The Fisch Pond

Therein Lies the Difference

2012-03-04T22:18:00.000-05:00

I put up something a while back about being a military wife. In it, I noted the fact that Paul's job sometimes requires him to go away for long periods of time and that his work can sometimes put him in harm's way. I noted also that these things are true of friends and relatives of ours who either travel full-time, or are police officers or firemen, who work 30 on/30 off schedules far away from home, etc.

The one difference, though, at least to my knowledge, is that those guys are usually a phone call or text away, which cannot be said of Paul when he's off doing far-away-medium-work or long-work.

The distance is more palpable when you can't just bridge it whenever you want. It's been what, half a day? And I can already tell the difference - I'm pretty sure this will be one of the harder things to get used to.

Barbies for Baseboards

2012-03-04T14:53:00.000-05:00

We instituted the ransom bin today for stuff that the girls don't pick up after being asked to do so. I was having this discussion with someone a couple of months ago and they stated to me that removing toys after they haven't been picked up is not considered a natural consequence, but a parent-derived consequence aka punishment. The point being punishments don't teach, and consequences do. I didn't agree with her statement that removing toys are a punishment - to me it seems like a pretty logical thing. As a grownup person, if I don't take care of my stuff, it breaks or gets worn out too fast or lost and I don't have it any more. Lucky for the kids they get a chance to earn their stuff back.

Are they happy about it? Not really at all, actually. Which is ok with me. It's not my job to make them happy - it's my job to grow responsible (among lots of other things) humans.

Is wiping down the baseboards torture? For me with my big fat belly, yes. For the kids? Nope. I even made it into a contest to see who could get the most dust on their wipes.

Said toys were returned. And left on the floor. Again.

Now it's naptime and guess where that stick unicorn and fancy glittery Barbie pony are? That's RIGHT! Which is fine with me, because there are lots of baseboards in this house. And after that there are sidewalks to be swept, bookshelves to be dusted, light switches to be sanitized...the list goes on. This might be my favorite Pinterest find yet.

Carly's Big Adventure

2012-03-03T16:58:00.000-05:00

Today I took Carly's Girl Scout troop up to Tryon Palace, the name for North Carolina's first capitol building...it was actually only the state capitol for about 20 years in the 1700's but the entire area is really pretty. It was Girl Scout day, so we stopped at the history center museum first, where they had lots of activities set up for the girls to do. One of the activities was sewing this ditty bag like they used to have in WWII. Carly did really well for not having a lot of experience sewing. There are tons of kids sewing basket ideas on Pinterest and I may have to put one together for her!

We did lots of other really cool stuff, but this is the palace itself. Rebuilt in the 1950's from the original architect's plans and filled with artifacts from the 1700's, it is beautiful. I'm going to bring the girls back up when the weather isn't all drippy and rainy and we can explore the beautiful grounds and the other homes right around this main building.

We spent a good six hours exploring, and we didn't even see half of the exhibits there! That was mostly because the activities in the museum building took a l-o-o-ong time because our girls were the youngest ones there. They hung in there pretty well!

***

We're back home now and of the two girls I ended up taking, one's mom was here right on time to get her and the other one's mom well...I hope she's ok. She's not here yet and honestly y'all all I really want to do is get in my pajamas and take off my makeup and sit around like a lump instead of running up and down the stairs reminding our guest that we don't break things that don't belong to us, we don't talk to Bree like that, we don't hit, tattling isn't nice, crayons are for paper not doors, we don't throw things over the balcony, we don't use words like that...etc etc. It's NOT easy to still be nice, so I'm going to distract myself by vacuuming up all the popcorn out of the couch from the movie snack and I very specifically (and in writing no less) told my babysitter should be eaten in the kitchen.

***

On a less whiny note, we talked to Paul and he should be headed to real work oh gosh, was that earlier today? Or will it be in the middle of the night (our time). I need to get a second clock to keep track b/c I'm totally confused. =)

Found Photos and As Promised =)

2012-03-02T20:43:00.000-05:00

Sorry the picture is blurry - I'm honestly still figuring it out! Haha - anyway, Bree woke up with the coolest bedhead the other day and I had to get a picture of it. As a baby she had THE craziest hair. Here she is succumbing to the "you're gonna smiiiiillleeeee" thing that used to torture me as a kid. I guess mine aren't old enough to realize how seriously annoying it is for someone to be in your face singing that when you're trying to be mad. =)

From yesterday...I think? Oh who knows. Anyway, picnic outside. My sweet girl. Honestly one of the best parts about having kiddos so far apart is that each of them is going to get a couple of years at home with me just by themselves while the bigger ones are off getting educated.

From back when Paul was here - blurry again, my bad - Bree is showing us the part she likes on the roasted brussels sprouts - the carmelized part! Personally I think it's nothing short of a minor miracle that I got a kid to eat those little brains at ALL, but the kids dug them. Thanks, Pinterest!

Homework! She got the main concept of this book but had a hard time following the directions, mostly because she doesn't like to color. Have we talked about this? Bree doesn't like to color because she can't do it perfectly...sound like anyone we know??? You also get a great shot of the wallpaper peeling from the corner. Honestly - you want to know what I want for my birthday? Some contractor out here getting this junk OFF the walls and repainting. Honestly.

More homework! This time it was a reading program that CARLY has for her school. Bree's been watching the Preschool Prep sight words DVDs for a few weeks and she knows how to find them now. In this case, they were down to the last word, which was unfamiliar to her, but she knew she hadn't picked it yet. Yeah yeah I know, she's a genius. =)

And then finally, from this morning. I told you the story about Bree's outfit already, and here's our fabulous fashion art on Carly's ensemble. We were super happy with the way it turned out!

Dr. Seuss and Fun Times Traveling with the Military

2012-03-02T13:50:00.000-05:00

I promise I will post a photo when I get home, because Carly looked awesome this morning dressed up as Miss Frizzle from the Magic School Bus series. Side note: how GREAT are those books??? I love them!

We knew they were doing something for Dr. Seuss' birthday today, and her teacher sent out an email last Friday about it. Unfortunately for me, Friday just so happened to be the day before Paul left for medium work again so I clicke the email, saw there was an attachment, did not try and open said attachment and immediately forgot about it. Dr. What? Soooo...in a moment that I'm sure is one of the classics as far as parenting is concerned and had yet to happen to me, Carly brings up her book report (her what?!) that was due today and the costume (say who?!) that she was going to wear to school. This was about 5pm yesterday when we were cleaning up the yard and preparing to go inside.

So we go to the party store and find an Alice in Wonderland costume on clearance and buy it and joke with the store lady about how people always seem to conveniently forget the "COSTUMES ARE A FINAL PURCHASE" signs plastered all over the place. We spend the entire ride home planning our Halloween getups and Carly about makes me drive off the road with her spot-on imitation of the sleepy tea party mouse.

So, okay, only when we get back home again do I remember the attachment and open it to find that they want homemade costumes and are 'so excited' to see our creativity. Um. So it's 6:30 and my kids are starving and filthy and the costume I just purchased and cannot now return (thank goodnes it was on clearance and Carly's already prepared for the fact that she'll be wearing it on Halloween) is sitting right in front of me. Lucky me, Bree chose that moment to ask that I read the "hair-cane" book to her.

*Lightbulb*

So we grab a worn-out skirt and a white t-shirt and craft-paint clouds and rain on it like Miss Frizzle's rad dress in the book. I'll put the picture RIGHT HERE when I get home so you can see how darn cute Carly looks. She even let me put in rollers so she could have the right kind of frizzy hair-do. Note that I forgot the book report even though I had to get another parent to email it to me b/c my darn computer wouln't open the file.

Flash forward to this morning. Poor Carly is having to alternate between writing the report and taking bites of her green-eggs-and-ham burrito. We talk about how no one is going to be dressed like her and how cool that is, and we notice that Bree has disappeared.

She comes back downstairs dressed as Peter Pan's shadow, in all black. She's also wearing a skirt, because I keep telling her that leggings are not pants - this is a lesson I hope she will carry with her throughout life - and she has chosen to wear two different socks because, as she explains, no one else will have socks like that. Honestly - so cool.

Okay, and finally, because I know this is so long and getting boring, Paul is STILL not 'there' yet. He has been traveling for 12 hours shy of an entire week. A week!!! It would take less time to get to the moon, y'all. He still has no word on what his job will be when he goes for real (not that I'm going to put it here, ever) and he's just atounded at the amount of money being wasted. Example: why is the chow hall where they are stocked with candy bars and soda? I forget how he put it, but common sense would tell me that's hardly the way you'd fuel a force you expect to be battle-ready at any moment. Moon pies and Pepsi? Really????

He did get a return flight date, which is super but given how the trip out there has gone, we're not holding out much in the way of hopeful expectations for an expeditious return. It's a good thing our kiddos keep us entertained becaue the rest of this nonsense could make a person lose their mind.

Think of it as Preparation

2012-02-28T21:15:00.001-05:00

So...the kids aren't sleeping and they are finding it necessary to share this state of being with me on a nightly basis. This is how it goes:

- We do our long and strictly formatted bedtime routine that is timed with near-military precision to have the lights OFF at no later than 8pm. If you know me at all you know what a challenge this is for me. Doing it every single night does not, in fact, make it easier.

- I turn on the dishwasher, turn off all the lights, switch the laundry and hop into my own bed with a book and hold my breath. (That's right; I'm in bed at 8:05. It's lovely!)

- Thumps upstairs....thump thump thump down the stairs...someone is in my room by 8:15 at the latest with a complaint of some physical ailment, the lights being too bright or too dim, the curtains being too open or closed or the paint being altogether the wrong shade of blue. True story. Said complainer is herded upstairs, usually crying, and I run downstairs and hop in my bed again.

- If I'm lucky, I get about 2.5 hours of peace. Someone crawls in my bed sometime between the first 30 seconds after I fall asleep and 11pm, whichever is most likely to interrupt my sleep cycle for the longest amount of time.

-The other one wakes up around 2am and comes downstairs crying, much more loudly than necessary, about being all alone in their room. If it's Bree, I make her a pallet and she goes to sleep. If it's Carly, I make her a pallet and she spends the next forty-five minutes whimpering and muttering about how if SHE were the mom she would be SO MUCH nicer than me. Refuses offers to take her grouchy butt back upstairs. Or to the couch. Or anywhere really. I just have to wait for her to finally pass out again.

- Baby wakes up and wants to be fed - IMMEDIATELY - at 3am. This is usually right as I'm about to fall back asleep....the last few nights I've been able to fake her out by drinking a lot of water, which is awesome but results in a 5am trip to the bathroom for me.

- Alarm goes off at 6am. I get to hear from Carly how TIRED she is. How it's not fair that she had to sleep on the floor, or if she made it into my bed first, how it's not fair that her bed isn't as comfortable as mine. Bree just wants me to "make some lunch for us" and Baby concurs.

-Then it's the morning! Yay!

I think some Paint program illustrations would make this much more hilarious, but it's been done already. Oh well - use your imaginations! It's not really all that bad, I guess. I mean, maybe uninterrupted sleep is totally overrated anyway. =)

Okay, So THIS Is Why I Don't Answer the Phone

2012-02-27T19:07:00.000-05:00

It's not that I don't want to talk to you, I do. Well, with one or two pretty significant exceptions and one of those exceptions is the reason I felt the need to write this. You're welcome.

There are some times I like talking on the phone, it's true. They are:

1) When it's Paul calling.
2) When I'm driving.

But Liz! Talking on the phone while you're driving is SO DANGEROUS!!! Yeah I know. So basically I never like talking on the phone unless it's Paul.

I like talking face to face! At the park! Skype! Or Starbucks, or my front yard, or at Target..anywhere! If we're going to chat, let me see you! If we need to exchange information, or if you need to complain AGAIN about something over which I have zero control, do it in an email or a text. For real. I will respond quickly, and then, instead of making me repeat myself six bahundred times, you will have it right there in front of you in black and white to read over and over until you understand. That's actually how I finally extricated myself from the swamp of the neverending phone call today. I just said hey we're doing homework ("oh, you are? Well we don't do homework this late maybe you should...") and I'm making dinner right now so let me send you an email later ("Make sure you do because I don't understand why I have to wait three more days when you SAID...).

Normally I'm not a fan of interrupting because I hate when it happens to me but my WORD.

Anyway, the kids are pruny and it's 6 minutes past bedtime so maybe I should quit complaining and actually parent them. =)

So Far =)

2012-02-27T15:05:00.000-05:00

I did mention earlier that the girls weren't too sad at the airport. That part is true. They saved up all their drama for when we got home...it's not my favorite, so we bounced. Literally, we were home ten minutes and had to spring right back out of the house because the noise level was killing me. We went down the road to this wildlife shelter and hung out with some ducks for a long time. The shelter itself is really a working hospital, so they are only open for guided tours during specific times of the day. The girls didn't mind just running around the little pond in the front, and we're going to come back with Girl Scouts later. It was nice to get OUT and do something else; a good break to the day.

Sunday we met up with some friends at a park after church and played for a couple of hours. That was awesome! Our kiddos and their kiddos play really well together, so it was good for everyone.

***

Then today! You will probably be seeing a lot of this dress. Out of her closet stuffed with adorable dresses from Carly's LaPrint days, Bree likes this little Old Navy number I picked up off the sale rack a couple of weeks ago. Today she paired it with black tights and brown boots - she's so stylish beyond her years. =)

And fearless. She doesn't mind dropping to the ground even when she lands on her bottom.

Then I blew two weeks of coffee shop money on lunch for us - it was absolutely worth it, too! These Italian subs are soooo yummy. Bree ate all of hers and half of mine.

If Carly's tennis lessons are outside today, I'll try to get some pictures of her so she doesn't feel totally neglected in the photo department!

iPhone Pics of Daddy's Break

2012-02-27T14:52:00.000-05:00

Just got off the phone with Paul - he's one four hour flight, one ten hour flight and two nights in a hotel in, with back-to-back seven and eight hour flights, maybe another overnighter at an airport hotel, one helicopter ride and one humvee ride away from being there. It takes a really long time to go halfway around the world!
***
While he was here, we took a sort of overcast chilly morning and spent it at one of our favorite places! MacDaddy's! It's this game room and bowling alley place and they have mini golf, batting cages and go-carts outside. The girls were so excited - especially Carly who had the day off from school. THIS picture perfectly illustrates how giant Bree all of a sudden is. Carly is on a very slight decline...but my baby is catching up with her sister, and fast!

You can see it here, too, on the simulated roller coaster ride. They were watching the haunted railroad one and I love their faces. =)

While bowling - what does that even MEAN?!

Carly was feeling a little grumpy during bowling and sort of flat out refused to have her picture taken, so here is Bree flinging her bowling ball down the dinosaur's tail. You will notice how the ball doesn't actually make contact with the slide thing at all. =) Both kids beat me by twenty points, and Paul had um, twice as many points as I did. So maybe cookie sales aren't the ONLY thing in the world I'm not even a little good at. Ha!

The weather had cleared up so we played outside until dinner time. I already miss this view!!!

Oh, Bree. We didn't think we would be stopping anywhere on Saturday morning - just dropping Paul off at the airport, so when she came downstairs in this crazy outfit I didn't think anything of it. Well of course Paul's flight was delayed an hour and we stopped for donuts. Carly was in head to toe black, too. Lovely! This is another instance where 2008 Liz would be perfectly horrified by 2012 Liz. =)

Wrangling a monkey! You can see the huge mountain that completely distorts the entire side of his face - mercifully covered by a bandaid. We waited at the airport in what passes for their cell phone lot for a while because the Jacksonville airport is very small and there is no reason to check in more than half an hour in advance....but...all his buddies were already inside and thought it would be super funny to call him and say "DUDE we're boarding!!!" then watch as we sped up the road and Paul started yanking stuff out of the car and rushing around like a maniac before they told him it was a joke. Okay, it WAS pretty funny and it really helped break the tension of him having to leave so soon. It was easier for him to leave us, and because I was laughing and he was laughing the girls weren't too sad there at the airport.

Anyway, we don't have return dates yet (and I won't be posting them up on this blog! Hahah tough luck, terrorists) but we've got a few weeks and then he's home again. Until then, we've got lots of adventures planned here on the homefront. =)

Reset!

2012-02-25T17:54:00.000-05:00

So...Paul is back on his way to medium work. This is a much shorter version, plus there is a two-month break from federal taxes involved (holla!), so it's really not that bad. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway. He was just home for three days, but that relief of seeing him was enough to make today feel like Day 1 all over, not just Day 43 of 60 after a three-day-break.

Annoying, but it did involve the obligatory trip to Target, so I guess it's not all bad.

So here's a truth - doing the normal everyday stuff is not the hard part. Paul's crazy work schedule has him gone during the week until after the kids are in bed, so I'm used to doing all the worky work by myself. And to be honest, there is significantly LESS of the worky work when it's just me and two little kids making laundry and dust and dirty dishes.

What sucks is the drama.

Please nobody tell me anything along the lines of "just wait for when they're all teenagers" or anything to that effect. Not only have I heard it FIVE MILLION TIMES since we found out Baby 3 is a girl - oddly never from anyone who has three or more female children - but hi, it's not exactly helpful. Especially when throughout the course of the day, I've had to deal with:

one kid crying over the fact that we have the wrong Baby Bell cheeses
the other one truly and deeply pissed off at me of course because it's all my fault that a) our yard is too small and b) our yard is not fenced so we can't buy a horse tomorrow
both of them upset that we have to eat vegetables every day, even though they normally love them
and oh right, one being totally mad that tights and nothing else is not an acceptable choice of outfit when we're laying out clothes for church tomorrow.

This is the short list. And if I were to do one of those little charts where they show what someone says and then what they really mean, the what they really mean column would all say "I miss my dad and I wish he didn't have to leave but I have no control over that which is scary and frustrating."

The upside here is that by the time he leaves for long work I will have had two good practice runs managing this transition with my particular children at their particular ages while swimming in all these highly unhelpful pregnancy hormones. I'll know what to expect, because I've done it. I'll know that shelving my own sadness and frustration so I can help them navigate theirs is really the only way to survive Day 1. Also fluff books, massive quantities of Nutella, and lots of Target.

Not-So-Cool Version of Those "What I Really Do" Posters....Girl Scout Cookies Edition

2012-02-24T11:22:00.001-05:00

Aside from putting together sweet copycat posters (including finding a way to word the captions all the same), which I do not find to be terribly important so it won't count, I've discovered over the last couple of weeks the one thing that I'm not even sort of good at doing. I was absolutely correct in my initial assessment of my abilities regarding managing cookie sales for the troop. It's not my thing. I'm not a detail person in normal life, so when you add in my current gestational state and Paul's current work schedule, we get a recipe for Liz Fischer stressing out over piles of invoices and boxes of cookies never adding up the right way...anyway, I called it back in November when I started asking, with increasing desperation, for one of the other troop parents to step up and do this. I am awesome at basically all of the other Girl Scouty stuff: taking hikes, going on adventures, planning fun lessons and great crafts, tying all our learning together, encouraging the kids, teaching goofy campfire songs, creating calendars and balancing activities...all that.

But THIS stuff? Notsomuch.

Enter the funny posters that are making their way around the internet. I posted the military wife one a while ago....well, here's the Girl Scout Cookies from My Perspective edition:

What my daughter thinks it's like:

How my friends (whose orders have actually been delivered) see me:

Very close representation of what my husband got to come home to after being in the field for a month and a half:

What the other parents in our troop probably think I'm doing:

What it's actually like:

Daddy's Back =)

2012-02-23T07:34:00.000-05:00

This is FB repeat. =)
However, not all of you lovely folks do FB, and, due to the fact that I come here when I want to look back through a digital record of our family's life, I'm double posting. Hahaha - I don't know about you, but Timeline is practically impossible for me to navigate. Once I almost get to where I want to go, it pops me back up to the present day. Maybe its trying to tell me something. =)

Okay, moving on? Paul came back from his long training exercise on Tuesday night! We were SO happy to see him!!! Because of the job he does, he had to wait around for a while and couldn't just leave whenever his stuff arrived, so we brought him dinner and a cooler of beers to share...also Girl Scout cookies!

