Saturday, October 15, 2011

First in. First out.

I was kinda surprised at the boys for getting up early on Saturday morning to go to the tire store with me. Last night I told them I planned to get the tires rotated and balanced on the van because we are driving to Nashville today to meet up with my sister.

After my brother in law's accident, he was in the hospital and rehab. The doctors expected him to be there for a month so we took my nephew for a couple weeks. Jill home-schooled him along with our kids. My BIL went home this week, thank the Lord. Today, we are taking my nephew back to his mom who will meet us in Nashville.

Right now, I'm sitting at this old tire store in Lenoir City. It's a family owned, second generation business where everybody seems to know each other, and if they don't, they act like they do anyway. They know what they are doing and provide good service and value. My tradition has been to come here as early as possible on Saturday because they get backed up pretty quickly. First in first out.

Bringing the boys with me is cool. This place is really manly, but I would have brought the girls too, if they had been up. It obviously hasn't been updated or remodeled in many years. it's the kind of thing they will remember. I hope they will take good care of their vehicles when they grow up.

God bless,
Dadofmykids

Monday, October 10, 2011

The Brasfield Nation at the Cornmaze

I just wanted to share with y'all about the great time we had on Saturday.  We went to the Cornmaze at Oakes Farm in Corryton.  They take Tradebank;  Yay!

It was a good time.  Watch the video; you'll see.


All the kids got pumpkins, so we carved them last night.  The kids baked the pumpkin seeds.  Yum.

God bless,
Dadofmykids

Sunday, October 09, 2011

How to pull a tooth, gently.

When I was a just starting out a s a dad, I didn't know the various methods for pulling teeth. The only one I knew was tying a string to a door knob, which sounded terribly risky. Now I know a better way.


Items needed for this project:

  1. A dry washcloth.
  2. A kid with a loose tooth.


Watch the video to learn a gentle method for pulling teeth.



God bless,
Dadofmykids
Sent from my iPhone

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Two Pictures. Seven Years.

This weekend, we went to Pigeon Forge, TN and the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. That's a mouthful. All the kids were with us, except Sean. He had to work. My mom and dad met us there. Daniel and his wife, Kelli, brought Drake, out six month old grandson. It was a good weekend.

2004
My mom and dad's car over heated Friday evening, so we located a local repair shop and dropped off the car Saturday morning. They were scheduled to attend a wedding in Gatlinburg on Saturday and caught a ride with others of the wedding party.

2011
Jill and I took everybody else up to Newfound Gap for pictures. We wanted to have a picture of the kids there because we have one taken there about seven years ago. It was a cool idea to have pictures of the kids at the same location from different times. It was cold up there. Brrrr. In the main picture - the ONLY one with everybody looking in the camera's direction - we had several kids doing their own thing. We like that.

Along the way, we stopped in Gatlinburg so some of the kids could buy UGLY hats. We saw Santa Claus sitting on a bench, decked out in a Santa themed Hawaiian shirt. So we took a picture with him.

You'll see a lot these pictures in the video below.

It was a great weekend, rolling with the flow, as usual. Never a dull moment. What a blessing.

God bless,
Dadofmykids.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Day 40 of #40Days - Life, as it Happens.

Wow! Forty days is gone already?!?!  It went by so quickly.  I want to close the series by reviewing and summarizing a few things about my Forty Day Project.  I will point out something I learned, my favorite posts and yours, based on site traffic stats.  Then, I will compare the finished project with the goal or vision I had at the beginning.  That all sounds so analytic, but hopefully it will be fun.

Day 38 blew me away.  I was speechless because of the sweet things Jilly said in her second guest post of the series.  There's no doubt that our marriage is special and was ordained in Heaven.  If I had it to do all over again, I would.  My Jilly is amazingly awesome and I love her more than words can say.

Day 30 was a video blog entry or vlog.  I recorded it on the way to work one morning after Jill and I had been talking about childhood influences.  Ted Stolpe edited it for me and his work was wonderful.  I just asked to have something on the front and back of the video to ease it in and out.  Ted went way beyond that.  Thanks again, Ted.

After Day 1, which I linked to each daily post, Day 18 got the most hits.

The purpose of this series was to satisfy the calling I felt God was giving me to blog daily for forty days.  At this point, I feel it was completed, but it was certainly more than just writing forty posts.  Facing my fears of transparency and judgement has shown me that people are interested in what we've experienced; many of you said so.  Additionally, I learned that trying to do this or anything worthwhile by myself will lead to mistakes and to poor quality work.  When I asked for help, the result was way better than expected.  Jill helped me a lot with honest and constructive proofing and editing.

