What a week!!

Well I survived week one... barely! It was quite a week trying to get the girls to get a long, listen to me, and try to keep the house clean. Then if that wasn't taxing enough a close family friend passed away on Monday. This man was like a grandfather to me and now he is just gone. I will miss him greatly. Jeremy took the news rather well. So what, may you ask, is so difficult about single parenting. EVERYTHING!! I have a new found respect for single moms now. They do everything a mom and a dad do without a fall back person to give you a hand or a break when you need one. We made it through the week mostly disaster free. Then came Friday. I'm trying to get the kitchen cleaned up, weekly mop session and general dusting and Abby comes to me with a pair of scissors in one hand and a comb in the other and says, "Mama, fix it." So I start combing her hair and getting ready to trim her bangs. Then I notice this:


I could have just died! We just got her hair grown out from last summer when Alyssa cut her curls off because, "I didn't like them mommy!" So now I have to figure out what to do with this little girl's hair do. Off to Fantastic Sams we went:



Now my baby girl's curls are all gone and she looks so grown up. Now that I have had a couple days to adjust it is a really cute hair do. Here are some pictures of after the hair cut of the girls being little hams:




Yesterday we took off and headed down to Post Falls. We tried to do some letterboxing without much success so we decided to wait until daddy gets back to help us. I let the girls play at the park and then we headed to a game night with the FRG (Family Readiness Group). I am the secretary for the unit's FRG and we do little get togethers throughout the year and when the guys are gone to help pass the time. It was a lot of fun. I forgot my camera in the car so I don't have any pictures.
Well it's getting late and I have to get up early. Alyssa has day camp tomorrow (YAY!). I have to work a few hours at the school. And I have way too much homework that I procrastinated. So I am going to run for now. Until next time... God Bless!

No Lip Service!

I know it's been almost a week! But Jeremy was getting ready to leave for three weeks and I wasn't about to spend any of my time here when I was squeezing every last second of time in with him!!!!! So anyway what did we do this week? We went on a couple of family adventures. We have discovered a new family hobby called letterboxing. Look it up you might get addicted! Here are a couple of pictures:




Wednesday my mom came over and watched the girls and Jeremy took me to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince! Amazingly awesome movie!!! I cannot wait for the double shot of the final chapter! All I can say is I hope Hollywood can do justice to the book. Oh and Quest's Kodiak has a new paint color! I want one of these bad boys:

Yesterday we just kind of hung out as a family. We did a little shopping for Jeremy so he didn't have to eat nasty MREs the whole time he was gone. Then we came home and made chocolate chip cookies, helped him pack, and made sure we had at least one air conditioner in so the girls and I don't roast while he's gone.
Today we got up so early and drove Jeremy down to Post Falls. Then we spent the day running errands for him and making sure he had everything he needed to be gone. We got to see him for dinner and then we drove home. Here are a couple of pictures from today:


So as you can see we had a very busy week which ended in a very sad see ya later (we don't do goodbyes). Alyssa cried from the time we left Post Falls until we got to the other side of Rathdrum (about 20 minutes). She is so sure she won't survive the next 21 days without daddy! I'm sure we'll make the time pass quickly, at least I hope so for the girls' sake! Well it's almost midnight here and I have been up for 19 hours running on 3 hours of sleep. I am emotionally drained without my best friend here. I have waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much homework to do tomorrow so I think I will head for bed. Until next time... God Bless!

What happened???

To the week that is! I woke up Monday morning with a whole week ahead of me and then I blinked and now it's Saturday!!!! Well I am in the middle of my single parent weekend for July, I really despise drill weekends! This one even more so because we didn't have an FRG (family readiness group) meeting so the girls and I stayed home. Jeremy is in Post Falls and we are here. So to make the best of it we went and rented movies last night and had McDonald's for dinner. We also got ice cream too!! Not sure what we are going to do today. I do have some homework that I should work on. I have the scrapbook that I am working on for the school (will post pics of the finished project). I am also in the middle of crocheting prayer blankets for all my neices and nephews (12 total!). Now I just have to figure out something for the girls to do to keep them out of my hair. Sure would have been nice to have the pool up! But with Jeremy being sick at the beginning of the week and it rained in the evenings the rest of the week we didn't get to it. Hopefully we will be able to finish it before he leaves for AT (annual training). If not I may as well put the stupid pool in storage, or sell it! Well just a short update today, no new pictures since Monday. I'll get the camera out and take pictures of the kiddos this weekend while we are having girls time and post on Monday! Until next time... God Bless!

