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.

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.

Day 7

I am thankful for my home and all of the amazing resources that the Army provides us through my husband and his job as an American soldier. Yes, it can be a hard and sometimes frightening life, but it is also a very rewarding and fulfilling life.

Days 4,5,&6.

Day 4, I am thankful for God and the faith I have in Him.

Day 5, I am thankful for amazing friends who are willing to come pick up my kids  and take care of them when I am too sick too. 

Day 6, I am thankful for lazy Sundays relaxing and watching movies with my kids.

Day 3

I am thankful for my amazing parents and sisters. I don't know what I would do without any of you in my life. I am truly blessed. I love you all.

Day 2- A month of Thanksgiving

I am thankful for my three children. They may drive me absolutely batty at times but I wouldn't want to change a thing about them. They are wonderful and true blessings from God.

Day 1

I am thankful for my husband and everything he does for us. Love you Honey!

Be Proud.

This is for the young women that are waking up at 6 a.m. every morning with small precious children that they have been left alone to care for. This is for the pregnant Military wife wondering if her husband will make it home in time to watch their miracle happen. This is for the childless Military wife, living in a town or on a base alone where she is a complete stranger to her surroundings. This is for the women that feel like a third leg when they go out with their friends and their husbands. This is for the Military wife that cancelled all her plans to wait by the phone, and even though the phone broke up and cut off every time you spoke to him you waited anyway. This is a pledge to the women that cry themselves to sleep in an empty bed. This is to recognize the woman that felt like she was dying inside when he said he had to go, but smiled for him anyway. This is for those of you that are faithfully in that long line at the post office once a month handling 2 large boxes and 2 small children like a pro. This is for that woman that decided to remodel the house to pass time, and then realized that she had no idea what she was doing and sighed and wished she had a little help. This is for all the lonely nights, all the one-person dinners, and all of the wondering thoughts because you haven't heard from him in days. A toast to you for falling apart, and putting yourselves back together. Because a pay check isn't enough, a body pillow in your bed is no consolation, and a web cam can never compare. This is for all of you no matter how easy or hard this was for you. Our military men are brave, they are heroes, but so are we. So the next time someone tells you that they would never marry a Military guy, don't bother explaining to them that you can't control who you fall in love with. Just think of this and nod your head, know that you are the stronger woman. Hold your heads up high, hang that flag in your front yard, stick 100 magnets on your car, and then give yourself a pat on the back. Be proud to be the woman that you are, be proud to be a MILITARY WIFE ♥

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...

Why, hello there.

It has been so long since I have graced this blog with my often infrequent ramblings that I actually had to go dig out the little piece of paper that has my password on it for this account. I couldn't even remember it... now whether that is a good thing or a bad thing I don't know. I know my family would say bad because I have been neglecting this blog and there for neglecting their updates for my family... my family and my sanity on the other hand my be saying THANK YOU, you needed the break. Plus writers block is an extremely sucky thing, it is like a sore that grows and grows until you cant even form words in your brain when you are staring at the laptop with your "New Post" open and it remains blank... and stays that way for months it seems. Oh well... it happens to the best of us.

Life around here is getting hectic again, as it does every September. You see we have celebrated two birthdays this month. Didn't know that did you? Well, our precious Cayleigh-Grace turned 3 on the 3rd, her golden birthday, and our first born turned 8.... today! Happy birthday Kiale!! School is in full swing around here and has been for a month now. I can say with great enthusiasm that it is going MUCH better then last year. Thank God for that!! Kiale is doing great. The first 2 weeks were rough but it has been smooth sailing since then. Coin is doing excellent and his teacher is wanting to have him tested for gifted because it is just too easy for him. The poor boy comes home telling me how bored he is in class on an almost daily basis, thankfully he has a amazing teacher who is going to start giving him extra work that is at an advanced level to try and keep his interest.

We have added something new to our schedules this month, Cub Scouts. The boys are finally old enough to join in the fun and they are loving it. Some nights it seems like added homework for KS and I but it is all worth it. Now if I would just get around to getting their patches sew on they would be really happy with me. ;-) They are starting popcorn sales this month so all family and friends out there please help support my two Cub Scouts, I will be sending emails today or tomorrow with the website where you can order popcorn. (hint, hint) A percentage of their sales goes to their troop and helps keep costs down for patches, dues, activites etc.

Army life... well sometimes I don't even know where to begin on that subject. Today marks a year since we arrived at this post. In so many ways the time has literally flown by. We have got a new house, been through a deployment, finished one school year and started another, and celebrated many birthdays already. Many people ask me what I feel about our current post and after being here a year I can honestly say that I am indifferent to it. I don't see anything bad about it but there is nothing great about it either. I am thankful for the lack of negative things here. It makes being here easier. We are close-ish to home and there are so many outdoor things to do around here it makes it very enjoyable. We are a pretty active family who enjoys hiking and out door activities and they are plentiful around here. The biggest thing that has happened recently was that KS was promoted. Yay, go KS!! Other then that it has just been life as usual.

My Ballerina

Cayleigh-Grace has started dance classes. Her first class coincided with the boys first week of school. She has one class a week and begs us non stop to take her more then just the one day. I think she would be thrilled with 2 days a week but at this point we are just going to stick to one. Here are a couple of pictures from her first day of ballet and tap class. To say she was excited is a drastic understatement. I have never seen my daughter so excited for something in her life. We couldn't get to dance class fast enough, and the rain boots... yea they are her FAVORITE fashion accessory right now. If she manages to leave the house without them on she is sad because "they miss her." The first think she said after her first dance class was "Dance class was super fun!"

First Day of School

Do you ever see a correlation between blogging and pulling teeth? That is what it has been like for me the past few months, I just cannot get myself to do it, but here I am... We are wrapping up our second week of school here and I must say it has been highly successful. The boys like their teachers and at this point I am very happy with them. We seem to be back into our school schedule and the transition from summer to school has been pretty seamless for the most part. Except for the usual, "I don't want to do my homework now..." etc. That goes without saying though. Here are the pictures from the first day of school. Kiale started 2nd grade and Colin started 1st grade, I cannot believe how big my boys are getting.

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!