Back to School

Last night I sat on Allisons bed and prayed with her. We prayed for her teachers and her classmates. I also took Allisons request for her Back to School hairstyle. We picked out the jewelry she would wear.  After I tucked her in and kissed her goodnight I went to Joslyns room. Joslyn was so nervous about statrting middle school. I tried to calm her nerves by reminding her that everyone was feeling the same. I sat on Joslyns bed with her and we prayed. Joslyn and I prayed for the teachers, the students and her nervousness. I also took Joslyn request for her Back to School hair style request and helped her pick out the jewelry she would wear.  I tucked her in and kissed her goodnight.
This morning Joslyn and I were up at 6am. I plugged in the curling iron, and began to curl "just the bottom part of my hair mom" Joslyn reiterated to me. At 6:45am I woke up Allison. I pulled her hair back into a ponytail with a white ribbon. I was instructed to curl her ponytail and have 2 curls hang from the sides of her face.
The weather was very bad this morning. It was raining and in the 40's. Joslyn insisted on riding the school bus with her best friend Mia. Mia called the house at about 7:10am. Joslyn and Mia made plans to meet at the corner of our street and walk to the bus stop together. I wanted to drive Joslyn to school especially since it was raining and cold. However I knew Joslyn and Mia really wanted to ride the school bus. So I sent Joslyn on her way with a kiss, "God bless you" and an umbrella.
Allison and I left the house at 7:45am. I drove Allison to school and I walked her into her classroom. Allisons 3rd grade teacher, Ms. Sizemore moved up to a 4th grade teacher and moved all her students from 3rd grade up to the 4th grade with her. So Allison knows her teacher and all her classmates. However there are a few new students and some of Allisons friends did move away over the summer.
Allison told me all about her day at school and after dinner tonight we will call Grandma on Skype and the girls can tell her all about their 1st day.
Joslyn called me after school (from one of her friends cell phone) and asked if she could go to the Teen Center with her friends. The Teen Center is right next to middle school. They have a lot of different activities for the middle school aged kids. So Joslyn will ride the shuttle bus back to our post from the teen center. I am looking forward to Joslyn coming home so I can hear all about her first day of middle school. However when Joslyn called to ask permission to go to the Teen Center she did tell me that she has every class but 1 with Isiah (a boy she likes).

Last Few Weeks of Summer Break!

On Saturday August 7th Allison and I decided to volunteer in our community. With just a few other people, Allison and I walked around our neighborhood and picked up trash (Joslyn decided to stay home with Philip and Moriah). All volunteers were asked to meet at the commissary at 9am. We were all given a trash bag and gloves. Allison and I picked up trash for about 1 1/2 hours. I was proud of Allison for showing interest in volunteering and flowing through!

We celebrated Joslyn's 11th birthday on Saturday August 15- Sunday the 16th. She had 2 of her friends over to help her celebrate. Joslyn planned her celebration. She new what she wanted at her party. The girls made pizzas for dinner! Joslyn made her pizza with mushroom and pepperoni toppings.

Joslyn made a request for her birthday cake. She wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. She also wanted mini marshmallows mixed into the cake batter. I bought a small tube of blue frosting (blue is Joslyn's favorite color) and decorated the cupcakes. After dinner we sang Happy Birthday to Joslyn and ate the cupcakes! They were pretty good. The marshmallow idea was great!

Joslyn's best friend Mia gave Joslyn 4 snow globes (Joslyn collects snow globes). Two snow globes had pictures of Joslyn and Mia inside of it. The 3rd snow globe had a picture that Mia drew. The last snow globes is empty and Joslyn can draw a picture to put inside the snow globe. Dianna gave Joslyn 11 dollars (1 dollar for each year). Allison went shopping with me the day before Joslyn's party and bought Joslyn a game for her game system. Philip and I gave Joslyn a kids coupon book. She has MANY cool coupons! Just a few examples of the coupons; Get a Free Pass on Eating Your Vegetables at Dinner Tonight, Turn in This Coupon and Mom and Dad can't tell you to clean your room for 1 week... It really is a cute coupon book.
At about 10pm we all went outside. Philip got the fire going in the BBQ pit and the girls roasted marshmallows in the fire. I bought chocolate bars and graham crackers so the girls could make smores! They had a BLAST!! It was also cold outside (in the 50's) so being around the fire was comfortable too!!

After making smores the girls came back inside and watched a movie. They were soon fast asleep. In fact Dianna was the only one who watched the movie in its entirety.

