went to the zoo again..

thanksgiving dinner

We had thanksgiving today ( friday). We had a total of ten adults and 5 children come and eat. WE still somehow managed to have a ton of left overs. We had a turkey, a ham, broccoli and cheese casserole, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry salad, rolls, yams, green bean casserole, and pink stuff ( fruit salad with whip cream deal). It was awesome! every one was very full and happy. WE are very blessed to have great friends and family here in arizona. Its a nice perk of being in the navy that almost any state we move we already know someone from there or that lives there. So we had friends here before we even moved here. QUite a few actually and that is nice to be able to celebrate with them. I also made a double layer pumpkin pie which is very easy and was the hit of the evening. I make one just about every year. WE watched football and had wine and just an all around great time. I hope everyone elses went well too.
I am exhausted now because i braved the crowds at walmart at their midnight sale last night which kept me up till 3 am and then i was back up at 8 am cooking and cleaning. i did get a few prize items. lilly is getting an electric scooter this year. It's a big ride on toy but we have the perfect riding spot for it behind our home. The big ticket item i picked up wasn't at the black friday sale though. WE got a doggie. yes we got another dog. lol.. WE got one a while back and gave it away two weeks later probably. IT HAD PROBLEMS and i would love to rescue a little doggie but this wasn't a puppy that we had gotten and the people pretty much just lied. it was not housbroken at all stole food from the table from my kids and would run and hide under the bed like a cat if you moved towards him at all. So anyway we decided to stick with a puppy so that we can raise it in the right way. So i saw an ad for a toy poodle and my mom has been wanting one for a long time so me and my brother went in on it and got it for my mom. I think it's a wonderfully little cute tiny ball of fur puff. her name is honey and she is honey colored. she is 10 weeks old and adorable and she has made it outside to pee a zillion times today already and goes on pee pads if she can't get one of us to take her out. we put pee pads by the sliding door so if she doesn't get our attention she goes right there on the pad. she is playful and the kids like her alot. lilly didn't at first she wanted her toby dog and kept telling us to take the new dog " home" which i'm assuming she meant get it out of her home. but allan took the kids to the park and when lilly came home and saw honey again she was so happy and said " honey your still here" i think she was just sad for toby( aka the horrible dog)
Anyway tomorrow we are packing away the thanksgiving decorations and pulling out chirstmas supplies if we get time. I want to try to take lilly and emma skating tomorrow night though so we will have to see how that goes.
till tomorrow have a great night and sleep tight.

I'm still here..

I've been enjoying having my family here. Lilly has been inseperable from her grandma lala since my mom got here. Lilly has also been pretty sick. She doesn't have a fever anymore but she has a croopy goopy sounding cough. hopefully that will clear up in a couple of days. I want to take her back to the zoo this week with my brother. We are also getting ready for thanksgiving around here. I have a huge turkey taking up most of the room in my fridge. WE have been making our recipe lists and getting our supplies. WE invited a few friends to come eat with us. Allan has had the last two days off but he goes back to work tomorrow. He got a new schedule at work though and now he works 4 on and 4 off which is going to be nice to have him home more often. Currently he works 4 on 2 off so another 2 days off will be nice. ;-) He doesn't really start this new schedule till mid december but now he gets christmas day off so i'm excited about that. He was suppose to work it before. They hired a new guy though and so finally these guys get some time off. woohoo.
Anyway i've been watching dexter trying to catch up on the new season and i'm about to watch another episode so I'm signing off here. HAVE A GOOD WEEK!

early bird gets the worm?

