Let's lighten things up again!

Here are some of the sweetest pictures EVER!!

This is my sweet little Korbin at the playground:



This is our sweet little Megan (or magen as Korbin says it.........she calls him Kormin so it's okay)



They are such good friends (when the big kids are at school anyway)!


They really love each other! Get your lips of my kid little brown girl! Aren't they sweet?



Awww and look the little snot kissed her back he returns the kiss!


We have such great friends here and we need that to make it through whatever the Army throws our way so it's really nice when the kids can bond too. They have so much fun together when they aren't trying to kill each other. And they always play so nice and share everything yeah cause that happens never!

Here's a picture we had taken of the boys a while back, I can't really remember when but it was at a marriage retreat. We went to Tan-tar-a and they had free picture takin with one free 8x10. We were excited to get the pictures back 4 months later, good lord that was slow!

When the pictures arrived this is what I found:


Now don't get me wrong that picture is awesome. The only problem is that Tayton doesn't have blue crocs AND he is not physically able to sit Indian style criss cross. I love to be able to edit and doctor up my pictures, I do!

But I never went as far as to remove the legs of one child and put them on the other! They cut off Taytons legs and copied Korbins legs and put them on Tate! WHO DOES THAT??

I wasn't going to do it because it's terribly embarassing but here is our family picture. First let me explain that we had just got off an hour long ride through the resort on a very very fast golf cart. And I didnt bring enough nice clothes so I had to wear my Relay shirt....I'm okay with that. What I'm not okay with is:



Look closely. First you'll notice I look fat.......oh right that wasn't their fault! BUT they decided my hair should not be hanging forward so they gave me a haircut.

How can you just photo chop shop my hair off on one side? I look stupid! Second I said before we just got off of a rocket speed golf cart and I had some fly aways on top of my head, so what, it's okay I swear! BUT NOOOOOOO they felt the need to smooth them out with their photo chop program and that resulted in a BALD SPOT!

The boys, they all look fabulous in this picture don't they? They also must have photo chopped their heads off of different ones and sewed them on cause I know that all three of them didn't ever look that good in one picture!

Here's how I'd improve this picture:



And now I'm off to bed!

My Boys are Both Sad Tonight

Here is my conversation with Korbin tonight:



Nothing funny about that one, sorry.

And here is what Tayton spent the first 20 minutes doing when I put him to bed. His video is very funny, listen close.



Please leave a comment if you have time, I like to read them and then I can come visit your blog too!

Day Trip with Rocks In the Pocket

We had to take Tayton to Columbia today to see his developmental pediatrician. Columbia is a good 2 hour drive. Wait any time in the car with the kids that long should never be described as "good". It's at least a two hour drive.

Today has been really busy. I got up took the kids to school and worked the book fair until 10. The problem with that is that I was supposed to be at a Pampered Chef party at 10. Oops! I sped out of the school and ran to Brandy's to get her order then we took off to my friends house off post. Went in and did the party thing, ordered a couple things and sped back on post. I snagged Tayton from the cafeteria and then off we ran to our house to let our friends hubby get their stuff from my garage, then we went and met Roxy then grabbed her son from school and hit the road. Wooo.........makes me tired just typing it all!

So anyhow we made our way to Columbia. Once we got there we checked in at the desk and got called back. Poor Roxy had to hang in the waiting room on super comfy couches with movies and toys while Tate and I got to sit on the luxurious hard chair and look at blank walls inside a tiny room for an hour. I know I know I should have let her and the other two boys come too right?

So Tayton jumped up on the scale and I jokingly said "alright now get the rocks out of your pocket". He laughed and said "oh yeah I forgot" as he reached into his pocket pulled out a first aid kit and a rock! WHO DOES THAT??

I took a picture of him with his rock after I was done laughing!



Oh and check out what we saw on the way home. I made you a little video!

Korbin's Heart Break AND My Fan Might Attack!!

Today has been a busy day! I got up and got little guy to school, came home hoping to relax. I'm still learning the meaning of that word! I folded some clothes vacuumed the floor and waited on the housing maintenance guy Dean (who knows us way too well) to come and bulldoze my piece of crap falling down brand new house adjust my ceiling fan AGAIN because its about to fall out of my ceiling.

This particular fan sits right above my bed. My bed sits high off the ground and the ceiling clearance isn't enough for me to swing wildly to even stand up straight on the bed to dust the fan blades cause I'm a Suzy Homemaker....or not.

My point is that I could easily be lying in bed one night trying to sleep and have my body chopped to bits by a ceiling fan that suddenly rattles free and falls the few inches between my bed and the ceiling. I've been very scared but I need the fan on to sleep. Up until last night I had been sleeping all huddled up at the far end of the bed in hopes of not being chopped to bits in my sleep but last night the horrible sound was too unbearable to sleep through so I had to turn off that fan and wrote a note on my hand to call housing:

Dear Idiot Self,
Call the freakin housing people to come fix the fan. Jacking up the house to level it all out was great but now there are nails coming through my ceilings and the fan might chop me to bits.
Sincerely,
Sleepless in the Fort

That note on my hand reminded me to call, it worked it really worked! And I'm not dying of ink poisoning like my mom always said I would so there!

Dean came and fixed the fan today, yay for me! Now I might get a good nights sleep again. Then Roxy took me and three dogs for a little walk. We walked Korbin to school and then she and I continued on a ways. Later we drove it to see how far and it was 3.5 miles, woohoo us!

The book fair is here this week at school. That's kinda my thing to help with so I roped Roxy into helping out too. Tayton and her 8 year old were put to work as well.

Then I went and stole dinner from Amber again. Tomorrow I might actually stay home. They all feel sorry for me like a little abandoned puppy so I'm milking it! Just kidding guys! I'm so grateful to have such a great group of friends here who take care of me and put up with my stupidness.

Poor little Korbin!


He broke my heart tonight!

Tayton, who hasn't shut up for more than 3 seconds all day long I believe, was laying in his bed, alone in his room just talking away! I went up to tell him to shut up and go to sleep check on my little angel and sing him to sleep. After I was done I went to peek in on Korbin who was very quiet so I figured he was being bad sleeping peacefully. I opened his door and he was under his covers like always. I heard him sniffling. I walked over and bent down and asked him what was wrong. He looked up at me and said in the sweetest little voice "I'm sad that my daddy left". I just crawled right in bed with him and held him. Upon doing so I found that his little pillow was just soaked in tears! I tried hard not to cry. I told him it's okay to miss Daddy and that I miss Daddy too.

This time is going to be really rough. We're looking at 17 months of no Daddy. Tayton handles that better than most kids, probably because he's too busy being attached to my hip to notice Daddy! No I shouldn't say that, he's become pretty outgoing lately! But I'm his rock. He does pretty good if I'm around. Korbin needs a balance of people in his life. He needs to have more than just me for his recommended daily dose of love, hugs, tickles, laughs and authority. He has become very attached to Amber's husband Christian over the past few weeks and is going to be crushed when he leaves soon too. Then their daddy, my Kirke, will be home for a couple weeks and then gone for 15 months. these poor kids can't get a break. I hope it gets easier after summer is over.


I have more to share but it will have to wait until tomorrow........if I survive a night under the blades of death!

You have to do it!

Have you ever noticed the little handicap sign next to the "captcha" box?

Click it! Click it click it! It is so freaking hilarious! And ridiculously hard to catch the numbers they say in a room with kids running around, dogs barking and the tv blasting!

It's like they throw some chinese conversation on there and then shout out random numbers in english in the middle of it!

When we lived in Alaska we would go to a beautiful place called . Chena Hot Springs. There are a lot of tourist visiting Chena during the winter months in hopes of seeing the amazing lights of the Aurora Borealis. Many of these tourist are from Japan.

My little Tayton always had speech problems. He would just jabber up a storm without making any real words. We visited Chena when he was about 2 1/2 I guess. Kirke's mom came along and we had a wonderful time.

