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!

Reading the Bible -- in 90 Days

The journey this last fall has taken me on has been hard. I felt like my life was crumbling and I couldn't get my hands closed tight enough to keep it from sliding through my fingers. I didn't blog through a lot of it -- mainly because I wasn't sure what I wanted to share with the entire world and what I would want to have shared once this time passed. I would like to say that we're past that time, but I will admit that that may be a bit premature. My marriage still needs work especially when facing a deployment (although, not near as much as it did), Alex's communication skills are getting worse, financial stress is still there (just thankfully to a lesser degree), and I'm still battling with my health as well.

Here's what's not premature though -- admitting that I will never be able to hold my hands together enough to keep it from all falling apart. There is evil in this world. Jesus came to defeat that evil, but until He comes back for the final time that evil will continue to work and will leave it's mark on my life. That doesn't mean, though, that I have to play the victim. I know that my Savior is willing to carry me through it. He's willing to work in me to defeat evil, but I have to give Him control. I like having control -- I crave it. But everytime I try to take control, it makes life worse for me. I was born with a sin-disease that taints my decisions. His guiding through my life isn't tainted by sin.

This fall when I went to turn it back over to my God, I realized that it was harder to do than I expected. For one, I was having a hard time letting go. And for another, I found that He was farther away than I had expected -- not that that was His fault. Not at all -- I shoulder that blame completely. I found that in turning control over to Him, I was also having to draw myself back into Him.

And it helped. Oh boy, did it help. Even in those areas that still need work -- and there's a lot of them -- I don't feel overwhelmed anymore. I don't feel like screaming, crying, and/or giving up. Instead I know that I'm supported by a gracious Savior that will carry me through the roughest of times.

Rough times are still ahead of us. "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart."

Chris deploys in 10 days. Of those 10 days, Chris works (all day -- no coming home at all) for 4 of them, I'm going to be gone for 2 of the days he works and 2 of the days he doesn't. So that leaves 4 days that I get to spend with him. That's going to be hard. Add the rest of life to the mix, and I know that that only way to keep my head above water right now is to rely on God. So this time, instead of waiting for things to get bad to to draw myself into God -- I'm starting where I'm already at and going deeper in.



Mom's Toolbox is starting on January 1st a campaign to read the entire Bible in 90 days and she's asking others to join in. It means committing approximately an hour a day for 90 days to reading the Bible. I'm so excited to join her on this journey. I'm excited to see the "big picture" again; I'm excited to see how the little details fit into the big picture; I'm excited to reread the parts I'd forgotten as well as being excited to reread my favorite stories. Most importantly, I'm excited to remember that whether I have physically have a husband by my side right now supporting me or not, that I have a husband in Christ that is the perfect support and strength. I know that with Him I can not only survive this deployment, but I can make it good. :)




If you're interested in joining this journey through the Bible, visit Mom's Toolbox. I'd be thrilled to have you doing it too so we can read, discuss it together, and hold each other accountable. :)

Alex Update

I was right in wanting Alex's to be looked at closer. He has "borderline hearing" which may be a result of his congestion (going on week #3 of a cold) or may be more serious than that. We won't know until the congestion clears up and are hoping that that's the case by February as we have another hearing test scheduled for then. Both the doctor and audiologist agreed that he needed to at least be evaluated for speech therapy as he's very difficult to understand and much louder than necessary.

Also, because he snores and has this constant congestion, the doctor is worried that his adenoids are enlarged, so we'll be checking those in February as well. If they are enlarged, we may discuss removal of them.


In the meantime, I spent this afternoon chasing phone numbers trying to figure out who I'm supposed to really be talking to about Alex being evaluated for speech therapy. If it happens, I won't be upset as it means that we're that means that we're that much closer to losing frustrations -- and it certainly can't hurt anything. If the hearing problems AREN'T caused by his congestion and there is obviously no fluid on his ears right now, then I'm not sure where we go from there. One step at a time I suppose.

Here's Hoping

That today is better than yesterday. Yesterday wasn't bad, per-sea, but it ended up w/ me being exhausted, not everything done that needed to be done, and kids being so tired that they didn't sleep well.

My brother Micah is getting married in 12 days. ♥ I love him and his bride to be, Janice, very very much and have been blessed with being asked for both Kairi and I to be in the wedding. Kairi's the flower girl and I had promised that I would supply her dress knowing how tight things can get in a wedding. Between finances being super tight, sickness, trip to Texas, and more sickness, I JUST got to go looking for her dress though. And we spent 5 hours at the mall looking. Oh my goodness, it was a nightmare. Thankfully Chris had Alex and they got to spend most of their day together and it was a good time for the, leaving me to just deal with one child at the mall, but it was still hard. And not only dealing w/ her at the mall for 5 hours, but then having to reexplain to every single cashier, older person, and the little "elves" running around the mall that we don't do Santa in our house so please don't bring him up (not to mention that Santa is parked in front of Sears, the store that we had to go through in order to get anywhere) ... it got old fast.

