Christmas 08

We had a great 2 days as far as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day went. It was so nice have Asha's grandma, papa and Aunt here to celebrate with us. They are my ex inlaws and it was very nice that they agreed to come for Christmas Eve. I still consider them family. They have been my family for 12 years and you can't just shut that off.

Christmas Eve

I had to work half a day so Asha went up by her grandma and papa for the morning. She had to wear her pretty red dress all day. When I was done working we came back home and she talked me into each of us opening one present. I opened the one from her that she made at school and all by herself she picked the present from her birthmom to open. It was a children's bible and she exclaimed "It's just what I've always wanted!!" It was sooo cute!!

When everyone got here we had my famous Manicotti, Garlic Bread, and Steamed veggies for supper. Asha was so excited she could barely eat. She was the only one who got presents so she just went to town one right after another. Took me 2 hours to wrap and about 13 minutes for her to unwrap. She loved everything though.

Christmas Day

We had our traditional home made Waffles with Strawberries and Kool whip for breakfast. A friend of mine that Asha adores came over to have breakfast with us and then stayed and played with us for a while. The rest of the day Asha just played with all her new toys and mommy got to relax a little.

It was a really nice week and all went smoothly.

It's not the best picture but this is from Asha's Christmas program. They were trees and sand Rockin Around the Christmas tree.

Here she is as one of the 6 cows for the 12 Days of Christmas in WI.

Asha decorating cookies for Santa. She insisted on cookies for Santa after seeing the Betty Crocker commercial where the little boy gets mad because his dad eats the cookies for santa.

Here she is in her Christmas dress. I had to put it on her right away Christmas Eve morning and she wore it all day.

Here's me and my girl in front our our beautiful tree on Christmas Eve.

It took me 2 hours to wrap her presents and took her 15 minutes to unwrap them. She loved everything though and was very happy.

Here she is Christmas morning with the Princess phone from Santa.

We had a GREAT Christmas and we hope you all did as well.

Response to Comment & Update

Min~ It's just true happiness. I have seriously never been this happy in my whole life. I have a great job and AMAZING daughter and I'm making some great friends. I have so much fun and I'm just enjoying life. I spent so many years literally wishing it would all just end because I was so miserable and those thoughts just don't even come up anymore. I find myself smiling for no reason and realize that I'm just happy. It was hard at first when he left but it was so worth it. If I knew that life could be so good without him I would have left years ago.

Asha's Christmas program was amazing. It was the cutest and funniest thing I have ever seen. Her class did Rockin Around the Christmas Tree and they did an amazing job singing and dancing to it. Then the whole daycare/school did the 12 Days of Christmas in WI and the lyrics were hilarious. Everyone was cracking up. Asha was one of the 6 cows and they had deer hunters, Cheese heads, Badgers playing football it was all just really funny. I do have pictures that I have not gotten off of my camera yet but when I do I will post them.

Asha really wants to go to North Carolina. Her birthmom has just moved there so now Asha thinks we need to go visit and see where they live. We got Christmas presents in the mail today from her birthmom and the most beautiful Christmas card with their family picture on it. They are a beautiful little family and we are so blessed to have them in our lives.

Have a great Christmas everyone and I will post the holiday pictures probably on Christmas day.

Mostly Pictures

Here's my little monkey hanging from her bar. This indoor bar/swing was the best thing we ever bought her. She gets alot of use out of both.

She is still into dresses and not real happy about having to do the layered look with her dresses. As soon as we get home the leggings under her dress come off.

Here she is all dressed up for Thanksgiving. She dressed herself. She had been wanting to wear this black dress forever but it was a hand me down from a friend and it was missing some bows in the front so I never put it on her. I figured since we weren't going anywhere on Thanksgiving that it would be ok for her to wear. She was also wearing her pink plastic dress up heals with the dress. She was very proud of her outfit.

Here she is with her stocking filled with goodies from Saint Nick. She came walking out of her room still sleepy and layed on the couch next to me and it took her about 10 minutes to realize that her stocking was full of stuff. She jumped up so fast and so excited to finally see something in there. She was ready to rip it off the wall if I didn't stop her.

Checking her santa mail. She loves this so much. She wants to check it multiple times a day just to see if he brought anything else.

All ready to go and see Santa at the Kid's and Santa party my work held. She was so excited to see Santa and she kept telling me that she was going to ask him for a Princess phone for Christmas. I already got that for her so she will be very happy with Santa.

The party was alot of fun. She was super excited to see Santa and did not want to wait her turn in line. She got to play games and they fed us a really good lunch that she inhaled.

Here she is with Santa. He was great and he complimented her hat which really made her happy because she wanted to show him her new hat so bad. She got a good size bag of toys/treats when she was done with Santa which made her pretty happy too. She didn't want to leave him though. She kind of stayed on his lap and I had to call to her to get her to come off his lap.

Me and my girl. I keep trying to get a good picture of us together and it's alot harder than it sounds. It takes atleast 15 to 20 tries to get a decent picture of the 2 of us together.

