Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time!

This month truly flew by. As such, I have decided to finish out the year with one big post of all of our Christmas activities and festivities and the like. I hope you're ready.

December 2nd I took the boys to the post tree lighting and carol singing. Santa showed up, riding in on a fire truck.

December 7th we got, set up, and decorated our Christmas tree.

December 22nd Santa came around post, handing out candy canes to all the kids. Again, he was riding on a fire truck.

Truth be told, if I had the option, I would totally motor around town hanging out the top of a fire truck.

December 24th we made gingerbread cookies (and went to the candle light service at chapel).

December 25th was Christmas!

My dad and Karen came over around lunchtime. My mom and all them came for dinner. Josh's parents came the next day. It was great!

I Spy is fun for ALL ages. I'm just saying.

December 27th we hosted the extended family Christmas party at the community center on base. It was so much fun. The weather was mild so the kids could play outside on the playground. There was plenty of room and tables and food and family and presents. 

The day before the party I had gone to The Home Depot to buy a Christmas tree for the party. It was kind of hilarious. First, I got a great deal on a tree (a $60 tree for $10 what?!). Second, so many people were shocked and confused. Most of the people saw my Alaska license plate and figured that that explained it all. I'm not sure how, but okay. One lady walked up to me, put her hand on my arm and said, "Oh! Don't even explain it to me!" then laughed like we were besties sharing an inside joke. Oh yeah.

And now it's December 31st, New Year's Eve. As we wait for the ball to drop, and a new year to begin, I'm here posting and toasting the end of 2014. It's been a really good year. I'm praying 2015 is even better for us and for all of you reading this as well. Happy New Year's!

More Fun at the Fire House!

Last month I posted about the Fire Safety Day thing the firemen on base put on. Well, today was another fun day at the fire house. Our Bible study group collected cookies and made platters to take to the 3 gates, as well as the police department and fire department. I delivered to one of the gates, and to the fire department, and boy am I glad I did.

I waited until after school to drop off the cookies, because of lunch and naps and what's it, but also so the boys could come with me as they love the firehouse. Can I just say, our firemen are great and we had the best time. 

After letting us in to deliver the cookies, two of the firemen on duty (we'll call C and E for their last names and to make it easier for me to type these stories) took it upon themselves to show us pretty much EVERYTHING. They started with a tour of the kitchen and dining area, then it was on to the trucks.

By this time C had learned Finn's name and was not shy about calling him back from wherever he shouldn't have been whenever he was in places he shouldn't have been. They put all of the boys in one of the trucks and showed them all the buttons and gear and stuff.

C thought it would be great to have E get fully dressed up so the boys could see what it looks like. E had the even "better" idea to dress ME up in all the gear.

Awesome. I know.

After I had finished disrobing, the guys showed the boys the bottom of the pole they slide down. C asked E to demonstrate and I said, "Don't you dare volunteer me for this too!" He didn't, because normal people aren't allowed to slide down the pole. Although, E did tell me that if I sent my husband back with a pie or two they'd let HIM slide down the pole. Funny guy.

C actually demonstrated though.

Once the pole demonstration was finished, I figured we were finished too, but no! The guys took us upstairs to see the sleeping quarters and laundry room, conference room and lazy-boy room (a room with a giant tv and 12 lazy-boy recliners just lined up). The lazy-boy room was also where the top of the pole is. It was a very cool and very extensive tour, taking us a little over an hour to do. At the end they gave the boys goody bags and off we went, a happy little group. 

Thank you Picatinny Arsenal Fire Department for being so cool!

Apples, Apples, Everywhere

So, last month, when we went to the farm to go pumpkin picking, we also picked apples. We picked a little over one hundred pounds of apples to be exact. I know. What does one family do with so many apples you might be thinking? I'll tell you. We made apple sauce! 

We made gallons and gallons of apple sauce over the course of a couple of weeks, to be exact.

It was a fun "project" and one I'm sure we'll be doing for the rest of our lives now. And while we're talking about apples, I made my first ever apple pie for Thanksgiving this year!

