Life in Mommyland

Joe comes home from Iraq tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. I'm going with his brother and mom to welcome him at ft. hood. We'll be leaving about 6 a.m. I've never been there before so it should be interesting. I'm so excited and I'll post pics when we come home on Sunday :)

First Course: Portobello Fries served with a roated tomato coulie (sp?)
Second Course: House Salad with blasamic vinaigrette and shallot dressing
Third Course: Tomato Basil soup
Fourth Course Beef option: New York Oscar- 10 oz cut of Black Angus Beef topped with asparagus, crabmeat and finished with a hollandaise sauce, served with baked potato and vegetables. 
Fourth Course Chicken option: Champagne Chicken-6oz chicken breast lightly browned. Served with a creamy Champagne sauce on a bed of garden vegetable rice pilaf with honey butter glazed carrots.

We tried it all  while in Eureka Springs and it was delicious! The menu is set now all we need are numbers and that is taken care of. We also decided on the bar service we would have and appetizers for the cocktail hour. Stacey made a mock up of our save the date postcards that we'll mail after the first of the year. I need to go pick up my dress from the store, it's been a week since they called to tell me it arrived. I think I'm afraid to bring it home and put it in the closet for fear that I'll be tempted to pull it out and look at it and something happen. I think it's safer at the bridal shop lol!

We're home after a long day of driving yesterday. We arrived yesterday early evening, and relaxed for the rest of the night. We had a really lovely time and it was nice to be kid free for a couple days, believe me. I love our boys but they have been pushing my buttons a lot lately and the older they get the more ornery they become.

Thanksgiving was yummy of course, we dined at the hotel's brunch service and it was very good. I had lots of Champagne and chocolate covered strawberries, lamb, prime rib, ham etc...there was so much food! Too much to choose from actually. 

We took lots of pictures and I'll post them as soon as I get them uploaded and sorted.

We went to the movies sans kids last week and watched Across The Universe. It was well written and the music wasn't butchered which was something I feared. I enjoyed it and would watch it again. We're getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday coming up. Eli is going to Missouri to spend a couple days with hs dad who is traveling from Florida to visit him mom there. We'll be leaving early tomorrow morning to drive him to Springfield, then heading to Eureka Springs, AR to hang out until Friday morning when we go back to Missouri to pick him up and come home. Kristopher will spend the holiday with his own dad as well. It's going to be nice to have a couple days kid free, we're going to stay at The Crescent which is awesome because we've not stayed there before. We usually stay somewhere cheap and kid friendly not fancy when we travel to E.S. The Crescent is supposed to be haunted as well which makes us a little anxious but looking forward to checking out some paranormal activity.

We shall see what happens! When we come back , we'll be having our own thanksgiving dinner that Sunday with my mom and both of the boys. Speaking of my mom, she celebrated her birthday on Saturday, the big Five-Oh! We took her dinner and had a nice evening with cake. The boys helped make the cake too and did a great job. I think my mom had a nice birthday, I would like to have been able to do more for her but we have to budget our finances and did what we could.

Sunday was our two year anniversary :) We had a nice relaxing day, I cooked chicken piccata for dinner and would have made brownies for dessert but our sink backed up and my kitchen became a huge mess until the plumber came last night. It was a nice quiet anniversary. Our treat will be having a couple days away from the kids this week and staying at the crescent as well as the Thanksgiving Brnuch they serve. It's supposed to be a very big and delicious deal in E.S. so we're excited.

I'll post some pictures from our trip when we get back. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!

I know we've been planning a wedding and therefor already knew we were going to get married but she made it official and put a beautiful ring on my finger. It matches my other ring perfectly, which enables it to act as a band so I don't have to take it off either! I love my ring it's gorgeous and I feel so  fancy wearing it. It's the nicest thing I've ever owned, I feel as if I don't deserve it. I know it's silly but that part of me that grew up with nothing often tells myself things like that. Maybe it's my fear of having nothing again? I don't know. I know I am worthy of love and being loved and being treated nicely. I deserve to have something pretty but don't demand it. I'm very grateful for my life now but that small part of me keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's that little girl in me that never had a promise kept or a dream met, it's the young woman in me that took that disappointment with me through my young adulthood and the grown woman in me that fears it's all going to be taken away. 

I trust because it's all I can do, if I worry or give in to my fears then I'm jinxing myself. I also trust because Stacey hasn't given me a reason not to. She's kept every promise or word, treated me unbelievably kind, spoiled me rotten and loves me uncondtionally. I'm so blessed and I have to put it somewhere or else I'll just explode. I feel like I can't share my feelings anywhere because then I'm bragging or whatever but dammit I came from someplace really dark and I'm in the light finally; why can't I share my joy a little bit? I don't want to make others feel bad or if they are in a worse place to remind them of that. I just want to remind myself and say it out loud where I came from and where I am now in my life emotionally and mostly recognize/acknowledge so I don't ever go back. *sigh* enough rambling lol I've got to run to the grocery..I'll post a pic of the ring too! The ones we took with the camera didn't come out very well, so I pulled a pic off the website and cropped it.

 

honestly, the picture doesn't do it justice and doesn't show the gorgeous ivory and champagne colors but here you go!








this is a close up of it on me



some details of the train