Surrounded by blessings...

Christmas is different without my Mom. It is very hard to not constantly think "Five years ago today, I had no idea it would be the last Christmas with her." And to go over and over in my head what it would be like if she were still here. I try not to do that to myself, but it seems my mind cannot stop doing that to myself. I am trying this year to just accept that as part of what goes on with me for the holidays. I close my eyes and try to remember how simply happy we all were on Christmas 2005 - 5 days before she died. I think about the presents she got the girls and how much fun it was to just be around her. I think about how much she would LOVE to be here with us this Christmas and how stunned she would be at how big and funny my daughters are. I try hard to focus on all the incredible blessing that still surround me every single day and I try to let go of the sheer sadness at what my girls are missing. It is hard though. It is hard to accept that neither one of them will remember their wonderful Nana. It is harder to imagine how many more years I have on earth without the love my Mom. I keep wishing for one more regular Christmas full of love and laughter at her house. The way I kind of always thought it would be. I am so grateful for the blessings that are still here.

Kaya Won Fire Prevention!!

And I was lucky to be there because her teacher had let me know! She was stunned, Kalli was stunned, and it was just an amazing life moment. She was the first kid up there in front of the ENTIRE SCHOOL. It was so cool and I felt so proud of her. I always wanted to win the fire prevention contest and I never did.... it was MUCH better watching your child win than winning myself would have been. What a great day! If you look carefully at the TOP of the bottom picture, you can see Kalli's stunned face. I loved that picture!! We were so proud of her. Way to go Kaya. And, I shot this ALL without flash because I got to take Karen Russel's photography class. She rocks.

Halloween Totally Rocked!

Neil always lets the girls paint his face and do his hair and they LOVE IT! We had a great time trick or treating in our neighborhood and going to Kaya's Kindergarten teacher's house for a little party, too.

We ran into Kaya's cute little boyfriend, Griffin, while trick-or-treating. They are such cute little friends.

The glasses made Kalli's entire outfit.

Cake Pops

I am not even sure why I thought it would be smart to try this.... but I saw a video on line and the girls and I attempted to make CAKE POPS today. It was a lot harder than the video, but it was a whole lot of fun, too. We loved it. The girls thought it was great. They want to go to the local book signing for this lady's book to ask her how she got this idea and how she made it look so easy. It took an hour to clean the kitchen, but the memories were totally worth it.

Project for Class

I am taking classes at Taylor University in their Transistion to Teaching department. This should allow me to move from private to public which would give me more money AND I hope to get in the same district as the girls so we will have the same academic schedule. I had to do a bulletin board project for my Children's Lit class. I loved it. I am so excited to bring it to school tomorrow to use with my class.

First Day Of School

Well, my baby is in Kindergarten now (sniff, sniff). She did incredible. She loved it. Her teacher is incredible and I feel so lucky that Kaya gets to be in her class. I was there helping most of the day today so I have a ton of pictures (took over 400 for the day). Here are just a few of both my girls at our morning photo shoot. They are such good sports. Kal loves her third grade teacher, too.

Chicago Half Marathon was TODAY!

I did the Chicago Rock n Roll Half Marathon with Neil this year. He usually runs it a lot faster than I do... but he has a knee injury. So, we ran about three miles and had to walk the rest due to the extreme pain in his knee. It was nice just hanging out with him for that long, and we were walking at a slower than normal pace, so it felt nice. I even took pictures with my new (I LOVE IT) mytouch phone and posted to FACEBOOK if you can believe it. Last week I had never used facebook and only had a very old RAZR phone.... and here I was today, posting on facebook from my phone while walking/running 13.1 miles. Go Me! :) Also... here are three fun pictures that we had taken at a booth at the health fair we went to yesterday in Chicago!

A few more Florida pictures I love...

We were only there five days and I took over 1600 pictures. It was a wonderful trip. Here are a few more I just love.

The Jacksonville Zoo

Here are just a few of the pictures we took at the Jacksonville Zoo.

At the Beach

I took about 500 pictures of the girls at the beaches while we were in Florida. I could not stop taking pictures so I would never forget how awesome it was. I swear Kalli looks like a teenager in these pictures. All of us sure loved the ocean. It was amazing to see them play in the ocean. I wish we lived by water.