A Little Explanation

Some of you may have noticed that my blog suddenly became a private one for a few days, and you may have been wondering what in the world was going on! First of all, I wanted to make my blog a private one from the start, but kept it open so that it was easier for a few of our friends and a few family members to get onto it.

But, last week I closed it down completely. Quite to our surprise, Andy and I found ourselves under verbal attack from some people we thought to be very close to us...they criticized our decision to leave a career and come back to dental school, moving away from family in the process, they laughed at the huge sacrifice coming back to school has been for our entire family, especially our children, they criticized our decision to come and visit family last summer, and accused us of many, many things that were very hurtful and were grossly untrue. They also were extremely disrespectful and critical in their comments about our children, whom we love so much. It was the way in which they belittled our children, and the toll these four years has taken on our little family that really was the last straw and so in order to protect my family from their critical and hardened eyes, I closed the blog.

I just couldn't bear the thought of them even occasionally reading about the wonderful things that my children are doing, and looking at their beautiful pictures. My children are as jewels to me, and I just couldn't bear for them to treat my treasure in such a way.

So, dear friends who have supported us and stayed close to us throughout the years...this is why when you came to visit our blog you suddenly found it closed.

Over the weekend, I had a change of thought. I remembered that I've always despised exclusiveness in all of it's forms. It completely goes against my nature to exclude someone from an activity that I'm involved in. So I am reopening the blog.

Now, just for the record...I'm sure all of our amazing friends and family already know this...but just so that you know that WE know this. Andy and I are far from perfect. I know this may come as a shock to some of you (sarcastic laugh inserted here) but we miss birthdays of dear friends and family members, we forget names, we frown, occasionally we yell, we both weigh more than we should and are doing absolutely nothing about it right now, sometimes we have nervous break downs so watch out for a blue Honda Odyssey that is driving out of control, we stay up way too late drinking hot cocoa or postum and then don't want to get out of bed in the morning, sometimes Sherrie doesn't make the bed, and most of the time Andy leaves his dirty socks on the floor.

Our five children are also far from perfect. We fully admit that they fight, they argue, they have messy rooms, they spill food, they occasionally break dishes, they color on the walls (they are well-acquainted with magic erasers), they have occasional bedtime accidents, they get filthy with mud and grass stains, they intentionally throw their balls into the neighbors yard so that they can go get them, they occasionally pull the cat's tail and eat his food, and they even eat with their mouths open and even worse talk with mouths full of food. I know, it's terrible.

We also admit that our lives are not a fairy tale. Nope, we're not looking for sympathy here friends...it's just the facts. We actually get sick, we have to take our children to the hospital far more than we would like for things like bleeding heads, broken hands, kidney infections, etc. With five children, there are bound to be injuries and sickness much of the time. When our house gets the flu bug...it's not just the "24 hour bug" it's the 24 hour bug multiplied by 7 people, which comes out to be at least the 168 hour bug. When the doctor says to "give it 14 days", then we multiply that by 7 and we get...well...you get the idea.

BUT...we don't blog about that stuff! Honestly, I don't even journal about most of that kind of thing. What's the point in accentuating the negative in a person or people? No, the sort of things I choose to blog about are all of the positive things and wonderful accomplishments that involve Andy, myself, and our children. So, we are fully aware that we are not perfect and that we have our problems...but you most likely will not be reading about our imperfections or our problems here on this blog. Sorry! Just watch the nightly news for that sort of thing!

So my friends, please forgive me for the glitch in the open blog, but we're up and running again. We love you all, and love reading your blogs and keeping up with your families...sometimes we don't comment on every post...but we still love you nonetheless!!!