Blessings.

There is no question that this past week has been the most painful time in my life. I have lost loved ones before, but nothing compares to the loss of my daddy. I have struggled much this week, but I have been blessed and buoyed up by countless friends and family.
We go through our lives and worry so much about our own little homes, that we sometimes forget about what goes on in others' little homes. We have so much to do, so many places to be, so much so much so much. I, at least, am guilty of this.
This week, however, our friends and family have not concerned themselves with only what has been going on in their worlds, but also in ours.
We have received some swift kicks in our humility hineys. Cary and I don't like to ask for help. We pretty much do things on our own, always.
This week, however, there was no way that we could manage alone. We haven't really asked for help, but we have certainly received it. Let me rephrase that, we have not *had* to ask for help. We have been very grateful recipients. There is no way that we can possibly thank everyone who has helped us this week. I have no words that adequately describe our gratitude.
We have an amazing ward family. They have shown their love for us over and over this week. Each time humbling Cary and I a bit more.
We have amazing friends. They have taken our kids to parties, taken care of them, picked them up from school, took them to classes, the list goes on; and all of this so that Cary and I can deal with what is going on.
We have an amazing family. I do not consider Cary's side as my *in-laws*. There is no boundary, there is no divide. They are my family. Mum, Dad, brothers, and sisters. I love them deeply and am grateful for them.
I have a testimony of tithing. I KNOW that when we faithfully pay our tithing, ungrudgingly, we ARE blessed. Cary and I have had tithing blessings more than I can count. I know our Heavenly Father keeps his promises to us. I know that does *not* give us more than we can bear, even though we feel like we can't bear any more. He is there for us. He loves us. Families are eternal. I know that is true. I love my husband. He IS a pillar of strength. I am grateful he is a worthy Melchizadech Priesthood holder. Our family is blessed because of his faithfulness. I love my Heavenly Father. I love my family. I know the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is True.

My Dad.

Marshall Edward Mumford was born December 14, 1955 to Mildred Ozella Singleton and Charlie Mumford in Malvern, Arkansas. He grew up in Malvern and was lovingly raised by his grandparents, Mace Singleton and Lessie Jane Singleton. He loved them dearly and missed them every day.

Marshall joined the United States Marine Corps in early 1976 and served honorably until October 1977. He was a proud veteran and admired other veterans for their service.

After leaving the Corps, he married Rhonda Stephens and together they had one daughter, Amanda. Marshall moved his family to Hot Springs where he began his career as an automotive technician. He went to many schools and trained very hard. He soon became an ASE certified Master Technician and was given many honors for his hard work and vast knowledge of vehicles.
Marshall was charismatic and charming, and had a way about him that put people at ease. He dealt with people honestly and honorably, and people would seek him out.

Marshall moved to Utah to be closer to his daughter and her family. Utah became his home, but he loved and missed the Ozark Mountains, and hunting in those woods.

He became a very proud grandpa of two beautiful girls in September, 2009. He was very loved by them and will be sorely missed.

Marshall gave of himself. He worked hard to provide a good life for his family and succeeded beautifully. He was a humble man with a larger-than-life presence. He was not perfect, no mortal man is, but he was a good man with an amazing heart.

He was preceeded in death by his brothers Franklin, T.T., and James Russell, and by one sister, Ganeesa. He loved his siblings and enjoyed reminiscing with them and about them.

He is survived by his wife Melanie, his brother, Rex Mays, of Kathleen, Georgia. He is also survived by his daughter Amanda and her husband Cary, whom he loved as a son, and five grandchildren, as well as many, many nieces and nephews.



I love my Dad. I miss him so very much. I wish that he was still here with me. I know that he is in a better place, but how I long to hear him laugh again.


We love you Poppie. We miss you. We will never forget you.

Sadness

I have been trying to summon the courage to write this post for a few days now. I feel like writing is my outlet and most of the time it helps me to feel better. I am hoping this is one of those times.
We have been really blessed the past couple of weeks. We have been able to adopt, bless our girls with their new names, and seal them to us for time and eternity.

This past weekend, however, my life came to a screeching halt as it turned upside down and inside out.
We had court on Thursday for our foster children. I'm not able to discuss what happened there, but I can say that we have to wait a while to find anything more out about the case.

