Blocker Boys On the Go!

     Today I had a very productive day!  It all started when the pesky alarm went off.  Some days I just hate the alarm.  The alarm will never be my friend! Anyway hubby got up and off to work on time so it all worked out.  I smashed snooze a few times, and then I got up to workout!

     Work out complete, I fed the boys a good breakfast, and sent out some text.  A time was confirmed for our rendezvous with sister-in-law, and the niece. Quick shower, and I got the boys dressed in their special clothes for the meet up.  <---- Loving the suspense right there I know.  I have to make sure you read to the bottom.  Load every one into the van with the needed accessories, and we hit the road.

     After driving about an hour to our secret location we had to wake up K2 since the little guy napped all the way there.  There was also a little clothing tweaking to do.  I did not fully dress K2 because I did not want to have drool all over his outfit.  So we arrived , and waited on sister-in-law and niece to join us.

     Our super secret destination?  Visiting Santa at the Yankee Candle flagship store.  To my surprise K1 walked right up, and asked to sit in his lap.  Although he does not know you ask Santa for presents he had a good time.  K2 is right in the middle of that mommy attachment phase.  He was not in love with the idea of talking to a stranger, but he got over it and we have some good pictures.  Little miss princess my niece was another story.  She decided she would have nothing to so with Santa.  So we gave up, and were picking up the boy when she decided it was her turn.  So she jumped up in Santa's lap with K1 and we got a few more pictures.  We had planned to get the 3 of them, but at least we got some good pictures.

So we rounded up the kiddos, and headed to the door to go get something to eat.  On the way out there is a large snowman with a bench.  Trying for one more photo op with out the stranger Santa we piled the kids on the bench.  K2 was not letting go of his bottle so it is in all the pictures with the snowman.  Still there were a few good shots taken.

     We had a fun lunch at Olive Garden which was full of old people.  All the grandmas in the restaurant had a good time watching the kids.  I managed to eat pretty well, and only had the salad with vegetable soup, and half of sister-in-law's grilled chicken sandwhich.

     Then we split ways, and the boys and I headed to a friend's house so she could sample Shakeology! We tried the Chocolate Shakeology with mint extract.  I love that one and think it taste like Girl Scout Thin Mints.  If you are new to my health and fitness journey check out these post.

My Coach Application is Approved and Jumping in With Both Feet

Still looking for more information?  Check out my fitness blog Healthy Family Fitness  Be sure to leave a comment with what made your day productive.  Maybe it was nothing, but think hard.  There was something important that got done today.  Even if it was just regular old house work.  It needed to get done, and you were productive. Pictures from our visit with Santa will be here soon. 

     How was your Halloween?  We started out normal routine no problem.  Hubby got out the door to work on time, and I pushed play on my workout dvd.  The kids got up and we had breakfast.

     Now would be the time that I would jump in the shower while they are eating, and we would begin our preparation for conquering the day.  Turns out the water from hubby's shower has not drained out of the tub yet.  This is odd so I begin looking for a solution.  Plunger equals no real help with the matter. In comes the trusty coat hanger.  No luck with that even though I got out a large clump of hair. {GROSS}

     The weather has gotten colder here, so I was beginning to notice that the heater was not working.  We are the proud owners of an ancient heated water baseboard heating system.  Last year some one stole all of our copper pipes, so I know it has brand new pipes under the house.  I verify the pilot light is lit, and that the water is being heated.  Everything is a go there so I start googling for an answer.  I tried a few of the suggestions, but nothing really worked.  I decided that it was not an urgent matter, and went back to working on the drain.  It is cool here, but now I know the heater is not working, and I can fix that before we get to cold outside.

     My dear sister-in-law drove over to watch the kids, while I worked more on the drain.  After trying everything I could think of to not crawl under my house I gave in.  I donned one of my husbands old navy coveralls, got a flashlight, and a large wrench.  The good news is that our bathtub sits very close to the entrance to our crawl space.  So after I crawled under it was not long until I spotted the bathtub drain.  By following the pipes I found the location to remove the plug and drain the line.  I get my wrench all adjusted and ready to go.

