Oh boy! This is going to be a LONG post.

We are finally in Nebraska and in our own home again! It's so great to be home again, but with all the craziness I am so behind in blogging! I have about a month's worth of P366 photos to post as well as everything that goes along with a move half way across the world, so please bear with me while I try to catch up.
One night before we left we went to getting something to eat at the bowling alley on base. Steven loves those arcade games that you try and grab a stuffed animal. Every time he sees one he has to try it. This time he won a monkey for Sadie. She loves it, but it was one of those really cheaply made stuffed animals and the butt seam immediately so Daddy came to the rescue and sewed it back up for her.

The weekend before we left we took some time to go to the movies. We went and saw the new Muppet movie. It was so cute and we all loved it. Before the movie they actually had a few of the Muppets there so the kids could take a picture with them. Ruby ran right up, Sadie patiently waited for her turn after Ruby, and Lilly decided she was going to be shy and not take a picture. We managed to convince her to take the photo because she would have balled and thrown a fit when she realized she missed out on something great, it's just what Lilly does and does often. Ruby wanted to keep Kermit and take him with her, but she reluctantly gave him back.

Lilly's last day of school was bitter sweet. As excited she was to get on the plane and leave, she was equally sad. We did our best to cheer her up and thwart off a panic attack. And yes, she does have panic attacks so we have to be really careful with her. Once she's started, it's really hard to get her out of it. Steven asked her if she'd like Papou to bring her something special when he picked us up at the airport, and she said, 'A Dr. Pepper?'. Bless her little heart because she definitely pulled some of Steven's heart strings with that one :)

This year we had the greatest Valentine's Day we've ever had. I really don't know if Steven will be able to ever top it ;) We got on a plane and we headed back to the states! It was awesome. We were able to find some cute little bumble bees that we attached to the girls backpacks. We filled them with chap stick, lip gloss, and some spending money. The were thrilled. We are completely blessed with kids who are the greatest little travelers. They've endured days of traveling with out a stop, long flights, short flights, international flights, and long car rides. They are the best. We arrived at the Passenger Terminal early so we had time to eat some breakfast and hang out in the family room a bit. Ruby was sweet enough to take a picture with me :)

We were thrilled to get to my parent's house in time to celebrate our sweet niece's 2nd birthday! She has the biggest personality and is just so much fun to be around.

We also got to meet and spend time with our new nephew, Logan! He is such a sweet baby.

We were blessed to be able to take a night and go out on a date. We have made a sort of tradition of going out for dinner at Carraba's when we're in town. The food is so good there!

There's a really great McDonald's in Allentown. I know it's a McDonald's, how great could it be. It's really all about the play place. It's music themed and the girls love playing there, so we stole our niece Phia and headed there. After lunch, playing at the play place, we ordered Shamrock Shakes and headed out again!

I forgot to take photos on the 19th and 20th, disappointed about it but hey we've been really busy. So I found a couple of other photos to 'stand in' for those days. The first one is of Phia at Best Buy. We were looking for a protective case for Steven's cell phone.

This one is of our new TV obsession, American Pickers. We love shows from the History channel so this is awesome.

And sadly we had to leave. Before we got on the road, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts. The adults got coffee and the kiddos got Munchkins. Ruby improvised a new way to get the powder off the powered donuts without actually eating the donut. Girl loves her some sugar!


Now that catches up on all the days before we got to Nebraska. All of those photos and days will be in another post. But so far, we love it here :)

-K

P366 Catch Up

I haven't flaked out on this project, even though I have posted anything in a week. Moving is crazy folks. We have less than a handful of weeks left here so we are in full PCS mode. We do have a setback though, no orders. Yes folks, we don't we any orders yet. No orders means, no pack out, no shipping the car, and no plane tickets. I'm going nuts not having any sort of official dates. So if you see lots of boxes, laudry, or clutter in these photos, it's because of the move.

This photo I like to call, "Can you find the toddler?"


The BX has been having a big clearance sale. All of the fall/winter clothes are up to 75% off. So with our upcoming move to much colder weather, we stocked up. We got about $344 worth of clothing for $104. Lots of sweaters, long sleeves, and thick leggings were purchased. This is how Ruby and Sadie choose to shop :)


Thursday was my 26th birthday so the hubby and kiddos took me out for dinner at the club here. We had a lot of fun and a pretty good meal too.


