Happiness Is ...

Eme was feeling much better on Friday morning, so she got to go to school. Poor thing. I hate it when my kids are sick. I got everyone ready and out the door, then got ready for my meeting. I was attending a class through AFTB (Army Family Team Building) on Courtesy, Customs, and Traditions. It started at 8:30am.

I thought I knew where the building it was held in was, but when I drove past it, it was called something else. Dang! I finally figured out where it was. LOL. Pace Hall - Sage Hall. Similar, right - LOL! I made it on time, anyway. LOL!

The class ran from 8:30 am - 2:30 pm, and they gave us vouchers for child care. Pretty good deal :) I learned all about Teas, Coffees, Hail & Farewells, Ball attire, Change of Commands, and a little about Chain of Command. Pretty good stuff to know. There were some pretty nice and fun girls there too! That always makes it more enjoyable.

I got home at 3ish, cleaned the house for a while, and took a short nap. Sitting all day long will wear you out - ROLF! When the kids got home from school, I directed chores to be done, got them a snack, and got ready for my date with Captain America.

We were going to a Hail and Farewell. It's the social "party" for the leaders within the Unit when new people come in and other people move out of the unit. It was at a BBQ joint, and was pretty good. I didn't know anyone, so that was a little weird. Seemed like nice people, though. Good food. A little spicy for me, but ok.

Here's Captain America in the car on the way to dinner

And me

After the Hail and Farewell (it was only 8:30pm), we met up with Adela, Andrea, and Katy at the Centennial (a place on post) for Hip Hop DJ night. Yeah, it had the potential to be really good. Potential, being the key word there. It sucked pretty bad. They had this violin Hip Hop band that was the highlight of the night. But no one was dancing then. It was more like a concert. After that, they had 2 DJ's play 7 minutes worth of music, and the audience judged.

The first guy was just terrible. The 2nd guy played 1 1/2 minutes of good stuff. Captain America went to take a nap in the car (yeah, he's not into that kind of music AT ALL - ROFL!), and the girls and I danced for a few minutes. By few, I mean the 1 1/2 minutes. LOL! One of these days, we'll get to go dancing where they actually place music that we can dance to. hehehe.

After that, we decided to leave. We went to Applebees, and got sodas and appetizers. It was pretty fun.

Here's Katy and Adela

Andrea and Katy (Dang, Katy, has anyone ever told you that you're WHITE (heehehe))

Adela and I

See, Katy doesn't look quite so white next to me - hehehe

We got home at midnight, and I started designing and blogging. Not sure what we're doing on Saturday. Apparently there's a garage sale at one of my neighbors houses in the morning. And the other neighbor kid has a birthday party at the bowling alley (for Tom & Jake) at noon-ish. And Captain America wanted to go to Hueco Tanks too. Don't know if/what we're gonna end up doing.

As I was trying to decide what to do for a freebee tonight (12:20am on Saturday morning), I saw this saying and thought it would be PERFECT. Because I know that you all have photos of what Happiness is to each one of you. And it'll be different for each one of you, too!

Click on the links below to go to my accounts to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Carving the Pumpkin

Wow, can you believe I actually remembered to blog about this before it happened. hehehe. Here's all my new stuff for this week. Hope you like it! Click HERE to go to my store, and remember, it's 20% off the first week :) And one more time, thanks SO much to everyone for all of your sweet comments, and your generous-ness (yeah, is that even a word?) to me. I love ya, girls!

Layout by Trina

Layout by Jen (Graham Like The Cracker)

Layout by Tanja

Oh dear. I'm designing/blogging after midnight again - LOL! You know what that means. One, that I had WAY too much fun during the day. And two, that I may have typos - LOL. I'll try and make sure that I run spell check . hehehe.

So I needed to run to Wal-Mart to pick up my emptied money purse on Thursday. Captain America wanted a "over the door" hook, and I needed a new eye liner pencil. SO, off Jimmy and I went. Jake stayed home, and Eme too. She wasn't feeling well, so spent most of the day sleeping. So off to WalMart. While we were in the check out line, Laurie called and said that she was on her way to Sam's Club (right next to Wal-Mart), and asked if I wanted to join her. Of course!