     Finding a position where I could hold the wrench, and get leverage to turn it is a whole different story under the house.  Once I found a good position I set my wrench, and gave it a good tug.  To my ultimate surprise I broke the pipe in half.  Now I know the pipe was old and rusted, but it really gave me a start.  Needless to say the bath tub now drains, it just leaks under my house.  So now we get to call a plumber to work on these metal pipes.  If we had PVC I would attempt it myself, but our drain pipes are ancient.

     After my day of excitement I did not even take the kids trick-or-treating.  I know they really still do not have any idea what they missed, but I always had fun going out on Halloween.  So later this week I am going to dress them up, and take some pictures of them.  

     Have you ever worked on your own pipes?  Who clears clogged drains at your house you or your hubby? 

     We had a great weekend! Overall it was simple, but I really enjoyed it.  I hope everyone out there also had an excellent time with their families this weekend.

     Saturday we seriously spent all day hanging out at home.  We all had a great time enjoying each others company, and playing around.  Our day started with a late breakfast, and some TV watching.  Then during K2's first nap session I started a workout, and K1 and the hubby did their thing.  In the middle of my workout, all of my new workout stuff came from beachbody!! I am thrilled, and ready to start my new challenge group on 11-11-11.  Later we made dinner together. It was a greek shrimp scampi served over a bed of spaghetti squash!

     Sunday was a super slow start at our house.  Since the boys have been totally weird with their sleep schedules lately, nothing seems to fall just right.  K1 now gets out of bed, and crawls on the couch ottoman to sleep.  I can not figure out why, but that is off topic.  We got up late, and went to Waffle House for breakfast.  Hubby loves to eat there, but it is a little to greasy for me, and typically leaves me in a funk all day.  Then we  stopped and got K1's hair cut.  This is a big deal at our house since hubby does not like to get the boy's hair cut.  He mentioned it while we were out, and I made sure to stop on the way home before he changed his mind. 

     To top off our Sunday we had friend stop by  and chat for a bit.  She cam over to look at some of our baby stuff to buy since she is expecting early next year.  It was bitter sweet letting go of little baby stuff.  Then to top off my day of terrible eating we ordered pizza.  There is this awesome little family owned place down the street.  In all the times we have ordered from there, this was the first time our order was ever wrong.  In the long run it was corrected, and we now have pizza for hubby to eat for breakfast. 

     What did you and your family do over the weekend?  Did you all have nice weather?  Leave me a comment letting me know.

K2 hanging out during the week

His third haircut ever!

     I am fairly certain that duty days come around to corrupt my schedule.  For all my non military readers a duty day is when the hubby stays at the ship for 24 hours straight, and then stays there for a regular work day the next day.

     Some how my 2 young children have figured out how know it is a duty day and just go haywire.  Thank goodness we typically have left overs to eat on duty days because I am not sure we would have made it to cooking mode today.

     My day started while hubby was still home, but I knew he needed sleep so tried to be quiet.  K1 came into our room at around 2am.  I am not sure of the precise time as it was way to early.  I guess he thought it was time to get up because he requested that I get him a blow of cereal. After convincing him he should go back to bed he took a cup of water and laid down.  I shuffled off to bed to try to catch a few more winks.

     At approximately 3:30am K2 wakes up screaming.  Being the good wife I turn off the monitor so that hubby will not wake up.  I go and get the little man as fast as I can stumble there so that he does not wake up his brother.  After all the typical checks diaper, fever, teeth it is verified that he is in fact just fine.  I opted to give him a bottled and lay him back in bed hoping he will return to slumber.  It worked!! I made it back to bed hooray.

     Ta da! It is now 4:30 am and the alarm to wake hubby up for work is going off.  My dear hubby never jumps out of bed.  I think he loves to hear the alarm go off multiple times.  I do mean hear because if the alarm is near him he just turns it off and goes back to sleep.  I now control the main alarm because I will hit snooze so that it will keep alarming.  Eventually he is up and on his way to work.

     Typically I have been working out from around 5:30 am until my dvd is over.  Today however I decided that I needed more than the few hours of interrupted sleep that I had so I rolled over after hubby left and got a little more sleep.  The kids promptly woke me up at 7am.  Then we had things that were already scheduled to do today.

