Fresh as a Daisy

This is a little story written by Flash, age 7. Spelling and grammar is as she wrote it.

Just as everyone sat adown at the table for thanks giving dinner, the turkey talked like a cowbow and said my name is Bretty! Then he jumped on Tori’s head and said Bobby is crazy! Next he jumped on the ceiling and said Tori is nice. The turkey chased our cat and said I’m the surperhero turkey in the whole world! A rabbit came in the house and the turkey ran after the rabbit and the turkey kept the rabbit to be it’s pet. I tried to catch the turkey but the turkey ran in the bathroom brushed his teeth. Then he ran in the window and accidently ran in to the bird. The bird was scared of the turkey. Then the turkey had a birthday party and he said it’s my birthday! Next he went shopping. The turkey thought about us so he went to our house. Then we ate him.

Now, really.  Are you surprised we have iphones?  If you are at all familiar with my husband, Pinwheels, you will know he is technologically savvy.  On top of that he is an Apple/Macintosh fanatic.  Put those two together and we were bound to get the new iphone.  Since we knew deployment was looming in the near future we got them sooner rather than later.  I get teased by one friend that it does everything…everything but answer the phone.  lol  It really is great.  You can check the weather, text your sweetie, surf the internet, listen to itunes, take notes, and even watch youtube videos.  You can even use it as an alarm clock or a timer.  There are still several other buttons and options I can’t remember off the top of my head but I’m sure they’re very useful.  You should head to your nearest Apple store or just go online to the Apple website and watch the video.  It really is amazing what the iphone is capable of.

It has come earlier than we expected but it has come.  Pinwheels has received notification he is leaving for deployment before the year is out.  A few details are different this time:  this time is longer and in a different country.  One thing that is the same:  looks like Pinwheels will miss Christmas.  It’s not ideal but that’s sometimes how things go in the military.  Another thing that will be the same?  We will pray for him every day he is gone.

We had a great summer, a busy summer, but a great one.

June:  We went a little crazy and bought a house.  We signed the contract and 15 hours later we went on vacation.  We spent nearly a week with Pinhweels’ side of the family including two days on a lake in a houseboat.  We had a ski boat, a paddle boat, a small kayak, fishing poles and lots of fun.  We even borrowed some training skis for kids and both Flash and Peanut were up and skiing on the first try.  It also turned out to be their only try since a storm moved in quickly.

July:  We had a family reunion for my side of the family and enjoyed playing a game of softball, volleyball and eating.  Eating is the best part of this reunion, especially breakfast.  Pinwheels enjoys helping make 12 dozen eggs, 11 pounds of bacon, biscuits galore and all the gravy you could want, along with several other breakfast staples.

August:  We moved into our new home.  We had the help of both sets of parents and moving from one house to the other only miles apart was fairly easy and painless.  We had to do some priming of two of the rooms in the old house but had someone come in to clean.  It was tiring but extremely worth it.

I have been keeping Pinwheels to myself.  He arrived home safely almost a month ago now and I have been mean and not shared his return with you.  He arrived home a day late and rested so we had a great time taking him to lunch.  We spent a few days just being a family and then we promoted Pinwheels to Major 4 days after he got home.  It was a crazy time but he got to spend time with family and friends he hadn’t seen in quite awhile.

He’s now back at work and getting back into the swing of things.  We are glad he is home and are grateful and thankful for your prayers while he was gone.

Earlier this week an Amber Alert went out for a 13 year-old boy who disappeared soon after he got off the school bus.
There were some reports of a vehicle so descriptions of it went out also.  Fast forward to yesterday, Friday the 12th, where police went to a home on an unrelated warrant, saw the vehicle in question, and found not one missing boy, but two!  They found the boy who went missing Monday and they found a boy who had been missing for 4 years!  Both boys seem unharmed and healthy although I’m sure there will be some psychological issues after they return home.

To find them alive and uninjured is just amazing.  It truly is a miracle and a blessing.  Welcome home, boys.

If you live outside of the pink “bean” consider yourself blessed. For those of us who live inside the bean…here we go again.

Pinwheels has less than 3 weeks to go in the desert. 4 months is a long time and it’s almost over. Yay!

Peanut asked me every day for a week after Christmas if we were getting Daddy the following day. We finally made paper chains so we can keep track of the days left. At this time we don’t have a specific arrival date so we added a couple of extra links, just in case. When we know we will correct the chain.

It’s been sweet to watch both kids attach themselves to something of Pinwheels while he’s been gone. Peanut had already been using Pinwheels’ magic pillow (or quillow as some people call it) on his bed as his blanket. Now that Pinwheels is deployed it’s a must for bedtime. Flash has been sleeping with a homemade elephant named Winky from Pinwheels’ childhood. A small way to be connected to Daddy when separated by many miles.

