Blah

That is how I am feeling today, just plain blah. This morning was good and productive, registered the kids for school, took Kiale to his speech class, came home and KS made me lunch during his lunch break. It was nice, and this this afternoon I have just spiraled into a bad mood with 0 patience for the kids. Which always makes dealing with them so much harder, especially when the littlest things set you off... but oh well. We all have our good days and our bad days. I didn't work out this morning and that my have something to do with my attitude, although not the main reason. I just started back to working out after taking a month off. Back in late June I got really sick and was out of commission for almost 2 full weeks. Turns out I had a gallstone and I had a pretty serious gallbladder attack. I was too stubborn to go to the hospital for until KS told me I had to go 3 days later because I was yellow and clearly jaundice. Somehow I managed to have one large stone that ended up blocking my bile duct resulting in the jaundice. Let me tell you people, for those of you who have never had jaundice... it SUCKS. You itch, and I'm talking severe itching that doesn't stop. I would wake myself up in the middle of the night because I was scratching in my sleep. The itching lasted for almost two weeks and I thought I was going to loose my mind from it. Thankfully it subsided just in time for my sisters wedding July 9th!

Summer's end

As many of you have noticed I took the summer off from blogging. With the kids home I just couldn't bring myself to blog, so I decided to just take the summer off. It has been a good summer, but it has also been a very rough summer. The boys will be starting school in the next few weeks, Cayleigh-Grace will be starting dance lessons and homework will be back into full swing. The latter of which I am not looking forward to but it comes with the territory. With school back in I will be back to regular blogging as well as a recap of our summer. We had some pretty big things go on these past three months; the boys played T-ball for the first time and I my sister went from being a Miss to a Mrs. I am looking forward to getting back into our school time routine and I think deep down the boys are too. Talk to you all soon!

A picture of myself and a family member

Cayleigh-Grace, Holly, KS, Colin, Dylan, Dixie, and I!

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.

Class of 2010

Congratulations to Dixie and Dylan!! I am so proud of both of you, I hope you have a wonderful graduation party today and a wonderful cruise in a few weeks!! Love you both and I cannot wait to see what the future holds for the two of you. Keep your heads on straight, stay focused, and look at the BIG picture when you make decisions. Your lives no longer revolve around the "now" everything you do from here on out will have an effect on the rest of your lives. I know you two are going to do great with anything you set your minds to. Follow your dreams and please don't ever sell yourselves short of anything you want to accomplish. The world is now your playground go make the best of it!

P.S. They both graduated with Honors, he has been in football since seventh grade and she has been a cheerleader since seventh grade as well!!

What a Week!

*It has taken me 3 days to finish this post, if you cant tell the kids are home from school and life around her has gone from what I thought was busy to EXTREMELY busy. Hopefully once things calm down a little bit I will start having posts that are more then just pictures and video :) 

Last week was a mess! There is just no other way of describing it, all 5 of us had the stomach bug. For starters it was the last week of school for the boys and at 5am Monday morning I am woken up by Colin crying and covered in puke.... needless to say he did not go to school Monday. Thankfully he was the only one of us that was puking and Kiale didn't have to miss any school and neither did KS. Although I still don't know how KS managed to go to PT two mornings in a row after having been in the bathroom the entire night before.

Kiale graduated from Kindergarten on Friday and Colin graduated from his Pre-K class on Thursday, I will be posting on those two wonderful days later in the week, once I can find a spare hour to put together a half decent post or two.

My sister graduates from high school today and I would be lying if I said I wasn't heartbroken for having to miss it. Her long time boyfriend is graduating as well, it is so weird not having them around the house all the time. We have never gone more then a week without seeing each other and now we are going on almost 3 months. I know I need to just suck it up and get used to not being around my family and I need to get used to missing huge milestones in their lives but it is so hard, and I feel like I am letting her and everyone else down but missing stuff and by making them miss stuff with my kids. Do you always feel like a part of you is missing??? I just have this hole that never seems to go away, I guess that is what happens when you are really close to your family and you just up and leave one day with only 3 weeks notice. 

I have been hitting the gym for the past three mornings and I am looking froward to going back on Monday, although I have a feeling I am going to leave the kids with Kiale and go this weekend I am really enjoying it. Plus I have finally made a friend!! How awesome is that!? It only took 2.5 months, but what does that matter right. We meet at the gym every morning and workout together. It makes the time go by so much faster and its nice to finally have some good adult interaction that lasts more then just the usual brief exchange of hellos and how long are you here for.


Well I have to go, its pool time, and the kids are starting to get antsy. Chow!

P.S. We might have orders within the month!!!!! Keep your fingers crossed!

