Grant's 8th Birthday PARTY!!!!

Well Sunday No.5 child and No.1 SON had his 8th birthday - or he likes to say 1/2 way to 16!! It was a beautiful day for a backyard party. He wanted it to be a "dude" party so we tried but he did allow the sisters to come. We played a few really fun games so I thought I would give my hand at posting videos & pix in a blog.

1st game was the balloon toss ~ I think Hannah and Liv won!


The BIRTHDAY boy REALLY concentrating!!


After the balloon toss there were a few balloons left - well they couldnt go to waste so Ray began throwing them at the "kids" on the trampoline - Sarah got soaked and tried to dodge them but didnt always succeed!!




The 1st video is a fun game called "The Balloon Stomp" - it was really fun and VERY competitive - ENJOY
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Here are a couple of REALLY funny pix. of Sarah and Hannah (my 2 most competitive) - I think Sarah could be called for holding.




Grant with the WINNER!!!


Then we bought a BUNCH of silly string which is ALWAYS a hit. Ray thought to put Grant on a ladder with safety glasses on and let everyone shoot the silly string at him. Then Hannah got Sarah back for popping her balloon. Here is that crazy game.

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Silly pix.!!


A few covered in Silly String


I believe the last game was the pudding race~not to many big kids wanted to do this-we had some good sports!! Let's say Grant won that 1!!!





A few pix of different people~

Emanuel is always a big help!!


Grants cousin Landry-3 mths. apart





Then came presents and OH was he BLESSED!! Its VERY HARD not to want to buy a kid that is SO AWESOME everything he wants!! So between us and all the others that love him - he raked in the gifts!!


After presents came CAKE - it was the LONGEST rendition of "Happy Birthday" and as you can see Grant went ahead and blew the candles out!!



Grant had a WONDERFUL birthday - starting with him and his Dad going to IHOP for breakfast!! Then he went shopping with me to pick up his cake - a few of his favorite people weren't at his party, he missed them but understood. He is such an AMAZING kid - I know I can say that about all my kids (they aren't perfect but they are AMAZING to ME)!! He is beyond smart - funny - sensitive - and just an all around AWESOME SON!!! I waited for him for a very long time and I really didn't know what I was missing until the last 8 years!!! So heres to you Grant, you are my number 1 SON for ever and EVER!!!!! I LOVE YOU more then words can say - ALL the way to the MOON and BACK - MORE then the very LAST number!!!! Thanks for being my son!!!!

After all the festivities this is where the big kids ended up!!!

So that is my 1st video/pix. blog and I am very pleased how it turned out!! I tell my kids - I blog ya'lls lives through pictures but I think I like this way too. Maybe MORE to come.....

Honoring the BEST Dad in the WHOLE WORLD!!

I just wanted to write a little (yeah right) something to honor my husband and the father of ALL our kiddos!! Really there isn't enough words to describe what an amazing man he is. Since it is Father's Day I will stick with that subject.

He has been a Daddy for 23 years and he is THE BEST DADDY in the WHOLE WORLD. Does that sound cheesy, cliche, silly -- probably, but if you know him you know that HE IS!!! Let me try to put into words HOW AMAZING he is!!

1st of all to be the MOST AMAZING Dad you MUST be an AMAZING MAN of God and ALWAYS put God 1st -- he is and he does 1,000,000 times over!! 2 you MUST be an AMAZING husband and he is MORE AMAZING then I could EVER, EVER, EVER write.
So let me review - he has things in ORDER - God, wife and then.....KIDS. Our kids ALWAYS know that they are after me and they LOVE THAT!! They know that is the order it should be and they KNOW that we will be together LONG after they are gone out of the NEST. So after God, after me they are 1 in his world!! In that world he will do ANYTHING and I do mean ANYTHING for them!!! If it is humanly possible the man is there for his kids.

I am sitting here not able to put into words how great he is!! The only thing that comes to mind is that he is the TRUE REFLECTION OF JESUS!!! He is not his own - he has laid down his life for his family. Not just his immediate family but ANYONE that God puts in his path - he helps, he takes care of, he listens to, he geniunely LOVES!!
In my book he is a SAINT but when I say that he tells me that saints are dead so I just call him my hero!!

