Sleepovers

Little girls, is there anything more awesome?
The older Lilly the gets the more I appreciate the above statement. The things they talk about, the things they say it's just the best!!
This past weekend Lilly had her dance bff over for a sleepover, and of course the amount of sleeping was at a minimum! We took the girls to a football game and they ran around the played the ENTIRE time - you would think that would have tired them out, nope not at all!
As soon as we got home from the game and the girls got out of their wet clothes and into their PJ's it was dance party USA in Lilly's room followed by whispering and giggling.
When Sean checked on the girls sometime after 1:00AM they were finally passed out from exhaustion both of them sound asleep in Lilly's bed.
In the morning after a delicious breakfast of chocolate muffins the girls resumed their fun up in Lilly's room. Which ended up looking like a tornado went through it when they were all done and was I mad, nope in fact it put a smile on my face.
As I sit back and look back at the weekend I giggle. I love watching Lilly and her friends interact. I am always entertained by their conversations and their wild imaginations. Everyone should have the opportunity to stop and listen to their children and the wonderful things they say, I'm telling you it's more theraputic than stopping to smell the roses :-)

My college degree

I graduated from college in 2004 with a degree from the UW/WSU in PR/Marketing. I worked until 2008 when the economy tanked the the small (we're talking under 12 people) company I was working for was forced to lay me off (last hired, first fired fun!) anyway at that point Sean was on his first deployment in Iraq and we decided well maybe I should just stay home with Lilly since most of my paycheck was going towards gas, lunches, and day care for Lilly. At first this idea was a little new and scary to me, but I adapted and now I love having the ability to not only be home for my daughter whenever she needs me, but that also allows me to be on the PTA Board, chair some committees, be on the Little League Board, volunteer in her classroom, coach softball, as well as take care of a household where 5 people live :-)
I have gone of track a little bit, anyway I've recently realized that I use my college degree way more now that when I was working - how crazy is that! Between publishing a newsletter once a month, doing a bulletin board to showcase the PTA once a month, designing flyers for our PTA functions, and taking on an entire rewards program for our amazing readers I use a lot of those PR/Marketing skills in order to make newletters that don't look like they were done by a 5 year old, flyers that are not only eye catching, but understandable, and having a bulletin board that looks fun, but also conveys a lot of important information.
It's rewarding being able to do all these things, all things that I enjoy and have fun doing and know that I am actually using the things I learned in college!
For example this year the PTA has decided to take on the AR Rewards program at school since we have a new librarian who was not familiar with how the program was ran and it is something we all feel very strongly about and wanted to make sure all the kids still benefited from this amazing program. I am currently running the program and I gotta say I'm having so much fun with it! I got to design T-shirts, Bookmarks, Certificates, and make things that are being displayed in the library - not to mention coming up with an entire theme for everything. It's awesome!!
Some people may think that people who go to college and then become a stay-at-home parent have not done their degree justice and only wasted their time in college and I will admit before I became a Mom I was one of those people. I always had respect for those people who made it their life's work to devote themselves to their children and give back to the organizations that their kids were involved in, but I never quite understood it. I used to be a career minded person thinking that what you did for a living and the paycheck you brought home defined who you were as a person - boy was I wrong. It's about how you live your life, how you choose to spend your time. People that choose to spend their time doing things that benefit their family, and their community deserve praise and support - and I would be saying that even if I wasn't one of those people.