Sam's is pretty fun to walk around in. I don't know if it has any better deals than anywhere else, but it's fun. I ended up getting a new jacket. $19.77, brown and cream. SO cute. I'll take a picture of it on Friday.

After Sam's, we decided to go and check out the Goodwill on the fancy side of town. OMGosh, it seemed like it was FOREVER away. And honestly, I didn't thin kit was any better than the close one. I found the VHS of Tarzan for Jimmy, and nothing else. They did have a nice cape/robe thing for a costume, but it was $8.00. Who pays that much for a used costume piece? Definitely didn't buy that.

Laurie and Rowan (her 2 year old) went home after that, and Jimmy and I went to Big Lots. I got Captain America and replacement flag display box for the one that I accidentally broke a few months ago. I still feel bad for that. I seriously didn't see it on top of the bookshelf when I was trying to move it. I'm just glad that his grandpa's flag wasn't hurt. Sigh.

Then, it was back home. Jake went to Eric (Katy's son)'s house to play for a bit, and we did chores and homework and such here. At 6pm, Joe and I went to Cub Scouts. Captain America met us there at 6:45pm. He was late at work, so missed most of the meeting. When Captain America got there, I went back home to get the kids ready for bed.

I went to Andrea's at 7:30ish. We were helping a friend out with something real quick, then ended up chatting and eating brownies in the backyard until 1am. Girlfriends are SO much fun. Thanks, girls, for the fun day! What would I do without ya!

OK, so I know that I've been buying them at the store, and I'm sure that you have too. It's about time to get your pumpkins for the year! So that you can carve them. Or even paint them. Or whatever you do with them! I know that you can use this WordArt - hehehe. Or will be able to soon. Go on, carve your pumpkin. You know you wanna. It's a good time!

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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I'll Love You Forever

OMGosh, you guys! I was BLOWN away by your support! Thanks to EACH and every one of you for your kind words, your sweet thoughts, and for those of you who used my coupon in the store! I don't even know where to begin thanking each and every one of you! You more than replaced the money that was "lost". Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! What started off as a crappy and sad and depressing day turned into a very happy and emotional one for me. I was overcome with feelings of love from y'all! OK, I'm starting to gush. And I'm not a gusher. Sorry..... BUT THANKS!!!!!

So here's a few pictures from Tuesday that I forgot to post. I guess I need to download my pictures every day, huh? hehehe.

This is Andrea's son, Ben. He's about a year older than Joe

Here's Katy!

Andrea and Ben

Katy and her daughter, Emily

Me and Emily and Katy

Adela's daughter, Tori, wearing my sunglasses - hehehe

Katy's dog, Athena, wearing my sunglasses- ROFL!

OK, I know it's blurry, but what's wrong with this picture? Even in the blur, you can tell that these legs are TOO smooth......FOR A MAN! Enough said...

Like I said on yesterdays post, I did call around in the morning and find out that yes, someone had stolen my money bag, taken all the money out, then ditched the bag. Luckily the $25.00 Verizon Wireless rebate debit card was still in there. I still need to go and pick that up. It's safe and sound behind the Customer Service desk at Wal-Mart.

It kinda ruined my morning, though. I didn't really feel motivated to go and do anything. I did get the kids off to school on time, though. Here's Eme on her birthday morning, with her new shirt on. She's so cute!


I needed to go grocery shopping, though. I did make up my list, and even texted my friend Laurie to see if she wanted to go with me. She was busy in the morning, though. BUT, by the time I finally got around to getting ready and going, it was 11am, and she was available.

