Music Sunday Week 4

Please help Logan.

Logan is an eight year old boy whose father just returned home from a year long deployment from Afghanistan last month and about a week later they found out that Logan was sick. He's not sick with the flu or the common cold, Logan is sick with cancer. He has been diagnosed with stage 4 Wilms Tumor which is kidney cancer that is found in children. It is a rare situation because Logan is really too old to have this type of cancer. He is currently going through chemo for a six week period and then the doctors will do further testing to see if they can operate on his tumor. Logan's cancer has now spread to his lungs and lymph nodes. Logan is a strong little boy who loves animals gardening and legos.

How can you help Logan? Go over to Goodnight Moon's blog. She has put together an amazing raffle with some awesome prizes. 100% of the proceeds of the raffle with go to Logan and his family to help. Many of us bloggers banded together and donated several different items to help raise money for Logan, so please go and help out as well by entering the raffle and making a donation to help out his family. You could even win a toddler blanket made by myself.  


Thank you in advance,

Music Sunday Week 3

Deployment Goals

I have two main deployment goals to begin working towards:

1.Getting my Childbirth Educator certification.
2.Getting my Lactation Consultant certification.  

       I fully realize that these two goals could very well take a couple of years to accomplish, but it is something that I would like to begin working towards. Cayleigh-Grace is not going to be home with me forever, she will be starting school the year we move and I would like to be prepared to get a job while the she and the boys are in school. 

Then there are the many smaller and less life changing goals that I hope to accomplish.

1. complete the many quilts that I have in various stages of completion.
2. Make the quilts that I have had the material to make for the past couple of years.
3. Go to the Gym on an almost daily basis. 
4. Join a Pilates, and an Ultimate Ab class.  
5. Work on cardio and strength training big time. 
6. Work on creating a nice garden area around the house and in the back yard. 
7. Read at least 52 books while KS is gone. (So far I have already read 4) Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.
8. Purchase Cayleigh-Grace's new dresser as well as a headboard or full bed frame for KS and I's bed.
9. Work on my photography. 
10. Research becoming a doula. 
11. Sell our house back home. 

Knowing me I will be continuously adding to this list as the time goes on, but this is a good starting point. I am actually looking forward to going through this list month by month to see how it will grow and to watch myself mark things off bit by bit. 

5 days...

We are now going on 5 days being 100% paci free!! She kept asking for her turtle night night last night and I had to show her that the drawer where we keep her paci's was empty. She was not happy at all but when I explained to her that the paci fairy came and got all of her pacifiers because she is a big girl now and not a baby anymore she didn't know what to think. She kept giving me the sad face and then laid down and went to sleep.

well...

• I have four posts in draft that are almost finished (actual decent posts that are about something rather then random bullet points).
• Countless "picture of" posts that are not even almost close to being done. 
• Everyone is healthy and has been for a week. 
• I thank God everyday for Skype and Email.
• CYS registration is complete... well minus orientation, one of which I missed today. It helps if the lady tells you AM or PM when she says be there at 7 tomorrow. I assumed she meant PM... well, we all know what assuming gets you.
• I went to counseling last week, Kiale also went to counseling last week. Gotta love the Military Family and Life Consultants.
• New schedules around the house have changed this house from chaos to peace... well as peaceful as possible with 3 kids and a deployed husband.
• Lots of sewing projects in the works. Now if I can just find the drive to get them started and actually complete them... maybe I should finish the ones I have started first. That might be the better idea. 
• Kiale is finally enjoying reading!!! 

Routine

We have finally settled into a good routine here. I have never been a schedule person, but with this deployment I have found that they are not only are they a good thing to consider they are a requirement for our family. I guess you could say we had a slight after school schedule already but now it is more concrete. After the fiasco of the boys not listening and Kiale being very rude and acting out I reevaluated our routines and decided that that would be the easiest thing to change first, and that I could go from there if it didn't work our so well. Thankfully it worked out perfectly. Everything really came to a head on Monday of last week. To the point where I called the family and life consultants for two appointments. One for Kiale and one for myself. While my appointment wasn't until the following day, and Kiale's appointment wasn't until Thursday afternoon, I decided to try and fix things for myself first. Which bring us to the change and implementation of a firm schedule for after school time. Our schedule before was to come home have snack and immediately start on homework. It was not working.

Music Sunday Week 2

Up and running!

I finally got my Etsy store up and running again after a year off. Go look around and see if there is anything you like. All I have in it right now is hair bows, but I will be adding quilts and other merchandise as time goes on. I also updated the "My Etsy Store" page under my header. It has a window of a few of the hair bows I currently have for sale.

Love and Grace Designs

Charmed + Park Time

Since our week was so crazy and hectic I was loving how calm and relaxing our weekend was. Saturday morning we got up and took the boys to their last Saturday of art class, and Cayleigh-Grace and I went to the commissary to pick up some goodies for KS first care package. After art class the kids and I just laid around the house all day and did nothing. It was great. We did have our second "Charmed" movie night. I wanted to setup a routine for Friday and Saturday nights. Something we could do and all enjoy together. I decided on movie nights, we are starting the Charmed series from the beginning and thanks to Netflix we are watching one disk on Friday night and the other on Saturday. We all thoroughly enjoyed them, I know they are looking forward to watching them again this weekend as well. Sunday was beautiful here and in an attempt to soak up as much sun as possible on our one warm day we took a walk to the park. It was great, the boys road their scooters and I pushed Cayleigh-Grace in the stroller. The kids had a ball. We hadn't spent any real time there before and we ended up staying there for a hour and a half. They were worn out by the time we made it back home.

