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{11.11}

It has been one year today since Jeremy chose to leave this earth and return to his heavenly home. It's unbelievable to me that it has already been a year. It's amazing how time can seem to stand still and fly by at the same time. He is dearly missed and always will be, but I know he is also here among us all the time. He is watching over us to make sure we are well taken care of and he is pushing me along in raising our kids. I'm reminded of him every single day in my children's faces, how Cash walks and talks, and Preslee's nose and attitude; songs, places we went to together and just feelings and smells. I know there are a lot of people who feel the loss of Jeremy. Who knew someone could be so missed and yet, think he shouldn't stay. I suppose he felt like he could do more from where he is now... Our aching hearts are on the mend, but will always have the scar that is left from the pain of him choosing to leave. I'm so thankful that we have such amazing family and friends who have gotten me thru the hard times, let me cry on their shoulders, and pulled me out of auto-pilot when the time was right for me to move forward. I will never forget how much help I've had to get thru this. It is all of you out there who have shown your love and support that have made me strong enough to pick up and keep going. Thank you.

We love and miss you, Jeremy. Every day.

All Hallow's Eve

My scary Frankenstein and Witch!

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Like everyone else, we ended up with way too much candy, had way too many places to visit, and ended up with belly aches by the end of the night. We never learn. Ha! It's all worth it though. The kids had a great time and its so fun to show them off to everyone. It's a good excuse to visit with family and friends. Can't wait for next year!

| family is forever |

We just had our family pictures done by Christy Hair (Cheap Shots! Photography) and am absolutely in love with what she did! I can't say enough about how great she is, how easy she is to work with, and how much I love what she does with her camera! She has done an amazing job, again! And the name of her company says it all! You get a CD of all your images with the copyright release included with your cheap little fee! She is so talented...

thank you thank you Christy! I love everything I've seen so far and can't wait to see the CD!

You're amazing. I heart them.

::my baby::

I know this is terribly late, but I can't skip over it. My baby girl, Preslee, is now 5! I can hardly believe that 5 years have passed from the time I had my first baby! [man, do I feel old] I know everyone says this, but its true, I can't remember life without her. I mean, I remember being able to run with friends at the drop of a dime, not worrying constantly and spending my money however I wanted.... but I can't ever remember having love like I know it now. And I would never go back to a life without it. She has brought so many things to my life that I am thankful for. My little princess Preslee has taught me more than I will ever teach her. One of the most important being that little lesson of 'having faith of a little child'. She is amazing. And I will always have a little extra sparkle in my eye because I have her.

Preslee was born on September 16, 2004 at 9:13am after 13 hours of long, hard labor over night! She decided, from that ripe old age of, well, prebirth, that she would enter the world on her own terms and decided to be born face-up! She was a chunky 8lbs 8oz and 21 inches long (with cone head... 25 mins later after it was gone, probably only 20inches. lol) I remember the first time I held her thinking "I want to see her tiny hands".... but, tiny they were not. She had fat fat hands with little dimpley knuckles! She had so much black hair that we couldn't even see her scalp! She was perfect in every way possible. It is truly amazing, how the very second I saw my baby for the first time, the moment the doctor held her up and said "It's a girl!" (*we didn't know!!*) my heart changed forever. I remember Jeremy saying that the first thing that went thru his mind was her growing up and him having to protect her forever... his baby girl. I remember him walking over to see her in the little bed, and asking the nurse "Can I touch her?" He just couldn't wait to get her in his arms, and when he did, he didn't want to let go. Literally, I had to tug her out of his arms so that I could hold her for the first time! It was the happiest day of his entire life, and mine too. We were both beaming with pride.

Preslee has been a joy every since. She is definitely a girl, and has her attitude, but she is such a sweet tender hearted girl and really wants everyone to be happy. She makes me laugh every day and helps me to stay young at heart. I am so blessed and thankful that I am able to raise such an amazing little girl! She knows Mommy is here for her no matter what, and knows Daddy is watching over us to make sure she is well taken care of. We're both here for her, from different places, but she knows she is loved endlessly by us. But it is really her that has taught what unconditional love really is.

I love you baby girl!

a month?!

Oh my word! I can't believe I've gone almost a month without posting anything!! There is a lot going on! :)

I was able to quit my job last week. Our Angel has made it possible for me to be able to stay home with my kids! What an amazing blessing. I am so excited to spend more time with them and *hopefully* keeping my house in order! It's been so nice to be able to just go at our own pace all week.

Because I quit my job, I had to get a new computer. So--I'm now working on my nice, beautiful Toshiba Satellite. It's so nice and fast! Loving it! So hopefully I can keep up on my blog and everything else that I do with this time.

My kids are growing so fast! Preslee turned FIVE on Sept 16. I can't believe I didn't post anything yet about it....that will be done this weekend for sure. My little princess is 5. No way. I still feel like she is 4 [months] old. :D Don't I wish some days!!

