July 3-9, Vol. I

My husband is deployed for those of you who missed that. Gone for the whole summer, leaving me and the boys to our own devices. Now, I generally love my life as a military spouse. When Scott finally separates/retires from the military, I will likely look at him after 3 years & ask, "Isn't it time for us to move?" The moving & making new friends every few years is usually exciting. That being said, the main thing I absolutely cannot stand is the short-notice stuff. When you find out mere weeks ahead of time that you're moving or deploying. That is what happened to us this summer. Scott was supposed to deploy in August, so we made lots of summer plans. BIG mistake. We found out on the 10th of May that he was leaving on the 28th for four months. So, my options for the summer were to 1) scrap all of our plans and sit home with 3 crazy boys by myself, or 2) pack everyone up & take the trips by myself. Option 2 was much more appealing, so off we went. See the posts from June 8-12 for our Kentucky trip, & the second "mini-vacation" was supposed to be to see our friends the Bakazans at their new cottage on the lake in Wisconsin. Dawn & I met here & quickly became friends and we were lucky enough to have the husbands hit it off, too. That is pretty rare in the military. Usually, either the wives or the husbands really hit it off & the other set just "tolerates" each other. Ryan and Scott were very disappointed when Scott was unable to come, but such is our life. So, when I had to make the trip alone, I decided to head to Wisconsin by way of Chicago & stop over at Robin's house for a few nights. Robin & I went to college together & have remained friends for over 15 years (wow, that makes us sound old!). We took off on July 3rd to make the 4.5 hour trip to Chicago. I can honestly say it went well. The boys were very well-behaved & we only had to make one stop. The first thing we did at Ms. Robin's was head across the street to the cookie shop that makes vegan cookies. Since vegans refuse to eat any animal products, William is good with vegan stuff as long as it excludes peanuts. It was a very retro-mod store with these adorable orange chairs my boys LOVED!!

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My sweet pea was very excited to find a yummy cookie he could eat without getting itchy!!

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And, then the "neat" eater. He truly is my neater eater, although you'd never know it from most of the pics on this blog!!

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After tummies were full, it was off to the park around the corner from Ms. Robin's. My boys were very excited to get a glimpse of city life. They couldn't believe we got to walk everywhere & were fascinated by all of the sights. Both of them insisted on holding Ms. Robin's hands on the way, so C-man and I totally got ditched ;)

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This one is blurry, but it's too cute not to post!!

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The park had a water station, which we were unaware of when leaving Robin's house, so the boys got to play in their shorts. Made for a loong, wet walk home, but they were happy :)

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Look at those smiling faces!!

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The next morning, we got up, fed the kiddos breakfast & headed out into the city to ride the "L". If you know my kiddos, you know William's fascination with anything with wheels!! He was super-excited about riding the "L" and wanted to see if it was cooler than the Metro we have here in St. Louis. Colin seems to be taking after William, and he was a complete hit on the train. Lots of the commuters thought he was a hoot as he held onto the rail, jumped on my lap, and giggled his little heart out in delight! A few quick snaps of us riding the Brown line around the city. It goes in a circle, so we got to see the sights & didn't have to exit & enter again with three crazy kiddos. Bonus!!

Look at the complete joy on that little face!!!!

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Robin has a gated patio just in front of her condo that was perfect for the Colin man. We rolled out her rug, threw some toys down, and closed the gate. We got to sit in the sun & visit while he crawled/walked around & played.

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Then, since she's on the first floor, the big boys had access to the stairs leading up to her building & the little walkway in front. It's gated also & they were amazingly excited to run along her little path & play hide & seek with each other. Don't think it would have lasted more than a few days, but the little stone path kept them entertained for HOURS while we visited & Colin played. Yay for city life!!

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From Chicago

And, this one just because it's cute! Colin LOVED, LOVED, LOVED Robin's husband Nick. I think we might've thrown a wrench into their "let's have kiddos" plan just by our sheer craziness, but the baby and Nick at least hit it off!!

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And, then it was back to the park on the afternoon of the 4th. This time, we were smart & put the boys in their swimsuits--WAYYYY more comfy for them!!