     As we started getting ready K1 was washing his hands in the bathroom.  I have no clue what happened, but he slipped off of the step stool.  The poor little guy landed right on his forehead, and now has a lovely goose egg.  I am sure the forth coming bruise will look lovely.  Needless to say we were late getting across the bridge and tunnel to our scheduled meet up with friends. 

     I know I have previously mentioned the bridges and tunnels in our area.  Since we were late there was no reason to head back home after we met up because the tunnel would be jammed.  So we got back home around 8pm and both boys were asleep in the car.  K2 immediately went back to sleep once he was in bed.  K1 decided however that he felt the need to run around and play with his dog.  So after catching the now rested sprinting toddler I laid down with him for some soft music, and reading on the couch.

     Now I am exhausted, and have no intention of attempting my work out.  I really hope all of you have a great day today.  I am sure once you are reading this our Friday will be going much better than our Thursday.

     Well the first thing that pops into my head is the fact that I have been stalking my email to see if my Beachbody order shipped.  It finally did hooray.  Now it is all down to the Fedex people.  Not to worry I have signed up for alerts to come to my email for every update from Fedex.  I might be just a little bit excited.

     In other news I cooked a meat less dinner that was awesome.  Hubby of course thought it needed meat, but he did not cook it so to bad.  He ate it anyway, and had to agree that it was good.  I will say that a little chicken that has been marinated would have been awesome on it.  We had a noodle dish with garlic, onion, bell pepper, broccoli, and cauliflower. K1 of course vetoed everything, but the noodles.  He has recently become extremely picking.  I think he is just trying to voice his opinion on the matter.  Eventually he does go back and eat it when he realizes that nothing else will be served.Crazy kid actually asked me to make him mac and cheese.  There are no extra meals at our house.  You eat what was served or go with out.

     Completely random thought from hubby.  Last night he was asking me to pre-order a video game so that we can play it together.  When we first got married I played WOW with him, and it was fun.  However once the kids got here I quit playing.  It was to much trouble for me to keep up with leveling a player, and keep up with the house and kids.  I tried for a bit after K1 was born, but it was no fun to rush through chores to play a game for fifteen minutes.  Long story short I ordered the game.  I guess we will go to scheduling time we will play on weekends.

     I also want to say thank you to Glo Sews for our second Liebster blog award.  I will get a post out for that some time soon Glo.

     Does your significant other have foods that they just will not eat?  What activites do you miss doing with your spouse since you had kids?  Alternately, what activities do you wish your spouse would do with you even if you do not have kids. 

     I hope you all have an excellent day.  Until next time!

     I know this is scary news, but the winter season is coming with all of its holidays. Holidays bring gifts.  If you have kids they will inevitably receive toys.  Now I have been informed that no self respecting grandparent would not send a toy as a gift.  Believe me we have received plenty of toys from grandparents.  We even get toys for random visits through out the year silly grandparents.  In general my kids have so many toys they will never be able to play with them all!

     So beginning this week we will start the massive toy culling at our house.  The toy collection must face a major reduction before the gifts start arriving.  Also in the realms of gift giving we will be getting ready for K2's first birthday next month.  Just one more opportunity for more toys to come in to our house.the amount of toys we keep will be based on what can fit in the allotted space in the boys room.  Currently we have toys in the living room, and the boys bedroom which is driving my crazy.

     I will admit I do have a weakness for books.  My boys love to go through their books and look at the pictures.  I hope this carries on as they grow up.  We are one of those crazy families with no cable or satellite television.  We do get Netflix, but are cutting way back on our TV watching.  My weakness here would be the Disney movies. So with those two weaknesses I think bookshelves should solve the problem.  I will just have to limit us to the number of books and movies that will fit on the shelves.

     The dreaded Happy meal toys.  I have to say we do get fast food kids meals on occasion, and they come with the pesky toys.  I do keep a few of the small noise free toys in my purse for out and about play time.  I can't even count the number of times these little toys have gotten us through the check out line and into the car quietly.So our happy meal toys will be reduced down to the few toys that live in my purse.