Mr Man is potty training! He's about 90% there, I would say. He has pretty well mastered the peeps in the potty... just working on the other. :S But all in all, doing great for a 2 1/2 year old boy! (who, I've been told are harder to train)

We just got our family pics done yesterday; I cannot wait for them to be ready!!! She took us to a great field where we took all of them. I was surprised at how much I loved them at that location! She always does a great job, and I can't wait to have them back to post. {she says about 2 wks}
cheap shots! photography

We're still working on house projects, and now that I don't work I'm hoping to get all those little things done that seem to get put on the back burner, oh-so-easily! It would only take 10 minutes for each, if I would just buckle down and do them! So, that's the plan for October.... house projects to be done. :)

One downfall to not working...... feeling like I have all the time in the world to get things done, and I don't! The days seem to fly by and nothing productive has happened all week. I'm staring at a laundry pile so huge, my kids could easily get lost (thank goodness its all CLEAN laundry and just needs to be put away). So as I sit here at 10:45am on Saturday morning, barely finishing my breakfast, kids running around like crazy in PJs still, and me in mine as well, I'm thinking I better get us on some sort of time schedule.... or we will be wasting away more hours in the day than I care to admit ;)

Posts with pics will be coming soon!

::winner::

I just won a free photo shoot from this FAB photographer :) She took our winter pictures and am thrilled to have her do more! Please, go check out her blog [i have a link to her blog on the right hand side of my posts] and if you book a day, mention my name so I can get more photo shoots done in the future! :) {{ps-she gives away a free shoot every month...}}

THANK YOU CHRISTY HAIR! Can't wait to get our family pics done again!

just another step

Well, Jeremy's headstone is now complete and it is set at the cemetery. It is beautiful, I am so glad it turned out so well and I think he would be proud of it. It represents him really well, and I am just so happy that we have a place to go. Our first visit there with the headstone up, Cash walked over and hugged the headstone. :) I think it will be really good for them to have a place where they can see him and remember him. It's important to me that his memory stay alive.

Sadly, after 8+ months of waiting for the headstone to be completed, and after it being installed and permenantly set, I noticed... it has a TYPO! Me and his brother are the only ones who had noticed it, but to me it sticks out like a sore thumb. :( We are working on getting it fixed right now-I suggested they grind out the entire saying and inlay a piece with the phrase again. It will just look like the sentence has its own border-and I think that would be beautiful as well.

For many of you, 3 names on the back will be a surprise. Yes, there is a 3rd baby, and No she is not mine. Paisley was born 4 months after Jeremy passed away-and it's since been proven that Jer was her biological father. It is a very different feeling that I have about this and just another thing to try and explain to my kids... but we will get thru this too. And maybe some day my kids will be glad to have another piece of their Daddy here. For now, all they know is Daddy had another baby but still loves them endlessly. And for now, that's all they need to know. His headstone being set has been just another emotional step in this journey. One that I am glad to have happened. It feels good to have it there for him, and for us. He is still thought about daily and missed tremendously; but it is finally starting to settle in that he is truly at peace and happy where he is now-and he can take care of us better from there. He already has proven that to me. ~11.11~

...almost complete...

Just wanted to share the picture I just took of Jeremy's almost completed headstone. It's just waiting on lettering now, and should be done and set by the end of next week (I won't hold my breath, since this part took so long!). I think it has turned out amazing so far, and think he is probably smiling about what it looks like. It will be really nice to have it set, to have something to see when we go by and visit and talk to him. The kids already love it (the pictures of it at least) and I'm so glad they'll have this to look at when we go by. I'll post a picture when it's set at his grave as well, so you can see the finished product.

*we miss you Jer*

:: tooth fairy ::

My little Preslee went to the dentist recently-for the routine cleaning and xrays to make sure her teeth are healthy and strong... and to her mommy's horror, she had 7 cavities!! OMG. Am I that bad at being a mother? She has 7 cavities at the age of 4?! Oh, please tell me she didn't inherit my bad enamel! Well... we already had one visit to fill a couple of those cavities, it will take 3 more visits because they don't want to traumatize her by doing too much at once. She was such a big girl! Not a single tear, not a single whine or concern! And she looked oh, so funny when she was laughing afterwards and only half her smile would move *giggle* Dr. Cloward was amazing with her.... he told her he would be using "Mr. Whistle" (the drill) and "Mr. Broom" (whatever one it is that makes the grinding noise!) and they had a tiny "shower" and "vacuum" for her teeth. Her favorite part was that her teeth got their very own "chair" to sit on while he did the cavities! (the prop to keep her mouth open) She got "double prizes" beacuse she did so well! (That means she got to pick 4 things!!) :) She loved it.... going back tomorrow for round 2!The "elephant nose" to get her giggly :)

Dr. Cloward was so good with her!

