Merry Christmas

Soon enough anyways! It's a month away. Can you believe that this year has come and gone so quickly? Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is slowly seeping into my everyday life a little at a time. It's amazing to me every year that I wait and wait and wait for Christmas and then it's all of a sudden here and then the year is over! Well, here it is, the season to be merry!!!! I say it every year and I'm so giddy right now I can hardly stand it - I. LOVE. CHRISTMAS! The decorations are so pretty, the music is amazing, and everyone seems to wear a smile. Ah, Christmas, how I love you! Can it just be Christmas ALL the time?!

Lane let Eden and me go into the craft store alone a few weeks ago and this is what my kitchen table looked like during nap time. It was amazing, yet horrifying. Christmas ribbon was everywhere and I couldn't do anything but want to toss it in the air like you do with fall leaves! I just wanted to roll around in it. Ok, ok, maybe that's a little too far, but look how beautiful this stuff is. Doesn't it just bring a smile to your face?! *If not, don't admit it to me!* I'm obsessed {if you couldn't tell!}

 I cut strips of ribbon, busted out my hot glue gun and got to work. This is just pure bliss...with a little bit of madness wrapped into one!

 And this is what I came up with! I can't take credit for the idea, but I can for the exicution of it. It was easy. Time consuming, but easy. I sat in a chair, cut ribbon, put glue on a cardboard cone and then doubled the ribbon over to make a loop for the tree. I can't wait to sit this out! {er, I'm excited that I set it out about a month ago, let's be honest!}

Give Thanks

This Thanksgiving we didn't get to celebrate with family. Being so far from family we weren't able to go home for Thanksgiving {because we're going to go home for Christmas!} so we celebrated with our "chosen family" that we've acquired through the military. I love that we've got such a great group of people that surround us. Angie and James are great friends to us and their kids are just as great and a perfect fit for our kids. While we all hung out and ate delicious food the kids ran around and played. They screamed with joy and they screamed with frustration with each other because they all act like they're siblings! Angie and James have great neighbors that joined us for Thanksgiving and it was so awesome to enjoy their company as well. Their girls are great with our kids and they occasionally get to babysit for us. Eden gets so excited to know that any or all of the Greers will be wherever we're going. It's great knowing that we can trust people who get along with our kids so well.

Our salt and pepper shakers made it to our friends house for Thanksgiving dinner with us. A few years ago Lane's parents gave this set of shakers to everyone because there's always a chance that we won't all be together for Thanksgiving, but we can all use our pilgrims to help unite us through our physical distance. I think this year no one was able to go "home" for Thanksgiving, so it was nice to know we each could "be together" through the pilgrims this year.

The family on our hike to earn our turkey and pumpkin roll! We let Eden walk the 2 miles, so I'm not sure Lane and I earned anything since we were going at her pace, but we can all pretend, right?!

From The Mouth of Babes

Today was a great "Eden" day. She was full of one liners and silly things to say! I couldn't get enough of what she had to say today, and I laughed out loud so many times I had to gain years back to my life!

Earlier today Eden told me, with a book light in hand, "mommy, take your bra off and let me see your boobs!" Um, excise me!!!??? She was pretending she was a doctor and she wanted to give me a checkup. I guess I'm going toned to keep a closer eye on her when she's got friends over! I never realized the playing doctor thing that we all joke about could come true!

Later in the afternoon Eden introduced me to her very first imaginary friend. She walked her over by putting her hand on the small of her back and introduced me to her. She said, "look mommy, this is Ms. Marie," and I shook her hand and said how wonderful it was to meet her. I thanked Eden for bringing Ms. Marie to meet me and then giggled under my breath because I know who she named her friend after. Our next door neighbor is Ms. Marie...and she's 85 years old!

