Cranky

Okay so the visit to the hospital yesterday was pretty pointless. All he said was that we need to do the test that my doctor on base said I needed and we scheduled it for Wednesday morning. The language barrier/gap is just annoying. He was talking too fast for the girl to translate for me. I did get all the info that was important to me. Basically I have a thyroid “disease” but it is not serious and is treatable. I have no specifics though,  but he will give me the results of the test that day so I don’t have to wait or make yet another appointment.

Cranky refers to me today. In order to get accurate results, I need to stop taking all migraine medicine until the test. So 5 days without headache prevention meds and no relief for all the headaches to come. Yay! Not. If you pray, do me a favor a say a  prayer for not me, but my poor children and husband. Steven’s weekend starts tomorrow so he was grateful that he can at least be at home to help me. That is a blessing in and of itself. He is never home when I am sick or hurt, not by choice obviously. When I was pregnant with Sadie, I had kidney stones and a 18 month old. Sure enough Steven has to go TDY and he is literally, the only person who could do the job. I just know the next few days are going to be rough and I am thankful that God gave me such an amazing guy. So Steven, Lilly, Sadie, and Ruby, I am SO sorry for the next few days. Even though I’ll probably be extremely tough to live with, I still love you guys!

♥krissy

Sick day, part 2

First off, Thank you for all your sweet comments they really are appreciated. 
Secondly, Lilly is still sick. I think she has what Ruby had a couple of weeks ago. It started off with sinus issues. Then Lilly got a cough and started to lose her voice.  Yesterday she woke up with a fever and didn't have another issue with it until last night. I went in to check on all of the girls before I went to sleep and Lilly was very warm. I woke her up and sent her in to our bed while I got her some medicine. I didn't want to go to sleep while she had a fever so I sat up with her(she was sleeping) until it came down. I gave her some motrin 30 minutes later, and finally got it down another 30 minutes after that. Then when Steven got up for work I asked him to check on Lilly and send her in if she needed more tylenol. Sure enough she was getting warm again. Thankfully the other two didn't wake her up this morning so she was able to get almost 2 extra hours of sleep this morning. And in true Lilly form, she woke up happy as can be. Hopefully she is over this virus by Monday, I know she is desperately wanting to go back to school.
Today I go back to University Hospital to get the results of a blood test that was done last week. Right before we took our COT(continuous overseas tour) leave, I had asked my doctor if there was anything we could test because I felt my hormones were going crazy. My body just never went back to normal after I had Ruby. When we got back to Turkey he told my that my thyroid was acting a little funny. Basically my brain was telling my thyroid that it wasn't making enough thyroid hormones, but the thyroid was making enough. In short he thinks that I may have nodes on it that may or may not have to be removed. The clinic here is very small and lot of tests that have to be done are done in Turkish hospitals, and thankfully someone from Tricare will drive you to the appointment and serve as an escort and translator. I was really nervous about going to the first appointment but it went really well. I would like Steven to come with me but I would much rather him stay with the kids, especially when Lilly is sick. So off to the doctor's I go and hopefully back with good news.
And who could go a day without seeing the sweet faces of our monster children! 

Obviously I annoy them with the photos I take of them. Oh they joy of sarcastic children. The teenage years will surely be loads of fun :/
♥Krissy

About Me/Blizzard Bloghop

For anyone new, here's a quick little about me. My name is Krissy and I have been married to my sweet husband, Steven, for almost 6 years. He's in the USAF and we've been stationed in Delaware, England, and currently Turkey. We got married almost 3 months to the day we met. I was 19 and he was 20. A lot of people laughed and joked how it was crazy and we'd be divorced faster than we married, but almost 6 years later we're the ones laughing at them :) We have 3 beautiful daughters, Lillian (4.5), Sadie-Mae(3), and Ruby(13 months), and they were all born in England. Life is crazy with three young kiddos. Throw in the military and it's plain insane! This blog is my way of keeping in touch with family and friends and my effort to record our life. If you're here from the Household 6 Diva's Blizzard Bloghop welcome, and I hope you'll be back to visit again!

Our family, January 2011

This is outside of base, called "The Alley". The base is a lot nicer than this.

Sick Kids

I guess I can be grateful that since we left England our kids really haven’t been sick. Well except for Ruby, but her ailments were not some bug she caught  from others. When we lived in England it seemed that we were always sick with a virus that was going around. Lilly had a lot of ear infections and colds or a stomach bug she caught at school. Even the month we  left, Lilly and Sadie had a stomach bug that was going around and left vomiting with fevers for  at least 2 weeks.