It's amazing how much more enjoyable a menial task like Grocery shopping is with a friend. Jake came, and pushed Jimmy (4) and Rowan (almost 3) in the kid shopping cart, and Laurie and I pushed the food cart. It really was a good time. I came in $0.45 cents under budget. I was starting to get a little nervous there, considering I had exactly $200 in my wallet, and the total was $199.55. Luckily I had a few dollars left over from last week to tip the bagger. I did get a few extra, out of the ordinary things this week, though. Like 2 new kinds of Herbal tea, and a pumpkin (bringing our total to 3), birthday cake, ice cream, cones, and a few other "non" essential but fun items. Gotta do that every once in a while :)

After grocery shopping, Jake and I put all the groceries away, then had lunch. Grilled cheese w/ cotti salami sandwiches. I must have been hungry, because it tasted SO good. LOL! I spent quite a bit of time this afternoon on the computer, checking emails and such.

I made 2 batches of Carrot Cake cupcakes with homemade Cream Cheese frosting for Eme's "Party". Mmmm, I just LOVE carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Tasty! And the ice cream was white with fudge swirls. Can't beat that!




At about 3:30, I started to get everything ready to take to the park for Eme's party. Well, it wasn't really a party so much as it was "come to the park and eat ice cream and cupcakes with Emeline". But she didn't need to know that - LOL!

Andrea showed up at my door at 3:45pm, and wanted me to ride to Juarez Burritos with her to get take out for her family. I left Jake in charge, and told the kids that we'd go to the park at 4:30pm. I texted my other friends to let them know, and off we went. I'd never been there before, and it seemed like a good place to eat.

Andrea is a lot of fun to hang out with. Thanks, girl, for asking me along for the ride! I'll come and hang out ANYTIME you want! hehehe.

"Party" at the park was good. I had bought 2 boxes of cones, each with 2 packages of cones inside. One whole package was crushed. I was a few kids short of ice cream, but had PLENTY of cup cakes. Sorry, kids! I tried my best. hehehe. Eme seemed pleased with her party.

It was so bright and sunny it was hard to get pictures. Poor Eme is squinting big time. And yeah, we're still in the 70's and 80's here in El Paso. None of that cold white frozen white stuff for us!

Andrea, Adela, and Katy

Katy and I

Emily got Eme this CUTE kitty stuffed animal. She ADORED it!

And, some cash (don't leave it in your puse at Wal-Mart, someone may STEAL it - I'm just saying....). She got money from a friend, from Captain America and I, from Grandma Ida, and from Grandma Lyn. She's pretty excited about going and spending her "dollars". When my parents are here, we're taking her out to Chili's on Saturday night for dinner. Should be a good time!

After the park, we came home, and had pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. Mmmmm, tasty. Sure, it was left over pulled pork, but it was STILL good. My head was starting to hurt a bit, so I took a pill and went in my room to relax and take it easy.

Jake and Tom and Captain America left for scouts at 6:30pm, and the other kids and I went in my room for a ovie. Eme got to pick it out. Can you guess what it was? She's SO much like me it's scary. We watchd Twilight. ha! She and Jim ended up falling asleep just before it got over. Captain Americaand the other boys were home by then, so they helped me get the kids to their rooms and in bed. All in all, it turned out to be a great day.

This WordArt request is from Kimberly. And yes. I will love you guys until the day after tomorrow. That's how THANKFUL I am for you all. Truly, I have the BESTEST blog readers EVER!!!!

Click on the links below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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My Cash Was Stolen Sale

OK, girls - I'm having a one day sale. In honor (ha!) of my money being stolen out of my purse, I'm giving out a 50% off coupon! To EVERYONE! It's only good for one day, but still. It's there for ya, if ya want it. Good for anything I sell in the WordArt category. Click HERE to go to my store.

Even if I'm having a crappy day, at least everyone doesn't have to - ROFL!

Code:
mycashwasstolen

Good for 24 hours

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

OMGosh, you guys. My stomach is all in knots, and I feel horrible. No, I'm not sick. As I was at a Cub Scout planning meeting last night at Carl's Jr, I went to pull out my personal money pouch out of my purse, and it was gone. GONE. I had all of my personal spending money for the month in there, plus a few other "funds". I'd just done the bills the day before, so it had almost $100 in cash in there. I don't know where it went!

