My confession....

So do you remember this post? You know, the one where I committed to reading the Bible in 90 days? I was excited, and while I wasn't buying a new Bible at that moment, I knew I could keep up with the reading in my own Bible. I was determined to not let anything keep me from doing it.

And then came January 1st... the only thing I was thinking about on January 1st was that my husband was leaving the next day. And my desperate need to spend every waking moment with him because of that. And January 2nd all I could think about was that my husband had left. Then by January 3rd, I was more concerned with being able to breathe than reading. That's how it started ... the 2 1/2 weeks of asthmatic bronchitis that left me barely able to walk from one side of the room to another without having a coughing fit that would leave me in a heap on the floor. Reading the Bible didn't even cross my mind during those first few days.

Now, that's not to say that God didn't have a lesson for me during those times. Because He did. He reminded me that He led my family to the church we attend for a reason. When I was in the middle of a "can't believe I'm 1000 miles away from the people that would help me with the kids -- I can't do this -- what am I thinking?!?" pity party while sick one night, I suddenly realized that I needed to call someone for gatorade. There was no way I was going to survive the night, let alone the next few months if I didn't get myself hydrated, and since I could barely hold anything down .... gatorade sounded like a good idea. So I called, and gatorade was brought for me, frozen pizza for the kids. From that night on, there was not a night that I had to cook. Food was provided, little things that you might need around the house were brought, babysitters volunteered to take the kids so I could nap, and no one did anything more than once for us. Our church family poured love and blessings over our family. And all it took from me was being willing to admit that I couldn't handle it on my own, asking God to find a way to help us through it, and then calling a lady from church for help on ONE night. Women that I barely knew were bringing us things and offering to clean my house and do my laundry.... Talk about a humbling experience.

But even though I was being reminded by God that HE is the one that is carrying me through this deployment, and that HE will make sure that we're taken care of, I still wasn't reading my Bible. I just forgot. And when I did remember, I felt so guilty that I made myself forget.


Sunday was my first Sunday at church since before Chris left. I left it exhausted, but also challenged. Joel, our preacher, challenged us all to read our Bibles for 2 hours a day for 30 days and to see the changes that God would bring in our lives from that time spent with Him. And while Joel preached, I knew I had to do it. Not only because I wanted to take Joel up on his challenge, but because I was soooooo far behind on the 90 days! It would get me caught up and help me recommit to spending more time with God. My first thought was that I'd read 2 days worth of reading per day. I had thought that one day's reading would last me about an hour, so 2 days should give me 2 hours. I was wrong. It took me 3 days reading the first day to get me 2 hours. And last night, it took me 4 days of reading for me to get 1 1/2 hours. And I promise that I'm not speed reading or skimming (well, I occasionally skim the name lists), I just read that fast. So I may be done with this read the Bible in 90 Days challenge a lot sooner than March 31st..... Actually, once I'm caught up, I plan on reading other parts of the Bible while reading just the daily reading with the Bible in 90 Days program.

But either way, I'm excited to be doing it. I do need to start reading earlier in the evening. Starting at 9 or 10pm only makes me exhausted in the morning. But either way, I'm happy to be doing it and not feeling nearly as guilty as I've now caught up w/ week one so I'm only 20 days behind instead of being 27 days behind....


Over the next few days I may post some of my reflections on what I've read so far. Right now I'm just in awe over the things that I knew but had forgotten.



