So I really have been meaning to write and catch everyone up on whats going on but well as we all know life happens!

let me back up to last Thursday when we went to Hannah's play. For those of you on facebook you have probably already seen my 60 or so pictures from that night. I love programs at Sean and Hannah's school because they are all done in sign language and its just so fun to watch. Ella Grace had a total blast she loved learning all the songs and really was into it. The evening was wonderful and all the 1st graders did a wonderful job! The rest of the evening how ever was um not so wonderful. About an hour aftter we arrived home thats when I noticed it ugh the worst thing I could have possibly notice! I am so embarassed I debated on even writing about it but I figured ugh why not what is the worst that can happen right?! So I notice Hannah scratching and I thought man she did that a lot today. So I called her into the bathroom not really even sure what I was looking for but I think somehow I knew really what it was. Ugh and yes there it was the most disgusting dreaded thing any parent can think of...... LICE! OMG what a nasty disgusting thought! Not my baby not my clean clean little baby. But of course I know thats just a an old wives tale that really it seeks out the clean hair and leaves the dirty head kids alone! so I panic and get upset. I call my lil Ellie bean into the bathroom and sure enough on her to! Ugh sweet Jesus what the heck is going on ?!! I start to panic and freak what do I do what do I do?!!!! Since its late and I am not to focused I make Jason go to the store and buy mayo lots and lots of mayo. I don't know I think he got 3 jars but I think I told him we would need one for each head. Yes I was going to use a jar on me to! Jason thought I had lost my mind and I said its 9pm just get the damn mayo and I will strip everything down! So I over estimated on the mayo I think one jar was sufficent for the 3 of us. We al sat with mayo and saran wrap in our hair Hannah said she felt like a hamburger, Ella felt like a sandwich and I felt like a damn fool and was very irritated. After a while of letting it sit in our hair and stripping down the beds and everythign else I washed each child gave them specific instructions on how and where to sleep and around I think 1am or so the hoopla of this whole night came to a close and finally went to sleep. By the way that over the counter stuff is great and all a bit expensive but if you have never done this before be well aware that it takes a few hours to complete the whole process. Its not fun at all I spend the next day living it!

Saturday was uneventful really. I babysat and purchased items needed for the big shindig of Ella Grace's the next day. I still needed time to recover from the last 24 hours of fun. I spent a little bit of time with my sister Cammie. I also made a nice purchase for Ellie I bought her a big girl Disney Princess bike for her birthday which I knew would totally make her day!

Sunday was the day of the party and wow it was awesome. Ella had a blast and so did her friends and our family. It was all we could have hoped for. Ella got some great gifts and enjoyed riding her new bike. Now its time to write some thank you cards!

This week went by quick and I am glad. That means closer to the time Chris comes home. Some excitement this week....... Ella Grace decided it was a great idea to place a rock in her ear! ya you read right she put a rock in her ear! She and a friend decided to listen to music and thought the rocks made good earbuds! After some panicing and questioning I finally made an attempt to remove it. It took two tries but I got it out. Ella was a bit terrified but she got over it. I hope she has learned a lesson from that. Hannah had an exciting week. She was selected to represent one of the six pillar of their community. This is a huge deal and we are so proud. She was exemplifying the Caring pillar! Her teachers direct quote was "She's a sweet sweet girl! Very considerate of others, and it doesn't go unnoticed." I am very proud of her.

Well I started this post on Wednesday and I finally got around to completing it. Some stuff came up and I just lost my motivation to write. I am doing better now thankfully. Well I will wrap this up. Have a great weekend folks. Mine is sure to be busy.

A few updates and venting!

• I got a call from the contractor who does work on my place and well holey cow he came out on Tuesday morning and checked out everything and once we get an estimate I will know for sure if I am staying or moving!
• Being at the center of a rumor sucks and really seems highly inappropriate when its at a place I am a customer at and that I do not air my private life at. And honestly to confront someone who has just recently dealt with a loss to ask if you are getting married is really tacky and well rude. I have half a mind to speak with the GM of this place and let her know my feelings of this matter.
• The nightmares of Ella Grace's party are slowly going away now that I know I will not be totally broke and poor once its all said and done and ya know 40 some odd preschoolers won't be that bad right?! I mean I am not the one dealing with this party that's what those teenage party hosts are for!
• Not that I don't already have a count down going but um 3 weeks and 6 days till Chris is here!
• A very special friend just suffered a very sad loss and its making me very down because this person really really deserves all the happiness life has to offer and my thoughts and prayers are with her and her husband in this really sad time.
• despite my breakdown Monday during teacher insv. I am really doing much better about coping with the loss of my brother. I know that with time it will heal my wounds. And he will for ever be in my heart and mind.

