Smathers World

So much for Resolutions

2011-09-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

Remember that great resolution I had to blog more often? Yeah....that was my last blog. Exciting things are happening too! For one, I'm pregnant! That's kind of a big deal. I guess with facebook, it seems like I don't need to blog. Everything I write on here has probably been my status at one point or another.
So...I am 29 weeks today. Yahoo! I don't know why but this pregnancy has me totally paranoid. I wasn't like this with Lacey or Hailey but for the first 5 months, I was constantly convinced that something was wrong or was going to go wrong. The 5 months of morning sickness....(wait 5? It's still going on) haven't helped either! Now that she moves, I'm less of a freak. She's (yes, girl number 3) definitely a night owl! I'll go all day not feeling much but as soon as I lay down, she goes nuts. I had to go to my 3 hour glucose test the other day and whatever I drank made her crazy! The only thing it did for me was make me want to vomit. The only thing that stopped me was knowing I'd have to come back and do it all over again. Yuck. I don't know what was wrong with the lab I went to but, have they not heard of butterfly needles? The needle they stuck into my arm 4 TIMES was huge! ANYWAY, I'm still waiting for those results. The next day I had to go for my rhogam shot so I've had my fill of needles for this week. Nope I lied. I have to get my blood drawn tomorrow for my thyroid. Blleehh.
So, anyway, besides baby news....Lacey started pre-school!

She LOVES it! I thought she might have a melt down the first day because she's not used to being away from me for so long but no, that was just me. She walked right in and didn't look back. I didn't even get a hug. Ouch. I'm relieved that she likes school so much but maybe a little tear......
Hailey is in the wild world of 5th grade

She's also doing really well. She started riding the bus as well which is a HUGE break for me. The schools here are weird. Lacey's school is pre-k through 2nd and then the high school. It's right down the road. Hailey's is 3rd grade through middle school and in the next town over so it was 20 minutes of driving every morning and afternoon. I figure when the baby gets here, I won't want to be hauling her in and out in the winter so the bus works best for us. Hailey doesn't seem to mind it.
Jake's still in school. This is his last year for this program that he's doing but he wants to keep going and use up his GI bill. He might as well. I think he knows if he stops, the chances are less and less that he'll go back. He's doing great. He tells me about what he's doing sometimes and I pretend to listen. It works for us.
I guess that's all. Maybe I'll blog again before Violet starts college.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-03T09:23:00.001-08:00

So much for getting out of my blog rut. I've had so much to write about too!
Cool thing number 1- We bought a house!! This isn't the best picture of it, but it's all I have for now.

We are SUPPOSED to close on Friday. We were also supposed to close on December 23rd and January 3rd so we'll see how that goes. We have our letter of commitment so hopefully we can start moving things in, even if it's only in the garage. We can't wait to get out of this apartment!
Cool thing number 2- Kayla Robb and Etta came to visit for 18 days!!! 18 days with baby Etta!!!! I LOVE that baby! I'm having serious Etta withdrawls now that they're home. It didn't help my baby fever at ALL. I think it made it about a billion times worse.

We all had a good Christmas. We went overboard on the girls as usual so now we have a zillion more toys to move to the new house. A good portion of them are still in boxes packed away for the new house. It will be like Christmas all over by the time we open them up!
I guess that's all the exciting news for now. Hopefully next time I blog, it will be from the new house.

Long overdue

2010-11-09T11:04:00.000-08:00

I am a super blog slacker! I've been in a total blog rut so I figured if I just made myself blog, I might fight my way out of it.
Life has been good. Jake's in school and the great house search continues. We went to put an offer in on one last Wednesday but our realtor failed to tell us that it was already under contract. Lame, lame lame. I wasn't completely crushed. I liked the house but I didn't love it. On the way to meet with the realtor, we actually passed a house for sale that we LOVE. When we called about that one, they told us that it JUST went into foreclosure. Now we have to wait for the bank to list the property which could take months. Do we wait for this house that we love or keep looking? I don't know. I guess we'll kind of do both. Once I find a house I really like, I don;t really give other ones a chance. So, we'll see.
Halloween was great this year. We had an Alice in Wonderland and a Queen of Hearts.

Trick or treating was so COLD this year. we didn't stay out too long and the kids still got more than enough candy! I ended up putting it on top of the fridge because Lacey was sneaking it all day long and requesting it for breakfast. She's definitely a chocoholic!
Hails just got an award at school called the Student Star award! They choose a student from each class who showed the most of that month's character trait. October's was responsibility. We are VERY proud!

I guess that's all the news I have for now. I just started a diet this week. It's not really a diet. Diets are something that you eventually stop and I don't plan on doing that this time. I'm disgusted by my weight and decided that it's time to do something about it. I'm even exercising which only makes me realize how incredibly out of shape I am. Hopefully a few months from now, I can rave about how much I enjoy working out...or at least not say that I hate it with a passion.

Lacey's Cowgirl Party (a little late)

2010-07-08T17:19:00.001-07:00

Lacey May Smathers is 3 YEARS OLD! What happened to my baby? I had planned from about January to have a princess and the frog party for her. I was going to have Lilly pad musical chairs, pin the lips on the frog, and a whole bunch of other super cute ideas, but then I bought this dress a few weeks before her birthday

I love all the Gymboree dresses this season. So cute! Dresses are all Lacey wears so I love when I find super cute stuff.
When my sister Kayla saw this dress, her mind went spinning and came up with an idea for a cowgirl party. Since she is FAR more creative than I am, I went with it and it was awesome! I of course also went to my party icon Rachel! She gave us lots of super fun ideas! The gift bags were the most fun to make. We bought burlap and cowgirlish looking material along with lots of fun stuff to fill our burlap bags with.

All the kids had cowboy names. We had
Lucky Lacey Drawers, Horseshoe Hailey, Evil Eye Etta, Loco Lilly, Cactus Carter, Gamblin Griff, Moonshine Marlee, Tumbleweed Talia and Jailbreak Jackson. I had it at a local park with one of those huge sprinklers for 2 reasons.
1. It's hot
2. It makes my life a trillion times easier when I don't have to spend the next week cleaning up after one day.
Kayla found a great deal on cowboy hats for the kids and they looked CUTE!
Here's Moonshine Marlee

and here's Evil Eye Etta

Kayla even found some awesome mustaches. This is Loco Lilly. That's a lollipop in her mouth.

I didn't get real fancy with the cupcakes. If I had more time I might have been more adventurous but the kids liked them

We even found these guys at the dollar store!

We didn't end up playing a lot of games because the kids were busy playing in the water

and in the sand box. Gamblin Griff looked like the wolf man

My awesome husband made this awesome pinata. Lacey was VERY upset that everyone was destroying it and wanted no part of it, not even when the candy fell out.

It was a fun fun party! Here's the birthday girl

Delaware

2010-07-06T06:42:00.000-07:00

Last week, the Steves clan took their first family vacation since.....ever maybe? We did go on a camping trip when I was little but this was our first big one. Everyone was able to make it except for Owen and his family and KK's husband Robb. :( New jobs and the mean old navy mean no vacation. Boo!
The ride there was hot! The ac stopped working in the van despite all our attempts to revive it. The 98 degree heat combined with a packed full van made for a very sweaty ride. Gross. When we got there, it was worth it. The beach house was awesome!

It was right on the bay and huge. We had 18 people there (11 adults and 7 kids) and we fit comfortably.
The first day we were there we went down to the beach. It was hot and there weren't any waves so we thought it would be great for the kids to swim. We weren't anticipating these guys.

They were everywhere! Almost everyone now knows what it feels like to get stung by a jellyfish. I didn't get stung. I was a big chicken and didn't go in past my ankles. I'm not a fan of swimming with sea life. The kids, despite the stings didn't want to get out of the water. They're tough. There also were a lot of these

These are horse shoe crabs. They're pretty cool. If we saw them flipped over on the beach, we "rescued" them by flipping them back over so they could get back into the water. I guess they're used a lot for medical research so it's important to not let them die!
One thing I LOVE about Delaware is no sales tax! It's amazing. It's also amazing that they have tons of outlet stores with awesome deals. I may have gone a little overboard at the Disney outlet. I couldn't resist. The day we went to the outlets we also took the kids to the go carts. They Loved it. Well, the ones that would actually go on loved it. Lacey and Griff preferred watching.

We even got to see some old guy challenge 2 young guys to a fight in the back lot for bumping his kid. He was kind of psychotic.

The kids LOVED being outside all day and it was nice to go back into an air conditioned house.

Here's my mom with a bunch of the kids. They LOVED having grandma and grandpa around all week!

On our last night we all went out to dinner which of course meant...matching clothes for the kids! You know I can't resist matching clothes. I found SUPER cute dresses at the Old Navy outlet and super cute outfits for the boys at The Childrens Place.

Of course we have a picture with a screamer (my kid. she doesn't like to share the camera) and a nose picker. Would it really be a Steves picture without them?

I'll miss the beach, the ocean, the outlet shopping, Sonics and Rita's Italian Ice. It was a GOOD GOOD vacation

Etta's debut

2010-05-12T20:54:00.000-07:00

KK, Robb and Baby Etta finally made their way to NY for Etta's debut. She was a BIG hit! I totally lucked out and got the most baby Etta time since they stayed with me. (not to mention the fact that I already met her back in January) I LOVE THAT BABY! She is so good! She's happy and sleeps good and is adorable. What more could you ask for? I even got her to giggle before they went home. So now my baby fever that was already through the roof has once again increased.
Here's a picture of Lacey shushing us so that baby etta could sleep

Here's Carter and Lacey at one of the get togethers we had while they were here. He just loves hugging Lacey! She is pretty squishy.

Here's my Hailstorm and KK. She was SOOOO excited to see her and Robb. She tells all her friends that Robb's a rock star because he plays Guitar Hero on expert

Here's one of the few pictures I got with Etta.

