It's been a while....

I was just on Pinterest for a minute or two (or 60), and saw a few times where my 'What It's Like to Love a LEO' post had been shared and pinned numerous times. The descriptions were amazing. People I didn't know saying thank you to me (who they didn't know) for writing something they could 100% relate to. Ladies, I'm here to tell you that post is still completely relevant to me too. Especially with all the happenings going on lately. It has just been one struggle after another. 

Seeing my post pinned over and over also made me realize how much I missed blogging. I know it's useless, but it gives me a way to interact with people who understand whether I know them or not. I have been so busy lately I let the things that I do just for me slide. WHY??? I need that now more than ever. My personal LEO has been gone this week. It has been difficult. He is handling something with K-9 so he's hours away and I'm here, being Mom and Dad. And the maid. And the cook. And the disciplinarian. And the zookeeper. I won't keep going, even though I could. 

Anyway, my week. Let's recap: Monday Copper left. No big deal. He was here until lunch. About the time he left our 7 yr old pit bull got sick. From everywhere. It lasted all night. I'm not sure if I felt worse for him or me. Oh, me definitely because by that night I was sick too. Up until 4:30 am the. Took the littles to school.l and thankfully it was uneventful, so Tuesday was okay, just a loooong day. Had to work on some vinyl stuff, normal job, etc. But then Wednesday came and it brought an entirely different meaning of hell with it. Got the kids up and dressed. Little says she doesn't feel good and won't eat breakfast so she lays on the couch and wraps up in a comforter. I take Big to school bc it's not even 5 minutes away. Left her with the phone and locked her in. Get back and walked over to check for fever. At this moment she sits up and literally throws up onto my feet. I'm talking about in between my toes folks. This went on all day. Port thing. Oh, remember how the dog was sick Monday? It lasted through Tuesday morning but that was it. Until the minute I had the slime between my toes. What do I hear happening in the other room? I won't tell you. Let's just say it was worse - yes, WORSE - than the toe slime. This also went on all day. I was so glad for it to end. 

So, here I am on Thursday. I'm taking care of the farm plus doing the 2 jobs and I get a call from Big's teacher letting me know he painted a kid one day this week (how in the hell did that even happen and how come I'm only finding out now) and has been turning in no homework. Awesome. He is so smart but he despises homework. Makes both of our lives difficult. Deal with that, and not very well I hate to admit. I'm stressed and still not over being sick so I had a moment. Whatever. It happens. 

I would like to give a HUGE shoutout to the single parents. It is so hard. I do spend a lot of time alone but it feels different when you know that eventually they'll be home. Might be after a 20 hour shift but they will be. Knowing my backup is hours away sucks. You people that do this all the time as single parents are amazing and have my full respect. 

The kicker? He's gone next week too. Send prayers. :/

Thanks for listening to my rant. Feel free to share your horror stories with me. We can vent and rant together as only

our community can. Blue Family is the best family. 💙💙💙

My biggest little is 9 today.

*Warning: This is long.

I woke up today with the realization that in exactly one more year my son will be in double digits. I keep asking myself  "How did this happen?" And since I am one of those people who answer themselves, I keep saying "I have absolutely no idea. He was 3 yesterday."  Sad fact is I'm wrong. He was not 3 yesterday. He was 8 yesterday. And today he's 9. But at one time, a time that seems like forever ago and yesterday at the same time, he was a baby.

Look at all the people who were just waiting for him to get here. There are plenty more
but I don't have all those pictures on my computer.

Not to be biased, but wasn't he the prettiest baby ever? :) He stays tan. He was even born tan. He was beautiful and perfect and everything I never knew I wanted. I was on bed rest for 8 months with this kid. I have went 5 days without even a drink of water because of him. While pregnant no less.

That hair! I didn't have it cut until he was 2. It was ringlet curly. Even dressed in all blue
people thought he was a girl.

I was not excited about a baby while I was pregnant. That sounds awful I know. But it's the truth. I was too sick and honestly I had never wanted children. Not even one child.

That hair got cut off during this time span. :( But it was time for him to look like a little man.

After all that I should have had a perfect labor. Not so much. I went in for contractions and had to go home. No big deal; happens all the time. Later that night my contractions went from 8 minutes apart to 3 minutes apart. By the time I got to the hospital it was every 30 seconds.

He's my mini me for sure.

They strapped some stuff up to me when I got there. I told them I had to go to the restroom so the nurse said to let them get a quick read first then we'll unhook you and you can go. The next thing I know people are flying everywhere. I was informed they had lost his heartbeat and I had to have an emergency c-section and he had to get out right then. That was the moment for me. That moment that every mom has when they know they'll do anything to protect their babies. My only response was "Then take him out right now." I have never been so scared in my whole life.

