long time no nothin'

I know I haven't been posting and I feel really bad. I imagine you checking every day when you have a minute, and I can feel your disappointment! I would be disappointed too if I were in your shoes. After us all being sick, it took a few days to get the house back in order, and I still have been slow to recover. I read today that sometimes it takes a few weeks to regain all your energy after a flu. WOW. I am feeling it. I thought I felt fine, but I am still coughing, and have to blow my nose a million times a day. The cough is more annoying NOW than it was before. Ready to be done! Livea still has her cough and snot-nose too.

I have pictures of the bug-zoo field trip to share with you. But I took them with my old crappy camera so I ordered a CD and didn't have money til today to get all the 300 pictures that were on the disk. LOL. It was expensive. I ordered them at Target so I will have to go sometime this week and pick them up and get those CD's so you can see the kids petting the tarantula, and the stick-bugs.

The weather is beautiful here. I miss you being here, and sharing it together with you. Some of the trees have leaves that are turning red now. Remember how desolate and sad it looks in the winter here? I am not looking forward to that. It seems like it just turned to Spring, and everything became bright and green, and now it all going to turn cold-gray and dismal. It seems way too fast! But our electricity bill will be nice to look at next month. I haven't been having to use the air at all. I think the high today was 79. It is really windy and the house stayed perfectly cool today. In fact, we had to close some windows because it was too chilly!

Roxie is my biggest enemy. She really bugs me. I hate not liking her, but she just bugs me so bad. She is so sweet, but she is a big oaf, and she hurts everyone, including me, and I can't imagine her surviving my dad for months in Phoenix. What am I going to do with her?! I wish she would just chill out and be like 10 years old already. Maybe I need to hire a dog walker. I wonder if I could find a dog-walker here. =)

Sorry we missed your phone call the other day. I forgot, but remembered in time, that we had to go to Topeka and get Jenna's broken and fixed retainer!! We were on our way back when you called, but I never got the call or message until the next morning. We must have been out of range when you dialed. Bummer too, because the kids would have had a lot to say since they were all buckled in and not going anywhere but where I led them!

We went grocery shopping today, and had a nice dinner, and I bought 2 half gallons of frozen yogurt that the kids are begging for right now. We haven't had ice cream in a while and I figured I'd better buy it now because I can't imagine it sounding too appetizing when it is 10 degrees outside.

We love you and miss you! I hope you got your box!!!! Maybe someone is pilfering it. =(

It's only Wednesday??

It's just Wednesday but it feels like the longest week in the history of time! I don't know why! I have been so tired this week, and busy. To top it off, Jenna had a headache all day yesterday, fell asleep in the car on the way home from Topeka (how often does that happen?) and when she woke up she had little to no voice and has been running a fever ever since. H1N1. Ha. I am obsessed aren't I?? =)


Jenna at her ortho appointment yesterday. She was being silly...posing more for me than being really mad about it. I cut her hair last weekend too, cute, huh..?

So, since Jenna was sick this morning (she has been on the couch almost all day), I had the dishwasher open this morning and was putting the dishes away, well, more like getting spoons out for breakfast, and plastic bowls for cereal... and around 10:00am when I finally got around to eating breakfast... I was standing there cooking eggs, and Livea showed up next to me and said "Sure! I will do the dishes for you Mommy! Sure!" I laughed, and turned around and she just started putting the dishes away. She put all of them away. The plates and bowls (glass!!), she asked "Now where does this go, Mommy??". It was so cute, and I told her she was the best 2 year old helper EVER. Her hair is kind of stringy looking because she took a shower with me, and I hadn't brushed it or anything yet.

I also had to take a picture of Livea's face drawing for you. She draws this face completely sideways - it is the strangest thing I have ever seen. Her arm was actually not at the bottom of this picture while she drew it, but on the pictures' left. She drew the entire picture that way, and does it every single time. I'll let her draw on the white board and the faces will all be sideways because that is how she draws them! It is so funny! She started drawing this all on her own, and she started drawing the ears and the legs on her own also. For a few weeks it was just the head, and eyes, and nose and mouth. No she draws circles all over it to indicate ears and legs. I am not sure why they need ears, but they aren't arms - they are ears, I asked.

