What's in a name? Everything...

When it came time to name our two beautiful children there wasn't too much discussion.  As I recall our first child only took one real naming session to get it done.  Joel is named after all of the influential men in the lives of both my husband and me.  Our son's full name is Joel Elton Everett Marshall.  Joel is my "1st Dad", my mother's second husband, and the man who took me in as a little girl and loved me like his own until the day he died.  Even after things didn't work out between him and my mother he still kept up with me and was always there for me, no matter what.  Elton is Ky's granddad's middle name.  Elmer Shockley had more of a hand in raising Ky than his own father; essentially he was the main father figure in his life.  He sadly passed away the month before I met my husband, so I never got to meet him, but he lives on in our little boy.  Everett is my "2nd Dad"'s middle name.  Anyone who has known me since about middle school will know Troy as my Dad because that is exactly what he is.  Dad has been a wonderful father for me and I nearly had him adopt me in high school.  As far as I am concerned, he's my dad.  He's been a good friend, supporter, coach, and occasionally a therapist; everything I hope to instill in my son, or at least have his Papa instill in him!

When we found out we were having another child the discussions happened much more often.  We talked about boy names and girl names since we weren't sure what we were having.  For boys we threw the name Xavier around a lot...girls names were so much harder to pin down.  At the time I was working nights as a bartender to keep our family above water since my hubby's job refused to pay people what they are worth.  One night as I was driving down Timothy to cut across town and head home I noticed a street sign I had never seen before.  It said "Kalen's Woods" on it and I remember thinking how neat that name was.  It stuck with me and I tried spelling it so many different ways before settling on Kaylen.  Once we found out we were having a girl Kaylen became the only choice.

Kaylen's whole name is Kaylen Ann Denise Marshall.  We again named our child after the most important people in our lives, except for the Kaylen part.  I carried the baby and I like Kaylen so I won that battle.  Ann is a family name on my side.  My mother, grandmother, and I all have the same middle name; now my sweet little girl does too.  I am especially excited that we chose to do this in light of my grandmother's battle with cancer.  I am so glad she got to see her legacy live on in another little Ann girl.  Denise is for the greatest mother in law on the planet.  Yes, I am biased, but Ky's mother has been the most supportive, helpful, kind human being I have ever come across.  It's funny to think back on when Ky and I first got together and remember how absolutely petrified of her I was at the time.  Now when she calls she calls to talk to either the kids or me.  Poor hubby :)

We don't plan on having any other children.  We have currently taken steps to be certain that this doesn't happen for at least ten years.  I am so blessed to have two beautiful, healthy babies.  We've had plenty of scares, hardships, and difficulties with each and I see no reason to tempt our chances.  I had a dream the other night about another child; in the dream my kids were about 8 and 6 and there was another little girl with us.  She was Kaylen's age and her name was Lei Mae.  She was an Asian girl that we had domestically adopted.  Strange how specific this dream was, and when I woke I told my husband about it.  Perhaps our family will expand later, just not via my uterus.  That joint is inhospitable from here on out.

Christmas Reflections 2011

It's all over now but the eating.  Our living room looks like every preschool child's fantasy.  There are four new babies for Kaylen.  She previously had no babies and since I mistakenly made that comment to family she now has a multicultural sampling of infants.  There's a Mickey Mouse music set, complete with enough noise makers to create instant insanity for any parent.  We have a full dozen miniature action figures for Joel, all of which complete my husband's fantasy of playing with his childhood toys again.  There's Star Wars, Transformers, and Marvel comic book characters...all boy, all the time.  We also have a junkyard of Matchbox cars and enough play groceries to stock a pretend Publix.  Santa come. He saw. He conquered.

We also took a minute to thank Jesus for all of our many blessings.  It completely warmed my soul to see my children stop playing when we said we were going to pray and thank the Lord for our gifts.  The kids came over, folded their hands, and waited to hear our prayer.  We have so much to be thankful for and it was important for us to show our children that all of our gifts truly come from God's provision.  Lord knows that we aren't making it paycheck to paycheck without any help.

This Christmas has been especially emotional for our family as we deal with the medical crises on each side of the family.  God has been so good to us by allowing our special relatives to be home after brief hospitalizations due to their serious illnesses.  Granddad was home in time to watch the kiddos destroy the gift wrap via Kinect.  A real scare had us circling the prayer wagons for my sweet Grandma; prayers were answered positively and she is home with a treatment plan in place.  So, so grateful to God for letting us borrow her for just a little bit longer!

Full-fledged Christmas!

We are officially in the Christmas countdown now.  Last night we had an amazing time with Mal Mal and Anthony.  It was an evening filled with veggie tacos (a welcome break from the weekend of heavy food at my mom's house!), Christmas movies, and ice cream for dessert.  After Ky got home from working his second job - what a trooper! - we got the kiddos off to sleep and enjoyed some grown-up time.

Grown-up time means we basically had a beer and watched The League while I wrapped presents for the kids.  I've been hiding them in my closet all this time and I just couldn't wait anymore!  I purchased one type of paper for Kaylen (Elmo and Abby Cadaby) and one for Joel (Buzz and Woody) and one for their Santa presents so we could easily divide them Christmas morning.  I know.  OCD.  I totally understand and admit to to this problem.  I couldn't even let my poor hubby put the gifts under the tree because I didn't like the order in which he laid them.  It's sad.

