Motherhood Is...{31}

This week I am blessed that this is what we see when we walk up the stairs.

This is a beautiful picture that was taken by Megan the weekend before Lane left for deployment. Hunter has taken interest in talking about the pictures that are on the wall going up the stairs, so this is a great one for us. Even on days the kids don't get to talk to Lane, this is a great way for them to get to see him and for us to talk about him.

I count my many blessings that my kids have a daddy who loves what he does! We miss him every day, but with every day that passes, we're one day closer to seeing him in the flesh again.

RIP Boris

I know Lane must be having a hard time with the loss of Boris {his mustache} so I created a care package to help him remember. There's rice crispie treats, cookies, cinnamon swirl bread, and all kinds of goodies!

Cookies, vacuum sealed and ready to go.

Superheroes

When Lane left for deployment, he left behind one of his flight suits. Why he did it is beyond me, but I sent it out to him. Luckily for us super heroes are in! What better theme for a box than a super hero theme!

This is one of the pictures that came in a roll of pictures of superheroes. It was great distraction on the plane to Georgia. It was also great for restaurants and general entertainment for the kids.

Captain America! 

More entertainment from the airplane. The superhero pages are stickers that the kids put on the city-scape to decorate it. The Superman magnet is the one that Eden painted, and I let Hunter paint his before putting it in the box. The Batman hook I just thought was fun. We were told that the 3M hooks were great for having over there because he can hang towels, uniforms, and other things along those lines on them.

I got this picture from Lane with the caption of, "where Batman hangs his cape now."

Motherhood Is...{30}

This week I am blessed that we are one month closer to being a family of four again!

I can't believe that 2 months have already passed. Eden talks about Daddy every single day, and Hunter misses him when he sees him. We're all excited to celebrate with ice cream each month. I love that every month Hunter is more interested in the ice cream than the picture.

I go through phases of staying on top of life as a single mom with 2 kids and being completely buried deep beneath going here and there and keeping up with laundry and cooking and cleaning. I'm at an in between right now. When we got back from Georgia I was doing great {because my house was spotless thanks to friends!} and I was able to get caught up with the bathroom renos.

Now I'm getting super tired just thinking about getting things taken care of at home. I am trying to keep up with my running {I have a half marathon on August 18!} and I am being more on top of making the kids pick up the living room before dinner. That way when they melt down after dinner and need to get upstairs to get bed time going, the living room is already clean. I'm excited that it's been working so far - all 2 weeks of it!

No matter how we get through the next 5 months, we've made it the first 2, and that means that the next one will mark 3 down, 3 to go! We'll be at half way! If things keep coming and going in phases, we'll be set! I mean, life can't be all rainbows and butterflies anyways. I'll just continue to focus on the positive things and try not to dwell on the negative. So, this week I am blessed to be 2 months closer to hugging Lane again!

DIY Projects

Last year before Lane left on his around the world in September we decided it was a good time to demo the master bathroom {which led to demoing the upstairs hall bathroom.} I know, timing was terrible, but we did it anyways. And we were left with a bathroom that looked like this...

 After a year of small steps in the right direction, we slowly started putting things together in the master bath. We painted the walls the yellow that we wanted, we put up bead board on the walls, we hung curtains, and we even had the windows framed last week. They also filled the holes in the ceilings {from taking the boxes around the lights out} and I am totally in love with the progress that was made in just one day!

They're coming back to finish the big window.

Once the holes were patched I couldn't wait to get the ceilings painted. We learned after we started painting the walls in each bathroom that the ceilings were painted the same colors as the walls. They were terrible! I couldn't wait to make them white! Brown and butter yellow just aren't my colors...especially once I painted the colors I wanted on the walls.

The kids' bathroom.

Downstairs hall bathroom. Seafoam green-ish blue to white.

And I have the battle sweat and war paint to prove that I worked my butt off to get these bathrooms done! 

Most of the work has been done since I got home from Georgia. I made sure to paint and re-do the cabinets in 2 bathrooms. I had a contractor do the finish work in the master bathroom. I painted ceilings in the bathrooms. I am beyond exhausted {and it didn't hit me until today...and it hit me hard!} so I think I'm going to sleep for a very, very long time! Oh wait...I have 2 kids, so I'll just catch up on sleep a few minutes at a time!

Jane Wayne Day 2013

Last year when my parents were in town, my mom and I got to go to Jane Wayne Day on her birthday. It's a day where we get to go and "be Marines" for the day. This year mom wasn't here, but I went with my friend Tracey. We had a lot of fun!

The morning started off with being yelled at by the Drill Instructors. "Go touch that tree!" "That wasn't fast enough!" "What? You don't want to yell?!" "Go touch that pole!" "Get down on the ground!" "When I say ________, you yell _______" "Did I say you can fix your hair?! Go run and touch that tree!" "You want to tie your shoe?! Go touch that pole!" Oh. My. Goodness! It was just as scary as last year!!!

