Halloween is approaching....

The countdown to Halloween has begun. This afternoon we are going to the pumpkin patch, then to carve pumpkins this evening.
Tomorrow I am taking the kids to Sea World's Spooktacular...
Sunday is our Trick or Treat Open House! So fun!!
Sophia is going to be a friendly witch. Troy has decided on Iron man. I am over trying to pick costumes for them or tell them what to be... they have minds all their own. I make suggestions but they make the final decision.
When I was a kid my mom always made our costumes I was a pirate, a gypsy, a cowgirl... I always enjoyed Halloween as a kid. We used to go trick or treating at our local mall. I can remember the year my best friend and I went as a pair of dice. Our mom's cut big cardboard boxes, spray painted them white with black dots and we wore black leggings and black long sleeves. Fun times!
Tony and I both LOVE Halloween, we are like the perfect pair when it comes to this time of year. I am going to be a green witch (you'll see) and Tony is going to be a mummy. ;)

reality

These days are flying by way to quickly. I understand what people mean when they say enjoy your children because it goes by way too quick. It really does. Everyday it feels like the hours slip through my fingers. I know without a doubt I am enjoying every moment and making the most of every second with them... even in the frustrating moments... I know we are living it up.
My life is in no way perfect but I think life is what you make it and I try to find the joy and the life in every breath.
Someone told me last week, "You make it appear so easy"
I was almost insulted... in no way is it easy or perfect and in no way to I want to make it appear to be so... but it should always be joyful, thankful, and grateful.
Anyone who knows me would laugh at the statement that I make it look easy.. I would argue that I don't make it look easy I just have learned to let go.
I am not perfect and I don't expect myself to be so. If my dishes are dirty because I have chosen to spend my time playing with my kids or to paint an old picture frame then so be it.
So I choose to blog instead of cooking a lavish dinner, grilled cheese it is.
As a mom we sacrifice so much of ourselves for our children and our families I feel no reason to stress myself with perfection.
My husband may rarely come home to a wife who has her hair done and make up on, heck, he is lucky if I have matching socks... but I am confident that he loves me that way and that he wouldn't want to come home to anyone else.
Date nights are not as frequent as we would like and there has been an occasion or two that we fight so much in the process of getting the kids ready for grandma's house and dropping everyone off and getting ready that we don't enjoy each other's company and a date night would have been better spent spending time apart rather than together.
I don't try and pretend things are perfect and wonderful but I do try and enjoy every second and I think I do a pretty good job.
I love having my friends and family around. My door is always open and although my home may not be spotless it is normally sanitary :)

I now have a five year old and a three year old. Troy has been forced to finally ditch the bottle and there are few signs of 'baby' in our home. Troy moved to a full size bed and ditched the bottle in the same week. I caught myself doing something rather unusual as I put together Troy's big bed- I brought the crib back into his room. He has a lifetime crib and I can transition it to use as a headboard. I have not screwed it together.. parts of the crib just lean against the wall. Partly because I have not had time and in part because I am so sad to make this transition. It is so weird knowing that we will not have another baby in our home. I am happy about this in some ways as I know we are moving from The Wiggles to Cyberchase, but in other ways my heart is breaking. I feel like college is days away... it's really pathetic.
Sophia starts cheerleading this week and Troy starts tball in two weeks. I was talking to my sister in law today and said, "I just got off the phone with the cheer coach" I could hardly believe those words were coming from my mouth. I am so proud of my children and the little people they are becoming. Sophia is so smart and loves school and Troy is so strong and talking more and more everyday.

Well, my hubby is home... I cooked chicken for our salad tonight, he wanted kielbasa... hello, reality! :) I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

The title alone makes my mouth water...
no, I am not going to share the recipe with you. I don't even have the recipe, in fact, I have never even made chocolate chip pumpkin bread. But- my best friend, Kati does.