Isn't it lovely? It tasted pretty darn good too!

And while we're talking about Thanksgiving, we spent the holiday with my dad and his family at my cousin Ann's house. It's always a really nice time there and I'm really glad we went. Thanks for having us Ann!

Molly Pitcher Me

Back in June of 2013 I was presented with the Molly Pitcher Award at the All Saints Ball.  I don't know how to put this but, I'm kind of a big deal. People know me. I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany. (That's for you, babe. Bonus points to anyone else who recognizes the quote.) Anyway! Copied right from Wikipedia, "The Honorable Order of Molly Pitcher is bestowed by the U.S. Field Artillery Association (USFAA) and the Air Defense Artillery Association (ADAA) to recognize women who have voluntarily contributed in a significant way to the improvement of the U.S. Field Artillery or Air Defense Artillery communities. The award is named after Molly Pitcher who distinguished herself during the American Revolutionary War." Here's mine:

I was going to apologize for the size of that picture, but if I make it smaller you can't really see it that well. Not that this is ideal, but it is much better. However, it is a cool thing, I was excited to get it, and I'm not sure why it took me so long to blog about it, but here I am doing it now.

Here are some other pictures from the evening, like the two of us looking fancy:

Col. Turner presenting me with the award: 

Josh having a really hard time with the medal's clasp:

Eventually I Told him to just tie it in a knot so we could all move on. I think the colonel told Josh he needs to buy me more jewelry because clearly he needs practice. I like that man.

And here is me pretending to drink the field artillery punch because a)I don't drink and 2)it is nasty, potent stuff:

And there you have it. Way to go me!

Impromptu DC

For those who don't know, Josh was tasked with a job that requires him to be in Washington, D.C. for the months of November and December. He went down this past Sunday to start his first week. This past Thursday and Friday the boys had off from school, so we loaded up the car Thursday morning and hit the road on an impromptu trip to our nation's capital.

Since Josh had to work a full day Thursday, we took our time in the morning getting going and graded to Delaware first to have lunch and spend some time with Josh's sister, Linda, and her boy, Sam. We had a really nice time, and the boys played pretty well until it was time to go and we tried to take a picture.

I really don't blame Sam. Having cousins over (especially these 3 hooligans in particular) can be very overwhelming. It's also sad when they have to go. We've been known to throw a fit or two ourselves when it's time to go.

After leaving Linda's we enjoyed a rather lovely ride down to DC. Well, the drive through Delaware was lovely. Once we got about 10 miles out from Maryland, traffic started and a major storm rolled over the area, which didn't help the traffic situation at all. Side story: at one point, after the rain had stopped, we were still in traffic that wasn't really moving, when this guy gets out of the backseat of the car he was in, yells into the passenger seat, and starts walking away from the car. Then, a second guy gets out of the passenger seat, grabs the first guy, yells at him, then essentially throws him back into the back seat of the car and gets back into the passenger seat himself. I got out of there as fast as I could.

Anyhoo! We finally made it to DC and to Josh's apartment (which resembles a hotel more than it does an apartment, but whatever). We picked up Josh, got some dinner, then did some food shopping for the apartment since Josh doesn't have his car down there. The boys were pumped to be down there and to be sharing one big room:

This set up didn't last long, and Zeke wound up sleeping in the closet (there was plenty of space and we kept the door open, don't worry). Eventually they did settle down though (once the main instigator was removed from the scene) and we all slept pretty well.

Friday Josh had to work in the morning, so I found a playground on my phone and the boys and I walked to it.

Go figure, as soon as we got to the playground, it rained a little. We played through it because 1)I didn't want to spend all morning in that little apartment with 3 energetic boys, and 2)it wasn't raining anywhere except over the playground, so I figured at some point it had to stop. Eventually it did. On the walk back home I picked up some lunch for Josh and me (delicious gyros/donors!). After lunch, Josh had to go back to work for a few minutes. Once he came back though, the touring began.

