Stuff that gets in the way of posting....

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! We love this day!!!!

Ah life is complicated sometimes..... We have had some hard news this last couple of weeks and if you don't know about it then you aren't going to. We are keeping it close to us and aren't spreading it around. It's hard to swallow, especially for the kids and in time, things will go back to normal but as with everything in life, they have to learn sometime. But there are just things that you hate to have to watch your kids learn about.

Anyway, With our lives being up and down it's been crazy. Connor got a reading award at school today! It was great except for my little princess wreaking havoc on the cafeteria as I tried desperately to watch. That child will not listen to save my sanity! It just won't happen. I may as well be asking for a miracle. You know, they don't come around often, well Alanna listens about as often. It's sad really. No matter how much attention she gets or doesn't get she still behaves like she has never been taught manners. I know I taught her something. Ah well. Connor got his reading award and I took a pic after he got it b/c Alanna was not listening. I'm very proud of him. He is just awesome and the medication he is on seems to be working well.

Connor's birthday is coming up. Nov. 30th. He will be 8. It makes me sad. I know I should be happy but my baby boy is 8. If it was my cat I wouldn't be sad but my little baby who once fit in preemie clothes is now wearing these size 8 jeans and size 2.5 sneakers and it makes me sad. What happened to the baby? He just grew up and I kinda feel like I missed it. I was here everyday and I feel like I missed it. I wonder how some of you who read this feel. The kids are just always changing and they are wonderful and beautiful everyday.... it's just too bad that everyone isn't here to see it and that there are people who just don't care to. I feel more sad for them than I do for me. At least I get to watch my kids everyday. They make me smile and they make me laugh and they make me cry and they make me crazy and they make me scream but I love them so much.

Ok, on to something else..... Rhiannon and I have an eye Dr's. visit this week! YAY.... it is LONG overdue. Now if I can only afford to get us new glasses! She has two broken pairs of glasses and none that she can wear. She can't see great without them and I have to get her new ones when we go on the 6th! Here's to hoping for one of those miracles! *crosses fingers*

Let's see.... Alanna burned herself on the grill last week sometime. I may have already written about it. They weren't bad, mainly just red marks. One spot blistered. She was helping tommy cook and she slipped. It was an accident. She is mostly all better now. She just had a halloween parade at school yesterday! She is Tinkerbell for Halloween! It was so much fun doing the halloween party for the little ones. Rhiannon is a "scary" witch. And Connor is Indiana Jones. They look so cute! I'll try to remember to take pictures.

OH! As an early Christmas gift my mom paid for me to join curves! It's a women's gym. Only women, no men allowed in the place. I like it there. I go four days a week after I drop Alanna off at school. It's good so far. We shall see how is goes from here on out! I like it and the women are really nice. Some are pretty funny. There is a woman there who is always moving. She said, you'd think I'd be skinny, right? I guess it's all the beer I drink when I go home! Or maybe it's the wine on the weekends?! She's a nice lady. There's another lady who showed me an alternative way to do one of the stretches b/c really, what woman who has a belly and boobs or lets just be real.... we are too fat for this shit.... can actually bend her knee into her chest keep her other leg straight while sitting on the floor and touch her toes? UM.... not me! She is another lady I like. I can talk to her and she is just real about it. The workouts get you moving and keep you moving for a bit and then you stretch. I don't like the stretching part but I do it. Just not for as long as they tell you to do it for. I like to just do what I need to and move on. I made a paper bra picture for breast cancer awareness month and I wrote "save the tatas" underneath it. They all got a good laugh out of that. I wonder how I did in the little vote we all took. Maybe I won something. We will find out soon. Anyways, I am hoping to have more energy with going to the gym. Thats my goal. Losing weight and getting my blood sugar down are the added benefits that I hope to gain as well. So far, so good!

Well that's about all I have to say today. Tommy is on his way home and I have a halloween party to get ready for.

