A Typical Week Here

Sunday: We finally found a church we all really like. We go to Sunday School (there are adult Bible study classes as well), then to church. The church has a traditional Baptist service and a contemporary service going at the same time but in different parts of the building, so we've go back and forth to both. We spend the afternoons hanging out, watching football, playing outside when it's nice and all that jazz.

Monday: After getting the boys to school (this is how every week day starts), I usually make the drive to base and do the weekly food shopping at the commissary. Monday evenings (okay, every other Monday evening) this kid goes to scouts:

Tuesday: Tuesday mornings I volunteer in Deacon's classroom helping out the teacher with photocopies or stapling or whatever other little chores need getting done. (I should note that as of writing this I've only gone in once as the following week was parent teacher conferences and this past Tuesday I was on Zeke's field trip.) Tuesday evenings Zeke has soccer:

(Note: soccer actually ends this week, so that's going to be lovely.)

Wednesday: Tea time! This is the day Christine and I (and now Elizabeth too) have set aside as our time to sit and chat and have tea. It's wonderful. We laugh so much and have such a great time. It's one of my favorite parts of the week. It helps to set me up for Wednesday evenings where I make dinner in the crockpot as we have to eat by 4:30 because Finn has soccer practice from 5:15-6:15:

and then Deacon has soccer practice (on a different field) from 6:30-8.

He's in the white pinny in the center of the picture. 

Josh usually goes home from work, eats what's in the crockpot, then heads to Finn's practice so he can take Finn and Zeke home and get them showered while I take Deacon to his practice. Basically, I leave the house at 5 and get home around 8:20. But they love soccer, so it's worth it.

Thursday: PWOC! It's ladies Bible study time all morning long and I love it. (Every other) Thursday evenings this one has scouts:

Friday: On Friday mornings I was going to a Bible study at the church we're attending, but the study they were doing just finished, and Finn's teacher asked if I would be willing to go in on Fridays and do a craft with the kids as one of their language arts stations (meaning I'll do the craft with all 30 kids, but only 5-6 at a time as they cycle through). Of course I would! That starts this Friday, and I'm really excited about it.

Saturday: Soccer, soccer, and more soccer, followed by football, football and more football. All soccer games are on Saturdays. Most weeks this means our entire morning and early afternoon are spent watching the boys play soccer, and we love it. They have so much fun playing, and we have so much fun watching. Even when it's pouring. After we get in from soccer and have lunch we usually spend the rest of our Saturdays as we spend our Sunday: watching football, relaxing, playing outside, and that sort of fun stuff.

As you can see, we are very busy indeed. Add to it that Josh has been traveling a bunch. And this is why I've been absent from blogging. I'm worn out. However, soccer is ending this week (yay! and also, so sad!) which will give me a little more energy to spend on things like blogging. So, get ready for some backblogging! But probably not until next week.

Before We Got Down Here

I was organizing pictures today and realized I let July go by without blogging (intentionally), but I have some fun pictures and stories to share, so here's a "dump" post on a few things that happened in July while we were between homes and what's it.

Fourth of July we went to a bbq at a friend of Josh's house. Before we left his wife gave me some dessert to take with me. We left, and all was good until we hit Route 80. As soon as my car started picking up speed, Zeke and Finn both went, "Whoa! What was THAT?!" When asked what they were talking about, they said something white went flying past and went splat on the road. I looked at Josh and said, "Where's my dessert?" I'm sure you've figured out where my dessert was. If you guessed all over Route 80 you're correct! Not only was it all over Route 80 though, it was all over the one side of my car:

Ohhh yeahhh.

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The boys did VBS (Vacation Bible School) at the same place they did it last year, and had a BLAST. They put the kids on a stage the last night to perform the songs they learned throughout the week, and that may have been a mistake. After Finn's dance recital, the kid LOVES the stage and totally rocked out all night. 