I am making baby-burgers tonight for dinner, with spinach, pineapples (fresh!), and baked french fries - hopefully anyway - if I can get up and get it going, because it is after 5 already, and here I am settin'!! I wish you were here to eat baby-burgers with us - I'd probably even make you a big-daddy burger. ;o)
Love ya, miss ya.

a dream

I had a dream 2 mornings ago that I was sick, and dying. You were there, in our bedroom, next to me, in a chair, and I was crying, saying I was scared, that I didn't want to leave my life here. You asked me why I was scared, and I told you I was scared to die, because I wasn't good enough to go to heaven, I didn't want to face Jesus with the life I've lived here. It was one of those very emotional dreams, very real. You told me none of us are good enough to go to heaven, and thank God for His Grace. I kept thinking to myself, that I knew you were right, but that I just felt so undeserving, and I was so scared and not at all reassured, now that I knew death was imminent.

I woke up then, upset, and a song came into my head right away that I haven't heard in a very long time. It is called Grace Like Rain. I don't know why I remembered this song, but it was so appropriate for the dream. We used to sing it at Calvary Chapel Pearl Harbor. Do you remember it? Well, today I was cleaning out my bible cover, and I found three sheets of music from when they changed locations and didn't have their projection equipment up yet. One of them had the words for Grace Like Rain. It is so odd that I found it. I did a search for the song, and found it on YouTube, here are the words and the song. I probably wouldn't have told any of this to you if I had not found the music in my bible, but I thought it was really neat, and it spoke to me, and I don't know what it means yet, but I wanted to share. Where is Joseph to interpret my dream, when I need him. I love you and miss you.

Grace Like Rain

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost but now I'm found

Hallelujah, grace like rain falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains are washed away,
Washed away

Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

Hallelujah, grace like rain falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains are washed away,
Washed away

When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We've no less days to sing Your praise
Than when we first begun

Hallelujah, grace like rain falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains are washed away,
Washed away

We picked a bunch of deliciousness from the garden tonight. When I turned around Livea had picked a bell pepper too. She said "I did a great job, haw Mommy?!" I laughed and told her she did a wonderful job. I have way too many jalapenos, I think I need to go give some away to our neighbors. I don't have any chips, but I plan on making salsa tomorrow. I guess we'll just have to go to the grocery again.

The kids are waiting for me to come kiss them in bed, and Livea and Adam are now yelling at eachother, so I have to get up there before they get too untired! I hope you are missing us just as much as you should ;o) We miss you tons, and love you more.

Memorization and a mess...

So the kids are learning Psalm 23 right now, and I am so impressed by what they can memorize. I didn't think Livea would understand memorization, and recitation, but she is doing so good. She is finally falling behind, but it took her 2 weeks to fall behind. She is doing amazing, and she loves being involved as much as she is.

I am in the middle of completely redoing the computer room/school room. Right now, it is a huge mess, with everything in the middle of the room, and I am heading to Walmart now to get some storage bins, to finish. Not in the budget, but just completely necessary for my sanity at this point. The drawers I have all their supplies in are old, and do not open well, and they just aren't working for us. I intend on buying the kids their own plastic lidded tub for their books. I also moved the giant cupboard that was in the closet, OUT of the closet, and put it against the walls near the maps. It had half school supplies in it anyway, it is more useful for me there, and certainly looks better than the plastic drawer thingies. I put the desk on the wall that the closet door is on. No more tripping over cords, yay! The kids yellow table and the big-kids desks are sorta mish-mashed with a big pile o'mess right now. So, we're off to get supplies to finish. I am finishing tonight. Otherwise we'll be doing school on the living room floor tomorrow!

We love you and miss you! Be done soon!

Lazy-dazy Sunday

We didn't go to church today because Adam has a nasty cough. Luke had a cold-y sounding nose all last week, so I was not surprised to wake up to hear Adam coughing. I decided I just wasn't going to drag him there sick, and get other kids sick, not when the H1N1 is so "pandemic" (can you hear my sarcasm?) that the government is threatening to forcefully vaccinate our children for it, when it is really only barely worse than the regular flu. Not to get off on a tangent....!

So instead we stayed home, and lounged around. Lukas said "what is today Mommy?" I told him Sunday. He said "WE DIDN'T HAVE PANCAKES YESTERDAY!!" So I made pancakes and we didn't have enough chocolate chips, so I made peanut butter and jelly pancakes and they weren't as good, but they were quite tasty even still. The kids devoured them just like they were chocolate chip pancakes.