I just found lots of pictures that I'll add next. Ok back to the story. Tayton was about 2 1/2 at the time and we went up to Chena. There were loads of wonderful Japanese tourists there and we were signing up to take a ride in an old military vehicle they called the "snow cat". A group of these tourists started talking and Tayton spun around and just busted up laughing and pointing. He was so excited! I think he thought he had finally found someone who could understand his babbling! It was great! He started jabbering and I just know he spoke Japanese that day!

Ok here's the pictures! I remembered I had loaded years of our life in Alaska on Shutterfly. Today I downloaded a few to this computer. Now I have to decide how to go about the others. If I scrapbook them it will take me at least 20 albums! But I do have 15 months alone ahead of me.....

Here's my Eskimo Tate who spoke Japanese!


Here is one on our drive to Chena Hot Springs that time.


This was the four of us in the Ice Hotel. It was all made of ice, even the beds and people payed nearly $600 to stay there! I love this picture cause I look skinny in that coat!


I also found this one in there of my boys last deployment three years ago.


This is them now....

Mom you look pretty, no one is gonna recognize you!

I've had a rather uneventful weekend so far. We hung out with friends last night. Well that was somewhat eventful. The girls and I went to Wal-Mart and left two guys with the 26 kids. I think that we have 26 kids if you add them all together......well maybe not but it sure sounds like it!! Actually just the one dad had 6 of the kids while the other dad took the littlest one home to bed (don't worry geesh Grandma lives there) and then came back. Sometime in the hour we were gone the kids managed to pull out the game cube, throw my clothes and hangers off the couch, dump a bag of chips on the table and god knows what else! Men!! Seriously we walked in and they were watching YouTube Jeff Dunham and Achmed you can see him on Brandy's Blog and I totally get that he's hilarious BUT it's hard to watch 26 kids when your laughing your self silly! But I sure appreciate them watching my two for me even it means my house is trashed yep I certainly do!! Thank god Harry watched them at his house tonight!!

We got to Wal-Mart and witnessed plenty of idiots. We fit right in! It was like a family reunion for me! It started with someone trying to "pull through" instead of backing out of their parking spot....which nearly led to Brandy hitting them head on. Come the frick on already! It's angle parking! You have to back out or you're gonna be the idiot going the wrong way down the one way aisles or attempting to make a really tight turn down the aisle! Who does that? So I was laughing really hard and said "A fine example of a PLO". They all looked at me cause like I was stupid and I said "Parking Lot Idiot". DUH! (My brother taught me that last time Kirkey was in Iraq). And they busted up laughing and said "you mean PLI?" Ooops...........totally blew that joke with one letter...grrr!

Then we all sat here in my little corner of the living room all working on different things. They were sniffing permanent markers making yard sale signs. I was chatting with my Kirke on my computer and working on installing a program on Roxy's computer and laughing my ass off at Amber's husbands sign making mistakes. The house address was supposed to read 146 and the time was 8am-4pm. Instead he wrote "Yard Sale 14-6pm! And then top it all off, after that was fixed he realized he had gotten wild with his "l"s and wrote "Yard Salle". He got fired! It was great!

So anyhow today Brandy and I were going to a Tupperware Party. I dropped the kidlets off to Harry. After I got ready for the party I came down and got my shoes and put them on and Tayton was staring at me funny. Then he said "Mom you look so pretty". Appearantly I normally look hideous??

He kept staring at me and finally said "Mom you look so pretty but I don't think that Harry is going to recognize you!"

Gee thanks kiddo!

Luckily Harry did recognize me (or the van and kids at least) and we went off about our business. Then we snuck off for a little "WOOOHOOO NO KIDS NO MEN" quiet dinner. Bittersweet since we won't appreciate the "no men" part once they are ripped away from us courtesy of idiots in Iraq not being able to make good choices and be problem solvers! Even though those are basic rules for kindergarteners in America!

Here's a couple pictures from tonight because I was scared I'd never look this pretty again! Of course in my defense these pictures were taken 5 hours later after 10pm!

Here is Korbin and I






















Here I am with both Tayton and Korbin! They are getting so tall!

























And here I am....tired but smiling!




















I hope you all recognized me and I hope that I don't look ugly so much anymore. I'm going to work on that so Tayton is pleased!

Now I'm going to bed. I'm sleepy. Leave me a message and I promise I'll come to your blog right away. I'm finished with school now so I can spend more time reading! Woohoo me!

How many pounds of laundry do we have?

I walked into my bathroom to see two little blond boys piling all of the laundry onto the scale to see how much it weighs!

I know that I suck at keeping up on the laundry but come on guys!! This weekend I will be finally conquering Mt. St. Laundry before it erupts and spews my underwear across the neighborhood!

Ugh I suppose you want to know what the scale said? Fine I'll lie tell you.... Tate was standing on the scale with one foot holding the laundry in place with his body so it said 37.8 pound! Then I made him move and it said 3.2 pounds. I'm pretty sure the truth lies somewhere in between!

Tayton had his school program tonight and I wanted to blog about it because we are talking super major gi-normous HUGE FANTASTIC leaps and bounds forward in his disorder! He would never have stood in front of a crowd last year. He couldn't sing songs other than "i love for swim, i love for swim. I love for swim, I love for swim." over and over in his whole life till this year and now he is really progressing. AND and and and you're never gonna believe this........he did the little arm movement dancey things too! I'm so proud I could cry! I can't wait to get the video uploaded for you!

Grown man vs. playground OR Chicken Truck OR Bad Mom of the Year

April 20, 2008

Well I'm thrilled to say that I'm feeling better. Not yet great, but I'll take this for now. We left the house for the first time since picking up Tayton from school on Friday. We went and helped some friends take family pictures. We have to take these pictures before our guys head off to the sandbox for obvious reasons. They turned out good, considering that a two year old was part of the pictures!

The funniest thing happened but I can't blog about it because it's not my place but it involved a very tall man, a very small opening at the top of a slide and probably a mild concussion and sore neck! It was so funny but once we realized he was hurt the humor wore off for everyone except for me!

April 22, 2008

I bravely took a road trip tonight with "the girls" tonight. It was an hour away to a Tupperware training thingy. On the way there we saw the craziest thing! Maybe because I'm from southern Michigan but I have NEVER in my life seen this:



Please tell me why it's okay to throw hundreds of chickens into an open air trailer and then go cruising 70mph down I44! It was the feathers flying out at us as we came up behind this truck that got my attention! MMMM makes me want some chicken nuggets! Woo I wonder how they liked our hail storm today!

On the drive tonight I was able to separate my two "problem children". Roxy lost by having the smallest tail so she had to ride in back. Not to say that Amber has a gi-nomorous hind end or anything but her bigger tail won her "shotgun"! The trip went so much nicer without those two in the back teaming up to stress me out! Although I was driving like a maniac slightly crazy on the way home.

I put my boys out of the van on the curb tonight! Yep I sure did! I'm an Army Wife gone mad! They were fighting and not listening and being down right rotten to me and Roxy. I was on the phone with their aunt and they were being so defiant. I pulled into a parking lot and said "you and you, unbuckle and get out of my van right now". I took them to the curb told them to sit down and I walked away. Then Tate cried and said "mommy don't leave me" and I realized how horrible I was and how scared he must have been so I let them back in......no no no tell the truth Michelle told him I wasn't going anywhere and they could get back in when they can be respectful and make good choices (I really talk like that....I'm so lame)!

I got in the van and closed the door. Those rotten little snots wild little angels started playing and throwing grass! GRRRRR WHO DOES THAT??? I jumped out went over gave them a little talkin' to and got back in the van again. This time they cried for a minute then I rolled down my window and yelled "are you ready to make good choices?" Hmmm suddenly they are angels who chime "yes ma'am"! I told them They were not going to treat me like this for the next 15 months while Daddy is gone so they better shake it off and start doing the right thing because I was finished!!!

Then like any good mother would do, I took them to Amber's, left them with her husband aka lump head who tried to run up a tiny slide so we could drive that wonderful hour to our meeting!

What a day!

I'm miserable...

As the day has gone on today my throat has been hurting worse and worse and now I can hardly swallow or talk. Doesn't God know that there is no time for me to get sick? OH NO! This is my punishment for that phone call I made on Saturday!

