My Blog has moved

I've moved my blog and you can now find it at http://blog.ourkillerbees.com

I've been working on it for about a week with trying to get everything moved and all. Be patient while I smooth it out and find a new look.

Thanks.

Update

I haven't quite fallen off the face of the planet. Truth is that I should have even more time on my hands since Matt is home but I decided to try out Farmville. Baaaaaaaaad Decision, hahahaha!

Seriously though, things have been a bit busy and I'll be updating very soon.

Bye Bye Swing

The swing finally died. This is the original swing that we received as a gift when Little Man was born. Peanut slept there for MONTHS. It wasn't until he decided he wanted to roll over while sleeping that he finally gave it up.

Our kids love to swing so we knew we had to get another. Have I ever mentioned on here that we simply love Amazon? Well, we do. Free 2 day shipping is a beautiful thing!!!

It got here last night and we let the big kids take a ride in the old swing just for fun.

Routines

We all know how important routines are. Kids need to have an idea of what to expect and it helps them function better. Right?

We have our routines around here, that's for sure. One of them is our daily ritual as we wait for the bus to come pick Little Man up for school.

Today I was trying to take some pictures of the two older ones. Little Man isn't always too cooperative.

But then I practically begged for just one smile & I got it!

Peanut just LOVES to say "CHEEEEEEEESE" and smile for me.

Then Peanut decided to start practicing his newest trick, climbing on any tables that he can find.

Then he was curious about my camera.

They looked for the bus some more...

And after Little Man leaves, Peanut watches & waves...

Yes. Routines are important.

Enjoying his talking

Back before Little Man really started talking, people used to constantly tell me some variation of, "it'll come & when it does you'll be dying for him to stop." Nothing could be further from the truth to be honest. In fact, that scenario got so bad I was ready to punch the next person that said that to us.

We weren't momma and dadda until closer to his third birthday. And even then, Hubby had to wait another year to actually be dad. He was, 'gaggy' & now he's 'dadda'.

So now that he's FOUR we're finally getting to enjoy the 'crazy things kids say'. The way they take things so literal and that kind of thing.

This kid is a hoot and it's so great to finally be able to understand more of what he's saying. I'd say we figure out about 85% of the things he's telling us. If it's in context that percentage is much higher.

We still do a lot of Q&A to get to the bottom of things but I just LOVE when he gets in the car and tells me, "Momma we went outside and played on the new playground" and I can actually understand what he's saying.

I love when I tell Peanut not to do something or to stop doing something, Little Man pipes up with, "I did not do it."

I know these moments aren't going to last long so we'll cherish them.

We knew it was coming...

Last week wasn't such a good week.

Matt was laid off.

We knew it was coming. We knew when his boss had to pick who he was going to let go it would be Matt. If you know us personally, you know exactly why. But Karma will eventually take care of him. That's just the way it works.

Back in August, his company lost a HUGE contract.

Of course there is always more to the story, but that's not really our concern anymore.

The initial knee jerk reaction was panic. I'm a stay at home mom so it's not like there is at least still one income around here. In the end all will be fine and I really do believe everything happens for a reason. We've been in these situations before where we couldn't figure out for the life of us, "Why did this have to happen" only to figure it all out later down the road.

His first option would be to find another job in which he could keep his security clearance. If not, it's not the end of the world. He's looking everywhere, with no geographic restrictions. It's a bit like dejavu. When we moved down here from Michigan, we didn't know where we were moving to until about 10 days before we left.

He's already submitted literally hundreds of resumes and I know he'll eventually find something.

Life goes on.

Christmas 2009

We're in the middle of transitioning from the old computer to a new one, so for the moment I don't have pictures handy to post but Christmas was great. The boys had fun and Peanut didn't give a hoot about unwrapping gifts. Not at all.

The morning after Christmas we set off on a road trip, to Washington, DC to visit Hubby's family. Every time we make that drive we swear it off. And then we do it again! Since it was Munchkin's first road trip we spent the night on the way up there instead of driving it straight through.

Let me tell you what, it was ridiculously cold while we were there. And the morning we left, the roads were downright awful. Reminded us of living in Michigan. Reminded us that we aren't exactly fans of the cold.