Love and Hugs,
Chelley

I've felt crafty lately! I joined a swap-bot, which I have mentioned here before! And even though we don't have a lot of money.... ok we are dead broke most weeks.... I am in a pay it forward kind of attitude. I really feel like giving something to some one else and making them smile can make their day or week. Sometimes it's just about that for me. I don't even know if or when I will get stuff back b/c I send out my swaps right away when the swap starts! And most swaps aren't about spending money. They are about making things with your hands. Or buying something raw and making it different and putting your own creative spin on it. So I joined up and have been doing new and different things the last week or so. I like it. It lets me think outside the box in terms of what I normally do and that's just great for me. I am learning new terms and new things to do. Some of them don't interest me at all.... like Dotees? They seem to be little dolls that you make with fabris scraps I think. I'm not even sure really. But they don't look like fun to me. Tommy is a little dismayed about the shipping b/c some swaps require me to pay a dollar or two in shipping but I really have enjoyed myself and you always get something back for something you send out! Well usually you do. There are times when you can get flaked on but I'm hoping that doesn't happen to me. So I'm getting something creative too! It's great to see what other people come up with! You get rated on what you send other people as well. Did it meet the requirements of the swap? Did you send anything extra which you can do if you want to. Did you send something that pertained to what the person liked? Since you fill out a profile of things about you and your family(if you so desire) people can send you things that you like, that your kids like or just things in general that pertain to your life. Like I like faeries and purple and black and the occult and christian things like crosses(jewelry mainly), etc. People can look through my profile and see that and send me something that is in the genre. It's neat b/c you can join swaps specifically for things like that. They are so much fun! I'm really excited to be doing this! It's been a lot of fun so far! I'm liking the craftiness of it all especially! Anyone want to join in?!

Love and Hugs!

Chelley

More photos!!!

From left to right this is Riya, Isabel, Alana and Alanna. Yes there are two Alanna's in her class. Alanna calls her the new Alana. It's nice. They like one another.
Cute little princess! She had so much fun!
Ok the apples weren't that big to begin with but she tried to eat the seeds! She loved this apple!
Here is a bunch of the kids from the preschool, most of which we didn't know but that's ok! They loved the tractor! And they let them sit in the front so cool!
Here she is pulling her bag of pumpkins! We didn't tell the people that work there that we got two pumpkins instead of one. If they cared they would have made it easier to pay at the end of the ride, dontcha think?


Alanna had a great time with her friends!!!

PHOTOS!!!

Ok so here are some pics of The latest things I have made.... that I've take pictures of anyways. This is a card I made for my father in law. It is all stamped and colored with colored pencils.
This is a chinese food box that I decorated for a swap.
Here is another angle of the box. Each side is a little different.
These are my first ATC's!!! (Artist Trading Cards) October theme.... I go Halloween.
And this was a little wooden spider that I got to embellish a bit. I enjoyed this one!

Crafting and such!!!!

So I've been crafting like a madwoman. I have pics I'm going to put up soon too! I have made these things called ATC's (Artist Trading Cards). They are the size of credit cards and you embellish a picture of something. Whatever the topic is. I did one on angels and cherubs. And I did one on October! So I did Halloween and Samhain! It was fun. I have never done anything like that but I'm learning and I think I like the mediums. I can use anything I want to embellish them and that means I am forced to think outside the box with my crafting! I like that about this swapping stuff. www.swap-bot.com, it's awesome. I'm enjoying the challenge in crafting again!

Now onto more important news.... Will's dad is in the hospital. He was dizzy and collapsed on Sunday morning. The doctors found some clots and they are still running some tests. I will be talking to Connor about all of this, this afternoon and then we will visit Granddaddy tonight for a bit. I'm sure Connor will be ok once he sees him but this will be hard for him to take since he just saw him and he was fine. Bill is a very well respected man who is well known in our city and I'm sure he is getting his fair share of visitors but none will be as important as his grandson.

