2011

First off, I've had a few of you ask recently about Captain America's deployment, so I'll let ya all know. I'm not gonna say exactly where he's going, because that's not safe for the Army. You know, one of those "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you" kinda things. hehe. I know where he's going. It's in the Middle East. That's good enough :) I may refer to it as Iraq. hehe. It's not Iraq, but I might refer to it as that, because it's short to type, and that's in the Middle East too - ROFL!

We don't know for sure when he's leaving, because they guard those dates too. We have a general idea of when he's leaving, but again, I'm not gonna put that info out there either. It's relatively soon, though. Anyhoo, just thought I'd fill you all in. hehe.

Hola :) So, it's 2011. Wow. Crazy, but that date looks like something out of a Sci-Fi show, huh? How did it possibly get that far in the future. I graduated from High School in 1994. That makes me old, huh? Or young, depending on who you are - ROFL!

Anyway, I slept in again today. Yeah, I'm gonna be SO sad when the kids go back to school, because I"m gonna have to start waking up early again - hehe.

Anyway, we eventually woke up and got ready for the day. And decided that since it was the last day of the year, and since Jim's Applebees kids meal coupon from school expired today, today was the day to use it - ROFL! He was presented it for "character student of the month". Eme got one for September, I think, but not an Applebees one. But we decided to take her too, since she'd received the same type of award.

Anyway, here's Captain America and I ready to go.



Yeah, the other kids weren't pleased that they didn't get to come, but we decided that since Eme and Jim earned something special, taking everyone would make it less special. So, the 4 of us headed out. Here's me in the truck, FREEZING and wondering why I didn't wear more clothes...

Applebees is pretty close to our house, so it didn't take long at all to get there. The Sun Bowl game was on TV there, so we watched it a little while eating. Miami and Notre Dame, I think. I asked Captain America who he was rooting for, and he said that he hated Miami less. ROFL! Yeah, that's Captain America. There's TONs more teams that he hates than he loves. hehe.

I thought it was funny that it was SO cold for the Sun Bowl. Last week, it was beautiful. Check out the mountains. Light dusting of snow. Not typical El Paso winter weather...

Anyway, here's Eme and Jim waiting to be seated at Applebees. We only had to wait for a few minutes. It wasn't very busy at all. I was surprised.
Here's Jim and Captain America. Captain America wanted to sit on this side of the table so that he couldn't see the game as well. hehe. Wasn't that considerate of him - ROFL!
And me and Emeline. I could have cared less about the game, so it wasn't a temptation. hehe.

And Captain America and I

Here's me, wishing that I had a soda, not water - hehe

Jim ordered a Chicken Strips kids meal with Sprite and fries. Eme ordered 2 Mini Cheeseburgers with Root Beer and fries.Captain America and I both got sandwiches. Captain America got some chicken tortilla thingy, (ok, so maybe that looks more like beef. I don't know - ha!)

and I got a Philly Steakburger thingy. I took off the top of the roll, and just ate the bottom part. It was SOOO good. We both substituted our fries for house salads with Vinegar. Tasty! I enjoyed lunch a lot :)

And after we were done, we headed to Howdys to get a soda for us (since we opted for water) and milk. I didn't realize we were out of milk yesterday when I was at the store.

Yeah, I think it was WAY too cold for soda. hehe.
Jake, Tom, and Captain America played a game of Battlefield with the Uncles in St Louis, Eme, Joe, and Jim played on the computer, and I designed 2 WordArt Packs. And felt tired. I fell asleep on the couch, and Captain America tucked me into bed at some point. I woke up around 5:30pm, just in time to cook dinner. hehe.

Me with my crazy nap hair - hehe

Kids were playing nicely, and Captain America had decided to go and work on MORE shelves in the garage :) I made "Grilled Spaghetti and Cheese Sandwiches" for the kids for dinner. They said that it sounded NASTY, but they all liked them. I had cheese and cucumber for dinner. Worked for me.

And I blogged for a while, and Captain America worked on shelves for a while, and Jake had "why do I have to do all of this work for the dog" issues (which an hour in his bedroom fixed), kids played with Jim's race track (I bought batteries for it yesterday), and we all watched a lot of Old Star Trek (by that, I mean the 1960's one).