UPDATE: I called around to Taco Cabana (no luck) and Wal-Mart, who had found it, emptied of cash, of course. The $25.00 Verizon Wireless Rebate card was still there, thankfully. Dang. I hope that whoever took my money needs it. And uses it well. And feels guilty about it. And burns in heck... Oh wait. Strike that last comment. That's not nice. I think that I'm gonna go back to my ugly black non-name brand purse that can sling over my shoulder. No one ever messed with that purse. Sigh.

I know that I had it at Goodwill. I went there at 10:00am ish. I got a few new tops for myself and a Scooby Doo video for Jimmy. Jake spent some of his own money. I had it there. I went to Taco Cabana with the girls and Captain America, but didn't pay out of my money pouch. I paid with the "restauraunts" money. Different envelope.

Next, I went to Wal-Mart, and left Jake and the cart and Jimmy and my purse in the toy section (Jimmy stayed in the cart the whole time) while I went to electronics to get print cartridges. Jake ended up wandering around, and it was about 20 minutes before I caught back up with them.

I paid with my debit card at Wal-Mart, but you'd think that I would have noticed that my money pouch was missing if it truly were missing at that point. It's kinda big. And in the same section as my wallet.

After Wal-Mart, we went back home. I brought all the packages in from the truck, and my purse, and put it on the kitchen counter. I put away all the bags, and when Eme did her chores, she hung my purse up where it went. It didn't leave the house again until Carl's Junior. Where the heck is my money pouch?

Did someone steal it? Did I leave it at Goodwill? I don't think that I took it out of my purse. Did Jimmy get into my purse at home and move it? I checked both vehicles thoroughly (and Captain Americatoo), so I'm pretty sure it's not in there. It's about enough to make me sick, though.

Have you ever lost that much money before? I was counting on that money to do something fun with my parent when they came next week. Sigh. I'm sure hoping that it's just misplaced at home, and not stolen. What a crappy thing to do to someone. I can't stand thief's.

I decided to go over to Katy's house and hang in the evening. We'd planned on watching last weeks episodes of Medium, Survivor, and Amazing race. I didn't wanna not go because I was looking for lost money. I needed to go and get my mind off of it. It's kinda working. I brought my computer, and am blogging/watching TV from Katy's house.

If you can, say a little prayer for me that I'll either find the money or at least figure out where it went. That would give me some peace of mind, even if it was stolen. Know what I mean? I'd just like to know what happened to it.

Crap. And, it's Emeline's Birthday on Wednesday. Happy 8th. I should have done a nice little blog post about her. And posted a cute little picture of her through the years. But you know what. My stomach is all in knots, and I can't do that right now. Maybe tomorrow. Poor Eme. I'm sorry, girl!

So, not this week, but next week, I have a WordArt pack coming out that's a "Circular" WordArt pack. I wanted to make one up for y'all as a freebee! Click HERE to go to Scraporchard to download the zip file, and leave some love if you like my work!

I Made A Wish

First off, PICTURES from my weekend! And, I even photoshopped a few of them. I just LOVE "The Pioneer Woman"'s actions. SO fun to play with.

Here's one of Jimmy - TOO cute! Giving his mommy a flower.

And Jacob

Captain America and the dude on the end are/were in the Army. Does it show? LOL

Jimmy, standing in "formation". He was the CUTEST thing, trying to be all lined up like a good soldier.

Eme

The Men

Tom (No, you didn't get your smile from your mother)

Eme and her little friend

Larry and Captain America on the horses

Our Camp

Jimmy

Joe playing chess with the Cub Scouts

Jimmy and his friend on the horse

Self Portrait!

In one of their classes, they taught the girl scouts how to make adobe bricks. It was pretty cool. Make mud, then add some grass, then form it in this wooden contraption. Pretty snazzy!

I loved this pic of Joe, too! I photoshopped this one for a bit :)

Jake and Tom got to play with the cannons. OK, so "Play" isn't the right term - hehehe. Tom got to be the "powder monkey". That's the guy who carried the gun powder to the guy who loads it. Pretty cool job :)

Jake got to actally fire the cannon. He pulled the "trigger". He was SO happy. They both got marked with soot to be "initiated" into the group. You couldn't have found 2 happier boys that day ;)

Another happy kid, this time on a horse

Eme got to ride the most out of all the kids, and was SO proud of herself, as she should be. They kept trying to get me on a horse, but I kept telling them there's not way on God's green earth your getting me up on a horse. Take my dog phobia and times that by 3. Yeah, not gonna happen. Again, animal. Unpredictable. Out weighs me. Faster than me. WAY off the ground. Yeah, not so much!