So Paul got a spider bite and he wouldn't stop messing with it, so it got yucky. He still wouldn't stop messing with it, so the next morning when he woke up, his eye was all red and swollen shut. GROSS! The doctor helped relieve some of the pressure and gave him some serious antibiotics, so hopefully it will start to clear up soon; it's really painful - and it looks painful! I need to apologize to Bree for this picture (sorry, baby!) because it's just so weird of her. =)

We've only got him for three full days before he heads off to another medium work, but thankfully this one coming up is only two weeks. Paul just picked up a bunch of new high speed gear that sounds like he's getting ready for a top-secret mission in some sci-fi movie. Pretty cool stuff, even though I wish it weren't necessary.

The girls are doing as well as can be expected with all the coming and going! It's definitely not easy for them to be happy he's home and sad to know he's leaving again so soon, but they're getting lots of one-on-one time with each of us and I think that is helping a lot.

Ultimate Preschooler Sensory Experience

2012-02-22T15:46:00.001-05:00

Lately, it's seemed as though Pinterest has been blowing UP with ideas for sensory tubs, sensory book experiences, sensory math lessons, sensory baths, sensory-practically-anything for kids. These lessons usually involve a big storage bin and cool household stuff put together in a really thoughtful, intensely organized way intended to get a young kiddo involved in learning about stuff, getting a more in-depth understanding of a book, or grasping a new math concept in the way little kids learn best - by DOING, touching, getting into stuff, making a mess...it's really inspiring. I have to be honest and say sometimes - only sometimes - the blog posts about these sensory tubs can come off just a tiny bit self-rightous and gloaty, so I'm going to try and avoid that (title notwithstanding).

Anyway, what I'm trying to say, is all those endless pins about sensory this-or-thats inspired me to write my own post about our latest sensory experience. You know I looooove a nice structured educational thing, so this is the perfect project for us! Directions are below and please, don't feel overwhelmed or that you can't do this project just because you don't live near a beach. You could accomplish this on a walking trail, in the woods, at your local playground, in your own backyard...the possibilities are really endless. It just takes, well, see the directions below.

1) Go to the beach.

2) Forget about literacy and future SAT scores for two hours and just be with your child(ren).

That is all. =)

Science Fun!

2012-02-19T18:56:00.001-05:00

This is the link to our liquid density experiment! It was perfect for Carly's age - with help from mama - and I love that it introduced the scientific method in a step-by-step way. The entire website is actually pretty cool. =)

http://www.hometrainingtools.com/liquid-density-project/a/1305/

Um, That's the Wrong Direction

2012-02-19T11:26:00.000-05:00

I just ordered Saxon Phonics and the first grade Handwriting Without Tears from Amazon...my appointment to get my hair trimmed and colored with those pretty sparkly highlights I love so much also just changed to a trim and partial highlights. Sad Liz with her ugly hair and having to basically homeschool her child because the public school system is inadequate to say the least.

I won't drag you all the way back into the whirlwind of my drama over trying to obtain a decent education for my children, but I will tell you that as I was going through some of Carly's written work from last summer and this semester, if you didn't see the dates at the top, you'd get them mixed up. Her work now is messy, with spelling mistakes she did not make last year, and a simpler sentence structure than she used six months ago. Nevermind the fact that she's brought home math homework with solid and plane figures about five different times. I don't know what they do at her school, and it makes me a little crazy that we had to live alllll the way out here in the boondocks (although it is awesome during the summer) so she could go to what is supposed to be one of the best schools in the area and it's still...just ok. My kid who used to love school and be excited about learning new things is more interested in making up jokes with her friends and begging to watch the TV shows we don't allow during the week. I think she's a bright kiddo, I mean, as her mom of course I do, and I hate hate hate seeing her dulled and bored by not being challenged AT ALL.

It is crazy that she's reading and understanding James and the Giant Peach at home, but bringing home five-page, simple, easy reader books each night in her bag book. Or that we just got finished doing a Pinterest-inspired liquid density experiment which my kid completely understoon here at home, but they've talked about solids, liquids and gases um...oh wait NOT UNTIL THIRD GRADE...I just...anyway. I promised no whirlwind of drama and I'm pretty sure I didn't keep it just now. My bad.

So anyway, that's why I'll have ugly hair for the next six weeks. Oh, the sacrfices we make as parents. =)

The Bree Show

2012-02-18T21:59:00.000-05:00

We went to a park playdate with a playgroup we are members of, but haven't done anything with since the summer due to scheduling issues. Bree didn't really talk to any of the kids, but she did get a kick out of climbing around and saying funny things. =)

She's so different from Carly. It has to do with personality and also with the fact that Carly was dragged to playdates from nine months on...several times a week. Bree was just like 'who are THOSE kids' and asked to swing by herself, where she was perfectly happy.

Just so sassy. She borrowed one of my old bracelets and put her little gifty in her back pocket so she could still climb around. Notice she has inherited Paul's genetic condition of noassatall. =) haha

The bull is rad on his own....but let Bree go nuts with her dressups....Billy the Bull is all of sudden fabulous.

Friday, I got an email from Carly's teacher that Carly's eye had been getting pinker throughout the day and there was already a case of pinkeye in her classroom. When I picked up Carly from the bus, her right eye WAS very pink, but she told me that her left eye was hurting right below. She pointed at her cheekbone and said her back teeth felt wiggly....of course as a mama with allergies I knew sinus pressure right away, so we headed to the doc. Turns out Carly had a nearly-infected ear and an upper respiratory infection. We got a Z-pack to attack the pinkeye and that...but we had to wait for a LONG TIME. Carly fell asleep on my lap, and Bree entertained us all with the following performance:

Homegirl has an extra dose of personality. This next photo is out of order, but it's from Thursday when Bree had to wait for my appt at the Naval Hospital. We stopped at Starbucks for a snack beforehand, mostly because I love that place and will come up with any excuse to spend my fun money there. =)

Valentine's Day Pics =)

2012-02-18T21:33:00.001-05:00

Here are pics from last Tuesday! I'm letting the girls stay up and watch Harry Potter tonight mostly because they're sleeping with me and I'm not ready to go to bed. It's going to be a monsoon tomorrow and they'll have time to take a great nap so we should be fine. I hope so anyway. =)

The girls loved their little gifties from me and Paul. We keep it simple with bubble wands and stickers and things like that. You can see the giant stack of artwork the girls are saving to show their dad when he gets back next week in the background. Baby Sister has a matching pink bucket and her name will be applied as soon as we figure out what it's going to be...

Up close of the goodies! I totally scored on some watches on super clearance at Target last month - the kids are SO excited about them!!! The watches are analog (is that the term?) not digital, which is great! Bree of course has no idea about the minute hand, but it's giving us a fun time to start counting by fives.

Silly girl on the way to friend school. I had gotten a giant water at Sonic the day before and Bree was sharing it. It's so hard to remember that I bought this outfit for CARLY and she wore that giant bow...seems like so many more than just three years ago. (See photo below)

Amazing!!! I had forgotten we called this outfit "millions" because it has a million hearts. So sweet. =)

Both girls have taken a break from running circles around the couch to come over here and laugh about how cute they used to look. They have no idea how cute they STILL. ARE. xoxo

So then we missed Daddy. So we made him a list of all the things we love about him!

This is Bree's...don't know why it came out sideways, but I wrote it down verbatim. =)

And Carly's list =)

I found this picture the other day - Paul came to help out with Carly's art class her last day at the wonderful fabulous St. Francis of Assissi right before we moved from Quantico. He spent most of the time working with this little boy who I normally spent most of the time working with because he (the boy) had such a hard time focusing and making right choices. Paul was so patient and sweet with him *swoon*

What Would You Do With Three Extra Days?

2012-02-15T13:20:00.000-05:00

A lot of the guys who work with Paul are using the flight delay to take an impromptu trip to Las Vegas. A lot of wives are flying out there to meet them and play for a couple of days.

If you know us, you know where we'll be. =)

Here's a hint: not in Las Vegas, as awesome as that would be.

The planner in me and the cheapskate in him (and I am thankful for that part of him on a nearly daily basis!!!) couldn't imagine such a thing and are shaking their heads and clucking like a pair of old biddies in the hair shop.

So what do we plan to do?

Well, I plan on getting over this cold and getting rid of as many Girl Scout cookies as possible. Paul will probably work out a bunch, download a bunch of books to his Kindle, and watch a lot of ESPN. FUN times, right? I know you are so jealous. =)

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-14T22:04:00.000-05:00

Paul's not here, obviously, so the girls and I had a low-key holiday. Carly went in to school with five pounds of strawberries and bananas for her class party and came home with a Ziploc bag full of candy and pencils from her friends. Bree spent the day doing all kinds of cute Valentine's-themed activities with her friends at friend school while I was supposed to working with the Family Readiness Officer...who neglected to tell me that she was out of town taking care of a family health matter. Since the CDC makes you pay for the whole reservation regardless of how much you actually use, I billed the battalion as planned and went shopping then spent two hours reading in Barnes and Noble. That was pretty fabulous, actually.

So, then I found this picture from last week. Nobody freak out about OPSEC okay, this is a public photo of the Excalibur round and you will notice there are no nametapes or faces showing. The round right there is $30,000 of your tax dollars at work. That's right. 30k, y'all. Which, ironically, is more than half these guys pictured make in a year. It goes really far and blows up lots of bad guys and the three units who got to fire it last week hit precisely where they were aiming. Kaboom.

So anyway, back to me? Found Easter dresses for the girls, yay. Love them. This is Carly's, with the belt. Bree's is slightly different with a tie sash and no crinoline under the skirt. It took every ounce of my willpower not to buy Baby Girl the infant version just because it's so rare to find outfits matching across three departments (honestly, who cares about this?) and also because - well, it's so stinking cute.

And finally. After talking to Paul (yay!) and dinner, the girls took a super rad bath. This is not my child - I pulled the picture off Pinterest - but you get the effect. The kids got glow sticks in their little Valentine's buckets this morning and added to their standard Tuesday-night bubble bath, it was really cool. Then they got to watch a movie (on a school night! Can you imagine?!) and both spent the next forty-five minutes lobbying to sleep in my bed.

Bree is actually on a pallet on the floor next to my bed right now, having just fallen asleep, at 10pm, after kicking the wall, and wiggling, and whispering to her animals for two hours. It is so hard for her to fall asleep! I'm sure Carly will be down here on a pallet on the other side of my bed before the morning. It's funny because I know there are those who would say I should let them sleep with me in my bed and put their needs for closeness above my needs of not being kicked and coughed on all night and those who would say I should force them to sleep in their own beds. I swear the best part about having parented for the short amount of time I have is that it's been just long enough that I know to just do what works for us. Which, for the time being, involves children sleeping on the floor of my room every night. =)

Oh, Oops

2012-02-12T21:31:00.000-05:00

I was supposed to post this Thursday, but I got distracted by all that cookie stuff, and then completely forgot to put this up. Let's hope I'm better at caring for this little kiddo than remembering to post cute blogs about my pregnancy. GEEZ, LIZ.
So anyway. This is the last week of my second trimester. Unbelievable, right? I could just sit here with my mouth open, blinking and looking stupid while I ponder that, but let's just move on to the questions, shall we?
Cravings: nothing all that crazy, really. Just lots of fruit and frozen blueberries.
Weeks: 27!!! (plus three days because I'm a total goldfish)
Clothes: Thank goodness for my friend Terra giving me this HUGE bin of her old maternity clothes. I love full-panel maternity jeans.

Sleep: okay. I'm thirsty all the time and consistently wake up at 3am totally starving, but other than that, when I'm alone in my bed I sleep awesome. When I have an ear-achey girl (like tonight) or a missing-Daddy girl (like Friday and Saturday) in my bed kicking me and asking for stuff...well then sleep isn't so great.
Symptoms: That big jerk, pelvic dysplasia, has made its painful and annoying appearance. Thankfully, on my third pregnancy, I've learned how to roll over in bed, put on pants, get up off the floor, climb stairs, etc., with minimal hurting. And I'm thankful that's about the only symptom I've got right now. I am getting a tiny bit short of breath as the baby gets bigger and higher, but at this point it's nothing too bad.

Movement: LOTS and I love it. She likes the right side of my belly. The girls get a kick out of feeling where she is and watching my belly dance around as their little sister moves. It's amazing to me how aware she already is - if anything different is on my belly, like Carly's hand pressing lightly, Baby Sister immediately starts pushing and kicking at it. I think she's trying to figure it out...or get it OFF of her space. =) I guess it depends on her little personality.
Gender/Names: It's a girl! Paul's been in the field for a long time so we haven't talked about names. I have two in mind and maybe, hopefully he will think one of those is super. Or he'll come up with one that I think is super. We shall see.
Nursery: right. About that...still haven't finished it. It's a process.

So that's all folks! Almost the end of my last second trimester ever. I already miss this pregnancy (after 13 weeks of course) and I'm excited about seeing this baby's little face.

Freezing Friday

2012-02-10T22:36:00.000-05:00

1. It is cold, wet, rainy and miserable outside. The upside to this is that our house feels coziest when the weather is bad outside.

2. I love Children's Motrin. Bree's ear hurt so badly and now it doesn't. Carly barked her shin getting into the car after our Free Flick Friday adventure tonight and now it's not throbbing any more. Yay for modern medicine.

3. Due to the above health emergencies, both kids are asleep in my bed. I am not in my bed and have no plans to return. Spend the night in our getting-smaller-every-day queen bed being kicked by all three of my children at the same time? Um, no thank you. The couch works. It should be noted that I had to leave the room to 'check on something' in order for them to fall asleep - once I was out of the room for five minutes, they were sacked out.

4. I miss my husband and would like very much for him to come home already.

5. More pictures? Well sure! I'm wrestling with Kodak gallery trying to get them to upload the highest resolution photos, but until then...ta-da!

I love this one for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it gives the illusion that I still have a jawline, which I do not. I'm like a giant marshmallow - no edges anywhere. =)

And this next one pretty much sums up how I feel about this pregnancy. Flipping ecstatic. Baby Girl can thank her big sisters for the fact that I can't wait to get my hands on another Liz+Paul Fischer creation. Our kids are awesome. =)

There were lots of shots just like this - where I hardly look pregnant. I'm definitely don't look like I'm smuggling a basketball....I just get big everywhere. Which is FINE. Somewhere in all of that is our sweet baby - I like to think of all the extra padding as just a little service I offer. Plenty of room to move around. =)

The next two I love. Carly and I are making the exact same face, and then you can see Bree getting ready to cut and run. Love it!!!

Wednesday and...oh my word, is it only Thursday?!

2012-02-09T22:03:00.000-05:00

If you're on my facebook, you've already seen some of these and I apologize for the repeats. =)

If not...here are a few iphone pics I took yesterday and today. First, Bree in her tutu and Supergirl dress dusting the living room (she's SUCH a good helper!) while watching her letters show.

Then, an awesome bonus when we stopped by the library after dance class! The guys were pouring some cement out there - so cool!

That evening it was too cold to go outside and I couldn't bear to sit around for two hours, so I (hello!) remembered that our gym has an indoor pool and the girls and I went and swam for an hour and a half. We haven't been in the water since September, but by the time we left, both kids were swimming like the little fish they are. It was SO FUN and relaxing. We will definitely be back. Note: maybe I'm biased, but I'm pretty sure that little face strategically placed in front of my thigh is one of the cutest things in the entire world.

Moving on to today, also known as the Day That Went On Forever. (But in a good way!) We started off the normal way, with breakfast all together and dropping Carly off at school at a little past 7:30. Bree wasn't very happy at the old friend school, so I switched her to another center and she LOVES it there. The atmosphere is noticably different - warmer, happier. Bree went from whining about friend school to asking to go in one day. Sold! So after I dropped her off to play with her wonderful teachers, a few of us from our battalion went and dropped off a meal at the Fisher House. It's like the Ronald McDonald house, but for the families of injured Marines. Aboard Camp Lejeune, most of the Wounded Warriors are recovering from community-based injuries, like motorcycle accidents, or are being treated for psychological issues. It's a little different from the burn centers or amputatee centers in other areas of the country, but still fills such a need. The facility is amazing and we were happy to provide a little love in the form of homemade soup and fresh rolls to the families staying there.

Immediately afterward, I went and did my casework volunteering at Navy Relief. This was my view today. They just painted this room the exact same (rather intense) color as my bedroom which is actually sort of weird as I sit here posting these pictures from my bed. Some days are good and some are sort of slow at Navy Relief, but today I had the pleasure of actually getting to USE my education and provide some real financial counseling to three Marines in completely different circumstances.

So...pick up Bree, clean out the car, pick up Carly, pick up our photo CD from last week and drive 40 minutes in the other direction from Camp Lejeune to pick up...that's right! Cookies!!! It was a little overwhelming and I felt more than a little embarrassed that I was just hanging out by myself when all the other cookie moms had crews of women with minivans and extended-cab pickup trucks. Lesson learned! This is the fire station aka temporary warehouse where the Bekins truck was unloaded. That's a lot of cookies right there.

So...after I realized that despite what the website says, 75 cases of cookies were absolutely NOT going to fit in my Pilot, I called the mom of the girl who sold about half the cookies in our troop and she graciously agreed to come out and pick up her stash. By this time, my poor kids were losing it. The two hours of the day they usually spend face to face with me, I was busy stacking and counting boxes and they had to dodge adults carrying cookies, and dollies rolling cookies, and firemen, and other kids....it was sort of a crazy time. See? Bree is totally zombie-fied.

So we get home, unload allllll the cookies and the parents start coming by to pick them up. My poor girls, once again, have to give up a time of the day they usually get my undivided attention so they were going even more nuts, if you can imagine it. But then we had dinner and they got to cut up the tofu (and eat over half of it cold, the way they like it best, the weirdos) and then we got to have a cookie. What a GREAT way to end a neverending day!!!

I'm Not Sure What a KeyLogger Is But It Doesn't Sound Good...

2012-02-05T07:40:00.000-05:00

I'm actually afraid to Google the term. Just in case.

So...last night my plans included updated our security protection and changing all my passwords. It took a really long time, mostly because I couldn't figure out a few fairly simple set-up things and had the indescribable pleasure of speaking to a condescending and humorless tech support guy. I want to send him that Albert Einstein quote about fish climbing trees, but then I figured since the dude probably hasn't been outside since the late 80's the nature references might be lost on him.

The truth is, it's not all his fault for being a jerk. Computers are clearly something he cares about deeply and something about which I know basically nothing. He likely considers computer knowledge to be a vital skill necessary for all normally-functioning adult humans (much the way I think of polite social interaction) and he likely has to talk to idiots like me all night long...I mean, right? It has to be.

Anyway, there were a scary few minutes between the time I had to uninstall our old stuff and reinstall our new stuff. I alleviated my anxiety by going around the house making sure all the doors and windows were locked. =)

So anyway, that was the exciting news from our place. We did get to talk to Paul last night! It made us all miss him so much I let the girls have Domino's for dinner because he likes to order it on the weekends sometimes. Ironically, he was the one having hummus and veggies for dinner, and even though he is the one in the desert, my girls were up three or four times each SO THIRSTY. =)

Kinston Nature Center and Planetarium

2012-02-04T15:47:00.000-05:00

We took our Girl Scout friends to this surprisingly cool place about an hour from our house today. I'd heard some good things about it, but it was still much better than I expected. And it's free! Amazing! A few years ago, area girl scouts re-tiled this wall for the museum and we took our Crazy Daisy pictures in front of it. Bree was our little tagalong for this adventure because Daddy's not here and it made me sad to think of leaving her with a sitter when she knew Carly and I were off having an adventure. (Also! I figured out the trick to getting her in jeans...tights underneath. I got zero complaints about how much the pants hurt. Yay!)

