Run

Gooooood morning :) Hope today finds you all happy and healthy! I woke up with my alarm at 6:35am, and went back to sleep until 6:55 am. And then got up, read scriptures, said prayers, and went out to help kids get ready for school. Joe had only done part of his homework last night, so I helped him finish it off, then hurried kids off to the bus.

And went back to bed. But Captain America came back home 3 minutes later, so I got up to hang with him. I ate, and put on my work out clothes, and got Jimmy fed, and Jake ready for school and classes.

And at 8:30am-ish, I headed to meet Laurie. But I must have missed her, cause she never showed. So I walked to the beginning on the running path, then started jogging. And jogged a LONG ways. Further than last time. And almost at the 1/2 way point, I met up with Laurie, and turned around and came back, jogging most of the time. Slowly, sure, but jogging none the less.

It felt pretty good to jog today. My legs felt a bit tired, but good. They have a "good" sore burn today. You know what I mean, right?

Laurie and I chatted as we walked the last little bit home, and she came in for a few minutes to visit. Then had to run off to meet someone for a brief meeting at Starbucks. And I said that I'd keep Rowan, because he and Jimmy were playing SO nicely.

So she headed off to get ready and go to her meeting, and I figured that I probably shouldn't shower while I was supposed to be in charge of someone elses kids (ha!), so I did the next best thing. I made cookies! hehe.

Here's me getting my soda fix for the day, even if it WAS Coke Zero. Ewh. But it was caffeine, so it was all good. Here's me pulling a face at the fact that it's NOT something good. hehehe.

And here's Rowan and Jimmy watching cartoons. Aren't they cute :)

I made the banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe that I'd made last time. You can find that post HERE. And I made a double batch again, because that's how many bananas I had. hehe. But they were SO good :)

And it says to cook them for 10 minutes, but 9 seemed to work better this time... And here's Jake and I. Yeah, I REALLY needed a shower :)


I got Jimmy to the bus at 11am, and finished up the cookies and washed the dishes, and soon, Laurie was back. We chatted for a few minutes, and she and Rowan were off. And I took a shower, FINALLY! It felt SO good. And put on make up and fixed my hair all girly and junk. I felt SO much better. hehehe.

And Jake

Captain America called and wanted to know if I wanted to do lunch, and OF COURSE I did, so I headed to El Taco Tote, and I was gonna order and get it all set so when he got there, he could eat and go back to work.

Here's me in the truck on the way over

And my favorite El Taco Tote!

We got our Brochetta plate and chips and guacomole salsa and cucumbers. Mmmm, so tasty :) After lunch, we went back to our trucks, and I gave him 4 dozen cookies to take back to work. Mmmm, cookies!

And me on the way back home

I got back home, and gave Jake our leftovers, and sat down at my 46 inch laptop to design. I designed 4 Birthday WordArt packs already this week, but I'm only gonna release 2 of them this week. Birthday 2 and Birthday Attitude 2. Then, I made a partial pack of Love/Anniversary masks a few weeks ago, so I can have that one too. I made a Zodiac WordArt Pack, and a Ghost WordArt pack. So tomorrow, I just need to package it up, and I'll be set. It's always nice to get work done a little early.

Jimmy came back home at 2:30, Joe at 3:30, and Tom and Eme at 3:55. So here it is, 4:01pm, and I need to go and assist the kids with chores/homework, and think about dinner. I should have started the crock pot back at 10:30am when I was thinking about it....

OK, I'm back. I pre-blogged part of the day! Woohoo! It's now 10:56pm, and I'm gonna tie this up and put the rest of my pics on here, and I'm done :) Yeah!

SO, it was 5:30pm, and my kids were hungry. And I needed to fix them something for dinner. So I got out some ground turkey and a diced onion, and browned it up. And was still trying to decide what to do with it. Tom found a can of pinto beans, so I added that. And then decided that I could make chili!

I added a packet of chili seasoning, 14 oz of crushed tomatoes, a few LARGE squirts of BBQ sauce, and a bit of brown sugar, and simmered for a bit. And my kids actually liked AND ate it. Miracle of miracles.. hehehe.

Here's Tom with his chili

And yeah, this looks like throw up, or diarreah, but the kids say that it's good. And it's not really yellow, like it looks in the picture... hehe.

And here's my Talipia. I love fish :)

And me, thinking about how I was gonna have to drag 5 kids to church activities on Wednesday night ALL BY MYSELF because Captain America was working late. Hmpf!
And then, CAPTAIN AMERICA WAS HOME!!! And it was only 6:30! He grabbed some dinner real fast, changed his clothes, and off we ALL went to activities. We dropped Eme and Tom off at the church, and dropped Jake off at the park near the church, and we headed to Walmart. Joe and Jim and Captain America and I.

