ONWARD!

Last week was filled with dropping John off for his deployment, the fire alarm screaming at 3am causing me to patrol the house with a baseball bat for the rest of the night (it sounded like the house alarm!), a round of exhaustion induced sore throat/coughing, kids that miss their dad and the coup de grace...

The pull start on the mower won the battle...

A broken finger (it looks 10x worse and prupley today!). 

I sat down and gave myself a nice pep talk over 4 cups of vitamin C/apple cider vinegar/honey "teas" and feel my energy starting to come back a bit. 

Any way, here's looking forward to the second week!

No Good, Very Bad Day

The boys like a story called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. It was so fitting for today. 

I won't even bother with details because a bad day is a bad day no matter how many words! 

4:30 and the house is quiet and I find this...

and this...

A ham, as usual. 

It Never Gets Easier

When John and I first met, he deployed for Operation Enduring Freedom just two months later. I was giddy college girl, holding tight to this idea of a Naval Officer wanting to be with me when he returned. I can't believe it was all those years ago and he was just a little division officer, squeaky clean and new to the Navy. His leaving didn't bother me at all! I was more concerned wether or not we were going to be in a mutually exclusive relationship when he got back rather than how lonely I was. 

From there we've travelled the world. He's left for more days than I can count, more weekends, more birthdays and more anniversaries have been spent apart than together. Years of our 8 year marriage have consisted of him at sea, just doing the job he was meant to do. It never bothered me. 

Until we had kids. 

The late nights, the duty days, weekends missed, phone calls, going in early, staying on a ship until late at night and missing milestones all add up. 

Seeing my babies cry over missing their daddy hurts more than anything in the world. 

They revere this man: idolize him. 

Missing time with them has to suck about as much as being left behind. I guess I can say, in that respect, I'm the lucky one here: I am with my babies during this separation. It's hard, dirty, exhausting, and rewarding work, but I'm the one around to pick up their hearts and try to lift their spirits. I'd rather be on that end of the stick. 

It never gets easier, this lifestyle of ours. The married single parenting, the playing second fiddle, the moving, the waiting, the watching my children flourish when their dad isn't around. I've head that less than 1% of Americans have served our country, but they've done so to protect the other 99%. 

Pre-Deployment "Vacation"

I use quotations because bringing three small children anywhere isn't really a vacation for the parents involved. 

This past weekend we brought the kids to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg for an overnight stay. They were thrilled at the idea but execution of the stay was a little chaotic! I booked the "Kid Camp" room because it had bunk beds and a TV in the room. I thought they could fall asleep to a movie while John and I enjoyed a movie while relaxing in bed. I have NO idea what I was thinking! 

Deacon had a totally different plan and refused to go to sleep. Eli was completely freaked out by the darkness of the Kid Camp and Turner wasn't going to play the game if Eli didn't! 

They were all, however, tired. I was up all night with Deacon because he is the absolute worst co-sleeper I've ever created! I found John on the couch, if that says much. 

Checking in to the hotel. 

It looked like it was going to be a good night...

Crappy night of sleep or not, everyone had a great time. The kids just loved the water and being able to do some of the slides on their own. 

Everyone had fun, even if we were a little rough around the edges!

A worth it "vacation" if you only have two kids or if all of your children are older...or if you could have another helper around for man-to-man defense. We will give it another shot before we leave, especially now that we've experienced a trip. 

Enjoying Time

The last time John left for a deployment (January of 2010), we were not able to spend a lot of time with him before hand. He was constantly working incredibly long hours (let's say 4 or 5am until 9 or 10 at night NOT including duty days), and the ship got a week of stand down time (called POM). We took the kids to Disney for 3 or 4 days and that was our quality time. 

I can't believe how little Turner was during the 2010 deployment!

This time, his schedule hasn't been nearly as grueling! POM was a week long and he had to go in every day, any way, but at least he was able to delegate the work instead of doing it all himself. 

Tomorrow we will take the kids on a weekend trip to Great Wolf Lodge (hotel with an indoor water park) and then soak in the last week together. 

Playing in an early spring rain.

I say "soak in" like he'll be gone for a year: it's really not that bad of a deployment. John leaves for 6 months but, apparently, the communication is much better than anything we've experienced before. I'm looking forward to that! 

A new world map just came in the mail and I even decided to get Turner a beginning geography book so he can enjoy reading the map and talking about where daddy is. He was every excited to look at the map but he started to get upset just thinking about John being gone. Poor little guy! 

The kids love hearing John read "Night of the Moon Jellies" because he uses an New England
(setting of the story) accent. It seems my southern version of New England
isn't good enough! 

Using What You Have

In our quest to become debt free, I have decided to do something different than my normal "spring shopping spree." John and I have finally paid off our credit card debt (left over from college and stupid young people spending) and now have just two car payments left to our names. We would have only had a single car payment left, but his paid-off-truck was totaled in a car accident in December leaving us with another car payment. 

SO...

I decided a long time ago we have too much crap. We move around a lot and, while I try to keep things to a minimum, my items have never counted in this. Last year I spent about $500 on some new clothing since I was nursing a toddler and not a new baby. I could wear some new things and, so, I decided I deserved it. The items I purchased last spring were from H&M, Forever 21 and one other place that I can't recall. All were items that were cute, fun, and inexpensive (as I have small children and any items would just be used as a giant wipe, anyway). Not a single item I looked at in my closet was wearable for this summer. It was either faded, tearing or was shrunk in the wash. 

Combining only tank tops I already had and other fabric or thrifted finds, I have started creating new summer dresses by using this tutorial. 

Grey tank + thrifted women's XL light blue button down shirt. (Yes, I'm
wearing jeans...I was cold!)

Blue tank + shrunken dress bottom (it was literally up to my undies!)

Pink tank + bottom part of a maxi dress that didn't fit right. 

yellow tank + fabric on hand (lined with some light muslin)

Navy tank + botom of a dress I bought in Mexico five years ago! 

This is the dress that started the whole idea! Not exactly like the dress I found on Modcloth,
but, made by me so even better! 

I'm happy with the progress, so far! I've got a bunch of dresses left to make. I also have more crafts and things to sew for the boys' super hero room so we'll see what I get to before the spring. 

A Fish In Water

There are times when I'm sure we're going to doubt whether or not we're making the right decisions for our kids (like Turner and soccer or the time I gave Eli paint and then walked away), but enrolling Eli in gymnastics is not one of them. It was like watching a fish return to water, peanut butter suction on to jelly, or a fat kid noshing on cake. It was just meant to be. 

**These pictures were taken from my phone, behind a window.**

He listened to everything he was told to do (just a few random outbursts of energy) and has been asking about his very own class every day since!