Since we’ve been in Turkey it’s been a-whole-nother story. They’ve been good and healthy. So when Lilly started up with some cold symptoms I got worried. I didn’t want to send her to school just for all the other kids to get sick. Oh, and did I mention that most of Lilly class has been sick? At one point last week there were only 6 kids that attended class. I kept Lilly home one day last week and all I heard from her was, “When can I go back to school?” I knew she was feeling cruddy, but since she was a baby she really hasn’t let being sick slow her down. I kept second guessing my decision to keep her home.

Well when she woke up yesterday she had a cough, so when Steven took her to school they went to visit the nurse. She said that as long as it was affecting her ability to learn, she could stay. And when she came home yesterday she was losing her voice and start coughing junk up. Last night Steven and I decided to keep her home today. I have been telling her all morning that she needed to just relax and try to get better. The result was her and Sadie, cuddled up in a blanket, looking at books and magazines together. And at one point Sadie pulled out a stethoscope  and gave Lilly a “doctor appointment”.

Hopefully she gets over this soon so that she can go back to school and enjoy it. I know she really doesn’t like missing school, and she really enjoys learning. Sometimes I think she is just too smart for her own good. But I know I won’t have problem with faking illnesses. Although I know Sadie is LOVING having Lilly home today. Yesterday when Steven went to pick her up, she said, “Yay! Daddy is going to pick up my sweetie!” Get better soon Lilly!

♥krissy

Mini Valentine's Day Photo Shoot

So I have been playing around with photo editing software, Photoshop Elements and Lightroom. Now I am no where near proficient but I have been playing around with some actions and presets. I've found a lot of free ones on different websites and of course downloaded some to try. I found some ones that I really like so I decided to take some photos of the girls and maybe use them to send out Valentine's Day cards since we didn't have enough time to get out Christmas ones. With Steven's help, we cut out some hearts from scrapbook paper and construction paper and taped them onto our fence in the backyard. We dressed the girls is pinks, reds, and purples and brought out one of the girls' chairs. I only got a couple with all three of them and in those not everyone was looking at the camera so I made due with what I got. The big girls were nice enough to cooperate for me and I got a couple of good ones.
I am really liking how they came out. I only wish I got one with the 3 of them smiling at the camera. Maybe one of these years they'll all cooperate. I can dream, can't I? Well here are some that I edited and really like.

Story Time

Ever since Lilly was 6 months old, we have gone to Story Time at the library. All the girls love it, ans Lilly was pretty sad when she started school and couldn't go anymore. We soon got her to understand that she gets stories and crafts everyday at school. Occasionally Sadie will remember Lilly at Story Time and make a craft for her.
The library is one place where Sadie is pretty comfortable. She isn't incredibly shy and really enjoys being there. We go and we sing songs, listen to a couple of stories, and then make a craft. Ruby enjoys the songs and stories, but prefers to eat crayons as apposed to doing a craft.
Yesterday was no different. It was a good time and Ruby was in heaven with all of the books. She kept pointing to them and shrieking "Book! Book!" I know they can't wait until next week!

Sick Day

Lilly has had her first sick day from school today. And I am trying to decide whether it was a good idea or not. Yesterday she came home with a very runny nose and she said she actually slept during nap time. That rang a bell for me, she never sleeps unless she is sick. She doesn't have a fever but feels warmer than usual. And last week we got an email from her teacher telling us to make sure we keep our kids home if they have any symptoms, so when Steven left for work I decided to keep her home just in case.
Well she wasn't too happy about staying home. She really wanted to go this morning and kept asking when she could go back. She still has symptoms which seem to be her sinuses, but Lilly never acts "sick". She has never let an illness  keep her doing all the things she wants to do and I know she is frustrated. She wants to keep busy and play. I just couldn't get her to understand that she needs to rest and get better. So I decided to let her watch movies today so that she will actually sit still and relax. Hopefully she feels better tomorrow and can go back tomorrow. On the plus side, I am glad she is really enjoying school again. She didn't like until a couple of weeks ago. Between this school being so different than the one in England and taking a month of leave in the states, she just wasn't all too thrilled with it. So thank God she is liking it!

Wordless Wednesday

It's An Addiction...

 I think I have a slight addiction. Well maybe not so slight. I am always looking for a new layout for this blog. I just can't ever find anything that is perfect, for me anyways. I could always pay to have someone make it beautiful for, but I don't think I could pick out something. It's not that I am picky, it's that I like a lot of things. Just bare with me, I'll just change it once more :) Then I'll leave it alone for a while. I promise  :)

Lilly, Lilly, Lilly!