The boys have just been boys today. Korbin aka Cool Dude got out of the shower last night and spiked his hair up and used ALL of my expensive salon hair spray to make it "just right"! Darn kid! He slept on it all night and went to school today with all still sticking straight up except where he laid on it! I should've taken a picture! OH wait I did! Because they said goodbye to our very good friends this morning and I took pictures then. Now where did I put that camera? He's so funny I get such a kick out of him except when he's throwing fits and acting like a two year old!



Tayton, my little Tayton, brought tears to my little eyes last night. Socially Tayton has many issues. He can't stand being touched by other people especially kids. Well he came down stairs last night when he heard Megan and Jada, who had been staying with us for a few days, come home. He said he wanted to give Jada a hug! My little boy just doesn't do that! I was so happy! He even did it again so we could take a picture AND hugged her this morning too! He's so awesome! Here's the proof!



I should frame it!

My butt is like a raisin??

Last night before bed I had to clean up the upstairs again and vacuum up all the teeny tiny beads that fell out of the frog. OH the frog, let me first tell you about this frog. My brother has this thing and he buys the kids a different/odd stuffed animal when they are born.

Tayton asked in the car the other day if he had anything other stuffed animals that he had as long as his puppy. I told him about the dinosaur from Uncle David. He was very happy. Then Korbin asked if he had anything from Uncle David. I told him that he has a frog. Korbin started crying and said "but I didn't even like frogs when I was a baby!" He went on to say "I wanted a dinosaur not a frog why did he buy me a frog"? I decided that would be a good question for Uncle David. I called him up and told him Korbin was very upset with him and then let Korbin talk to David. After they talked I translated everything Korbin had said to recognizable through telephonic language and we laughed.

So anyhow back to the frog. It lost beads out of it all over my upstairs and Zoe the puppy decided she needed to chew up every random piece of plastic in my house. God forbid she ever even sniff my Tupperware or we're gonna fight! I cleaned up their room put them to bed (together cause we have house guests right now) and they kept playing. I looked in at one point and Tate was standing on his head and Korbin was throwing pillows at him! I spanked both of the boys on their little behinds and then sent them back to bed! I started up the vacuum and I heard Tate saying something.

Since I was already fuming at them for letting their rooms get so messy even without toys in it I wanted to know what he was smarting off to me about. I went over to him and squatted down next to his bed so Korbin wouldn't hear us (I don't need him picking up anymore smarty pants comments!) and asked what he said.

He replied "When you spank me my butt feels like a raisin and it's crumbling away!"

I'm not sure what that means other than that I have to leave the room to keep from busting out laughing!

If Megan has "Michelle-isms" then Korbin has "Christian-isms"

Yesterday three of my closest Tupper friends and I went to Branson two hours away for our Spring training for Tupperware. Since Kirke is away that meant that I had to leave the boys with one of the girls husbands since they are the ones who usually keep them for me when I have things going on and they were going with me this time.

Stressful situation for me, I don't leave them well at all!

Soooo, Christian, Amber's husband who has two little girls was the lucky winner! I dropped off brat boys at 7am and we went on about our day which consisted of a long drive with lots of laughing on the way there, getting lost in Branson cause none of us were smart enough to print directions! The Tupperware training. Leaving Branson to head up to Springfield, me trying not to kill the girls...........

Wait back-up, that's noteworthy! Amber and Roxy were in the backseat and Brandy got to sit up front like a grown up. Roxy and Amber got into a violent game of "slugbug" (as Roxy and I call it) and "punchbuggy" (as the other two weird one's call it)! Well they really got into the game and it was funny to listen to one yell "OW!!" after the other declared their latest VW beetle spotting. Then they wanted whine.....see Roxy's blog about whining.....that the car was moving too much....Apparently I control the 100 mph winds that were hitting us and causing the car to sway a little.....ok a lot...but come the freak on!

My solution was to pull over immediately and proceed to tell them I'd call God to have him take care of that little problem (I actually called my husband but a girl can exaggerate) Unfortunately I got the voicemail. So I left a message to Kirke that puzzled him greatly since it started out "Hi God, this is Michelle....." We'll leave out the rest due to the shame that followed on my part!

OK OK I won't leave you hanging, here I recorded the message from Kirke's voicemail onto You Tube for your viewing pleasure!


It says:

"Hey it's Michelle, listen this is the message I recorded yesterday while I was driving and Roxy and Amber wanted to cry because the wind was blowing the car around too much and they were getting motion sick." then the beep followed by the actual message: "Hello God this is Michelle and I'd rather appreciate it if you could stop the fucking wind because it's blowing the car around too much and they are getting nauseous and you know there's because I'm driving, it's just the whiners in the backseat, the front seat passenger she's okay so please be careful where you aim your lightning bolt! Bye I love you!"


We had dinner at Fudruckers,

we always eat there in Springfield. Then home we went.

Now on to the "Michelle-isms" and "Christian-isms":

The boys spent the first half of the day with Christian and the second half with Harry. Christian is funny when he's not pretending to be shy and quiet and he had a good time joking with the boys. However, Korbin picked up on some of Christians quirky sayings....I'm sure he'll love it being called quirky!

Here's the conversation that took place tonight:

Korbin: I want a bedtime snack
Megan: How about some fruit?
Korbin: I love fruit! Fruit is my middle name!

He's taking anything he likes and saying "______ is my middle name" he said he has hundreds of middle names.

SO if Brandy's Little Megan can have "Michelle-ism" then this is definitely a "Christian-ism" of Korbin's. Thanks Christian!

Oh and one last bit of fun. Of course the boys didn't go to bed well tonight, why would they start now right?

So here is the conversation I had with Korbin:

Korbin: I just want to sleep under my bed.
Me: no
Korbin: I just wanna see how fun it will be!
Me: no
Korbin: But I don’t want to sleep with my brother.
Me: Fine go get in my bed.
Korbin: Woohoo!
What he doesn't know is that his little but will be moving out of my bed as soon (or late actually) as I go to bed. HA HA who’s the winner now! Little punk!

Have a great night!

Look What Today Brings!

Today has been interesting. I had a Tupperware party this morning. It was with a new hostess so I had hoped for lots of new faces......not so much. But none the less the party went well.

From the party I went to Amber's house and saw a few friends for a bit. Then off to the school to pick up my little man and home for a while right?

Well here's what I found when I got home:



It has been horribly windy here and apparently there is a reason they recommend securing the legs to the ground....Sandbags are on my list now I swear! Along with a new safety net! Grrr....I can't get a break and it's only gonna get worse before things get better....like when the kids turn 20!

And checking out the damage is Korbin in my high heels! Who does that??



Then he decided to play catch with my new shirt from Jen's Ideas. Unfortunately the ceiling fan is a bit of a "ball hog" if you will. It caught my brand new with tags still on it shirt and refused to toss it back!



Then after I used my go-go-gadget arms to reach all the way up to my ceiling fan on my super high (to a short girl) ceilings, I rescued my brand new with tags on it shirt from Jen's Ideas and it looked like this:



Isn't that great? No? I didn't think so!

All Korbin said was "wow, I didn't know the fan was that dirty"!

And just for fun here he is at one of the high schools here when we were recruiting teams for Relay For Life. Notice the name tag says "Cool Dude" not Korbin. He thinks this is his name. At the beginning of the school year we were filling out his paperwork and it said "Name your child would like to go by at school?" I asked him, he said "just cool dude would be fine". So I wrote it down. That was in September!!! He's learning to spell it now and writes it next to his name when he signs in at school now too!



That's all for today.....I hope nothing interesting happens the rest of the night!

Try to avoid that okay?

So it's now 10:30 on a school night. Tayton and Korbin were put to bed at 8 o'clock. Korbin got out of bed once but I warned Tayton that if his brother came in his room again to scream like a maniac and I'd handle it and Tate would not be in trouble. However, if he didn't scream and let his brother in his room he would also be in trouble like last night. So when Korbin popped into Tayton's room he screamed, Korbin ran to bed and that was the last we heard of him tonight!

You see here, even with the light on he's in his bed asleep! Good little Korbin!