     Stuffed animals.  We receive a few a year.  thankfully we only have one box right now.  However due to downsizing, and up coming holidays we are looking to get to half of a box.  The plan is to go to the box and remove the bottom layer.  Most of the time my boys will only play with a stuffed animal for a few second, and then it goes flying across the room.  Both boys have two or three stuffed animals that you will see them play with on a regular basis.  So we will be keeping the toys that are visibly used every few days.

     Moving on to the bigger toys.  We have two toys that basically do the same thing.  you drop balls in one spot and watch them go down a track.  At the end this triggers music to play.  My theory is to get rid of the bigger one.  This should make room for the totally awesome train set that I found on sale earlier this year for my toddler.  My fear with the train set is all the pieces of track.  I have devised a plan already.  Upon emptying one of our cubes that currently gets occupied by happy meal toys and other miscellaneous small toys the track will be stored in there.  I plan to find a smaller box to keep all of the engines and car in separately.

     After all the culling is complete my plan will enter step two.  All toys will be cleaned and move to the garage.  Then a by appointment sale will be listed on craigslist.  I really do not want to clear and entire Saturday for a yard sales that is my solution. I will schedule a few appointments from Friday evening until Sunday evening.  I can schedule the appointments around things I know we nee to get done as a family.  On Monday what ever is not sold will be taking a trip down to the local charity donation box.

     On another note I am happy to report that our clothes clean out is going well.  All of the kids clothes have been separated and stored accordingly.  All of K1's clothes that were to small are in space bags awaiting K2 to grow in to them.  All the the things that K2 out grew are in the laundry basket awaiting their division into boxes for Thred UP listing. For more about Thred UP please see our post Clearing Out the Kids Clothes.

      Well as my regular readers already know I have two little boys.  If your new here now you know.  Like all good moms planning ahead I saved all my first kids clothes so the next one could use them.  This has worked to an extent.  My boys were born in different seasons so the clothes sharing can only go so far.  I think summer sharing is easier, because you can get away with out a shirt.  There is also the summer advantage of shorts, so if the pants are to short just roll them up to shorts.

     Now that we are approaching the cooler months I am busy looking for clothes that fit just right.  Since my youngest is learning to walk he needs pants that are not to long, but we still need coverage as it does get cold here.  Several months back I stumbled across the answer to this conundrum.

     Thred UP is an online clothes trade system.  When I first started there were mostly kid clothes, but now lots of people trade adult clothes too.  Then they implemented toys and book boxes.  You can also create a wish list of things you are looking for.  This has been awesome for our family.  There is no way we would have the money for brand new winter clothes for both kids.

     They will even make sure you receive a set of boxes in the mail to get you started in trading clothes.  Make sure all of your clothes are washed, and free of stains, holes or other damage.  Now you are ready to pack a box and list it for trading.  Here is a video on how to pack a full box.




     I have had success with all of the boxes I have sent and received.  It has become popular to link a picture of the clothes in your box in the listing its self.  I am sure the people behind Thred UP are working on a way to add this in.  However for the time being make an album on facebook, photobucket, or some other photo sharing site and link to your picture.  Your box will go much faster if people can see what they are getting.

     For all of my military families out there they have a special military program out there just for you.  They now have a military newsletter.  I highly recommend this for all you military families, because like us you most likely do not get all the cool cousin/family hand me downs.

     We needed a Halloween costume for K2 to wear this year.  So after looking through the boxes I found a lion costume available.  This was excellent as K1 is going as a monkey, and now they can look cute and themed.  So I picked the box, paid, and waited anxiously for the mail man to arrive.  The costume was perfect.  Here is a picture of my little man when he tried it on.

 

     Ok it might seem a little overboard, but I am totally pumped.  The Zoo where we live is having a military appreciation day!!! That means we get to go to the zoo for FREE!

     Now while I am sure I will not have near as much fun as my two year old I am stoked.  He is going to LOVE it.  Currently he runs around our house pretending to be different animals.  I can only imagine his excitement with getting to see all the animals in person.  Then there is the obligatory petting zoo inside the zoo.  He is going to completely flip at the idea of petting all the animals.  I just hope the goats behave.

