Update Time!

Wow, has it really been over a year since I have updated here?? Time for an update!
The last year was rough for my family to say the least. Quite honestly it was probably the worst year of my adult life. 2010 started with Travis taking a job at a new pd. From the get go, he knew it was a mistake. It was just not a good fit for him but being the great husband and father he is, he did it in order to make our life better. After 6 months there, he was called in one afternoon and told they were letting him go. It was a shock to say the least. We had no clue things were so bad. After the initial shock, we went into survival mode. I never thought he would have any problem getting on at another pd, but here we are 8 months later..... I don't know what it is exactly. The current economy has no doubt put a damper on the situation and we have recently found out the pd that let him go is dragging his name through the mud. So much so that we have gotten legal counsel. It has been a very emotional, trying time for all of us. Much more so for Travis as you can imagine. I pray everyday for something to come along. Or some sort of answer for all of this. There has been many many times in my life that I have questioned the path God has put my family on. I know there is always a reason and answer but my faith is being tested. I just want our normal back you know? Being in Law Enforcement is Travis, as hard as it can be, I do believe that is what he is meant to do. I have not lost hope but please pray for us.

2011 has started out so much better thank goodness! We were able to find out own place to live again and I love our new home!! Travis got a job, not the one he wants obviously, but one that puts food on our table everyday. I love him so much for doing whatever it takes to provide for us. I also got a new job at another bank! I started about 3 weeks ago and so far so good. More hours, better pay and closer to home. I have never worked full time before because of day care cost but with the boys in school and only Bella needing care, it makes more sense now. We found her a great preschool and she has done so well. I am so proud of her! For a child that has spend 4 years at home with mom everyday, she has adjusted wonderfully!
Trent and Carson are doing great at school, I have such smart little men! Trent even has a girlfriend on the bus! How cute is that!

We have acquired 2 new family members as well. Our beloved Mr Kitty passed away last year and we struggled with the thought of getting a new kitty. We browsed craiglist occasionally just to see and one day a baby just jumped out at us. His name is Perry, an adorable black kitty. We lived with some friends for several months and while there, our beagle Jax had a blast playing with their dogs. So we also toyed with the idea of another dog. And once again, an ad jumped at us that we could not ignore. Lucy was being given away as her owner has a change at home and could no longer care for her. She is an adorable little beagle and is fitting in so well with our family. We affectionately call Jax our fat child as he is a tad overweight and having a play mate has already made a difference!

So that's what's up in our life at the moment. Here's hoping I will update more often :)
Here are some newer pics of my babies!

Birthdays, school and all that good stuff!

The busiest month of the year has past for us, thank god!!! Don't get me wrong, I love birthdays as much as the next mom but having 2 in a week and starting back to school the very same week is a crazy hectic time!!!

We spend the actual day of Carsons birthday at the lake with my parents and siblings and Carson got the gift he had been waiting for all year.... a DS!! He was so excited, it was adorable!

We had a party the next weekend for both boys with all the family and lots of friends.

The boys were spoiled rotten as always! They are some lucky kids and have lots of folks that love them :) The party was super fun for everyone I think. The kids loved the moonwalk and slip and slide and just had a blast running around outside. Here are some of my very favorite pictures from the party. Thanks to Katie and her amazing camera for these!!

School is going really well for Carson. If I doubted before that holding him back was the right thing to do, I know now that it was one of the best decisions we have made as parents. He has gotten in trouble only twice since school began over a month ago! I am so proud of him! He would get conduct marks for things like not listening or paying attention and not following directions and lots of talking but none of that this year! I just hope he keeps it up, which I know he can. He is such a smart little man and amazes me everyday when he tells me what he learned at school. He really enjoys being there and seems to be picking everything up really well. I know right now is mainly review and we still have to hold our breaths for the tougher 2nd semester but I have faith in him and see the rest of the year continuing this way!

Soon enough it will be time for baby girl to have a party and mommy will cry :( I can not believe that I will have a 3 year old litte girl!! I know I say it all the time but where the heck did the time go? She is so big and grown up and just beautiful! Not that I am biased or anything but she is a gorgeous little princess and is so sweet too. I only wish she would stop growing so dang fast!!!

