Full of thanks this Thanksgiving.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

I have to admit I have been feeling very happy and uplifted these couple of weeks. Our lives are great right now, KS just got promoted, Kiale is doing better in school, Colin is doing great, and Cayleigh-Grace is just her sweet self. I am so thankful for everything God has given me. For my family and friends, for those people that I am blessed to see on a daily basis and for that handful of people that light up my life whenever the phone rings and I see it is a number from across the world or just across this continent.

Being in the military as a service member or even as a spouse really changes you as a person. It makes you look at life in a whole new light. In many ways it creates long lasting bonds between people and in other ways it divides you from people. I guess you could say that your life becomes more streamlined. It has been a year and  ten days since I said goodbye to KS and prepared for the ups and downs of basic training followed by a move to his AIT without him. I never would have guessed two years ago that I would be strong enough to pack up and move my entire household of three kids and pets halfway across the Untied States to rejoin my husband who I had just spent 4 months living without. This upcoming year with be filled with many ups and downs I am sure. Our life will go in directions we have never imagined before but for that even I am thankful; and I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am for my husband and for the Army. Yes in many ways the Army makes things harder for families we cannot always be together even though "normal" people are always with their spouses, "normal" people also don't have to deal with the constant nagging anticipatory grief that floats around in my head on an almost daily basis, but that goes with the territory. For some reason I am thankful for all of that as well. The Army, including the good, bad, and ugly parts with always be something I am grateful for even though our lives may be difficult at times it has insured a way of life for my husband, children, and myself that I will always be proud and thankful for living this life.

Home Safe

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Made it back home safe and sound! We coudln't believe it Cayleigh-Grace was looking at pictures and she pointed to herself and said "Cayleigh-Grace"!! I didn't think I would here her say her own name for years!!! The trip back was easy, granted I can say that... I wasn't the one driving. ;-) The only negative was that they boys TVs quit working on the way down. One had already been malfunctioning and they finally bit the dust this time. They were great while they lasted though. I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving holiday. I  know I am looking forward to seeing family that I have not seen in 9 months. We all feel very blessed to have been stationed so close and I am going to cherish every minute of it I can while we are here, because who knows where the Army will be sending us next!!

50/50

Pictures with Santa was a wonderful success. Cayleigh-Grace was very clingy at first but after a couple of minutes she really warmed up to him. I am so thrilled we were able to capture this year, now I even have hopes for Easter Bunny pictures in 2011!!


Well I decided against pulling out the decorations to decorate before Thanksgiving. Since we are going home in a couple of days the last thing I wanted was to come home and discover that our crazy cat knocked over our Christmas tree... So the decorating will have to wait until next week when I can supervise our psyco cat. Instead of decorating the house we spent the day having a BBQ with KS's unit and watching all of the units play flag-football. It was a blast, the kids had and wonderful time and I think all of the adults did as well. KS's unit even won!!

Decorating & Santa

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Well I spent the majority of the day cleaning yesterday and today I am going to get all of our Christmas decorations out so we can decorate tomorrow. Plus I am going to take the kids and attempt Santa pictures this year. The last time we got them done was in 2008, I feel like such a slacker for not getting them done last year but I guess I just forgot with KS being gone and everything. I know why Easter Bunny pictures didn't happen. She wouldn't go near the thing! Wish us luck today because I really really want to get this picture done this year.

One of those days...

Monday, November 22, 2010

You know, those days where you wake up and your house has gone from perfectly clean, swept, moped and dusted to looking like a tornado blew through at a category 3 in the course of 48 hours. Yea, that would be my house right now. Plus the kids are home this week, which is great, it just means I will be cleaning up 3-4 times a day. Which is what I did not do yesterday... note the disaster area. The kids rooms are a mess, I honestly think a category 5 ripped though each of their rooms with an emphasis on Colin's "Transformer Theater Room" as he likes to call it. Hopefully today I can get them to all cooperate and we can get the house cleaned up before lunch time... I will say this though I am loving having them off of school for nine days. It makes me wish summer break would hurry up and get here.