Browsing through the dresses with Kairi was fun, at first, though. She kept finding random dresses and going "Dis is what we want Mommy. Dis one will work. See Mommy? It's so pretty. Dis is de one. Let's buy it!" Not one of those dresses would have worked though. LOL We did eventually find her a dress. It's gorgeous and technically 2 sizes too big, but it will brush the floor and be pretty. My mom is going to make her a wrap to go with it as it's sleeveless and the wedding is outdoors (in December!).

We also, though, found hats. The Dillards at this mall isn't your normal Dillards. They call it a clearance center and basically any thing that doesn't get sold through other seasons, goes there on majorly reduced prices. While trying to find a dress that would work, Kairi spotted something. "MOMMY! DERE'S MY HATS! MY GARDEN HATS!" Garden hats??? I looked over and saw what she was talking about little girl Easter hats with pretty ribbons. She ran over before I had the chance to tell her not right now and started jamming as many on her head as she could. If I had let her, we would have walked out of the store with at least 5 hats. I made her narrow it down to 3. At $3/hat, I didn't think that that was bad, and she was sooo excited about them. It did teach me, though, that I need to get Alex a cowboy hat. He's been running around putting on the Easter hats (and Kairi's one pink cowboy hat) and shouting YEEHAW! It's adorable, but driving Chris insane. I keep hearing "YEEHAW!" "Alex, that's a girls' hat, take it off!" "No Daddy! YEEHAW! MINE!" lmbo...


Speaking of Alex, I need to get him ready. We have an ENT appointment this morning. I'm going to insist that someone listen to what I'm saying about his speech. It's driving me insane. He's not getting better. I can barely understand him. Kairi translates for us 90% of the time. And it's frustrating for Mommy, frustrating for Alex, and a general mess.

A New "Diet"

Chris has battled kidney stones for a while. They hit unexpectedly and always at the worst moment. Days before Kairi was born. At 2am of the first night we were able to get a little bit of sleep for the first time in several nights because of sick kids. The morning we're supposed to be getting on a plane and heading to Texas for Chris' first vacation in 2 years. Always at horrible times.

A few months ago he saw a urologist who offered us some hope. He ran some tests and said that he would be able to determine the type of kidney stone Chris was having and that there was a possibility of being able to treat him for the kidney stones and make them at least slow down if not completely stop. Friday morning Chris had the follow up appointment. I was anxious to hear what the verdict was -- trying to be hopeful that it would be easy to deal with and not something to worry about (as depending on the type of kidney stone, it could be an indication of a kidney disease).

The final word is that his kidney stones are made up of calcium-oxalate, the most common kind of kidney stone, and the least concerning. Which is good, for the most part... nothing serious is related to these stones so it's not a real indication of anything really being wrong. What it also means, though, is that there's not a truly "easy" treatment. We're having to adjust his diet. I was definitely not opposed to doing so, but seeing the list of good vs bad foods for his diet has left me floundering. He's supposed to avoid excessive animal proteins, foods high in carbs esp whole wheat foods (there goes bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice), and anything that's considered to be high in oxalates. The oxalate list contains things such as black pepper, beans (of any sort including green beans), berries, parsley, tomatoes and all tomato products (yikes!), and on and on the list grows. Let me just say, this will take some getting used to. I feel a little selfish but am just a tiny bit glad that I only have to make this work for the next 2 1/2 weeks, then I get to go back to cooking normally. I just have to figure this out for when he gets back home.....

I don't even know where to start

We made it to Texas for Chris' pre-deployment leave. It was great to spend time with family and friends. There were too many cute moments to list w/ the kids and too many fun times with family to explain. I would detail it in pictures, but the camera battery died before I had a chance to take pictures.

There was one cute moment that I can't help but tell about Kairi. Earlier that evening I got onto her for screaming out of the van's window at me and when I got inside the van she went on and on and on about how she was just trying to tell me that my phone was ringing. I recounted the incident to Chris about 5 minutes later and told him that I apparently broke her heart when she was just trying to help me. She quickly interjected into our conversation ''My heart's not broke Mommy! It can't be broke! I need it!'' ♥




Other than that we're simply counting down the days till Chris leaves. It's like 21 days or so, which breaks my heart.

Of course we're going through the stages of preparing for deployment which involves more arguing that we'd like right now. But at the same time we're trying to desperately savor each moment together. Such a hard balance to find ... between enjoying each moment together and trying to find a separate spot for each of us as we know that before long we're going to have to stand on our own in our own worlds. There are the moments when I want nothing more than for him to just be gone already, and then moments later I'm bawling at the thought of him leaving.
Emotional train wreck = me




