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.

9 Year Anniversary and a Goodbye.

As of 7:00pm Sunday night KS was safely back in the hands of the Army, and our wonderful Christmas Exodus was over. The kids and I are back on our own again; stalking the mail lady and waiting for our Sunday phone calls. I started this post (well the title at least) on Monday when we finally made it home, I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. Leaving KS this time has been much harder on me then it was the first time around. The kids are taking it better and I am taking it worse, go figure. I know KS took the separation worse this time as well.

After we dropped him off Sunday night the kids and I went back to our hotel on post and then headed home Monday morning, Monday by the way was KS and I's 9 year anniversary. Its amazing how fast the time has gone when you are looking back on it. We knew within three months of dating that we were going to get married. Most people thought we were crazy being as young as we were, 15 & 18, and already talking about marriage but we just knew we were meant to be together. The funniest thing is that I remember having a discussion with him early on into our relationship and we were talking about him enlisting in the Army and I told him point blank if he ever joined I would leave him b/c I would not be able to handle the stress from that. If only I had known then what I know now... I would have had him go ahead and enlist right out of high school and we would already have 8 years under our belt.

I did get a wonderful anniversary present last night, and it wasn't even from my husband. The amazing woman who took our pictures before KS left also did an "ACU" photo shoot for us during Exodus. She posted some sneak peeks for me to enjoy last night, so I figured I would share a couple with you.

This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it. I had put the hat on myself and was quickly informed that I didn't do it right, so he had to fix it for me and put it on "correctly".

This picture had me bawling last night, it really symbolizes what we are going through right now.

Finally Comming Home!!!

I could not be happier right now, my sweet husband is finally coming home!! He has been on a hunting trip in Alabama for the past four days. It has definitely been a long few days without him home with us. The boys are really ready to have their Daddy back home too. I am just going through the house cleaning and organizing things that I have been putting off for quite a while now, so when he comes home everything will be clean and tidy.

I know that on my previous post I had said that it was my Anniversary with KS but after looking through some stuff in my "treasure box" I have realized that he was right and today is our actual Anniversary, and he remembered too. When I talked to him yesterday he asked me if I knew what today was... it is so awesome when guys remember stuff like that, and he remembered better than I did.

Well I am going to try something new with the help of one of my best friends "Belle" I am going to try couponing and everything that goes with that. I actually bought two papers today to get the coupons out of them. We will see how it goes, I can be pretty forgetful about stuff so we will see how it goes. Hopefully I will actually remember to use the coupons... wish me luck!

A Day of Anniversaries

*I have been informed by my sweet husband that I was wrong and that our Anniversary is tomorrow the 4th, and since I cannot remember which day is the correct day we will go with him on this one.*

Today is one of those days where you just set back and look over the past years of your life. Today is Kiale and I’s eight year anniversary. This day eight years ago, Kiale and I were getting on a school bus heading to the Cummer Museum for a field trip, he asked if I was sitting with anyone and when I replied no, he asked if he could sit with me and from that moment our lives were changed forever. Needless to say if I had to pick a day of my life where it was forever changed, this would be the day. Six years ago today Kiale purposed... at the place that changed our lives, the museum... well actually a block away from it but it was close enough. It was still magical to me.

Today is also Cayleigh-Grace’s 4 month day. It seems like just yesterday I was waking Kiale... and several other family members up and saying its time, and now here she is 4 months old and absolutely beautiful, with both hands in her mouth chewing away... She really is starting to come into her own now, although I don't think she has changed that much from last month, other than her sleep patterns and she is much more social now. She had stopped "talking" for a couple of weeks, but she has seemed to have found her voice again within the past three days. She is enjoying making all sorts of crazy noises and sounds. She can still only roll over from her stomach onto her back, but she is getting closer to figuring out how to roll from her back onto her stomach, I feel it will only be a week or so and she will have figured that out.