So after you called I decided to just rearrange furniture. That is always fun on a no-church Sunday, right?


Looks kinda strange, huh? There is just more room in here this way. It wouldn't work with you here at all since there are only 5 chairs at the table. But it's good for now.

I made chicken in a wine and cream sauce for dinner, with asparagus, onions, and mushrooms and noodles. You've had it. I have made it a few times. It was delish. The kids all ate it because they wanted strawberry shortcake afterwards. Adam threw the biggest fit, you can well imagine, because he didn't want to eat the asparagus, but I swear Josh, as soon as he resigns himself to it, he is just fine and he'll eat it. It just takes all of us listening to him whine and cry through 20 minutes of dinner before he gets to that point. Arg. So I let Jenna and Riley make the strawberries. They washed them, and cut them up, put sugar (stevia!) on them start to finish all on their own.
Dinner was so tasty. I stuffed myself (as you can well see by the amount of food on my plate, but the funny thing is I had more!) with delicious dinner and dessert. I almost drank a fly out of my cup tonight too. Very disgusting. I felt something and about swallowed thinking it nothing, and then I was like, uhhhhhhhh, and I spit it all over the counter and sure enough - FLY. Gag. I maybe could have thrown up then because the thought of you chomping on the fat fly in your v-8 popped into my head, and I just had to get rid of the fly before I really spit all over the counter. =)

I am going to get the kids in the house now, clean them up, and read another chapter in The Horse and His Boy, and then put them to bed. I am aiming for 7:55 so that I can listen to Pastor Mark tonight. I aimed 2x today at both service times, and missed both because of one kid-thing or another. It'll be nice to sit and listen without any interruptions, er, hopefully.

Oh, I almost forgot. Livea was telling Riley today that "Daddy is gone for a long time, and YAH, he is going to be GROUNDED when he gets home!" I have no idea where that came from! But it was funny. Silly little thing of her!

I love you, and miss you! I hope you're remembering to journal. I keep forgetting to ask you about that. I can't wait until R&R. I keep thinking that I can't wait until you're home, but R&R is sooner!!

finally, some pictures (from my phone)

How can you just not laugh when you see this cute little cheeky smile??? I can't!

Isn't she a cutie with bangs? Maybe her cheeks just are bigger..? I don't know, but they sure do look gigantic in this picture. She was saying "cheeeeeese" for you too. She doesn't know how to keep her eyes open when you tell her to smile.

We went to Dillons tonight to get water bottles filled. I lifted her up to put her empty bottle in the return cage, and she got to push it all the way in. Afterward, I set her on the ground, and she looked up at me with those giant cheeks and said "I did a good job, didn't I, Mommy??" So sweet!

After homeschool group yesterday Christina and I stayed and chatted it up for a while. The kids were all playing and having such a good time together. I should have taken pictures with all the kids playing together, but wasn't paying attention close enough, but got this one.

And this too:









Look how cute they are. You will have to show this to Brad, if you can. It is a better picture of Christian than it is of Adam. They played together so good all day. All of the kids did. It was a good time. I didn't take any pictures of Jenna or Luke, so they will have to get some pictures of them tomorrow for you.

I am going to give Adam and Liv a bath now, and get the kids in bed semi-early tonight. Not at bedtime, but earlier than 9, hopefully. I let Adam play on my computer a little bit ago. He tore of the C key comlpletely and the P key doesn't work that well now, I have to press really hard, and I am tempted to just glue the c back on with super glue, but I am scared what it might do. Still, I have to slow down to press C, and for example right now, I typed "Press", but only "ress" typed out actually because maybe he started to tear the P key off too. Little naughty.

We miss you so much, and we love you.

The best thing ever!

I forgot to tell you when we were on the phone today...!!
I remembered, but then we talked, and the kids, and it was loud, and we ran out of time....

This morning during bible study, I was reading to them, and this is part of what I read:

Jesus said to them, "You must go everywhere, into the whole world, and tell people about Me. When they believe in Me, you must baptize them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."

