I so needed this...

Tonight I had a few ladies over to the house for pizza and while the kids played. We put together a rocking chair. We got it together without any major incidents. Just one small misstep about arms or the chair. Those aren't important anyway right? I so needed this tonight. I forget how much I love having people over. I get so hung up on how my house isn't as nice as I would like or on how the kids have messed it up, or it's too small; and I don't get to enjoy having this house that really is a nice place and the kids always have a blast. I'm really especially thankful to these women who came over and gave me something to do and someone to talk to when I really needed a friend. Thanks girls!
Kenneth finished Pre K today so now school is officially out for summer! Yay! I get to sleep in in the morning. I'm so excited!

random ramblings

I've gotten so far behind on here that I don't even know anymore what to say or post. So here are some random facts. Ready?!

Adrianna is now a 5th grader! Oh my, where did the time go?

Lilly will be 3 in 2 weeks! Again, time...where'd it go?

Kenneth has his last day of school tomorrow and then he's a kindergartner! Wow.

I am so so ready to be out of Georgia. There's too much drama here that I'm just so ready to be done with.

We still have no orders. Bummer.

Chris is still able to call us and he is miserable. I hate knowing he's missing us as much as we are him.

I can't wait to do some traveling this summer!

I need to rent out my house, but I can't do that until I know when I'm leaving here.

The kids miss people. They ask to go to certain places or see people and it hurts me to have to tell them we can't. They have to miss their daddy. It really isn't fair for them to have to miss family and friends as well. Especially people that are here!

Lilly and Kenneth have been acting up a bit since Chris has left. Kenneth's is totally ignoring me when I ask him to do something and Lilly just has an attitude.

Adrianna is a champ at this sort of thing. She handles it well.

I miss my dad!

I am so thankful for the group of women that I have in my life while the guys are away. They really are my family here. The USS Georgia wives are the best!

I have a neighbor take care of my lawn. For $20 a week he mows, trims, edges, and will spread grass seed or fertilizer. It's a great deal!

I have painting that I need to do and I HATE painting.

Kenneth's soccer is over. I'm kind of sad about that.

I need my husband home now.

Mean people suck!

Totally random nonsense from me today ladies and gentlemen! Here's a cute picture or 2! :)

Superstar Lilly

My Lilly is a superstar in her own mind. :) She loves singing. This is the song that she was singing ALL day yesterday. It's really cute. I can't believe how big she has gotten.

Life goes on

Chris left one week ago. It was horribly sad working up to that day, but since then everyone has been okay. There have been a few issues with attitudes and stuff but thankfully no one is crying for Daddy for hours. I am just amazed at how the kids just adjust. This is their norm and they are okay with it. We miss him terribly, but life does continue on.

So since he's left I've had a few moments of excitement. I found a rattlesnake on our back porch, I squished my finger so hard I still think I might lose the nail, and last night my ADT alarm went off just after 2am! We are all sound asleep and the alarm starts screaming. It's so loud that if someone had been in the house it would have made their ears ring for quite awhile. My front door was partially open but I think that I didn't make sure that it was closed all the way before bed and it blew open just enough to set it off. It was so scary. I had no idea if it was just an accident or if someone had tried to break into the house. I checked every closet and under every bed before feeling okay enough to set the alarm again. I still didn't make it back to sleep until after 4 sometime because I was so scared. So that's enough excitement for one deployment for me. Hopefully the rest of the summer will fly by without incident.

I've been working really hard to get the house ready to have someone rent it. I've been painting and doing yardwork like crazy. I even cleaned all the carpets. I almost don't want to leave it after we've done so much work to it. I'm lookin forward to the move. I wish it would just happen already! We still don't have orders because of all the flooding in TN. Hopefully things will get settled up in Millington and we'll get orders.

I've been horrible with pictures lately. I have tons, but I just haven't done anything with them. Here's some just to tide you over a bit.

Outta here!

So the Navy has decided that it's time for us to move on. I'm really really excited. We found out we're going to Millington, TN. That's just outside of Memphis in case you didn't know. I've got great friends that still live there and so we are even more ready for the move because we know they're there! I've gotten Lilly in a preschool and I've been looking at many a house to find something for us there to live in. I've found quite a few that are "perfect" but I'm undecided on which perfect we want. Do I want to live in a house for just over 2 years that is smallish, like the one we have now, but it is cheaper and in the school area that I want. Or do I pay a bit more and get the house that I really want. I feel like I need more room than we have here, but I know it's not a need. It's a want so I need to decide what is really important. I would love to have a playroom and/or office as well as the 4 bedrooms. But that is a lot of space. Is it smarter to just stick with the 4 bedrooms and have the kids' toys all over their rooms? And what about guests? I would love to have a place for guests to stay. Too many decisions, and that's only about the house.
I'm going to go to school when we get there too. I've been wanting to go back to school for a long time now. Babies happened and I put my education on hold for a little while so that I could devote all of my time to the kids. Now the kids are getting older and everyone is in school a few days a week and I have a little bit of time. I'm going to do it! I want to have something outside of just being mommy. It's important to me and that's the only reason I'm doing it.
The next few months are going to bring lots of change for the Smith House. Chris will be gone, I'm moving (on my own!!), we'll be homeless for a little while, I'm leaving all of my really good friends behind. These women have kept me going these past 3 years when things were tough, I had them to turn to. Now I'm going to be kind of starting over, turning a page. I'm a strong woman, I know I can do this! But it scares the crap out of me honestly.

Wow, it's been awhile!

So time has sped by quicker than I realized. I can't believe it's been so long since my last post.

Chris got home in early February. We've been spending as much time together as a family as we can. We've taken a trip to Tennessee and visited with some of our best friends. We had Easter at my dad's house too. It was so nice to have some help on the drive. My drive at Christmas was just me and kids and it was kind of stressful. Chris and I took turns driving and it was nice.
My Kenneth had a birthday! He's 5! I really can't believe that.
We attended a friggin awesome ship's party. I had too much to drink, but I think a good time was had by all.
And we've figured out that we're moving. Kind of soon too. Come June or July I will be saying goodbye to sunny southern Georgia and Hello to Memphis TN! We are really excited about the move. I'm really happy to be nearer to family and we'll be in the same town with some great friends too! I will be taking care of the move by myself since Chris will be deployed during the entire summer. I'm kind of freaking out about that fact. I consider myself pretty good with this whole Navy thing most times, but this is one thing I've not had to deal with on my own before. I can do it, I know I can, but I do get a bit stressed about these kinds of things. I've found some great houses so far so I'm really excited about this move.
Well I got a new computer so I hope to do better keeping things up to date. I have a million and 51 pictures that I would like to share so I'll try to upload some soon.

These pictures are from Adrianna's birthday. I started this post but never got around to posting it. Oops! So Happy Birthday Adrianna. I know she had a great day. I can't believe she's 10 already!