Hitting the books...

Well, KS and I are both college students once again.  It's only been 11 years for him and 7 years for me since we last attended.  It's a ton of work but we are both glad to be finally going back and bettering ourselves. We should both be graduating with our AA's in spring. After that I will be applying to nursing school and he will have a couple more maths to finish before he can apply to engineering school.  All in all we have several super busy years ahead of us. Throw in the kids school, sports, church, and your everyday family life into the mix and maybe when all is said and done he and I will not only have degrees but maybe, just maybe, we will have retained our sanity as well.

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?

I will wait until you are home to have Christmas...

I miss you Honey, and we love you so much!! We are so proud of you, not too much longer baby and you will be home in our arms again! I love you KS.

It's not goodbye, it's see you soon.

This is my story, of my life and feelings leading up to deployment #2, not only is this deployment #2 it is also the second time in this year that we have had to say "see you soon.."  The second time we have faced the D word... 2011 will be known for deployments in my family, both for goodbyes and hellos.  

Sept 21st- Here we are once again looking down the barrel of another deployment. By the time he leaves again he will have only been home 5.5 months.... These past 5.5 months have been a blessing and blessing that could have and should have been so so much shorter. If it hadn't of been for his back issues we would have said "see you soon" again months ago instead of in a few weeks. Is it so wrong to be thankful for something that causes my husband pain day in and day out? If it is then I am a terrible person, but that pain kept him from being sent to a place we would never want him to go, a place where each day would be spent in worry and fear.... A place that I pray for day in and day out for the ones who went.

Yesterday I was feeling the weight of this deployment. I was feeling the sadness and heaviness that comes from knowing we will have to watch him leave again in such a short amount of time and for such a longer amount of time this go round. In so many ways for me deployments are a weight I have to bare until his boots are on the ground and I am in his arms again. I literally carry it with me day in and day out. Homecomings are in many ways hard to describe if you are looking to express what you feel within. When KS came home in April I had no clue how heavy the pack was I was carrying but seeing him again lifted all of that. I was able to stand up straight, to breathe again... I could literally feel the difference within my body... the stress just lifts and seems to evaporate into the wind, but now the pack is back. I can feel it filling itself up with each passing day. I can feel the weight of it settling into my back and on my shoulders.... I can feel it settling in for the long haul. Some days pass and I can barely feel it it is just a paper that blows in the wind, one that I feel rustle along my back and other days... other days it feels as if I am carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, but this is how it goes. This is deployment. Some days you breeze through the day and its okay you think to yourself "I've got this no big deal..." and other days if feels as if you can barely function in this world... I am not looking forward to getting back into this cycle and while I am already starting to feel it it is nothing compared to while he is away...

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 is here!!

My kids are being wild and crazy today and I am fixing to take them all to the grocery store.... I may have just lost my mind. Although, KS would argue that I lost my mind 10 years ago when we started dating and then I really lost it when we wed 8 years ago. I like to argue that I was brainwashed ;-) Summer is in full swing in the south the heat is rising and the humidity won't let anyone forget its sticky presence. The saying you could cut it like butter couldn't be closer to the truth. I was under the assumption that the further south you got the hotter and more humid the weather was.... well folks let me tell you I was WRONG (yes KS I just admitted that, and don't expect it to happen again) Not only are we more inland then our original home we are also further north. Neither of which matters when it comes to heat and humidity...  chalk that up to a lesson learned.

I have been away from blogland for the past month and I must say it was a much needed break, May was busy. We finished up with reintegration with KS, Kiale and Colin had graduations and end of they school year ceremonies, as well as the start of T-ball season for both boys. Cayleigh-Grace decided that she wanted to test out the "terrible twos" for a little while and I read... a lot. Eight books total in May, and we went back home for a few days this past weekend.

Life on post is going good except for one MAJOR issue... they closed the pools. Their are two pools on post, one indoor and one outdoor. The indoor pool has been closed for a couple of years now due to renovations and now they decided to close the outdoor pool as well, I cannot help but wonder how many years it is going to take them to build a new outdoor pool and splash pad if it has taken them over two years to just renovate the indoor pool. Needless to say my water bugs are ticked off and their Mamma is as well. We already have two blow up pools for the backyard but they are no where near as fun as a normal size pool with a giant slide... but we will deal.

