So... April 6th came and went.  It was hard, I kept myself busy.  I actually think her birthday was harder than the 6th.  Maybe because it was only 2 weeks before?  I dunno.  *sigh*  I miss her so much though.  I wish she were here to spend time with us and her grandbabies.  They are all getting so big.

So, I mentioned that I kept myself busy last week, keeping myself distracted.  Well...  I was doing some searching online trying to find some old friends of mine.  I have a place on myspace http://www.myspace.com/springdayzee so I just started there and typing in names into the search.  Turns out one of my really good friends from high school is there and is pretty active on the website.  So I emailed Chris and he emails me back!  I couldn't believe I found him and that it was that easy!  He had the scoop on ALL my old buddies and was able to update me on how and what they are doing!  I took such a different path than they did since I got pg young, but that is ok!  I so wouldn't be here in the life I LOVE today if things didn't happen the way they did.  Goes to show that while I do have some regrets in my life I wouldn't change them for the world!!  So, I HAD to ask Chris about my old best friend Ava.  We hung out SO much and she was my best friend.  We would have talks about when we get married we would be in each others weddings and such.  Well... I was getting married.  She was going to be my maid of honor.  I knew she couldn't afford much and we were even offering to buy her dress.  Anyways...  I just kept calling and calling her trying to get together to work out details and she just wouldn't take or return my calls.  I was so disappointed and I had to move on with my wedding plans.  I think I heard from her one more time after I got married, or maybe it was before.  Then that was it.    I was upset that we lost touch.  Then talking with Chris I find out that she is in Iowa and she has gotten married!!!  I am so happy for her and SO happy to hear that she is doing well!  I really expected the worse.  Chris unfortunately lost contact with her a few months ago, but another one of our friends has her dad's address in Iowa so I am hoping to get that so I can try and get in touch with her through him.

I also found an OLD family friend.  My dad was out here getting his taxes done by his tax guy and he wanted me to see if I could find my old baby sitter.  When we moved to AZ my parents got a semi live in baby sitter for us.  She became a really good friend and my parent basically adopted her since her parent kicked her out of the house on more than one occasion.  My parents ment the world to her.  She got married and pg young and moved away.  We would hear from her every now and then and the last time I remember seeing her is when she had left her husband and came to visit us with her 3 baby girls.  WELL... so I started my search on myspace... we knew that she had gotten remarried but didn't know the new husbands last name.  Dad remembered the ex-husbands name and I happened to remember one of the daughters names.  So... we put those two names together and I found one of her daughters!!!  That led me to find the other two daughters and her MOM!  We were SO excited.  Dad so didn't think it was her and didn't think it could be that easy at all!  Consider that for YEARS mom and dad tried to find her with no luck and many dead ends!  So I email her just asking her if she happen to babysit for my family and she emails me back and it IS her!    She was SOOO happy she was in tears!  She had been wanted to find us again forever!  Dad and I actually went over to see her the same day I got her email back!  It was so much fun and it was so neat that ALL her family know about us and all the stories!  It just has been crazy lately with all I have been able to contact!  I feel like I have just found an extented family!!

Well... I think I will end it here.  I don't want to get too long.  I promise I will try and write more in a few days!

Hee hee!  I am so excited today.  I am getting my new camera today!  I have been shopping around and checking out some review sites, both professional and consumer reviews, and I had narrowed my choices down to 2 cameras.  The Canon S2 IS and the Sony DSC-H1.  Both of them are 5.1 mp and 12x optical zoom.  They both ranked very well with reviews, all reviews said they were VERY similar in quality EXCEPT the Sony's video quality is less than the Canons.  I have a video camera that can easily be transfered onto my computer so I don't think that is a factor for me.  The big factor is that the Sony I can get $50-100 less than the Canon.  So...  After going to Wally World and playing with the display model of the Sony I was hooked!  I just can not wait to get it.  Walmart sells it for $399 but I found someone local that is selling it for $370 no tax and since we can arrange pick up he is waiving the shipping fee!  YEA!  So we saved almost $60 by going through him and the camera he is selling is brand new still in the package!  Jason is picking up today after work. 

Other good news is I am STILL losing weight.  I added a little ticker up top by the kids pictures to keep track of my progress.  I weight myself every Thursdays so keep checking in if you want to see my progress.  I am 18.5 lbs away from my mini goal and 43lbs away from my goal I want to be at for my brothers wedding.  I think I could definately lose 50lb by then...  That is a little less than 1.5 per week.

My baby boy turned one on the 25th of last month.  It was so bitter sweet.  I thought about Mom alot.  About how she was with me when Tommy was born and how she was able to spend time with him before she got really sick.  I look back on it now and I now realize just how much she was trying to cover up. *sigh*  I miss her SO much.  We had Tommy and Kaitlyns (my best friend Jennifer H.) birthday party together and I know she would have loved to have been there.  She loved my girlfriends so much and was so thankful that I have them in my life. 