Eden didn't spare Lane in her shenanigans today! While I was fixing dinner he had the kids in the living room. Hunter was on the couch with Lane and Eden was all over the place. She was holding Hunter at one point, getting a toy at another. All of a sudden I heard Lane get frustrated with Eden and he said to her, "don't pull your brother off the couch! What's wrong with you?!" Usually she just leaves the situation an pretend there was nothing wrong with what he did. Tonight was different, she acknowledged the question and even answered him. Her response to his question was, "nothing," before she walked away like he was crazy for asking her such a thing.

I think tonight proves to us that we're going to have our hands full for a very long time when it comes to parenting Eden! She's got lot of sass and to back that up, she's smart! We're in trouble for sure!

Excited

Tomorrow night Lane's squadron is celebrating the Marine Corps' 237th birthday. Each year every unit within the Marine Corps celebrates the birthday with a ceremony, cake cutting, and usually a party. I love getting dressed up and I love when Lane wears his blues.

Though I'm excited beyond words for this night I'm super anxious about it too. We're leaving the kids with a babysitter over night. Of course I trust our sitter, but it's scary! Eden is excited because she's going to be with her friends, and we're excited because we'll be with our friends...but my babies will be with someone other than family!!!!! Ahhh!!!!!

Differences

Today, and at least one Wednesday a month, I'm watching a friend's little boy. I love watching Coen because he and Eden are friends and Eden gets to be the big kid since I'm watching him because his big brother {older than both Eden and Coen} is in school and Angie has to volunteer at least one day a month to help in the classroom. Best of both worlds! Eden can be the big kid, Angie gets time with Cael, and Coen gets some QT without having big brother around {I'm sure he needs it too!}

Today while I had Coen, he and Hunter both had poop diapers. Just what I wanted! Made that love of having Coen here once a month seem like doomsday! I changed both boys' diapers while Eden was playing in the living room. When I changed the second diaper, Eden looked at me and said, "Mommy, they match! His privates are like Hunter's. And Cael!"

The icing on the cake was when she said, "My butt doesn't look like that," and walked away. I knew that Eden had seen boy privates before because she takes a bath with her brother, but I didn't realize that she knew that boys matched each other and were different from hers. So I guess it begins, the first of many awkward conversations about privates {and in the back of my mind I know they'll eventually - not any time soon - lead to the birds and the bees...someone save me!}

Christmas Shirts!

A fellow C-130 spouse is working on building her portfolio for photography and volunteered to take pictures for other Raider families. As soon as she said she was willing to do this, I jumped at the opportunity! I love having family pictures taken, but sometimes the price tag on good pictures is just something that our bank account can't handle. I knew that I wanted to have Christmas pictures taken so I can order Christmas cards sooner than later {because I've been known to send out Christmas cards after New Years in years past!}

Both kids already had their Christmas Eve outfits, but I wanted to have some more casual outfits for them too. Another military spouse friend had posted some cute shirts that she's making and selling on her etsy shop and I fell in love with them. I didn't have time to get some from her, so I took it upon myself to give it a go on my own. I had the snow flakes for something I wanted to do last year for Eden, and all the fabric was stuff I had on hand already. I only had to buy the shirts! If the shirts wash well, I'll be making more for some family members!

I'm slowly becoming more and more adventurous with my sewing machine and it was exciting to see my work in our pictures! {We have a lot more pictures, and they're all equally as great - some are even better if you can believe that! - so I'll post more of them when I have the CD.}

Motherhood Is...{45}

Scary

Let's be honest, who in their right mind initially went into motherhood thinking, "this is going to be the easiest thing I've ever done!" I mean come on! It's scary...every day it's scary. Will my kid fall today. Will someone be mean to my kid today. Did that trip on the concrete draw blood. Most of our scares are minute and we don't even realize that it's fear that the events are rooted in, but being scared is a part of our every day lives.

Take a look at Hunter here, sitting on the landing on my stairs. Here's my list of why this is so scary to me:

He's so proud of being king of the mountain! What's he going to be like when he's just a little bit older? Can be possibly get more bold? A common phrase I hear from a friend of mine to her youngest is, "Don't be brave" and I feel like I'm going to have to adopt this phrase.

