Happy Father's Day

Dear handsome Husband,

I wanted to do something special for you this fathers day, but I'm not very good at thinking of special things. I decided I would just write you this letter. I used to write you letters all the time. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but here we are. Both in our late twenties, with two amazing boys.
If someone could have told me 8 years ago that we would be where we are now, with our beautiful boys and our jobs and our home, I would have told them "Well, yeah! Of course!"
I knew from the moment I met you that we were supposed to be forever. I always knew that we would have this family. I knew we could do anything we wanted if we were together. I knew you were not only the husband I had always wanted, but the husband that God had always wanted for me.
This past year has been life-altering. In good ways and in bad. I believe though, with all of my heart, that we are coming out stronger because of it. I know that you and I can handle anything, because we really have handled so much already.
I am looking forward to taking on the rest of this life with you . I know there will be other hard times and I know there will be much much better times. God is good to us.
I want you to know that I am here to support you in every decision that you make as a father, a husband and in your career. We're a team and like I said before, together we can do anything.
I want you to know that I have a lot of respect for you. You are a hard worker and a caring human being. You put everything you have into your job and our boys. You play with them, you talk to them, you make time for them. They will always remember that. I am so grateful every day that my boys have such a amamzing father and that I have such an amazing husband and best friend.
You are the rock in this family. You are our support and our shelter. You are our everything and we love you more than anything.

Happy Fathers Day Ace 
Love, Andrea.

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.

w00t!

LASTPOSTLASTPOSTLASTPOST!!!! It's my last post for NaBloPoMo. Can you believe it? Because I can't. I've done thirty posts in thirty days. It's like a third of that requirement they give you for AA when you have an alcohol problem, except it's for writing and I TOTALLY DID IT. I was a once-a-month poster and this month I posted every single day. Are you proud of me? ... No?
Well I totally don't care because I AM. I totally did it.


I had a really good day today. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I was finally able to find Ace's Christmas present, that I was able to finally get our Christmas cards done and ordered or just that ZK actually took a nap today and gave me some peace and quiet all to myself... or maybe a combination of all of those things, but today was a really great day. It was a Monday and everything! Amazing.
Tomorrow Ace will be home and we plan to put up our Christmas tree and decorations. In the morning he has to get up on the roof and hang the lights. I'm not looking forward to that part because I get to worry about him falling off the entire time. Our roof is steep and I'm an incredibly paranoid person by nature. I need him to outlive me, okay? That was part of our deal that he doesn't know he ever agreed to. I don't like him being up on high dangerous slanty roofs (rooves? Roofesses?? Eh?). It's not good for my nerves.
Anyway, tomorrow we will have all of our Christmas decorations up and I can't wait! I know I say it every day but This is my favorite time of year. Did I mention that I love Christmas time? Because I do. I love it.

And now, I will leave you with a picture of my family because I really have no idea how to end this post...



Dangit! He always has his eyes closed in the good ones.

Happy NaBloPoMo to me.

Black Friday Adventures

Okay, so Black Friday. Now that it's over 48 hours later I really just don't feel like explaining all of it so I'll just give you some cute little bullet points instead.

* Toys R Us was stupid ridiculous. I'm sorry but I can't think of any other way to describe it. I arrived at 11pm to find a line that stretched almost 360 degrees around the building. I was about 2/3 of the way back but no more than 15 minutes after I arrived the line more than doubled. I am not kidding. There were police officers patrolling the area and it was loud and it was a frigid 47 degrees Fahrenheit. When I was finally inside the building it was as crowded as downtown Deep Ellum on a Saturday night. Probably even more dangerous with all of the bleary eyed soccer moms up at that hour fighting to get their hands on the last Zhu Zhu pet.

* My next stop was Kohl's and that went ever so much better in every way. I was one of the first people in line, I was able to get a shopping bag and I got every single thing I'd set out to get there while spending only about 25 minutes in line to check out. In comparison to Toys R Us, it was lovely.

