Fat Albert

The Navy's Blue Angels fly with a C-130 and his name is Fat Albert. This week Fat Albert was at Lane's squadron undergoing some maintenance before the air show season starts. The crew let us bring our play group and take a tour of the plane. We had a lot of fun seeing the "special plane" with our friends.

The *REAL* Ariel

Eden was invited to a birthday party of one of her dance friends this past weekend. We were excited to be going to the princess tea party! It was an all girl's party, so we left Hunter and Daddy at home to spend the morning together. When we got to the party we stated with decorating buckets that were later used in a treasure hunt.

After buckets were decorated, and as participants continued to arrive, {the REAL} Ariel and her helper began giving makeovers - fixing hair {that was sprinkled with glitter!}, placing tiaras, and donning princess dresses. The girls were so cute, and very patient while waiting their turn for different things.

Once everyone had their hair fixed, they sat in a row and Ariel gave them a glitter heart on their cheek and lipgloss.

Once all of the princesses were dressed, they paraded into the tea room for their coronation ceremony. Eden was excited about this because of the movie Frozen. There is a coronation in the movie, and a song that is about the coronation, so she was excited to hear the word in real life!

After coronation the princesses paraded out into the back yard for a group picture. As they paraded into the yard, the girls each waved their wave that they learned from Ariel in the coronation ceremony - Elbow, elbow. Wrist, wrist. Wink an eye and blow a kiss.

When it was time for tea, after the pictures, the princesses paraded back into the dining room. Ariel talked to the princesses about table manners {chew with your mouth closed, wait until everyone has been served, wait to be excused, and so on} and taught them how to sip tea with their pinkies up.

To conclude the party we did the treasure hunt and the princesses ate cake. We had a blast, and the time with just Eden and I was much needed {as was the solo Daddy/Hunter time}. We need to make a point more often to do things alone with the kids.

Motherhood Is…{5}

This week it almost seems like we hardly got out of our jammies! We had a few late starts to our days and we have just enjoyed home time. The kids enjoyed an afternoon of bikes with our friends. They all took a break and had cookies together. We couldn't resist taking a picture of all of them together {Hunter, Coen, Cael, Eden, Wesley, and Ben}

The Big D

I have a heavy heart tonight. I can't quite put into words how I'm feeling, and I'm conflicted about my emotions. Parker sets out for his first deployment {his "big D"} tomorrow. The reason I'm so conflicted about this is that I sit here with tears in my eyes and I'm not sure why exactly. I haven't seen him since October. I usually only see him once or twice a year now that I'm married to the Marine Corps and he's in the Navy. We don't talk on the phone every day, or every week even.

I'm heart broken for Sara. They've been married for 4 months. They've only lived together for 3 months. And he's leaving for however long. Part of me keeps reminding myself that their whole engagement was spent apart. He was in Chicago, Pensacola, and now Virginia Beach throughout their engagement. But it is different. He's going to be gone for months now with spotty internet and very little communication. If anyone can do it, it's them. It doesn't make it any better though.

Lane's cousin is also going to deploy soon. He's going to be gone on Parker's ship actually. It's kind of neat, but it's just that much harder. There are going to be a lot of people that we know floating around on the ship - in the same place at the same time. Three of our friends from flight school will be on Parker's ship too. There's just too much going on all at once!

We also got news today that some of our best friends will be starting their deployment in just 3 weeks. They knew it was coming, but they thought they were going to have another month to enjoy him being home. In the whole scheme of things…it isn't that much sooner. It just sucks. They have a new baby at home. And 2 other kids…who will "get it" that Daddy's gone.

Basically, tonight, I've come to the conclusion that the Big D isn't easy. There's always a reason that it sucks. There's always something that makes it worse.