We went to the Bronx Zoo on the last day they were here. It was one of the rare warm days we've had so it was packed! The monorail wasn't open yet so for the second time I didn't get to see the elephants! Grrrr! I just want to see one darn elephant! Some of the cool stuff like the tigers were behind a bunch of glass that you had to shove through people to even get a glimpse. Lame. Although I guess I prefer a completely covered surface between me and a tiger.
When we started going home, our stupid GPS started taking us through New Jersey. (Jake HATES New Jersey, mostly because he got 3 tickets there on his way to Walter Reed a few years ago) When we turned around we got stuck in a TON of traffic. There was a lot of stopping and going which was not good for Lacey. We all laughed when we heard the huge burp. However, the laughter ended when she vomited all over. Poor Hails was sitting next to her and gagging herself. We couldn't stop or pull over so Lacey was screaming about being covered in puke and Hails was ready to puke herself. For some reason, the extra clothes I brought ended up in a different car so we stopped at the first exit and found a store where we bought Lace some pajamas to ride home in. We also lucked out because we had an extra car seat in the car so we were able to just move Lacey to that and Hails moved up a row. Natalia slept through the whole thing. Sometimes I really love having a van. If Hails hadn't been able to move, she would have barfed shortly after Lacey and then I probably would have. We've done the barfing domino effect before. It's not my favorite. Last time it started with my dog. ANYWAYS, I'm totally rambling because it's after midnight and I need sleep. Hopefully at least parts of this make sense.
Here's a quick picture of the calm before the storm. Good night!

Blogging just to blog

2010-04-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

I always feel like something big has to happen in order for me to blog and since my life is pretty much the same thing every day (I'm not complaining, just stating a fact) I don't blog all that often.

Since Easter Sunday fell on conference week this year, we did the girls Easter dresses this last Sunday. Heaven forbid I get both the girls to look at the camera at the same time but at least you can see their dresses. Kayla mentioned that it's sad that Hailey is almost too big for Easter dresses. At first I thought, no she isn't but then I realized that she won't want to dress the same as her sister (who is 6 years younger) for much longer. I'll have to settle for coordinating outfits. I think that I pretty much stop and think "holy smokes, I have a 9 year old" on a daily basis.

Kayla, Robb and BABY ETTA!!!!!!!!! (can you tell I'm a little excited to see her again?) are coming for a visit. They should be here by the end of the week. Hails is so excited to see KK and play Guitar Hero with Robb. All Lacey talks about is seeing baby Etta. Of course when she gets here, she'll probably want to hold her 6 million times for 2 seconds each. They'll be here for 9 days!!!!! YAY! I'll have lots to blog about after that.

Update

2010-03-01T08:35:00.000-08:00

I guess it's time I updated this thing since it has been quite a while! A lot has happened.
The most exciting thing that happened is that Lacey and I flew out to Washington to spend a week with KK and baby Etta! The circumstances could have been better (Kayla had to have her gall bladder out and Robb is underway) but it was nice to go just the same. I have an awesome friend who helped me get affordable tickets and I can't thank him enough. I've never flown Continental before and I was really impressed! They have tv screens in the back of their seats! You swipe your card and pay 6 dollars and have Direct TV for your entire flight. I didn't have to miss Project Runway and Lacey watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and cartoons the whole way. It was the best 12 dollars I've ever spent. Lacey was awesome on the flight. She slept the whole way from Albany to New Jersey but didn't sleep at all from New Jersey to Washington. The only problem we had was that she was terrified of the bathroom. I ended up having to put a pull up on her because she would NOT go in there even though she made me take her every half an hour. OOh, AND Continental gives little kids, plastic wings! It was exciting.

Kayla's friend picked us up in Seattle and that was my first meeting with baby Etta. I LOVE her!!!!! Kayla was in the hospital so since it was late, her friend (who is also incredibly awesome for picking me up so late and taking me back to the airport when that meant getting up 3 in the morning with 2 kids of her own, one being a newborn) brought me back to Kayla's house. After she left, I realized that I had forgotten my phone charger and my cell phone was dead. Of course, with a cell phone I don't memorize people's numbers anymore so I didn't know how to get a hold of Kayla to get directions to the hospital. Luckily she had a house phone so I could call Jake and get her cell phone number. I got directions off of her computer (which I needed the password for so it's really good that Jake answered the phone) and the next morning after a surprisingly peaceful sleep with a newborn, we went to pick her up. Their only car is a standard and I hadn't driven a standard in over 7 years. I wasn't an amazing driver but I didn't stall at all while I was there so I was happy.
Kayla did awesome with her surgery and didn't end up needing a ton of help from me though I held baby Etta any chance I got!

We shopped, we went to church, we made the girls wear matching clothes.

Lacey now has a new title. She is now the home wrecker. In one night she managed to poop and vomit all over Kayla's house. She was sick and just kind of pooped from one end of the hall to the next into Kayla's bedroom. It was disgusting. It was beyond disgusting. It was the only accident she had but it was so so so so gross. That same night, she woke up and started throwing up from the couch to the bathroom. Apparently, all of those twizzlers didn't settle well in her stomach. Besides THAT, she was great. She liked "petting" baby Etta and holding her for a few seconds at a time. It was so great to be able to spend time with KK (I miss her!!!!!!) and to finally meet baby Etta. My baby fever has just about quadrupled and it was pretty high to start with. Although I know everyone else was pretty jealous that I got to see baby Etta first, it was nice not to have to share her (well, besides with her mom of course) They're coming to visit in April and we can't wait!

Other than that, Lacey is now fully potty trained, we got a TON of snow and we're still house hunting. Maybe I'll have a new blog soon about our new home. I sure hope so.

Potty training

2010-01-21T18:41:00.000-08:00

...is going fantastic. She had no accidents at all today and it's only day 4. Tomorrow I'm going to do something crazy and leave the house with her. We'll see how that goes. I'm scared....very scared.

Potty traning

2010-01-20T16:18:00.000-08:00

....stinks. I hate it. We have had a great day today though. We started on Monday and I expected that to be awful but she ended the day with 4 stickers on her chart. Tuesday was AWFUL. She went once and then peed on the floor about 6 or 7 times throughout the day. (Hydrogen peroxide in a spray bottle is the best for cleaning messes and stains) So, day 2 wasn't so great. Today she's been awesome. She has 9 stickers on that potty chart! She had 3 accidents but one was trying to get herself onto the toilet so I only count that as half an accident even though I had to clean just as much off the floor. Day 3 has been the best by far. I'm afraid to leave the house though. I don't want to put her in a pull up and I'm pretty sure that if I attempt taking her out in underwear, she'll pee all over something. I would really prefer to not have to tell the people at Target that my daughter just peed all over the floor.
That's my life lately. I'm a potty training shut in.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-07T14:16:00.000-08:00

Happy 2010! What a year 2009 was. Amazingly, the Smathers clan made it through with our sanity mostly intact. I don't know that it was all there to begin with so I think we did pretty good.
The biggest happening of 2009 was of course, the return of Jake from Iraq!!! He's home and here to stay whether he likes it or not. It's been a bit of adjusting and everybody had to get used to each other again but it didn't take long for everything to go back to what it was pre-deployment. As soon as he came back, Kayla moved all the way to Washington! We miss her a LOT. 2009 was filled with soccer games, dance recitals, homework, too much shopping and a huge water slide.
2010 will hopefully be filled with less of me! I made some kind of sarcastic comment about why I wouldn't do a weight loss challenge which somehow turned on me and here I am, counting calories and sweatin to the oldies with Richard Simmons. I needed a good kick in the pants. I also have a visit with the endocrinologist this coming week so hopefully I'll be put on the right dose of synthroid for my darn thyroid. That's not helping me at all.
So, the goals for 2010 are
1. be less fat
2. have another baby (I know that usually would contradict with number 1 but my body looks and feels so much better pregnant.)
3. buy a house! We are ready to be out of here and the girls REALLY need their own room
4. convince Lacey that sometimes princesses like to wear pants
5. convince Lacey that princesses like to go to the bathroom on the potty
6. have more patience when I tell Hailey the same thing I've been repeating for 10 minutes
7. have more quality "family time" that doesn't have anything to do with the tv
8. convince the navy that Robb and Kayla are really needed in Saratoga (that one might not be so easy)
9. see the pacific ocean
10. remember at least half of these
Wish me luck!

No More Desperate Housewives

2009-11-30T00:05:00.000-08:00

I enjoy watching shows based on real crimes. Maybe I'm creepy. However, I watch ONE episode of Desperate Housewives involving a serial strangler and I have nightmares. They're the kind that feel so real that when you wake up and you're not sure if they really happened or not. I woke up 3 or 4 times only to go back to the exact same dream. I HATE that. So...now I'll be watching the Disney channel trying to program my brain to have dreams about touring with the Jonas Brothers or having a secret life as a pop star.

Life

2009-11-06T12:51:00.000-08:00

We may have found our new house. it's right down the street from the school in Broadalbin and is just the right size with a little room to grow. Now we search for the best loan. Buying a house is pretty stressful. You have to figure out bills and cut down on shopping at Target. Everyone knows I LOVE TARGET!!!! We're anxious to get out of our apartment for many reasons

Reason number 1: Our neighbor is insane

The other day our 80 year old hag of a neighbor called animal control because she said our dog had too big of a collar. I don't even know what she's talking about. She's crazy. Animal control came and saw that there was nothing wrong and we have a perfectly happy even if very smelly dog. She starts yelling at anybody who even attempts to walk into my house whether they live here or not. She's a fruit cake and not my friend. That's right. I'm denying an 80 year woman my friendship
(Embarrassing story- Jinglebell ran away AGAIN and the same man from animal control was called and he brought her back to the house)

Reason number 2: We don't live in the same town that Hails goes to school in so we have to drive her everyday which isn't horrible but it would be nice if she could take the bus.

Reason number 3: Our landlord stinks. I had a river in my bathroom for about 3 months before he finally came and figured out the problem. (It was something with the upstairs neighbor's pipes) I had a problem with the furnace while Jake was deployed in the middle of the winter (it wasn't turning on) and he said he was sick and would get to it in a few weeks. I'm not a big fan of living like an Eskimo.

Reason number 4: The girls need their own rooms. Hails is getting older and needs her own space. If they were closer in age it wouldn't really be an issue, but Hails needs her space.

Reason number 5: It just seems like the next step in life. We're married. We have kids. We have a dog. Next is a house, right?

We went and looked at a house the other day and while we were outside talking with the realtor, Jake brought up the possibility of adding on a garage. I then said "If we had a garage, you would only use it to do your nudey stuff" Oops. I meant nerdy. After an uncomfortable silence by all and then me bursting out in laughter trying to explain that I meant to say nerdy, we all had a good laugh. I don't get out much. I really shouldn't try doing things like talking to adults.