So, if you're local and trying to find a great all-day activity for your kiddos, this place is great. There are two main buildings: one is the nature center with cases of live and stuffed native animals. They even had a live hedgehog and a pool of hermit crabs and a lobster. There is a lobster in the touch-tank, you read that right. There IS a hand-lettered sign reminding visitors to keep their hands away from that guy. So crazy! Anyway, the other building has all KINDS of science exploratory stuff downstairs, including a mouth/stomach the kids can climb through, some air pressure exhibits, a bee hive, etc. The upstairs is dedicated to outer space stuff. Given the pretty modest looks of the place, they have a whole lot of informative and interactive stations for the kids plus an actual planetarium where we saw a show about the star constellations you can see in North Carolina. The girls got a BIG kick out of that.

Carly's FACE when the lady opened up the beehive. =)

So now we're home and exahusted from our fun day! Outside there is also an AWESOME playground with some really cool fossil digging pits and, for warmer weather, a train and rock climbing wall. It's an amazing park! We will definitely be back, because you know how much I love adventures that last an entire day!!!

We had TWO extra parents with us today!!! It was GREAT! I'm hoping that more parents will start being able to join us, as I have noticed that girls whose parents are never able to participate in events or meetings tend to have the hardest time staying focused and remembering to follow our standard operating procedures. It can't be easy for them to see everyone else's parents come to stuff and theirs never can - that definitely helps my patience level when I'm chasing girls across the parking lot because they just decided that it's NOT time to get in the car, after all. =)

Maternity Pics

2012-02-02T21:35:00.000-05:00

I've never had maternity photos...real ones...taken before. My incredibly talented friend Sharlyn took these and a million others on the beach, was that only yesterday??? So...this is me at 25-almost-26 weeks with Baby 3. I'm going to have her to a 'real' photo shoot with Paul and us before he leaves, so you'll see the progression. =)

LOVE this one. The ocean was so beautiful!

And this is probably my favorite picture of ever. We had to borrow coats, but the colors turned out so cute. Thank you SO MUCH, Sharlyn!!!

In Which The Use of Duct Tape Doesn't Seem All That Out of Line

2012-02-02T13:34:00.001-05:00

Note: The title is a joke. =)

In other news, my little monkey of a child accomplished, or is in the process of accomplishing, the following things today:

1. A successful, 5+ foot jump from her buckled-in position in the cart to a cozy looking sofa at Sam's while I was deciding between various brands of boxer briefs. (You will note at this point how unbelievably glamorous my morning was.)

2. A not-as-successful escape attempt from the Target cart which left her dangling upside-down still trying to grab the sparkly lotion stuff off the shelf while I was deciding between two different kinds of Castile soap. Luckily she did not crash to the floor and crack her head open.

3. A complete renovation of the Old Navy dressing room, including but not limited to, hanger disbursement (dumping out the entire bin), soccer ball disbursement (again) and t-shirt rearrangement while we were taking advantage of some coupons and sales and stuff.

4. Taking every single item of clothing out of her closet and making "a new carpet" with it. This was cleaned up but judging from the sounds coming from upstairs while she should be taking a much-needed (as in MOMMY needs it) nap, I'm pretty certain Attempt 2.0 is well underway.

It was a rainy morning and we had errands. The sun is out now, and we will play in one hour. I'm sure her chaotic behavior is partly due to the chaos in the kitchen...the maintenance guy came out to see what the weird clear peeling stuff was on my tile and come to find out it was bathroom caulking. The space between the tiles on our kitchen counters is approximately four inches, so you can imagine how gross they get. No amount of baking soda/peroxide scrubbing and bleach-soaking will make them look nice. Anyway, I cleared off the counters (enter, chaos) and he said he would fix it up while we were out.

What I expected: to come home to clean, sealed grout that looks like someone is taking care of this place.
What I got: most of the clear stuff had been removed and a note saying "okay now you can clean the grout."

At this point in our story, the aforementioned duct tape will be used on my own mouth when I drop off our rent check. =) I'll just smile sweetly from behind three or four inches of shiny silver tape and let it be.

It probably didn't help that I got that note after our crazy morning, right after receiving and email about Carly having a (my words) snotty attitude in class, and while the lady on the phone was telling my I failed my one-hour glucose test with a level 30 points above what I had with Carly or Bree. Of course I felt like one of those sloppy trash-women, you know the ones, who keep filthy houses, yell at their kids all the time and never actually wear real clothes...like the ones you see in the People of WalMart pictures. Also like the worst mother ON the planet (because who else would simultaneously ruin a previously-happy and well-mannered child, nearly let another one maim herself multiple times in the space of a few hours, and poison the baby all at the same time), and just basically awful. It wasn't a good moment.

I guess it's a good thing I can work out my aggravation on this grout I can now clean, huh. =)

Happy Wednesday with a Chance of Thunder

2012-02-01T21:51:00.000-05:00

This is the lady who did our Christmas card photos - a friend of ours and another military mama whose husband is on roughly the same deployment schedule as Paul. Which is awesome because we have TONS of time, at the same time. We took all our many children down to the beach and she took some photos of me and the belly which I will post later. This is her oldest daughter helping with the light card. The sunset was sooo pretty and I think we might have gotten some good shots.

Meanwhile Carly and Claryssa were dancing in the waves. They're in the same class and had a great time playing together today. Bree was just having a rough day. At this moment she was screaming about not liking the coat she had on and just being pitiful and angry but she didn't want any hugs or to play in the sand. She just wanted to cry and be miserable, so we let her. I didn't take a picture because nothing will beat the one from a few days ago. Bree had a much better time when we went back to our friends' house for dinner and the girls all got to wear pretty dressups and have a tea party. =)

And then! On the way home, Carly got sad because I told her we were going to a meeting at Paul's work tomorrow but she knows he won't be there. We asked him to send a picture so the girls could kiss him goodnight and five minutes later we got this. He's so stinking cute, and I mean that in the most literal sense. He's been gone for almost three weeks and hasn't had a shower yet. I'm hoping they get a chance to get clean while they're doing their Superbowl party thing this weekend, or at least before they get on the plane to come home - can you imagine being a flight attendant on a plane with a few hundred men who haven't bathed in over a month? No, thank you.

Lifeline

2012-01-30T18:57:00.000-05:00

Meaning my phone. Which I'm trying (not successfully so far) to update to the ios whatever that everyone else has had for six months. There is some kind of problem between my computer, the phone, the internet connection...I don't know. Anyway, I just downloaded the pictures from the last few sunny beautiful outsidey days...

Starting with our Saturday playdate at a park roughly halfway between us and our Jacksonville friends. This park drives us nuts during the summer because we get all sweaty and sand sticks to us, but during the cooler months it's AWESOME. This is the picture I sent to Paul.

Carly and Sophia during lunch! They're so cool. =)

Then today, Bree and I had a Mommy Day. We went to Panera, then Michaels', then the aquarium because we had to put down a deposit for Carly's birthday party there. When we arrived we saw that it was not crowded at all and we spent the next two hours exploring. Bree loved doing her own thing at her own pace and not having to share any of it with anyone....speaking of not sharing? She ate both our scones, I had maybe one little piece of the cinnamon one before this little Hoover devoured them.

Making a shark hat in the exploration classroom! So stinking cute even though it kept falling over her eyes.

And then hahaha this is so funny. We went out and walked the nature trail because the day was warming up beautifully. On the way back, Bree decided she was tired of walking and she wanted to sit, but the log you can see in the background had lichens and they were "crumbs" which she could just not sit on. These pictures are hilarious because...don't you ever feel JUST LIKE THIS? I mean, JUST like that. How lovely to be three and just show it. =)

THIS ONE, especially. I wish I had it in better resolution.

After a nice long nap, all better. Doing homework outside (as usual) with Carly.

My little homeless barefoot child. They were playing a game where Carly was trying to run over her with the car...but she never caught up, so Bree was safe and non-squished.

Trying so hard!!! Give it a year - little sister will probably be IN that car, laughing like a crazy person.

Sunny Sunday

2012-01-29T11:12:00.001-05:00

Well, as far as last week's goals go, we got two out of three. We are healthy (THANK GOD) thanks to lots of sunny days and hand sanitizer. The books have been cleared out. But I didn't step foot in the baby's room, not even once. It remains That Room With Carly's Old Bed and The Big Closet Where Our Wrapping Paper And Family Documents Are. Maybe this week.

Or maybe next weekend when it's going to rain.

As for right now, we've got twice baked potatoes, baba ghanouj, wheat bread, vanilla pudding and that crock pot apple pie dessert/breakfast thing all in various stages of being prepared. Our kitchen smells really confusing. I just did the bathrooms and the laundry is going, too. It sounds much busier than it actually is, so maybe I should just leave that part out and let you think I'm efficient and awesome.

The truth is, I like starting the week with stuff done. And clean. And put away. Plus, cleaning and cooking help me relax...which is good after an hour of church aka being hit repeatedly with a stuffed turtle and answering a million whispered questions about socks, whether dinosaurs brushed their teeth and WHY NOT MOMMY...anyway. Good thing I learned long ago that Saturday is a good Sabbath for a mama.

The sun is out, and so will we be as soon as Carly gets home.

Goals for the week:
1) Taxes. Yay.
2) Repaint fireplace trim.
3) Figure out why I'm not comfortable in the house and fix it, to make it more homey somehow. I don't know what it is, but it's just not cozy in here. Actually I'm fairly certain I know that the decoration I'm missing is a hundred and ninety-six pounds of Paul Fischer, but I can't do anything about that, so we'll see if some Valentine's Day garland, fixed paint, and some candles will make it feel better in here.

*Update*
Talked to Paul this afternoon, and found out he's not scheduled to go with the advance party. He didn't understand what that means....IF he gets the later flight time of the window they are now discussing and IF my midwife will agree to induce me a week or so early, he MIGHT not miss this baby being born. Oh my. Of course the chance of that happening is well worth the uncertainty and iffing and mighting that will happen for the next fifteen weeks, but...ahhhhhh I can't think about it.

WFT

2012-01-28T10:19:00.000-05:00

Do you guys remember Waiting for Tuesday? That was a long time ago, and I kept it private, so you probably don't. Anyway, I found it last night and was amazed at how much things have changed in the intervening five years.

For one thing, I am shocked that I almost let Paul go to Anglico unaccompanied for a year immediately after a yearlong deployment, and I remember the primary reason for that decision was that he didn't want to move us overseas. He didn't.

2007 Liz was like "oh, ok" ...and then enter three months of stress and sadness and one heartbreaking blog post.

2012 Liz would be like "No. I've moved us alone more times than not and I've have the POA. I've got this, and I don't think we need to discuss it further. We'll see you there."

As it turned out, of course, what was waiting for us was New Orleans and subsequently Baton Rouge which turned out to be exactly the right thing (of course).

Secondly, I was waaaay better parent. I feel so bad for Bree.

Third, 2012 Liz broke into a cold sweat at black-and-white evidence of the fact that I spent every single penny I earned being a nanny. I could have bought a car with all the gas money, museum entrance fees, lunches and snacks out, Target trips and scrapbooking supplies I purchased that year. BUT, it made me feel better and nothing went on credit, so I'm calling it a wash and am not going to feel guilty.

And finally (not finally, but we have plans and I can't sit here for any longer), I had and have the most amazing friends on the planet. Four in particular were there through ALL of that and never batted an eyelash.

So now we're off to the park. Carly is mad because she's tired of wearing the same outfit all the time and Bree is mad because she has to pick up her sorting bears. I've got a travel mug full of half-decaf coffee and an insulated bag full of snacks and we are out to get some sunshine. We'll check in later...much later, if all goes according to plan. =) Yay!

Yesterday and Today

2012-01-26T16:50:00.000-05:00

One thing I LOVE about our house is that we live in a very quiet neighborhood with a sidewalk in front of our house. If the weather is even sort of nice, we are outside and girls are playing with our garage full of pink and purple colored outside toys. Or...like yesterday...doing homework on the front porch.

And then, just in case I ever give the impression that everything is absolutely horrible and sad when Paul is gone, let me tell you about "field food" or "deployment dinner." (Of course we would rather him home, but there is a silver lining to pretty much any cloud, no matter how big and heavy.)

In a word: wonderful.

I guess it is true of our family at least that I cook those square meals just for the daddy because the second he leaves we revert to monkey cheese with peas (I have a salad) and when we get tired of that, we make french bread pizza (last night), or we do a Mediterranean dinner...like tonight...and here is Carly giving her opinion. She's a fan of field food, too. We had the other half of the loaf of bread, three different 'flavors' of olive oil for dipping, olives, grapes, heirloom tomatoes and not shown is a big chunk of Romano cheese. Lovely! Tomorrow night the kids are having hummus and veggies with homemade naan and maybe orange slices if I'm feeling fancy. After a week or so of eating like this, their hair gets REALLY shiny. =)

And, just because it's been a couple weeks since I've blessed you with a picture of Bree's fashion fabulosity...here ya go! Pardon the chair cushion - they're getting steam cleaned tonight.

Cure for Cabin Fever

2012-01-25T09:37:00.000-05:00

I'm waiting for Bree to finish getting dressed and we are headed OUT. Yesterday was such a great reminder of all the things I like best about being a mom of small-to-medium-sized children. Snacks at the park, water bottles, running all around, starving kids at dinner and kids who actually NEED a bath because they are filthy from playing like wild animals all day long.

Does anyone else feel that way? I know it's not spring, and I know we will probably have a few more yucky days of gross, depressing weather, but for NOW, I'm just going to choose to ignore that fact. We're stocking up on park snacks (z-bars, those twisty fruit things, cheese sticks, Koala granola bars, etc) and getting the heck out of the house for as many hours per day as possible while we can. I'm hoping that all this activity will help us with staying healthy and will help distract my poor Bree from the fact that someone (me) stole all her Barbie books and replaced them with Caldecott books...

...which, btw, we already owned but she never read because Barbie books require no work on her part. She's not a fan of the change, but she'll come around.

Okay! We are READY! What are your plans for the day?

Three Things I Love

2012-01-24T18:31:00.001-05:00

1) When a fun, two hour Chick-Fil-A playdate (yes, another one) turns into another two hours playing at a nearby park because the weather decided to surprise us and turn sunny and beautiful and perfect.

2) When my girls play together like best friends.

3) When my husband calls at THIS moment and he sounds great, and he can hear the girls laughing, and I find out he's sleeping on a cot not the hood of his humvee, and it's so good to talk to him we'll all go to sleep happier. xoxo

Jumpies, Baking and Art...

2012-01-23T21:13:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure we went to the jumpy place last Monday. PRETTY sure, but I can't really guarantee it. Either way, the girls had a blast as usual. Bree was especially awesome once she mastered the obstacle course entrance by herself. Happy kid! If you look carefully, you will notice she is also a well-accessorized kid, with pretty rings on each hand. Just don't look too closely at her outfit - she chose it herself and hasn't mastered the art of matching just yet. =)

We met the Jiabias there...this is one of the only pictures I got of Carly and Sophia, mostly because this was one of the only times I saw them the whole time we were there. =)

Okay, then flash forward past all the illness and we come to Friday. I don't know why this picture is so dim, but we made playdough. At least I think this was Friday...I'm pretty sure it was Friday. The girls LOVED that project!

Then we made zucchini bread which the girls love as long as I make sure to tell them it's cinnnamon bread.

Bree still wanted to help cook even though I was finished, so I let her stir up a little flour and water. She lives in her dressups and wears them almost all the time when we're home.

Okay! Now I know for SURE what day this happened, because it was today! Yay! Today is Monday and Carly is healthy but has a couple of days off for teacher workdays. Carly had a sleepover last night and was really excited from it, so we did a little art project to help the girls calm down before naps. It worked awesome and they each slept three hours, which gave me exactly enough time to do all the collating and accounting and reporting and ordering for Girl Scout cookies. Wahoo!!!

Here we are beginning our cactus project. You can see the puff paint bottles in the background - the recipe is on pinterest, but it's just flour, water, salt and paint.

Bree, getting bored with cacti, had fun painting. This is a (super)girl who loves her paint.

So the end result! What I love about these directed art projects is that they give plenty of latitude for an older kid who is more interested in the product and a younger one who is still fully in process mode. Bree asked for help with the puffy outlines and she loved sticking in the little cactus thorns.

Then we played Sorry! which was totally boring to Bree, but Carly loved it. She wanted a photo taken. =)

So we survived a week. Goals for next week include: all of us staying healthy, finishing cleaning out what will be the baby's room and doing a Barbie-and-Disney-Princess detox of our family library. Wish us luck!

You Know He's In the Field When...

2012-01-20T09:35:00.001-05:00

Well, this has been a heck of a week.

Today we're working on a couple of fun projects so the pictures will be posted later. Thank goodness for Pinterest, right?

Also for phenergan (for me, post-food poisoning) and kickass antibiotics (for Carly, to kill strep). And awesome neighbors who send their homeschooled teenager to watch Bree while they drag my hallucinating, barfing, practically mummified carcass up to the hospital to get fixed up after what had to be the most disgusting night of my life. I don't remember getting out of the car or walking into the hospital and I guess I looked about as lovely as I felt because when I emerged from the treatment room six hours and three IV bags of fluid later, the guy at the triage desk was all "WHOA, well you look much better!" And I was all, "Um thanks, do I know you?" He was like, "yeah, you puked on my shoes." Awesome. I guess that's why nurses wear those solid white crocs...easy to hose off if necessary.

Anyway, they loaded me up with phenergan and sent me home with more which has been a big help in the hydration department. I'm doing a thousand percent better today. Carly is, too. Her throat started hurting Wednesday night and we got her in to see the doctor Thursday. First time anyone in our house has had strep but the antibiotics have seemed to knock it out pretty well and Bree seems to be okay for now! Thank goodness for Clorox wipes and a stash of new toothbrushes, too!

And now I'm going to peel my bug-eyed children away from Tom and Jerry and make them do something fun and creative for at least half an hour until this last dose of the magic phenergan pill makes me pass out.

Hi, Kelly!

2012-01-15T17:18:00.001-05:00

I'm all about multi-tasking today, so after the cute little Q&A I am shamelessly lifting off another military family's blog that linked up with Kelly last Friday for her Military Families linky party, you will see some spectacular shots of my dainty ladies enjoying their lunch.

*This would be a great place for an "irony font," but if you are one of the six or seven people who stop here regularly, the term "dainty ladies" in the same sentence as a meal probably tipped you off. =) Haha.*

I don't know if anyone will actually come visit from there, but if you did, hi! Sorry about the lack of a readable title. =)

So! Onto the questions...

How did you meet your husband?
I met Paul at this skeevy bar in Lawton, OK called...are you ready for this?...the Electric Cowboy. I know. They alternated between country and hard-core rap and had coin beer night a lot. I'd never been there before but I was visiting a friend from highschool and yada yada yada Paul and I ended up talking until the bar closed. He met me at church the next day, then we went to the local arts fair before I headed back to grad school in Waco and he headed back to artillery school in Lawton's neighboring Fort Sill. That was in May. We were married five and a half months later and the rest is history.

What is military life like?
It's just like I suspect most other people's married lives are like. You work, maybe raise kids, do taxes, buy a house, fix stuff, laugh about stuff, argue, make up, eat dinner, try to be better all the time...we just sometimes navigate those things over long distance and sometimes my husband's work takes place in unsafe locations (which, it should be noted, is also true of my friends and relatives who work on oil rigs, or are firemen or police officers, or who have jobs that require 100% travel, or who work 30on/30off schedules). We don't get the chance to take one another for granted, which is awesome, as are dress blues - can I get an AMEN?! - and those welcome-home-so-glad-you're-safe first kisses.

What does your husband do?
He blows stuff up in normal life, but right now his guys are doing different sorts of things.

