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.

4th of July

4th of July was wonderful for us. KS has had a 4 day weekend so we have been taking it easy and relaxing around the house. We didn't make it out to any of the parades because on Saturday we all overslept and didn't get out of bed until almost 11 O'clock, and then on Sunday it was raining.Thankfully it wasn't a big deal since I hadn't even mentioned the parades to the boys yet.

(Colin looks like this in 90% of the pictures I have taken lately...)
Sunday night we went and enjoyed the fireworks with some wonderful friends of ours, R and T. The kids had a blast and there was (thankfully) plenty of room to run around and enjoy themselves. 

This is R, he is in the same class as KS,

and this is T. If you cant tell the kids are CRAZY about her. Normally they are all over R too, but the pictures I got of him and the kids were all blurry for some reason.

Well here is our family, the kids have been growing like weeds lately. It won't be too much longer and these boys will be as tall as me!

I hope you all had a wonderful and safe 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!!

I wanted to wish everyone a wonderful and safe 4th of July!!

(source)

10 Months + 4th of July= Bliss

That is right everyone our sweet Cayleigh-Grace turned 10 months old on Friday. It really doesn't seem possible that ten months ago she came into this world. She now has 8 teeth, she cut her 8th one of the 4th of July. She can say Mama, Dada, Baba, aka her Lamb for Build-A-Bear, as well as the occasional, yea and hey. She has the best personality always happy and eager to eat whatever doesn't eat her first. She has started walking around as long as she is holding on to something, she can also stand alone for a couple of seconds. She is in size 18 month clothes and size 6-12 month shoes. She also wears size 3 diapers. Its crazy to think that in two months time, my sweet baby girl with be a year old...
4th of July was wonderful. We set out early to attend the Baby Crawl. Cayleigh-Grace just sat their between Dixie's legs and didn't move. I think she was to scared of all the people yelling, she just looked around and crouched down under Dixie more. She knew where she was safe and secure. She still got a medal though! The parade was wonderful. Colin gave us all (Mom, Dad, Dixie, Dylan, Holly and I) quite a scare though, he just walked off and disappeared. Thankfully my Dad found him, quite a ways down the street... he went after a "little puppy" that he saw. We were all standing there packing everything up, one second he was there and the next second he was gone... it was so scary. Other than that incident it was a wonderful Our Country Day celebration in town. After the parade I went home to make Mac-N-Cheese and then headed over to our friend Kirby's Dad's house to have a BBQ and swim. I think we were in the water for a good 4 hours. Cayleigh-Grace had all of maybe an hour total sleep the entire day, but thankfully she remained in wonderful spirits and didn't get the slightest bit cranky.