It's now 8:35pm. Captain America and I talked about going out to see Harry Potter tonight, since we haven't seen it yet. Not sure what we'll end up doing. We've only been to a few New Year's Eve parties over the years.

That's an awesome layout, Sharon! Great job!

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

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Family Game Nite

New WordArts for the week, and a Bundle! Enjoy!!! Click HERE to go to my store :)

$10 for 15 WordArt Packs Bundle

$2.00 per WordArt Pack!

Hey there, peeps! What's up?? How was one of your last days of 2010? Mine was pretty good :) I was pretty productive, actually. It may not have looked like it to the bystander, but it totally was. hehe.

I woke up around 9am, and Captain America got up, and I totally stayed in bed. And slept till around 10 or 10:30. And I usually don't do that. But it sure felt good. When I finally came out of the bedroom, the kids were on Electronics Ban. And yeah, they totally needed it. Do you find that with your kids. When they've had too much electronics, it's like they forget basic people skills. And it takes a day or two of no electronics to remind them how to be human again - ROLF! So Captain America had said that they needed the day with no electronics.

And he started to pack up his stuff for deployment. He has a a TON of army stuff that needed to go, mixed in with regular stuff that he'll need for the year. So it was ALL over the dining room. Yeah, that quickly became off limits territory. hehe.

The kids played outside for a while, and played with their Christmas toys for a bit, Jake took the dog for a walk, and I got somewhat ready. Just threw on some clothes and brushed my hair. And I decided to take Tom grocery shopping with me. I took Eme not too long ago, and Joe was my shopping partner last, so I figured that it was Tom's turn.

We headed to the commissary, and got a few essentials for the weekend. We still had a lot of food in the house, but were just running low on a few things. We had few enough things to go through the Self Check Out, and headed to the truck. Then headed off post to Family Dollar. I knew that they'd probably have their toys 50% off, so I wanted to give it a look see. Grandma Ida sent the kids each money for Xmas, and they wanted to spend it.

They had these gun sets for $5 that I thought that Joe and Jim would like, so I texted a picture to Jake to show them. Yup, they both wanted them.

Tom couldn't find anything there for $5 that he liked, but it was ok, because we were headed to Big Lots next. And yeah, they didn't have anything there for $5. And he started to get a little grumpy. I didn't find anything there that we needed, and Captain America texted saying that the Lite Sour Cream had gone bad, and that we needed to add it to the list, so we left Big Lots and headed to the grocery store down the street.

And yeah, Tom wasn't too happy by then. I don't know why he thought he was gonna get something. People don't get things every time they go out, you know. And I wasn't gonna let him spend his Christmas money on food. That just seemed silly. So we got the sour cream, paid, and headed home. And he was SUPER grouchy. He was like "We didn't even get to go anywhere fun". And I was like, "Well, you got to go and spend time with me. The other kids don't complain when they get to spend time with me.". And that about ended the conversation.

While we were out, the wind picked up, and it was SUPER windy. The construction barrels on Hwy 54 were blown ALL over the road. Poor cars didn't know where to go or what to do. Reminded me of that part in Toy Story 2. hehe.

Anyway, we made it home safe and sound, unloaded the groceries, and I gave Joe and Jim their guns, and they gave me their Christmas $. And they were SO happy with the guns :)



After getting lunch for everyone, and putting away all the groceries and junk, I sat down to design. It was Thursday, which was my "load the store" day. And since all my products for the week were designed, I decided to design some for next week. I was pretty productive, and got 3-4 done. Not too bad, right?

Captain America continued to pack, and the kids continued to bicker. So finally we suggested that they play a game. They grabbed out the Football Monopoly game, and that entertained them for quite a while. Later, they played regular Monopoly. And I KNOW they weren't playing by the rules, but they all seemed to agree on their version of the rules, so as long as they were happy, I was happy.

I know at one point, I listened to them play for a little bit. When they landed on a property, they could choose to buy it, or open it up to auction. And then bid on it themselves. So they didn't have to pay $100 for the property, they could auction it off, and only pay $5. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's not how the rules go. ROFL!

Jake was playing the banker and not the game, and he would give people extra money if they went and did jobs for him. Like, "go get me a drink and I'll give you a $50". Pretty sure that's not in the rules either. Or if he caught people trying to dip into the bank, he'd send them to jail. hehe. It really was quite comical.


