Pony Crazy

If you can't tell we are a little My Little Pony crazy in this house. Thankfully everyone, boys included, loves to play with her. She wanted to play ponies while I cooked dinner tonight and I couldn't help but take a few pictures while she was setting up her ponies. You can see where she was telling me to not take pictures yet because she wasn't finished lining them up right. Oh yes, and did you notice her shirt? Sorry the pictures are not all the clear, I took them with my phone.

Yay for 20,000!

I couldn't believe it when I signed onto blogger this afternoon and realized I had rolled over 20,000 views. Yay! 

In other news, I have been taking the kids to the doctor throughout the past week to get their sports physicals done. It is that time of year again where I have to re-register all of them for CYS. Am I the only one who despises all of the paperwork involved? Its times like this (and registering for a new school year) when I am thankful to only have three kids. I cant imagine filling out all of the paperwork that goes with 4+ kids, granted I hate paperwork so any amount to me feels like pulling teeth. While I may hate paperwork I do love taking my kids to the doctor, but only to get a chance to see how much they weight and what their percentages are. KJ weighs 53.5lbs and is in the 74 percentile for his age. CH weighs 54.4lbs and is in the 78 percentile, and CG weighs 37.2lbs and is in the 80 percentile. I asked the doctor what he guesstimate was for CG's adult height and he said if she continues to grow at this rate she will end up being about 5ft 9in. 

I actually did something this week that I have been putting off ever since KS enlisted. Going to the dentist. It has been almost seven years since I have been. Mainly because I didn't have dental insurance until two and a half years ago, and then when we did get it I just put it off because I knew I already had two cavities from the previous time I had gone to the dentist shortly after CH was born and I was too nervous to go back and get them filled, not to mention we just didn't have the money. For some reason I began to get this fear of the dentist, and because of that I didn't go and I kept putting it off. Before KS deployed I made myself a "big girl panties" list. It basically consisted of getting two moles removed from my back that were highly questionable and going to the dentist. Leave it to me to pick the minor surgery over the dental work. I got the moles removed the month before KS deployed (I received my first two sets of stitches as a reward) and thankfully there were no issues with them. I went to my dental appointment on Tuesday expecting to get a cleaning and x-rays done, that didn't happen. All I got done was x-rays, and when I say x-rays I mean your normal x-rays plus a full mouth x-ray where you stand up and this machine circles around your head, as well as pictures taken of my teeth. It was very interesting to say the least, but not all good news. Turns out that along with the two cavities I already had I have two new ones, as well as 3 silver fillings that are leaking and have to be replaced. Not cool. On a positive not the dentist was very surprised that I had very minimal staining and he said my teeth looked really good. Then he said the words I knew was coming. You have to start flossing. Its just one of those things that I say I am going to do and it never happens. Heck I even buy the floss and it just sits there. I brush my teeth twice a day and I use Listerine twice a day as well but it just isn't getting the tiny particles around my teeth and since I do not want to get gingivitis I'm going to start. Next week I go in for my cleaning and to get the cavities filled on one side of my jaw. Its going to be between two to two and a half hours long. Then I have to go in the next week and get the other side done. I'm not looking forward to it and would appreciate any prayers coming my way to not freak out and cancel my appointments. The bill for all of this is enough to scare me away... its not pretty folks, not pretty at all. I really wish United Concordia would cover the tooth colored fillings more. You just cant find anyone to fill cavities using the old silver fillings anymore which means that we are stuck paying a ton of money when we don't really have a choice in the matter, but when its all said and done my teeth with be healthy and I will return to the dentist every six months like I did every year before I got married.

A Day in the Life of 5... or 6?

First off let me say that no I am not pregnant. That is kind of impossible with the hubs currently deployed but I won't lie. It has crossed my mind many times and KS and I have had "the talk" over and over these past few months he has been deployed. It seems to be something that comes up on a near weekly basis. CG is three and a half now and this is the longest stretch I have ever had where I wasn't pregnant between kids. By the time C was three in a half CG was already here and was mere 12 days old. Baby fever comes and goes with me, it hit the hardest when KS was first gone and it lasted about a month and a half. It was rough. There were tears and moments of just feeling lost. Having babies is not a decision KS and I takes lightly. K was our surprise baby, we found out we were pregnant with him February of my senior year in high school, and yes I was on birth control. C was planned although many in my family still believe he was another surprise. We did plan him and we were blessed to get pregnant right when we were hoping to, when K was just nine months old. We wanted them close together; to have a buddy and someone to always lean on.  When C was around 15 months old we started talking about having another baby, but we just weren't sure. It took us a year of talking and trying to decide what was best for our family to decide to try and have another baby. We were blessed to get pregnant with CG, our daughter, and in so many ways we are complete as a family.

