Assembling Home Depot Kits

A Record No More

Yesterday I was pulled over for the first time, ever.  My 12 year record is now over for "rolling through the stop sign".  Ha.  Good news is that I didn't get a ticket, even though I didn't have my current insurance card in there (forehead slap).  I guess if there was something that I should get pulled over for, it should be "rolling through stops" because there wasn't anyone at the intersection and I stopped as long as I normally do.  Oops.  Guess I need to be a little more patient.  And you better believe that I have a current insurance card in the car now.  Still have my "no tickets" streak to continue with.  (Knock on wood).

Child Pride Day

Saturday was Child Pride Day on base. There were lots of booths, games, etc. at the marina park for the kids to do. Lillie and Henry got little projects to build from the Home Depot booth, held baby alligators, played soccer and baseball, and climbed all over the blow up slides. Good times. I thought this one was better than the Halloween, Christmas and Easter events. I'm impressed with their willingness to put these on so often. I'm sure it's a ton of work. We're gonna miss the alligators when we move!

Earth Day 2012

In honor of Earth Day, we went down to the beach yesterday morning to pick up trash.  Lillie learned about ways to help the earth this week in preschool, so I thought this would be a great moment to practice what you preach.  She loved doing it and even begged to go out again to pick up trash in the afternoon.  I'm thinking we should do it monthly for FHE.

A Little Update

Today has been one of those days. You know, one of those days when it's raining and that results in two big problems. 1. The kids cannot play outside in the downpour 2. Eric took the car to work so that he didn't have to ride his scooter in the rain. This means no way to get out of here.

These problems equal one frazzled mom who is sick of breaking up fights and putting kids in time-out for hitting. Ugh. So instead of finishing the work that I was planning on getting done today, I think I'll sit down to blog.

Eric and I have spent pretty much every extra minute, since finding out we will be moving back to CA, researching the area and more importantly trying to figure out where we will live. We are exploring our options, living on base, renting a house or buying. It's kind of full time job. Unfortunately/fortunately we still have three more months.

Lillie's got about a month left in preschool. She loves it and has made some cute little friends. She's learned a lot, it has been good for her. I haven't even started looking at preschools for next year. Too much to do. She loves playing with her American Girl doll and whatever her brother is currently playing with. Lillie is very social, she's friends with everyone in the neighborhood and begs constantly to play out on the playground.

Henry has become such a big boy. He's putting simple sentences together and we're constantly surprised at the things he says. He loves to hang out with the "big kids" on the playground behind our house. Henry still loves cars but has expanded his loves to include super heroes. He wants to wear Eric's old superman cape all the time. I know he's worn it to at least a couple stores. And he's got little superman and batman action heroes that he loves to fly around the house.

Life is busy but life is good. We're excited to move on to our next base but will be sad to leave the south behind. We've really enjoyed our time here.

Easter 2012

At the last minute, I got my act together and invited some friends, the Heatons and Sabrina, over for Easter dinner and an egg hunt. We had some seriously yummy food and the kids enjoyed hunting for the eggs and eating their spoils. It was a good time. Easter isn't Easter unless you spend it with others!

Eric's Parents Visited

These pictures are majorly out of order, too lazy to fix them, but this is a picture of Lillie holding a shrimp that was pulled out of the gulf. We went on a little shrimping boat excursion that sounds cooler than it actually was.




We went to the swamp to check out the alligators and to get a ride on an airboat. This was the highlight of the week. Pretty stinkin' cool, I just wished the ride had been longer. Might have to go again when Eric can join us.






Spent time at the beach, of course.

The sea gulls here are very aggressive. Whenever you take food to the beach, they swarm you and swoop down at you. I've even had one dive in and grab food out of my hand. Gross.
Lillie was stuck to her grandpa like glue. I think she was having a hard time leaving him alone because her dad had been gone the entire week before. And because he's nice enough to let her climb up on his shoulders.

We had such a great time with the grandparents here. We're pretty boring people, but I hope they had fun. My kids are crazy about all of their grandparents, it kills me that we don't like closer to any of them. Eric's parents are great, we love them and miss them.

Lillie learned how to fish from a real-life pirate. Or at least he looked like it.

The Gretl Dress

A while back at the base thrift store I found a yard of lavender small wale corduroy for two dollars and thought that I might could do something with it, although I wasn't sure what. Anyway, also a little while back, I bought a PDF pattern by Ashley from Lil Blue Boo, called the paper doll dress or something like that. I thought that these two combined might make a cute little jumper. So, of course, I put this on the back burner for a month. But this week Eric has been out of town, again. I've been alone two of the last three weeks. Anyway, I made this dress to pass time the last couple evenings so that I don't get too scared or lonely. It was probably too thick of a fabric to work with for this pattern, but I think it turned out really cute! Corduroy isn't really a fabric to use for Easter dresses, but I don't care. This was a lot of work and I don't have anything else for her to wear for Easter. Ha!

Oh and I named it the Gretl dress, because it reminds me of Gretl from the Sound of Music. Love that movie!

Santa Barbara

We made a trip up to Santa Barbara and San Louis Obispo when I was pregnant with Henry.  We passed Vandenberg on the way.  I distinctly remember telling Eric how I would love to be stationed there.  Here's to hoping that we were right! 

