Holla-ween!

Holla!  It's the Halloween post!  The girls were the cutest ice cream cones EVER!  My mom and I made the costumes, I found my inspiration here, but changed it to make it more comfy... and cuter!

The cone sisters

G wanted to be chocolate ice cream.  I couldn't make that happen, but she still told people she was chocolate.  People were confused.  Good times.




The chocolate cone

C wanted to be strawberry but understood that she wasn't... unlike her sister.

The non-strawberry cone

Discussing the best route to take

She hadn't even had any candy yet.  Scary.

C took her swirls off, they were sliding down her butt which made candy collecting too difficult.  Obviously this was unacceptable.



Grandpa came with us, in Daddy's absence.  He was the umbrella carrier.

G and Grandpa sorting her candy.  Yes, I have a blue door.  Go ahead and judge.

The Rundown: Thursday Edition

I swear to you, I could murder the iPad some days.  I wrote this whole long nice post yesterday, and even checked my spelling which is rare, and clicked the little publish button and....nothing.  It lost the post.  So annoying.  Anywho, I've decided that the best way for me to blog is to not compose something that is one coherent thought in paragraph form.  I'm going to give you what's on my mind, short and sweet in list form.  Here you go...

1.  I had a great meeting with my advisor yesterday.  He told me that if I petition to get out of Hungarian 104 then I can graduate after fall quarter.  If not, I'm screwed.  Well, he didn't say 'You're screwed', but he should have.  Basically XXX University is switching from quarters to semesters beginning next fall and they're going to convert all the hours I have (if I'm still there and don't graduate after summer quarter) from quarter hours to semester hours and he pretty much told me that I'll lose hours and have to take more classes.  NOOOOO!  I can't let this happen.  So I'm going to petition to get out of Hungarian 104 because it's not offered in the summer, only in the fall, which will be bad.  I'm just going to look at them and say "Beszelek nagyon jól magarul!".  See if you can figure that one out.

2.  D has been gone at training for two weeks and he comes home today, the girls and I are so excited!  Today as I was dropping C off at school she hopped out of the car and said "Mrs. M, my daddy comes  home today!!!"  I almost cried, it was so sweet!  All of her teachers know what's going on with the deployment and where D has been for the last two weeks, so Mrs. M was really excited for her and gave her a big high five.  So cute!

3.  I'm 30 years old and had to purchase teenage girl face scrub for zits.  I swear the bottle says 'Boys and parents stressing you out?'  Nope, just the universe playing a cruel joke on me.  (And this started before #5 happened... don't jump to conclusions.)

4.  I'm on the bone marrow donor registry (as everyone should be, click the link and do the right thing) and every few days they send me an email.  Every damn time I see the email address in my inbox I have a minor heart attack thinking that I'm a match.  I run through this wild scenario of rushing to the hospital and figuring out who's going to take care of the kids while I'm gone.  But it's just a friendly message, usually to remind me to take calcium supplements or something.  So stressful, though.

5.  Halloween.  I feel like I at least need to acknowledge it on the blog.  At some point I'll actually post pictures and all that, but in the mean time..... Halloween, we had it.  It was fun.  The girls were adorable.  In the evenings I've been making myself sick enjoying a candy or two (or twelve) with a glass of wine.  I need to find an organization that takes candy donations for the troops.  Either that or I need to just head to the mall and buy some new jeans about two sizes bigger than I am now to prepare for what's to come.

6.  Halloween candy + wine = tums.

7.  I'm addicted to ESPN radio.  I don't know why I started listening to it, but I did and now I can't stop.  I can tell you anything about any NFL game that's coming up. I can tell you how Suh's meeting with Roger Goodell went yesterday, I can tell you that Theo Epstein is looking at Francona for Cubs manager, I can talk about Manning possibly being traded by the Colts so they can pick up Andrew Luck in the draft....  I know too much, I feel like I'm breaking some kind of girl-code.  And I love it.

