The Shelley Family

The experiences that happen in our lives, often only happen once, maybe twice. I want to remember some of these things so forgive my listing of thoughts on this public blog. One how death effects my children. On Wednesday night last week after our activity, I received a text. "Just FYI we are taking mom to the hospital, she can no longer care for herself." We had just stopped by and visited on Monday to see everyone, we have been tending to get more and more sporadic in our visits as our family life gets busier . Kaye had not looked good. She had not been eating, she had fallen several times, and no longer had the strength to hold her head up. She was very pale and in the past we have had her in the hospital for dehydration, she was at that point again. We waited to hear any news until about midnight then went to bed. Brent go up and went to work the next morning (Thursday). I got up and had all the kids ready as I was to present at an assembly for the school. While getting...

Something that our family has been learning as of late is that "happily ever-aftering" is not always happy. To be quite frank it, at times is the opposite. It is all based on how well we endure that will equal out the "happily" part of "ever-aftering." Brent's mom passed away last Thursday morning, swiftly and peacefully. As long as I have known her, she has struggled with her health.It was always a concern that I would have an orphaned husband in his "youth." When Brent asked me to marry him (almost 10 years ago, yikes!) I remember being concerned what to call his dad. Did I call him dad, grandpa (we didn't have kids yet), or just Blaine. With Brent's mom it was much easier to just call her mom and grandma. From the day I entered her house she was always a warm, sweet, gentle, friend. She was always concerned with each person who came into her home. She was a peacemaker and the most wonderful hostess at all times, and in all things, ...

So here it comes. This will probably be our biggest post yet. Hopefully I can do it justice. I can hardly believe that the summer is already at the end and the kids are back in school. I think the summer was shorter this year. It felt like all we had was the month of July and that doesn't count because it always feels like half the month is holidays! We started off our summer throwing the two oldest into swimming lessons. We decided that since we had a swim pass we needed to use it, but if I take the kids swimming alone, at least half better fend for themselves. There went June. Daily routine consisted of waking, feeding, napping, feeding, running, crying, napping, feeding, sleeping. Don't forget changing in there constantly as well. Of course we now had Ayslind home from school which was a BIG help. She loves to change diapers (for now) so she really saved me this summer. We were able to make it story time a few times. Luckily they had a big kids story time...