My dad was watching the kids for me. He took them all to jiu jitsu class, for the boys, and I picked them up from him there. I was upset with him for some stupid reasons and that was the last time I saw my Dad. I growled him and that will haunt me for the rest of this life I'm afraid. I did, however, call him later and apologize for losing my temper and told him a couple of times how much I loved him. That, I hope, will bring me some comfort one day. He was only trying to help me out, which I did realize. He always did that, always tried to help me. Always finding a way to aggravate me, always loving me.
Sunday I had a nagging feeling that something was wrong. I called him several times and nothing. I finally summoned the courage to go over to his place to make sure he was OK. I knocked. nothing. I called. nothing. I could hear his phone ringing, it was eerie. I banged on the door again. I called out his name. Nothing.
I knew something was wrong. The door was dead bolted and I couldn't get in. I called Cary and started crying. I knew.
Cary is my rock. Cary is one of the most amazing people I have ever known in my life. He told me to come home and stay with the kids and he would check on things there. He took a wad of keys and some screwdrivers, just in case. He got there and went to the door. I think he said a little prayer and reached into his pocket and pulled out a key. The Key. He put it in the lock and *click*, it opened. He walked up the stairs and found my dad lying peacefully on his bed. He tried to wake him, but couldn't. He called 911 and the officers and ambulance came right away. Cary also called Mum and Dad and they came straight over. I knew as soon as they got here that the worst thing I had feared had come true. I knew Cary would call them to help me through this. He was stuck there with the officers and couldn't come home.
I hid in my room. Crying, praying, pleading, it was too much to bear.
Cary was finally able to come home and we just held each other, sobbing. The rest has kind of been a blur. I wish I could say I have been stoic! a pillar of strength! That would be Cary. He has handled everything beautifully. He has held me, loved me, allowed me to just sit and cry. He has been there for our kids.

The medical examiner did an autopsy and determined that my dad passed away of a heart attack in his sleep. He went peacefully with no pain. A gentle mercy of our Heavenly Father.

My boys have strengthened me. The girls have made me laugh. Bug prays that her Poppie will come back from Heaven. I will make sure that she never forgets him or how much he loves her. I will make sure of that with all of my kids.
I have lost so much, and so have they.
My Dad was not a member of my church. However, I think after he catches up with all of his loved ones, he will find *his* missionaries. We will do his temple work and one day I will be sealed to him. Families can be together Forever through Heavenly Father's plan. I know this is true. I know my Heavenly Father loves me. He loves my dad.
He took him home, so that he won't suffer anymore in this mortal existence. My dad is surrounded by loved ones now and I hope he can feel my love too. I believe he can.

We are trying to sort everything out now. I should say that Cary is doing mostly all of it. My dad left no will, no insurance policy, we weren't prepared for this.

We will get through this. I don't know how right now, but I know Heavenly Father will help us.
I have a testimony. I know I will see my Dad again. I believe in the Plan of Salvation. I love my Dad. I love my Cary. I love my children. I love my family. I am grateful for an amazing ward and an equally amazing Bishopric. Especially Steve Anderton, a faithful servant of Heavenly Father.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

A total Daddy-ism

I am working on a post currently, but I have yet to finish it. There is a lot that I want to say in it, and I have been putting it off. Life is busy, I had something in my eye, you know how it goes....I have a ton of excuses. :)
A.n.y.w.a.y.

I had to share this because I laughed my guts out at dinner.
Today was a particularly stressful day. Thursdays usually are in our little house as we are all still recovering from Wednesdays. All the kids were crabtastic as was their mummy. Actually, I might have been a wee bit beyond crabby. But, just a wee bit.
We sat down for dinner and we had all mellowed somewhat. The boys sucked theirs down pretty quickly and spaghetti nights usually go fast anyway. The boys asked for seconds and we told them it was fine, but they had to share. Our 9 year old, who is my comic relief most of the time, went to the stove and suddnely we heard...."UUUGGGGHHHHH!!"
Cary; "what is it?"
Boy: "There is barely any left in there!"
Cary: "Well then you both get Half of barely!!"
*silence*

Me: "Sputter sputter laugh laugh ' cant. breathe.

MY Husband. Totally keeps me sane and happy. I love him more than he realizes.