We decorated the tree today and it is the cutest little tree. I don't have alot of room in my living for a tree so I had to get a small one but I love it. Asha pretty much did all the ornaments and I helped. She loves to help and is so proud of herself that she decorated the tree.

My work Christmas party was more fun than I thought it would be. I made some friends who actually work in my building one floor down so that will be nice to see friendly faces that I know now. The band they hired was great and they are local. They are a pretty big hit around here. We stayed until about midnight. My new friends wanted us to go out with them afterwards but I had lots to do today and knew if we went out that I would not be in any shape to decorate or do the Santa party. I did see some of them at the Santa party with their kids and one has a boy Asha's age who loves girls so they will get along great. We will probably get them together sometime to play.

Well my girl is begging me to play ants in the pants with her so I am off.

Thanksgiving & Stuff

Thanksgiving was pretty hard this year. Asha was crabby and throwing fits all day and I woke up with a migraine. If you ask Asha though it was a good day so that's all that matters. We made hand turkeys for place settings and she loved doing that and we sent one to her birth mom who absolutely loved it.

We decorated the day after Thanksgiving and I couldn't believe how much Asha loved it. I can't wait to do the tree this weekend because she can really help with that. She is in LOVE with her stocking that's hanging over the fireplace. Before I hung it she walked around hugging it and saying "Thank you so much mommy for buying me this soft fuzzy stocking........ can I wear it?!! LOL She cracks me up!!

I do something called Santa mail instead of an advent calendar to count down for Christmas. It's this cute little wooden mailbox with a picture of Santa on it that I bought. Every night Santa brings something and leaves it in the mailbox for her. Well Wed. at school they had Santa there and she was telling him about everything he had brought her so far and was thanking him for it. Poor guy was probably wondering what the heck she was talking about so I asked her what he said. Ho Ho Ho. LOL She is so excited about Santa mail that she tells everyone about it. She can't wait to check it every morning.

Well I am off to work. I finally got trained on some data entry so the weeks have been going alot faster. I can't believe it's Friday already but soooo happy that it is.

On deck for this weekend is my work Christmas party and then a Kids & Santa party at my work where Asha will get to see Santa again and play games. In between all that we have to get a tree and decorate it so I will try to post pictures of all that some time next week.

Have a great weekend!!

The Movie

Well it wasn't a complete bust but Asha only lasted about an hour. That was pretty good though considering it was only a 90 minute movie.

I took her to see Madagascar 2 and I didn't think it was that great but I never saw the first one either. She is so into animals I figured she would like it but she had more fun prior to the movie watching all the people come in and playing with the folding seats. She kept getting folded into her seat so I had to stuff our jackets into the crack for her to sit on. She looked like a queen sitting on her throne with her bucket of popcorn. I wish I would have had my camera because it was cute.

She talked about it for 2 days and told everyone at school what she did so she must have had fun. I am planning on taking her more this winter so hopefully I will find a movie she wants to sit through. I think she was more excited about the popcorn than anything else. She wouldn't even let me hold it because it was her popcorn. It was all about the popcorn for her. She is just too funny.

I have Parent Teacher Conferences for her this coming week and I'm sure she will be doing great. All the teachers at school love her and now that I am working full time she is going to a friends twice a week to play with her daughter instead of to school/day care and all the teachers hate it. They all tell me it's just not right that 2 days a week she doesn't come running into the classroom and hug them. They miss her and I think that's so sweet. I know I made a good choice when I picked that place.

Well we are off to do some Christmas shopping today. She was supposed to be at her dad's this weekend but he called and said he thought he was getting sick so she is with me. I don't want her getting sick and I can't miss any work if she does. I AM FINALLY GETTING TRAINED AT WORK NEXT WEEK!!! I have been there 3 weeks and still don't know my job so now that I am finally getting trained I can't miss any work. We may actually be working some over time so sending her to his house to get sick would not be an option. We will have fun today though we always do.

Halloween & Updates

I'm getting a little better about posting. It's not months between each post now. I am trying. LOL

Halloween was so much fun this year. Last year Asha got spooked right away and that was the end of trick or treating but this year she did awesome. There weren't too many scary costumes so that helped plus we knew which houses to stay away from this year that were scaring the kids.

Asha was a clown but a cute clown. I got her costume from a church yard sale. It looks home made but it was so cute I couldn't pass it up. She got to wear her costume 2 days in a row which made her very happy. She wore it trick or treating and then got to wear it at her dad's house the next day as well.

She was really upset when it was time to stop even though she was so tired she could barely walk anymore. We went with some friends and me and my friend took turns carrying her because she didn't want to go in her stroller. I'm sure next year will be even more fun!! I can't wait.

I had to redo her make up a few times because she kept touching and smearing her hearts. By the end of the night the hearts did not look like hearts. She was still cute though. I also found her hair at a dollar store. I thought that worked better than the little hat that she was supposed to wear. It was too small for her head with all her beads in her hair.

Here she is right before we started trick or treating. My friends daughter is standing behind her and she is a witch. Her face paint was green and it almost ended up being permanent. By the time I got there they had tried to wash it off and her face was still really green. It was funny but she was so scared her face would be green forever. She's fine now but it took alot of Mary Kay product to get it off.

