One more week!

Jeremy left March 16. So the last few months have been "trying"... as in, I have been trying not to want to kill the emotional wreck of a 3 year old. I don't know if she is missing her dad and that is what is triggering the crying fits everyday. (I mean literally - EVERYDAY.) I've also been trying to combat Cody's croup or whatever he has. It is almost sounding like asthma. He has me worried because he gets these coughing spells where he can hardly breathe. Alas, this is my last lonely Saturday night for a time. Then I have an ally and partner and maybe even a comrade to take over...but all these issues will probably be resolved by the time he comes home. Magically Kaitlynn will snap out of it and Cody will have been to the doctor for the third time by then and maybe we will be on our way to recovery. Anyway, here is our life for the last 2 lonely months. I won't post pics of me mowing the lawn, driving for 10 hours one-way in sleet and hail, (getting pulled over - but flirting my way out of a ticket), cooking dinner while Cody lies on the floor and cries, or of the garbage being taken out each week on schedule as if nothing changed. But I digress, here are some happier highlights:

(In chronological order)

Kaitlynn has been in school each day and loves it. She has dance and gymnastics and it fills up our weeks. Cody has a sign language class but he really only likes the bubble machine and we have to wait until the end to play with that so I don't always make it. We spend time with friends and watching movies so it has been fun.

Easter: We slept at my parents house and celebrated the Easter Bunny on Saturday so that the kids will know that Sunday is special. However, almost all my cousins came to town and by doing this, it pretty much screwed up all their Easter bunny celebrations as Kaitlynn is saying how her bunny came on Saturday. So I will do that at home next year. The kids got some cute clothes and "Barbies". (those rubber princess dolls) We dyed eggs and played and played and had a HUGE Easter Egg hunt at Grandma Linda's (Smith) house. The Easter Bunny brought Kaitlynn a Leapster2. Thank you "Easter Bunny" (you know who you are.) Then in mid-April, Jen came to visit us from Boston. We hung out for the week and went to the Jelly Bean factory near San Francisco, went swimming, and just did a lot of organizing. It was great to have her here and the kids loved being held by an extra set of hands. Thanks Jen! It was so nice to have you here.

I am super tired since no one has been sleeping lately and have taken to rambling, so here are some pics:

Cody and Jake on Grandpa's four-wheeler.
Gracie and Kaitlynn dying eggs with Grandma.

And this is why Kaitlynn is grounded from gum until she turns 4. Sunday morning she comes in the bathroom to ask if I can get the gum out of her hair. Apparently that means "I was trying to make a necklace out of the gum." However, it wan't just one piece of gum, it was two. One on each side. Nice necklace, huh?

And this is what happens when daddy is gone. "Where is the room for mommy', you ask? On the couch, of course.

One more week til daddy comes home. Hooray!

Wow. Has it been a month.

So Jeremy got home from Officer Training School but not before I got to go to Alabama and see him graduate. I have a couple pics here...

Also, many of you remember the crazy amount of snow Boise got dumped on in December. Here is some of the fun we had.

Getting ready for Christmas (the week before):

Here are Christmas morning pics:

And now we have traveled to our first station. Beale AFB in not-sunny Northern California. It is the "rainy season" and overcast everyday. It is making me depressed because we can't go play at the playground and we aren't in our house yet. Miserable.

So here is the story of how we chose our house. I talked to the housing office a wile back and they told me that they haven't "privatized" the housing yet (basically had a company come in and modernize and take over the management of military housing) so the houses are 1250 sq feet and have a 1 car garage if you are lucky. So yeah, I had no doubt that we would not be living on base. The housing allowance was a good amount and there were lots of nice houses online.