Where have you been stationed?
Camp Pendleton - beautiful and perfect, can't wait to get back.
New Orleans - not nearly as fun to live there as you'd think, glad we only stayed six months.
Baton Rouge - loved it! Made lifelong friends there and loved being near my family.
Quantico - loved it!!! The DC area is SO FUN. There is no end of stuff to do and it's so pretty.
Camp Lejeune, NC - our current location and, well...we live near the beach which is great in the summer and I'll leave it at that. =)

Do you complain about military life?
No! Stop laughing, I'm serious. I complain about some things that are a direct result of our life (such as certain characteristics of our current area that I've resolved not to mention in 2012), but my husband loves his job and he is great at it, we are provided for and have amazing friends and opportunities that have been afforded to us due to my husband's job moving us from place to place. We aren't ready to trade it in for predictability and guaranteed reasonable access to a Whole Foods and an art museum....yet.

And that about covers it, I think! =)

So, as promised...photos...

First, one of Carly so you can see what she's wearing...she was making her 'awkward' face...hilarious because she's started say "ohhhh AWKWARD" at inappropriate times, like if I forget her juicebox in her lunch or something. She's six, so I'm thinking mastery of the art of irony is a couple of years away.

And then, Bree. God bless this sweet girl and keep her ever awesome.

In addition to randomly loving cole slaw today, Bree was really digging the raw onions I put out for Paul. Her breath is LOVELY this afternoon, let me tell you. And do you see her shirt? This is why we do two loads of laundry a day. =)

Adventures in Baking

2012-01-15T10:52:00.000-05:00

So, the college football national championship was LAST week, and yes, we've been doing stuff THIS week, but none of it got photographed. This lovely attempt at a king cake did win a moment of the spotlight though...even though it looks more like those little pillows they give hemorroid patients than an actual king cake. You're welcome for that mental image. =)

This was attempt 3...the first two didn't even rise, or rise evenly. So...I'll try again around the time of Mardi Gras and maybe we'll get something more cake-like and less medical-equipment like. =) ''

Haha, you're welcome again.

A Post As Scattered As I Am

2012-01-11T16:29:00.000-05:00

Consider this a bloggy onomatopoeia.

I got buried by my to-do list today. Most of it did get accomplished but I couldn't tell you how or when, and the sad thing is that it wasn't just calm Mommy stuff, it was madness and Bree and Carly moving around and talking (always talking) in the background did not help matters in the least.

That's not their fault; they're kids. It's my inability to focus on more than one thing at a time that's the problem.

So while I was mentally revising my list and listening to Bree screech at me about how her carseat buckle was too tight even after we adjusted it, I missed my turn and ended up thirty miles away from where I was supposed to be, thirty minutes before I was supposed to be at the dentist. So the sitter met us there, right after Bree had an accident, and I may or may not have jokingly begged the dentist to hit me with some baby-friendly laughing gas. It's probably not a good thing that the most relaxing part of my day was the twenty-minute block of time I was getting my teeth cleaned.

Here's to getting it together.

I really just need some SILENCE, decent cell service and a personal assistant for my oh-so-important and busy life. =)

It's Not February Yet...

2012-01-08T07:14:00.000-05:00

We got quite a few New Year's cards this year...and pretty much everyone who sent one those after-Christmas cards called or emailed to apologize for their being so late...and every time I said (because it's true) that if you just started a business/moved/had a baby within the last three years/are doing Christmas solo due to your husband's work obligations/are a normal human being with a busy life...you absolutely have until February to get those cards out. If it's before Valentine's Day, you're good.

So..with these photos, I'm doing something entirely out of character and extending to myself the same measure of grace I gave my busy friends. If you're not related to us, you probably don't really want to see a single more Christmas photo, and I don't blame you! Just consider yourself duly warned. =)

****

Let's start with the rest of Christmas Day at our house and our SUPER simple Christmas dinner. We had a lot of other stuff but realized that all anyone wanted was that amazing grilled ham and sweet potatoes, so that's exactly what we had. Maybe next year we'll do roasted brussels sprouts and green bean casserole.

Then some awesome gingerbread house destruction.

***

The next three days consisted of me studying for my personal finance test on the 28th and Paul and the girls being outside playing baseball, football, tennis, riding bikes and roller blades, jumping rope, running around and doing sports stuff for eight hours a day.

***

Before we left, I noticed this. We got some cool Santas and a creche from my Granny and someone set them up like this, on their way to visit the baby Jesus. Love!

***

Round One in Philadelphia the night we arrived! The girls were so excited about their wonderful gifts!

I don't know who that ten year old kid is, but she's wearing Carly's pajamas....and you can see a little bit of the aftermath! It was a tornado in there. =)

***

Round 2! Aunt Amanda and Uncle Pete came over the next day. The girls had SUCH a blast unwrapping everything!!! This Barbie head (one of my all time favorite toys as a kid!) was a big hit. This kind came with hair coloring AND makeup....when Bree heard that word, she whipped her head around, dropped what she had been playing with and joined the hair party. Bree also loves that big white horse you can see on the left - it came with a dozen tiny little animals that can ride on its back - Bree calls them her babies and tucks them into her bed every morning. =)

***

Round 3!!!

Uncle Pete came back over and we saw Aunt Diane and Uncle Mace after the girls and Paul got back from touring PopPop's work.

Reading her Ladybug Girl book with Aunt Diane - I hadn't ever read this book before but I love it! It is just right for Bree!

Hahaha - love this! Part of the girls' gift were these little clip in colorful hair extensions! Everyone tried one on, and the girls have been wearing them around the house.

***

Round 4 was at Aunt Louise's house on New Year's Eve...I'll have to put the pics from FB on here. Auntie Lisa gave Bree a bag FULL of old jewelry and Bree fell in love with it! The girls are actually right this second (7am Sunday) in a bath with the fancy bubble bath they got, and they enjoyed playing with their nearly-cousing Trevor for four hours. It's always a miracle to get three kids to play together for any length of time, but these three get along great; it's so nice to see!

***

Round 5...I know...was with Auntie K the next day! She and I went out to a fabulous brunch and, since we were the last customers and the bakery was closing for a week, they sent us home with lots of free goodies. Paul and the girls spent the day with Amanda and Pete in South Philly, watching the Mummers parade and eating lots of yummy goodies. At some point Carly called as asked me for $40 so she could play fantasy football...I'm sure that was totally her own idea, too.

***

And then, back to regular life. Carly working on homework from school and getting ready to dive into homework from home, and Bree (in fairy wings, an apron, a hula skirt and princess shoes) rotating between painting her nails and making art. =)

Photos Uploading Now! Yay!

2012-01-04T07:45:00.001-05:00

I think we probably could have used an extra day before our little trip and jumping back into the real world.

There are emails I need to send, packages I need to send, a certain cable company who needs to be reminded that yes actually I DID pay them last month here's the cancelled check to prove it, tennis to sign up for, cookie sales to manage, laundry to fold, baseboards to paint (because they look like garbage) and that weird smell to track down. Also four different things for Paul's work, two days of volunteering and a bunch of health appointments.

Item #1 on my "list" for 2012 is to not get overwhelmed by all that stuff! Haha, the truth is, I don't have resolutions for this year because the only thing I can think of is getting my family through this impending deployment in one piece. That's still four months away.

As is the, you know, birth of our third child. I did just buy that poor baby her carseat and I wonder if I'll regret not getting an infant carrier and opting instead of the top-safety-rated-yet-still-budget-friendly convertible one that will let her hang out facing backward until 40 pounds.

So anyway, I'm either doing it right, by focusing on just the two major things I need to accomplish this year, or I'm getting it completely wrong by being so wrapped up in two things I have zero control over that I'm letting all the minutia that I COULD control quite well get all piled up and crazy.

I'm going with right, just because this is my blog and it sounds better to start off the new year winning. =)

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T18:21:00.000-05:00

In 2011....

Carly tried basketball, did swimming, dance, gymnastics and reads anything she can.
Bree just about taught herself to swim and started dance which she loves above all else.
Paul graduated from his school and picked up battery command.
Liz (finally!!!) finished all the requirements to be a financial counselor.
Spring was busy.
Summer was epic.
Fall was fun.
And winter has been so far, and thankfully, nonexistent weatherwise.

There has been lots of working, volunteering, house painting, Girl Scouting, glitter, driving and sand.

In 2012 (as far as we know)...

Carly will keep dancing, do tennis, swimming, weekend sleepover camp and probably art class during the summer.
Bree will definitely keep dancing, do swimming and probably art class in the summer. She's on schedule to read at the same age as Carly; the girl literally cannot wait to know what all those words say and she'll start preschool at the best place we could find.
Paul will train like crazy, deploy, and come home again.
Liz will keep volunteering, doing the Girl Scout thing and the taxi thing and, oh right, have a baby.
Spring will be crazy busy.
Summer will likely be rather sleepless.
Fall will take too long.
Winter will be joyful and amazing. Can't wait for THAT Christmas card. =)

I predict lots of working, care-packaging, Skyping, learning, glitter, poster paint, sand, diapers, monkey cheese for dinner, houseguests (please!!!), disco dance parties, happy and sad tears, adventures, less traveling for most of us and a significant increase in the sand quotient for one of us. It will be a good year - not easy, but good.

Merry and Bright!

2011-12-25T12:56:00.001-05:00

Santa came to our house!!! Those stockings were PACKED...we went a teensy bit overboard on stocking stuffers this year; it's a hazard of starting your Christmas shopping in September. Also - the "Oops" book is a flipping riot, but it's a funny cause-and-effect book, which is better for Carly's age - Bree was completely lost but she laughed when we laughed anyway. =)

Possibly Bree's favorite gift - four pairs of dress-up shoes from Carly. Bree has been wearing them all day.

Carly's favorite present - her Silly Hair Lalaloopsy!

Unpacking their cool art bag from Grammy! The book is a huuuuuge hit and the bag was full of supplies for making the projects - so easy to gather when we were already at the store and not forgetting one thing or another like I would do if we had waited to get them all together! I'm so excited to see what cool things these girls make.

Paul and his Kindle! He figured out how to work it and he likes it! I got spoiled totally, completely, absolutely rotten with a new set of pots, new knives (that CUT! Hallelujah!!!) and a very cute, VERY pink purse. I love it so much! And I had to laugh because I had this giant stack of huge boxes and bags and Paul had this eeeeeeety bitty Kindle. Poor guy! =)

Making our rounds of the Christmas presents, here the girls are coloring the roof of their cardboard gingerbread house they got from our cousins. Well, Carly is coloring. Bree is painting her nails for the tenth time this morning.

Santa also brought packages of stick-on moustaches for the girls and I personally think they are HYSTERICAL. Carly added a 'stache to her penguin. Awesome!!!!

And two collages...the first is Carly playing with her totally RAD Rory's Storycubes game...it's such a cool thing! You roll the dice and make up a story about what is on the dice. It gets her little brain going...this is MY favorite gift so far. =) The second collage is Bree, the fabulous. I love that kid and all her sparkle, even though she's upstairs right now crying pitifully because she can't have her lollipop yet. She hung her head and dragged her face all the way up there, but she'll be down in a few minutes, happy again. Yay!

Christmas Eve!

2011-12-25T11:51:00.000-05:00

We went to mass at 5:30 Christmas Eve instead of trying to rush out the door this morning. It was a beautiful service and our priest read a letter from Santa, which I thought was incredibly sweet. Here's my pretty girl on the way to church. Napless Bree fell asleep on the way, but it was one of those magic ten minute naps that helped her make it through the service and some marginally successful Christmas-light hunting afterward.

This is pretty typical. I believe we saw this exact scenario at Halloween. What's funny here is that Carly is directing her dad on how to light the fireplace. =)

Then Paul saw Bree and told her Santa doesn't bring presents to pouty girls...and MAGICALLY Bree was happy again. It's a Christmas miracle!

Snuggling with Daddy before bed. We laid out cookies and milk and an apple for the reindeer. Just so you know, Rudolph has retired from flying and is now a reindeer teacher. That fact arose during a conversation about how old the Rudolph movie is and whether or not Rudolph is, in fact, real. Paul had some quick thinking, and fortunately our logical girl thought his explanation made perfect sense.

We did have our traditional Feast of a Bunch of Fishes, but we didn't make it through all seven courses this year. We had smoked salmon tea sandwiches on pumpernickel, fried calamari, linguine with clam sauce cooked with anchovies and crab cakes...we didn't make it to the shrimp or the flounder this year. Does that still count? Maybe? Haha - either way we got our National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation watching in and it was fabulous. We found it much more difficult to go to sleep because of excitement than the girls did...I will hold to my theory that Christmas as a parent is EVEN better than Christmas as a kid. =)

It's Peanut Buttah Jelly Time

2011-12-25T11:31:00.000-05:00

As I predicted, we've had PBJ's pretty much every day this week. The girls are getting pretty good at making them, too! Granted, we've gone through peanut butter like there's no tomorrow because Bree puts about half a cup on her sandwiches, but we figured since our pb only has peanuts, we're okay. They do run around like crazy people for a couple of hours afterward, but again, thanks to the nice weather we're good there, too.

nom nom nom

Orange smiles!!!

And the inspiration? The video that follows is one of our favorite YouTube videos...it's just so funny! I know I've posted it before, but it's been a while. =)

Cookie Decorating!

2011-12-23T19:19:00.000-05:00

We had friends over this morning to decorate those cookies we baked this morning! Our friends brought all kinds of fun toppings and we did a bunch of icing and let the kids go nuts. Once they figured out heart cookies make awesome funny faces, it got really creative. =)

Baking, Etc. aka How to NOT Decorate Ice Cream Cone Trees =)

2011-12-23T09:08:00.000-05:00

This is one of the pictures Blogger wouldn't load from the Christmas tree stand. I love it! Carly's hair is five inches shorter now, though! =)

The next day...this is what happens if I send Bree upstairs to get dressed and I don't do a gate check on her way out. That is a hula skirt as a crown! She's so funny - here she's having a sad moment because she wasn't allowed to do something, probably climb the tree or jump on Frosty. =)

Tuesday or so, we got some of the decorations ready for our gingerbread houses. It's gingerbread HOUSE now, because I made one's walls too thin and it's all fallen down now. So here's what I learned, aside from how to roll dough to the correct thickness...cheap melting chocolate does NOT work if you put gel food coloring in it! It got all gloppy and thick and so, much to my children's delight, had to be applied to the ice cream cone "trees" by hand. Holy mess, Batman...or, rather, Supergirl. =)

Despite the mess, I think they turned out really cool.

Carly requested a ninja gingerbread man in the yard of her house. How could I say no? =)

Then, this morning, our lovely children woke us up at 5:45 screaming at one another about whether or not Bree flushed the toiled (she did) when she came downstairs to go potty. Poor kids have to come all the way down here because the upstairs toilet overflows at the slightest provocation even though the maintenance man swears there's nothing wrong with it. File that under WHATEVER. Haha! So we were up EARLY to have a discussion about whether Bree's toileting habits are any of Carly's business (they aren't). That was fun. I was determined not to let it ruin our day so we redirected to cookies. I found this recipe on Pinterest and it was supposed to make melt in your mouth cookies...I think b/c I used unbleached flour they turned out a little more dense, but who cares! They're cute and fluffy and will be iced later on this morning. Yay!

Baby!

2011-12-22T18:04:00.000-05:00

It's a girl!

Or as Carly says...another SISTER *facepalm*

And she looks perfect. We saw her cute little face and she was kicking and going nuts in there, which was pretty entertaining to watch AND feel at the same time, even though it made things a little challenging for our sonographer. =)

Poor Paul. I've gotten a lot of texts and facebook comments about how we're living *pick a friend and put her husband's name here* worst nightmare. Haha! He really is the sweetest daddy to his girls, so in my opinion this is perfect.

Besides all that...I mean...if you thought matching TWO girls was cute...three is going to be awesome.

Happy Halfway!

2011-12-20T22:37:00.000-05:00

According to my doctor's office, I'm officially 20 weeks tomorrow. I can't believe this pregnancy is at it's halfway mark! It has flown by....well, after week 13 it flew by. Before then it dragged by with agonizing slowness, day by nauseated day. Honestly, the first trimester is no joke.

But now, here we are! We 'find out' on Thursday, so technically this post could have waited until then.

The quickness with which this pregnancy is passing is bittersweet. On the one hand, I cannot wait to meet this little one, but this is our last baby and the last time I'll get to feel these little kicks, and the last time in my life I'll be able to not worry about what my abs look like. It's a little bit brutal that Baby's arrival and Paul's deployment are so close; I just watched a friend go through this last month and it, like the first trimester, is no joke. Fortunately, I know six different people who have had babies while their husbands are away and they and their children all seemed to come through it okay, so I'm sure we'll be fine.

Anyway, how is everything going? Great! I copied this list from a blog somewhere that I've forgotten (sorry!!!) but I thought it was cute and pretty thorough:

Cravings: not as much now that my stomach has settled down. Mostly it's just stuff I liked before, like fruits and vegetables, popsicles, cinnamon anything, etc. Nothing gender-obvious like meat or citrus, I still don't love roasted vegetables or grilled meat, I probably won't ever eat broccoli again in my life ever, and too many sweets make me feel yucky. Oh right - sweets. The thing about sugar lasted maybe a week. My willpower sucks. See below.

Weeks: 20!

Clothes: Um, maternity stuff since about 11 weeks. See below again:

Sleep: when I can breathe, it's great. Crazy vivid dreams where I usually end up fighting someone over my children. Last night, for example, I got into a knife fight with a playground referee (it was a dream, so apparently playgrounds have officials) who didn't let Bree have her turn on the swings. I'm not normally a violent or even very confrontational person, so this was hilarious when I woke up. A knife fight? Really?! I should probably take up kickboxing before this apparently large strain of latent violence finds its way out during carpool or something.

Symptoms: Not too much. A few little twangs from the round ligaments but otherwise, I'm fat and happy (see above). I'm luckily escaping the acne that I had before and so far I'm not dealing with the horrible awful pelvic dysplasia.

Movement: LOTS and I love it. This is my favorite part of pregnancy other than the end result of course. Baby gets crazy after breakfast, which is fun and adorable.

Gender/Names: I'll tell ya Thursday and we haven't really talked about names. Don't be offended or shocked, but it's not unlikely that we'll keep the name situation under wraps until the birth certificate has been signed. We'll see. Paul has been prewarned that I'm not going to be super willing to give my kiddo a name that super duper common.

Okay speaking of sleep...we were, right? I need some. =)

Hippie Detergent Verdict

2011-12-19T21:32:00.000-05:00

Because I know you care! =)

It works great. Thanks to using vinegar as a fabric softener...I know, believe me, I know...we've avoided basically all the chemicals in our laundry process.

The detergent smells like industrial floor cleaner. It's atrocious. I guess for people who like the smell of Pine-Sol it wouldn't be so repugnant, but for those of us who prefer less astringent scents, it's pretty bad! Fortunately the smell doesn't linger in our clothing - there's actually no leftover smell at all, which is something I need to remedy. I like new laundry to smell NICE, not simply "un-funky."

The girls love to help scoop it out and get delightedly grossed out because it's so gloppy. Not slimy so much as a thick gel...really not something I'd recommend for a pregnant lady in her first trimester.

So that's that. I won't bore you with many further details, but at the end of the day, my laundry is costing me a little less than a cent per load. ONE CENT. My Tide costs 20 cents a load at regular price. So...you know...I can hold my nose. =)

Oh Christmas Tree

2011-12-18T12:46:00.000-05:00

It's hard to take a picture of a decorated Christmas tree, isn't it? Anyway, here it is! You can tell the places where curious little hands have done their own redecorating, but I still think it's cute. We don't really have a 'show' tree; it's just this big, awesome masterpiece. Haha! Paul is going to put the topper on today, but since he has to get the ladder in from the garage, it hasn't been done yet. My gosh, I stinking love this tree.

This is what Carly and Paul did during the tree decorating process: watch Elf and lie on the couch.

And this is what Bree did. She unpacked our snowman kit and she was playing with it behind the ottoman, so we really didn't see her until she stood up like THIS. I was on the stepladder and almost fell off. My favorite is how she's got the carrot actually IN her nose.

Church today was beautiful. Nobody does Advent like the Catholics.

The girls wanted to make their own lunch...I see lots of PBJ in our future during Christmas break.

And guess what we're doing this afternoon! It's GINGERBREAD HOUSE time!!!! Yay!!!