 Lilly is just getting so big and smart. She truly is one of the most clever kids I think you'll ever meet. She is strong willed, strongly opinionated, and beautiful. She wears her heart on her sleeve and defends the little guys. We couldn't be more proud of our first born. Lately she has just been blowing us away with what she says.
• When we were at the commissary the other day, Lilly had to go to the bathroom. Steven took and when she came running back to me and the girls, she was yelling how she did go potty and that she tried to wash her hands but there was a large spider so she turned around and ran out. She said she needed some hand sanitizer for her hands. When we were in the car she told us she is only scared of spiders and frogs. She got the frog thing from. And yes, they terrify me.
• I was making dinner the other night and the big girls usually sit at the counter with me. We'll turn on some music and they will color or practice writing letters. Lilly pulled out her activity book and asked me to read the instructions for. They said to look at the picture and write the first letter of the word down. Well Lilly is busting her butt trying to learn  how to read, so she decided to try and spell out the whole word. Normally,m if I wasn't making dinner, I would help her sound it out and write each letter down. But since I was cooking she kind of just said a bunch of letters and asked me if she was right. They weren't right but she kept trying. She got to the picture of a dog:
 L - "Dog starts with a D. Mom, I know how to spell dog."
M- "Oh yea. Did you learn it at school today?"
L- "No."
M- "Then how do you spell it?"
L- "D-A-M."
And this is where I almost fell over laughing.
• We were at the shoppette and Lilly unbuckled her seat belt thinking we were all going in. I told just Daddy is going in because he's going to go quickly. She said okay and we told her to try and buckle herself back in. She is in a booster seat now and the buckle is hidden behind Sadie's carseat. She can still be buckled properly, it's just that Sadie's seat obscures the view of it. She said she couldn't get it buckled so I told her Daddy would do it when he came back. Now go back to where I told you she is dying to learn how to read and spell.
L- "Mom, I know how to spell cat."
M - "Okay."
So I get ready to help her sound it out.
L - "C..."
I'm about to help her, but she surprises me!
L-"A-T. Cat."
I start telling  her how awesome she is and how proud I am of her.
L- "Great. I can spell cat, but I can't buckle myself."

We l♥ve this little girl.

Dress Up

There are a few things here at home that  our girls love to do. One is watch movies with a nice bowl of  popcorn. Two, they love books. They could sit for hours, well not hours (they're way to wiggly), and listen to stories. They get so excited picking out books at the library and every time Lilly brings home a new book order. Three is dress up.
    All 3 of them love putting outfits together and parading around the house in them. It started with a simple back pack. Ruby was fascinated with them. Since Lilly wears one to school everyday and the girls were supposed to wear them in airports/flights on vacation, she saw them all the time and was the only one that didn't have one. She was playing with the Lilly and Sadie and found one and got Lilly to put it on her. All we heard for the next week or so was "pack pack". From there she was able to pull anything out of their dress up drawers and get whatever she wanted and brought it to someone to put on her. The girls were so happy.
Then we were on Skype with Papou one day and the decided to put on a fashion show. Really they just wanted to put on some ballet outfits they got in Texas. Sadie found an old one of theirs and said Ruby needed it on, and Ruby agreed. So I helped Ruby put it on. They were so happy and dancing to music. They are always putting some piece of costume on when we are downstairs. They're pretty crazy girls with some even more outrageous outfit on.

Sadie is getting really bad with it. Every night I will pull clothes out for them to wear the next day. Whenever they wake up, they just get out of bed and get dressed. It works really on school days, but when I take out the clothes Sadie usually pitches a fit. I never take out what she wants to wear. Sometimes I just let her pick things, most I don't. Lilly has a dress code at school so I have to pick things for. This is toughest when it's hot, all she wants to wear is tank tops, shorts, and sundresses, and I don't blame her. Since it's not hot right now, I let her help me.
I'll leave you with some of these crazy outfits. And I am going to make an effort to stop and take a photo of some of these outfits.

 

'

Wait, Is That Batman?

This is what happens when your two sisters that are overly dramatic, love to dress up, and act out crazy stories.

For 13 months she just watched and giggled at them. Now that she is a confident walker and fearless one year old, she decided to join in their fun. Not only did she bring me things to put on her, but she followed her sisters all over the house and they let her into their little world. I don't know who was more excited, Ruby to be playing with the big girls, or the big girls finally getting to really play with Ruby. Since Ruby was born Sadie has always said that she couldn't wait until Ruby was big enough to play with her. Ruby went all in with playing dress up. She wore Tinkerbell and other fairy costumes, she held purses and wands, and even wore head gear and face masks. Yes, face masks. Lilly was Bat Girl for Halloween this year and it came with the Batman mask. When Lilly was 1 she would have tried it on and then taken it off a minute later. Sadie would have rather died than have any sort of mask or hat touch her. She was incredibly skiddish, Ruby took the mask to me saying, "bat! bat! bat!" So I put the mask on and she kept it on for a long time. She would take it off and then bring it back to me when she wanted it back on. She raced around the house with the other two and had a blast. The next day she wanted to where it again. She even wore it out of the house at the hospital and the BX. She loved every second of it and would run around screaming, "Bat! Bat! Bat!" I think she is going to fit right in with her sisters :)

She IS... Batman!

