3rd week of February

David's dad, Paul, visited us this weekend. His birthday is the 20th and Shanndon's is the 17th, so he came to celebrate. Apparently he's met a new woman (rolling eyes). This is after the long talk we all had over New Years, where he swore he was "giving up looking for a wife and leaving it in God's hands. She was visiting her grown daughter (I think) or something and he came up to visit us, so he's all giddy about how they are going to have a nice valentine date after he returns home. All weekend he was hinting around to marriage, but saying how they are building their friendship and how this is different (they all are!!!!). BLAH BLAH BLAH. How many soul mates can you have in a lifetime?! SERIOUSLY? This is 4 in 4 years!!!!! The man is so lonely! Other then that, it was a nice weekend. He brought Shanndon 2 big Star Wars figures, from when David and Chris were little boys. Dad attended a social at our Pastor's house with us. The Pastor and his family are fairly "new" to the church, they came in August..and they're trying to invite groups of people to get to know them better. This was the "Adult 1" group. They had a BBQ and we brought side dishes and such. It was very cool. We played a game and got to meet a bunch of other young couples...one couple just recently married, others with kids our ages, some with older kids, some divorced, some single, several are military! The church feels "BIG" to me, so it was nice to be in a smaller setting. I was torn between skipping this event cause dad was visiting or sucking up my pride and asking if he could attend as well. I so badly wanted to go...so I sucked it up and they welcomed him happily. It was very nice. I was able to be a way better host for dad then last time-New Years-cause I'm much better. Still wouldn't recommend a middle body lift...even 4 months later!!!! On the middle body lift front...still painful, lots of itching, tingling, often tired...but I do feel WAY better!!!!!!!!!!

Shanndon turns 4 years old!

My dear Shanndon! What a year this has been. I blogged last year about how Shanndon turned into a sweet compassionate kid. This year, he's onry. He's started this "antagonizing" stuff. He takes Christianna's blanket and says "Christianna, look what I got" and she cries. In the car he touches Ben and Ben tells him to stop, so he puts his fingers near Ben and says "I'm not touching you". He's a dare devil and a half, and a monkey to boot! HE's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cute! He widens his eyes when he looks at you and makes hilarious faces. He LOVES his brother and wants to do everything Ben does and be with Ben. He even has started saying he IS Ben!!! He loves to be with teh big kids and follows them around everywhere. He's into Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles, Star Wars. Papa came up to visit for his birthday and brought him big Star Wars figures. Daddy and mommy gave him a blue Power Ranger he really wanted and has been asking for since just after Christmas. Grandma sent him Power RAngers too. He is over the moon with his new toys! We celebrated by going to a Japanese Steakhouse for dinner. The kids love the "show" and fried rice. My dear Shanndon...I can't wait to watch you grow and see what you bring to us this year! I love you so very much my sweet cuddle bug!

Valentine's Day 2009

WOW! What a change from last year.
Let me recap for those who don't want to go back in my blog archives. Valentine's 2008 consisted of David arriving home at midnight (at the end of VDAY) and tossing me a small plastic bag from the base gas station with a small box of $5 chocolate, and a card. I have this bad habit of dreaming of GRANDURE (is that a word? Do you know what I mean?). ANYWAY, never fails, EVERY holiday, I am disappointed. David, my kids, my family in general, they just aren't like that. I'm an after thought. I realize that. AND yet, I still continue to dream! LOL
This year, there was no mention really of Valentine's Day (although of course, I hoped and dremt (sp?!)). David and Ben came home from Winter Blast a little early (all night Royal Ranger lock in). When I woke up, there was a bouquet of flowers on the table, and there was mylar "Happy Valentine's Day" Banner in the dining room and a little gift of "Vday bear" hair clips. It was so cool. I wasn't an after thought!!!!! I woke up to this! It made my day! I went into the bedrom and woke David up and said Thank you and gave him a kiss. He proceded to tell me that he arranged for us to go to the Vday Banquet at church that night as well. WOOHOO! How sweet! He planned! He thought! I am sooooooo impressed! We had a great time at the banquet, got to meet people and get to know names and such (this is a new church for us). Also, I wore my Vday bear hair clips and everyone commented on them, how cute they were, and I got to ohh and ahhh over how sweet and thoughtful my dear hubby was! It was a great day! Thanks babe!

