Loop Hole!

Muhahaha!  I love moments like these; when your plans get thwarted, only to open up an even better plan than the orginal!  I must admit, I should have thought about this from the beginning, but I didn't. But it still makes me feel like I beat "the man". 

Little did my development managers know, but the same person they told isn't allowed to post flyers on doors, is also the same person who owns her own sign making business!  Yeppers, I can say I own it now since I just got my business license last week! Love Letters custom vinyl lettering & artwork is officially official.  It's a pretty sweet job actually. If you want a business card, let me know. =)

So instead of spending hours of time going door to door to 250 homes, I did what I do best, made a sweet sign and stuck it in my front lawn.  The other great thing is that our house is right next to one of the main entrances into our development so lots of people will be able to see it, I hope.  I just need to make a friend on the other side of the development in like the next day so I can put a sign over there too.

Other then that, it is Sprinig Break as of 3pm today.  We will be going down to the Tri-Cities to spend some time with my family.  The kids are super excited, and I am too.  We haven't been back there for a few months.  I can honestly say that at this time last year having all 4 kids home for a week caused a me a little (some moments, lots of) anxiety.  It was still a time of figuring out how to manage all the different needs going on at the same time. This year, I'm pumped for my big kids to be home!  It's such a cool thing to know I feel that way now.  We've come so far in only one year.  I'm sure we'll all be ready for school to be back in session by the end of the week though. =) 

And here's a picture of my cute Easter Egg Hunt sign (with some black outs to protect the innocent).  Oh, and Kyrsta.  Ha, if only you could see better the outfit she insisted on wearing today; a black jean jumper, blue shirt, and brown pants.  I love my stinkers.

Relational Easter Eggs

A few weeks ago I had an idea.  I thought about putting on a neighborhood Easter egg hunt.  Then, like a good mother hen, I sat on that idea and expected something to hatch.  Or I hoped I'd forget about the fact that this good idea was there...and then I did something that I do, often.  I opened my big mouth.

Once a week I meet with this amazing group of women (Actually, lets be honest real quick.  It isn't usually once a week...but we try!).  We get together, talk about what we are learning through God's Word, discuss the happenings of our lives, the people we are in relations with, and the missions Christ has sent us into within our communities.  This group has changed me.  I've learned that by loving people, Jesus didn't mean to get everyone you can to come to church.  Don't get me wrong, I love my church, and my church family.  However, there's so much more.   It's truly loving, truly engaging, truly living in the opportunities of now.  But often times it does require a lot of verbs.

So this week at our get-together, I simply shared that I had this idea of planning this Easter egg hunt.  My girlfriend Lauren says, "I think that sounds great!  Get on it!".  Thanks, mouth!  Sooo...here I am, making phone calls, buying hundreds of Easter eggs, and trying to figure out how this is supposed to look.  But more importantly ,why I even want to do it.

I live in an area where there are a lot of young families like mine, and also a lot of single parents.  So I have a hard time not wanting to get to know these people in my own neighborhood.  But how do you get to know them in a non-awkward way?  I'm hoping it can start with a few hundred Easter eggs!

I'm already running into a few hang-ups though.  After calling the manager of our development, she informed me that I am not allowed to post flyers on doors, or even go door to door.  But said it would be ok to hang a flyer on the side of the massive multi-mailbox thingies.  Not cool.  I can't even remember the last time I looked at the side of those things to look at a flyer.  Actually, I usually don't even go to the mailbox, my kids do. So now what?  A good idea was mentioned that I could just go down my main street and talk to them about it, and ask them to invite their friends and so on...and just see who shows up?

Next, I don't really feel like just making a big thing that people show up to, do their thing, then leave.  I want everyone to have the opportunity to get involved if they have the ability to.  I would love others to donate eggs, candy, help hide, etc.  The funny thing is though, all the research I've done about egg hunts (yes, there's LOTS of ideas out there) is all about how to just get people in and out.  So I guess I'm gonna have to just try and see!

So why blog about this?  Not because I think I have a great idea....shoot, it could still totally crumble in a million pieces.  But that I was inspired by my friends around me to take hold of an opportunity to love those I am living in community with.  Even if I become friends with just one person out of it, I think it will all be worth it. 

Do you have an opportunity to love those you are living in community with? I'd love to hear ideas or things you may have done. 

Jamie

"Do they ALL belong to you???"

This is the most asked question I get.  Maybe not daily, but atleast a few times every week.  It usually occurs at a grocery store where I have decided to bring all four of the kiddos with me to get some necessities.  It usually starts off with a stare, first to me, then to my oldest daughter (9), then a scan over the others and lay to rest at my one-year-old little man...and then back at me, with a look of pure confusion.  I have learned to laugh, out loud.  I look at them and give them an opportunity to ask.  Several people have given me a look of dissappointment and a shake of the head.  Seriously! It happens.  I know exactly what they are thinking, "Ever heard of BIRTH CONTROL?".  Haha.  I know we are different. I know we don't look "normal".  I know we didn't stop at 2.3.  I know I'm young, but no, I'm not still in high school and yes I have a college degree.  But who cares if I was, who cares if I went to college?  I'm a good mom.  And to me, that is what I want to matter.  Yet my family is judged every day by the fact that we are different.  If they only knew....

TJ and I were married on August 17, 2005.  It was a Wednesday.  It was raining.  It was perfect.  6 months later we were prego with my first born, Kyrsta Grace.  She really is our most precious creation.  She may be a middle child now, but she will forever be our first born.  1 year and a few months later we got a surprise when we found out I was pregnant again.  We were in the middle of moving (once more) from Utah back to Washington for TJ's new job.  We were scared.  We didn't have a home!  So we moved in the basement of my best friends house.  The catch here is that they are foster parents.  And at this time they had 6 children living with them.  So add our family of three and you have 11 people under one roof.  It was fun. =) 
During this time, we grew to know two of the children our friends had living with them.  At this time they were 7 and 5.  They were a handful (well, at least that 5 year old boy sure was!).  We got ourselves a place to live, moved out, and spent the next few months doing our own little family thing.  And then the day came that we found out these two kiddos weren't going to be able to go home to their birth parents, and needed to be adopted.... But I was pregnant!  TJ was working nights.  And um, our little life was comfortable.  Why change that?
We prayed, we talked, and we did.  We decided that we may not have much, but we do have love.  We have a mommy and a daddy.  We have a family.  They had nothing.  Alexis and Tayvin came to live with us 1 month before I delivered our baby boy, Asher J.  And then, about 9 months later we finalized our adoptions of Tayv and Lex, and became The Ewen 6.  I'm still only 26.  TJ is still working nights.  My kids are still a handful at times.  But we are a family.  And we love each other deeply.  So when you see a young mom like me in the grocery store, stare all you want, but think about why they may be different.  It's not always because they don't know about birth control.  It might not be the result of irresponsibility.  It may simply be a an attempt at trying to love.

The First One

So this is my first blog post...  I have thought about this, chewed over what I was going to say, even started to write it, then stopped again.  I have even read up on the "rules" of blogging.  The problem isn't that I want this to be the "perfect" blog, it's that I haven't yet figured out what I want this blog to be.  I'm afraid that if I start, I won't know where to stop.  And where do I start?  My life is so crazy, that I really don't even know what direction to begin in.  But maybe that is the point.  That my life is so EVERYwhere, that I need a place to put it all down, and try to keep it all together, and maybe make some sense of it all....for others as well as myself.  So I'll take a flying leap, not try to be perfect, but to just simply "be".  I'm pretty excited for this, so bear with me.  Oh, and am I allowed to put up more than one post a day? =)