ANXIOUS!

As you all know, Mark is almost home! We are all very very anxious as we await this day, but we are trying to keep very busy with activities to keep our minds off of the impending time. I'm extremely relieved that we are not driving down to San Diego to pick Mark up. I had to put gas into the truck today, and although I had 1/4 of a tank left, it cost NINETY-EIGHT DOLLARS! I almost had a heart attack when I went to press the button to select the grade of gas. $4.24! WOW. Let's just say....we won't be going anywhere! I haven't put a whole lot of gas while Mark has been gone as we have been sticking close to home. I just can't believe we are paying that much for gas. It makes me want to suck it up and walk everywhere I have to go. If only that were possible.
Okay, so enough about the gas. Today was Austyn's last game and last night was Taylor's last game. They both did awesome and they have both improved. Austyn received his trophy today and was so excited about that. It was his first ever! Taylor won't be getting a trophy until Tuesday evening. We are having a dinner party at a restaurant on base to celebrate the end of the season and to say thanks to our coaches. I must say that Taylor had a phenomenal set of coaches this year. They helped Taylor improve upon his skills and techniques and they helped him along his way. They were always very positive and encouraging with the kids. There is no hope of having them as coaches again, as they are moving to Europe at the end of the week. We wish them the best.
The boys had their hair cut today. They definitely needed it. They were both starting to look a little shaggy, and now they look like well respectable military boys. lol. We also had the truck washed today and we each bought a new outfit for Mark's homecoming. I didn't realize it until now, but, my dress is red, Ryleigh's is white, Austyn will be wearing a blue and Taylor will also be wearing some red. So, we will be very patriotic and spirited. lol. Tomorrow, Ryleigh and I have a girl's day scheduled. I am going to have a Mani/pedi and Ryleigh hopefully will sit through a nail painting of her own. I really hope that she enjoys it and that she lets them do it. She loves having her nails painted and her hair brushed, so we should be good. You never know. We will also be baking cookies tomorrow, as per the request of Mark. Monday, we will be making rice krispy treats, also per the request of Mark. He doesn't say what he really wants, does he?! hahaha. And then Tuesday, he will be home!
Oh, and I have also won a ticket for us. I purchased 20 tickets for the first kiss. The first kiss ticket entitles Mark to be the first person off of his flight to have the first kiss with...yours truly! I also just found out that his flight has been bumped up 2 hours. He was and still is on the 2ND flight, but they are just leaving at the same time as the first flight. Exciting for me!
Taylor's last day of school is Thursday, and next week should be pretty relaxed for him. Tuesday they will be having a field day. For those of you who have no clue what that is, it's a day spent pretty much outdoors doing fun and silly activities. Wednesday they are having a pool party and Thursday they have an award ceremony. I'm not sure what they have planned for Monday.
Well, that pretty much covers all the bases. I just wanted to update you all as much as I could to since I most likely won't be blogging right away when Mark comes home!

