School starts tomorrow...

We were out shopping today - the normal stops, Menards, Target, Walmart - even did some house viewing (love to drive by the new houses and see how they landscaped). Then it hit me - WE HAD ORIENTATION at 6pm!! - we quickly finished up at wally world and rushed home to grab supplies and go meet her teacher....

Now no laughing - but there was no orientation for her grade - it was the lower grades and the higher grades. We still showed up, got her supplies put away, met her teacher who just happened to be there and things went smoothly and great. Kinda felt like a dork and my husband of course rolled his eyes at me :) Hey I was trying to be a good mom!!

So now she's sound asleep, I'm heading off to bed and I can't wait to see how things go tomorrow. She's only got a 1/2 day (if that - they go at 8am and get out at 11:30)

To surprise her - I bought bedroom stuff to redo her room at Target today and I'll have it all set when she gets home tomorrow. We are going from the cheetah girl print from the companykids.com site to the target retro print


Can't Wait!! Have a great weekend :)

Mary Kay Facial gone bad...

We decided since we had nothing better to do today than stay home and clean, that my neighbor and I would go to her sisters for a Mary Kay party. Well all was going well - Amber was outside playing with the kids, we were joking, having fun, applying the cleanser and then it started... my face was hot to the touch, it burned and from what the others said I literally matched the color of my red hair. Out of no where the lady says to get milk and to apply it to my face... yes I raised an eyebrow to that concept but I did it! And it worked!! The milk took the sting right out of my face. So here I was with a bright red face (ok only half since we were only doing half to show the difference) thinking how am I going to explain this one to Mike.

I did continue with the rest of the facial (heck what else could go wrong) - carefully testing out each step on my chin before doing the entire side of my face. It was cool to see the difference with the makeup. I had a huge list of items I was going to get (hence the word HAD)...

...on the way home - 4 hrs after having the makeup on I started turning red and so was my neighbor!! We got home, washed up and vowed to never do that again. We both seemed to be allergic to the new system Mary Kay has for the 3-1 cleansing system, even though it was hypoallergenic.

A side note : I used to have the green bottles from Mary Kay, where it was the systems all by themselves, 4 steps total. I never had a problem. But I really think companies are adding things/chemicals to the products to make them last longer and cost less.

So My Personal Warning - make sure to test a part of your face before applying entirely!

Now I hope to become clean and clear by Sat. since I have a party to do for Uppercase Living.

and down goes the weeds!

Mike got from work and saw the neighbors out weedwacking and joined in. We are getting the lawns done together so we need to do the work together to get it ready.

Weedwacking, cleaning it up and then spraying the lawns is the plan for today and tomorrow.

It looks so nice now not having a forest around the house and under the front windows. lol

I'm counting down the days - 15 days to go!!

It's looking greener...

Right now we've been in the house for a little over a year. Inside we've painted, designed, bought furniture to replace the lovely military base fittings that my husband brought with him - but the outside... it looks like we just moved in,why? cause we have no lawn lol

We went to put the lawn in in spring. And it rained. In the Summer. And it flooded. In August and its way to hot... so now we have a firm date of Sept 2nd that we are going to have a nice lush green lawn (coming soon!) first its the spray on green hydroseed and then lushness comes :) I CAN'T WAIT!!

I've been dying to put a lawn in, some bushes - make it look like the Munsters or Adams Family doesn't live here. Worked great last year for halloween but I'm ready for a change LMAO!

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Tis the season for traveling..

Mike is starting his fall training schedule. Which means from here on out he goes away for roughly 10 days at a time to do training on new machinery in all different states.

Right now he is in TX and he's been gone since the 2nd. Its hard at first, can't sleep in the huge bed alone... so Amber crawls in sometimes. :) Then its simpler meals and tons of ice cream outings lol

He called last night to tell me he's got a snow globe of TX for Amber since she collects them. But he has something for me too. No clues on it, no hints to say where he got it... ohh no just gonna make me wait and then on top of that hold the secret that Ambers got something. .... I'm not good at holding secrets lol

He'll keep going away for a week or so at a time for the next couple months. I think the next stop over is North Dakota. We do get him back for a week or so in between :)

School is around the corner...