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WE are up and at them at 630 this morning. Lilly is so excited about her gramma lala and uncle aaron getting here today. She just cant wait. She has learned to count down the days on her fingers.. well sort of she doesn't get the numbers right always but she knows when there she has just her fist left that it means lala's here. So she has been waving her little fist around saying lala here today.
Poor lilly has been sick the last day or two. She was throwing up two nights ago but yesterday she was just running a fever and not very spunky. I"m hoping today she will be her normal self. She still feels a little warm but her attitude is a little more normal today. She hardly ate a thing in the last two days so i'm about to go see what i can scrounge up for breakfast that might appeal to her. Then we will start picking up the house again. She has toys scattered in every room i think cause i've let her do just about whatever she wanted to while she was sick.
Oh on a different note has anyone been looking in those black friday ads? Have you found anything that you have to have or any spectacular deals?I'm excited about walmart and i think that is where i'm going to start out. Here is a small list of the things i like at walmart for some little girls i know.. crayon maker for 15 bucks, dvd how to train your dragon for 9.00, disney's finea and ferb ds game 10.00, spongebob for wii 10.00, there is also a portable dvd player for 50.00 ( lilly's broke on us the other night.. i think it has gotten tossed or fell off the bed one too many times) They also have a small 19 inch tv for 98 bucks which i think would be great for the girls room. I'm thinking about a power wheels vehicle also. They are usually like 250 bucks but they have some onsale for like 88 dollars at walmart at midnight i think on thanksgiving. So i might have to go check that out and see. I think lilly would love that and actually i can see emma still trying to fit her little body into it. lol
Anyway i hope everyone has a wonderful day. I'm so excited to see my family again.

my first scarf

this top one isn't done. it's double thick and i think it's going to be emmas if i can make it long enough.

this one is done and it's lilly's.

cute huh?

i added tassles to the end and i think lilly really likes it i had to steal it when she went down for a nap so that i can hide it for christmas. it turned out cute but a little skinny which is fine for lilly or a two year old in general. I have to make the next ones a little thicker i think. i may make a couple of little boy scarves but i'm thinking i'll make them with pom pom stuff so they look a little more manly. this fuzzy stuff is very girly. lol

a few of our favorite things

THis is my newest project. I'm making the girls cute scarves for christmas. Takes a while but they are turning out cute so far.

Lilly still loves this sit and spin toy.

We recently hung up the swing that allan's dad made for us. Lilly really loves it. She just sits on it and she will push it with no one in it. Last night she tried to push me in it. She loves swinging. its by far her most favorite thing at the playgrounds too.

wow it's chilly

It's begining to feel alot like christmas.. lol It was chilly in our house this morning. We had to turn on the heat for like 5 minutes this morning. It was just long enough to get that crappy burned dust smell then it was warm again. Anyway now that the house is warm i'm going to get motivated and do that cleaning i need to do! off to start my chores. ;-)

UNMOTIVATED!

Today has not been going so well. I just can't get motivated to do anything today. Our house is a mess and i need to clean it up because my mom and brother will be here next week. They couldn't care less if it's messy and my mom always says " sarah don't clean for us i'll help you clean when i get there" but seriously who wants anyone coming when it's a wreck. lol. I have piles of laundry that i should be doing today but most of it is in our room and allan is sleeping in there for his night shift tonight. The rest of the house is messing from lilly really. She has been stuck in the house and has played with i think every toy and board game and coloring pages and paints. So i need to pick it all up and mop the floors and do the dishes.. however i just can't get motivated. i also have a ton of homework i need to be doing too but I cant' stand to think about doing it. It's not hard at all by any means but it's boring. It's a critical thinking class and it must be thinking for dummies because it's just silly. I have 100's on just about all the stuff i have turned in. i think i have one 90 and an 85 on the one that i did not put any effort at all in last week. I also need to write out some letters. My brother could use some mail in ky to make him feel loved and not alone. I keep meaning to write but don't for whatever reason. So now it's going on about two weeks since i wrote him. Also we got a letter from allan's grandparents. His grandmother has wrote every once in a while. Girls always seem to be better at keeping in touch but anyway his grandfather actually wrote in the letter to us. So i want to make sure and write them back. It was interesting and the timing is a little crazy but i need to get a response out to that. I guess i don't need to be in a hurry to respond. They were responding to our change of address newsletter we sent out a few months ago. We have lived here for 2 months now so they aren't fast either. lol. What else.. i really need to go get a haircut for myself. I keep debating what i wato have done though. So i'm procrastinating on that too. Really if i just got started on one thing i'm sure i'd knock all of it out. I'm pretty good at getting things done when i get motivated to do it but i'm soooooooooo not motivated right now. why?? Well allan has been on nights and i never sleep that well when he is gone so maybe i'm tired. maybe my lists are too long on what i need to do so i'm having trouble finding a starting place? who knows.

