LOVE

My morning started at 5:45 and the day before had ended just a couple of hours earlier. Mike wakes up at that time everyday so it was nice to get up and spend time with him without little children at our feet. I got up and put their baskets together and put breakfast on the table.

This is MP's basket. The bandaids should have given you the clue. I just don't understand why this child loves bandaids?

Breakfast consisted of Krispy Kreme and strawberry milk. My original plan was to make to get up and make pancakes, and then I got real.

AK's basket. I got her pencils that don't have to be sharpened. We have probably 50+ pencils that need to be sharpened, with no eraser, and I find it quite annoying.

AK's lunch: strawberries, yogurt with glitter sprinkles, and a ham and cheese sandwich with a painted heart :)

Here are the treats I was telling you about for Audrey's class. I cut out these 50 hearts and stapled them together, filling them with candy.

Final product, I was pretty happy with the result!!

Let me explain this picture. Last week, we got a note home with the favorite candy, drink, and flower of pretty much every employee from AK's school. Sorry teacher friends, but in my opinion that is a little excessive. AK didn't even know half of the people on the list. They asked us to send these things for Valentine's Day. I went down the list and asked AK who she would like to take something to, she came up with just a few. Be proud dad, you know me, I usually would send it to everyone!!

Sleepy head :)

This girl was excited for school!!

How could I forget this sweet precious?! She got a ball and a book.

All ready for school. I should have a taken a close up picture of her shirt, my first sewing project. :)

While I was baking up a storm, Madelynn sat and made some pictures for me. I must say, I was super impressed. These pictures are of snowmen :)

This is why I don't cook.

This is why I am glad I try. :) These melt aways were to die for!! You can find their recipe here.

After I finished all the cookies I asked Madelynn to take a plate to our next door neighbors. This is the picture of the plate she took.

They were not home. This is the picture of the plate when Madelynn came home. Lesson learned, take them myself.

Madelynn and her Vday lunch.

The girls got another car in the mail today. Thank you so much Memaw!! Gotta love great grandparents!!

Later in the evening, we had dinner at the commander's house. Let me set this up, I am a Key Spouse. Key Spouses are a group of women who organize events for the squdron, and do things to help spouses of those who are deployed. I wish I could define this better because it really is an amazing thing. It's a lot of work, but so rewarding. Last night, the commander and his family hosted a dinner for the Key Spouses, their families, and also the families of those who are deployed. We were asked to bring dessert, so I made the melt aways and a banana pudding. We had an absolute blast!!

The food line

LtC and Mrs. King, our gracious hosts.

An attempt at a Vday picture.

Little Miss and her Valentine.

Overall, we had a great day!! It was extremely long. I didn't write about making the girls bows(see above), getting my hair done, etc. Let's talk about my hair. I had to go straight to the dinner from my appt., and honestly I thought about just driving home. It was a new place so I was nervous to begin with. I told her I wanted my hair to just be the color of my roots all over (to cover the gray). Yep, I said it GRAY!!! It is quite sad. Anyway, she told me I probably didn't want my natural color because it was the darkest color on the chart. Really? I told her just to go 2 steps down. The color is great, Mike loves it!! I showed her a picture of how I wanted it styled (the day I had HG). Lets just say this girl has no idea how to backcomb!! You know me, I like my pouf!! I left looking like a girl from CA and not a girl from the south! I couldn't get home to my backcombing brush quick enough!! My mr didn't let me down, of course!! Best part, he let me get a head start on sleep and put the girls to bed. Well, my house is officially screaming at me! Lots of recovering from yesterday :)

Twas the night before Valentines

I am up to my ears in all things, red, pink, and covered in hearts. I have to admit, this week is going to be CrAzY!! It is hard to manage daily chores and children, let alone throwing in a holiday. Today, I have done 9 loads of laundry, cut out 50 hearts, filled 25 hearts with candy, fed 4 people, and the list goes on. I have so much more to do tonight and I am slowly fading. Now, for the picture of the day.

Feb. 13th: Blue

I am not much of a blue person. Actually, I don't really like it at all. Come on, I have 3 girls! Today as I was cutting out hearts I looked up for a split second, and aha!!

Blue!! Somehow, I had 2 blue cups in front of me, perfect!! Do you see those cute little hearts? I have to admit they turned out awesome!! Can't wait to show you tomorrow!

I will leave you with a picture of these 2 precious girls with special cards they got in the mail today. Thank you Grandaddy and Grano!! We love you!!

Behind and a precious little pirate

Well, I am behind. It's ok though, because I still took the pictures. We had a pretty relaxing weekend. Well, the girls did at least. For some reason, I have been stressing about Valentine's Day. I know, it's silly!! I just love the holiday and want to make it memorable for the girls. I can't wait to show you want I have planned!! Here are my photos for the last couple of days.

Feb. 10th: SELF PORTRAIT

Friday night we had dinner with a big group of people from Mike's squadron. One of the guys is leaving tomorrow for Germany, so we had a going away. Let me just tell you, we went to Texas Roadhouse, my favorite. Mike and I have history with that place, it's special. I ordered what I always do and asked for the baked beans like I always do. They didn't have them!! I would have loved to see my face when the server said that. Her response, "You're not in Texas!" Really, Texas Roadhouse?!?!!!!

Feb. 11th: SOMETHING THAT MAKES YOU SMILE

These girls always put a smile on my face!!

Feb. 12th:INSIDE YOUR CLOSET

I opened my closet door and looked around for my favorite thing in the closet. Staring me right in the eyes was this beauty. If you can't tell what it is, it's my suitcase. I love my suitcase because it reminds me that I get to go home soon!! Yippee!!!

