Slow season

John told me today his company is supposed to lay off 23 people this week, thankfully he should be safe this time, but he may lose his shift for another crappy one, but hey, a shift is a shift! It most likely means that the OT he has been getting will dry up and I will have to tweak the already tight budget yet again :( we will pill through this just like we have pulled through everything else buy tightening our belts....again!

Here we go!

It must be the first day back to school....Brooklyn was up and READY by 6:45!!! That child is so hard to get up and moving, most mornings I am literally dragging her out of bed! Ha!

All 3 girls were excited to get back to school...but not to learn, oh no, they were all most excited to show off their new clothes!!! Yup, they are mine, they may not look like me (apparantly I was just the incubator!!!) but the fact that they want to show off their new "stuff" is soooo me at their ages! :)

Sydney was happy because we got to school a little early for her, so she was able to chat with her friends a bit before class...such a teenager! Jordan was very excited to see her friends as well and Brookie just wanted to be first to the ball wall! I, on the other hand, am sitting in front of work waiting until the last minute before dragging myself in there to start my workday....is it 4 o'clock yet???

Back to the daily grind!

Ahhhh, after enjoying our 3 weeks off the girls and I are headed back to work & school tomorrow. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the slower pace these past few weeks. Sure there were times I was ready to run out of the house because of the girls bickering, but most of the time it was nice to relax! Lol!

We had time to actually clean the house the right way :) as well as just sit in the evenings and hang out together playing games, watching movies, etc. Dd3 loves to bake and helped me make lots of goodies for the holidays. Dd1 made some extra money by babysitting one of my friends little girls (she made $100 for 4 days! And then another $30 for helping my MIL!!). Dd2 did miss her friends and really REALLY missed not having soccer practice, but she got out there on the days it wasn't raining and kicked that ball against the wall out front.....over and over and over...LOL!

John had to work the whole time we were off, so he didn't get to hang out as much as we would have liked, but hey, someone had to bring the money in, right! ;) he and I did get to sneak off to watch a movie by ourselves this past weekend. We saw The Fighter....excellent movie! We are still talking about it 2 days later!

During our time off we had to deal with crazy rain storms here in the Southern Ca area. Near my MILs house is where a lot of damage was, there are still tons of sandbags around the neighborhood and some people are still not allowed into their homes!

For our last day of vacation the girls and I cleaned the house up, did laundry and made yet another trip to the mall so Sydney & Jordan could spend more of their money! They each got more clothes and shoes...apparantly they can't have too many! :)

So now we are all climbing into bed to get our rest for what I'm sure will be a long and tiring day!

Lessons learned

Last New Years Eve I was so ready to see 2009 to come to an end and my friends and I cheered the end of what we thought was a bad year. Yeah, well little did we know that doing that was basically cursing the year to come!!!

January came to us with John getting laid off...no good! Thankfully it was just for a few weeks, but it sure was enough to get us behind on everything! We spent the rest of the year trying (unsuccessfully by the way) to get caught up on everything. That plan is carrying over into this New Year as well.

This New Years Eve I have a whole new outlook. I'm not cheering the new year ending, instead I'm taking the lessons 2010 taught me and taking them with me to the new adventures 2011 has to offer me!

Happy New Year to all!

Yummy!

I just got back from a Costco trip and I bought the Chinese Chicken Salad kit...I love this stuff!!! Sooo yummy!!!!

Heading back to church

Since we moved to this area 9 years ago I have wanted to find a church home and thought we did find one about 3 years ago, we loved it! It was small and the girls loved it. We even got John to go with us! But when we bought our house it was too far away to make the drive, almost an hour each way :( we made it a couple of times but eventually we stopped, which I've hated! I have missed going to get that positive start to week. :(

I have several friends who attend a much larger church much closer to us, the girls have all been at one time or another and have absolutely loved it! The childrens program is wonderful! It seems since Sept every Sunday we have been busy with soccer games and haven't been able to go. Then last night Brooklyn came in before she went to bed and asked if we could go :) I also picked Sydney up from her best friends birthday party and the friends mom (my friend as well) asked if we were going to go...so I guess those are 2 strong signs that God is sending me huh? Its time to go to church!!! :) so we will be getting ready here in a few minutes to head off.

I hate being in new surroundings, I just always feel so uncomfortable, but I am missing something in my life right now, and I know its church, and why not go where I know several friends and the girls know tons of kids that go to that church as well. I need to hear Gods word in a big way these days and get my mind back on track, I know that when I'm going regularly I am a better wife and mother and really do I need any other inspiration than that?

Finally!

Vacation is here! Jordan & Brooklyn have been on vacation since Nov 11th but Sydney & I had work/school last week, but finally it is here...yippeeee!!!

We started our vacation by driving to Palm Springs for Jordans 8 am game...had to be there @ 7! Ugh!!! They tied 2-2, but they still will move onto Silver leval next season :) yay for them! Lots of hard work and practice has paid off!

As for the rest of vacation we will be getting this house into shape! We also have dentist and eye dr appts...fun right?!

I have been counting down to Thanksgiving Break since we went back to work/school in August :)