So Alanna and I went to the Hanover vegetable farm today to pick a pumpkin with her school. It was a class field trip. It was fun but kind of drawn out. I was just tired I think. I was actually exhausted. Once we actually got to the fields there just wasn't that much there to choose from and it was a little surprising b/c at Ashland berry farm they are well stocked with pumpkins when we go. It's just different than what we are used to. The kids had a great time and loved every second of their adventure! I have pictures of this too! I will post some pics soon!

Hugs and Love,

Chelley

A boy passed away....

Right in front of my church last week. He was 22, He turned 22 three days before his accident. It was very sad. He was my parents neighbor and he happened to pass in front of my church. It was very odd in that way. He swerved and crossed the road, hit a pole and died instantly. I went over a gave them a card even though I didn't know them well. The family was very nice and is having the services at my church today. My mom is going to pay her respects and then coming over here.

This afternoon we are going to lunch with Marti, Tommy's mom. The girls have made Halloween cards for her. My mom decided to join us. I don't know if Marti will come with us but afterwards I need to go to The Children's Place and get both girls socks. Alanna also needs a couple pairs of jeans and a few long sleeve shirts. She has a whole bunch of short sleeve shirts and only a handful of long sleeve shirts. Well I think I'm wrong, she has about 3 or 4 long sleeve shirts and a sweater. The sweater is too small around the neck hole. You have to smush it down over her head and it gets caught on her earrings. Thats no good. My mom made Alanna a beautiful sweater that I posted last week. She loves that one! Her Nana made it! She is wearing it today with a t-shirt and jeans. Rhiannon just needs socks. She has white socks that are just too small. And white match anything and she never has a problem finding apair of socks to match an outfit if they are white so today hopefully they will have them in her size.... b/c she is getting them if they have them.

Moving on.... we will also be looking at the art show that Marti is working today! It should be quite nice. I will update later on lunch and the beautiful artwork that we see today!

Love and Hugs!
Chelley

Swapping.....

So I've joined a new website.... it's www.swap-bot.com. It's great! And I must than Jessica for turning me on to it. You get to sign up to swap with a group of people for different things. And if doesn't matter what it is, there are tons to choose from! I am signed up to do an unbirthday swap where we send one another a few things that we like and wrap them up like its your birthday! I'm signed up for a tea bag swap. We are swapping three different kinds of tea, two bags each. And another is an embellishments swap. I will get together a bunch of things that you would use to put on cards or scrapbooking and send those to some one and get something like that back! It's just an awesome idea. I like these kinds of things. I will be getting something other than bills or junk mail in the mail. I will be crafting stuff on a regular basis if I so desire. And you can sign up for up to 5 at a time. I signed up for 5. Of course I did! What was I thinking?! But it should be a lot of fun. Plus I met a really neat girl who shares a lot of the same interests as me so we decided to do a personal one on one swap. It promises to be a lot of fun! I can't wait for that one b/c she seems like a cool chick. So anyways, thats my fun for the day.

On to more of the norm... Ricky was back today. I will be watching this little boy until the first week of November and then he and his family are moving back to NC. His dad was called back to active duty and he will be shipping out in March I believe. So they have to move back there for him to report back to work in the military. They are very upset about this as I'm sure anyone would be. He should be gone 9 months. After that they want to come back to Richmond again. So until then Ricky is with me part time. After that I will have my days to myself again which will be weird since I'm so used to having him here now. Ah well, I will get used to it.

Anyway, today Alanna was all over the map with Ricky. She pushed him down which I still don't know if it was an accident or not. And then Ricky "fell" off the couch. We still don't know if he was pushed or if he fell for real. However he got a scrape on his head. I felt bad since they usually play so nicely together. Hopefully they will be nicer together tomorrow!

Rhiannon broke her glasses and has no others to wear. I made an appt for us both to see the eye Dr. in early Nov. but until then she looks a little funny with no glasses. Not only that but she is constantly rubbing her eyes and squinting. This kid says she can see just fine without her glasses but does stuff like that without thinking about it. Odd huh? I know she can't see as well b/c otherwise she wouldn't need them. Try telling her that though. No reason to fight about it though.