I took a break from the moving madness and played one of my b-day presents, Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. I ♥ Lego games!


Ruby goofing around with the stickers that were on our tough boxes.


The girls being their normal silly selves! They're such stinkers :)


Okay, now I'm all caught up for now. I may be do all of the P366 posts like this from now on. It's so much easier than trying to post them everyday!

-K

I was doing so well...

I was keeping up with the photo taking everyday, and then yesterday happened! The kids were extra cranky and Ruby took a nap. I know you're thinking how could that be bad? Well if anyone of the kids take even a 5 minute nap during the day, they are up all night. I kid you not, she was up until after 10 bouncing all over my bed. I finally just let her have my ipod and she finally sat still.
She keeps talking about when we get back in the states she wants to eat a lot of Chinese food. She talks about it everyday. "Momma, you like Chinese food? Me like Chinese food, yummy in belly." She just kept talking about this over and over again last night. When she finally fell asleep it was a huge relief, I was so tired. And since I have the sweetest hubby there is, when he came home this morning and let me and Ruby sleep in . He brought Lilly and Sadie downstairs, fed them, and kept them quiet. It was so nice not waking up to Lilly and Sadie fighting that the other one is in their room.
So I'm sorry there's no photo for yesterday but there is a photo a can share in place of yesterday's. Lilly is doing awesome with reading and writing. She's about to master sounding words out, whether it's to read the word or to spell the word. She asked me how to spell tree, so without thinking I just told her. Then she asked how to spell loving, so I helped her sound it out. A few minutes later she showed me her notebook and this what it looked like:

It says, 'The tree is loving. I am loving." And I had no idea that this was what she was doing, let alone writing sentences.
And this is what Ruby looked like last night, except that she was in my bed. She didn't even care if she got the questions right. After about an hour she handed me the ipod and said she was going to sleep.

This morning she was showing her sisters how she played the game.

Hopefully I'll remember from now on, but I'm pretty disappointed about missing yesterday. We have a lot going on in the weeks to come, so i really want to document it all :)

-K

My babies....

aren't really babies anymore. As excited and happy as I am that they can play together, I am just as sad at how big they are. It seems like the past 7 years have been a blur. With Ruby and Sadie's birthday passing, I'm reminded that Lilly's is less than 3 months away. She'll be 6 and I'm not sure I can handle that!
They were playing together when Lilly asked if they could play a board game together. But Ruby is still too young to play most of them and she often throws things when she gets mad, so I told sorry but no. Then Ruby pointed up there too and asked for the tea party stuff. We found this set at Walmart for only $5 over the summer. Unfortunately it's made of porcelain and easily breakable, so we bought two sets. And you know what one of the first things Ruby did? She got made a Lilly and threw a cup and broke. For awhile though, they played together well, without fighting. It's always nice when that happens :)



-K

Reading Time

Lilly's biggest school dream was to learn how to read. Here we are half way through kindergarten and she is learning new words everyday. As part of her homework during the first semester was to read these short, one sentence per page stories. She has accumulated quite a few of them so far so I've been trying to encourage her to read them during the day instead of taking one of the shelf to look at the pictures. I also thought they would be great for her to read at night before she goes to bed. Most nights, after she gets tucked in, we left her read for up to 30 minutes with a small light. She loves it and we love the fact she doesn't come to our room every 5 minutes instead.
This morning I was trying to find as many as I could so that she could take them upstairs, she decided she wanted to read one. Ruby jumped at the oppurtunity to listen to a story. These two spent awhile sitting together and reading. And not yelling, fighting, whining, or crying either! It was bliss :)

I swear I took this photo this morning, but it was so rainy and cloudy that it looked like it was the evening!

-K

Poor Sadie-Mae

We took Sadie and Ruby to get their annual shots yesterday so that Steven could be with us and give me an extra hand. Their appointment is on Wednesday and I'll be taking them by myself because Steven has to work. Somehow Ruby lucked out and didn't need any, but Sadie needed 3. Poor thing didn't even know it was coming. She kept asking who was getting the shot, but didn't know until we walked into the room. That's when she started panicking.
She sat on my lap and I held her down while the injected her in the legs. I kept telling her that she'd be fine when it was done. After she just kept saying 'ouchies ouchies' and then said she couldn't walk. We told her that walking would make it feel better so started walking. After a few minutes she felt fine again. But when we got home, she tripped on one of Daddy's shoes and caught the corner of the coffee table in her rib cage. She iced it  for a little but and just tried to relax for the rest of the night. She rarely hurts herself like this so she was pretty upset.