I was on MSN chatting with Kirke and Tayton came downstairs. He played the "I really want to talk to Daddy" card. We were webcamming so he got to see Kirke and they could talk and hear each other. Kirke talked to him for a minute then told him to get to bed. I told Tate I didn't expect to see him again tonight.

Well it's 10:30 and Tayton just came down to tell me that he has made a bed for his Puppy and it goes this way and that and over and under and a box with the puppy in it or something like that.

Then this little boy with his handsome blue eyes looks at me and says:

"Mom when you come up to tuck me in and check on me make sure you avoid the bed for my Puppy because I worked really hard on it (in the dark because he's supposed to be asleep!!) and I don't want it to get wrecked!"



But that wasn't all, he went on:

"And if you did accidentally break it just wake me up and tell me so that I can fix it so that Puppy has somewhere to sleep. And in the morning when you wake me up make sure you avoid it too cause I might not have time to fix it before I go to school and I worked really hard on it (again with admitting he wasn't in his bed!!)"



I looked up at him and said nothing. Tayton requires answers or he thinks maybe you didn't hear him. Or maybe after three years of speech therapy he thinks you didn't understand him. Either way I finally managed to say something that resembled "get your skinny little butt in bed and do not come down here again!!!"

Here's what I found at 11:30 when I went to bed:



The dad needs to come home now! It's only been 2 1/2 weeks and I'm ready to throw in the towel. This is not good!

I have a Tupperware party in the morning it had better go well and I hope a few people will date their own party so that I have some lined up for May. But wait!!!! I don't know when Kirke will be home and I have no idea if it will be two weeks or two months! Grrrr! How am I supposed to plan with this kind of madness! I quit!

Why won't they just go to sleep?

Tonight has been rough with the boys again. I don't understand it at all. We have a good bedtime routine. Tate did his homework, they had a snack then we read The Cabin That Moose Built (one of my favorites by one of my friends and favorite Alaska authors!)

Then I sent them to bed tucked them and kissed them goodnight, told them I didn't want to hear them out of bed tonight.

Not five minutes later I hear this:

Korbin: "mom what's taking so long?"
Me: "for what"
Korbin: "my stuffed aminal" (not a typo, that's what he said, aminal)
Me: "i looked, I can't find it, too bad go to bed"


Next thing I know they are out of bed again, I can hear them talking to each other whispering loudly on the stairs. I sneak over to catch them only to find out that my little OCD boy is picking up teeny tiny beads in the dark that came out of a stuffed animal so that I will put them back in and sew it up! (That is soooo not happening by the way.)

The next conversation goes like this:

Me: "I will vaccum up the beads and will not be restuffing froggy"
Tate: "but mom then he'll be flat"
Me: "oh well too bad go back to bed and do not let me find you out of bed again, good night I love you"

I go happily back to my Tupperware order I was putting and I hear them, both of them, laughing up a storm! Who does that? At least try to be sneaky!

I sneak up the stairs turn on the light and they look like little deer caught in the headlights!

Me: (smoke coming out of my ears) "what in the heck do you think you're doing?"
The little one tries to dart past me on the left but I grabbed him up like a goalie in a soccer game! With defeat in his eyes he looks up at me.

Me: "Get into your bed right now!"

I chased his little tail right back to his bed and I looked into his beady little eyes again and said to him:

Me: What makes you think you can be out of this bed and that you don't have to listen to me?"

Korbin stares up at me silently.

Me: "you had better answer me right now! What makes you think you can get out of bed and that you don't have to listen to me?"

Korbin: points to his temple and says "my brain"

I'm trying not to laugh and I tell him goodnight and I love him but not to get up again.

Seriously! His brain? Of course his brain makes him think but come on!! He's just turned 5 and had no idea that was such a smarty pants thing to say! I got out into the hall and about died trying to laugh to myself! By the time I composed myself and went into Taytons room to threaten his life if he got out of bed again tell him I loved him and kiss him goodnight one more time I was too amused by Korbins remark to ask a question like that to Tayton!

They are great, they really are, but come on guys just go to bed for a change!!!

Relay For Life: What can you do to help?

I saw that Manic Mommy linked to me, thank you!! I feel quite passionately about Relay For Life. I signed up for the event last year while I was waiting on Breast biopsy results to come back, I guess I thought it was a karma thing. A little bit of hope for good results. They were fine, I'm good.......for now.

How big is your family?

I know that one in four people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. I have a family of four. Which of us will be the one? Could it be all of us? If it is I want to know that we did our part to help find a cure. I want to know that I'm doing everything I can do to prolong the lives of my children, husband and self.

What can you do?

Well there's many things. First of all, you can join your local Relay For Life. Find out how by clicking the Relay logo on the right.

Second you can sponsor someone else who is participating in Relay For Life. I would suggest me for obvious reasons. You can make donations to my Relay team by clicking here.

The third option is to Sponsor a local Relay For Life or Sponsor my Relay For Life. What do you get with sponsorship? Well let me tell you! You get advertisement of your business, blog, a loved one lost to cancer or your own name. For a mere $250 Sponsors names (or websites) are printed on hundreds of shirts as well as posted at the Relay For Life event that they sponsor. If that's too much you can sponsor for $50 and have a sign posted at Relay For Life with whatever you want posted on it (website, blog, name and phone number, picture of a loved one who is battling or lost the battle with cancer). Anyone interested in sponsoring should email me at kmtkbest@gmail.com OR click the logo on the right and find your local Relay For Life.

There are other things you can do to support Relay For Life. We always always need donations and every dollar counts. Please help us support this cause. We have to beat cancer before it beats us!

See my other blogs below for more information on our Relay For Life!

Tayton and Germs Don't Mix

Today the funniest thing happened!

A little background first:

My little Tayton has Sensory Integration Disorder. This disorder appears in him in many ways. One of the ways it shows it's little head is that when he believes something he belives it heart and soul. There is no middle ground for him. If green is ugly then green is always ugly no matter what it's on or any other variation. It's kinda funny.

So anyhow he is a germ-a-phobe. he hates to drink after anyone, eat after anyone or even touch someone elses straw or plate or anything else that they touched or ate off of before him.

Seriously, at Christmas we had a conversation that went like this:

T : "mom is grandma your mom"?
Me: yes
T : "okay well do you kiss her?"
Me: "not anymore"
T : "but you used to?"
Me: "Yes I guess so"
T : "ok then you can blow up this balloon because I think she tried to first"

I am not a big fan of that either so I got a new balloon and blew that one up!

Anyhow so today here's what happened. I was watching some friends kids cause the boys wanted them to stay and play. I had my 5 and 6 year old boys and then I added two 6 year old girls and a 2 year old girl. The six year old girls brougth home some cookies from school. Somehow Tayton got a cookie and took a bite. Then the girls busted up laughing and I heard Tate in the bathroom coughing and gagging and spitting, nearly throwing up!

I asked the girls what happened they said "he took a bite of Squeezes cookie on accident, it was so funny". Of course I said to them "it's not funny, he's very upset so stop laughing." (while I was laughing to myself of course)

Then I go to Tayton and ask him if he's okay and he's got his face under the sink with the water running in his mouth. A minute later he came out smiling and said to me, "well it's a good thing I used soap to wash off all the germs!"

He was very proud of the fact that he used antibacterial soap to wash the germs from Squeeze out of his mouth because he ate after her!

Spouting off About My Weekend

First of all click on the picture to check out the Snarkalicious Boob-a-Thon to help fight Breast Cancer!







Next I have a huge issue with this:



My awesome friend Roxy wore this to my house for an emergency venting with our little group of four friends last week. Now don't get me wrong, I love toe socks, and I love flip flops. However, please don't turn regular socks into toe socks and top them with flip flops....that's never okay Roxy!!

Now on to the serious stuff:


Yesterday was our Kickoff Party for our Relay For Life. I signed my team up online so if you'd like to make a donation, every dollar helps CLICK HERE

Here are some pictures from our kickoff:











We had the fire department, the Red Cross bloodmobile, two giant inflatable obstacle courses and the radio station all come out to help support our Relay For Life kickoff.