Homeschool Valentine Party

February 13, 20009.
Stephanie invited the homeschool group over for a Valentine's party (It's also her oldest child-Nikki's 13th birthday!!!!). I was excited about it, felt like I was ready to get out and get back to life as I once knew it...THEN the day arrived. I just feel sooooooooooooooo tired today! I don't even want to go. I WANT to go, but I don't, you know? UGH. I miss my friends and the kids miss thier friends. I just don't even think I can drive over there!
David got home and said I looked in no condition to drive. I didn't wnat to cancel, but David has been up all night! He drove us to Steph's and slept in the car. I did feel better once I got there after a bit, but I"m sure everyone noticed how out of it I was and "stand offish". I don't mean to be. There were newbies too. I'm sure they probably thought I was a prude sitting off to the side, barely talking. UGH. I can't wait to finally get back to "normal", whatever that is! It wa s anice party. Kids had a blast. Even after being there for several hours, they were sad to leave.
Ben and David are going to "Winter Blast" tonight. It's an all night Royal Ranger "lock in". So, it's just me and the little ones :)

Night Shift

In true military fashion, David's schedule has been josseled again. He's now on night shift (10pm-7am). We thought maybe it would be temporary, but it seems like it might go a long time, so I've devised a new routine and schedule for us. David will get home about 730am, he'll wake me up and we'll spend some time together, talking, Bible Study, what not. Kids will wake up and we'll spend time with them, cuddling, feeding breakfast, etc. David will go bed about 9/10am. He'll sleep til about 5pm, I'll have dinner ready, we'll eat together and head out for our evening activities...church, YMCA, etc. (the nice thing is David can now participate in Tuesday night Royal Rangers!) Then, we'll come home and he'll get ready for work and go. This will be Sunday night-Friday morning. Friday's he'll nap til about 1,2,3pm, then wake up and go to bed with us that night. Saturday he'll be up with us regular schedule and Sunday too. Sunday he'll nap between church and Bible class.

I've kinda got a routine down on cleaning and actvities and such. The weekend we pretty much do nothing as far as house work. Just basic up keep. We do yard work (if nice) and play outside, go shopping, church, laze around, and other things around town. Since I've had the surgery, it's a LOT of lazing around! I'm not used to that, but it's nice. Our spring and summer will be busy I'm sure. I am soooooooooooooooooooo looking forward to nice weather! At the same time though, I get tired easily, still have itching, pulling and tingling, in my body, SO I'm enjoying saying home too. Mondays I don't schedule anything. It seems like, since we don't do anything on the weekends, the house is a diaster on Mondays, so I do a "deep clean". That makes it nice, the rest of the week I just vaccuum each day and clean bathrooms 3 times a day (the kids make messes so fast!). Then, Friday I tend do do a big clean to prepare for the weekend. I hate not knowing what David's long term schedule. We live daily and weekly. Sometimes they change it up even last minute, jsut a day or two in advance. That's annoying!

Final Surgeon Check up

I had my final follow up with the plastic surgeon who did my Middle Body Lift. Dr. Poggi is awesome! He TOTALLY cute, and funny, straight forward, no BS. I am JUST NOW starting to feel some what "normal" again and not be in constant pain, itching, burning and pulling! He took the after pics and said I'll be on his website. I thought I was prepared this surgery. I wasn't! This surgery has been horrible. People keep asking me, now that your feeling better, was it worth it? I STILL say no! I didn't do it for VAIN reasons, to look good, or be some model, so I don't care about the flat pretty tummy. SO was it worth the tad of discomfort I felt in regular daily life, for the 10 weeks or excruciating physical and MENTAL misery I was in? At this point-NO.

On another note-I am feeling better. I've gotten a routine down. Feel like I'm keeping up the house well. It helps that I don't have much activity scheduled. The kids seem to like being homebound. They have thier neighborhood friends they play with everyday. They have the freedom to run in and out as they please. No traffic here, park 10 ft. away. It's really bliss. I like our "winter break", but at the same time, I'm usually active well up til January 1 and I've been bedridden since Nov. 20, so I am itching to get spring underway.