I do have several bog posts coming up as well as a product review from my new favorite brand of hot sauce Cholula! (They are amazing folks, go get some and try it. You WILL love it.)  Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things and get some steady posts coming out of this blog again. It has been too long since I was on here regularly.

1st week home

Since KS got home Easter Sunday a lot of stuff has been happening. The first couple of days were wonderful and honestly I don't think that accurately describes it. He went back to work on Wednesday and found out whats going to be going on for the next few months. He ended up getting the stomach bug that the kids and I had the week prior to his arrival on Thursday and spent the entire night throwing up and messing his back up even worse then it was before. He went to sick call for the second day in a row due to his back and the stomach bug and spent the entire day of Friday on quarters for 24 hours. He is supposed to have an X-ray done on his back, hopefully they will be able to figure out exactly what is wrong with it soon. We didn't do much of anything over the weekend other then spend time together as a family which was nice to do after a 3 month long break of it.

I have still been reading a lot and I managed to finish the last book in the Harry Potter series yesterday, its only the second time I have read them. I own all of them and I'm not really sure why I have only read them once. I forgot how good they were. I finally decided which E-reader I want to buy, I'm going to go with the Kindle.  The main reason is that I don't want to buy the Barnes and Nobel version and then us get transferred to Germany or somewhere outside the US and it not work. I haven't bought it yet but I am using the Kindle for PC to read the series I have just started and I will just transfer whatever books I have on my laptop to it whenever I finally get around to buying it.

May is going to be a good month for us, the kids are getting out of school and it will finally be the start to our summer!! We are hoping to make a trip back home this month and I am wanting us to take the kids to the zoo and the aquarium at some point this month as well. Hopefully I can get KS to agree to go. I have been dying to take them but I just haven't had a chance to go yet. Maybe we can go to one of them for mother's day this weekend.

The kids are doing good with KS home, Kiale is acting so much better and is not giving me anywhere near the problems he was giving me while KS was deployed. I'm hoping that this continues.

This is my 550th post, yay!

Roller Coasters

Roller coasters are something that I am not to fond of, I love the rush but I'm always paranoid I am going to fall out or loose my shoes and I'm small enough that whenever it dips or turns fast I come up off of my seat and it scares the living crap out of me. So needless to say they are not something that I frequently go on, but it is something that I live. Experiencing on a day to day basis. Some days the track is smooth and is lacking the severe drops and upside down loops that scare me so much, but on other days it feels like I am dropping two hundred feet going while going 100mph and lifting up out of my seat threatening to be thrown off. This is one of those days. This roller coaster that is our lives is giving us one hell of a wild ride and all I can do is close my eyes and hold on tight. I sit here on the couch typing this post while looking around my living/dinning room noticing the footlockers, the ruck sack, Kevlar vest and all of the other equipment that screams deployment. For now it means homecoming and that KS is home and safe, but I cant help but wonder for how long. The Army is notorious for changing plans and saying "hey you, go here!" without discretion. Every little bump and jolt on this roller coaster makes me appreciate my life and my husband more and more. There will be days, weeks, and months where all I have is longing and the ups and downs of deployment. Then there will be redeployment days where you are just thankful to have them home no matter how long they are able to stay with you. If you ever learn anything from being in the service its appreciation for those you love. You hold them a little tighter at night and you pick up their clothes breathing in as deeply as you possibly can savoring in their smell, the very essence of who they are because you never know exactly how long you are going to have them for. This lifestyle comes with so many different separations, the obvious being deployments, but not many people on the outside realize everything else that goes with it. You have schools, trainings, FTX, 24 hour duty, it is rare to be simply existing without the date of their next departure lingering in the background of your mind and thoughts. Its always there, but you learn to coexist with it. You learn to set aside the ticking clock and trade it out for the present, because that is what really matters. The here and now. Not the future. The future will be what it will be, but now, now is the time to embrace the things you love most in life. Its the time to hug a little tighter and love a little harder. Now, while you still can. In light of these things I think I'm going to tighten my belt a little tighter and hold on a little stronger and ride this roller coaster that is my life. Only God knows where it will go and how hard it will drop. The twists and turns that make up this life are not up to us, so I'm going to embrace them now and deal with whatever it gives me when it gets here. This is the life we choose and we are in for one hell of a wild ride. 