On a different note. I found a hobby. Yep i'm knitting now. i'm starting with the easiest things like scarves. I'm making fun kid ones for the holiday christmas presents. I have to go buy some yarn. I'll have to post pictures when i'm done. I know lilly and emma are getting one for sure probably for christmas. They may never wear them in arizona though. Who knows. It might get chilly enough. It's been kinda cold at night and in the early mornings. i think allan said it was in the 50's. It's been in the 70's all week during the day.

Did i mention that i became a member to the zoo also? Yep we went back with serra and payton yesterday. Lilly has been asking to go back to the zoo all day today too. She really likes it so i just went ahead and bought a membership. they have zoo lights in december. It's all decorated in chirstmas lights so we want to go to that too. it's 18 bucks for non members to go once and 50 bucks for an adult to become a member. So i figured i was already going to spend the 18 bucks yesterday. then they said if you buy a membership they give you two free tickets and i thought well that's 36 bucks right there and now mom and aaron can go to the zoo with us. Or allan and emma on a weekend when she is here. it just made since to go ahead. it's good for a year now for me and lilly to go. i have a feeling if it was closer we would be going everyday if it were up to lilly. she made monkey sounds at the mokeys. it was funny. The highlight of her trip though was milking the fake cow. She was not going to leave the zoo without milking that thing.

What else?? yep that's about it. hope everyone is having a good weekend. We start ours tomorrow when allan gets off work for two days finally. This has been a long 4 days. wow.

Wooh hoo I'm an auntie

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congrats to my brother Jeremy who had his first child today! Its a baby girl and she was 7.2 and 19 inches long.
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Happy birthday to my baby brother who turned 21 today. I thought the beer happy birthday was appropriate for a 21st bday. lol.. Now you and your niece share the same birthday! wow what an amazing day. ;-)

Happy Veterans day!

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WEll Today was veterans day and i want to say thank you to all of you who wished me a good one or said thank you for my service. I really don't ever expect to get so many comments or thank yous and it always catches me by suprise. I guess I don't really think of myself as a vet even though I am. I served in the Navy for 8 years. I did two deployments to afganistan and Iraq. I wasn't on the ground involved in real combat but i was there and it was scary at times.There were times when i didn't see the sun for days which is weird living in phoenix and thinking about it now. There were a couple times when we needed to put on our gas masks and it wasn't a drill which was scary. Our ship did support the ground. We did drop bombs from the aircraft that was on our ship and so I guess i was involved because i supported those aircraft from our ship. Anyway, My husband is also a vet. HE served in the marines for 5 years. Doing the same thing basically. I want to say a special thanks for thinking of us to mirya and to june if you read this. WE appreciate that our family took the time to remember our service. ;-) It was nice to talk to both of you the other day on facebook. Also thank you to jennifer my stepdaughters mom. She is posting a link about emma writing something for school about her dad and grandpa being vets. I look forward to reading about it. I'm sure allan will like that too. It really is important to thank the vets you know. Even if you don't agree with the wars or the president or anything else. THese are good hard working people that are out there fighting or have fought for the freedom you get. If you know a vet I hope you called them or emailed them or said thank you in some sort of a way. It makes them and well us know that we are appreciated and makes us remember that all our years in weren't a waste no matter what the outcome of the war or anything else. So thank you to everyone who did say something to us today. You guys make it worth it!! ;-)

On to a different note. My veteran friend jenny morgan won something today!! She was contacted by the ellen show and she won a vacation that was worth 19 thousand dollars!! awesome huh? she was the at home viewer that won. I think it is awesome and can't think of anyone more deserving than that dear sweet girl.! you go miss jenny!