Updated Look/Title and Drill Weekend

I realized over the weekend how much I missed blogging, I mean where else can I go on and on and nobody interupts me, needs me to fix somthing, cook something, or help with something!!
Since it's been so long since my last post I decided that  new look and title were in order so I hope you enjoy.
I won't bore you with all the changes and updates that have occured since my last post I prefer to just start fresh like we were in the middle of a conversation that had a slight pause :-)
This past weekend was drill weekend, which means I am husbandless for 2-3 days. Lilly loves drill weekends because not only does Sean leave his Kindle Fire home for her to play with she also tends to sleep in my bed with me for some Mommy/Daughter cuddle time (and I'm not gonna lie I love that, because she's not gonna be little and want to do that forever).
The best part about drill weekends are my amazing friends who keep me entertained and busy while my hubby is out shooting machine guns and blowing things up for the US government.
Friday night was very similiar to every other Friday night this fall which meant going to watch my psuedo-nephew Kain's Varsity Football game. While I had fun with most of the Davis clan, and chatting with my awesome friends, and of course teasing those who needed to be teased we didn't pay too close attention to the game because when the score is over 40-0 and half time you're pretty sure you're team is gonna win. We did pay attention when Kain played, and he actually got to play in the 1st half of the game for the first time all season so that was pretty awesome! After the game we went to Red Robin for some grub, drinks, and laughter. Kain came along with us and kept us all very etertained with his fantastic sense of humor.
This past week was Lilly's 8th birthday and party of her birthday tradition is my Mom & I take her and her besties to lunch at Lilly's Mecca (the American Girl Store). If I thought my time and Red Robin was entertaining the night before it was nothing compared to the conversations had at lunch with an 8, 7, and 6 year old. Those girls are just fabulous. Mom & I did not stop laughing the whole time!!
Saturday night was a special treat, my amazing friend Danielle and I went to the Carrie Underwood concert all thanks to her equally amazing new boyfriend Brannon. We got all dressed up (our outfits even matched, unplanned!) in our cowboy hats, and boots and headed downtown. The concert was soooooo great! Carrie is an AMAZING performer and she put on such an awesome show! I don't think we could have had more fun!!
Sunday, or should I call it FootballDay? Every Sunday is spent at Danielle's for Football and Food. We all cram in her living room bring delicious treats to share and cheer on our Seattle Seahawks, this week they won so we were all very happy campers! I am not allowed to enter Danielle's house unless I have brought dessert! My friends call me the dessert queen due to my baking skills that they have all fallen in love with :-)
On drill weekends Sean actually gets to come and watch about half the football game with us as he gets released with enough time to make it over for the second half and of course chow down on some delicious grub.
I love the Sunday nights of drill weekends the best! After Sean has been gone for 2 nights there is nothing better than crawling into bed with him and feeling his arms around me! Plus he work weekends are Mondays & Tuesdays which means I get to spend lots of time with him, which is why I am hurrying to finish this blog so I can go spends some QT with my wonderful hubby!

Missing Sean

So as some of you may know Sean has been gone for about a week now. No, it has nothing to do with the army!
Background: Back in March Sean saw an ad on craigs list for a temporary security job to work during the potential upcoming teamsters strike with waste management. The guys doing the hiring liked Sean's resume so he was selected to go work. This required him to move into a hotel downtown - kinda sucks! Well after almost a week of having a full staffed ready to go security team and no strike waste management sent most of the guys back home and put them on stand-by.
This brings me to last week when the teamsters decided to go on strike. This meant Sean got called up. This time he was sent to the Woodinville area, which is good since that's closer. The teamsters did not stay strike for very long (about a day). When we first heard the strike ended we thought they'd be sending Sean home - no such luck! The guys are being kept on (at least for now)
Poor Sean has been working a 4PM-4AM shift since last Wednesday - YUCK!
The job will be some good experience for him and will look great on his resume, especially while trying to get hired on at police departments. The PD's love things like army, and security guard experience!!!
Kinda sucks not having him around, at least it's not like when he was in Iraq!!! He was actually able to make it up to Lilly's T-ball game on Saturday which of course made her day (and mine!)
I've decided that Sean and I have a really strong relationship we've been through soooooo much over the span of many years and at the end of the day we know that our relationship is great and to hell with what anyone else thinks!

Peanut Butter Pie

 

PIE!

It's been awhile since I've posted a yummy recipe that I love, so today's the day for a new one!

Today's recipe comes from my amazing grandmother! This recipe is one of the ones that I can already taste in my mouth at the mere mention of it - trust me it's that good. Another plus side of this recipe is it's really easy to make! I have only made on slight variation to this recipe, which I'll explain in a sec.

Using the ingredients pictured above (as you can see I like to use the Fred Meyer brand products because on top of making yummy things I like to save myself some money :-) ) The first thing you'll want to do is make the crust, and this is my variation. My grandmother's version calls for a graham cracker crust, but I decided to alter that and do an Oreo (or Kidd-o crust if you shop at Fred's) because it my opinion there is no better combination that chocolate and peanute butter! Making the crust is really very simple whether you use the crackers or the cookies - you crush them up (if doing the coookies no need to scrape the cream filling out) then you melt some butter or margarine and mix the crushed ingredient with the melted butter until you have a thick paste texture. Once you have the right consistency you simply place into the pie pan, you have to use your hands!!!! Next you take the rest of the ingredients and mix together, but you don't want to use all the whipped topping because you'll want to save that to serve on top of the pie! After everything is mixed together you put it in the pie pan and then let chill for a few hours so it sets!

