Little Scooter Man

Since he was up and about and began walking, Jon has had a fascination with Jacob's scooter. He would "ride" it whenever he got the chance. Well, lucky for him, Santa brought him one for Christmas and now it's hard to get him off of it! Not bad for a not-even-two year old, huh? (And yes, he is wearing Julia's cat helmet...he just adores it.)

Drowning...

Can't. Keep. Up. Running a household and my family (minus one member) solo is HARD! The last time Jeff deployed I just had Julia and I delivered Jacob during the time he was gone. That was hard too...but THIS is a different kind of hard. A running around, chicken-with-it's-head-cut-off kind of hard! We are only just at 3 weeks in tomorrow and I feel like I am drowning. Thankfully my wonderful Mother-in-Law is coming to rescue me on Monday. She will be here for a little under two weeks. I am BLESSED to have her - she is awesome and amazing and I love her.
My dad was here for a few days - which was another nice respite. He hung with the kids while I got some stuff done around the house. The kids sure love their Papa! I have to say that he has really stepped up to the plate since my mom died...much more involved with the kids than I would have ever expected him to be. He is also awesome! Here is a picture of Jake and my dad playing Fighting Robots:

My dad also took us out to our favorite Mexican restaurant, Marietta's. I got to enjoy a margarita on the rocks which was fabulous!

Routine

We are getting into a routine over here...slowly but surely. Nothing super interesting to report on but here are some details of the past week. I finally got our "mail box" finished. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am not at all crafty. Pinterest does to interest me in the least (except for maybe a recipe here and there) so the fact that I did this and did it relatively well, gave me hope that I can get my craft on should I have to for some important reason. Obviously, our reason for this mailbox is important:

Sunday was the SECOND time in a row that I made it to church, alone with the three kids. I am SO thankful that we found a church in the area who can cater to our needs. It might be a bit of a drive but it is worth the time and effort to get everyone there. Sunday was also the first day that Julia's new tutor came by. I am very happy to report that she said Julia did great on her sight words and even she was surprised at just how many Julia could decipher. She had Julia do some reading and comprehension as well as some dictation. The only thing that really stood out for her was the fact that Julia reads very slowly. So the tutor will be coming by twice a week to work with her on gaining skills and confidence in her reading. I will also be requesting that she help Julia out with her math facts, as her teachers think that she is behind on that. I can't say that I agree...but working on it can't hurt and can only help her prepare for second grade.
Tuesday and Thursday are the days that Jacob has off of school...so I generally have both boys that day. I try to find something fun to do with them on these days so that they are not bored to tears at home. Yesterday we headed off to Kidsville Playgym, where I let them run rampant for a few hours and burn off some of that little boy energy:

And just for fun here is a picture of the boys taking a break from their daily afternoon trampoline time...could they be any cuter?!?

Sickness and Such

The last few days have been a bit of a rough patch in our first week. Tuesday started out well, as I took Jacob to our gymnastics center and had him re-evaluated to enter back into gymnastics. Julia is interested in starting back up as well, as she has taken about a year off and focused on doing jazz instead. So beginning in a few weeks we will be spending an hour or so doing gymnastics on our Saturday mornings. Here is a fuzzy picture of Jake practicing on the balance beam:

Very early Wednesday morning I woke up with a stomach ache. We had eaten a not-so-very-healthy McDonald's dinner the prior evening due to getting home late from Julia's dance class. When I got up for the day it hit me - I was TOTALLY sick with some sort of intestinal virus. I spent the ENTIRE day in bed feeling miserable and sorry for myself. I am still thanking God that, during the week prior, I had reserved a space for Jon in the local CDC so I was able to be child free that day. In the end I only had to muddle thru 3 1/2 hours in the evening with the kids prior to downing some Nyquil and going back to bed. Fever broke at midnight and that was that (thankfully)! I did not document this day in photos, obviously.
Thursday was a fun day. We had some friends over for a play date. It is amazing and wonderful just how different boys and girls are. These boys played and played hard and rough - but had a fabulous time doing it. This tangle of hands and feet is just one example of our many adventures that morning:

And as a bonus picture here is Jon lounging in our toybox with his sippy of orange juice (or o-ju, as he referrs to it):

Day 2: Communication!

Today, it was back to school after a fun winter break. I spent the morning running errands sans kids (always more productive) and then the rest of the day went pretty smoothly. I am trying to do what Jeff asked of me when he left: to keep things simple and not put too much on my plate. So that is what I did today. The best part of the day?...I got a surprise text from Jeff! He was on his last layover prior to arriving at his final destination. I was super happy, as I was not expecting any communication for a few days. It was fun to text off and on for a few hours and share some pictures of the kids with him. If we can do this most days of the deployment, it might not actually be too bad! Here is a pic that I sent him of Jon on the trampoline - static head!

Day 1: Just an ordinary day

I am happy to report that my first day of flying solo went without a hitch, there was relatively little drama and the kids were well behaved. I can only hope that the majority of my days go this smoothly. I also took all three kids to church ALONE - score one for me! (Can you tell I am proud of myself?) Below is a picture of the kids playing together...with, what else?...pretending to be puppies. If you know Julia, you are aware that this is one of her favorite past times and she usually can get her brother (now apparently, her BROTHERS) to participate. Day one down....I dont even want to think about how many more, to go.

D-Day

Yesterday was D-Day...or for those in the civilian world - deployment day. We spent the morning hiking the trails here on base...I sure will miss those beautiful views when we move this summer! The afternoon was just spent relaxing and trying our best to be "in the moment," even though we knew what was coming a few hours down the road. Finally in the evening we dropped Jeff off and said our tearful goodbyes. It was really, really, really sad and I am glad it is over. I had ALL THREE kids crying in the car as we drove away, so trying to keep it together myself was next to impossible. I had to drive 30 minutes home in the dark and fog so I had no choice but to pull it together once we got to the main road. The only good thing was that we didn't get back home until almost 9:30pm so the kids sacked out pretty quickly. So far we have almost 24 hours under our belt!