Steven started night shift again so as soon as he left for work, we watched 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice' in my bed. They all just needed to relax a little bit. After the movie it was straight to bed and not one of the complained. Even Lilly who usually comes back to my room every 5 minutes for one thing or another in a grand effort to delay/postpone bedtime. Even I went to bed early. I caught a stomach virus that was going around base and was down and out for a few days. Thankfully the hubby was home and took care of everything, including me. So this weekend we are just going to take it easy and start getting the house ready because we are out of here in a few short weeks!!

-K

5/365

I was supposed to be in Germany this day, but instead I have been at home battling some sort of flu. It started out like a stomach flu and then transformed into a full on migraine, complete with body aches all over. It's been a rough few days of feeling like poo and having guilt over missing this appointment. Thankfully the doctor I was supposed to see called to see why I hadn't made it up there. She was very calm and understanding. I asked if we could wait for the biopsy and surgery to be done in Nebraska instead of Turkey or Germany. She assured me that it would be fine if we waited because it would be a month before I would have the surgery at all.
We have so much going on right now that I don't think I could handle everything at once. We leave here in a bout 6 weeks. We don't have orders yet so we haven't been able to really do much, even though we've been preparing the house to be packed up. We have also seen some of Lilly's anxiety come out, so we need to tread carefully and patiently. Steven also has an inspection at work this month so we won't be seeing way to much of him in the next couple of weeks.
With all this going on, we've been trying to relax as much as possible. Sadie's request? Can we play video games? So yes, we've played video games and watched some movies. It's how we relax and have a little fun. And today's picture show you exactly how happy and goofy Sadie was over it all. She's crazy and goofy, but incredibly smart and beautiful :)



-K

Day 4 and More Furniture!

We have talked for a few months now about getting the girls new beds. We debated about the beds we already had and the ridiculously cool bunk beds they have here. Seriously they have a set of stairs up to the top bunk instead of a ladder! But our kids were blessed with their Daddy's balance, well lack of, and their Momma's klutziness. They were practically born with hazard stickers. We would have loved to be able to get them some bunk beds but with our luck they'd wind up with a broken limb. We ultimately decided that our old queen sized bed we wanted to be a guest bed, because we love when family and friends come to visit ;). That bed is also what Lilly is using right now, so she is getting a new bed. Sadie and Ruby's beds are going to be painted and spruced up as soon as they get to Offutt AFB, Nebraska. After going to a few furniture stores in the Alley, we decided to go with Aydin's. Aydin is actually the uncle of Sunny, who we had make our bedroom set. Lilly and I looked at a lot of different styled beds and finally decided the features she wanted. I have nothing to show you of it because it will be a custom design, but it will have a couple of shelves on the headboard. She likes to read at night. It will be pink. And she wanted her name carved into it, but I know in 10 years, she'll wish she hadn't picked that. So instead it will have a lily flower carved onto it. She is beyond excited, but we also got to see a bit of her anxiety about moving come out. She started getting upset because she thought it wouldn't be ready before we get packed out, but it will.
Steven also found a bar. They have huge, extravagant bars for your home here. We didn't want that, but Steven did want a small bar. He finally found one he liked and it will be ready soon too. It will also feature a lock on it so curious kiddos or teenagers can't get into it. Once everything is made I'll post some photos.
These are photos, from my iPod, of Ruby. She choose the hat to wear and insisted on bringing Elmo. And 2 minutes after these were taken, she was out like a light!



