spend it worrying that I am at home alone. Kam and I will be fine, we are going to join a gym here in Tyler and take some classes after work. Should be lots of fun and hopefully I can get my butt in shape and finally lose some weight.

Oh well off to work!

1 week

Kids leave in one week :(

I am starting to feel that sad, weepy feeling coming over me.

Everyday I think about it.

Just want to skip through the next few weeks and get on to August, summer means nothing to me other than TOO HOT temps anymore.

Summer Fun

Already June...can you believe it? 9 more days and Taylor and Colton leave for Utah to spend 42 uninterrupted days with their dad. Boo!!! This time though they get to take a friend for a week which is really cool for them. They have this whole other life in Utah that no one is apart of from Texas, now they get to mesh the two together a little. I am dreading them leaving, Kamdyn is going to be so lost without them, right now she is so stuck on Taylor. She sleeps with her, is in her room 24/7 and if Taylor is not home...Kamdyn asks constantly when her Sissy is going to be home. She must know that something is about to happen.
The kiddos have been swimming like fish this summer so far. You should see their tans...even Kam has one. Now I am going to have to get out in the pool with her when the kids leave so she will have someone to swim with...yuck! I don't like swimming!!!
**Kamdyn Post**
Saturday night I got a text that they were bringing a soldier's body home who had been killed in Afghanistan and they would be coming through Lindale on their way to Quitman. They requested that everyone come out and honor the soldier's sacrifice by lining the road with flags. The kids and I went on out. We met up with my FIL and BIL who were also out there. We sat out there for 25 minutes and it started really filling up...there were lots of vets around, elderly men and women. So for some reason (not really sure what she was looking at, talking about) Kamdyn just busts out with "Holy Sh!t" very loudly. I was so embarrassed and Colton starts screaming laughing. It was awful.
On to Colton..other than the inappropriate laughing incident I am so proud of that kid! He had over 800 A/R points in school for 5th grade. The most in his whole grade! He loves to read so much that I have to take the books away from him at night so he will go to sleep. How lucky am I???
Taylor...well she is in that teenage drama/emotional age that is probably going to be the death of me. Usually she is ok but man she and I have some major clashes sometimes. It is weird, she is as tall as me and I feel like I am fussing at a grown woman. I will be so glad when her hormones even out just a little and we can get back to where we were. She is such an amazing person I love being her friend. I know I have to be her mom too but I just enjoy hanging out with her. It is the most awesome thing...
So that is all for now, we are going to six flags tomorrow..hope we don't melt or die of heat stroke. :)

Happy 13th Birthday Taylor

Thirteen years ago today at exactly 7:18pm God gave me the first of my jewels. Here is her birth story.

Well with this being my first baby, I had no idea what labor was going to be like. We made 2 "false alarm" trips to the hospital cause I just knew that all the braxton hicks I was having was the real thing. I finally bullied my dr into inducing Taylor on May 18, 1998 cause I was just tired of being pregnant, that was her due date and I was ready to get her here. She had other plans. Saturday May 16, 1998 I started having contractions sometime in the middle of the night. They were not bad enough to get me out of bed but they did wake me up. For some crazy reason I remember thinking that if I just laid still they would go away. MR (Taylor's dad/my now ex husband) had a police thing at the mall that day and I did not even tell him anything was going on. He got up and left while I was still asleep. I finally dragged myself out of bed at 9am, got dressed and went to my Mom's house. I wasn't feeling great and did not want to sit at home alone. When I got to my mom's house my nieces were there from Tennessee, I played with them for a while but noticed that the pains I was having were getting stronger and making me more uncomfortable. We started timing them and when they got to be about 5 minutes apart we headed out to the hospital at around 12:30. Got to the hospital and they put me in triage, I called MR to let him know where I was and what was going on. He said to make sure they were keeping me before I called him again (makes you wonder why we are divorced huh???) They checked me, I was at a 3 and monitored me for a while. They decided to go ahead and keep me and at 2:30 I got a room and was there to stay.

MR came on up and the dr came in around 3 to break my water to get things going. That's where it gets fun. This is my first baby and the nurse I had immediately tells me that since the dr is breaking my water so early then I am going to have a dry birth which is very painful. So here I am, in labor, no drugs and the nurse is filling my head with crazy dry birth thoughts. I wanted an epidural but I could not get one until I was a 4. It started to get a little tough so I asked for something, they gave me Demerol. Worst thing I have ever done. It made me sleepy and unable to focus on my breathing which made labor 10x worse. I finally begged for an epidural and since it was around 5pm by this time they let me have it. The anesthesiologist came in and gave it to me, while he was setting it up he asked the nurse if I needed the pump. The nurse checked me and I was at a 9, so no pump just an injection.

About 30 minutes after I got my epidural I was at 10 and ready to start pushing. Taylor did not want to move down at all. I pushed for an hour before things got serious. The dr came in (not my regular doc but a doc on call) He had never seen me before so he took one look at my belly and at MR and called in another nurse. He thought she was going to be a whopper! I pushed for another 48 minutes and there she was. This baby girl with the biggest cheeks and the most black hair I had ever seen. She had so much hair that when the dr did my episotomy, he cut a lock of her hair. The nurse found it while she was drying her off and we have it saved in her baby book as her first haircut ;) She weighed 9lbs and 2 oz and was 21 inches long at birth, but I swear a pound of it was just in her cheeks!

Today she is 13 and still the most beautiful person I have ever seen (with the exceptions of her brother and sister who are just as beautiful in different ways) She is beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. I am amazed that God has blessed me so much with this amazing daughter.

I must say so myself...I have done a great job!