a month?!

Oh my word! I can't believe I've gone almost a month without posting anything!! There is a lot going on! :)

I was able to quit my job last week. Our Angel has made it possible for me to be able to stay home with my kids! What an amazing blessing. I am so excited to spend more time with them and *hopefully* keeping my house in order! It's been so nice to be able to just go at our own pace all week.

Because I quit my job, I had to get a new computer. So--I'm now working on my nice, beautiful Toshiba Satellite. It's so nice and fast! Loving it! So hopefully I can keep up on my blog and everything else that I do with this time.

My kids are growing so fast! Preslee turned FIVE on Sept 16. I can't believe I didn't post anything yet about it....that will be done this weekend for sure. My little princess is 5. No way. I still feel like she is 4 [months] old. :D Don't I wish some days!!

Mr Man is potty training! He's about 90% there, I would say. He has pretty well mastered the peeps in the potty... just working on the other. :S But all in all, doing great for a 2 1/2 year old boy! (who, I've been told are harder to train)

We just got our family pics done yesterday; I cannot wait for them to be ready!!! She took us to a great field where we took all of them. I was surprised at how much I loved them at that location! She always does a great job, and I can't wait to have them back to post. {she says about 2 wks}
cheap shots! photography

We're still working on house projects, and now that I don't work I'm hoping to get all those little things done that seem to get put on the back burner, oh-so-easily! It would only take 10 minutes for each, if I would just buckle down and do them! So, that's the plan for October.... house projects to be done. :)

One downfall to not working...... feeling like I have all the time in the world to get things done, and I don't! The days seem to fly by and nothing productive has happened all week. I'm staring at a laundry pile so huge, my kids could easily get lost (thank goodness its all CLEAN laundry and just needs to be put away). So as I sit here at 10:45am on Saturday morning, barely finishing my breakfast, kids running around like crazy in PJs still, and me in mine as well, I'm thinking I better get us on some sort of time schedule.... or we will be wasting away more hours in the day than I care to admit ;)

Posts with pics will be coming soon!

::winner::

I just won a free photo shoot from this FAB photographer :) She took our winter pictures and am thrilled to have her do more! Please, go check out her blog [i have a link to her blog on the right hand side of my posts] and if you book a day, mention my name so I can get more photo shoots done in the future! :) {{ps-she gives away a free shoot every month...}}

THANK YOU CHRISTY HAIR! Can't wait to get our family pics done again!

just another step

Well, Jeremy's headstone is now complete and it is set at the cemetery. It is beautiful, I am so glad it turned out so well and I think he would be proud of it. It represents him really well, and I am just so happy that we have a place to go. Our first visit there with the headstone up, Cash walked over and hugged the headstone. :) I think it will be really good for them to have a place where they can see him and remember him. It's important to me that his memory stay alive.

Sadly, after 8+ months of waiting for the headstone to be completed, and after it being installed and permenantly set, I noticed... it has a TYPO! Me and his brother are the only ones who had noticed it, but to me it sticks out like a sore thumb. :( We are working on getting it fixed right now-I suggested they grind out the entire saying and inlay a piece with the phrase again. It will just look like the sentence has its own border-and I think that would be beautiful as well.

For many of you, 3 names on the back will be a surprise. Yes, there is a 3rd baby, and No she is not mine. Paisley was born 4 months after Jeremy passed away-and it's since been proven that Jer was her biological father. It is a very different feeling that I have about this and just another thing to try and explain to my kids... but we will get thru this too. And maybe some day my kids will be glad to have another piece of their Daddy here. For now, all they know is Daddy had another baby but still loves them endlessly. And for now, that's all they need to know. His headstone being set has been just another emotional step in this journey. One that I am glad to have happened. It feels good to have it there for him, and for us. He is still thought about daily and missed tremendously; but it is finally starting to settle in that he is truly at peace and happy where he is now-and he can take care of us better from there. He already has proven that to me. ~11.11~

...almost complete...