And not to leave out our monster of a middle child, here he is walking in my room now, up from bed for the 10th time tonight! LOL He is such a mess!! Bless his little heart!We went clothes shopping the other day and they both had to show off thier new clothes and begged mommy to take pictures! LOL

A new look

We spent all day going down the checklist for back to school time. Clothes and supply shopping, last minute paperwork at school, doc visit, and a first.... the eye doctor. After a hellish 3 hours at this really nice office (try taking 3 kids under the age of 7 to the EYE doctor and give me a better word than hellish), the verdict is that Carson needs glasses. He is actually excited about them too. I was bracing myself for a meltdown as Carson is all about being "cool" but he was a total trooper and said "I just wanna see better." How grown up does that sound?!?!!
So we are gonna be picking some out in the next few weeks, just as soon as Daddy has some time to go with us. Carson says I would pick lame ones and he needs Daddy to come! LOL I will be sure to post some pictures as soon as we pick up some "non lame" ones :)

Total Slacker

I am the worst blogger ever I do believe! Have I really not been on since September?? Geez, where does the time go?? As you can imagine, much has changed as it usually does in our house.

We moved, yes AGAIN, to a beautiful home in Alabaster. While the apartment was really nice and in a wonderful area, it just wasn't working. And we happened upon this house with a great budget friendly price and a HUGE backyard! I mean it goes on forever and takes hours to cut! LOL We love it out here. The street is a dead end and filled with kids. Carson has spend most of the summer outside, playing and making new friends. We bought a little pool and spend most of our days out back in it and the sprinkler.

Travis has gone through all 3 shifts already this year! He started on evenings, took a spot on days and went back to midnights about 2 weeks ago. Day shift was just awful. Since it's been years since he had to wake up early in the mornings, I guess we both forgot how much he hates it. And as you can imagine, he was miserable in the heat! With all that gear on, geez I don't know how they do it!! So he was able to get his spot on morning shift back which is 11pm til 7am and we are all much happier. Believe it or not, we see him a lot more this way. So he is happy and so are we :)

Carson is doing great, growing another foot a day it seems. I am dreading the day that he is taller than me but I see it rapidly approaching. I can imagine it's hard to discipline a child that towers over you! He has made so many new friends in the neighborhood and I am sooo grateful for that. He was born with ants in his pants and has to stay busy so having a whole neighborhood to run around in is such a blessing. He will be starting school in just a few weeks and he is actually excited. He will be going to a new school since we moved and that's probably for the best as we decided to hold him back in 2nd grade. He started kindergarten on his 5th birthday and I knew from day one that it was going to be tough. Most of the kids were already 6 or about to be. He is such a smart little boy but somethings just weren't making sense to him. We had a difficult time with homework and his teachers began have more and more complaints about his behavior. He was giving up quickly on things he did not understand and would play or talk to others. We had testing done at school and they were quick to say ADD or ADHD. I am not a big fan of giving medication for everything so I haven't gone that route yet. It has always been in the back of my mind too but I am still not convinced that this is the problem. We have talked to the pediatrician and plan to wait a few months before going over that option again. I am really confident that repeating will be good for him. I can imagine how good he will feel when he starts to get things and the light bulb goes off. School is so very important to me and I want him to love it like I did. Keep him in your prayers and thoughts if you would. I will be sure to update once school starts.

Trent is a mess like always! He is such a sweet little guy, so full of questions and comments. He can speak remarkably well and sounds so grown up for a 3 year old. We have even had strangers comment! I am so proud of him. He is such a wonderful little guy to be around. He makes me laugh every single day :) My mom always says I should get him into acting! He would make a great actor I'm sure, as he will dance or sing on cue everytime and will come up with perfect dances to fit certain songs. I'm just waiting for him to be discovered ;)

And baby girl Bella....or should I say Princess Bella! She has become quite the little diva and I would be lying if I said I didn't love it ;) The moment she wakes up, she asked for her dress. And once she is dressed, right down to the matching bloomers, she picks out the perfect bow. While it doesn't always match, she does a pretty good job. She is so cute! And she is doing so good in her big girl panties!! We have been potty training for about a month now and she has a few mishapes every now and again but she doesn't wear diapers at all. Yippee!!! Nice for the budget!! Though it does make me a bit sad every now and again. Cause that's it...no more babies for us. I know we made that decision quite some time ago, but they are growing fast. And everyday my memories of them as babies grow less and less, its just so hard to look at these grown children and remember them as infants. Ohhhh, but enough of that before I get all teary eyed :(

And as for me, well all of the above keeps me pretty busy. I still am working part time on Monday and Friday and love it. Keeps a little extra mommy money and gets me some adult time too!