I love this picture of Captain America. Isn't he handsome!

This was my kids' favorite cactus. They called it the Lollipop cactus. Because it looks like lollipops. Yeah, they're kids - LOL It's all about the candy!

More Cactus and the low mountains of New Mexico outside of Ft. Seldon

Captain America and the ruins. This is the actually remains of Ft. Seldon (1870's)

So, there's my weened in photos. Pretty cool, eh? Did I have fun? Well, it was all right. I came to the conclusion that the reason that I liked Civil War reenacting in the past was that I simply didn't have a life. With nothing better to do, it was GREAT to go camping on the weekends and dress up and such. BUT, now that I'm used to having friends, and hanging with the girls, it's not quite what it used to be. Where I didn't mind being left for 3-4 hours alone with the kids and the campsite in the past, it's not my favorite thing to do now.

I kinda feel bad admitting that I didn't have fun, though. I know how much Captain America and the kids enjoyed it. They had people to hang out with. Captain America thoroughly enjoyed himself talking about the Civil War, and reenacting, and Ft. Seldon, and how to make it better. History isn't really my thing. And I kinda feel bad admitting that, even. Don't think that I'm ignorant, or anything. History is good. But it's not really how I wanna spend my free time.

I think what it is, is in the past, I really didn't do much. I was starved for people (I know, it sounds pathetic). I jumped at the chance to be out in public. Just setting in the campsite and hoping that someone would wander through and talk to me sounded like fun. Now? Not so much. It just didn't really do it for me this weekend. But I didn't really know how to breech the subject with Captain America. I know how much he loves it, and how much fun the kids all had doing it. I don't wanna be the guy to "rain on their parade", so to speak. Hmmmm, what should I do?

I started jogging on Monday. My sister is doing the Couch to 5K program, so I googled it, and gave it a try. I started with a brisk walk for 5 minutes, then 60 seconds of jogging, 90 seconds of walking, for 20 minutes, followed by a 5 minute walk cool-down. 30 minutes total. And it was pretty easy. I was sweating by the time I was done, but not out of breath. I do this 3 times this week. Not sure what week 2 looks like. I printed it off, though. Wish me luck! And Laurie, if you read this, girl, you should do it with me!

Jake and Jim and I drove around a bit today looking for Wrestling shoes for Jake. I saw online that Footlocker had them for around 30. Who knew that they didn't sell them in their store. Well, apparently they don't. But they said that the PX sold them. Next, we went to the dollar tree looking for Halloween decorations. Mostly they had Christmas. Dang, striking out all around today. I got a hang up skeleton and a gravestone for the yard. Jake and Jim spent a dollar, I got some brushes for Eme, and we left. We stopped by Big5 Sports, and found shoes for $65, but that was a little more than I wanted to pay.

We went to the PX, and apparently they DONT sell wrestling shoes. Goodness. We stopped by Sonic (if going off post is on the way) on the way home, and got happy hour drinks. I got a GINORMOUS Diet Dr. Pepper, and the boys got a Strawberry Real Fruit Slushie. SO good! I bet they asked to go back at Happy Hour again. They didn't know such things existed. Oh mom! When you come to visit, I know where we're going from 2-4 - LOL!

I spent a good portion of the day cleaning. I cleaned my room, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the downstairs bathroom, cleaned and re-organized the living room (see, 6 months of no moving will do that to a person - rearranging!), did a few loads of laundry, folded laundry, and even chatted with the neighbor lady for a while. All in all, it was a productive cleaning day. Not too fun, but effective none the less.

This WordArt request is from Melle. I've seen the saying used in baby layouts, but could also see it for wedding or love or friendship layouts too. Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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