Sad News

Wow! What a crazy past couple of weeks. My course recovery classes are now at capacity so I am running like a chicken with my head cut off all period. It gets quite annoying, babysitting these kids all of the time. But it is my job and it must be done.
Friday the 22nd was my mommy's birthday. She had a friend in town and I am thankful she had someone fun to hang out with.
This past Tuesday (the 19th) my two Aunts decided to fly down, we were told my grandmother had gotten worse and the end was near. She had been suffering from dementia and since my birthday on the 5th she had steadily declined, to the point she couldn't do anything for herself. It was really hard watching it and watching my mother shoulder the burden on her own (she is the only one of her siblings that live down here). I know having my aunts around at the end really helped. I was so thankful they came to be with my grandmother and to make sure my mom was not alone.
I am also so grateful my grandma passed away after my mom's birthday. She held on until 2am the morning after my mom's birthday. I know she is finally at peace and finally with my Grandpa. She is no longer in pain or suffering. She lived a long, healthy life.
I am so thankful she was able to see my kids grow up a little. I know they brought such joy to her life, especially at the end. Lots of times the only thing she would want to go is visit with my kids.
She will be missed. She spent every winter down here, was at our house every Christmas morning since I was a little kid. She has always been around. It will be an adjustment.

We love you grandma! Rest in Peace!

 

I will be leaving tomorrow at the butt crack of dawn to head up to Michigan for three days for the funeral. This will be the first time I have left our kids overnight with my husband. I'm sure everything will be great, just nervous. Actually I get nervous EVERYTIME I leave the kids behind. Is that strange?? Anywho. I am hoping it's a safe flight and not too cold up there. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I will hopefully catch up on my posting soon :)

Have a great weekend all!

Friday Letters

It's Friday again! I am so thankful for Friday's! It's time for another Friday letters!

Dear Students: I am upset by how many of you failed quarter 1. I have 3 course recovery classes and TWO are filled to capacity! I'm not sure what we are going to do if more kids fail throughout the year and these kids don't finish and get out. This is NOT how I expected the beginning of the year to be. 1st quarter always used to be what saved the kids throughout the year. Guess not this year :(

Dear Booger and Pretty Girl: You two are the light of my life! I love you both to death and can't imagine my life without you. One minute you are driving me crazy and the next you are doing something cute or sweet and it just melts my heart. I love watching you interact with your daddy. That is the BEST thing in the world to watch. You two are very lucky to have him as a daddy.

Dear Origami Owl: I am so thankful you came into my life. I had my second Jewelry Bar this past weekend and it was a smash hit! I can't wait to save up this extra money and save up for our honeymoon, that we haven't taken yet. I just hope the momentum stays after the holidays. I have four more Jewelry bars booked and one Book party through the middle of December. I am looking into getting set up to do Take-Out parties for those who don't live near me. They are really cool!

Dear Husband: You are amazing! I love seeing the old you again. We are having so much fun and it's great having you there to help with the kids and the every day stuff. I love that things are getting back to normal. I love being able to talk to you and I know I need to work on opening up again, and I promise, I am. It's hard to break down walls that have been built up. But you are amazing and I'm so thankful to have you in my life! I love you!

Current weekend: I have a busy weekend ahead of me. I have a training for school all day on Saturday and then another Jewelry Bar on Sunday. I hope it's as good as the one I just had. I love doing this job! I LOVE watching people go down memory lane as they pick their charms and lockets. I love hearing their stories that go with them and why they are making the choices they made. It's amazing and I just love it! I love it and the product!

playing superheros at Nana's and Poppop's

Decided to wear her cape like a dress

Love this!

What do you have planned this weekend?

Happy Veteran's Day

Happy Veteran's Day to everyone who has served, is serving or will serve. Also thank you to those families. The rocks at home for these men and women.
My grandfather was in the Navy. Growing up all I knew was that he served in WWII and was in Pearl Harbor on that fateful day. He was aboard the USS California. He never speaks of his time in the military or of that day and what occurred afterwards. I am still so proud of him.

My husband joined the military before I ever met him. We are a Reserve family, so the military is only one portion of our lives. Most people we encounter on a daily basis do not know he is a soldier. But just like active duty, my husband has served a year long tour over seas, in a dangerous area, doing a dangerous job. We have survived it and have moved past it, but the scars still remain. I am so very proud of my husband. He is my hero. Even though he doesn't like being called a hero, he is to me and our kids. I am soooo very proud of him!

So, to all of you out there who serve our country, and those who support them, I thank you! From the bottom of my heart, I thank you!

Happy Veteran's Day!

The BEST day ever!

Photo Dump

Who doesn't love pictures of my kids?? Well I am sure there are some people out there, but I just think these two are just too cute and I have a few pictures on my phone that I don't believe I have posted yet. So, here we go :)

Fell asleep in the doorway because I refused to lay down with her until she fell asleep

This is how I found them one morning. Too cute, huh?

Too cool for pre-school

Daddy gave booger a new hair cut last night. I can't believe my baby isn't a baby anymore :(

I'm so thankful today is Friday! I have a busy weekend planned. My favorite Aunt is in town this weekend and I have my second Origami Owl Jewelry bar tomorrow night. I am really excited and it seems like those who are coming are excited as well.
We are also celebrating my birthday with family tonight. I have to rush home and get the house cleaned. :)
Happy Friday ya'll!!!!!