I decided to stop trying to get all our extra baking stuff in my already-overstuffed (and completely disorganized) baking cabinet and just throw it in this basket. This way, everything stays together and it's a great reminder of the fun stuff we have coming up on our Rad Christmas List.

Time-Ins and Disney as a Teaching Tool

2011-12-18T12:22:00.000-05:00

Sorry for this completely random post in the middle of Christmas.

So, after reading THIS ARTICLE on Simple Mom less than a week after I not-so-proudly told y'all about my running away to the front porch while Bree was freaking out for the hundredth time in a day, I decided it was time to try something new. It's called a time-in...have you heard of that? It's literally the opposite of what I want to do when my kids are being jerks, so like so many things that are difficult in parenting, it has turned out to be exactly the right thing for us. Due to the relatively small sample size of this experiment, I can't guarantee a time-in's efficacy on children over the age of 6.5, and believe me, I have LEARNED that it's pointless to try and tell others how things work with a kid who is as much as ten minutes older than your own. Pretty much anyone with kid experience or a parent with a child over maybe 9 or 10 months will testify to that. Anyway, here's how it worked (for us, this week):

Situation: Kid is being a jerk. Crying, refusing to cooperate, throwing stuff, stomping around. This usually occurs when dinner is on the stove and about to burn, you the parent are in the shower, or you're about to be running late for somewhere really important (like, say...school).

What I Want To Do: start yelling and removing privileges. Basically meet the child on his or her level of jerkiness. Obviously this is not the acceptable choice, and it's a little embarrassing to realize that by yelling and freaking out, there's essentially no difference in the grownup's behavior and the child's. Way to set an example, Mom! Yikes.

Result: further distance and stress. Kiddo figures out that the parent's convenience is more important than their own feelings. Again...yikes.

What A Time-In Does: stop talking (or...ahem, yelling up the stairs). Go find child - very easy due to the fact that they are likely making lots of unhappy noises. Hug child - very difficult because unless your house is significantly larger than mine (admittedly not unlikely) you've probably not had enough time to get un-annoyed yet. Sit down and let child sit with/on/near you. Take really deep breaths and keep saying "it's okay" over and over.

Result: You will feel, absolutely, like a rockstar parent. Truly. It's sort of like running a marathon (or how I'd imagine running a marathon would be because you know MY fat butt is not doing that craziness any time soon). But more importantly, your kid is calm again and he or she can trust that you aren't going to bail at the first sign of distress. As a mom of girls, I like to think this is very, very important for later.

Likely Additional Result: If you're like me, it's possible that you're still REALLY annoyed. You're late for whatever, frustrated and just worn the heck out. I don't have a solution for this that doesn't involve online shopping, stress eating, or pacing around the yard ripping weeds out, but I promise I'll share one if I come up with it. =)

Okay, moving on.

Carly has reached the stage (PLEASE let it be a stage...) where pretty much anything I ask her to do is met with a big sigh and an ugly face like I've just put her out. This includes going outside to play, which she loves. So, enter Wall-E. She wanted to know why all the people on the space ship couldn't walk and they were all squishy and I told her that's what happens if you don't exercise. You're muscles atrophy (whoop for vocabulary development!) and you lose the ability to do awesome things. *big eyes* So...guess who is outside right this very minute doing somersaults and jumping jacks in the grass? That's RIGHT! I'm sure this is messing her up in an entirely different way, but I figure it's alright because the focus is on what her body can do, not what it looks like. =)

Right?!

Super Saturday

2011-12-17T14:45:00.001-05:00

Our battalion had a Christmas party this morning at a beautiful venue on base. The kids had a GREAT time! And I was excited for them to finally get to wear these dresses I found on Zulily in August. =)

Carly and her sweet friend Kristlyn...such pretty girls!

This is Bree, sweetly asking for a pink sword. Hilarious!

The second Gunny Claus walked in, Bree glued herself to his side. It was so funny! We were a little doubtful about how she'd be, but um...clearly it was not a problem. And how cool is this guy?! He gave the kids ornaments that say "MCB North Pole." Love that! So clever!!!

This is is point where Carly is asking for a REAL unicorn, not a TOY unicorn.

While Bree broke it down, saber style in the line.

Bree's rad gingerbread guy.

They had four different craft stations as well as a candy bar...all that was in addition to breakfast, a card-making station for while the guys are in training in January and Gunny Claus. It was a great event!

Then...we finally got our tree! Paul wanted to wait this year because we're going out of town. We did find out at the tree lot that most trees at big retailers are cut in September or early October, and these were all cut the week before Thanksgiving. So, as it turns out, we really didn't need to wait to get a fresher tree...BUT...since it's the week before Christmas, we got a giant tree for $25. The original price was $85 which is still below what we had planned to spend...sweet! I love a good deal, especially when I end up with exactly what I wanted. The girls had such a fun time running around the tree lot, too!

When we got home, no one was hungry for lunch because of our big breakfast, so the girls went up for a nap and I made laundry detergent. I know...the greeny-ness is about to kill me, but I thought we'd give it a try. You can find a million recipes on Pinterest, but basically all you need is a bar of laundry soap (I used Fels-Naptha this time, but I think I'll switch to Kirk's Castile next time b/c of the scent), washing powder, borax and big bucket. I'm also using lavendar oil again b/c I don't just love the way Fels-Naptha smells. It made TWO GALLONS of soap! Oh my gosh! I'll let you know how it works. Oh and you grate the soap - that's what this next picture is. =)

Our TREE!!! See what I mean about giant? And this is right after we untied it so it hadn't relaxed to its Griswold-worthy girth. I'm stoooooked. We're going to have to use a ladder to get our topper on! Tonight, while we're watching Elf and eating popcorn. Yay, Christmas!

Carly's Homework

2011-12-14T22:29:00.000-05:00

Okay, quickly because it's awesome.

Backstory: Carly does extra work at home because when all she does is the work at her school, her 'spark' fades a little; she's less curious, less excited about learning new things, less engaged. It's sad but we won't get into it, mostly because we've found a solution, which is to provide her in-depth and challenging work at home after school.

Story-Story: One of her VERY favorite homework books and the one we save for last as a kind of dessert is her critical thinking book. Her worksheet today had her thinking about the differences between grownups and kids. And...

Funny Part: According to Carly, the hardest thing about being a grownup would be "working all the time and cleaning up after everybody a million times a day" and the best part about being a grownup would be "wearing shoes with high heels and nobody tells you when to go to bed."

Shoes with high heels! Who knew?
Love her.

Let There Be....

2011-12-13T20:03:00.000-05:00

LIGHT, love, fanciness....this is officially the first picture I've ever taken with a real camera. =)

All you pros out there will probably notice right away probably six hundred things (what's up with the graininess?) that I could have done better and I can tell you that I'm BEYOND excited to get to learn all about them. I've pinned the Stanford photo course and will begin it after the New Year. As for today...I took over 300 pictures. And hey! Because I know you've been SO deprived, I will share a few of them.

I can feel your enthusiasm from here. =)

Waiting for Carly's ballet class has just gotten SO much more interesting. =)

Okay, so I think I've made it clear enough that I'm at best ambivalent about where we live during any season other than the summer, so I'm going to get a jump on another one of my New Year's Resolutions and stop complaining about it ALL the time. You're welcome. As part of that, I'm going to show you the things I like about our house. Here's the outside, which I don't think I've ever shown before. To be fair, it really is most sincerely charming and cottagey with all the peaks and cute decoration.

This is another good part - Paul's man-cave. It put to great use our Ugly Couch, our dusty rug and finally gave his Marine Corps stuff a nice home. He refuses to hang that stuff actually inside our house, but he's happy to have it out there. I guess garages are more manly than living rooms. It hasn't been ALL that cold here, but I've found him out there on 40 degree weekends bundled up in a couple of blankets playing Playstation until he can't feel his fingers. =)

Moving inside, I like the way our furniture fits in this house. I love the tan that I had the entire interior of our house painted when we first moved here and I cannot wait until I get a bench pillow for our trunk. The girls love kneeling on it to look out the window for visitors.

The island! As you can CLEARLY see, this is command central for our afternoons. We've got Pandora, preschool art, big kid art, prepped lunch ready for tomorrow, neighbor gifts, flowers....I love it. This is our life, right here, including the horrendous wallpaper. Oh shoot, I did it again. ;)

But my all time favorite part about this house and this place? The people I share it with. Sickly feverish Paul, Carly explaining her German tannenbaum drawing and Bree interjecting with stories about elves, her friends, and how you shouldn't sneak cookies during naptime because Mommy gets REALLY MAD.

Tell Me You've Been There

2011-12-13T15:44:00.000-05:00

Bree has been whining nonstop since she woke up, and not woke up from her nap, woke up this morning at 6am. It's been meltdown after meltdown about everything under the sun. I'm about to losemyfreakingmind.

So...I'm writing this from the front porch because I literally cannot take it any more. Should I go upstairs (again) and try to comfort her (again) and try to get her to come downstairs to where the food is (because she's huuuuuungry) or where the bandaids are (because her legs, elbows, clavicle and knuckles all mysteriously hurt)? Probably. A "good" mother probably would swallow the frustration monster and make it all better.

I, however, am absolutely human and two more seconds of that incessant crying will probably send me over the edge and flying out a window. So I'm out here enjoying the sunshine and waiting for the tornado to pass inside.

THEN we will go to the post office and retrieve my lovely new-to-me camera.

The Blog About Nothing

2011-12-08T17:05:00.000-05:00

This time of year, I get impatient for Paul to come home. I know I signed up for these 9pm nights but gosh, it would be nice if he were here for dinner once in a while.

Enough whining for one day! Our produce guy dropped off a big box of loveliness today. We got a bunch of tomatoes, apples, oranges, tangerines, a huge bag of spinach, some onions and a couple dozen free range eggs. This past week, he lost his black lab, Molly, and Carly made him a card with a drawing of the dog as an angel with wings and a halo. I didn't intend that he would have to read it in front of us, but we just so happened to be outside when he arrived and Carly couldn't wait for him to see it, then Bree tried to give him one of our stuffed dogs 'to hug if you get too sad.' Well, the combined sweetness of these two kids just about did the poor man in; he got all choked up and had to leave really fast.

We've been talking a lot lately about protecting one another's hearts. I know it sounds super cheesy, but I think the girls get it. This was a good opportunity to talk about how to take care of people we know when they are sad. I think most kids are born empathetic and giving them early opportunities to see what good things a little kindness can do helps encourage that natural caring. Now, to be fair, they have yet to really demonstrate that kind of thing toward one another, but I keep hoping one day it will happen. =) It doesn't help that I'm deathly allergic to conflict so 'normal' sibling arguing and negotiations sound like WW3 to me.

So, yeah. That's all. I played in the grass with Bree on Tuesday and my allergies are trying to turn into something else. I'm refusing to allow that because we have fun plans this weekend, so I've been drinking chamomile tea with lemon and honey like there is no tomorrow. Haha wish me luck.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

2011-12-06T13:45:00.000-05:00

Ahhhh Albert the Elf. Trying to sneak away with some candy. =)
Pinterest has about six bajillion EotS ideas...we're using one tomorrow. But so far, our little guy hasn't caused too much mischief. He even helped me out with the indoor decorations!

AND THEN. Okay, this is Carly's second official Christmas list. She doesn't ask for much, just a LIVE UNICORN. This will probably charm me for the rest of my life. I don't know what the Pet Kitty Cat Movie is...likely she also wants a pet cat (um, no) and also a movie. Who knows?

And today we have a little free bonus. Do you ever mess up a recipe or a dinner idea and it turns out way better than your initial plan? No? Yeah, me either. Except last night. I was trying to make beef enchiladas for Paul and we had this meeting on base to go to, so I threw a pound of ground (happy, natch) beef, half a chopped up onion, a chopped up bell pepper, a couple tsp of cumin and oregano, half a tsp or so of ground garlic and a can of mild enchilada sauce in the crockpot and set it to high then ran out the door. When I came back about 2.5 hours later, I discovered that we don't have corn tortillas and the stuff in the crockpot was WAY too watery for that anyway. So I put the cp on warm, threw in a can of kidney beans and a handful of grated cheddar and boom - instant awesome chili-like soup substance. It was great. My produce guy brought us avocados this week, so we had those on top. I sprinkled it with ground chipotle chilis for the grownups and more cheese for Carly in her lunch. I don't think she'll actually eat it, but again, who knows?

Thanksgiving Pics...finally...

2011-12-06T11:54:00.000-05:00

AND SOME GREAT NEWS!!!!

You already know about the baby, so it's clearly not that. The great news is THIS: my friend Katherine is upgrading to a big awesome camera and sold me her less-big-but-still-awesome current camera for a ridiculously low price. I. Am. Stoked. I kept saving for my own new shiny camera but stuff kept happening, like our old computer exploding, brakes needing replacing, that stupid propane tank needing filling...I think the Universe was just telling me to hold the heck on. So anyway, my Christmas present is a hand me down fancy-cam and I'm beyond excited. You should be too, because it will mean the end of grainy, no-flash iphone pictures. YAY. I know I just made your week. =)

So just bear with me and The Blur for a couple more days.

For example, this dark but highly hilarious photo of all the Fischer boys making weird faces at something while we were out at Chickie and Pete's the night before Thanksgiving.

Pretty girl right before Thanksgiving dinner. Bree was having drama, so she was laying facedown on the porch at this moment. This tunic, BTW, actually fit carly more like a dress when we bought it. I swear her legs have grown two inches this fall.

Going through Uncle Pete and Aunt Amanda's wedding album with Aunt Diane and her friend Dawn who joined us for dinner. The girls loved pointing out all the people in the photos.

How we spent our DAT! Jumping on haystacks at the Woodmere. So fun!

Aunt Louise and Uncle Tony had a Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday night. This is their daughter Lisa's boyfriend's son - the nicest kid! He and the girls played really well together all night. They played "cars" and "guys" but Bree insisted that they were really playing "princesses" because she found the two princesses that are part of the Mario set...or something...either way they had a great time.

This is Paul's cousin Cate. She had very red MAC lipstick on, a fact that Bree noticed, and pointed out, the second Cate walked in the door. Bree walked right up to her and said "YOU have RED. LIPS." Later on, Bree got a mini makeover which was pretty much the best thing in her whole life to that point.

Bree and Auntie Lisa...Bree is looking sidelont at herself in the mirror, admiring her own RED. LIPS.

On the drive home we stopped at Zoe's which I think I've already told you, but I'm going to bring it up any way because my friend Michelle is worried about my dietary intake. So, y'all, forget I said Paleo. Just go with no sugars and no grains, because I'm eating tons of beans and those are anathema to caveman folks. This will make Christmas food a little annoying, but whatever. Y'all can eat all the gingerbread and eggnog cookies you want - until people start commenting on how big your butt is (had another old lady at the gym yesterday predict a boy based on the fact that there is as much in the back as there is in the front). THEN you can come with me to salad-and-chickpea land where we do lots and lots of squats and lunges.

It's fun here, promise. Fun. =)

Hungry.

2011-12-05T01:02:00.001-05:00

As in, I am. All the time.

We had these big fat Italian hoagies from the pizza place near our house and they were greasy and awesome. I'd been cleaning the house all day (more on that later) and Paul didn't feel like having leftovers, so we ordered in. We hardly ever do that but it was soooo good. And here I am, in the middle of the night, feeling like I haven't eaten all day, so hungry it almost hurts.

A banana and a handful of pecans later, and it feels better, and I'm going to try and talk myself out of admitting that I still want to EAT. See...the problem is, well, I'm pregnant. So that's one part of it. The second part of it is that Bree wakes up crying every single night between 10 and 11 and I can't go back to sleep for hours afterward. Meanwhile my baby is all, "oh we're up? Great, because I'm STARVING." These kids, I tell ya. =)

So the solution that seems about right to me right now is going back to a modified Paleo plan for the rest of this term. I say modified, because what I really mean is whatever you would call not eating grains or sugars. I still plan on eating dairy and tons of fruit like normal but I really have to give the fig newtons (and um, huge lovely greasebomb hoagies) a rest or I'll be huge myself, which would be unsat to the max. I've already been told by quite a few sources that my butt is getting big, so, we need to do something different, because Baby needs to EAT and I need to look somewhat like my normal self within a reasonable amount of time after meeting this ravenous child.

Okay, so about the house. I wrote out a whole thing, but it's stupid. Suffice it to say, 15 Minutes a Day is not enough. My floors get dirtier faster than any other floors ever, anywhere, in all of history, and we take our shoes off at the door. I'm thinking of requiring that everyone levitate, but I'm pretty sure that would mean extra fingreprints to try and get off the walls. AND speaking of that? If you're trying to go green in your home decorating, just know that the natural, no-fume paint in the eggshell finish that is supposed to be super easy to clean, isn't. =)

A Few Photos!

2011-11-30T00:10:00.001-05:00

We got the girls' photos done for our Christmas cards last week. Blogger is being ridiculous and will not upload any more than this, so here's what we have so far! I have a CD full of 25 shots of cuteness. I'm really happy with the pictures. We ordered our cards this morning and they're already on their way to us! THAT is exciting - practically instant gratification. =)

We went to old town Swansboro, on the White Oak River for our shoot. It's a lovely location and the weather was perfect. It's amazing to me how much the girls do look alike, but they have different eyes. Carly has my almond-shaped eyes and Bree has Paul's more rounded and deeper-set eyes. But below that, they're like clones of one another. I can't wait to see what Baby looks like...it's such a fun part about siblings. Anyway, on to the photographs!

I ordered a large print of this one because I love it so much. There's another photo I'll try to upload tomorrow that is so pretty of Bree, but in this one, Carly shines. That SWEET face with her big dimples!

Paul's in the field the first part of this week and of course it would be raining all day and then dipping down to the high 30's. It sounds like pure misery to me, but they are having a great time, especially since they are the only battery in the battalion to do this particular training. Paul's like a kid in a candy store with his training schedule - he's having a blast. Here at the house, we're just getting things reorganized and making plans for Albert the Elf who will be making his debut on Wednesday night. Hopefully when Paul returns he will show me where my phone charger is...until then we are photo-free, unfortunately.

There was something else I wanted to tell you but Bree is awake - this is not unusual - and she wants to know why I'm still awake. This is the point at night when she begins her usual campaign to sleep in my bed. Then Carly comes down and does the same thing. After being kicked in the ribs every night we were in Pihladelphia, I'm over it and have relegated nocturnally wandering children to pallets beside our bed. They aren't fans of this arrangement but apparently don't hate it enough to actually sleep in their own beds. So, they get whatever measure of comfort they need by being in the same room with us and I avoid very sharp elbows and kicky feet. I love the tiny kicks I get from the inside, but the BIG ones outside...not as cute.

Turkey =)

2011-11-26T08:29:00.000-05:00

I have pictures of the family and the bird and it was an awesome Thanksgiving!

I did zero shopping yesterday (yay me!) but am planning to hit up Gobblepalooza.com (Old Navy) today. The girls are having a MomMom and PopPop party day and I'm not invited. Paul will be going to South Philly to do beer pong and a bar crawl with his brothers and I'm not going. Hate to be a wet blanket, but tagging along after a bunch of tipsy people staring at their backs while they stand around a little bar table drinking just sounds like the opposite of fun to me. =)

So...I'm making banana bread, going shopping and going to see Breaking Dawn by myself. Then meeting up with the girls and my in-laws to head over to Aunt Louise's house for Thanksgiving Feast #2. All I know is that I get to see our cousin Lisa and meet her bf and his cute kiddo and there is a prosciutto-wrapped turkey tenderloin involved. Holla.

Re: The Post Below, and Some Other Stuff

2011-11-22T11:54:00.000-05:00

Okay, if you didn't notice that one piece of hair that refused to cooperate, don't go back and look. It is in every picture and it's so aggravating. Hahaha....it's a cowlick and no amount of hairspray can convince it to behave. Honestly. It's driving me nuts.

Moving on!