Update on me. I started my new job 2 weeks ago and I'm still waiting to be trained on my actual job. They have me putting invoices together and stapling them. Not my idea of fun but I hope to be trained soon.

I went out Halloween weekend with some friends since Asha was with her dad and had an AWESOME time. It's been sooo many years since I actually had fun when I went out to the bars. It's been just as many years since I actually drank when we went out. My friend had gone out the night before and wasn't in the mood to drink so she was the designated driver which left me free to have fun and drink and I did both.

I am thinking about taking Asha to her first movie at the movie theater today. Not sure how she will do but I'm going to try. I had to work over time yesterday so part of our Saturday together was shortened thanks to that so I want to do something special with her today. I hope she likes it and does well because we get discounted movie tickets through my work so if she does we can go more often.

I may also be biased but I think Asha is an amazing little budding artist. These are her people that she likes to draw. I call them her little aliens but they are just so darn cute I had to take a picture.

Well I need to go and make us some home made french toast with strawberries for breakfast and get my girl in the tub.

Fall Fun!!

We had an amazing weekend a few weekends ago. We did everything Fall that I could fit into one weekend.

Friday night we went to the pumpkin patch and took a night time wagon ride through the woods. Asha sat on some really big pumpkins and picked out one pumpkin to carve. She got a little spooked by the guy dressed up like Spider Man. He actually jumped up on the roof of the building where they sold the pumpkins and he would jump on top of the soda machine and scare people as they walked by. Asha was happy to get on the wagon ride and get away from him.

This is Asha sitting on a big pumpkin. You could buy them but you would need a forklift to get it to your vehicle. They were about $50 for the big ones.

Here she is waiting for the wagon ride to start. She really did have alot of fun. She loved the wagon ride so much she wanted to go back the next day.

There was this big wagon full of pumpkins and Asha really wanted to sit on it so here she is.

Her sour face is from being scared of the Spider Man. She wouldn't look over by where he was, she was trying to pretend he wasn't there. She was fine once the wagon ride started.

The next day we went back to the pumpkin patch and this time we rode the wagon out to the pumpkin patch to get a pumpkin. This time she just wanted a small little pumpkin. Then we came home and I carved the pumpkins how she told me to carve them. We had one said one and one suprised one. While I carved she played in the leaves that the neighbor lady raked up at the bottom of the slide.

Sunday we went to church in my old town with some friends and then went to the town libraries 20th Anniversary celebration. That was alot of fun. They have this great kids singer named Tom Pease who sang there. He has been singing silly kids songs since I was Asha's age. He travels around the state doing shows at schools and he is just hilarious. We also took a walk by the river and played at the park. I don't have pictures of those things because I left my camera in the car after church. We walked every where that day because it was so beautiful.

She got her face painted at the pumpkin patch. The lady doing her face laughed because I soon as I pulled out the camera Asha says "Cheese"!! It was so funny.

This is the chosen pumpkin. I couldn't talk her into anything bigger.

Here she is playing in the leaf pile. She wouldn't even help me carve pumpkins because the leaves were more fun. She didn't want to touch the slimy stuff in the pumpkins anyway. LOL

Here are the finished products. She had her apron on to help carve pumpkins but she never even touched a seed.

I hope everyone is having a GREAT Fall. I know some people are saying that summer went to fast but I am so enjoying Fall.

For those who are wondering I go to court tomorrow to finalize the divorce and I am perfectly fine with it. Don't worry about me because I'm excited about that and excited to be starting my new job/life on Thursday. I am making so many friends and having so much fun with life that I can't believe I ever settled for the life that I had for the last 11 years.

Busy Busy Life

I have been wanting to post for a few weeks now but life has just been so busy. Asha started her last session of the year in gymnastics so that keeps our Monday's pretty busy and the rest of the week is just keeping up with spending as much time outside as we can before it gets too cold.

Our weekends have been packed with fun things as well. This weekend we went to the pumpkin patch and picked pumpkins. She loved the wagon ride a lot and we ended up going 2 days in a row because she wanted to do it again. When we went on Friday we went at night and they had a night time ride through the woods and that was fun but she got really spooked because there was someone dressed up like Spider Man and he really was kind of creepy. He even climbed up on the roof of the shop where they sold the pumpkins. It was just really weird the way he moved. The other kids loved it but Asha got spooked so she kept asking the next day all the way back if he was still there or if he went home. I told her he went home and prayed that I was right. Thankfully he was not there.

This past week has been hectic for me because I got a new job. I had my interview on Monday, some Assesment tests right away on Tuesday and found out Wednesday I got the job. I gave my 2 weeks notice and will be starting the day after my divorce is final. As one of my friends said "Out with the old in with the new". My new job is amazing and I really think I will like it. My friend Missy thinks that I will go far in the company and that I will make management. I hope that is the case because managers there make ALOT of money and Asha and I would be set if that happens. I'm sure it will be a few years but it's a nice dream to work towards. It's amazing how far I've come in a year. I look back to where I was last year and I was so depressed and so sad and now I'm happy and have a wonderful job opportunity that could really take me far. For the first time in a very long time I have something to look forward to and work for.