Zeke is right in front of him and Deacon is off to the left (as you look at the video) a little bit. Finn stole the show. Quite a few moms afterwards told me how much they enjoyed watching him up there, and how much fun he must be to have around.

Yes. Yes he is.

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The day after our movers finished packing us up, the fire department was on our street doing drills. They asked Josh if they could use our place for a few minutes and Josh said, "Of course!" In return, they let Finn check out any fire truck of his choosing. The fire department on Picatinny are seriously some of the coolest and nicest guys. 

We also found a frog hopping about our front yard that day. That's not a ground breaking event, but it was pretty neat.

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Josh got an award before we left. 

Finn got wigged out by the stairs we had to climb to get to the award ceremony, so he was uber cranky until I made a joke of him being in my way as I was trying to take pictures. My joke led to this happening while the ceremony was going on. 

At least Finn was happy and laughing again. Right?

*****

We also spent some time at playgrounds:

at Josh's parents' house, which means the beach:

and I got to meet my niece, Kara:

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All in all, a great month where we spent 1/3 of it in our house, 1/3 in temporary lodging and 1/3 at Josh's parents'. We had fun everywhere we went and that is pretty much July 2015 in a nutshell.

The First Week

Everything started this week: school for the boys, soccer for the boys, Bible study for me. It was great getting back into the swing of things, and I'm thinking it's going to be a really good year. I've managed to keep myself busy every morning so far, so I it hasn't completely sunk in that I'm home alone all day every day now.

So, Tuesday was the first day of school. Zeke is in 4th grade this year, Deacon is in 3rd, and Finn started KINDERGARTEN!?!

They do full day kindergarten here, so it was a bit of an adjustment for Finn. As soon as we got home from school he just lost it. He snapped at Zeke then put himself in his room. I went to check on him after he'd been up there for a few minutes and said, "Monkey, you okay?" To which he replied in the deepest, flattest voice he can do, "No. And I'll never be okay ever again." OH! This child. I had to leave so I didn't laugh in his face. Eventually he was okay, and came back down in a better mood about 45 minutes later. The subsequent days have gone better.

Tuesday was also Zeke's first day of soccer. He has a really great coach and it seems like a good group of kids. He had a blast running around and learning some new things. At one point he ran over to get a drink and said, "Soccer is SO much fun! And so is school!" And then he ran away. A dad sitting next me said, "Wow. How did you get him to like school so much?" I informed him that we're a bunch of nerds and books and math and learning are some of our favorite things. He said he was going to start sending his boys over to my house in hopes we'll rub off on them. Ha!

Wednesday Finn and Deacon have soccer. Poor Finn. Apparently someone decided the 5 year olds should have practice from 5:15-6:15 (dinnertime), games usually at noon or one (lunch/nap time), and have practice on a field that has ZERO shade. It's still hot and humid most days here, so 3 minutes into Finn's practice he was dripping sweat and ready to go home. Hopefully it'll start cooling off soon. Or rain every Wednesday from now through November 14th. (Did I say that out loud? Oops.)

After Finn's practice is Deacon's practice (at a different location). Deacon's age group had the most kids (30 something) and the least coaches (1) sign up, so their games will be a little different. I'm not sure how it'll work out, but the coach, I was told, used to coach at either the collegiate or semi-professional level, so I have faith he knows what he's doing. He does have some parent volunteers, so hopefully it'll be a fun season and Deacon won't get lost in the crowd.

Then, yesterday, PWOC started. I met some ladies, had some good food, and signed up to take a study on the books of Joshua and Judges. I'm super pumped as I love the Old Testament and history and what's it. 

Saturdays are soccer game days. I think of the 8 or 9 Saturdays they play, ONE of those weeks is a week where there aren't any time conflicts. I think there's also one Saturday where all 3 play at the same time in different locations. Yee-haw! This is going to be fun!

And that, as they say, is that. A good first week getting started and getting things underway. Zeke came out of school yesterday, gave me a hug and said, "I think this is going to be a very good school year." I think so too, and I'm looking forward to it all.

