Dear who ever is listening,
I am here and feeling somewhat overwhelmed. I am so behind on so many things because Ben has been working away from home for over a year and now that he has been working near home I am trying to play catch up and spend some time with him. I am overwhelmed with getting pictures from Ella's beautiful birthday together. I have some on my phone and some on the camera and really I did not take any myself.. maybe like 4...It means I have to sit down and focus and that's been hard. Ella has me on my toes. She is a climber. She also figured out how to move the pack and play that I use to block off the playroom so she would be confined in here with me..( my desk is in a corner of the playroom ) and its not really a spot that a baby gate would work. She is such fun though. I am loving every moment with this little girl. She gets my heart worked up all day long with all her cuteness and love. She is a very very loving little girl, who likes to give kisses and hugs and if you are really lucky she might just tell you she loves you. This little girl LOVES books. She is always walking around with a book and she will just plop right down somewhere and open it up and start checking it out. She tried to walk through Goodwill yesterday while reading. She is just so darn cute!!! The big kids finished school this past week and are with their Dad for 4 weeks... I think I just might die being away from them for that long with no visit!!! As much as Ella is melting my heart there is a huge hole in it when I am away from the older ones. They are still my babies even though Kyle is going to be the big TEN on the 30th. I can not believe that!!! He was just born... Kyle is my special boy. With all of these girls and him being the only boy its a special thing we have. Since he will not be with me this year for his birthday I am going to send him a "party in a box". I did this with Austin last year since she was with her dad. I will make cupcakes in jars so they stay nice and fresh and put a ton of confetti and other birthday treats in a box and mail it to him so it arrives right on his birthday. Then we will get on skype when he opens it and we will wear party hats and eat cake together. Its the next best thing. Before skype I will get some balloons up and a happy birthday banner so it will be decorated around me when he sees me. Then as soon as they come back we have a special day planned for Kyle and his friend. So when my heart is broken when I am away from my babies on their birthday I try to have something planned for them that I get excited about to keep me positive but it is probably the hardest thing ever to be away from them on birthdays but fair is fair... even though I don't think its fair because I gave birth... but that's the life of divorced parents. Then there is my computer. It is about to die. I am working on getting my pictures moved over to a hard drive but that's years of pictures and it takes a long time so I am doing it in small batches but I still have some that I have not organized into the right folders and yes I am OCD with my pictures and my folder system I have them in, but hey we all have our things. I am afraid to even turn my computer on and its so hard to use because its so slow and old and just well broken. What should take me 10 minutes to do takes me a half an hour and things like opening a page can take ten minutes if it even works. I need a new one but I do not see that happening in the near future so I am trying to be nice to this thing. We also are trying to finish projects at the house. I have told you before about the half finished this and the half finished that well we are starting to finish things. The kitchen did get painted before the birthday party.. GO US!!! We do have some more work in there though. There is this horrible back splash that we are going to take down but then we have to fix the wall and find some new tile. Our bathroom that has been holding until after Easter and the party is back in full swing. My Uncle did the tile in the shower and now we have to finish the rest. Ben took the toilet out tonight and after over a month of debating, we are going to change the tile on the floor to match the new shower. We were not planning on it since removing tile is one b%#@h of a job but since Ben is home a lot more right now we figured we will go ahead and take the plunge and do it and this allows us to use a bathroom vanity that we have at our other house that we like instead of buying a new one. So it will be a bit more work but it will be worth it when its done and it will save money. Now I just have to keep Ben reminded of all this when he is in there taking this tile up. I need to have some more serious yard sales as well. We finally got some stuff listed for sale on craigslist and I hope to start emptying things out. We are still going to be moving when the other house sells so we have got to get rid of this stuff. There is no way we would be able to move with all of this. Saving so much has helped me a lot of times... just with Ella, most of her clothes and toys are things that I saved from the older kids but my garage is just out of hand with stuff. I also would like to make some room in there for the kids to be able to use it to play in this summer. We have an almost finished garage so we have AC, flooring and finished walls out there and the people before built a little stage and I think the kids would have fun if the girls could play school and have music bands and Kyle could put up the pool table for him and his bud. So even though I have lots of motivation, I walk out there and become instantly so overwhelmed. Hopefully my want to make it a nice space will help me out in the next few weeks before the kids get back and we can get this going. I will feel like a million pounds are off my shoulders when its done. We have more work in the yard as well but we did get a huge project out back done before the party. Ben finished my landscaping around our porch and I LOVE IT!! So yes we are getting things done but as always there are a million more adding up and a million other stresses with moving and Ben's work and future school and of course the big one... MONEY... but we keep going and moving along and I am trying to focus on the pretty things to keep a smile on my face. So much of our future is unclear right now and in other people hands and that is so hard but I am keeping my fingers crossed that in the next few months things work out.
I hope life is going well for everyone else out there. I hope the stress is low.
Have a wonderful week!!!
Yours Truly,
P.S If my computer stays alive there will be some upcoming posts about pancakes, jam, our dolphin pictures and of course a little girls birthday party...
P.P.S I know I am overwhelmed a lot but hey thats life...right?
