Hopes for the New Year

Here it is December 31st 2010, the last day of the year... it just doesn't seem possible. While 2010 was a year of changes and epic adventures for this woman who up until this year lived her entire life with her entire family within a 15 mile radius of her. This has been our first full year in the Army and I have to admit they haven't let us down yet. We have had the pleasure of living in three different houses in three different states. Two of those houses were and are at a military establishment and we have loved each of them. The people we have met have been great and we even had the pleasure of forming lasting bonds with a few extra special ones. I feel that I have grown into my own in 2010 and I have begun to depend on myself rather then my family. I guess you could say I am my own person now. While 2010 was a fabulous year 2011 will be a year all in its own. Full of its own challenges and firsts. We will experience things we have never experienced before and we will rise to whatever occasion God or the Army sets before us. 2011 will see us all grow a year older and a year stronger, the kids will begin new sports they have never played before, and I will set goals for myself that I never thought of setting before. Our lives will be forever changed in 2011 and I can only hope and pray that all of those changes are for the good. So here we are, at the end of my last post for 2010. I wish you and your family the best and may you all be blessed beyond belief in 2011.

2010 in 12

I am in awe that the final day of 2010 is tomorrow. In many ways this year has flown by, but it has been filled with so many amazing things that it seems like it has lasted an eternity. Here is the summary of the year 2010 in 12 pictures...

January

 In January we had to return Daddy to basic training after his amazing Christmas Exodus break.
 February

In February we were able to celebrate KS's graduation from BCT. He then moved out west for AIT and the kids and I began to throw together a move three weeks later that no one was prepared for. We decided to join KS at his AIT location on a whim in March rather then June. 

 March

 In March with the help and hours of labor from family and friends we succeeded in getting us moved out west within three weeks of KS's BCT graduation date. We had never been farther west then Alabama so this two day drive out west was a sight to see!! We also got the kids enrolled in their new school a week after we arrived out west, I had planned the move so we would arrive out west on the day their new school's spring break would begin. We signed the lease for our house on the base on Colin's 5th birthday.

 April

 In April KS was finally moved to stage five in his AIT training and was allowed to live with us once again. IT was so nice to be family of five again and not have to worry about getting him back to the barracks on time or having to worry about formations on the weekends anymore. We also got to celebrate Easter at their school and with the housing office, both threw wonderful Easter egg hunts and parties for the children.

May

 In May Kiale graduated for Kindergarten and Colin had his K-4 graduation ceremony. We took the boys bowling for the first time and the boys discovered some wonderful lakes to go fishing with KS's and his friends. We also got a new addition to our family, a little kitten named Casey, and I pulled out the slip-n-slide which proved to be hours of fun the entire summer. One of the best parts about May, the pool opened!!

June

 In June we went to the pool almost every day and began to make lasting friend ships with some amazing people who have become a second family to us. We also began to explore the town around us and enjoyed spending time together as a family. I discovered that Cayleigh-Grace finally had enough hair to pull back into pigtails.

July

 In July we celebrated one of my favorite holidays with our some of our favorite friends, the 4th of July! The boys also began their swimming lessons which would prove to be the best thing for both of them. It really got Colin to come out of his shell. We also had our first visitors in July, my grandparents came out to spend a week with us. KS and his buddy D raced their RC cars almost every weekend together, which continued until we moved in September.

August

 August was spent with even more swimming, also had friends over on a near daily basis. We celebrated Kiale and Cayleigh-Grace's 7th and 2nd birthdays early since everyone had to part ways the following month. I began organizing and cleaning the house to prepare for our move  and we finally found out where we were moving to, about a week before KS's AIT graduation date.

September

 In September KS graduated from AIT and we started to say goodbye to all of our amazing friends that we made out west. I also completed another three week notice move (I think this will just be my thing) and we were successful in moving back to the east coast. Close to home but extremely far from the majority of our closest Army friends. We got the boys enrolled in school and KS started his to actually do his job. Cayleigh-Grace got moved to a big girl bed and we were able to go home and see family for a couple of days. The first time we had seen them in six months.

October

 In October the boys started to make friends and began to finally get good and settled into our new home and post. We celebrated Oktoberfest and the kids rode their first fair rides, and KS found a neat RC track to race his cars on. Halloween got here and instead of two sons and a daughter we ended up with a Gronkle, a NightFurry and a little Ladybug. We also went to the units Halloween bash and the we bought the boys their own rock crawlers.

November

 In November we went home to have Thanksgiving with family and we really enjoyed our time there and had lots of fun decorating my parents house for Christmas with my sisters and their boyfriends. I was able to complete Cayleigh-Grace's duvet cover for her bed and made curtains for some of the rooms in our house.