After we were properly yelled at, we walked over to the simulator {sim} building. Once we were there we were given the choice of flying the C-130 or the F-18. Of course, Tracey and I chose to try out the C-130! We got to take off and land the sim. It was really cool how accurate it felt and looked. When we landed, it felt just like it does on a plane when you're a passenger.

This year we got to do something fun and different. They let us try out the night vision goggles {NVGs.} The goggles were really cool to try on and test out. They had puzzles for us to work on, paper and crayons for us to color with, army men set up in the center of the room, and all kinds of other things we could try out while using the goggles. They were interesting! We figures out how to use the phone up to the goggles to get some good pictures of what we saw through the lenses.

They told me I could sit in the XOs chair...so I did!

Getting our lesson on "how to"

Tracey through the goggles

Is that a glow stick? Or are you just happy to see me?

We noticed that this guy had on a glow stick, but without the goggles, you couldn't see it! You could see it swinging when he moved, so we knew it wasn't in his flight suit hiding. We couldn't figure it out! It is an infrared glow stick. One of the most cool things I've ever seen.

After the NVG lesson, we got to go to the test cell again. It's where they test the jet engines before putting them on the jets. The engine is mounted and taken to full power to ensure that it works properly. There are no words to describe this. It is a teeth-chattering, sinus-clearning, brain-out-your-nose experience! You are required to wear squishy ear protection that you put directly into your ears AND "Mickey Mouse" ear protection over the squishy ones {all terms are technical terms, can you tell?!}

When we had a chance to sit down and eat lunch, we were at the rifle range, so they gave us some MREs {meals ready to eat.} These are the meals that the Marines are given to have when they're in the field and don't have other food sources. All in all, they aren't that bad...if you get the right ones. I'll be the first to tell you that the chicken with noodles, "vegetables in sauce" is not one that you want to be given! It smelled like cat food and we didn't eat any of it! {You don't even get M&Ms with that one!}

We {luckily} weren't required to eat the MREs and they gave us real food! After lunch, we got to shoot. They let us shoot the M-16s again this year. They gave us our safety brief and let us loose! Well, sort of. Each rifle had a coach, so we were given our magazines and we headed to our coach to walk us through shooting the weapon. Once we were comfortable, we were given the opportunity to shoot at our targets at 200 yards.

Our last event for the day was going to the gas chamber. They didn't gas us, and we didn't get to see anyone in the gas chamber with gas. We did get to see someone put on the full "hazmat" suit and mask while being timed. They have 9 seconds to put on their masks and 8 minutes to get the full suit on.

The Help

I love that Eden has been so helpful recently. Today, her helpfulness took the cake! Hunter woke up from his nap and had a dirty diaper. Not the dirty as in, it was wet. It was dirty! I took him downstairs to get him changed up and taken care of, but at some point got distracted by something. I don't know what {so you know it was important!} and then I headed back upstairs to paint the kids' bathroom.

Next thing I know, Eden is yelling up the stairs that Hunter "has poop pants" and I remember that, yes, yes indeed he has poop pants because I didn't change him 15 minutes ago like I was going to. Because I was painting, I had to get to a point that the paint wasn't going to be dripping on the walls and head downstairs to get the kid changed before he got an irritated bottom. {His butt can get a diaper rash in 0.5 seconds some days!}

Again, I hear Eden downstairs. She's telling him to lay down because he needs a new diaper. I was on my way downstairs, so I wasn't too worried about the goings on...until they were in view! They were in view and I saw that she was mid-diaper change! Um, what?!?! There was poop in that! Oh yes she did. She took his diaper off and was trying to wipe his butt...on my couch! Hunter sat up and she nudged him on the shoulder and he laid down. Once he was laying down again she wiped him and went to grab another diaper.

Oh. My. Goodness! My heart stopped and I didn't know what to do. Part of me wanted to yell and scream, "what are you thinking?! There could have been poop all over the place! You can't do this without Mommy around!!!!" but then quickly realized that she would never get the message that I do appreciate that she wanted to help and that she had the best of intentions. So, instead, I examined the area for any poop that might have come out of the diaper/off his bottom onto any other surface. There was none...whew!

I asked her for another wipe so I could make sure he was good and clean before getting a new diaper. After that I let her do the "one last wipe" where she made sure to wipe around his penis...her reaction was priceless! "Ew, Mommy...his privates..." with a look of slight disgust and the hand held out with attitude. I lifted Hunter's butt, she placed and secured the diaper, and we were done. Everyone was clean, my couch was clean, and I went back to painting! It's nice to have some good help around here!