I've been thinking about taxes. It's that time, I'm procrastinating becuase there's so much to do and I have so much paperwork not sorted, organized, just boxed. We have to be meticulous about the daycare expenses and rental stuff. It makes my head hurt to think about! HOWEVER-we need the money!!!!!!!!!! BAD! I have lots of wants and need to dos with it.

Tax money list: Pay off bills. Take a trip to Chicago. Put money in savings. We WANT an RV of some sort too :) Trailer hitch for the van. Boat of some sort. Those are just far off dreams :)

So goal is to work on taxes, which also means work on basement some!

The PERFECT underwear!

I know, this is going to sound crazy-I have found the perfect fitting underwear! Hanes brand, Size 5-low cut bikini briefs. They fit so nicely around my legs, sit comfortably across my waist and hug my butt-not to tight, not to loose. I'm in HEAVEN! WOOHOO!

Marriage For Keeps

David and I have had some troubles in 2008! I had seen an "advertisement" for "Marriage for Keeps" in the Homeschooling Newsletter and immediately called and applied. We got an appt. and accepted into the program! This is a government funded program on learning communication techniques and tools and working on building a healthy marriage and family! This has been a "marriage saver". We started out by going to a class for 12 weeks, and now we're in the "maintanence" phase of it, where we visit with a Family Support Specialist every 2-3 weeks. When we first started meeting with the FSS specialist, we took a 91 question test to identify our "issues" and then we had them evaluated and discussed them. THen we did a "Focus for the Future", which is basically taking the tools we've learned and identifying issues we still have and how we're going to use our tools and work thru them.

At our last appt. we nearly had a blow up! We found an issue. It was a issue David and I were both passionate about. It became very heated and the FSS was actually worried for us. David got very angry and was actually showing emotion and yelling at me (this never happens!). When this happened, IRONICALLY, I became very calm and reserved and was trying to talk him thru things. Our session was up and we had to go, but the FSS asked us, did we want to table the discussion til our next meeting? or work on it at home? David and I both agreed to let it go and work on it at home, using our new found "tools" and if we were unable to calmly resolve things in one hour, we'd tale it again until our meeting. The next day I suggested to him that he take a notebook to work and carry one around with him. This way, when he thought of the "issue", he can write down any thoughts he has, emotions, or feelings, about it. I would do the same thing. This was so that when we discussed it, we wouldn't just be "flying" with emotions. We'd have it on paper, in writing. What were we thinking? Questions we had, etc. I asked David as we were getting ready for the SuperBowl Party, what we were gonna do, we hadn't discussed it, so we agreed to discuss it that night.

This discussion went very well! We both are at peace about it, it's over and done with. We both got what we wanted out of the situation. We had a great report for the FSS the next day! She was worried! :) David has been doing VERY well with his communication with me and in his counseling sessions. My intuition to start on this journey and David's willingness to go on this journey, has been wonderful!!!!!!!! It's such a different place then our relationship has ever been before! WEIRD! AWESOME!

SuperBowl Party

I decided that I am ready to play hostess again. I'm feeling great! So I invited some friends over for a SuperBowl Party. Not that many of my friends are sports fans, but it's a good reason to get together and hang out and have a great time with lots of food. I really enjoy seeing David hang out with the guys and talking and I really enjoy having conversations with my friends and the whole "bunch of couples" dynamic. Kids were banned to the play area! LOL No one fought! It was actually quiet, considering we had 16 kids here! It was very nice. I was totally at ease and comfortable getting ready for the party, not stressed out in any way. We always route for the "underdog" team if one of our teams aren't playing. This year it was the Cardinals and the Steelers. We were so engaged in conversation and enjoying our friends, that even tho the TV was on, we barely watched the game! The underdog did not win this time! :( It was close though, they put up a good fight. It seemed to have come down to the last play. Which we think they were jipped on! Anyway, it was a very nice party I think, everyone got along, there was lots of good food, great conversation, and the kids even cleaned up the playroom before they left!!!!!!!