Hails is doing well in school and in dance. She only took jazz last year and this year we added tap and she LOVES it. She's been acing all of her spelling tests and is even reading chapter books now. She's a big fan of Captain Underpants which kind of shocks me. I find it hard to believe she likes anything with the word underpants in the title but she does.

Lacey is talking more and more everyday She likes to come up next to me when I'm yell...I mean disciplining Hailey and copy everything I say and shake her little chubby finger at her. She informed us the other day that she has a princess butt. I guess that makes sense since she also tells us often that she is indeed a princess. 2 year olds are funny. She gets embarrassed when we laugh at her cuteness and runs off and slams her bedroom door. She's going to be a great teenager.....

I am a slacker

2009-09-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

I guess it's about time I catch up since Jake has been home for over a month now! Let's see, where to start. Jake is obviously home and we're all loving it. He didn't go back to work until just this past Monday so I got used to having him here all the time. Lacey took a little while to really warm up to him but she's back to loving daddy when she's happy and mommy when she's a grump. Lucky me!
Hails started 3rd grade and she is doing really well. Her teacher is super nice and she isn't having any issues with reading this year. She even reads chapter books now. Captain Underpants is her favorite. I don;t care what she reads as long as she does it! OK, maybe I care a little but Captain Underpants is all right!
We have had the never ending cold at our house! It started with the girls, came back to Lacey and moved on to me and Jake got a little bit of it. Poor Lacey was coughing so hard she would throw up...every night. It wasn't fun. She ended up having an ear infection so after a few days of antibiotics she was a lot better. OOH! We have some big Lacey news. We are almost pacifier free. I know, I know she's over 2! I told myself I wouldn't let her have it after she turned 1 but she loved it so much! Now we've cut it down to bed time and she's been doing great! Next stop...potty training.
I got the results from my last procedure. I knew it wasn't cancer which is awesome but didn't bother to really listen to the rest. The biopsy they took had cells called CIN 3. I guess that's their grade or something. It's the grade right before cancer which is scary but it's not cancer so phew. Well, the cells went beyond the margins of the biopsy they took so November I get to go back and start the whole process over again. Yuck. At least Jake's home now.
We have been house hunting for about a month now. The area we want to live in is pretty expensive. You don't get a lot of bang for your buck. You don;t get much of anything. It's a small town but the school is fantastic so houses go pretty quick. There's been 2 or 3 that have for sale signs on them but when we call the sale is already pending. The search continues! We may have to settle for a town over with another decent school. As long as the girls don't have to go to school in Amsterdam, I'm happy.
I guess that's all the updates for now. Hopefully I'll have an update soon about our new house wherever it may be.

The results are in

2009-08-13T11:23:00.000-07:00

and most people probably know them from facebook but I am cancer free! All of the biopsies once again came back high grade disease but they didn't extend past where they took the biopsies from which is great news. It's terrific news. It's completely awesome fantastic amazing news. It's any really exciting word you can think of kind of news. The nurse said it's one step under cancer so they have to keep a very close eye on it. In 3 months I go back for a colposcopy. In the mean time, I'll be doing a major change to my diet added as many cancer fighting fruits and veggies as I can and I'll be cutting out the loads of garbage I eat on a regular basis.
I love good news!!!!!!!

Waiting

2009-08-11T20:38:00.000-07:00

makes me crazy. That is all. :)

No more biopsies! (mostly girl talk)

2009-08-07T15:48:00.000-07:00

I had what is hopefully my last biopsy yesterday. This one was not NEARLY as bad as my last one. They were able to use lido-cane. All I felt was pressure. It was still very uncomfortable but not painful. I didn't even have horrendous cramps afterwords so everything went really well. It's a very odd experience that I would be perfectly OK with never doing again. It's a very very odd feeling to have to wait 7 to 10 days to 'know your fate" I guess you could say. The results of this have the potential of changing everything and that's just very odd to me. I guess they took a cone shaped piece of my cervix and if the diseased cells were all contained to the area they took then I just have to go back for a pap in 4 months. No big deal. Life can go back to normal with just a few extra Dr visits a year. I can deal with that. If the cells went FURTHER than the biopsy but still don't show cancer, I have to go back in 4 months and have another colposcopy. (NO NO NO!!!! I hate those)That also means I can't, well shouldn't have any more babies until everything starts coming back normal. However, I'm not really sure what they do when that happens. They can only take so much of my cervix. I didn't ask. I was choosing to only think positively that day. Of course there's always the chance that it could come back and show cancer but I'm trying not to think about that....all the time. It's a constant effort. So, in 7 to 10 days I'll know.

No news isn't good news. They just forgot to call

2009-07-31T07:17:00.000-07:00

I gave in and called my Dr today for my biopsy results. Rather than feeling comforted, I'm scared....still. They showed high grade disease in ALL of the biopsies which isn't cancer, however does mean that I have to have ANOTHER deeper biopsy. The last one gave me the worst cramps ever known to mankind. I guess it showed disease in the glands or something too so they have to go deeper and make sure they aren't missing cancer. What the heck is disease? What does that even mean? I guess maybe it just means they're bad. SO, it wasn't horrible news. It just wasn't very reassuring. I thought that would be the last of it, I'd go in for the LEEP and be done. No such luck of course. However, they're going to do the biopsy and LEEP at the same time so as long as the biopsy comes back ok, I will be done and life can go back to normal.
I wish Jake was home. He is always so calm and so rational in any situation and it helps comfort me and balances out my irrational negativity. A couple more weeks, however after tomorrow, he'll lose his access to phones and computers because the new unit is there and they'll be turning in their keys. So, that stinks. My appointment is next Thursday. Wish me luck!!

biopsy

2009-07-24T17:58:00.001-07:00

I had a biopsy today that was incredibly uncomfortable but luckily the whole procedure took under 10 minutes. I really love my new Dr a lot, even if my 10 minute procedure had a 2 hour wait. I should have the results in about a week and hopefully they'll come back OK. I know I'm going to have to have one more procedure but as long as it doesn't come back cancer I couldn't care less. My Dr. seemed really positive so I'm going to stick with that. So, besides being really crampy and uncomfortable, I'm doing well.
The girls are doing great. This has been the weirdest summer ever. I just found out I have a vitamin D deficiency which doesn't shock me. We haven't had any sun! Even the "nice days" we have are cloudy. They just call it nice because it didn't rain. The girls have been cooped up a lot which makes us all a little cranky. Of course getting out of the house usually means going shopping (what else do you do when it rains?) therefor the girls have a ridiculous amount of clothing. It's sad when you go to a store and can't find anything because you bought all the cute stuff. I have issues. My name's Sharee and I'm a shop-a-holic. There. The first step is admitting there's a problem right? However, if stores sold uglier clothes, I wouldn't have a problem!
ANYWAY, Jake's coming home soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have less than a month! I need to come up with some super adorable t-shirt idea for his homecoming. I'll take any suggestions! I guess that's all the news for now!
(The picture on the top is Jake's birthday cake. His birthday was the 21st and I still wanted the girls to celebrate it so we made a cake....and ate it for him)

One Dr visit down.

2009-07-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

I had one of my Dr visits today and it was very uneventful. The lump isn't what my Dr thought it was so now I get to have a procedure done where they use a scope. Not my idea of fun but it could be worse. It could still be nothing If that doesn't come out favorably, I'll have to have ANOTHER procedure done. Ugghhh. Of course they schedule it 3 weeks out so I can't just go and get it over with. I still don't have an appointment with the ob/gyn but my Dr's office was supposed to make that for me yesterday. I at least know what to expect from that one. I've had it done before. I just wish we could skip the initial visit where nothing gets done and they could just do what they have to do. I don't want to waste time when they know something's not right. It's very annoying. Hopefully they can get me in there soon. I just want to get everything over with.
On a more positive note, we had a really fun 4th of July. We went to the lake like we always do but this year it was cold! The kids are nuts and still went crazy. I had a van full this year. I have Natalia on the weekends while her mom and dad work which has been a lot of fun. I don't see her a lot the rest of the year so I'm really enjoying spending time with her. I also had Marlee and Griffin because Nate and Mel had a wedding to go to. All the kids were really good and it was nice to go somewhere where I had the help of my family. How did my mom do it with 6 kids???? I'll have to add some pictures to this later since I'm on Nate's computer. The day before I took Hails, Lacey and Natalia to the Great Escape and we had a lot of fun there as well. We even stayed for the fireworks which terrified Hails but the other girls liked them. We ended up watching them from the car with the radio on to drown out the sound. I can't complain. That's the first time I've been able to see fireworks in 5 years! Hails REALLY hates them. I thought it would be something she grew out of but I guess not. She was ok in the van though as long as I was in the van with her.
Jake comes home soon!!!! Hopefully by the time he gets home this whole mess will be done with and we can go back to being a normal (if you can consider us normal) family. I can't wait! I will be sleeping in :)

Freaking out

2009-07-05T21:43:00.000-07:00

I had a Dr's appointment this past week and it did not go as well as planned. If you don't want to hear about girl things or parts stop reading now. I will be using the words cervix and pap smear.
OK, for all who are left, I had a pap done and while doing that the Dr saw spots on my cervix. I've had abnormal results and even saw an oncologist when I was pregnant so this wasn't shocking but very disappointing. They also found a lump in a close body part that could be either something or nothing. My vote is for nothing and I'm hoping if enough people vote that way, it's a majority rules type thing. Shouldn't it work that way? So I'm kind of having moments of freaking out a bit and others where I tell myself there's no need to worry until they actually tell you that there's something to worry about. So as if I wasn't already a total insomniac, now I spend the night looking up cervical cancer and it's stages. Heaven forbid people post some positive stories. I seem to find every negative story that anyone ever wrote.
So if anyone just happens to be saying prayers and lets my name slip that would rock. I'm a pretty nice person most of the time. I'd prefer to keep all my body parts and have no interest in dying so I'm sure everything will be fine but prayers will always help! Thanks people!

Still no birthday pictures...

