Cyber Hugs?

Lately, when we skype in the mornings, Peter often tries to hug the computer. 

I'm not entirely sure if he just really really misses his Dad, or if he thinks the computer IS his Dad.

Although this morning at the store he asked me if Daddy would be back soon, so I'm thinking that's a good sign that it isn't the second one.

How in the world?

Tomorrow my baby girl is going to be a year old!

Aack!!

I mean, how is that possible?  Where has the time gone?
Wasn't she JUST my itty bitty little pink ball of screams and big eyes?  How did she get so big?

Although really, she is still rather all about the screaming and the big eyes a lot of the time now, but also she's mobile and she get's into trouble too.  Currently she's removing all the books from one of the bins.  Yesterday she climbed up onto the table to get to her brother's sippy cup and atleast every other day I find her constructing a crude home made staircase out of books, toys and bins in order to get to one of the cats so that she can poke them in the eyes and rip out large tufts of their fur.

She's a trouble maker this one! 

(Just like her brother.)

(They must take after me....)

And also:

Somebody please tell my hormones, uterus and ovaries to KNOCK IT OFF because I absolutely CAN NOT have another baby right now.

I mean, with Matt on the otherside of the world, LITERALLY right now, I can't. 

But also, even when he gets leave, I'm thinking getting pregnant and then sending him back for several more months would be a really really bad idea. 

*sigh*

Thanksgiving Celebrations 2011

A friendly warning:  This post contains entirely too many pictures and probably will take far too long to load, if it doesn't simply end up psyching out your web browser and crashing your entire computer....

But really, anybody who knows me will not find this to be surprising.

Anyway, first thing in the morning I had a mix for pumpkin bread that I wanted to make the kids for breakfast.  I should have baked it the night before because the additional wait time had A.J. searching around her high chair for crumbs to munch on in the mean time.

If you're wondering, after the chair she really did move onto the crumbs off the floor.  *gag*

Not to worry, the bread turned out beautifully!

And both kids seemed to enjoy their special morning treat.  (No idea why Peter has his jammies half unzipped 1970s style...)

Before long though, Peter was begging me for a donut.  And, yes, I'll admit, I caved and let him have half of one.... just to make his whining stop.

It was okay though becase he shared with his sister.

Although we had an invitation for dinner to my friends family celebration, I decided to order one of those pre-cooked, heat and serve meals from the grocery store so we could have our own little feast for lunch.

(Also, if sick kids or meltdowns unexpectedly caused us to miss our dinner plans we wouldn't miss out on having a holiday meal altoghter...)

I enjoyed watching the frozen gravy lose it's frozen shape in the pan as it thawed.

I also found some humor in the fact that my frozen container of mashed potatoes was actually marked "Never Frozen."  Um.... wanna bet?

Here are the brown and serve rolls heating up the turkey while it warmed.

While I prepared our lunch, the kids actually got along and played well together for a time.... unbelievable I know!

During all of this, of course, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade was on.  When it was time, I sure to point out to the children when Santa made his debut!

Peter was excited to see the bearded fellow!

But A.J. would have climbed INTO the television to get to him if she could have.

My best attempt at a little family photo.  (A.J. was more interested in the television than the camera.)

Here was the turkey when it was finally ready.  Do you like the knife slits?  Yeah... um, I don't currently ave a meat thermometer (ours is in storage along with the rest of my regular kitchen items) so I had to slice into it see how done it was.

A.J. seemed a bit confused about which holiday we were celebrating.

Our completed little feast!

The kids digging in.

Here I am (thanks to the camera timer) joining them.

For Peter, it seems his 3rd Thanksgiving will be the one (perhaps the first of several) where he doesn't really want to eat.

A.J. though, on her first Thanksgiving (if you remember last year for Turkey Day I was about to pop with her) did much better.  She ate and ate and ate.  She actually ate so much I had to cut her off because it seems unhealthy the amount of food she was putting away....

In the evening, after the kids naps, we joined my friend Jamie at her family's house for dinner.

Jamie has a daughter who's just a few months older than Peter, plus she has month old twins.  Here she is with one of the twins.... :)

Peter and A.J. were very interested to discover the little kids table...

And to enjoy yet another feast!

Peter, also, happily helped me with my Turkey shaped chocolate after dinner.

So that was Thursday.

On Friday, we still had one more dinner to go to.  Our old friend Kristin (who was once stationed onboard the ship in Japan with Matt) is a surgical resident at Balboa and was having a dinner on Friday for some of her Resident friends and she asked us to join in the fun.

