2/19-3/25.. The black hole of a TDY!! And welcome home Justin!

So this whole TDY training thing turned into a big black hole that I would just like to put behind me and therefore am not writing about what happened the rest of Justin's time away at camp. I was recently watching a 60 minutes interview of Sergio Marchionne and something he said really struck me - "There's nothing worse in life than to sit there and be the victim of a process that's outside your control." That basically sums up my experience being a military spouse for the last 6 years. I feel like I've been able to roll with the punches pretty well so far, but this last TDY really got to me. So my mil-spouse sisters, I salute you for all the sacrifices you make and will continue to make, but right now I say this way of life can go to h-e-double hockeysticks. Maybe that's unpatriotic or maybe that makes me weak, but the thanks for your service and the paycheck are cold comfort when your spouse is gone for weeks or months at a time. Just sayin'.




Justin was pretty much right back to work as soon as he got back, but we did have a very nice sundae making party. Justin put the fixings together with the boys and even made one up for me :) We were going to go to Cold Stone, but this was cheaper and way more fun.

MY PRECIOUSSSSSS

 On Wednesday the 21st we had the whole door assembly to our back porch replaced. The frame needed to be replaced because of rotting.. The contractor that came in actually told me they are slated to replaced a couple hundred of these over the next few months. It was super cool to watch (when Devin wasn't trying to kill himself by touching power equipment).


Yummy

 Happily none of the rot had gotten to the floor and no carpet needed to be replaced. They put in sliding glass doors instead of the kind that open in and out.. which was great except for the fact that they are clear glass and hide nothing!! They had to take down our yuck sliding blinds to put the new trim up, so I got the green light from Justin to buy curtains! One trip to Ikea, 30 bucks and a bit of ironing and sewing later and we had a beautiful new setup - which I haven't taken a picture of yet.

Luke and Devin were so into all this construction and the bajillion DIY home improvement videos that I watched, that they decided to make me a ceiling (or so Luke says) with their toy workbench. Well, Devin helped and Luke made me the ceiling. I was grateful.

Watching the guys use a miter saw in the front yard - COOL!

New doors AHHH.

Hard at work.

Lemmon and Lemmon - The Construction Company

A week in the Life 2/11-2/18

It's been another week with the kidlets without Justin here. Surprisingly, after an initial adjustment period of the kids just being bad (fighting a lot), it has been pretty easy.

Devin likes wearing Justin's hats

 Saturday evening I wanted to do something fun and different with the kids, so I took their finger paints from Nana and Grandpa into their bathroom, taped some sheets of paper to the wall and let the kids go to town. This turned out to be an awesome idea. It was fun for the kids who were stuck inside and easy to clean.

Devin dancing

 On Sunday we visited with a friend and it was nice for me to get some adult time in. Monday was Costco day and the guy at checkout charged me for an extra thing of strawberries that I didn't get. This is one reason I don't like to do grocery shopping with the kidlets.

Luke's Valentine Box

Tuesday was Luke's Valentine's Day party at preschool, but I had already scheduled a PT appointment for Devin and couldn't make it. Because parties are a parent-participation activity, I ended up dropping off Luke's valentines, taking him with me to Bethesda and then picking up the valentines after we got back. It was a pretty relaxed trip aside from the parking nightmare that usually awaits me at the hospital. It may make sense financially to have merged Walter Reed and Bethesda, but it really really sucks for the patients. Walter Reed never had parking and it looks like they've brought that problem with them to Bethesda. I literally feel like I might get stress-induced ulcers from that experience.

The rest of the week was pretty chill. We went to Target and got the new Winnie the Pooh movie - which I didn't think was good in comparison to the original. Devin has finally bonded with his blue blanket. Oh, and I made a sand table out of the broken water table on our deck. This has kept the boys occupied for hours!!

The biggest announcement of the week is that I believe Devin IS POTTY TRAINED! This has had nothing to do with me. I haven't pushed it like I did with Luke mostly because I've been a much more lazy parent with number 2. I was content to let this happen naturally.. Well, one day he just started ripping off his diapers whenever I put them on him and running to the potty to do his business. In a week he has had a total of 3 or 4 accidents. I can't take him anywhere with a diaper on, because he will rip it off - which has made playground and his PT visit very interesting. I cancelled my Amazon mom diaper subscription and have almost shed a tear of joy to say goodbye (at least to daytime) diapers.

Till next time!