I had a five minute appointment with my awesome midwife today. I'm not planning a natural water birth or anything like that - I'm nowhere near brave enough for all that pain - but I really like midwives. So anyway, I got confirmation that my newfound love of food is doing my fat butt no favors. I also got the official a-okay for all the Pilates and box jumps I've been doing since I rejoined the human race a couple of weeks ago. Apparently ab work doesn't hurt the baby so I can do corkscrews and planks to my little heart's content. Yay! She said it would be ok if I didn't gain any weight this next month because I did "such a great job of it" this month. "It" being gaining a thousand pounds. Funny lady.

Carly's school Thanksgiving play is in two hours - I'm so excited. I'm going to take a video and post it when we get back from Philadelphia...where we're headed tonight. Paul is planning to drive us up there through the night after a battalion function. He got a Monster energy drink...and for a guy who doesn't eat that much sugar and rarely if ever has caffeine...well, he'll probably be awake until Christmas. =) I plan on popping a couple pregnancy-friendly car sickness pills and sleeping the whole way, and hoping both girls pass out and sleep well for us. We should arrive right very early in the morning if we don't end up stopping somewhere.

Either way, wish us luck and I hope your Thanksgiving is fantastic!

2/10 Ball!

2011-11-20T14:23:00.000-05:00

This was, by far, the MOST fun we have ever had at a ball. Ironically, the ceremony part was a mess, and the seating chart was insane. The guy in charge didn't keep track of who paid and who didn't so when we got there, the table that we had been assigned to was re-assigned and we had to finagle a table away from the floor and behind a pole. That was better than the 100 or so Marines and dates that didn't even HAVE a place to sit. What a mess! But after all of that...and after they ran out of food and made some more...and I apologized about four hundred times to our guests....the second part? Was AMAZING. So fun!!!

You will note a progression in the photos. Here we are, all nice and sedate, waiting for someone to do something and get this thing started. =) So cute.

Me with our guests, Sherri and Tim. They have a second home in our neighborhood but actually live in the town where the ball was held. They are terrific people - and always the life of the party. Paul calls Tim "Carolina Dad" because he and Paul's actual father have a lot in common. A quick story on Tim, during the National Anthem, he elbowed a girl standing next to him until she put her hand over her heart. I almost passed out from silent-laughing.

Me, with the lovely and wonderful Mrs. Smith. Our husbands work very closely and I'm SO GLAD that we will be doing this deployment together. She's been around the MC for 15 years, so she knows a thing or two about how it goes.

Da boys. From the left, Lt. Meador (just moved from being Paul's XO), Mr. Tim, Paul, Josh and his brother. Josh is the Mr. Smith, and he's Paul's 1st Sgt. which explains the difference in uniforms. Enlisted guys have red piping (and numerous other things that I'm not observant enough to notice) on their jackets.

THIS is the point where things really started cranking up. Clearly. Look at them!

The guest speaker was particularly bad...he didn't really say ANYTHING, but thankfully it was a short speech. He also happened to have these INSANE eyebrows, which none of us would have noticed had Tim not brought the poor man over to speak to us. This is after he left...it's so wrong and yet so funny. I feel that I can post this picture with limited karmic exposure because it is a well-known fact that my own eyebrows would scare small children and trap birds without regular grooming. So...it works out. =)

Before the cool music started...making faces. =)

You know that song, "I'm So Sexy"......the guys all seem to love it. Paul's guys made a dance circle and Paul got RIGHT in the middle of it for this dance. He's pantomiming the "I work out" part right here. And I'm making my standard dancing face. Hey - it's better than duckface. You will also notice the tiniest little bump and the fact that the Boobs of Doom are trying desperately to make their escape from my dress. =)

THEN! Oh my word...from about this point on, the stories just get funnier and funnier. It was actually really entertaining being the only sober person there. We are (thankfully) at the point where everyone is fun tipsy, so they were hilarious and awesome. I had such a fun time with them. Okay, so Paul took these from an Army guy that was at the ball. Said Army guy had been dancing since the first beat rolled out, so these borrowed suspenders were completely soaking wet. Ew! Um...and I took all the pins out of my hair, slept on it, and this morning it still looked JUST like that. =)

Winning Piranha Hour...Today

2011-11-18T19:04:00.000-05:00

We had a discussion about vegetables today and it made me think. I don't count white potatoes or sweet potatoes, beans, corn or peas as vegetables. Do you?

Michelle Flynn I know your answer. =)

My first thought was that veggies are the leaves of stuff. But then what about other roots, like carrots and beets? Totally veg in my mind. Even squash and tomatoes...completely count those as veggies even though your nearest bean-counting friend will point out w/in about 2.5 nanoseconds that those things are fruits because of the preceding flowers. Yes, thank you, I know that. But I don't cook fruit with garlic and olive oil...therefore, these things live in the veggie category.

Ugh, I think this is probably totally boring, but I thought it was interesting. Our meals are usually two or three brightly colored plants and maybe a starch (pasta, rice, sweet potatoes, beans, corn, etc) and some kind of animal product. Lately it's been lots of fish because the organic chicken is usually out of stock and nobody out here carries happy beef....but plants are so yummy! Hahaha lately, I've been answering "I'm so HUNGRY what can I have" with "Plants!" It's amazing how much less hungry kids magically become when they realize that there aren't any snacky processed or sweet foods in play.

Yeah, that's completely boring. Let's do some pictures!

So you remember the other day when I was going nuts trying to figure out a way to keep my kids entertained and relatively happy during that crazy time before dinner? Today it was the Kidz channel on cable and open access to paints. Here's Bree taking a dance break - Rapunzel couldn't hang.

For those of you with neat houses - my apologies for this next picture. I know it's going to stress you out. If it makes you feel any better, it took about a minute to clean up thanks to that grocery bag and the fact that these are the super-washable Crayola paints. The girls had a blast watching the colors go down the shower drain.

Sorry for the horrible picture quality. This is after dinner - we had blueberries, can you tell?! Haha. With homeless hair - these kids get completely wrecked by the end of each day, that's how we know they had a successful day. =)

Bree! Rocking out with a fingreless glove and hairbrush microphone. =)

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Bus Stop

2011-11-17T20:11:00.003-05:00

Tell me you've seen the movie this title references.

Anyway, the baby wanted enchiladas today. As in, I woke up thinking about salsa verde and couldn't STOP thinking about it. I ate half an avocado with lemon juice for breakfast (the kind with the green skin - I like them best!). Still...enchiladas on the brain all day.

I love Mexican food normally, but like most things in pregnancy, my likes are GREATLY ENHANCED. Things I used to like, now I obsess about, like pepperoncini peppers and muffaletta spread, fresh pineapples (um, I've only bought one every other day for the last two weeks), those lime all fruit popsicles....it's insane. If I'm in the mood for sushi, a California roll is happening. Lots of wasabi. You get the point. Luckily, now that I can handle more than cheese and crackers, I generally have much healthier cravings, but today? All I wanted in my whole life was a big fat cheesy chicken enchilada with green sauce and about a gallon of fresh salsa.

So, I picked up a freezing Carly from the bus, and somehow out of the corner of my eye, I saw the El Zarape sign across the street. Somehow this tiny bit of unconscious information was trasnmitted directly to the babes, via umbilical cord I'm sure and the kid was like, DRIVE, lady, and no one gets hurt. So we ate dinner at 3:30 and it was awesome. We came home and lay down on the couch and moaned and groaned about how we ate too much of that good food and then I remembered the weird folded up receipt the waiter handed me with our check.

Y'all. It was his phone number. What??? I was at the restaurant with this big fat belly (I swear it's big, even though it's still in the "is she???" stage), TWO wild children who called me Mommy and a wedding ring for crying out loud. We were talking about Paul the whole meal, and LOUD. So either this dude is extremely confident, completely unobservant, or he's into that whole reverse polygamy thing...so crazy. And totally awkward, even though those enchiladas were most sincerely yummy.

Fair and Balanced

2011-11-15T15:41:00.000-05:00

Here's another quick post about something entirely different. Just so nobody gets their nose out of joint that I brag too much or anything. Haha...not that I've EVER heard that before. ;)

Logical consequences look like this: if you wear tights without socks after being told to protect your tights, the tights get holes, they get thrown away, and you have no tights to wear to ballet.

Illogical consequences look like this: if you throw an EPIC freakout on the way home from school and throw your backpack into the road and yell and scream at your mom for five blocks, loud enough that people are looking out their windows to make sure you aren't being torn limb from limb by wild animals, you not only miss ballet, but you have to sit in your room until you have written "Don't Yell At Mommy" one hundred times. In your best handwriting.

Illogical consequences may not be perfect, but they're better than the wooden spoon. That's what I would have gotten, and Paul would have gotten a version of it. There are those who would say that had the wooden spoon been an active participant in my child's upbringing, we might have been able to avoid such horrible, atrocious meltdowns as the one that was witnessed today, but I doubt it. Stubbornness, tiredness and being-sixness probably have more to do with it than anything else.

UGH but it was aw-ful. Plus I need to go to the grocery store since our refrigerator still freezes everything and we have to buy produce on a day-to-day basis....

Report Card!

2011-11-14T15:33:00.002-05:00

In first grade it's more about development than performance, and I'm really happy with how Carly's doing. I'm going to credit the great schools she's been to so far and hope to see her continue. So proud of my little learner. =)

Our Weekend

2011-11-14T08:13:00.000-05:00

....was GREAT.

First, to address a question regarding the dishwasher situation. I said thank you several times and brought his lunch to him which I hardly ever do on the weekends. I also happened to get out of unloading the dishwasher every day this weekend, which may or may not be a direct result of that yummy grilled ham and cheese sandwich. =)

Moving on! Friday we went out, Saturday we had a great dinner with friends, Sunday we hung out and enjoyed the a-mazing weather and Carly and I had Girl Scouts. Great weekend! Poor Paul is on the range this week...it's an hour and a half away and he has to be there at 5. Boo!

Pecan pies, take two. The first batch I tried to make in the mixer ended up splattered across nearly ever surface of my kitchen. This time I got smart...ish...we still lost a couple of eggs, but this was far preferable to scraping vanilla-scented goop off the fan blades.

Silly monkeys outside! Because we are horrible parents, we forced them to stay outside and play in the sunshine for three hours. Added benefit being that I also had to stay outside in that amazing weather instead of scrubbing baseboards. Aaaaand Mommy for the win! =)

How CUTE are they???? Our project for the week was to create an animal they thought would be "courageous and strong" using a bunch of different art supplies. Each tray had something different and the girls would switch every three minutes. They came up with some GREAT stuff!

Carly at the colored-pencil station. This was their first stop, and I learned that 21 minutes is just too long to expect them to stay focused on any one project, even if the materials were changing. I think, just based on yesterday, that 15 minutes is the max. Is that about right for six and seven year olds? It's about right for these girls, anyway. =)

Rotten!

2011-11-12T08:47:00.000-05:00

It doesn't take long! Every weekend I conveniently forget what it's like to do everything because my husband sort of takes over (at least) half of the stuff.

And it doesn't take long for me to forget that we live half a mile from the beach in a charming community. When the beach is 'closed' then I just remember the impossible-to-keep-clean white berber carpets, the toilet upstairs that overflows EVERY time our girls use it, the refrigerator that freezes produce and melts chicken and the janky master bedroom doorknob that occasionally locks us inside, forcing my poor husband to crawl out the window into 35-degree predawn freezingness. I know without a doubt that when I look back on this house, I will remember those things with head-shaking fondness as "quirks." I'll probably even miss them in a way...and maybe I'll write something here about it (hopefully while my laptop sits on granite countertops)...

Of course I'm forgetting my friend who just spent five months (!!!!) in a hotel in South America while her husband's job was trying to find a house for them there. Then they had to drop $11k of their own money to fix up said house, and even though they'll be reimbursed for that and the FIVE MONTHS of hotel costs...um. And I'm whining about wallpaper.

It's so easy to forget to say thank you, isn't it? To get used to being spoiled and having everything easy? Especially at this time of year, when we over here in our comfortable western world are gearing up to spend tons of money on one another...this is the place in the blog where most people would drop a bomb on you about how they're not buying Christmas presents this year or something. That's not what you're getting from me. I'm actually not even taking my Daisies to serve at the soup kitchen until March (when everyone has pretty much forgotten that poor people are still hungry)....I'm just remembering that I've got it pretty darn good, cracked tile countertops and all. =)

You Know What I'm Looking Forward To?

2011-11-10T18:58:00.000-05:00

I realize this question can be answered in multiple ways that would still be correct, from having dinner with good friends this weekend or spending Thanksgiving in Philadelphia, the next Twilight movie, Carly's Thanksgiving play at school, getting my nails done next week....the list is endless. I'm terribly easy to please and honestly I look forward to the most ordinary things - Starbucks Eggnog Latte, anyone??? - I think it makes life more interesting.

Today, however, I'm looking forward to something a tiny bit more significant. I'm looking forward to this time next year.I'm looking forward to it for two main reasons that are squished up into one big lovey-dovey, sparkly, string-music-in-the-background reason.

Would you like to know what it is? Of course you would!

Around this time next year, Paul will come home from you-know-where and he'll get to meet our youngest baby, who will be six months old. I'm looking forward to THAT moment.

=)

*in case you don't feel like doing math, we're fourteen weeks and officially into the lovely and wonderful second trimester.*

Bree's Day...and a Ninja

2011-11-08T21:33:00.000-05:00

Well...my dear little Leo started off her day by doing THIS to locate her leggings. They were on the bottom of the basket and I'm pretty sure (although I don't have proof because I was in the other room at the time) that she was tossing items of clothing over her shoulder as she looked. That kid.

We went to the gym which is always fun and then we checked out this new park. She was hilarious and awesome as usual....she was wearing her skirted leotard and those DARN LEGGINGS...dance is tomorrow. She wanted to be ready. =)

Breaking it down on the steps.

After tearing up the park, we went to storytime! So fun!

Listen! Genius idea!!! The kids painted acorns and then sprinkled cinnamon on the wet paint - so it smells nice! Such a smart idea - I would have never thought of it! We read a million books in the library afterward then had lunch and took nice fabulous naps. It's always a good day when I can get that girl to sleep!

Then - Carly's project for the week. So cute. The first graders at her school are helping these poor scared turkeys disguise themselves before Thanksgiving. According to Carly, there have been fairy turkeys and ballerine turkeys returned and she wanted to do something different...so we did a ninja. AWESOME. Up at the top it says "you saw nothing!" and the bottom she put "Ninja! HaiYA!" hahahahahaha so cool.

Crazy Daisy!

2011-11-07T21:00:00.000-05:00

Being a Daisy Girl Scout leader is pretty much the funnest thing ever. I get to plan amazing trips, do fun crafts, sing goofy songs and hike in the woods, like EVERY week with a bunch of super cool kids. Now, if I can somehow finagle my way out of being cookie mom...

Anyway, last weekend a couple of us moms took some of our girls a couple of hours away to a state park event. The girls had a blast. See below, my little goofball with a mouthful of lunch. =)

After we played some games outside, the girls came inside to create their own carniverous plants out of totally random recycled materials. It took us a few minutes to get started...I mean, what would YOU do if someone handed you a stack of plastic cups, a glue stick and some construction paper? We just stared at it for a minute and then the girls started putting things together. This is Carly's final product - she made the spiky things of a Venus Fly Trap out of pipe cleaners. Impressive, right? =) Paul and I are sitting here staring at these photos wondering why our LITTLE girl looks so BIG.

I got to spend about six hours on Sunday putting together our schedule until April. So fun! Also very eye-opening....teachers do this for EVERY DAY for MULTIPLE SUBJECTS. That's amazing. Speaking of teachers, our parent-teacher conference went well today. Bree whined basically the entire time, which was not so nice, but I did learn why Carly was placed in her particular reading group and how to help her progress. It's all about recall and retention, and her teacher gave me some great suggestions about questions to ask, about the main characters, how Carly thinks they're feeling, whether she would have changed the end of the story, etc. I guess it's a good thing our girl likes answering lots of questions. =)

Happy Family Tip #5

2011-11-06T14:21:00.001-05:00

*This is not a series. I never posted tips #1-4, but what I'm about to share with you just doesn't deserve the #1 spot, and 5 is my new favorite number. Please don't check back regularly for other tips because there honestly may or may not ever be any...I just thought this up while I was toothbrushing fossilized food particles out from the creases on our rad barstools and it's too long for a Facebook status. *

That being said...

If emptying the dishwasher is normally your responsibility and someone else, be it spouse, child or houseguest, does it for you, it is likely that a few (if not most) things will end up in the wrong spot. This almost always applies to anyone but your own mother who intuitively knows where stuff goes in your house because you probably set it up a whole lot like she did. Anyway, upon discovery of an empty dishwasher and oddly-placed clean dishes, or jumbled silverware, appropriate responses would be as follows:

1) Smile sweetly and say thank you.
2) Jump up and down and say thank you several times in a row while giving out fist pumps like a rock star.
3) Make said helper's favorite meal or dessert.
4) Leave a thank you note in said helper's lunch the next day or on their bed.
5) Throw a parade complete with marching bands and floats.

These things ensure that someone helping you unload the dishwasher MIGHT POTENTIALLY happen again. Which is what we all want, right? Unloading the dishwasher is the opposite of fun.

The following reactions are completely inappropriate:

1) Complaining, either to the helper, out loud to yourself within the helper's earshot, on Facebook later or in a text to your friends. Complaining EVER. To ANYONE. The Universe hears and will tell on you.
2) Correcting the helper. It takes far less energy to move the colander from the "mixing bowl place" to the "colander place" or to open a couple of cabinet doors to locate the measuring cups than it ever would to unload the whole freaking dishwasher. If you must fix it, do it when they can't see or hear you fix it.
3) Leaving the next load of dishes in the washer for three days and then obnoxiously telling your helper something along the lines of "well, you seemed to enjoy it SO MUCH last time, I just thought you'd like to continue rearranging my kitchen." I only write that because someone told me they actually said it to their husband. I know.

The above reactions are likely to guarantee that your helper never again helps you WITH ANYTHING. This is, clearly, not something any sane person would willingly choose.

Then again, if you don't want someone else to take care of this annoying little chore for you because it's your favorite part of the day, well...I don't understand you and I'm not sure we can be friends.

PROJECT!!!

2011-11-04T20:41:00.000-04:00

Y'all. I have really been off my mama game this fall. Like, for serious. We've done basically nothing awesome since summer ended, and we were all missing it. SO! Enter Simple Mom (and Pinterest), some food coloring and leftover paint and boom! I know my table was so happy to witness some little kid crafting, the girls were soooo into it and it was just relaxing and fun. Plus it was artist-inspired, so Carly got a little enrichment in the mix...just all around greatness.

Bree was concentrating SO HARD on cutting out her tree trunks. Can you see that concentration? Love it.

The finished product! We didn't have green food coloring, so we did red, yellow and blue and ended up with an awesome mix. We painted big lines and then cut out the trunks, used cotton squares to paint clouds and glued it all together. It was a great 30 minute project. (And, hi, this is Bree's hair. If it's not in two ponies, it looks just like THIS).

Carly's forest! I'm excited to see what we can find for next Friday..not that I already have fifteen things pinned and a bunch of random art supplies or anything... =)

Soccer is (finally!!!) Over

2011-11-04T20:30:00.000-04:00

Last part of the last lesson of the (positively neverENDING) soccer clinic. Bree was the youngest - and honestly after last year's basketball clinic debacle with Carly you would THINK that Paul and I would have learned our lesson...anyway, it was the opposite of her favorite. But now it's over and she got a cute t-shirt (below) and I got to chat with some of the other moms while we were out there torturing our children with soccer drills. Yay! Here's my girl guarding the goal -she's just so funny.

Sassy chick in her t-shirt swag.

Cloudy with a Chance of Dancing Moose

2011-11-04T20:26:00.000-04:00

Carly got her weather drawing in the paper!!! I didn't even notice the Bullwinkle until someone pointed it out to me on Facebook. And now it's all I see - SO precious. The paragraph below where the picture cuts off (for security's sake...the Internet doesn't need to know which school, classroom and grade my kiddo is in). I just think it's the cutest thing ever, especially because she put in her bow and made sure you know who's who. LOVE that kid!!!

