Ok so about an hour ago I was thinking about my day trying to decide what I was most grateful for. I was going through my wallet looking for receipts and found a FULL CAFE' RIO card. So since I'm home alone tonight I went and got a FREE DINNER. It's my fist Cafe' Rio salad in 6 months (to the best of my memory).

So I'm VERY GRATEFUL for my FREE SALAD!!!

YUM-O :)

(Thanks Rachael Ray... I love that word/phrase)

I am so grateful for my family!! Each and every one of them. Each one means the world to me and are the center of my world. Each one is unique and has a unique and special place in my heart and in my life. Even thou we may have some bumps in road we always find our way back to each other! and I'm grateful that we have each other!!

In the end FAMILY is all you have and WHO you are and WHAT your made of!!

THANK YOU FAMILY FOR ALL THAT YOU GIVE ME

EACH AND EVERY DAY!!

GRATITUDE

I know that my posts have been "wordy" lately, but I guess that is how I've been feeling lately. Like I need to get the words out of my mind and into the written word. I was thinking today that I could use my blog to post the things that I am grateful for. There is so much that I am grateful for that I need to thank the Lord and our Savior for all that they have given me. I have tried MANY times to start a gratitude diary and have never been able to follow through. So maybe I can do a QUICK post of 365 things that I am grateful for!! I thought this was a good way for me to think of other things than missing the boys...

#1: I am grateful that my Hubby was here with me today taking care of me, He has done a great job and has really shown me how much he cares about me. :)

THANKS BABE!!

I have been thinking about things *I know scary huh* with the new year coming in a few days as many of us are. I've been asked before in the resent years, "What do you like to do for fun Tammy, what are your hobbies, etc." Well I haven't been able to answer that for the longest time. I jumped completely into a career and drowned my life into if for 10 years. When Mom died I told myself that I needed to re-find myself, that I didn't want to be known as a "good worker" and "good boss" but rather a good wife, sister and friend. So for 5 years I've been searching for the path I wanted and needed to be on. I know, why so long? I'm not sure, but there is a plan and I've needed to follow it. Sometimes I think that you have to totally loose yourself in order to really find yourself. I've never been known for taking the easy road :)

So where in the world am I going with this you may be asking?... My posts are getting a little wordy lately... not as much to post about without the kids running around :(... but anyways back on track. I have re-found one of my all time favorite things to do COOK!! most Anything and Everything!!!

I LOVE cookbooks and love to collect them!! I use to have a New Recipe Dinner night with friends once a month (a long time ago now). Problem with that is that Chad hates to try new things and isn't too keen to having people over, however he's been feeling better with it lately. I'm hoping to in some way find a compromise for us both and be able to do something along this line again, but in the mean time I'm enjoying getting back to my cooking!! and in new ways that I've never done before :) ie: I've started cooking totally from scratch (as much as I can) and I'm really enjoying that. You never know what REAL FOOD tastes like until you use non-processed food!! you know the stuff you grow yourself or that you see, touch, and smell you know the real stuff el-natural!! LOVE IT!! Can't wait to afford to do even more of it!! :) :)

Photography and crafts have been something that I've always enjoyed and have been getting back into as well... *side note- I think that I have about 7,000 pictures of the boys now. I wanted to capture every moment I could, I think... **

Couponing is a passion that I am re-kindling and enjoying. This is a benefit to the whole household and to me, so it's a defiant WIN WIN... I think I'm going to add one more to the list... Thrift shopping ... I use to when I was younger and a little here and there, but I've seen some really cool things done with "finds" and I would like to FINALLY do some decorating to our home and I think that this could be another WIN WIN!! We'll see....

I also have a plan for this year to strengthen my bonds with my family and friends. This isn't at the bottom on the list just where it fit here because I started talking about what I was doing to help make me a more well rounded person again. This little project is number one on my list for the year (just before getting back into shape). It's shaping up to be a great year ahead of me!!

So these are the things that I am doing to re-find the inner Tammy and I'm starting to enjoy the journey more each day!!!