But first, we made a Circle K stop. Captain America stayed in the truck with the little ones, and I got both boys a red Slurpee (yes, it's a flavor...), and Captain America and I Diet Mt Dews.

And as I was leaving the store with 4 drinks, I noticed this.

Freakin' red slurpee! It was ALL over me. All down my sweater, and ALL over the cuff of my white shirt too. Grrrr. We were gonna look for a Tide Stain Stick to go thingy at Walmart...

We drove over to Walmart, and got Captain America's protein powder that we failed to get the last time we were there, and then just looked around for a while. And did you know that they sell tongue rings at Walmart? Who knew...

And the Transmountain Walmart had "How to Train Your Dragon" cut outs too!





Captain America found a few shirts that he liked, and we got a few other things, and got in line to pay. Captain America took the little boys to the bathroom (and threw away the rest of the SUPER messy slurpees) and by the time he came back, I hadn't moved in line.... This wasn't gonna work. We needed to get back to pick up the kids....

So I told him to take the little boys and go and pick up the kids from church, and I'd stay in line. So he left, and I waited. And waited. And waited.

Here's a new gum that I bought to try. Key Lime Pie. Um, yeah, not the worst things I've had. I think I liked the Strawberry Shortcake one better, though.

And the Toy Story 3 shirts we got for Jim and Joe. Pretty sad when the 5 yr old gets the 6/7 and the 7 yr old gets the 4/5.... hehe.

So I finally get to the front of the line, pay, and head for the bathroom. Cause I'd just downed a 32 oz Diet Mt Dew. ha! And I busted out my Tide Stick, and started to see if I could help my poor shirt and sweater. And the sweater pink stain started to bleed onto the white shirt underneath, so I ended up just taking off the gray sweater. Yeah, I looked real special now. hehe.

I had a few minutes left, so I went back to Electronics and got another cable for my truck radio to attach to my phone. Because I don't know what happened to the other one. Freakin' kids. hehe.

And I paid in electronics cause there was no line, and headed outside. I sat on a bench and texted my buddy Mandi for a few minutes, then Captain America came back with all the kids. We headed across the street to Lowes, and Captain America and Tom ran inside to get a copy of Captain America's truck key.

Us in the truck

Jake

Eme reading the new Rick Riordian book

Me (but then, you already knew that...)

Jimmy

Joe

And, they came back out, and Captain America had bought some wood for a new frame for Jim's room for his bed. Because right now, he just has a mattress on the floor. And this will be a lot nicer. It's SO nice to have a handy hubby - hehe :)

We did scriptures and prayers and stuff in the car on the way home, so we put kids right to bed. And Captain America tried on his new shirts. Hmmm, where's the other picture... That's right, my phone died before I could upload it to facebook, and then I had to plug it in, and I forgot that it didn't fully upload. I'll get it on here tomorrow :)

But here's his other new shirt.

And then, as we were standing around, I realized that Jake looked taller than me. Whaaaat? I'm 5'7" 1/2 and he's 5'6" 1/2, right? But I guess that pictures don't lie, right? What do you think? Does he look taller than me? My 13 year old son who hasn't really even hit puberty yet. Holy cow :)

And this is my WHAAAAAAT? face. hehe

We sent Jake off to bed, and Captain America and I sat down and watched a couple episodes of The Office season 3, and headed off to bed. And now it's 11:16pm, and I'm gonna go to sleep. Thank goodness I preblogged part of this already, AND posted and hosted the freebie. I'm so smart. LOL!

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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Pedicure / Manicure

Hello, my friends :) I need to get back to half blogging during the day. Because, yeah, 10:47pm is REALLY late if you're tired. hehe.

So I woke up at 6:35 am, and was SUPER tired. I know, I know. It's becoming a habit. Staying up till 1am is NOT good if you wanna get up early.

Anyway, snooze was hit SEVERAL times. And I finally rolled out of bed around 7:15am. And I hurried out to get kids ready and out the door. And ate breakfast. And yeah, I went back to bed. And slept till Captain America came home from PT to get ready for the day. And I kinda drug myself out of the bed to go and chat with him while he was in the shower. Luckily (hehe), he had to hurry off to work, and then I went back to bed again.

And woke up around 8:50am. And read my scriptures and said my prayers, and noticed that Laurie had put up a facebook status that she wanted to go running. And yeah, I NEEDED to go. Because that was my "homework" for therapy, and I hadn't done it. So I texted her, and we agreed to meet at the end of the block at around 9:30am or so. Works for me.

So I put on my cute workout clothes, and walked down to the end of the block with my phone and my waterbottle. And yeah, I about died. hehe. And she was even running slow, AND pushing a stroller. We ran from the end of Waters street, got on the trail by Colonel row, and ran to Pershing gate road. Then walked the rest of the loop by Cassidy gate and back home. And I know that she wanted to run some more, but yeah, I've gotta work up to that. hehe. I'll keep trying! If I can go a little further tomorrow than I did today, then that's all good, right?

