December.....

Just a quick little blog......

Today is my 31st Birthday! Happy Birthday ME!! Hubby and the kiddos are taking me out to dinner somewhere, although I don't know where. Hubby has been out for about 4 hours with the kiddos trying to pick out my Birthday & Christmas presents, I love the kids being old enough to have a say in what they think mommy needs/wants for my special days, it makes everything even more special. Hubby has always been super thoughtful when it comes to getting me things, even when I was just pregnant with Princess he did wonderful at picking out my gifts.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and then Christmas day! Merry Christmas to everyone and a Happy New Year! Please stay safe during your travels even if they are nearby. As my dad would say, "Watch out for the car directly behind the car directly in front of you"........YOURSELF!! We will be travelling to Allen, Tx for hubby's family Christmas. Our tradition is to alternate between the two families and with the exception of a few years of having to do 1/2 a Christmas in Allen then make a flying trip back to Fruitvale for the last 1/2 of it everything normally works out good. I'm excited about Christmas Eve in Allen this year b/c JW is really into everything and understands the unwrapping of presents and all that fun stuff! Christmas Day will be Santa @ home then Santa @ Nana & Papa's house with hubby's pigs in the blankets.............4+ dozen of them to be exact!

I LOVE Christmas and seeing how excited the kids are to see all of their new toys, clothes...and goodies that they get, most of all I love when I can finally be happy and say I have bought everything for everyone and it is finally over!

Friday is back to work, I have class at the office Friday morning and will have to work late that night until about 6pm or so, but the good news is I will OFFICIALLY be the Agent of my book January 5, 2009!!! We do all of the changes on the 2nd so I may actually get to take over that Friday but for sure on Monday!!!

Well, the hubby and kiddos are home.......off to get ready for dinner and to see what goodies I got!!

....the past month...and what's coming up!

Okay it's been a while since my last post! Almost a month actually! Life has been sooo horribly busy this past month! Like I mentioned in my last post, I passed both of my insurance tests and my Life license has been issued, we are just waiting for the Fire to finally issue then I get to finally be on my own. So the past few weeks I have spent most of my days riding with my manager, the agent I am replacing and a few other agents. It has been a lot of fun and I have learned many useful and not so useful things. I'm still excited about this new opportunity I have been given.
~The kids - Princess went on a field trip to Athens a couple of weeks ago to something called Imagination Fair....I'm pretty sure I haven't already wrote about that. She had a good time even though she didn't get chosen to read her poem in front of the other kids. The had a 2nd field trip today to Tyler to something called Scientific Circus, I'm anxious to see how that went. JW got to take a field trip with the PreK kids at TLC to Azalea Trails to go Trick or Treating and this past Wednesday they took at trip to the Pavilion up town to decorate their tree for the Coco & Carols I think that their tree is Switzerland. Princess & her grade were supposed to be taking a field trip walking up to the Pavilion but I think the weather this week has turned out too cold.

That's the highlights from the past couple of weeks. Oh, I forgot about the drama with my van! When we bought the van we noticed it had custom wheels but didn't think much about it until last weekend when I noticed some wire showing on my front drivers tire, which is bad, especially since I'm putting 125+ miles on my van every day, over 600 miles a week. No biggy, I bought a tire, went to have Chuck @ Harris' Pit stop put it on to find out their machine wouldn't do my wheel. Off to Goggans in Edgewood only to find out I have "special" lug nuts and need a key to get them off. The bad thing is, it's not just one locking lug nut like some vehicles have, every one of them is a special type!!! So I've been driving hubby's car (WHICH I HATE!!!) and he's been easin my van to the mine every night. Today I finally got to stop to pick up the key I need to take the lug nuts off, our wheels are only sold at Discount Tire (which I would have never guessed!! Thank you GOOGLE!!) the highlight, the guy gave me the key......for FREE!!!! So off I go on my merry way to Canton, to drop my check off in the bank and to go to Wal-Mart. I leave Wal-Mart and here a POP! Then the car wouldn't move! The front tie rod had broken and there I sat in the middle of rows 7&8 not being able to go anywhere!! Thankfully 2 really nice men FINALLY stopped and helped to get the tire turned so I could get back into the parking space! I was truly amazed at how many women stopped to ask if I needed help and how few men stopped to ask! Anyway............I put our roadside assistance to use and a nice guy from Fuller's Towing came and picked me and my lovely car up and brought us home! If you ever need a tow and Ronnie Monk is not available (as he was tonight b/c he was in Austin) call Fuller's they are very courteous & professional. Our neighbors were a bit curious why a Lime Green tow truck was coming up the alley and all the boys that saw us seem to think it was cool. I know JW is going to be mad b/c momma got to ride in a big truck and he didn't! He's soooo funny!