What are your plans for this Thanksgiving weekend? I know we will be with family camped out watching the Florida/FSU game... Go GATORS!!! I hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday, and if you will be driving please drive safe.

of pacies and tears...

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Yeah, so this whole breaking Cayleigh-Grace of the paci thing is NOT going well at all. The past two nights she slept with KS and I, and she has spent almost the past hour crying and saying "No Night Night." We tried taking the paci cold turkey last night, that didn't work she was screaming like someone was physically hurting her. Tonight I cut the tip off like the dentist had suggested and she is still having a terrible time. The first night she fell asleep without her paci just fine, she was in our bed though. This is going to be a very long and drawn out process, the worst part is that I really have no problem with her taking a paci its fine it makes her happy and obviously she does not know how to self sooth to fall asleep. Plus its not like she has it all day or something, it is JUST when she is going to sleep. I just don't want her to have to go through all of the orthodontic work I went through. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

Annoyed

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

You want to know something I cannot stand? Being taken advantage of and I think this is exactly what the dentist out west was trying to do. I was told that each of my boys had 4 cavities and they both needed at least 4 sealants. For a total of $740 each... needless to say that didn't happen. Last I checked we were a family of 5 living on one enlisted salary and cannot possibly afford to sink $1480 into our kids mouths. It just wasn't going to and didn't happen. Thank God. Where am I going with this? Well I took the kids to the dentist today here in town and guess what????? Colin has 0 that is right ZERO cavities and one spot that needs to be watched. His teeth are great, and Kiale has 2 cavities and needs 2 sealants. I hand delivered the x-rays and records from the office out west and the dentist here flat out said there x-rays are clean there are no cavities except for Kiale's. He could not believe that that dentist wanted to do all that work plus use the nitrous to "relax" the kids so he could do the work. I am so glad that I waited until we got here to get the work done. If I had shelled out all that money just to find out it was a waste I would have lost it right there in the office. As it is I am super tempted to call the old dentist and ask him exactly what the hell it was he was thinking telling me that my kids needed all that damn work done. PSYCHO....  Anyway long story short, Kiale has an appointment in a few weeks to get his cavities filled and his two sealants done, and the dentist will check on Colin's area of concern when we are back in six months. I like $100 dollars of work a whole hell of a lot better then $1480 of work. He also cleaned Cayleigh-Grace's teeth and said we need to start the weaning process off of her paci, even though she is only taking it for naps and night time it is starting to affect her teeth and she is beginning to get an overbite because of it. I guess we will start it tonight, although I do not see it going over very well. We will see how it goes. He suggested that if she is having a hard time to cut the tip of the paci of and shorten it once a week until it is gone and she doesn't want it anymore. My main concern is her using her thumb instead of her paci, I sucked my thumb for YEARS and that is not something I want my daughter doing. He also said its not that big of a deal right now but it needs to be done by the time she is three; so if it is to traumatic for her at this point we will just wait awhile and try it again later. Either way I was planning on pulling it before her third birthday so this just gives me more incentive to do it sooner rather then later. She isn't to fond of the idea though.

I almost forgot, we did get some other really good news from the dentist today. Colin has rank breath, and by rank I mean it smells like poop. Doesn't matter if he just brushed his teeth or not it still stinks, well the dentist said it has nothing to do with his teeth since they are good and healthy but he could have some sort of stomach or nasal issue. KS and I always figured it was his teeth, his tongue or something. So we will be making an appointment to get him checked out and see what we can do about that child's breath, because trust me you don't want his mouth anywhere near you. Hopefully it is just some minor nasal dripping or even allergies that can be easily corrected. I am just hoping there isn't something wrong with his stomach and that is where the smell is coming from. We shall see. All we know for sure is that it is coming from down his throat and has nothing to do with his mouth or teeth.

Upcoming Sewing Projects

Monday, November 15, 2010

I figured I would share some of the table runner projects I will be working on in the next week.  The long runner is for my dinning room table and the short runner is for the coffee table.

Halloween
Christmas
 Thanksgiving
 
 4th of July
 

All of this fabric is from various Moda lines using their charm packs.

