Week 12

Friday brought - haircuts! As I've said before, I always procrastinate scheduling haircuts so when I do finally get them for myself or the kids it's a Big Event. Tyler, of course needed one - poor guy looks like a ragamuffin most of the time (why do boys need haircuts so often?!) And as part of my promise to myself at the beginning of the year (to try to take better care of myself and not look like a frumpy frazzled mommy all the time) I finally got highlights (to camouflage the *yikes* GREY HAIR). I have to say, I LOVE the new haircut and have patiently blow-dried and straightened it every day for a week now.

We took the kids to see the play If You Give A Mouse A Cookie - so cute! It was the perfect way to introduce Tyler to the theater (Katy saw her first play of Beauty and the Beast last summer). He was mesmerized the entire time (it helped that it only lasted an hour with no intermission) and both the kids thought it was really funny. Sam was able to meet us for dinner and the show, the only time we got to see him this week. He had to spend the rest of the week at the base (including nights), which none of us are happy about since he's just been gone way too much lately.

Horrible photo. I love the portability of my small camera but I just can't get it to take decent photos. Sam thinks I'm now spoiled from using my Canon, but I'm really starting to wonder if there's something wrong with the camera. It can't all be operator error can it? Anyone that has a Nikon Coolpix, please weigh in on this one.

We've been having yo-yo weather. One minute it's sunny and almost warm, the next we're getting snow. It's getting old and I'm starting to really wish Spring would show up and stay. But we try to enjoy being outside as much as possible and have been on lots of walks/bike rides this week.

Kaitlyn entered the school's Creative Challenge this year. Their awards ceremony was Wednesday night and Kaitlyn came home with a FIRST PLACE medal for the visual arts category for Kindergarten-1st grade. We're so proud of her and she's SO happy about winning. She wore her medal everywhere for 2 days straight and proudly showed it off not only to grandma and grandpa (and Uncle Mark and Janette who were visiting), but had to take it to school to show her friends and teacher, to Ken's Kash to show Larry (the new owner who loves to give the kids candy or balloons every time they go in), and to the rest home to show all the "old folks" (you can blame that politically incorrect term on my mom). Some of the kids entered more than one category and came home with 2 or 3 medals and Kaitlyn is determined to do the same next year. She's already talking about a story line for the book she's going to write.

End of the 3rd term at school and (no surprise) Kaitlyn brought home a shining report card.

Week 11

Highlights for the week:
Friday -took the kids ice skating for the first time! (Kaitlyn's request) They really enjoyed it but weren't even close to being able to (or daring to) skate on their own. It was quite a work out for Sam and myself.

Wednesday - St Patrick's Day! The leprechauns snuck into our house the night before, turning the milk and the toilet water green, leaving out a few messes, and making a criss-cross trail of green yarn that eventually led to a little pot of gold (Rolos) and green (toys, bubble bath, bath soap, and juice boxes) for the kids. Sam and I gave the kids green shirts so they were sure to have plenty of green for the day. (forgot to take a photo though!) We had lucky charms with green milk for breakfast. Lunch was a green "fuit shake" (fruit and spinach smoothie - the recipe was right, no one noticed the spinach!) with their macncheese.
Kaitlyn said they also made leprechaun traps at school and ended up catching one during recess. What a fun day!
We were also able to spend the afternoon with my good friend Audrey and her kids as a goodbye before they made the big move out of state.

Week 10

With Sam home again we jumped right into family fun time for the weekend. On Friday we took the kids to the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. It's something Kaitlyn has been asking to do for a while. She was excited to show Tyler all the things that she remembered from the last time we visited (when Ty was only a baby), especially the sand pit where they got to dig for bones. They both had so much fun we had to walk through the whole thing twice. Then Sam got his wish and we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.

Also on Kaitlyn's list of Things To Do With Daddy was going to the pool (since I don't like to take the kids by myself) so we did that Saturday. The kids get to be better and better swimmers every time we go and it gets easier and easier to take them. Now if we could only get to the point where they could go on the big slide all by themselves so we wouldn't have to climb all those freezing stairs.

The rest of the week was fairly normal, with Sam spending the weekdays down at the base (nights too).

A couple of everyday shots.

Tyler and Tuffy have a special bond. Every time we go over to Grandma's house Tuff rushes to Ty and whines until he pets him. It's amusing because Tuff isn't usually friendly with kids. And of course Tyler loves the attention and being told that Tuffy is "his" dog.

The kids spend part of their day, almost every day, dancing on Kaitlyn's bed to her music. The "audience" is optional :) though I thought this particular line-up amusing enough to snap a photo. Kaitlyn is a HUGE music lover and has her CD player or MP3 player going most of the time.

Week 9

It's been a fun week. We started with a grown-up slumber party for Rhonda's birthday. It's so fun to just hang out with the girls - fondue, girl talk, lots of goodies, and chick flicks are the best.

The kids were so cute - they had a really affectionate day where they wanted to sit right by each other, gave each other lots of hugs and kisses, and were just adorable.

The school has been really concentrating on reading. They had a celebration for Dr. Seuss' birthday. All the kids wore their pajamas to school and they did fun activities. Kaitlyn's class made hats (like Cat in the Hat) and had Green Eggs and Ham (Katy said she didn't try it. Why am I not surprised?)
They also had a Family Literacy Night on Wed at the school. They had a free book for the kids in their classroom, and activities to go along with it. Then ice cream sandwiches and some on-your-own reading time in the gym.

And... da da da da (that's a trumpet :P) Sam got home from deployment. WOOHOOO! He had a month-long deployment to Bahrain. Silly man had me (and possibly himself) convinced he was going to be stuck there longer than planned. Then Wed night at 11:13 PM, the phone woke me up. "Open the front door, I'm home!" he said. I was pretty tired and groggy, but oh so happy to see him.

And here's one final photo of my camera ham. Isn't he a cutie? I came home from the slumber party (yeah I didn't actually slumber at the party - I went home at midnight then the kids and I went back in the morning for breakfast) to find Dad sitting up with a sick Ty. But he bounced back pretty quickly, as you can see. He loves seeing his picture on the camera and if I've got it out I can usually count on him saying "get me!" and posing for me at least a couple times before he lets me put it away.