By many contributors here is our story so far....

Once upon a time there was a lovely lady who met a handsome man...they fell in love and they married....everything seemed like it was going so well...they had so much fun together. One day there was a knock at the door and the lovely lady opened the door and there were two small children standing there. They were beautiful children, with big round innocent eyes and soft hair and as she gazed upon them she felt like they looked familiar... the boy child had a note pinned to his shirt…she reached down and took the note and read it...

It was written to the handsome man...it said, please take care of our children as I no longer can...the lovely woman looked upon the innocent children and her heart bursting with love realized that these were the children of her new husband and she swept them up in her arms and took them into her home, calling to her husband to come quick.......as she walked into the house, she felt the hairs rising on the back of her neck and looking back behind her she saw a pair of eyes were watching her from the dark forest, she shuddered and quickly shut the door behind her...

She realized then that her happy ever after would not be so happy, in fact those evil eyes watching from the forest were constantly watching. She found over time that those eyes could see and hear every thing they did, every thing they said, she began to realize her new life, with her new love would have no privacy...

Those innocent children grew as time went along and as they grew they became less innocent. In fact they became "messengers" for the evil eyes in the forest...The lovely lady began to wonder over time, "just what I have gotten myself into...?"

But none the less the lovely lady adored her new husband and his beautiful children and she want to be happy and making them happy clouded the judgement of the lovely lady. She gave them all she had, she cooked for them all, cleaned all their mess, washed their clothes and worked hard to pay for their schooling.

The lovely lady couldn't shake this horrible feeling she got every time she opened the front door, but she just kept thinking she was crazy and shut it out. But then one day while outside with the children....

She noticed the boy and girl running off into the woods. They never went together, and never for a long time. But each would run off into the woods, and as they came back they began to laugh with less humor, talk with less interest, and listen with less attention. It seemed each time they returned some of the light had gone out of them.
Finally, the lovely lady thought to talk to the children to find out what was in the woods and how she could help...

She wondered why or what she could do differently to help these children love with no restraints. She wondered if they could ever love her as she loved them without all the hurt they bestowed upon her with the name of STEPmom.
As she pondered on how to make things at home wonderful for all, she seemed to be the one who was most miserable. Always making sure everyone else’s needs were met, but sadly forgetting to meet her own needs. Putting all else above her and her health to try and make a "home".

She came to the conclusion that....she does come first. For she realized she cannot fully love and help them grow without loving and helping her-self grow. Her home can only truly be a home, when she herself feels at home.
So she sent out word through the kind forest animals and before she knew it, she found friends who understood and together they helped each other. They would laugh and cry together and helped each other grow stronger. Although they did dream about banning together to find all the Darkness and beat them until the sun shined, but they knew there was no evil in their hearts.

Then the lovely lady dug deep down in her heart, and realized that she loved the handsome man and together they began to work on a way to fix all that was wrong. Her forest friends where always there for her when she felt she couldn't go on and through time, tears and friendships, the lovely lady and the handsome man were finally sitting on their porch swing holding hands as they recalled the memories of yesteryear.

Now they recall and laugh about the arguments they used to have in the "early" days...She especially enjoyed remembering the time she threw water in his face for defending evil eyes...but then, it hit her. If only they had realized then how precious life was...how material things they couldn't afford really weren't important --- the only real valuable thing they had was time and how they wasted so much of it by the constant fear and obsession of the unknown...

But the story is not over, because despite their love and their efforts, things do not get better, with each year that passes the children become darker and angrier with each journey into the dark forest, the lovely lady realizes that something evil is in the woods and that its hold on the children is getting stronger and she is afraid, so she tells her husband that he must do something, or that something bad is going to happen, but the handsome man just soothes and tells her everything is ok, they are just children after all…