Tommy is doing good.  He had his 1 year check on his birthday and the birthday boy got FOUR shots!  He is now 23lbs 2oz and is 31 and half inches tall.  My big boy!  He is 95% for weight and 50% for height!  What is it with my kids... they just grow TOO fast!  Tommy is trying to walk.  He takes about 4-5 step and then gets in too much of a hurry and falls flat on his face or plops down right on his tush! 

Well... I have more I could write since it has been so long since I have posted.  Have a good weekend y'all!

Doesn't it figure... I go to write a post and for some reason the window closes on me and I lose everything I already typed up??  Ugh!!

ANYWAYS!!!  I am SOO sore!  My tummy and my arms hurt SO much!  I went to the gym yesterday AND today, I'm such a good girl!  Yesterday I went and I did my usual stretches and ab work on the floor mats, then I worked out my upper body on the weight machines, then I went and did my cardio on the treadmill.  I only got 10 minutes on the tread... I pushed myself too hard by trying to jog a bit and my asthma started acting up, and silly me forgot to bring my inhaler.  So... I had to leave, but I felt good about what I did accomplish.  Today I did my usually floor work and then did my cardio on the treadmill for 30 mins.  I have been trying to push myself just a little bit and I did a few 30 sec jogging sprints.  Near the end I actually pushed one of my sprints to a full minute.  Doesn't sound like much, but it is a big deal to this girl who HATES to run.  My plan is to make it to the gym 5x a week monday-friday.  On M-W-F I will do my strength training on the weights and Cardio. Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I will do my Cardio.  In a couple weeks after I have gotten into the swing of things I will add a step class to one of my cardio days.    I did weigh myself this morning to get my offical starting weight and it wasn't pretty.  I have to lose 75-80lbs to get to where I want to be.  That will put me about 10-15 lbs more than I was before I started having kids. 

Tomorrow is Kaitlyns first birthday.  She is one of my best friends (Jennyfer) baby girl.  I just can't believe are babies are turning one!!  *sniff*  Jennyfer and I were pregnant at the same time and Kaitlyn is only 12 days older than Tommy.  We had SO much fun being preggo together.  Watching them grow up is just SO bitter sweet.  I just wish they would slow down. *sigh*  SO, since Tommy and Kaitlyns bdays are so close together and we have so many mutual friends we are doing their birthday party together.   I made the invitation yesterday and my scrapbooking skills really came in handy.  I LOVE how they came out and I am REALLY considering starting a little business making invitations and announcements.... Here is the invitation....

So... do you think someone would be interested in something like this using their own personal picture???  The picture bordered with the pink is on the front side of the invite and then when you flip it over it has the info about the party bordered in blue.  It all fits in an invitation size envelope.  I could use any color and wording could be anything really.  On Tommy and Kaitlyns invite the text says "We have learned to laugh, sit, and stand, we can even walk if you hold our hand, but the fun has only just begun, look out world, we're turning ONE!"  Anyways.... it is a thought I have bouncing around in my head right now...  believe me we could use the extra money around here.

Well I think that is all I have to say for now.  God bless and please keep praying for Baby Christopher.  The link to his blog is in my list of link over there ------>

Hi everyone!  I hope you all have a nice New Years.  We didn't do much, the two older kids were at MIL's house and Jason, Dad, Tommy and I just stayed at home and watched movies on TV and we went out and bought Fantastic 4.  We watch the ball drop in NYC and then headed to bed shortly after.   I really pray that 2006 is a better year for us all!  Seems like my family and SOO many other people last year was just hit so hard with one tragedy or another.

Dad was here for the holidays and he went back home on the 5th..  or at least tried to.  LOL  I got a call on Thursday from dad telling me that he was broken down in the middle of the desert on his way home.  *sigh*  He said he was going to check things out see if he could fix it with what he had and he would call me back.  Well I didn't hear from him for 3 hours.  I was getting a bit nervous.  I finally heard from him and lets me know that I needed to go rescue him and what parts I needed to bring.  So... I brought out the parts and water since it was the water hose that popped, and he got it fixed and I followed him home to make sure that he didn't have anymore problems.  It is a 5 hour drive from my house to his and he broke down just about halfway there!  I figured since I was driving out to bring him parts I mind as well stay and visit with my Gramma and Aunt that live out that way too!  So Tommy and I stayed the weekend.

As you guys can see I decided to change the look of my page! I play around with it alot and finally got it to where I like it. Oh and you also can now "subscribe" to my journal.  Up there on the right side there is a place to put your email address and you will get email notices when I post a new entry.  I also FINALLY put a more recent pic of the kids up there, but even that one was taken back in August!  *yikes*  It just doesn't seem like that pic was taking all that long ago.  Time is just going by WAY too fast for my taste.  I can't believe that Tommy is going to be 1 years old in just a few weeks.