In spite of the cold we had a good time.

Pictures to come.

Sodium & Hearing Loss?

Hubby's ear has been bothering him for a while. He was finally able to see an ENT last week who explained to him that he basically has Meniere's Disease. Nothing too horrible. As the doc said, "It's a $5 disease with a $10 name." The gist of the conversation? If you want your hearing back you're going to have to go on a very low sodium diet and keep it that way.

WOW!

What a shock! Sodium & hearing loss? Seriously?

Apparently So.

And so the journey begins. A low sodium diet.

Do you have ANY idea how hard this really is? Seriously. Go take a peek in your pantry and you'll DIE when you realize how much sodium is in all this processed food, especially in relation to what we should be consuming. The removal of salt from cooking and at the table doesn't go far enough to get someone onto a low sodium diet. You know what that means? I get to learn to cook from scratch. I don't mean partly from scratch, I mean TOTALLY from scratch.

My first meal, from scratch? Spaghetti. We can use store bought noodles but can't go near the spaghetti sauces in a jar or can. I started with 15 Roma tomatoes and it really was pretty good.

I have lost 7 pounds since we started this on Sunday. Hubby has lost at least 6. We are consuming more fresh fruits & veggies than ever before and we're not over eating.

We're planning on purchasing a salt-free salt flavored replacement this weekend. Hopefully that will at least put some flavor back in our food, lol. So far, so good. But truly crazy.

Christmas

This Christmas is going to be filled with lots of great things. For the first time Little Man grasps the concept (that we know of) of Santa and he's SO excited about it. When you ask him if Santa is at the North Pole, he says, "No he's at the store." LOL. Peanut is going to enjoy going into destruction mode and ripping open gifts. We don't call him destruct-o baby for nothin'!

There are also going to be some truly sad moments. Well it's the lack of moments that will be sad. I think sad is the appropriate adjective anyway. I've been working diligently on a project for someone special that may never see it and that SUCKS. Unfortunately my children (really just Little Man) don't understand it and I hate the toll it takes on them.

But mostly this holiday is going to be filled with lots of great times and we'll have lots of memories to create. I'm so excited to see the boys faces on Christmas morning!

Our Little Snowflake

This week Little Man's school had their Christmas Program. This one was the PK-1 children and it was cute. "Santa has Amnesia" was the title. The preschoolers were snowflakes & sang a song called, "The Snow is Falling Today" followed by using their 'drums' to another song. Again, SO CUTE. :)

Baby It's Cold Outside...

Brrrrr.....

I forgot how much I do not like the cold. It just makes everything hurt. I can barely use my hands when it's this cold outside.

It's 8:30 in the morning and it's all of 23 degrees outside. That's just ridiculous and insane for here. So of course everything outside is ice. It's hard to tell in this picture but it's ice.

Snow? Not so much.

This is southeast Texas. It doesn't snow here. And when it does it's the tiniest flurries that you struggle to see in the air. Not this year. Or last year.

Actually, last year it snowed and it tied for the earliest snowfall ever here. However, we were at the hospital with Peanut and completely missed it. Little Man got to play in it with Diva but doesn't remember it.

So anyways, onto 2009. It's snowing. It started snowing here shortly before 8am and nothing is sticking. By the time all is said and done some areas (about 45 min south of us) got as much as 4 inches of the white stuff and they have enough to make nice sized snowmen! We were jipped. But the boys didn't mind. They liked playing in the stuff falling from the sky and didn't know they were missing white stuff on the ground, lol. Little Man has no recollection of us living in Michigan.

Enjoy.

O' Christmas Tree....

Little Man had a project sent home to do with us over the Thanksgiving holiday. Decorate the tree. And decorate his tree, he did! :)

He drew ornaments & candy canes. We made candy canes from paper & pipe cleaners. He found some stickers and ribbon too. I just love kiddie crafts, lol. :)

Speaking of Thanksgiving Holidays ours was great. It was small & peaceful and the food was oh so yummy.

Complete Chaos

Things have been totally insane around here lately with no shortage of drama and stress. Thanks to all of these crazy/ridiculous things going on I'm finding it really tough to get into the holiday spirit. That's unusual for me because this is my favorite time of year.

