Long Time no Blog!

I have been feeling very overwhelmed! I have wanted to post something about how crazy things have gotten around here lately... but haven't because things have gotten crazy around here! Hee hee.
I started school on the 18th and it is really keeping me hopping! I thought it would be tough but I never could have imagined how much I would have to juggle everything just to stay on top of things! I also have been preparing for my New Catalog Open House for Stampin' Up! to kind of put myself out there again as a demonstrator. I love working on stamp projects, but it can be very time consuming as I try to get things just so! I had the Open House tonight and it was a lot of fun. Miah will be very happy in the morning when he sees that we left him some brownies!
We are also looking at moving soon. Chris went in and spoke with the housing office here to see if we could get into a four bedroom apt here. We may just break our lease and go live in a rental off-post though. Our search for homes to buy was a little daunting and we have since had second thoughts about purchasing something here. We don't like it here... if the house didn't sell, we might have to come back here to deal with selling it and we don't really want to have to do that. Renting seems to be the plan for now. I found some 3 and 4 bedroom homes for rent, near post, for reasonable prices. We just have to go out and see them... sometime! I really don't like having demands on my time and now I have this whole school thing weighing heavily on me... always at the back of my mind. I don't know if I will be able to continue with it... as much as I really want to. We shall see...
I just hate how busy Life gets when all I really want to do is curl up with some good books and post daily on my blog!! Hee hee! Well, you'll just have to take what you get from here on out!
Here's some photos of the cutie! She's getting too big...

Snow!!

Well. It snowed today and, as you can see from the pictures, nothing stuck! It did put the kids in a fantastic mood though and they wanted to be out in the "snow". I let them go out for a minute, but it was soooooo cold! They quickly gave up and came back inside. I had high hopes for our little snowstorm... but oh well!
I started school on Monday and it's been a real adventure... I don't know how I'm going to juggle everything and get the assignments done! I guess it will be a real test of my determination and discipline! It may leave you wanting in the blogging department though... so I'll apologize now!
We also may have a move in the near future as the housing office has finally come to their senses and realized their huge mistake in putting our family in a tiny three bedroom house... I'm not too excited about the mess of moving, but I will like having a much bigger four bedroom home and garage!! Yay! We'll keep you posted!
We sat down together at noon and watched Barack Obama sworn in as our next president. It was really cool. I don't know where he'll take us... but I pray he does some good for our dear country. We'll see if he can live up to all the expectations of the American people and really make a change. Best Wishes Mr. President!

The Park With Jilli

I took Jillian to the Mommy & Me on Wednesday. We met at the Library for story time. It was so much fun with lots of our friends from church to play with. The Story time lady let them all play with a huge parachute and they had so much fun! I am so glad we have a fun library nearby! Afterwards, we went to the park to let the kids run around in the cold. Jilli just loved it and never wanted to leave!!

She paused for a couple bites of banana!

House Hunting

Many of you know that we've been house hunting for a while now... pretty much since we moved here! We have had a few homes that we've really liked and a couple weeks ago we put a bid in on a home. It came back with the owners RAISING their price... so we thought we'd just let them sit for a bit and try again in a month or so. I know a lot of you have been asking us about it and that is where we're at right now. We'll probably go out again with the Realtor over the weekend and check out more homes. It's quite the process! We're not in any kind of hurry but it would be REALLY nice to get out of this crappy on-post housing!! 

Ewww Gross!

Friday was not a good day for me. I had some troubles. Just a few. Both toilets overflowed... tipping me off that this was not going to be my day. Then... thinking it was just a toilet thing.... I put the towels in the wash and started it.... The pictures below show the remains of what happened next. It was the day of three floods. Three. And a whole day of having maintenance men tromping through the house with their disgusting boots and machines and tools... Ewwww. Gross. It was a problem with the main water pipes and it took them all day to figure out that the problems were out in the street (which was the Utility company's problem...) Great. Yeah. It was awesome. They even messed with my power at one point... Yep. These men are real geniuses. I was so upset. The worst part was that Chris couldn't come home and save me... He was on a fun trip to Atlanta to visit the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center. Yay! He had a great trip and learned a lot about the life of that great man. He was offered drugs several times (CRAZY!), and feared for his life a few times. I don't think we'll be taking the kids down into downtown Atlanta anytime soon... but he took tons of pictures on his phone and I will post them if he gets them on the computer. He did have to deal with all my irate phone calls, knowing that there was NOTHING he could do but listen and try to calm me down... It was a lovely day! When he got home, he took me and the kids to dinner at Outback with Kindra and Anthony and their family. It was so great to get out of our stinky house. So lovely! We are using our water pipes again - everything back to normal I guess! But I always clinch my teeth and pray everytime I start the washer, flush the toilet or run the dishwasher...

Jessica's Birthday!