We had 20 people donate blood in a 4 hour time span. There were several more but they couldn't donate for one reason or another but they tried! They also had to turn away a few donors because we finished at 3pm. So in four hours Pulaski County saved 60 lives! Woohoo!

Here is a great video of my oldest son taking donations at the doors of Wal-mart. This little guy does not normally talk to anyone let alone complete strangers!

He is saying "Would you like to make a donation to the American Cancer Dediety (Society)?"

Is it Friday yet?

Today has been interesting. Tayton woke up at 3am screaming cause his eyes were stuck shut by goop. I had to get him to let me use a washcloth to dampen it and losen it. Tayton having Sensory Integration Disorder and an Anxiety Disorder makes times like this tough. He can't stand to be touched much and I'm usually a big exception to that rule, he loves to sit with me and play but god forbid I try touching his face to much so it wasn't good. He got in to the doctor and surprise surprise who'd have thought? Pink Eye! Thanks alot little brother, just what Tate needed. He has now missed 21 days of school this year!

I was helping him get ready to go to the doctors and I told him he needs to learn to tie his shoes because I know he can do it he just won't try. His response was simply this:

"Mom some people are capable of certain things and some just aren't".

That from my six year old. I guess that means he's not going to try. He's very resistant to things that might be difficult because he is fine motor delayed and some gross motor skills just might not come at all, like the ability to ride a two wheel bike because his sense of self awareness and where his body is in space is different than ours.

Last summer when Korbin was 4 he said "Mom I want a motorcycle". I replied "you can't have a motorcycle you still have training wheels on your bike." He said "fine I'll just take them off then!" And he did! He started riding a two wheeler that day!

I asked Tayton if he would like to try riding with no training wheels. He had another simple response:

"Mom, my bike doesn't have training wheels, it's a tricycle!"

Well duh why didn't I think of that!

I really want to be on the radio!

Today we did another Relay For Life spot on the radio and I really LOVE it! Well you know how when you hear someone's voice you kind of have this imaginary vision of the person behind the voice? Well let me tell you!! The voices do not match my vision of these people.

Today we did the afternoon show with Danny. He is great we recorded ads with him the other day and had a great time, laughed a lot! Well one of ads we recorded says "Can you go all night? Well then you should join us on Aug. XX for Pulaski County Relay For Life....yada yada, blah blah blah." Well I messed up and it says call XXX-XXXX on more information." DUH supposed to say for more information ON signing up your team!

Anyhow I told Danny we should re-record it and I should say "Hey Danny can you go all night?" And then he can say "I can go all night Michelle can you go all night?" And then I'd say "of course I can and if you can too then you should join us on Aug XX at the Shrine club for Relay For Life!"

Well we all laughed haha, no one ever takes me seriously! So once we were on the air live today I said "Hey Danny can you go all night?" And he looked at me and I laughed and he said "I can stay up all night and walk for Relay For Life"! It was hilarious! He's this cute little 23 year old with this big radio voice it's great! I hope he doesn't read blogs!

When I grow up I want my own radio show! But I don't want to be stuck in the studio all by myself like Danny, I want to have someone to laugh with it would make the time go by faster and be more fun for the listeners!

Manic Mommy gave me Homework

For those of you who know me in real life you also know that I'm developing blogships (which is my new word for friendships made via blogging). I decided that's the best word for it. Manic Mommy picked me as one of her six, thanks a ton by the way. But if it means other people come to my blog and laugh at the horrible things my boys are putting me through Click here to see for yourself then it's good.

So, here goes.........

1. Link back to the person who tagged you.

2. Post these rules on your blog.

3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.

4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry. (This is the hard part!)

Hmmm........six unimportant things about me...


#1 My friends make fun of me when they see that one of the kids in my son's kindergarten class has the same shoes as me (true story, it went something like this small girl shouts "Tate's mom has the same shoes as Alecia" other small kids push and shove saying "nu un let me see" ** look of shock and disbelief** "Alecia come look at Tayton's mom's shoes". Alecia says "we're like twins"! I follow that by walking up to Alecias mom and tell her I'm moving in because her daughter and I are twins.)

But truthfully they are super jealous cause I can get super cheap shoes in a size 4.5 in girls that are more comfy and way cheaper than buying womens 6's. SO THERE!

#2 Both of my pregnancies were planned......HEY that's an accomplishment these days! Besides the crazy part is that they are only 18 months apart and we did that on purpose.......what the hell were we thinking???

#3 I listen to the same song over and over and over until I can sing along at the top of my lungs with a horrible voice! I also made my good friend Brandy at Lost In The Woods With Nowhere To Hide learn all the deep parts in Rockstar by Nickelback ("tell me whatcha want") and we rock out to it driving to Tupperware meetings!

#4 I have never ever tried smoking! And never got drunk until two summers ago when I was 26.......it was all down hill from there! But I only got puking drunk once, no more Captain Morgan's Tattoo mixed in my Diet Pepsi please! And Brandy and I did the Thriller Dance in the yard across the street a couple months ago when we were drinking.

#5 I married my husband because he has the Best last name. No really his last name is Best. When we got married I wanted to change my middle name to Isthe but they wouldn't let me! I just love being the Best even if it is only by marriage!

#6 My new found passion is that I just loving talking on the radio. I could sit in a little booth and talk to myself all day long! And I really think that people might like to listen cause I like to think I'm kinda funny.

Now let me see here.........who would I like to tag??

Let me seee here:

Brandy at Lost In The Woods With Nowhere to Hide because she's one of my best friends!

Bina at Just Another Day cause she used to be a military wife too!

Jules at Just Because just because I'm new to blogging and she took time to comment on my blog. Thanks Jules!

Sammie but she doesn't have a blog so hopefully she'll come back to mine again and see that I tagged her. You can just post your's in my comments unless you really do have a blog and I'm retarded and can't find it??

I also pick Tonya at A Day in the Life cause she left me a super sweet comment when I was losing my mind on Day 1.

Amanda at Highland Madness because her blog says Manic Mommy helped her with her blog and Manic Mommy also taught me how to do all these fancy tricks too! (Thanks Manic!)

Alright now I have to get Tayton to do his homework and then throw little blonde boys in bed and then do my REAL homework.

Another bit from my family

Today my beautiful, funny, and smart sister in law said "When is Kirke being DEPORTED?"

Deported? Really? I had no idea we should even be concerned about that!

He was born in Texas and trust me when I'm there I feel like I'm in a whole different country; courtesy of my father in law pointing out how different I am from them. But I'm pretty sure you can't get deported back to Texas. Now I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure you have to go much further south for that.

When my family first met Kirke (and every subsequent visit since) I have to translate for them because he talks so fast. OH and the funniest thing is when he tries to order food at a drive through. Everytime he asks for "sprite" he gets fries. He gets so mad that he'll make me order from the passenger seat! He's been in the Army for over ten years and all it takes is ten minutes at home for him and his accent to becomes much stronger.

So anyhow when "E" asked me when Kirke is being deported I about died from laughing so hard! She fixed it and asked when he's going to be DEPLOYED. Which I think is kind of like being deported. I mean he did live there for year in 2005 so it's kind of like being sent home right? NO? I didn't think so either?

Here is our pre-deployment family picture. See his California tan? Sure he was there training.....if the Army now teaches surfing I might believe that!

Funny for the day...

I hosted a baby shower this weekend for a good friend of mine. They have two boys and really wanted this one to be a girl. Lucky for them it is a girl. Another friend ordered their cake and told Wal-Mart to write "It's Finally a Girl!" Here is what we got instead:



This was for a baby shower NOT a post-op gender transformation I swear!

"Good Night" doesn't mean sacrifice stuffed toys!

So I thought that I was done for the night. BOY WAS I WRONG!!

I was reading some other blogs tonight, Damamas at it again is hilarious!

And I was also chatting it up with my good friend
Brandy when my kids snuck down the stairs. I heard them whispering talking loudly in a raspy voice but thinking they were whispering. The little one said to the big one "you ask her" the big one said "no you ask her" and this continued till the little one said "ok but you wait right here on the bottom step okay". The big one agreed and then the little one pops out in front of me at the bottom of the stairs and says "can we have a snack"?