Big Smile!! Well, 1/2 of one at least!

DOUBLE PRIZES!! And another 1/2 smile :D

redneckin' it

It was time again for the Abel Family reunion, and Kris was in charge... so being the redneck that she is, she had a Redneck Shindig for us all. :D It was so much fun! They made a ginormous slip & slide in the front yard, a pool out of hay bails and a tarp, we shot clay pigeons and bb's for the kids, ate until we couldn't eat anymore and just enjoyed the entire time! (Especially when the Snuggies broke out! lol) Thanks to Kris and Bret for having us all up, and letting us all let our True Redneck Style shine! :D

..:piggy tails:..

Jordan has been coming down to stay with us on some weekends; we absolutely LOVE having her here! The kids love the extra attention from her, and she's just fun to be around. Preslee always loves to do her hair, and this night Jordan was brave enough to let her do whatever she wanted! (I have a very soft head, so I'm usually saying "ouch, ok.. um... don't pull so hard... ouch... eeek... ouch... ok, we're done" LOL So Preslee loves that Jordan lets her do whatever she wants.)

Getting her hair done

The after shots!

She even went to Macey's with her hair-do! Ha ha ha!

fun with the twins!

Cash going down the slide... but....

Cash preferred jumping in the puddle where the slide was draining :)

Preslee loved it!

My friend Jenni's twins turned 4! We went over to help celebrate, and the kids had a blast!

a*LO*ha

Wow, can you believe that it has taken so long for me to update this! Our Hawaii trip was clear back in June (2 weeks of June!) and we loved every minute of it. We thought the boys would absolutely love playing together... turns out.... they were better off in seperate rooms. HAHA! We really enjoyed going to the beach, the pool, and the frozen yogurt bar! :D We played it pretty cool/low key this trip, not doing much touristy activity.. but we did get to the Dole Plantation a couple of times! :)Scroll over the pics to see the caption, if you want. We had so much fun visiting our cute family in Hawaii and can't wait to go back (hopefully!!)

(( blog update over load ))

So, it has obviously been a while since I last updated my blog, so brace yourself... I'm going to do some major updating tonight (as long as the computer cooperates!)
Ready.
Set.
Go.

No really.

..ok, one last thing...

Ok, seriously just one more post for now about the house. Cash's room is officially complete! I got the valance up. I bought just a regular old white curtain rod (you know, the $5 ugly things) and wrapped it in rope and just tied knots on the ends-to make it fit the room. Much better than that ugly white metal rod :)

:details:

Just added to Preslee's room:

Here is her actual bedspread up close

Here are the birds I just painted above her closet!
:the whole thing:

Now-just to finish the white trim between the paint colors and we're done!

.:saved:.

So, as some of you know, I had a laptop that totally fried quite a long time ago. I've just held on to it knowing there were loads of pics on there that I MUST have! No way was I going to rewrite the harddrive and lose them all. Mostly from Cash's birth and when he was very young...
I took the laptop into Geek Squad, who told me it shouldn't be a big deal, but that they had to send it off to their offsite lab. Alright. First they needed a deposit from me. $400. Ok. My pics are worth $400 and they said they'd likely be refunding me most of it anyway.

I get a call many days later saying they were not able to get anything off the harddrive, unless they do a "level 3 recovery" where they take the harddrive into a "safe room" and retrieve the info that way. Cost of this lovely "level 3"? Base=$1550. No, not TOTAL, BASE.
Needless to say, I had them send it back to me, untouched.

So my friend Tami suggests I send the harddrive to her and let her take it to her usual computer place. She says they are pretty good with viruses and such; so I give it a whirl. I want these pictures, after all, and I'll do anything to get them--except give Geek Squad my right arm just because they want me to.

I send the harddrive up-and less than 2 weeks later get the news from these guys. They are able to retrieve not only my pictures-but every file on the harddrive! WITHOUT EVEN A LEVEL 3 SAFE ROOM RETRIEVING SCAM! The cost for this amazing job? $60. That is right, sixty dollars. Not $400. Not $1550+. $60. I am eternally grateful. (and to Tami for suggesting it!)

So please-if you have computer issues... take a trip to XSComputers. http://www.xscomputers.com/

Here are just a few pictures that were saved, you can see why they are so important:

These are just a few.... there are many many many more that I'm so thankful to have again.

*more before and afters*

My room-before and after

Preslee's Room before-from the other side of the room

And Preslee's room after! (She painted the pics 2 years ago)

I'm going to paint the dresser white and paint birds on it like her bedspread :)

So this is it so far on the house... everything else is still a major work in progress, but I am so happy with what we've done so far. I love it, and it really truly feels like HOME.

| before and afters |

Cash's room before The next 3 are Cash's room after!
The "denim" paint job I did!! And nail-head trim... oh so cute!!
his "cowboy room"

Living room before and after

Kitchen before and after