We had a nice walk/jog, and chatted about everything. I hadn't seen Laurie in a while, so it was good to catch up again.

She and Rowan (her 4 yr old) came over for about 30 minutes and visited after the walk. Jimmy and Rowan had fun playing. Then she and Rowan went home, and I took Jimmy to the bus. And came back home. And yeah, I didn't have enough time for a shower. But, I'm not a sweater. ROFL! Apparently my mom isn't either. Well, maybe we sweat, but we don't smell. Ask Captain America. I really don't. I can not take a shower for a few days, and not reapply deodorant, and it's not bad. hehe. Some of my friends are sweaters, and they can't. Different people, different odors, right? ROFL!

Anyway, I picked out an outfit, threw on some accessories, wiped off the smudged make up under my eyes (ha!), grabbed some lunch, and headed out to the West Sieeed for my therapy appointment.

And I chatted with my mom on the way over. I hadn't chatted with her in a while, and it was nice. And then when I got to the parking lot, Captain America called, and I chatted with him a little bit, then it was time to go.

And it really was a good session. We talked a lot about body image issues, and whether or not I had negative body image issues. Yeah, I kinda do, but not as bad as they could be. I'm starting to change those. And the more I think about myself differently, the more I treat myself/my body differently.

Take exercise, for instance. I hate exercising. Just thinking about it makes me grouchy. But you know what? When I lived in Oregon with my kids and mom while Captain America was at trainings, and I was jogging with my friend Maren, I liked it. It was hard when I first started, but I found myself REALLY enjoying it. And I almost craved it.

And I think that I can get that back. I think once I get myself in shape a little bit more, then my body will like it, and my mind will follow. Change by doing... And as for seeing myself as a fat person still, yeah, well, that may just take time. I am sometimes by pictures where I look skinny. Because I don't expect to look like that all the time when I look in the mirror. But it's getting better too. Slowly, but surely...

So anyway, after my session, I wanted to go to the Dollar Tree. And I was pretty sure that they had one on Mesa, near the therapists office. So I googled it on my phone, and it offered me the choice of leading me to the closest Dollar Tree to my current location. Did I mention the fact that I LOVE my Droid phone?

So I drove a few miles, and there it was. I needed Bread. And yeah, I found a lot more than I probably should have, but I was happy :) This was a MUCH bigger Dollar Tree than normal, and had some good stuff. These ADORABLE little stoneware baking dishes things. Little, and SO cute. In 3 different colors. I thought they'd be PERFECT for mini pies or mousses or things. Ooo, personal pot pies. Lots of stuff. So I got 9. Because I didn't know how to get 7 of 3 different colors and have it equal. So I got 9 of 3 different colors. Because I'm just like that :)

And I headed home. And got home JUST in time to get Jimmy from the bus. And Jake walked over to the bus stop and sat in the truck with me. And we got Jimmy, and went home, and Jake helped me carry all my stuff inside. And I cleaned for a little while, then scrapped for a bit.

See, I'd found these treat baggies at the Dollar Tree, and I'm gonna put candy and such in it for the kids' classmates at school. And I wanted to design a "topper" for the baggie. It turned out SUPER cute! I used Studio Dawn's new Halloween Kit, Softly Spooky. It's just FABULOUS!

Any my Halloween 4 WordArt Pack.
And I came up with this :)

And I kinda flip flopped it. The one should be right side up on the bottom and the other upside down on the top. OR something like that. I"ll get it straightened out. BUT, isn't the idea cute!

So, I'd also promised Emeline that I'd develop some photos for her to scrap of her birthday, and today was the day. So I sent some of them to Walgreens real fast, and headed out to pick up the AQ kids, since it was my carpool day :)

I got Tom and Eme and Bella, and dropped off Bella, then we checked the mail. AND MY APRON CAME today!!!! I was SO excited! Dawn, from Missouri, sent it to me. And KNEW that I liked zebra print! And it had red! And green! And OMGosh it was wonderful! See!!! Reversible, too!


She said that she'd tried to send one earlier, but it got lost in the mail, so this was the 2nd one she'd sent. Whaaaaat? SO NOT COOL, Post Office. Grrr. I sent Dawn 4 $10 coupons to cover this apron AND the lost one. Because she rocks!