We’re almost there.

Yesterday I moved our artificial Christmas tree from one room of the house to another room.  I’m sure you’re wondering why I still have my Christmas tree up unless you know Pinwheels is not here.  We are keeping our tree up so Pinwheels can see it when he gets home.  Plus, his gifts are stacked under the tree.

First, I had to figure out which way to go.  Our house is a wide, shallow rectangle with a wide shallow living space in the front of the house with a similar living space at the back of the house.  The shortest route from the front of the house to the back is through the kitchen.  However, one of the doorways was much smaller than if I trekked the tree around through the other doorways and added 3 times as much distance.  The long way was not my ideal route but I hoped I would lose less ornaments that way.

The first time I picked up the tree I had my hands in the wrong spots and pulled the top 2/3 of the tree off the bottom.  When trying to put it back I managed to pull 2 branches out of their spots.  Finally I got the tree back together and into its new location without much ado.

The only ornament casualty was a glass ball which fell off at the beginning and Peanut accidentally backed over it.  I’m just thankful it wasn’t an ornament we had inherited.

Peanut brought me two pieces of race car track today because he was having trouble snapping them together.  His belief?

“These things hate me.”

LOL.  Oh, the drama of a 5 year old.

Peanut turned 5 today.  He is cute, funny, sweet, adorable, and not always agreeable or obedient but boy do I love him.

This morning I woke up to two kids or monkeys, as I like to call them, in my bed.  They started to talk and whisper to each other before the alarm went off.  That’s a no-no so I told them one of them would have to go back to his/her own bed.  Peanut piped up with “not the birthday boy” in a very matter of fact voice.  Quite cute.

Later I broke his heart because I was making him go to school on his birthday.  He thought he was getting the day off but Mommy ruined his plans.  We took birthday doughnuts to school and he got to wear a birthday crown so the day turned out rather well.

I love my babies and enjoy watching them grow.  Happy birthday sweet Peanut.

Peanut just giggled in his sleep.  It wasn’t very long but it was cute.  Makes me wonder what he’s dreaming about.  When we pray with him at bedtime we always pray for happy dreams and he likes for us to be specific.  Tonight’s request was for looking at Christmas lights (which we did this evening), hot chocolate, and playing with his cousins, aunts, and uncles.

I don’t know what he was dreaming about but at least he was happy.

I think it’s about time I started signing my Christmas cards, don’t you?  I have quite a few I’d like to send out but I’m not expecting many myself this year?  Why, you ask? Because I was a complete goof when I moved here and completely forgot to send change of address cards to my friends.  Just a big brain freeze.  I didn’t remember until the Christmas season ran over me.  I guess there’s always email.

I love Christmas, really I do.  I just wish I was better at being prepared for it.  Well, I get a little better every year so there is hope.  Yay.

Or so it seems anyway. Of course, there is the usual shopping for Christmas gifts which is actually moving at a smooth pace. It would just be nice if I still had more than 10 days to finish.

And then there is the shopping where if you don’t buy some clothes you will be wearing the same outfit every day because you have nothing else.

I’ve been doing lots of both shopping and both have been tiring but I know it will be worth it.

This morning Flash was telling me all about the toys she wants for Christmas, and there were a lot of them. I told her that she would not be getting all of the things she was talking about and she wanted to know why.

Mom: Flash, we are not getting you all of those toys.

Flash: Why not?

Mom: Because we’re not rich. If you want all those toys you’ll have to go and find you some rich parents.

Flash: I don’t want to find rich people. That means I’ll be stupid.

Now, I don’t believe I’ve ever made any comments to connect rich people with stupidity so I am curious as to how she came to that conclusion. I was too dumbfounded and trying to find paper and pencil to write it down for blogging I didn’t ask her why she thought that. It’s an interesting assumption but I doubt it’s true on the whole…I hope.

I think there’s so much sleet and ice that the trees are starting to crack, literally, under the pressure. Twice now I’ve heard loud cracks of noise out in the darkness. It wasn’t until the second time that I realized it is probably tree branches breaking under the weight of the constant falling sleet.

Update:  It’s not a guess anymore.  A large tree branch came down just across the street right after the cracking sounds.  I expect a lot of trees will be missing branches come morning.

It is nasty outside.  We’ve had sleeting rain for most of the day here in the St. Louis area and it’s supposed to keep going for most of the night.  I do believe it is to turn into snow at some point but until then it is dangerous to be outside.  The weather channel said we would get 1-3 inches of sleet/ice by midnight.  The other bus stop moms and I are really hoping that school is cancelled tomorrow.