     I am not quite sure my husband shares the same enthusiasm about the impending zoo trip that I do.  He has duty the day before, and will need a nap before we go.  However I am certain that once he gets there, and sees the boys having a good time he will also have fun.  Little baby Ken, I have to use baby as long as possible because his first birthday is coming up.  Anyway little baby Ken will most like not think it is the best trip of his life, but he will enjoy riding in the stroller. Now I just hope the nice weather will hold out.

     Do you remember your first trip to the zoo? Maybe you have fond memories of your little ones first trip to the zoo.  Please leave a comment sharing your favorite moment at the zoo.

     The first thing I ever remember about the zoo was as family trip we took when I was little.  Being the oldest I was out prancing around, and being reminded to keep up with our group.  We had to stop for awhile at the hippo building.  Not that I don't like hippos, but it felt like we were there forever.  All because my little brother got covered in bird poop.  That is right he was the target of a fly by pooping.  I still remember this as being totally hilarious.  The good news is he was most likely to small to remember.  The bad news he hates being the center of attention.  Sorry man I had to share!  Maybe something awesome will happen on our first family trip to the zoo, and then I can use a new story.  Stay tuned for update next week all about the zoo.

     So lets hear it what is your best memory of the zoo.

     Now don't get me wrong I love the cable guys.  Obviously I have an addiction to cable internet.  I however do not like seeing them at my neighbors house.  They were there all day fixing something.  No matter how bad I felt for my neighbor having some kind of technical difficulty in their home. I was totally irked when fixing it involved turning off the internet to my house.

     Yesterday I spent numerous hours resetting my router, and unplugging the cable modem.  I even took the time to ask the toddler if he had touched anything in the area of the modem and router.  Lets just say I thought I was loosing my mind, and would need to call the cable company.  Yet another thing I dislike sitting on hold for people to answer my question. Calling when the kids are awake is pointless so I waited.

     There is one point in the day where I get both kids napping at the same time for a few hours. In this short window I prefer to take a little me time I shoot for 30-45 minutes of what I want to do.  My time is usually used to play on the internet or read a book.  Yesterday I spent the entire time working on the internet.

     Then nap time was over, and I realized I did nothing else.  Now I have to begin dinner preps while the kids are both awake.  I was working at the sink when I hear "Mommy look a big truck."  So I meander on over to the window which my toddler is now occupying.  Sure enough there sits the cable truck.  Why did I not look outside all day?  I was certain we were having an equipment malfunction, and I was determined to fix it.  I watched for a while, and they made several trips up and down the poles.  Every time they went up I check my cable modem sure enough it went dead.  Now why did I not notice a dead modem all day?  They only flick it off for about a minute and then they turn it back on.  So all day by the time I would reach the modem after noticing a loss of connection to the computer, and it would be back on.

     To ensure my sanity I wandered down to ask the cable guy how long they had been working here.  The guy told me they had been there most of the day. Conclusion I am not crazy, and the modem and router work just fine.

     Here is to hoping for a cable guy free day.  So in those brief times where both kids are sleeping or occupied I can sneak on the internet.  I know all my mom readers out there appreciate their mom time during nap time.  So here is to nap time!!! The only quiet part of my day.

     I hope everyone's quiet down time goes smoothly today!

     I know everyone is entitled to there own point of view on everything. I just wanted to share my point of view on family and housekeeping.  I have two little boys that are ages 2 1/2 and 11 months.  A little background on myself.  I was in the Navy for 6 years, and my husband still is.  Serving in the military teaches you a lot of different things, but flexibility is a major point. Who knows when you will get the call that you have to report to leave in 24 hours.  I think that has carried over to my take on being a MOM. 

     Being the mom of a toddler means anything predictable in your life just got tossed out the window. Throw in a baby for added excitement, and the roller coaster you just got on is off at full speed.  I for one LOVE roller coasters.  Around our house you never know when a ball might fly by your head, or some crazy toy will start blaring music all on its own.  Now my house is by no means perfect. I would never suggest that my way of parenting is the way it should be done.   This is a reminder to take a step back, and look at the important things in your life.