He is home!

Our Easter was amazing, Easter involved a homecoming, our first homecoming. KS is home and we are done with our first deployment. From the beginning of this deployment they kept bouncing around dates to return, we heard a year, then six months, then three months. No one really  knew exactly what was going to happen, and then on the 19th of March I heard it was a possibility, a rumor, that the guys were coming home after only 3 months there. Then on April 2nd I got the call, he was coming home in just a couple of short weeks. What I thought was going to be a 13 month deployment turned into 3. We are blessed beyond measure and I will treasure and appreciate every day we are able to be together that we, normally, would not have had if this deployment hadn't been cut short.

Yesterday was amazing, I got the kids up and it was business as usual. They had no idea what was in store for them just two hours after waking up. KS wanted it to be a complete surprise for them and asked me not to tell anyone and that is what I did. Cayleigh-Grace and Kiale got up first I fed them breakfast and started getting them dressed. I got the dress out that I bought over a month ago for Cayleigh-Grace to wear in June for R and R. As soon as she saw it she got all excited "Go pick Daddy up!?" she yelled. I just told her that since it was Easter I wanted her to wear her pretty dress she accepted it and put it on. Kiale got dressed and then finally Colin got up and got dressed. By that time it was 0930 and I was trying to get him to hurry up and eat his oatmeal but he really wasn't wanting it, so I just let him be done. By the time he went and got dressed it was 0945 and time to head out the door to pick up KS. I ended up going to the wrong side of the headquarters at first so I had to call him and figure out exactly where we were supposed to be picking him up. Once we got to the correct place I let the kids out of the truck and walked them over to the vans. They were so confused because they thought they were going to be finding Easter eggs. I told them to go find their big Easter egg and KS walked around the van. They just stood there staring at him. There was no running and jumping into his arms, there was just a lot of staring and disbelief. It took them a little while to realize that that really was Daddy. By the time we got home, about 10 minutes later, they were thrilled, and finally getting excited about having KS home. It took a little while for Cayleigh-Grace to warm up to him again but after a few hours she was Daddy's girl once again. The day was spent enjoying the presents KS brought back from Afghanistan and the rest of their Easter gifts.We spent the day laying around the house and just enjoying each others company once again.

I still cant believe that he is actually home. I never really got my hopes up about him coming home early, I mean, who ever hears of a deployment being cut short? I never let myself believe that he was really coming home and I was too scared to be crushed by the disappointment of it. Now that he is here I am just enjoying him being home. It has been 30 hours now and I cant help but think to myself that he is really here. Its like I am still trying to convince myself that he really is home and its not some figment of my imagination sitting here next to me on the couch.

If you are wondering why there is a lack of pictures on this post its because I didn't get any. Sorry.

From 3 to 4

KS and I have been batting around the idea of going from 3 to 4 kids recently. It started about 6 months ago when we decided that we did want one more child, then I decided no thank you during the month after he left, but now we are talking about it again. This time we are leaning far towards 4 rather then 3. The biggest question is when would be the right time. I know people that would argue there never is a "right" time and if you wait for that time it will never happen and I totally get that, but we want to be in the best financial standpoint possible this time around, and that takes planning. I want to be debt free, or as close to it as we possibly can. If I have my numbers crunched right we should be able to pay our truck of with our income tax money next year. That is really the only bill we have left and it is a huge chunk of our paycheck as well. If we are able to get that paid off I will be 100% okay with having another baby but a part of me still wants to wait until we sell our house back home as well. Its been for sale for about a month now and we haven't heard anything and with the market the way it is that doesn't surprise me one bit. Right now we have renters in it until it sells thank goodness but if those renters ever leave and we don't have our truck paid off we would be in big trouble from a financial standpoint. Then there is the issue of needing another vehicle. Thankfully my truck already seats 6 so it isn't at the top of the list for must haves but it is still on there. We would be using the profits from the house to buy a larger vehicle after it sells. So you see, my list of things that have to be done before we have another baby; 

1. Pay off the truck. 
2. Sell the house. 
3. Buy larger vehicle. 

The only requirement I have is to have the truck paid off before we have another baby the last two can come after and it wouldn't be a big deal. Like I said earlier KS and I are still talking about at this point but it is a nice thought, and we have been putting a lot of thought into it, or at least I have. Its kind of hard to figure out how much thought the he is putting into with him being deployed and all... Thankfully we paid off the rest of our debt with this years income tax money so we are in a good position to be debt free within the next two years. 