2009-06-22T21:57:00.001-07:00

but I DO have a picture of the shirt I made for Lacey to wear on Fathers Day. I thought it rocked. Hails, Lacey and I had a good time with the family but missed Jake a lot. We're looking forward to being complete again! We walked to the park across from my parents house and when it started to get dark we had a light stick scavenger hunt. Nate made the glow sticks bracelets and put them around all the kids ankles. It was really funny to watch them run. It looked like they didn't have any feet. I told him next time we should color code the kids so when it gets dark, we know who's who. While we were out, I got bit 8 times on one ankle! Stupid mosquitoes. I wish I had taken a video of the kids with their glow sticks but after bragging to Nate that I remembered my camera AND my memory card, I went to take a picture and realized I had left the memory card in the computer...AGAIN! So, we used my dad's camera to get a picture of Lacey's shirt. She didn't smile but we got the picture!
We are really looking forward to having Jake back home to celebrate all of the special days with us. He's an amazing father, husband and friend and this past year has been difficult. The deployment hit us out of nowhere. I've been very lucky to have a very supportive family around me but I want my Jake back! A year is too long to take a dad away from his family. I can't believe that people do this all the time. I hope we'll never have to do it again.

Better Late than Never!

2009-06-20T05:50:00.001-07:00

Hailey has FINALLY learned how to ride a bike. It seems late to me because I learned when I was 5 but better late than never! She wouldn't even TRY for me. She wanted to keep her training wheels on and I said no way. Maybe it's mean, but I think it looks absolutely ridiculous. She's too big for that! I still couldn't get her to try even after mentioning that we would be able to go for a bike ride with her BFF on the bike trail that just HAPPENS to end with an ice cream shop. Counter productive? Maybe a little. My brother nate came over and she was a little hesitant but after he promised not to let her fall, she agreed to try. (I guess she didn't believe me when I said it) After 5 minutes, she was riding by herself with him following closely because she was still wobbly and after about 15, she was riding like a pro. It's probably better that he taught her. I'm kind of a paranoid freak and would have made a huge deal about her getting a little tipsy (haha...tipsy) So, now we can go to the bike trail and get our ice cream. She called her dad and he came over to watch with his 16 year old flavor of the month and of course he had to say that she already knew how to ride a 2 wheeler because he taught her last summer. Bologna or other words not appropriate for a family blog. 1. I had her all last summer because he didn't bother to take her when he was supposed to. 2. He just can't let someone else take credit for something he SHOULD have done. I could write an entire book of reasons why I can't stand that man but this is a happy blog so I'll be nice. So ANYWAY, Hails is now a bike riding pro! Quite frankly, I could really use a trip or 10 to the bike trail so this will be good for all of us. I'll post a birthday blog for Lacey soon. I forgot to put the memory card in my camera before I left so my brother took most of the pictures and hasn't sent them to me yet. So, 2 year old party blog, coming soon!

Busy Day

2009-06-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

We had another busy week and a very busy Saturday. We got all of the grand kids together for a day of fun and of course a photo shoot. My family doesn't go anywhere without a camera. I am probably the worst at taking pictures (I missed out on the artistic talents my parents gave out but I am a pretty excellent finger painter) My philosophy is to just keep taking pictures and a few of them are bound to come out good. So far it's been working for me. So, my parents, Nate and Mel, Kayla and I went to Congress Park (Saratoga) with the kids to feed the ducks. They also have a huge carousel there which was fun. Well, not for me. I chose to hold baby Marlee so I didn't spend the rest of my day wanting to vomit. One head injury 12 years ago and rides are ruined forever. Ugghh. Although I do love holding Marlee. After that we went and had gilatos which are delicious. The picture taking was easy when they were candid. When we put them all together it was a typical Steves family photo. One was screaming (of course it had to be mine) and we had one picking her nose (yay! not mine!) it was a good long tiring day. The best part is when we finally got home, all the kids fell asleep :)

Busy month

2009-05-31T21:20:00.000-07:00

May has been a busy month. It had a great ending with Hails dance recital. She did such a good job. She was so happy that all the family was able to be there for it. It was a LONG show (37 dances!) and all the little kids did really well. Her best friend takes tap through the same dance company and was in the show too. It was a great night!

Hails has also been playing soccer. The first game was terrible but they've won the past 2. All of the parents on our team are really relaxed and just happy that their kids are trying. Some of the parents on the other teams are INSANE! They scream and quite frankly, I think they're scary.

June will be pretty busy too. We've got Lacey's 2nd birthday in less than 2 weeks! Hails will be done with school for the summer and we'll be having our countdown to Jake coming home! WOOOO! He should be home before September. We don't know where we'll go when he gets home but we know we're going to go somewhere. We need a vacation.

Mothers Day!

2009-05-10T20:21:00.000-07:00

The day started off so well. We went to church, the girls behaved and then we came home. When I told hails she was going to wear jeans, it all went downhill. Hailey hates pants with buttons. If she had it her way, she'd wear a track suit every day of her life. She's in a weird in-between stage lately. She's too skinny for the next size up but too tall for the size she's wearing. All of her pants with no buttons are now high waters and I will not let her wear them. I'm so mean. SO, she threw a major fit, told me she hated mothers day and ranted and raved for a good 10 minutes about how much she hated jeans. Lacey was overtired and wouldn't get dressed. She wanted to lay in bed and watch Annie. It's her favorite movie. It's rated G so I figured it was fine. The 2 phrases she picked up from it are dumb dog and Damn. *big sigh* Go figure. We finally left the house and made it over to my mom's. We had a REALLY fun time. Kayla was there with her boyfriend Robb whom we all LOVE.

They need to get married. He fits in to our family perfectly. He cracks us up! The kids love him and when we took all the kids to the park, it was nice to have an extra adult to watch everybody! (Although I don't know if I would really classify him as an adult) Hails threw a major fit on the way back because I wouldn't let her pull Griff and Lacey in the wagon. We had to walk on a pretty busy road and when we go downhill, the wagon would have been too much for her. Of course this made her angry and once again she hated Mothers Day and said that she does everything for me and I don't let her do anything. Uggghh. if it's like this at 8, how is it going to be when she's a teenager? Some days she really makes me want to rip my hair out and tests my patience to it's limits. When we got back, Me, KK, Robb and my parents played a really fun game. Everyone gets asked a question and whoever's turn it is has to guess who answered what. It was fun. I won! So, Mothers Day was good. It would have been better with Jake here but I still had a great day.
Hails started piano lessons this week and she did great! She's already reading notes and plays Ode to Joy with her right hand. I was impressed! She really enjoyed it. She also had her first soccer game. That didn't go quite so well. The score was 13 to 1 and to be honest, I have no clue how we got that 1 point. Everyone had to take a turn sitting out and after everyone had sat out, he just picked numbers for people to sit out again. Of COURSE, he picked Hailey's number after she had JUST sat out so she thought it was some personal attack on her because she's a terrible soccer player (her words) and was a major drama Queen. It did stink that she had to sit out for the entire second half of the game but what do you do? Her dance recital is coming up really soon and after that. she'll have a bit of a break. This summer she'll only have piano lessons but I would LOVE to find her some kind of art camp or clinic. She would love that.
I guess that's all the excitement for now. I hope everyone else had a great mothers day too!

Insomniac

2009-05-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

Definition of insomniac= Sharee. I just never sleep anymore. While Jake was here, I slept great! As soon as he left, I went back to 4 hours of sleep again. So, that's why I'm up at 1 in the morning blogging. I did finally figure out how to make a header for my blog (thanks Christie!) so at least i'm being productive. If it wasn't so late, I would vacuum. I love vacuuming.
Lacey is such a big goofball lately. She is SO SO SO SO SO strong willed. She absolutely refuses to sit in a shopping cart or a high chair. I know I know. I'm the parent. She shouldn't have the choice. However, she will scream. She won't just scream for a couple of minutes and then give in. She will scream for as long as she's sitting and then sometimes if I'm lucky, she'll scream so hard she vomits. She also can somehow manage to squeeze her big butt (yes I just said my daughter has a big butt. Anyone who knows her, knows it's true) out of the seat belt no matter how tight I make it. That just makes it dangerous so she walks. Today when we went into Target, she immediately ran to the purses and took one to carry around the store. Anything she found that would fit, she shoved into it. So after we were done with our shopping, I had to pry the purse away from her. She has PLENTY of purses at home. It's just so fun to watch her learn new things. She answers questions with yeah! or no appropriately. Well, what she finds appropriate. She can also jump and get both of her feet off of the floor! Hailey skipped freakishly early, but jumping with both feet took her awhile.
Hails has her first soccer game this Saturday. She's very excited about it. They'll have only had one practice and it's a lot of the kids first year playing soccer so it should be interesting.
Happy Mothers Day to all the moms who read this! I'll have to find myself something extra nice from Jake.

Nothing exciting

2009-04-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

The sunny weather is FINALLY here and it's been HOT! I had to get the girls some new summer clothes and summer jammies. I'll take any opportunity to shop! Lacey loves dresses which makes me so incredibly happy. I put her in them as often as possible before she changes her mind. Lately she's been walking around in her little play shoes. They're little plastic heels. She threw a fit when I made her take them off and put on her sandals to go to the store. What a nut.
Hails is loving the weather. She has a new slip and slide. I've never seen her get her homework done so fast! She only has a few more weeks of classes before her big dance recital and she starts soccer this Saturday. She's a busy girl! She'll be doing both dance and soccer in the fall as well but I want to add piano lessons to that too. We have a piano at the house and she wants to learn so now I just need to find someone to teach her!
We've kind of settled back into our non-Jake household. We don't like it, but we're doing it. Just a few more months. I don't like to say an actual number. It makes it seem a lot longer. As always, I've been shopping too much. I'm a stress shopper. I come home with a new dress for Lacey every time I leave the house. Hails has no interest in clothes. She hates skirts and dresses and anything that looks "too pretty" but she's starting to like very girly colors so it's an improvement! When we went to get pajamas, she picked out nightgowns! I couldn't believe it! I guess dresses are OK for bed. I won't complain.
Hails had a sleepover with her friend Sophia on Saturday. (She goes to our church ) When we dropped her off at home on Sunday her 2 year old little brother ran out of the house wearing absolutely nothing except for a pair of Lightening McQueen slippers. The missionaries happened to be on that street and were talking to me when Elder Williams stopped talking and asked if we were at a nudist colony. It's a pretty busy road so quite a few people got a show! Before he went into the house, he had to jump on the trampoline...naked. I hope someone got a picture because that is excellent blackmail for his later years. Kids are crazy.
We went to the drive ins with Nate and Mel last Friday. It was Lacey's first time at a movie. She doesn't like to sit still...ever so a drive in was best. I figured she could just climb all over the car. I got out of the van to get her some popcorn from Nate and Mel's truck and the dirty rat locked the doors. My keys were in my purse in the car. She sat there happy as can be waving bye bye to everyone while I had a mini panic attack. I went over to her window and asked her to push the button and amazingly she did. I opened the door and grabbed my keys so I could unlock the door if she tried it again (which she did) We saw Monsters vs Aliens and for most of the movie, Lacey buckled and unbuckled herself in the front passenger seat. She needed my help so every 30 seconds of the entire time we were there I heard "mama! Mama!" It could have been worse. She was really mad when she realized that she wouldn't be able to ride home in the front seat. The movie was really cute. B.O.B. is my favorite.
I need to sleep. As soon as Jake left, I went back to my insomniac ways. Last night I went to bed at 11 which is pretty amazing for me. I fell asleep with Marlee when the kids were napping so I got a bit of a boost so Maybe I'll get to sleep by midnight.