My children rewarded my efforts last night by tearing up a box of tissues all over the floor.  After frolicking in their creation for a while they turned their attention to the tree.  I caught Kaylen just as she began to rip the paper off of one of her packages.  At least she knew hers were in the Elmo paper.  Smart girl.  I patched the tear and told the children we had to wait for Daddy.  And for Christmas.  But they're too young to understand that.  Here's to hoping that the gifts make it to Sunday...even I can't hardly stand the wait!

Falling Behind but Still On Time

Okay...so I have to admit.  My goal of blogging to remember every little thing that happens as my life flashes by in such a blur has already been a miserable failure.  Rather than give up I have decided to adjust my goal and dig in for the long haul.  Since I recently went back to grad school - again - I think to myself for a minute about how dumb this idea is.  As though I really need to be writing any more considering the numerous assignments I am doing each week.  But my heart says press on, so my fingers must oblige.

Since my last entry I completed the much anticipated and often dreaded Athens Half-Marathon.  Longest. Day. Ever.  I forced myself to sleep by watching the episode of Heavy with the guy from Athens who runs in the Half after losing like 150 pounds.  In my training I only lost like two pounds, so I assume I have done something wrong.  And then I remember that I forgot to train.  Guess that was my problem.

Anyhow, I arrive with Mallory and Anthony, wait in line to use a potty, and enter my cow pen in a group that was obviously not for me.  Next year I buy my own race number rather than save a few bucks by picking up one on sale.  That girl had aspirations of serious success.  I merely wanted to finish without going into muscle failure.  Just as I began to think of ways to sneak off and pretend I broke something we began to run.  Pure adrenaline push me through the first 5k before I walk long enough to grab and drink and get moving.  This first section is all through campus so I find landmarks and push on, running at a pace I never thought possible.

I hit Five Points at exactly 50 minutes...I've managed to average 10 minute miles on raceday. Not too shabby considering the weeks of sleep deprivation at the will of my toddler.  Some nights I swear she does it on purpose, or that she hates me.  Truly the problem is she loves me too much and thinks I am her massive teddy bear that exists solely to comfort her.  And she's right.  But I digress.

Milledge Avenue is a long, boring road that makes me wish I had a few of the characters who are lining the street cheering for me.  Really wish I had assembled a cheering section in strategic places like this to help keep me going.  So I change my name to whatever these folks are yelling and press on, turning on to the best block party I ever ran through.  Thank you so much to all those folks who put up signs of encouragement, like "No one made you do this" or "Yes,dear, I'll cook dinner tonight."  The best was the "You have no one to blame but yourself."  Secretly I wanted to blame Mal or my dad, but I knew the sign maker was right...and probably not running the race today.  Smart.

Leaving that neighborhood was truly a sad moment, made even more depressing as the next few miles wound through less inviting areas.  Even the famed Boulevard area was nothing compared to Cobbham and I hated every step until I finally saw the 10 mile marker!  Hooray!  Only 5k to go...if I can keep out of muscle failure I have got this thing in the bag.  By the time we hit the Greenway I realize that some race course making schmuck ran out of real estate so he decided to make us loop this stupid area and then run straight up the Hill of Death to the finish.  How lame is it to run 12 miles, be so close to the finish, and then literally run straight uphill for the final mile until a downhill .1 finish line.  I never even heard the name of the girl whose number I had purchased.  I only saw the 2:42 and couldn't believe that I actually finished in under my goal time.

Days later my big toe stayed swollen and eventually turned an awesome shade of black before the nail fell off.  So now I am in two pretty elite groups.  I am a half marathon finisher and a distance runner who fell victim to the dreaded black toenail.  Next year I have two goals:  finish somewhere near that guy with the 2:10 sign and to keep all of my toenails.  Stay tuned for that I guess...I might remember to blog about it.

Falling in Love via Football...it could happen to you!

Flowers.  Diamonds.  Chocolates.  These are the things that should win you a woman.

Not me.  For me, it was football.  And yes, I really am a woman.

I love football.  I enjoy it so much that I made sure to include it in my wedding reception so that I wouldn't have to choose between the big game and my big day.  Yes, I know Jeff Foxworthy said that doing this would punch my card for true redneck membership.  Jeff Foxworthy is a manufactured redneck and obviously is unaware of the tradition of Georgia Saturdays.

Needless to say it was Georgia football that brought me my wonderful husband.  Alone and jaded in a non-SEC state I yearned for the days when Saturday meant a cute red dress, black heels, and teeing it up between the hedges.  Instead I was slinging beers to quasi-Yankee customers that cared as much about college football as Michelle Bachmann cares about accuracy and accountability in campaigning.  As I contemplated the amount of money I would need to make my escape back to the land that I loved I spotted my future in a red Georgia hat.

You wouldn't know that my future would be so bright from this first meeting.  In fact, my sheer loneliness was more of a driving force than anything Danielle Steel could have penned.  I so desperately wanted any reminder of home that I continued to speak to a man whose first remarks to me were sarcastic and dismissive.  Generally, in that profession especially, a response like this would warrant no further contact.  However, later meetings would reveal a man who was going through the mirror image of my life.  Coincidence?  Of course!  But a first date at a NFL game would prove that the Lord works in the most amazing ways.

I love football.  It has brought me most all of my favorite memories.  Saturdays in Athens with my sorority sisters.  Sunday bar doubles at Break Time with Danielle.  Checking fantasy teams with my new husband the morning after our wedding.  Dressing my children in appropriate attire for gameday.  There will be many more wonderful memories...for tonight, it's the Lions versus the Bears, and I'm enjoying the quiet time between my children's bedtime and my own with the man of my dreams.  

It may not be the stuff that makes good television, but this housewife's reality is pretty sweet.