I recently got my dear hubby to start reading with me, if you can believe that!! Anyone that knows Travis knows that the last thing he would be caught doing is sitting with his nose in a book. But after seeing me so engrossed in the Twilight series and than watching me reread them all for the 5th time, he finally asked what was so great about them. Well as any Twilighter would do, I popped the DVD in and made him watch. I think it was the first non violent, actiony (?) movie he sat through without complaining!!! And than he said he wanted to read them!! I about passed out! He is halfway through eclipse right now and counting down the days til the movie comes out!! I think it's adorable and it's a lot of fun to be able to share this with him. Though he would kill me if he knew I told anyone ;)

On that note, I think its time to crawl into bed with my book :) I will do better updating. I really do hate that this is the way friends have to stay in touch this days but I guess this is better than nothing, right???

Here's a few pics of the last few months

Being a mom

I saw this in a myspace bulletin today and just LOVED it! Somedays it's really tough being a mom and I don't always think that I'm doing it all right. So it's nice to see something like this telling me that I don't always have to be "perfect", that's it's ok to just be their mom sometimes and not the drill sergeant!! As my husband lovingly refers to me!
I try so hard to do everything right, worrying about what I teach them, feed them, dress them, how they behave, how they speak, how clean they are, how clean thier rooms are and I feel as if sometimes I get so consumed with all this that I am missing them just being kids. I need to accept that sometimes they do misbehave, they do make a mess, and they like to dress in crazy, tacky outfits!! lol And that's ok cause that's their job. Just to enjoy being kids!

I'm gonna try a lot harder to enjoy them just the way they are. Which is perfect to me!


Real Mothers don't eat quiche; they don't have time to make it.
Real Mothers know that their kitchen utensils are probably in the sandbox.
Real Mothers often have sticky floors, filthy ovens and happy kids.
Real Mothers know that dried play dough doesn't come out of shag carpets.
Real Mothers don't want to know what the vacuum just sucked up.
Real Mothers sometimes ask "Why me?" and get their answer when a little voice says, "Because I love you best."
Real Mothers know that a childs growth is not measured by height or years or grade. It is marked by the progression of Mama to Mom to Mother...

The Images of Mother4 YEARS OF AGE - My Mommy can do anything!
8 YEARS OF AGE - My Mom knows a lot! A whole lot!
12 YEARS OF AGE - My Mother doesn't really know quite everything.
14 YEARS OF AGE - Naturally, Mother doesn't know that, either.
16 YEARS OF AGE - Mother? She's hopelessly old-fashioned.
18 YEARS OF AGE - That old woman? She's way out of date!
25 YEARS OF AGE - Well, she might know a little bit about it
.35 YEARS OF AGE - Before we decide, let's get Mom ' s opinion.
45 YEARS OF AGE - Wonder what Mom would have thought about it?
65 YEARS OF AGE - Wish I could talk it over with Mom.

The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.
The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.
The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul.
It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!

Go me!

So how much do you love the header I made for my page?!?! I am so darn proud of myself! This is the first time I have attempted to creat something like that and I must say it turned out well! Can you tell I'm very impressed with myself ;)
Let me know what you think!

The craziness of August!!!

Wow, what a few crazy weeks it's been!!! August is always very hectic around here. Both boys have their birthdays and Carson goes back to school!!! Not only is it wild, it's very expensive! LOL! Between presents for both boys, school supplies and school clothes, I spend more in August than I do on Xmas!

Carson started school about 2 weeks ago and so far so good. I am very impressed with his teacher. She seems very on top of things and pretty strict, which I think Carson needs. He is so smart but I think he has gotten away with too much over his last 2 years of school and I'm excited to see how a more stern teacher will influence his behavior. He hasn't gotten into trouble in the past, just talking too much, wonder where he gets that from ?!?! lol

He turned 7 a few days after school started and got a brand new bike! He got a 20 inch bike and compared to his other bike, it seemed so big! I insisted that we get the one with training wheels even though he had been riding the other without for a few months. But when we got home he begged to take them off and to my amazement, he did GREAT! Didnt fall once! I was so proud! He is really growing up!

Trent's 3rd birthday was this past Saturday and he got some cool stuff too! He got a Imaginex Bat Cave and hasnt stopped playing with it. It's like a little house for Batman and the others and it's so much fun watching him use his little imagination while he plays. He puts them in different parts of the place and acts out the things they do! Too cute!

While I'm glad all of the craziness for the month is over, it makes me a little sad too. Another year gone by so fast. Before I know it, I'll be buying cars for these little men of mine! Scary thought!!!!