Well, we get here and start searching and found a couple we like but they would slip out from under us. One of them Jeremy really liked and we called an hour after viewing it and it was already rented to someone else. Same story for another one - just signed the night before. So these kept falling out from under us and I was getting really disheartened and frustrated. We were praying about it and praying to find somewhere that would be "fiscally responsible" and not have a huge commute. Jeremy asked me to call some of his co-workers wives and ask them what their opinion was. So I did. They said the housing on base sucks but there are some great benefits to living on base. If you can deal with the small house, the rest is good. So bam. Instantly felt a million times better and knew that this was where we are supposed to live. Unfortunately the housing is all wood and tile floors so the kids have been running through the empty house screaming and it echoes a ton so it drives us crazy. Our stuff comes on Monday so we will move in then and I hope that the noise will be lessened. The kids are going to share a room and the third bedroom will be a playroom, junk room, etc. So 3 or four years but it will save us a lot of money and enable us to come and see all of you more often. Crazy thing though. We move in the week another family moved out. The ward we are moving into has a lot of need and apparently is now wanting of a 2nd counselor in the bishopric and a new RS president. Yikes! Our records aren't here yet, but there is a lot of opportunities to serve.

Anyway.

We got here and met our one friend and went to New Years Eve at their house. Here are a couple pics for that. Jeremy and I met 10 years ago that night. Look where 10 years has taken us.

Since then we have been hanging out in temporary housing so last week we went to Sacramento. Across the street from the zoo there is a little park called Fairy Tale Land. We HAD to go there! Kaitlynn loved it. We went to Sherwood Forest. Drove Cinderella's coach. Slid down Owl's tree slide, Saw three blind mice, hugged Clifford, walked the Crooked Mile. It was cute. Here are the pictures. (And the milkshake afterwards.)

Here are our adventures in temporary housing, featuring the kids as well as the stray cat that sits at the back door.

We had an amazing Christmas and we are so grateful for the chance to say goodbye to you all. Thank you for being such good friends and family to us. We know where our home is and always will be.

So that is where we are at now. Monday we move into our new home. New adventures await us!

Hope your New Year and Christmas were great!

Funny story:
We went to see a house in Plumas Lake (30 minutes away). Here is the story:
The sister of the owner (Rachel) met us there (she lives next door. The brother lives 2 houses down.) So Rachel met us there and gave us the tour. It is a large house and way way way nice. The whole family looks very wealthy. So then she shows me everything and invited us to breakfast at her house because her sister (the owner of the house) was on her way. We ended up inside Rachel's house for a while visiting and everything was even more fancy over there (so I was nervous about the kids breaking something). I had kind of already made up my mind that it would save us a lot of money to live on base but I didn't want to be a jerk especially after meeting the whole family. So the sister (Rachel) is telling me that they will come down to $1300 for rent (they were asking $1500) but I am not sure the owner is 100% on board with that. Anyway, they were soooo nice to us and I could tell she really wanted to rent to us but I had my mind set on staying on base. So they are visiting with me and wanting us to stay and the kids are running around and getting rowdy so Jeremy goes outside to get the kids out of the lady's house and get away from it all. I finish talking with the sisters and finally make it outside. To my surprise Jeremy is talking to this old homeless looking lady. He glares at me and I walk over to him. The lady says she is their mother and wants our phone number in case we rent the house. (She is an old Asian woman) She tells us that we look like Angels. Jeremy just wants to get in the car and leave and I had to laugh to myself about the whole thing. I feel bad that we don't want to live out there even though she is willing to bend over backwards for us to rent from her.

So then after church on Sunday I have an urgent message on my cell. It is the toothless Asian mother who is very hard to understand. She is basically saying that she wanted us to move in and we will work out the payments later. "Call me back. Right away!"

Again, they were so nice and I felt like I was breaking up with a boyfriend when I called the lady back to say we weren't interested. Anyway, the old homeless looking Asian lady talking to Jeremy still cracks me up.

Car stories

This is the conversation that Kaitlynn and I had in the car on the way to California:

Kaitlynn: "Mommy."

Christina: "What?"

Kaitlynn: "I'm just saying your name."

a few minutes later...

Kaitlynn: "Mommy"

Christina: "Yeah?"

Kaitlynn: "I'm just saying your name."

After the fourth time...

Christina: Kaitlynn, Can you say a new name?