A new baby
Newlyweds
Pregnant, he'll miss the whole pregnancy
Pregnant, he'll miss the birth of his baby
Just had a baby
The kids understand
No kids - you're alone
You have to move in a few months
Missing birthdays
Missing anniversaries
Missing Christmas
Gone for the summer {you have to shave your legs even when you don't have to!}
Missing milestones for the kids
 *riding a bike
 *swimming
 *first steps
 *new teeth
 *first words
 *starting school
 *first loose tooth
 *graduation
 *first dance class

You name it…it sucks. You can be surrounded by the best friends, the best support groups out there. It sucks. Yes, you make the best out of every little thing. You video every small thing the kids do and say so that you don't forget to tell him. But it sucks. You "signed up for this" and you "knew what you were getting into" and you "take it with a grain of salt," but it sucks. You don't pity yourself and you are proud of your spouse {or son, daughter, wife, sister, brother, friend, cousin} but at the same time you're counting down the days until you get to hug your loved one again.

Deployments suck…Here's to all of the families and friends who endure them together! We keep each other strong in moments of weakness.

Motherhood Is…{4}

 This week was a fun one! The pictures of the kids asleep is from after a great play date with some of Eden's dance friends. They had lunch for us and lots of toys for the kids to play with. We also got to spend some time at the Children's Museum that's just about 10 minutes from the house. The kids played really well together most of the morning. We met other friends there, but I was happy to look around and see that they were wanting to play with each other and keep each other company. They got to wear their new matching shoes to the museum and Eden insisted on a picture of their shoes.

The library is becoming one of our favorite things again. We used to go more regularly, but with the holidays and getting back into the swing of things has not come as easily as I thought it would. Hunter is loving that he doesn't have to sit in the stroller during story time any more - he gets his very own listening circle! Mrs. Cox even lets him help with some of her stories - Eden helps him out if she can. After getting home from story time, the kids enjoyed some time together wearing princess crowns and shoes.

Carlsbad Half Marathon

The first of my three half marathons has come and gone. I was dreading race day because I had been sick the week before and I just knew that the race was going to get the best of me. I didn't feel rested well enough, hydrated enough, prepared enough, or anything else. I had done my 10 mile run the day before getting sick, but I still didn't feel good about the race.

Then the race started…

I had to call Lane in the middle of the race to let him know that I was making much better time than we had thought I would! I was ecstatic! The adrenaline of the day was pushing me through like I never thought it could. I made it to the half way point {6.7 miles} with a pace of 9:22 minutes per mile. This is where I found Lane and the kids.

As I ran off, I blew kisses, and had high hopes for the rest of the race.

And then I hit miles 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13…Though I still had a great finish time {2:07:54, 6 minutes faster than last year} I slowed down quite a bit in the second half. My pace for the end of the run was a 9:39 minute mile. If I could have stuck to my first half pace I could have finished in 2-ish minutes faster! Oh well, I can't complain. I'm very proud of myself and for my run time this year!

Next up…La Jolla Half Marathon {that I swore I would never do again!}

De-Lish!

Because I've been running most mornings, my kids have been eating a quick dry cereal while riding in the stroller. Not to mention, I'm not a morning person, so my favorite time to eat a warm breakfast is when we have breakfast for dinner. I saw this picture the other day that TheBabyGuyNYC posted and I knew I had everything to go for it!

{I've recently started following him on Instagram and on Facebook, but have no other affiliations with him. I just think he's funny and full of information about all things baby/kid!}

So he posted this with instructions of baking for 10-15 minutes at 400* after loading each pie crust with butter, cinnamon, and sugar. Simple enough…right?! Heck yeah! It really was that easy. Take a look!

Un-roll the pie crust and cover it with melted butter...

 Cover with cinnamon...

 Then with sugar...

 Re-roll the crust...

 Cut it into slices that are about an inch thick...

 Place on cookie sheet for baking...

 Bake at 400* for 10-15 minutes...

 Put them on plates and devour!

Next time I think I'll make sure I plan ahead and make some sort of icing to top them or for dipping. They were pretty good without the icing, so we didn't lose out on delicious flavor, but they would have been even better with the icing!