Wait, here's something that I was a little dumbfounded over at first, but then realized is probably typical of what humans do on a regular basis. Abraham, twice, told a king that his wife was his sister. Both times he was reprimanded by God and by the king once the truth came out. Both times the KING paid Abraham and apologized, even though the only person who had done anything wrong was Abraham by lying. First, it struck me how frightened others must of been of Abraham's God -- my God -- that they were scared of offending Him even when they weren't the ones that had sinned. I think it speaks for how much God hates sin that they were truly terrified of invoking God's wrath because the only way they would know that God hates sin that much is if someone had truly offended God and been punished. I am so thankful that we have Christ who intercedes on our behalf so that I don't have to be that terrified to approach my God when I have sinned.
Also, the only way we know these stories is because the history of the Jewish people was passed through an oral history -- children memorizing word for word what had happened in their people's past, until it reached Moses who recorded it for future generations (and even then, it was still memorized word for word). So in order for us to know that Abraham sinned both times, he had to have told Isaac. But Isaac did the exact same thing with Rebekah! He told a king that she was his sister because he was scared that he would be killed in order to take her from him. He again was rebuked by both God and king, but was still given many gifts in order to prevent his God from being angry with the king. Shouldn't he have known better?!? Of course he should have. But how many times do we repeat the same mistakes that our parents or our grandparents or our friends made? Yet God still loves us. He still calls us His own. He still draws us into Him and cares for us. Even when we sin and break covenant with Him, He still keeps covenant with us. He knows we're going to sin, and probably make the same mistakes more than once, but loves us anyway. He is truly a gracious God.

Only a Texan...

I have Texas plates on all my vehicles still. I know I've lived in Florida a while, but we've kept our permanent residence address in Texas for legal reasons, so I've felt justified in keeping Texas plates. It's rare that I think about it, but today they created a story.

I was in the drive-thru at KFC. I pulled up to the window when the manager laughed and said that I must have been stationed in Texas. I quickly explained that no, I was from Texas, but my husband was now stationed here. His eyes lit up:
KFC: Where in Texas?
Me: Midland/Odessa
KFC: Really?!? My uncle used to own a furniture store in Midland!
Me: Wow...what a small world.
KFC: It is. I come from a family for 4th and 5th generation Texans. I don't know how I got stuck in Florida.
Me: Haha ... yeah, our family goes way back there too.
KFC: I wish I could say we were at the Alamo, but we weren't. But we were at San Jacinto!
Me: HAHA! We were too! Well, not during the battle. My family got there 2 days too late for the battle.
KFC: My however many greats grandfather was Sam Houston's doctor and was there!
Me: Still laughing You know, only a Texan would be able to tell you exactly when their relatives showed up in their state, and what roles they played in that state's history.
KFC: You're right! We always know what our people did.


Seriously, that conversation would not have happened about almost any other state. It made me laugh, and be a bit proud the history of the state that I wish I still lived in. :)

Another Saturday Edition

The television is officially banned in my house. It's not a permanent ban. That would be too much for me. But it's a ban until attitudes are better and my house is clean. And it's only in effect while kids are up. Kairi was interacting less and less with her brother and I, becoming angry if I talked during a show, and only pretending to be characters on her shows. Yesterday I had enough. She was talking back because I was trying to get them to color and she wanted me to turn the tv on. She melted into the floor bawling because I refused. And that's when I decided that I had had enough. I informed her that the tv wasn't going to be turned on for the rest of the day. If she fought me over it, I would spank her. So she needed to come color. She pouted through color time, but eventually forgot about the tv. Alex and Kairi played in their bedrooms without needing my supervision (and no fights) for a couple of hours after naptime was over. And they didn't fight me over helping straighten up their rooms before bed that night.

As of this morning, the tv hasn't been on, no one has asked for it, and I've not had a major attitude from either child. If the day continues to be this good, I plan on us having a picnic in the living room floor tonight when I'll treat them to watching Thumbelina with me. I cannot tolerate their previous behavior though. I semi blame myself because when I was sick I allowed the tv to be on waaaaaay too much. But that's over with. Yay! lol





I had been planning on starting "school" with Kairi this spring. She needs more formal learning and I know that she's ready for it. After Alex's evaluation the other week, I realized that Alex needs it as well. So I'm currently gathering resources and will soon start "homeschooling" for preschool. Now, Kairi will be in a regular preschool next year, as in Florida the state pays for 4 year old preschool. But it would not hurt to start this year and get ahead. Especially for Alex as he already is starting to recognize letters and can tell me some of their sounds.

I plan on rearranging the living room and purchasing some new furniture to help with this. It actually fits nicely into the no-tv rule as I'm going to be moving the tv and putting their school table in that corner. Maybe I'll mount the tv on the wall or something. Either way, the tv will no longer be the certain of attention in my living room. I keep threatening to take the large tv upstairs to my bedroom and putting the tiny tv downstairs for the occasional video.