This weekend we counseled a couple that Ray is going to marry and to sit by him and hear him speak and know that every word that comes out of his mouth HE LIVES, that is an AWESOME thing!! I TRULY have NEVER met a BETTER father then he is (I know plenty would fight for that title)!!

I asked some of the kids (and not just his DNA kids) to give me words to describe their Dad/Pops and here goes....awesome, COOL, funny, ONE OF A KIND, silly, precious, SELFLESS, biggest giver, hardworking, handsome, kind, gracious, trusting, loyal, smart, not a good speller, faithful, good listener, PATIENT, handy-man, HUMBLE, stable, inspiring, discplined, loving, gentle, corny, helpful, sincere, MAN OF GOD, good-listener, reliable, martyr, BEST 2 Dad (megan), liked, honoring, cherishing, care-giver. The 1 thing that they ALL said 1st was SELFLESS!! I could sit and take each of these words and describe him but that would take years.

So I will end this by telling you what he told me this afternoon as we walked into Home Depot. He said --- if there are great fathers out there they can NEVER take the credit for being a great father -- it is ALL the LORD that makes any of us GREAT fathers!! Don't get me started on what a HUMBLE man he is!!! OK -- I will end with giving the Lord all my thanks and all my praises. Ray would hate to be praised for how he is because he would only say that it is the grace of God in his life. But I can PRAISE him and THANK HIM for being the BEST HUSBAND to me and the VERY, VERY, VERY BEST FATHER to my children.

I am beyond honored that the Lord would pick me to be the 1 to walk beside him!! There is NOTHING greater then knowing that God has given me a husband that I can follow and that my children can follow through life!! I LOVE YOU Ray ~ You are my BEST FRIEND!!

Your Gonna MISS This....

Well lastnight while watching Celebrity Apprentice with Ray, one of the contestants came on and played a song called ~ Your gonna miss this by Trace Adkins ~ after tears flowed down both of our cheeks it got me to thinking. 1 its a country song and I haven’t loved country music since the 80’s but it had a message that hit really close to home. You need to listen to it but the jest of the song is through all the seasons of our lives, we just want to get through them and on to the next season. But when we do that are we REALLY enjoying the season that we are in??

Now I know not all seasons are worth reflecting on or wanting to stay in but most are, let me explain. Since I started dating Ray at a VERY young 12 years old (do as I say, not as I do) - I just couldn’t wait to be older. I seriously thought that 16 would NEVER get there. Then I felt that I was 16 FOREVER and at 17 I got married. Then I couldn’t hardly wait to have children so instead of enjoying my first 2 1/2 years of marriage, all I could think of was having babies. Then I had 1, 2, 3 & 4 babies and much later 5 and I really couldn’t wait for them to walk - talk - play sports and so on. Did I enjoy them, YES, but looking back I wonder if someone would have told me HOW MUCH I was gonna miss those times - I wonder if I really would have hurried all those seasons of my life...

I remember being in a line at Walmart with Rachel in the buggy when she was not even a week old and I had this older woman behind me telling me to enjoy her because it will go by in the blink of an eye. I looked at that lady and wanted to tell her - I am going to be changing dirty diapers for the rest of my life, or so it seemed. Well it went by quicker then a blink of an eye!!

I NOW cherish times with my kids like I never did when they were driving me crazy all talking at once (& they do still all talk at once). I now have this (good) problem of not wanting to miss 1 thing with them. I have children of all ages now - adults that act in their 30’s and teenagers that act in their 20’s and a son that is 7 that acts like a teenager. Can I change that they are VERY mature for their ages - NO but I sure want to remind them, not so much the age they are but the time in their life they are in - RIGHT NOW - because it is going to go by in a blink of an eye -- SO enjoy it!! Seize every moment to serve the Lord with your whole heart. We can NEVER go wrong walking through life LOVING people - unlovable or lovable. Make a difference in someone life TODAY. Even if its that 2 year old that if you wipe their nose 1 more time...or clean up 1 more mess... Every time we have MOUNTAINS of laundry (and if you know us well you know that we even name our mountains) I try to be grateful for a family that has money to buy clothes and when they were little I was grateful that they were healthy enough to dirty them up & even put holes in the knees.