I think that is about all for tonight. wow that was short and sweet. I actually wanted to write more but Ella Grace has her boyfriend/best friend Brooklyn here for the night since his mom is going out of town and she needed help with him. This I tell you has been the cutest evening. Seeing as the refere to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend and um I think if I heard correctly they have a baby! Great look out Octomom Ellie is gunna be catching up to ya. And yes Brittany sadly I think we are the worlds youngest grandparents now. I tell ya what though they do make a cute couple!

Well nite nite folks. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week. I am just glad tomorrow is Thursday. Oh ya I will post pictures both here and FB of Hannah's 1st grade program!

Picking and moving forward............

So it's been two weeks now and I am doing ok. These last few days have however been hard. Friday we had to have everything out of Alex's place and that was tough. I avoided it actually. Jason and his brother where great about it and went over there to get stuff. But today something drew me to his place. I guess maybe to be at peace and just say another good bye. ( I also found some random odds and ends that I salvaged!) I know this might sound stupid or corny but part of me wants to lease that place once they fix it back up. I mean I am looking to probably move and its pretty big but I think it would be hard at the same time and I know my family would probably have a hard time wanting to visit. I know like I said weird thought.

Today was Ella Grace's 4th birthday. Wow really it's been 4 years since she was born?! I of course remember every last bit of it. I was terrified. I was living in Naperville,Il. and did not have any of my family or friends there just me and Jason. I remember Hannah was such a proud big sister. I have some great pictures I will have to try and find to put up on here. We had a small family party at Jason's house. My sister Cammie came and spent the day hanging out with the kids and Jenny and Nate stopped by to have cake and bring candy! Jenny and Nate got engaged last weekend. The kids really really love both of them. Jenny lives in Austin and is a teacher. Ella was excited to have her aunt's with her and her new uncle. I made the fatal mistake however to buy a birthday cake with blue icing! Ugh it was blue everywhere! We had a great time none the less.

Easter was quiet and usually has been in our house. This year with it being Ellie's birthday we just kinda kept it all low key. Starting next year I am going to put more effort into it. Just given all the stuff I had been dealing with and stuff it all just snuck up on me and I didn't go all out like I have been known to do. The kids wanted an Easter Egg hunt but given the weather it just didn't happen. I also have been suffering horrible horrible allergies to the point where I broke down and lost it last night. I was up till 2 am and nothing was helping my throat hurt, my head on the verge of explosion and coughing and sneezing like you wouldn't believe. It really just put a damper on my Easter. I wanted to attended my friend Heather's daughters birthday party today but just was not in the cards and I feel truly horrible. I have to make it up to them!! The kids actually did not complain that Easter was pretty quiet. They loved their tootsie roll/piggy banks and the birthday cake so if they are happy I am happy. Thank you Jenny for all the candy! I have bogarted the Jelly Beans and not letting anyone near them!!!

If you have not noticed I have placed a counter at the bottom of my blog that shows how much longer I have to wait till Chris is on his mid tour break. I think it says 30 days! Wow that's a month that's going to come rather quick. The next few weekends are booked with activities so that will help make time go even faster. I am not sure if I will be moving or not but its in the works to break my lease. My wonderful cousin Tim has been helping me with this and I can not thank him enough. Everyone knows I have been calling my place the glorified storage unit and right now well its living up to that name even more so. I have so much stuff from Alex's place that either needs to go to storage or that I have now inherited. I am actually hoping I can move so I can start fresh and really put things how I want and get things all squared away. I am sure if Chris is reading this he is even more thrilled about his trip to Dallas hahaha! Sorry sweetie but you did want something to do on the days I have to work hahaha.

