Missing my family

My youngest sister Jessie


My middle sister Faith


I just have to say that lately I have really felt that void of my family not being near. I usually talk to everyone via land line but we turned it off for a few months and will turn it back on first week of February. I haven't lived near my family for many, many years. I have two sisters and two cousins who were in the same household as kids so I call them my brothers.
I am the oldest of us three girls. My baby sister has one child and she lives close to my mom. The middle sister has four kids and lives about an hour and a half from mom but near our aunts. I am down here and all my family is in either Iowa or Nebraska. I got a letter from the middle sister Faith the other day. I love her and I know she loves me, but when I left home as a teenager, it created a huge distance between us. It was nice to have her say that she misses me and that she wishes we lived closer together so our kids could get to know each other.
I am hoping once the girls are a bit older that we can take a vacation to go visit all my family and to show my hubby where my life started.
My oldest daughter Kasey asks about my family all the time. She says that she loves Tavio and Jaylen (two of her cousins that she has met) and misses them.
There have been some major life events in each of our lives that we have had to experience alone due to the distance between us and our financial situations. I just want my family to know that I love them and miss them and think of each of them every day.

They love to learn

I just have to say that I am blessed. My girls LOVE to learn. Whether it is throught a t.v. program, a book, art, coloring, or song. They are like two little sponges "sopping" up knowledge.
After lunch is free time for the girls to do pretty much what they want. Kori usually goes down for a nap at this time (she fell asleep earlier today). I found Kori in her room on the floor with the book that teaches shapes, "reading" the book with her safety (LOL) glasses on. When she saw me, she started saying the shapes, the only one she missed was oval...very proud. She then stood up and took her pamper off and said she had to go potty.

Kasey is my little artist...She was in the living room drawing. She brought me her art...it was two drawings, one was Pat (the hammer) and the other was Philipe (phillips screwdriver) from the cartoon Handy Manny. They both just learn and retain soooo easily.

I have to say that I am blessed that Kasey has such a great teacher for Pre-K at Highways to Tomorrow in Bartow. Her name is Ms. Ann and Kasey loves her to death. The class is working on putting together three letter words for recognition of letter sounds and word recognition. When we arrived at school this morning, I told Kasey the usual, that I hope she has a fun day and that she learns a lot...I asked her "Kasey, how do you spell tan?" And wouldn't you know she looked at me and said (with her eyes rolling up in her head because I should know the answer) T-A-N...mom. I loved it!

On the homefront...my dishwasher has been very sick. I had a service man come on Tuesday from Apex Appliance who was sent through are home warranty company...and of course the crazy machine worked perfectly. I still had to pay the service call fee (which is good for 30 days). He told me if it messes up again, to just call the company and they would send someone out. Well, today I finally got enough dirty dishes accumilated to warrant washing a load. Hmmmph...it didn't work. So, being the smarty britches that I am, I got my camera out and started the video, showing how each button was not working. Then, I called the company....no answer. I have called two more times since with no answer. I am pretty miffed at this point because now I will probably have to wait the whole weekend before someone comes out. Ok, I vented, I am better.

It is that time of year again-income tax time, or what I refer to as "pay off some bills time". Do you have any special plans for your return? Are you a devoted customer to any particular tax office? Let me know. I used to complete our returns until last year when we bought the house and got the tax credit. I was nervous that I would leave something out and the IRS would come knocking on my door. So last year we went to Liberty Tax Service. Well, this year we are having the credit amended and I have been to my tax office twice in the last two days to have it amended and the person that does the amendments was not in office. I called them right after calling the service guy the second time. I pretty much said that if someone wasn't available this evening to complete our return, that I would go elsewhere and they would lose a customer. Someone is supposed to be there to help me at 5:30 tonight. We will see...

This weekend our area has lots of fun things going on. I try to take Kasey to all of the Build and Grow clinics at Lowe's. Tomorrow we will build a tic-tac-toe board. Let me know what fun things you will be doing with your kids this weekend.

Day one of blogging...bear with me.

Today is my first day of blogging. My daughters are two and five. Just within the last 4-5 months I have started to be able to make "me" time without one or the other (or both) having a meltdown. My husband is a very considerate and caring man...he has always been a tremendous help with the girls. I decided to try to get fit at the beginning of the year. I have been watching what I eat and walking every evening. The girls are used to it now and just say "see ya when you get back momma!". I love the free time but on the flip side, I can see them gaining their own independence from me...oh, to be a mom.

I am using the Weight Watchers point system to watch what I eat and walking atleast two miles every evening. Anyone have any pointers, tricks, tips, do's or dont's? Let me know.

With my oldest getting ready to start school next fall, we have had to look at prospective schools. My husband is VERY adamant that she is not riding the bus. Our public school that we are zoned for is not currently an "A" school, and we have to wait until summer to see if we qualify for a transfer. So, in the meantime, we applied to Brigham Academy in Winter Haven as a backup. The whole lottery process, waiting list, etc. is new to us...

I am a member of a playgroup and I also get my "adult interaction" there as well with Mom's Night Out (MNO) about once a month. It's great for me because I tend to be a real homebody. I am not a big shopper for myself, I don't drink, and I still sometimes feel guilty if I go out alone.

Well, I will cut it off here until I can form some more thoughts in my head.