Busy weekend

So we went to see The Avengers at the drive-ins with Alan.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Ethan decided to poop for the 3rd time in the same day, and wouldn't you know, I didn't bring a diaper or a wipe.  I had to take him and clean up all up in the bathroom, and let him go without a diaper (which was actually totally fine, but jeesh).  All the kids fell asleep at some point.  Liv peed the blankets/blow up bed (guess she should have made the trip to the bathroom with Ethan and I).  Everyone spilled the popcorn, including me.  The kids are all super upset they fell asleep.  They probably never want to go back to the drive-ins.  The weather was beautiful though, and the picture of them is super-cute, so maybe they'll have a distorted memory of it if we force them to look at the picture and say "remember the drive-ins??!" in a nostalgic kind of way every so often.

See?  Totally cute, right?

Today, Ethan and I went shopping and bought some new running shoes for me, and a smoke detector for the house.  Ethan was a super cutie at Runner's Den.  He just watched and watched as I tried on the multitudes.  Put your sunglasses on real quick before you look at these because they are bright:

Sunglasses on!

But they are super comfy.  

We stopped by my mom's house and dropped some gatorade off for my sister who drank too much with Mike, last night.  We came home and installed said smoke detector and ate lunch.  Ethan did not nap today.  He just wouldn't.  So I knew I had to keep him up to 7:30 or so.  I told him he needed a haircut, fed him candy and cookies during, and chopped his hair off.  He sat pretty good for about 2 minutes.  Then he was impatient - I think mostly because he was so tired.  So I hurried up and stuck him in the bath.  Then he didn't want to go to sleep, and stayed up until 8:30.  Nerd.

Cutie Man!

You know how he won't stay still for a picture and you have to take it three million times to get a good one? Yah, this was only number three.  Not bad, eh?

So I made popcorn and we watched Newsies.  Mia is spending the night tonight and she and Jenna are still awake at 10:30.  I need to go to sleep too or I am never going to get up at 4:30am to work out.  Hope you enjoy the pictures.  Love you and miss you more.

Coffee, it's my favorite.

So, I'm walking down the hall with a fresh, steaming cup of coffee.  I reach into the hall closet for a few diapers because we're getting ready for a birthday party.  Ethan decides to push the door closed just as I'm grabbing diapers, and since he doesn't do anything gently, the door slams into my coffee-holding hand and throws steaming hot coffee all down the front of me.  Of course, I just got dressed.  Not only did it burn, my clothes are now soaked, down to the skivvies, in coffee.  Luckily, we really have two hours before we even need to leave (we were going to deliver leftover Ethan-birthday-cake to family) - so now all my clothes are in the washer.  I will be adult, and not tell you how mad I was at Ethan.  I literally had just gotten dressed, walked out, poured coffee, and walked back with it to start packing for the party.  Dressed.  Coffee.  Coffee on me.  Mad some?  Yes, but just don't tell anyone that I am immature, and angry at my two-year-old for being a two-year-old.  I told him he had to stop being a burden.  Livea said "what does that mean?"  I told her, and then she said "what happens if he doesn't know how to stop being a burden?"  Uhh, then maybe I'll learn patience?  tee hee.

just some stuff

We're mostly settled in Phoenix now.  There are still boxes to unpack, mostly in the master bedroom, decor to put up, and kids rooms to organize.  I feel so lazy about getting it all done, I think because I feel like it'll be just a few more blinks, and I'll be packing it all back up again.  I need to just suck it up and get everything finished though.

Today is Ethan's 2nd birthday.  We're all sad you're not here with us to celebrate.  He misses you tons.  Every time I get on my computer or laptop and he sees the picture of you he says "Daddy! There's Daddy!  There's Jenna.  There's Lukas....," and names everyone off.  But you're his favorite of course, and he always says "There's Daddy!" five or six more times, or he'll just keep going until I cover the picture up with a browser or program.  I blew up the balloons last night but waited til this morning to do the streamers.  Ethan actually slept in and the kids helped me put the streamers on the doorway.  Ethan decided it would be fun to pop most of his balloons with a pencil, much to every other kids' chagrin.  They were horrified that he would want to break his balloons.  I made some cupcakes this morning and we're going to take them and his presents (books: all used that I got at bookmans, spent less than $20 on: animal babies; goodnight moon; skippyjon jones color crazy; if i were a firefighter; my very first book of numbers by eric carle; and the three bears) over to my moms later this afternoon to sing happy birthday.  We'll probably go swimming sometime today too (getting HOT!) - hey, do you know where his red trunks are?? We haven't found them since we've been home from Kansas!  Did we even bring them to KS?  I can't remember if we had them there!

