Plenty of Pictures!

Get ready for picture overload!

Family Pictures Dec. 2010

 Our House before we started remodel

 Cayden's football team won the Super Bowl for the second year in a row! Go DAWGS. We are so proud of our Dawg, Cayden, he is a GREAT little running back.

 The "big" snow storm we had Jan 2011

 Our Beautiful Ally on her first day of 4th Grade.

 Cayden at a baseball tournament in Ruidoso, NM.  He was on the Thunder team.

 Cayden was one of the kids chosen at end of 5th grade to compete in the city track meet. He ran a couple single races and a relay. He did really well. This is the group of Tombaugh kids that got selected to go.

 This was at Clint Black concert

 So Sweet! Grady and Grandpa Rowley

 Grady and dirt and mud and bugs are one in the same so you can imagine how much fun it was for him that he got to go with mom to the 5th grade "water-day" and get as muddy as he wanted. 

 Grady was a FISH this summer, he is a great little swimmer now

 At horse race in Ruidos, NM

 Kids had a blast at the Lake this summer, I love their faces in this one.

 Travis turned 34!

 What a stud!

Where does all the time go????

What happened to the days of "spare time" and play dates at the park and going to the gym????? I don't know how but they have seemed to completely disappear. I can't remember the last time I have been to the gym (this is  kind of a big deal if you know me) or had a day where I have thought to myself "what should I do today".  Schedules, practices, games, homework, more games, essential oil classes, conventions, training meetings, canning, planning, and preparing are the only things on my to do list these days. I am not complaining, everything that fills my time right now is GOOD and I am enjoying it all, it just seems so strange to me that the days, weeks and months literally seem to be slipping by.
Cayden is playing football again, they have to defend that superbowl title from last year, and LOVES it. He is playing really well and has improved a lot from last year. He is running the ball smarter and harder. He is a running back and seems to score at least once every game. Last game he scored ALL 3 of the touchdowns. We couldn't be more proud of him, he is doing really well both in school and football.
Ally is our same sweet little girl she has always been. She has joined the Dona Ana Youth Choir and really enjoys that. We were all very surprised at how well they sounded the first concert we went to, harmonized and everything. She also tried out for all state choir and we were really proud of her for doing that. Regardless the outcome it took a lot of bravery to do it and we are really happy with her for sticking it out. She is also taking a scrapbook class after school on Mondays and she really enjoys that as well. She is our little social bug and ALWAYS wants to have friends over. I think I remind her every week that we don't play with friends during the week only on Friday or Saturdays!
Grady is HILARIOUS, he keeps us laughing daily. He is so sweet and I just love that kid. Every morning he wants to come snuggle with me and I love that. He is in preschool and growing up way too fast. I look at him and start to see this change as he turns into a boy and not a little toddler anymore, makes me sad.  He says the cutest, funniest things and it surprises me how smart he is when he talks about something I had no idea he even knew what it was.
Travis and I are good, busy buys. Travis got done with a 2 month Jury Duty. He served on a murder/death penalty trial and it was NOT fun. He heard and saw things he wishes he never wanted to but it is finally over and we are really happy about that. Being in jury duty all day and working some nights and weekends was a very stressful thing for him. He handled it like a champ though and I am so grateful to have such a wonderful husband. I am doing well.  I am working for a company called doTerra. It is an essentail oils company and I teach classes for people to educate them on what essential oils are, how they work and how to use them. I LOVE it, I love the oils and I love helping people have an alternate way to care for their families. It is such an empowering feeling to be able to treat something yourself and rely on the tools you have to take care of some basic needs. I feel this is important and another aspect of becoming self reliant and I LOVE doing it. It keeps me pretty busy, which is good. I enjoy having things going on that keep me from being bored, but I wouldn't mind a day here and there to relax and read a book, ha ha yeah right huh?  Here's a few pics from over the summer!

Grady at the end of last school year, I was helping with 5th grade water day and he joined right in.