Life

I must say that life here is really nice and is so much like being back home. The weather and the small town feel are all the same the only thing missing is my big family. Being 12 hours away and today's gas prices doesn't really make going back home to visit an option so I am embracing this new home away from home. I will be honest though the homesickness is starting to sink in, especially when KS isn't able to come home everyday. The days he is gone make it even harder on me. I am used to having some sort of relief with the kids, especially Dixie and Dylan, they were always over at the house keeping me company when KS was away now it is just silence... well as much silence as a house filled with a 6 and a half year old, a 5 year old and a soon to be 19 month old can be. This lifestyle is exactly what we wanted for our children, well minus the frequent single parenting part but that comes with the territory. We can walk to school, the grocery store, the gym, even the arts and craft center, and the security living here is wonderful. We truly don't have to worry about anything. Not that we really did worry at home but when you are here you know there are MP's looking out for you there is just a whole new level of safety that you can feel. Like I was telling my Mema the other night this place is so relaxing for me. I can finally just wind down and sit back and enjoy our life. It is so nice to even have that option. I will be posting some pictures of our house tomorrow. With more to come as we put the finishing touches up.

Pumpkin Patch

*KS was finally able to get my pictures off of my camera disk!!*

After the boys went to church on Sunday with Dixie and Dylan we met them at the pumpkin patch. The church that they attend puts on one every year. The kids had a wonderful time running through all of the pumpkins trying to find just the right one. Going to the pumpkin patch is always one of those things that I look forward to going to every year. It just shows that its the little things in life that truly make kids happy.

I love our kids so much!!!

Dixie & Dylan

Halloween Decor & Big News

*First off for the big news, my sister, Dixie, and her long time boyfriend, Dylan, made Homecoming court!!! I am so excited for them, Congratulations you two!!!*

I am all for quick and easy Halloween decor this year and I have been so good about not buying any large decorations. I just keep reminding myself that whatever I buy I have to move. So I cannot wait until we get to our PCS orders(permanent change of duty station) and get settled into our new house next year. Then I can decorate as much as I want!!

Dixie & Dylan Senior Snapshots

Busy Busy Busy

Today has been ridiculously busy. There is just no other way to put it. We started off the day buy heading to Walmart and picking up Halloween costumes, the boy are both going to be Vampires. Cayleigh-Grace has a Sleeping Beauty costume that I bought her but I am thinking now that I am going to try and find/make a vampire costume for her so they all match!

The we headed to the cemetery to try and find where KS's dad is buried, he died in a motorcycle accident in 2000. I have only been to his grave site once and that was probably 7 years ago. So needless to say I was unsuccessful in finding it but I did finally talk to the boys about what happened and know they know that their daddy really did have a dad. They had never noticed that he didn't so I figured I would just go ahead and explain the "edited" version of what happened. With Kiale being 6 now I thought it was time that he learned why Grammy had all of the scares and where his Grandpa was.

After that we had about an hour and a half before we had to be at a birthday party. It was so sweet watching "L" open all of his birthday presents. They boy is in love with all things Thomas the Train. He was thrilled with all of his new Thomas toys. He just turned 3 and I honestly think he already knows the names to all of the trains on the show!

We weren't home an hour when we decided to go and scout out the woods where KS will be hunting for the few weeks he will be home during hunting season. They woods where he is at is absolutely beautiful. There is even a creek that runs through the property. I had C-G in my sling while we were walking through the woods and I have to admit I do no think she will be using that one again. It killed my back. Although it probably doesn't help that she was in my Hip Hammock the entire hour and a half we were in Walmart either. 24lbs on your front hanging off of you gets darn right heavy and unpleasant after a while.

We ended our day relaxing at KS's God parents house watching football and just chilling out. His God mother happens to be Colin's teacher this year and was Kiale's teacher last year. Dixie and Dylan also stopped buy so I could take some Senior pictures of them... don't worry I will share the pictures with you tomorrow!! At this point I am just happy to be home and I am fixing to crash in my bed!

*Did I mention that today is Cayleigh-Grace 13th month day, Wow.*

Dixie's Prom Preview

What a weekend...

This weekend was nothing short of busy!! Mom, Dixie, Holly, Cayleigh-Grace and I all went to a bridal shower on Saturday, which was wonderful. We then took a quick detour to the Vera Bradley store where Cayleigh-Grace got her first Vera bag!! Well... its more of a clutch but same thing. I was so excited, we are a bit of purse a-holics in our family. We LOVE purses!!! Dooney and Bourkes as well as Vera Bradley bags are our favorites!

On Sunday I made dinner for my sister's boyfriend's family who recently had a loss in their family... so I took it over to his house during lunch time, and then went over to my mom's for a little visiting. After Cayleigh-Grace and I got back home, I left the boys with Kiale, we worked in the yard and planted the flowers that I got with my birthday money.

Over all it was a really nice weekend.

Weekend Update

Well Saturday began as a very busy day, Kiale had his first official soccer game. Unfortunately in our rush to leave the house I forgot my camera so not pictures from the game, but I can say that it was very wet a cold. Kiale played 90% of the game I was so proud of him, he did a wonderful job. The only problem he seemed to have was remembering which direction was his goal, but other than that he was awesome!! The teams tied 8-8!

Later that day we went to the Fall Festival at the Methodist Church, where the boys, Dixie and Dylan attend. They had a wonderful time!!






I had to take this picture of Cayleigh-Grace this is Kiale and I's favorite outfit to put her in!! It is just so adorable! We call it her hungry hippo!!