Getting Ready

I had so much stuff I wanted to say, now that I am sitting here I can't think of any of it!
I started my meds again after 3 years of being off of them. With the holidays and my brother being sent to Iraq, the anxiety just got to be too much. They put me on a different one (Klonopin) and I am not sure how much I like it yet.
Rob and I are doing awesome. He even brought me flowers out of the blue the other day. Today was his re-enlistment. He had it out in the field during his combat training class that he instructs. They shot off gun afterward so it was pretty cool. We stayed with him the rest of the day at work and got to watch him scream at students. He is definitely in his element out there. So much so that people are always amazed at how loving and different he is with me and Mimi.
We are getting ready to go to Mississippi for Christmas and we will have all of our children for the holidays. That is very very exciting for us! The 18 hour drive...not so exciting! I still have so much to do to get ready and here I sit, on the computer. I didn't sleep much last night though, so I am feeling lazy. We leave Friday, hopefully early because I keep getting phone calls asking when we will be there! They don't want to see us, its Mimi they are after!

I got paid for another article that I wrote last night. This one is about New Orleans. Check it out. www.associatedcontent.com/article/492605/best_tourist_attractions_in_new_orleans.html

Well, Rob and Mimi are waiting on me. I will try and remember more later.

Please

My little brother (who is bigger than me) is on his way to Iraq with the Army. I spoke with him last night and he was scheduled to leave at 1 am.
Please keep him and our family in your thoughts and/or prayers. I hardly slept last night.

Thank you

Dana

Two New Articles and a small update

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/435808/bumkins_diaper_your_baby_in_comfort.html


www.associatedcontent.com/article/433610/tmobile_wing_flies_over_the_competition.html


I sat down and wrote these in the past couple days. One was published yesterday and the other today. Take a look.

We have all been doing really well. We took Mimi trick or treating on Halloween. She was a ladybug. I put up an album of her pics. I am sure daddy will Photoshop a nice Halloween pic of her again this year. I'll post it when it is finished.
She LOVED Halloween! She toddled right up to people's doors and dropped her pumpkin in front of them, then she would look at them like..."Uh..put the candy in!" She got the hang of it really quick! She would cry when we had to pick her up between houses becaused she liked it so much! There were a group of houses that set up a haunted maze in their combined backyards. It was awesome. They had smoke and scary music and nasty looking creatures walking around scaring people. Millanah is JUST like her daddy! She loved it. There were kids screaming and crying, not Mimi! She looks right at the monsters smiles, waves and says "Hi!!" She wasn't scared of any of it!

Last night Rob took me to have Sushi. Yum! We had a great time. Mimi really tries to master the chopsticks! She loves Japanese food too! We love it that she likes so many different types of food and we plan on introducing as many different kinds as we can.
We started Christmas shopping. I love it...retail therapy! Rob is getting so much better about it too. I think after 5 years he realizes that its not going to change. Plus, he sees how happy it makes me.
We are planning on going home for Mississippi and tha makes me REALLY happy. We thought that we would stay in NJ this year because of the expense. But Rob told me last week that if I really wanted to go home he was fine with it. We want to see all the kids. I get really sad when I am away from my babies for too long, he feels bad about that. So...home we will go!

Anyway, things are awesome. Look at my articles...thats it! :)

Duckies and Hookers

Right now I am stretching in my own living room! It is a 2 and a half day drive from NM to NJ.

Before we left, Rob wanted to take me to the zoo. So we went with his mom, Carlos and Mimi. I have some cute pictures from that trip. I already put a few of them up on MySpace. Daddy wanted Mimi to feed the duckies so he took her over. She wasn't too sure at first but quickly warmed up to it. She cried when we were all out of food and it was time to move on. She LOVED the ducks!
About a quarter of the way through the zoo, Uncle Carlos decided to join Mimi in the wagon. Rob pulled them both around and got a pretty good workout. I have pics of that too, but I don't know if I've posted them yet. We had a good time, even though the polar bears weren't out!

Later that night, Rob took me for a drive down Central. We saw three prostitutes! Yeah, I know...I get excited about the weirdest things. But those who know me, especially those who grew up with me...know there weren't exactly hookers hanging out on the corner of Eagle Rd. and Neal Rd! So I have never seen stuff like that. My husband finds it adorable and loves to show me these things. LOL I didn't take any pictures of the hookers...only because I didn't think of it until now. :)

I know we did more stuff, I just can't think of it right now. Greg Jackson wrote out a workout plan/diet for Rob to follow. For ROB to follow! I am not giving up McDonalds. Nope. And I can't stand to lose another ounce. The last time I weighed myself, I weighed 5 pounds less than when I graduated High School! I am trying to gain, and I think I may have gained a little in NM but we don't have a scale so I dunno. As for exercise? Yeah...no. I am not into self-inflicted torture. I went jogging with Rob twice because he begged me.. It pretty much sucked. Now when he wants me to come to the gym with him, I am a spectator only!

