Thank God for VISITORS!

There's nothing worse than a holiday weekend alone, at home, with toddlers. Oh, wait, there is: A holiday weekend alone, at home, with sick and cranky toddlers! Yes, you read correctly, my kids were cranky. *GASP* Yeah, I know, I'm over it too. We've had a cold since the flight back from New Jersey and the boys seemed to have developed pink eye from the 2 1/2 week old cold.

Thankfully, Uncle Chad and Aunt Kate came to save the weekend! They hopped a flight from VA just to come down and check on us. I'm so happy to not only have them in our life but to be able to trust that they love us enough to come down and deal with our beautiful mess!

Kate found these super awesome Marine Corps uniforms and Chad decked them out with 1st LT bars for Turner and 2nd LT bars for Eli. Though, they could have come from Kate since she served as a Marine, too!

Turner even got a Navy Achievement Medal (NAM)!

He loves to dress up in things like this.

Coincidentally, Eli had this "Mom's Major Cutie" shirt on. I thought it went well with the desert camis. You can see his eyes are watery from the conjunctivitis.

On Saturday, we played around the house. Kate and Chad helped me dump out the dead garden: I'm not sure what I was thinking, trying to keep one more thing alive! The tomatoes (a heat tolerant variety from Hawaii) have survived and are now producing fruit so we saved those. The boys seemed to enjoy dumping the dirt so, I guess, no harm no foul. Turner wore his uniform for the second day in a row and could not be bothered to remove it even though it was 90 degrees.

After naps Saturday, we hit the beach at Mayport. The kids were still not up to par so they weren't their usual selves running from the dunes to the water and back. Eli is fairly attached to a truck from the movie Wall-E (though he's never seen it) so he spent the entire hour fighting the waves and screaming at the water for taking his beloved truck.

Uncle Chad, dutifully wiping Turner's face.

The newlyweds!

Kate helping Eli pile mud on his truck so it didn't get washed away.

8 1/2 month belly. Chad seemed a little proud of his, huh?

After the beach the boys and I were treated to one of our favorite places, Tacolu!

This kid would never turn down beans and rice!

Not only did Chad and Kate come down for a visit, the tackled Eli's birthday gift (a train table), and let me take as many showers as possible in two days but they even took the boys out Sunday morning so I could get a few things done and enjoy the Sunday Morning Show on CBS. Now that was a treat!

I'm So Tired Of

this deployment

my kids fighting

taking out the trash

figuring out things to keep busy with

not sleeping in one day on the weekend

missing my husband

being pregnant

john's crappy internet connection

my kids bickering

my slow blackberry

cleaning

raising two boys alone

being alone

not sleeping

my kids not sleeping well for more than two days in a row

eli sceaming "oh, no! i broked it" while playing trains

not cooking a real dinner

making meals for the kids that are not eaten

sleeping by myself

watching my kids miss their dad

not having orders in hand

over thinking the Newport situation

turner's almost constant moods

waking up tired

jacksonville

did i mention my kids fighting?

people saying "looks like you have your hands full."

Reba, the dog

**As I finish this up, I'm reminded of my favorite part of today: Turner putting his arm around Eli after finding out my favorite perfume was shattered all over the floor and saying "It's ok, Eli, don't be sad. Me and my Daddy will go buy Mommy more.**

Okay, okay... It's not all that terrible.

Holy Orthodontics

When he was 18 months old, John and I took Turner to a pediatric dentist in Monterey, CA. It was my intention to begin his dutiful six month visits so he'd have fabulous teeth and never go through what I did as a child and have the fear I have as an adult. *Ahem* insert cross country move, new baby, another huge move, and a welcome back to the Navy here.

Aaaaand he's not been back since. Well, until today.

Turner's face when he heard his name called.

Checking out the TV above the chair.

As soon as the tech started talking to Turner, he closed his eyes and started rubbing them. No real reason other than a toddler-ism. He wasn't upset or scared!

My little weirdo!

Before she touched his teeth, the tech put the "tooth tickler" on Turner's arm. I love that the staff really work hard to talk to the kids as though the understand what's going on. Turner seemed to appreciate the details.

He finally warmed up and opened his eyes after the tech started "tickling" his teeth.

Applying some flouride. They call it "tooth vitamins" and Turner is all about the vitamins so he was stoked.

He had his first x-rays done so I stepped back. It's weird to be so proud of your child for doing something as simple as listening to directions, but I was!

Toy of choice from the box: his "funky gwasses!"

Here's where the not so awesome news comes in...

The baba (aka pacifier) has caused a cross bite. Not a little one that can be corrected with just getting rid of the baba, but something that will need a "device" around the age of 8. After that is used for x amount of time he will likely need orthodontics. I guess I was visibly upset at myself and the dentist assured me that many children (and parents) go through this because of a pacifier. I just feel so guilty! I was told that we've got 18 months to yank baba or it will certainly cause severe problems down the road. The plan was to do it in June, at any rate, and now I'm even more motivated to come to terms with the fact that it's done. ...and naps, too, for that matter!