Kati and I have been friends for a few years now and bonded from the beginning. I met her when we started attending the same church. The pastor told me that he knew we would be good friends because we were both "odd" (he said that in the most loving way). Little did he know just how "odd" we were... or how many "odd" things we had in common and still oddly different.

I met Kati before but when did I come to really love her? When she brought her chocolate chip pumpkin bread to my house of course.

Kati signed up to bring us a dinner when Troy was born, she went above and beyond, typical Kati... she brought dinner, a box of diapers, she made a little blue tag blanket, and chocolate chip pumpkin bread. As I bit into that chocolate chip pumpkin bread I knew we were going to be best friends. Yes, a bit of my selfish nature that decided I was going to glue myself to her so that whenever she made this delicious bread I would insure that my family would get a slice.. literally.

I asked her for the recipe in an attempt to disguise my true intentions of being a mooch, I never really kept the recipe, or ever planned to make the bread myself. My plan was to eat her bread, I'll buy the ingredients, but why would I take the joy away from this heavenly bread by slaving away to make it. Don't things just taste better when someone else makes it? This is a dream that I don't want to ruin by preparing it myself. Tony and I lay awake at night talking about "Kati's chocolate chip pumpkin bread", even he knows for me to take the recipe and make it would ruin the bread's elusiveness.

I think Kati and I have known one another long enough that she knows my intentions. She is ok with it, I think? She continues to make my favorite bread and call me to let me know I should come get it. It was her making the bread yesterday that sparked this blog. And what am I doing today? Driving to get some, of course.

Here's a picture of Kati and I in downtown on Main Street after getting our pink hair in honor of breast cancer awareness. Fun day, as we rarely get out of the house without the kids!




BTW, Kati I know you are reading this and please excuse the typos- Troy has been at my feet whinning all morning. We aren't all grammar nerds like you :) Odd Ball! :)

Happy Birthday to my sweet boy.

Let me swallow back the tears, my baby is three.
I am so proud of my little guy. He really melts my heart. I know he is going to do great things some day. He is strong and protective with a sweet and gentle side as well. He loves his sissy more than anyone else.

Here are some pictures of Troy's special day. We had a Spider Man Birthday Bash. We invited mostly just family, there are a lot of us these days, and a few friends. Tony and I built a sandbox the day before his birthday, the kids all enjoyed playing in it. My friend Cheryl's husband came and dressed like Spider Man. Troy was stunned! Spider Man was a hit, all the kids were amazed. It was a special day for our special boy.
They even organized a game of baseball for the kids... one proud momma watching my boy hit that ball.











Happy Birthday Troy Anthony

Almost one month...

... since my last post.
Crazy, how fast time flies.. So much has happened in the last month.
Troy will turn 3 in just 3 short hours.
Tony has moved back home and got a new job about 40 minutes from our house.
We have been busy with school work and we took a trip down to Ft. Lauderdale just days before Tony left his job and found another job.
I journaled our trip so that I could post it on my blog. I will post the journal.

Camping in the Jungle, the concrete jungle.
For those who don’t know, Tony has been working down south for the last 3 months. He is staying in an RV at the dealership where he is working. The kids and I planned a trip down to Ft. Lauderdale to stay with Tony in his 5th wheel. This blog is the journal that I kept while we spent 3 days with him down south, camping in the concrete jungle.