Halloween!

2011-11-04T20:22:00.000-04:00

Sorry the pictures stink! I took them with my phone...which I am EVER so grateful for since I've been w/o a camera for, like...forever. Stupid propane. ;)

Here's Kitty Bree! I have to tell you who they are b/c you honestly can't tell with the mask on. =)

Kitty Carly with her sweet Halloween basket from Aunt Amanda and Uncle Pete! They had such a great time trick-or-treating with Daddy. =)

Classic. Carly sweetly smiling, Bree pouting because Daddy won't let her have more Candy. Random stuff on the stairs...totally my house.

November!!!

2011-11-01T20:22:00.000-04:00

So many exciting things coming up!

This week, I'm hanging out with the ladies from our battalion. We're trying out (breaking in) a new babysitter that night and I expect it will be a super fun time for everyone.

We're "planting" our Thankful Tree THIS WEEK. *It will happen, it will happen, it will happen* I like this particular design the best - what do you think? Just BIGGER and minus the snow. I love the tissue paper leaves! We already have double sticky tape and tons of black construction paper...perfect.

Next weekend I'm taking my Daisies down to the Carolina Beach State Park...fun times! It's a super long drive, but I think my girlies should have fun.

We have the ball a couple of weeks after THAT, which...well...my options are bowling ball or disco ball. =)

Then Thanksgiving in Philly! We are all so excited about that - we're super homesick and cannot wait.

And also? Something less fun, but still...um...educational:

I had all these plans for baked goods this year! For pumpkin muffins and cheesecakes and cookies, bread, stews, braised meals...but y'all! I just learned today that our cooking and water heating is not actually provided with our water service like I expected. Nevermind that I never really considered HOW they would go about piping gas to the island...over the bridge? Under the sound? Honestly, Liz. There is a huge (and almost empty) hundred gallon propane tank right outside the window...oddly enough they have a tank that big because it's not only for the fireplace (like I figured). So baked goods, and long cozy showers, and anything that requires hours of simmering on the stove, as well as baking anything less than a completely FULL oven...over and done. Nothing like paying up front (at 3.95 a gallon - barf) for power to make you use LOTS LESS OF IT. And we can just forget about using that tempting gas log fireplace. I will cut out construction paper flames and light a woodwick candle.

Winter, meet StickerShocked Liz. =/

Breather

2011-10-31T09:04:00.001-04:00

Over the past couple of months I've noticed something.

Going outside the house three days and two evenings a week to do non-Mommy-stuff is one thing when my girls are cared for a few miles from the house and Paul is home every night at 5. It's another thing altogether when I he's not home until 8 or 9 and leaves for weeks at a time. That other thing doesn't work for us.

Other people can do it - I've seen it over and over again, but I don't know how. The only thing I can figure is that some folks are fulfilled in the home and some folks aren't. No judgement at all, it's just like having brown or blond hair. I like what I do at pretend work and I'll keep doing it, just not as much.

Bree and I are home today, getting the house put back together after the weekend and getting ready for Halloween tonight. It's so nice to just BE here with her, and not rushing off to one place or another.

Pumpkins!!!

2011-10-30T18:58:00.000-04:00

We carved our pumpkins last night! Here's Bree (in her wedding dress and carrying her silver purse as always!) with her Ghostie. I did it freehand and thanks to my less-than-awesome carving skills it looks more like a tree trunk or a peanut, but hey she loves it so we're going with Ghostie. =)

Carly supervising Paul's spooky face. Personally I think her CRAZY hair is much, much scarier. =)

This is the design Carly chose for her pumpkin! One-eyed friendly smiling monster with pointy teeth. SO cute! My pumpkin (not shown) is just your traditional friendly Jack with triangle eyes.

Then, this afternoon we went to the fall festival at our church. It was really cute and the girls had a great time. The "toy in a haystack" booth was their absolute favorite - jumping in the hay was probably the best part. =)

Carly got a jump rope - rad - and proceeded to fall on her face about a hundred times. She'll get it!

This is what Bree found! And a quick plug for Zulily - how great is her shirt?! It makes me laugh every time.

I have a couple more cute photos from the rest of the day but Blogger is being annoying and won't let me do it....so maybe tomorrow! Our girls are super excited about Halloween and their costumes are so darn cute!

Bree Randoms

2011-10-29T13:40:00.000-04:00

There is a rain garden in front of the Emerald Isle rec center that has been populated with butterfly-friendly flowers and bushes. It is, no exaggeration, Bree's single favorite part about going to soccer clinic. I love this picture because she looks so prissy - and our girl is the opposite of prissy. =)

Carly and Paul disappeared to the man cave to play Tiger Woods golf on the PS2, so Bree and I took a walk. It's a chilly day, and was really overcast, so it was peaceful outside. The sun has decided to come out (after I cancelled the Girl Scouts hike for tonight - oops!). She's such a pretty girl, and getting SO big. Since we moved her in June, she has grown from 33.5 inches to 38 inches!

These bushes are ALL over our neighborhood. They're not particularly pretty, and every couple of weeks they send up these awful leggy things out of their tops - we have a couple in our backyard. I couldn't understand why everyone would have such impractical bushes until this week when they began blooming. Oh my word, they smell so pretty! Still not sure it completely makes up for their high-maintenance-ness, but it does make the walk to the schoolbus really pleasant. =)

I totally made pretzel rolls today! They're supposed to be pretzels, but they rose and baked up into big squishy balls, so I'm going with pretzel rolls. Who knew flour, water, yeast and a little honey could taste so yummy! They're nice and chewy, if not super pretzel-y. =)

Whoa Mama

2011-10-26T17:49:00.000-04:00

Hi!

I'm sitting down for what might be the first and last time in two weeks. =)

We're going up to Paul's office in about ten minutes to decorate for the Fall Festival. Most of the other Marines have decorated their offices already, but the spouses and I from Golf only got the go-ahead tonight. Do you notice something wonky about this picture? The other MARINES have done theirs? And yet it is SPOUSES doing ours?

That would by my fault.

You would think that by now I'd have learned that people (particularly males and children) will not do what they do not have to do. If something is going to be done for them, they will happily allow that to take place. So, when a do-er (for example, me) gets impatient and starts planning and organizing things, those non-do-ers sigh in relief and promptly forget about whatever it is that needed to be done. Then we end up with a situation like tonight, when I am driving 40 minutes one-way on a school night, meeting another mom who is coming straight from her kids' school Fall Festival, another mom who has two toddlers, two non-parent non-working spouses and potentially (hopefully!!!) another mom with two toddlers who was supposed to be painting the backdrop but hasn't returned my texts, phone calls or emails in two weeks.

Guess who is stressed out about it? Not the Marines, that's for DARN sure. This entire thing is technically for them and they do *not* care. Not any of the other spouses, especially the hundred or so who have never ever showed up to anything. I'm stressed out about it, which is totally pointless, I know, but I'm committed to it, and unfortunately, I'm so very much like a bull dog. I'm phsyically unable to just drop the ball already.

So...let's all just hope it goes well. Let's hope our artist friend comes through with her project. Let's hope the rest of the things I needed from Marine supply are in the office and that my wild children don't make me crazy. Let's hope the two different kinds of chili I made for the chili cookoff that we kind of got told to enter because there weren't enough cooks signed up stay warm and/or cool enough during the logisical gymnastics it's going to take to get them up there tomorrow and heated for judging. Let's hope I can gain some perspective and calm the heck down - it's really NOT all that bad. Or that hard. It's just crazy.

Also, I totally brought it on myself. =)

Funny! Four Photos =)

2011-10-23T17:57:00.000-04:00

So, Daisies. We meet at a local church twice a month, and on the non-meeting weeks, we go places. Last weekend, we went to Mike's Farm. Only two other girls came, but it was still fun. Hopefully as the year progresses, we'll have a little more involvement....but me planning fun things and then just a couple of people showing up seems to be the norm! Despite the low turnout, my girls had a blast. Here's Bree hugging some mums. =)

Okaaaay, y'all. this is why I don't post photos of myself. =)

Then, the next day, we met the battalion at a local jumpy place where Carly and Avery caused mayhem as usual. They're so funny together.

Carly's addition to our grocery list. Santa will definitely have to remember gummy bears for these two girls. AMAZING, isn't it, that Christmas is only nine weeks away???? So crazy.

Blog-Keeping and Books

2011-10-22T20:52:00.000-04:00

I'm Failing at my title, y'all. I just cannot get it to work...but...well to be honest, my blog title is just not on the top of my priority list. =)

I did, however, finally update the book list. I've read a ton of stuff since I did that, re-read, that is. Anyway, I put all the Hunger Games together because I read them in three days (like everyone else). They were so good, so interesting. Can't wait for the movie to come out.

What I won't recommend is reading Gamow after reading book fluff. My brain seriously feels like it's about to fall. out. of my head. You just can't go from colorful futuristic teen fiction to Einstein easily...at least I can't. Mr. Tompkins is from my Grandad's collection - he gave it to me so I can talk about it with Carly. This is theory-of-relativity stuff and although I can't really wrap my head around the bike shrinking and time slowing down, she still lives half in the world of unicorns and rainbows and she completely gets it. What I love most about this is (aside from my kid blowing my mind) is that THIS is one of the books my Grandad gave me for her. He gave her challenging stuff because he knows she can take it, that's probably the sweetest thing he could have ever done for me. It means a great deal when a person I respect so much values my child in this way.

As for Anne, well. I love her.

But I need some more suggestions! I'm re-reading a lot, which is never bad, but I know there is new stuff out there. Any ideas are welcome, but please, for the love of all things literary, do not suggest The Help. Okay, thanks! =)

The List!

2011-10-21T06:34:00.000-04:00

Yes, another one.

This time, it's a new thing sponsored (gah!) by a blog I read. Or, technically, by a blog the author of the blog I read reads. Confusing? Haha. Anyway, the grand prizes are amazing and I would super love to win one. Therefore...read on. Link's at the bottom.

15 things I'd like to do or see at some point. Note: Some of these have already been accomplished, but you could add "take my kids to" practically any one of them and boom, new list. Yay!

1) Float in the Dead Sea.
2) See the Nutcracker in NYC
3) Eat local food in each of the countries represented in my genetics. Going to add Paul's genetics, too, because Italy sounds yummy.
4) Sleep in a bungalow set over (NOT ON!!!) the water.
5) Hike to a glacier.
6) Take the kids to Yellowstone.
7) Take a summer road trip, stopping at each Nat'l Park we find along the way.
8) Learn to make a decent campfire.
9) And a decent loaf of bread.
10) Be able to lift my body weight over my head.
11) Celebrate my 50th wedding anniversary.
12) Live in one (or two) of the places we haven't experienced yet: big city, mountains, Pacific Northwest, New England.
13) See the Northern Lights.
14) Do one of those rope things where you fly across a valley, what is the name of this...
15) Live overseas.

This is my entry in the Just Ask Bucket List Getaway Giveaway. Just Ask offers a breast and ovarian cancer screening and is encouraging people to share 15 things that I want to enjoy in my lifetime as a reminder to be aware of my health. Want to enter? Head over to TodaysMama.com to get the details.

Bedtime

2011-10-19T20:19:00.000-04:00

...is crazy time at our house. The closest I have come to making this a smooth and somewhat enjoyable time of day is starting in the afternoon and implementing our current multi-step routine aimed at wearing out and winding down a certain three year old who simply refuses to go to bed quietly. Most days it feels more like some kind of tactical battle plan and less like an afternoon, and even then we're working with about a 50% success rate. =)

We play outside when the weather is nice (which it has been lately, THANK GOODNESS) from whenever we get home from stuff until about 6, when we come inside and eat the dinner that either 1) has been prepared earlier in the day via crockpot or amazing planning 2) is leftovers or 3) takes less than 15 minutes to cook. Think monkey cheese and peas with hot dogs or minute rice with canned beans and steam-bag green beans.

After dinner we take baths. This takes approximately 10 minutes and more often than not involves the kids being hosed off in the shower because that is quicker and doesn't involve me getting splashed repeatedly by a certain three year old who I swear is part dolphin. We brush teeth in shifts to avoid the bickering that sends me right over the edge of sanity and reason.

Then we do stretches to peaceful music and deep breathing exercises. I must be present for this activity because if I leave for any amount of time, stretching turns into tumbling, and since neither one of our girls are particularly gifted gymnasts, someone inevitably takes a heel to the face and that's the end of peacefulness. This gives us a great chance to wind down. On the nights it works, it's amazing. The kids teach eachother the names for the stretches and we note how much progress they're making. I love the nights it works! It's calm and lovely and I don't end up questioning my parenting skills (quite as much).

Then books. A chapter of Carly's book (right now it's Heidi) and a book for Bree. Sometimes Carly wants to read a second chapter aloud to me and so we do that while Bree flips through her books. Then...

...the dreaded lights out. My stomach is in knots as I go downstairs, because this could go one way or the other.

One, our six hours of prep and careful maneuvering have resulted in relaxed and sleepy kids who go right to sleep and sleep through the night. Yay!!!

The Other: within ten minutes, someone is crying about something. Then Bree comes out with a thinly veiled request from Carly. They can't decide whether to have the hall door open or shut. Or how wide the closet door should be open. Or someone is hungry, or thirsty, or scared...or any of the other myriad excuses kids throughout the ages have thought up to get OUT of their beds. This week, everyone's belly is hurting and they want to sleep in my bed. (I knew that was a bad idea!) Also, they miss Daddy and want to know why I let him go away for two weeks. They finally pass out from exhaustion anywhere from one hour (tonight) to three hours (yesterday) past the time they went to bed. The books, or maybe it was SuperNanny, tell us to take the kid back to his or her room without talking or making eye contact and that will work. Let me tell you this - if you ever have the pleasure of trying to put my children to sleep and you DARE walk out of that room without giving both of them a kiss and a hug...well...I wouldn't recommend it. =)

I wrote this so I'll remember. Because one day, they won't be here driving me nuts at bedtime. They won't need an extra hug or kiss or just my presence to let them know it's okay to sleep. Bree will be tall enough so that more than her worried little eyebrows show above the bannister. It sounds crazy now, and I'm not sure I even believe it myself, but one day I'll miss this craziness.

Female with House Decorating Budget Seeks Craft Store That Carries Stuff I Want

2011-10-16T19:46:00.000-04:00

Every now and again, I need to shop. Psh, Liz, you say, "shopping is not a NEED, it's a WANT. And what did you buy anyway? Did you need that stuff?"

Answer: Yup. It's because I live in the middle of nowhere.

During the summertime, I live in Vacation Paradise, where the beach is an easy bike ride away, the traffic really isn't that bad and that beach breeze keeps things groovy. Where live bands play every week on an outside patio at three or four different bars, everyone is r-e-l-a-x-e-d and it's pretty much awesome, with all the conveniences of home because we, you know, LIVE here.

The rest of the year? It's only been a couple of months, but I'm getting claustrophobic.

Enter Pinterest! YAY!!! I was so super ridiculously excited to see all those PROJECTS! The jars with cool labels! The sweet sayings for the walls! The awesome wreaths, and framed calendars, and shelving ideas, and the upcycling ideas galore! All there for the making! All I needed was one big awesome frame, some carboard letters and whatever that compound is you use to make your own mercury glass and I'd be SET.

Um, except the part where I live here and all of those things exist Somewhere Else. I'm not giving up, I'm just looking for a day that I can get to Wilmington or Raleigh where people have cool stuff for me to turn into other cool stuff that will eventually end up right back at Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Not that the lack of Stuff I'm Looking For stopped us from hitting up Marshall's (exactly like Ross but with a better bath and body section and freaking AMAZING shoes), Ross (meh), the home decorating store, Target (angels singing) and Barnes and Noble all before we went to the jumpy place for a battalion event.

The girls were great, and although they don't know it, their prize was books. We found a great one about Sarah Hale (google it) and my favorite part of the whole day was when Carly read the repeated line about how Sarah Hale was "bold and brave and stubborn and smart" and Carly goes "hey that's just like me!" Hahaha, SO true. =)

Anniversary Dinner Menu!

2011-10-15T10:06:00.000-04:00

My pictures came out ALL funny...but here's what we're having. Three of Paul's favorite things and two of mine. He and I both love French onion soup just like that, he loves brussels sprouts for some unknown reason. His loves liver and onions, but y'all...that is simply NOT happening right now. I'm a good wife, but not THAT good. Maybe when he gets home from EMV in February. Then olive foccacia for him and tiramisu for me...the dessert is open to adjustment, but we'll see. And we need to add another veggie. I'm completely addicted to pinterest - you should SEE my grocery list right now. Ridiculous! =)

7 Things I've Learned in 7 Years of Marriage =)

2011-10-14T22:16:00.001-04:00

You will probably notice that one of the blogs I (sometimes) follow has this same exact title. I say sometimes because when I can tell it's a 'sponsored' post, I take a pass. This, however, is such an interesting idea and like most interesting ideas I come across, I'm going to just take it, tweak it and pretend it was mine all along. =)

That being said...we're celebrating our seventh anniversary next week. Thursday, to be exact, which also happens to be the day he gets home from being in the field for two weeks. We neither one of us are feeling the seven year itch, whatever that is, and I'm pretty sure it's because at this point you've either grown together or you haven't. And if a couple hasn't, the itch is probably just their need to feel that connectedness to someone...that's what I figure. Lucky us! =)
Anyway. Onto the list! (I love a list!)

1) Date Night is mandatory.
Paul's parents told us this from the start and they were SO right. Even when we were pinching pennies to send Carly to a good preschool and a good kindergarten, and going out to dinner every week was simply out of the question, we made Saturday nights about us. The books will tell you not to talk about work and not to talk about the kids, but that's a load of...well, a load. Talk about what is on your minds, and if it's kids and work, so be it. We sometimes see a movie, but never ONLY that. First we talk, and talk, and talk. See below.

2) Be friends.
For us this means knowing what is most important to the other and taking a real and vested interest in that. When we lived in Louisiana, I knew more about recruiting policies and procedures than most of the recruiters probably did - that's what was on Paul's mind all the time, so that's what we talked about. Lucky for him, what's most important to me right now is raising these kids to be amazing, independent, smart women, and he actually already has a pretty big stake in that operation...so he gets off easy. =) This also means hanging out together - quantity time, as much as you can get. Usually that means an hour or so a day during the week, but it's sacred. Friendships take effort, and it's important to maintain that most comforting bond. What this does not mean (for us) is sharing every single interest and character trait. If Paul and I were a ven diagram, that middle pointy-egg part contains our most important values, our ideas about family, and work, and home. Being friends means taking trips to the outside circles...he provides the up-high reaching power for my crafty projects and I wait at finish lines on race day.

3) Be his/her biggest fan.
Be supportive, it sounds so easy, right? At it's most basic, this means not complaining when his job or his passion (sometimes one and the same thing) inconveniences me. It just so happens that he is one of those terribly annoying people who are great at practically everything they do (aside from minor home repairs, but hey nobody's perfect), and he knows I think he's amazing. Shoot, everyone within facebooking distance knows I think that. This can occasionally be aggravating to others who aren't quite as effusive about their husband's awesomeness, sorry! And it goes both ways - while I might not have an actual job per se, and what I do would be what I would do even if I were bringing home some bacon =), he doesn't let me forget that he thinks I'm doing great. So yay!

4) A positive attitude changes EVERYTHING.
We've moved a lot in our marriage. I hate everything about the actual move itself. Absolutely everything. The chaos, the disorder, the living out of suitcases, the ridiculous expense of retrofitting the new place to hold all of our stuff...all of it. What I do like, however, is doing work that has a clear beginning and clear end. When a box is unpacked, broken down and stacked in the garage, it is DONE. I like that, and find great satisfaction in it. There may or may not be a little trash talking (well you're flat NOW, aren't ya? What's that? That's right - NOTHING) thrown in - I'm not ashamed to admit it. But the point here is, things can only be as bad as you let them be. The other blogger said that raising children can suck everything out of your marriage and that just seems like such a defeated and negative way to look at it. Yes, raising kids is a challenge - nobody will deny that! But, like moving, or tight finances, or long work hours, or difficult family decisions...it's only as bad as you let it be. You can focus on the tunnel or you can focus on the light, ya feel me?