     However my kids know they are loved!! When is the last time you took a look around your house, and said you know what all these things are here because of someone I love.  My kids have way to many toys I will be the first person to tell you this.  For some reason they have grandparents that love to send them more toys.  When I come from the kitchen after retrieving a sippy cup of milk to see that the living room toy box got turned up side down.  I just take a deep breath sit back and watch, usually there is moment of sheer joy about to happen.  You see when my 2 year old finds a toy at the bottom of the box he has not seen in a few days he gets terribly excited.  Most of the time he will rush over to me, and show me his great find.  Now days he typically has a little shadow that comes right behind him full of excitement, but not quiet sure why. 

     So my house has piles of toys, dishes that need to go in the dish washer, and laundry that needs to move from the washer to the dryer.  If I spend all my time worrying about keeping the house spotless who knows what I would miss. Morale of the story take time to enjoy your family.  Families are an every changing dynamic so if you miss it now you will not get it back.

     Here is a post from I'm A Silly Mami as she views a change in her family dynamic.  Take time to enjoy your family as it is now.  I also enjoyed this post from 24/7 MOMS. In her post she steps back to reflect on some of here families favorite memories. She reminds us that it is important to take time, and make new memories to cherish with your family.

     Take time for family.  As a military family we are always trying to squeeze in extra good memories to keep us going when we are separated by deployment.  So even if the sink is full of dishes take your family to do something fun.  Memories last a life time so go make more.

 WARNING: Do not read any further if you do not want to hear about potty training type information.  This post includes poop, pee, and frustration.   



     My dear 2 year old is going to drive me off the deep end with this venture.  We started with the typical 3 day training plan.  I stared at his crotch for hours, and we ran to the potty all day for 3 days.  That worked for a bit he would run screaming to the potty after awhile, and there was no mess to clean for a few days.  He began to falter so we added M&M rewards for pee, and little toys like a new matchbox car for a poop success.  Our poop success ratio was very low.  I mean this kid must love pooping in his pants.  We finally got to about 2 weeks with an excellent potty record.  I for one am overjoyed.

     This triumph was however short lived.  I have tried everything I can think of to get him back to where he was.  Now days he just sits where ever he is  and tells us after he pees that he "Pee bed" or whatever may be the case.  Friday and today have me climbing the walls with frustration.  For the first time in 2 1/2 years he has decided to play in his poop, and put it on the wall.  So as to not encourage the behavior by getting upset I remained calm, and placed him in the shower to contain the poop.  Now add to the factor that my nearly 11 month old is every where and into every thing.  Now I have to catch and contain the little man before I can even begin cleaning the poop.

     So now I am asking for advice.  What do I do?  I am terribly tempted to just put him back in diapers, and throw my hands in the air.  This has been over a 2 month battle already.  Am I just rushing the process?  I knew when we started that even when he was doing really well we would still have occasional accidents.  Should I just take a few weeks off, and start all over?  Help I am grasping to the last threads of my sanity here.

     I have received some suggestions from mom friends, but they do not really fit our military life style.  My husband is gone at least twice a week for around 40 hours at a time.  I do not have the ability to just hand him the baby and devote multiple days to potty training.  Our first attempt at the 3 day method was over a holiday weekend when my husband had a rare 3 days off.  Now I know there are plenty of families that have similar situations that are not in the military.  So please give me all of your tips!! I will try anything once in this case. Thank you for reading this much of my insanity.

I love to experiment in my kitchen with everything. I will take a new recipe and twist around to make a new dish. I take my old recipes and twist them around for a new taste. Today I am going to attempt the latter. I am going to take my classic oatmeal peanut butter balls and coat them in white chocolate. I will post the recipe for ever one tonight if it works out to my liking. Really what could go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate. Well I am off to experiment with my two year old in tow. I hope you all have a great day with the weekend blog hops.

My husband has duty so he is gone for about 36-40 hours.  He will then come home exhausted because he rarely sleeps on duty.  Korvin is potty training, and Kenaniah is cutting a tooth.  Really could use some adult conversation right about now. 

I wonder some days where I got the idea that homeschooling might be for us.  I feel confident that I will make a good teacher.  The thing that bothers me is will I be able to maintain the house, direct school, and still make time for myself?