My Lacey

2009-04-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

She's always good for a giggle. She tries really hard to say a lot of things. Some things are really clear and the rest I usually say "oh yeah? awesome!" to and that seems to keep her happy. As you can see, her sarcasm is well and running :).

Harder the Second Time

2009-04-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

The first time Jake left, I was in complete denial for awhile so I didn't really process how sad I was. If anything I would say I was more numb. This time I knew what was coming and that it was real and that I won't see him again until September. It hurts. It hurts a lot. Having him here for 2 weeks was amazing. He's my best friend and I hate not having him with me. Lacey did just fine as well. I've been preparing her for months and have been showing her pictures ever since he left. She wasn't afraid at all and he didn't get any cold shoulder from her either. Hails was thrilled to see him too. We were able to take a 3 day trip to Boston and go to the Childrens Museum which was really awesome and the Aquarium which was more fun for me and Jake. Lacey was coming down with a cold and miserable and Hailey was afraid to go near any of the tanks. Sleeping was interesting. Lacey has never slept anywhere that wasn't her home so we didn't know how well she would do. The first night she ran all over the room and we all fell asleep before her. We were trying to pretend to be asleep so maybe she would take the hint but we all just ended up falling asleep instead. I woke up at about midnight and she was passed out at the end of her and Hailey's bed. I pushed the bed against the wall and put her on her pillow. A few hours later I woke up and she was sleeping on hailey's legs. Then about an hour after that, Jake woke up and she was sleeping with her head hanging off the bed. He put her back in her bed and a few hours later she ended up getting in our bed and stayed there. The next night she wasn't feeling well and was a super grump. I ended up walking her around the room and rocking her until she fell asleep. Surprisingly that only took about 5 minutes. Both of the girls LOVED the hotel pool. Hails would have been happy if we just spent our entire trip swimming but we used the pool as a reward for good behavior during our day so it worked out well.
Easter was good. I love getting the girls all dressed up and it was wonderful that Jake could be here for that. We had an Easter egg hunt and dinner at our house. After everyone left we enjoyed our last few hours together until he had to go again. His flight left at 6 so we had to get up at around 4. No fun. It made for a long day.
Lacey ended up taking a nap at around 9. She was super grumpy.
I've been on the verge of tears all day but they're just not coming. I feel like if I could just cry for an hour I would feel a lot better. I was able to talk to him for a little bit this afternoon. I miss him so much. He's an amazing husband, father and friend. I can't wait to see him again.

Weekend update with Sharee Smathers

2009-03-16T09:10:00.001-07:00

I'm a total blog slacker. Everything at home has pretty much been the same EXCEPT we were able to play outside on Saturday. It was such a nice change. I'm looking forward to opening the windows and airing out the winter germs. We're very much looking forward to Jake coming home for a few weeks. R&R is almost here!

Nothing exciting

2009-03-02T19:52:00.000-08:00

This week has been pretty good. It finally started to warm up (which of course was soon followed by a big storm) The most exciting part was on Saturday, Meagan and I went to get mani-pedis. I've had a manicure once before but thought it was kind of a selfish expense so I never went again. However, now I may be hooked. I LOVED it. I love feeling a little fancy. As horrible as it may make me sound, it was also nice to have time for myself. I always feel very guilty when I say things like that. I don't do it often so I guess it's ok. I only called 3 times to check on them. That;s pretty good for me.
Charlie ran away AGAIN. Jinglebell was outside and while I was in the shower, pushed the backdoor open so She ran in and Charlie ran out. This time he came back on his own after just a couple of days. I wasn't quite as freaked out as I was last time. There's not too many places he can go. He doesn't have any claws and there's always skunks and oppossums running around so he makes me nervous.
Other than that, the week was the same as always. It's finally March which means less than a month until we see Jake. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My sneaky daughter

2009-02-17T19:21:00.000-08:00

This past week was a bit stressful. Our cat got out of the house and was gone for over a week. It was freezing the first night and I was sure he was a goner. This was upsetting for 2 reasons.
1. We love him and he brings us a lot of comfort with his purrs and softness
2. We paid a lot of money getting him neutered and de-clawed

I put an ad on craigslist and in the local paper. Then I put up posters on all the streets around us and put fliers on my neighbors porches. I got a lot of replies that said don't worry. He's just hiding out but after a week things were looking pretty dim. My neighbors called on Valentines Day and said that they thought they saw a grey cat in their garage but he wouldn't come out for them. He was hiding up in the rafters. So, I went over, climbed up their ladder and called him. He came right out when he heard me and all was well again in the smathers house. While he was gone I even fed the neighborhood strays with the food I left on the porch. As we have well learned, all is never well for long. That same night I got a call asking me if I was missing my dog. I thought that was odd and told them no. I was missing my cat but he was back. He then said but I have a dog with this number on her tag. Apparently the land lord had stopped by and the idiot left the gate open...again. He KNOWS we have a dog. So, instead of holding onto Jinglebell, the guy lets her run and she just barely missed getting hit by a car. So she went out for a 3 hour joy run before deciding it was too cold and she should run home. She let us chase her for 3 blocks first of course. Usually Jake ends up doing a diving tackle to catch her. I was not even about to try that. I'd probably have broken something. At least this time she barked in front of the right house.

Other than the drama of missing pets, things have been pretty normal. We finally have a date to look forward to. Jake will be home for R&R on March 20th!!! We're all excited, especially Hails. She keeps telling me that she's going to make an invention that reaches all the way to Iraq and will suck Jake back to our house through a humongous tube. She asked Nate to help her build it. She calls it the Iraq come back...or something like that.

One funny story before I go which will explain my blog title. Sometimes I will bribe Hailey with little things to help me find things like my keys. She asked me if I would buy her a wenkinz if she found Charlie. I (somewhat sarcastically) said "Hails, if you find Charlie, I'll buy you 3." When Charlie was missing, Hailey and I would say our prayers and ask for Heavenly Father to watch over him and help him find his way home. It went like that every night until about Friday when Hails asked Heavenly Father to bring Charlie home tomorrow. I didn't want to crush her faith but didn't want her to be upset when it didn't happen. She taught me a lesson. The neighbor's called the next day. Hails was about to make them a thank you card for finding Charlie when she said to me. "mom, the neighbors didn't really find Charlie" (me) "Oh? Well then who did?" (Hails) "God did" I was very impressed that she recognized that he answered her prayer when she added "and since I prayed to God, I helped find him so you owe me 3 webkinz" How do I argue with that? I don't.

What a Week!

2009-02-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

Like the title says, what a week! First, Hailey got a stomach virus and then Lacey and then Hailey again and then all 3 of us at once. NOT fun!! Yesterday I felt horrible! I could barely get out of bed and when I did it was only to make it to the couch. I ordered a pizza for dinner and went to bed early. I feel a gazillion times better than yesterday but still kind of yucky. However, there were plenty of good parts to the week.
On Super Bowl Sunday, a bunch of the family came over and we were able to see a few clips of Jake in Balad. It was so cool to see him in real time. They played earlier than we thought they were going to and we almost missed them. It was a fun day. We made lots of food and all the kids had fun playing together. We even got a picture with most of them together. Not an easy task. I think there were some funny faces but no-one was picking their nose.

I've been watching Griff and Marlee on Mondays and Tuesdays and it's been going really well. Marlee is a happy baby and Griff and Lacey get to play together. Lacey LOVES Baby Marlee and always wants to hold her and give her hugs. She's such a little mommy.
I don't think that anything real exciting has happened. Oh wait! How could I forget? I got new furniture!!!! It's Squishy and I LOVE it!

I bought some Lysol today and I'm going to try and de-germ my house. I wish it wasn't so cold outside. If would be nice to air everything out. Today it's so cold, it hurts to be outside. Lacey and I went to the store and I thought my fingers were going to fall off. The darn ground hog saw it's shadow (as usual) which means 6 more weeks of winter. Stupid ground hog.

Miss Independant

2009-01-27T19:16:00.000-08:00

Lacey has decided that she can do everything on her own. She wouldn't let me help her take her clothes off to get into the bath tub and today she put her skirt on all by herself. I had tried her leg warmers on her, she added a skirt and refused to let me take off her pajama top. We weren't going anywhere so this was Lacey's outfit today.

