Thursday, October 29, 2009

Adam's 5th Birthday

Well, Adam had a good birthday yesterday. Here he is at lunch with his requested meal. He wanted peanut butter & jelly, banana sandwiches. He saw it on TV, and told me exactly how to make them, and so we did!
He's actually posing here - he said "take a picture of me eating!" but he was just sitting there like that waiting for me to take the picture.

I forgot to take a picture of him opening his present with my camera on my phone, so I can't put any of those pics on here. I did tell him that it was your idea to buy them the automatic baseball pitcher - that he calls the "batter-batter-baseballer", and I am not sure why. But the kids went and out and played for quite some time yesterday and good thing because it began storming in the middle of the night and is supposed to rain all day today too. Everything is completely soaked out there. Jenna batted and hit me in the jaw with a ball, and then not 5 minutes later she hit Adam in the head with the bat (it's plastic). I told her she had to have a break because she wanted being careful....but in all honesty, her hitting me in the face with the ball (IT HURT) wasn't really her fault. I was standing there staring at her and it was a really good hit, and I didn't duck or try to catch it or anything. I must have been spacing it. It was probably funny if you weren't me... just to see me starving right at it and it hitting me square in the jaw. Ouch. Anyway, they had tons of fun with it. I hope it stays warm and stops raining so they can go play with it again.

Adam wanted "baby" burgers and macaroni and cheese for dinner. I know this is horrible, but I did not feel like making mac n cheese, so I just bought some Kraft! LOL. You know how often that happens, so I don't feel bad (except that it was his birthday, I should have been more up to making it homemade). I also didn't make the baby burgers -and bought frozen ones - just not a cooking sort of day for me. No one cared, and the burgers seriously tasted exactly like McDonald's cheeseburgers so the kids liked them.
I was feeling pretty lazy lately I think. I didn't clean the kitchen at all last night. I left everything on the counter, and just LEFT it. How often do I do that too??? I just didn't want to!! So I didn't. I felt much more positive about it this morning, and got it all done. The kids are upstairs cleaning right now. It's almost lunchtime and we haven't even started school yet today. But they have been getting everything done super fast lately.

So last night my sister called me and while I am blabbing away on the phone the kids were playing in the school room and I could hear them, they were coloring and cuttting and having fun. Welll..............this is what happens when you're not paying close enough attention to your 2.5 year old:
Uhhhh, oops. She had put almost an entire bottle of glue on that red paper at the back of the table and then dumped glitter all over it. It was very messy. She was covered in glue and glitter - and she had already taken a bath. The glitter somehow was bleeding it's green color from being wet with glue and she had green smears and glitter on her face, and legs, and her hands were completely covered in glitter.

So.....it was a long day of catering to Adam, but it was a good day. At one point when I was on the phone with my sister, Adam came in crying saying "it's my birthday and no one will even play with me!!!" :o( It was almost bedtime and he was tired, but it was cute and sad.

We all love you and we missed you on Adam's special day!!

Monday, October 26, 2009

tonight

Here is a me picture for once! I just got home from Mo's coffee. It was nice. A ton of people didn't show this time, so it was more intimate, and it was very nice. I stuffed myself on tasty treats, and got a couple of good recipes (a lot of peeps didn't bring their recipes). Mo made a delicious meatball soup. On our way out, we all were leaving at the same time, there was a cop parked behind my car. As I walked up, he rolled down his window and asked if it was my car. I said yes. He told me I was parked on the wrong side of the street. I asked him if that was a state law. He said no, but there are signs all over the place. I said "Where?? I don't see any signs." He said "they're all over the place." I still didn't see any signs. I told him I had no idea, that my friends who I was visiting didn't tell any of us not to park on that side of the road. He said he wasn't going to write me a ticket since I was leaving, and that he doesn't patrol neighborhoods trying to give tickets out, but that a neighbor called the police about it. Niiice. So I told him I was just going to go inform my friend and be right back to move my car. I went back and told Mo, and she had no idea that we couldn't park on that side of the road. The cop came up because we were all discussing it and he said "there are signs all over the place", Mo said "Where, I don't see any signs", and he said "they're all over, there is one right there" and she said "where I still don't see it", then I saw it. But it wasn't facing me...so I couldn't read it. Kelly pulled up and asked if I got a ticket "too", I told her no but almost. The ticket ended up only being $10. Still though. Finally, I left, and as I'm driving, about 6 houses down, I see another sign "No Parking Any Time." Lovely. But the signs are seriously 20 feet in the air, and they aren't easy to see at all. And now you know the whole story, aren't you glad you asked.