Just wanted to share the picture I just took of Jeremy's almost completed headstone. It's just waiting on lettering now, and should be done and set by the end of next week (I won't hold my breath, since this part took so long!). I think it has turned out amazing so far, and think he is probably smiling about what it looks like. It will be really nice to have it set, to have something to see when we go by and visit and talk to him. The kids already love it (the pictures of it at least) and I'm so glad they'll have this to look at when we go by. I'll post a picture when it's set at his grave as well, so you can see the finished product.

*we miss you Jer*

:: tooth fairy ::

My little Preslee went to the dentist recently-for the routine cleaning and xrays to make sure her teeth are healthy and strong... and to her mommy's horror, she had 7 cavities!! OMG. Am I that bad at being a mother? She has 7 cavities at the age of 4?! Oh, please tell me she didn't inherit my bad enamel! Well... we already had one visit to fill a couple of those cavities, it will take 3 more visits because they don't want to traumatize her by doing too much at once. She was such a big girl! Not a single tear, not a single whine or concern! And she looked oh, so funny when she was laughing afterwards and only half her smile would move *giggle* Dr. Cloward was amazing with her.... he told her he would be using "Mr. Whistle" (the drill) and "Mr. Broom" (whatever one it is that makes the grinding noise!) and they had a tiny "shower" and "vacuum" for her teeth. Her favorite part was that her teeth got their very own "chair" to sit on while he did the cavities! (the prop to keep her mouth open) She got "double prizes" beacuse she did so well! (That means she got to pick 4 things!!) :) She loved it.... going back tomorrow for round 2!The "elephant nose" to get her giggly :)

Dr. Cloward was so good with her!

Big Smile!! Well, 1/2 of one at least!

DOUBLE PRIZES!! And another 1/2 smile :D

redneckin' it

It was time again for the Abel Family reunion, and Kris was in charge... so being the redneck that she is, she had a Redneck Shindig for us all. :D It was so much fun! They made a ginormous slip & slide in the front yard, a pool out of hay bails and a tarp, we shot clay pigeons and bb's for the kids, ate until we couldn't eat anymore and just enjoyed the entire time! (Especially when the Snuggies broke out! lol) Thanks to Kris and Bret for having us all up, and letting us all let our True Redneck Style shine! :D

..:piggy tails:..

Jordan has been coming down to stay with us on some weekends; we absolutely LOVE having her here! The kids love the extra attention from her, and she's just fun to be around. Preslee always loves to do her hair, and this night Jordan was brave enough to let her do whatever she wanted! (I have a very soft head, so I'm usually saying "ouch, ok.. um... don't pull so hard... ouch... eeek... ouch... ok, we're done" LOL So Preslee loves that Jordan lets her do whatever she wants.)

Getting her hair done

The after shots!

She even went to Macey's with her hair-do! Ha ha ha!

fun with the twins!

Cash going down the slide... but....

Cash preferred jumping in the puddle where the slide was draining :)

Preslee loved it!

My friend Jenni's twins turned 4! We went over to help celebrate, and the kids had a blast!

a*LO*ha

Wow, can you believe that it has taken so long for me to update this! Our Hawaii trip was clear back in June (2 weeks of June!) and we loved every minute of it. We thought the boys would absolutely love playing together... turns out.... they were better off in seperate rooms. HAHA! We really enjoyed going to the beach, the pool, and the frozen yogurt bar! :D We played it pretty cool/low key this trip, not doing much touristy activity.. but we did get to the Dole Plantation a couple of times! :)Scroll over the pics to see the caption, if you want. We had so much fun visiting our cute family in Hawaii and can't wait to go back (hopefully!!)

(( blog update over load ))

So, it has obviously been a while since I last updated my blog, so brace yourself... I'm going to do some major updating tonight (as long as the computer cooperates!)
Ready.
Set.
Go.

No really.