SOOO, if anyone else wants to make me an apron, the same offer stands. 2 $10 coupons in trade for an apron. hehe. Lets home the mail doesn't loose it, though :)

I helped the kids do their chores and clean their rooms a bit, and I did some chores, and had dinner, then after Eme's room was clean, she and I headed out to the mall. Because she still hadn't spent her Birthday money. And I thought it would be nice if just she and I went. So I left Jake and Tom in charge of Joe and Jim to clean up and do chores and rooms, and off we went :)

It was SO nice taking Emeline. She's such a sweet little thing. She can be my shopping buddy anytime. She really wanted this Our Generation Palomino Foal from Target, but they were out. So I looked online, and a different Target in town had it. So I told her I'd take her money and go and get it tomorrow. She seemed pleased.


And she also found a controlled puppy. I was gonna say remote controlled, but yeah, there totally was a cord between the remote and the puppy, so it's not really remote... hmmm. It was shaped like a bone, and the puppy barked and junk. She thought it was awesome. Ok :) hehe.

Then we went to the Jewelry Box, and she got a couple of things, and so did I. And we bought some fingernail polish. In all different colors. For out toes. hehe. I was excited! Purple and blue and green and orange and yellow. Yeah, we were gonna be cool. One color per toe!

And then we headed home. And the boys had mostly done their chores. Mostly. I helped them finish up a bit. And Joe started on his homework. And Captain America came home from work, and we read scriptures and had family prayer and put kids to bed, and he and I did a couples of chores, then watched a few episodes of The Office. We're now on season 3. Yeah!

And here it is, 11:28pm, and I need to go to sleep. Exercise wipes me out, apparently. AND, I ate an extra bag of popcorn today (I eat a bag of microwave popcorn EVERY day . hehe. but today I had 2) because I was so hungry. Exercise will do that to you too.

So, in honor of my "pedicure" with Eme, here's a WordArt for ya! 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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Keep & Share (for those of you not liking 4shared)

A Visit To The Doctor

OK, as I'm typing this up, the laptop that I designed the freebie on is 'out of commission'. It's trying to fix itself, or some nonsense like that. I don't know. I think it's just out to get me.... Anyway, I DID make you a freebie, but it may not be posted when you read this post. So bear with me. I'm trying :)

So, let me just preface this with I'm SOOO glad that Im on antidepressants. hehe. Because SO many little things went wrong today, and I was TOTALLY able to handle it. And while I wanna believe that I just have mad skills, I know part of that is the Prozac talking. hehe.

So Captain America gets up at what I thought was 4am to go to the bathroom, and comes back to snuggle close. Which I like, but yeah, I can''t sleep if someone is touching me. So after a few minutes, I was like, honey, I wanna go back to sleep, and I can't if you're touching me, so I roll over to sleep for a few more hours.

And 30 seconds later, my alarm goes off. And he chuckles. Yeah, he knew it was 6:34am, and that my alarm was gonna go off. Silly boy. hehe. I pushed snooze, and slept for 10 more minutes, then Captain America and I read scriptures and said prayers, and I went to get the kids ready for school, and he slept a little bit more.

I got kids on the bus at 7:30am, and I came back in to get ready for the day. And I just didn't feel like showering, and my hair was still decent, so I just washed off the old make up and put on the new make up.

And yeah, I discovered a few zits. Sigh. Why, oh why, must we get zits when we're NOT teens.. Sigh. I guess that's what cover up is for, right?

I woke Captain America up a little after 8am, and we went out and ate Breakfast and played with Jim for a bit. He looked at my truck and decided that yes, it was the battery that was the problem, and that we should go and buy a good new one.

Here's my "I get to go to Savers!!!!" face :)

And we got ready for our date day. Because he had the day off, and we were gonna go to Savers for $0.99 one colored tag day (green today), and go to lunch, and get a new battery, and go grocery shopping. SO much fun! Thank goodness my kids are all in school, huh? Opens up a lot of "day date" time :)

So Captain America and I headed out, and stopped at Howdys first to get a Diet Dr Pepper refill. $0.59 for a 44 oz, if you have the cup. Which we do :) Score! And he got gas, and off we went to the West side.

He dropped me off a Savers, and he continued on to the Auto Store to grab a battery. We figured we'd multitask a little bit. Works for me :) Although, I must say, it is MUCH more enjoyable when he comes with me. I thought it would be OK by myself, and it was, but just not the same as a shopping buddy.

I looked at the shirts, and found quite a few green tags. And I found one pair of green tag size 5 pants, and, just for fun, found a pair of size 3/4 pants that were not green tag, but that were super cute. And just to see if they fit. hehe. I'd brought a bag of "does not fit anymore" clothes to donate, so I got a 20% off non sale items. So I could use it for the pants! And whatever else non green tagged I found :)

I called Leslie, who'd texted me earlier asking for a favor, and I was more than happy to help her out. She's such a sweetheart. Her 7th grader has to wear school uniforms. And for coats/jackets, they have to have a plain white/green/blue sweatshirt. No writing, no prints of any kind. And his that he has had something little, but they wouldn't let him have it. And because they only have 39 days left in the school, it seemed pointless to pay full price on something that will NOT get used in Hawaii... So she asked me to look at Savers.