Kaitlynn: "Nope."

She must have been reading a book on how to drive mom crazy.

So we made it and this base is spread out for miles. It takes ten minutes to get from the entrance of the base to the housing area. This wouldn't be a big deal if there was something to see in between. But there is nothing. Hills, cows, and the speed limit that is strictly enforced. We are definitely not going to be living on base.

We were invited to a New Years party at a new friend's house. She had lots of yummy junk food treats and I ate them all. She invited a friend over so now I know 2 people. Yes, two. But we have only been here for a little over 24 hours so I am considering that successful.

Jeremy just informed that when he goes back to Alabama in March for 6 weeks of training it will take many days to drive there. Drive there? Really? Like, how many days will that take?

If we fly there we will have no car. Can't you rent a car for 6 weeks?

I am still weighing the options.

Happy New Year to you all. I hope Christmas was great too. The temperature here is close to 50 degrees each day. Christmas is officially over.

Jeremy's birthday

Jeremy turned 29 yesterday. Sadly, he celebrated without us, but we sent him some gifts, so it was kind of like we were there. Jeremy told us that Kaitlynn got to choose everything for his special day so we had chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast:

And then for lunch she wanted mac and cheese but wouldn't eat anything because she really wanted the (princess) castle cake. We all pitched in to decorate, as you can see. (watch out for Cody's side. He really likes frosting.) Also, I don't keep candy in the house so we had to use Trix to add some color and Walnuts for bricks. We have a gingerbread competition every year. This cake reminds me why the girls always lose the competition.

Nana and Papa came over and brought dinner. We called Daddy to sing to him and then she got to eat her cake.

Happy Birthday Jer!

Our Seattle Trip

So we went to Seattle. This was Cody's first time on a plane. Surprisingly both kids were good. Turbulence doesn't phase them so I was content with the way it all went. Our plane was 25 minutes early into Seattle and a little early on the way back. (Yea Southwest!) I took a couple pictures on the plane but it is really hard to hold a 1-year old and take a self portrait at the same time, so here is what we got:

We had lots of yummy food to eat while we were there and it was made by the best chefs in the house, as you can see. Kaitlynn and Christian played "all da day" as we say around here, and had a great time. Cody played too but wasn't quite as involved as the other two. Kaitlynn and Christian are couch potatoes so they were the best of pals.

I made Callie and Katie go to Zumba - which is my new obsession and we had a great time. We had a conference call (led by task-master Joni) to coordinate Katie's Hawaii wedding. We also ate at an expensive fancy cheese restaurant. I felt very cultured.

It was a really great weekend. Thanks to all my family who helped make it happen.

Halloween Time!

We did lots of fun things to lead up to Halloween and on Halloween. Here is our collection of pictures and stories for Halloween 2009:

We went to the The Farmstead Corn maze and activity place. We ate some burgers and dogs and played in the corn box. (sand box but instead had hard corn kernels). We also went through the corn maze. I stuck the kids in the carts you are supposed to use pumpkins for and wheeled them around. They were really cute. We went with Amy and Lee Carter and had a great time.

On Halloween, we decided to make sugar cookies at Grandma's house. This is a really silly idea when you have things to get ready for and don't really have the time, but, as you will see...They loved it. Smiles from both kids. Cody thought this was the greatest thing ever. He loves standing on that stool and being involved. Kaitlynn was asleep at that point so she wasn't there to take it away from him. I wonder if that is why he is laughing.

Now we are getting ready for trick-or-treating and a trunk or treat. Kaitlynn wanted to be a princess but then she saw Melissa being an Indian and changed her mind. She loved Melissa's face makeup so she asked Grandma to make her an Indian too. This is her cute curly hair.

It is hard to see but she has lipstick on and eye shadow. She was a cute little princess. We went to the trunk of treat first with Grandma and Grandpa. She got used to the idea of saying "magic words" and getting candy. Cody just went with the flow. He looked pretty cute as a pumpkin and all he ate all night were his suckers. In fact, he lost that one in the car and I figured he dropped it. When we got out of the car, I looked over and it was stuck to the back of his head. A smart mom would have taken him inside to wash it out. What I did was see the problem and want an immediate fix, thus a good yank on it. It ripped out his hair and he cried. Duh!