 Cayden and some of his friends the last day of 5th grade

 We went to a horse race while we were out of town for a baseball tournament

 Ally and Em on the boat at Lake in Az, love her glasses!

 All the little munchkins

 Ally's 9th birthday party, she has always wanted a swim party and as soon as we bought this house she started planning it!

 Travis got us Clint Black tickets for mothers day, it was great!

I Have not made good on my goal.....

The goal to update my blog every month that is. Wow, I cant believe how fast time is flying by and how busy I am. I thought once we moved into our house and got unpacked and settled things would slow down a bit but they have not so far. It has been a good busy though. We have had Caydens birthday, Ally's birthday and most recently my sweet husbands birthday! We have had 5th grade graduation and parties and awards and preschool parties and awards and violin recitals and baseball games and tournaments and trips to Ruidoso, Az and Albuquerque. Whew, makes me tired just repeating it all. It has been a great few months since we moved into our new HOME. We have enjoyed watching the owls that live in a tree just off our driveway, we may enjoy watching all the people who come to look at the owls even more, ha ha. We have LOVED LOVED LOVED having a pool. I am so glad my hubby was a "pool guy" when we got married and he knows how to take care of the pool and teach me what to do as well. Although, I much prefer watching him take care of it then doing it myself, what can I say I have a HOT husband. I have always loved swimming, from swimming on city teams as a  child to swimming in highschool to swimming in triathlons to swimming on the Masters team here (to prepare for triathlons), I have always loved it and was so excited to have one for our kids to enjoy all summer long. That being said, our little man Grady did not know how to swim. Every other house here does not have a pool like my home state Az did and the community pools here leave alot to be desired. They are nice and pretty new but whoever built it thought our city was about a quarter of the size it is, they are both tiny and ALWAYS crowded and not to mention PRICEY, so we haven't swam a whole lot since living here. So, I figured he needed to learn. I had all the confidence I could teach him but figured he would do better in a class setting and with his little friends so I sent the word out with his church friends and preschool friends and before I knew it I was booked solid (unless I wanted to spend my WHOLE day in the pool) which takes away the joys for my kids of having a pool. I was having to turn people away and I thought to myself, maybe I should have charged a little more, ha ha. So I am in the middle of Session 2 of lessons and LOVING it. Sure sometimes it is draining and exhausting and I get a headache when I have "criers" but it is worth it. I am teaching 18 kids right now and so many of them came to me with BIG fears of going under the water and HATED the first couple days of class and now are doing amazing and LOVE to swim, it is very rewarding. I have one child inparticular, whose name I won't mention, that has gone from totally freaking out when he had to put his face in the water to now telling me that one day he is going to be an "underwater swimmer" and jumping off the side by himself and having to remind him he has to tell me if he is going to swim out away from the steps. It is so great and Grady is also doing awesome. He still doesn't want to swim on his own out in the middle of the pool, although he can, he jumps off the side and gets to the step and he loves to swim around on the steps by himself and he floats really well too. I am really proud of him. I hope to have some pics of lessons soon and will post along with pics of birthdays and baseball and preschool and other fun things. I promise to post pics soon and infact was going to tonight but am too tired to walk downstairs and get my camera and come back up, pathetic I know :)

Finally some Cruise Pictures

I don't have that great of pictures, our camera was lost at the time so we used a disposable camera. My sis-in-law probably has some much better ones I will try and get. So....this is the tender boat that picked us up off our ship to take us to COCOCAY ISLAND, the tiny little beautiful island that Royal Carribean owns and we had all to ourselves (well and the other 3 thousand people on the cruiseship). There is alot of people on that tenderboat and it looks tiny, gives you an idea how huge our ship was. 

 On the ship, you can see COCOCAY back behind us. It was one mile by two miles and it was so peaceful and serene. Of all our stops this was by far EVERYONE'S Favorite and we wished we had 2 days there instead of one.

                                                  Love the wind making me look pregnant!

 At Cococay! It was seriously so Beautiful

 Soaking up some rays, and looking good while doing it :)

 On the tender boat

 Didn't turn out so well.

