Seasons change...and so much to be thankful for!

I love the fall! I love to see the leaves change colors and begin to fall to the ground!
The colors of fall are so vibrant, and the leaves crunch under you feet when you walk. With the fall come school time, Halloween and Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for this year. But most of all we are thankful to have Troy safely home with us again. The girls are all back in school now, and we have been blessed with AMAZING teachers that the girls adore. Even Samantha has joined the ranks of attending school even if it is only 4 mornings a week. It has been a HUGE incentive to push her and we have successfully got her potty trained! Thank goodness we don't have to buy diapers now! What a HUGE savings to our budget. And as the weather changes, I look forward to the falling snowflakes, and decorating for Christmas. It's my most favorite Holiday! I love the lights! :) Although this is not much of an update, it's all I have for now. I wish you well.
So for now, I bid you goodnight!

Here We Go Again....

Once again it's just me and the girls. Troy was called up to active duty for a month. So me and the girls will finish out this summer alone. We are going to go camping, and have lots of playdates...and go hit the water splash parks here in town. Just keep praying! Things are still really difficult, but we are working on it. Having another separation this soon after being reunited has proven to be very difficult on the girls. But we definitely need the income to pay the bills. It's only a month, we made it a year.... This too shall pass! Thanks for all your prayers, love and support.

Home Again.....

Ok...so aparently bloggin isnt' my strong suit. :) But here's a quick update. Troy returned home safely from Iraq April 27th. He arrived in Ft. Lewis on my birthday April 11th. The girls and I made the long trek up there to see him, it was wonderful to see him face to face. After spending some time up there demobing, he traveled by bus where we were all reunited again and he was able to come home. Below are some pictures from the reunion. A very emotional day! Thank you Suzi for being there with us to capture the memories on film. We are all glad to have Troy back home. The year long deployment was very rough on all of us, but especially our marriage. We are going thru a very rough time adjusting and coping with the aftermath of the deployment. We appreciate your prayers, love and support.

Surgery Update & Family Pictures 2009

Ok, so it's been quite a while since I've updated this. So much has happened. I had my surgery October 23rd. The Dr. ran into some complications and had to open me up to remove it. The scar tissue from my previous 3 c-sections caused everything to web together. My uterus was literally attached to one of my kidneys, my stomach and my liver. As well as my ovaries were fused together with scar tissue so both had to be removed. What started as a simple orthoscopic surgery turned into pretty much a nightmare. But all is removed, and the biopsy has shown that although there were many pre-cancerous cells in the tumors found, they were benign at the time of removal. So now I am on a hormone patch, since she had to remove everything, yes, cervix, uterus and both ovaries had to be removed. It has made for a longer recovery time, but I am overcoming. One day at a time and I've been blessed with a lot of people willing to help out. Troy was able to be home for my surgery and was here to take care of me for the first week post-surgery. It was extremely difficult to tell him goodbye, but it had to be done. I've struggled harder this time around more than the girls have. Only 5 more months and the man of my life will be in my arms again. Counting the days! Anyway, while Troy was home on Emergency leave, we were blessed to have my little brother Tom on R&R leave from his deployment to afghanastan as well. So we jumped at the blessing and had family pictures taken. What with never knowing what tomorrow may bring, we wanted to capture us all together again! So below are the pictures we had done. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. Keep 'em coming, it's not over yet! But I am healing, my heart is mending.....and soon we will all be a family together again!



This is my parents, my brother & his wife, my sister along with Troy & I and our 4 beautiful girls

This is my beautiful big sister!


This is Troy and myself with our beautiful girls. Tabitha is 9, Kathryn is 8, Jordan is 6, and Samantha is 3.




This is my baby brother and his beautiful wife! We are so glad to have her as a part of our family. She helps keep me going when the deployment starts to get to me. Thanks Kels!




More family pics!









And yes, all the pictures are different! The photographer had a blast taking pictures for us. She was amazed at how well behaved the girls were and how well they listened. We didn't have to do any retakes! AMAZING! All of us were looking at the camera and smiling at the same time! It was AWESOME! Best photo shoot ever!