Overdue

2009-01-17T20:15:00.000-08:00

I guess I've been blog slacking. Not a whole lot has been going on. It's been cold so we've been cooped up inside most of the time. I got the girls out today, picked up Kayla and we took them to the mall. There's a play area there and so they were able to run and release some of their energy. Hails gets to do that at school but poor Lacey really needed it. She had a lot of fun. There were a lot of babies playing so she was in heaven.
I got to take Hails and her best friend Alyssa to the movies on Friday. It was nice to be able to do something for Hails. We saw Hotel for Dogs and it was really cute. The girls laughed and had fun. They had popcorn, candy and slush puppies. They were also up past midnight that night :) I stayed true to my diet and didn't cheat, though their snacks looked very good!
I get to talk to Jake pretty often. It's awkward never being able to have a private conversation with my husband but I'm always just glad to hear his voice. He'll be home in June for his leave and we can't wait! I had a dream that he surprised me and came home for a few days. It was the best dream so when I woke up, I was pretty bummed out. The deployment is a lot harder than I ever imagined. I shouldn't complain. I just really miss my husband. I look forward to all of his e-mails. There's one almost every morning and they really make my day. I guess the people he's there with aren't making life enjoyable and I hate that! He's already away from his family. Why do people have to be such jerks. I hate rank and what it does to people but that's a whole other post. I really can't wait to have him back.
I got new tires for my car. Mine were horrible! Nate found me a great deal and went and had them put on my van while I stayed with Mel and all the babies. I guess Griffy and Lacey aren't such babies anymore, but I'm in denial of them growing up. I even watched Marlee for a few hours the other day and she only had one phase of uncontrollable screaming. A few bounces and she was out. I love holding sleeping babies, but it makes me very sleepy too. When I was pregnant with Lacey, Griffy and I used to take naps together on the couch all the time. I wanted to fall asleep when I was holding Marlee but who knows what Griff and Lacey would have done. :) Hails was there too and she did keep them very entertained! All the kids love Hailey.
I think that's it for any exciting news. No. I take that back. American Idol started up again!!!! YAY! My Tuesdays and Wednesdays now belong to Ryan Seacrest :)

Rewind and start over

2009-01-03T09:30:00.000-08:00

What a week. If I could rewind and start over (and have it be better of course), I would. Lacey had what we thought was chicken pox, EVERYONE was puking at some point and Jake's company was told that they can't make so many personal calls. I'm sure our 5 minutes really clogged up the phone line. So, now I'm going through Jake deprivation :P
New Years Eve was very uneventful. Hails went to her friend Alyssa's house and was there most of the night. I put Lacey to bed at about 7:30 and stayed up watching CNN on the off chance that they might show Jake's unit in Iraq. He had told me earlier in the day that it was a possibility, but if they showed it, it was after 2 in the morning. That's when I finally crashed. Even though he would probably be the one filming and not actually be IN the video, I wanted to see it just the same. I hadn't thought to check the CNN website. I guess that's worth a try.
Hails starts back at school this week after her 2 week break. I had wanted to do a lot more with her but both girls were sick. Hopefully winter break will go better. She hasn't had dance class all this month because of the snow and vacation. She's anxious to get back. She does really well there. I'm glad she likes it.
Lacey has been VERY clingy since she's been sick. However, at Natalia's birthday party last night, she was a little social butterfly. Long gone are the days where she screams at anyone who happens to look in her direction. She was very happy to see baby Marlee. I think she will make an excellent big sister someday.
Hopefully we'll hear from Jake in the next few days and this week will be better than the last. I'd say it couldn't get much worse, but I know better than that.

Christmas 08

2008-12-26T22:03:00.000-08:00

Since I'm a total insomniac, I decided I might as well do my Christmas blog.
Christmas this year was filled with very mixed emotions. It started off well and exciting. It was fun to see Lacey and Hails open their presents and to see their excitement. It was a total baby year for Lacey. She got 7 new babies for Christmas! She also got baby accessories :) Hails was excited to get MORE webkinz (she's past 20 now) and her bendaroos! I don't think I have ever seen so many presents in my life. Everyone came here and there were 9 kids that everyone shopped for. Needless to say, my house was a mess. Well, is a mess, but it's getting better! My mom is amazing and helped a lot before she went home. About mid-day I really got bummed out. I was missing Jake a lot but was more sad that he didn't have family around him and it made me sad to think that he might be lonely on Christmas. I just want him home.
Kayla came over on Christmas Eve and we wore matching pajama pants and she bought us new shirts to wear with them. I had Santa and she had the Bumble. (yes, we are that nerdy) We made pie, cookies, wrapped presents, watched movies and drank out of fancy cups, which is VERY fun to do. She got me the COOLEST charm bracelet. It has a Hailey charm, a Lacey charm and an army charm. Oh, and a live love laugh charm. I adore it. I made her a red sox blanket so she can tick off her roommate..and just because they're awesome. I was glad she came over. She makes me silly and you can't be sad when you're being silly!
The next few days I'll be attempting to put my house back together. Lacey likes to scatter her toys wherever she goes, so the cleaning never ends. However, she does like to help too :) (even if she immediately dumps whatever she just picked up.) I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

2008-12-21T19:29:00.000-08:00

This week has been a snowy snowy week. Well, it didn't really start that way, but it ended with a bang. I knew the storm was coming on Friday, so I didn't even bother sending Hails to school for her half day. She started her vacation a little early which she was pretty happy about. She had a sleepover with her best friend Alyssa. We set up the tent that she got for her birthday and they camped out in the living room. Saturday, we all played in the snow. I have Jake's extreme cold weather gear which looks absolutely dreadful, but it keeps me toasty warm. The snow is all powder so we haven't been able to make a snowman. We're going to make a snow Jake. I just need to find a beret :)Lacey had mixed feelings about the snow.

I can't believe Christmas is almost here. It's not the same without Jake, but hard not to get excited with my daily reminders from Hailey. I got her the new Sonic game for the Wii finally. I was waiting for the price to go down a bit. I think she will be most excited to open her bendaroos. Those infomercials got the best of all of us. If you ask ANY kid in 2nd grade around here what they want for Christmas, they'll tell you bendaroos. I'm just hoping they get here in time! Lacey's Christmas is everything baby. She LOVES babies. I have a feeling she'll be getting a lot of them this Christmas. She's such a little mommy. Today she decided that she wanted to wear some of Hailey's underwear. After failing to put it on over her legs, she wore it over her head and through one arm. She wouldn't let me take it off either. As much as I hope that means she's ready for potty training, she is terrified of the potty chair.Maybe in a few more months.
I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas! Please keep Jake and everyone else serving overseas in your prayers :)

It's great to be 8

2008-12-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, Hailey turned 8. I can't even begin to explain how it feels to have an 8 year old. Old I guess :) She had her friend party in the afternoon and then my family came over in the evening. Only 4 friends showed up but it was a good time for everyone...except me and Kayla (who I enlisted to help me) 2 of the girls are sisters and have been our friends since Hailey was a baby. Alyssa (the younger sister) is just 5 days older than Hailey and I used to babysit her so they've grown up together. She comes over all the time and we never have a problem. The other 2 girls who came from school were 2 of the most obnoxious children I've ever met in my life. The first things out of one friend's mouth were, "We have 5 cats, 7 fish, 2 dogs and 3 hamsters" (or something like that) "We have a lot of money and a lot of rooms in OUR house" Throughout the party we got to hear about how much richer she is than everyone and no matter what you had, she had one more. She was rude and complained about EVERYTHING. The other little girl was a big grump who didn't want to do anything but play the wii and when we finally got her to take a picture with everyone, she looked at us like she wanted us to die. She did get less annoying as the party went on, but definitely had an attitude problem. If I ever find out that Hailey went to someone else's house and acted like that, she will be grounded for life. Oh well. Hails didn't care. As long as Alyssa's there, she has a good time. Hails appreciated everything but her favorite present of the day was either her guitar or her pixos. Pixos seem to be real big with 8 year olds. We tried them out yesterday during Lacey's nap and she actually liked them as much as she thought she would. (It usually seems like those kinds of toys get used once and tossed in the closet for months on end) Once we recovered from the monster children, it was a good day. However, my house will never be the same. I have a HUGE mess to clean up.

What a Week

2008-12-12T09:12:00.000-08:00

This week has been insane. Besides running out of oil and then not even knowing what my furnace was much less knowing how to bleed it, the reality of Jake being in Iraq finally seem to hit and that stunk. Part of that was my feelings of complete inadequacy, but most of it is because I just plain miss him and I'm scared. I was able to talk to him yesterday and that did help quite a bit.

Wednesday started out a really fun day. We went to visit KK and the girls got their Christmas dresses. However, when we got home, the house felt really drafty. I put the girls to bed and then noticed it just seemed to be getting even colder. I still had hot water which is usually the first thing to go so I didn't think I was out of oil. Of course I was. So, I left a message for the oil company sounding as pathetic as possible and after a little begging, they delivered oil the next day. However, after they delivered it, the furnace still wasn't working. I called my worthless landlord who couldn't have cared less and he of course, as usual, was no help. Nate was in Georgia so there was only one person left to call and I swallowed my pride and called Hailey's dad. He was able to fix it and my house is warm again. As much as we disagree on just about everything, I still very much appreciated his help.

Hails had a snow day today and I'm hoping the weather doesn't stop everyone from coming to her party tomorrow. She has been having a countdown for her birthday since June. I've also had her presents wrapped and sitting on the table for a few weeks, realizing now that to a 7 year old, this must be torture. We have a pretty fun day planned so hopefully everyone shows up. We haven't had too many RSVP's which is kind of a relief to be honest. We couldn't just invite one girl from the class, we had to invite all of them and there's 10. Since it's at the house, that seemed a bit overwhelming. Lacey will be in all of her glory surrounded by the "big girls" who no doubt will do a lot of ooohhhh's and aawwwww's over her ridiculous amount of cuteness.

Like I said before, Jake is in Iraq now and getting used to his new home for the next year. As soon as I have an address, I'll post that as well. He'd love to hear from family and friends.

Life lately

2008-12-04T06:39:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was great this year. Jake was able to come home one last time before he leaves which was awesome. The family all came over to our house which made it easier for us with Hails having to split her time. We missed having Nate, Mel, Griffy and Marlee here. They went to Georgia to spend Thanksgiving with her sister. We did however get their dog Scout. Jinglebell has liked having someone to play with for the last couple of weeks. We missed having Kate here too. She had to work. Yuck. Nyssa might kill me for putting this picture up but it makes me laugh.

Natalia ended up having a sleepover. She LOVES Hailey and is always really good when she stays over. She's only 2 (almost 3) but plays very well with Hails. They were even wearing matching outfits which were not planned but they were both pretty excited about. We call Natalia, Hailey's mini me.

Jake made the mistake of falling asleep while the food was cooking. So, unable to pass up the opportunity, we put funny hats on him and some nice eyeshadow. No one had any lipstick which was kind of a bummer. This picture cracks me up because of the way Lilly is looking at him

Unfortunately it was a very short visit for Jake, but better than nothing :) He leaves for Iraq tomorrow which terrifies me. Even though he's been gone since October, I've been able to talk to him multiple times a day and was even able to see him twice. I'm just hoping this next year goes by fast.

