One week left

Since we haven't seen Darren that much with him working nights, he would always write us a letter on the board for us to read the next day. I thought this note was funny. Not what Darren wrote, but what Ethan wrote in response. I'll translate, since his spelling still isn't perfect. Ethan's writing is in Red and Green: "I love you too Dad, but mom is kind of being mean. But I have no homework!" I had to laugh when I read that, because I actually felt like I was being extra patient and kind that day, but I guess kids see differently! ;)


Here are the shots I hate taking, but I always do. I always take pics of when Darren has to leave on a deployment. Don't ask, I just do. He's only gone for a week of training this time. I can tell we have been a little too used to him being home, since he hasn't been deployed since we lived in Texas. We were all crying over him being gone just a week!
Here's Ashton playing on his "pile" of stuff to take.



Cute shot of daddy with the kiddo's



Silly shot



Sad Ethan! No fun



The kids hate it when he has to leave. And believe it or not, Darren cried this time. He NEVER cries when he leaves. I think he tries to be strong for us, but this time he cried. It shocked me! He said, he thinks he's just stressed because he hasn't seen us for practically a month anyway with the last schedule, and he's stressed because he knows I'm due to have a baby in a month and he was just feeling the emotions stronger than usual. It choked me up to see him cry. Especially when you're used to them being the "strong ones".

It started raining the second we had to go outside and say bye.

Hugs goodbye.

Almost 5 minutes after Darren left it started snowing, really hard and fast! And it only snowed for like 5 minutes. Honestly, if I hadn't been walking by a window we would have missed it. S0 Ethan flew outside as fast as he could to enjoy his 5 minutes of snow fun. The other 2 kids watched from inside, they weren't as excited to freeze outside as Ethan was.

Snow on Yoda

Snow on hair!

Any way, all is good, We'll be excited when Darren can come back at the end of the week. That will mean this crazy training is over and his schedule should be getting back to normal, and we can count down till baby number 4! Hope you all have a good week!

Julian Beever

I've seen this mans art many times before, and I'm always amazed at his ability to create such amazing 3-D pics with just chalk. Thought I'd share a few of his recent creations I got through an email from Steve. Enjoy! (just click on a picture if you want to see it bigger)

Heaven Help Me!

2 days ago the phone rings. I don't recognize who is calling but any way, I say hello. This little girl voice on the other line says... "Is Ethan there?" I pause, kind of stunned, not really knowing who it is. I say "May I ask who is calling?" She says.. "Oh! It's "Jane Doe" from his class!" (named edited just in case they may come across my blog). I said, "um..... Okay.....????? Ethan????? Phone!" He came with a weird look on his face, because he never gets phone calls unless it's from a grandma or something. He says hello and then he just drops the phone and runs off. I said come back here Ethan, you have to at least say good bye! He said "What does she want mom?" I said I don't know, but you have to at least be polite and end the conversation, he then gets back on the phone and says, "what do you want?" I'm dying at this point. One side of me is glad that he's not all giddy and excited to be talking to a girl, the other side of me is embarrassed because he's being really rude to this little girl. But, I still am more proud of him for not being "into this type of thing yet". So he just says, I have to go and hangs up. He then says, "why did she call me mom?" I said, I don't know, how did she get your phone number? He thinks about it for a minute, and then says, "well she asked me for it, but I didn't know why she wanted it and I just told her the number." So I said, "well now you know not to give just anyone your phone number when they ask, that usually means they want to call you!" So needless to say, I am shocked that my 7 year old in 2nd grade is already having girls call. That is way too early! Seriously!!!!! Girls are so crazy now, they are way to forward and I'm freaking out! I told him that I was going to dress him nerdy from here on out! He didn't really care. I'm just glad my son is still into playing with his g.i. joes and playing the computer and wii, and not interested in girls......yet.... Hopefully that will last for many more years! People, harness your young girls! They are growing up too fast! Keep away from my son! ;) ha ha ha!

Interview Me!

“Interview me!” {My friend Kate sent me an interview, here are my answers}

1. Who is your hero?
My hero is any mother who does her job right. Being a good mother is so hard. Any one can be a mom, but to be a “good mom” is different. My mom is my hero for raising 3 kids alone for 30 years. I couldn’t imagine doing it alone. It would be so difficult.

2. Do you collect anything?
Not really. Something that I do have a lot of is cook books. I always love getting a new one and searching for the next best recipe. The only other thing I can think of that I “collect” would be: For each of my children on their birthdays I write them a birthday letter telling them about the previous year of their life, the things I love about them etc… and I stash them away year after year in their baby books. When they leave home I want to be able to give them those letters I wrote each year on their birthday.