Well here are the pictures which is what I'm sure you've all been waiting for.

Asha decided that her face and body made a good canvas for her chalk. More got on her than on the driveway.
Last Friday she was invited to a birthday part at a place kind of like Chuckee Cheese but it had rides there as well. She loved this duck game but loved getting tickets more. She would hit the button and watch the tickets pop out. She got so excited about the tickets before she even realized that she got prizes for the tickets too.

Here she is trying to play skeet ball. Don't ever let a 3 year old play this. She kept throwing the ball all over the place. I thought she was going to break the machine.

Here is her Halloween costume. She is going to be a little clown. I bought some princess make up with glitter that I will paint her face with. She will be more of a girly pastel clown than a regular clown.

I will have to post pictures of the pumpkin patch later. I thought I had taken them off of the camera but I guess I didn't.

Family Week

Ok I just thought of a good post especially for those of you out there who have adopted and have open adoptions with your children's birth family.

Last week it was family week at Asha's school and we had to make a collage of all the things about our family. I asked the teacher what exactly she was looking for because I don't exactly have any recent pictures of Asha's brother and dad and I was also wondering if we should include her birthfamily or if that would confuse the other kids. She said I could do what ever I wanted. If i just wanted to do me and Asha that was fine if I wanted to include her dad and brother that was fine and if I wanted to include her birth family that was fine. So basically she was no help at all.

I did decide to put everyone in including her birth family because I do tell her that they are her family and that her bio sibs are her brother and sister and I didn't want to confuse her by not putting them in.

So my question is what do all of you other mothers do who have open adoptions when this kind of thing comes up at school? Do you just do your family or do you add the birth family?

Just curious because I'm sure this won't be the last time this will come up.

Thanks for any suggestions, advice, stories you want to give.

Update on Us

Sorry Rebekah that I haven't been posting. Work has been crazy hectic and when I get home just want to spend time with my girl and relax a little.

The other week we spent the whole week concentrating on Asha not having accidents. When she came back from her dad's last time she had accidents all week at school and even a few at home. It took me until last Saturday to get her to stop having them. She just didn't want to tell anyone she had to go so she would go in her pants. She was fine last week though.

Her and I have also been fighting colds so trying to mend that way as well. Not much else going on worth posting about. Just regular life stuff.

She is missing her brother alot and when I dropped her off on Friday she unbuckled so fast and tried to get out of the car because she saw him that it cracked him up. He was laughing when she got out because she was so excited to see him. He even had to take her to the bathroom because he is all she wanted. We went to his old school the other week for a friends daughter's volleyball game and Asha remembered that it was his school and kept asking if he was there and I had to let her know that it wasn't his school anymore. It didn't help that we ran into some of his old friends and they asked if he was with us.

It's a good thing she isn't old enough to realize yet when her dad doesn't call on his designated days because he didn't call her at all this week. Usually if he misses a day he will atleast try to call the next day but he made no attempt at all to call her. If this happens when she's old enough to understand I will have to do something about it. She doesn't deserve to be hurt anymore than he's already hurt her.

Tomorrow she has gymnastics so that will be fun. I've tried to get more pictures of her doing that but the lighting in there isn't the best and all the pictures turn out dark. I've probably posted enough of those pictures though. I do have a few from the other day I will try to post at some point.

Hope everyone has a good week!!

Labor Day Weekend

We had a really good holiday weekend. Saturday we spent 3 hours at the beach and then came home to have the next door neighbors girls invite Asha to play in the sprinklers. The girl pretty much spent a whole day in her bikini which is absolutely in love with.

Here she is with her froggy innertube. It took her 2 hours to wade into the water up to her butt. She loves the beach just not the water.

Filling froggies face with mud. She liked to pretend her feet were stuck in the mud and ask me to "save" her and pull her out. Then she would shove my feet into the mud and "save" me.

Here she's doing a little splashing of her own. A boy ran past her and splashed her and she turns around and yells "Don't Splash Me!!" My friend who was with us cracked up laughing because her daughter is so quiet she would never yell at someone for splashing her. My friend was like "Wow she can take care of herself"!!

Trying very hard to take her sand castle with her. Unfortunately for her after this picture she picked it up and it crumbled so it was off to make another one.

The next door neighbor girl gave Asha her old Princess scooter and Asha has been on it almost every day since then. She absolutely loves it and the bell that came on it.

The weather was beautiful the whole weekend and we just had a really nice time being together and having so much fun. On Labor Day we ended up roasting marshmallows with her Grandma and Papa and cousin before bedtime and that was really nice. She enjoyed that and got VERY sticky.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend as well.

Asha's Obsessions & Pictures

My girl has been obsessed with a few things this summer and her biggest thing is DRESSES. I can not get this little girl to wear anything but dresses. If all her dresses are dirty for the weekend then she wears skirts or her leotard dress. I keep trying to trick her into wearing shorts but she won't have it. She will negotiate until she gets to wear a dress.