There's Kristen, working on her gravy.

She's like, I don't know, the next Julia Childs or something and can cook the heck out of, well, just about anything.

A.J. just seemed interested in looking cute and showing off her walking skills.

Kristin put out quite a spread.

My kids, waiting for their food.

After dinner, Kristin boxed up the majority of the leftovers to send goodies home with each of her guests.

Peter spent most of the evening distracted by a Peanuts cartoon on television. 

Oh, and then there was dessert.  The was a chocolate pie (brought by one of Kristin's doctor friends) straight from heaven if you ask me... an apple pie (brought by another friend) and pumpkin.  Which of these wonerful desserts did my children go for?

NEITHER!  All they were interested in was the whipped cream!

Awesome A.J.  That's my girl!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Thankfulness

I am sorry I am the worst at updating right now.  There is just so much to do with the Holidays and A.J.'s birthday and the house and, well, life.

Anyway, I just wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for the many blessings I enjoy in this life.

I am thankful for my husband.  That God sent me that man, who is willing to put up with all my crap, to complete my life, as an answer my prayers is wonderful.  And while this military life is hard a lot of the time, his calling to serve his country is so much of what I love about him.

I am thankful for my beautiful and amazing children.  Yes, they are hard to deal with.  Yes, they never really let me get enough sleep.  Yes, they fight and bug each other and ALWAYS seem to have a crisis and really really NEED me at the exact same time so I am literally pulled in two different directions.  But they are also sweet and loving and I just love them.  I don't say them enough any more. Seriously.  I should be shouting it from roof tops.  I love them that much.  I am so grateful to be their Mommy.

I am thankful for America.  This land of freedom that we live in is full of promise and full of problems.  But it's diverse and amazing and I love it.

I am thankful for good family and friends.  Those who are willing to open their homes to me, those who are willing to take off time from work to help me.  Those who love my children as if they were there own.  Those who will do their best to ignore my drama politely and just love me inspite of it.

I'm thankful to be back in California (where the weather is so much better than it was in Washington,) in my home (even with all of it's problems for me to fix) and that we are still lucky enough to own our own home.

And finally, I am thankful to those who are thankful.

Specifically, I am humbled, astonished and amazed each and every time a random stranger does something for me because of what my husband does, where he is, and the life I am left trying to hold together in the meantime.  Free pedicures, free meals, discounts, deals, handshakes, hugs, and even simple kind words mean more than I can even express  and always manage to brighten my day.  While I certainly don't expect these things, or even really think we deserve these breaks, I am grateful for them.  Sometimes, we I really don't know how on Earth I'm going to make it through the day, but a simple showing of gratitude will pop up and turn it all around for me.

I didn't choose this life, just as I didn't really choose my husband.  This life was the one God had planned for me and Matt was the guy He sent to me.  Sure, I could have ignored Him, or rebelled against Him and pursued something/someone else, but, seriously... why?  Matt was the answer to so many of my prayers when we started dating and I always try to remember that when we have  rough times.  I don't know why God wanted this life for me (us,) but He did and that's just the way it is.

I am actually grateful for all the blessings and the adventures that the military (with all of it's hardships) have provided for us.  But still, it is so nice to have a fellow American see what it is we do... in our own small way... for their freedom, and say thank you.

I wish so much that Matt could be home with us for to enjoy a turkey dinner.  Or for our daughter's first birthday next week.  But he won't be.  That's just the way it is.  I'm choosing to look on the bright side and be grateful that we'll be able to see each on Skype on those special days and reminding myself that our reunion, whenever it finally does come, will be so very sweet.

*EDIT*
I would also like to add that I wish Matt could be here on Saturday for out Anniversary.  Geez, 9 years later, you'd think I'd be able to remember.  'Cause it isn't like I've got too much on my plate right now or anything.  Anyway, love you babe!  (Did you forget too?)  :)

The House

Alright, so I've had a lot of questions concerning the status of the house.  These are the pictures I took to send to Matt so we could discuss the affects of 2 1/2 years of renters on our home.   Before I start, while it's frusterating to tally up our todo list, I do realize it could be worse.  A neighbor reminded me to be grateful that the house is still standing at all.  :) 



To begin with, the front. This is AFTER I took a great deal of rage out on the front lawn. The previous tennants basically never mowed and as we have runner style grass this meant that the dead grass out front was long, and tangly almost like straw. After I ran the lawnmower over it twice, I raked up 8 buckets of, well, hay. Or tumbleweeds.  Or something. Gross. So, now the front lawn is just mostly dead, or would be if it would stop raining every weekend.  Meanwhile, the hump is still there, needing to be smoothed out but that can be fixed when we eventually put in a new sprinkler system and sod.