3. When you are having a “bad mom day” what is your escape?
As all moms know, it’s hard to ever escape really, bad day or not. To be completely honest my only escape would be a prayer. Especially if I’m being really grumpy and short tempered with the kids, I have to sneak away and just say a prayer to keep it together and be kind. Other wise, I feel bad at night when I do have my “mommy time” and the kids are sleeping, I feel bad if I was a grumpy and impatient mom. But bed time for the kids is my time that I thoroughly enjoy!

4. If you had one “do over” in your life what would it be?
Too many small regrets to list, but a general thing I wish I could “do over” was to know that I am good enough. Good enough to be just me. Kids go through a hard time growing up and especially in school, struggling to “fit in” or be cool enough or good enough. I always wasn’t happy with myself and now that I’m almost 30 I finally am happy with me. I love my fat stretched out body, because it means that I was able to create and grow 4 children and bring them into this world, I love that I’m “too tall”, it means I’m different and I can reach a lot of other stuff others cant, I love that I have small boobs, they never get in the way, and when I run they don’t bounce and flop all over the place, and they won’t be hitting my knees when I’m old. I’ve come to realize that I am good enough and I wish I had come to realize that a lot earlier!

5. Would you rather read the book or see the movie?
Depends. I really hated reading in my younger years. 5 or 10 years ago my answer would have been Movie, but now I’m enjoying reading more and books definitely are more detailed than the movie. It’s fun to do both.


Now, I would love to interview you. So here is what you do.
I will be nice, I promise. It is a great way to get to know you.
Besides it's great way to have something to blog about when you're in a rut.
Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions).
You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

We got TONS of snow!!!!

Well, maybe not. Just kidding. But we did wake up to the smallest "skiff" of snow ever known to man. But it made my kids day regardless! ha ha ha! Ironically today is Presidents Day, Ethan had to go to school because it was a make up day for the other "snow day". And we wake up to more snow on the ground than the day he missed school for the supposed impending snow storm!

Valentines

As you know the hubby has been on nights for the past couple weeks. He got home Saturday around 3 or 4 am and crawled into bed. I got up as usual and started fixing the kids breakfast. I noticed leaves in the sink and a couple on the floor. I thought that is odd, where did leaves come from, then I go into the dining room to set the table and my hubby had gotten me flowers, despite getting off work in the middle of the night. He is so sweet. I'm not a huge flowers girl and not really huge on Valentines. I think you should be loving and thoughtful all year, and not need a day to be reminded to do so, but despite that, I still get flowers from my hubby, (he's a die hard old fashioned romantic). He had flowers, a card and some chocolate! He is so sweet. I made the kids their favorite "oven pancakes", and we watched movies and chilled while we waited for dad to wake up. Then we just had a low key quiet day all together. We went to the park. Ethan is "training" for the mile run race at his school in March, he really wants to win, so Darren is running with him when he gets a chance to help him get faster. We did that, grabbed pizza for dinner, and made red velvet cupcakes for valentines dessert. (which by the way will freak your kids out when it comes out the "exit door" because it's bright red!) ha ha ha ha! Any way, hope everyone had an enjoyable "love fest day" with their loved ones! Now I have to gear up for another week with the hubby working nights, and then the week after that him leaving entirely for the whole week to finish off the training, but then it will be done and we'll just be awaiting the arrival of our number 4!

Chowing down.....

This is a bite of a champion cup cake eater!

Yum

Oven Pancake. Fun to make!

Pregnancy Brain?

I've heard of pregnancy brain, but never experienced it till today. I had a dr. apt today, I was late cause I couldn't for the life of me find the dumb entrance to the hospital. I parked in the same parking garage I always park in, went into the same elevator, but for some reason when the elevator opened it was all foreign looking to me. Nothing looked familiar, I was lost, didn't know what building I was supposed to be in, and it literally took me 20 minutes of walking here and there to find my dumb appointment! I literally thought I had lost my mind. Then driving home from the apt. I missed my exit, not by mistake, but literally cause my mind was somewhere else! By the time I got home I felt like I needed to be institutionalized! Seriously! I've always been very sharp witted and "quick minded", until now. I swear that every time you get pregnant you get more grey hair and you literally become more stupid! I will swear by this statement! :)
any way. Enough of that. Another concern now, is I'm going to have this huge mammoth baby boy! He is already measuring 5lb's 7oz and I have about 7-8 weeks left! The doctor said he could easily be a 9 or 10 pounder! HOLY COW!!!! I've had 8 pounders but not anything over. And can I just say, Ashton was my most painful delivery. He was huge and had a big head and it was not something I wanted to repeat, so needless to say, I'm nervous that I'm having another boy (which come with bigger heads) and he will be bigger than Ashton???? Oh have mercy on me please! Any way, enough of that. On the good side. Fat babies make good babies. They are more content and happy. I've had both and I prefer the fatter ones, just not during labor! any way enough rambling for now!

