What a week.

Well first things first... Shawn came home last night!! He came in late so I got to go pick him up with no kids which was nice. We have been apart many times for all sorts of lengths the longest being 18 months, but this last 3 weeks felt like FOREVER. Its different with having kids this go round, Im running around like a chicken with my head cut off and sometimes just want to stand and scream throwing in the towel other times I want to be able to share the good stuff with someone who really understands me. He tried, bless his heart to do J's feeding last night but he's been out of the game for 3 weeks and a lot has changed with her. She has gained almost 3lbs AND... she's officially sleeping 7 hours only waking for one feeding now!! Its a great feeling and she was on and off with it for a while but this week solid shes falling asleep around 8ish or 9ish and sleeping 7 solid. Its soooooo wonderful!!

Shawn celebrated his 35th birthday on Monday (not the first away) but it always sucks being apart for things like that. This weekend we will celebrate! We are celebrating Halloween this weekend, early I know, buts its A's favorite holiday so were having our own little Halloween party. I will post pictures. We are also celebrating Thanksgiving early on October 10th. We going to have family and a few friends over and have a Thanksgiving meal together to say goodbye to Shawn. I fear these next 2 weeks will fly by, but we have a lot of fun things planned. I continued to pack this past week and house keeps looking more and more empty. The garage on the other hand is packed floor to ceiling with boxes. Crossing our fingers our offer gets excepted and that I can single handedly move this family from 1,900 square feet to 3,100 square feet. It will be pretty crazy but so worth all the hard work in the end.

Today was my last day of 14 days of Army training, I am so relieved it was really rough to work full time, parent and run a house all on my own. Thank goodness for the live in nanny to be able to watch J all day long. She was ready to bolt every day though when I got home to either go to work her self or go hand out with friends. I will be sleeping in tomorrow... maybe till noon :-)

A has officially been up for adoption for a while now. She finally got assigned an adoptions case worker who came over this week to start all the paper work with us. We will finish it all up while Shawn is home and then sit back and wait. They are saying it should be finalized in February right before A's birthday! We are all very excited! Today I caught myself crying on the way to work. I was listening to KLove and they were playing Cinderella, by Steven Curtis Chapman.... serious Dad and daughter song, (sappy already) but I kept thinking how we will now be doing prom and a wedding and some day an engagement.... not even some day.... in 8 more years A will be 19. It hit me that those things are all right around the corner for us, very scary, exciting and anxiety producing all at once. Its already bad enough that Tyler is graduating in a few short months. His mom and I joke were going to be 2 blubbering idiots that day. I cried when I let Tyler drive my truck for the first time cause I remember like it was yesterday when he was just 9 years old. Man time flies way to fast sometimes.

Then on other big news... I have an acquaintance through a friend of the family does this amazing non-profit thing in WA where we used to live. Its called Stand Out Prom (standoutprom.com) Its so awesome and I have been watching them grow over the last 2 years and have thought how fun something like that would be. Well I email the gal who started it all and asked her permission to start something similar here in AZ. She spoke with her board of directors and they gave me the green light, so I gathered several of my very talented friends and we had our first planning meeting last Friday. We decided to go for it. So, I am starting a non-profit, pinch me I still cant believe it. We having been hashing out our own name this last week and I am so excited to soon share with you what we decide. I am spending the weekend doing all the paper work to file and make us an official non-profit. So stay tuned for all the amazing things and the awesome journey that lies ahead with this new endeavor. I am super excited!!

Well, I think I covered it all for the last week. These next two weeks will be jam packed with fun so I will try to keep everyone up to date as best as I can. I look forward to spending time with Shawn and the girls tonight, sleeping in tomorrow and soaking up every last second over these next 2 weeks.

Hello Wednesday.

Half way through the week! Only one more week till Shawn is home, I am very excited! Mostly so I can have a break from the girls and get a little time to myself before he departs leaving me a single parent for a whole year. I am looking forward to sharing that journey with you all ;-)
I have been doing Army training this week and I am extremely exhausted when I get home but somehow I am finding the energy to jump right into the parent role before going into complete shut down bed time role. J is still waking up in the middle of the night for a feeding... last night she was so kind as to let me sleep a whole hour & a half before demanding to be fed. Then I will excitedly say she slept for 6 hours straight... whooo hooo!! I hope this is a habit forming here it may be my salvation. Tomorrow is dreaded Thursday, it means up early to work, work, back home to pick up A from school, and then off to school for me to sit in 4+ hours of Chemistry class, to then race back home to get the baby to bed and then fall into bed myself. Hurry up Saturday and get here already. This Saturday we are going to go see a house that we put an offer in on because we realized we are quickly growing out of this one. Just waiting for the bank to say ok to our offer and we will be moving then. I have the house about 50% packed already. In the past 7 days I have been packing a few boxes before I go to bed. I am praying for a miracle that we can move while Shawn is home for 2 weeks in October but I am not sure if it will happen. If thats the case I will be single handedly moving us into a new house. I always say I love a challenge but sometimes I think the challenges take me a little to seriously. Well, other than J growing at the speed of light and A becoming more and more bubbly by the minute, me working and going to school while prepping for a move there is not a whole lot going on in the Adams family household.... haha, I wish.

Can't believe the weekend is over already.