Since this is the weather for it, I’m off to drink hot chocolate.  I’m staying indoors and I hope you are too.

Pinwheels has hit the halfway mark of his deployment.  Less than 70 days to go.

Yay!

Sorry for the nonexistent posting. You know it’s bad when your deployed spouse is blogging intermittently and it’s more blogging than you do. So, I will try to do better.

The last 2 weeks we have been sick. The kids got sick first and then I got sick. Well, I started to feel bad when they did but would not take medicine at night so that I could take care of them when they got up. So, I have been sick longer since I didn’t take much medicine in the beginning. Today, I finally got antibiotics and antihistamines for a probable sinus infection.

Since we had Veterans Day off from school we took a road trip. We headed to Pinwheels’ parents house for the weekend and had a fabulous time, even with me drugged up most of the weekend. We had such a good time that on the morning we were to leave Peanut put his fists down by his side and said in a firm voice, “I don’t want to go.” I knew how he felt but tried to make things better by reminding him we would be back in less than 2 weeks for Thanksgiving.

Pinwheels is doing well in the desert and in a few days will be halfway finished. He’s been gone for 2 months now. Some days are easy and some days are beyond difficult. We are sleeping well although at times my brain begins to imagine all sorts of things making sleep come later than it should. Prayer and faith keep me going as well as my dear family and good friends.

I’m sure there are other things I could tell you but I can’t think of them right now. And who knows if you’d like to hear them anyway.

One day at a time. And I’ll try to involve you along the way. Thanks.

Wooohooo!

It’s good to be home!

I’m looking at a mail order catalog. I have found long plaid skirt, short sleeve sweater, and matching blazer I am kind of interested in. The makes no sense part? You can get the skirt and the blazer in petite but not the sweater. I understand buying the 3 pieces separately. I do, not a problem. Don’t put them on the model together if you can’t get them in all sizes.  Unfortuntely, this isn’t the first time I’ve noticed this from this company.  Guess I won’t be buying anything from them.
Grrr.

In June the kids and I traveled to Kansas for my nephew’s first birthday. The invitation read like this:

You’re invited to a sheep party

In honor of J’s favorite word

(It’s what a sheep says)

In case you haven’t heard

Please come to J’s

1st Birthday Baaaaaash!!

Grazing begins @5pm on June *

At the H pasture

Wool hope to see you there!

It will be shear fun!

Heard at our house yesterday after another discussion where Flash was right and Mommy was wrong (according to Flash).

Mommy:  Nothing I say is ever right with you.

Flash:  (patting my arm and with a sweet voice)  But I still love you.

Peanut: Nona, can I have goat milk?

And then? He drank it. lol Who knew?

The high yesterday was 65 degrees.  That’s not too bad until you think of the low for the day.  I think it was in the 40’s.  Brrr.

According to Peanut, “If you don’t eat you will shrink into a skeleton.”

True. It just takes a very long time.  I just found out he heard it on a video he was watching.  I thought he had come up with it on his own.  It’s still cute.

Michael’s the store, that is. Flash attended a birthday party today and it was held at Michael’s. I was surprised but realized it was a pretty neat idea. They made a craft and had cake. They made a gumball machine look-alike. The kids painted a ceramic flower pot including a tray and then they glued a small glass bowl (like a fish bowl) to the bottom of the flower pot. Then they put the tray upside down on the top of the bowl. It turned out really cute.

I received a phone call from Pinwheels at lunchtime today. He has made it safely to his final destination. He arrived yesterday to find his boss (and friend) waiting for him. He already had a tent assigned where he sleeps and the food at the chow hall is very good. He has yet to start work but it sounds like he will be busy. He had a good night’s sleep and is in good spirits.

Pinwheels left for his deployment on Monday morning. The kids enjoyed the ride on the train to the airport and they had fun looking at the airplanes but they don’t understand the complexity or dangers or what their dad is going to do. They just know he’s going to the desert to go to work. I think it’s better for them that way. They can play and sleep and go about their lives without knowing that daddy is in a scary place. I know that and that’s enough. We’ll just take it a day at a time until he comes home.

Well, I survived my cold last week just in time to finish cleaning up the house for our big weekend.  Last Saturday we had a We wish you well party for Pinwheels and on Sunday we had a small family reunion lunch and Bocci ball playing.  On Monday most of our family returned home.  My mother-in-law stayed here and Pinwheels and I spent 2 nights in St. Louis without the kiddos.  We had a great time but were glad to get home and see Flash and Peanut.  We have just a few days left before Pinwheels heads for the desert and we’ll spend them together.