Gavin's first stitches

Wednesday night is trash night, and while Gavin was helping me take the recycle out to the end of the street a box fell and, of course, Gavin stepped on a broken piece of glass. Why he (and I) weren't wearing shoes? I don't know, maybe it's because neither of us had stepped on glass and gotten stitches before.


This is Gavin's X-Ray experience:
A very crowded waiting area, ideally named "fast track". Again, lucky for Gav that I actually had some cash in my wallet for some comfort food.
About 2 1/2 hours into the fast track waiting room I gave Gavin my "magic" sunglasses to help him sleep, and also a chart of the Presidents of the United States for him to memorize. (Man, that purse holds everything!)
Finally the big moment had arrived, and the news was two stitches, and a Popsicle.
Gavin did very well for a 7 year old. And of course he couldn't wait to tell all of his friends.

Skydiving

For Mothers Day, my dear sweet husband told me to go jump off a plane... and he gave me a gift card to Raeford Jump so that I could. lol.
 The weather was nice with beautiful clouds, my tandem instructor, Chris, and I went up in the plane with a bunch of other crazies including our camera guy.


So very scary to know that we just left the plane, and then look up to see it.

We got to free fall for about 60 secs, though it felt like 10 mins.

Our beautiful landing, it went pretty well.

I am very happy to cross another thing off of my bucket list. But even more happy to be safe on the ground!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

One of the things I really want to teach my children is that food does not come from the grocery store. We really want them to understand that food is grown from the Earth and that we must take care of the world so it can take care of us. So we started a garden (mostly) from seeds. As of right now things are really starting to take off. We have already picked and eaten a few green beans, and we have one tomato growing on the vine.

From the left sunflower, bushes, corn, green beans, gladiola, pumpkin. After the sidewalk tomatoes in pots, a coconut tree from gramma Sylvia, California poppies, jalapenos, squash, watermelon, more tomatoes, more sunflowers and cantaloupe.

Our lone tomato. (so far)

Lily standing next to one of our sunflowers. (grown from a seed!)

Pizza Saturday

We decided to make "home-made" pizza's today. Lily is finally old enough to be a helper in the kitchen, and Gavin is already a professional cook (Dean is already a professional food eater).

Gavin chopped olives, Lily ate the remaining olives.

Dean was the quality control manager. He made sure all of the pizza's were up to his high standards.

When I suggested that we add some jalapenos, this is the look I was given. (below)

A new Weekly tradition that everyone enjoys. Much cheaper than ordering in, and a lot funner.

Child Labor Laws

Lily loves the Flip Fold. Don't call "the man" on me, but I let my kiddos do a little housework now and then. It's good for them to emulate the things that their parents do, its good for them to learn how to do chores, and its also good to have an extra set of (little) hands helping around the house. This video was recorded about 2 or 3 months ago, when I purchased a little folding tool to help in my daily chores.

Lily loves to fold, Dean loves to take Tupperware out of cupboards - and then put them back, and Gavin is over the whole chore thing unless he is earning his allowance.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy day after Mothers day. If you all were wondering, we had a very quiet and peaceful day. The kids cleaned up the house and made breakfast while I went on a 7 mile run. Gavin made a sweet little place mat at school, and Lily planted a flower for me. We went downtown just to walk around and get some ice cream. We discovered that the airborne museum had already put up memorial day flags for fallen soldiers. A beautiful reminder of the price of freedom, and also a great photo op.

Soldier for a Day

On Friday, I participated in the annual Fort Bragg spouses' "Soldier for a Day".  At 0800 we had formation and got down to business with a half hour of PT (physical training). Our platoon's Sergeant was... how do I put this... very into the spirit of things and after the first 45 mins of arriving we were already sweaty and covered in dirt. It was awesome.
This is our "before" pic.






One of the main reasons why I wanted to participate in this day was that we were given the opportunity to jump out of the 34 foot jump tower, simulating jumping out of an airplane. The reason the tower is 34 feet, and not 31 or 56 is that, studies show, a person's fear of heights kicks in at 34 feet. It is the "magic number" to make sure you get the full effect of being so high.
So here is the pic of me in the middle of my jump.











It was so much fun that I just can not wait to go skydiving!



We also got to "shoot" weapons. A simulated computer screen with modified M16s. Very loud and very real feeling. Oh, and even though it was my very first time "shooting", apparently I am an expert. Lethal me, watch out.






Here is a little video of how loud and "real" our range shooting was.








Any respectable soldier cannot come home from the day without a little dirt on their uniform. I knew Brandon would not let me live it down if I didn't really get into the spirit. So here I am crawling about 40 feet in North Carolina's clay dirt, under rusty barbed wire.






It really was much harder than it looked. I even got some "battle wounds".














At the end of the day, all of the ladies and I were beat up, sweaty and smiling. Good times.







We even received "coins" and a little certificate for our efforts. All in all the ladies and I had a great time, and I can say that I did more push ups than I had ever done in my life! Great time, very sore after. I will definitely do it again next year ( if we are still here).

Teacher Appreciation Week / National No Homework Day

Today is "National No Homework Day" at least according to Gavin's school. (no Audrey I didn't make this one up!) It is also Teacher Appreciation Week, so instead of doing the normal Wednesday homework, Gavin made a cute Thank You card for his teacher, Mrs. Swann.







Very creative and very 'swan' like. Gavin is such a creative man! What an artist!










The card reads "Thanks for being a great teacher! I like to learn!






And though it is National No Homework Day, I had to break the rules and get to work anyway. Dean told me that he was very interested in accounting and that one day he would like to be a CPA as well. I showed him just how fascinating 'debits and credits' can be. We are two nerds in a pod.


Meanwhile, Lily is napping after a long day of potty training.

Teething -- Again

Dean is now 16 months old, and he is "Momma's Boy". He is the baby of the family, and don't get me wrong he is all boy; Dean loves to play rough, throw around the ball, make loud noises and huge messes. But when it comes to soothing Dean, there is no special blankee or stuffed toy--just me. It can be a little frustrating, but honestly, I LOVE being the only one who can make my little one feel better.







Not teething rings, ice, baby tylenol or motrin. Teething tablets, or frozen wash cloths don't work.

Until we discovered Dean's new favorite thing. The vacuum. Crazy, especially because Lily's biggest fear is the vacuum.

Too Funny! It takes soooo lonnngggg to do one little household chore because Dean wants to play with the cords and help me push, and then on the other hand Lily is scared and wants to hide under a blankee. But hey, whatever can calm an irritated baby is ok by me. I just really never thought I would be replaced--and by a vacuum none the less--weird.

IN THE BEGINING..

Welcome to my new blog/page/thingy. (To be technical)



I hope you all will enjoy, and I will try to entertain/inform at least once a week.

Lets start with a kiddo pic.--------->






It's a little blurry but the story is that Gavin and Lily got time outs and Dean-o thinks it is one of the funnest games ever. He especially loves it when I use my serious mom voice. Hilarious!





Gramma Sylvia came for a small visit this week and how amazing it was! She was only able to stay for a short time, and then on to my sisters' family in Virginia Beach. The kiddos were very excited about being so terribly spoiled. Gramma decided that Chuckie Cheese's was the place to be, and my children fell even more in love with her!





For most of the visit we stayed on a normal routine of taking walks, playing at the park, and so on.



We watched GhostBusters

And had a blast at the CC's.

I will have to write more later, just setting up this page took much more out of me than I thought it would! Now all I have to do is figure out how to share my page with you all...