Monday, October 27, 2014

He complete me...and my projects

I love my husband. He is a wonderful man and I hope someday my daughters find someone just as kind, honest and loving.

My husband loves Halloween and is very into the scary things associated with it. Scary movies. Scary costumes. Haunted Houses, etc.

Sadly, he got two little girls, not boys, and Ali loves all things princess. So for Halloween she was so excited to be Cinderella. He kept asking, 'Zombie Cinderella?' 'No'. 'Vampire Cinderella?' 'No.' It's been going on for weeks like this.

In addition, her school is having a Trunk or Treat party on Thursday and I decided we were going to continue the Cinderella theme and turn our car into Cinderella's carriage.


Every time I mentioned it, my husband rolled his eyes and asked how I thought I was going to do that.

I had a plan.

I hoarded all the Amazon Prime boxes from the last two months or so of shipments. Measured the car, and the door, and the cardboard and laid out the plan. Bought the paint and paint brushes and spent a total of about $15.00 on this whole thing.

I then painted all the cardboard white, drew a big circle and painted that blue.

Then I waited.

I knew that it was going to make him itch. Because in all honesty, he loves this stuff. My engineer husband is actually very artistic. And once he finally saw what my plan was, and how it was going to work, the vision that was in my head, popped into his too.

And so Saturday afternoon he started hovering around my blue painted circle, with questions, and thoughts, and 'what if you did...' and I said sure, let's do that when the girls are napping. Next thing you know, there's this:


This isn't final, and there are definitely a few details pending that I think will make it really great, but I am so excited for the party on Thursday.

You'll have to wait for the costume pictures, my mom made them and they are super adorable.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Bad week to start a new plan

So, last week I mentioned my inability to get out of the house on time, again, and that I had a plan to get it back under control.

Then, Monday morning I woke up feeling terrible, Ali was sneezing with a runny nose and both she and Elle had a bad cough. So, we all stayed home.

Tuesday I didn't sleep well. When the alarm went off, I felt worse than I had on Monday, but the girls were better so I managed to get everyone fed and dressed and hauled them off to school and was about 15 minutes late out the door. I was stupid and went to work where I stared blankly at anyone who had the nerve to try and talk to me. I could barely keep my eyes open. I left early, went home and took a nap. Felt much better after that.

Wednesday, my husband had a last minute emergency work trip that he literally booked at 9:00 Tuesday night and he sneaked out of the house at 5:15 am. I had slept better that night, but not great and so decided I needed to sleep and that I'd get to work when I got to work.

I ended up getting out of bed around 5:50, half an hour later than normal and was ready to go 10 minutes early.

?!?!?!?!?

I just stood in the kitchen for a minute trying to figure out what I had forgot to do.

Nope, it was all done and we were ready, so I was on time yesterday.

This morning, I didn't even try. My husband got up at 5 to run and I rolled over at 5:45.

And again, I was in the car and pulling out of the garage early. No idea.

Apparently I've been trying to hard.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

My little pumpkins

We took the girls to local farm this weekend for a fun pumpkin patch afternoon. We met some friends there later for lunch, but spent about an hour ahead of time checking the place out and getting some FABULOUS photos!

The last several years I've seen lots of my friends post cute picture of their kids with pumpkins and I never got around to doing that with Ali, I always sent my husband down to Home Depot to buy pumpkins a few days before Halloween just so I could say we carved them.

Well, I finally got my cute pumpkin photos! I love them!!


Me & my Ali

Elle trying to decide if this is edible.

Ali being silly

She couldn't wait to get to the pumpkins. 

I love her scrunchy nose. 

My girls!

Elle with her mouth open, as always!

Me & my Elle

The girls. :)

My beautiful, fast, fast growing girl.

It was such a fun day. After lunch Ali spent about another hour running up and down the fields with one of our friend's little boys. She's such a runner! Just like her Daddy! It was a beautiful, perfect afternoon.

Oh! And, by the way, the skirt she's wearing, that's the one I made last November! Not only does it still fit, it looks fantastic. I pulled the pattern back out and am planning on taking Ali to the fabric store to let her pick out a couple of her own designs! :)



Friday, October 17, 2014

I've lost my morning mojo.

I had been doing really well for a while at getting out of the house on time and actually being to work by 8:00. Kind of a miracle in my books.

The last few weeks though my mornings have been slipping and I"m not sure where the breakdown is.

I'd like to blame it on Ali but really, I"m the one scrambling to get everything together as we run out the door at 7:30 instead of 7:20.

