Happy Thanksgiving!!

I am posting this a little early since I am going to be out of the house for like 12-14 hours tomorrow. So, I want to wish everyone a wonderful, joyful Thanksgiving with lots of yummy food and good company. I am thankful for my wonderful family, for getting more time with the hubby this last six months, for Alex doing so well in school, for all my kids' good health, for having a roof over our heads, food on our table, and hubby having a stable job. I am thankful for all the small things and all the great things. I am thankful for silly things like the Twilight novels, and for serious things like having gotten my bachelor's degree this year. I am thankful for my whole life, it is far from perfect but I love it anyway.

So, anyway, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! What are you all thankful for?? :-)

Happy Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day. Not a day I ever really paid much attention to, but I know I should, we all should. As a teenager I was quite an outspoken protester. My Philosophy teacher in my senior year of high school called me a "pinko commie", I spent my 18th birthday at a protest down in D.C. at the Egyptian Embassy, and the first thing I did when I went away to college was join the local chapter of Amnesty International, which quickly morphed into an anti-war protest group. We had petition signings on campus and attended protests, most notably the Stop the School of the Americas protest down at Fort Benning in Georgia. I truely believed in what I was doing and was proud of my role. Then something happened that really shifted my way of thinking, I met my husband. We met online, had a whirl wind romance of about 3 months during which he proposed. The key to this? He was in the Navy stationed in Norfolk, VA. I visited his ship a few times, met his friends onboard, attended their Christmas party. And then one week after he proposed to me he suddenly came home with the news that his ship was being suddenly depolyed and was leaving in 4 days. I drove down with him and his mom to drop him off at his ship, and it still brings tears to my eyes remembering how I felt seeing him walk away from me with no idea of how long he would be gone. That was January of 2003, 3 months later in March I sat and watched the beginning of the Iraq war on tv, sick to my stomach, knowing he was over there somewhere. In the end we ended up being lucky, he was only gone 6 months, and during that time we shared many e-mails and 2 phone calls. It was November 14th 2003 that we were married (Saturday is our 6 year anniversary). In April 2004 his time was up and he decided to get out of the Navy because we wanted to start a family. But going through all that let me see into a world I had no idea about before. I saw those young men and women saying good bye to children and loved ones, going to work everyday, sometimes doing simple jobs but always in service of a greater cause. I also saw the joy and excitement the day those men and women came home, the new fathers who were let off the ship first to see their babies born while they were gone. I remember how I felt seeing him for the first time in 6 months and not knowing whether to scream or cry and probably doing both. If you ask my husband, he down plays it all, the job he did, the time he served, but he will forever be a hero in my heart, because he did a job that so few are willing to do. He stood up when others have sat down or run away. I remember feeling such pride when on our honeymoon we were having breakfast at the bed and breakfast we were staying at and a man we were eating with stoped us before we left and asked my husband if he was in the military, he said yes, and the man took his hand and said it was an honor to shake his hand and thank you for all you do.

I say all this because I think there is one lesson we all need to be sure to learn, no matter what you think about the military, where its going, who leads it, when you get down to it are the men and women who choose to serve their country. And they deserve all the honor and respect in the world. And also for those familys that give up their sons and daughters, husband and wives to this dangerous job with no certainty of their safe return. So today, take a moment and just think about those in your life who are serving or who have served and say a prayer for them and their families.

In my own life I have several Veterans, my husband who was in the Navy, my Dad who was and still is in the Navy, and my grandfather who passed away was in the Army I believe, not to mention the numerous friends we have who have served. I thank you all!!

Interesting Site

So, when I come across something interesting, I like to pass it on. I recently was surfing around the web and found a pretty cool website. It is called Underdog Laboratories. Its moto is that it "creates products and services that are better". Basically they promote some interesting business who are looking to become globally responsible, and in their blog they post about a lot of global issues (human rights and such). It is definitly something to take a look at if you are interested in that sort of thing. here is their link.

http://underdoglabs.com/about/

Halloween and other stuff

This year we had a subdued Halloween, but it was still fun. I took all three kiddos to Alex's school's fall festival last tuesday. We got hotdogs there and had fun seeing what all Alex's classmates dressed up as. There were a lot of other games and stuff there, but they were a little too 'old' for them, so after about an hour we left and came home. Then I took the kids trick-or-treating on thursday because that is when the Martinsburg Mall was doing it. The kids had a blast there! Though it was hard for Collin to get the idea that you only get one piece of candy at a time, he was upset when we went to the first place and he didn't get "lots". But other wise they were very good and got a good amount of candy.

Over the weekend Timm and I went out of town down to Roanoke, VA to visit some friends. It was a wonderful weekend, but not quite restfull, several late nights, so I feel like I need some extra sleep still. LOL.

And then today I had my first 'parent/teacher conference' with Alex's teacher. They are technically called 'home visits', but we had ours at the school. And basically Alex had to do a could of 'tests' where he had to ID some letters, write his name, and a few other things, then his teacher went over how she felt Alex was doing in school so far and all the things he has learned. Overall he is doing very very well! I am also very impressed with hsi teacher, she really seems to care a lot about each of her students and had a lot of information and pictures to share with me. I am so glad I got him into this pre-k class!!

And tomorrow Collin has his first gymnastics class at the community center. I hope he does well, I want to get him involved in more things, but he has such a stubborn streak in him it is hard to get him to cooperate sometimes. We will see!