-K

Day 3

Lilly is back at school this week, much to our dismay. We really love having Lilly home with us during the day. Sadie was especially upset but made darn sure she got her hug and kiss before she left. And yes, Lilly has to hug, kiss, and say goodbye to each of her sisters and do the same when they are reunited again. This is mostly their doing, and often times when it gets overlooked, rushed, or forgotten many tears are shed.
They were so excited for Lilly to get home from school this day. They sat with her and listened to Lilly read a story for her homework and then even drew pictures of the story like Lilly had to do and return to school. They all sat around the coffee table and drew/colored along with her. Lilly is definitely the artist in the family, Sadie and Ruby were done coloring after just a few minutes. They get so bored with coloring for some reason, but Lilly could actually draw and color all day long if allowed.
They are all looking forward to Lilly having a 3 day school week next week due to base-wide power outages. Yet another joy of living in Turkey. I will not miss this at all :)



And yes, Sadie is left handed!



-K

P365- Day 2

Since we are getting ready to move in a short few weeks, we've been trying to tie up a few loose ends. Yesterday we went out into the Alley to make one of our last payments on our bedroom furniture. While we were  out there we decided to drive around a little and see if we could try to find someplace to detail our car. Once we get to Nebraska, I'm going to get a new car, well new to me, so we are going to trade the Blazer in or sell it. Either way we want it in the best condition we can get it in. These two photos are of the area we live in. They are right outside the gate when you leave the base. And just an FYI, the base doesn't look like this, only off base.

-K

Project 365

I have wanted to do a P365 for a long time now, but being my neurotic self I couldn't possibly start one on just any day of the year. It had to be January 1st. It's a pretty simple project. All you have to do is take one photo a day, everyday for a year. See, simple. I'm hoping that this will help with my 'lack of motivation' problem. I've definitely noticed that my photography and blogging has seriously lacked in all aspects. I know how fast these kiddos are growing. I love being able to look back and see how far they've come and how big they are. So hopefully this will remind me that no matter what mood I'm in that I need to take at least one photo a day.



Ruby is constantly getting into things she shouldn't. Today she was into our massive collection of movies and found 'Happy Feet'. Lilly loved this movie when she was teeny tiny, and she still does today. So after a lot of 'Pease mommy, pease mommy?'s and pouting I caved and put it for her. She loved it and danced through a lot of it. Overall it was a success. It kept the kiddos occupied for long enough that Mommy didn't lose her marbles :)

-K

Catch Up Time

I seriously need to get on top of things. I'm so behind. Partially because we've had colds go around house constantly since mid-November. Partially because I've had doctor's appointments and tests off-base in the city. Partially because we are preparing to move in the beginning of February. Partially because Ruby turns 2 tomorrow and Sadie turns 4 on Saturday and Christmas is a little more than 2 weeks away. The list goes on and on and on..... I really have no idea, energy-wise, how I make it through the day anymore. It's been hard to go out and do anything because there is so much going on that we just want to veg out on the couch when we have minute.

The last weekend in November we went to a couple of playgrounds that we hadn't been to yet.  We loaded up the girls, including Sophie, and headed out. While the girls and I played at the playground, Steven went for a run with Sophie.

The girls all had a lot of fun. Poor Sophie is just such a small dog that after her run she was licking her paws. We love her so much, but we're going to get another dog when we get to Offutt AFB. Steven wants a bigger dog, since he's had bigger dogs in the past, and a running buddy. The girls keep talking about how they want another cat too, so we'll have 2 cats and 2 dogs. I don't know if that will happen though. Steven's not the biggest cat person, but Milo is without a doubt his cat even if he won't admit it. I think Milo knows he's the only other boy in the house :)

After the playground we headed to the golf course. I've been wanting to take some sunset photos of the girls and the golf course gets some great light. I'm trying to get one good photo of all 3 of them to hang in the living room. I want a large print, so I've been trying to get that shot for a long time now. Plus Ruby is getting ticked that there are no recent pictures of her hanging on the walls. She sees old pictures of Sadie at 2 and throws a little fit because she thinks it's her and not Sadie. I'm determined to get one before we move so that we can hang it in our new house. Our living room furniture is so dark, so I want to get some lighter, brighter colors in there.

I'm hoping life slows down a little bit, but probably not. I'll at least try to be a better blogger and update more. Especially because my babies are turning 2 and 4 tomorrow and Saturday. Days just keep getting shorter and shorter.


-k

Who is this big girl and where did Lilly go?