Connor has been doing pretty good on his new medication. So far I haven't seen any weird or out of the ordinary behavior. He has finished his early bird work and gotten good reports from school all week. YAY for him! I hope it continues.

Tommy is out of town again until Friday. This shit is getting real old real fast. He's been out of town for six weeks straight and the single parent stuff isn't fun. He says he understands but I think if I left him alone with 3 kids for a week(not six) he'd be dying to get out. This weekend he and Connor are going to the campout for the boy scouts so he won't be around this weekend either. I will see him Friday night and that's it. Maybe part of Sunday too! I'm tired.... really tired. I need help, I need a break. When does that happen? Anyone want to come over and watch the kids for a few hours? *weak grin*

Well, my stomach hurts so I'm heading to get into PJ's I think. Night night to all!

Pumpkin Picking and Tuesday grind.....

Hey all, So here is a photo from pumpkin picking! The kids were really liking the hayride. I have a whole bunch of photos actually! I really enjoyed hanging out with my kids, husband, brother-in-law, Kurt and (soon to be sister-in-law?) Kelly. Not really sure what to call her but she's awesome. We like her a lot and the kids think she's a lot of fun too! Well anyways, the kids had fun like I said before so I don't need to go over details again. I am just posting the pic and going to do homework with Connor and Rhiannon. Shouldn't be bad they've had time to chill out by now.

Other than that not much going on. Connor is on a new medication that seems to help him out a bit for school work. YAY for me and his teacher. Rhiannon broke her glasses and now we both have eye appts. in early Nov. She's good at breaking things and losing things. And Alanna is throwing a tantrum right now so I'm gonna go!

Love and Hugs,

Chelley

My cyber pet......

Click to visit my Haikoo^SM Zoo pet, Emily VonHoppentrauff, on Facebook!

So if this works right this is my pet on facebook. Her name is Emily VonHoppentrauff! Isn't she cute?!

More Halloween Stuff....

So today was a day of putting out halloween decor. Our house is now decorated for halloween and I am now given the task for making roughly 55 invitations to our annual halloween party. It should be fun. We have on every year and this year will be no exception! Wish me luck with the invites!

Hugs and Love,
Chelley

Pumpkin Picking....

Well we just did our annual pumpkin picking! It was a lot of fun! Tommy's brother and his girlfriend made it a birthday present for the girls and they really enjoyed it a lot. We had lunch and played a bit while there too!

Connor picked a nice big pumpkin! He was hard to find so there are very few pics of him at the patch! However, he did a zipline that he thought was awesome!

Rhiannon trekked through the patch and picked some good ones too! She was all about carrying them back to their pile all by herself no matter how big the pumkin was. She also did the zipline and loved it! We took a pic of her in the pile of pumpkins that is really cute!

Alanna likes baby pumpkins so she picked quite a few small yellow bulblike pumpkins that probably weren't ready to be picked. She seemed to really like a green one she found but soon moved back to her little ones again. Alanna went in the bounce houses and of course peed in her pants while in it! She has a tendency to be a betsy wetsy doll. Too old for that too! But ah well she will grow out of it. I keep saying it like it's true then maybe it will be someday!

So anyways, Kurt and Kelly made the afternoon so much fun for everyone! Thank you so much! The kids are currently carving their pumpkins as I type. I carved one and I took pictures of them carving theirs and then came in to write about our day. They love this part.... carving it all up and getting all messy! Then we have to clean the kitchen. Alanna and Connor are carving the same thing this year. Rhiannon is doing her own thing. I did a witch. Tommy helped Alanna.

Well that was our Saturday! Hope yours was just as fall like!