Her next obsession would have to be the "Adams Family" song from the M&M's commercial. She sings it all the time now. It is so cute and when it gets to the snapping part she stops and looks at me because that's my part.

Her newest phrase if Ginormous. Everything is Ginormous. She is just so darn cute.

She is still talking about her color and it was so darn cute last Friday. We had a cookout with a friend of mine and she had a friend over who had adopted 2 African American children and Asha was holding the girls hand when we said grace before we ate and she kept looking at her hand holding the girls hand and then her other hand holding my hand. It was so cute. She was very fascinated with the boy. Actually he was 18 but he was right outside playing with Asha and pushing her on the swings. Asha fell in love with him. He even rode with us to get ice cream which thrilled her.

Well here are some pictures since it's been so long since I posted any.

I've been trying to get more pictures of me and my girl together since I don't have much from the last 3 years since I'm always the one taking the pictures.

Here she is in her new Bikini. She loves it and even though it's a little big she still wears it as much as she can.

That's all for new pictures right now. I thought I had taken more but with everything that's been going on this summer we haven't gotten out to do much this last month or so. I will try to take more pictures and post them.

We have plans to go to the beach with some friends Labor Day weekend and then I hope to take her to the local Fair if I can afford it next weekend as well so I should have some more pictures then.

Color

Asha has really been noticing her color lately and has said some pretty funny things. The other day I asked if she wanted ice cream and she said she wanted chocolate. So she had chocolate and I was scooping up vanilla for myself and she says "I can't have that because it will make me pink". I said "vanilla ice cream will make you pink?" and she says "chocolate makes me brown." Goofy kid!! Then at gymnastics today she cracked me up. They were running around and the teacher would call out a color and the kids would have to find that color and she calls out brown and Asha stops and looks at her and says "I'm Brown" and touches arm.

It's never anything bad that she says or negative she's just been talking alot lately about being brown. I have talked to her teachers at school to see if any of the kids are making a big deal about it and the teacher says that no one does so I wonder if things are being said at her dad's house. According to "I'm Chocolate Your Vanilla" kids don't realize color at this age unless it's pointed out to them.

I just didn't think the talk of color would happen so young. I was a little thrown off when she started with it but now the funniest things come out of her mouth. I do let her know that eating ice cream will not turn her colors but it was just so unexpected when she said that.

She is just so silly!!

Thanks for the Prayers!!

I appreciate everyone who is praying for me. It really means alot.

Not doing much this weekend and I would post pictures but the battery on my camera died today when I was at the beach with Asha so I can't upload them to post them. I did get a cute on of me and Asha though that I do want to post when I get another battery.

My camera is a battery hog so I have to splurge and get these $9 batteries so it might be a little while until I can post pictures.

I got Asha the cutest little bikini on sale but the bottoms are too big for her skinny little waist so I have to safety pin them. I was going to just put them away for next year but she wasn't having any of that. Once she saw it she was going to wear it no matter what. Before I pinned the bottoms she would put them on and then shake her little hips to get them to fall off and then she would laugh that she had a naked butt hanging out. Her new thing is that she wants to be naked. She keeps asking if she can go to the store, school and anywhere else we are going naked. I keep telling her that they will throw us out if she is naked. I said "Yes you are cute naked but there are people in this world that we do not want to see naked and if you walk around naked then they will want to walk around naked." That brought about a big "WHY?" We have been at this stage for a few months now and I just don't have anymore answers for the "WHY" question. I have tried explaining everything in as many ways as I can and it just doesn't work and I had previously taught her that because is not an answer so when I say because she tells me that that's not an answer. She's just too smart for own good sometimes.

She is doing really well. The tantrums have settled down alot and we've really been having a good time together. She does have pink eye right now which I'm not even really sure she ever had but according to her dad's girlfriend she did. I have seen no signs of pink eye at all. She has been really good about me giving her the drops though. She lays down and closes her eyes and I count each drop I put in and then she blinks and is on her way. No fits or tantrums or anything. She is just amazing. I hate getting drops put in my eyes but it's nothing to her.

She's also been asking alot about her brothers and sisters lately. I let her know that Dakota and her bio brother are her brothers and that her bio sister is her sister. I think it is hard to see kids at school with their brothers and sisters and she only gets to see Dakota every other weekend and her other bio sibs once a year. It makes me want to move closer so they can see eachother more but that won't happen because it's just waaaaay too hot in Florida for me. I know she misses having Dakota around and I've even thought about foster care for an older child but I can't afford that right now. I would have no problem adopting an older child from foster care if I had the room and the money. I know Asha would love having an older sibling. She gets along so well with my friend Debbie's daughter who is like an older sister to her.

Well it's been kind of a long emotional day and I need to get to bed but again thank you all for the prayers and I will try to be a better blogger. I am also going to get this blog back to what it originally started out to be and that's about Asha.

Dr. Results

I know some of you want me to post the results of what the dr. said today but I'm not going to. Asha's dad sometimes reads this blog and personally what is wrong with me is none of his business so if anyone wants to know please e-mail me and I will tell you.