I've had so much fun picking out workbooks and games and things for the kids to learn with. I think we're going to start with the Kumon workbooks, along with a couple of others by School Zone and Brain Quest. They look like a lot of fun and something that the kids will truly enjoy. Then I a friend recommended a couple of games/books that came with her homeschool curriculum that I'm going to invest in. I hope that this goes as well in reality as it does in my head. lol






I have made a weight loss goal and I need to post my progress to keep myself accountable. After Alex was born, I was really good about watching what I ate and working out every day. I lost weight quickly. By the time Chris had returned from his deployment, I was a size 8 and still losing weight. Today, that is not the case. I'm back to where I was, and I hate it. So my goal is simple, 110-115 pounds by June 26. It's a reasonable goal. It would require me to lose 2 pounds a week. I'm going to not count calories, but keep a general idea of what I'm eating calorie and fat content wise. I'm going to work out every day, even if some days it's just stretching and crunches. I also should buy myself a scale. That way if I do start to slide in the wrong direction, it won't take me having to change back into bigger clothes to figure it out. I'm not going to run myself into the ground, but I am going to be consistent about this. Once upon a time, Kairi thought that crunches and other exercises were just things you did every day -- things like cleaning and cooking that you did but could learn to enjoy. I know that she doesn't think that anymore. I'd like to change her mind again. :)

Story time

Kairi and Alex have been full of adorable moments today. Ok, so some of them weren't so adorable in the moment. But I can smile about most of them now. Here's a few of them:


Alex crawled into my lap and curled up in my arms like an infant. Then he pointed to himself and said "Mommy, rock baby. Tree top baby." He wanted me to sing rock-a-bye baby so that he could have the little "drop" in the song. After singing it and "dropping" him a few times, he informed me that he wasn't just any baby, he was an "ag-gator baby". Which if you were wondering, he's still on the alligator kick -- he is an alligator almost every day these days, with short breaks during the day to be a baby or a puppy.




When Alex first woke up from his nap he was terrified looking and sounding. I held him close and couldn't set him down for about 5 minutes without horrified wailing. I finally got him to tell me that he had bad dreams. He said he remembered monsters that scared him. I promised him that there were no more monsters and that he didn't have to worry about it. About that moment, Kairi came bounding up to my bed where I was sitting with Alex and climbed on up. She immediately launched into her fantasy realm and began to tell me that my bedroom floor was a river and we were in a boat. Our boat needed to hurry though, because there were monsters in the river. Alex set straight up for the first time since his nap and starting screaming "No monsters! Mommy! No monsters!" I told Kairi that we were not going to pretend monsters today. She could pretend dinosaurs or dragons or trolls or whales or whatever she wanted to, but no monsters. She started to get insistent that there were monsters chasing us while I tried to calm Alex down. Finally, I looked at her and told her that Alex had had a bad dream about monsters so we weren't going to pretend that way today. Suddenly, her whole face changed. She bent down to eye level w/ the little boy ball in my lap and said "Alex? You have bad dream?" Alex grunted an uh-huh response. "I sorry Alex. Look! No monsters. Monsters are pretend anyway. See? No monsters. We won't play dat. I sorry. Wanta tell me bout the dream?" And at that he launched into a babble that made no sense to me, but comforted him and Kairi set listening intently while nodding her head. When he finally finished, she patted him and goes, "Is ok Alex. Now let's play." And suddenly, the world was right again for both my kids.




While Kairi, Alex and I were curled up on my bed after naps talking and playing, Kairi decided she had to go potty. These days after going potty she has figured out how to wash her hands without needing me to lift her to the sink by climbing from the potty seat to the cabinet. Today, though, the water kept going and going and going and going and going. I hollered after a moment to find out what was taking so long.

Just washing my hands Mommy! And I'm gonna wash my face!
You're washing your face? Seriously? Fine .... just hurry up and finish.
Ok Mommy!
A minute later there's still water running.
Kairi, what is taking so long! Turn off the water and get in here!
But my feet are dirty Mommy! I gotta wash dem too!
You do NOT need to wash your feet! Turn off the water, and then get your butt down from the cabinet, dry off and get in here.
Fine Mommy!
Water is still running for another minute.
Kairi! Get in here NOW! Soap off. Water off. In here.
Ok, ok, I'm coming.