My Week

*I was supposed to post this on Saturday but the week just got away from me, so here it is today... Thursday. Oops.

 Saturday-Monday

I guess you could say that my week really started out on Saturday at about 3o'clock in the afternoon or 1500 whichever you prefer. Colin came down the stairs saying he wasn't feeling well. After going through the usual, what hurts? Let me feel your head I realized he had a fever. So, what did I do... I quarantined him. He was stuck in his room all of Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday in an effort to keep the sickness contained to one child. The poor boy had a nasty fever which developed into a cough that lasted the entire week. Needless to say he did not make it to school Monday. Have you ever noticed that kids get sick at the worst times. Since Colin had the fever so bad I had to keep him home, which meant that he missed the 100 day celebration at school. Instead he spent the majority of the day laying on the couch watching movies with Cayleigh-Grace while I read (Eclipse... again). Cayleigh-Grace on the other hand did not have such a relaxing Monday. She always takes her naps around 3 in the afternoon, but when I told her to go upstairs to her room so we could clean it I found her in bed covered up telling me she was going night night. Right then and there I knew it, but I was still holding out hope. Until she woke up at 3:30 with a blazing fever. Colin was all better and now Cayleigh-Grace was sick... lovely.   

Tuesday

 On Tuesday Colin returned to school and Cayleigh-Grace spent the entire day laying on the couch curled up with me, she was extremely sick. I'm not really sure who had it worse her or Colin, although all Colin got out of it was the fever and a nasty cough. Cayleigh-Grace got the fever, cough, and a full on head cold to top it off. There were some good parts to Tuesday, Kiale lost his 6th tooth, and my best friend from Jr-Sr high school sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers to cheer me up since KS left for his first deployment.

Our sickie-poo

What my dinning table looked like when I went to bed on Tuesday.

 Wednesday

On Wednesday Cayleigh-Grace was still really sick and just not up to her normal tempo. Still laying around the house being pretty lethargic and not really wanting to do anything other then watch TV and cuddle. Which was fine with me, I was wanting to finish reading Breaking Dawn anyway. At about 1pm I received a text from Kiale's teacher saying he had a tummy ache but nothing else. So after texting her back twice she said he was fine and not to worry about it. All I could think was please don't let Kiale get sick too... So, I get to school and pick the boys up. Kiale is holding his stomach saying that it hurts and he wants to go lay down. Okay no big deal I though, maybe he just needs to go potty or something. Thirty minutes after we get home I walk downstairs and see this... 

Yes, that is him, asleep.

I ended up carrying him up the stairs into his bedroom, all the while wishing KS was there to carry him. 50lbs of dead weight is not lite. He ended up sleeping from about 4 O'clock until 7:30. Once he woke up I discovered the inevitable, he had the fever, and it was blazing. He only managed to stay up for an hour before he crashed again. Thankfully the day did end on a good note, Cayleigh-Grace was fever free by the end of the night and she even went to bed without her paci!! Yes, that is right I said it, without her paci, and she only cried for about five minutes before she went to sleep. This is HUGE for her, and I couldn't be happier. (and as of this post finally going live she is still paci free at night!!)

Thursday 

Thursday was Kiale's day to stay home from school and I ended up having to have a friend come over and watch him because it was awards day at school, and I couldn't miss my little man getting an award. Even if it was only for meeting standards. As my Mom would say, photo opportunity. 

Friday

By Friday everyone was finally healthy or at least healthy enough to be out in public. Colin and Cayleigh-Grace were still hacking up a storm with their coughs, but they were well enough to be around people so I jumped at the opportunity to go see the clowns that were visiting post. The kids loved the show that they put on, I don't think I have ever seen Cayleigh-Grace laugh at people so much in her life. It really was a treat and a wonderful way to end a very rough and nasty week.                                                             

Feelings

I cannot help but find myself laughing at people on facebook sometimes. Its not me being mean its just the reaction to the lifestyle that I am growing accustomed to. People will say how they miss their hubbys while they are at work during the day. I totally get that I was the same way, when KS was working I couldn't wait for him to come home. The afternoons and weekends where my favorite parts of the day, and on those special days when he would be home for lunch were made just that much better, but now... now it is totally different. Life is different, it is empty in so many ways. I guess that is really the best way to describe it. You see I am one of those women who loves their husband more then their children. That sounds terrible doesn't it? I promise I love my kids more then life itself and I would lay down my life for them in an instant but it is different with KS, when we wed it was till death do you part. I believe I will always love him more, but that is the way it was meant to be isn't it? If you loved your children more then your spouse, your soul mate, then there would be something seriously wrong with your relationship. When we had our children we knew that eventually they will find loves of their own and start their own lives away from us, have children of their own, and then the cycle will repeat. Children only spend a short amount of time with us, 18 years (give or take a few) it is such a short period of time in contrast to the lifetime I plan to spend with KS, and yes our children with be here long after we are dead and buried. We will love our children every day of our lives, but I do not want my children to be dependent upon me their entire lives. I want them to grow and succeed on their own, without our help. Of course we would help them however they needed it (within reason) but I want them to know that they can survive without us, I do not want their lives to revolve around us to the point where they think they have to depend upon us for everything. Anyways... tangent over... with KS gone there is definitely this part of me that is empty. It is truly the strangest feeling, this feeling of longing, sadness, loving, and emptiness all mixed in together to form one cohesive emotion. The best way to describe it would be that it feels like I have this numbness in my chest that just wont go away. Sometimes I don't notice it as much as others but it is always there. Its strange really. I have a feeling it will magically disappear in about a year when KS is home with us again and this deployment is behind us, but for now it will remain where it is.