Not trying to keep anyone in suspense I just don't feel my health is any of his concern. I don't think he's read this blog for a long time but just in case I'm not going to post anything.

I would appreciate prayers though and any e-mails will be answered when I have time to answer them. I can't guarantee it will be right away because I am a single mother with a VERY active 3 year old but I will try and get to them as soon as possible.

Thank you all for your support and concern.

Absentee Again!!

Sorry I haven't been posting. It's been kind of rough around here and now I may have to have my pancreas or gall bladder out. I will find out on Thursday.

Asha came home from her dad's with pink eye so we've been dealing with that. She's actually doing really well with letting me give her the drops. She is such a good girl.

She is so worried about me because she knows I'm sick. I was trying to hide it from her but she walked in on me in the bathroom last week throwing up and now when I go in the bathroom she asks if I'm going to throw up. She also jumped on me last week when I was in so much pain and I screamed out in pain and started to cry. I couldn't help it and felt so bad because then she started to cry because she thought she hurt me. She always asks now if she can cuddle with me or if it's going to hurt me. I feel so bad. I keep reassuring her that she did not hurt me and that I love to cuddle with her.

She is still asking for our other house. I let her know that mommy can't afford to live there because I don't have enough money. I wish I could afford to live there because I think it would make some things so much easier on her. I loved our town and that house. I cry when I drive through our town because I miss it so much.

I've just been an emotional mess. I am really scared that I may need surgery and I've never had surgery and it scares me to death. Luckily there is a wonderful friend who said that we could stay with her for 2 weeks if I had to have surgery because if I do I won't be able to carry Asha or anything for atleast 2 weeks. She said her and her daughters would take care of both of us and we could stay with them. We would be back in our old town again!!! I can't believe that this friend offered this to us but I feel so blessed to have her in my life!! THANK YOU GOD for my wonderful friends and all the people who are praying for me and care about me!!

Memories

Asha apparently has an amazing memory. On Saturday we went to a cookout at my friends house and she just bought a house on the same road as our old house and as soon as we turned onto the road Asha said "are we going to our house?" I couldn't believe it. I thought for sure she would have forgotten about it by now but she remembered. She even remembered when we were at the park in our old town that I used to take her and Dakota there.

It's actually kind of sad because now she's been asking to go home and when we get home she says "not this home". She has also been talking about the park alot and when I used to take her and Dakota.

Her and I are really missing him and I wish he could come over more. It doesn't seem to be getting easier on either one of us. It's actually getting harder. There are things I'm starting to miss and she's obviously missing some things too.

She has even started asking me "what are we missing?" and when I say I don't know she'll look at me and say "Dakota". It's so sad because she was so close to her brother. When he came home from school she used to tell him "I'm so happy you are here!!" I was really excited for her to have a big brother when we got her and then for him to be such a good big brother was so wonderful to see. He would have done anything for her and she adored him so much. He would go to the fair with his friends and spend most of his money winning her things at the different games. He would turn down playing with his friends to stay home and play with her. He was an AWESOME big brother.

We sure do miss him.

Happy 4th Of July!!!!!!!!!!

Our weekend plans got all turned upside down but that's fine. Asha and I are flexible and as long as we are having fun together it doesn't matter where we go or who we are with.


We were supposed to go to a cook out at a friends house and then to the fireworks with them but her husband decided to change their plans so they went somewhere else which left me and Asha on our own. We hung out at home most of the day and I made stuff for the cook out that we are invited to tomorrow that might not happen as well. My friend's daughter had the flu yesterday and my friend thought she was getting it too. She will let me know tomorrow if we are still on or not. Any way we decided to go to a petting zoo and then we went back to my home town where we were going to watch fireworks tonight. We played at the park and had Subway for supper until it was late enough for us to head over to the fair grounds where the fireworks are held. Well we sat there for an hour and blew bubbles and played ball waiting for the fireworks to start and as soon as they started lighting off the practice ones Asha freaked and instantly wanted to go home. She was up early today and wouldn't take a nap so I'm sure that's most of why it freaked her so much but right before they started we left and came home. She was sleeping by the time we got here.


It was fine I am tired anyway. We've been doing ALOT this week and I need a little down time this weekend as well.

Tomorrow we will probably go swimming and then to the cookout if it's still on. If it's not on we will have a little fire here and roast some marshmallows maybe with Asha's grandma and grandpa if they want to join us. Either way is fine with me. I can be more flexible now that it's just the 2 of us.


Well I want to post some pictures and get to bed. I'm exhausted. Here's some pictures from this past week. ENJOY!!

Here's my patriotic girl all ready to celebrate the 4th of July. I found this dress at KMart for $3 or $5 I think. It was the last one and perfect for today.

The camera just loves her and I love to take pictures of her.
Here she is at the park today. She was trying to do all the big kid stuff and just wasn't having it that mom said she was too little. I ended up spotting her on alot of stuff because she was going to try it no matter what.


We spent an hour and a half at this park. It's the one in my home town and I used to take the kids there a few times a week last summer.