He was dressed as Batman the night his dad and I got married.

They wheeled me off to the OR with me leaving my mom crying in the hallway because they wouldn't even stop for her to tell me she loved me. She had to run with them. I had already went into shock by this point. What had actually happened was I was in full blown labor but I hadn't dilated. The sack he was in had ruptured and all the toxic mess in it was now all in me. I didn't care. I just wanted him out and safe.

This was the year baby sister was born.

My doctor came into the OR wearing camo pants and telling me he had to leave his place in line at Chick-Fil-A for me. He was the best doctor ever and tried his best to joke. We were pretty close, not a normal patient relationship because he used to come by my tattoo shop. They gave me a spinal tap, strapped me down, and went to cutting.

Getting way too big.

When you have a c-section they put a sheet up so you can't see. I had already been throwing up while they were cutting and my nerves were shot. I needed to see, so I told my doctor to take the sheet down. Everyone said no and he just said "She can handle it, take it down!" Then I got to watch my son make his entrance into the world. He was soundless and as blue as a crayon. Even then, he was still the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. The first time I heard him cry was about a minute later and it was the happiest sound I'd ever heard.

First lost tooth was around this time.

We stayed in the hospital for a week. Once he got out of me he was perfect. I was not. I had tons of issues and don't even really remember the first couple of days I was there except for one thing. Someone was in the bathroom and I was in the room alone with him and he started crying. I was so medicated that I couldn't even lift my head. In a few seconds we were both crying for completely different reasons. Looking back I realize that everyone was much more worried about me at this point but I never even realized it because all I could think about was him.

I need to show them all these pictures when they fight.

We both made it out of the hospital alive and he is as healthy as he can be. He is one of the biggest blessings in my life and I thank God that he picked me to be his mom. I can't imagine life without him. He keeps me going. And although it is bittersweet I am having the most amazing time watching him grow up.

And this is where we are now.

I have missed so much that I can never take back, for numerous reasons. I was too tired, too busy, had to work... we all have these problems. Funnily enough, although I have so many regrets about his life, he still loves me more than anybody in this world. So while I feel like I've failed him more times than I can count, he feels like I am the greatest person he knows. That is the blessing of a child. You belong to them as much as they belong to you. I love him more than life itself.

This post wasn't for any purpose. Not to shed some great light on anything. Just for me to reminisce and remember his life today since that's what we're celebrating.

Camping Like a Pro

It has been a couple of weeks since my last post. Things have been CRAZY at my house with traveling, festivals, moving, and everyday life. This weekend will be another busy one as well. We are going on my sons annual family Cub Scout camping trip.

My little Cub Scout trying on his uniform. He's 8 but he's so tiny. Still, isn't he adorable?

Ready for his 1st pack meeting in full gear. He really loves it.

I am really looking forward to it, just not the preparing for it. I decided to make myself a checklist for camping supplies. I'll admit I basically can't function without a list. I feel so frazzled, like I'm forgetting 110% of the things I should be taking with me. Anyway, this post is short and sweet. My checklist is here. Maybe if you need a good camping checklist split into categories it'll work for you. I already feel better about going home and getting all of it together.

Enter: The Lilac Zone.

We're making progress with our move. Right now it seems like with every move there's always at least one room that needs painting. In our new house that room was the one going to our 4 year old daughter. Let's just say that she disliked hated burgundy. Not even an option to leave it. Let's also say that I was not a fan of the flowered burgundy and hunter green border. It was old school home interior style. Uh, no thank you.

This border was NOT happening in Bacon's room.

And then there were the curtains. I'm sure they matched whatever was in the room and it looked fine, but they were not for us at all. 

Curtains, valances... too much of this color everywhere.

Since Bacon was saying no way to the room color and I was saying the same to the border, hubs and I decided to paint. Picking a color was the easy part. It went like this: "Bacon, what color do you want your room?" "Purple." "Do you want to think about it to make sure that's what you want?" "Sure... okay, I thought about it. I want purple." She did want dark purple (her last room was magenta) but we talked her into light purple. Mainly because later on we don't want to get stuck painting over another dark color. We took her to pick out her color and get it mixed. We bought primer and had it tinted as well. It was a little more expensive but well worth it.

Before we could paint we had to get that border off. It was the worst part by far. We looked up all kinds of information on removing wallpaper since we had never done it and found that there's a spray you can use to break the glue down. You also have to buy a scoring tool to use before the spray so that it can penetrate the wallpaper. There were also lots of people who said that didn't work and they wound up scraping the glue off anyway. We tried a different method and it worked well for us. I have a Shark Portable Steam Pocket that I love. The hubby did a great job using it. We just put the direct steam nozzle on it and steamed the border off. It wasn't the quickest process because it's made to clean with so it doesn't get super hot, but it worked and that's what we were going for.