Devin turns 2, and several weeks in the life :)

This has probably been the most eventful couple of weeks we've had in awhile! First, Devin turned 2 years old on January 24th. We celebrated with a Cheesecake Factory cupcake. Luke and Devin split it, since we didn't have a party. Both of the boys really enjoyed their half of the cupcake :)

CHEESE!!



Managed to snap a picture of Justin genuinely smiling - THAT NEVER HAPPENS!

Enjoying Devin's present from mom and dad - The Little Blue Truck in the City

 Devin spends most of his 2-year-old days following Lukas around and copying him. Here is Devin posing with his "tower" that he made while Lukas was also building towers. He's very proud of his creations. The amazingly awesome thing about this copying trend is that Devin has in the last several days potty trained himself!! I went through a couple weeks where I would half-heartedly try to potty train Devin, but there would be a ton of accidents of either poo in pants or pee on the floor. Then one day Devin decided that he was DONE having a diaper on and started to rip them off immediately after he went #2. So, I just let him go pants-less and magically he knew to go potty in the toilet! Now he stops himself while playing to go potty and is VERY excited each time. He does a running dance and whisper yells, "Let's go see it!" "It's a big one!" and "It's diarrhea!!" Thanks to Luke, Devin has learned these awesome phrases and it's even more funny coming out of his sweet, innocent face.

During PT this week we had a breakthrough. Devin actually flexed his foot way back and wiggled his toes in an attempt to pop bubbles with his toes at the appointment. It was exciting and happy. I couldn't have been more proud. We have started to give up hope that he will ever point his toes down, but when I think of all the other outcomes of this injury, I am ecstatic. He only launches off of his left foot while dancing, skipping or jumping - but, big deal is what I think.

Devin has also learned the art of begging. His go-to phrase is "Please mom, can we? Can we?" I am convinced he is a master-manipulator. This boy will hit, kick, punch and all manner of evil things then turn right around and sweetly tell me he is sorry and kisses my boo-boo's better. He is rambunctious to the max.

Lukas has been great with expressing his emotions and keeps popping out funny phrases. He told me today while walking that he "enjoyed crushing the lovely flowers" with his rain boots. He tells me now that he's very sad when I move his toys around - I think he means pissed, because he says it in angry voice.

We took a 2 day trip up to NY over the weekend of 28th-29th and I think the course of our lives has changed. Our prior plans to go career Air Force are gone and in their place are plans to open a gym and for me to pursue more post-secondary education. I have to admit that I was really skeptical when Justin brought up the idea of opening a Crossfit gym, but as I do more detail gathering and research, I become more and more excited. We may end up broke as *bleep*, but then I figure I can commission and I'll be an officer. That's sort of a joke, but who knows!?

Are we crazy? Yes. Are we scared? Hell, no. Even if we end up with zero savings, I now have these two lovely children which I have borne from my body to support me when I am old and gray. Look at those sweet faces! One of those lucky boys might have mama living with them someday! Pity the daughter-in-law.

Anyway, much of our off time is now spent scouring craigslist for gym equipment and doing research. The kids are posing with one of our recent craigslist finds - a squat rack.

For now, the kids and are enjoying some time together while Justin is at drill team training camp for about a month. He left Thursday morning and is settling in well. He even sent me a picture of his microwaved bacon and eggs :)

2 + Weeks in the Life 1/8-1/23

So, the Very Bad Thing about not writing a blog post in a couple weeks is you sort of forget everything that happened in that time frame. We had our first snowfall, which the kids have had a great time playing in. Justin went to NYC for four days to scout out drill team performance locations. Justin also had his very first gig with drill team on the 21st. He got to do the narration during a half time show at a basketball game downtown. Justin was very excited and pretty nervous too - which was cute :) He spent a good two hours practicing with me the night before.

Lukas has surprised me constantly with his lego creations. He spells out the letter "L" in legos (which he knows is the first letter of his name), the number "5," and he has created everything from tractors to airports to tow trucks. Legos were seriously the best present ever for him. Devin does not do much with them besides knock them down after Luke has finished a masterpiece. Devin the Destroyer has also taken to screaming "I'm GONNA GET YOU LUKAS!!" and "Here I COME LUKAS!!" Then jumping on, kicking and punching Lukas WWE-style. I feel so bad for my sweet, good-natured Lukas, but he usually does a great job ignoring Devin or defending himself. 

 I have been spending alot of time on my Paleo Cents blog and have experimented with new recipes, including making lard out of the fat from our pastured pig and making homemade soybean-free mayo. We are currently going through a Whole 30 Challenge that eliminates all sugar, grains, legumes and dairy. While it was tough at first, I'm now closing out day 19 and feeling like a million bucks. I go to the Health and Wellness Center at the end to get my body fat percentage change checked and am very excited for that!!

