Sweet...

These are some of the pictures the girls love and remember spending with daddy and wanted on their pillows. We miss you daddy!!!

Aniaya, clung to Andrew like this for hours after he returned from 3 months of training. She didn't even want to let go of him to go into her car seat. I love this sweet, tender picture. It reminds me what this life should be about.

MUAH!!!!

Hug a Hero

Our girls have really been missing daddy a lot and so I wanted to find something that would help them cope with Andrew being MIA for so long. While on line I found a website called "Hug a Hero" and you can send in a photo of your loved one and they will print it and make a little stuffed doll for you but it cost about 40 bucks a doll so....I decided to make my own. On the website it shows customers sending in pics of their kids carrying the dolls everywhere and doing everything with it like it gave them a sense of daddy being there. Well, my kids were never much for being attached to any one thing as babies so I didn't think they would like them as much as they do. It's so sweet, they go to sleep with them, play house with it and pretend daddy is talking and having tea with them, they give it hugs and kisses morning and night just like they would with daddy. I didn't make one for Cyri yet but sometimes she will steal one of the older girls and you will find her tucked away in a corner watching tv snuggling with it. I bought a few voice recorders from Build a Bear and sent them to Andrew so he can record messages on them and I will put them inside the dolls too so they can also hear his voice.

Just to showcase a few...

I go to turn on my camera to find a few pictures to post and I find about 50 of these. Maybe more, I stopped counting but they were all of Anaiya taking pictures of herself. Where was I? I don't know when she was able to sneak the camera to do this and I not know about it. Another one of those moments when you realize you are "NOT" so on top of things and wonder what else they've done that you haven't seen yet. My first reaction was to be annoyed but then I didn't want to erase them either cause they were all pretty cute but even a mom doesn't need 50 crazy close up shots of those puppy brown eyes. So I only kept a few adorable ones.

Party in the front, business in the back

The girls found Uncle Steve's wig from last Halloween when he was part of the 300 Spartans then year before that a "redneck".

Cyri's struck gold!!

So Cyri finally figured out where we keep all the good stuff. I found her getting into the fridge by herself after Anaiya forgot to close the door. I wonder how long this will be cute for until she pulls everything out and gets her first time-out? I'll be sure to document those pictures too.
"Where have I been? There's a gold mine in here! Oh and I can get that cold milk by myself now instead of waiting for someone to have pity on me before they get me a bottle!!! SCORE. Now, if only my toes were a little longer."

"If I could just figure how to get out....."

Trinity on guard duty

While we were cleaning out our garage and boxes we came across a box labled "Steve's crap". In it we found his collection of 1960's military camo stuff he use to collect and then we came across Andrew's be-be air rifle so we dressed up Trinity and assigned her to guard duty. It became almost necessary after a while because all the neighborhood kids kept coming by and snooping at the kids toys we were organizing and asking if we were giving them away or having a garage sale. Luckily Trinity in her very intimidating military/cheerleading outfit was able to secure the borders and not have to enter behind enemy lines!!!

Cyri visiting Grandma Her at the hospital

My mom was in the hospital for 11 days and half of that time she was in the ICU where no one under 12 yrs was allowed in so she was missing her grand babies alot. This night we took Cyri with us to deliver her dinner and when she found out Cyri was outside in the waiting room but couldn't come in she was so sad. It broke my heart so I convinced the nurse on duty to get her an oxygen tank and let us take her for a walk. I told the nurse I thought it would do her heart some good to see her grand baby for a little bit. When the double doors opened and Cyri saw grandma she let out a huge scream and ran towards my mom. Her little legs couldn't get her there fast enough. Sure enough the next day they said grandma's heart was a little better and she was released from the ICU!!!!