I have no good place to put the baby gate. If I put it before the landing, Hunter gets mad and pops a squat on a step below the baby gate. Most times the squat leads to a topple onto the floor. At least with the gate where it is {at the top of the landing before the next set of stairs going upstairs} he can get to a point that he's happy with and pop a squat. When he sits here, there's plenty of space and he can just sit and be proud of his accomplishments!

There's tile at the bottom of the stairs! When he falls, it hurts.

He poops on the landing. Yes, it's in a diaper, but he still does it. He climbs up there, sits for a minute or 2 and then he poops because he's so happy. Let's hope that when he starts taking his own diapers off {because let's face it, that's another fear I have!} that they aren't filled with poop from the landing!

Pumpkin Painting

We didn't carve our pumpkin for Halloween this year. Lane's schedule didn't work with it and I didn't want to do it alone. I guess as long as we don't carve it, it'll stay "good" and we can carve it when we can all be together in the evening. Eden did pick out 2 baby pumpkins from the squadron fall festival and we painted those one morning while Hunter was napping. Eden loved being able to paint them. So excited, actually, that she painted my pumpkin too!

And then it was over and Eden got sad. I'm not sure what the pout was about, but she got right up and painted more after this short lived break. She even decided for some unknown reason that she'd put the paint brush in her mouth...toddlers, you never know what comes next!

I Voted!

Before you get this wild idea that I'm going to get all political on here. I clearly don't know enough about politics to do that, so don't worry! I'm just excited because I love a good competition. That, and I'm pumped about no more political adds on tv, no one slamming someone else on the radio, and no more phone calls. Ahhh, peace in the world again.

But let's face it, our tvs will be bombarded with political "stuff" starting before the polls even close. Every minute of my evening will be revolving around who won what state and how many votes does that earn someone. That part is exciting! The not knowing is so exciting to me! I got to vote in a swing state {Florida} this year, so I feel like my vote counted more than when I voted in Georgia. I can't wait to see what color my state becomes tonight!

I have my map all printed out and I'm ready to color it in at home. We were going to have a results party at our house tonight with some friends, but Eden had other plans. Last night she started throwing up. She was a sad sight to see, for sure! Because she was sick last night and my house ended up looking like a bomb went off because we were catching vomit in a bucket all night and running to the drug store we're in no position to host anyone at our house. We're still going to color our map at home, but just with the 4 of us!

So here's to the 2 candidates, may the best man win. And here's to everyone else, just remember that whatever happens, we still have Jesus as our savior and the king of our hearts. Pray for whoever takes office, that they fulfill all that they've said they will and that they take our country in the right direction.

More Color

The run was so much fun, I'm going to post more pictures! We were there with a group of other people in our Raider Family and these are the pictures of the group. {The COs wife wasn't able to run the race because she hurt her back a little while ago and so she came to take pictures of all of us.}

Motherhood Is...{44}

A Time Warp

Seriously, did time move this quickly before kids? I worked before kids, and though I loved my job Friday could never get here quick enough. I looked forward to the weekends because I got to sleep in and stay out late! Well, weekends don't matter as much any more because I still don't get to sleep in and I sure shouldn't be staying up late - let alone, being out late! The later you stay out, the more expensive it gets because you're now paying a babysitter. 8 months ago I was wondering if I was going to go into labor at every moment! 8 months ago I only had 1 kid tearing apart my house. 8 months ago Lane thought I was crazy {and I was! All those hormones, they got to me!!!}

Oh, and if the time warp of passing time hadn't made me out of my mind before, I'm sure out of my mind now. Check out the date that I put Hunter's monthly sticker on...Yep, the wrong day! It isn't just me this time either. When I said to Lane {on the 28th} that I needed to take Hunter's pictures tomorrow, he replied with, "weren't you supposed to do that today?" knowing full and well that it was only the 28th {because he called his sister to wish her a happy birthday!} Yeah, that's right, we both had it wrong this month. He said that in the back of his mind he was thinking that it had to be the 28th because there are only 28 days in February. I can see us getting into some trouble with this whole leap year birthday at some point!