I went to Target and they did have the MLB automatic batter thing, so I bought it up, bought some other gifts for the kids to give to Adam, and came home. Alexis is so nice. She did the dishes, handwashed, and loaded, and ran the dishwasher. All of their dinner stuff was cleaned up and put away. The kids (minus Livea) were all in bed. Livea told me she was hungry. I opened the fridge and she said, "no here, lemme show you," and proceeded to open the freezer. She started looking for something, and then she found frozen peas. She said "This. This is what I'm hungry for." I said "okay, we can have peas tomorrow," she said "no, I want to eat them right now," so I took them and told her lets cook them. She said "no, I like them cold," and she ate frozen peas from the bag for 10 minutes, nursed, and promptly fell asleep. The boys were sound asleep, Jenna was still awake but barely. It is so nice to have an awesome babysitter. Bunco night is at Mo's next Friday, and Alexis is watching the kids again then - and they are excited for her to come. Livea was going upstairs when I left. Maybe we'd have had babysitters more often when Jenna and Luke were little if we'd have had a good one! I am tired! I am gonna go lay down and flip channels until I can't find anything good and then read.
Love your, miss your far-away self!

you're caught/plans/schedule

I accidentally told on you about the Tyra-snake-incident. So expect retaliation. Sorry!! He didn't know who did it until I spilled the beans.

There is a coffee tonight at Mrs. Crossman's house. I'm making delicious Southwestern Eggrolls to bring and share the recipe also (which I still have to print out sometime today!!). It should be fun. I am going to try to sneak out early to get Adam his birthday present. I found a Major League pitching machine for him online, but it says it isn't available in the stores. Jenna has an ortho appointment in Topeka tomorrow, but I don't have time to go to Toys R Us because they have Taekwondo at 5:30; her appointment is at 3:20. Even if I did have time, I'd have Adam with me!! So anyway, I may just leave and try Target anyway.

So Taekwondo is now on Tuesday's and Friday's. Tiny Tigers beings at 5:30pm, and Advanced is from 6-6:45pm. It is only 15 minutes difference, but it seems like a lot to me. I still haven't sewn the boys' cheetah patches on, and will probably do it tomorrow just because I don't know if I'll have time today.

Ben brought a giant ham over that the hotel gave him for organizing the DMOR ball. Well, he brought half over. But it's a ton, and since we don't really even eat ham all that much, it is hard for me to figure out how to use. I am going to make scalloped potatoes with ham for dinner tonight for the kids and Alexis and Karsen. Luke won't be extraordinarily happy about that though, so I may just let him have some ham and salad. But I have to make that, and I have to make the eggrolls (I made the filling last night, but I have to fill, roll and fry still), I have to finish school (the kids are waiting for me on the couch right now), I have to clean up, get myself ready......... whew. Now I'm tired thinking of it all. ;o)

Well the kids are already hungry and we have about 45 minutes of work left to do before lunch so I better get to it.
Miss ya. Love ya.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

The Record

For the record:
It isn't fun, or funny to tell me you are going off FOB but only for the afternoon, and then not call me for 2 days.

*sigh*
But I know you just could have been busy, or tired, or watching The Soprano's with your Medics.

Or you could be dead, I guess. I would hope that they'd have shown up already though, if that were the case.

But I would rather you watch The Soprano's any day, than be dead.

:o)
Love you and miss you much!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

home is where my heart is

"I had cast my lot with a soldier and where he was, was home to me." Martha Summerhayes, Army Wife, 1866.


I read this quote somewhere today and I thought how true that is. Home is just wherever you are, and lately, it doesn't feel much like home here. I think that is why I've been so homesick for Phoenix and family - because you are gone.

Miss you and love you.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Sunday in Kansas

It seems like we have been so busy these past few weeks. I don't really know if we actually have been, but by the end of the day comes, I am exhausted and just want to fall into our warm bed, and not sit in the hard office chair and stare at the computer.

This weekend I got a million (300-something) pictures printed. So I am hoping to be able to put the bug zoo pics on here for you so you can see your kids touching yucky bugs.

We had a really fun day yesterday. We went to church even though I wasn't feelin' it. Sometimes you're just not feeling it though, and you just gotta push through, right? So we went, and it was nice, because the new church was all complete, and it's is very nice. They had coffee, and donuts, and OJ, and water all spread out on beautiful new huge countertops. They have a huge foyer, and separate classrooms for all of the children. Livea didn't want to go because she said "I don't want to go to my baby class because the baby's always cry and it's LOUD" but when we got there she had her very own 2-year-old classroom to go into, and they got to paint. She pouted while she was taken to her class, but she had fun, and she told me later "And I didn't EVEN CRY!!"

