Brooke was married at 23, became a mom of 6 at 27 and 7 at 30! She moved back to her favorite place in Henderson and is loving it! Currently she is a stay at home mom with two businesses launching this year! 
She loves working out, eating all foods, and being a mom!
Where do I begin? Birth, childhood, teenage years, adulthood… I think I’m still at adulthood but also feeling like I’m in my teenage years at the same time? Anyone else feel like this?
Anyways let me introduce myself. I am Brooke Barlow from good ole’ Cedar City! I had a completely normal life. Im not joking. As I have grown up and met so many wonderful people, I have come to the realization that I either did something REALLY good in heaven, or that Heavenly Father knew what would happen later on and I would need a strong foundation.
When I met my husband, who believe me plays a big part in my story, we were at Cold Stone in Saint George, Utah. Blind date was all it took. He was it. I was it. We were seriously in love. After only 6 months to the day we were married. It honestly had been the best 6 months of my entire life. I couldn’t believe we each found someone that made us feel so loved.
Let me tell you a little about my husband. Some might know him and I, which seems weird to be spilling my crazy feelings but that’s ok! If you do know him, you know he is flipping HOT. Killer body, beautiful smile, and such a sweet heart. Whats not to love? I thought I had found the jackpot. (I’ll explain later that I did but it came with some baggage!)
Grant grew up in Colorado City. If you are familiar with that spot on the map it is exactly half in Utah and half in Arizona. The whole town is split down the middle. That should have been a sign! Anyways, from everything Grant has told me about how he feels about his child hood I can honestly say he had the time of his life. He had a tons of friends/cousins/brothers/uncles/ and maybe a little of all four mixed together.
You see, Grant came from Polygamy. He had 1 dad and 3 moms. 23 siblings. Grant was number 4 out of all of them. You can imagine the craziness that was at the house and honestly that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was what was going on in their FLDS leadership. Warren Jeffs had taken the reigns (another story for another time) and was instantly taking away happiness. Taking away families from fathers, taking away bikes, dogs, sugar, and get this, he actually told them what hand they could only use to clean. A MAN telling a WOMEN how to clean. If you could see me rolling my eyes that would be great because every time I think about it, it happens.
Ok now the real fun begins. GRANT at the age of 14 left, ran away, didn’t want anything to do with it. When he left (remember this) his siblings ranged from 0-10 that were younger than him. And when you leave there, you LEAVE. No coming back, no communication, nothing. He was 14 and this is part of the story I have to skip (sorry) because I know it is interesting.
Anyways come back to the top with me where we were in LOVE. Our second year in marriage we had our first boy named Harris. Perfect in every way. We were happy. A few moves and years later we had our daughter Reese. Spicy and feisty! At about this time Grant had said to me that he wished so bad we could take burner phones and hide them and let his brothers know where they were just so he could check on them. Wishful thinking because they would have been found by some one else and that wouldn’t have been good.
Here is the thing. Part of the story I can’t leave out because it has a lot to do with why I said yes. Grant was baptized when he was 18 into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and served a mission for our church to Italy that next year. His stake president that set him apart is now an area 70 and is just super great. During Grant’s getting set apart blessing he said “You are called on this mission to teach and bring as many people to the church as you can while you are there, but I want you to know your true mission will begin when you get back.” He then began to say that Grant was the key to bringing his family out of this “cult” and letting them see the true love of Christ. WOW right?
So here we are young married and dumb with two kids and by the way we have moved to Las Vegas by this time! Grant came to me one day just ecstatic. One of his brothers had reached out to him through Facebook. His name was Berklee. He was one of the 1 year olds Grant had left and never seen or heard from since. Berklee reminds me SO much of Grant it is crazy. He was driven and he knew what he wanted. He wanted to go to school, and mostly be able to have a family that would never be taken from him.
Grant asked me how I felt about Berklee coming to stay with us. HOLD ON.. would you most all say um… give me a month to pray about it, or maybe lets not do it? Not me I just dove right in! I said HECK yes. But I said I would prefer to get things lined up here in Las Vegas before he came. As in school, job, counseling… all that fun stuff.
So we agreed and went to Salt Lake to spend the holidays. Before we got there Berklee was found out. So time was our enemy. If you don’t know, FLDS people do not like loosing their own. Law isn’t much on their side now so they pretty much have taken it into their own hands. When Berk was found out, he was put in a truck and driven straight to Denver CO. He called us from a pay phone in a gas station and told us what happened. He also let us know that they were planning on taking him to Canada to repent.