December

This month we experienced our fist snow and our first Christmas away from family. We also had lots of visitors to our home this month, KS' mom, sister her husband and their son E, my aunt, uncle, cousin, her husband and their son, as well as my grandparents.

A Christmas Zoobalee

On December 7th all of the kindergarten classes put on a holiday Zoobalee play. It was precious, and Colin had no intention of being part of it for weeks. To the point where he was trying to fake being sick and crying on his floor in the morning the day he thought would be the play, but in the end he participated and was thrilled to do so. We were all so relieved. That evening we left the house, him in all black, ready to be a tiger. Well let me tell you have I had one indecisive tiger because he turned into a brown/black bear! Go figure, but you know what he was the best brown/black bear in history!!

Colin and his black/brown bear

Watching the show

I love his smile in this pic, I was so happy he finally decided to participate.

Colin and his teacher

Suprise!

We had a lovely surprise on the 23rd, my Aunt and Uncle as well as my cousin her husband and their sweet little boy V stopped by on their way up north. It was wonderful getting a chance to see them again, especially since I had forgot to get a picture of V and Cayleigh-Grace together at Thanksgiving. They are almost 3 months apart.

V Man!

She wanted to help out a bit.

They were only at the house for about an hour but Cayleigh-Grace managed to play with it the entire time.

My three and our Uncle Jimmy

your typical 2 year old picture

She is looking great

Now he is looking great, if only I could get both of them looking great in the same photo...

Our Christmas

Christmas was wonderful and everything we wanted it to be we woke up opened presents, played, and never changed out of our PJ's all day long. It was delightful! I had been wondering when the excitement would start affecting Kiale and his sleeping. I remember laying in bed for HOURS not being able to sleep. This was Kiale this year, although it was only about an hour then he was asleep, and that was including two "potty breaks." Colin managed to fall asleep right away, which never happens for him. He is my resident night owl. Once again I slept like crap, I am always too excited for the kids to get a good nights sleep. I think the last time I slept well before Christmas was when Kiale was just 3 months old. Of course then it didn't really matter. The kids had a wonderful Christmas and got everything they were hoping for and even a little more.

Did you know that Santa Claus only uses paper that has only his image on it?

Their first look.

I had them wait a minute so I could take a good group shot of them with all the presents, thankfully it only took two takes.

Merry Christmas!!

My husbands YUMMY fresh green beans.

The amazing roast KS made, it was delicious and cooked just the way we like it!! (med. rare to rare)

9:30pm and still going strong Christmas evening, this girl needs no naps! (just ask her)

Our First Snow!!

KS woke me up at 6am disappointed and seeing nothing but wet ground, but when he woke me up at 8am... well that was an entirely different story! The bad part with the snow, I don't think it is going to stick. We had so much rain yesterday that as soon as the snow hits the wet ground it melts. The boys were really looking forward to seeing white everywhere, but this sure does beat the flurries we saw for the first time on the 5th of December.*(see below for the flurry story) This day has been amazing, The snow has been falling off and on all day with about 3 hours in between where it was just flurries and we were all worried we had seen the last of it, until about 3 o'clock that is... this day ended up being the perfect end to our Christmas weekend. Who ever would have guessed that we would be seeing snow the day after Christmas.

8am

8:42am

10:42am

9:15am

12pm

3pm

and the snowballs start flying!

This was the perfect end to a Christmas weekend!

Kiale's snowman

Colin's snow bug

5pm

God Bless America!!

Their first snow!

group snow fight!!

*The flurry story- It was about three in the afternoon and I had to head out to the Commissary for the usual Sunday staples before they are closed on Monday and I could not figure out what was hitting me in the face when I walked out the door. It wasn't raining b/c it wasn't wet and it wasn't until I looked at my husbands car did I figure it out. It was solid white circles, snow flurries. I ran inside and got the boys to come out, they couldn't believe it, but the only way they could get a good look at them was when they got caught in each others hair. So there we were outside me in a jacket and my boys in a pair of shorts and a pair of pants... no shoes and no shirts. Then KS sent Cayleigh-Grace outside to experience it, and all she had on was a shirt and her panties. It was freezing!! What can I say? They were thrilled to experience the flurries even though it was freezing and they were all half naked, and I swear a car drove by and the woman looked at me like I was psycho. We are from the south, this kind of thing doesn't happen very ofter where we were from. In fact only once in the entire 24 years I lived down there. It was a wonderful and memorable Sunday for all of us.