Well on a final note I just wanted to say Happy Easter to all my friends and family. I love all of you very very much. All of you have such a special place in my heart and mean the world to me. I look forward to seeing most all of you at Ellie's party next Sunday I am so excited. I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Easter. Don't eat to much candy! Till next time nite nite!!

More ramblings from me!

Wow really its been a week now. A week since my brother died. Who knew a week could really go that fast?! I did not go back to work like I had once planed. It was a blessing and a curse. Between the funeral Monday and just the rest of the weeks events I guess it was for the best. I have kept busy this week mostly dealing with family stuff but busy busy none the less. I can not thank the family and friends that I have enough for being so wonderful and supportive during this time. There is such a huge list I will just use the generic thank you and hope that it will suffice!
So tomorrow is an exciting day and to me its a day of celebration. After years of estrangement from most of my moms side of the family we will tomorrow, under better circumstances than earlier this week, reunite and have a wonderful cook out and swim party at my cousin Kristin's house. Now if you knew me growing up as a kid you know I have a massive family and I love it! Well as I got older and our family problems grew we all kind of well lost touch. It made me sad. I like my cousin Tim agree the best times and his fondest memories where at are family gatherings and of course not to mention all the holidays. We would have so much fun running around playing games doing what ever while the adults caught up cooked and drank. I think most of my memories where at my Aunt Ann's house though. Out of all of them she had the biggest house and man she loved to cook and entertain! I would look forward to those times as a child. Its what made my childhood well more bearable! As the tension in the family grew and my parents just well lost touch the also did with their families. There where fights and falling outs between everyone so we kind of became our own entity and started our own traditions. I hated it. I wanted my big family back because I think being adopted family had much more value and meaning to me. I needed it I thrived on it. I am sure it might not have meant as much to them as it did me but still it was an important time. I guess at first looking back I never saw it as this horrible traumatic thing but now I see from this adult perspective and being a parent that it was bad and it should not have been the way it was. I will not discount the fact that we had a coosh lifestyle and had a lot and was well privileged. I am glad for what I had and I will never take that away from them but I think about it more now it was probably a I don't know a guilt thing. They felt bad for what they had put us through so buying us off and spoiling us was there best line of defense. I might not have been physically abused much but the verbal and the psychological abuse was bad. I feared my parents I never wanted to talk to them I never felt i could go to them. Well ok let me take that back I loved my dad I was a total daddies girl and I felt close to him but he had his moments. My parents never really encouraged our extra curricular activities just dance. That is the one thing my mom showed any interest in for us. If it was anything else she blew us off. I was a great runner. I loved track it was my passion so was drill team. I remember never having them in the stands. Well my dad and Aunt Sue showed up for a meet and I kicked ASS!! I remember getting White Citation for drill team and having to beg my mom to drive out to Frisco to see me. She not only sat on the wrong side of the field with the opposing team she barely made it to see me and left right after! I was so flipping angry. I realized that no matter what I did no matter my accomplishments it just didn't matter. I started to give up I didn't care about school or anything. I now know stupid mistake but live and learn correct?! So now that you can see a glimpse of my past you can maybe understand why I am excited about tomorrow. Ok I will fill you in. Tomorrow afternoon me and my kiddos are heading to my cousin Kristin's house for a cook out and swimming. I kid you not I think with well everyone on my mom's side of the family coming (not my mom!) and minus Camie and Jenny I think maybe close to 40 family members there. See told you big family. I love big family I want my kids to know all about their family and be close to them like I was once close to mine. We all agree its baby steps but baby steps eventually turn in to steady steps. I want those steady steps that lead to my family that I miss so much. The last few months of growing close to my Aunt Karen, my wonderful god mother, have been so nice. We talk all the time she is involved she is there if I need her its a true blessing.
On a totally different topic I have created a web page for my brother. There are pictures and stuff on there along with a guest book. For those of you want to please sign it . My hope was to have our family and friends who knew him leave some sort of favorite memory or something so that we could all continue to look back and remember all the people he touched and realized how truly loved and cared for he was. For those seeking answers to his death I do not have them. They said Monday at the latest. Cross your fingers if not we have to wait up to 6 weeks for all the final results to come back. So I am sending this one off for the night. Sorry for the rambling. I have also included the link! http://memorialwebsites.legacy.com/alexgoldstrich/Homepage.aspx