5) Be in it for the long haul.
At this point, we're starting to settle in, which feels so nice, becase we certainly didn't have an easy start to our marriage. On the one hand, knowing someone for five months before you say 'I do' is plenty of time, especially considering the fact that we knew where this thing was headed two months in. But on the other hand? That's less than half a year of weekends-only. We were completely crazy, and we've never looked back. Even through rough times, we've always been headed in the same direction...it may sometimes have been more of an arms-crossed stomping than holding hands and skipping through wildflowers, but that commitment never changed.

6) No bean counting.
Just assume that the other person's daily work is infinitely more difficult, challenging and stressful than your own, then do what you need to do to make the rest of their life as easy and peaceful as possible. Paul does this by letting me sleep in most Saturdays and by making sure I have at least a few hours of free time on the weekends. I do this by making sure he has a calm, undusty house and a nice meal to come home to. It works for us this way, but each couple has to find their own balance.

7) Find mentors and LISTEN to them.
This could be anyone who has a marriage you want to emulate. Just like they say successful business people have a mentor, a spouse needs one, too. I have been SO fortunate to have stayed in touch with the amazing couple I worked for in college - I can think up seven things that I think are important for a good marriage, but what do I really know? I've been married for seven little years. They're going on 40 years together, and are still ridiculously in love, so I figure they probably know a thing or two about this marriage thing. =)

Okay! That's what I've got. I'm excited to see what more I can learn this year! =)

When It Rains...

2011-10-11T21:22:00.000-04:00

Hi, everyone! Well...I mean, basically me, because I'm pretty sure no one reads this any more.

Anyway, here's a few (19, to be exact) photos of what we've been up to lately. The quality isn't great because they're all iPhone photos, but still. Content is content. My kids are amazing and hilarious. You'll see one photo of where Carly's face had an unfortunate meeting with the corner of the wall (yellow dress). We took a trip to the pumpkin patch, had Girl Scouts, Bree brutalized the white boards at Paul's office today...yada yada. No captions today, just images. Yay!

Two Little Monkeys Reading In The Bed

2011-10-09T20:25:00.000-04:00

I've had this blog for SIX years and some change. That is a LONG time and wow - soooo much has changed.

For example, my kids are reading each other books right now. This is not an unusual thing, and really not all that blog-worthy, except they are in my bed. And they're going to stay there.

I KNOW, RIGHT?! The world must be coming to an end.

Except, okay, they both ended up in my bed on Friday night, the result of a number of nightmares and too much water at dinner. Bree got scared and crawled in and when Carly got up to go to the bathroom, she noticed her sister was missing *enter freakout* and well...she ended up on my left-hand side. It was so cozy! And they were remarkably well-behaved and sweet to one another on Saturday. And then today, the same thing. Snuggles with Mommy = happy, non-fighting kids. Who knew? =)

Obviously this sleeping situation has a shelf life of about ten more days until Daddy comes home, and I'm going to use those days to figure out how to manage my time with more efficiency so these poor attention deprived girls are getting what they need when the sun is up.

For now though? So cozy, and I'm loving every elbow-in-the-face moments of it.

Repetition is Good, Right?

2011-10-05T18:02:00.000-04:00

I remember doing one of these maybe four years ago, when Carly was tiny. It was all about how I spent most of my day speaking in three-word phrases, like "Walk forward, please" or "We don't hit" (that was during my nannying days) or "Use your words." There was this long list - that seems so long ago. I guess it WAS, but years have this weird way of all blending together as they speed by, so it really doesn't seem like all that much time has passed.

So now, we've got Bree on the back porch, absolutely filthy from our hike and her dinner. She's spinning in circles, singing a mash-up of Disney princess songs while wearing her wedding veil and some pink sunglasses. It's pretty awesome.

And Carly is doing her homework. It usually takes her about ten minutes to get through the easy, easy, easy books that always come home in the reading bag, two math sheets and writing sentences with spelling words. Tonight it's taking longer because her little sister is being a master of distraction...

...which brings me to my current list of phrases that seem to take up most of my spoken language. They are a little different than before, but are still perfectly indicative of where we are as a family.

1) It doesn't matter how smart you are - what matters is how hard you work.
2) CLOTHES BELONG IN THE HAMPER!!
3) Okay, shut the door and take off your shoes.
4) Crawl in your carseat and do the buckle.
5) Let's make bubble gloves!!!
6) Do you have your backpack?
7) Focus, Carly! FOCUS.
8) You'd be done by now if you were *insert practically any verb* instead of complaining about it.
9) Wow, you look like no one is taking care of you.
10) The above is usually followed by: I need a pony and a hairbrush. Go. =)
11) What a mess!!!
12) I don't understand whining. You'll need to speak in a normal voice.
13) The next meal is at *insert next mealtime* and you can eat then if you don't like what we're having now.

That's all I can think of right now, but I'm sure there are many, many more. I do hope that some of them sink in, particularly #1, #2, and #7. Given the fact that their dad hasn't quiiiiiite gotten #2 yet, I'm not going to hold my breath on that one. =)

STARVING

2011-09-27T06:42:00.000-04:00

This whole raining-for-a-week thing is making me HUNGRY. Like, all the time.

You?

Sometimes You Feel Like a List

2011-09-26T06:25:00.000-04:00

Today I have an interview with my husband's boss, to be officially approved to do the volunteer work I'm already doing. I think it's a box he has to check off...Paul thinks it's going to take up my whole morning.
Today we also have gymnastics and an organizational meeting for Daisy Scouts. I'm the leader, exactly like I wanted, because no other parent really wanted to do it, a fact which I find persistently odd. I literally can't get over it - what do you MEAN you had the chance to be in charge and you didn't want to do it?! Baffling. =) The GS council didn't 'find' me in their system until the interested parents had met a couple of times with the area leader. But, it works out for me! I feel like it has taken entirely too long to get this ball rolling, but things will start up soon and I literally cannot wait.
Today it is also (still) rainy and dark. The girls are still asleep and I hate to wake them but I'll have to so we don't miss the bus. Five more minutes.
I successfully made kolaches yesterday! The heavens rejoiced and Paul ate five. =)
The rest of the week is pretty normal! Bree has storytime Tuesday morning, Carly has ballet Tuesday afternoon, Bree has soccer and ballet Wednesday and then we're done with extracurriculars for the week. Paul will be home at some point each night and I do regular volunteering Thursday and Friday.
Oh and we MIGHT get some sunshine Thursday! That will be nice. I'm not complaining about the rain but I would like to see the outside of my house more than the inside at some point.

Happy Monday!

Two Silly Sisters and One Great Saturday

2011-09-25T00:21:00.000-04:00

We're all healthy over here, thank goodness! It has been raining for the last several days and looks like it's going to keep it up for a while. I am still loving it because our house is cozy in the rain, plus Paul came home and it's just so nice to see him, I like the rain as a side effect. =)

I did find some pictures - yay! And was able to successfully email myself a few from our adventures today. These first two are from a couple of weeks ago when I took the kiddos into the doctor to see about their allergies. Carly was having some of the same allergy-related asthma issues as she was in Baton Rouge, so we got a little refill on her "dragon breath" (inhaler with a spacer!) and some Zyrtec...she's all better now, and thanks to the fact that my children are a riot, the wait was highly entertaining.

Observe:

FLAT LARRY!

So onto today!
Paul fell asleep almost immediately after he got home - that's what happens when you sleep on the hood of a humvee for a week, in the rain. Correction, when you TRY to sleep on the hood of a humvee for a week, in the rain. Then we all slept in and had a nice quiet morning.

After that, Carly and I went to her BFF's birthday party! It was at a jumpy place and lots of Sophia's girlfriends from school were there. That was a little weird for Carly, who is used to having Sophia's undivided attention, but it ended up working out okay. I let Carly pick out Sophia's present earlier this week, and Carly decided Sophia wanted a 'spa day.' In keeping with that adorable theme, Sophia got a bag full of yummy-smelling bath goodies including my favorite soap ever, Yardley's in pomegranate rose.

Paul and Bree had been spending the morning at the house and they were both ready to get out, so we met them at this bowling/arcade place nearby - they have mini-golf, go-carts and batting cages outside which we will have to try out when it's not so soggy. It's always a bit of an adventure to see what she's going to look like when I've had no say in her attire...today did not disappoint. See the leg sweaters? She loves them!

Then, this. Miss Thang.

They have millions of cool video games....sort of like a exponentially less disgusting Chuck E Cheese. (It's actually a major life goal to never go back to CEC again, btw.)

They loved this roller coaster ride!

The cutest! Both of them!!!

Meanwhile Bree and I were running around to all of the games you climb on...motorcycles, race cars, Panzer tanks...we lost spectacularly at that dancing game with the arrows, but it was fun!

Then we bowled a game! Carly beat me again - and this is her victory dance. =) It was pretty busy because there's not just a whole lot to do around here when it's raining outside, but the place is REALLY nice. We had a great time and are looking forward to going back. The place is called Mac Daddy's and the mini golf is called the Golfin' Dolphin. It was a great way to spend an afternoon!

Paul took the girls back home for naps (that they did not take) and I drove back into Jacksonville to attend a smell-good party. I scored four Christmas presents for under budget (wahoo!) and got to chat with some nice people. It was really fun, but since I apparently have zero stamina lately - I'm blaming the rain - I came home and managed to talk Carly into reading her Odysseus book to me. I was out before the first page was over! Haha - then she and Bree fell asleep watching Paul play his new PS2 hockey game. We're SO AWESOME. =)

Tried out a new restaurant and saw Moneyball for date night tonight! Coming home, the palm bugs were all over the boardwalk-like sidewalk area in front of the theater. I was jumping all around trying to avoid them and ended up busting my behind, cartoon style. Loving the weekends! It's different than summertime, but still so nice!

Is It Friday Yet?

2011-09-23T04:56:00.000-04:00

So Bree and I are watching ET!

It's 4:30 am and my poor little monkey has been sick sick sick all night. She was doing okay but I foolishly fell asleep at 2 and she got hold of my water, chugged half of it and, well...you know. Not cute. She just fell asleep and I'm hoping she can sleep for a good few hours and wake up feeling a little better.

We are SO excited for Paul to return from the field tomorrow! It has been a heck of a week, for us here AND for him. He's been rained on all week long, so I'm sure he smells *awesome* and he's sniffly and sneezy. We have enjoyed hearing the artillery go off - although I'm sure our neighbors aren't quite as impressed. =)

I'm sure he won't remember, in fact this is the first time I have remembered, that tomorrow is the anniversary of the day we arrived in good old Oceanside, CA. We had dinner at this dive (and not in a good way) bar with a rooftop cafe area and we stared at the ocean and couldn't get over how amazing it was that we were a) in CALIFORNIA and b) there together! I love thinking back to our first days and looking over everything we've been through together...and here we are, seven action-packed years later, staring at another ocean, with two beautiful children and much better taste in restaurants. Our life is busy and kind of crazy sometimes but it is SO good, even when I have to pull sick kid duty alone at 4:30am.

Oh, Liz

2011-09-19T20:53:00.000-04:00

There are some things that only I could do. One of those things would be syncing my phone to my computer, successfully copying all the photos and then losing them. You heard me. Lo-sing. I don't know where they went!

Another thing I don't know how to find would the the women in my husband's battery...I keep inviting them to stuff and they keep not showing up. Weird. At the end of the day, though, at the very least no one can say that we never do anything for the families, because we DO. It's just that none of the families ever go! We're planning the decorating for Halloween and I'm really, really hoping that we'll get a couple of new ladies in there and from there will be able to meet more...but we'll see.

I feel like this is totally boring - we've just been doing our normal stuff. Paul is in the field, and doing a great job here. He amazes me. Today after gymnastics and regular homework, Carly and I did her new Singapore Math and then we all watched a video about ancient Mycenae and read Odysseus and Bree's Bob Books at bedtime. I worked with the FRO reconciling data sheets for the bulk of the day, and served raw veggies and ranch dip for dinner because Paul's not here.....normal stuff. It's totally fun for me but I can't imagine anyone else would find it interesting.

Next week we're starting our ancient Greece activities....we're drawing triremes and setting up an agora and a million other things. We've been reading different Greek myths and book after book about ancient Greece and Rome. At first I was thinking it would never sink in and we were just wasting our time but oh my word! Tonight when we were watching our little Kids History Channel video, they had an image of the Trojan horse and Bree jumped up off the couch and said "there are mens in that horse and they put the WHOLE HOUSE TO FIRE." Score!

Suggestions Welcome!

2011-09-08T06:43:00.000-04:00

Sort of. =)

What? I'm being honest. You can't really tell me anything....a fact which has caused, I'm sure, unending frustration to people who love, and know better than, me.

I just ordered a sound machine to go outside the girls' door in hopes that they will actually stay in there past 5:32am when I'm down here trying to get a jump on the day. Our house is built in such a way that sounds from upstairs (other than Bree's lovely pteradactyl screaming when she's mad at Carly, frustrated with her clothes, bored, etc) don't really come downstairs but sounds from down here go straight up. And apparently there is some sort of alarm action where girls who would normally sleep a full hour longer are compelled to get down here and start making messes and asking questions.

We'll figure it out.

In other news, the battalion is planning for the Fall Festival and part of that is a decorating contest between batteries. We're supposed to have a theme - all the other batteries do - and a plan, but we don't. Paul was stuck for the LONGEST time on wanting to do a devil's den and finally I just had to say no. Not like I'm the boss or anything but it was kind of fun to say NO and have it actually work for once. Now we are theme-less, though, and we'll have to work on that. There is a ladies' night tonight - all of three wives (besides me, of course) are going. Normally these would be things I'd host here in my home, but we live REALLY far away from everyone, and that thing I said earlier about the noise would come into play a little bit. From what I understand, high attendance isn't really something I can expect from these functions unless there is information and/or free stuff involved....what can you do! It will still be fun. =)

Activities!!!

2011-09-07T16:03:00.000-04:00

My pretty girl! She was so excited about dance class and I was happy to get to take her w/o Bree for the first class. Since Paul was home, Bree didn't have to be corralled in the tiny little waiting room - thank goodness! ALSO - again with the terrible picture quality....yadda yadda yadda, we've talked about this before.

This is Carly's teacher! I was SO EXCITED to overhear this class. As some of you may remember, Carly's dance school last year was more dance competition-style dancing and not really technical or specific. It wasn't Paul or my favorite. This is Miss Kristy (sp) telling the girls that tendu means to STRETCH, not to FLOP their little feet. It should be noted here that the girls from last year's class answered correctly when Miss Kristy asked what tendu meant at the beginning of the class. Also, pique, plie, grand battment, pas de chat....I'm a huge nerd so you KNOW I was loving all of that. Carly didn't know WHAT to think at first! But Miss Kristy is patient and took the time to show Carly exactly what she expected then when Carly got it right, Miss Kristy high-fived her. My girl understands THAT, you can bet! The high-five is our main form of affirmation in this house. =)

The studio is new - it's an extension of the Swansboro Dance Studio, so we're still waiting on mirrors and barres. The girls did good floor work, though! By the end of the class, Miss Kristy had helped Carly settle down her scarecrow fingers. =)

Grande Battements! This was the first time Carly had been taught them - last year it was "big kicks." She was concentrating so hard!

If you've been to our house you recognize this intersection...I don't think any of the three people who read this have been here though...anyway, our neighborhood is right behind that white building (it's a hardware store). It's maybe five or six blocks back, an easy walk and usually pleasant when it's not rainforest hot and humid. =)

Worth turning your computer sideways - you probably saw this on facebook...but hilarious.

This morning it was Bree's turn for dance class!!! She was physically unable to stand still for a photo, so she just broke it down for a while before class. My girl - love her.

Bree met a sweet friend!

The teacher's assistant had all the little girls sit in a circle like butterflies and then she asked them what color the butterfly is...for the ones that understood, their answers were awesome. The first girl said "glitter" and there was a "stripes," an "ice cream" and Bree said "rainbow." So funny!

They lined up to do the limbo - and right after I snapped this photo, they turned on the music and Bree found it impossible to stand still. All the other girls joined in and Miss Kristy, even though she is a total badass about rules in class, had a really hard time getting them back in line. Understandable, though! That song is awesome!

We ran to the store then home for lunch and at 1pm (why in the world?!) we had soccer. Bree was exhausted, but we're going to keep trying and maybe she'll get it. She was the youngest in the class by about a year, but the coaches were really sweet and patient. We'll see! She is stinking cute though, right?!

Weekend Update

2011-09-05T08:57:00.001-04:00

So...to catch up!

After the beach on Saturday, the boys went to a sports bar and the girls and I hung out at home. Our sweet babysitter came over after the kiddos were in bed so the rest of us could go over to our neighbors' house for the East Carolina football game. The house was packed and loud and soooo fun. We met a million new neighbors and I've come to the conclusion that being fun must either be a requirement for living in our 'hood OR boring people just don't up and move to the beach.

Sunday we went out to breakfast at Mike's Place. Carly and I had gone ahead to get the table and by the time we were finally seated, homegirl and I were a sweaty mess! But the food was great as usual and our littlest princess ate like a field hand. That's always fun to watch haha - where does she put it all?!

The boys and Carly went to play mini golf and then came to pick up Bree for some pool time. We were heading to a bbq later, and I managed to score a break for myself by making lemon bars which served two purposes: 1) The break I just mentioned, and 2) They just couldn't go by boat to the soundside house where the bbq was being held; they must be driven there in the AC so they didn't melt.

Backstory: I get motion sickness and that fact, coupled with my pathological fear of barfing = I don't want to go anywhere near a motorboat, canoe, kayak, cruise ship, pontoon boat, sailboat, inner tube, life raft or any other seaworthy vehicle. It's just not happening. And our friends and neighbors keep inviting me and are so sweetly insistent about it, I'm starting to have to be really creative in getting out of what I'm very sure are incredibly fun boating adventures for those lucky individuals without my particular set of issues.

Hence the lemon bars. And it worked! Yay!

So anyway, I drove over to our other friends' rad soundside house with the big pier and huge deck - so fun. And then the kids, Paul and his brothers came over on the boat. Carly and Bree got to be towed behind the boat once they arrived - in a big slow circle within my field of vision at a couple of miles an hour (and you KNOW they were in their life vests!!!) and Uncle Pete with a hold on the tow rope. Carly LOVED it and Bree was a little unsure. I'm sure next summer she'll be water skiing barefoot, though! =) haha

The sound is AWESOME - just about four feet deep at high tide for a couple hundred yards from the shore. The girls (with their life jackets!!!) and I swam for HOURS...so fun. And the boys threw the football back and forth, our friends and some new friends just hung out there on the pier. So relaxing and the weather was painfully perfect. I literally could not think of anything more perfect.

After the bbq was ended, the boys were dropped off at the airport and my two tuckered out little mermaids were snoring away, we had our fabulous sitter come back over and Paul and I rode down to the Emerald Club to hear our favorite band play. They are SO good and their music is the kind that you literally cannot sit through - you MUST move your body! Paul even danced for five or six songs and if you know him - that is huge. We met some new friends (third set this weekend - I swear we've met 20 new people if we've met one) who kept buying us drinks because of Paul's job. After the first couple of very strong drinks magically appeared at my table, I had the waitress start bringing me water dressed up like a drink...and that one little trick I swear has made the difference in my overall quality of life today.

So anyway, this is super long. We're taking it easy today; getting the house ready for the week and just hanging out. The girls are down for a nap they both enthusiastically protested...which of course is only an indicator of how much they needed it! Paul's off to Morehead City to ge this oil changed and run to Harris Teeter for me and I'm here...doing this instead of laundry and cleaning bathrooms. =) I guess I should get back to work.

I hope y'all are having a good holiday weekend!