In Daddy's words

Cary started the following email the day we got home with our daughters, but he has yet to finish it. I just love his way with words, so I wanted to share them with you. If you see them twice, just pretend you didn't. :)
Friends and family,

Today at 9:30 AM, Amanda and I were blessed to become the parents of Keeleigh Beonna Nicholas (4) and Gabriella Moana Nicholas (6).

Beonna, Gabby and their sister came to stay with us in October of 2008. They came from another foster family that had them and two other sisters, but could no longer handle all 5. Sister decided she did not want to be a part of our family so she went back to the former foster family.

Beonna has come so far since she came to stay with us. She is our little tornado in a teacup, a whirlwind of feistiness and opinion. We decided to give her the name Keeleigh, an Irish name which means "Conflict", and keep Beonna as her middle name. She looks so much like Amanda when she was younger. She loves Dora the Explorer and Diego. As you may also know, she loves the band Queen too :) (Her current favorite song is "We Will Rock You!") She is attending pre-school and loves to go.

Gabby is a sweet, loving little girl. We decided to give her the middle name Moana, which is a Maori word meaning "Sea" or "Ocean", which fits Gabby's soothing temperament (which can suddenly become hard to handle, like the sea).
****end***
Gabby loves all things pretty and princessy. She does really well in school, especially Spelling. Her mamaw reckons Gabby gets that from her. :)

We love our girls so much. We hope they can always remember how special they are and how much they are loved....by so many.

How Two Became Four...Part Deux!

So, as I said before Wednesday was *the* day! Cary and I were a ball of nerves. The day that we had been waiting for for so long was finally here. So much of the day's proceedings were unknown to us and that was part of what made us so nervous.
We were taking all five of our kids up with us, which meant that I had to get up in the wee hours of the morning. Ok, it was really only 6:15am, but it sure felt like the wee hours. All of our kids were beautiful, handsome, and adorable. We were taking Mum with us and my dad. Our friends were going up with us and were able to take some of our kidlets. We were blessed to be able to share the day with some of our good friends. We are grateful that Mum was able and willing to take the day off work to spend it with us.
Cary drove us up to Salt Lake to the court house. We were running late. I was grumpy and nervous. Not the best combination for me. :) I don't much care for the way Cary drives, but I welcome it because that means that *I* don't have to drive! :) Bug was in the very back behind me and she says, "Mommy, Daddy is not a good driver, huh?" HA! Thanks to her, a lot of our stress was relieved for a few moments. She's good for comic relief.
We arrived at the court house, finally. Cary decide to take the scenic route and made some, what I like to call WRONG, turns. ahem.
We met up with our lawyer and the caseworker. We went into a little room to discuss what we would be asked in court. About 5 minutes later the bailiff called us in and it was our turn to go in before the judge. Judge Valdez. The man is intimidating. He is powerful. But, he is fair and truly has the children's best interest in mind in all that he does and says in the courtroom.
Our lawyer started asking us questions. Not even difficult questions, questions like "what's your name? what is your birth date? What is your address?"
I made it to "what is your address" before I lost it. I couldn't form a sentence. I was crying like a baby! I was so overcome with emotion that I couldn't speak. Brooks, our lawyer, teased me later that usually people wait until the "will you love this child as a natural child" question before they become crying fools. :)

We muddled through the questions, all the while Gabby and Bug were sitting like little ladies with tu-tu fingers. Bug wanted to know what everything was and more importantly WHY it was there. Oh the "Why!?". When I heard Judge Valdez say the words, "the adoption petition is hereby granted. Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas are as the natural parents and will be listed as such on the minor children's birth certificate and social security cards.", I cried even harder. Cary and I clutched each other's hands as we held our daughter's hands. We didn't need words. We looked at each other and knew. We are a family. We have our daughters. We are blessed beyond measure.
Judge Valdez said something and the crowd applauded. He said, "oh, come on folks that was lame" So, our friends and family did it again. This time, loudly. It was wonderful. Judge Valdez gave Gabby and Bug each a stuffed animal and we were able to take some photos with him. He allowed the girls to sit in his chair. Hi! Highlight!

We took our photos and they ushered us out where we went and signed some more papers and got more copies of stuffs. Our lawyer presented us with a pen that was THE pen with which we signed the adoption papers. It's in a box with a poem that is titled "The pen that changed it all." It was a nice gift.

