Santa

Made an appearance at the soccer tournament!

My kids seriously have the cutest, softest, most adorable, precious toes and feet EVER! EVER.

Testing

I'm testing the ability to email to my blog...
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Testing my mobile abilities to blog!

MUCH better!

It's very common, and I'm sure just general human nature for most people to talk about difficult times and situations they are faced with more often than positive and uplifting times and situations.

Two posts ago, I did exactly that. Now, I would like to do a follow up post, this one being much more positive - however still quite honest.

Shortly after that post, Robert and I had hit rock bottom. We experienced feelings and decisions that broke us down. Actually, and more accurately temporarily completely broke us. The key word there I'm happy to say though, is 'temporarily'. We've compared our recent journey to a drug addict hitting rock bottom before their individual life changes take place. This may sound extreme, however to me appropriate due to the significant life change that came with the situation. Whether our family of 5 dissolved as we knew it, or things changed for the better - it was that significant.

We have both had individual epiphany's that have brought our friendship back. Our relationship had lost it's much needed friendship base along the way, but with our amazing friendship that we do share, we are happily working on it daily and enjoying doing so. Something is different. I love it and have feelings of pride and happiness every single day. ( I sadly hadn't been able to say that for a long time )

Marriage is not easy and often not even very fun. Everyday hasn't been and wont be perfect, but my glass seems to be half full now instead of half empty - what a wonderful change!!!!

"be yourself day"

Kyla's favorite type of outfit consists of the following:

"short pants" ( jean capris with a design on the rear pockets )
" a cool shirt" ( her favorite one is the one she wore the first day of school, the blue and black striped one with the "rocker" looking design on the front )
a black belt

and her black boots ( she switches between her tall black boots and her black cowboy boots )

I only allow this at home because boots and short pants look funny as the short pants are about an inch above the top of the boots. She thinks it looks fantastic. She wants to wear it to school daily, and we argue about this every morning.

So last night she came up with this:

Kyla: "MOM, guess what tomorrow is?"
Me: "what is tomorrow Kyla?"
Kyla: " It's dress cool day. You know, like be yourself day!"

Me: ( cracking up inside ) " WOW, really?! That's an awesome name for a day, are you SURE it's tomorrow because tomorrow is normally school colors day? "
Kyla: ( starting to smirk cause she can NOT lie to save her life ) "Yes mom, I'm totally serious."

Me: " that is so lucky for you - what in the world are you going to wear? "
Kyla: " they even said you can wear boots and short pants and EVERYTHING."

Me: " that's just CRAZY, you must be SO excited! "

So this morning, she puts on her short pants and cowboy boots while I'm silently thankful that my dad is taking her to school and not me. My silence and slight suggestion finally hit her and she walked up to me and said: "FINE, I'll just wear long pants with my boots!" *BIG SIGH*

what happened?

My blog used to mean everything to me. I can't believe I've let it go so badly. I feel like I've let quite a few things go lately though..... time to get back on track.

Looking back on the last month, so many good things stand out about my awesome kids.

Kyla is just continuing to impress and overwhelm me with her knowledge and understanding of things. The books she reads is just phenomenal and her printing is just remarkable. She loves school and she loves her "friends." She doesn't like me to walk her in anymore, so when we get to a safe spot near the gate she says: "Ok, mom - this is far enough, give me a quick hug" and off she goes. :( She is also very very very bossy these days, and has taken on the skill of back talking much stronger than before. She doesn't know who she is dealing with when it comes to debating... I don't lose. LOL She only has 2 soccer games left - that season went by so quickly!

Although Kade has been very Kade-ish at times, most other times he has been absolutely the sweetest little man on the planet. He has really taken on the responsibility of making sure Jack is taken care of and happy. He's trying to teach him how to swing himself, he makes sure that he gives him hugs and tells him that he's his friend and he loves him, even if he says he's not sometimes. If Jack is upset about something, Kade begs me to just "give it to him" or give in to whatever it is that Jack is wanting. He's given him shirts off of his back, last pieces of candy, extra toys and several other things. It warms my heart. Of course, several minutes later he will punch him in the face with a closed fist. Brothers - I love it. OH, probably the thing that stands out the most about Kade right now is that he lives upside down. Literally, every piece of furniture he walks up to, he has to get on it with his legs above his head. ALL THE TIME. Sometimes it's funny... sometimes, not so much.

I think I need to start calling Jack the 'gentle giant' My baby is SO big and strong, yet so soft and caring. One minute he will be boxing with his daddy and the next minute he has a brush ready and a pillow on his little lap ready for me to lay down on so he can brush my hair. He does a really really good job too. He keeps saying: " is that ok? does that hurt? " lol Robert and I took him with us out to meet a couple of Robert's friends for a drink last week and he LOVED being the only kid with us. The whole way there he kept saying: "I love going with you guys." Love is his favorite word. " I love this table, I love my Papa, I love this car, I love these socks, I love spongebob" etc... you name it. He loves it! He recently starting eating pickles with the rest of us, and he is ever so proud of that accomplishment! He also recently ate about a quarter of a huge Pumpkin Cheesecake. He takes after his daddy on that one!

Robert turned 37 last week! Aiden turned 6 on Sunday, and TJ is about to turn 30! I feel SO old these days, and just can't wait to get to a point where I get more than 5 hours of broken sleep a night. It's not good for the people around me when I have such poor sleep! :)

I've been really bad about taking pictures with my camera, they've all been with my phone - so I'm vowing to get back to over-taking again. Here are some recent favorites...

There are no words to express how lucky I am to have all of the amazing people that I have in my life.