Motherly Love

I was quite surprised when my neighbor emphatically told me, over the phone this evening, that he thanks God for me.  I watch his little girl, Gabby, while he and his wife go to work.  He went on to say how patient and compassionate I am and how thankful he is for me.  Wow, I was quite surprised!  It made me feel so good. 

I'm so thankful for the children that are entrusted in my care.  It makes me feel really good that their parents trust me and know that I will take good care of their kids.  I won't lie, it's a lot of work taking care of children, as all of you mother's know.  I love having sweet baby Rooks, who is now 8 weeks old, in our home.  Jeff and I are pretty certain that our family is complete, so it's nice to be able to enjoy other people's little babes.  Rooks' family had us over for a dinner last night to celebrate his blessing.  We were the only people there that weren't family, but they were super nice, it was fun to meet so many of their family members.  The food was delicious too!  I seemed to become known as "the babysitter or Rooks' amazing babysitter" to the family members, since they were all wondering who we were. :-D  It was kinda funny.  

Sometimes I feel like I'm running a marathon all day long with caring for all of the children and all of their different needs, but I know I'm doing good things.  Speaking of running, I've actually started running, or maybe more like jogging. ;-)  I've always been a lousy runner, so I decided this was something I wanted to work on to become better at.  I started running at the end of June.  It was tough at first.  Jeff and I calculated it out, and doing about 60 laps back and forth in our backyard is approximately a mile.  When I first started, I could only run ten laps without having to walk, but now I can run the entire 60 laps and sometimes more if I have lots of energy.  I was sooo thrilled the first time I didn't have to walk, I just kept running and running, it was a great feeling!  It's a good stress release for me too and I love listening too music as I run in the cool night air, it's great!!  This might sound crazy but, some of my motivation for wanting to run was in case someone ever needed help.  Maybe I watch too many LMN (lifetime movie network) movies, but I wanted to be able to run if needed, to get help for my children or anyone else who might be wounded or in danger or whatever.  Crazy huh!?!

 Anyways, here are some pictures to look at. ;-)

Trying to knock apples out of Grandma and Grandpa Litton's apple tree.

Helping Grandma water the flowers.

Bailee using a broom to aid in the apple knock down.

Watch out pooches!

Ashton helping to throw the unripened apples away.