He's so helpful. Anything for his girls. =]

We did have to scrape it, but not a lot. We just bought a paper scraper and used it. It was easier on the hands than a regular blade. This is what it looked like after we scraped it. You can see one wall still has the under layer of the border attached while the other doesn't so you can tell the difference.

The little bit of glue was just smearing at this point so it was flat. We didn't want to saturate the sheet rock with water, so we left it.

We scraped all 4 walls until they just had the little glue remnants on them. We left it just like that and put tinted primer on top of it. You can't even tell there was a little glue left. 

We did one wall at a time. It was easier for us that way because it was hard  on the arms to continue scraping all 4 in a row.

After adding tape and 2 coats of tinted primer it looked like this. We didn't originally tape because we thought pulling the tape off might damage the popcorn ceilings. (Only the rooms we want to paint have these ceilings of course.) Our bad edging due to the popcorn was damage enough, so we taped. You can't even tell it was taped since we pulled it off.

Taping saved tons of time and painstaking edging work.

And after 1 coat of paint it looked like this. As you can see our little one is very happy with the end result. 

She loves that closet.

TJ finished painting while I was at work so when I got home I started unpacking, cleaning, and rearranging.

Her little bed will be gone on Christmas. Getting too big so a new one is coming.

"Mom, this looks AWESOME!"

This white furniture will be gone soon. I think she wants black.

I still need to empty the closet. It's got some boxes in it. I plan on putting an actual closet organization system in it but that won't be happening right now. We've got to get moved in first. Hopefully I can get it started by the beginning of next year. It's going to take some planning for sure, but it should eradicate the need for most of her furniture. That's what we're ultimately going for so that they have more room to play. We still have some art to hang on the walls and her tv will be hanging also. Other than that we're finished with her room. This took us about 4 days to paint because we only worked on it at night after work. We could've done it in a day because the primer and paint dried surprisingly fast.

We will be working on B's room next. We're not sure if we're even going to paint it. He hasn't decided what he wants as of right now. I guess we'll see.

- jFree <3

Paperwork Chaos Undone.

My kids started back to school earlier this month. They are loving it. My 4 year old, Bacon, seems to love everything about Pre-K but she especially loves the bus. I never let my 8 year old, B, ride the bus before, but since his sister wanted to this year we decided to try letting them ride it home. My anxiety level was through the roof for the first week but I've gotten over it now. They enjoy it and honestly it saves us some time and hassle. It comes by much too early in the morning for them to ride it to school. Thankfully B is liking the 3rd grade. He changed schools this year to a MUCH better district and it seems to have done him well. A huge difference is this school actually sends home paperwork. Looots of paperwork. Mix that with the mail that has been coming in and I've got a mess. Staying at the MILs is helpful money wise but we don't have a lot of space. One bedroom for us, one for the kids to share.

The kids have a good setup and have done surprisingly well in the same room.

Our pit bull, Roscoe, LOVES to photobomb. You'll probably see a lot of him.

Here he is again. At least he takes some of the attention off the mess.

I can't seem to break the hubby's habit of dropping everything right beside the bed, including his horde of Girl Scout cookies. (He's a Thin Mint junkie.)

Our YorkiePoo, Baylor. She does not sleep with us. Our dogs are inside but aren't allowed on the furniture. As you can see, she got an opportunity and sneaked right into Dad's spot.

As you can see we've done well with the space provided. Other than the t-shirts my husband refuses to throw anywhere but everywhere and the desk. Oh, the desk. It has been the bane of my existence for the past month and I have been ignoring hoping it would just clean itself. Didn't happen. So I took all the papers off and got them in a pile.

This is just part of them. They're everywhere.

That is what I got. That doesn't include all the papers I've been storing at work and in my purse. Papers everywhere. I also have refund checks from every bill we had. This is good news for us. My system of paying every 4 weeks instead of once a month has paid off. Woohoo! Maybe a post on budgeting sometime... Anyway, then I went shopping for supplies. Let me tell you, I'm a cheap shopper. If I can find a deal, that's what I'm doing. 

My steps were this: 

1. I got 2 plastic milk crates (1green, 1pink)! from Walmart for $3.97 each. I also "borrowed" some recycled file folders and tabs from my office. (My boss is great.) 

2. Decided to make one file for each grade per kid. 

3. I make binder covers every year, so I printed off an extra copy to put in the front of each file in case the tab pops off.

Bacon's binder cover this year. She loves
purple and stars.