Today we tried panties for the first time for my little two year old sweet face kido. She has wore them before but today i let her wear them all day! it did not go well. She is fine when we are at home and yesterday i just let her wear them for like 4 hours and she took them off twice and used the bathroom like a big girl. Today was a disaster! She peed in them 3 times. Once at walmart and it required a whole change of clothes. So she is soaking in the tub and I am trying to not be talked into throwing in the towel and not caring if she is ever potty trained. She turns 3 in december and I have tried all kinds of stuff from candy, to pee pee dances, to hugs and kisses, and yes i know some of you wont agree but i did even spank her for peeing in her panties. NOTHING is working!! she is fine if she is running around butt naked. She won't have any accidents but if she has panties on it's a hit or miss on how she will do and if she has panites and clothes on then apparently she just pees in them. I even bought her some new big girl panties. So please any encouragment is greatly appreciated. Or if you all have any ideas i'm willing to listen. I know they all get it when they are ready but geez i don't want her to be five and still not doing it!! ahhhhhhhhhh! lol. okay so i'm not the most patient person in the world either. We are not giving in though. We are going to do panties tomorrow too. so pray it goes better than today. Anyway it's time for her to get outta the tub and into a diaper and pjs. I'm so not even attempting the overnight panties. lol. see ya later.

Confessions

i was looking at a new blog today.. you can find it here...http://lifeisaphoenix.blogspot.com/ She wrote a whole little series on confessions. So today I'm going to write one too. lol
What are your confessions? I'm not asking for deep dark secrets just maybe tid bits that are funny about you that you don't normally share for whatever reasons.

1. HOUSEWORK-- I really don't mind housework. i procrstinate on it and just try to straighten things instead of deep cleaning then i'll get a crazy itch to clean one thing that is driving me nuts and I'll field day it, scrub scrub scrub till it looks like new. lol But my confession is that i almost always clean in my pajama's. i'm not exactly sure why i do this. i think maybe i just figure i'm going to have to change when i'm done so why dirty more laundry.. i don't know.

2. CHILDREN-- i'm a mom to one of the most adorable kids in the whole wide world. Her name is LILLY. I guess i'm biased but she fills me with joy. She is about to be three in december and while it is a rather difficult age it's also a fun one because i never know what she is going to do. So my confession is that I'm feeling pulled to have another one. Yep we keep going back and forth on this idea but i think me and my husband are leaning more and more on the idea of having another little one soon. As I'm writing this on the back porch I just has to stop and yell at lilly to get the broom out of our pool.. lol. Not sure why she likes dipping things that don't belong into the pool.

3. HOBBIES-- I don't have any. I know this is an odd confession but i really don't have any hobbies that i love to do. i'm not a sewer, or a baker, or a scrapbooker, there are no sports that i'm that into. I do love bingo but have recently decided that I'm taking a break from my bingo outings. Are there any hobbies that you would suggest for me? I have free time but i haven't found anything that i would love to do. i usually keep so busy with the hustle and bustle of bng a mom and a wife that i don't think about what i would really like to do.. hmm.. not sure on this one.

Anyway I'd love to hear other's confessions.

so In honor of veterans day..

On facebook some friends said to change your profile picture to one of yourself in the service. So I looked and looked and i just dont have verymany of me in actual uniform. So i thought i would share the three that i came up with . lol.

some extra pictures.

Lilly now rides under the basket from time to time. Not really sure why i let her except that she is quiet as a mouse under there and it's funny to see peoples faces when they realize there is a kid under there.
helping daddy clean his truck. she is awesome on wheels. We may get her a job at the one down the street. hehe..
my crafty little girls.

Lilly spits out the peeling. you can see behind her is a paper towel with random chunks of apple on it.
believe it or not this is lilly dancing. She spins her arms around in circles and makes this face with her eyes closed. i totally admit to being a " white girl" dancer but I don't think she got that from me.

busy fun day

Mega mind was very funny and cute. The girls enjoyed our day out. We ate at the food court for lunch. They had hotdog on a stick. Then we went to throw pennies in the fountain which they always like doing. We also checked out the disney store. They have pjs there 2 for 20 bucks. I think santa might bring them both some new ones this year. We also checked out claires. Then we headed to the movies. It was packed and we had to sit up close but they didn't care. Lilly bbounced between my lap and her chair. After the movie we went and got emmas bangs cut. Lilly watched again buut had no interest in getting up in that big chair. Since then we have been at home doing dishes and taking baths. We also opened the operation game I bought. That was fun but of course lilly is just too little to understand it. She liked to touch the sides and make the red nose buzzer go off. She thought that was how she was suppose to play. Emma endured playing with her. Lol they had a big bath inmy tub . I heard emma giving lilly a lesson in bathing. She told her se is suppose to relax and enjoy it like a big hottub. I thought that was cute. So allan is about to come home from work and I'm looking forward to relaxing myself. Good night peeps.