And then, around dinnertime, we heard the strangest noise coming from the backyard. The wind had picked up the grill and knocked it over. Whaaattt??? That's a massive grill!

And then, about 30 minutes late, more strange noises. I went out to investigate.
Rain. It hadn't rained in over 60 days, I think! And here it came. The kids were super excited, but being the mean mom that I am, I wouldn't let them go and play. hehe. That would have been a HUGE mess.

And then, as I was cooking dinner, I decided that the kids needed a mandatory quiet time in their rooms. Read, color, do whatever you want, but do it quietly in your room. Worked for me. So I sent them away. hehe. And then Jake yells down, "It's snowing". Whatever. It's rain, silly kid.

Kids eventually came out of their rooms, we had dinner, and I finally went to look at the backyard and the "snow". Guess what, there WERE flakes! Wow!




The kids started up Monopoly again, and I wandered in to see what Captain America was up to. He was putting all of his gear into those storage bags that you vacuum the air out of. Pretty cool little things!





Jimmy came in a few times, and looked up at Captain America, and said "Daddy, where are you going?". And he reminded him again of his upcoming deployment. SO sad. I tried to stay in the other room so I didn't have to look at/think about what was going on.

I was trying to keep the kids inside out of the slushy mess, but finally broke down and went to the backyard to give it a look see. And the snow was momentarily sticking in the backyard, so I decided to let the kids play for a bit.

Jimmy had come inside crying, saying that he got a snowball to the face. I'd explained that that's what happens when you play in the snow, and that he needed some glasses. So he grabbed the sunglasses he'd got from Grandma Lyn for Christmas, and he was good to go. hehe.



Jake wanted everyone to know that he totally would have been out playing, but that Boxer didn't wanna go. So he stayed on the couch with his dog. hehe :)

At 8pm, Captain America was done for the moment packing, I was done loading the store and designing, and the kids were winding down for the day. We lifted the electronics ban and let them all watch a movie together, and Captain America and I headed out to the store.

First stop, Bassett Center. We stopped at Eves and at the Kiosk with the cell phone accessories. $5 for a screen protector. And the dude totally put it on for me and everything. SO nice :) And then we headed across town.

See, me FREEZING in the truck. It takes FOREVER before the heater warms up :) But once it does, it's nice and toasty.


Dude, I totally should have showered.... Look how old I'm looking. Wrinkles and bags under my eyes and everything. Sigh. At least my man loves me and still thinks I'm hot... :)

We brought the Howdy's cups, but decided that Circle K was closer. And it was probably a bit too cold for 44 oz anyway. We settled for 32 oz.

And then drove down Montana to the new Lowes/Walmart. Lowes first. Captain America needed more wood to build a few more shelves. hehe. My garage is gonna ROCK when he's all the way done :)

I found these there, and have NO idea what they are...

Nose picker???

This would be nice...

And then we loaded the wood up in the truck (well, he did, I tried to stay warm in the front seat - it was COLD out there!) and headed to Walmart.

And apparently the bad weather kept everyone at home, because NO ONE was there. It was so nice. We just wandered around and leisurely grabbed what we needed. And of course, we made our way to the Hot Wheel section. hehe.

We ended up with Hot Wheels and soup and some yarn and a crochet hook and popcorn and chewable tylenol and after shave and hot cocoa for the kids and all sizes of batteries and a Monopoly Jr game for the little kids. I thought they'd really like it :)

Oh yeah, and I grabbed a few bags of my regular sugar free candies, AND a few of the chocolates. As treats. Because I'm not doing the one plain cookie thing until I'm back down where I wanna be. Only a few lbs away. But, I figured that these wouldn't count as a cookie, and I could have 1 serving a day. Still be a treat for me :) We'll try it and see.

And yeah, these coconut ones?? OMGosh, they're divine!!!! I just sat there in the truck and drooled all over myself (well, not really - I wasn't gonna waste the yummy chocolates that way!) I'm definitely buying these again!


We headed home, and all the kids were in bed, except Jake and Tom. We sent them off to bed, and I finished up blogging, and Captain America finished up packing. He'd bought a few more of those vacuum bag things, and is still packing.

My eyes are getting itchy, and I wanna go lay down and read. Dang, it's 12:14am. Just looked at the clock. OK, I'm off, girls! Catch ya tomorrow!
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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Sharon, my dear, I LOVE IT!!!