Lilly lost her very first tooth this past Monday! She was so excited for it to finally fall out and would ask if Steven or I would give it a tug to help it out. Monday night she asked me again to check and tug on it so I tried again. I knew it was ready to pop out so when I tugged on it came right out, but just after it came out Lilly started whining about how it hurt. Steven and I started laughing because we knew it was already out. A few seconds later her eyes bugged out and she stuttered, "You got it out? My tooth came out!!!" All we could do was laugh. We were all so excited for her.

That night we went to the Christmas tree lighting on base where all the elementary school kids sang some Christmas songs. It was really nice. And I just have to mention this part. If you know me you know I love Boondock Saints and so does Steven. One of our favorite parts is when the detective asks Agent Smecker what the "symbology" of the evidence is. Then Agent Smecker says "I think you mean symbolism. What is the symbolism?" We always crack up at that. Well someone said a few words at the tree lighting ceremony talked about the symbology of the what the Christmas tree meant for everyone on base. Steven and I couldn't help but crack up.

Back to Lilly. After the ceremony we were walking to the car and Lilly was talking about what she was going to get with the money from the tooth fairy and she finally decided on a horse. We asked her how much she thought she was going to get and she said 1 coin. Unfortunately we had to tell her that was not enough. The tooth fairy ended up giving her $2 and she was thrilled! After a walk around the BX and explaining how all the things there cost a lot more.

She was such a good sport about and maturely decided to save it. We tried to find her a nice, decorative box to save her money in, but we had no luck. Hopefully we find something good soon because I think she is going to loose the other bottom, middle tooth sooner rather than later. Her big tooth broke through the gums yesterday and she is just as thrilled about it as she was when the baby tooth fell out.
And she has been growing like crazy. It is really nuts. She has never grown this much this fast. In August while we were at my parents' house we did some school shopping for Lilly. We always try to buy the girls clothes that are a little big so there is some room to grow. We bought size 5 clothes for her and a size 10 in shoes. Everything we bought was big for her. In the past month she has gone into a size 6x and almost an 11 in shoes. We bought some corduroy pants for her in a size 6 and when we got home and tried them on the fit perfectly, like a glove. We returned them the next day for the 6x ones. This was the first time we bought clothes for one of the girls and thought it would be big but we were completely wrong. She just keeps getting bigger and bigger. She's starting to read and help out more. It is crazy to us how big she's getting, I just wish it didn't happen so fast. She impresses us more and more everyday. At her Thanksgiving Feast at school, she tried everything. She sat at her table and ate while the parents sat at bigger tables. The whole time she was giving us the 'thumbs up' after she tried her food. She isn't picky when it comes to eating, so she more than willingly tries new foods and usually loves them. She also did a 5 Little Turkeys song and did great. She also made a Thanksgiving decoration that we can hang every year.

And on top of that Ruby and Sadie are turning 2 and 4 in a week. Pretty soon they won't look like babies or toddlers anymore. More on those two another day. It's time to pick Lilly up from school :) Oh and Daddy, aka The Sucker because he's a sucker when it comes to the girls, picked up a hot pink Hello Kitty Christmas tree for them even though he told them last year there was absolutely no way we are buying a pink Christmas tree ;) Ha! He cracks me up! And pay no attention to our Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Since we'll have Christmas in the good 'ole USA next year we'll have the big beautiful Christmas tree we've always wanted :)

K

Playing Together

This is how you can find all three of the girls on most days. They are usually very good for a while until they begin to argue over who controls the actual book. Lilly cannot wait until she can sit down and actually read Sadie and Ruby a book. Until then, they'll still look for objects in I Spy books and listen to Lilly make up her own stories to the pictures in the books.

I took out the water colors last week so the could paint on Veteran's Day since Lilly had the day off. Lilly and Sadie had a blast, but Ruby was a mess. She had more paint on herself than she did on her papers.

 And did I mention how excited I am that we are almost out of the baby mess/ baby proofing stage. I can't wait until I can give them this stuff and not have to supervise 100% of the time. I am hate messes and toys/activities that create large messes. I'll have to remember that when Ruby turns 2 and Sadie turns 4 in three weeks. This year has seemed to fly by; it's crazy!