It feels like it came so quick. School orientation is only 2 weeks away and they start back full time on the 25th of this month. Amber is going into 6th grade, I can't believe my baby is that old!! We are almost hitting Jr High. and it doesn't seem right lol Can't we keep them little forever?? .... Wait let me rephrase that, can't we keep them around 6 yrs old, in full day kindergarten, potty trained and respectful for ever? lol

She's excited to go back and see friends. She can't stop talking about it and what shes going to be doing. We had to go out last week and get all the school supplies... and of course locker supplies! Who thought of this idea - decorating the inside of lockers? When we were kids we took tape and posted our favorite music/movie stars. Now they have push pin bulletin boards and special magnetic holders and shelfs to add. (Gotta admit though some of the stuff was pretty cool lol)

With back to school not only comes the supplies but the shopping for clothes... OY! That's an adventure lol. We handled it well though. Ambers grown rapidly sine April. She had to get an entire new wardrobe since her jeans were becoming crops. Guess that's not the in look lol.

I decided to hit the outlet mall in Kenosha, Wi - they had just rebuilt it and had everything you can dream of! Ok so I had a little fun going to the Coach outlet and dreaming of a purse I saw. But we did Gap, Limited Too, Aeropostle and more. She actually cooperated and tried things on, with attitude of course. She picked her favorites and I picked mine (what was on sale!). We manage to walk out with 10 pairs of jeans in two sizes for 8.99 a piece from Limited Too, I think that was our best score. She fell in love with the gap coats for fall. Its harder to dress kids in the preteens - some things are too young, some are too old - of where does she learn towards? the far too old end. But once she tried it on and saw that it went to low or was too 'preppy' she tossed it to the side. My mother in law went with so it was nice to hear a second opinion (backing me up on all of mine). lol

All in all it was a good time and the laughter we had was needed. Hope you have the same fun time we did!

Winds of Change...

This summer has been a whirl wind of events. Things happened faster than you could have ever expected them to. I'm just waiting for them to slow down and be able to take a deep breathe.

In Feb Mike's dad was diagnose for the second time with Lymphoma and we were told he would start the plan of chemo/radiation and things would be 'ok'. In the short time between then and now - his dad had chemo, radiation, in and out of the hospital for low blood count, for his blood sugar dropping to 65(diabetic), pains and darkening toes in his one leg (he had the other amputated the first time he had the cancer in 1998) - finally the doctors confessed how horrible the cancer was. It hit like a ton of bricks and I felt the wind pick up. He was admitted to the hospital on June 30th because of the pain and kidney failure - the tumor was so large (from his lungs to his groin) and it was pressing on everything. The chemo/radiation wasn't going to work and we knew.... We had to make the decision on July 9th that we were going to stop all treatment, this was the hardest day for my husband and his mother to go through, I could barely watch them struggle with the idea of 'giving up' and we met with the doctor across the hall from his dads room... I think god was helping us that day, making it so that no matter if they chose or not, he was choosing it for us. Within 30 mins of meeting with the doctor and making the decision, Faust passed away. He had had treatment that day, ate everything in site and had kissed Amber when she came in... he gave us no sign that today was what he was waiting for... to see us.

You never know what you have til it passes through your fingers and you can't grasp it any longer. A young man of 16 he came over from Italy, meeting his father for the first time when he landed on american soil, he worked and retired from Chrysler. He lived a simple and relaxing life. He was full of spunk and sass, he had a heart of gold when it came to his family and friends. Til this day I still think he's just going to walk through the door and eat me out of house and home lol.

He is dearly missed....


Thank you for reading this - I needed to cry, write and share my experience to get it out. I've been holding it in for Mike and Amber. They have had the hardest time coping with it both in their own ways. Now I can breathe.

Amy