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.