Mom, We're Bored!

Darren is on the night shift for the next few weeks which is a PAIN!! If any one's husband has to do this all the time I have great sympathy for you! For 1: your kids never see their dad, 2: You have to tell your kids to be quiet all day while he sleeps, 3: It just sucks! So any way, this morning the kids were less than thrilled to spend their Saturday morning sitting quietly, so I bundled them up and took them to the park for a few hours. Here are some pics from that.


The boys took their toy guns to go "hunting"





Quiet mom, I'm on his trail!


This is Lily's new smile, eye's closed and squinted





Ethan and his dad LOVE to watch "Man-vs-Wild and Survivor Man" on the Discovery Channel, so you'll see Ethan here attempting to make a fire with sticks and bark. He was disappointed that he wasn't as effective as the guy on t.v.


Another Cheesy Grin


Anyone who knows Ashton knows he HATES swings. He's terrified of them. When he was a baby I couldn't get him in a baby swing to save my life. He has never liked being "moved" around. He likes to be firmly planted on the ground. (which is the opposite of Ethan. When Ethan was a baby he loved to be swinging and bouncing, the more the better and even now he loves swings.) So back to my point, this picture was ground breaking! I think it's the first ever of Ashton sitting on a swing and not crying! I was proud of him! ;)




Fishing with sticks




Yoda


Kiddo's

My 3 munchkins

Love is in the air!

Ah, it's February! I love this month. It means Winter will be coming to a close, love is in the air, and soon spring time will be here before you know it! My challenge to all: Take time to give your honey that extra kiss, don't forget to say "I love you" EVERY DAY, put a love note in your husbands socks the night before, put an "I love you note" in your kids lunch box, or school folder (keep it hidden, you don't want them getting embarrassed at school!) :0)
Give your kids extra squishes and hugs every day. Write a list of 10 things you love about your husband and kids and then give it to them. Watch them with delight as they read it and try not to smile! Enjoy each moment and fill it with LOVE!
Happy love month everyone! Yeah, I'm cheesy, so what!
I'm a pregnant and emotional mom/wife! :)

Fingernail Polish and BeeBee's

So yesterday was a crazy day for me. Just one of those days where I want to just go hide in my closet and not come out. I of course was really tired from the previous night (see previous post) and Darren had left for work at 4am and wouldn't be back till late. Ethan was let out of school early every day this week because of some teacher in-service thing or another, not really sure. Any way, I was just frazzled. The kids were playing so I decided to jump in the shower, that always makes ya feel better. I get out to find the two boys still playing nice thankfully, but Lily had found a bottle of DARK RED finger nail polish and decided to dump it all over our white carpet. By this point in the day, it didn't even phase me. I just got dressed and started to clean up an impossible mess to clean up. I don't think there is a solution to getting red fingernail polish out of white carpet, but if anyone has some miracle cure, let me know. So I'm sitting on the floor trying to get some of it up. Lily had been sitting by me and then started to crawl under our bed. She found 2 beebee's under our bed and was playing with them. Then I looked at her and they were gone. I said "where's the beebee's?" She said "in my ears". I said "Are you serious?" she whispered "yes". So I look in her ears and can't see anything but a dark hole, I get a flashlight and look in deeper and sure enough, deep down in each ear canal is a beebee! What in the world. This little girl was on a role of ticking her mom off. Not even a month ago she had shoved an eraser up her nose at church. Is this a girl thing? My boys never shoved stuff in their "holes" on their head. So, the kids were hungry, I needed to be cooking dinner, but now I'm worried about what to do to get these beebee's out. They were too deep to even try and get out with any kind of tool. So I cooked dinner, fed the kids, didn't want to take all 3 to the e.r. or an urgent care clinic. So I tried to flush her ears out. First I used some ear wax drops that dissolves all ear wax in the ear, then I flushed it with hydrogen peroxide, hoping it would "bubble" out the beebee. Nothing worked. They just sat there in her ear canal. Darren was at the gun range for work and had no reception on his phone so I couldn't get a hold of him. I called my mom and the first thing she says to do, is literally tip Lily upside down like doing a hand stand. So we do that, at first nothing, then I look and the right ear had the bee bee sitting right at the hole! Yeah, so I was able to get that one out. But the left one was deeper and not budging. So then Darren finally gets home from work. He tries to think of what to do, and then comes up stairs with a "mig-shift" paper clip that he bent straight, curled the end into a tiny tip with his pliers and had been rubbing on some magnets to magnetize the paper clip. I'm thinking "okay MacGyver"! But guess what? It worked. He got the paper clip magnetized slipped it into her ear carefully and we heard the "click" of the beebee hitting the paper clip and he pulled it out! Thank goodness for mom's and husbands. Her idea worked on one ear and his on the other. I wouldn't have thought of either. I'm just glad we were able to avoid a visit to the urgent care clinic or e.r.
So moral of this story, if your kids put stuff in their ears, tip them upside down, or have your husband MacGyver something to help! And don't ever leave nail polish within the sight of a 2 year old little girl!

