Because I Had Children

August 2014 Dear kids, I went out to lunch today with my dear friend. It's not the first time I've gone to lunch this summer while you've been stuck at home watching television for 10 hours in a row, but it was maybe my second. You gave me this look like, "what?" and I saw in your eyes that you wondered why on earth I thought it was a good idea to do something without you or not for you. I'm sure that over the last several weeks you have wondered why I keep pestering you to pick up your stuff off the floor in the playroom, or return your dirty dishes to the kitchen (when they aren't supposed to be out of the kitchen in the first place), or get your chores done for the day. I know for a fact that it has bugged you when I asked you to do something that wasn't "your job." I do appreciate you feeding lunch to your siblings or even making an easy dinner when I wasn't around. I don't think I've asked that much more of you than y...

Recently, the topic of sacrifice has been something crossing my mind nearly every single day. I see it in Facebook posts of those who want better jobs, want to make better life choices, or even those who want to lose weight. To get what we want, there is a cost. Sometimes we have to give up something we like in order to have or do something we like more? I'll give you an example. Ben is a great employee at his company. He works hard and has the potential to move up the ladder if he wants but he keeps taking new jobs at work that aren't promotions, they are more like lateral moves. Why? Because he loves to coach football. There have been many times when he was up for a promotion (including a significant raise in salary) but chose not to take it because it would conflict with his ability to work from home and have the time needed to coach. Some would call this a bad choice but for our family, but always the one we knew was right. We may never be rich and he may never have the...

My girls are back and we're off to a great season already! This year we have four returning girls and two new ones! We had to grow our coaching staff to provide some more one on one for our girls so we also have 5 varsity cheerleaders who coach with us. AND IT GETS BETTER! One of our girls last year turned 18 and is now my assistant coach! How lucky can we be? That makes 7 coaches and 6 girls, woot woot!! Our squad has been working hard since the beginning of August learning our cheers and chants for the football games. We have been perfecting our jumps and our tumbling as well. This year we are with the Flames football team and we couldn't be more excited about that because Coach Marc loves us as much as Coach Larry does. Photo Courtesy Kim Skinner www.kimskinnerphotography.com I've mentioned before that my heart grows every time I'm with my girls. At a Varsity football game recently, one of my cheerleaders was sitting in the stands and saw her coach (who is a ...