Anyway, I digress. We left a little later than we had planned on Friday. After driving for a few hours, Rob pulled into Chuck E Cheese. I think we were in Oklahoma. We stayed there for about 2 hours. It was so much fun. I'll put up some pics later. Rob and I are so competitive, so we played about 20 games of Skee-Ball. He says he is Champion of Skee-Ball. But he knows the real truth. :) Oh yeah....Mimi had fun too. lol

In Ohio, I introduced Rob to Meijer. He had never been to Ohio...or Meijer. It was like 5 am and we needed to stop and stretch. He bought me my favorite BBQ sauce that isn't sold at home, and a case of Vernor's...also not sold at home. YUM! Vernor's is the ONLY good gingerale!

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We made some more minor stops and eventually got home. Mimi was really excited to see all her toys. Her allergies are acting up again though. Her nose is runny yet plugged. Poor baby. Hopefully the Claritin starts working soon.

Rob is back at work today. Mimi and I are hanging out. I am trying to put stuff away and do some laundry. She is "helping" by tearing everything out of the suitcase and throwing it on the floor.
Thats all for now. Keep checking my pics folders. I'll be adding new ones as much as I can.

Albuquerque

We have been in New Mexico for almost two weeks now. We have been having lot's of fun. I've had Mexican food (duh), Indian food twice (as in India), Japanese...and we are going to try and have some Thai before we leave Friday morning.

We all went up to the mountains to the cabin. That was really fun. There was an outhouse...which I DID NOT step foot in! Rob took me up this really scary road (I am terrified of heights!) and the view at the top was beautiful! Mimi had a great time too. Of course grandma and grandpa gave in to her every whim. There are a million pictures that I will post on my page soon.

I saw my very first Balloon Fiesta last week. There were hundreds and hundreds of hot air balloons. Special shapes day was my favorite. Again, I have lots of pictures! Mimi was intrigued by the balloons for quite awhile. Then she decided that it was also fun to eat rocks and sticks!

One of the coolest things to happen is that Rob started training at Greg Jackson's gym here. If you know anything about MMA or UFC then you know that his gym is one of the top rated in the country. Greg is a really cool guy. The first day Rob went Keith Jardine, Rashad Evans and Nate Marquardt were all there helping out. He was so excited. The next day, the UFC was there interviewing Rashad for his upcoming fight against Michael Bisping. They panned around the gym, and the interview was in the cage. Rob was hitting the bag right behind the cage. So he might have a cameo in one of the interviews!
He has been asking me to go all week, so finally I went yesterday. Not a single fighter I recognized was there! Mimi was a celebrity there. Fighters were in the middle of submissions and they are smiling and waving at her! Mimi was just calling out to daddy who was across the gym. It was super cute.
I went again tonight, grandma kept Mimi for us this time. I walked in and Rashad and Nate were sparring in the cage. It was really cool. I was sitting in a chair in front of the heavy bags, when the class started Rashad started hitting the bags. There were a few times I could have reached out and touched him. (Which I didn't!) lol I didn't take any pictures of him either, I felt like enough of an idiot just looking at him while he was training. It was really cool though.
Georges St. Pierre is supposed to get into town like 2 days after we leave. :(
Anyway, it has been a fun and interesting trip. I hate to see it come to an end in a couple days.

New Jersey

Mimi and I are back in Jersey with Rob again. We don't have internet at the house right now. We have been home about a week. Mimi took to daddy in no time. She doesn't want him out of her sight even for a minute. If he goes to the next aisle in the grocery store she is calling, "Daaaaa!" He loves it of course. She immediately realized that she has him wrapped around her little finger.

All is well. We are trying to plan our trip to New Mexico now.

I don't have much time, so this is going to be a short one!

I will say that the next time I have Millanah at an airport alone...she will be wearing a LEASH!! :)

Football!!

Chandler and Griffen both had their first football games today. Both of their teams are pretty filled with first time players so not surprisingly they both lost. But they did very well. Griffen plays linebacker. It is so cute, the coaches pretty much stay on the field. They are 8 years old and have NO IDEA what they are doing out there! The coaches are constantly positioning them and guiding them. Griffen proudly said, "I hit 3 guys at once! But I am not allowed to tackle unless they have the ball." I didn't get any still shots of his game because I was so concerned with not forgetting the camcorder. I will definitely take some at next weeks game. Justice is a cheerleader for his team but they didn't get their uniforms yet. As soon as she gets it I will take some of her too.
Chandler is the quarterback on his team. He did awesome and thankfully for both of us, he didn't get sacked at all! He said he had a lot of fun out there. You can tell they are still in the instructional phase because quite a few of them were lost out there.
I had such a good time watching the boys. It reminded me of when Joey played. Though he started a couple of years older. I think he was 11.

I have video of Mimi cheering for the boys, mocking the cheerleaders. Heaven help me!!

Writing

I decided to take a chance and write a little something for Associated Content. I was nervous because I have heard that getting approved has suddenly become a lot more difficult. I wrote it last night and came home from breakfast to see that it had been published! Yay! Anyway, here it is.
www.associatedcontent.com/article/368963/lessons_from_hurricane_katrina_will.html

Oy..