As you can tell from my pictures I has my favorite assistant chef helping me!

Marriage

Marriage........according to wikipedia it's a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. Sounds so formal right? The truth is marriage can mean many different thingss to many different people. Individuals even get married for different reasons, but here in the US the most common reason is of course love.
Love, that is the reason I wanted to get married, it took me some time to find the right man to spend the rest of my life with, but once I found him he was worth the wait. I know that I got lucky with Sean, that may sound corny to you, but believe me it's the truth.
In relationships past I had found myself changing who I was and even having differing opinions just because of the person I was with, I don't have to do that with Sean. He loves me for who I am and I don't have to change a thing about myself to be with him and that's so important. I've seen this happen to some of my friends and it really just breaks my heart why should we have to change who we are as a person just to find love, I honestly feel that if someone loves you you shouldn't have to change who you are as the relationship progresses.
Now love and acceptance is all good and fine but it takes more than that to make a marriage work. Couples have to decide what works for them and balance all the aspects of their lives. Comprimise is VERY important when it comes to a partnership. People of all ages can give you advice until they are blue in the face and sometimes it's good and sometimes it sounds insane, but at the end of the day it's what works best for you.
It has taken Sean & I a little longer than most newly married couples, but that was because he was gone just about our entire second year of marriage being a brave soldier! Once he returned home we were all in for some serious adjustment because we had all gotten used to doing our own thing. I would foget to tell him about plans we had made, and he would forget to tell me something important simply because for the previous year we really hadn't had to do that.
None of our close friends had really experienced this, and as a result they don't fully understand how hard it was not only to spend the time apart, but also to reconnect and live life together again. Sure they were sympathetic while Sean was gone and checked in with me to see how Lilly & I were holding up, but once he was home it was assumed that all was fine. I didn't talk about a lot of this to my friends because quite a few of them were going through their own things and my issues seemed pretty insignificant in comparision. Looking back maybe I should have, maybe now they would understand and not pass judgement on things they don't understand.
We spend time doing different things now than when before he left, Lilly's older now so we do different activities and with different people. I wish that the people who we don't see anymore or as much as we would like to could simply take a minute to see past the initial perception and grasp what is really going on because what you see isn't what you get and if you're not around you don't know all that is going on and all that has happened.
Presently Sean & I have re-adjusted to life as a married couple under the same roof. We each have our responsibilites and our jobs and it works out well. Even though Sean got laid off he still has a "job" he does his job hunting everyday and I still take care of all the fun stuff on the home front. Our life is a happy one and in the long run that is what matters.

Crafty Strikes Again

It's spring here in WA and that means a lot of rain, and sometimes as it turn outs snow!

Spring also marks the return of baseball, softball, and T-ball! While Spring & Ball go hand-in-hand the rain that accompanies the spring does nothing in preserving clothes worn to T-ball practice :-)

While strolling through Joann Fabrics the other day I noticed the solid T-shirts (in kid sizes) were on sale 3 shirts for $9.00 - SWEET!

Most people might stop there thinking 3 plain T-shirts for practice is peachy, but not me! In the same aisle as the T-shirts was a new product by Color Artz - A fabric airbrusher for only $28.00 (less 40% because I had a coupon).

Instantly the wheels started turning. Since Lilly's T-ball team is named after a pro-team (The Mets) I could find a design and use the airbrush on the shirts and she'd have some super cute shirts.

So I grabbed 3 shrits (royal blue, orange, & grey), the airbrush (which coincidentally came with royal blue & orange paint), and an package of silver paint and headed to the check-out.

My first task upon my return home was to find a logo or design I liked. I settled on the 2-tone written Mets logo.

Next was cutting out my stencils, I made 2, one for the actual words and the second for the shadowing. This was a little time consuming, but I wanted to make sure it looked right.

My shirts, stencils, and I were then ready to head out to the garage for some airbrushing. There was a real learning curve associated with this because the excess spray of the airbrusher went a lot farther than I thought it would so the first 2 shirts ended up with some rouge spray (which I then covered up by giving the shirts an all over tye-dyed look.

Once I got the hang of the airbrusher it was awesome! I can't wait to find more stuff to decorate with it!!!