And I found 3 blue sweatshirts that would work. I texted her pics of them all, and we picked the best one. $7 is not too bad for a fleece jacket.

I looked at skirts for a while, and dresses, and some more shirts. And by then, I was getting tired of looking. I think I needed to be more social, and my shopping buddy was gone... I'll remember that next time...

So I went to the trying on room, and started the HUGE task of trying on all these clothes. hehe. I lost interest real fast, but pushed on. The size 5 pants were too big. The size 3/4 were a tiny bit tight, but fit. So I got them. I got a new black skirt, and about 6 new tops, most $0.99 each. I did get a long sleeve, white, button down shirt to wear under sweaters. And a long sleeve black shirt to wear under teeshirts. And a short sleeve black button down shirt to replace the one that got too big.

Clothes shopping makes me happy. And finding things that are super cute AND super cheap makes me happy too. I know Jacob commented one time about how people usually brag about how much they spend on things. Jake said I brag about how LITTLE I spend on things. ha! He's got me there...

And then I get a text from Captain America saying that he got called back into work for a 1:30 meeting, and that we had to go back home, and that he was on his way to get me. So I hurried and tried on and sorted out the good from the bad, and paid. And went outside to wait for Captain America.

So much for lunch together. He said we'd go to dinner. That his meeting should only last a few hours, then he'd be back. So we drove back on post, got Jimmy to school, had lunch, and he went off to his meeting.

Oh yeah, funny story about dropping Jimmy off at school. He'd missed the bus, so I drove him up. And after getting him to his class, I came back outside and went to get in the car (the Saturn), and hit the keyless entry remote, and yeah, it wouldn't unlock the door. So I tried it again. Still nothing. Yeah, being at the RIGHT car helps. ROFL! I was one car off. hehe.

So anyway, after Captain America left, I tried and tried and tried to print out my grocery shopping list, but it didnt work. My laptop has a busted screen, so to unhook it from the TV would requiring hooking it to a monitor then to the printer. The Dell laptop has decided that it doesnt like its power cord, and wont charge. And the little Acer Laptop isnt set up for the HP printer. So I download and installed the driver. Yeah, still nothing. 30 minutes or so I messed with it. And finally, I said screw it, and headed to the commissary WITHOUT a list. I shop there EVERY week, and go the same route, and get the same foods, so I know what and where the stuff I need is. I just jotted down a few things that I knew that we already had. Reverse list, you know...

Their hot dog/lunch meat type refrigerated section was broken. Sigh. I needed hot dogs and lunch meat and a type of sausage. hmmmm, not good. And I refuse to pay over $4.00 for a 12 pack of soda. I do. Not gonna do it! Diet Mt Dew was NOT on sale this week. Hmpf! So I bought a 3 liter for Diet Dr Peppers, and figured we'd go to Walmart tonight. Works for me.

I paid and headed home. But decided to stop off at the TMC (army doctors) first. Because, you see, when I got out of the mental hospital, they gave me a prescription for Prozac. And I filled it at Walgreens. 30 day supply. No refills. So on Sept 27th, I went to the TMC and saw a doctor and he gave me a 30 day prescription. And I filled it at the TMC. And put it somewhere "safe". Too safe, apparently. Because I took the last of the Walgreen pills today. And yeah, I couldn't find the new bottle ANYWHERE. Sigh. So off to the doctor to beg for more meds I went.

I got an appointment set up first week in November for a Pap (joy of joys...), and the lady said that, miraculously, there was an appointment in 40 minutes that I could have. PERFECT! So I hurried home, Captain America and Jimmy got home around that time, and explained what the situation was. Captain America stayed home with the kids, then went to pick the others up from AQ at 3:45pm. I headed off to the doctors office.

I texted with Mandi for a little while, then got called back. Early, even. Thats good :) And chatted with the nurse for quite a while, then the doctor came back. And he asked where my burritos were. Whaaaat? He was joking, and said that he needed a bribe for me getting an afternoon appointment. Oh, ha! I get it :) I joked about bringing him a Sonic Happy Hour drink, and he said that if I got him something yummy from Starbucks, I'd get even better meds. ROFL! A doctor with a sense of humor! I LOVE it!

So the actual appointment part was pretty quick. 3-30 day supplies of pills. 30 now, and 2 refills. So I went out to the pharmacy. And I was #611. And they were on #598. Dang! AND, whenever a uniformed soldier came in, they got bumped to the front of the line. So it took FOREVER! Sigh.