Day 1, part 1: Checking things out.
So we got up at 5am, loaded up and were gone around 7am. I had anticipated an earlier departure, but with children one should not assume something so foolish. Luckily, Tony had arranged it with his work that he wouldn’t be in until a bit later than normal. Almost a four and ½ hour drive and we have safely arrived at the camper and his work! It’s a nice little RV dealership, and thanks to the one female sales person it is clean and beautifully decorated for fall. Good job Tammy!
Everyone has been very nice and the kids were very excited to finally see where Daddy has been working and sleeping for over three months now. The RV we are staying in is very nice; Tony acted as if we would not be impressed by it but I thought it was great. There are two beds for the kids (the sofa bed, and the dining area that folds into a bed). There are two bunks in the rear of the RV that appears to be Daddy’s closet with his weights and some exercise stuff. There is a shower and potty, apparently the potty doesn’t work so the kids have their little potty chair and Tony and I will just use the bathroom inside the dealership. Now that I am the “poop and pee dumper”, I had no idea how well my children’s bowel and kidney function is. They are pooping and peeing machines.
There is a kitchen with a nice sized refrigerator, microwave, oven, and stove top. There is a nice sink and plenty of storage space. We got him some dishes, bowls, plates, and silverware… I’m not quite sure what he did before that… I only found one spoon and paper towels and aluminum foil?? His fridge was pretty empty consisting of; sausage, hotdogs, cheese sticks, and I think coffee creamer. It’s amazing how little a man needs to live off of. We stocked his pantry and the refrigerator is full. The kids found a cute spot for their toys, and we put a new comforter on his bed. OK, so let’s just shorten this… we made it more like home.
Tonight we are going to dinner at the Bass Pro Shop. Currently the kids are watching a DVD and eating popcorn, I’m going to attempt to get them to take a nap around 2pm, so we will see how that works out, they are pretty excited to be here. They like the 5th wheel and they are calling it their house on wheels.
When I asked Sophia what she thought about this place she responded,
“I love it! I feel like I moved here.”
When I asked Troy if he if liked this place he said,
“I just wanna keep it! I like it here.”
Now- it is nice but would I want to live in a 5th wheel in Ft. Lauderdale, ah- no. J It is fun to visit and have a spot to be together. This one-day per week stuff is getting difficult. It’s nice to have a place to be together even if we are camping in the concrete jungle. Which is exactly what this feels like.

Day 1, part 2 : Out to Dinner and Time Together.

So the kids and I did end up taking naps, a short nap but still a nap. I think we slept for about 45 minutes, which was nice. They got up and we went outside, rode the scooters around the dealership. Troy got to check inventory with Tony. Sophia asked if we could work in her new addition workbook, which I brought with us. So we did a page in her book. I think she likes the challenges that math presents, she likes counting and figuring out the answer. I brought some counting cubes and we used those while we sat out on the picnic bench. We read a book; “Gladys goes out to lunch” it was about a gorilla that was searching for a sweet smell. We are going to a ‘learning play date’ on Friday that is going to be themed on ‘the 5 senses’ so that is our theme for this week coming up. I wasn’t expecting to do any school today but I was glad that Sophia was so eager to learn and I took full advantage of it. We spent about an hour learning together this afternoon.
Then we went back to the 5th wheel to get ready for dinner. We went to the HUGE Bass Pro Shop and ate at the restaurant there. It was fun we went with Tony’s co-workers, Tammy and Paul and Tammy’s daughter Melissa and her fiancé, Eric. We had a nice dinner, a bit long for the kids but they managed, or we managed. Paul was sweet and bought the kids Tackle Boxes and got Troy a special birthday treat. Then we went exploring around the store for a while. We got lots of pictures, as there is a lot to look at in Bass Pro, the kids liked it a lot. We got back to the dealership just in time for me to do some homework and Sophia even got to watch Sponge Bob (my most hated cartoon, she was thrilled, my little defiant one). Tony took the kids exploring around the property while I did homework, they found a land crab in the sewer… gross, but they thought it was neat. Then we went back to the 5th wheel and got ready for bed, the kids got all their medicines, teeth brushed, pajamas on… and I think they were ready for sleep time because I haven’t heard a peep out of them since I turned on my computer. Tony is lying next to me snoring. It is nice to sleep next to him, something I used to take for granted. I miss him so much when he is away. I’ll stay in a 5th wheel anytime to have this big guy by my side. Nowhere else in the world I would want to be right now…