We celebrated afterward with lunch at Golden Corral. Today is my birthday and my now 11 yr old's birthday and that is what he chose. The kids love it. Nothing like being able to choose what you want to eat and going back 2,3, 8 times for food. :)

That was our day. The first day of the rest of our lives, as it were.
What a blessing!
I have to upload my photos of the day, but first I must find the cord. I'm going to post a photo that we took at Antelope Island. I love this picture. :)

How Two Became Four... Part One

Wednesday was the day! It was a day that Cary and I have been looking forward to with much anticipation for so many years. We were blessed with two little lovely little girls who will very soon become part of our forever family. It brings me to tears again just thinking about it. As you can imagine, I was a ball of cry yesterday. Yeah, pretty much all day.
I will share with you our story from the beginning. Prepare for a long post!
Last year our RFC (resource family consultant) emailed us about a list of possible children. Among the list was a sibling group of five girls. At the time, Cary and I said there was NO POSSIBLE WAY we could handle five kids (HA, Right?). But, we would be interested in the middle three, 3, 5, and 7 year old little girls. We were anxious and very curious. It took about a month before we received a call from the caseworker to tell us more about the case. She outlined the case and told us a little bit about each girl. We were intrigued and wanted to learn more about the girls. The caseworker set up a meeting with us and two more possible families. The girls were in a home that had five biological children and had a sibling group of five girls. Three of which were the girls we were "interviewing for". The caseworker came to our home and told us more about the girls and asked us a million more questions.
It took another month and she told us that we were chosen and we would be placed with the girls! We were excited! We were nervous! We were also very curious. We knew that the parental rights would be terminated soon and that these children could quite possibly be *our* children.
The girls were placed with us in October '08 and it was a nerve-wracking day. They were beautiful girls and we were anxious to start building a bond with them. I can honestly say *now*, building that bond was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
Sometimes the caseworker fails to tell you absolutely everything about a child, and she had kind of left out a couple things. One of which was that Beonna had severe problems. She raged. If you have never seen a child truly rage, it is one the most frightening and frustrating things you've ever seen. The only way we can describe it is that while in a rage, Beonna would leave her body. Her eyes would be vacant, she would scream at the TIPPY TOP of her lungs, she would scratch, hit, kick, pound her head against the wall, (and more) and all of this could last as long as an HOUR. Waking up from a nap could set her off, not getting her way could set her off, and the sun shining could set her off. I did not know how to handle it.I didn't want to handle it. This child was not what I had envisioned for *MY* forever family! It pains me, but I can write that now. It was a very hard time for me. I wanted to give up. Cary, however, had a much different feeling about her. Somehow he could see through it all and knew that this little firecracker was meant to be ours, and we were not going to give up on her. He would not let me give up. How grateful I am for him and his faithfulness! He knew we could get through it. I prayed as I had never prayed before. I prayed for her, for me, for the other girls, and for Cary. I took as many parenting classes as I could. I read blogs, I listened to other parents' stories, and Beonna had therapy. (As a side not I am listening to Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkle right now on Itunes. fitting, no?)
Time passed and before I knew it I was falling in love with little "bugga bugga". At first her fits were not improving, but Heavenly Father was blessing me with the patience to deal with it and to see what Cary had seen all along. She has made improvements, HUGE MASSIVE STINKING improvements. She doesn't leave her body anymore, she stays with us. When she is starting to go into a "fit" as we call it now, I sing to her "Child of God" or "I love to see the Temple". Those are her songs and help her to come out of it. It's amazing what Heavenly Father can do!
Gabby had been my little bucket of sunshine. From the beginning she has been loving and caring and such an amazing little girl. When she came to us she was about a year and a half behind all of the other kids in her class. I am proud to report that she now gets all 100% (s) on her spelling tests and works very hard at reading and math. She is, for the most part, really mellow and happy. She gets that from Cary. :)
Now some of you might be wondering what happened to the third little girl. Well, sadly, she decided that she did not want to be part of our little family and she returned to live with her previous family. It has been the best situation for everyone, actually.
I will leave it at that. :)
A lot of things have happened over these last 11 months and it has been a long and bumpy ride. But, it has been completely worth it and looking back I wouldn't have it any other way. I have been able to learn more about myself, my husband, and my daughters. I love my Bug. I love my Gabbalella. They *are* and forever will be, My Daughters.
This brings me to my next post...Part Deux!