"No you can't have a snack you've been in bed for two hours go to sleep!!!"

Ok so then I hear them still at 10. I go up stairs and this is what I find:


And this:


Oh and here's a video of the clean up process.




That was the wrong video, although that allowed you to hear my 6 year old sing about his Pokemon that are "the most important thing in the world to him".

This video however shows a bit of my mean mom side!



I guess I should have taken "after" pictures too. I'll get some tomorrow, tonight I'm just too mad!

I don't want to go to school today....

You're probably thinking that's what the boys are saying right? Well they aren't...at least not till tomorrow morning when I'm ushering them around to get ready and they are still half asleep because they've been in bed for two hours now and I still hear them playing upstairs. I guess the separation has to be permanent instead of just a punishment from last week, how sad.

Anyhow back to the title. It's ME who doesn't want to go to school. I'm so BURNED OUT! I've had classes, two at a time since April of 2006 and I don't get breaks in between unless I request them and they have to be less than 4 weeks and go from Monday to Sunday. I even have to turn in homework on Thanksgiving and Easter. Online school stinks sometimes. I can't call in and say I'm sick. Nope everything is still due on that day by midnight. I even had to turn in homework from Korbins hospital room when he was in for his kidney surgery.

With everything being so crazy lately the last thing I want to do is homework.
Mostly I want to sleep. So is anyone willing to sign my excuse slip to miss class. OH right when you go to school online you can stay in your pj's and cough and sneeze and even throw up cause no one's around to catch it! Should've gone to school locally!

On the bright side this is supposed to be my final block then I get my associates degree and will throw myself a super gigantic party. (Too bad the school dropped the ball and now I have to wait till summer to take my last class, grrrr!!!) Until then, can someone please find a way to excuse me from my weekend homework for the next three weeks?

You should know me well enough...

I was talking to my mom tonight on yahoo messenger. We had talked yesterday on the phone about my college graduation. I go to school online at University of Phoenix. I get my degree soon and we can go and attend the graduation ceremony at the nearest campus. I considered going and here's my conversation with my mom, who lives 9 hours away:

michelle: so if i do graduation will you be coming down?

Mom: if i can work it out somehow, i don't get anymore time off until july

michelle: well i might not do it

michelle: i kinda dont want to

michelle: cause it'll take up a whole saturday but then i know it's important to some people like grandma

michelle: i mean i'm gonna get my bachelors so i'll have another one right/

Mom: maybe dad will work some overtime so i can take a few days off without pay lol
michelle: lol

michelle: how about this?

michelle: wait i have to follow that with a proposal right/

michelle: how about if we just plan that when i come next we have a little
celebration dinner for me with cake and presents

michelle: lmao

Mom: yeah kind of

michelle: big presents like super gigantic ones

michelle: like an inflatable "congraulations" sign and stuff

Mom: lol that sounds good to me

michelle: cause to be perfectly honest i dont want a houseful of people right before kirke leaves

Mom: i understand

Mom: but i think you should go through the graduation ceremony

michelle: and he will only have been home a week before that

Mom: just have someone take lots of pictures

michelle: how bout i put on a cap and gown take fake pics and tell gma i did ti

michelle: otit

michelle: grrrr....it (fat fingers I cant type tonight)

Mom: i'll tell on you lol

michelle: yeah i kinda dont care about that part of it

Mom: otit?

michelle: how bout i go to a online graduation cermony

Mom: they have those?

michelle: lmao

michelle: yeah you just use your mouse to move your little guy across the stage

Mom: lol
Mom: are you serious?

michelle: lmao

Mom: you snot

Mom: dont you tell anybody about this conversation

michelle: lmao i already copied and pasted it to a word document for my blog

Mom: you do know what my next question was going to be dont you?

michelle: no what?

michelle: please tell me

Mom: no never mind

michelle: please

Mom: ok, i was going to ask you if we all could watch you graduate online

michelle: lmao super

She had me, raised me, known me for 28 years yet she's still believing the things I say no matter how crazy they are, I love it!

Isn't that great? I even left in the typo's cause it adds character! I'll be sure to post when the online graduation is so you can all sit in the virtual audience and make your avatars cheer when they call my name and I make my avatar fall on the stage.

Have a great weekend!

I'd love driving if the scenery was this entertaining!

I rarely read forwarded emails let alone share them but I got this from a friend today and a few of these were too good not to share! There were several these were my top five!

We've all seen something bad in speedo's I'm sure! They should be illegal!


I always wondered!


Enough said!


As a Tupperware Girl I'm sure we fit into this category too! You should see us at rallies it's hilarious!


Of course I saved the best for last! This one says it all!


Okay back to my real life where I have to write a paper before midnight when it's due! If anyone thinks that going to school online will be easier then going to a regular classroom I'd be happy to debate!

What the Hail?

That's what I said when I walked out the door after our Relay For Life meeting. The hail, as big as golf balls knocked the heck out of the cars that were there. Good thing I rode with my friend! So anyway I'm always saying dumb things to be funny and despite the damage to their cars I felt the need to use my best Texas accent and loudly say "What the hail?". For some reason not everyone laughed.
This could be the reason for that:




You'd think they just realized they were gonna have to file an insurance claim to get their cars fixed or something geesh!

Day 3: Cheese on the stairs?

Why on earth is there a slice of cheese on the stairs? I'm walking upstairs to tuck the brat boys into bed at 745 sharp, knowing with my luck it will take them a good two hours to settle down, and I see a yellow square on the step. Yep, cheese! And why wouldn't there be cheese on the stairs? It really might be a good plan. When the boys start to come down the stairs to say "I need a bedtime snack" I could just say "split that slice of cheese and get back into bed"! Right?

The boys share one bedroom and then the other room is the playroom. Well they just wouldn't settle down tonight. So when Korbin had come down to tell me his "meanie brother" pinched him and said he was a bad boy! I gave him my mean mom look and said "get your things you two are not sleeping together anymore!" He cried! Why would you cry when you're getting moved into the playroom (shouldn't he be cheering right about now?) away from the "meanie brother" who just pinched him?

I've had another busy day but with much less drama. No new illnesses or bacterial eye infections, gross! I was on the radio again today talking about Relay For Life of Pulaski County !
I really love to be on the radio it's fun! Last week I got up, did my hair, put on makeup and went to the radio station where everyone was wearing jeans and tshirts and looking like they just rolled out of bed! Duh!! No one cares what you look like on the radio.....NO ONE CAN SEE ME!! This week I am avoiding makeup because of the whole pink eye thing and I don't want to have to replace all my eye makeup if I do come down with the nasty stuff!

OH I ALMOST FORGOT!!! Today I started Tayton on the drops too just in case right? Well he started screaming "it stings it burns" like someone was killing him! So being the sweet sensitive mom that I am I of course said "shake it off your little brother doesn't cry about it and besides it's just like water!" THEN this afternoon I decided I might need some too just in case cause I don't want this crap! OH MY GOD that stuff stings soooooo incredibly badly! I felt so horrible for telling Tate to shake it off and that he was imagining the pain! I'm a mean mom! So mean in fact that I made sure to give them drops again before bed!

Day 1 and I'm about to lose it!!

PART 1



The Dad left today. Well wait let me back up.....Kirke got out of bed got a shower as loudly as humanly possible cause I still wanted sleep! He said goodbye like 22 times then went out the door.....loudly. He came in about five minutes later, stomped his way up the stairs (which is not safe in our house....see earlier pictures) to the room and said "I can't figure out how to program Maggie without a street address"!



Of course he can't program MAGGIE , who by the way is our Magellan navigation system. Why would he be able to type in Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland and have it give him turn by turn directions to his destination! So I drag my lazy butt that hates mornings with a passion, especially when they involve the Army stealing away my husband six weeks earlier then necessary, out the door. I run out in my sweatpants, jacket and barefeet to his old beater of a car that has the doors locked! Duh look up here I am running to the car unlock the door please, I'm cold it's freezing out, please please let me in! Finally he did. (I'm sure it was really only a matter of seconds but in the morning my seconds are prescious!) And of course once I got in Maggie was "calculating route" which meant he had figured it out all on his own, I'm so proud........or mad and cold!



