HALLOWEEN FUN

Hi everybody!!  Okay, I know I'm extremely behind in posting, but its been CRAZY!!!

So, I will start with last night and our fun Halloween night.

Oh, and yes Ron is back in Afghanistan.  Pics of our fun together to come later.

Emma - a 20's Flapper

Tessa - A Princess Mermaid

Zach - an Aprentice Ninja

Tyson - Davy Crockett

I PROMISE that I will catch up on my posts this week.

I hope you all had a wonderful All Hallows Eve.



R&R, Worth It?

I need to vent a little. I am having such a hard time with this one. Ron left Afghanistan on Saturday, still not a word from him. I have no idea where he is or when he’ll get here. I want to kill him for not keeping me informed. I am so terrified, nervous, anxious, and frustrated that I think I’m getting an ulcer; I feel like I’m going to throw up all day long. I hate feeling like this, but I have felt it every time we are reunited after a separation, all the way back to when we dated. For some reason I get horribly nervous and terrified that I won’t still love him, that things will be different, he’ll be different, I’ll be different. Its torture!

And I wonder if this whole R&R thing is really worth it. I don’t know if I want him to come and visit. It’s really hard to go back to normal life for a few weeks and then be ripped apart again inside. It’s like being told you won a million dollars in the lottery, so for two whole weeks you’re on cloud nine and then they rip it away from you and say “Just kidding!” I’d much rather stay in this frame of mind that the kids and I are all alone and we have this routine going, and not mess it up. I don’t want to deal with the sadness that my kids will go through when their dad leaves them again. The worrying starts again, will he come back whole (mentally and physically), will he get hurt, will we get a horrible knock at the door or a scary phone call? It’s never ending.


Do I want him around? Will I be able to talk to him? Will our relationship still be strong? Who knows! How can anyone stay connected to someone else that they can only talk to once a week for twenty minutes? It’s impossible! By the time I get used to him again, it will be time for him to go back to “work”.

Oh, and try explaining to a 4 year old that her daddy is just coming for a visit, like cousins do, and then he has to go back to “work”. Do you think she gets it? Of course not! And again, who gets to deal with that aftermath – you got it – ME!

I do want to see him, of course I do, but it’s still awkward and weird at first. I just really hate this. I wish it were already over. Just get here already!!!

My Day on Tuesday

7 am - wake up, gets kids up and ready for school
7:50- take kids to school, drop off Tess with sitter
8-8:45- go back home to make pan of brownies for Scouts tonight and put one coat of paint on a sail boat for rain gutter rigata on Wed
9-1:20 - work
1:45 - pick up Zach and Tyson at school (different schools mind you) for their 2 pm dentist apt
2:05 - drop off Zach and Ty at Dentist, leave to get Tess
2:15 - get Tess from babysitter
2:30 - pick up Emma and two friends from school
2:45 - head back to dentist office to pick up Ty & Zach (make follow up apts for next day for tooth extraction and sealants)
3:05 - drop Ty off back at school for flag football practice
3:10 - drop friends off at home
3:15 - get home, eat snack, do some homework, get ready for Taekwondo
4 - leave for Taekwondo
5:15 - leave Taekwondo head to school to pick up Ty from football practice
5:22 - phone call from Ty yelling at me because "why is it taking you so long?"
5:23 - hang up on Tyson (if it was safe to leave him at school by himself, I would)
5:27 - pick up Ty and instruct him to not open his mouth and to go directly to his room when we get home until I want to see his face again.
6:00 - dinner, and yelling at Tyson to never talk to me that way again.  Ty is very apologetic and thankful for everything I do the rest of the evening.
7:00 - go to church for Boy Scout Court of Honor, Tyson gets 5 merrit badges and earns rank of 2nd class
8:00 - go home and send everyone to bed

This was by far one of the craziest days I've had in a long time.  I hope I don't duplicate it anytime soon.

Looking forward too...

Ron coming home for his two week R&R vacation.  He leaves Afghanistan on the 3rd, and we just get to wait with baited breath until he calls from Atlanta telling us when he'll be landing here in San Diego (usually takes 4 days of travel time to get state side).