We came home, talked to you, and then went to the Munson Farms Pumpkin Patch. Since the Brigade sponsored it, it was totally free. I didn't know, but they had lunch for us there. Including some delicious homemade vanilla ice cream. Then we waited for the horses to come pick us up. They said they'd drop us off at the corn maze, and we'd walk to the pumpkin patch. Christina said "are you sure you want to do this??" I really wanted pumpkins, so I told her absolutely! I was really surprised she didn't want to go. Little did I know. Little did I know....
that she meant the CORN MAZE. I didn't realize that they could take us to the pumpkin patch directly, and we could bypass the corn maze altogether. So here we are 8 kids in tow, 2 of them whining and crying that they're hot and tired, and don't want to walk anymore, trekking through a poorly plowed corn maze (which was mostly just a winding path that we followed for what seemed f o r e v e r), and it went on and on, and ON. Finally, Christina said "do you still think this was a good idea??" I told her this was horrible, and why couldn't they just drop us at the pumpkin patch??? She said THEY COULD HAVE. I had no idea. lol. It really wasn't fun. We all kept tripping on corn stumps in the ground, and while it wasn't so bad for me, the kids kept actually falling on their faces. Finally, finally, we got to the pumpkin patch, and it was scant at best, nothing like last year......those darn squash bugs. It was hard to find good pumpkins, but we got some. I can't put the pictures on here yet, but I will update it later when I can and stick them in here, so keep checking. We were all tired out. It must have been a good 3/4 mile walk. I had Livea on my shoulders for half of it. It just wasn't that fun. But the horses were cool. They got a new Percheron horse. He was in the front stable right near the drive, and he (and we were sure it was a HE!) is the second biggest registered horse in the United States. He is huge. He is 6.5 feet at his shoulders. Beautiful, absolutely. He's younger than their others, 7 years, and not as wide as the others, but they said he may bulk up and out like the others. We stood there and watched him for a very long time because he is just amazing. He kept coming closer to us, and closer, and I kept saying I think he wants to come see us. And sure enough after about 20 minutes he just walked all the way up to us and let us pet him. His head was fully above and overtop of mine. I had to step back 4 feet away from the fence just to reach his head to pet him. He was so friendly. Adam picked some grass and he ate it from his hand right away. So all the kids starting picking grass and he just kept eating from everyone, and he left everyone pet him. He was so sweet and friendly. He stayed for maybe 10 minutes and just let us all give him some affection. He was just amazing, so huge, what a creation. I have pictures of him too.

Then we headed over to the fire and made some s'mores. By now, since our maze-hike took forever and a day, it was after 2pm, and it was open to the public and very crowded. When it was just Brigade, they had s'mores at the fire, but now the front trailer thing was open and people were paying and getting s'mores there. So I had to go over there and get our s'mores, while Christina tried to keep kids from falling into the fire pit. ;o) We ate s'mores, and sat next to a young couple, that Christian said he was sure was Christina's sister, and told her she should ask. So we struck up a conversation, and lo and behold, her husband is a medic fresh from AIT and in 1st Brigade. Come to find out, they are both from Phoenix, grew up there, she went to Central, I forget where he said. Also, the husband grew up in Hawaii, and really wanted (of course) his first station to be Hawaii - and they got Kansas, poor kids. But they were very nice, and it was neat to talk to them. He said he is thinking of putting his officer packet in, but of course people are telling him no. I told him to tell them to start paying him better, and then maybe he'll think about not. Christina and I both encouraged him to do it.

So, finally it was time to go. I was tired, thirsty, ready to get out of there. It was too crowded at this point, and keeping track of kids wasn't as easy. I asked Christina if she wanted to come take a breather at our house before going home. So we all went back to our house, and vegged for a while. I ended making some delicious potato cheese soup and breadsticks and we had dinner together too, and made a day and night of it. They finally left around 8 o'clock, and I promptly got kids to brush teeth, get in jammies, and get into bed. Exhausted again yesterday. I had bad dreams last night, but I woke up feeling refreshed at least.