Did anyone make any New Years resolutions?  I HATE resolutions, but I am determined to lose weight this year!  One of my best friends has lost 15+ lbs now and I am so inspired by her.  I REALLY need to get on it cause my brother is getting married in October and I SOO don't want to look like a huge blob at his wedding.  So... starting this week I am going back to the gym and going to moderate my eating.  I have about 80lbs to get to my idea of what I want to be at.  Wish me luck!  LOL

Well I think that is all for now.  Please continue to pray for baby Christopher.  If you have time check out the blog that his family it keeping.  The link is in my list of links.  God bless and look forward to hearing from you all.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!  This is the picture that we have decided to use in our Christmas Cards this year!  We finally got them sent out today.  So if any of you reading this is on my mailing list this is the pic you will be getting... minus the text of course.  The pics came out great but with having 5 of us it was so hard trying to get one with us all smiling, looking decent, and looking the right way!  Tommy was a grump so I think he was smiling in only two of the pics.  And of course in this pic Mikey is being goofy.  Oh well... it is still a nice family pic.  Can you believe the last time we had "family pics" (other than setting my camera on a timer or having someone use my camera to snap a quick one of us) was in 2001!!! Mikey was 1.5 and Becca was 4.5!!  *sigh*  Jennifer (my friend that took the pics) was great and patient as usual!  She didn't even charge us but for the trouble of being short notice and knowing how busy she is I gave her what we could afford.  She did us a HUGE favor by doing them for us and I am SO thankful! 

I do want to share another pic that Jennifer took.  She took a "test" shot with Tommy  before we all starting getting pics done.  It came out really cute too...

Well we FINALLY got our Christmas Tree up!  LOL I know I know... it is 5 days before Christmas and I just now got it up.  I was so tempted not to put it up at all cause I would just have to take it right back down.  Oh well.. that just means that I only have a week and a half of fighting to keep Tommy away from it!  LOLBy the time we were done decorating it and such he was too tired to explore it that he just went to bed.  He was such a good boy while we decorated it and sat in his exersaucer and watched us.  Now I need to finish cleaning the house and decorating the inside.  I have a pile of Christmas cards that I need to put up on the wall.  I have been waiting to put them up until I had the rest of the decorations up.  In the meantime I am doing "okay" right now.  I don't feel so moody about it all, sometimes I think I work myself up SO much before hand that when the time actually comes to be upset about stuff it isn't so bad??  I dunno.  I know Christmas is going to be hard, but I think I have done most of my grieving about it already.  I think the hardest will be when I talk to Gramma on Christmas morning, and when all the festivities are done and there is nothing else left to do.

Becca didn't go to school today.  She woke up complaining of a sore throat and she had a really LOW grade fever.  If it wasn't that her tonsils were red and swollen I would have sent her to school anyways because she was acting FINE!   I called the dr and they couldn't get us in until almost 3pm.  So we went and sure enough she does have strep... but at the drs she didn't even have a fever, and it wasn't because I gave her tylenol or asprin... I don't give my kids fever reducing meds unless their temp is over 101, so I am hoping that we caught it early enough that the rest of us will miss it.   Boy is she milking it though.  LOL

I think that is all for now, I hope you have a VERY Merry Christmas if I don't get on here to post again before Sunday!  **HUGS**

On Monday we took the kids to see Santa!  I was totally expecting Tommy to freak out but he did SOOO good.  He just sat on his lap and looks up at him and smiled!  Guess he knew that this jolly guys was going to bring him some goodies for Christmas.   Here is the pics that we got.  I think this is probably the best Santa pics we have ever gotten!

Aren't they cute!  We always go to the same mall every year cause they always have the best looking Santa.  I am so excited for their Christmas gift.  They are getting a PUPPY!  Our neighbor is breeding Beagles and gave us a good deal on one of them.  Unfortunately we don't have the money to pay her now, but she said that she will take it when ever we can afford it.  We are going to pay her as soon as our tax returns get in.   She brought him over on Wednesday while the kids were at school so we could see how my dad's dog DOG did with him.  DOG was scared of the little guy!  It was too funny!  Hopefully he will warm up to him and play with him.   When we went and saw Santa Becca asked him for a puppy and he told her that it is too cold at the North Pole for puppies.  So... we have it all worked out.  Since the kids would probably suspect that the puppy came from next door that we are going to include a note from Santa explaining that he had talked to the neighbor and told him that he knew or a great home for one of her puppies or something of the sort.  On Christmas morning we have a few other little gifts for the kids from Santa and those will be under the tree... but I will have to call my neighbor in the morning after we wake up and she will have the puppy in a wrapped box with some doggy toys and supplies and knock on the door and run... leaving the puppy in the box with the note on the door step...   I hope it all works out smoothly!  I just can't wait.  He is just too cute and I don't know what we will name him.. We will have to see what the kids come up with.

I have all my Christmas Cards addressed and signed, but they are just needing the pics to put in them.  One of my girlfriends that is really good in photography (check out her website www.jennsim.com) is going to try and take some family shots of us.  Hopefully we get one good one to use in the cards.  I still have to go and pic up the shirts that we are going to wear for the pics. 

Well.... I think that is all for now.  I will talk to you later.  Tommy is ready for bed.