Back In The Saddle*

I have seriously neglected this blog the last couple of months.  I hate that.  I want to keep it going, it's an outlet for me and I enjoy doing it, but my life has been insane and I haven't had time to brush my teeth (I have been brushing, that's an exaggeration) let alone blog.  I'm going to try to get back on the saddle* and just open my mind see what comes out...

1.  A couple of weeks ago our nanny quit- again.  We had hired this nice young girl who the kids loved (but wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box) and she was doing a great job of keeping them entertained and not burning the house down.  One day out of the blue I got an email from her giving me the old 'It isn't you, it's me' line.  Who quits by email?!  Apparently nannies do because this is the second one in a row that took advantage of not having to show their face when they break up with me.  Here's the thing... I have wonderful children, and I'm not just saying that because I'm their mom, they really are respectful well behaved kids.  D isn't ever home, I know he's not the problem.  So I guess maybe it's me?  Was it too much to ask her to boil water for mac and cheese every now and then?  Was I asking too much to have her pick up play-doh off of the floor after the kids played with it so the dog wouldn't eat it and poop rainbow colors?  Apparently it was.  With my friends and families help I'm able to get through the end of the quarter and won't need to hire someone until after the holidays.  Someone send me a book on how to not hire a crappy nanny. Thanks.

2.  I'm taking Hungarian for my foreign language requirement- BECAUSE I'M A HUGE IDIOT!  It's so hard, I'm not even kidding.  The language isn't rooted in Latin and there are no correlations between the English and Hungarian language, so that's fun.  The only words that I can look at and know what they are immediately are telefon, komputer and ipod.  I'm 1/4 Magyar (Magyar=Hungarian for you non-Hungarian speaking dummies) and so I keep telling myself that if my people could speak this, I can speak it.  But then I come across a word like gyümölcs (fruit) and want to bang my head against the wall.  Of course slusszkulcs means car keys.  Of course it does.

3. Last but not least, we have a deployment coming up.  Obviously I'm not going to tell you when or where, but it's coming.  It was a surprise, and we aren't happy about it, but we're an Army family and so we'll deal with it just like all of the other military families do.  I've been super emo lately and I think that's added to not wanting to blog.  Mostly I want to sit and eat cheesy popcorn and feel sorry for myself... the cheesy popcorn came before the deployment, the feeling sorry for myself is new, though.  It's only been about a week since we found out, so I'm still processing it, but I'm getting better.  My friends and family have really been great, an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on.  Oh the fun of being a grownup.  D has been out training so we've had to do some things that we usually do as a family without him... go to church, carve pumpkins, pick apples, do laundry (I'm afraid of the basement, the loading and unloading of the washer is his job).  In a way it's good that we're doing these things without him because it gives us a taste of what the deployment will be like, but it's still not fun. 

So that's all for now, the first blog back in the saddle*.  I'm going to try to blog every day.  I know that won't actually happen, but I need to aim high.  Sorry to end this one on a semi-depressing note, but that's my life right now, semi-depressing.  Here's a cute kid picture to cheer you up...

G and Sammy

*How many times did I write 'back in the saddle' on this post?  That's so dumb, I never say that in real life. 

Where Have I Been? Cleaning Up Pee.

I've been in a bit of a blogging rut lately.  Usually when that happens I blog about random things and that helps me get back on track.  Here goes:

1.  D has been working crazy hours.  Last night he got home earlier than expected (about 10:30) and I was glad to see him... mostly. I had to stop watching Teen Mom.  Anyway, as soon as walked in the door G woke up crying.  She was having a bad dream and was totally out of it so I picked her up to try to calm her down.  She started peeing, all over me and the floor.  I caught as much pee as I could with my hand (go ahead, throw up, I don't blame you) while D stood there in his suit looking all panicked and I ran to the bathroom.  The toilet seat was down and with one hand full of pee, the other hand holding the pee-er, and D still trying to figure out what kind of a horror movie he walked in on, I couldn't get the seat up.  So I did what anyone in that situation would do- I let her pee in the sink.  It was disgusting,  I used various different products by the name of Clorox to clean up.  D went to get her clean PJ's and undies and somehow in his frazzled state he put C's undies on G.  This morning she went to the bathroom and I heard, "What da heck?  Why am I weawing C's undies?"