Mamma aint happy!

Lets start off by saying: Last night has to go in the record books for one of the worst night sleeps EVER!!! And this includes any time I may have been up with a new born and I've had 3 and another on the way.
Around our town house, I'd say not even a 25 foot perimeter we have 6, yes 6 Oak trees. And what animal loves Oak trees because of the acorns? Squirrels. I've never had a beef with squirrels in my life. They are cute little frisky rodents that seem to have the metabolism of someone on crack. But again, no problem with them. They occasionally would bury their acorns in our back yard last summer, but still not a big deal. TILL NOW!!!!!!! The last month we've noticed, or rather "heard" them in our attic. You can hear them running around like crazy up there and it was starting to get annoying mainly because it would only happen at night, and of course they had to do it above Lily's room. So now my 2 year old has a phobia of squirrels because of the noise they'll make at night in her ceiling. You'll hear her yelling. "mom!!! The squirrels are here! The Squirrels are here!" I've tried to reassure her that they are just playing and they won't hurt her. Basically anything to chill her out. So we called the "rodent people or pest people" They came out yesterday and said that it's mating season and the female is probably preparing a spot in our attic to have her babies in the spring, so it's a good thing to solve the problem now before we have baby squirrels in our attic this spring. So they set up traps on our roof yesterday and said they'd come every day, set new traps and check the hole where they come in and then once they are gone from that area, they'll seal up the hole. Great! No more squirrels making noise in the attic. Well. last night. all the traps were filled with squirrels on our roof. We sleep up stairs, thus hearing what goes on on the roof. I kid you not. ALL NIGHT LONG we hear thumping, rolling, digging, crazy noises of those dang squirrels trying to get out of the cages. Lily woke up at 12:00 and basically didn't go back to sleep till 5am and the boys kept getting up too. Darren is on a crazy schedule at work and is only averaging 4 hours a sleep at night. He finally went down stairs to get any last bit of sleep he could before leaving at 4 a.m. So I was up virtually all night with the kids in and out of my room. When the squirrels would take a break and rest, we'd doze off, just to be awakened AGAIN by them going crazy in their cages. We literally got maybe 2 hours combined if that, in 15 to 20 minute segments. Before bed, I was feeling bad for the little critters, out there in a cage on the roof in the cold while it was raining. But by morning I had a death wish for all of them and I even envisioned myself bunt kicking their cages off my roof. Like I could get my 7 month pregnant self up on the roof to do it, but I would if I could. I went from liking squirrels, to down right hating the little punks. One thing you don't do, is mess with a pregnant woman's sleep and/or the sleep of her kids! You will unleash the wrath of hell if you do! There I feel better after venting, but I'm still dreading another night. If they do it again tonight, I swear I'll climb out my window and get up on the roof somehow! You watch!

Here is the hole they climb through by our rain gutter


Here's 2 of the cages right above Lily's window


Here's a little punk peeking out at me! No mercy here! not any more!

"let me out!" Sorry, you're going to squirrel heaven soon!

Tired pregnant mom signing off!

"Scuba-Gas-Mask-Man"?

Ashton found an old life jacket, and then dug in his dad's work chest and found a gas mask and made up "scuba gas mask man". He claims this is a real action hero! ;) Silly boy



Lily had to follow of course!


Ethan in his potato sack. He likes to hop around the house in them all the time.


Lily hopping in the sacks too.