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From Chicago

(That is one of my all-time favorite pics of William, BTW!!)

And, the C-man was just worn out after a couple of days of not sleeping too well!

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And, on the way home, we "caught an L"!! If you look closely, you can see the train on the elevated track. This portion of the tracks is a mere block away from Robin's house. Every time we walked under it, the boys ran ahead to stand there & look WAYYYY up to see if they'd "catch an L". You could hear the train from Robin's house & every time one rumbled by, all three of my boys would freeze & shout "EEEELLLLL"!!!! Needless to say, when we managed to "catch" one, it was humongously exciting.

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On the morning of the 5th, we left Robin & Nick in peace and took off for the 4 hour drive to Wisconsin. Stay tuned for that adventure!

Just because it's cute!

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Here's an adorable pic of my two "cool dudes" playing with their bubble guns in the backyard. Maw-Maw Lin gave us these last year & the boys were so busy playing with their new bubble machine that I never pulled them out of the package. They got put away with all the summer toys at the end of the season & I came across them the other day. Needless to say, they are a HUGE hit! You fill up the little container of bubbles, attach it to the gun, and pull the trigger. Voila! BUBBLES!! So, enjoy the super-cool sunglasses pic they were so nice to take the time out of their busy schedule to allow me to snap ;)

Chef Mommy and Assistant William

William has been watching several of his favorite shows & in a lot of them, the main characters cook along with a chef or their parents, etc. At the auction for his preschool, I "won" (i.e., agreed to pay more than everyone else) a cooking set. It came with two adorable aprons with all of the kids' handprints on them. One is Mommy-sized & one is William-sized. It also came with a chef's hat and a cookbook that all the kids contributed their favorite recipe to. And, by "favorite recipes", I don't mean stuff they like to eat. I mean they sat down with the teacher & dictated a recipe for something they knew how to cook. It's pretty hilarious! William's contribution was chocolate chip cookies that require "drips of water, like the kind from the bathtub." His teacher said she asked him 4 times & each time he repeated it verbatim! We never even make cookies, much less any that require drips of any kind of liquid.

But I digress......

William has gotten interested in cooking & has been insisting on helping me at breakfast every morning. I am "Chef Mommy" and am required to don my apron, even if we're just popping waffles in the toaster. He is "assistant William" which requires both an apron and a chef's hat. Of course, Daniel wants in on it & I was very pleasantly surprised by how willing William was to share both his cooking responsibilities and the treasured chef's hat. Here are a couple of pictures of my budding foodies:

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And, just a quick picture of "whiney hiney" (as we politely call him when he starts on his whining fits!) when William wouldn't immediately give him the hat!!

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Daniel's apron was a Christmas present from some of our good friends. William alternates between his white one and the one that matches Daniel's. GREAT gift idea for a kiddo if you're searching!!

Deployments....

So, we are officially over a month into it! He left the 28th of May, so as of today, I'm 4.5/18 weeks down; 1 month/4 months down; 24% of the way into it. While my boys have been waking up WAAAY too early and driving me crazy at times, I just want to say that I don't know how my husband does it! I can't imagine having to be away from these crazy monsters of mine for 4 weeks, let alone 4 MONTHS. They are just the sweetest, most delightful things at times, and while I long for my husband to come home for various reasons (the largest of which right now is SLEEP!), I wouldn't trade this time alone with them for any amount of anything in the world!! I just thank God for the gift of three insane-o boys who bring me such joy :)

Stay tuned for all the cute things they've been getting into!!

Bye-bye to friends

So, usually when a post has this title, someone is moving. Thankfully, that's not the case this time, but our friends are taking an extended vacation up to the Pacific NW. Aside from the fact that I'm soooo jealous (have I mentioned we love it up there??), my friend Lea and her two boys--Daniel's bestest friends in the whole world--are going to be gone for two months this summer AND the whole middle of Scott's deployment. I tried to tell her the timing just didn't work for me, but for some reason, that didn't factor into their decision?????