Also, the flower beds have been over run with weeds.  About half of the bushes are dead, and the others are overgrown and scary.  This will all have to be redone as well.  Interestingly enough, the large cactus thing on the left and the ugly green hedge were both cut way back before we left and have come back with evil vengeance.  These will need to go also.  (Again.)

Finally, the paint:

My beautiful red door isn't really red any more and it certainly isn't beautiful.  The paint on that east facing door has baked in the sun for the last 3 years and gone, well, crappy.  Not to worry, I had the painter over yesterday and he redid the whole thing for me in a nice yummy hunter green.  (Picture to come later.)

The siding (which was all redone the first year we lived here) has some issues as well.  I have a 25 year warranty with the company though and at my request they sent one of their top guys to take a look today.  He wasn't happy with the way things were looking.  "Shocked" I'd say would be the most appropriate word.  He assured me I wouldn't be paying to have it repaired (again) and that he'd be in touch shortly about getting it taken care of.

So... you know... PROGRESS!

As for the inside, we had the ceilings de-popcorned and the whole place professionally painted before we came back.


Here's the living room as it stands now.  The trouble of course, is that the vast majority of our furniture is still in storage.  I'm not entirely sure when I'll be able to get it out, it depends on a number of factors, but also, getting it all before Mattr comes back to help me sortit out seems like a rather scary prospect.  Aw well, it doesn't matter so much, the kids can make a mess in there with their toys in mere moments, so really, who needs furniture?


Here's the kitchen, which is, of course, somewhat lacking in its appropriate paraphanalia as well.  Our old kitchen table is in storage, but it's been on the list of furniture to replace, so a new one is on order.  In the meantime, A.J. uses her high chair, while Peter and I sit at his little table. 

So what do you think about my new red walls?  If you remember, when we bought the house the walls were a BIG BIRD YELLOW, that literally hurt my eyes and I love the color yellow.  Matt and I had repainted it to a nice, sea foamy green, but I wanted a change and I do love a good red.  :)  Pretty sure Matt hates it, but so far, I think it's about the best thing ever.

Here's my bedroom, not much to report:

And the kids room for now:


I don't have much in the way of tools with which to hang things on the walls, so that's why all the wall decorations are stacked on the dresser for now.  Also, I keep changing my mind about whether the kids are going to share a room and have a playroom or if they're each going to have their own room with the toys in their closets.

Anyway, here's the other bedroom, which currently is sitting COMPLETELY empty.

Painting this room green was yet another reason why I needed the wanted to change the kitchen.

So anyway, then there are the bathrooms:

The front/hall bath (above) and the master bath (below.)

Back outside, here's the garage.  Obviously it needs some love.  The roof is leaking in one spot, one of the tennants broke the window in the side door and along with my emptry moving boxes and assorted items to be stored, the tennants left us several random items, which, let's face it, I will be throwing away sooner or later.  I mean, thanks but I don't want your old metal bed frame and your cheesy garden statue.

I met with the contractor yesterday about the repairs in there.  Just waiting for a good solid quote to find out how bad it's going to hurt to get it taken care of.

Here's the side yard.  And might I add... YUCK. Dead grass.  Our orange trees desperately need to be trimmed back and I'm really hoping to get some pavers put in to turn that whole muddy non-flower bed and the sidewalk turned into a nice wrap around patio.

Finally, the back.  More of the same.  Dead grass and a good two years worth of leaves to be raked up before anything else can be done.  Additionally, the trees are horrifically over grown AND there are small new trees sprouting up all over the one side... specifially right were I really was thinking of putting in a nice swing set for the kids in a year or two.  Not sure why putting the hose away was too much work, but now that's going to need to be replaced and also do you like my new BBQ?  Yeah... I don't either.  It was left by one of the tennants. 

So.... yeah.  It is what it is.  A project.  Then again, isn't that what home ownership is all about?

Oh, and when I came back in from taking the outdoor photos, A.J. was sitting there by the front door waiting for me.  She looks weird in this picture to me.  Kind of like an alien or something.  Not sure why.  It's just... odd.