Also, there is a build-up where the tooth meets the gum. The dentist said it's like he didn't have his teeth brushed for some time. That is most certainly not the case! I mean, of course there have been nights that it just didn't happen, but not that many nights! Every evening I let Turner (and Eli) brush his teeth. Then, I tell him they're sparkly clean but I go in and inspect (brush his teeth). We've started flossing but I'm still freaking out about the build-up!

I started to talk to Turner about two weeks ago that baby Deacon needs a baba and also, you can't have your fourth birthday with a baba. He laid down in his bed and got all choked up and says "Mommy, I don't want birthday presents." Ok, obviously, a parent-fail on that. I reassured him that he will get gifts no matter what but baba will be biding him adieu soon.

Because I'm that mom, Turner enjoyed a cupcake after his dental visit. What? Like you didn't do anything bad today...

Sweet Ollie, always face first in to things!

I love that he really wanted to know why his hands were a mess!

Sunday Funday

Our friend, Grace, has access to this super awesome splash ground in her neighborhood. It was an 85 degree Sunday afternoon and the Augustines saved me from schlepping the kids to the beach. What is a usually fun task is getting more difficult by the week so I'm happy to take a break any time I can. Even though it was warm, the water was quite chilly (for FL standards!).

The kids, cheesin' for me.

Grace is the coolest girl we've ever been able to hang with.

She's so teenytiny but she is NOT afraid to show the boys that she can hang!

Turner loved the slide.

Eli wasn't a fan of being sprayed on the way up to the slide.

He was perfectly fine with jumping.

Grace even tested out the slide and loved it!

The belly at 33 weeks!

Make Your Own Sidewalk Paint!

When John's home and no weekend duty is to be stood, we're happy to celebrate TGIF. These days, it's more like *sigh* it's Friday. I try to find something constructive to do so we're not sitting around and here's what happened this Friday afternoon.

It's getting hotter by the day so I try to do a project/craft/outing that will eventually involve water. Today, we made our own sidewalk paint. It was super easy and something the boys had a great time with.

Mix equal parts water and corn starch in a bowl. In today's case, I used 3/4 cup of both. Our friend Grace was coming over to play so I wanted enough to go around.

Using something you can fit with a lid, mix the corn starch with the water and food coloring. I happen to have a bunch of Gerber bowls with lids and they worked great.

I tested the bowls before handing them to my eager mixers. Cleaning up a rainbow off the floor didn't sound like fun!

Turner enjoyed shaking up the colors and was, of course, careful.

Eli was just trying to figure out what the heck we were doing

and how soon he could get in to the mess.

Most of the colors mixed in quickly and easily but pink and purple didn't. I was

checking the food coloring package and found it's

from Clementine's Kitchen...in Monterey, CA! Years ago...oops!

Who told this little baby to grow up?!?

Turner, the careful artist.

Elias, the explosive, creative genius.

Right after this picture, someone dumped a bowl over so I put the camera down to show them how to make handprints and other things. Because of the corn starch, the pain dries quickly. We experimented using water to spread the paint and watched the colors wash down the drive way. Eventually, all the paints ended up in the rinse water and they just played in that.

Our sweet friend, Grace, arrived and the boys had already blown through all the paint. Poor Grace, you could tell he knew she was coming over to do something fun. She looked around at the mess like "Thanks for waiting, guys!"

And for our Fun Friday Finale, we brought our friends to our favorite place Ohana Shave Ice right in Atlantic Beach! I could eat this EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. The woman that owns it makes her own syrups and they're unlike anything I've ever tasted! AND, for some reason, the colors don't stain. So, yes, my dear Elias, go ahead and dump the blue ice down your Polo shirt!

Ollie Goes to the Dentist

Eli went to his first dental appointment today! This office came highly recommended by military (they take our insurance) and no-military alike. I was not disappointed by the experience.

He insisted we bring his "little buddy."

Eli was so brave, he even walked by himself.

He climbed right up in the chair to check it out.

The entire staff from the front of the office to the back was fantastic!

Eli was showing Dr. Fishman his teeth.

This picture does no justice to his facial expressions at the moment. He was giving this stern eye-brow look and it was priceless. There was a TV above his head but he didn't care much about that: he was more interested in what was about to happen. Dr. Fishman took great care to really talk to Eli and not me. He used the smallest amount of pressure with the cleaning tool and Eli did a wonderful job listening to directions (show me your teeth, open wide, ect.).

After he was all done, he went back to the toy box to pick out a snake!

On the way out he even remembered to ask for a sticker for Brudder!