We Will Miss This School

The last day of school was today. As excited I am for summer vacation and all that it holds, I'm a little sad. Since we're moving this summer, today was the last day we will be at the school the kids have been attending here. It's been such a wonderful place to us - great teachers, a wonderful principal, and an amazing speech therapist. I'm sad to be leaving them.

On the 12th, the 3rd grade had a Flat Stanley Day where each class presented a song (or two) from (or about) different places around the world. Afterwards the kids were broken up into groups and did presentations on whichever continent they had been assigned. Zeke did a sweet weather report for Perth, Australia.

The best part was that my sister, Kirsten, was there! (She had come up to babysit for the weekend as we had a wedding and what's it to attend.)

Last week the boys had an award ceremony. They each got an award! Deacon got one for reading:

Zeke got one for math ("I killed my multiplication facts!" he said):

I'm really very proud of both of them.

Yesterday was the day for class parties, and since it was the end of the school year and he's essentially the size of most of the kids in Deacon's class, I brought Finn with me.

He just sat himself down next to Deacon, kicked off his flip flops and made himself at home, fitting right in.

And now, it's over. Take a look at my (now) 4th grader and my 3rd grader, and compare them to how they looked in the beginning of the year.

My, my, how time does fly!

I Have No Real Title For This One

In case you haven't noticed, I've been pretty bad about blogging the past year and a half to two years. Once Zeke and Deacon started going to school full time, our days have pretty much been variations of the same thing - and that's not really anything worth writing about. I've also been super lazy about dealing with my pictures, so that has also hindered any blog-worthy writing. All of this is to say that over the past few weeks I have been working on it. I have been labeling and sorting and flickr'ing pictures. I have also been back blogging post meaning I've been writing posts and back dating them for when they should have been written based on what pictures I have from when. It's...been a process.

I am happy to say that as of right now though, I have labeled and sorted all of my pictures to date. June isn't finished because, well, June itself isn't finished. But everything up through May of 2014 is finished! Not only that, but I have put on flickr all of my pictures through 2014! I have also finished back-blogging through May of 2014! I'm using exclamation points because I'm trying to keep myself excited about my progress so I'll keep working on this while I have momentum going! I really want to get it all finished before we move next month. Did I mention anywhere that we're moving next month? Mayhaps I should tweet that later?

While I've been going through past things, I've noticed a few things that I thought I'd share here while I'm just rambling anyway.

One: I never did a picture comparison of the 3 boys when Finn turned 5. So, here it is.

Zeke (41 1/2 pounds, 44 inches)

Deacon (46 pounds; 43 1/2 inches)

Finn (46 pounds; 44 1/2 inches)

Two: Deacon has gown (aged?) quite a bit in the last year. I came across this picture from last Easter and just look at that sweet "baby" face!

Look at his handsome, not-so-baby face now!

He changed that much in ONE YEAR! What?!?!

Three: I have taken WAY less pictures the past 6 months or so than I ever have. for February of 2015, I have 16 pictures. February of 2013, I have 70 pictures. March 2015 - 12 pictures. TWELVE! March 2014 - 82. One more example, April 2015 - 24 pictures. April 2013? 134! Take into consideration how much easier it is to take pictures these days since I can take them on my phone instead of lugging around my big old camera, and it's really quite the...thing, for lack of a better word.

Anyhoo. It's been fun, and tiring at the same time. I have done rather a large bit of work, yet I still have a large bit to go. Which is my way of saying I'd better get back at it before I have to get the boys from school. I've also been knitting and crocheting a BUNCH of stuff. Maybe I'll write a post about that some time soon? 

Winter Doldrums

I know I haven't posted in over a month. I'm blaming it on the weather. It's been so cold and/or snowy for so long I just haven't been able to find the motivation to sit at my computer and blog. A big part of that is the fact that my computer is stationed right next to the stairs and the cold draft that comes up the stairs has kept me at bay. Huh. I just looked down the stairs and I think there's a carrot in the lamp? 