To sort of break us in I guess, we went to the zoo that afternoon. We took the metro to get there and the boys were pumped! Deacon had been talking about taking the subway around even before we left on Thursday to go down there. And no matter how many times we told him it was only called the subway in NY, he continually referred to it as such. But who cares when you're having this much fun:

 After getting off the metro and taking a wrong turn and walking a solid mile or so out of our way, we made it to the zoo, completely worn out. It's a good thing we have a future zoologist on our hands, to help get the enthusiasm back up! A lot of the animals weren't out, but the ones we did see, were great. We watched the otters and the elephants get fed, both of which were very cool. Finn found a tiny tv showing videos of the animal that was walking around behind him. Well done, son.

We did most of the zoo, and had a great time. After the zoo, it was back on the metro and back to the apartment for dinner and bed because we figured Saturday was going to be a big day. And it certainly was!

Saturday we took the metro again (yay!) and did a lot more walking. We saw so many cool things that I'm just going to throw up a bunch of pictures and label them accordingly.

 Washington Monument

 the best way to travel around DC

 at the new WW2 memorial, which was truly amazing

 Lincoln Memorial

 The White House

Air and Space Museum

There was more, but I don't want to completely overwhelm us all. I'll eventually get around to getting all of the pictures on flickr. Until then, after the grand tour Saturday morning/afternoon, we went back to the apartment, took some showers and baths, then went to some friends' house for dinner. (Thank you Vince and Heather for the food and hospitality!)

As soon as we were ready to go Sunday morning, we hit the road for home. All in all a really great trip and I'm really glad I decided to do it. So were the boys, they had so much fun they totally wore themselves out.

Carved and Etched

Apparently I never posted about last year's pumpkins. Allow me to rectify that by adding last year's stories and pictures to this year's post. It'll work out pretty well I think.

So, last year Karen took Josh and the boys apple picking at this farm called Riamede Farm. Josh (and the boys) liked it so much we went back the following weekend to do our hay riding and our pumpkin picking.

Having had such a great time last year, we decided to go back again this year. We met up with Karen and did all of our pumpkin picking, apple picking and hay riding in one beautiful afternoon.

Apparently I didn't take as many pictures this year as I did last year. I must have been too busy picking things. Like my nose. Hey-o!

With last year's pumpkins, Josh tried something new. Well, the boys' pumpkins he carved faces into like usual, but for the smaller ones we got, he used my whittling tools (like 10 years ago I had the bright idea to learn how to whittle while Josh was deployed, bought some stuff, tried it once, didn't get anywhere with it, then never tried it again) to etch pictures into them. Which, apparently I don't have a picture of. He does, I'm sure. Instead, here's a picture of the boys with their carved (and colored in Finn's case) pumpkins from last year:

Yes, they asked for bats as noses and eyes and ghosts as mouths. My kids are out of control sometimes. In fact, they asked for some of the same things again this year, but wanted spiders for eyes and whatever until I put the ka-bash on that. I said Josh could carve a spider as the design in lieu of a face, which then led to Zeke wanting a peregrine falcon and a flying gecko on his pumpkin:

Deacon decided he just wanted a straight up face, after changing his mind many times:

Finn wanted a lion. Josh didn't want to carve a lion so he did a beautiful job etching one instead: 

Eh? And because my husband is incredibly talented, he also made these pumpkins. Before I show them, these pumpkins we got at the boys' school. One Saturday they had a little "pumpkin patch" (and I use that term loosely) at the school and so we went down with Josh's parents who were visiting for the day and let the boys each get a small pumpkin. Josh had a good time getting creative with these pumpkins:

 Avengers

 S.H.I.E.L.D

 Captain America

 Thor

 The Hulk

 Black Widow

 Hawkeye

Ironman

The Avengers logo and the S.H.I.E.L.D logo are on two separate pumpkins, while the different Avengers team members' are on one pumpkin. I'm pretty impressed, and pleased, being the superhero comic book nerd that I am. And the boys, all four of them, were happy as well, and that's the important thing.