-K

A Lunch Date and Lilly Starts Golf

I know I have mentioned this before, but Steven has been working nights for over 9 months now and has had a weird work schedule. It was upsetting everyone, but Lilly most of all. He would have just1 day off at a time and then be sleeping most of the day and up all night, and the day off was usually a week day.
Last Saturday we all had a lunch date at the bowling alley and then Lilly started some golf lessons at the golf club. She loved them, plus it was an hour with just her and Daddy. Steven said she did really well. He said she did get frustrated once though. When she put the tee in the ground she didn't put it in straight, so when the she put the ball on it it kept falling off. Other than that she loved it.
Lilly will go to golf lessons every Saturday for the next 5 weeks for an hour or so. I don't know who is more excited for it, Lilly or Steven. I'm sure that in the next few years she'll be playing golf with Daddy a lot.










-K

Her Boots Were Made For Walking

Steven and I have always said that Sadie is an old soul trapped in a 3 year old's body. When she started talking, it wasn't a word in baby talk, it was full, structured sentences. She complains about her hip hurting and that she's cranky and grouchy and to just leave her alone for a while. She only wants to wear dresses because boys where pants and boys clothes are ugly. Well this outfit is what happens when Sadie chooses her own outfits. Every time I looked a her "These Boots Were Made For Walking" started playing in my head. This is why we love Sadie-Mae so much!




-K

Our Week in Instagram Photos

There really isn't way too much going on here, other than everyday life things. On Monday Lilly and I had Daisy's. I usually bring Sadie-Mae with me and Ruby stays with Daddy. Sadie has been really enjoying spending time with the bigger girls. She is so mature for a 3 year old, it's really hard to tell that she's not one of the kindergarteners. She does everything they do and is memorizing the promise just like the others. Lilly is thoroughly enjoying herself. She would have it everyday instead of every other week. I'd be exhausted if it was like that- ha!

 Tuesdays are Story Time days. You know how much we love Story Time around here! Ruby has had such an attitude lately. Even worse than normal. She's been driving me nuts! She has one molar coming in hgvband is trying to do away with naps completely. This day was no exception- I ended up strapping her into the stroller and make sure the straps weren't loose. If they are even just a little loose she can maneuver herself out in seconds.

We got Lilly a new bike this week. She was getting pretty big for the one she had. Girl has grown ridiculously since we went back to the states last November. Every time I turn around she is outgrowing something else. She usually rides her bike to school so it got a lot of usage. I picked her up from school on my bike with Ruby in the trailer. Ruby was ecstatic and we had a nice bike ride home.

Sadie has been pretty interested in taking pictures lately. The only problem is when we let her, she takes a billion random photos of a billion random things. Like the other day, she was taking pictures with my iPod and I caught taking photos of the couch cushions. No exact reason as to why, they were just there. Occasionally I'll try to get her to take a picture of the two of us to distract her for a bit, but the child just makes silly faces and I'll get maybe one or two of her actually smiling. She's such a stinker.

 We started Christmas shopping on Friday. Luckily Sadie's a genius and lacks in the common sense department. You've just got to love the girl. Last year I managed to actually shop for Christmas with her in the cart and she had no idea. At all. This time Steven and I tag teamed to shopping by him actually doing most of it and then I'd go in and give him an opinion/find some stuff to add to the cart. He paid for everything and then asked to leave the cart at the store and he's be back in an hour to pick it up without me or the kids. Best part, Sadie looked in the cart of already paid for gifts and sighed because it was all the stuff she wanted. Poor kid had no clue, but we love her anyway! I swear she's a genius, just without the common sense. She reminds us of Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory. She's hilarious.

That day, Lilly had a half day of school. Steven picked her up and we headed out to lunch at the club. Steven has been working crazy days and then one day off, but he's still working nights so half the day he's sleeping and awake all night. It's been especially hard on Lilly because he usually has a week day off and she's at school. We tried to make the day as fun as we could for her. And don't you just love how Sadie and Ruby are making the same face?

I'm happy that we got most of the kids Christmas shopping done. We need to get each of them a movie for their stockings and a few books for each of them. We have a few ideas for movies and the books will probably be the best of whatever the BX has. And hopefully, God willing, next Christmas we'll be in the states!

And these are just a few more photos from the week. All of them except for the last one are from Monday while we read bedtime stories. The last one is of Sadie when we went to pick up Lilly from school. She's getting to big!

-K