Sunday afternoon Philip and I took all the girls (Moriah, Allison, Joslyn, Dianna and Mia) to the indoor/outdoor swimming pool. They all had so much fun swimming, jumping off of the diving boards and sliding down the water slide!

Joslyn's actual birthday is the 18th of August. We took Joslyn to the bowling alley with her best friend Mia. We had dinner and the girl's played one game. We all came back to the house. We sang Happy Birthday to Joslyn and ate ice cream cake! She opened a present from her dad, Philip and I. Joslyn really wanted an Ipod (a personal music player) It is very expensive, but with a huge contribution from her dad Jason, we were able to buy it for her.

Last Saturday our neighborhood had a Back to School Splash Bash. There was a live band, food, challenge course, bounce houses, a swimming pool and so much more! Allison complete a challenge course while Joslyn had fun just hanging out with her friends.

Yesterday Philip turned 30 years old! Welcome to the 30's Philip! I planned a night out for just the 2 of us. No kids!! I wanted to keep it a surprise, but I couldn't. I was too excited and had to tell Philip. The girl's and I decorated the house...

The girl's wrapped the presents they bought for Philip and set them on the table. When Philip came home from work we got dressed, dropped the girls of at a friends house and went to the movies.

After the movies we went to eat dinner at a Greek restaurant....

When we came home from a wonderful evening out. The girls and I sang Happy Birthday to Philip, he opened his presents and read his birthday cards.

It was a great night and Philip really enjoyed it!!
Now I am finally caught up on my posts! Allison's first day of 4th grade and Joslyn's first day of 6th grade (middle school) is on Monday August 30th!! We are all ready for school to start however I think I am more nervous about Joslyn going to middle school then she is!

So one of the activities on Allison summer list was to host a picnic with her friends. Allison made the invitations to her picnic on the computer. She delivered them to her friends. Allison also made a menu and a grocery list. I took her to the commissary and she bought all the items on her list. Allison bought everything she needed using her own money (we put the girls weekly allowance on their individual debit cards). Since Allison was buying everything with her money, she really paid extra attention to the prices (she never does that when I'm buying). We compared prices and quantities. Joslyn decided to make Honey Snow Balls for Allison's picnic. Honey Snow Balls is a dessert that Joslyn invented herself!
The girls checked the weather reports online. Joslyn and Allison planned the picnic for Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday was reported to be partly cloudy. The picnic was going to be outside at the tables in the BBQ area behind our building. Well it rained on Wednesday :( The picnic was moved into our house. They girls had a great time with their friends. After the indoor picnic all the girls went to another friends house to play!

Now Joslyn is in the process of planning her 11th birthday party next weekend! She will have a sleepover, wants to roast marshmallows (hopefully it won't rain so we can use the pit in the back). Joslyn also wants to go swimming at the pool. After the girls swim we might go to the movies to see Ramona and Beezus!

Thank you!

It was hard for me to share the struggle in my marriage last week. I thought a lot about blogging about Philip and his struggle with alcohol. I am so thankful that I made the decision to publish the post!!
Thank you to every one who is praying for my husband and our marriage! Last week I was so depressed and so anxious about the weekend. I was worried that Philip was going to come home from work with a bottle of beer and some liquor. I did not want the weekend to come. I was sick to my stomach just thinking about the weekend. I was sure Philip would come home with some sort of alcohol. I am so happy to announce that Philip did NOT drink the entire weekend!! On Saturday our family was invited to eat dinner at a neighbor's house. Philip turned down the invitation because he did not want to be around the alcohol. My goodness! My heart overflowed with thankfulness and praises to God! I went to my friend's house for dinner. While I was down the street at the neighbors, Philip walked Joslyn to her friend's house for a sleep-over. He helped Allison pick out new school shoes online. Philip also gave the baby a bath and put her to bed! Sunday Philip gave me a "day off". He took care of Moriah and her needs all day long! God is A-W-E-S-O-M-E!! Please, please continue to pray for Philip and our marriage. Thank you all so, so very much for your encouraging words, good advice, friendship and your prayers! I am so thankful to Deborah, Kela, Sarah, and Julie, my Mom and of course GOD!!! Please continue to pray for Philip and our marriage. Thank you!!
Your sister in Christ,
Denise

