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.

Letting go and living in the now...

It has been over two years since I last posted to this blog and I have to admit looking back I'm amazed that it's only been two years, it feels like we have lived an entire lifetime instead. Isn't it strange how time does that to you? There you are living in the moment and then as if in a single breath your looking back and nothing is the same, neither you nor your circumstances, and it seems as if you are looking back though a haze trying to get a grasp on reality. That is where we are now.

It's amazing how difficult writing some statements can be. It's just a single sentence, shouldn't be that hard to do...  but in writing those words and putting them out there it's as if, in seeing them on the screen it will make them true and I will finally have to believe it and start accepting reality for what it is. You see I am still in denial. I will admit it, it's true. I don't want to believe that a chapter of our lives that had so many ups and downs is finally over. You see, our time as a military family has come to a close. As of three months ago my husband's status went from active duty to medically retired... and I am having the hardest time letting go and coming to terms with the fact that what was supposed to be a 20 year long journey full of adventure and new experiences is over. I wasn't ready to let go of that chapter in our lives, truth be told I'm still not, but I'm trying to.

I am hoping that though writing again I can start to come to terms with the now and begin to accept reality for what it is and learn to embrace living in the civilian world again. In a lot of ways I wish I had hated the military life, it would have made this transition so much easier to work though, but instead I loved it. I grew so much as a woman, a wife, and a mother during our short four and a half years that I was really embracing life and all it had to offer. Now I feel, in all honesty, like I don't fit in... like the outsider just trying to meld back into everyday life. I hope that in the next few months I will find my stride and finally reintegrate back into life without constantly thinking about what could have been and what was. It's hard to embrace the present when you are holding on so tightly to the past and I need to start living in the here and now... It's a very blessed place to be.

There are so many opportunities opening up for our family we continue to be amazed and humbly grateful. Things could have been so much harder for us transitioning out of the military but instead it was, emotions aside, a very smooth process filled with blessings and support and I will admit, I can't wait to see what the future holds for my family. I really think God was laughing when I set my heart to a 20 year journey in the Army. I can see him up there shaking his head and saying girl, this is just the beginning...

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11

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.