Saturday I'll have family over for hotdogs and swimming and cake.  It's your mom's birthday on Saturday, so it'll be nice to have her here too.  I will hopefully post some pictures for you, if I can remember to charge my camera (if I can find the right charger).

I thought I could slip away for a minute because the kids are doing schoolwork, but now Ethan, Livea and Adam are screaming - literally screaming, at each other.  I think one of them screamed loud and another was annoyed about it, and so now they're having a screaming contest, but not in a good way.

We hope you're getting settled in Afghanistan, as settled anyone could get under the circumstances anyhow.

Here we go again.

Well, here we go again.  It is time for another deployment, that one can never be totally ready for.  I am not looking forward to this one (I guess I wasn't last time either).

It is only NTC - it hasn't even been 4 weeks yet, and the kids are already whining that they miss you, can't remember your face....
Ethan says "miss Daddy!" every day.

I feel done with deployments.  Not ready to do this again.

I'm done!!!

I think the end of deployement is ten-thousand times worse than the beginning.  I know you are going to be here in no time at all, and I just can't see the end in front of me!!  I think after today we will be more busy and get into the swing of things here back at home again, but today (even though we went to an appointment on post and ran around there for 3 hours!) I just had way too much time, and by the evening was feeling annoyed, and depressed and just wishing you were home every 2 seconds!!  I don't know where it came from - out of the blue, it seems like to me.  I made some red raspberry leaf tea infusions; 4 quarts of it.  I thought about cooking, but I didn't want to, and I didn't do it either.  We ate sandwiches.  I did a load of laundry.  I thought about making the kids clear the dishwasher, but I just didn't feel like doing that either, and I didn't do them myself (I told Jenna to do them when she wakes up, which is how we usually do it anyway).  I ate a piece of delicious italian bread that I found at the commissary last week, with butter.  And then home-made no-bake cookies, which have like so much sugar in them that the baby probably gained 2 pounds just tonight on the bread and cookies alone.  I took the kids for a walk.  A short walk at that.  It was beautiful outside!!  But I was depressed again when we got home.  I don't want to be here without you anymore!  Our walk was too short, but poor Livea kept bending over and saying "whoo! my legs can't run anymore! whooo! I think my legs are tired!"  It was so cute - she wasn't really complaning, she was sort of surprised that she couldn't run as much as she wanted to - it was sweet.  Jenna was cold on our walk.  It was perfect for me and when we got home our 76 degree house was stifling and I shut all the windows and turned the air down to 72.  I'm not ready for hot yet.  Then the kids all got freezing cold and got blankets and bundled up and wouldn't stop saying they were freezing.  I miss you being at Summerall when we could talk for 45 minutes or an hour.  I don't like our 30 minute conversations - it seems like it's too short and it doesn't seem like 30 minutes at all.  So just hurry up and come home, because I love you and miss you so much and I just want this to be done, done, done!

37 weeks and update

Hi.  I have been so bad these last few weeks haven't I??  I have so many pictures to share, and we've done so much.  I have Jenna's and Livea's birthday pictures that you haven't seen....  all of our trip to Phoenix.....  at least we've talked a lot on the phone and I spew at the mouth when we do talk so much that I am sure I won't have anything left to say when you actually get home.  But that will be okay, because I know I haven't kept up well with you and what you've done and what you're doing while you've been working in Iraq.  I hope you don't think that I am not interested in your work there.  I realize I haven't been able to concentrate much on what is going on with you there....not like you concentrate on what is going on here with me....but I do care, and I do want to know and I hope that you will share it all with me when you get home.

Which I can't wait for!  I feel like it is so close, yet SO very far away.
I still have a ton of birth kit stuff to buy.  I was 37 weeks exactly, yesterday.  So I should get on it.  But I am kind of in denial about it all until you get home, because I want you here for the birth.  If I just ignore what I need, maybe I won't go into labor until you are here.

