Will You Be My Valentine?

Hey stranger!


So..... 2010, huh? Yeah....

Look, I don't even know where to start. I haven't blogged in 2 months, and in that time more has happened than I think in all of last year put together. Big things have happened. Ulcer-causing, stress-inducing, life-altering things. Thankfully though, all but one of those things have so far lead to big changes in my life. Changes for the better.

The reason I don't know where to start is that I can't really blog about most of the things that have happened. Every single one of them is on that other side of the personal boundary line. The line that holds all of my most personal and private things that I will not-ever-no-never discuss with the internet.
If I sort through everything and find the things I'm okay with discussing with you, I'm left with this-

I closed my daycare!

..................

I KNOW!!! ..... I really did. Our last day of business was January 29th. I closed the daycare because although I love those children as much as I love my own, I needed to get my house back to being my HOME. I needed to be able to leave my house more often than 2 hours every Sunday afternoon to do the daycare grocery shopping. I needed to stop working 60 hour weeks. I needed to get a reason to wear something other than flannel PJ pants and a holy tee shirt every day and to put on makeup and do my hair. I needed to start really living.
So, I tearfully typed up a 3 weeks notice letter in early January and gave it to my daycare parents. All of them were amazingly understanding and compassionate. No one was angry with me (at least no one showed it if they were) and none of them have treated me any differently since. I'm eternally grateful for all of them and the time I had caring for their most precious little ones.

I have a new job now. I was blessed to be able to go back to work as a nanny for a beautiful and loving family that I have worked for off and on for the past 3 years. I take the boys with me to their house every day and I take care of their baby boy and preschooler daughter, as well as their niece who is also preschool age.
You're probably thinking; but isn't that pretty much the same as running the daycare? My answer is NOOOOOnononononono. NO.
I wake up every morning, I get dressed and put on makeup, I get the boys into the car and we GO somewhere. we LEAVE the house and at the end of the day we can all go OTHER PLACES. Because all of us are DRESSED and OUT of the house already. Then, we can come back to our home and ENJOY it because we've actually had a chance to get AWAY from it for a few hours. It is absolutely glorious. I can literally feel the difference in my stress levels and I can see the positive effect it's having on my relationship with my boys and Ace. We're all breathing easier these days. It's good.

Another thing I can tell you about is that I've lost 12 POUNDS!!! SINCE JANUARY 1ST!! BOO FRICKIN YAAAAWWWWWRRRRR!!!!
Stress does wonders for my waistline, apparently. So does the P90X. Ace and I started the workout system 4 days ago and we are both committed to doing all of it. We've both decided it's time for us to get healthy, get into shape and change the way we're living. Beware though, by the time we get to day 90 we may need to build an addition to our house to make room for our solid gold HOTTNESS.


*SNORT*


Aaaanyway, last but definitely not least..... I got a fantabulous new Do!


BEHOLD!!




And from the back!



It's difficult to tell what's going on with the color from these pictures, but I had the colorist put cherry red highlights throughout and a couple of randomly placed deep purple ones on the top. I'm completely enamored with it. It's my favorites haircut/color EVAR.

Other than all of that, I'm afraid the rest of the past 2 months is just not your business. Trust me though, even if you could know about all of the other stuff, you really wouldn't want to know. It's all really that insane. But it's also all over and done with and it's time to move forward. 2010 is going to be an awesome year, I can feel it. I can also feel that I'm going to have to work really hard every single day to make it that way.

I'm okay with that though. I'm ready. BRING IT.

Well Hello There!

I apparently needed a little break from blogging after all of that NaBloPoMo business, eh?

To catch you up, it's been a busy busy month so far. Almost all of the Christmas shopping is done and then some. Some of the presents though, have unfortunately not made it all the way to Christmas. Namely, one beautiful NIKON camera given to me by my awesomely awesome husband man.



I haven't been able to stop taking pictures since last week when I opened it (completely against Ace's wishes, might I add.... but NIKON!!! SHINY!! WANT NOW MINEMINEMINE!!) and my children are now beyond sick of it all. The moment ZK sees me pull out the camera he either darts from the room or turns on that nasal-y whine that makes me want to claw my ears out.

Ah, well. Tuff noogies. I've wanted a nice camera for years and I'm not about to let a little grumpiness stop me from taking photos to my heart's content.




That's his signature move.






The rest of the Christmas gifts will definitely make it to their spot under the tree I promise. This one, though, is not leaving my sight. Neither are any of these toddlers, until I can get them to pose for "Just one more shot!"




Gah! Fine. Never mind.

I Love Today

I love Thanksgiving. Love Love Love. I love feeling like I could show up to dinner in my Pj's and it would be completely appropriate. I love having a reason to just sit around the table with family to eat and talk about all of the good things in life. Most of all, I love having a day that gives me a reason to look at all of the positives in my life and to think about how grateful I am for all of it.

There was a ton of great food to be eaten, courtesy of my mother in-law and sister in-law (I'm not what you'd call a "good cook"....but I'm getting a lot better at it!) and best of all we had Kitty's famous Pumpkin Roll for dessert! My but that woman can cook.

I made sure the boys were dressed in their Dallas Cowboys stuff and Ace and I wore our jerseys today because the Cowboys always play on Thanksgiving. Before dinner, we all walked down the street to a little grove of trees off the side of the road to take some family photos.







Then we all walked back to stuff our faces.




Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Ours was lovely. I really hope yours was too.



P.S. I'm about to stand out in front of a Toys R Us for a midnight opening for Black Friday. Am realizing I may be much more hardcore about this than I first thought....

I Plead 4 Day Weekend

My workday is over. I have much lazing about with my babies and playing on FaceBook to get done before Ace gets home. I took this picture today as we were all running around the back yard getting muddy and stinky. We had a crazy fun day spent mostly outside and now it is time to enjoy the break to the fullest extent. Just a warning, tomorrow will probably be yet another photo post as I have to get my beauty sleep in tomorrow night before the big shopping day on Friday.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, Internet! Remember, Calories don't count if it's a holiday. SHUT UP THEY DON'T.