Day 2; part 1: I want to go Home.
1:10am- ok, now maybe I would want to be somewhere else, still with my big guy but maybe at our house. The LP Detector went off, for those who don’t know… this is what warns you should your RV has a propane leak which can cause you to explode and die. OK, I’m being dramatic, but it’s true. So, Tony had already disconnected the propane just because it makes me nervous and we don’t need it anyway. Sleeping soundly and BEEP BEEP BEEP… I jumped up and flew down the stairs to where the kids were sleeping. They slept through it and Tony muted it while he figured out what the problem was… then again, BEEP BEEP BEEP.. this time Troy woke up. We muted it again. Then again, BEEP BEEP BEEP… Sophia woke up. We muted it again. BEEP BEEP BEEP… Tony ripped the detector from the wall.
OK, well that fixed it.
Tony went outside to check the propane tanks and the connections… thank God I wasn’t there alone! I would have loaded the kids up and drove home. AHAHA! Well, he got everything checked out, he thinks it was just a power issue or something because everything was checking out. He cracked the kitchen window and another window in the master bedroom. It was a nice night out so it wasn’t an inconvenience to open the windows for some reassurance… until the sounds of the concrete jungle were apparent.
HONK, BEEP, VARROOM… then the smell of a strong cologne, that was not my husband… oh I don’t think I like that. Tony reassured me, and some time around 3am I went back to sleep.

Day 2, part 2: Relaxing Morning.
Sophia was first to rise… promptly at her normal 7:23am, which I love because that is our anniversary and she does them more times than not. I told her it wasn’t time to get up and she would have to go lay down for a while longer. Tony didn’t have to open the dealership until 11am and after last night’s episode we were sleeping in. Sophia got her magna-doodle and lay quietly in her bed. Troy slept until about 9am, we were all up before Troy…that is pretty typical. The kids and I got dressed and went and rode the scooters around while Tony got dressed, I figured it would be hard for him to get dressed, iron, shave, etc. with the kids in the RV. They are so excited to be with him that they have hardly given him the space to breathe, much less get ready for work. We played with action figures, drew pictures, watched part of ‘Princess and the Frog’ and went for multiple walks around the property while Tony worked. He had quite a bit of costumers come in, all just looking but still some good traffic.
We ordered pizza for lunch and everyone happily ate until it was nap time… Ah, my favorite time of day. That’s were we are now… I’m laying in the master bedroom typing away while the kids are supposed to be napping although I can hear Troy’s giggles and Sophia’s whispers. I’m probably going to have to get up and create order, I want them to take naps so they will feel good when we close up here at 3pm and head to the beach for a couple hours.
It has been a fun trip so far. We leave tomorrow evening around 6pm, which makes me a little sad because it will be next Sunday before we see dear ole’ Dad again but that’s ok. It’s a sacrifice we are making in this hellish economy. The kids are well taken care of and happy, so that is really all that matters.

Day 2, part 3: The Beach and Crab Hunting.
Sophia took a short 30-minute nap. I got some homework done on my laptop. Troy stayed awake in his bed the whole time but that’s ok, he did fall asleep as we were pulling onto the beach. The beach was nice. The water was pretty. There was a playground on the beach and areas for barbecuing. We found a nice little spot by the water and stayed there for about an hour and a half, then we let the kids play on the playground. This beach was very crowded, not a mile up was private and more secluded. This beach was very diverse. There were people from all walks of life… great for the ‘people watcher’ in me. I love my sunglasses, fellow ‘people watchers’ know why.
The kids had fun playing in the water, the sand, boogie boarding… both of the kids are getting really good on the boogie board. I’m going to have to get another one for next summer, this summer I bought one and figured they would take turns on it… I didn’t know how much each of them would really enjoy it though. Troy took a spill on the boogie board and Sophia ended up using it the rest of the time. She amazes me, so scared of everything but she will go in the ocean and run around the farm without a care in the world.
While I sat on the beach and watched them and other people, I was thinking about how diverse Florida is… we wear cowboy boots and shorts. We can say, “ya’ll” and still speak Spanish. We can ride horses and surfboards. So to all the board short wearin’ cowboys who work their horses in the morning and ride the waves in the afternoon… I love ya’ll.
We got back to the RV and got ready for bed. Tony had this genius idea to take the kids ‘crab hunting’ at 7:30 last night. So in their pajamas, all clean and ready for bed, they put on their shoes and got flashlights and went outside to hunt crabs… I got a few pictures and they did almost catch one. I was waiting in the background with a camera and a shoebox… to catch the crab of course. It was funny and the kids really felt like they were on a real adventure. It made me think of that quote, “Children find everything in nothing, were men find nothing in everything.” I strive to find everything in nothing just like Sophia and Troy.