Our movie starts at 2!!

That's the movie we are going to go see. i think it looks pretty funny so i don't mind sitting thru this one with them. My mom really wants to take both girls to see tangled. I think it comes out next month. it's about rapunzel i guess. It looks pretty cute too. BTW jenn, i told emma when we were in blockbuster last night that the movie diary of a wimpy kid is out and she begged for me to get it but i said no since she isn't done with the book but i told her that you would probably rent it for her and if you didn't then i would. I don't have a clue about it though..?? is the movie appropriate? Has anyone else out there watched that one?

These girls are being great today. Lilly is running to the bathroom to pee or pretend to pee and emma is upstairs cleaning up from their slumber party fun last night. allan is back at work today and I'm getting ready to do the dishes when lilly finishes with her bagel and cream cheese.
Only a week and a half before my mom and brother get here. I'm so excited. I miss my family and could really use some nice kind people around. ;-) Lilly can't wait to see her gramma lala. My mom told her she was bringing her some presents and now that's all lilly can talk about. She came in close to 11 last night telling me that lala is bringing her presents.
What else is going on around here.. Well i need to get these girls haircuts. Emma just needs ehr bangs clipped really but i cant cut a straight line to save my life so i'm going to try and have her and lilly go in together. Lillly has not let anyone chop at her hair so i'm doubting i'll get her to sit still in the chair but you never know. She might give it a try. We will see. If not it's not the end of the world. Her hair has just grown in strange like shorter on the sides and longer in the back so i was thinking about getting it cut to all one length finally. i'm not going to cut her bangs though cause i don't think she would sit still enough to keep up with that all the time.
Anyway i'll let you all know how our day goes later. ;-)

we are home again..

Its been such a long day. sheww i'm glad its over for now. i had to drive out to get emma in gila bend and i forgot what a long drive that is. Especially from our new house. The girls were troopers. We had dinner with jenn and her grandfather then we loaded back up and headed home with emma. They are already in their pj's. we stopped by blockbuster and rented movies. I hardly ever rent movies but i thought they might like going in and picking one out for themselves. So Emma got ghostbusters the cartoon and lilly got pinochio. So now they are settled in upstairs on cots in the playroom watching thier movies. I'm about to go turn on the t.v. myself and make a spot on the couch. Allan went to the gym tonight because we weren't going to be home by the time he got home anyway. So i hope everyone has a wonderful evening. Tomorrow is a brand new day. ;-) night

If your here it's because i choose you!

i had to do a little weeding out on our blog. If you got an invite it's because i want to share our family's happenings with you. I love blogging. I have gotten some great recipes ( thank you mirya) and entered good contests ( thank you jenn) and i love seeing all the pictures and hearing about the vacations, holidays,weekends in everyone elses blogs. I also like to hear about what other people are going thru in their lives. I love hearing stories of kids so if your here it's because i love sharing with you. i had crappy spammers sending me comments alot too so i thought i'd take this blog off the public forum and send invites only too it. REally i think i know everyone that stops by. I have a stat counter on here so i get to see who all comes by to look but i always love getting comments from people i really know. ;-) Anyway hope everyone has a wonderful day today! glad your with us!

Its wed.