So, that's pretty much all for now :) I will be blogging next Sunday, promise.

Week in the Life 1/1-1/8 Happy New Year!!

We have had a lazy and awesome start to our New Year. The first day was spent just chilling around the house, cooking healthy recipes and thinking about all the things we want to do this year.
We came up with a list like this:

* Do more sightseeing
* Fill up our savings account
* Do a better job with Devin's PT, which includes Justin taking a bigger role
* Lean out (me.. I realized a few days later that this was a really vague resolution, so I changed it to making better eating choices every day and exercising more frequently)
* Compete in the Crossfit Games (Justin later realized he'll be away at camp while this is happening, so he started competing in WOD Club.. more on this later)
* Nighttime potty train Luke and daytime potty train Devin

Justin signed up to compete in WOD Club's open online crossfit competition. He did the first of three workouts three times during this week and pretty much spent the rest of the week checking his standings and watching other competitor's videos. I did suggest that he start studying for his next promotion test which will happen sometime in February.

Devin went back to physical therapy and we used bubbles for the first time to get him to try to pop the bubbles with his toes thus using muscles we've been trying to get him to activate. It was a ton of fun and he's doing well with this. He can definitely do this on his uninjured side and I have hope that he'll be doing it on the injured side soon.

I spent much of the week doing work for a Whole 30 diet challenge, blogging about my eating, and going to our health and wellness center for a weigh-in and body fat percentage check. I am so excited to go back in 30 days. During my visit to the health and wellness center I met a very nice lady who introduced me to the brand new and totally free massage chair. It is set in a room with a tropical painted theme, fountain and music. And it is awesome. Let's just say I can't wait to go back and get my massage on.

Friday I got to see a good friend who just returned from a month-long vacation to her home in Jamaica. This has made me determined to go on some sort of tropical warm weather vacation this year.

This whole week has been unseasonable warm and we've taken advantage of it by hanging at the playground and playing in the backyard. Not many pictures this week, but I hope you all have been enjoying your first week of the New Year. Here's to new beginnings and sticking to those resolutions!!

The Week in Life 12/26-12/31

Our Zebra :)

Luke's VERY TALL McQueen

 Our Week post-Christmas was spent winding down after a bunch of parties and visiting with family. Luke played with his legos pretty much nonstop and was very proud to show off his creations. The animals were joint work with mom and dad, while the very tall McQueen and and an unpictured space ship were all his own ideas.

Giraffe!

We pretty much just played each day and I avoided going anywhere and doing anything like housework or grocery shopping. On Friday the boys and I took the 45 minute drive out towards Chantilly to visit some awesome friends from Germany! The kids played nicely (although separately) and it was great to catch up.

We decided to go to the Air and Space Museum on Saturday since I had been promising Luke that we would go since Thursday. Luke thought the planes were very cool. Devin was very unimpressed and wanted to get out of the stroller, run and destroy things. Devin's new nickname is actually "Destructo Devin" because he is so fond of tearing apart Luke's lego creations. It's funny and I get to hear Luke tell Destructo Devin to stop breaking his legos.

Doing sciency things.

Devin's favorite exhibit was the one with golden arches.

Luke LOVED the "toy" airplanes. He was kind of ADD bouncing from thing to thing.

While this museum had some great historic artifacts it was definitely more for the science/engineering geek. I think I will like the American History museum more. The most interesting thing to me was this quote I found on the wall.

We came home and put the kids to bed, then rang in the New Year by eating popcorn & Cheer Wine and watching The Town (I liked it). This was a WAY better New Year's celebration than last year since it didn't involve Military Police showing up to my house, guns, or Justin giving a statement. Good times. There's a funny story there, but probably not appropriate for the blog. And yea, we were old farts and went to bed at 10:30.


Random Things:
* Luke has started making very colorful pictures and has become much more interested in drawing. He gives light kisses all the time and is really helpful to his little brother. When he's not stealing toys from Devin, Lukas is helping him put on shoes or fix broken toys.

* Devin is a monster. He is go go go and is really rambunctious. Because he was having an awful time falling asleep at night, I decided to try the no-nap experiment. We are on day two.. Neither of the kids has napped and they go right to bed at 7-7:30 without any crying, fussing, rocking or holding. It's working so far. RIP nap time...I actually just shed a tear.