We've started talking to Kairi about Chris' upcoming deployment. Which of course means that we're talking to Alex about it too, but he doesn't understand nearly as much as she does. In trying to bolster her connection and faith in her daddy, we're telling Kairi that Daddy is going to go fight the bad guys so that he can keep her safe -- he's protecting us from them because he's a good daddy and loves us very much. I was never truly comfortable with the idea of telling her that Daddy is fighting bad guys because 1) I didn't want to have to talk about there being bad guys at this young of an age as right now everyone is a potential friend in her mind and I love her feeling safe and secure and 2) because she already goes around ''hi-YA-ing'' random things, I didn't want to give her any reason where it might actually happen. Not only that, but she always has such a hard time understanding that there are true bad guys on shows. We were watching Snow White the other day and while she knew that the Witch did bad things, she still didn't believe that the Witch was truly bad and didn't want to the Witch to be hurt. She just doesn't understand it. And I'm not ready for her to understand it. But if I just told her that Daddy was going to work she wouldn't understand as Daddy always comes home within a day or two of working. I was also worried that once he's back that she'd think he was leaving for months at a time every time he left for work. She has extreme separation anxiety as it is, I am hoping that the idea that Daddy is keeping her safe will help it not become as severe as it could become in the next few months. But be prepared for me to post over and over again about the horrors that separation anxiety causes my daughter to commit. lol



Since coming home we have lived in the house of sick. I have asthmatic bronchitis and the kids are pouring snot from their noses and goop from their eyes. If they had a fever or cough I'd run them to the dr, but as it's just tons and tons and tons of drainage, I'm trying to wait it out. The question comes to when have I waited long enough? Alex has had goopy crusty eyes for over 1 1/2 weeks now. Decisions decisions...



I have 2 million things to do right now but being sick keeps me from being able to concentrate on things. I should make myself a list tomorrow for things to start on Monday and tick them off one by one to make sure it all gets done.



Oh! How could I forget? We flew out to Texas, but drove home. We were given my grandfather's van. It's a 2002 but with only 37k miles! It's so very nice and perfect for our family. This is great for us as it means that we're going to be able to sell the car and get a huge break in our finances. I love seeing things start to ease up for us. :)

I took a break

I took a blogging break. A much needed blogging break. I thought that I was going to start up again when I posted the little note about the oven door, but things suddenly got worse instead of better. But now that we're on the upward swing, and on the count down to deployment, I'm going to try to pick it back up. So if it feels like I've avoided you or your blog, rest assured that it had nothing to do with you. Just needed to get somethings worked out is all.


At some point I may try to summarize the past month but that point probably isn't today. Instead, let me tell you about the next couple of months for us.

Chris left Sunday morning to go underway for just over 2 weeks. He'll be home (and on leave!) on the 23rd. On the 24th we're going to go see New Moon in theaters. Still looking for a babysitter for that -- so if you're available sometime that day, let me know! lol We're flying out on the 25th to Midland. I'm excited that we're headed to Midland this time instead of Longview as my parents haven't seen Chris since before his LAST deployment! That's over 2 years! My mom jokes that she won't be able to recognize him when we get there. We have a lot of people we need to see in a very short period of time. We'll take that Saturday to drive up to Lubbock to see Chris' brother and sister-in-law to see their new baby. Chris' parents will meet us there and and we'll do Thanksgiving/Christmas with all of them. We have to be back here by the 7th, so we don't have a lot of time to fit it everyone ... but we're going to try!

Then Chris starts having duty every 3 days. I hate it when there's that much duty time, it's like he's gone before he's really gone. And his final duty day is the day before he deploys, so really, our goodbyes will have to be said 2 days before his deployment. Two days doesn't usually sound like a lot, but when it's the last few moments you'll get before your husband leaves for war ... that seems like an eternity. Not to mention that we're already losing two days so that Kairi and I can be in my brothers' wedding on the 28th -- which I'm not willing to give up -- but still. It seems like more and more time is being cut into and it makes me sad.


Needless to say, the next two months will be rushed and fly by ... which parts of me are ok with that ... the sooner he leaves the sooner he's back. But part of me wishes that time would just stop moving for a while.


In the meantime, I'm making plans for what we'll do once he goes. I'm not moving back to Texas during that time (obviously as we JUST moved into the condo) so I need to have a plan of action. So far that involves working on teaching Kairi to read (she REALLY wants to learn), music lessons for the kids, possibly getting them into a marshal arts class as well, losing weight (as is the ever constant battle), and selling more Mary Kay to help afford the extra things. If I can keep us busy enough, the time should pass more quickly, and hopefully with less fits.

So that's what our future looks like. You'll notice on the top right there's a countdown for the days until Chris' deployment. If nothing else, it serves as a reminded of how important it is to cherish the few moments we have left.

The latest in our string of calamities

If you've friended Chris on Facebook then you might have seen his Facebook status Saturday evening.

Christopher Pyle found out that glass oven doors shatter into pretty little pieces. FML.

Yes, my husband shattered our oven glass door. He was carrying a wet cast iron skillet when it slipped out of his hand and bounced off his leg and through the door.







I just got a call from the condo office -- I have to pay $100 to have it replaced. Fun. UGH

Our Morning Adventure

It's been a rough morning. Kids acting out. Knee hurting. And then this:




See his head? He fell and busted it open on a plastic bin he stole from of my room. He got himself directly under the cut from his run in with the tv stand this summer.

It led to a good photo opp though. Here's the rest:







This one was completely blacked out, so excuse the grainyness now.











Which reminds me, I never got hair cut pictures up!

Last week Chris and I took Alex for another haircut. It'd been a while:






He came out looking like this:






Doesn't he look older and more grown up?