How Many Kids Do You Have?

Oh how I have hated this question for 19 years.  I usually had a protocol in place - If I will know these people after I answer this question then I would include Trevin and explain.  If it was going to be a brief encounter but they would notice if I said I had six kids and there were only 5 there I would say that I only had 5 kids.  If I only had a few of the kids with me and it wouldn't be obvious that only Trevin was missing I would say I had six (or seven once Tatum came).  It has always been a really hard question for me.  I don't ever want to not include Trevin, and now Tatum.  Sometimes I just don't want to explain.  Well this is part of the reason that I have only wanted to be around people that I know.  I don't want to meet new people and have to go through these questions in my head when this question is asked.  It is just too raw.  Well, last night we walked down to the cul-de-sac in our neighborhood to watch the annual Pioneer Day fireworks.  People bring all of their fireworks and treats and just have fun together.  We have several families that have moved out of our neighborhood in the past 2 months.  One of the new families was there.  We were standing around introducing ourselves and she asked Lance and I how many kids we have.  I was taken off guard a little.  I just hadn't thought about answering that question yet because I have tried to protect myself.  I looked at Lance and I said "currently we have 5 here with us".   What kind of stupid answer is that.   The new neighbor chuckled and said that she understood because they have quite a confusing family of his, hers and ours because of divorce.  I just tried to quickly get out of the conversation and leave.  When I got home I went straight to my closet to put my pajamas on and I had a complete breakdown.  I have seven children and I will never say that I have five again.  I don't care if it makes people uncomfortable.  Not everyone is going to need to hear an explanation, and that is fine.  It just made me sick to completely not acknowledge Trevin and Tatum as part of our family.  I cannot do that ever again.  They have done too much for our family to not include them.  Now I am ready for that question.

The rest of our day was pretty good.  We didn't plan a lot for the day so we slept in a little.  Then Lance and I got his road bike ready to go for a test drive.  It is official, Lance is a road biker! We are still working on the clothing.  He refuses to wear the traditional gear.  I am going to keep working on that:)

We went out for a quick ride to get him used to his new ride.  I think that he liked it and noticed the huge difference between his mountain bike and this much lighter road bike.  We stopped at the cemetery on our way home.  I love where Trevin and Tatum are buried.  I love the location in the cemetery and I love that they are close to us.

When we got home from our ride I decided to cut Hilary's hair.  The other day she was going potty and she leaned her head back and Lance said that her hair touched the toilet water!  YUCK.  Time to trim up that beautiful hair.  She was actually really patient and still.  Once I got all of her hair combed out (which took awhile) I grabbed a section and gave it a snip.  I cut it a little shorter than I had intended, but it will grow back, right?  We cut about 5 or 6 inches off.  Her first real haircut.

Before Haircut....

 Please don't take my after picture

I had to sneak this after picture.... Cute

Later we went to a BBQ at a neighbors house.  They had all sorts of fun for the kids and adults.  It was nice to be around people that we love and that love us.  Celebrations of any sort are just hard.  We went to these same neighbors house last year and we of course had Tatum with us.  It is just hard to do all of these things without her.

Here are the teenagers fighting over who sits in this chair.  Never mind that there were 10 other chairs.  Cute.

 Holden on the slippy slide.

 Lance and Halea enjoying some swing time.

Holden and Hilary racing the little cars.

Heidi and friends in a much too small pool.

When we got home from the fireworks I turned on the TV to watch some news.  I checked the BYU channel to see what was on and the concert that we went to a few days ago was being re broadcast.  I watched the last part of it instead of the news.  Good choice.  There is just something about good music that can invite the spirit.  The last song the choir sang was "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing", one of my very favorites.   As they were singing I was overcome with feelings of gratitude for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  My heart feels so broken right now.  If I did not have the hope that I feel from the gospel that there would be no way I could recover.  The sadness is so overwhelming sometimes that if I did not know we would be reunited with our sweet children, it would be too much to handle.  I know that there is sadness all around, but because of our Savior, one day all will be repaired.