Jessica turned 11 yesterday! Wow! How time has flown! We had a lot of fun with her. Tuesday night we took her to a mexican restaurant for dinner and enjoyed watching her squirm when a large group of young men came and sang her a birthday song! She loves mexican food and we are glad that there are some delicious ones in the area! Last night, I made her favorite dinner - Soy Sauce chicken - with rice and broccoli. MMMMM! I also made a delicious chocolate cake with peanut butter filling! She was so excited! She loves chocolate! We were a little strapped for time because we had to get Jeremiah off to scouts... but he did get to enjoy a piece of cake before he left! (Thanks Tina for taking him!) Jess loved all the gifts she received... but most of all she loved her new MP3 player! Her dad found a really awesome one for a great price on Amazon. It has a touch screen and a camera!! Cool beans! She's growing into such a beautiful girl and we love her so much!!
Happy Birthday Jessi!

B&W Beauties...

Dinner with the Missionary Couple

We had the missionaries over for dinner last night. It was great! They are an older couple, serving here as Military Laison's and they are a lot of fun. We enjoyed having them in our home. We miss being around our Grandma's and Grandpa's and having them visit with us felt a little like that. It was a nice little piece of home. They are retired Navy and had lots of interesting stories. I made my nummy White Bean Chicken Chili, canned biscuits (not so nummy!) and Jell-o. For dessert we ate warm Apple Dump cake.... mmmmmmm! They stayed and had Family Home Evening with us and we each wrote out our New Years' Resolutions. Miah's was great - "Learn to write cursive". Jess had some good ones, "Be a good artist, Learn how to play the piano, and Learn to write cursive." (Cursive is just not a big thing now-a-days! They both admire my cursive skills and want to emulate me I guess! I wish they pushed it more in school, but I guess computers have eliminated the need for nice handwriting!!) Jillian's was a beautiful picture of a person with 3 arms and a rainbow dress. I added, "Learn to write my name". We just might accomplish that this year! I won't bore you with Chris and I's... but it was a lot of fun. We're so blessed to be able to associate with such great people here! Yay for Couple Missionaries!! 

The Princess Birthday Party!

I went to such a fun birthday party on Saturday night! We celebrated Miss Denise's birthday and it was so much fun! Check out the cake!!! Isn't it just to DIE for! And you didn't even get to taste it!!! It was delicious - coconut cake with orange marmalade filling.... mmmmmmmm! We had a great time playing together and I don't think I've laughed as hard as I did in quite some time - Thanks!! We made candy heart necklaces, ate and talked. It was great!

Kieko, Me, Cari, Ashley, Sydney, Sylwia, Brandi, Sinet, Tina, Stephanie
Denise and her daughter!

I had to snap a picture of this ADORABLE apron that she received!! So cute!! I must get me one... for that future day when I decide cooking is once again cool!

FeggNog

Jillian has many interpretations of common words. Like eggnog. To her, Feggnog. Yep. She keeps us laughing!

MMMMMM! Great feggnog! Good enough to leave a mustache!

Little Mozart

Little Jillian loves our new keyboard! She plays it all the time. I love that we purchased the headphones so she can hear her "masterpieces" but we don't have to listen to them all day long! I hope that this purchase will help our kids begin a love for music. I'm hoping to find piano lessons for them and get them started. I also want to work on my skills... I did take Piano lessons for years and years growing up... Maybe it will all come back to me? I'm hoping!

Happy New Year!

I will not miss 2008. Spending some of it without Chris was not fun. Moving was not fun. Yeah, I will not miss 2008. I am hopeful that 2009 will bring brighter days, more to keep me busy, happy times with Chris and the kids, a trip to Utah?, a new house?, a new car?, the possibilities are endless! I love looking at a new year in January. It is a magical time. It is a time when you feel like you can become anything you wish. Of course, it will take effort, but ANYTHING can happen! Anything. I haven't sat down to write my yearly "Resolutions", but I think I may wait until our schedules return to normal. It's a little hard to get much of anything done around here with the kids and Chris underfoot! I wouldn't have it any other way though! Enjoy your last days off! Love you all! Happy New Year!! 

---

Dress Up!

Jillian came in wearing this gorgeous outfit! I just had to catch her on film in it... soooo pretty! She had a little help from Jessi. They had fun for several hours together. I love when they play together nicely! Usually Jess gets frustrated with Jillian and sends her away in tears! Not today!

Happy 12th!

We celebrated our 12th Anniversary together this year. Chris took me to dinner at a delicious steakhouse and gave me a beautiful diamond necklace. I couldn't believe it!!! It is just gorgeous and delicate and soooooo amazing. He has such good taste! (And he got it at Jared!! hee hee hee) He also sent me flowers earlier in the week. They were so pretty and so festive. I was truly spoiled. I am so lucky to be married to such a wonderful man. He is so good to me. He loves and supports me through all that I do and I do the same for him. We have had quite a good twelve years together. Neither of us could believe it has actually been twelve!!! Time has really flown by. Twelve wonderful years!! Wow!


Chris and I

My gorgeous flowers!

Much prettier in real life!!