The mornings are colder (yes, I know I live in GA, cold is relative) and I'm definitely moving a little slower dragging myself out of bed, but I'm getting the girls up at the same time as I used to. I'm just not sure where I'm losing the time.

So, this weekend I'm going to make sure that I have a few things done before Monday morning and next week we're going to be walking out of the house at 7:20 every morning.

Next week, each morning is going to be very smooth with no more checking the news or facebook on my phone while getting ready. No more snuggling back in bed while the shower heats up.

I also need to make some serious adjustments to my diet and exercise program, or, more accurately, I need a diet and exercise program, but right now I just want to get out of the house on time in the mornings.

So, here's to happy mornings! Cheers!

Thursday, October 16, 2014

It's tough being 3 (still)

Ali has reached the age where she gets very offended when people laugh at her. We're not being mean, but three year olds do and say some pretty funny things and when we laugh, she get's very offended. Which makes us laugh more, which turns into stamping feet and waving arms and eventually tears of frustration from being laughed at.

Last night after dinner she usually gets something small for dessert. It happened to be an Oreo (my husband is an addict). I'm not sure exactly how it happened but during some story/song/gesture the cookie went flying across the dinning room, bounced off a wall and landed on the floor, promptly to be eaten by Big M.

My husband and I looked at the cookie smear on the wall, at each other, and then burst into laughter. Tears were running down our faces and we could not stop.

Ali was so upset.

Which just made it worse.We laughed and she was so, completely, and thoroughly offended.

She did get a new oreo and managed to hold on to that one, but man, it is tough being three years old!

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

More Guilt

I need to stay positive. I know I do. For myself, and for my family. I need to keep myself functional and to do that I need to stay positive.

This last week or more has been very hard to do that. Thankfully, last week we were at the beach and 'real' life was 6 hours and a world away. But now we're back and the reality of what the people I love are going through is knocking hard at my door and it's much more difficult to keep that focus that I need.

Mama T has been charged with second degree murder, plus a bunch of other things. It's a lot. It's much more than any of us expected.

She spent 24 hours in jail last week, Thursday night into Friday afternoon before being let out on bond.

My heart is so heavy for her. It isn't fair. I don't know what is though. A little boy lost his life. But Mama T doesn't belong in jail. What's right? I don't know.

I haven't let myself linger on thoughts of her too much and I feel guilty for that. But I can't let myself fall into another round of depression. Not that I really have a huge amount of say in it, but I need to keep myself and my family together. They need to be my priority. They are my priority.

I love Mama T, and I will continue to pray and love and support her, but I need to keep myself functional first.

I have not been sharing much of what has been happening. I have had lunch with some of the other mom's. I have had lunch with Max's mom. I have spoken with Mama T and I have written a testimony of my years with her caring for my girls. There's so much and so much of it is sad, and hard and challenging that I have to separate it from my thoughts as much as I can. Then again, the nagging guilt for those people I care about who don't have that option. So I haven't written much about it.

I'm worried about being part of the trial. I'm worried about someone wanting Ali to be part of the trial. There's so much to worry about. It's so hard to keep moving forward.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Ali's first beach vacation

We are back from a fabulous time in St Augustine, FL!

We rented a condo on the beach and got great off season rates. The weather was perfect for two young children. Mid to low 80's and slightly overcast so the sun wasn't beating down on us the whole time. We had some showers in the afternoon on a couple days but I had come very prepared with movies, books, crayons, gluesticks and scissors to keep everyone occupied.

Ali had a BLAST! I don't think she could name a favorite activity. She loved the beach. She loved jumping the waves. She loved chasing the birds. She loved building sandcastles. She couldn't get enough.

Way too many pictures, but here they are!


Making Sandcastles



Being silly with Mama

Snack time

Beach Baby!

My goofball husband flying a kite. 

Ali flying a kite.

Me flying a kite, with Elle.

Ali's special beach chair

Chillin' 

Sand Mountain, which Ali then proceeded to jump of off and roll down repeatedly until she was completely coated in sand, head to toe.

My big girl!

Walking with Daddy.

Sunrise on my birthday!

 Overall it was a great week. It's definitely a lot harder taking kids to the beach than our vacation used to be when it was just my husband and I. I'm not sure we'll do it again next year, maybe take a vacation ourselves, sans kids, instead. We'll see.

But, it was beautiful to see Ali enjoy herself so much with something new and exciting.