Probably the worst of all of these events going on is having $1200 stolen right out of our checking account. Someone, somewhere stole Hubby's card number, made a card & went on a shopping spree.

He had to file a police report, we had to take that info to the bank (like an hour & a half drive from here) & fill out all of their paperwork. We actually got our money back pretty quickly but it was still such a PIA. It was also a huge violation made worse by the fact that it wasn't like Hubby lost his card or something.

So that's why I'm MIA these days. Just been really busy.

I have to say we really figured our little police department wouldn't even bother investigating the case but they are. One of the officers came to the house today to get some more information. They have the video tape from one of these dudes shopping adventures and they have 2 other stores left to get tapes from. That would be AWESOME if they actually caught these jerks!

Peanut Loves Munchkin

Peanut just laughs & laughs with the biggest smiles EVER when he gets to go anywhere near his baby brother. It's adorable. Here he is "holding" Munchkin for the first time.

How Cute Is He?

Our Munchkin. He's sooooo cute!!! :) Sorry about the lighting but it doesn't change how cute he is. I promise. :)

My Poor Baby!!

As the teacher walked Little Man out to me today all I could think the moment I saw him was, "HOLY COW...WHAT THE CRAP HAPPENED?!" Although admittedly the language in my head was probably a little more colorful than that, lol.

Apparently

one should NEVER

turn around

into

a park bench!

My poor baby!

Yes as he was turning around to say hello to someone else he whacked the corner of a bench outside. OUCH! These pictures really don't do it justice. So puffy!

My poor baby!

So much to say...

& yet I can't say a thing. It's driving me NUTS.

I am SO angry about the situation with Hubby's company right now. I always knew when we moved from here it'd be a big move but I always thought it would be on our terms. That WE would decide it was time to move on. I hate feeling forced into this situation.

I HATE that there is no accountability.

It does appear as though the contract that keeps Hubby's facility open is going to be given to 'that other company' after all. SEVENTEEN years of making this type of thing for the military and the contract is gone in a flash with NO accountability.

Anyone with half a brain can look at the facts and walk away asking "whose pockets were lined by this decision?" Nobody will ever know because the names of those involved in the decision will be kept secret. So much for transparency.

I could go on but won't.

I'm just frustrated.

Report Card

Little Man got his first report card today. Ready for me to brag?

Seriously though, he's doing great!!!!! Teacher's comment sums it up perfectly, "Little Man (No...she didn't really call him that) is doing fine! As we knew his weakness is fine motor and speech."

The only two areas he needs improvement on are 'Speaks in complete sentences' and 'able to draw with pencil/crayon' That first one is a DUH thing. He's doing SO well but DUH on the speech. That whole pesky drawing thing is fine motor and he has struggled with fine motor for a long time.

He knows all of the colors, Numbers, shapes, body parts & upper/lower case letters that are listed as needing to know. He probably knew all of those before the school year started though, so no real surprise but it does make me happy.

One of the biggest reasons it makes me happy is because one of our biggest concerns was making sure OTHERS (like the teacher) could figure out what he does & doesn't know. So apparently that is going well.

The other concern we had was how would Little Man do socially? First of all he is the YOUNGEST in the classroom. He is in a 4yo classroom and he missed the cut off to be in the 4yo classroom by a month (even though that's where they placed him). The other disadvantage he has is that every other child in his class (there's only 8 total kids) are in daycare. That is a setting in which Little Man has never been.

However, he's doing great socially. I have no doubt that you could probably tell he's the youngest but he's doing well. Everything from following the classroom rules to controls talking to raises hand and participates appropriately (etc) got an S (Satisfactory which is the best it could be).

Yay!

Sweet Joys

I can't believe he's a month old today. Tomorrow is/was my due date. He is so precious.

While we're at it, how cute is our tank baby? hehe. He's in the 75th percentile for height and just above the 50th for weight. I can't believe he is already 18 months old. :)

Oh Heck, since we're here...When Little Man saw me taking pics of Munchkin he decided I needed to be snapping pictures of him instead. Enjoy :)