PART 2



Ok so then I get up, get two bratty boys dressed and ready to go to Lebanon 35 miles away for Tate's OT appointment. We stopped at Mc'D's for breakfast then proceeded to listen to my now 5 yr old cry because he wanted a cheeseburger not a mcgriddle because today he hates mcgriddles! We arrive at therapy after I blasted my music so loud on the drive I was able to pretend that the screaming from the back was simply my groupies singing along! Anyhow, at the OT clinic the receptionist smiled and said, "I tried calling about 45 minutes ago (if I had skipped the breakfast Hell I would have been there to get her call too) to tell you that his OT was out sick today." Okay seriously they open at 7am why wait till 9:15 to call me?



Then when we got in the car I noticed Korbin's eye was all pink and gunky. Nice huh? We've never experienced pink eye so why not start now! I call our military provider to get an appt and suprise surprise no openings today or tomorrow "but they can give us a one time referral off post if they have openings in the civilian dr's office". Super right? Not so much, see that meant calling another office registering him as a patient at their handy 1-800 number and then praying they could see him. OH and the person on the other end of the line was a previous host for TUPPERWARE for me and I recognized her voice and maybe her name too..... ok the name gave it away. She wanted to book a party for April, woohoo SCORE ! Yay! They had an opening, this must be my lucky day!



Home we go, took Tayton to school, and back home with Korbin. Time for the appointment so we pick up Tate early from school and go on to the doctors office. Had to fight Korbin from drinking from the drinking fountain cause they freak me out especially in a nasty doctors office full of sick people! I know shocking right? Then we wait and wait then he gets seen, yep pink eye, super. We're off. But wait, we have to check out, something new to me because we don't check out at the military dr's office we just go on our way. Then the lady cant find Korbin in the system. Turns out they spelled his name wrong! This meant I had to go use their nasty public phone set up for calling that 1-800 number again to fix their mistake while the nurse had to go change it on his prescription! UGH so much trouble! AND she tried to tell me I spelled it wrong! "Umm yeah lady you're right it's Corbin not Korbin silly me I've been messing it up for over 5 years thanks for catching that!"

Now we got home the boys are grounded which is torture to the mom. Into bed at 7 they go but wait, it's after 9 and I still hear little feet upstairs!

Let the fun begin.....bring it on, this is day 1 I'll have bags under my eyes and gray hair by Friday at this pace!

I can't find the remote!

Everything in my life seems to have a remote control. Even my laptop has one if I'm watching dvd's. It stores convienently in the computer too! The tv, dvd player, stereo, and half the kids toys have remotes too! I can pause and rewind live tv with my DVR so why can't this apply to life?

If I had a remote control for life I'd certainly be using it today. I'd pause it and then play my day in slow motion just so I don't miss anything. I'd record the smiles and witty banter between my Kirke and I. And I'd fast forward through the boys fighting over things. I'd fast forward all of my realistic fears of Kirke not making it home from Iraq this time. And I'd fast forward wondering how I'd tell the kids and not lose my mind or wonder where on Earth we'd live.

You see, as a military family our idea of "home" is different from other people's. For example my Kirke is from Texas, I'm from Michigan, we met in upstate NY, lived there on base for 10 months then moved to Alaska. It was there that we found out we were going to have a baby, after months and months of trying. We celebrated our first anniversary just before that news at the Chena Hot Springs, swimming outside at -20F with frozen hair and getting too hot in the spring! Anyhow back to my point....we had both boys in Alaska, lived there for almost six years in the same house (that was a first in my life) and we just loved it there.

Home to us is Alaska, we have no family there, we don't know many people who even still live there but it still feels like our home. We need Alaska, we need "home" sometimes. Missouri is just another stopping point on our journey with the Army on our way back home to Alaska.

If I had a remote for my life I'd fast forward to the time when we don't have to worry about deployments anymore and we can be complete family and go back home, all of us, together.

Tayton Didn't Make It....

This picture was taken a couple weeks ago. Kirke was in California for training (because he's never home ya know, lol) and I sent the boys up to get in bed and told them that I'd be up to check on them in a few minutes. This is where I found Tayton a few minutes later. Good thing he didn't roll over huh?


This was taken two day's after Korbin's kidney surgery (see earlier posts)! He was doing his thumbs up to let everyone know he was okay! He was very tough about the whole situation! He turned 5 yesterday! My boys are growing up!


This was my house a couple weeks ago. You see, we moved from our old raggedy house from the 20's I think. This house was supposed to be better and safer ......... yeah that's it.... well after a couple months the stairs pulled away from the wall and I could fit my whole hand it the gap! Then the cabinets were no longer touching the walls and the ceiling's no longer met the walls. Our house was sinking! After months of the construction company that took over after the one who built the houses on this street was fired by the Army. They came in and this is what it took to "fix" my house. jacks under the house to level it back out and a hole to climb in under the stairway to reattach them after they jacked it up again! Love military housing, wouldn't you? Can't complain really, no really we aren't supposed to complain.....afterall it's not like my husband doesn't work his butt off and risk his life for the wonderful military benefits we receive right?

The Easter Bunny took your Daddy!

Would it be horribly wrong of me tell my boys when they wake up Easter morning and Daddy's gone (for what will seem to be an eternity) because the Easter Bunny took him? Wouldn't that be a sweeter vision for them than him in Iraq fighting the bad guys and avoiding being shot or blown up by hateful people?

The soft fluffy Easter bunny snuck in to leave your baskets and asked Daddy to help him for 15 months! Makes sense to me.....of course to Tayton, who takes everything way too literally he'd be scared to death of rabbits for life. Korbin of course still thinks he's having a Lego baby would probably laugh and tell us not to worry that when the Lego he swallowed turns into a baby he can be the new Daddy.

So he actually got his orders today. I had retained this bit of hope that maybe, just maybe it was all a mistake and that no one would do something so cruel as to take my husband from our family 7 weeks earlier than he was supposed to be leaving us. That means no Cinderella dress and no glass slippers for the Engineers ball for me.....instead I'll be the true Cinderella who gets to stay home and watch all of my friends kidlets while they go with their soldiers to the ball. No Easter, no help spring cleaning.....and oh dear God do I need help!

I'm not ready and I'm thinking the Easter Bunny story might just add the nice little humor to my life that I need right now.

Do you suppose blogs were designed to vent anger?

I'm so mad tonight! Mad about everything in my life being turned upside down, I'm mad that everyone needs me to do a million and one things and all I want to do is stay in bed and sleep. I'm mad that my husband only worries about doing what makes the Army happy and will drop everything without a fight for a soldier but not for his own family. This army post has been horrible for my marriage, horrible for our finances, horrible for my ego, my kids and everything else that matters. I hate it here, I hate everything and I just want to sleep. Why can't people understand that? Why can't people understand that my husband leaves in a couple days for what amounts to almost a year and a half?

Why do they think I care even a tiny bit about the lid that's missing from their Tupperware order or helping them make over their cupboards with the million Modular Mates they ordered from me last week. I don't care about the radio promotion I'm supposed to be doing for our Relay For Life....damn me for being co-chair anyway! But here in my real life I have to do these things for other people. I'm a people pleaser and to be honest that sucks. I want to be the one who everyone drops their things to help, when is it my turn? Instead I try to make everyone else happy and meet their expectations instead of taking care of my own first.

Kindergarten

I've mentioned before that my oldest son has Sensory Integration Disorder. I've worked my tail off to get him to a point where most people have no idea he's any different from every other six year old. This is great except when people assume he's just being bad or acting out and that I should have more control over him.



This is Tate's fourth year in school. He went through two years in a special education pre-k in Alaska and progressed into a mainstream kindergarten last year. We put him in kindergarten with the plan to retain him, do kindergarten again and then promote him to first grade when he was 6. Well school in many respects is going fantastic for him lately. He is reading at the top of his class, his hand writing is improving greatly despite his fine motor delays. Socially he's coming along too and talks to adults much more frequently. He attempts to talk to other kids but is more drawn to kids older than him. He's nervous about a lot of things and gets really clingy whenever we go out and about.