My Birthday Recap

Tuesday the 5th was my 31st birthday. Ugh! I can't believe I'm in my 30s now!!!! This year, I feel OLD.

As I stated in my other birthday post, I LOVE birthdays and have a tradition to eat my favorite meal on my birthday. This year was no exception. My mom made my favorite chicken casserole and chocolate eclair cake. It was the BEST! Then I opened a few presents from my mom and dad. It was nice. I got a few things I needed for my classroom. Like dry erase markers in fun new colors and dry erase crayons.

Then I received a laminator, perfect for a project I want to do for my Origami Owl business. Plus I laminate quite a bit of stuff for school and our school one always seems to be broken. My dad got me a portable hard drive. I'm going to use it to store all of my pictures on. That way I don't have to freak out if my computer crashes again. Whew!

My husband, who is amazing by the way, got my present for me when we were in Key West. He talked me into going into the Coach store (I claimed I didn't need anything and wouldn't find anything I wanted in there, he knows me better than I know myself sometimes) and low and behold, I found TWO things. One was a new case for my ipad. He bought me one last year, but it didn't flip right and was kind of a pain. This one is soooo much better. Then he bought me a cross body purse that I had been eyeing (but could never find the colors I wanted) and wanted for when we went on vacation. It's not fun to always carry my huge purse.

Not too bad for a 31 year old, huh?

Overall, it was a great day! Had a few hiccups with my kids deciding they wanted to be brats that night, but they quickly changed their tune when they heard there was cake. :)

Next year, I think I'm going to take the day of my birthday or the day after off. It's not fun working on your birthday.
We will be having a small get together at our house for M's family and a few friends to celebrate. Can't have just one party, now can we???

Do you love birthdays, or do you just tolerate them?

Halloween Recap

I finally went through our pictures and am ready to recap Halloween. I am going to apologize now on my lack of good pictures. I basically forgot we had a camera and then was carrying or pushing Pretty Girl most of the night.

Without further ado.......

Halloween 2013!!!!

Booger literally had been waiting ALL month for Halloween. We received a catalog in the mail with Halloween costumes in it. He went through that catalog at least 50 different times. He picked out his costume and would tell ANYONE who would listen. He was sooooooo excited! He decided he wanted to be Jake, from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. It's a kids show on Disney. At the beginning of October, my mom and I went to just look at costumes, with the kids, and get prices. OMG! Half the costumes and sizes were already GONE! I couldn't believe it!!!! I didn't know it at the time, but my mom decided right then she wanted to buy the costumes the kids picked out. She gave them to me about a week later. Boy were Booger and Pretty Girl super excited!
All month long Booger would talk about trick-or-treating, his costume and Halloween any time a commercial came on about the holiday. It was pretty funny and cute to watch. :)
The day of Halloween arrived. Both kids were really excited. I dressed them in their Halloween shirts and off to Preschool they went.

M and I picked them up from preschool after work and headed over to our friends house. These friends have a son who is literally a month younger than Booger. We actually had due dates a day a part, but Booger decided to come early. Anyways.
Dinner was served, the kids ate and then got dressed. They were too cute!!!

Booger as Jake

Pretty Girl as Cinderella

Eating her Pizza

The boys (I took literally like 20 pictures and could never get both looking at the camera at the same time)

We walked outside and Oh.my.goodness!!! There were a TON of people around! I have never seen so many people trick-or-treating in one area before.

These photos don't do the crowd justice

Trick-o-treating

into the zone

M's best friend and the boys

Pretty girl was done walking by the third house, but wanted to be pushed up to each house to say "trick-o-treat" and get her candy. It was really cute. Booger was done after about 10 houses. He started off running everywhere and tired quickly.

We allowed them to dig into their candy that night. We of course also helped ourselves to a few pieces. All in all it was a good Halloween for us. I think if we can, we will trick-or-treat in the same neighborhood again.

Did you all do anything fun for Halloween???

Happy Birthday to ME!

Wow! I cannot believe it, but I am another year older. :( Not sure how I feel about this age, last year didn't seem to bad, but this year is getting me a little more. When I got on the Internet today, Google gave me a nice surprise.

Cute huh???? I've never seen Google wish someone a happy birthday before. I felt pretty special :)

I love birthdays. I don't just me love them, I LOVE them! It's the one day a year that is all about you. I know that might sound selfish, but oh well. It's the reason I make such a HUGE deal out of everyone's birthdays. It has always been a tradition to celebrate my birthday on the actual day with my favorite dinner and dessert. My mommy will be making my dinner tonight and I cannot wait. I love this tradition and want to continue it with my kids. I keep trying to do it with my husband's birthday, but the Army always throws a wrench into my plans. Ah well.

I noticed this year I haven't been making a big deal about my birthday. I have come to the point where I would rather make a big deal about someone else's birthday than about my own. I'm not a huge fan of the spotlight.

So, here is to another year. Growing older and wiser (and trying to keep the gray hairs away)

I will hopefully have a recap of tonight sometime this week. I still have to recap Halloween. Oh, where has the time gone???

Have a great day everyone!!!!!