Anyway. Because it's been so cold/snowy nothing has happened here. Which is another reason I haven't had the desire to sit down and blog. There's nothing to blog about. The boys did have a school concert last week that was ADORABLE. But I mostly took videos because I was in the way back of the gym and the pictures I did take look like this:

Each grade (K-3) wore a different color and then sang songs involving those colors. Adorable.

Mostly though it's been snow and cold, cold and snow. School and work and Bible study and chapel. Josh has also been gone, working in DC since the end of October. Sure he's come home most weekends, but I've been so worn out trying to keep up with the boys and everything else, that blogging fell by the wayside. I'm not sure when I'll get back here again, but I wanted you to know we are all still alive and doing well, even if we (read: I) are (am) getting tired of the white stuff and are SUPER ready for Spring. I mean, it's not like we're in Alaska anymore people. 

This Is My Life...With Finn

On Monday, Finn and I braved Shoprite to gather some things before Snowmageddon hit, and two Latina ladies walked past chatting. Finn looked up at me and said, "Those two were talking crazy!" I replied, "No, honey. They were talking in Spanish."

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This is a picture of someone saying, "NO!"

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I tweeted this picture already, but I love that he sleeps with books

the way most kids sleep with stuffed animals.

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As you may or may not know, Finn has a very good friend named Charlotte. Char and Finn are great fun to watch interact. Don't be surprised when they get married to each other some day. Now, because Charlotte takes dance classes Friday mornings, Finn decided HE wants to take dance classes on Friday mornings. The first time we took him, he HATED it. When Christine (Charlotte's mom) asked Finn what he thought of dance class his response was literally a growl.

"Finn, what did you think of dance class?"
"GGrrrrrrrrr."

So, we dropped it until a few weeks later when he insisted on going again and he LOVES it now. All of this is to set up part of a conversation overheard on the way home from dance this past week.

Finn: That's hurting my brain!

Charlotte: That hurts MY feelings!

Oh yes, we can hear the wedding bells already.

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He has decided to be like me and wear a scarf on occasion.

Of course, his favorite is the frilly purple one.

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He has taken to calling me "My Darling" lately. He also says "You're welcome" when he should be saying "Thank you." So, if you compliment him like, "Hey Finn, great job building that block tower!" He will respond, "You're welcome." My favorite example of both things happened the other day (week?). He had finished pooping and needed help wiping. As I was wiping his butt I said, "Wow Finn, that's a big poop!" To which he replied, "You're welcome, My Darling!"

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He's still trying to master putting on his own coat.

This happens more times than he'd probably like me to say.

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This is a picture of Finn riding on his own motorcycle.

The black splotch is his helmet. Safety first!

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Yesterday, as we were cleaning up after Bible study, I looked up and Finn was standing in the middle of the chapel, by the pews, with his pants around his knees. When I asked him what he was doing he said, "My penis keeps falling out of my underwear pants." Oh, how my friends who were still there giggled. But I fixed him up, pulled up his pants and moved on with what I was doing.

Later that evening, Finn went upstairs to get ready for bed, but then came down (to talk to Josh on the phone) with new underpants on, but he had them on backwards. I asked him if that's so his penis doesn't fall out anymore and he said yes. So then Deacon said, "But now your butt might fall out!" A look of horror flashed across Finn's face and his hand flew to his butt to check it out. He was relieved to find his button was, in fact, still fully covered.

And this is pretty much every day. I love this kid and I will be pretty sad when he goes to kindergarten next year. He really does keep things interesting and he truly makes me laugh.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Another Fall, Another Soccer Season

Soccer started again in September, and ended today. This season was extra fun because Finn was finally old enough to play as well! Since soccer is soccer, and there's much one can really say about it, here are pictures of the first day of soccer, some point during the season, and from the award ceremony at the end of the season.