Happy New Year and 2010 in Photos

Happy New Year everyone! We are praying that you all have happy, healthy, and blessed 2011! I put together some photos from this past year that hopefully sum up everything we did.
In January, I turned 24. I was lucky enough that we got to celebrate before the movers came and packed up our house. A day or two after our house was packed up and shipped. We lived with minimal personal items, a few electronics, and air mattresses for about a month.

February brought the girls very first plane ride and hotel visit that they would remember. A week before we left England we stayed in billeting for a few days. I was extremely stressed because we hadn't received Ruby's passport yet and the woman who took care of these things on base was an idiot, and I am truly being kind in that description. Steven had contact the Embassy and decided he would go into London the day before our flight and pick up the passport himself. Thank the Lord he was successful and we flew out of London to Turkey the next day. All of the girls did fabulous on the plane; they were well behaved and enjoyed the flights. We then arrived at our new home, Incirlik AB, Turkey.

In March we waited patiently for our things to arrive. While we waited we were able to purchase things we needed from the BX. The girls enjoyed riding in taxis all over base. We eventually got it all and unpacked. To say we were excited to get our household goods is an understatement. We also ventured out into the "Alley" for the first time and enjoyed some delicious Turkish food. We also got our cat Milo, he's camera shy though!

In April, we celebrated Lilly's 4th birthday and Easter all in the same day. We woke up to goodies from the Easter Bunny and went to a brunch at the Club Complex. After dinner we celebrated Lilly. She truly is one of a kind and loved her presents. Steven and I also celebrated 5 years of marriage, with many more to come.

In May we enjoyed our last true month of playing outdoors. It started to get really hot and Lilly was getting heat stroke.  Before it got too hot, we bought the girls their first real bikes, with training wheels. They loved them.

 

In June Sadie got her first haircut. She was really good and exited about her "new" hair afterward. They also rediscovered all of their dress up clothes. Ruby was still as sweet as can be. Because of all her medications, she slept most of the day, Ruby also got her first 2 teeth!

We had our first 4th of July here in Turkey. It was very low-key and not like the ones we had in England. Lilly was disappointed, we all were, when she learned there was no carnival like we had in England. We enjoyed ourselves though and watched the fireworks in the back of our car. Ruby also got her ears pierced!

We finally set up the playroom exactly how we envision in August. It was a good thing too because most of the month is was over 100 degrees! The girls and I spent a lot of time in there. Even when Steven was home from work we spent a lot of time in there. We made the floor extra cushiony with blankets and foam mattress covers so that Ruby had a safe place to roam around.

Lilly started pre-K in September and she was SO excited. She was disappointed when she learned that it wasn't like Busy Bees. Since it had started to cool down, just a little bit, I would take them to the playground after school. Ruby took a nap in the stroller and the big girls would play.

Steven turned 26 in October. I made him cake balls for his cake because for the past year he has asked that I make him cake balls instead of a cake for his birthday. His birthday was also fire safety week. Lilly had a field trip to the firehouse and Sadie and Ruby met Sparky the Fire Dog at story time. We also went trick or treating at Steven's squadron and Ruby had her first Halloween. Lilly and Sadie picked out Ruby's costume. It was the first Halloween that we weren't freezing outside and bundled in multiple layers. It really didn't feel like fall here because the weather was still nice and warm. I tried to decorate the house in whatever fall-ish decor I could find or make. The base put on a "Fall Fest" in the middle of the month. We were able to ride camels, and I was excited at first, then terrified once I was on it. Sadie and Lilly loved every second of it! Ruby also started walking at Yiayia's house!

In November we went back to the states and visited family and friends for a month. The flying was long, but the month was pure bliss. We went shopping, celebrated many birthdays, painted pottery, went to the zoo, went to a science museum, traveled to San Antonio and Lackland AFB, saw Disney Princesses on Ice, saw Tangled and Harry Potter at the theater, went to Spur to visit with wonderful family, and went to Cabela's more than once. We also met our beautiful niece Sophia, aka Fifi! We can't wait to go back!

In December we traveled back to Turkey. None of us wanted to come back, but life had to go on. Ruby turned 1 and Sadie-Mae turned 3! We decorated for Christmas and for the first time in 6 years, we celebrated with just us. We had a great Christmas though!

We have had a crazy but wonderful year. Looking back on everything we can truly see how blessed we are!
Happy 2011!
-K