I hear her climb down from the sink. And in she walks ... hair is dripping, legs are dripping, butt is dripping, shirt soaked. I tell her to get that shirt off, at which point she climbs onto my bed and starts to try to jump while taking off her shirt, spreading all the water across Alex and me ... and my bed.




I am officially grumpy. Kairi said it, so it must be true. These days if I act the least bit upset Kairi looks at me gently and goes "Mommy, do you miss Daddy? Are you sad?" and no matter whether my answer is that yes I miss him, or yes I miss him but am just frustrated with your bad behavior right now, or the answer is yes I miss him but I'm more upset because I can't stop coughing, Kairi's solution is always the same. "Mommy, you need a hug." She then proceeds to hug me and tell me that she loves me. If she's supposed to be in trouble I usually shoot back "I love you too, but you're still not allowed to xyz...." The rest of the time I just grin a goofy grin inside knowing that she's a much more empathetic and compassionate child today than I had ever imagined she would be 2 year ago. Today, though, Kairi talked back non-stop. She does it frequently these days. And I finally jumped on her case about it. She calmly listened while I lectured her on not talking back, and then she pulled out the card

Mommy, do you miss Daddy?
Kairi, you know I miss Daddy. That has nothing to do with this. This is about you doing what you're told to do without talking back. I'm the Mommy, not you.
Mommy, when you miss Daddy you're not fun.
Kairi, when you talk back, you're not fun. Stop talking back to me.
Mommy, are you still sick?
Yes, I'm still sick. But we're talking about how you talk to me. Don't talk back to me again or else you're going to bed early tonight. Do you understand? Say yes ma'am.
Yes ma'am. But Mommy, when you're sick and when Daddy's gone. I don't like you much.
Sorry Kairi, you have your whole life to not like me. It doesn't change that you can't talk back.
At this point, she folds her arms and looks at me with a frown. Mommy, when you're sick, and when Daddy's gone. You're grumpy. Goodbye.
And with that, she marched out of the room and did whatever she had told me no about before.




Since I've been so sick recently, I've not been cooking. Instead, I've been blessed by an amazing church family that has been providing meals for us most nights. One of the ladies also brought by some diapers so that I didn't have to go to the store and so that I didn't have to try to do laundry feeling as badly as I do. It was very appreciated. Normally, if we do disposables, we do the Target brand. They work well, leave no rashes on children, and are cheap. We were brought Luvs though. I may be switching brands. Now, I hate the smell of Luvs. I hate the way they feel so very papery. I hate how they're smaller than Target's and hold less pee at night (Kairi keeps waking up leaking as she's still in night-time diapers). BUT we will be switching to them for one reason: Alex HATES how it feels to pee in them. We went through 10 diapers today because after every single pee, he took his diaper off and then brought me a new one. The worst one was when Kairi insisted that he take it off (even though I was yelling for him to not), because it was poopy and she wanted me to see it. As if I wouldn't see it as well when I was changing it..... Even with the annoyance, though, at the constant taking off the diaper before having a clean one to put back on, I was impressed that he was so aware. And if he hates the way it feels to have on THAT much, then it shouldn't take too much encouragement to get him to go in the potty instead. :) That's my hope at least. We start this week.




The kids are hyper these days. I've been sick and unable to properly run them ragged, so they have way too much energy for their poor sick mother to handle. Tonight they decided to expel that energy. They did so by running from one room to another, climbing on furniture, and throwing toys at each other, all the while screaming at the top of their lungs.




Final story for the night. It was way past the kids' bedtimes and I was gathering things to send them that way when Alex ran to me yelling that he was scared. I asked him why and he indicated that the problem was with Kairi. I hollered across the house that she needed to stop scaring her brother, and continued to get things together for bedtime. Suddenly there was loud shrieking on both children's parts. I walked in to find out what the deal was. Kairi was screaming while making scary faces from behind a corner of the couch at Alex, while Alex threw things at her shrieking "No scare me! No scare me!" I yelled for her to get away from the couch and stop scaring him. She looked at me calmly and said "I have to scare him. It makes me happy." Remember the monster story? Turns out there is no possible way for her to be that sweet all day. ;)

More on Alex

Alex had his appointment today for the follow up on possible speech therapy. General consensus is this: He's too smart for his own good.