First Day of School

Thursday (the 4th) was the first day of school for Zeke and Deacon. Boy, were we ready for it. My boys do get along with each other pretty well, but we needed a change of pace, and school provided just the thing.

Zeke is in 3rd grade now, and his teacher is a new teacher. She's been in the school the past few years as a classroom aide, but this is her first foray into soloing it. Deacon is in 2nd grade and he has the same teacher Zeke had for 2nd grade. We are all (teacher included) pretty excited about that. The boys seem to be making the transition from summer vacation to school year pretty seamlessly. Finn and I on the other hand...well, Friday, when we had no plans for the morning sort of sat around wondering what to do with ourselves for the day. (Answer: iPads whoo! I'm only partially kidding about that.)

This is the first full week of school. I also registered all 3 boys for soccer on base which will start in 2 weeks. Next week is the kickoff for both the evening and morning PWOC studies here. All of this means I'm about to become a very busy girl again, and I'm looking forward to it. I know it's going to be a really good year all around, and I'm excited.

And that's all the news for now!

Taking It WAY Back

After blogging the other day I put all of my pictures into folders by month, then went through each folder writing down possible blog posts based on the pictures I have. I then went through the blog (starting with May of 2013 since that's when the pictures I have left to figure out begin on my computer) and crossed off all of the posts that I've already written. Looking again now, at both the list and the blog, I feel like I've written about some of these things, but don't have any posts for them. Could things be missing? I really, seriously feel like they are. For example, I'm fairly certain I wrote a post about pumpkin picking/carving, and taking extra hay rides just for the fun of it, but there's no post on the blog about it. It could very well be that I just thought about it and planned it in my head, but never actually got around to writing and posting it. That does happen. I guess all of this is to say that when I write posts from back in the day, and it's one that you've already read, I apologize. I guess this is why I need to keep up with it a bit better. Also, I think I might do a photo dump post for each month, as I catch up on things, just because some pictures are worth sharing but not necessarily worth blogging about.

That being said, on to today's post, which is about things that happened in both May and December of 2013. Up until May 11th-ish, all 3 boys had their own bedrooms. For whatever reason Josh got it into his head that the older two needed to start sharing a room, and for whatever reason I agreed. We moved Zeke and Deacon into...um...into...into Deacon's (maybe?) bedroom.

We then moved Finn into what was Zeke's room.

After that, we turned Finn's room into the Lego room (okay, Lego/music room since Josh put his keyboard in there to play on while the boys build). Josh designed that table which his dad then built and painted. We also have a bin set up for storing the Legos now. Pretty sweet, eh?

All of this happened in May. Fast forward now to December, when the older boys got this for Christmas:

(SIGH. Apparently I don't have a picture of this so I have to upstairs and take one right now. I'm glad I made the boys make their beds today. Geez.)

One more time, fast forward now to December, when the older boys got this for Christmas:

Bunk beds!

This brings us up the current status of all sleeping arrangements within the house. We have been toying with the idea of switching some things around again (switching Zeke and Finn; putting Finn in with the other two; on days I'm super stressed out putting all of them back into their own rooms and getting rid of the Lego room) but I'm sure this is how it'll stay for our last year here.

Let's DO This Thing!

It's time for school to start again! Tomorrow, September 4th, is the first day of school for the older boys and I think it's safe to say we are all ready for it. Not that it hasn't been a great summer, because it truly has been, and I'm hoping to blog about some/most/all of it in the coming weeks. 

Actually,I'm planning on getting back into the swing of blogging things as the boys get back into the swing of school things. We shall see how it goes. Today I'm doing my best to get all of my pictures from the past year(!!!) in some sort of order to make it a bit easier for me. However, looking at the myriad of pictures I have to sort through and label and what's it, it might be a 2 or 3 day job. In other words, don't be surprised if you don't hear from me again until Monday.

Until then, here's a side-by-side from last school year. The first day of school is on the left, and the last day of school is on the right. 

It never ceases to amaze me how much they quickly they grow.