I missed you much yesterday. Doing the pumpkin patch again this year, but without you, just seems wrong somehow. The husband of the 1st Brigade couple we met asked us (C & I) how it was going with our husbands gone. And I realized that it's finally hit me that you're gone. It took a while, but I'm finally feeling it. Could be a slight bit of hormones too, I suppose. =) But mostly, I just think the time has taken it's toll, and I'm ready for you to be done and home. And it has only been 2 months!! 2 months yesterday, in fact. I'm getting homesick now, I think because of the weather, and the holidays coming....I just want to be around family. I don't think it'd be so bad if you were here though. The other day I woke up and just wanted to crawl out of bed, get a cuppa and do the crossword with everyone.

Yes, we miss you and love you!!

Monday, October 12, 2009

lotta nothin'

It was so nice talking to you last night. Of course it always is, but I was just really glad to talk to you last night for some reason. I am so thankful that you take the time to call me, I really am. I know not everyone does that for their wives, and I feel very blessed that you wake up extra early some days just to call me. I can't say I'd do the same, you know how me and Sleep are best friends, so it means a lot to me.

We went to Target last night for invitations for Adam's birthday party. $177 later, we walked out without invitations. But the kids have warm clothes now!! I guess Walmart would have been good enough for invitations. Target was out of a lot.


Adam wanted to start school right away, so of course Livea did too. See their new long undies? Courtesy the Target trip. Adam said "Mommy, I used to be really good at school when I was in Hawaii!!" Hmmmmm.

Jenna is in our bed reading Mitch and Amy, one of her Beverly Cleary's that she's never read. I think she's reading it finally because she's read everything else. She finished that Percy Jackson series about a week ago. Luke is in front of the television eating some yogurt.

So last night the 2:00am alarm thing worked! I woke up and heard Adam's fighting voice. Only for a split second, and then nothing. I think I heard them getting back into bed. I really fought with myself not to go up there and check on them. Most parents probably would have not expected an almost-5 and almost-7-year-old to be responsible enough to wake up at 2:00am to an alarm clock, turn it off, go pee, and get back into bed for themselves. But they did it. And I stayed put - mostly thinking that if I get up this first night to help them, they'll expect me to always.

So this morning, I heard Luke in his drawers. Ugh. I thought for sure they just got up and turned the alarm off. Luke came downstairs dressed in his brand new long undies. So cute. I asked him if he peed in his bed, and he said "NO, I didn't!!" I asked him if they got up for their alarm and went pee. He said that they did, and that he and Adam both didn't pee in the bed. I asked him why he changed his clothing then, and he said "because I waned to wear my new clothes!" I believe him too. The reason he didn't wear the long undies to bed, he said, was because he didn't want to pee in them!! I am so proud of them for waking up and going to the bathroom. I am going to set the alarm for them every night for a while. Hopefully they won't ever get a hint to wake up and turn it off without going. I thought for sure that the alarm would just go off and they wouldn't get up, they'd just let it keep going, it's not a very loud alarm.

It's raining this morning. It must not be too cold though, since it's rain and not snow. It looks cold enough that I don't want to go out there though!!

Miss you. =( I am ready for winter to be over. It seems like that is the hurdle to get past, and then you'll be home soon.
Love you tons.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

mousehouse

From Drop Box


So, here is the mousehouse in your shoe. Nice, eh?? I just saw a mouse while handwashing the dishes tonight after dinner. It ran out from under the stove. I chased it and kicked at the wall by the china cabinet, and it ran into the laundry room. I kicked at the washer, but wherever it went, it didn't try to come out. I met with the pest guys today and they aren't coming until tomorrow to set the traps and all. Actually, they aren't even traps. I am a little bummed out about that. It is actually poison that they eat, and it messing them up and they get all disoriented, and come out and die in the middle of my floor so I have to then clean them up. I am considering enlisting Luke for the job. Maybe have him use plastic bags, or gloves.. and pick 'em up by their tails and then toss, ugh. Fun!!!!

The guy to replace the hose for the dishwasher called this afternoon and says he can come tomorrow at 4:30pm. I am happy about that! I am thinking about if I should have some friends over or something. I mean...it seems strange to just let a perfect stranger into the house. The pest guys were one thing, but this is just some guy who put his name in the phone book as a handyman.

I am so tired right now - it is just after 8pm. The kids are watching The Backyardigans, and then it is bedtime for all of us - since you interrupted my nap today! ;o) I am glad you called of course - I would rather miss sleep than not talk to you. I hope you have a safe next couple of days. You're in our prayers always, hope you don't see any dinosaurs! If you do, Livea's prayers have you covered.
Miss you, and love you very much.