I ended up waiting for probably an hour, and finally it was my turn. I got some free over the counter meds, and my Prozac, and home I went. I ended up chatting with Leigh, my neighbor, outside for a while, then came inside to start on dinner. French Toast, with help from Emeline. Because she LOVES to cook :)

Me in my new Savers $0.99 shirt and $7 jeans

And we had family prayer, and family scriptures, and around 6pm, Captain America and I were ready to head out for our date. But first, we had Ice Cream for Eme for her birthday with Captain America, and gave her her presents.

Me and my bunny tracks ice cream. Ever had that? Um, yeah, its FABULOUS!

And Eme getting her birthday swats

So after ice cream and directions for the kids, we headed out to dinner. Why is it that I look better when I pull a funny face? hehe
And it was after 6pm, so I was SUPER hungry :) Heres me in the car on the way to dinner.
And we went to BJs restaurant to eat. Mmmm, I like it! We were seated very fast, and ordered. I got the roasted chicken, salad, and steamed veggies. Captain America got the salmon and rice and salad and steamed veggies. It was super tasty :)

And then, after eating, we decided to stop at Walmart on the way home and get Soda. And TOTALLY got sucked into Walmart. And we ended up there for a few hours browsing and hanging and having fun. Check out these cool things we found in the photo department. I LOVE it!







And I found the last in the Fabelhaven series, AND the new Rick Riordon book. Tom's gonna be SO happy :)

Got balls?

What do ya think? hehe

I live in a pineapple under the sea?

OK, this was super nasty/funny. So we're trying to find Jacob a new hat baseball. Because the team hat he wears now beat the Cardinals. And that's just not acceptable in our house. hehe. So, I figured if we bought him a new hat, we could ask him to trade the old one for a new one. Sound reasoning, right?

Captain America liked the Orange Longhorn hat, and we decided to get the UTEP one for Jake. Good choices, I think.

Check out the hat on the 2nd shelf, far right. That grungy looking one. Captain America was like, dang, thats a cool hat. Its all faded and junk. And yeah, it DID look like a cool faded hat. But it didnt quit look right. Just a little TOO faded to me. So I picked it up and smelled it. OMGOSH! It was nasty and old. Someone had just ditched their old sweaty hat and gotten a new one!!!!

Ewh! And I put my nose on that thing and sniffed!

And me trying on a SUPER cute jacket thingy. But yeah, I wasnt about to spend $20 on it. Do you KNOW how many things I could get for $20 at Savers??? It was cute, though, huh?

We eventually paid, and headed home. And ended up watching a few episodes of "The Office: season 2 before heading to bed. Captain America worked on his Army slide show, and I started blogging. I designed a wordart, but then my computer was giving me MAJOR fits. First, the internet wasnt working. So I restarted the modem. Still not working. So I restarted the computer. And then it wouldnt turn back on. GRRRRR!

So I restarted the router, and the internet worked. So I ran some "fix me" thing on the Dell, and grabbed the old Acer, and started blogging. And JUST now, the Dell turned back on. Im gonna see if I can get it to post. Man, this is a pain in the butt. hehe.

But, you see, where SO many things went wrong or off or bad today, my mood is still good :) Im still smiling. Hopefully some of that is my "bright" personality, and not all the drugs speaking. hehe.

And yeah, I guess I need to know that if Im gonna eat a lot of sugar free candies, I CANT eat greasy chicken. Because that combo is NOT good at all... My poor tummy!

I have a counseling session tomorrow for me, and Im gonna try and be home before/after that. A nice, relaxing day at home. That would be good, right ?

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

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Welcome Back

Howdy there :) How was your Sunday? Did you go to church? Spend time with family? Do something nice for yourself?

Captain America ended up coming home last night at 12:30pm. I'd tried to stay up, but finally went to bed at midnight. I kinda woke up when he came home, but I was pretty out of it. Ha! He came to bed, and I was so glad that he was home! AND, now he could come to church with us in the morning! Woohoo!

We woke up at 9 something, and had everyone ready for church by noon ish. It was a nice relaxing morning. Since the Suburban is out of commission, Captain America took 2 kids in his truck, and I took 3 kids in the Saturn, and we headed to church. And we got there relatively on time, AND were able to get our up front side rows that we like :)

Church was good. We studied Isaiah in adult sunday school class, and talked about being a covenant people in Relief Society. We got out a few minutes early (maybe to make up for the 12 minutes over we went last week - ha!), so I went to the chapel to watch the kids practice for the primary program next week. And ended up chatting with a lady named Charlotte. She seemed pretty cool. She gave me her name and we agreed to try and find each other on Facebook, but I couldn't find her. Hmpf! I'll have to ask again next week...