Silence

*I was supposed to publish this on the 30th... oops.* 

March has been a very busy month for us, the first 3 weekends were spent with a birthday party each Saturday, and then this past Sunday the 27th was my 26th birthday. Plus school with the kids, issues with Kiale... again, and Cayleigh-Grace displaying full on 2 year old behavior for a good two weeks make for one non blogging me. There have been several good things about this month, we are two months down in this deployment which means we are two months closer to seeing KS again! Yay!! Even though we still have a LONG way to go, but what can I say I like to look at the brighter side of things. I have been hitting the gym 5 out of the past 7 days and I am feeling great and sleeping better. Plus I hope to be in bikini shape by the end of the month (that being April not March) I am planning a beach trip and it cannot get here soon enough! I still cant believe its been 9 months since I last went to the gym, and I can feel it too. I am no where near in the shape I was in last June and I have a long way to go to get back there again, but I will get there.  I am crazy determined at this point. I know what I want and I am going to do everything in my power to get there. There were a few wonderful things that happened this month...

This is the AMAZING Reese's birthday cake that my dear friend Alicia made for me. It was DELICIOUS!!

Kiale decided that he wanted to start reading my books, this is him reading the first 4 pages of Eragon to Cayleigh-Grace. I had him trade it out with the first Harry Potter book since the words are quite as hard in those books.

This isn't a wonderful thing but it is kind of a funny thing... Cayleigh Grace decided that she wanted to stand on Kiale's back while he was leaning over the couch getting a book off of the bottom shelf of my bookshelf. She then proceded to fall into the bookshelf and give herself quite the goose egg and scratch. The first picture with her in the pink dress is from the 27th just a couple of hours post fall and the picture to the right is from 48 hours later and looking much much better.

  

This is by far the best thing that happened in March, Colin lost his first tooth on the 29th!!! I hadn't seen him so excited in what seems like ages, he was THRILLED to have finally lost a tooth, and the tooth next to it is already loose as well. Good thing the Tooth Fairy knows exactly how to get to our house. The bottom picture is from the next morning after the Tooth Fairy came and left Colin a dollar for his tooth in our special tooth lamb.

Journal Excerpt

*written last night before bed*

Tomorrow is the big day. My baby boy turns six. I have a few goals for myself in regard to Colin's upcoming 6th year.

1. Embrace the child within him. 
2. Remember that he is only 6, not almost 8 like Kiale. 
3. Do not uphold him to the same standards that I do Kiale. Yes, it is easier on me, but it is unfair to Colin. 
4. Read him a bedtime story every night. Even when I don't feel like it. 
5. Remember to show him extra love, kindness, and understanding. 
6. Make sure he feels loved and special every single day. 
7. Work on building a strong and lasting relationship with him. 

I only get his 6th year once, and in many ways I feel as if I wasted his 5th year so I do not want to waste his 6h. I want this year to be a great year for him. One where he is loved so much that he feels as if he will burst. He is a special and remarkable child and he deserves only the best, and that is exactly what I plan on giving him. My little Pudgy/ Cuddle Bug/ Buggy. I love that little boy so much, words cannot even begin to describe it... Happy 6th Birthday Colin Hunter.

I just went back in his room and gave him an extra hug, kiss, and I told him how much I loved him. He went to sleep with the most peaceful and happy smile on his face. Motherhood is a grand and beautiful thing. Definitely a gift from God.  

*Colin's Birth Story*

On hold.