Ya, Ya, I know

I missed on Friday, and yesterday. To my defense, I wasn't home at all on Friday and Saturday. We were up at my parents for the 4th. Yesterday was clean the house day and Jeremy was down with food poisoning! So I am back on track today. Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July holiday. We had so much fun. Jeremy, the girls, my brother, Dan, and myself went down to the reservation on Friday and bought $400 worth of the good fireworks and had a great time lighting them all off for two days! Here are a couple of fireworks pictures (I'll have to get the rest from my mom):
Aaron lighting mortars:

Abby Helping Daddy light bottle rockets:

Alyssa holding Ainsley's ears:


Then as I was searching for these I discovered that Abby got a hold of mommy's camera. The little twerp has quite the eye!! She took about two dozen pictures. Thank goodness we have a digital camera! I might actually print these out and start a little portfolio for her. Maybe this is her natural talent! Speaking of the little booger:


The girls' first day of Vacation Bible School (VBS) was today. Jeremy picked them up and said they had a great time. When I asked Abby what they learned about she said, "God". When I asked her what God does she said, "Makes soup"! I laughed water out my nose!!! Kids say the greatest things.
Well don't know what else to tell you today. Guess I will go start making some memories to write about on Wednesday.
OH!! I almost forgot. The principal at Alyssa's school has asked me to creat a scrapbook for the school. It's something she will use to take around to area businesses to try and get donation support for the school. This means A LOT of people will soon be seeing my work!! Hopefully this will mean some customized scrapbook business coming my way. I think I am going to make us some business cards to go in a pocket in the back of the scrapbook. How awesome would it be if this took off??? Pray for me! Who knows what God has in store.
Until next time...God Bless!!!

Ha Ha! Betcha thought I'd forget!

Well here is day two of my promise. I bet you all were thinking I wouldn't get it done. Well I did, it's a bit late but here it is. The day was long. Started at 7:30 which for me is a stretch in the summer because summers are for sleeping in!! I got up cleaned my kitchen top to bottom except for mopping because I was out of clorox (added that to my shopping list). Sat and had "coffee" with a friend from church and had a great conversation about the rapture and the tribulation.
Then I dunked the girls in the tub and took Alyssa to the doctor for her annual physical. She is growing like a weed! 46 pounds and 46 inches tall!! She was so happy that she didn't have to get shots! Then we went to lunch with daddy, a favorite of the girls. After we sent him back to work we did the grocery shopping.
Have I ever mentioned how much I detest shopping on the first? It is like the worst possible day to shop. Everyone gets their government checks (including us, VA not welfare!) and rushes to the store and then act like complete cows! I mean really how herd oriented are some people? You try to walk down an asile and hello, it's just like driving, go one direction on either side and if you need to stop get the heck out of everyone's way! But no not on the first, everyone goes what ever the heck direction they want and stops wherever they want, and who cares who is trying to get past you. Then once you have spent twice as long as any other day doing your grocery shopping you have to attempt to check out. That process is a nightmare with two small children anyway but then you add the stupidity of the first to it all and it is just a nightmare.
Anyway, I am home. My groceries are put away, mostly, the cans are still sitting on the floor waiting to be organized and put away. Oh and we also worked on the yard some more this evening. We finally went and got the bricks only to find out we still have some leveling and packing of sand to do. There was also something about a retaining wall needing to be built. AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! I just want to swim in my pool darn it!!!
But I did promise to show you all some of my work so here are a few of the layouts I have been working on the past couple of months. These are ones I will be entering into the fair in August.
This is one of my beautiful niece:


This is one of my AWESOME new nephew:


This is a two pager of my dad, the journaling will have to come later:



Last one for now, of Jeremy and Alyssa (she was 3 months old):


I have a few others but I need to take pictures of them so I can upload them and show you all. Well it's almost 10pm and I have another long day tomorrow so I am gonna say hasta for tonight and I'll see ya'll in a couple of days! Until next time...God Bless!