Anyway, we loaded up all the kids after church, and headed home. I'd started a crock pot of chicken before church, and it was smelling DIVINE! Here's what I put in there:

1 diced onion
1 LARGE jar of pasta sauce
1 Extra LARGE can of diced tomatoes
some Italian herbs
some garlic powder
6 frozen chicken breasts
1 cup of water

And I put it on high, and covered it, and boy, did it smell good. Since it wasn't even 4pm yet, we hung for a while, and the kids got pretzels. And then, at 5pm, we had dinner. I split up the chicken into bite sized pieces, and served the tomato-y chicken stuff over chips with rice on the side. I ate the chicken stuff and a few chips, and a salad. I liked it :) I'm not sure if the kids were crazy about it, but I made them eat the chicken, at least.

After dinner, we cleaned up a bit, and I even got a little nap. That was nice. Then, we watched a movie as a family, and it's almost time to put kids to bed. Thank goodness. hehe. AND, the best part is, that Captain America has the day off tomorrow! Because they worked most of the weekend. SO exciting! I wonder what we're gonna do! Day dates are SO much fun!

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Gratitude

OK, first off, a few pics from last night that I forgot to put on here. Oops. hehe. Yeah, here's one of me being a dork and playing on the computer. Sexy, aren't I - ha! It's amazing I married and produced children...

And then, right before going to sleep, I checked on the kids, and found Joe sleeping like this. Whaaaaat? That just doesn't look comfortable, and why the heck is the electric piano on the floor? Strange kids...

Anyway, I think I went to bed last night before midnight. Sometime in the 11pm hour. And I took a Ambien so that I'd definitely get a good nights rest. Cause I wasn't gonna be up at 2:30 in the morning again. Yeah, not playing that game.

I woke up at 7:30, and went back to sleep till 8:30, then went back to sleep till 9am. And felt nice and rested. Sleeping in is good to do :)

I said my prayers and read my scriptures and finally came out to check on the kids. Eme was spending the night at Bellas house, and Jake and Tom were still asleep, so only Jim and Joe were awake. They were playing nicely by themselves. That's always good.

I got them some cereal or toast, and myself some breakfast, and we sat down to watch a Halloween movie together. The Halloweentown series. You guys seen those? I think they were on the Disney channel, maybe? I know know. VERY dorky, but they were good :) We enjoyed it.!

Tom came downstairs shortly after we started the movie. I think he heard us watching something. And Jake came downstairs about 1/2 way through the movie. He said he'd seen the first part, but not the rest. So it worked out perfect for him.

And inbetween the first and second movies, I headed to the shoppette to get a $0.99 44 oz soda. They only have Diet Coke (gag), but at least it's not Diet Pepsi. I didn't wanna change out of my jammies or anything, so I didn't wanna go off post. Yeah, I was super hot...

BUT, I got my caffeine fix, and that's all that mattered :) I usually have the kids bring me a soda from the fridge, so I didn't know that we RAN OUT! And I couldn't go a day without caffeine (yeah, I know, that's not good...) cause I'd end up with a migraine before noon. So off I went to feed my habit. But look how happy I look in this picture. hehe.

And I came home, and we watched the 2nd Halloweentown movie. And then started on the third one. The kids had Hot Dogs and Mac N Cheese for lunch, and I grabbed my old Dell laptop, and designed 4 WordArt packs, all birthday themed. It was a good and productive day.

I texted with Captain America on and off, but he was busy most of the day with tests. BUT, I did hear that he might be back on Sunday, not Monday. That'd be good!

At around 3pm, I went and showered, and looked SO much better. Yeah, this picture makes me have a GINORMOUS head (as opposed to the tiny head I normally have.....). I think it's because I'm leaning over funny...

So around 4:30pm, I decide it's time to start baking for the Halloween Party. Because at the time, signing up for Cupcakes AND cornbread sounded like a super great idea. But yeah, I SO didn't feel like baking. I felt like sitting on the couch and watching the 4th Halloweentown movie. hehe. Well, more like just sitting on the couch and vegging. ha! I'm sure I could have found something better to watch...

Anyway, I hopped up, and made some chocolate cupcakes, and 4 boxes of corn bread muffins. And once the cupcakes were cooled, I mixed 1 cup of powdered sugar, 1 package of cream cheese, and 1 tub of cool whip together with a little vanilla. And put it in a frosting tube thingy. What is the name of that.... brain fart.... Anyway, I used the biggest tip I could find, and shoved it into the cupcake, and squirted the yummy filling inside of it.

Then frosted with cupcake with the extra. So yeah, it was cream cheese goodness ALL around. Mmmmm. And it was almost 5:15 by this time. And we had to leave at 5:15pm to get to the church on time. So I told the kids to hurry and put on their costumes.

I didn't take the time to embelish them at all. Sigh. I had high hopes of doing so, but when I realized that Captain America couldn't come to the party with us, it kinda ruined it, a bit, for me. So I didn't dress up. We'll dress up at Cesar and Cleopatra on actual Halloween for trick or treating.

Joe put on his knight costume and maroon cape, Jim put on his batman costume, and Tom got dressed up as an army man. And then, we had car trouble...