I have been asked to share some of the sites that I've been getting some of my new recipes from... I have posted some of them on the right sidebar near the bottom. 365 Days of Slow Cooking has some really great Crockpot recipes!! She is almost done with the year, I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to post her link here. I found her a few months ago I think that if you check it out you'll find at least a few that will work for you and your family :). What's Cooking is where I found my recipe for my homemade Laundry Detergent we're using.

Have fun checking them out and I'll have fun sharing some of my NEW ADVENTURES this year!! :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

2010...I'M READY FOR YOU!!

BRING IT ON!! :) :)

Merry Christmas to everyone!!

The boys absolutely refused to take a picture unless I was in the picture with them.

After everyone hassled me I finally gave in... I definitely wasn't prepared for a picture...

But the I wanted the picture of the boys (I didn't get one last year they were both sick with the flue) so here we go... the three of us with

Santa!!

This is the boys and Steve on the way out to Utah and their first snow...

Four years ago to the day (well on the same weekend), Chad and I started an "adventure" if you must, but defiantly a change for us in our lives. We flew out to CA and rented a Black Tahoe (the vehicle that I have wanted since they came out with them). We visited with our family and then went and picked up Steve and the boys, Jimmy 3 years and 11 months and Chris 1 year and 2 weeks old. Chad and I knew that our lives where going to change and that there would be good and hard times ahead for us. Boy did we not know just how much. We also talked about the fact that it might be a 5 year commitment that we would be making, of course not sure what that might mean to us. There have been some really good times and some really tough times for all of us.

Steve took a chance to come out here and give his boys and himself a new start in life. That is what we offered him, a chance to get out of a really bad and hard situation. He left his life behind packed what he and the boys had and came home with us. We were able to fit everything they owned (minus a bike and 2 dressers) into and on top of the Tahoe. If you've ever seen the back of a Tahoe you know that isn't very much room. He had a really hard time adjusting to life here in Utah, no beach, SNOW. COLD, being away from friends, starting all over, getting a divorce, caring for his young boys, SNOW, COLD (he is a warm blooded kid 70* is cold for him), trying to "fit in", tying to live with his big Sis and her husband (they have a love - hate relationship) This is just a start of many I'm sure, but Steve is resilient and has come out of it well. He has a "carefree" attitude about life, which drives me CRAZY, but has served him well in his life and probably helped him a great deal over the past 4 years. Now he is engaged again and starting to embark on a new adventure in his life. He has moved out (November 14th…I haven't been able to write about it till now, just wasn't ready to yet) and in with his fiancé, (his sisters approve of her greatly!!) with the boys. They will be married sometime in the late Summer.

Chad was not use to having to share his life with anyone, let alone someone that wasn't his spouse. He had never spent much time around children, boy has he come a long way!! He had a hard time "dealing" with Steve and his differences. They have had some good times (I have proof in pictures), and some VERY TOUGH AND ROUGH TIMES. I think that Chad has had some of the hardest challenges to deal with over the past 4 years probably due to his lack of ability to deal with anger, depression, his health problems, and his dislike to change (to just name a few) . As he would say... he could no longer walk through the house naked… not that he ever does, just liked the ability to do so if he should choose to.

We have had some very difficult times over the past 4 years, for many reasons… but through it all and now at the end of that part of our journey, we have learned how to work things through together!! We have learned to depend on each other, to support each other, to communicate with each other (well we are still working on learning that one better). We have learned that we could make good parents, that we have the ability to help others, and love and care for someone else's children. There have been many other things that we have learned from and grown from. The past two years have been very difficult ones for us (even outside of our living situation). Many challenges that I hope we NEVER have to repeat. We aren't all the way through it, one more big one that hopefully will be over very soon. Even through it all I don't know if I would change much, well wish we wouldn't have had to go through it, but we are different people now on the other side of it all, a different couple, a different marriage, and a new life pathway that we are excited to embark on.