I'm tired today. Are you guys? But I m excited cause I have lost 5lbs. Not that you or even I can tell..lol how did I lose the weight??? Yeah good question. Don't know but I have lost 5 lbs since we moved into our new house. I hope it keeps coming off with out me doing anything major haha.
Today allan is up in the attic running cable. He also hung a towel hook for me in the bathroom. Its nice to be getting that stuff done. I've been doing laundry most of the day. I made breakfast for allan and lilly. We have all been practicing sitting down at the table for meals. Its hard these days but we believe its a very important thing for a family to do. So i made sausage and biscuits and eggs and we all sat down. Lilly is funny because she like every kid likes my food better than her own even though it's the same exact thing. So i shared off my plate and she ate a good breakfast. I just gave her an apple for lunch. She likes to snack like her dad. Tonight i'm going to make up a big thing of spaghetti so that allan will have lunch to take with him this week to work.
My mom and brother are coming in two weeks now. That's exciting and one of the reasons allan is in the attic running that cable to all the other bedrooms. I called mom today and she was weeding out stuff and packing some things getting ready for their trip in a few more weeks.
It's 90 here today. I just went outside and boy was it warm. So weird to be still warm in November. Even in ky we would have been making a couple fires by now in the fireplace.
On a different note I was a bit sad to see that our medical marijuana bill did not pass here in arizona. Not that i'm a big druggie or anything but i hate the idea that if a cancer patient cant get an appetite or hold things down and marijuana ( a plant god made) helps them in their fight that they would outlaw it and could arrest these sick people for trying to help heal themselves. I don't know what everyone elses outlook is on this but it was a very close call here in arizona. I'm not sure i support the california bill or not for totally legalizing it. Part of me says it's just a plant and it's no worse than alcohol and we have that everywhere with a legal drinking age. The other part of me says look at all the trouble alocohol causes with drunk drivers and such do we want high drivers too.. but i'm sure we already have those anyway. I guess i actually support it with legal age attached to it like smoking or drinking. I think Everything should just be age 21. By 21 you are an adult and You should have a head on your shoulders and be able to pick what you want to do. It's not that i would smoke alot of pot or anything. I really hardly ever drink even though i'm old enough. I just think it should be my right to decide. Especially when its a plant. If i choose not to eat oregano then that's my choice. lol okay maybe that is a lame comparision. Anyway I do support the medical marijuana bill and i was sorry to see it not pass. That could have been some more jobs for this state. ;-) Plus free up alot of useless arrest time for the cops. How did the voting fare in your states. are you pleased not pleased with any of it? I'm totally glad it's over. I am so over all the crappy mean commericials most of all.

Back to the norm

Well allan is back at work tonight. He gets off tomorrow though thank goodness. he took off last night to hang with us. Our weekend was neat. lilly and i went to the elementary schools ffall festival on sat day. It looks like a neat school. the had alot of fun stuff including bounce houses and all kinds of games. Sat night i took her to the queen creek festival our town puts on. I had no idea it was so huge. They toook us by busloads to the park it was at. It was free put on by the city. They had a long line of cars that had their trunks decorated and the city provided the candy to pass out. the line was so long we didn't even go thru it. There was tons of stuff at this thing and we are going to try and make it a ritual to go to it the next few years. They had a dj and a show with jugglers and stuff and a rock climbing wall and bounce houses and a ton of vendors. Really neat. Sunday night allan stayed home so we took lilly out early. i think we went at about 530 and got back to the house around 630 7. in an hour we passed out all of our candy. We had soooo many trick or treaters we ran out of candy. it was ridiculous but we live a block away from the elementary school so i guess we should have expected that. They came in groups of like 5 or 6 at a time but it was constant. so when we ran out we took lilly for more trick or treating. Lilly really got into it this year. She wore her costume the whole time. All of it headband, gloves, tights.. lol. She got so hyped up on candy it seemed like she was drunk. SHe was literally chasing her dad around the neighborhood trying to scare him by growling at him. We had a really good time. Talked to quite a few neighbors. It was very nice. Alot of people had little firepits going in their driveways and lawn chairs out passing out the candy. There were houses that were decorated to the kilt. I mean they had things on ziplines that flew out at you and movies playing on thier houses from projectors. Lilly had a great time. She would run up and pick a piece of candy out and tell them thanks. She keeps telling me she wants to be a cat again. I don't think she was really a cat. We aren't real sure what her costume was. It had a tutu dress and funny tights that she did manage to rip before we got home. it also had wings and ears on a headband. I cant even tell you how many times lilly dumped her pumpkin out on accident. She was just having so much fun in her sugar high state. lol.. Anyway hope everyone else had a great time. We did.

a few pictures from our halloween.

lilly's trying to scare us

lilly got so messed up on all the candy she ate that she was crazy. She was acting like she was a drunk girl. She chased her daddy up and down streets growling at him to scare him. she would tackle us out of no where. Then she went to bed and crashe hard. We didn't hear a peep from her until she came in this morning asking if i wanted to have a picnice with her play toys. lol. it was a good hallloween