 Formal night, the only time we really got dressed and ready and out of our suits.

 Another picture of Cococay

no pictures yet :(

I am sorry, no pictures yet. I have some befores on my camera and just need to upload them to the computer (I will jump right on that in all my spare time :)) and the after pictures are still a work in progress. Waiting for tile guys to finish (hopefully this week) so we can clean and move over. The house is not even close to being "done" and don't know if it ever will be but we did get most of the major things checked off the list. I am  not going to lie it has been a really hard 3 1/2 weeks. There is not one aspect of my life that has anything resembling "normal" in it. The house I live in is half packed, half furniture gone, a total disaster because it is hard to clean and put things "where they go" when they will not go there anymore very soon. The house I am moving into is a mess too. Family room full of stuff we have moved over and not yet put where it needs to be, projects half finished, fast food for dinner and late nights and the real kicker for me is I don't work out anymore. If you know me at all, that is a big deal, working out is my stress relief, my "thing", and it has been killing me to not go but I just can only do so much. The first two weeks we owned the house I spent all day over there working and then Travis would meet up with me over there after work and we would work late. This was so hard on my body, not so much at the time but I am paying now. Unfortunately, my body limits me and what I can do. I hate it and get so angry and frustrated and question but when all the dust settles and I am able to think clearly I have to remind myself that I have an auto-immune disease and in times of stress whether emotional or physical that kicks into high gear and my body turns on itself and I crash and I crash hard. It can be very frustrating to have something hold you back from doing all that you want to do but I do know that I need to listen to my body when it tells me to stop and slow down, something I am not very good at. Too bad I dont' have the luxury to just stop and relax, I HAVE to finish packing and I HAVE to move and I HAVE to feed my family, I HAVE to wash our clothes, I HAVE to take kids to violin and baseball practices and all these things I HAVE to do so I am trying to convince my body to hang on, don't totally crash yet, I need a few more weeks and then I can crash :) It is hard because I feel I have almost wasted the last eight months of hard work on getting myself healhty and doing everything the doctor asks just to have a major setback with all this craziness.It has not only been stressful for me and tiring but Travis has been SO SUPER busy with work that that by itself would have been stressful enough for any man then throw all this house stuff on top and he has been one big ball of stress and anxiety too. I feel so bad for him and wish that I could take on some of his stress for him. He is such a good man though and has been so good to get done what needs to be done and still provide for his family and make me laugh along the way. I love him so very much and am so excited to continue our journey through life together in our new home, if we could ever get there, ha ha!

Cruising, Funeral and Moving

Well this month has been crazy busy. Travis's sweet Grandma Rowley passed away about 3 weeks ago. She was the most AMAZING woman I know. I hope I can be like her when I grow up!

We also went on a cruise to the Bahamas stopping in Key West Florida and a privately owned island called Cococay! This was a work trip, meaning Travis had to sell X amount of cabinets in 2010 to earn this trip. He of course being the amazing man he is sold that plus some. I will do an entire post on the cruise once I get our pictures for it.

Lastly, and what this post is really about is that we are moving AGAIN! I feel like I just did this, oh wait I did, about a year ago.  We have been renting this last year not sure what our future plans were going to be. We were pretty sure they involved moving back "home" or to our home state. Turns out that is not part of the plan for us, at least not right now. Last October we walked through an open house for a home in a neighborhood we LOVE. Just downt the street from where we are renting. It was an amazing home with alot of potential. It is outdated in alot of ways, but nothing we cant fix. Most importantly it has everything we need/want. 5 bedrooms, beautiful brick home, with a POOL! Yes, finally my wish is coming true! We couldn't be happier except that this means we are NOT moving home, at least not now, and that does make us sad. We feel this is the right decision for our family and we do like it here alot its just not the same as living by your family but our little family is strong and relies on eachother and I love that. There is so much work we are doing at the "new house" that include new master bath, including making an entire new shower (the one there now is tiny), new master closet and my own whole little section with vaniy and cupboards and drawers, LOTS and LOTS of paint, flooring, drywall changing the entryway, a pool fence and lots more. So, needless to say there will be many pictures to come of before, during and afters.