Sometimes It's Hard to Pray

It's Marriage Monday

Well this past week hasn't been so sweet in my marriage. Philip has taken a HUGE step backwards. I was so very proud of Philip for all he gave up once he came home from Iraq last November. He stopped drinking and smoking. Philip was a new man when he came home from Iraq. He was EVERYTHING I prayed so hard for. I was amazed at how God answered my prayers and it was so awesome to see the answer to my prayers walking around me, hugging me, talking and walking with me every day! I was on "cloud nine". I was bursting with happiness! I could not contain my happiness to just my household. I had to share with the world- or at least my extended family and friends. I wanted to shout from the mountain tops how proud I was of MY man! However since I'm in no shape to climb to the top of a mountain, and even if I did get to the top of the mountain no one would hear my proclamation of love for my "new" man. So I did the next best thing... I emailed EVERYONE, I called EVERYONE, I instant messaged EVERYONE, I talked to EVERYONE I crossed paths with while around my neighborhood!! I experienced amazing feelings while Philip was sober and smoke-free. It was an awesome feeling to witness his priorities. They were straight and narrow. He was happy, proud, full of joy, encouraging, supportive, loving and caring. He was a great communicator. He talked with me about everything!
Well while we were on our vacation Philip began taking steps backwards. He had a drink. when he said to me, "I am going to go get a drink", I felt like a HUGE sword just stabbed me in my stomach. I felt sick. I knew this drink would push the door WIDE OPEN!
And so it did. Philip is drinking again. It truly breaks my heart. It hurts to even type those words. Every time I see him bring a drink up to his lips it feels like he is drinking away our marriage, our kids happiness, my joy. When he drinks he is refilling his cup or opening another bottle of selfishness, hate, hurtfulness, carelessness, and lays one more brick to the wall in my heart.
I prayed, I supported, I encouraged, I comforted, I followed, I stood in his corner while the world around him was biting at his ankles, I forgave and for some months I reaped what I had prayed so hard for.
He stays out all night and the sun always beats him into my home. I lay in my bed all night not able to sleep. My mind goes and spins. I try to imagine God's whisper in my ear, "I LOVE YOU". I try to imagine God's whisper, "I AM HERE". I try to feel God's arms around me. The next day I try with all I have to put on a smile and hope the girls did not notice that he was not home the night before. I pray they did not hear his slurred speech and swearing. I hope they did not peer around the corner to see him stumble or fall.

Family Game Night!

A few night ago Philip downloaded Monopoly to his XBOX 360 (XBOX is a game system) We were all pretty excited about playing Monopoly on the TV! Every time we play on the XBOX we get to choose from 4 different Monopoly boards. The classic board, future board, sweets board and the world board. The girls and I picked the sweets board. My game piece was a gingerbread man, Joslyn was a cupcake, Allison was a wrapped candy and Philip was a donut.

We all had a super fun time playing the game! We played Monopoly until 1am. Philip came to a point in the game where he owed me $600 for landing on my property (I had 2 houses on my property) He was going to go bankrupt or had to sell ALL his property. All of a sudden he became "tired" and wanted to go to bed. All in fun though, that was okay. It was 1am and Philip did have to go to work in a few hours! Can't wait until our next family game night!!

Little Business Lady!

Last week Allison finally got one of her wishes. A lot of children had lemonade stands around our neighborhood. Allison wanted to sell something different than all the other kids. She thought of things that kids really like to eat. Allison came up with the idea to sell pickles and cookies. I took her to the commissary. Allison picked out a big jar of huge dill pickles and a package of chocolate chip cookies. Allison bought the pickles and cookies with her allowance. She also bought small ziplock bags. We came home and put one pickle in each ziplock bag. We also put 2 cookies into one ziplock bag. Together Allison and I did some math together. We figured if she sold every pickle in the jar for 50 cents each she would make a profit of $5. We also figured if she sold a bag of 2 cookies for 25 cents each she would make a profit of $3.
Philip drove around our neighborhood, looking for an old table. He also went to the recycling center. Philip found an old, small bookshelf. I filled a small cooler with ice from our freezer and we put the pickles in the cooler. Allison made a cute sign for her stand. She placed her pickle/cookie stand in the shade, and on the sidewalk of one of the busiest street in our neighborhood. Her stand was also across the street from the recycling center. Its all about location, location, location!

Allison did a pretty good job selling cookies and pickles. She came home with $4! She had a lot of fun! Now Allison would like to have a picnic outside with a few of her girlfriends. So we are working on the details of Allison's picnic!