Hugs and Love,

Chelley

Another beautiful card

I have fun making cards. They allow me a great release that I seldom get elsewhere. This card had some not so pretty rose buds underneath the paper I put on it. I used two pretty scrapbooking and crafty papers on this. Some ice/snowy glitter and a couple of pearl dots. The saying about flowers I felt was very appropriate as well. I think the vellum over top of it in person looks very nice but in a picture it just doesn't capture how pretty it looks. I just wanted everyone to see how the card looks both ways though. If you have any requests please let me know as I am happy to try and make something from your vision and capture it on paper. I draw as well I just haven't done any lately. This has been my creative outlet for quite some time. It makes for some beautiful products when I am done. However I give them away to family and friends. I've never had the idea to sell them until recently and if anyone knows how to burst into that market, well.... TELL ME ABOUT IT! I'm all ears! I hope you enjoy my creations through my blog as much as I enjoy sharing them!

Love and Hugs,

Chelley

Something to talk about....

Hey all, I'm having an ok day. I'm talking to a friend about sex. She works at an adult shop here in Richmond. I don't have a website right now but if I get one I will post it. It's a very nice place actually. Small and clean. The people there are nice and I think it would be fun to work there too! Who knows it I may look for a PT job there too! I just need some more fun in my life and whatnot. The unexpected can be a lot of fun! We shall see.

Me getting a job outside of the house is always hard b/c I have to rely on my mom. And with Tommy out of town all the time I have to ask her to be here a lot. And it's hard on her to be here when she has her mom to take care of and her house to take care of and whatever else going on in her life. But she tries to help when and where she can and I have always appreciated that. So if I have the opportunity for a PT job I will try and work it out with her regardless of where it is. My helping angel.

On to other things. How about why my kids are off from school today and tomorrow but Columbus Day is Monday? We are all baffled by this. But whatever, I got to sleep til almost 11am. It was nice. Alanna woke me up so she could watch TV after she pressed numerous buttons when she should not have touched anything. Then I get up to brush my hair and go to the bathroom and she is buttering a bagel! She is FOUR! How she does these things on her own is beyond me. She is so self-sufficient sometimes but others there is a monster in her room that is going to get her! She can't even step foot in her room b/c she's scared! hehehe. She's so cute! But tomorrow we have a Dr's. appt. so I can't sleep in. But that's ok one day was great!

SO back to interesting news... LOL here it is.... the Vicki garbage. She FINALLY addressed the $60 she owes me by telling me she'll pay me $50 in $5 installments over 10 weeks! I said fine. I'm not letting her get the best of me and I'm not fighting with her over something petty. She wants to be petty that's fine. I'm not interested in the BS that is Vicki and the backstabbing she has done so I have moved on. You live and learn and I have learned a lot over the last year or so. People will show you their true colors eventually and sometimes they are brown and streaked with orange and all nasty. Others are purple and pink and make you smile just by being there. I'll take the latter. Thank you to everyone who is my friend and makes my life worthwhile!

Love and Hugs,

Chelley

This is what my mother does to create... she knits. And she is damn good at it too! She made this is about 4 days! She loves to make things for my kids. They each have a sweater or 2 or 3.... =o) I think I have to have her make something new for Connor now. Alanna also has a dress that my mom made and another sweater and this one! All currently able to wear! How awesome is that?!!

My mom has some creativity that I can't fathom with her knitting. Keep it up!

Love and Hugs,
Chelley

My latest creations...

These are a few pics of some things that I have made recently.

This is a picture I made for my aunt. She has YET to receive it but she will! I adore her and wanted to make her something special!
This is my vellum and leaf picture. It came out ok. Not exactly what I was hoping for but I like it.
I like this one b/c I can write under the gold layer and make that the card. I think it's pretty and elegant!
I was just playing with my new brads and flowers when I did this one. I have never really used them before so the flower thing is kinda new to me. Wanted to try something different.
This is one of my favorites so far. MY FRIENDS have made a good part of the story of my life and I thought that the card was whimsical.
This is quilling my friends. It is not that easy to do when you are learning and these were my first real pieces. I hope that you can see how hard I was trying!
I really like this card but I messed up with the glue. I should have used glue dots here. You learn by trying, right?

Well these are my latest creations. I hope they inspire some of you in some way to be creative as well.

People....

