Please allow me to introduce myself.....

Now that I am going to have some extra time on my hands, I have decided to try to blog more often. With that in mind, I have reinvented my blog, giving it a new name and along that vein, I thought I should introduce myself.
I was born in San Diego, California. My dad was in the Navy and my mom stayed at home. I have a brother who is 5 years older than me. I grew up in a house that was full of fun and happiness. I thought everyone had a family like mine and I did not find out until I was much older than mine was the exception and not the norm.
Growing up in my house revolved around horses. We had horses of our own and my mom also trained other people’s horses. My childhood dream was to be a horse trainer and compete in horse shows for the rest of my life. I was a very good rider in both western and English. It is one of the things I miss most in my life now.
The summer between my 7th and 8th grade years my dad retired and we moved “home” to Texas. I started 8th grade there and my brother started college at U of H. By this time I had realized that not everyone meets someone in high school, gets married and lives happily ever after like my parents did, and I no longer expected it to happen to me.
On the first day of my senior year of high school, I noticed a new face in one of my classes. His last name was familiar; he had a brother who was a junior. They had different moms though and the new guy had come to spend his senior year with his dad’s side of the family. We flirted shamelessly! He was not like anyone else I had dated. I was a farm kid and tended to stick within those ranks, but his guy was a football player. We went on our first date on Halloween. We went to see Demolition Man (still one of my favorite movies if only for its special significance), and we have been together ever since.
We have three wonderful kids. Raley is our oldest. He’s 9 years old, loves to read and all things science. He wants to be a Park Ranger when he grows up. Raley was born in Germany while we lived there when Jayme was in the Army. He loves this unique fact about himself and the reaction he gets from people when they find out. Clay is our middle one. He’s 6 now, and loves to be rough and tumble. He is wild and crazy and more fun than we can handle sometimes. He is very different from his brother too. He loves to cuddle and snuggle and is a social being. He was 4 months old when Jayme went to Iraq, and I think that is why he is a little more a Momma’s boy than his brother is. Pattie is our baby. She’s 2 years old and the perfect completion to our family. She keeps us on our toes! She is not a girly girl at all which makes me happy since I never was myself. She loves horses and Hulk and Wolverine. She has her father, her brothers and almost every other male in the family firmly wrapped around her tiny little finger.
I have been listening to Dr. Laura Schlesinger lately and while I disagree with her views on divorce, remarriage, and living together, I do like some of her catch phrases and I will close with them. If you want to sum me up in a nutshell it would be like this: I am my kids’ Mom, my husband’s girlfriend, and my house is a toy box. My life is a little bit crazy, and I am EMBRACING THE CHAOS!