I am telling you angels were around us. Grants cousin lived there, found the cross streets and we got him a flight. Berklee dove into the car and they took off straight for the airport. I met Berklee on February 12th for the first time with his only possessions being what he was wearing and it wasn’t pretty.
I loved him from the start and he was immediately in my family. Don’t worry 3 more came right after Berklee. Yes I sad 3. Oh did I mention Grant and I were 26 and 27. We now had 6 kids! Lets talk about GROWING PAINS. And ultimately this is what I am supposed to be writing about but hey I needed to share some background!
Holy crap you step moms, moms other ways, moms, sisters, whatever that are now responsible to take care of these kids either by marriage, death, or anything else. I salute you. Not the salute that you give soldiers, the one the Katiness gives the cameras during the Hunger Games. “May the odds be in your favor.” And you know what, they weren’t most of the time. I am here talking about something honestly I don’t have down to a science, in fact if you were to ask me if I did a good job I would tell you, NO, but I hope I did somethings right.
During the last 4 years as a family we have moved from Henderson Nevada (which is where I met Danielle) side note we were in the same ward and basically I was in the middle of the thick of it. Daniele saved me more times then I can count by reaching out and just inviting me to gatherings. Those made me feel like Brooke again, not the substitute mom that none of the boys wanted.
It was and still is a mess of emotions. I LOVE THEM so much my heart could burst and at the exact same time when I caught them sneaking out with these “girlfriends” I could have thrown them in a cage and thrown away the key. I thought, “How dare they? right? Here Grant and I are with two little kids trying to find ourselves, our careers and had a very very lovely savings account might I add, and then these teenagers just kind of acted like they hated me sometimes. How could I possible interpret that? In fact I will never forget speaking to all four boys and asking them, “If your cousin from this uncle, from this grandma were here and it was between me and them who would you choose if you had to?” Guess what, it was the cousin every time. THAT HURT still stings a little.
But I have realized their culture is so completely different than mine and I expected them to forget what they had been taught their entire lives and learn the new ways. They wanted their moms, whom I have NEVER heard from, or their dads, whom have never seen any of the boys compete in sports or even graduation. I am telling you, my despise yet jealousy for these people was bad and something I still work on each day. I can’t tell you that it is easy now because it is still just as hard now dealing with two adults who think they know everything, and two still in high school getting ready to graduate.
I am the “worrier” I am the “unconditional love” I am their “home” and sometimes they don’t want to or even can’t admit that because it hurts.
Dealing with family that you didn’t pick is HARD and that is ok. I have met with so many step moms, moms who adopted at birth, moms who gave their child a different chance that they thought was better, and moms who adopted older kids. Guess what? WE ALL FEEL very similar things.
Lots of bad things actually BUT oh my gosh you guys, when my two boys walked through the Skyridge graduation line my heart grew at least 1 million times. Even if they don’t say ‘thank you” every single day or even are flat out mean sometimes doesn’t mean that even the smallest victories don’t count. They remember, they feel, and they feel loved, and isn’t that all as humans we ask for?
So my advice to you is drop down to your knees fast and often. Feel free to ask for advice from people you look up to, and have open conversations about each and everyones emotions.
When one boy was having a particularly hard week I pulled him aside and asked, “Loyal, what can I do to help? I can give you a hug, I can tell you how proud I am of you, what do you need?”
He looked at me and burst into tears and said, “I miss my dad so much.” If he didn’t, I would be concerned but I learned from moments like that, that we as the step-moms, substitute moms, adoptive moms or whatever we are, that we have ONE major obligation to these kids and that is to LOVE THEM.
I hope I helped some of you, and honestly writing this all out has helped me. So thank you Danielle for using your amazing platform and doing good with it. Also if you ever need someone to talk to, reach out. I always wished I had someone to relate to and literally I don’t know one other person who has taken in four boys from a completely different culture and jammed them into real life, but guess what, that doesn’t matter. We all have the same nurturing and loving qualities that Heavenly Father gave to US.
Love you all and keep going! You are doing great!
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Danielle is the owner of Today's the Best Day. She strives to provide creative and uplifting content in order to enrich the parenting experience for women everywhere. Danielle hopes to help you and your family to make every day the best day! 
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