On a side note, I also got my physically degree today in the mail. I graduated from college back in July, but hadn't gotten my acutal paper degree yet. It was definitly nice seeing my name on that piece of paper, especially after 7 years of hard work. :-)

Anyways, better get to folding some laundry. It made me feel bad when my hubby had to ask for some clean boxers this AM. I gotta get on the ball! :-P

Organization, whats that??

Ok, so anyone who knows me well, knows that I am basically a scatterbrained mess most of the time. I usually know where things are, but there is no logic to why it was placed there, and if someone else went looking for it they would probably end up in Egypt before they found it. So, I amazed even myself yesterday when I took on the task of organizing the boys' room. And not just cleaning it, but really coming up with a system for them to be able to successfully clean it on their own, and for me to retain some of my sanity at the end of everyday.

Up until now there really has been no system, and everyday around 4pm the battle of wills starts when I ask them to clean up their toys, which usually involves lots of crying, whining, pleas for "a special treat when I'm done" and other such nonsense. But, now hopefully no more!!

First I went through their room and got rid of a garbage bag worth of broken and/or unplayed with toys and ripped up books. Then it all went back into the bins in categories (cars in one, animals in another...), the bins were all labeled, puzzles where seperated out and into their own bags, and the books reorganized on the shelves. Now the way it works is each boy has their own set of bins they are responsible for every week, those are the bins they clean up at the end of every day. Their play kitchen is both of their responsibilities, but the bulk of that clean up will fall to the child with the least to pick up that day. The books are now on a 'take one at a time, unless you ask permission' policy, along with the puzzles both cardboard and wooden.

If on any day one boys refuses to pick up a bin, or if it is lazily put away (not all of it contents are picked up, or the toys are just thrown into other empty bins), that bin gets removed for the remainer of the week. If I see either one of the them with more than one book, or one puzzle out without having asked permission, then those get taken away for the remainder of that day. My only flexability comes when they are sick, or away, then I will clean up their bins for that day.

At the beginning of each new week, which will be on sundays, the boys get to pick three bins that will be their responsibility, and then I divy out the rest. I also set up 2 bins, each one has their name on it. Those are bins where they can put any special toys or treasures they have that they do not want their siblings to touch.

I am hoping this system will work out well. I have really struggled with how to divide up the responsibility of cleaning their room since they both share all their toys and have bunk beds. It isn't fair when one is being lazy and they both get punished for it. Hopefully this way things will even out and become more fair, and now the boys know exactlly what I expect from them when I say 'clean you room'. Of course there will be issues that need to be ironed out as the first week progresses, but I think I have made a good step forward.

Now I just need to see how I can get Kenzie to stop pulling out all of her socks from her drawer and stuffing them around her room. :-D

Mackenzie's Birthday Party!!

Yesterday we had Mackenzie's birthday party here at the house. We all had a great time! The kids were generally very good, and Mackenzie seemed to really get into it. Our wonderful friend Beth brought over her two sons, Alexander and Jack, so Collin and my Alex had some friends to play with, which was great. And I always have fun spending the day with my family. Kenzie got some great gifts too, lots of clothes (which is fantastic because she desperately needs some cold weather things), shoes (which Kenzie loves, she is a shoe freak), several babydolls which have kept all three kids occupied since yesterday (even the boys amazingly, they are very sweet with them, it is very cute!), and my mom made the best picture collages to hang up, one is of all three kids and in it she typed out the little songs they sing, and another one (which almost made me cry) was a picture of kenzie on one side and then on the other is a little letter my mom wrote to her and a poem that my grandmother wrote about her children around the time she had my mom, and then also two other pictures one of all three kids and another of Kenzie from her first birthday. I love stuff like that because I am horrible with printing out and framing pictures and all, and because I am a sap at heart and love personal gifts like that.

So, thank you to everyone who came out! it was a wonderful day and we all had a great time!


This is Kenzie with one of her babydolls, she just loves them! She spends all of her time pushing them around in their little strollers, and last night she even gave one of them a bath! LOL.

cupcake time!!

As an activity I let the kids decorate halloween cookies. Of course, didn't think about the fact that I was loading them with sugar!! (Sorry Beth!!LOL) But they seemed to have fun with it. What I thought was really funny is that my kids ended up covered in icing, whereas Beth's Alex was totally neat and clean the whole time. I wish I knew how to get my kids to do that!.

This is Kenzie decorating her cookie, she needed a little help from GaGa, but she seemed to have fun licking all the icing off afterwards.

And of course, this little princess herself. Those little boots she got from my dad and stepmom, and since I opened the package on friday she has not taken them off. She LOVES them!! Of course they are really like slippers, but she wants to wear them everywhere. Just too cute!

Happy Birthday Kenzie!!

This morning my little girl turned 2!! I can't believe it, she is my baby! She was born 6 weeks premature and was in the NICU for 11 days. She was a tiny 4lbs 8ozs and 18 inches long when she came home. Oddly enough she was the same weight coming home that Alex was, the difference is that that was pretty much her birth weight, where as Alex had actually doubled his. Crazy to think of them being that small. She is such a spunky, opinionated little girl, she keeps me on my toes, and she can definitly hold her own with her 2 big brothers.

So, happy birthday Kenzie!! We all love you so much!! :-)

This is Kenzie a few weeks ago

This was Kenzie at her first birthday party a year ago, what a difference a year makes!!