Our Next Base

We found out today that our next station will be at Vandenberg afb in California! Just 3 hours northwest of where we lived before. The area is so beautiful, it's sandwiched between Santa Barbara and San Louis Obispo, an hour or so in each direction. Both awesome places. Vandenberg a small base, there will only be 3 dentists. This is what Eric wanted, to be in a more remote location where he will be able to do more things. He couldn't be more happy. The base is on the coast, so we won't have to give up the beach and sunny weather. We are both very excited. We're glad to be closer to family once again.

Weekend Wedding Trip

Eric's brother, Tyler, got married last Saturday in Seattle. We flew in late Thursday night to be there for the big day. Friday was spent playing with cousins, celebrating my father-in-law's birthday and ending the night with the rehearsal dinner. Saturday we drove through the snow and rain to get to the temple. The sealing was nice, we were glad to be there. We got to visit with the Gowen's for a couple hours before the reception that night. The Madson's traveled up to Shoreline to visit with us at the reception. Afterwards, we headed east for a 24 hour trip to see my family and play with cousins. It was a whirlwind weekend, WAY TOO SHORT. We were so glad to be able to see our families and good friends. Oh and we had an interesting trip home, but that's crazy enough to be its own post. Here are a few pictures from the weekend, not taken by me, of course, because I never think of pulling out my camera, thank goodness Lisa was on the ball.

Crocs

I know that they're generally not that cute, but for kids, I love them! Our kids had outgrown their last pairs and so we went to the Croc outlet last night for replacements. Lillie picked out a pair of flip flops and she said, "I could never dream that I could have these flip flops!" And I think she said it a couple more times before we left. Henry loves his pair so much that he insisted on wearing them to bed last night. Sometimes Henry calls them "Kroc center" which is the YMCA-like fitness center that we visit all the time. Funny kids. Life-changing shoes. Ha ha.

Astronauts

On Sunday during church, Lillie and I had this gem of a conversation:

Lil: "Is heaven in outer space?"
Me: "Uh sure, yes."
Lil: "Is Jesus an astronaut?" Ha ha.
Me: "Uh, no, but He created outer space and all the planets and stars."
Lil: "He must have been tired!"
Me: "Jesus rested on the seventh day, so he must have been."
Lil: "Was He sweaty??"
Me: (silence) "I don't know."

I'm glad she left it at that!

Mardi Gras Weekend

I know that this doesn't mean anything to most people, but it's a big deal around here. Eric has Monday and Tuesday off of work for the holiday. There are parades almost daily...or at least, there were. It's been pouring rain outside today and all the parades have been postponed or cancelled. I sure hope that the weather clears up at least one day in the next four days so that we can say we've been to a Mardi Gras parade. I'm sure it won't hold a candle to the Rose Parade, but I still want to experience it.
Another damper on the day is that Eric is on-call this week. In fact, he is off fixing someone's tooth right now. I sure hope he isn't there all day. Because of the rain, he's taken the car, and I don't know how long I can take being cooped up on a Saturday. Last time he was on-call, he was called in 4 times, I hope it's less than that this week. PLEASE!!

Trip to Baton Rouge

 

Eric and I made our first trip out to Baton Rouge last weekend to attend the temple. It's hard living two and a half hours away from the temple, and so we were overjoyed when our friends wanted to swap Saturdays so that we could go. It was wonderful, of course, and we're hoping to do it again sometime.

4 Year Well Check

At the end of last month, I took Lillie to the doctor for her well check. I can't remember any of her stats. Grrr... the military nurses don't tell you what they are, and even if they did, everything is in centimeters and kilos, so I don't know what they mean anyway. Stupid. I do remember that she was just above the 25 percentiles for height and weight. I know she weighs 30 lbs on our scale. I guess I should pull out the measuring tape to see what her height is... oh well. She was so cute to see interacting with the doctor. She was a little shy but also loved getting all the attention. One thing she did NOT like, however, were the four shots that we had to get that day. It made my heart ache to see her hurting. Lillie was mad about it for a couple days. She did get a sucker and a sticker and I took the kids to the children's museum afterwards to help lessen the blow.

Henry at 20 Months

 

Henry hit twenty months back on the fourth. It's crazy for me to think that he's closer to two years old than one. In fact, I was expecting him when Lillie was this age. Whoa, whoa, too soon. But really, he's such a delight to have in our home. Henry is starting to put a couple words together, he's saying new things all the time and is getting easier and easier. Lillie and Henry get along very well. They play together a lot: trains, cars, dolls, doesn't matter. He calls her "Wee", sometimes "Wiwee", it is so cute. He's a tall kid and weighs about 25 lbs, 5 less than Lillie. Still loves to play with cars the most, trains a close second and planes taking third place. He's still a mama's boy, wants to get in a little snuggle time everyday. Loves to read books and climb on things. He races around on our sectional at top speed, sometimes falling off, thank goodness nothing has been a serious injury so far. Henry still loves his binky, we've been trying to get him to only use it during naptime and bedtime. Sometime's he'll throw it back into the crib and sometimes we have to hide it the moment he puts it down. I love being his mom.