Not really sure where I'm going with this but we'll see.... ok... I never really thought of myself as a drama queen. I think some people go and look for it and with some people it finds them from time to time and with others they just avoid it like the plague. I think I'm the one in the middle. Drama finds me from time to time and although that sucks it makes my life more interesting for a short time and heightens my awareness of who I really am and who my friends really are. At times, those things blurr. I think they do for a lot of people though. You go through life living and you forget to check in with who you are and what you are about anymore. Life gets in the way of just remembering you sometimes. So at times I've made mistakes but all in all I've had a good life with good friends and great parents who have helped me more than they will ever realize. Im grateful for all of it. But there is always the flipside of that. The people who stab you in the back and make you feel like shit. I have had those people in my life too. I think I'm finally rid of those people for good though. There hasn't been any goodness that has come from them being in my life in a long time and so the ties have been undone. I'm ok with that. I'm living my life for me and my family and my real friends now. Thats all I need. And you don't need to have 40 or 80 friends that you don't remember on your myspace to have friends. You need to have a select few good people who know you and love you... and know them and love them back. If you're my friend, thank you. If you're not, oh well. I'm happy with the friends I have, the ones I may meet from here on out, and the ones I have left behind. So maybe people should get over the number of people in their life and look at the quality of people in their life is all I'm trying to say. I think I've made my point. Later all! That woman up there has been through EVERYTHING with me and she's still by my side.... no matter what we dislike about one another we still love one another.... that's a real true friend thats more like my family!!!

Models and Models...

So here's the funny thing about models... we all have our own perceptions... kind of like opinions and assholes, we all have them. So here is a sort of epiphany that I had while talking to Tommy last night that I thought you might enjoy if you frequent here.

When men talk about models they are generally talking about model airplanes and whatnot. Tiny replicas of the real object. These fun things to put together, paint and in some cases for some men they make them go vroom vroom!

When women talk about models we are talking about these women of obscene proportions that have no place in the real world. And truth be told we too are talking about tiny replicas of the real object b/c anyone who tells the truth would say that real women have curves, bumps, rolls and boobs!

So I just felt like putting in my two cents about that! Real women like you and me are BEAUTIFUL! SHOW IT OFF!

Love and Hugs,

Chelley

Camping time is coming up!

So Connor joined the cub scouts recently. We are selling popcorn over the next couple of week and he and Tommy are going camping soon! He is very excited about both of these things. I let him go around to a few houses on Sunday and he got a few orders. YAY! Anyone who wants to buy popcorn for a really cute cub scout who just happens to live at my house let me know.

I went out and spent WAY too much money on crafty supplies this past weekend. It was my little indulgence. I know, I already talked about this and those of you that know me know that I have a tendency to overspend in this area. I love to do my crafty stuff and make cards for people. I want to get back into scrapbooking too. So I figure I'm going to have to start putting a little bit of money into it to be able to do it.

Anyone remember Vicki? I used to watch her daughter, Lindsey. I also used to be very close with her. That was until my son innocently but not so smartly took his boy parts out in front of her daughter. And apparently I didn't handle it with as much anger or punishment as she would have liked..... So long story and text msgs short, we are no longer speaking. She was "too upset" by my non-challant way of dealing with the situation. I was upset at her hanging it over my head. So she decided she didn't want to talk to me anymore. At least you know who your true friends are when something weird, bad or out of the ordinary happens. She'd been slipping away for a while, it was only a matter of time before she was gone for good. I saw it coming and I just can't be bothered to stoke someone else's feelings and have them ignore mine.

On to much happier things!!!! Tommy will be home tonight. It's almost like a three day weekend for him! WOO HOO! I will have to figure out how put up pics here so that I can put up pics of the kids and hubby and my crafting stuff and whatever else I find. We shall see. Anyways, Talk to you next time!

Love and Hugs,
Chelley

One more day....

Ok, so Tommy had his interview WITH DIsh today. It went fine but they don't pay enough so that's out. Sucks but oh well. He tried.

