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.

Full of thanks this Thanksgiving.

I have to admit I have been feeling very happy and uplifted these couple of weeks. Our lives are great right now, KS just got promoted, Kiale is doing better in school, Colin is doing great, and Cayleigh-Grace is just her sweet self. I am so thankful for everything God has given me. For my family and friends, for those people that I am blessed to see on a daily basis and for that handful of people that light up my life whenever the phone rings and I see it is a number from across the world or just across this continent.

Being in the military as a service member or even as a spouse really changes you as a person. It makes you look at life in a whole new light. In many ways it creates long lasting bonds between people and in other ways it divides you from people. I guess you could say that your life becomes more streamlined. It has been a year and  ten days since I said goodbye to KS and prepared for the ups and downs of basic training followed by a move to his AIT without him. I never would have guessed two years ago that I would be strong enough to pack up and move my entire household of three kids and pets halfway across the Untied States to rejoin my husband who I had just spent 4 months living without. This upcoming year with be filled with many ups and downs I am sure. Our life will go in directions we have never imagined before but for that even I am thankful; and I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am for my husband and for the Army. Yes in many ways the Army makes things harder for families we cannot always be together even though "normal" people are always with their spouses, "normal" people also don't have to deal with the constant nagging anticipatory grief that floats around in my head on an almost daily basis, but that goes with the territory. For some reason I am thankful for all of that as well. The Army, including the good, bad, and ugly parts with always be something I am grateful for even though our lives may be difficult at times it has insured a way of life for my husband, children, and myself that I will always be proud and thankful for living this life.

One of those days...

You know, those days where you wake up and your house has gone from perfectly clean, swept, moped and dusted to looking like a tornado blew through at a category 3 in the course of 48 hours. Yea, that would be my house right now. Plus the kids are home this week, which is great, it just means I will be cleaning up 3-4 times a day. Which is what I did not do yesterday... note the disaster area. The kids rooms are a mess, I honestly think a category 5 ripped though each of their rooms with an emphasis on Colin's "Transformer Theater Room" as he likes to call it. Hopefully today I can get them to all cooperate and we can get the house cleaned up before lunch time... I will say this though I am loving having them off of school for nine days. It makes me wish summer break would hurry up and get here.

What are your plans for this Thanksgiving weekend? I know we will be with family camped out watching the Florida/FSU game... Go GATORS!!! I hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday, and if you will be driving please drive safe.

Update

Hello everyone!! I am still alive and doing really well! I have finally adjusted to Army wife life, aka a lot of silence and hoping for a break in the silence. I finally received all the info I needed to get my ID, it was wrong. So I had to fax my social and it is in the process of getting corrected. It could take a couple of weeks so I will be lucky if it is finished by the time I go to pick KS up. I want to give you all a big thank you! I can feel your prayers working in my life daily. My spirits have been so high since Thanksgiving (I got a 20min phone call, but more on that later). This is without a shadow of a doubt the life I was meant to live, and I am so excited to live it! I haven't received any letters yet but I know I have at least two on the way. Hopefully I have more than that coming!! Unfortunately I did not hear from him his past Sunday, but its okay no news is good news in my book. At least I know that if he doesn't call all is well and he is busy training to protect his country and family.

Thanksgiving was wonderful. The kids and I woke up and layed around watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade all morning and then the best thing happened, at 12:15 my phone rang. It was KS! We spent the next 20 minutes talking and catching up on everything that has been going on these past couple of weeks. I am thrilled to announce that he is really enjoying himself. He said the Victory Tower was "interesting" and coming from someone who is not all that keen on heights I was just glad that he didn't hate it. I know it will help him to overcome that fear and make him a stronger man. After his phone call the kids and I headed over to my grandparents for a wonderful meal. I can say this my family waits like a big dog waits on a little dog to eat. Everyone had already got their plates by the time the kids and I got there, but I didn't care. I told them I had better things to do than eat, I was talking to my hubby! They all agreed and then drilled me about how he was doing. They are all so happy that he is enjoying himself.

The kids have been out of school since Tuesday at noon so it was bittersweet taking them back to school today. I do miss them when they are away, but Cayleigh-Grace and I got to spend a wonderful morning with my parents going grocery shopping at Walmart. It isn't very often that I actually get to spend time with my parents minus my sisters or the boys so it was a wonderful treat. Plus Daddy bought steamed shrimp to snack on on the way home, yum!

I hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving holiday!

A Happy Thanksgiving to You!

To start off this post I would like to wish you all a happy and blessed Thanksgiving. May God be with you this year as you travel with your families.

Thanksgiving this year holds a new meaning in my heart. With my husband leaving to go follow his dreams I have truly found out who my friends are and who they weren't, and for those of you who have stood by me during the pretty and the ugly phases I have gone through the past few months leading up to him going to BCT and now during these past few days I thank you. From the bottom of my heart I thank you for standing beside me and making me know that I am not alone. I love you all and your support has helped me immensely.

I am so thankful for my amazing husband who has been in my life for almost 9 years now and whom I have been married to for the past almost 7 years. KS you are my soul mate and my other half and I could not be any more proud of you than I am right now. Thank you for wanting to defend your country, thank you for looking at the bigger picture and wanting to do a job that you can not only be proud of and support your family but also that you can make a difference with.

I am thankful for my children. For Kiale and his unexpected appearance in this world during my senior year of high school (when I got pregnant). God puts us all on this Earth for a reason and it might not be the most convenient time but it is all on his time. For Colin, my husbands little buddy. You are so sensitive and caring and you spread joy wherever you go, and for my Cayleigh-Grace. My little burst of pink amongst our sea of blue. I cannot wait to see what the three of you do in this world, you all have already done so much in my heart.

And to my family, Thank You. Thank you for being my rock and my hard place to come to when all of the world seems so shaky and weak.

I am also so thankful for all of my new friends and family I have met through our journey into the "Army Life." You girls have provided me with a wealth of knowledge and support, I fear that without you all I would have been lost. Thank you girls.

Thank you Lord for all that you have given me, I am truly blessed.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!

A Blessed Thanksgiving

We have so many things to be thankful for in my household. My husband and I's lives could have turned out so differently if it wasn't the dedication of our family and God. This Thanksgiving seemed to be extra special since we were celebrating the birth of two new lives in our family, not to mention our other cousin Kelli is pregnant and due in April.

Cayleigh-Grace and Vincent @ Grandma's for Thanksgiving

Its amazing the more children I have the more I seem to appreciate them and everything that comes with them. Babies and children are a lot of work, but you know I wouldn't change anything about my life. I love each of my children so much and even though we got pregnant so young (I was 17) our lives have turned out wonderfully. When you get pregnant young the only thing people tell/yell at you is that you have ruined your life, and you will never have anything good, and you will never amount to anything. Well I believe that we have proven everyone wrong. In our own way that is. We are by all means not rich, but we are rich in love and support for each other. Its amazing how strong Kiale and I's relationship has become. We love our children unconditionally and we support each other 100%. I have learned several things during the past almost six years since I found out I was pregnant with Kiale, it doesn't matter what anyone else's opinion of success is, or any of their opinions for that matter. What does matter is everything that goes on within these walls that we call our home. We are a very close and tight nit family and I pray that we will continue to become closer as our children age, and that Kiale and I's relationship continues to blossom and grow throughout the years. I know that God will continue to play a special role in our family, and I cannot wait to see what is plans are for us in the future.

God has truly blessed Kiale and I with each other, our three children, and our ever growing family. This I am completely thankful for.

My sisters and I at Thanksgiving... really they are both taller than me but I was cheating and standing on a step.