My truck, remember, had been acting up. And I'd been driving the Saturn around a lot instead of the truck. So yeah, when I tried to start the truck earlier today, it was dead. No starting it.....

So I decided that 2 of the 5 kids had to stay home from the party. Yeah, it sucked, but it needed done. I really considered letting someone squish in the backseat without a seat belt, but didn't want to risk the "random inspection" coming back in the gate. The ticket and trouble we'd get in for letting one more kid come to the Halloween party didn't seem worth it...

So Jake volunteered to stay home. He said as long as we brought him a little bit of candy, he'd be fine. And, since Eme was still with Bella's family, she was the other natural selection. They'd gone to a corn maze and pumpkin farm today, and were a few minutes late getting back. Sorry, Eme, I know you were looking forward to the party.

So we loaded up at 5:20pm in the Saturn, and headed to the party. With corn bread and cupcakes and 3 kids. And forgot the trunk or treat candy at home. Dang! Oh well, we'll use it for Trick or Treaters, I guess. If I can keep Jimmy out of it. I keep finding sucker wrappers in his room..... I never had troubles like that with the older kids... Maybe it's a younger kid thing.

Anyway, since it's a new ward, with new people, I did feel a little awkward at the beginning. We found a table, and sat, and I didn't really talk to anyone. I thought again about how my therapist said that I wasn't shy. Which is true. I DID want to talk with someone. I wanted to chat and talk and goof off. But I didn't feel comfortable with anyone there to do that.

So they started the party, and we got in line to get the kids food. Chili and corn bread and chips and toppings. Yeah, I couldn't eat it. Chili is NOT on my menu. I'd eat when I got home. I meant to eat before I came, but I got distracted...

Anyway, I force fed Joe and Jim a whole bowl of chili with cornbread. Because I knew the amount of candy that they would be consuming tonight, and wanted real food at the bottom of their stomachs. hehe. Good thing Halloween time is only once a year, right?

They had a chili contest, and a cake decorating contest. Check out some of my favorite cakes!
And there was a costume contest too. This family won first place. The Yo Gabba Gabba family. hehe. Mom was the pink one, and little boy was the green one. It was COOL!

Joe and Jim goofing off

This kids costume was AWESOME. Some type of bird...

Jimmy

Tom and I

Tom

And, the craziness that is a Ward Halloween Party...

Chili's and Cornbreads

And after we ate, the kids all danced to some games in the center of the gym. And I had had enough of sitting by myself, so I went and chatted with Paige, a lady who I'd known the 3 months we'd been in the ward before. Her oldest child is 22, and youngest is 8, and she's SUPER cool. So I just went and joined her family and chatted. And had SO much fun chatting with her. See, not shy. Just insecure. hehe.

And finally, after what seemed like forever, the kids all went outside for the Trunk or Treat. I grabbed a few bowls of chili for Jake and Eme, and a few slices of cake, and headed outside. And of course it was too dark to see where my kids had gone. But I'd told them to stick together, and go get candy, so I trusted that they were good.

I stood by the back door under a light so they could find me, and chatted with another lady in the ward, Gayle. She's pretty nice. And the Relief Society president. We had a nice time chatting. And I found the kids as they came around, and they'd gotten candy for themselves, AND some for Jake and Eme. Such sweet kids :)

We finally left the church at around 8:30pm, and came home. The kids had had SOOOOO much fun. They just went on and on about how much they LOVED the new ward, and how awesome it was. And I'd had fun the last half, too. After I got over feeling uncomfortable, and went and chatted with people. I'd had a good time :)

We drove home, and cleaned out Captain Americas car, and un-costumed kids. They divided up the candies with Eme and Jake (who had watched a movie at home together and had a quiet evening), and they ate so much I thought I was gonna be sick. I stepped in at one point and hid the candy bags. hehe. Yeah, they say that kids can self regulate how much they eat, but I think my kids missed those directions....

Anyway, we set to work on cleaning the house, cause I wanted it to be clean-ish when Captain America came home. We did the dishes, and cleaned up after the cupcakes, and wiped the counters, and swept the floors, and cleaned the dining room table, and did some laundry, and picked up the living room, and were done.

And we all sat down to read our scriptures and say family prayer, then I sent kids to brush teeth REALLY good, and off to bed.

And I sat down to blog, and facebook, and unwind. And now it's 10:07pm, and I really need to run to Walmart. Cause I need caffeine for tomorrow. I know, I'm bad. I wonder if there's somewhere closer, just off post. I bet Walgreens has a 12 pack of soda.... AND, I could print out some photos for Emeline. I've been promising her that I would, so that she could make a mini scrapbook with them. Photos from her birthday. Hmmm, maybe I'll do that instead of a Walmart run... it would be a much closer, faster trip.

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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