Her husband has been up there for a few months now for work & has been able to come home every 3rd weekend or so. Now that it's summer, Lea & the boys are going to stay with him for the last 2 months of his training. We headed over there last night for dinner & to say good-bye. Of course, we had to take the obligatory kiddo pictures. Looking at these makes me kind of teary! We really can't do anything around here without one of my boys asking if Luke & Will are going to come, too. And, when you say "Luke and Will" to Colin, he grins madly! Luke loooooves babies, and in true baby fashion, Colin loves anyone who pays him attention :) Check out these pics of the two of them:

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Colin has recently learned to hug:

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And, Daniel with Will:

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The Three Muskateers (I really do think sometimes they think they're triplets!!)

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And, all 5 boys, being....well, BOYS!

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I explained to the boys yesterday that Luke, Will, and Ms. Lea were going to be gone until after William was already in Kindergarden & would come home when Daniel started school again. I think that Daniel has had too much leaving the past few weeks, b/c he had a meltdown at dinner last night (not that that's TOO unusual), and after we got home & he'd calmed down, he told me he didn't like Seattle and didn't want to go there "never, ever again". I think my poor little boy is going to miss his friends, and I KNOW I will!!

Defying Gravity Wickedly

I went to see Wicked last night with my friend Lea, her husband Chris, our friend Julie (whose husband is also deployed), and Lea's mom. I didn't know much about it, other than that it was about the witches from The Wizard of Oz--Glinda the good witch, and the Wicked Witch of the West. It was so much more than I was expecting! The story is adorable, the jokes were funny (with LOTS of W of O references), and the singing was beyond fabulous! I'd recommend it to anyone who loves musicals (and even some who don't) and would eagerly go see it again, given the chance. Pictures weren't allowed in the theater, so here we are getting ready to go in:

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The Children's Museum

Another set of pictures I "found" along the way. We also hit The Magic House over in St. Louis the week before Scott left. We'd been before, but not in a long time & Scott had never seen the improvements they made over a year ago. We had our neighbor's little girl, Maddie, with us, so she & the boys had so much fun running wild together!

The little kid part opens first, so my kids headed immediately over to the water room. They put on water-proof (or in our case, water "resistant"!) aprons, grab some toys & go to town:

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From Big kid pics

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There is even a little section where you can sit the babies so they can reach the water & splash, too. I had to take our water-lovin' baby out to the car to change his outfit & dry him off after his turn:

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Colin was so happy in the under-2 area! Finally, no one to stop him from climbing on every ever-loving thing he can find:

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So surprised to see Daddy across the way in the water room:

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Notice I couldn't even get him to look at the camera:

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The Magic House always has some type of exhibit that teaches the kids about something specific. Right now, it's all about recycling, composting, reusing, etc. Here is the sign on the wall as you enter the exhibit:

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Maddie & Daniel took it to heart!

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There was a bike they pedaled, which powered a light if you went fast enough, a "fuel-friendly" car they could sit in, and a recycling area where they had to separate the glass, cardboard, and plastic into different sections so the recycling "truck" could pick it up. It was a lot of fun for them! William wasn't so into the dressing up--imagine that!

Their next favorite area is the fishing pond. It doesn't open until later, with the bigger kid stuff, so we had to wait until after lunch. They had a blast "catching" magnetic fish & then running back to the start of the river to set them free so they could float back to the fishing pond!

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The C-man was worn out from his 15 minute nap in the car & all that activity!!

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The last thing we did was hit the construction zone. There are lots of educational things about building houses (even an area where you can design the decor & lay out your floor plan!), as well as stuff about the types of equipment, etc, they use. Of course, my boys gravitated right to the digger truck. William was very insistent about taking part in the dress-up this time! Construction goggles and a hard hat were a must:

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From Big kid pics

From Big kid pics

And, then it was time to play in the rock pit a little before heading home. William looooooves these scooper-thingies. There is one in Slidell by Maw-Maw Lin's and Paw-Paw Bip's house in a sand pit & William always runs right for it when we hit that park. Here he is scooping some rocks up:

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