aaron.anica.emily.isabel.claire

Em started 1st grade this week and is now gone all day, so my day's are filled with this little angel . . . Lucky for me, her personality is just as fun as her hair! I'm happy to say that the first day of school went fairly well, other than: Emily yelling, "Why can't I just have my OWN fashion!!!" when I tried to help her pick out her first day outfit, Izzy crying and holding her arms out for Em as we walked away from Em's classroom (broke my heart), and Emily refusing to get on the bus to come home because she "didn't know where to get off." All in all, a pretty good day. It all could have gone much worse.

We made the decision at the end of last year for Aaron to join the Army Reserves so that he could get some assistance for school and get on a better career path to support our family. This decision was not made without a lot of thought and careful consideration. In doing this we knew that he would have to leave us for four months to complete his Basic Training and AIT. We're happy to say that he made it through, graduating at the top of his platoon. The girls and I were able to keep busy and stay positive so the time went by fast. Now we're onto the next step, which we knew was a possibility, but hoped it wouldn't happen this soon. Aaron will be leaving for Afghanistan for a year to fight for our country. I have to be honest, when I found this out I laid around and cried for several days before I realized it wasn't doing any good so I better get up and get to work. We're focused on the positive things that will come from it and hope that it will go by fast. W...

but it's still a pig!!! These are the words of Aaron when I attempted to get my family to eat brussell sprouts for dinner for the first time. I brought out some ranch dressing for them to dip them in or in Emily's case drench them in. My family would say that I'm pretty lucky to have never had the experience of eating brusell sprouts growing up. In fact, I tried them for the first time a few months ago at work , where they are cooked in bacon grease and I thought, what's not to like. We received some in our Bountiful Basket one week, so I thought we'd give them a try. My mistake was that I left out the bacon grease. They didn't go over so hot. In the words of Emily, "They smell like throw up and they taste like it too!"