You know how you feel when you have been waiting on hold for what seems like centuries. The elevator music playing in the background and your phone on the speakerphone setting while you fiddle around on facebook or walk around the house debating whether to unload the dryer or clean out the dishwasher. That slightly annoyed but still  complacent feeling you get, you know, before the severe annoyance of being on hold for half the day sets in. That is where I am at right now. I cant decide what I want to do or where I want to go. I feel as if my life has been put on hold and I don't really care enough to change it. It is a sucky unaccomplished feeling to have. Its a feeling that I want to change; I just don't have the drive to change it. Its like I don't care enough to change it. I am perfectly fine with the monotone colors my life has taken on since KS left, and that scares me. There are more nights now that I go to sleep and wake up with my eyes burning and red from crying the night before. I have no reason to cry we are blessed with excellent communication, we see/talk to each other daily and we are blessed beyond belief for that, and yet for two nights this week I have cried. When I stop and think about it deep down I believe it is the accumulation of many things, deployment included. I am fixing to turn 26, my husband is in the middle of a war zone, my parents prepaid for my collage and I have yet to take full advantage of it, I want to go to the gym and start working out on a near daily basis and yet I don't, I want to sew and let my creativity run wild with fabric and painting and yet I don't. I just cant find the drive to do it, and I cant help but wonder if I force myself into doing these things if it will all crumble b/c my heart isn't quite in it yet. I know and fully realize that 26 is young, but if I am going to be honest it is way closer to 30 then to 20 and that fact scares the crap out of me. I am afraid to age, I am afraid to look in the mirror one day and see someone I don't recognize. Vain I know but it is the God honest truth, I don't want to get older. There are so many things that I want to do and so many ambitions that I want to conquer and yet I just sit here on hold accomplishing nothing, and I don't even understand why. I don't get why I cant get myself to step up the the proverbial plate of life and take a swing . What am I afraid of?? Yes I totally flunked out of my college math class and I have no idea how I will pass it the second time around but I have got to quit using that as an excuse. It cannot be what holds me back any longer. I want to have a smokin' hot body when KS gets home from deployment, heck, I want to be looking good when he gets home on R&R. I don't want him to come home to the same old me, I want him to go back thinking damn she is lookin good, not oh well hopefully she starts doing something now. I want to start working towards my goals by first getting all of my basic college courses completed and passed. All I have left is my two maths and the final English and they will all be done, then I can focus on taking classes towards what I want to do with my life. Delivering babies and becoming a licensed midwife. I need to light a fire under my ass and get to it, enough with being on hold. I am going to drive myself mad if this continues. I want be able to hold my head up and be proud of myself instead of just being okay with my life and my accomplishments, and I want KS and my parents to be proud of me too. Aside from my kids they are the three most important people in my life and I feel like I am letting all of them, myself included, down and I am sick and tired of it. Starting Monday I am taking myself off of hold, I am calling the gym and getting Cayleigh-Grace registered with their daycare. I am going to call the people who hold my free college credits and see if I can even access them being out of state, and I am going to get my butt in gear and start doing something with my life.

My Night

 

My night will consist of watching this for the first time, and enjoying a nice full glass of this. Not as good as their Sweet Red but good enough to make me want to go back for seconds. I am coming to love Barefoot wines, and their mind numbing qualities.

Distance

Feeling the distance tonight in a really big way. Some days you just cant help but miss them in ways that seem to overtake everything else in life. Sometimes you just want your husband in your arms and to be able to say screw the mission, but this mission is what is important. It is what makes the difference and keeps people safe. Our sacrifice now is what makes the difference later, its what they are there for and what we are here at home for. 99% of the time I am good, I am functioning, and I am able to deal. Tonight is not one of those nights, but tomorrow is a new day. 

Skates and Elephants

For starters I want to give a shout out to my wonderful husband,  

Happy 8th wedding anniversary Honey! I love you!!  

Now, on to our feature presentation of 

Skates and Elephants.

Our weekend was awesome, it started off with a birthday party at the skating rink. We brought Kiale's roller blades and Colin, Cayleigh-Grace and I just got skates from the rink. The kids loved it. Cayleigh-Grace had a hard time accepting the fact that she could not do it. She just isn't coordinated enough to skate. She had never come across something could not do before. I ended up carrying her while I skated back to where the party was being held while she held her face in her hands and cried, "I cant do it" it broke my heart. I think she is going to be sensitive like I was.