Today it was time to go to school and he cried and cried because I was letting his daddy take him to school instead of me taking him to school. These little changes in his day are tough but sometimes they need to happen. Now I feel guilty for sending him off to school this way but I know that it's important to let him try new things.



His brother on the other hand tells me that I don't need to walk him to class (pre-school) and that he's big enough that he know's how to find his class. Tate on the other hand won't even walk two steps in front of me down the hallway. How can two boys raised exactly the same be so completely different?

Relay For Life

Okay, so last year I was a team captain for Relay For Life here in our county. It was my first time to relay but had high expectations. None of the things I read about asked about doing or hoped to see happened. I was very disappointed. We are in a huge community and I think only about 16 teams showed up the night of Relay.

Well this year our counties American Cancer Society representative asked my good friend and I to be on the committee. At first I wanted to but then remembered how all of our brilliant ideas were ignored so I was not going to be a part of putting together a sub-par event.

So I decided I would Relay in Michigan with my family since they all came to Missouri to Relay with me last year. You see, I signed up to be a team captain while I waited for results of a breast biopsy. My reason to Relay is because those few days were hell! I was terrified and the thoughts that went through my mind were horrible. If I can raise money to help fight the beast from taking more lives and scaring more people count me in!

Well instead of Relaying in Michigan this year. Instead, my good friend and I were asked to Co-chair Relay For Life this year. Appearantly the ACS rep. loved our ideas and wants to see them in action! So I'm the silly, crazy, talk to strangers, outgoing and wild type of person and my friend, well she's very serious and business minded. The ACS rep thinks we'll be a good balance. I'm pretty sure she's gonna kill me by the end of all of this.

But on the bright side we've already put a lot of our awesome ideas into action and Relay For Life of Pulaski County is going to be INCREDIBLE this year! I only hope she doesn't kill me before I get to see it!

Help: Two boys too young to understand but too old not to try

How in the world can you get two boys ages 5 and 6 1/2 to understand that their daddy is going to be gone for over a year of their short lives. They don't remember the last deployment in 2005. I talked to them on Friday I said "boys we need to talk about some things, Daddy is going to be going to Iraq again." They responded with "okay" and ran off to play. It's so crazy. Since the first of the year he's been in the field for two weeks in January, went to California for most of February and now has been home two weeks last friday and leaves on Easter. Who decided that was a good idea?

So now the mathematical side of me has figured out that he will have been with us for only 8 weeks.......well 10 if we count the R&R he'll get after being in the sandbox for a while.......10 weeks out of a year and a half. He wont be home until the summer of 2009. This sucks!

Ok I'm done venting done pouting! Putting back on my army wife hat and will pretend that I accept this whole situation for what it is.....my life!

Lego babies........

Korbin swallowed a lego the other night. He came downstairs and said "mom I choked on a lego". I said (being the super compassionate mom that I am of course) "well I told you not to take them upstairs didn't I?" Korbin walked back up a couple steps then stopped, turned and stood looking scared. "You swallowed it didn't you?" I said. Korbin started to cry grabed his shoes and said "yes and now you have to take me to the doctor and he'll have to cut me open and get it out!" I calmly (trying not to laugh) said "no honey they aren't gonna cut you open". Korbin replied smiling "are they gonna say a magic word to get it out?" (that's what I told him they did to get the stent out of his kidney cause I was not about to explain how they can get to your kidney without cutting you open to my four year old). Again I told him "no honey that's not how either".

Well anyone who knows me knows that I have a tendency to make up random stories just for laughs. Well Korbin is no exception to my stories. He said "how will it come out then?" I looked at his scared little eyes and told him that by swallowing a lego means that the lego is going to grow into a little lego person and that is where babies come from." He looked at me terrified. He's often skeptical about believing my off the wall tails. I laughed and told him no he wasn't going to have a lego baby but that he did have to poop out the lego. Korbin laughed and went on with his day. Crazy kid!!

The Army SUCKS!

So I waited and waited for the end of last week to come. Why? Because Friday was when my hubby was supposed to sign out on leave for two whole weeks of uninterupted family time. The kids have school Monday through Wednesday so we would have 3 hours alone each day....lunch dates and private time(wink, wink). It was going to be great!

Well this is the Army life and so as I was at my Tupperware party on Thursday morning (which was going great by the way, I made over $100 in less than two hours!) my phone rang. I wouldn't normally answer during a party but since Kirke knew I was "working" I answered figuring it was important. He told me that instead of having our two weeks leave followed by four weeks of short days before they leave for the sandbox, he's leaving next weekend to go to SSG school (BNCOC) in Maryland enroute to Iraq. Which means he leaves next weekend for 9 weeks of school comes home for a week or two of leave......he better get two grrrr....then he goes on to Iraq for a very very long time.

I'm so mad! Nothing ever works out right! We were supposed to go to the ball on the 3rd and I was so excited cause in the last ball pictures I wore a red dress and looked like a big fat tomato and now I've lost about 25 pounds and want to look more like a little grape tomato! And it means that I have to make another two hour trip to Columbia with both boys alone to have Korbins kindey tested for the first time since his surgeries!

I'm so not ready for this deployment I might lose my mind. At least we're in the lower 48 so I can travel and visit people while he's gone. AND Korbin starts kindergarten next year so I will have no kids home all day long woohoo!

Korbins Surgery

Well most of you know that my littlest boy, 4 year old Korbin just had kidney surgery. It went really well. They didn't know before the surgery just what they were gonna be doing and couldn't really give us a time frame for how long surgery would take or how long recovery would be either.

We had to go up to Columbia Missouri for the surgery at the University of Missouri children's hospital. They started surgery at 7am and finally came to get us at 10am to tell us they had finished. The doctor told us it took longer than he hoped because the xrays kept coming out "weird". The problem was that he had a birth defect of his left kidney and ureter. It had two ureters and the one at the bottom of his kidney was blocked. They weren't sure why it was blocked but that kidney was enlarged because of the blockage.

Anyhow, they found that the blockage was due to a segment of that ureter being underdeveloped and closed off. They removed that segment. The doctor said he didn't want to have to remove so much but it was the onlychoice. I thought they were removing the whole thing but I guess because it was the one at the bottom they needed to save it. They put in a plastic stent to hold the ureter together. He also said he had to make a bigger incision they had planned too but it's not any bigger than I had expected.

Korbin is trooper! He had a lot of pain on Thursday (day of surgery) through until Friday night. They finally took out the epidural and started giving him morphine, tylenol with codeine and motrin on a rotating schedule. Also ditropan for the bladder spasms. Around 9pm friday night Korbin decided he felt great! He wanted to get up and walk and play and be himself. Unfortunately everything in the childrens area of the hospital is closed by that time even the playrooms. They kept his meds going for the night and by Saturday morning he was ready to go home! Since he's been home he hasn't napped at all and has been trying really hard to be his old self. He wants to play and be wild but he knows when he's pushed too hard. We can tell when he's hurting by how he moves.

The crazy doctor said he can go back to school today........not happening. It needs to at least be a week after his surgery in my opinion so he's gonna go visit his teacher tomorrow but is not going to stay at school.

Check out the pictures on my myspace www.myspace.com/kmtkbest

I'm so glad this is over. now one more surgery to remove the stent (on valentines day, Kirke will be in California so I get to do this one alone) and hopefully this is over for us. We will probably still have to go for renal scans to make sure it's all working right once or twice though. No biggie, we're tough.

UPDATE:

Korbin had the stent removed on Valentines day. He came through the surgery fine, woke up kind of difficult but once he did he was good to go! In fact we did go........to Kentucky about an hour after he woke up we got released and headed to Wendy's house for the weekend. It was like he never even had surgery.

Funny conversation:

me: were you awake when the dr did your surgery?

Korbin: nope he put me to sleep and snuck right in and cut me open, played with my guts and then fixed my kidney and he glued me and taped me shut!

He is sooooo funny! It's so cute to hear him say "the dr played with my guts"!
We're all doing good and he goes back on the 7th of April for the next scan of his Kidney but doesn't have to be put to sleep....thank god!!