Its that time of year....

For my favorite little Elf to make an apperance at our house. It is our Elf on a Shelf, Zippy! And he showed up in Johnny's room today. He is an elf that is sent by Santa to report back to him who is being naughty or nice. He flys back to the north pole every night and gives his daily report. Then he reappears in the morning in a different place. (That is how the child knows he went to the N. Pole) There is one rule and it is you can not touch your elf or he will go back to Santa and not return until the next year. Johnny can talk to Zippy and he will also tell Santa things that are on his Christmas list. Johnny was so excited to see him this year and is very into all the rules. Hopefully that means he will follow them. I think its a cute tradition and excited to start it up again.

Stuck like Glue....

Johnny has been such a mamas boy lately. Yes, I know it is because we spend every second of every day together and cause I am awesome. No there is nothing wrong with that. I just laughed when I saw this picture, really sums us up lately.

Thanksgiving

I really feel like the Blue family has so much to be thankful for this year. Here is my top 5 list:

5. Our jobs- yes it is not an ideal situation but we both are working

4. My sanity, while it comes and goes forthe most part I am still sane.

3. Our health. Having a child who can run, climb trees, and play sports is such a blessing.

2. Having a roof over my head, a car to drive and a computer and phones to communicate with my love.

1. All of yall, the friends and family who have helped me and John get through the past 6 months. It is amazing to have such great support from all our loved ones. So thank you!

As usual the Gold/Wolf team made an unbelievable feast, they are the best cooks! We had too much food, and good company. The table was smaller, and without John and Ryan there was a lot of leftovers. lol Johnny got in some good bonding time with the guys and had a blast wrestling with Nolan. (There are just some things a mom cant give a boy.)

I believe John was able to find some roasted turkey for dinner but had a hard day wishing he could be home with us. It is so hard to believe it is Christmas time!!

Photography by Johnny

Here are the latest shots from Johnny.... he thinks it is hilarious to take pictures of my butt.

Fingers Crossed

So John applied for a new job, we need everyone to cross their fingers he gets it. It is for a foreman position, great pay and people the only problem, its still in Iraq. Once an employee has been with KBR for 120 days they are allowed to apply for any other open positions within the company, just so happens one opened up on his base working directly with his boss Gary. He has to go through the interview process but hopefully he will hear something from them soon. He will get a nice raise putting us even closer to reaching our goals.

John has been doing good, reading a lot of books and starting to get ideas - lol. He is pretty homesick this time around mostly because he has much more idle time. The PAR is still going on and the base is really clearing out, the incinerators will have to stay to the end which is good job security for him. The time change on our end has messed up our communication some. We only get to see each other on skype on the weekends now and talk in the morning. Johnny is still avoiding talking to him which is hard for both of them. Looking at the ticker he will be home soon, but the holidays are going to be so hard without him around. If you get a chance give him a call or send an email.

A Fresh Start

Well this week was a fresh start for Johnny Blue. He has been at Duncan Creek Academy since he was 1. The people there started out as really an extended part of our family and it was the best place for him to be while we were at work. Well in the past three years there have been little instances that have rubbed me the wrong way. Like the time the teacher told Johnny she was going to call the police and have them take him away for being bad, or the time that he cut a hole in his shirt while the teacher watched, or just the fact that every day I pick him up from school they run down a list of things he has done down to picking his nose. It has been obvious to me for a while that they have labeled him as the "problem" child and if anything happens in his class he is to blame. Dont think for a second this acting out has anything to do with his dad being gone, he has had 4 teacher changes in the past 6 months or all his friends in his class went to pre - k because these things shouldnt effect a childs behavior. LOL

(Part of this I am sure is my fault because according to DCA I am a difficult parent, yes they told me this. And I will take the title and wear it proud, because I know I am involved, I ask questions and if something is bothering me I speak up. Apparently caring about your child makes a parent difficult.)

Johnny even gets in trouble on days he isn't there (seriously, they told me he has taught the other kids how to be bad and wrestle because I let him look up to superheros). Now I know my boy is not perfect (hard to believe, I know) and is not always an easy child. He has high energy, is hard headed, doesn't always listen he is going to have days he gets into trouble at school. But after this past week at school I knew it was time for a change, he was getting set up for failure everyday. His personality and attitude changed and he has been using words like quit, fail, hate - not anything he has heard from our house. (I will take blame for crap, damnit and shit).

Finding a daycare is not just an easy thing, there are so many out there with different hours, credentials, locations - very stressful. I am very lucky to have friends in the Gwinnett County school system who gave me a few recommendations and after checking them out, visiting the schools I found a cute little place that has a very country feel. Some wonderful southern women who just love what they are doing. Its not fancy, not new, not even the very best curriculum but I can tell that it is a warm and loving environment with a different approach to learning. He started on Monday and what do you know, he has been waking up excited to go to school. Johnny has had a great week and is doing wonderful playing nicely, listening and following directions and he hasn't burned the place down. Crazy huh?

I sure do hate change and with all the change we have already adjusted to this year I was really hesitant on making this decision. But this has helped me realize change can be necessary and in this case GREAT!

No denying the boy is mine

I have been slacking on the posts. It has been an extremely stressful week with all kinds of drama that I will update later. For now I thought I would share something funny with yall. I got a lot of pictures printed to put in some frames and send to John. I also told Johnny we could go to the store and pick out a frame for his room so he can have a new picture too. After he carefully selected the frame we got home and I showed him the pictures. I had a lot of really cute ones of he and John and the three of us. Well this is what he picked to go in his frame.....

All I could do is laugh, I asked dont you want a picture of you and daddy and he said yea, but I really like this one of me. Needless to say I had him pick out a new picture and instead I will just put a mirror in his room. LOL

More Moves

Figured this would be a good pick me up to get through the rest of the week. Johnny recentlymet Lady Gaga at Jennys halloween party and now loves more then ever. Enjoy

Candy, Candy, Candy

That was the theme of the weekend. There is a reason why I dont keep candy in my house, it gets eaten (by me)! I think on Halloween well and the days leading up to it I eat enough candy to last me the year. Then every 30min Johnny was telling me he was hungry but what this really meant was I want candy.

The weekend started on Friday at Johnnys school with a fall festival. Full of games, activities and of course, candy. Then we went to Jenny's work for Spooktackular which was dancing, face painting and more candy. On Sat we had to get ready for Halloween so we went to buy all our candy and of course Sunday was Trick or Treating.

I love it that we have so many kids in our neighborhood, it really makes things fun. We all met outside and just let the kids play for about an hour before hitting the houses. They all took on the characters we had Buzz flying around, Spidey shooting webs and Peter shooting arrows and crowing. When it was time to start Johnny took off, like everything he does it turned into a competition who can ring the doorbell first, who can get the most candy. It was a lot of fun to see them running around like maniacs. I dont think Johnny got the most candy or went to the most houses but I know he had a lot of fun!