We have our two sons and our daughter but so many times I keep thinking that I would like to have one more baby. I come from a family with three kids and I always swore I would have two or four but never three. Well you know what they say. Never say never. Granted I will say that the family dynamic is completely different then what I grew up with. There is a huge difference in being the oldest out of three sisters and then having two sons and a daughter. No where near the amount of estrogen. I am seven and nine years older then my sisters and my boys, as of right now, get along so much better then my sisters ever did. KS and I hope and pray that this continues. For the most part all of my kids get along great, the two with the most issues are CG and C and even between those two it isn't that bad.

Sometimes I just wish I had a crystal ball, some way to be able to say okay, if you did make this decision it would either go this way or that. There are so many negatives when we discuss having another baby most of which are the financial standpoint. We just bought a brand new car last summer, it seats five and their are five of us. Perfect fit. We would have to buy another car and most likely trade in mine which I love and am really only willing to trade it in on the bigger version of what we already have. The only negative there is that the bigger version is way out of any price point we have ever had. The other thing we have thought of is for KS to buy a van for him (we only have one vehicle right now) and I keep my car but I borrow the van whenever I would need to take all the kids somewhere or if we needed to go somewhere as a family. Not a big deal and it would work, but do we really want to do that?

I have always said that I have to be done having kids by the time I turned 30, that means holding a baby in my arms at 29. No still being pregnant at 30. This is just a  personal decision I have made. After having babies at 18, 19, and 23 I see not point to continue that into my 30's. KS and I have never had "us" time. The last time we went somewhere sans kids was.... well I cant even remember. I don't think we have ever been anywhere without CG. So we are talking 4-5 years. I am ready for our own personal us time.

At the end of the day KS doesn't think we need to have another baby and I really don't either. Yes it would be wonderful and such a blessing but I just don't know if it would be the best thing for our family at this point. Who knows, maybe we will readdress the decision after a year or two but I have a feeling that our family of five will remain a family of five and not six, even if I question our decision every couple of weeks.

The crud

Sickness has officially invaded our home. As of right now only two of us have it and I am hoping that the other two miss out on this nasty head cold that has invaded Kiale and I. My sister swore by Emergen-C so I went to the commissary yesterday and picked some up. I am hoping it works. I should have went through my medicine box yesterday before I hit the commissary but I didn't and what happened today when I was trying to find some meds for Kiale? I realized they were all expired by at least a year or two, and yes while this shows that I am blessed to have a very healthy family who is very rarely sick it also becomes annoying when we actually need some sort of medicine and I have to go out and buy all new stuff every single time. Has anyone else used Emergen-C, if so what did you think about it?

Valentines Day

Since this was KS and I's third Valentines Day apart I figured I would just do something small for the kids. Not to mention I am getting one heck of a head cold and I just didn't feel like doing anything remotely big. I ended up going to Bed Bath and Beyond today in search of new Tervis cups for the kids. Imagine my sunrise when I walked in to see a rather large table full of 50% off Tervis cups! I was thrilled and ended up getting six cups for what I was planning on paying for three. Needless to say the kids got their new cups for V-day and I still have three cups stashed away for St. Patrick's Day or Easter whichever I decide. I bought the cups and a bag of chocolate as their gifts from KS and I. The rest of the chocolate was sent to us by my Mom and I just combined everything and used it as our table centerpiece for dinner tonight. The kids were thrilled with it!

Round 2

It has been a very long time since I have blogged. A lot of it has to do with motivation issues and even more to do with lack of inspiration. I just cant figure out anything decent to blog about. We are currently several months into our second deployment within the past year. I have to admit this deployment has gone much smoother then the past one. I haven't had any major issues with the kids. The Hubs is doing great and communication is amazing. I'm blessed to be able to talk to him every day with only the rare communication issue. This past holiday season was our first one apart since we became a couple 10 years ago. It wasn't great but it wasn't terrible either. We were able to skype with him from 0600 until about 1300 Christmas day. We are getting to the point in this deployment where CG asks when Daddy is coming home and then argues that he should come home Sunday and not when I tell her. She is getting impatient, and if my laptop is open she demands to be able to type on Skype whether the Hubs is on or not. The boys are handling it great and I am so please to say we have not had any of the anger issues we were having this time last year. The boys are also doing great in school, both of them have made straight A's all year which makes Mommy and Daddy very proud. I am hoping that the remaining months of this deployment continue to go smoothly and that the kids and I are able to remain patient and in good spirits.

Hopefully this recap will be the first of many blog posts from me in the future it is just hard to blog when I have nothing decent to say. I hate to bore everyone with monotonous posts since its rare we do anything out of the ordinary lately. Our days seem to be carbon copies of yesterday... I might need to do something to change that, any good ideas on how to get out of the deployment rut?