* My third stop was actually a gas station. I'd been awake for about 23 hours by this time and I definitely needed a coffee refill, a bathroom break and some food.
I was able to get all three and it helped to wake me up a bit.

*I went to Target at 5:15 AM, purposely arriving late to avoid the whole mob-rush thing. It went just as well as Kohls and again I found everything I'd been looking for there. Target will always be my favorite store. I love my Target.

* Next I hit Walmart. OOoooh Walmart, I love you and hate you all at once. I was disappointed with the "deals" they were offering on their toys and most of the toys that I wanted to get there couldn't be found. The aisles were a huge mess and most of the doorbusters were just out on wooden pallets in messy piles after being rummaged through by the frenzied mob that had arrived before me. I don't think I'll be stopping by there next year on my Black Friday Route.

* My 6th and final stop was Once Upon A Child. I worked there for about 2 years back when I was fresh out of highschool and they always have great deals on Black Friday. By the time I got there I was beginning to feel dizzy with exhaustion and I knew I just needed to get in and get out. It didn't work out that way. I found my few things there and had to wait in line for about 35 minutes before I could check out.

By the time I left there, I was beginning to see double and I was feeling pretty shaky. I hadn't slept in 27 hours and I had had enough. I drove home, unloaded my loot and hid it safely. Then I crawled my delirious self into bed and slept for about 3 hours before Ace came in to tell me he'd picked up lunch.
I spent the rest of the day in a half-awake shopped-out stupor. It was not cute. All in all, I feel like it was definitely worth it. I saved a lot of money and really did have some fun chatting with the people I was stuck in line with and making my way through the crowds to find the right toys.
Next year I will definitely remember to get a good long nap in before I start shopping. That would have made a world of difference. Also, next year I'm going to try to bring a shopping buddy.

Anyone interested? C'mon, it'll be fun! Bring your good running shoes!

GARRRSMASHRAWRRR!

Okay people. I know I promised a post about my Black Friday experience and I had every intention of doing one. In fact, I already had half of it typed up!

I have no idea what exactly I did just now, but I apparently bumped the wrong button while I was typing and my entire entry disappeared before my eyes. I'm more than a little bit irritated. I will type it up again tomorrow. Mmmkay?

I took the boys to a birthday party today for a little girl I used to nanny for. ZK and Mak have known each other since they were 18 months old. She turned four years old today. I can't believe how quickly the time goes by. Zk will be four in a month!
The two of them stuck together the entire time despite there being at least 30 other children there. They hadn't seen each other in months and could barely contain their excitement. They bounced in the bounce house, played on the swingset and had to sit right next to each other at the table to eat cake. I was so happy Zk could get some time to hang out with Mak again.

Cj spent the entire party on my hip and ate most of my cake and ice cream for me. We were all completely worn out by the time we left for home.

I got lazy and picked up some Chick-Fil-A for dinner. I'm so glad I have a whole other day off tomorrow! It will be spent folding laundry and doing the grocery shopping. Just the way I like it.

Under-Eye Bags Are HOT.

There's a really long, dramatic, exciting post just sitting up there in my brain waiting to be written. It's a post about my Black Friday shopping experience and how I WILL NEVER EVER NO NEVER AGAIN NO EFFING THANK YOU MA'AM attempt a midnight opening at Toys R Us on Black Friday.

That post, however, will have to be written tomorrow. I am completely spent. I ended up being awake for 27 hours straight and got a short 3 hour nap before reality called me back to my mom and wife duties. On the bright side, after adding up all of my savings today I saved almost TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS. In total I spent $360.00 which means I saved almost as much as I spent! WIN!
But, it is now 9:02 PM and I refuse to waste one more second of my time not sleeping. Now please excuse me as I attempt to drag my poor aching body alllll the way across the house and into my soft, comfy bed. I sure hope I can make it.