Today

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Today has been one of the lazy lay around the house and snack all day sort of days. I got up cleaned out the dryer and dishwasher reloaded the dishwasher and that is about it. KS sanded down the fender on the car and painted it... twice. Then I got fussed at b/c I didn't tell him about the scratches I noticed in the paint. I saw them while he was sanding it down, shouldn't he have noticed them!?!?! Oh well, it looks fine, just has lots of small scratches on that side. Hopefully he will be able to get them out and fix it next weekend. Its going to be a busy couple of weeks around here with the kids school, Thanksgiving parties, and hopefully KS will get a pass so we can go home and see our family during the holiday. Cayleigh-Grace's potty training is 100% done and had been for a few days now. She doesn't even wear diapers to bed or when we go out anymore. It is great not having to worry about if I packed the diapers and wipes anymore. I just keep a change of clothes for her in the truck and that is it. We got the boys school pictures in last week, I love them! Kiale looks so grown up now and Colin is getting there; I can still see some baby in him.
Kiale


Colin

Anti Crickets

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Sorry for the crickets around here lately we have been pretty dang busy. My grandparents where her Sunday to Monday, and then my MIL was here Thursday and Friday. It was so nice to finally have some family here and to play hostess for a couple of days. Things are going great here. KS really likes his unit and the boys have so many new friends its hard to keep track of all their names.

One thing I have been doing quite a bit of lately is sewing, so much that I finally finished the duvet cover for Cayleigh-Grace's big girl bed. I still have to get the Velcro to finish the opening but other then that it is done and I am so happy with how it has turned out. Next on my sewing to do list is all of the table runners I have the fabric for. I like to buy the charm packs where are 5in squares of fabric that have about 36-42 pieces of fabric from the same line in them. I have the charm packs to do runners for Easter, 4th of July, Christmas, Halloween, and Thanksgiving I just haven't got around to it yet, but hopefully this week I will be able to get started on them. I almost forgot I also made curtains for our kitchen a couple of weeks ago. Both Cayleigh-Grace's duvet cover and my kitchen curtains are by my favorite fabric designer Pat Bravo from Art Gallery Fabrics.

top of her duvet cover
bottom of the duvet cover
Kitchen Curtains
  We bought a "new to us car" about two weeks ago, it was just too much of a pain in the butt trying to get around post with one automobile especially since KS cant really walk to work here. Well he could, it would just take forever. We spent $1250 on the car and it is great, KS replaced the radiator and the window motor on the drivers side, we aren't even going to bother with the passenger side, now all he has to replace are the CV axles and the mount and it will be good as new.

The boys are doing good in school, Colin is right where he should be and Kiale has finally caught back up. I had a conference with their teachers last week and it was good news all around. Kiale and I's teacher are working close together to try and get his shutting down to a minimum. Plus he had been getting too much help from his classmates so that will be changing on Monday. She will be implementing some new teaching styles with him starting on Monday and going through until Christmas break. We will have another conference then to see how everything is going. We are hoping that this ends the 3-4 hours a night we sometimes spends doing homework and other issues we have been having with Kiale. Colin is reading very well know and his teacher is really proud of him and how he is doing in class.

Overall life here is going great we are totally settled and have made some wonderful friends along the way. We are definitely looking forward to our next three years here and what they will bring us.

Watching TV in Colin's room.
Snuggling with Colin, this hardly ever happens.

Halloween Fun

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Can you guess what we were???
Colin, Cayleigh-Grace, and Kiale

Fujifilm SeeHere.com discount for military families

Thursday, November 4, 2010

* I received this as an email, and figured I would pass it along. *
 
Hello,
As you may know Fujifilm is a proud supporter of military families through its sponsorship of Homes For Our Troops and Soldiers' Angels. As such, we would like to offer you and your readers in the armed forces a discount for Fujfilm's photo sharing and gifting site, SeeHere.com. Please see details below. 
 
Offer:  35% off site-wide at SeeHere.com -- Plus receive free standard shipping on most photo gifts, books, and orders of 60 or more photo cards
Timeframe:  11/01/10–11/30/10
Promo Code:  military-35
Note:  The promo code is case sensitive.

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about our involvement with HFOT and Soliders' Angels, please let me know. Thank you for all that you do.

Regards,
Karen

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