1 major thing that I have learned being married for 25 years and being a mother for almost 23 is to really ENJOY right where I am - RIGHT NOW!! We have had those times were we just knew the Lord had this HUGE call on our lives and on our families life and I was determined to figure it out but what we did wrong was we felt very unsatisfied in our lives at that moment because we had the dreams and visions of what our life was "suppose" to look like and we wanted it NOW!! So enjoy the NOW even if you know there is something different for you in the future. It may take a short time or a long time to walk in those visions and dreams but the worst thing would be is if you were so dissatisfied with not being at "that ideal place" that you didn’t enjoy the NOW!!

I challenge you to do something that I think will make a difference in your life. When your at a happy, fun, exciting or even not so happy time -- take a mental picture of the scene. Being a photographer I live my life seeing frames of my life and thinking of everything as a picture. For example...1 of the last nights that Blaire lived at our home we were all sitting together in our living room just cutting up, laughing till we cried, just having an amazing time and I thought to myself that I don’t ever want to forget this time with us all together. I do this all that time and I swear it works because I can think and remember the emotion of the night, the scene, I can even remember the smells of what we ate for dinner.

So now we are coming to "new seasons" in our lives, ones that will be very happy and some that will be sad. But I am determined TODAY even more then yesterday to remember that we are gonna miss THIS time in our lives so I am going to ENJOY, cherish, treasure, love every moment of my life...

If you "want to be a REAL Man" or if you "want a REAL MAN"

So this will be a blog of my opinions, my standards and my beliefs. I do not want to condemn, judge or hurt anyone's feelings in the process of sharing my heart and what the Lord wants me to share.

I am a 45 year old male that has been with my junior-high sweetheart for almost 30 years. The Lord also has had a sense of humor in my life and not only let me be raised with 6 sister but he gave me 4 daughters (plus many more that just don't share my dna). I have lived my adult life trying to always please the Lord and I have tried to love my wife as Christ loved the church and we know he layed down his life for her. So, I have come to a junction in my life/parenting that the time is approaching for me to turn my daughters over to a REAL man (please NO applications). I say these things not to do anything but encourage, encourage young men to be MEN and young women to wait for a REAL man.

I would never say that there is 1 type of real man because we come in all kinds of packages. I am also NOT saying that there is real men out there that are perfect and have NEVER made a mistake, makes mistakes or will make mistakes because we live in the real world and sorry folks but we are human. But I am saying that if we as men don't have a mark to hit, then we won't hit anything at all !!

I have the privilege of mentoring many young men and it is 1 of the many passions that the Lord has giving me and I hear the same things over and over again. You want a wife but are prepared... spiritually, financially or emotionally, but you say I REALLY want a wife. Please listen to me, I am not saying that you need a portfolio or a degree from a bible school but you need to be heading in the direction of being able to take care of a family. Let me tell you, most of our species need an AMAZING woman (like my wife is) to birth us out to be the REAL men that the Lord wants us to be for THEM and then for others around us. I was married at 20 years old and Teddi was 17, do you think we had every duck in a row - NO - not even close. I wasn't even barely saved, I made $5.00 an hour and I had 1 thing on my mind. We have made it this far and we wouldn't change a thing but I want better for you. Better comes with a big price but an amazing woman will be worth it.

I thank God for wisdom - He says to ask Him and it will be given to you. Seek wisdom, seek God to make you a real man, and you woman - wait, not for perfection because only Jesus is, but wait for a real man!! For any of you woman that have a man in your life that doesn't live up to your wants and desires I would encourage you to pray, pray that the Lord would mold and change your lives together to reflect HIM. I know I wouldn't be 1/2 the man I am if it wasn't for a wife that spoke blessings over me, encouraged me, prayed for me and wouldn't stop hounding God until I became the Real Man that she hoped for and desired. I have come such a long way but I hope I am never satisifed in my relationship with the Lord and with my wife.