Well, that brings us up to date! Tomorrow we will spend fixing hubby's car and my tire for the beginning of the day. If it warms up I want to try to get some lights up to get a jump start on decorating for Christmas. We usually try to start the weekend after Thanksgiving, but since that is First Monday weekend we will be in Canton........yeah us!LOL!! Hopefully if everyone isn't too tired we might try to go to the movies to watch Bolt, the kids are wanting to go to the drive in in Tyler, but I keep telling them it will be toooo coooollllddd that we will just have to go to the little theater in Wills Point. Next week Princess is out of school all week, JW is out of school & I am off work Thursday & Friday. I think hubby is off work Thursday & Friday too. I'm hoping we are going to Allen to hubby's cousins house on Thursday, we haven't seen them since last year and can't wait to see their new house.

Wow! I didn't realize I had written a novel!! If you've made it this far, hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving! Stay warm!

Yippee!!!

I PASSED!!!! I was really hoping that I would pass on the 1st try. I really didn't want to have to pay $65 again for a 2nd one! I didn't make as high as I wanted but I PASSED!!! Now hopefully I can get out of that itty bitty room!!

Other news......
Tuesday night GS meeting went GREAT!! We had the girls make friendship bracelets and decorate bobby pins. We had 1 more girl join which gives us 5 that have signed up so we are now officially a Troop!!! I'm so excited!! We decided to change our meetings to Thursdays, every other Thursday so maybe we can get more girls interested since it won't be a weekly commitment. We are skipping next week since it's Halloween week and picking things back up November 6 @6pm. Now we are just trying to think of something for the girls to do at the next meeting!

Off to put JW in the bed and go there myself. One more day this week to drive to Dallas then Saturday is full of things for us to do: Pee-Wee Football.......too early to think about, Golden Sweet Potato Festival - Hubby and Papa Pearland are setting up the concession stand hopefully to make big $$$. Papa Pearland is spending the night with us Friday & Saturday night and the kids are excited. They love it when he comes to visit..........when anyone comes to visit. They are too funny sometimes!

Off to bed! Have a great weekend!

Okay, my test is set for Thursday @ 4pm. Say a prayer that I pass! Work is still great! I'm just ready to get my license so that I can move forward and learn more!! More importantly out into the field on my own!!!!

Tomorrow night is our 2nd Girl Scout meeting. We will be moving the meeting to Thursday night due to some of the girls having other things to do also on Tuesday night. Hopefully that will get more girls interested since they won't have to choose one activity over another! I know that is always hard for Princess to do!

I heard some sad news and some really happy news today and want to ask anyone that reads this and that believes in the power of prayer to please pray for both families.

1st the Happy news!! My cousins' wife Peggy came through her brain surgery today very good and all is looking good she will be in the hospital 3-5 days more but I think she is expected to make a full recovery!! Please keep Peggy and her family in your prayers during this time to help Peggy with a speedy recovery and get her home to her grandbabies soon!

Now the sad news. Mom told me tonight that the husband of a long time family friend, relative by marriage Mr Tommy Koonce died yesterday. As of right now the cause is unknown and there haven't been any plans made that mom knew of as of around 6pm. Please keep this family in your prayers, Princess is in pee-wee cheer with Tommy's granddaughter and I know that has to be terribly horrible for all of them. I worked with Tommy's wife Evelyn and her mom Jo and have known them all of my life as far back as I can remember. He will be terribly missed by many!

Onto more happy thoughts!
JW & I went to his first friend party Saturday. One of the little girls he goes to school with had her 3rd birthday and her little brother had his 2nd birthday the same time. I had her little brother in my class when I first started at the daycare. They had a big bounce house and sandwiches, chips, drinks, a HUGE chocolate chip cookie birthday cake and goody bags. I couldn't convince JW to go into the bounce house but he had fun playing with the eyes from the halloween decorations and LOVED the chocolate chip cookie cake! He didn't want to leave until I reminded him that daddy was home and not at work. He's ready to go back!! And I'm sure there was lots of talking about the party today at school.

Well JW is passed out in the floor so I guess I'd better get him in his bed! Nighty night!!

Mid Month Updates

Let's see......I started my new job last week and so far it is going great! I have to drive to Dallas every day right now which isn't so great but the pay is great for basically sitting and reading a book and taking practice tests all day. I sign up Friday to take my test and hopefully pass it since it costs $65!!! Then there is $44.20 for being electronically fingerprinted! The fingerprinting is a one time deal, the test, if I don't pass it then I have to pay for it again!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night we had our 1st Girl Scout Brownie "meeting". I was not nearly as prepared as I wanted to be and look backing thinking of all of the things I could have done to make it better!! I know next week will be better though and we did get some invitations made and I have already got a couple of calls about information on joining so I'm getting excited, especially since we were 1 girl short from even really being a troop!! I need to email my "teacher" to have her send me information though on getting things rolling during a meeting! We definitely know we are going to do some snacks for the girls next week. The down side is that since we don't have any dues coming in right now we don't have any funds to do anything without the girls having to buy things or Erin & I have to pay for everything until $$ starts coming in.