Day 3: Our Last Day, Driving Around Town
This is our last day here. I got up this morning, we got dressed and Tony went to work. Mondays are a busy day for him, the parts and service department is busy, the sales people are all here… so no riding the scooter around the lot today.
The kids and I stayed in the 5th wheel until about 10am then we ventured out to hit up the stores. This is not the typical undertaking… it isn’t like driving over to Target from our house in Lake County. This means major highways, 5 lanes one way, the biggest intersections I have ever seen, no, driving around town is an understatement in Ft. Lauderdale. I was on my toes, very aware of my surroundings and how to get too and from each place we went.
We went to Target… Sophia picked up a Barbie Sassy Kitty and Dog with about 3 outfits each. Troy picked out a Lightening McQueen baseball and bat. Then we went back to the Chick-Fil-A that we had seen on the way in. Drove up…. Closed. It doesn’t open until next week. Sophia started screaming, real tears running down her cheeks… drama!
The owner felt so bad she gave the kids an invitation to the premiere night and gave them stuffed cows and footballs with the Chick-Fil-A logo. She was very nice and went above and beyond trying to comfort my over the top five year old. Troy just sat there watching the whole drama unravel… I wonder what he thinks about his sister and her craziness. The owner told us about a Chick-Fil-A that was in the Broward Mall so we drove to find it… found it! It was in the food court, Sophia was disappointed that there was no playground but after a stern talking to she did her best to keep herself together.
We just as I divided out the food and I sat down to eat…“I gotta go potty.” Remember what I said about the bowel and kidney function… wow!
Packed all the food back up and put everything in bags to go find the restroom. Everyone peed and pooped, hands washed, back to find a table.
Then we went walking around the mall, found a toy store going out of business… Sophia got a stuffed bear for $1 and Troy got two racecars for $2, good little deals and the kids were very excited. We got back to the dealership and they looked busy, we didn’t even bother Daddy, just went into our RV. The kids played for a bit, Tony came and made himself some lunch, now everyone is laying down for a nap. The kids are excited, but tired… I hope they nap. When they get up we are going to pack up and load the car. Tony gets off at 5:30 so we should be leaving around 6pm to head home. If we leave at 6, with any luck we will be home around 10 or 10:30 tonight.
I’m glad to be going home, I just wish Tony were staying with us. He will be home Tuesday then he leaves around 5am on Wednesday morning to be back to work by 9am. I hate this schedule- I know he does too. I catch him looking at us with such sad eyes, it’s a look I have come to know, I’m sure it’s not evident to anyone else and I doubt he even knows I am aware. I know he misses the kids like crazy, he said it himself though, we could never stay down here for long... the kids go nuts in the RV, without room to run and play this could never work for more than a few days. The cost of living is outrageous and for us to move down here it just wouldn’t be reasonable. So for now we do the long distance thing… pushing 4 months it is getting pretty old pretty quick. Praying for something to give, whatever that is… pray, pray, pray.

Funny.. reading back. I was praying for something to give. Little did I know, just two days later he would find a job and be back at home. So thankful. I don't think we even spent another night apart after that post.

We are so happy! The kids were trilled! It is great to have him home again. It is taking some getting used too... unpacking all of his things and having a husband in the house again :)

As crazy as he makes me - that's how much I missed him! LOTS :)

We celebrated Troy's birthday today.. I will post pictures and write a blog about my big boy tomorrow :) Love him so much!! and, he has the BEST big sissy in the world.