Photo Shoot

Today Michael and I took the kids to a park with a pond and ducks to get some good pictures of them. Although I got some great shots, the ducks kept distracting Cooper, so not as many great ones with him. I got some awesome shots of Ciarrah when she wanted to cooperate.

Skating

Today we took the kids skating. They had a blast as did I. I haven't skated since I was in high school, where I used to figure skate, oh how I miss it. I can still skate pretty good. Although this floor was a little slippery, but it was a blast.

When we got there it was empty. We were the only ones there which was nice until later on.

Cooper was a natural. He got out there and started skating. After a while of holding the wall he decided that he didn't need it anymore so he skated without the wall. I was skating backwards and he decided that he needed to do it too. He's such a smart little boy.


Ciarrah, on the other hand, wasn't so good at it. She just has balance issues. We tried regular skates for her and that didn't work. So we tried the kind of skates that Cooper had, that seemed to work better for her. Although she still had a hard time, she had more fun that way.



All in all we had a great time.
Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Big Boy Bed

Tonight we took down Cooper's crib and put up his toddler bed.

We did our normal routine except for instead of reading a book to both kids I read Cooper one in his room, just for him. We took a bath, brushed teeth and read a story, then he crawled into his bed and covered him self up and said night night. I told him goodnight and left his room. He started crying, so I went back in there and told him it was okay and he laid right back down and then I left. He fell asleep pretty quickly. I tucked Ciarrah in and read her her own story. They are both sound asleep as I write this.

Things have been pretty busy with us down here. We are preparing as much as we can for the upcoming deployment in Jan/Feb. We are having lots of family coming down to visit us before Michael leaves, which is pretty exciting. Looking forward to Christmas.

Hope everyone has a great night.

*UPDATE*
He slept all night. He woke up at 8am this morning. Maybe he's been ready for a while and I just wasn't :( Hoping for more great nights

Update

Things down here have been pretty busy. But as I am writing this, I have no husband and the kids are in bed. So I decided to update my blog. I know bad blogger :(

We have done so much in the last few weeks, its been so busy.

The weekend after Ciarrah's b-day party we went to the pumpkin patch. That was a lot of fun. I loved this pumpkin patch. It was just what I wanted to go to. It was a locally owned farm. They had a kiddie train ride, a hayride, pony rides, duck races (they used ducks and tunnel things and the old fashioned water spouts to push water down and race the ducks), bean-bag toss, and a maze. The kids loved it. Although we only bought small pumpkins, as the big pumpkins were pretty pricey so we went to walmart on our way home and got a couple to carve.

Kiddie Train

The next day we carved pumpkins, We carved a silly happy pumpkin and a kinda scary happy pumpkin. Michael did most of the work as neither kid wanted to touch the insides of the pumpkin.

Lit pumpkins and kiddos

The following weekend was my birthday weekend. My b-day was on Wednesday. I got some beautiful flowers and some Bath & Body Works candles. Then on Saturday we had a babysitter for the night, so Michael and I went to Austin. We went to Salt Lick, I LOVE that place. The food was awesome and the winery was cool. I tasted some great wines (I've not really been introduced much to wine, but I have found some I like, especially white wines). I even bought a bottle of some local wine :) After dinner we went to IKEA. I love that store, this was my first time in the store, but I've been online a lot. I found some awesome stuff that I plan on buying after the holidays.

This weekend was a hard weekend. Ciarrah and Cooper had a sleep-over with Haidyn and Rileigh, their mom watched my kids last week, so this week I watched them :) We had a lot of fun. We watched How to Train Your Dragon. This was a great movie, even Ciarrah liked it. On Saturday we had a b-day party for Ciarrah's friend from school. That was a lot of fun. Sunday we had to get up at 4am to take Michael to drop-off for California (He is at Fort Irwin, at the National Training Center) so they can get ready to go back to Iraq in January :( Michael will be gone for about 30 days. This means he'll be home a few days before Thanksgiving and HOPEFULLY, fingers crossed, he'll be home for Cooper's birthday on the 20th of November.

This Thursday the kids and I are hitting the road to go to Nebraska for a week. Its been since Christmas that we were there and we are not going home this year, so unfortunately Michael won't get to go home. But we are hoping everyone can come visit him before he deploys in January, cause the army isn't giving us leave before they deploy :(

Just wanted to update everyone, I hope everyone has a great week.

Happy Birthday Ciarrah

Ciarrah turned 5. Can you believe that she is such a big girl? I can't.

She is so independent. She goes over to her friends house all by herself (Across the yard). She loves school and her teacher.

She is now into BOWS. We have quite a collection. I love them to, for her to wear anyways :)

She had a great party for her birthday. All of her friends came and we had a great time. She loved it.

Party Table





Hitting the pinata

1st Day of School

Today was Ciarrah's 1st Day of pre-kindergarten, AGAIN :( Next year she gets to go to Kindergarten :) She did a really great job at drop-off, at least she didn't cry. I think it really helped her that Daddy was here this time. We all took her together and she loved it. All of the families on the culdasac went to take the kids to school. It was a pretty great morning for us. Michael didn't have to be at work til 10am so it was nice that he could stay home with us for a while.

Ciarrah's 1st Day of School

All the neighborhood kids
Jr, Carrie, Ciarrah, Jennifer, Maddie and Dalyn

Cooper is so much quieter when his sister is not here. WOW. I mean seriously there is no screaming or yelling or crying going on. It is quite peaceful and I LOVE it. I've come to the conclusion that she likes to hear her brother cry :(

Well its nap time here and I am so taking a nap today. Hope y'all have a great week :)

What I've Realized

I've realized that we are pretty lucky. Everyone around us is having problems.

A neighbors husband attempted suicide Friday. We had not seen signs of this at all. I mean yes they drink and argue. But I would have never expected him to attempt to do that. I woke up Friday to a neighbor telling me that we are going to have to take turns watching their kids. I was like why and then she told me what happened. Michael told me that he had seen the cops and ambulance out side when he was getting ready for work.

Another really good friend, her and her husband are separated. They fought and argued but never would have guessed it would come to that. They have separated for over a month, today was the first I had heard of it. She told me that she was ashamed of it. I haven't seen her since Memorial weekend. We have both been so busy, we kept in contact on facebook, but she told me that no one but a handful of people know. I wish I would have been in contact with her a little more, I feel like I failed her as a friend. I know that's not true, but she helped me through the deployment. She helped me get through a lot and I have helped her as well. I just wish I could do more for her, I know talking about it was very hard for her to do. She is not an open/ask for help kind of person, so for her to tell me was a hard thing for her to do.

It breaks my heart to see all of the pain these people are going through. I can't imagine what they are feeling. What did it for these couples are deployments. They are hard. Deployments can make a couple stronger or break them a part. For us thankfully it brought us closer together.