I took her to the beach this week on one of my short days and she had a blast. I wasn't sure how she would be in the water and she started to walk in and just kept on walking. I had to follow her in to make sure she didn't go too far.

Dakota stopped over the other day unexpectedly. He was fishing with his grandpa and when they got back and he saw we were home he came in to visit. It was a very nice visit. I miss him alot and it was like old times having him here and Asha was extactic that he was here. She cried when he had to leave. They look so happy to be together. He even had his papa wake him up at 7:30 the next morning so he could come down and see us before we left for the day.


It's been a good week and a good holiday weekend so far. Hope everyone else can say the same.


HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!

Missing My Girl!!

I am missing Asha so bad this weekend. We've really been having alot of fun lately now that I've got a system down for her tantrums and rages and she's been having fewer of both. Plus I just had her for 2 weeks in a row and it's hard to not have her here. All I wanted to do yesterday was call her but I didn't want to interrupt her fun so I didn't.

I had so many things I wanted to do this weekend and just didn't really do any of them. I'm just so sad without her here. Some weekends I am fine without her but for some reason this is a hard weekend. I don't know if it's because my in laws went down there as well and I feel like I'm missing out on something I used to be a part of or what but it's hard. That his my family down there having fun together and I'm here alone. Weekends like this really make me hate Josh. Most days I don't even really give him a second thought but when he has Asha that's all I can do is think about him and the fact that he has her and I want her here.

I didn't try out the new church this weekend so Asha and I will probably go next Saturday. I had a migraine the morning I wanted to go and that pushed everything back for the day. The only thing I really got accomplished this weekend was cleaning the house. It took a while for my migraine to go away and then by the time I got done cleaning church had already started. I could have gone this morning but didn't wake up until 10 am. Mindy I will let you know how I like the church next weekend.

I am excited about next weekend because I have a 3 day weekend and I get to spend it all with my girl!!!! We are going to go to the beach, and have picnics and go to parks and have a little fire outside and make toasted marshmallows and see fireworks and go to a celebration in our old town to play games and see old cars. She is just so much fun to be with and she cracks me up with the things she says and does. It should be a fun weekend!!

Yo Yo Kind of Week

It's been an interesting week around here. Probably just normal life things but some are taking their toll on me and some are just shocking me.

I don't even know where to start. The week started out rough with me not getting alot of sleep because I was in sooo much physical pain it kept waking me up. This keeps happening that once or twice a month it feels like there is something huge in me pushing all my insides out and when I even lay down or touch my back, sides or stomach area it hurts soooooooooo bad. I can't even sleep because the pain is so bad. I did tell my dr. and he just said it's tense muscles and gave me muscle relaxers but they scare me since my mom had a really bad accident with them (she pooped on my step dad in bed while they slept LOL). I really don't want that to happen to me so I won't take them. I really think it's something else but not sure what it could be but it hurts bad. Any way that went away after the first few days and I felt pretty good yesterday but work has been really busy and a little difficult this week also. It's like the lady I replaced told me when you finally think your doing something right you get yelled at that you are doing it wrong. The weird part is though that even though I was getting yelled at I was also getting complimented on how good a job I am doing which is where the shocking part comes in.

The other lady that works with me informed me yesterday that along with her I am also in the running for management. (Picture here a completely shocked face ) I have never been considered for management and was not even aware that this was an option since he knows I am a single parent and that my daughter comes first. I just assumed I would always be the secretary and maybe eventually the office manager but not in charge of a crew and stuff like that. I bet I could really make a good living with this company and he is very generous with raises but the unfortunate part is that he does not offer insurance and eventually I will need to find a job that has insurance if I want to ever make more money. I am pretty much at my max for hours and pay right now without loosing my insurance through the state. I don't plan on making $9 an hour for the rest of my life. If he would offer me insurance with that raise I just may stay forever. I love love love my job but need insurance more.

What makes it a yo yo week is that I was also pretty depressed the beginning of the week thinking about 4th of July and the fact that we wouldn't have a big family celebration this year like we normally do and it made me sad for me and Asha. I cried alot about it and then I realized that I was feeling sorry for myself which was just stupid because I was the one who planned all the fun activities for all the holidays so I am still here and I can still make this a fun 4th of July for me and Asha and that's what I'm going to do. I don't need Josh here for her and I to have fun. I actually have a very fun and busy weekend planned for us and there really isn't any room in our plans for anyone else. It's really nice to know that I can make plans and have them stick or cancel them and not have to worry about other people and their plans.

WOW is it Friday yet? LOL I have a pretty busy weekend planned for me too since Asha will be with her dad. I am going to try and get out there more and meet new people so I am going to visit a church at the end of my road this weekend and visit an Alanon group here in my new town as well. I love my old church and my old Alanon group but I just can't afford to drive back there for meetings and church so it's time to find some new places. Wish me luck ladies.

Have a GREAT weekend!!

June Dairy Days & Pictures

June Dairy Days was fun but VERY dusty. With all the rain we've been having I wouldn't have thought there would be that much dust flying around but Asha and I both needed baths by the time we got home.