Jimmy and Chris have been through a great deal in their short lives. They are embracing this new chapter in their lives. It is a little confusing for Chris still, but they are young and resilient (don't we all wish we could be like children). They get to be with us after school everyday and Chris before school as well. I think that this is helping them as well as us. Chris is excited to have someone to call mom and not get in trouble for doing so. Jimmy is happy but still not talking a lot about it yet, except to say that he is glad that Heavenly Father answered his prayers and that they didn't move to Hawaii like dad wanted to this summer (I must say so is Aunt Tammy!!!!!!). They both love Cheyenne and being with her, I love that they have her she is going to be so good for them!! Time will heal all things, and together we will be strong and happy.

As for me, my life has ever been changed. I love my husband and I'm so glad that we have been able to work through all of this and be stronger now than ever before. I think that we are stubborn enough that without these challenges we would have never chosen to make the changes in our lives that we so need to. I love my family more than I can ever express. We have been through a lot together, and I am the eldest of us now. I made a promise to keep our family together and I intend on keeping that promise. With that said, I love Steve and we DEFIANTLY struggled, and still do. We had some really hard times, but tried to always remember that we are family and all we have. There were some good times as well, but this was a good move for us so that we can work on being brother and sister again instead of being at each other all the time. I was afraid that we would loose sight of what really mattered, because we were to busy being upset and frustrated with each other. Now we can mend things and enjoy being family again and I love that I'm going to have a sister here close to me!! I look forward to our future together!! And then the boys…. What can I say except they have changed my life!!! They filed my heart and filled a very empty whole in my life. I thought that I was going to be ok excepting that I was not going to be a mother, I learned that no in fact I would like to be a mother… I have so much that I would like to give back. I will be forever grateful to the boys for giving me that joy in my life and for sparking my motherhood instincts.

I hope that they will always know how I feel about them and just how special they are to me and Uncle Chad. They will always have a very special place in my life and heart. I have given them a part of my heart that they will have forever!! And now I can spoil them as any special Auntie would love to do!! I hope that they will always want to be apart of our lives as much as we want them to be apart of ours and we apart of theirs.

This is the boys and Steve now...

I wrote the following on June 7, 2009 and for some reason it didn't post...

I think that it is still very fitting!!!

(even though this is when I thought he was leaving for Hawaii)...

and now I have posted my feelings about everyone in my family.

I LOVE YOU ALL VERY MUCH!!!

***********************************

Ok so in all fairness, and because it’s going to BUG me and drive me insane until I do it, I have to say something about my Brother next… What can I say…
We have had some really great times, and we’ve had some out of this world hard times. A lot of time we have had a love-hate relationship, especially the past 3 years and 9 months…(not that were counting) I don’t bring him up a lot because of this fact. Even though there are days that I could LITERALLY pull out EVERY SINGLE HAIR ON MY HEAD, I still LOVE him and he is still my Brother and Family. He did do the right thing when he got his boys out of a bad situation to give them something more, and the boys have truly been a Blessing in our lives.

Families aren’t perfect and there are some out there that have judged our situation, even harshly, but like they say you don’t know someone “till you walk a mile in his moccasins”. So until you know and have LIVED within our dynamics you shouldn’t be judging any of us. It has been a difficult time having two families living together in one home but more and more it is being done, a lot of times out of necessity and most of the time it is a parent-child arrangement, but as we all know that is not possible in my family and I have that responsibility and roll now. We have done our best to make a tough situation be the best that we can.

Life Gave Me A Little Brother
Author: Unknown

Life gave me a little brother
to teach me about life.
He loves me,
Aggravates me,
and gives me strength and strife.
Thank goodness for my brother
He is as special as can be
Don't mess with my little brother
- or you'll have to mess with me!

Ok, so finding a picture of just Steve or of him and myself was harder that I thought but after what I just wrote I thought that one of all of us would be fitting. This was taken two years ago and is pretty accurate for us... :)

It makes me laugh when I look at :)

I love you Steve, I hope that the next venture in your life will be a good one for you and for the boys!! They deserve the VERY BEST that you, or any of us, can possibly give them!! Please NEVER forget that!!