2.  G had her first full day (2.5 hours) of preschool yesterday.  She loves loves loves school, but hated the snack.  I'm still trying to figure out what exactly they had, but according to G it was teddy bears with cinnamon on it, and she didn't like it because the cinnamon was too "saucy".  Hmmm.  Regardless, she's looking forward to tomorrow and has requested that she be dressed in a collar shirt. 

3.  Last weekend was the big Red and White Army Ball, and was fab-u-lous.  Fabulous!  D is in a cavalry troop now, and this was the first cav ball that we've been to.  It was sooo different from any of the others, but in a good way!  They have lots of traditions that are unique to the cav and it was really fun for both of us to experience those for the first time together.  We're both looking forward to many (at least three) more years with the cav.

I brought along my flip video thingy and my camera to fully document the evening.  I proceeded to leave the flip in the hotel room and not put the memory card into the camera.  Sweet.  I got zero pictures of the whole night- so disappointing!  I tried to take pics with my iPhone but it doesn't have a flash so none of them turned out.  I wore this little number** (including the belt), paired with big vintage earrings, a killer vintage clutch and leopard shoes.  It was adorable, you just have to trust me on that.  D killed it in his uniform, naturally.

**Edit, the dress is now out of stock on Banana's website (naturally, the whole world reads this blog), so here's a picture:

The BEST part of the ball is always people watching.  You wouldn't believe what some of these women wear.  D has been in the Army for 11 years and we've been to quite a few balls.  I have a pretty good idea of how to dress appropriately.  Some of the young girlfriends (and wives) could use a crash course in what NOT to wear.  Yikes to boobs and glitter.

4.  Our dating anniversary was this weekend, September 11.  Not the best anniversary to have, but it's not a wedding anniversary, it's just the day that an awkward 17 year old said "Will you be my girlfriend?" on the street in front of my parents house. We had taken his nine month old sister to an all-you-can-eat buffet, and I (also 17) got to do my first finger sweep when she choked on a roll.  Good times.  Clearly he knew right then that I was wife material.  That was 13 years ago, and we're still finger-sweeping babies and eating at buffets... occasionally.  I celebrated our anniversary with a three hour solo trip to Ikea- it was lovely!

That's all for now, I think this broke me out of my anti-blog funk.  Now, show me some love in the comment section.  OH, one more thing I forgot!  I **might** be bringing in someone to guest post soon.  You should definitely be holding your breath!  Kthanksbye.

The School Sisters

C started kindergarten the week before last, and she super heart loves it,  I wonder how long that will last!  She goes to a catholic school and wears uniforms, at first I was unsure how I would feel about the whole uniform thing, but after going to ONE store for back to school shopping I was sold.

Here's how C's first day went down...

Daddy woke her up early so I could blind her like the paparazzi

Dressed and ready to go

Walking to class... I wonder if she'll let me do this on the first day of high school?

After C was off at school G knew what needed to be done- Starbucks and a hairbrush.  Stat.

Today was G's first day of preschool!  They did a one hour visit rather than a regular (2.5 hour) day as a "don't worry we aren't going to abandon you" kind of thing.  I was apprehensive about how she would do, she's definitely the more clingy of the two, but she did fine.  She gave me a kiss and was off to check out what the place had to offer.  She's no fool, after listening to C's stories about school for three years she was ready to have some fun!

D was home for a bit before she had to leave, he's missed a lot of the school stuff this year so he was excited to get to see her this morning

Me and G.  What's my shoe doing??

Big girl!

Thumbs up!  She went all Alex P. Keaton after this and made me button her top button.

What she would have liked to wear today.

And she's off... never looked back.

G starts having full days at school next week.  I wonder what I'll do with all that free time!?  All 2.5 hours of it.