I stopped here and asked them all if they knew what it meant to believe in Him, and I asked them if they knew what being baptized meant, and how it was done. They all said yes, but all had it sorta off, so I explained what it was to believe in Jesus, and I explained what baptism meant, and how it is done usually. Then Luke said "I believe in Jesus," and Adam said "Me too, I believe in Jesus!" So I asked them if they wanted to pray to ask Jesus to come into their heart and their life forever. Luke said "Yes, I do," right away, and after he did Adam said he wanted to too. But then Adam looked a little worried, so I asked him what was wrong and if he had any questions. He looked down at his shirt and asked "How does Jesus come into your heart?" I told him that God's spirit comes and fills you up so that you can be a good person and help you to do what Jesus would want you to do. He looked down at his shirt again, and sort of touched his heart and looked back up at me like he was scared. It was so adorable. I told him that it wouldn't hurt at all, and that all we would have to do is say a prayer and Jesus would be with him, and he would never die, he would live forever with God. He said "ohh, no, I don't want-" I interrupted him and said "I think that people that aren't Christian don't go to live with God. When they die, they go away from God forever, and all of their Christian family aren't there to be with them in Heaven." He seriously thought about it for another minute and then he said "Welll, Mommmyyy, will you be there?" I smiled and told him "of course." Then he said "Okay, then I want Jesus in my heart." I said "You know...Daddy has Jesus in his heart," and Lukas said (amazed!), "NO! I didn't know that!" I laughed out loud at that. Both the boys said they didn't think they wanted to be baptized though. Adam is serious about not being dunked under water...even for one second. Luke said he could handle it fine, and Jenna has declared she wants to be baptized now. So after all that, I helped them say a prayer, and they both said it and when we all opened our eyes, Luke and Adam looked up at me with the biggest smiling eyes and lips I have ever seen. It was so special and so sweet, and I nearly cried right then when I saw them smiling up at me like they really were changed. It was so cool. I wish you could have been here to be the one to pray with them. Livea prayed with the boys too, so Jenna insists she is a Christian too, but I am not so sure that counts. What do you think? :o) *sigh*

I made Curried Tomato and White Bean Soup for dinner tonight. I found the recipe in that Cooking mag I got, and I put it all in the crockpot instead of making it on the stove, and it turned out spectacular. Livea devoured 2 bowls, but you know how she is with soups and casseroles and anything mish-mashed together. Adam reluctantly finished his (amazing in and of itself, right, considering there were beans in it) when I told him that everyone that finished their soup all up could have Lucky Charms for breakfast in the morning....and I teased that since I had a giant bowl of soup, I could probably have a giant bowl of Lucky Charms. He seriously finished the soup in 2 minutes, and didn't even make faces or complain. And of course he asked if he was going to be able to have Lucky Charms in the morning. I think they are all pretty Lucky that I even bought Lucky charms, and I also think that I am pretty dumb for doing it because now they are going to ask for Lucky Charms every time we go to the store for the next year, no doubt.

I didn't buy a camera!! I am dying to, but I think I have figured out that the PX doesn't have a good selection. They have $100 cameras and $500 cameras. I need to look online at aafes.com and see what I can find.
Well, we miss you and love you and we pray for you every day! I wish more time was behind us than in front of us.

attack of the public schoolers

Last night I walked outside to check on the kids. The little girl Kyler was straddling her bike. Jenna was straddling Riley's bike, and Riley was playing with the dollhouse in the garage. The second I walked out there I could tell something was wrong, so I asked if there was a problem. Immediately Jenna said "YES!!, KYLER-" and then Kyler kept interrupting saying "Noooo!" every time Jenna began to speak. I finally told Kyler to be quiet. Jenna said that Kyler was telling her that she needed to go to real school because they have better rules and she can learn better. She told her it was wrong for her not to go to school, and that they have a zero-bully tolerance at their school, so it was better. Jenna was really upset by it. I sort of came unglued. Kyler is not a nice girl. I don't want her to stay away from Jenna, but I told Jenna that she is only allowed to play with her supervised from now on. There are always problems when she comes around. She is very bossy. I explained to Kyler that kids can learn at home just as well or better than they learn at school, and that Jenna follows her Mom's and Dad's rules, and Kyler doesn't know what is best for Jenna - that is why God gave her 2 incredibly intelligent parents. Poor Riley must have been in on it at some point because she looked scared to death at my lecture. She got really upset and started crying and saying how Kyler was mean to her at school and how she (Riley) got in trouble because of her, and all this. I told Kyler she didn't to go home for the day, but that she was certainly welcome back to our home again. I explained to her that when she played at our house she needed to follow our rules, and be respectful to everyone at our house no matter if it is her own brother, or Riley, or Jenna or the boys, or the neighbors dog. I told her again, that she was welcome back just so she maybe really does come back.