Below is a letter from a young man that isn't much older then I was when I married. He is a friend of our families and it is a privilege to know him and to hear him share his heart like he does. He wrote this letter to his wife - a wife that he doesn't even have yet. I could NOT write anything better then what he wrote. The things he says are things that come out of a REAL man's heart. There are MANY things in this letter that I am to my wife and family and some things that I want to be. I believe that if you read this letter and it doesn't stir you up to become this type of REAL man to a woman 1 day - then you have NO business looking, talking or thinking about a wife (my opinion). But if it stirs you to want to learn and grow to be a man, that I believe is a man after God's own heart, then allow God to teach you. Get a good mentor to pour into your life that has a Godly successful marriage. One of my desires is to train men to become the men that the Lord wants them to be. So enjoy this letter and be challenged (like I was), be encouraged and seek after God's own heart and you will become a REAL
man. Bless you all, Ray


Dear future wife,

It's almost 3 in the morning and I can't stop thinking about you.

I'm not exactly sure who you are or where you live…

but there are some things you should know...

I love Jesus with all my heart; I know you will too…

When I say I love Him, I mean… I REALLY LOVE HIM.

And His church.

I plan on loving you like I love His church.

I've made a lot of mistakes and I'm not perfect

(ha, I guess that's obvious).

But I will choose to pursue righteousness and holiness in all I do.

I will be man of integrity. A trustworthy man. A strong leader.

I promise to be the best husband you could ever ask for in every way.

I look forward to raising little sons and daughters for the kingdom of heaven.

And you can rest assure that I will treat you like a princess.

My name means blessed guardian. I plan on living up to my name and being the blessed guardian and protector of your heart and emotions.

I will never cheapen your value by calling other women names reserved for you. Never.

I will not so much think a thought about another woman in a way reserved for you.

I will tell you that you are the most beautiful girl in the world and mean it.

I will tell you that there is no one like you and mean it.

I will never ever cheapen what we have by giving it to others.

I honor you too much for that. You will know it.

I never plan on making you submit to me. I only plan to be a good enough leader to earn your honor and respect so that you can trust me even when things are unclear.

I will never abuse you.

I plan on being open and honest about everything in my life. I know I can trust you.

I know that we will probably have arguments, but no fighting.

I plan on being civil and controlled when speaking, I trust you will do the same.

And if things get a little heated… our love will be too great to let the sun go down on it.

Making up will be wonderful.

I will wait as long as required to find you. I really mean, until the Lord brings you to me.

I am asking for a whole lot. I'm not even going try to lie to you.

I've known for a long time that my life would never be "normal".

I know that will excite you.

I feel that we are going to travel together. A lot.

In fact, you are key and essential to what will be our ministry.

I will sing to you. If you want.

I will open your door for you.

I will pray with you.

I will worship God with you.

I will read to our kids and pray with them.

I will do what I say I'm going to do.

I will admit when I'm wrong.

I will do everything I can to help your dreams come true.

I will study the word and share my revelation with you often.

I will be patient with you.

I will ask for directions.

I've had these dreams, I'll tell you about them later, but they make me smile.

Songs, poems… I just want to explode.

There is so much going through my mind… I can't type it all.

It would take me all night.

Hopefully we'll talk soon, then it will be easier.

I may not be the best looking guy.

I may not be the richest man.

I may not be the perfect guy.

But no one, I promise, no one will ever love you like I can. Not on earth anyway.

Well… I suppose I'll stop here for tonight.

I have church tomorrow morning and I want to be alert for Jesus.

I wish you could be there with me.

Maybe you will be… maybe not.

Maybe you don't even speak English. Ha. Who knows.

Oh yeah, God knows… we'll just wait on Him, ok?

Again, I don't know who you are or where you live, but I want you to know…

I'm praying for you.

You are beautiful.

Let's change the world together.


Forever yours,