The time warp...it'll get'cha every time!

Picture Post

October 29 - Eden woke up very hot and grumpy from her nap, so I had her lay on the cool tile floor to help her relax and calm down. I think it worked...

October 30 - Happy Halloween from my little pumpkins!

October 31 - Limes from our lime tree.

October 31 - I moved Hunter's pack-n-play out of our room and replaced it with this chair and "table" as a retreat in my room. I'm kind of in love with it and hoping we don't use it as a dumping grounds for junk.

October 31 - Resting up for his trick-or-treating excursion.

November 1 - From Halloween to fall/Thanksgiving all in the turn of a few blocks {they were my "BOO" blocks for Halloween}

November 2 - Yep, Hunter is standing on the stairs. Nope, I didn't put him there. My life as I know it is over, he can climb the stairs!

November 2 - My center stone on my engagement ring was really, really loose and I sent it back to Georgia with Sara and Adam when they were here last week. It just came back in the mail today! I've never been so excited to see a little maroon box in my whole life...well, I'm sure I have, but I was glad it made the trek across the US just fine! I was so nervous about it being in the mail!

November 2 - Eden put Lane's cover on for him. She *almost* got it right.

November 3 - We did the color run as a family. It was a blast! {I think Hunter had the most fun of all of us!}

Color Run

Today we did another 5k as a family. I think Lane pretends to hate these things, but in reality I think he enjoys doing them with us. He doesn't keep up with his running like I do, but he can still beat me when we do these events so I'm sure it makes him feel better! Of course, he's not going to let me out-run him even if he's not fit enough to make the runs.

Everyone starts the race with white shirts on...

And then the run starts. The color run is a run that is based around having fun. Every kilometer is marked with a color. The color is a powder substance and it is just sprayed all over you when you go through. There are volunteers at each color station and they've got large ketchup bottle-type bottles and their sole purpose is to douse you with color. They didn't take their jobs lightly and it was a lot of fun to see Eden's confusion turn into excitement about the color!

After the run, everyone is drenched in color...

And as if you didn't get enough color, everyone gets a "color pack" in their race packets. After the race everyone throws their color in the air as part of the "color fest" and you get more color.

Eden and Mommy in the middle of all the color!

We had a lot of fun and I'm kind of excited for the next one!

Firsts

This Halloween is full of firsts for us! It's our first Halloween in California. It's Eden's first time trick-or-treating  {remember, we left Texas on Halloween last year and missed all the fun!} This is Hunter's first Halloween in general. This is our first Halloween that we get to scope out the good places to trick-or-treat for next year! That's right, we don't have an impending move looming over us like a dark rain cloud that you see on cartoons. Bliss, I tell ya, bliss! It's exciting to be able to celebrate so many firsts together as a family of 4.

I took the kids outside to sit with our pumpkin so I could snap a few good pictures of them in Halloween gear. We still haven't carved our pumpkin because Lane was at work last night until after the kids were in bed. His job as the legal officer weighs on us as a family when people screw up late in the day. If that happens he has to stay at work and take care of those issues as they arise and missing dinner is part of the deal. No one likes it, but it's our reality right now. We'll get the pumpkin carved, it just might be after Halloween has come and gone. I've come to terms with it and I'm ok with it now. Last night I was mad, today I'm ok.

Eden was excited to put on her costume "agaaaaain" to go trick-or-treating! We practiced over and over again to say "trick-or-treat" and she never got the hang of it with practice sessions. When we asked her what she's supposed to say when we ring the doorbell, she would tell us "thank you." I can't complain that she wants to thank people for her candy, but I really wanted to know that she would say trick-or-treat to get the candy before she got to say thank you! The practice paid off because she very willingly and with all the excitement in the world said trick-or-treat AND thank you. She was in awe of the fact that she could just say those simple words and have people give her candy! It was a lot of fun to see her so excited about Halloween and to be able to be together as the 4 of us.