I no longer look forward to the weekends like I used to. The girls are still young to be involved in activities all the time but I am not to old to still be involved in activities and I can never say no. I did manage to get a few things done around the house which is always nice. I am most happy with winning several rounds with the laundry... 5 loads a day!! CRAZY! Finally made it to Church this weekend, it was really nice to be able to go. My calendar is already booked into the new year with many events so any weekend that there can be some normalcy is most welcomed. Tomorrow its back to the grind, playing soldier Mon-Fri till the end of the month. Up at the crack of dawn, 45 min commute, work 7 hours, 45 minutes home, then put on my mom hat all night to then fall into bed... then repeat. O, forgot, insert at least TWO venti white chocolate mochas with an extra shot with soy!!! Talked to Shawn today who told me he is coming home a day early... whoo hoo, only 9 days to go then!! I think I can, I think I can! I think I will be having him watch the girls while I go get a mani, pedi and a massage... wow thats sounds great, brilliant idea if I do say so myself! O, I almost forgot the most exciting thing happened on Friday night... J rolled over!! It was so exciting! So here is to another busy weekend behind me and a busy week ahead of me, but only a few more days till the love of my life is home and I can run into his arms!

Early day from work.

Got released from work a little today... I find pleasure in the small things! Came home had some re-heated Taco Bell!! Decided to sit and relax for a few so I down loaded some pictures from a session I did with my sister and her cat "Pounce" as well as my graduation pictures. Still on cloud nine with the whole graduating thing!! So enjoy the pictures from the session and my graduation!!

Not enough hours in the day.

Things have been busy, busy, which is nothing new in this house hold. Shawn's in Californina doing some Army training, he has only been gone a week and I miss him terribly already. We have been seperated so many times before but I think the kids in the equation this time makes things a little harder than I had planned. Nothing I can't handle I am a pretty tough cookie, just see it being a really long, tiring year. They say parenthood is filled with so many moments... thats is so true. I think its just a little backwards for us... we went from not kids to 2 kids over night. I have over 20 plus years of child rearing experience in my back pocket but I dont think there is truely enough to cover parenting. I practically raised my younger brother and sister my parents left me home babysitting & cooking dinner at the age of 10 since they worked so much. I did baby sitting on the weekends, working in a nursery, taught Sunday school and summer Bible camps, assisted my mom with her daycare she ran from home, helped in her preschool classes.... all that has helped prepare me and arm me with tools to be a great parent for the kids that are in our home and that will in the future be in our home. At the end of the day though I am mentally and physically exhausted, almost incapacitated at times, more so without Shawn here. My sister has moved in as a full time Nanny but even with her help I can not escape the almost automatic shut down that hits me at the end of the day. I have been pumping myself FULL of coffee and false motivation thus far... it will be like a science experiement to see how that works out for me over this next year. Ofcourse it doesnt help that on top of parenting I am going to school full time (which by the way I graduated last Friday with my BA in Criminal Justice... I still have not come down off that high yet... what an amazing feeling... on to the Masters) I am crazy enough to have decided to pursure TWO, yes count it TWO Masters degrees. One at first but later moving to TWO at the same time. I will have my head examined when I can fit it into my calendar schedule. I have several projects in the works as well which as they unfold I will share with you all... I cant wait they are pretty amazing! Then there is Uncle Sam, I actually worked for him today and will be Mon-Fri till the end of the month. I honestly wonder how single parents do it and gladly will kiss the ground they walk on they have to be among the most amazing humans ever to walk this earth... kuddos.
So now that I have rambled and not truely shared what we have been up to with everyone... basically the day in and day out just trying to make it through that at this time. I am signing off to attempt to get 4-5 hours of sleep before "J" wakes me up and then if I am lucky possibly 3 more hours till I wake to start my day with Uncle Sam for 8 hours and then off to Chemistry class for an insane 4 hours straight (which should be illegal by the way) then home to push the reset button with a few appointments and such thrown into Friday for a little varity. This next year will be a huge test for me... I think I can, I think I can...

Weekend at home!

I can not really remember the last time I got to stay in my house for a whole day... today was that day (I am marking it on the calendar) With my sister moving in recently house cleaning has fallen behind because we were so busy playing the furniture tetris game. Furniture is complete but there are several misc. things here and there from the moving of bedrooms. So, I spent the whole day doing laundry until I thought I would throw up (I dont like doing laundry) and I went around trying to find a new place for all the misc. stuff laying around. As I type this, I am thinking how weird that my life has come to this, deffinatly not what I had planned... its the small things that excite me now. Ever since going from no kids to 2 kids almost over night I operate MUCH differently, at times I feel like a robot. Same routine every day... more for the kids and not me but still. I considered today calling my parents and saying thanks for making me do chores when I was younger because it seems like thats all I do now and I am so conditioned for them its like breathing. Since Shawn and I have been together I have struggled to do a load of laundry from start to finish, I can throw clothes in the washer and dryer like no bodys business but folding and putting away is whole nother story... I completed 8 loads of laundry today from hamper to hanger/drawers... AMAZING! I didnt even bat an eyelash at it. I have never really liked doing the dishes either, even with the invention of a dishwasher but now I find myself emptying and loading that bad boy several times a day with no problem... I still dont like it but hey the dishes are not going to do themselves... darn it.  Now that the day has come to an end and I can sit and relax, I look at todays accomplishments as really huge, like a corporation merging with another corporation... this is the real deal here, I have evolved into official mommy status. Its rewarding at times, SUPER TIRING, very trying at times (grounded 8 year old playing tantrum, testing my patience games today) but as long as I can lay down on my comfy sofa at the end of the night and feel at ease like I do now I suppose its all worth it. Tomorrow is only a few hours away, holding its own little surprises and I intend to soak up every one of them as I have today.