Our Grady Boy!

Grady had his 4th birthday the beginning of the month and celebrated at Disneyland and then with a few friends decorating cookies. I wanted to take the opportunity to tell some of my favorite things about him at this stage of his life.

* I love that the first thing he wants to do when he wakes up in the morning is "snuggle" with his mommy.

* I love that he LOVES preschool and is learning so much

* I love the intensity in his eyes and face when he wrestles with Daisy

* I love when he asks for "wilt-meal" for breakfast (aka oatmeal)

* I love that he knows he is funny and loves to make us all laugh

* I love that he wants to know what letters are what and what words start/end with

* I love that when I have left for even an hour when I get home he runs to me and says "mommy" like I haven't seen him all day.

* I love that he always wants his daddy to "wrestle" him on the bed

* I love that he calls his favorite stuffed animal "Kefferson George" instead of Curious George, even though by now he probably actually knows the correct name.

*I love that he calls his blankets nee-nee's  and has to have all 3 of them when he goes to bed. ( I eventually made him a bigger blanket since his nee-nee's are recieving blankets and that was is now affectionately known as "big blanket", so he does know that his nee-nee's are blankets, ha ha)

* I love that when he thinks no-one is listening he will sit and talk to Daisy and say the cutest things like " Daisy, I love you so so much, you are my best friend, I love you so much, come snuggle with me"

* I love to watch him do the dancing game on the Wii, he is actually pretty stinkin good!

I could go on and on, this kid is so funny and I can't imagine my life without him and I do NOT want him to grow up. As I was cooking dinner tonight he wanted to help SO bad, I had had a LONG day and asked him to go play in the other room while I cooked. He came in a few minutes later and in the sweetest little voice said "Mom, could I give you a hand now?" What  4 year old says that? We all love you Grady boy and you fill our lives with such joy!

Legoland

This year for Christmas (2010) we surprised the kids with a trip to California to go to Legoland, Disneyland and California Adventure. We flew out of El Paso Wed. night (Jan. 5th) and arrived in San Diego about 8pm after transferring planes in Phx. Everything went smoothly until we realized as we are getting our baggage that one of our LARGE suitcases was missing. It had both Travis and Grady's clothes and things in it. We filled out a report and they assured us they would find it within 24 hours, which Travis was not sure he believed, and send it to our hotel.  We went on to the hotel and went to sleep to be ready for Legoland the following day. Travis got up early and went to Target and got him and Grady some "essentials". Legoland was great! It was not crowded at all and it was so amazing to see the incredible things made out of legos and there was a couple fun rides as well. Perfect for Grady's age kids and I think Cayden and Ally both had a great time. The park closed at 5pm and we were ready to go by then, great time but definately one day is enough. Here are some pics from our day there. Grady on his favorite ride there "the horsey ride" he went on in two times in a row while Travis took the older two on one he couldn't go on.

 Here is Grady at "driving school" it was so cute and funny to see all these 3-5 year olds out there driving cars by themselves. Grady did pretty dang good and earned his license, ha ha!

 Here we are on some ride that goes up and down and he thought it was fun to control that.

 All 3 kids on a giant slide, ha ha, this was funny! I thought for sure Grady was going to topple forward on his head and roll down but he managed just fine.

 Grady and Bob the Builder made out of Legos

 Ally and Grady with some pirate guy after a ride we went on.

 Darth Vader at the entrance to Legoland. I like that Ally is all snuggled up to him like he is a real person, and a nice one at that!

All in all we had a really good time at Legoland and about 3pm the airline called and said they "found" our luggage and we arranged to have it delivered to the hotel we had stayed at. Worked out pretty good, we left the park, went to Pei Wei's (one of our favorite places) and then swung by and picked up the suitcase and headed to Anaheim for our next adventure.