B's binder cover this year. He loves
green and skulls.

4. I made tabs for the folders.

5. I put a couple of folders in each crate with tabs on them labeled with their current grade.

6. I put an extra folder in one crate so that we can put our paperwork in it while we're at the MILs. I'll move it to my normal filing spot when we get settled. 

My baby's first tag from school ever. *tear* We picked them up every day for the 1st week. 

The crates look empty but at the moment  they both only have one month of one grade in them. I figure that by 12th grade they'll be full.I thought about getting a box with a lid but for now it's more convenient to just drop stuff in. I may change later on. If so, I'm sure I'll still be able to find a use for these crates. I'm much happier with this than the method of "throw it on the desk and hope you can find it later".

Look at these little almost empty crates. B's will be half full by the time I put his paperwork from the past 4 years in it.

One big HUGE upcoming project for me is to create a homework command center. The kids aren't big enough yet to worry with a family command center. I know where they are at all times no matter what and I keep track of all appointments on my phone. But the homework command center will be a big help I think. Bacon brings home a monthly homework calendar and B has a weekly one in conjunction with the daily assignments he has to write down in his planner. They also have different lunch menus and memos from their schools, so I think one place to keep all of it central will be great. We'll see I guess.

**Afterthought: Isn't it CRAZY how much homework kids have these days? He has as much in 3rd grade as I did when I was in high school. Sometimes I just feel like they don't get to be kids anymore.**

-jFree

Seeing Noah's Ark.

We got to take a trip to Noah's Ark yesterday. It's an animal sanctuary in Locust Grove, GA. They don't charge an entry fee but the sanctuary is fully funded through donations so we still took some cash with us. We had never been before and it was hot. The heat did not ruin our trip though. There were lots of benches and plenty of shade. We carried sweet tea and the rescue had a Nathan's hotdog and lemonade stand, so of course we had to have some yummy lemonade.

I put together some photos of our trip so that I didn't post so many individuals. I'm not sure how good the resolution is on the computer after putting them in the collage maker. I also didn't think to take the good camera (I ALWAYS forget it) so all the pictures were taken on my iPhone. Luckily it has a pretty decent camera.

The turtle under the tree was twice the size of the other. A peacock, pretty yellow bird
(no idea what it is), and a duck nesting. The duck was well hidden. 

The BLT section. A bear, lion, and tiger all live here together. They were raised together as cubs
and quit eating when they tried to separate them. The tiger stayed in the house.

 The kids loved the animals, especially the ones outside the fences they could get close to.

The rooster wasn't scared at all, and the ducks swimming under our feet were adorable. Bacon also found an inchworm she wanted.

The tigers were lazing around all over the place. We got to see them throw the ducks some snacks, and I was especially intrigued by this mushroom growing out of the tree.

It was a fun trip that didn't cost an arm and a leg and we got some great memories and exercise. We also learned a few things which is always a perk. If you're ever in the area I would recommend going.

-jFree

Hi there.

These are the 2 smallest loves of my life. Blaiklyn (lovingly referred to as Bacon) and Braden.

Okay... now to actually write. I've decided to make a blog because I want to record things for my children. I want them to one day be able to look back and say "My mom was awesome". Now seems like the perfect time to do so since my husband, 2 children, and I will be moving into our new home within the next couple of months. Hopefully sooner. Fingers crossed. Up until recently my outlet has been my children and husband. They're getting older (as all children do) which is bittersweet. They are turning into awesome little people instead of babies. They still take up all my time but they are old enough that they don't need every second of it. Husband has started trying to golf. I say trying because he's not very good. He does enjoy it though, so I say play on.

This is the biggest love of my life, TJ. And me. We're on a carousel.

I personally enjoy doing so many things I can't focus on just one. I plan on moving into a well organized place and trying to keep it that way. Organization is my true talent. I have lots of projects I plan on doing to get the house organized even before we get moved in. We're staying with my MIL for the period between selling our old house and closing on the new one. It's so nice to have that option. We are purchasing the new house from a family member so we're actually able to do things inside the house before we close, like paint. And I feel the need to show you some pictures now even though it still has other peoples stuff in it. Just disregard all that. Picture it empty and clean.

The fireplace. One of my favorite things about it.

I love that the oven is separate from the stove, which is a recessed downdraft stove.

The dining room.

And there's Bacon out in one of the fields while we took a walk around the property.

We're so ready to move! We love it. We love the space. I can't wait to be able to just go outside and do whatever we want. When we take the kids over they hit the backdoor and are gone. You can't see the house from the road either, which I love. Anyway, there's my introduction and the current status of me and mine. I won't post here everyday I'm sure because life gets in the way, but I will definitely be posting more.

-jFree