My day was longer than expected. I took Connor to Walmart to sell popcorn for cub scouts. We headed to Wendy's to grab a quick bite which took almost an hour. Not so quick when you have two kids with ya! Then we went to target for my medication, cat litter and cat food. Then we went to Memories Galore. Check them out at www.memoriesgalore.com They have a wide selection of scrapbooking stuff. Then we headed to Michaels to look at more scrapping and cardmaking stuff. *SHUSH*I spent too much money on stuff. Once done with that we came home for about 45 minutes. I made a card and called Tommy to see where he and Rhiannon were at b/c we go to church on Sat. night.

We head to church and spend some time there. I like it there. It's homey. The message today was about the willingness to let God in. Ask and you shall receive. It was a good message for us this week. We need to ask for God's guidance in more of our life. It's makes me fell nice inside when I have tears in my eyes in church. I am thinking about my life, my family and what I can do to make it all the better. There is always room for improvement. And if you don't think there is, get off your high horse.

Well thats about all for today. We may have a girlie sleepover in our future for tonight as well. I actually like having sleepovers, they're fun!

More later!

Hugs and Love,

Chelley

New start with a blog....

Hi! Well lets see, I'm starting this blog and I'm not sure where it will go. I'd like to take some pics of the cards and pictures that I make and put them up here. I'd also like to just keep friends and family a little more up to date about our lives since we all live so far away or have so little time to talk.

I'm tired all the time, did I mention that? I always want to sleep. Yes I see the Dr. for this and yes we are working on it. One medication at a time. This week we are trying Focalin. It's ok. Not great. Not really doing the job that I hoped. I'm still not motivated to clean my house. Imagine a bear coming into a campsite, doing his usual rampage and then leaving a hot steaming dump right in the middle of it... yea well that's my house right now. It's such a pain in the ass to clean that never ending cycle of shit. I sometimes just say screw it. This has been one of those weeks. But now, this weekend I will pay dearly for my screw it attitude.

Tommy is still traveling with work. Now that really sucks too. This will be five straight weeks out of town and only two weekends home. He has a job interview tomorrow though! It is wish Dish Network and we are really excited about this prospect. We will keep you updated on this.

Let's see, the kids.... well they are good. Connor is seeing a child psychiatrist. We are trying to work on his hyperactivity and inattentiveness. I think that he needs some help with these things. It's a long time coming and anyone who knows him well knows that he has a lot of emotional outbursts that are totally unwarranted for a 7 year old. other than that he is still reading on a 3.5 grade reading level or thereabouts. And he really does love school. Rhiannon is doing better with her homework. She has only forgotten her books twice this week. She is having less "hurt" feelings about me not helping her with her homework. Her idea of me helping her is giving her the answers. And her principal is very strict about her doing her work on her own and then going over it with her teacher. Alanna LOVES preschool. She is loving everything about it from her teachers to her new friends to the songs. She has been so happy there. It's been hard to let go of my last baby but I have to keep reminding myself of two things: One, it's only four days a week, three hours a day and Two, if she wasn't there she'd still be messing up my house every morning! There is another Alanna in her class but she spells her name with one n. She is the "new" or other Alana. It's very cute. So all in all the kids have adjusted pretty well to school this year.

Me.... hrrmm... Well I'm making cards and pictures. I really enjoy doing it. I am hoping to get all of my pictures off of my computer and onto some CDs and then into prints. Once I do that I want to scrapbook all of them. I know, BIG PROJECT FOR ME! But I really miss doing that too. So eventually I'd like to do that. Right now the cards are where it's at though. If you've never gotten a handmade card from me send me your address or shoot me a harsh response and I will send you one. I love to make people happy with my crafty hands. Now get your minds out of the gutter.... I mean with my talents.... ok forget it... you get the point. I'm good at making cards and I would love to make money doing it but I don't know anyone who can do that so I'm just going to do it for me right now. That is just good enough. I'm happy with that for now.

Love and Hugs,
Chelley