I just started putting time for myself back on the list of things I need to do.  Kenaniah is just now 10 months old, and playing by him self a bit more.  Korvin is turning out to be an awesome big brother. In fact so much so that it is making bed time a circus at our house.  The boys share a room so if Kenaniah starts crying at bed time Korvin gets up and gives him a toy.  If that does not work he reads him books.  All the while I just want them to both lay down and SLEEP!! Korvin likes to have the light on as he has recently started waking with bad dreams in the middle of the night.  Kenaniah seems to prefer the room to be pitch black, cold, and quiet so he can go to sleep.  Just another never ending battle right there.

Now the good news for the blog.  It turns out I have bouts of insomnia when the hubby is on duty.  So I will have plenty of time to write stuff, and keep it up to date.  The bad news is that the next day I might not be so up in the SUPER MOM rankings.  One day at a time! We have been dealing with duty days for months, and I still get very little sleep on duty nights.  That leaves me to wonder how I will survive an entire deployment with kids. That however is an entirely different blog post.

I hope everyone out there in the blog world is doing well.

So to throw my dear husband off I am going to give him his Valentine's day present tonight.  I ordered Chocolate dipped cookies and strawberries.  Then I set out the candles that we never use.  The best part is that I did this all before he got home and he still has not noticed.  So once both the kids get in bed I can light the candles, and bring out his strawberries and cookies.  He will still be surprised since nothing looks out of place to him.

Well got the little guys to sleep.  B loved his strawberries, and looked very surprised. I decided to opt out of the candles since we were watching a movie at the time.  Almost done with laundry for the day.  We are the proud owners of one deranged cat that my husband saved from the shelter before we got married.  The evil cat decided to pee on our bed last night.  So I have been doing all that laundry today.  So far the good sheets are back on the bed, and the electric blanket is washed.  The comforter might be dry by bed time here is hoping!!

On another plus note we are going to get our taxes done in the morning.  I wonder how much we will see on our return this year.  We also get one more rent check from the Virginia house before we move back in.  I am really excited to start saving money again once we move.  Right now our budget is pretty tight due to having to pay rent here, and the rest of the mortgage at the other house.  The weather should be getting nicer by the time we move too, so the boys and I can go to the park and play.  Really looking forward to the coming year!

Wow so most of the day I have existed with a headache that feels like I spent the entire night last night pounding alcoholic beverages.  Oh well hopefully it will be gone soon.  To top that off K1 is rebelling by trying to choose the food he will and will not eat.  He refused to eat all of his lunch, but immediately asked for goldfish crackers when he got done.  So he screamed all day and refused to eat the lunch I continued to offer.  K2 was good pretty much all day which was totally necessary for me to cope with the array of things his big brother was into.  Just before B got home from work K1 was half way up the stairs on the landing.  He stood up to go down the stairs, and he slipped and rolled down the remaining stairs.  I just about had a mom heart attack as there was no way I could catch him.  On a good note, he is perfectly fine and commenced running around after the initial shock was over.

Hopefully Ken sleeps for awhile tonight.  Which in turn means I will sleep and tomorrow will be a better day

It has just hit me like a ton of bricks that we will be moving in less than 6 weeks.  We verified what day our current renters are moving out of our house.  Then my husband  gets me the information we need to schedule the move online.  I am extremely grateful that the military is paying for us to move this time around.  I am also excited to not have to do all the packing of our stuff.

The boys and i will be moving few weeks before B does.  He will be staying behind to finish working, and to fix up our rental.  One of our dear friends rented his house to us so we are going all out on the clean up.  We even plan to paint a few rooms and the front door.  We have had to put so much money into our house in Virginia that is will look like an entirely different place when we move.

On the excellent news side there is an awesome park near our house in Virginia.  They had just finished the park renovation before we moved out last time.  The park has one of those awesome water play areas for the summer too.  I was envious with no kids to play in it last time.  Really I just want to play in the water area myself.  I am sure K1 will love the park in the upcoming summer.  They were putting in a nice walking track so that will be awesome.

On another plus side we are doing much better on our healthy eating.  We have only gone out to eat once in the last month at a sit down place, and 2or 3 times to a drive thru.  B taking his lunch to work is saving quite a bit of money.  It also is helping to keep the refrigerator clean since he is taking leftovers most days.  I do need to go pack his lunch really quick while both of the boys are asleep.