Not much on the agenda for today.  I have some laundry that needs to be folded and put away.  I need to dust and clean our bedroom.  The kids' rooms leave a lot to be desired in the cleanliness department, but I haven't worked up the energy to delve into that yet.  I honestly do not know how Jenna's room got so bad.  Somehow when her room gets messy - she really gets it messy.  It isn't really that messy as it is trashy - there is just trash everywhere.  Paper.  The girl loves paper.  There is paper everywhere.  I dunno.  I need to go get some water, and I was thinking about having the kids help me clean up the backyard.  The wind has blown chairs and toys and gardening stuff around.  Speaking of gardening -my poor garden beds have grass and weeds growing in them, so there is always that too.  Maybe I do have a lot to do today!!

I miss you and love you so much, and I can't wait to pick you up and have you back home with us.

32 weeks and more

32 weeks!

We seem to have been super busy for the past 2 weeks.  Between trying to get the house "baby-ready" and people coming to visit with us, and us visiting people - we just have been going, going, going.  We had Jenna's birthday at the bowling alley on post, and the kids had so much fun.  Livea is still randomly saying "I want to go bowling again!"  We all had a lot of fun, we will definitely have to go bowling when you get home.  I need to post some of those pictures on here before we leave for Phoenix.  Hopefully, with nothing left in the house to clean, I will be motivated to do that.  Adam also found the disk with the fire department field trip pictures on it (yay!).  We are heading to Taekwondo this morning so that we can go to visit Kurt and Heather and their sweet little baby tomorrow.  It'll work out better to go to the homeschooling class anyway since the other class is on Thursday morning.

I still haven't finished cleaning the carpets, but as soon as I am done here I am heading out to do just that.  For real this time!  I left the carpet cleaner out for a week now thinking I would get to it every day.  I want to put that thing away!

Our trip to the Cosmosphere this week is our highlight of the week - well, I guess that and Phoenix!!  The 2 and a half day drive is becoming more daunting to me as the time approaches.  But I am still excited!  Mostly excited there is no d-o-g to worry about for the trip, ahhhhhhhhhh.  You won't ever even comprehend what less amount of stress there is on me now, I just can't even explain how much I fretted over what she was doing  a l l  d a y, e v e r y  d a y.  Alas, no more!  I am free (and I honestly feel free!).  The funny thing is, someone rang the doorbell at 8:30 last night.  I said "who is it?" nothing.  I said "who is it???" again, and I hear a woman's voice say "it's your neighbor."  Uhh, ok, what neighbor?? I know all our neighbors.  So I say "what neighbor??" lol.  She says "I live on Oakwood," hmmm, so I just open the door.  I'm paranoid like that I guess.  I mean it was dark.  So she asks if we have a boxer.  What????  I tell her no.  She said, "oh really," like she didn't believe me, "because the neighbor behind you said that you guys have a boxer," ha.  So I told her we did, but I just gave her up last week.  She was skeptical.  I asked why and she says she found a boxer wandering around.  Brindle, white face, will sit, lay, stay on command, really dirty and very thin.  I said, I don't have any idea whose dog it could be.  Told her our dog's name, but told her that I also paid my fee to the shelter, and I am not taking her back if she does answer to the name Roxie. lol.  She then lectured me how she would never take her to the shelter because after 30 days it doesn't matter what kind of dog it is, they will kill them.  I told her that the shelter told me that pure-bred boxers never stay longer than a few days, never more than a week, and that is why I wasn't worried about it.  She then repeated how they kill dogs like 5 more times.  I told her to go take her to the pound and see if she has a microchip.  She mentioned how the dog didn't have a collar, and what kind of pet owner would not put a collar on their dog, but how she hopes she can find the owner because she already has 3 dogs and 4 children, and doesn't want another one.  She starts telling me I should have just kept Roxie in the backyard because "that's what she does" and she doesn't worry about them at all (I mention that I don't want my screens nor my screen door tore up and she says she took all hers off, as she doesn't ever open the windows anyway, lol).  Well, why have dogs if you just want to not worry about them in your backyard all day every day?  What is the point?  I could have done that too I suppose, but boxers can't stay out in the winter "all day".  And why have a dog if you just want to "not worry about them" all day, every day?  Weird.  So I wished her luck and told her to put up signs, and she finally left.  I won't mention to you, the paranoid thoughts of her cutting me open and taking my baby out of me while we were standing there talking.  ahem.  She just left though.

I keep trying to delete those last few lines, but really, I did wonder.  She was strange.

I love you and miss you so much, and I am so glad that it is almost time for you to be home with us.  Don't get complacent in your last days, and don't let your guys get complacent either.  Be over-safe!!  Come back already!