Then after she left I asked the girls if they felt better that she was gone, and they both nodded their heads and said yes, yes, yes. They talked about how bossy she always is, and all this. I told them that there were going to be many bossy girls as they grew up and that they had to start decided now, when they were little which girls were girls they should be friends with, and if they wanted to be a nice girl or a girl like Kyler is sometimes. They both said they didn't want to be like Kyler is. Riley looked so upset, and I asked her if she needed a hug, and she ran to me and hugged me. It was so sad!! I think she was scared that I was going to be upset with her because I think she had a part in the badgering of Jenna's schooling. Wow! I really never thought our kids would be bothered like this!! Leave it to girls, to be catty, right? No wonder you guys are glad to be Infantry and away from girls. I am afraid of what to say anymore because of the cattiness of spouses in FRG. I am just not made for FRG. I don't want to deal with cattiness, and high school games. Some people think they are really mature, and they are just as immature as the people they think they are so much more mature than. As much as it has been said that the spouses don't wear their husbands' rank - there is a dividing line among and within the ranks, so it really just is not true. There are coffee's and I saw Kelly post the other day that there is now a "commanders wives" group too. Talk about no-ranks, hmmmm...... maybe I am done with the military.

Anyway, we have a meeting today at CYS to get the kids enrolled for the Skies Taekwondo. So at least that will save some money for a while. I am considering going to the PX to get a camera but the idea is daunting because there are SO many!! I am mostly wanting to go to the PX for a Starbucks coffee. I have made coffee exactly once since you have been gone. I haven't gone to our favorite coffee shop at all, and I have been to Starbucks once also. Today coffee just sounds good though.

Well, Livea "wants breakfast right now" so I guess I better go. She is crying and asking me to "get up, come on, Mommy"....starving little monster.
We love you, and miss you!!!

Dinner without Daddy

Last night we were supposed to have spaghetti for dinner. Lukas was all excited about that, I'm sure you can imagine. So, we went up to the Arts & Crafts Center on post to drop the frames off for matting, and we had to go to the store for brown sugar, because we ran out during cookie-making. All of this took longer than I expected and it was 6:00pm when we got home. Without you coming home at 6 or 7 at night, we have been eating dinner by 5:30 at the latest. On Taekwondo nights, we eat at 4:00pm (and have a snack when we get home). So, I just did not feel like cooking spaghetti, and cleaning up a spaghetti kitchen! So guess what we ate for dinner? We had tortilla chips, with spinach and artichoke dip, and pizza rolls with ranch, and pretzel fish crackers, and mozzarella fish crackers, and cookies and milk for dinner. No one went to bed hungry last night!

Everyone woke up hungry though.
Last night in bed, Livea randomly said "there are bad guys, right Mommy?" I told her yes. She said, "yes, and we will run and run with our sticks." I said "why?" She said "when there are bad guys outside, we will run and run with our sticks." I said "ohhh." She said "some bad guys are bad, right Mommy?" "Yes Livea". She said "some good guys are bad, right Mommy?" I said, "well, yes, that's true." She said, "some bad guys are good, right Mommy?" I said "well, yes, I suppose so." She said "the bad guys will come in our house and we will get them with our sticks, right Mommy!!?" I told her that bad guys wouldn't get in our house because we are safe in our house. I asked her if she wanted to pray about bad guys and she said yes. So we prayed that the bad guys would be good guys, not bad guys.
Where did she come from??
She is so cute with her bangs cut. I am going to buy a new camera this week so I can upload pictures to my computer, so you can see us. I wasn't going to, but I think I resigned myself to it, because I have been wanting to post pictures on here for you to see, and I cannot because of my retard-o camera. She looks like Lukas with her short bangs - her cheeks look 5 times chubbier. It is so funny, and it makes me want to kiss them all day.

I have to go start school with the kids in 5 minutes, and I am not dressed, so I better go.
We love you, and we miss you!