In a perfect world....

A babysitter would have been hired, I would have gotten a little more dressed up than usual, been taken to a really nice restaurant, and would have gotten to spend the entire evening alone with my husband in celebration of our 7th anniversary. But since it is an imperfect world, this year we are separated by over 17000 miles of land and sea due to duty and obligation. Things are imperfect and I am definitely imperfect, but in it all God has still granted his perfect grace and for that I am very thankful.
Aaron, I love you even so much more than the day I married you. You are one amazing man, and I am so blessed that you are mine. The relationship we share, the way you make me laugh (even when I'm mad at you), the laughter and life that we share, and the home and family that we have built together are precious and priceless. As cliche as it sounds, I truly married my best friend. I'm looking forward the rest of our lives together and the many anniversaries ahead. I miss you so much. I love you. Happy Anniversary!

My two peas in a pod

Mmmmm.....

Doing this whole single parent thing while your husband is away is anything but easy.  I know I have a lot to be thankful for and I am grateful.  Aaron hasn't even been gone a week and I'm already exhausted.  Life/time definitely doesn't stop regardless of the circumstances.  Being a mom is already by far the most intense non-stop work possible and of course it has it's rewards, but trying to fill two parents shoes some days, just seems impossible. Some days are definitely better than others.  So far the only thing that has blown up has been my rather expensive blow dryer (and I do mean that it literally blew up while drying Morgan's hair!  and her response was "that didn't sound good Mama, I think it's broken!")  I would like to think and hope that that will be the only thing that will blow up over this TDY......hopefully!!!! Only time will tell.

Tonight...

was our monthly squadron spouses meeting and we hosted it at our house this month.  As always it was good food and company.  Thank- you to all of you who were able to come...it was good to see you again.  An incredibly huge thanks to my wonderful husband who lovingly put up with my stress and helped with whatever needed to be done, my sister who was invaluable in the kitchen with the food and cleaning, and to Amy for bringing over two large pots of coffee.  I'm not usually one to host larger get-togethers, but it was good to step out of my comfort zone and do something different.  And I must say that it felt good to get some "spring/deep" cleaning done in preparation for it.  Now to sit down with a cup of coffee and relax for a few minutes! 

A beautiful evening...

An unplanned baseball game took place in our backyard this evening- kid style- and it was great! Morgan wanted to play with her new bat and ball which in turn ended up attracting some of our neighbor's children and a couple parents. It was so much fun just to watch them play and of course the dad's went easy on them so they could run the bases! I love it when the weather gets warmer!

For those of you who have been wondering...

what I've been painting and up to the past couple of weeks...well here you go! Below is our closet at its worse. This house has the smallest closets of any place that we've lived so far and the fact that Aaron and I have to share a closet makes it even more interesting! So the first 2 pics are of the messy closet and half of the mess dumped out on my bed so we could work in the closet!

After pulling out the old shelves and rods we had to patch the walls, sand, and then paint -and here is Aaron after sanding the spackling in our closet...you would have thought that there was a dust storm in our room!

And finally after 4 days of a complete and total mess- here is the finished closet...it is so nice to be able to actually walk in and find what you're looking for! Aaron calls it his superman closet because there's actually room to changed in there! And we actually have done Morgan's closet and the office closet, so they're functioning spaces too-thank goodness!

Yes I love shoes! this is only half of them...the rest of them are hanging on the back of the closet door!(they're just not in the picture!)

And our room restored back to functioning order!

Then here's a little sneak peak at the office which is almost done...still working on the window trim. Yeah, being a southern girl, I really like white trim work in houses, so after 2 years I decided that I didn't really want to live with the wood trim work in our house so I've begun painting it room by room (It's a royal pain, but worth it) The green is a little softer in person. (And since someone asked me what the color was...it's jalapeno pepper by Benjamin Moore Paints picked by Pottery Barn for the Fall pallete.)

And I finally finish painting Morgan's bathroom tonight. The yellow is softer than the picture shows. It turned out nice. So that among other things is what we've been up to over the past couple of weeks!

He lives!

This verse and chorus from a hymn has been running through my head this evening, so I thought I'd share it.
"I serve a risen Savior. He's in the world today. I know that He is living whatever men may say. I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer, and just the time I need Him, He's always near. He Lives...He Lives...Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me and talks with me along lifes narrow way. He Lives...He Lives...Salvation to impart. You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart. "

What an amazing gift that God gave to us through is Son, Jesus, the gift of eternal life. And how amazing to serve our risen Lord. I'm so thankful that He is Risen!