Our Garden

As some of you may or may not remember, we started a garden a few months ago. It is the community garden here on the base. There are 20 plots and one of those plots is just for the children. In the children's garden there are 2 extremely hardy plants. I don't know what they are, but they won't die. Not even with the constant squashing, drudging, pulling of leaves, over watering and maybe even under watering that they undergo. Those are the kinds of plants I need!! I can't even seem to keep my palm tree alive!! Okay, so it lived for about 2 weeks before it started looking really sick. Now I am desperately trying to revive it. I think it may be too far gone. Oh well. Okay, so back to the garden. You have to sign up for a plot and if there are any available, you can have one. We were lucky enough to swing in and call that last one our own! Our old neighbors and good friends, the Villasenors took the one before us. We started out our garden with basil, parsley, carrots, green onions, broccoli, spinach and one corn seed that we took from Jessica. Sadly, the basil and parsley that I was very much looking forward too never seemed to even sprout. =o( Our broccoli took off, and now we are just waiting for some tasty little florets to pop up any day now. I love raw broccoli. Our carrots did so well. We actually just pulled them all up today....perhaps a week early, but they look pretty yummy anyway! I'll have to see if I can find a recipe that incorporates carrots into it, other than carrot cake of course. So, if there are any ideas, please, send them my way. Our green onions took forever to sprout, and now we have three meager little green onions growing. Its better than nothing, I suppose. The corn is doing well. Perhaps the most well off of any of the plants. Its red corn, and I'm sure we will start to see ears growing very soon. Then we have some very lovely plants growing that we didn't plant! I didn't want any squash, or cucumbers or anything that was going to vine out and take over my garden. Well, so much for not wanting it. We got it. lol. I'm not quite sure what it is just yet, but it looks like it may be a zucchini or a squash of some sort. And that awesome vine that I didn't want has choked out my spinach I was growing! Stinkin vine! And then we have our beloved tomato plant. I uprooted the plant and moved it to a different part of the garden in hopes that it would go into shock and die. haha. Apparently, tomato plants are very resistant, hardy and adaptable. It gave me a false sense of hope the first few days when it started to get crispy, but then a few days after that it perked up and started growing! Lovely. =o) I didn't want tomatoes because I didn't want to put an ugly cage in my garden. Well, I recently learned that tomatoes don't have to be caged or staked. They usually produce a better fruit if they are, but growing them uncaged works just as well. I have opted for the uncaged version. One, to uphold the beauty of my garden, haha (kidding..our garden is very bare...and quaint), and two because I can't seem to find the darn things anywhere I look! When I wasn't looking for them, they were everywhere I turned. Now they are hiding. Anyhow, here are some pictures of our garden from the very beginning stages to about a month ago. And then here is a picture of all of the kids and our very dirty, unwashed, just pulled carrots. Enjoy! (click the pictures to enlarge them!)

Our garden right after seeding it.

Where the Green Onion and Basil was supposed to grow...

Where the Parsley, Broccoli and Red Corn was supposed to grow.

Where the Carrots were supposed to grow...and that great big thing sticking up in the middle...yeah that would be the tomatoes I didn't plant.

Our garden, about a month in...we needed to weed...obviously.

Our carrots that our gnome was living in.

Some more carrots...that beloved squash...growing right next to the spinach, broccoli and corn.
Our carrots that we pulled up....a week too early, most likely.
PS-I'm not really a gardener, and I don't have the slightest green thumb, but I like to pretend that I know what I am doing. =o)

Its 'Dragging Ass Monday' Everyday!