It was a lot of fun to look through old photos and videos.  Our kids looked at them too and asked a lot of questions about who what when and where.  It was great remembering some of the blessings I had forgotten and talking with Jill about stuff we've been through.

Thank you for participating by reading.  If you commented here, on Facebook, or on Twitter, thank you.  The encouragement was motivating.

This ends the intentional daily blogging, at least for a while.  Be on the lookout for life as it happens in The Brasfield Nation, here on Dadofmykids Blog.

God Bless,
Dadofmykids

This is # 40 of Forty Days, the last post of the series. Learn more here.




Thursday, September 29, 2011

Day 39 of #40Days - The Chase

There for a while, phone calls from our birth mom were fairly common. Jill said she had given birth to our kids instead of having abortions, so she wanted to share pictures and keep in contact. At first, I didn't quite understand it, but now I see it as an example of Jill's compassion. She is the most compassionate person I've ever known.

Kaymie, one month old, courtesy of birth mom.
When Kaymie was born, the state didn't take her immediately; it was the same as Asher. It is confusing, since they took Riley at the hospital when he was newborn, but we heard that the new baby girl was born and staying with birth mom. We were concerned for Kaymie's health and safety based on the previous experiences. We prayed for her and wondered how she was doing.

After a few months, birth mom called and said she was having troubles with her marriage or something like that and asked us to take Kaymie for adoption. So we went to meet her at a Walmart parking lot. She never showed. We went looking for her, having a general idea of which neighborhood she lived in, we asked people to point us her way, but we didn't find her. We went home, without Kaymie.

This situation repeated itself one more time. We received the phone call asking us to take the baby girl. We went to get her, but no show. This time, the strangest thing happened. We were waiting at Walmart. I was standing outside the store; it was night time. Then birth mom walked directly by me to get a paper out of the paper box beside me, as if she didn't see me or know who I was. But I saw her and the chase was on.

After I said her name, she jumped back in the car her husband was driving and they took off. Jill and I followed. We hoped they would lead us to the baby, whom we didn't see in the car. They soon realized we were following and turned down some back roads increasing in speed. We gave chase thinking this could end badly, like something you'd see on tv, so we slowed down and found our way back to the highway. Again, we wondered where was the baby girl and was she ok.

It was then that Jill and I agreed that we would not go back there again unless it was official. A caseworker would have to call us, not the birth mom. The next call we got came from the birth dad. He was taking Kaymie to the Dept. of Human Services to hand her over. He and the birth mom had been arguing again, so he said he thought this was best for the baby. Still, we waited for the official call which indeed came. Our case worker asked us to drive up there, about an hour from our home, to pick up the baby.

On such short notice, Jill and I couldn't both go this time, so Jill went. When they got home, Kaymie was crying. She had cried all the way home and continued crying till bed time. At seven months old, she didn't recognize any of us. She must have been scared, and probably tired too.

The next morning, when Kaymie woke up, she was in a good mood, not crying. She looked like a different child. Jill had her decked out in a pink sleeper and Kaymie was so cute. I took her picture and printed a few to send with the kids to school so they could show their teachers and friends their baby sister.

Kaymie is a charmer; everybody likes her. She is a kind, helpful, beautiful, smart and athletic girl. We are very proud of her.

God Bless,
Dadofmykids

This is # 39 of Forty Days. Tomorrow is the last post of the series. Learn more here.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Day 38 of #40Days - Letter From Jill

In the final days of this series, Jilly asked me to let her post this:

Dear Andy,

I want you to know how proud and thankful I am to be your wife. You and I have been through a lot together, but it has only made us stronger as individuals, and as a couple. I have so many memories during our dark days that remind me just how much you love me:
  • Sleeping on a cold, tile hospital floor while I was having a miscarriage.
  • Standing by Dad's bedside with me as he was dying.
  • Allowing me to spend so much time with Greg in his final few weeks of life.
  • Lying awake countless nights with me while I cried over our precious Georgia Rose.
  • Conspiring with Steven to make Christmas '09 one that I would never forget. And I could go on and on.....

When I was a little girl, all I really wanted to do when I grew up was to marry a really hot, awesome man and have lots of kids. That dream has come true! You are everything I hoped for in a husband and so much more. The world would be a better place if every man was as committed to their wife and kids as you are.