For fall to arrive.  We are having a HUGE heat wave right now, with highs in the 114 range - uck!  Where did my beautiful fall weather go?  Oh yeah, its back in New York  :-(

And for Emma's big day.  I really can't wait for that!  And Emma can't wait to wear her beautiful dress again.

Our friend J.J. Campbell did the photo shoot, and my sis Adriann made the announcement - Thank you guys!

For family and friends that are far away, my intention is to order these and mail them to you.  But in case that doesn't happen, here you go!



1 Down

I'm Back!  And I had a FANTASTIC weekend and birthday.  I talked, and talked, and talked; shopped, and shopped and shopped, and ate and ate.  I quickly must thank a few people that facilitated my ability to run away and have a break for a few days.  My parents, (who watched the girls), my brother Andy ( who watched his children and my boys so his wife could run away with me), my brother-in-law Shane (who watched Ivy so my sis could play with me and who picked up 32 quail and brought them down from Ogden for my brother Andy), and Ivy (who gave up her bed for her aunties to sleep in).  I love you all and I'm so grateful for your help in support of my mental health.  :-)

So these are pics of my latest completed project.  I took all of our "family" pics and put them in these albums.  There is easily over 4,000 pictures there.  I still scrapbook the kids personal pictures (birthdays, awards, special events), but every other picture got put in a photo box.  So I finally got all the pictures out of those photo boxes and put them in viewable albums.  I also had to suck it up and order 3 years worth of pictures online (here's the key, wait till they have a screaming deal on prints - and free shipping!)  So I am thrilled that I finished this and I can have a small sense of accomplishment.  I'll just ignore the 8 years behind I am in scrapbooking the kids photos!

Each album is label and organized chronologically.  These albums are from Michaels and they fit 10 to a page.  I also waited until these babies were 40% to buy them.

I love being able to flip through the pictures and watch the kids grow up.  So many precious memories.  These albums are definately what I'm grabbing if we have a fire.

Looser as a mother

Do you ever feel like a total looser as a mother?  I feel like a total looser as a mother this week.

Why?

Well, since I don't mind making myself look bad, I'll tell you. 

Some days are just crazy, you know the days.  When everybody has something happening after school and you don't know how you're going to fit it all in.  Tuesday was like that for us. So the only way that I could make everything work was to bribe Zach into thinking it was a good thing to miss his Taekwondo class.  He was thrilled but I felt bad that I couldn't pull it all off.

Then today.  (Side note, tomorrow is my bday but I am leaving in the afternoon to run away to Utah for the weekend so we were having my birthday dinner and cake tonight)  This afternoon was pretty calm, and I actually fell asleep watching a movie with Tess.  Well, then I wake up at 5:30.  Noone has their homework done, Zach was suppose to be at scouts at 6 and I still hadn't picked up the pizza for dinner (pizza is my favorite).  So then everything got crazy, we didn't eat til 6:30 and Zach missed scouts. Oh, and it was Tyson's back to school night from 6-8 where I was suppose to go and meet all of his teachers!  Yeah, didn't happen either.

MY BAD!  So tonight I totally messed up, but mostly because I just wanted a nice night to enjoy my birthday and have some cake (that was super yummy and I didn't have to make - THANKS MOM!).

Maybe tomorrow I won't be a looser or let my kids down, yet again.

Favorite Time of Day

This is my favorite time of day. 

So beautiful, so calming.

This is the view from my parents deck.  The sun just went down over the Escondido hills.

When I was in High School I use to go for walks at sunset and go to "my" spot to watch the sun go down. 

It was my peaceful, thoughtful time. 

One of the biggest perks of living near the beach on the West Coast is watchng the sun set over the water.  If I could watch that every day I would, and I'd never get sick of it.

Of course, I keep missing my chance to get a picture of the really gorgeous part of our sunsets.  I'm usually in the car when I notice it and then I rush home and I've missed it. I promise to catch it one of these days.

A message to all my friends:

there is still an open invitation to come stay with us for a visit and enjoy these sunsets yourself.

What is your favorite time of day?