On a happy note, Lacey is loving nursery. I have never seen a child go so willingly. She never cried. She just walks in and acts like she owns the place. The only time you'll hear her scream is if any of the other kids dare to touch her baby. However, rather than getting a break from kids for more than 5 minutes, I of course got called to teach in the primary. Go figure. I teach Hailey's class which is a little difficult because of the age range it covers. We have a VERY small branch so I teach the 4 to 9 year olds. Bribery seems to help.

I attempted taking Christmas card pictures last night. I think Lacey actually looked at the camera once and it was the first picture. I always end up going with the first picture. I should just stop trying after that one.

I don't know how soon Jake will be able to get to a computer so I'll update as soon as he's in Iraq. His unit is anxious for him and his buddy to get there so they shouldn't have to do a lot of waiting around. I think that's it for now.

Good news!

2008-11-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

Jake's coming home for Thanksgiving! His orders were backed up (surprise surprise) and he was able to get leave for 2 and a half days. WOOHOO!

The Big Girl Bed

2008-11-18T20:44:00.000-08:00

Lacey is now in a big girl bed. I was nervous and thought she would get up and play when she should be sleeping but so far so good. I think she likes it because it makes her more like Hailey. Charlie has already claimed his spot at her feet. I can't believe that my baby is big enough for a bed!

This is a picture of Lacey after she very proudly stole Hailey's lunch off of the table. Hailey wasn't quite as amused at this one. It made me laugh. Jake will enjoy it too :) (I did make her give it back)

Crazy Lacey

2008-11-15T10:33:00.000-08:00

She apparently didn't like dinner the way I made it so she decided to spice it up.....or rather juice it up. Hailey was amused anyway:)

4 Great Days

2008-11-11T18:16:00.000-08:00

4 is my new favorite number. OK, it's not, but it sounded like a good beginning. 8 is my favorite number and 2,4's make 8 so....never mind. Jake was home for 4 days and it was fantastic. We didn't do anything or go anywhere extra exciting. We just acted like a normal family for 4 wonderful days. We watched movies, went to church, and all the things we would have done if he had never left. Just to make sure he didn't feel like a guest, I let him change diapers and get up with Lacey. I really have the best husband in the world. Lacey took a little while to warm back up to him but by Monday she wouldn't let him put her down and Lacey is NOT a clingy baby. She's a dictionary definition of Independence. Hails was so happy to see him as well. She keeps asking me why Jake has to go where he will be in danger. I never said anything like that to her and I'm wondering (although I have a pretty good guess) where she would have picked up something like that. We also went to see Nate, Mel, Griffin and Marlee. It was Jake's first time seeing Marlee. She even let him hold her without screaming for a little while. This time when we had to say goodbye, it was definitely sad but not as hard or tearful as the first time. I think we were all just so grateful for the chance that we had to be together that it took away some of the sadness. Hopefully the next 6 months or so will fly right by and we'll be able to see each other again. A few months after that and he'll be home for good.

Jake's coming home!!!!!!

2008-11-06T14:42:00.001-08:00

Jake gets to come home for 4 days! I would love it to be more but I can't complain since I didn't think I'd get to see him at all. He's flying in Saturday morning. I can't wait!!!!

Week 4

2008-11-03T20:13:00.000-08:00

We made it through another week and it was a BUSY one. We had a big snow storm, Hails came back early, Halloween, the cupcake incident, my new Halloween niece and I had Griffin and Scout from Thursday to Sunday. Though my house is much calmer now, (Griffin and Lacey fight like brother and sister) I miss having Griffy here. He's really just a joy to have around. He's the sweetest little boy. He went right to bed for me at night and i had to wake HIM up in the morning. He also likes to sit on my lap which Lacey is always too busy to do. She can't cause mischief if she's sitting still....well, she probably would figure out a way. It was also nice to keep so busy. As much as Lacey terrorized him, I think she misses him too.

Halloween went well. Hails made the cutest Alice in Wonderland and my mother in law did a fantastic job with her costume. Lacey had 3 costumes but only wore 2. Jake sent her 2 that he found super cheap at Old Navy. So, she was a skunk and a cat. I had bought her a little red riding hood costume but by the time she was out of her second costume, it was jammy time. She LOVED trick or treating. Griff preferred staying in the house with Grandma and handing out candy and playing with Chick Hicks and The King (his favorites) Lacey marched right up to anyone giving out candy and held up her little bucket and was ready for the next house. There wasn't too many people with their light on but Lacey got more than enough candy. Nyssa and Carter and Lilly came along too. Carter was adorable. He was a cowboy and wore one of those ridiculous horse costumes. He was so cute. Lilly was a mouse which is very appropriate with Lacey being a cat. (my kid's a bully)

Marlee Isabella was born on Halloween morning. She was 7 pounds 13 ounces. She looks JUST like Griffin. I don't think you'd even recognize the difference in their baby pictures. I look forward to spoiling her as much as I do Griff. :)

We do have some good news. Jake MIGHT get to come home for 4 days. I'm afraid to get my hopes up too high, but it's hard not to. I'm not going to tell Hails he's coming (if he does) so it will be a great surprise. She misses him a lot.
Hails starts dance on Friday. She'll be taking jazz. I want her to be able to do the things that I always wanted to but wasn't able to. I don't care so much that she sticks with it and does great. I really just want her to have the opportunity. Jazz seemed like the best kind of dance for Hails. Tap would probably drive her nuts because of the noise and she's just not a ballerina. That takes a self discipline that she just does not possess So, hopefully it will go well and she'll want to continue...especially if I have to pay 30 dollars for her shoes.
I hope everyone has a great week!

So much for getting ahead

2008-10-30T14:37:00.001-07:00

I was very proud of myself this morning. I had the cupcakes and treats all ready for Hails school before 11. (not an easy feat with Lacey) I obviously misjudged Lacey's desperation to get to anything covered in frosting and left them on the counter. They were in their carrying cases, covered, but she knew where they were. Needless to say, just a few minutes ago, she came into the living room COVERED in frosting saying "mmmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmmmm" It took me a minute to realize what happened and I ran to the kitchen hoping that just maybe she only got into the frosting can. No such luck. She took the entire container of cupcakes down, probably let the dog lick them and helped herself to all the frosting she could ingest without vomiting....yet. This was all done in under 3 minutes. So now I am one egg short and need to drag everyone out to buy eggs so I can make another batch of cupcakes. (I have Griffin today too. He's having a sleepover because Mel's going to be induced tomorrow. Halloween baby!) So, so much for getting ahead. I knew it was way too quiet.....

Week 3

2008-10-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

We made it through another week. It was a very busy week too. Charlie was declawed, we decorated for Halloween, went on a leaf hunt, had a sleepover and tried to stop Lacey from flushing all of our electrasol tabs down the toilet. Hails started a new program at school that she calls her club. On Mondays, after school, all the kids who signed up get MP3 players and walk along to a book on tape...well, a book on MP3 I guess. She really enjoyed it, especially because some of her friends from last year are in her "club". She is so shy. It's hard to get her to do anything unless it's with her best friend Alyssa.
Last night we came home to a very unpleasant surprise. There was a dead squirrel right before our porch. I wasn't about to go near it. It would be there forever if it was up to me to get rid of it. Luckily, I said something about it at church and the missionaries stopped by and got rid of it for me. They're fantastic. They of course had to play with it and take pictures first. Gross as it was, it was very much appreciated. I'm pretty sure the neighbor's cat left it for me as a present. Lucky me.
Jake's in DC still and he has a bit of the blues. I try to stay positive. I'm afraid that if I start letting the blues get to me, they won't go away. Don't get me wrong. I get sad and I miss him every second but in order for me to be a good mom, I can't let my sadness get the best of me. I'm lucky. I have the girls to keep me busy. He has too much time alone to think. Sometimes I'm afraid that I sound too happy and he'll think I don't miss him. That's not the case though. I need to put on a happy face, especially for Hailey. She is just so sensitive and so affected by other peoples emotions. She is really missing Jake. She's even turned into a phone talker when he calls. She has actual conversations. Even though I've tried to explain to her how long he'll be gone, she doesn't get how long it really is. Yesterday she mentioned how he would be home for Christmas and was very sad (as was I) when I told her that he wouldn't be here until next year. Lacey hears the word daddy and waves at the phone. I show her pictures but it wouldn't surprise me if she eventually called the phone daddy.
Charlie is doing well. I was afraid he would come back from the vet and resent me and be a really mean cat, but he's even sweeter than he was before. He's also super lazy. Lacey has done her fair share of torturing him this week. She had to make up for the 3 days he was gone. At least he can't scratch her anymore.

Hopefully this week will go by quickly. I need to make cupcakes for Hails class, finish decorating the house for Halloween, we have trunk or treat at church on Wednesday and Hails parade (along with trick or treating of course) on Friday. We finally found Lacey a Halloween costume...well 3 costumes. I bought her a little red riding hood costume and Jake bought her 2 costumes at Old Navy (they were ridiculously cheap) I think he got her the cat and the skunk costume. I hope everyone else has a great week as well. Happy Halloween!

Jake's videos

2008-10-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

This is a video Hails made for Jake. This is the only way I could figure out how to let him watch it. :) Everything else is blocked on stupid military computers.
Part 1

Part 2

Week 2

2008-10-19T07:37:00.001-07:00

Grrrrr. I just wrote this whole darn journal entry, went to add a picture and it disappeared. Oh well.
This week went pretty well. I had a bit of the blues but put on my happy face. When I let the reality of how long Jake will be gone set in, I get pretty bummed out. I'm really hoping I get to see him in New Jersey. If it was only for 30 seconds, I would still be happy. He's started his own blog spot as well.
www.armytalker.blogspot.com
This week was pretty tame. We did do a lot of fun things though. Last Saturday we went to The Great Escape with Nate, Mel Griffin and Suzie (Mel's mom) We stuck to the kiddie rides and had a good time.

I finally got a new computer! It is so nice to be able to load a web page in less than 3 days. It also has a pretty flat screen that I find very exciting. I am amused by simple things. We also got Willy Wonka (our beta fish) a new tank. His last one didn't have a top and Charlie was drinking all of his water and then trying to eat him. It's amazing the fish hadn't already died of a heart attack. The girls and I had fun going to the store and picking out some things to decorate his tank, even if we did have to go to Wal-Mart instead of the new Target. They're turning the Wal-Mart into a Super Wal-Mart and everything is construction. You have to park 5 years away. Now he's safe and sound in his new tank. It even has a light...which already blew but still..