Immediately following the skating party we headed down the road to see the Greatest Show on Earth. It was wonderful. We met some friends of ours there and all the kids (Moms included) had a blast. We were trying to get there early enough to make it to the pre show, but it just didn't happen. We got to our seats and a couple of minutes later the pre show ended. It was just too crazy and hectic trying to get from the party and to the circus within 15 minutes, it ended up taking 30. Thankfully the kids didn't want to go down to the pre show anyway. They wanted to stay in our seats so they could just watch what was going on. They knew if we had gone down there we wouldn't' have been able to see what was going on. There was just too many people down there. Right before the show began I took the boys out and got drinks for us to enjoy during the beginning. Here is the opening act. Which just happens to be one of my favorite parts of the entire show. I just love the music and it always manages to get stuck in my  head for hours after I hear it.

Once the show began and the kids got settled I waited on a slow part to head out and get some goodies. I ended up getting each of the boys a snow cone cup, Kiale got a tiger and Colin got an elephant. I also grabbed a bag of cotton candy, you just cannot go to the circus and not get cotton candy. Its the best! Cayleigh-Grace was getting fussy on and off during the performance, I cant imagine why we had only  had once heck of a busy day... she had finally settled down after going from her seat to mine when the people in front of us (well the lady) turned around and yelled at her for kicking her seat. I had no idea she was doing it. The lady kept yelling at her and said "I cant fill with you kicking my seat, stop it!" I didn't even have time to say anything to the lady Cayleigh-Grace went into hysterics right away. I just picked her up out of her chair and rocked her until she calmed down. Thankfully it was so loud in there she wasn't really bothering anyone. At that point I wouldn't have cared if she was I was in shock that that woman yelled at her like that. I don't even talk to her like that... anyways she finally calmed down except for her body jumping every few seconds b/c of her sniffling and trying to catch her breath. Eventually she fell asleep. She slept clear through intermission and through the rest of the show. While she was sleeping the concession clowns came around selling things and I bought Cayleigh-Grace this pink light up wand that spins around.

to the clown. The boys thoroughly enjoyed the show. They kept yelling over the music, "Did you see that?" "That was so cool!!" I already told them we would go next year if it is in town again. The circus is just too good to miss, and our seats were great! I loved where we were at. After the show we headed to the main concession so the kids could pick out some goodies to take home with them. Colin picked out a sword with a sheath like Kiale had got last year when we went before we moved. Kiale got a white tiger stuffy. He wanted one to keep his cheetah stuffy company. We got the cheetah when we took the kids to the zoo when I was five months pregnant with Cayleigh-Grace. Cheety as he is affectionately known as around here has become a fixture on Kiale's bed ever sense. Cayleigh-Grace wanted an elephant. The elephants were her favorite part of the show, unfortunately she missed their main feature since she had cried herself to sleep (dumb... stupid... mean woman....) Thankfully she was able to see them in the opening act and when they played the national anthem. I will admit this every time I hear the national anthem I start tearing up. It seems that that song, among others, is hardwired to my tear ducts now. Guess when you have a husband deployed in a war zone it makes you appreciate things like that so much more. At the end of the day we were all happy and thrilled to have had not

only such a busy day but a magical day as well. Everyone was happy. Once we got home I was exhausted, to the point where it wasn't even 7 O'clock yet and all I wanted to do was go to sleep. I ended up ordering Chinese from this place off post that KS swore by. I hadn't tried it yet but he kept tell me it was so much better then my usual delivery place. He was right, it was delicious! We will definitely be ordering from them again, it was great. Almost as good as the Chinese back home. As soon as we were done eating I put the kids to bed and tried to wait on KS so we could skype but I just coudln't do it. I ended up going to bed and getting an email from hem asking where I was. I was just too tired to hold my eyes open any longer. It doesn't help that Cayleigh-Grace had woke up at 0630 that morning. She doesn't even wake up that early on school days...  at the end of the day it was a great day and I wouldn't change anything... we except for the lovely woman who thought she could yell at my daughter. Yes, I am still bitter about it.