At the bottom of this post I posted a video of HG reacting to Jake and the Neverland Pirates coming on Disney. If it doesn't work I will try again because you have to see it!

Not really what I intended

I know what you are thinking, I already fell off the wagon. I skipped the picture of the day yesterday because it was supposed to be of the sun. Well, if I still lived in Abilene you definitely would have gotten your picture. If I would have taken a picture of the sun here it would have been boring. Let me start by saying I am not complaining, we have trees and I am grateful for that. With trees, comes no beautiful west Texas sunsets. I miss that. On to today!! The front door. Really? I was also rather stressed about this but presently there is nothing on my front door. I wish there was, but there's not. I am hoping later in the year I will have this opportunity again and you can all talk about how beautiful my door looks.

I took the little girls to a Valentines day party hosted by the military moms group this morning. We had a great time!! Sometimes it's nice to vent to other ladies that understand some of the frustrations of the military. When we got home there was one ridiculously large box at my FRONT DOOR. I can't tell you what is in it, you will know soon enough. Don't ask Mom, i'm not telling!! :) There you have it, the explanation of "front door".

The FRONT DOOR

This picture is really for my mom. It's just a sweet little house that I happen to be quite fond of :)

A button

February 7th: button

I wanted to think of something so creative for this day, but it didn't happen. I was searching my house and there are buttons everywhere. I couldn't make a decision until I saw this one. On Sunday, I found a gc Mike's mom had given me for Xmas to Pottery Barn. I had completely forgotten about it. I have no idea how because I don't forget things like that. We have needed new bath towels for quite awhile and I knew there were some I wanted that were on sale. Perfect!! Mike is off on Mondays so we drove downtown to look and see what we could find. I got some awesome new bath towels but also found this great pillow. I needed a pop of color for my bed and this was perfect. There you have it, a crazy story about a pillow, with a button.

Photo Challenge

I have wanted to participate in this challenge since the beginning of the year, but wanted my blog makeover to be completed first. I thought about going back and taking a picture for every day but that's not realistic. So my challenge begins on Sunday, February 5th. Get excited!! If I can keep this up that means I will have a new blog post every day!!

February 5th: 10 a.m.

Where else would I be on a Sunday at 10 a.m. We have really enjoyed finding this church home. We are excited to see the friendships and memories we will make as we continue to meet more people.

February 6th: dinner

Doesn't this look delicious?!?!!! Mike is the greatest cook!

I'll be back later today for today's picture. The picture today is a button. Huh, something creative needs to come to mind soon!!

Life

Do you love my blog makeover?!?! It makes me smile every time I pull it up. First, I need to explain to you that I am ok. I think I worried some of you by my last post. You have to understand it was more of just a way to blow off some stress. It was in no way supposed to be depressing. Mike was in VA for the week and so many things went wrong in a day, I was overwhelmed. Well, now back to what has been going on lately. Last week was absolutely unbelievable!! If you thought I was sad before, you have no idea. I decided I had to make this a post about many things because I refuse to have 2 sad ones in a row!!

The week started off by AK coming home from school on Monday sobbing. When I asked her what happened she told me a little girl had just punched her in the face. As you can imagine, my BP went thru the roof!!! Let me back up, for the people I like to pretend read my blog that who are not family :) AK walks home from school, not because she has to but because she wants to. Her school is in our neighborhood and the sidewalk in front of our house leads to it. Anyway, she explained to me she was walking home with 2 little girls and 1 of the little girls didn't like that someone "new" was walking with them. She grabbed AK by the hair and punched her. I decided it was the best decision for me to wait until Mike got home to visit this child's parents. I will stop there because the story went on forever. Just know that AK said hi to that same little girl walking home from school the next day. I am so lucky to have such an amazing daughter.

On Tuesday, I fell down the stairs. I was holding HG and tripped over the baby gate at the very top and fell 3 stairs from the bottom. We have 19 stairs. It was absolutely one of the scariest moments of my life. I can't get it out of my head. The whole way down I was just thinking, "Please don't let Hadlee die!!" I really thought it was going to be bad. HG was fine and laughing as soon as we stopped falling. I on the other hand, should have had many an xray. My body is now starting to feel normal again and I am beyond thankful that we were not hurt any worse.

Yesterday, was Super Bowl Sunday. We were going to a get together with Mike's work. Mike and his friend Robert took my car with the girls. Robert's wife, Meggan and I left early because we had somewhere to go before the party. We were driving up hwy 78 and Meggan told me that a wreck happened right in front of us. She couldn't figure out exactly what had happened but knew it was bad. As we got a little closer she could she that a motorcycle had t-boned a car and that the rider was laying on the ground. Meggan is a nurse and knew she had to stop to see what she could do. At this point, I am beyond hyperventilating, big time!! Guys, it was bad. I won't go into detail, but the man was very badly injured and that is a scene that will never leave my head. We found out today that the man passed away last night at the hospital. It is unbelievable to me how something can be so life changing. That man had no idea his day would end that way. Mike will NEVER own a motorcycle. I am so thankful for a friend like Meggan. I think it awesome to be able to help in situations like that.

That is enough sad. Here are some pictures from the last little bit.

A great alternative to dessert at a restaurant,

Icing and decorating cookies

I love them

You should expect this by now

Baby Me and Rae down for the night

The day after the "sad" post this came in the mail. Erin Condren can always put a smile on my face. (it's stationary, nana) ;)

I can't get over how cute this baby is!!

AK and her 100 day of school project. We had so much fun making this. It is 100 math problems that equal 100. I made her a shirt that you can't see in this picture that says, I am 100 days smarter.

Cuteness again in her new "big girl" car seat

AK and her new friend, Mady

Had to post it, too funny.