Lacey has a new fascination with the dishwasher tablets. Whenever I turn my back, she's under the sink pulling them out. The other day, she dumped them all into a mixing bowl and hid them. I couldn't find them until she pulled them out to play with them again. I still have no idea where her hiding spot is. Hopefully it's not where she likes to put everything else...the toilet. She makes life exciting.
Hails is back this week which makes for a happier Lacey, so hopefully we'll keep busy and keep our sanity. My goal is to make it to school on time more than twice this week...although twice would be nice.

Week 1

2008-10-14T05:42:00.000-07:00

We made it through week 1. To be honest, it wasn't that bad. I think I still feel like he's just away for a business trip or something and could walk in the door tommorrow. I also know that where he is right now is safe so I'm not such a paranoid freak. I am also surprised at how easily it is for me to do some of the little things I would ask him to do. For example, I always made him put Jinglebell out if it was already dark outside. I have an irrational fear of going onto our back porch after dark thinking that someone is going to jump out of the basement door and grab me. I've decided I would rather face that fear than face whatever Jinglebell would have done after not going outside all night. I've also found that keeping busy is a good way to keep the blues away. Night-time is the worst. If I don't give myself time to sit and think, it's not so bad. Even though it's only been a week, I miss him a lot. He has his cell phone again so I do get to talk to him more than once a day which is nice. It turns out he won't be going to Arizona at all. The unit he's going with will be in Iraq before he even finishes with his training. At the end of this week he goes to DC for a refresher of his job and then he goes to New Jersey (we don't know how long that's for) and then Iraq. If I can, I hope to visit him while he's in New Jersey. He might not be there long enough.
Lacey keeps me pretty busy during the day. When I watch Griffin, I have to try and keep her from attacking him all day. She really loves to hug and a lot of the time it's more of a tackle. If Griff tries to run away, she'll grab him by his shirt and pull him down so she can tackle hug him. With most babies, it's just because she loves babies but I think for poor Griff, she enjoys torturing him. She's a bit of a bully. Hails keeps me busy too. I wish we lived closer to her school. It would be so nice to be able to put her on a bus in the morning rather than dragging them both out of the house. It's better than the school she used to go to though so it's worth it. She misses Jake. She doesn't quite get the concept of how long he'll be gone. For her I use holidays as an example. I tell her which holidays he'll be gone for and that seems to help.
Hopefully this week, I can better limit my trips to Target. I LOVE having it right around the corner.

What a Week

2008-10-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

So Jake left this past Sunday. After being in denial for so long, his actual leaving hit me pretty hard. It was even worse when we both discovered he had left his cell phone in the car. As soon as he had an address, I overnighted it and it should be there tomorrow. I miss him a lot. I think sometimes that God just really enjoys irony. Today, the army reserves called wanting to recruit Jake. They would have guaranteed him stabilization for 2 years. Go figure. Where were they a month ago? He may actually join before he leaves for Iraq and then he won't be able to be called back again when he gets back this time.
The girls are doing well. Lacey calls for daddy in the morning and is quite upset when I'm the one to get her out of her crib. (He usually did) When Nate and Mel came over for dinner tonight, she was a bit attached to Nate. She totally gravitated to the only adult male in the house. She also put Griffin into a headlock multiple times but that's a whole other story. The other day at school while we were waiting to get Hails, Lacey kept running over and grabbing the back of my legs. The lady next to me and I were both wearing jeans and black shoes. Lacey ended up grabbing the other ladies legs from behind and would NOT let go. She wouldn't look up to see that it wasn't actually my body she was clinging to. After she finally looked up, she held onto the other ladies legs for a minute, looking very confused and slowly backed away. It was entertaining.
Hails tends to sleep walk. Last night she came out of her room, came over to the computer and just stood by me. I asked her what she was doing and she told me that she needed to go get her spiderwebs. She walked into the bathroom, grabbed one of her bath toys, put it on the desk and went to bed. You have to be careful and watch Hails. I've caught her trying to pee on the couch more than once. She's so out of it, she doesn't realize she's not in the bathroom. It makes life exciting...or something.
My stupid land lord left our gate open last night so when we went to let our STUPID dog out this morning, the STUPID dog ran away. Some poor girl brought her home, dragging her by the collar. She smelled like crap. Actual crap. I don't know what she did, but her smell made me want to hurl. I had to give her a bath which made me smell like wet dog. It wasn't my best day UNTIL I realized the new Target was already open. It's less than 5 minutes away. It makes me happy. It scares Jake.
We're just trying to keep busy and get a routine going to keep our minds off of being sad. I think when he actually has to leave for Iraq, that will be harder. I miss him now, but at least I know he's safe.

Life Lately

2008-09-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

Life lately has been crazy. Hails started back at school, Jake got called back into the army and Lacey gets more mischievous every day.
Hails started back at school about a week and a half ago. She already got a 101 on her first spelling test and is doing great. The only problem she had was she only had 1 kid in her class from last year. Anyone who knows Hailey understands why that is a bit of a problem. Hailey can be painfully shy and will never be the one to initiate a friendship. It was almost like starting over at a new school. Her first few days of recess were spent sitting by herself. As her mom, that makes me sad. I wanted to show up at recess and go on the monkey bars with her. (That would have been a site) Of course you have to be careful what you wish for. She made a friend named Logan. After being friends for 2 days, he told Hailey he loved her which she thankfully thought was disgusting. The boys have loved her since pre-school. I am NOT looking forward to the day she stops thinking that boys have cooties. She seems to be doing well now and told Logan to just say he likes her.
As for Jake being called back into the army. THAT was a shock. I guess it shouldn't have been since we knew it was always a possibility for the next 4 years. It was just very unexpected, especially so soon. He leaves on the 5th of October and aside from a 2 week break he'll get sometime in the next year, we won't see him again until next November. Even though it's getting closer, I'm still living in a complete state of denial. I'm afraid of what I might actually feel like when reality sets in. The thought of running a household by myself is a bit intimidating. Luckily, I live just a block and a half away from family and have some pretty amazing friends. I just prefer my husband not to be in a war zone. I'm so picky.
Lacey is a little monster. She's a cute little monster, but a monster none the less. She likes to empty cabinets, climb on the table and give me a heart attack by trying to jump off of everything. The other day, the missionaries brought over brownies which I left on the kitchen table. Lacey came into the living room with chocolate all over her face saying "mmmm, mmmmm" As soon as I sat up, she bolted for the dining room to finish her brownie before I could ruin her fun. I had the brilliant idea that I would start potty training which was quickly discontinued when Lacey screamed every time I put her near the potty chair. She seems to think of it as some kind of monster. SO, my new goal is to have her potty trained before Jake gets back home. This is also subject to change :)
That's life lately.

My dancing girls

2008-09-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

I love the way the girls play together. I used to be worried about the age difference but Lacey doesn't think she's a baby and Hails is an excellent big sister. I love catching things like this. I'm sure there will be a time where they don't get along as well so I'm enjoying the moment :)

Silly Lacey pictures

2008-08-15T21:33:00.001-07:00

Some random Lacey silliness

Strangest dream

2008-08-15T20:49:00.000-07:00

I had the strangest most disturbing dream last night. It was so weird that I thought I was pregnant. (I'm not) For some reason, pregnancy always brings on very strange dreams for me. So anyway, it was so disturbing, I felt the need to wake up Jake at 5 in the morning to tell him about it. He was understanding and very groggy :)

I dreamed that the world was being taken over and run by aliens. We were really being covered by a big dome (kind of like the Truman show, which I did watch part of the other night) We had a big battery pack on the top of the dome that the aliens used to control everything (weather, our minds, it was very strange) The light started showing through the dome which revealed the huge battery pack so the aliens jig was up. We of course couldn't do anything about it because they also controlled everything we did. A huge alien UFO passed over (think of the movie independence day) that blocked off all sunlight and it was made known that the aliens were going to be the only ones living on the planet. Throughout this dream, IN my dream, I kept waking up and asking Jake if he saw the battery pack and in my dream he always said yes but didn't seem bothered by it. This bugged me to no end because we were all going to be destroyed by aliens and he just wanted to watch tv. Finally I woke up for real, woke up Jake, let him know I was a weirdo and eventually went back to sleep...to have another strange dream.

In my second dream, myself and Caroline Rhea (I have no idea how she came into the dream) discovered how to go back in time. The neighbor behind me (in my dream, not in my life) who happened to live on a cliff killed his daughter so we kept repeatedly going back in time trying to save this little girl and at the same time, Jake and I were trying to make a deal to buy the killers house because we wanted the extra land. No matter how many times we went back in time, we couldn't save this little girl. Right before we woke up, I was asking the dad if I could keep her because she liked my horse. (in my dream, it was a perfect reason to adopt someone else's child) All of that happened in the 4 hours of sleep I got.

The many uses of a bowl

2008-08-09T19:55:00.000-07:00

Lacey has showed me that there is more than one purpose for a bowl. Besides for eating, it makes a nice drum

It also makes a lovely hat.

Above all that, it made a huge mess. I love pulling pasta out of pigtails :)

The P word

2008-07-30T19:53:00.001-07:00

On Monday, I'm starting the wonderful world of potty training. Part of me thinks that I'm absolutely insane and that she's too young therefore, it's more stress that I don't need. However, she's been bringing ME diapers when she wants to be changed. Now all I have to do is find an easy sign for her to tell me she has to use the potty and I'm all set. She says plenty of things but only a few are actually recognizable. Ut-oh is her favorite followed by Hailey (a-yee), mama and her new word, pop pop which apparently means popsicle. I figure I'll have to buy a potty chair eventually anyway so I might as well do it now. My goal is to have her potty trained, off the bottle and off the pacifier by 18 months. Yes, I am a dreamer

Poor Charlie

2008-07-28T18:53:00.000-07:00

Our poor kitten can't get a break. Lacey LOVES Charlie. Unfortunately, Lacey doesn't understand that Charlie doesn't LOVE being dragged around by his head. We lucked out though, because he rarely scratches. When he does, it's because he's in a playful mood. I know I have to go rescue the cat when I can hear Lacey squealing in pure joy. Sure enough, he'll be being dragged down the hall by his neck or upside down. Despite everything, Charlie's favorite place to sleep is right next to Lacey in her crib.