January is the start of Girl Scout Cookie Sales!! This is our main fund raiser and will provide a way for us to actually do some really fun things!! I'm excited that things will get better as we go!

If you know a girl K-2 that might want to join email me or have them email me! (sheriroach@aol.com)

Time to fix dinner.........and change a stinky pull up!! (Anyone have any hints on potty training #2?????

Getting Crafty

I've been recently inspired by a message board I often read (sewforum.com) and I am going to try to make a couple of the projects I've found on there. One is Badge Reels, you know like nurses, school teachers, Wal-Mart employees, waitresses (I used them when I worked @ Papadales) and the other is a Ribbon Bag, or Cheer Bag. Here's a couple of pictures from there of things that other people have done.

Here is the Cheer Tote/Ribbon Bag


And this is the Badge Reel


Luckily for me both of these should be able to be accomplished with my 4x4 embroidery hoop. My lovely neighbor has agreed to embroider a larger Indians on the bag once I have it finished. I am hoping to be able to upgrade to some software for my little machine soon and hope to eventually buy a big girl machine like our neighbor in Canton @ First Monday has! But the latter will not be anytime in near future! But the software could be possible for an Anniversary gift to myself or birthday/Christmas gift to myself. More on that later!

I have a 3 year old informing me that his back itchies and that it needs itchied, which lately has been how he has gone to sleep, so off to put the little one to bed. Hope everyone has a great night... until next time!

What we've done and what we're doing.

Let's see..... last Saturday we had pee-wee football in Mineola. Which was ummm fun?? We had to be there @ 7:15 AM for a 8am game. Then we had to stay for my middle nephew's 10:30 game. So between the two we made a quick trip to Wal-Mart to replace my battery on the momma mobile b/c she had been sickly for so long and I was getting tire of not knowing if she would crank, plus since I start driving to Mesquite on Friday I really need it to start! Anyway, the 1st & 2nd grade boys lost but the 3rd & 4th won! I think we play in Van this coming weekend, but not quite as early as this past weekend, thank goodness!

Saturday afternoon was spent keeping the kids quiet if they were in the house so the hubby could get some z's b/c he was working 11pm-7am this weekend. The kids (Princess & JW & my 3 nephews) went next door and played with our neighbors boys, they all 5 promise me that they were indeed invited over to play and didn't just go over. I posted a link to Jennifer's blog a while back. She has 3 of the cutest little boys and a beautiful little girl. They are such a wonderful family and she is a very crafty gal and has been blessed with enough patience to home school her oldest 2 kiddos. They all had a blast and almost had to be dragged home kicking and screaming b/c they didn't want to go. Now everyday when we drive by their house on the way home JW asks if he can go play with Parker. (So Jen if you're reading this let me know if the kids were any trouble Saturday!)

Sunday we went to Tyler and had lunch at Mercado's, I was really disappointed in the quality of the food. It has been a while since we had eaten there and will probably not be back for even a longer amount of time! Then we stopped at Spirits to look at Halloween costumes and ended up getting Princess her costume, she is going to be a Punk Rock Star, it's a fake leather looking top with a Hot Pink tulle skirt on it, it has a little skull and cross bones on it. It's not really what I had pictured for my little girl but she suckered daddy into it. Needless to say after spending as much on it as we did for lunch we won't be going this route again next year!! I have no idea what JW is going to be, the only thing he was interested in was a sword from Pirates of the Caribbean. We shall see!

Things to come
Tomorrow is my last day at the daycare! I'm sort of sad to be going because I have really gotten attached to some of the kids there and love the way that they are now excited to see me when they wake up from their naps. But I'm excited to be starting my new job Friday morning and I am anxious to get my license to get a raise to make really nice money. I know money can't buy happiness but it can buy the things that we have gotten used to having since hubby was bringing home all of that overtime. I am, however, going to call in the morning to see if there is anyway that I can push off my start until Monday due to Friday being Homecoming and the parade being @ 2:15!! And it is Princess's first parade to be in. Which reminds me of what I did this morning! I ordered Princess's Homecoming Mum! Yeppers! After I was revived I signed my check. Who would've thunk they could be so expensive!! If it wasn't a last minute decision I would have just bought everything I needed and put one together my self, I know it must have been cheaper to do it that way.......at least that is what I'm telling myself. I guess I will know for sure the next time I go to Hobby Lobby or Garden Ridge or Micheal's so that I can price the stuff or better yet, maybe pick up some things on clearance for next year!!