Asha got to pet and feed a baby cow. They had a mamma horse and a baby horse for the kids to pet, some ducks, some sheep and a bunny. Asha loved it and really had alot of fun. They had free ice cream all over so she had a rootbeer float and then Culvers was there making free sundaes so she had some of those as well. She kept saying she was having an "ice cream picnic". It was so cute!!

She really liked feeding the baby cow. I couldn't get her to let other kids in to feed the cow because she wanted to stay there. They also had someone playing Polka music and she loved it. She kept stopping and dancing every time she would hear them.

It is finally staying nice here and not raining so much so we've been able to play outside more. We are still having some behavior problems so we only go outside if she is behaving but for the most part she's been great. She loves school and they have Sprinkler Days where the kids can bring their swimsuits and play int he sprinklers. Some days she does it some days she doesn't. She is kind of picky about water so it's hit and miss with that.

Well here are some pictures from June Dairy Days and just some random pictures.

Here's Asha eating her rootbeer float.

Here she is feeding her favorite baby cow. He was so sweet.

Here she has climbed up on the railing to try and pet the sheep. It was hard to get alot of good pictures because there were so many kids trying to push their way to the animals.

Her new favorite obsession is her pink footy pajamas. She found them in her drawer a few days ago and put them on and hasn't really wanted to take them off since. As soon as we get home from school/work she puts them on. It's a struggle to even get her dressed in the morning because she wants to wear them EVERYWHERE!!

We are enjoying our summer so far and we're looking to the 4th of July. I did her hair in red, white and blue beads last night and I will eventually get a picture of that up.

She is with her dad right now that's why I have time to blog. I will keep trying to update as much as I can. Being a single parent is a pretty busy job and she is still pretty clingy when we are together so it makes it hard to blog when she's trying to sit on the keyboard. LOL

She Made Breakfast

I just have to share what just happened.

Asha made her own breakfast. I was in the shower and when I came out she had gone in the fridge and gotten one of those little plastic applesauce containers out with the tin lid for travel and she opened it all by herself and made herself breakfast. She's never done that before. I was just so impressed I had to share. She is getting so big!!

Well I need to finish getting ready so we can go pet some cows. We are going to a farm for June Dairy Days. They are having free ice cream, petting zoo and hay rides. It should be fun and I'll post pictures later.

Air Show and Updates!!

I'm sorry I forgot to update you all on my job situaton. The week after Memorial day I started my new schedule at work. My boss came up with an even better work schedule than I did. I now work Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9 am to 4 pm and Tuesday and Thursday from 8 am to 1 pm. It is an awesome schedule. I still have 2 days a week that I get off early so Asha and I can go and do a picnic, swimming or a park before we have to do supper and night time routine. PLUS I get to keep my insurance and I don't even think I'll have to pay a premium. Asha is also at daycare more so they cover more of the daycare so it turned out really well. She is adjusting to being there longer so fast and really likes that I pick her up outside on my longer days. She gets to play on the playground in the afternoon now and she loves it. That's how she figures out when I'm going to pick her up that day. She asks "Are you picking me up outside or at nap?" She is just so smart.

Last weekend we went to an airshow since her dad didn't pick her up. He took her this weekend since he had to come and move his son down by him. If Asha would have gone last weekend it would have been a month that she hadn't seen her brother and I want them to stay close.

The airshow was pretty fun. Asha didn't really have any interest in getting out to of the stroller until we got by the army vehicles. We went with a friend of mine and her son who is a year older than Asha so when he got out of his stroller to sit in the army vehicles Asha wanted to as well. She is just so happy riding along in her stroller that she could seriously do it all day. She throws a huge fit when we are taking a walk and I start back down our road because she just likes to ride so much.

Well here are the pictures from the airshow and some random ones from the week.

I LOVE my camrea. This is so much better quality than my old camera. The sad part though is that I wanted a better camera for taking pictures of Dakota at his sports. I could have gotten some awesome football pictures of him with this camera.

Asha sitting in an Army jeep. I think it's an Army jeep. I'm sure someone will let me know if I'm wrong.

Close up of Asha in an Army jeep. She had alot of fun.

Asha's new favorite pass time. I found a Winnie The Pooh game that we had for Dakota when he was little and I put it in for her and she LOVES it. She asks to play all the time. The problem is that she clicks all over the screen and the other day she had it in some strange language that I couldn't figure out. I'm going to look into getting her some more games. She has so much fun.

There baaaaaack!! LOL She dug the pink boots out of her closet the other day and wore them a few days in a row. I think they are starting to get a little small so I should hide them when she is gone. I did see some cute ones at Walmart the other day but might wait until Fall to get her some.

Here she is just being silly. She likes to wear her pants and shorts on her head for some reason. I plan on taking her to an African World Festival in August and they have the African head wraps there I think I will buy her one.


I did get her 3 year picture done and I will scan and post that soon. I'm not going to post the one of the 2 of us because it didn't turn out very well. We are both making faces. I bought it just to have one of us together but it's not that great.


Hope everyone had a great weekend. I get to go and pick Asha up in a few hours. I did talk to her on the phone yesterday and she did ask to come home but I'm sure she was having fun.