He does have speech delays. He is missing sounds that he should have learned during those periods when he had little to no hearing. However, we're going to have to go the extra mile to get him help.

Because I didn't have a written referral, only a verbal one, they simply tested him to see if he was lacking skills in a specific developmental area. If he qualified for services there, then they could include the speech therapist in the other area. If he didn't, then I would have to get a specific referral/prescription from the ent or audiologist for therapy and they would evaluate him again.

They evaluated him in 5 categories. Three of them were cognitive skills, motor skills and communication. I don't remember the other two. Average 2 year olds score between 85 and 115 -- usually depending on how new a 2 or how close to a 3 they are. To qualify for services, a child has to score below 78.

Alex's lowest score was a 109 in communication and his highest was a 121 in motor skills. Most of his scores were well above the 115 norm-high. They said he was solving puzzles and showing skills that even some 4 and 5 year olds struggle with. On average, they said that he functioned at a level of a 3-4 year old and said that that explained his lack of connection with other children his age and his self-isolation when with his peers.

Alex definitely showed them his speech problems, however, because he is "higher functioning" he's adapted to those problem and learned other ways to communicate. They tried to find another way to offer him speech therapy, but basically said that he just scored too high every where. They sort of explained not being able to help him but the reason they felt a need for me to keep pursuing help like this: if a normal 2 year old showed the issues he was having, his communication scores would have dropped below normal and qualify for help; or if a 3-4 year old child (that functions the way he does) scored this way, the communication score would again qualify him for help; but because he is a 2 year old functioning at a 3 year old level, there is a gap in the system that he falls through. The only way to correct this is through having the ent or audiologist prescribe the help. Unless they do, the therapists we saw today were worried that his speech would not correct itself completely and he would always have a slight "hearing impaired accent".

The plan of action now is to wait until his appointment in February. The speech therapist did give me a few suggestions to try at home, which I've already been doing, but will continue to work on. Then we'll take the results of his hearing test and where he's at speech wise, get a referral, and go back to Early Steps and have them help us go from there.

I have pictures to post, things to talk about, stories to tell, and no clue what to do first.

So I'm going to start with my favorite picture and call it good for the day.

Randomness from the last few weeks

I have no energy to post a real post. That's what happens when you go through Christmas, a 4 day trip to Texas and back (wedding in the middle of that), New Years, and a spouse leaving for deployment. And yes, deployment was today. He'll be home in a little over 6 months. Can't wait as I miss him already.


~Kairi's not mad at Daddy for leaving, but for Daddy not taking her with him.

~Alex has decided that he answers to nothing besides "alligator". He frequently tests me on this. "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy." What Alex? "NO! ALLIGATOR!" Except, it doesn't come out like alligator but ag-gator. Too cute.

~Wedding was beautiful and I couldn't be luckier to have Janice as my sister-in-law.

~Trying to convince my parents to come out here for my youngest brother's spring break this year. Wish me luck.

~I have had a migraine for 3 days now. Maxalt barely touches it and it NEVER fails me. It may be time to go see a doctor. But I was convinced that once the deployment stress was over that I'd be ok. Maybe I'll wait until tomorrow to see if it calms down.

~The dog is driving me insane. I think she sensed the stress in our house and it has caused her to NEVER poop on the puppy pad but instead always on the floor, have massive amounts of diarrhea, and become more destructive than ever. Her favorite thing to chew now is diapers and she'll knock the trash over to get to them. I guess I need to pick back up on the cd'ing now that I'm not traveling all over the world and can finally wash on a regular basis.

~My house looks like a tornado vomited in it. Gotta work on that Monday.

~Also need to do a menu plan on Monday. It'd be nice to make one and stick to it.

~I have big plans for this year w/ the kids. Especially while Chris is gone. Guess I need to get started on making schedules and rearranging furniture for it. I'll share when the house is ready for it all.



Ok, that's it for now. Have a good night everyone!