In a military family, the first two weeks of deployment are always the hardest and the last two weeks are always the longest. The first two weeks are the hardest because you are struggling as a single parent, trying to find your groove. Once you are in the groove, time flies, and then you get down to those last two weeks of deployment and it seems like time moves in slow motion. For the last four months my days have disappeared into the nights and I have spent my nights wondering where the days went. My days have been filled with kids, love, tears, joy, happiness, sadness, anger, family, doubt, laughter, mistrust, friends, trust, loyalty silliness, smiles, frowns, bumps and bruises, baseball, the dog, illnesses, school for Taylor, hot sunny days, cold windy days, then hot sunny days again. The list is endless. Now that we are well into our last two weeks, time could not move any slower. Taylor and Austyn have both had baseball practice canceled this week.Once because it was too hot for the kids and again because it was far too windy, dusty and cold for them. It went from 102 degrees outside to cold and windy and not being able to play outside without inhaling millions of dust particles. So this week has been spent indoors without baseball practice; completely unlike the last four months of our lives. We have grown accustomed to life without Mark, as we always do when he leaves. I've taken on every minuscule task in the house from mowing the lawn to taking out the garbage. We've been on our own schedule and once Mark comes home that entire schedule will be completely haywire. We have to fit in another member of our family all over again. It might sound like I am complaining, but TRUST me, I'm not. I'm more than happy to fit him back into our schedules and lives. We've been without him for so long now that a few days or weeks of chaos are welcome just to get into a groove of our own....yet again for the fourth time in a year! A lot of people can not get accustomed to the lifestyle that we live, let alone understand it. Its different than our entire families' lifestyles. We are used to it, and saying goodbye for 2 or 3 months to 6 months at a time is perfectly normal to us. Its not a pleasing, or a happy time for us by any means. We are distraught and torn apart, but it doesn't mean that because Mark left our entire world comes to a standstill. So, these last two weeks are definitely full of 'dragging ass Mondays for us!' lol. But at the end of the tunnel, there is the light, the rainbow, the pot of gold, the silver lining in that cloud, the finish line or what have you. Mark will be home and it will seem as though those last two weeks flew by once he is safely back at home. We can't wait for his return and we are diligently counting down the days with as much enthusiasm as you've ever seen. Each morning we mark off another day on our calendar and we shout hooray and we yell out how many days are left. You'd think we were insane or something, but that's quite alright with us. We are pretty crazy around here sometimes! =o) And unfortunately we have decided not to make the 7 hour trek to pick him up from the ship. It would just be too chaotic and stressful. We'd rather have a quite and peaceful homecoming than one full of rushing around and driving 7 hours just to get home to sleep in our own cozy beds. But don't be too sad because we will be planning a trip down soon to visit with everyone! Mark misses you all very much as well and would like to see everyone soon!
So, while there are men and women out there sacrificing their lives and their families for your freedom, and your right to say stupid things about the military, be thankful that someone is willing to put their life on the line just for you. Sure, Mark isn't fighting on the front lines of the war, but his job is extremely dangerous and all of what he does is for this country that we all live so freely in. So when you go to bed at night and you say your prayers or when you are talking about all of the things you are thankful for, don't forget your armed forces and all of the men and women who defend your freedom, land, country and rights. You don't have to agree with the war to be supportive of our troops, and as a great old saying says, 'If you can't stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them!"
And for all of my friends whose husbands have just left or have been gone for some time now, hang in there ladies! You will get passed this and when you look back at it you will wonder what you were so afraid of. You will grow stronger than you ever thought you were, more independent than you imagined, and you will love and miss him more than anyone could ever fathom. We wish them a safe deployment as well as a safe return home...hopefully sooner or as scheduled instead of later!

My daughter...Overdramatic...Never!