My daddy used to say, "I could have looked the world over and would have never found any man I liked any better to marry my baby." You are the only boyfriend I ever had who met Dad because you were the only one I felt was worthy. I knew he would love you and you and your accomplishments made him SO proud.

So, thank you for loving me despite my many, many screw-ups. Thank you for always being a rock I can lean on and for being my very best friend. Thank you for your commitment to your family. Words can't express my love for you. I am so thankful God chose you to be MINE!

I love you,
Jill

This is # 38 of Forty Days.  Learn more here.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Day 37 of #40Days - Happy All the Time.

Intentionally blogging every day forces me to come up with something to write.  Today, I feel kind of strange.  I sat down here with two or three ideas to choose from and prayed that God would guide me.  As I started to write about the time when God turned my head like a magnet to steel, I felt a "No".  I could tell you about the multiple trips we took to get Kaymie from her birth mom only to be let down, but "No", or about my neice Falon who suffered life changing injuries at the age of three, but "No".

If you've been following my forty day project, then you know about my brother in law who was injured.  He is scheduled to have surgery this morning.  With his situation still fresh on our family, my step sister was admitted to the hospital in very bleak condition.  Both are sad situations which are probably influencing my mood.

I prefer to be positive and up beat most of the time, but sometimes that isn't reality.  Being real is part of the goal or process of this blog series.  I want you to know that if you are feeling less than "super-dee-duper" then you don't have feel guilty about it.

Some people, especially Christians, either act like or actually say that if you aren't full of joy unspeakable then you should repent.  This idea of being "happy all the time" (isn't that a line from a kids Sunday school song?) puts a requirement on people to act happy even when they aren't.  You may not think anything about revealing yourself to others, or being transparent, but that doesn't come easy for me. I am a genuinely happy and positive person, but have bad days too.

Having a bad day or going through a rough spell, which we used to call a "trial", is normal and expected.  Abnormal is the one who pretends everything is all right.  Am I making any sense here?


I'll get out of this funk in a few minutes, probably.

I love you all.

God bless,
Andy

This is post # 37 of Forty Days.  Learn more here.

PS.  That's just a random video I found of the Sunday school song referenced above.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Day 36 of #40Days - Highly Favored.

As I type these words, Tucker and Riley are watching our home video from Christmas 2004.  They are glued to the screen, laughing and commenting how little they were and how high pitched their voices were.  As I listen and see their reactions, it makes me happy that we have it.

I had a new camera at the time and enjoyed playing around with it.  As a result, I put together this way-too-long video.  Today, I serve it up as entry number 36.  A special prize goes to anyone who actually watches the whole thing.

The enormous amount of presents and toys may have been a sign of the turbulent times we were having.  Daniel was attending private school in Memphis that year.  Jill was faithful to visit him there and made it possible for him to have Christmas at home in spite of the bad weather conditions.  As I look back on this video, I feel that we may have been trying to somehow make it up to the kids.  We have scaled back since then.

I am thankful that we found so much joy anyway.  It was only by the grace of God.

Have I told you lately what an amazingly awesome wife I have?  She is able to not only care for our kids with so much love, but she does it often in face of the enemy, doing spiritual battle with one hand and teaching home-schoolers with the other.  Then she finds time to treat me like a king and make me feel like I am the one who hung the moon and stars.

He who finds a wife finds a good thing
and obtains favor from the LORD.



Thanks for tuning in.

God bless,
Dadofmykids

This is post # 36 of Forty Days.  Learn more here.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Day 35 of #40Days - prison babies.

A pregnant relative went to prison. She would be in prison when the baby was born, so she would have to find someone to take the baby or he would be placed into foster care by the state.


She asked us to take him and we did. We went to the hospital shortly after the baby was born and picked him up. It was a joyful occasion that was marred by the situation. But she was scheduled for release in a few months and her baby won't ever remember going home with us.

Jill met another young lady while taking the baby for visits with his mom at the prison. She was pregnant too. She had no one who could take care of her baby. So, for the second time, we brought home a prison baby.

Prison mom number two didn't do as well as the first one. After holding down a job for a few weeks, she returned to the lifestyle that got her in trouble. And she took her baby with her.

While we had him, some of our friends got attached to him. When his mom couldn't continue to care for him, she asked them to take him. Eventually, she allowed them to adopt him.

He is pictured above with our kids and a neighbor.

This true story shows how God can put people in the right place to minister to others. I am proud of how Jilly was willing to foster these two babies so God put one back with his birth mom and the other with his adoptive family.

God bless,
Dadofmykids

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