April is caught up

I think that takes care of April.

May will have to wait, I don't plan on spending much time blogging in the next couple of weeks.

LEE IS ON HIS WAY HOME FOR 15 DAYS OF LEAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He has not been home since July (1o months),
we have not seen him since Septemeber (8 months) in MS (this is the longest we've ever gone...even through the last deployment), so I don't plan on wasting one minute.
The kids miss him, I miss him, and even Riley (our dog) misses him.

We have a lot of catching up to do and a lot of memories to make...in 15 days!

Brynna's Tree

She's growing...

2009 (newborn)

2010 (1 year old)

2011 (2 years old)
I LOVE how she's doing the same thing as last year.

This is also from this year (2011 - 2 yrs old).
I had to share b/c I think she looks SO cute!

Brynna is 2

Our baby girl is two!!!

We celebrated her day with purple cupcakes (her favorite color) and homemade pizza.
Papa, Aunt Tiffany and Owen were able to spend the day with us.
(We always do Grant and Brynna's party together and pictures will be posted later).

Quick facts:
She still sleeps well. 8:30pm-7/7:30am, 2-3 hour afternoon nap
She eats well, always has and is still really messy.
She was doing extremely well at going to the potty for about two weeks...then we traveled away from home for a weekend and she's back in diapers. Oh well, she's JUST two, I'm not worried about it and in fact I wasn't the one ready for it, SHE was.
Clothes size: 2T, shoe size: 5 1/2 but I can't find them many places so she wears some 5s and some 6s, size 3 diaper.
Still loves her Winnie the Pooh blanket (was Grant's favorite pre-Frog) and we take it everywhere...but I'm used to that :)

Biker Gang

Watch out!

Easter

We spent Easter weekend at home. My Army wife friend, Anna, and her two girls came on Saturday (to help me clean and organize!) and stayed the night. We got up Sunday morning and went to breakfast and Easter service at our church.

How cute are they????

Gracie (2), Grant (4), Brynna (1), Emma (4)

My little sweet peas!


We spent the afternoon at my brother Matt's (and Tiffany) house.
We had a yummy dinner, an egg hunt, and even got in a nap!


I was happy that our church did "resurrection eggs" with the kids. I explained the reason we celebrate Easter to the kids and we drew crosses or wrote JESUS on our eggs before we colored them. I DO NOT want our kids to think Easter is about a bunny that brings eggs and candy. There is nothing wrong with bunnies, or eggs, or candy but there is something heartbreakingly wrong when people place more importance on those things than on the resurrection of Jesus. We need to celebrate his power over death and the fact that we serve a LIVING God and have and eternal hope and ever present help!!!!!!


“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
— Mark 16 1-7

Forest Fire

You've probably all heard about my fire incident (or read it on Lee's blog) but here's my short version of the story. I was trying to get things done in the yard. I had been pulling weeds out of the landscaping, raking rocks out of the grass from the winter snow removal, and decided to go a step further and burn our little patch of ornamental grass. Lee does it every spring, so I figured I should too. Well, I guess it was a little too dry and I wasn't quite prepared to fight a fire (although Grant and I tried our best!).

My attempt at burning a small patch of grass resulted in my first 911 call, 1 sheriff, and 3 fire trucks!!!! I must say they were all very nice and they made it to our house in 14 minutes, which I thought was pretty good considering it's a volunteer force and we live 9 miles out of town.

Grant watching from a rock.

Our house would have probably not been in any danger, our neighbor to the west...well, that's another story. I don't even think my husband being deployed would have been a good enough excuse for burning someone's house down! Praise the Lord for fire departments.

At least I have received a service for the CRAZY high Madison County property taxes :)

Owen's birthday!

The "babies" are turning 2 and Owen is first!!!

Again, I'm late because his birthday is April 13, but I'll get caught up SOMEDAY!

My SIL (Owen's mom) Tiffany is SO talented...
I just had to share a picture of him with his John Deere tractor cake.

Happy Birthday Owen and thanks for a super fun party.

Soccer

It's official, I'm a Soccer Mom!?!?!?

Grant's team, White...later named, "The Eagles."

Grant and Sam.

The first day they had pictures in the city park. After pictures they found a creek to play in. Grant was muddy before he stepped onto the soccer field :)

Best Buddies

Wish Lee were here for this!!!


Since I'm SO behind in blogging, I'll give a quick soccer update.

1st game: Not so good. Grant did fine during "practice" (the first 20-minutes we're there) and then not so well during the "game" (the next 30-40 minutes). We had tears, anger, thumb sucking, and brief refusal to go back in.

2nd game: MUCH better! Had fun and actually chased after the ball and tried to kick it (even if it was toward the wrong goal).

3rd game: SCORED A GOAL!!!!

4th game: this coming weekend

5th game: LEE WILL BE HERE TO SEE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Protest

The kids and I participated in our first protest. I know I'm LATE in posting this, but remember the threatened government shut down? Remember how they were NOT going to pay the military??? Sorry, I could NOT sit quietly and let them even CONSIDER doing that, and neither could a few other Army wives I know :)

We hauled our kids, strollers, sippy cups, and snacks, along with our posters to the Federal Building in downtown Des Moines (which houses both Harkin and Grassley's offices). We stood on the sidewalk in front of the building. Two local news crews showed up, one of Harkin's staffers came out and asked if we wanted to talk (we said we would, AFTER we stood out there for awhile), a lot of people honked and the people that worked in the building were watching out the window. We weren't large in numbers, but we were STRONG in spirit.

Long story, short...Harkin's staffers were rude (to a room full of mothers and children) and ill informed. Grassley's guy walked in and confirmed we knew what we were talking about (during a deployment a military spouse ALWAYS knows if something is up with the pay check) and also knew about the proposed legislation entitle, "Ensuring Military Pay Act of 2011" which Harkin's people had NO clue about.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all about cutting spending and taking some pretty drastic measures to do so. However, I'm NOT AT ALL okay, with the military getting stuck in the middle of that debate.

Here are the links the news stories.

WHO Channel 13

KCCI Channel 8

Grant's says, "Pay my Daddy" mine says, "They fight for FREEDOM not for FREE" and Brynn's says, "I haven't seen my dad for 1/2 my life, now you are giving him 1/2 his pay!?!?"
Pretty good, huh???

Of course, he didn't talk but he's REALLY good at waving that flag!

Don't mess with military wives and kids :)

"50% pay but still 100% gone"

Everyone says she should be in movies...the start of a career?? :)

THIS is the group that Harkin's staffers were SO rude to!!!

For a great (and unemotional) argument for why the military should be OFF LIMITS when it comes to budget debates, click here.