HAHA! Ryleigh is now 18 months old and the terrible twos are not right around the corner. They are here, and they don't seem to be going anywhere. Her temper-tantrums that she throws these days are hysterical. I can't help but to laugh and I'm sure that makes her angry. I've tried the whole ignoring the tantrum so that she can see it won't get her anything, but sometimes they just seem to drag on. She's so dramatic too. I guess this is what happens with girls, right? Yesterday when she woke up from her nap, I greeted her with a very pleasant, "Good morning beautiful!" just like I always do. Well, apparently she didn't want to hear this because she literally collapsed onto the floor and buried her face in the carpet. I laughed. She got up a few seconds later and I asked her if she needed to go potty. Again, she collapsed onto the floor and buried her face in the carpet. I laughed some more. Another few seconds went by and we repeated the above scenario about 4 times before I finally was at my wits end and picked her up and carried her to the bathroom. When she doesn't get what she wants she usually falls to the ground and lays there like "Woe is me!" Today when I made her get out of Mark's car, she walked into the grass and then ran towards the car and banged up against the side of his car and then proceeded to hang by the door handle. I hope this is amusing to you. lol. I'm sure my mom is laughing her behind off at this one. For the most part, I seem to find the humor in her temper-tantrums that she has begun to embrace. When I laugh, I laugh quietly where she can't see or hear me. I don't want her to think that it is okay or pleasing to watch her get angry. Hopefully this little phase of hers will soon pass and she will return to being the little angel she always has been. HAHAHAHA!
PS-Her potty training is going phenomenal. She has on average, 2 accidents a day, if that. For the most part, she sleeps through nap time without peeing! She's doing awesome. We are also transitioning from a sippy to a regular big girl cup. She is not at all happy about this, but she sucks it up and gets on with her life!
Austyn is doing wonderfully. He is such a sweet and loving boy for the most part. He has his moments and is over the temper-tantrum thing. His latest thing is that he literally whines/cries every time he can't seem to get something done or if he doesn't get his way. He goes to timeout every time he does this. He always says, "I done Mommy. I done crying!" before he even makes it to timeout. He knows it drives me bananas, but he does it anyway. That's what he's supposed to do anyway, right? lol. He is absolutely loving baseball! He is getting really good at hitting the ball and fielding the ball. The season is over for him in just a couple of weeks.
Taylor is doing awesome in school. He loves it! He's in the top of his class for reading and math. He has a little bit of a hard time with his writing, but we are working on that. His latest thing is telling me to hold on. I'll ask him to do something, like feed the dog, and he'll be busy playing his psp or playing with cars or doing something he wants and his response is, "Hold on, I'm almost done with this game" Oh man, it drives me crazy! He is limited to 45 minutes a day on his psp otherwise he won't do anything else!! Boys and their toys. He is doing great with baseball. He's become an awesome hitter, and he plays a pretty good 1st base. He needs to work a little on his fielding, but he does good!
I am doing good, just holding down the fort for the most part. We spend 5 out of 7 days at the ball fields, so we keep pretty busy these days. I will definitely be thankful when the season is over so that we can get back to our regular routine. We have to eat dinner at 4PM, just to get to baseball on time on most days. We always end up eating snacks after dinner because we are all starving. lol. Mark will be home very soon, and we can not wait! We are starting to work on all of our signs and banners for his homecoming. We are all very excited to see him and will be more than please to have him home again! That's all for now.

Toilet Paper 101

Wow, I bet you never thought you'd need a lesson in 'toilet paper', of all things, huh! Well, here you have it. Let me give you your lesson. This is especially important for those that have young children, oh, I'd say within the age range of walking and 2 1/2 years old. Its also important for those caregivers of children. Today, after Austyn's baseball pictures, we came home and I cleaned up the kids and got them into their jammies. I decided to take a few minutes to throw on some comfy sweats and a t-shirt. I thought it would be just fine to step into my bedroom for about a minute and change. I've done it before so it was no big deal. That's where I went wrong...with the thinking! I turn around to walk out of my bedroom only to find that in a minute or less that my sweet, angelic, little 18 month old princess, aka Ryleigh, had literally unraveled the brand new roll of toilet paper that had just been put on the roll in the bathroom.

I learned the following things today:

1) 18 month old babies move VERY fast!

2) A roll of Charmin Toilet Paper can reach from the bathroom down the hallway all the way to the living room, back down the hallway, into my bedroom and back out into the hallway.

3) 18 month old babies think this is hilarious!

4) Big brothers also think this is funny, and tattle on their little sister.

5) Changing should be done in 30 seconds or less with the said 18 month old in full view at all times.

6) It is impossible to re-roll all of it back onto the roll, so you should just sacrifice that roll to the recycling Gods.

So, you should keep all of these things in mind when a) caring for your own children or b) caring for children other than your own.

She is fascinated with toilet paper because we use it to wipe instead of wipes when she potties. Which, by the way, potty training is going super! We recently (2 days ago) graduated from a potty chair to a potty seat! Her new potty seat is sparkly pink with princesses and crowns and flowers on it. She feels like such a big girl and I am so proud of her! YAY Ryleigh!
Enjoy the pics. I took these when I asked her to clean up the mess she made. She had picked it up in the living room and was walking the toilet paper back to the bathroom. Somehow it wasn't as easy as pulling it off the roll and taking off running! Go figure! lol