And here we all are before we go trick or treating: (Kaitlynn wasn't smiling in any of them so this is the best pic we got.)

So here is how trick-or-treating went: Kaitlynn had it figured out from the trunk or treat. We went with Abby, McKenna, Carson, Cameron, Ammon, Cody, and Amelia. She is the youngest of the four kids she walked (ran) with (Abby, McKenna, Carson). Despite that fact, she was the one who had to wait for the other kids. She would run to the door, say trick-or-treat and then "Thank you". Then she would come and tell me she said "thank you" and run to the next house. She was a model trick-or-treater. Cody, on the other had, cared nothing about going to the door. I gave him a sucker and he loved that but insisted on wandering around in the middle of the street. Of course, this was not going to fly. So Charise and I would carry him while he fought to get out of our arms. This led up to him screaming incessantly and I had to take him home before the police came and asked whether he was mine or if I was trying to kidnap him.

We had a great Halloween. Thanks to all our friends who invited us to things and kept us busy this October. Can't wait for next year... in California...but at least Daddy will be there.

random updates because I don't scrapbook.

Here is where our summer went: I will post a pic and tell you about it. Hopefully, things will be in chronological order. If Cody looks older and then a baby again, well, then you know they aren't.

Family Reunion 2009. Honestly, I am rooting for Cody on that one.

Kyra and Anna (Kaitlynn is in there too.)

Uh, who's going to clean that up?

Kaitlynn and mommy working out.

My little guy in the tub at Great-Grandma and Grandpa's house. This is a tradition for all children.

Happy Cody. You can't beat that.

Beautiful Stanley Lake. This is what we spent our whole time doing - trying to keep Cody out of the water. If we weren't doing that, we were trying to avoid the rain that fell the whole time we were there. We all agree that a cruise sounds like a better idea next year.

This is a little long but it shows you how we got to here:

Happy First Birthday Code! Unfortunately Mom and Dad were mad at each other and we just wanted you guys to go to bed. We did celebrate at Stanley on the real day, however. And you share your birthday with Grandma and Grandpa Roderick's wedding anniversary.

You got some matchbox cars, a ball from Kaitlynn, and a few other fun things.

Next year will be better.

Summer fun.

Christian (Joni) bought Kaitlynn and Gracie these cute princess outfits. They were begging to wear them and carried their boxes everywhere we went. Finally we got back home and they could open them.

She says to me all the time "I look Good."

Here we went to the fair and had a great time:

And then our Portland trip which was awesome. We all agree that we need a bigger car, however. We drove to Portland on Wednesday, went to the zoo on Thursday, drove to Seaside, Tillamook (which was my favorite thing, I think. It was 4o'clock when we got there and we had ice cream and it was amazing.), and stayed at a beach house in Astoria on Friday, drove to Long Beach, WA and played on the beach then drove back to Portland on Saturday, and drove back to Boise Sunday. We stopped at a thousand rest stops because this is all she could say "I have to go potty" and then she would spend 10 minutes looking at all the new features of this rest stop compared to the last one. It took . When we stopped for dinner (at McDonalds) in La Grande on Sunday night I told Jeremy that he better get us home now or I am going to start crying. We had an awesome time with Kristi, Jason, Madeline and Abigail. There was a lot of driving but a lot of downtime too and we just had a really great visit. Here are some pics:

And , of course, football season. Not the same without Daddy, though.

Quick story about Cody...We had a few "say goodbye to Jeremy" parties and whenever I couldn't find Cody I would just have to look for any food that some kid abandoned and that is where he would be...eating the remains of whatever was left. You can see that whatever he had here must have been really good.

So this blog just took up 2 hours of my life. If I kept on top of things better, it wouldn't have to be so bad. Hopefully this won't take you as long to view. Now I have no catch up, though. Life is good.