Apparently my daughter has decided that her sister and brother's chalk makes a great snack! I wish I had pictures but I usually forget to take my camera next door.
I try to remember and put the chalk easel up on top of the table where she can't reach it when I know I am going to be there a little while. As soon as we get there, it's the very first place she goes.
Three days in a row she has managed to sneak a few pieces. The first day her face was dripping purple, I pulled a red and a blue that she had hidden in her fat little cheeks.
Yesterday, Dennis carried her out in the kitchen and asked what it meant when Mimi is drooling bright green... I coaxed out a blue and a green piece but she was not happy about giving it up! Today, she managed to find a random blue one and toddled out with blue lips crunching away happily. YUCK! Chalk cannot taste good! I have no idea why she is so intent on eating it! Initially it was probably the bright colors that intrigued her, but she keeps doing it and once she has it she does not want to give it up!!
I can't seem to get it through to her that chalk is not food! Oy...

Fighting

No, not me. :)

My favorite UFC fighter Randy Couture is defending his title tonight and I have been banned from watching the fight until Rob gets home to watch it with me. He can watch it over in UAE for free, but is waiting too. I guess that is sweet...but I SO want to watch it!!

Rob had his very first MMA fight last Wednesday. I didn't even get to be there for it. Ahh well. Anyway, I guess the guy he fought was a really good wrestler..shot in to take him down. Rob brought the guy's face into his knee. Faces don't usually like that very much! The guy was knocked out after 24 seconds. He fights again on the 3rd. Hopefully this next fight lasts long enough for his friend to get the video camera on! Since this is done on the base, they fight in a ring and I guess they have to wear pads. They also can't use elbows.
I've seen him train, but there isn't full force hitting during training. I think if I were able to watch him fight, this would be the way to go. Padded up and no elbows!

Mimi is asleep. So now I need to go find a distraction.

Getting Creative

http://www.cafepress.com/mommysbabies


So I decided to make my very own CafePress store. I just started it today. I only have gender neutral and girl so far. After you click on the link you will understand what I am talking about. Hopefully I will be adding baby boy soon though. The artwork is mine. When Rob gets home we are going to open a couple others with our photography. I'll put up those links when the time comes. :)

Baby Pics, Football and Birthdays

I have been trying to add a bunch of older pics to my MySpace album. I finally sat down and figured out how to use my dad's fax/scanner to scan pictures directly to my camera memory card. As soon as that happened I immediately gathered stacks of photos to scan! Most of my old pictures of the kids got destroyed in the hurricane but luckily Dennis and Sarah have a bunch of the copies. And since he happens to live next door.....
Well, its really hard to choose pics of your babies so I ended up with a PILE of pics to scan! One of these days coming up I will start scanning again. Unfortunately we can't seem to find many of Justice as a baby....a million of Chandler....but I have quite a few at my house in NJ so I may have to wait until I come back to add more of her. Come to think of it, I might have stolen all of the baby pics of Justice and thats why we can't find them! LOL

Its been hot here so I took the baby swimming for a little bit yesterday. She holds on for dear life, yet squeals "Weeeeee!" It's too cute. It's not nearly as hot as where Rob is though. He sent me a picture of the outside thermometer. 130 degrees!! He is going to be a popsicle when he gets home.

The boys started football last week. So far they seem to like it. The hitting hasn't started yet though and they aren't practicing in their full gear yet either. Ugh, just thinking about how hot that is going to be makes my stomach turn!

Justice...uh...yeah...she signed up for cheerleading. MUCH to my chagrin! I hope this is just a phase. Please lord, let it be a phase!! She really wanted to do it though and her daddy never could tell her no. It's cute when you're 6 I suppose. And she did look pretty adorable in the uniform. I'll take pics when the real ones come in. She is cheering for Griffen's team, and boy was she mad! We asked her, "Don't you want to cheer for your brother?" She crossed her arms and said, "No! I want to cheer for MYSELF!" Yeah, she doesn't quite get it yet.

Nothing else is really going on. Just hanging out with Sarah during the days. Well me, Mimi, Sarah and Avrie. :)
Mimi is toddling all over the house now and is saying more and more words every day. Avrie taught her "NO!" And the only time you hear her say it is to Avrie, when Avrie is trying to take away whatever it is that Mimi has at the time.

Chandler's 10th birthday is coming up next month so Sarah and I are trying to plan that too. I can't believe my baby is going to be 10! I feel so old! lol

Aight, I'm tired. Mimi woke up at 3:30 am once again last night. Ugh. So I am pretty much counting on being awake around that time again tonight. Therefore I must try and sleep!

The First One

I've been bored with my parents always gone and the kids being in school now so I decided to start playing around with blogs. I am going to try to start using this format to blog from now on and I'll just post the link to my MySpace blog when I write.

Obviously the title of my blog stems from the fact that I pretty much live out of my suitcase. Travelling back and forth from NJ to MS.

That might change in a few months though. We'll see...

Anyway, my butt is numb from sitting in this computer chair for so long. Time for a change of scenery!

Later!