Our growing Family

The love story
It all started in fourth grade my husband and I were in the same class together not to mention we lived up the street from each other. We had a mutual friend and we all walked to school together and although I knew he always had a crush on me I didn't have much interest (he was really shy so I really didn't know him that well). Well his crush lasted until junior year of high school when he finally asked to be my boyfriend. Although I wanted to say no I talked it over with my parents who convinced me to give him a chance, they could see that he was a good person because he walked me to school and/or always gave me a ride...he was always there for me. After that we spent every free moment together it was young love and wow did  I fall hard for him quickly. Senior year came and we were still in love...well that's where the story gets a little twisted.
Prom 2002 

The surprise/ blessing in disguise...
I ended up getting pregnant just a month after signing up with the air force and 4 months before graduation. We were scared of the world, "What did we do?", "What will our parents do?"  We were very lucky that both our parents were very supportive and helped us in any and every way possible.

We had our first son Richard in November of 2003, and lived with my parents for 6 months, which was a blessing because my mom helped me so much.(especially being a new teenage mom I needed a little help and direction..lol) We were then offered an in-law apartment that my husband's parents built onto their house years before for my husband's grandmother. What an opportunity we were given in this cute little 2 bedroom, full bath,  kitchen, dinning room and living room apartment. I loved our new home so much so I of course took on the new role of housewife very quickly, and loved it.  We were married September 6,2004 and had such a beautiful memorable wedding, it was a day I like to relive in my head often.
 




Time to add to our family
After we were married we thought about adding to our family, I always wanted a big family especially growing up as an only child I knew I wanted my first to have a playmate, a buddy, so we became pregnant the following year and I gave birth to Caila on November 4, 2005.
   We were so happy in our little apartment playing adult games of house and parenting. i loved being home with my little ones so when it came time to think about putting Ricky my first born into school for grade k I just couldn't do. I begged and begged telling him what can they teach him that I can't, I just wasn't ready and it made me sick to think that he would be gone for most of the day so my husband finally agreed  (I don't know if I'll ever be ready??) Rick's now in second grade and Caila is in kindergarten and we are still very happy with the decision to home school. We lived in our apartment for five year until we finally saved enough money to put  a good sized down payment on a humble little home.

 God loves to give us surprise blessings
After finding our dream home we also learned that blessing number three was on his way..it was a blissful month for our family.

    We moved into our humble dream home in August 2009, we weren't acting the part of adults we now had to be adults with big responsibilities but we were up for the challenge even though we were VERY scared especially with another baby on board. My good friend would remind me that God has a purpose for this little blessing and I shouldn't worry about the things I can't control or petty things like room in our home. She would say "if there's room in your heart then their is room in your home" and after that I did feel better and I wasn't as worried ( this is one of my personal issues that I am trying to work on...Not to worry about things that are out of my control and that are in Gods hands, because yes I do believe he has a plan for our family) our third little blessing was born March 15th, 2010 and his name is Jameson.

After Jameson was born we decided that I wouldn't go back to work... even though I only worked 2-3 nights a week as a waitress it just didn't seem worth it.  I wanted to be home with my family and it just wasen't worth being away from my hubby and kids, so we chose to live even more humbly this way I could enjoy staying at home with my new baby and just focus on homeschooling as well as all the tasks that come with mothering and homemaking. We try to remind ourselves of what the bible says about being content with what we have..
 .Hebrews 13:5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."...this is something we are trying to show our children, it's a hard task in our world today where money in the drive for everything.
Lay up our treasures for Heaven

We decided to expand our family once again which was a hard decision for me...me and my ego I was worried about petty things like room in our home?, Can we afford it? Will I still be able to keep it all together with homeschooling and homemaking. I talked it over with my good friend who usually shines light on my troubles..lol...she told me something that just made so much sense and really put my heart at ease about adding to our family...she said that 40 years from now will I remember that money was tight or that our house was cramped or will I remember the treasured moments spent in our cramped house playing together and enjoying each others company because we couldn't afford some fancy vacation to Disney World, I decided I wanted to be happy and not live with any regrets so we took the plunge and go for our fourth baby, and God heard our request for a fourth child she is due May 31st. I am so very excited for our newest addition to join our familyWe thank God everyday for all our blessings he has graced us with.