Baby Steps...No More!

For the past eight years, we've been taking baby steps in our house...and I think those days are coming to an end!  Brandon (2 1/2) has decided that diapers and pull-ups are not for him.  He's been in underwear for two days now (pull up at night, much to his horror!) without any accidents!  I told my cousin Jamie this afternoon, when I don't have expectations, life is like one happy incident after another.  I pushed Zach to potty train, and it was a disaster; all of you who know Julia will believe me when I say she potty trained herself before she turned 2, and with Brandon I just had no expectations. He is my last, and I'm not pushing him, so what if he goes to college with his monkey pillow pet right? :) 

In other news, Zachary has decided that now going into second grade he wanted shoes with laces...no more Velcro for the big man!  I'm tellin' ya, it's been exciting around here these days!  Zach learned to tie his shoes in a few minutes of teaching and has been proudly sporting his new sneakers ever since.  Julia told me she wants shoes that have laces as well, so I'm sure she'll teach herself how to do that soon too!  

We had company at my parent's pool today, the best kind of guests...cousins:)  While the kids were swimming and having fun, none of the five adults noticed that Brandon had walked into the shallow end without swimmies on.  We don't know how long he was in, but he somehow made it back to the steps and got out all by himself none the worse for the wear.  When my mom got in with him later, she asked him to show her what he did when he was in the pool by himself.  He told her, "I hold my breath and kick my feet", he hops in the water and showed us how he got back to the steps!!  Since he can't touch the bottom yet, he knows that he needs to wear his swimmies, but I think by the end of summer he'll be ready to swim on his own!

Uncle Rob and Brandon chillin'

Aunt Kim and Uncle Rob pulled their camper out of our backyard on Friday morning:(  I loved having them here, we all did, but know they couldn't stay forever.  I take my hat off to them for reaching out and making their dreams a reality; they know if they come back this way to visit (or even to stay) they have a home here with us.  Every morning I look in my backyard and sigh, other than the impressions on our heart, the only thing they left behind is a big bare patch of ground where their rug was!  Well that and their big 60 inch TV in our basement...which is my insurance that they will be coming back at some point!  We miss them, and just this evening while out driving the kids started yelling, "Aunt Kim's Jeep!!".  It wasn't and they were disappointed:(  Since we are planning on a Disney Cruise in April of 2013, we made plans to go down a day in advance, spend the night with Aunt Kim and Uncle Rob, and then a few days after the cruise as well.  So now Zachary asks me every day how many more days until our cruise.  Well son, 239 and counting down...

Aunt Kim's Jeep!

Aunt Kim and Lexi...two beautiful ladies:)

Kim and Rob are forever friends, and you only get so many of those in your life.  The lessons I learned while they were here...enjoy each moment, you just don't know how many moments you have left; that I am stronger than I ever thought I could be, both physically and emotionally.  That real friends don't judge the person you are, they accept you, love you and help you become the person you always wanted to be.  I will be forever grateful for the two months that they stayed with us.

Julia's interesting ailment...never a dull moment!

Some other happenings here would be that Julia has survived yet another interesting ailment (only my Julia!).  She came to me one evening saying her finger was hurting, at the time I couldn't see much other than it was red near her cuticle.  She has her mommy's bad habit of biting her nails, so I figured she bit down too close to the skin and it would go away.  Boy was I wrong!  By the next morning the tip of her finger was swollen to three times it's normal size and even more painful; along with this she started with a fever:(  Boo, that definitely spelled infection.  The pressure in her finger was getting so bad we had to use a needle and drain some of what was in the 'bubble' just above her finger nail...not fun with a dramatic six year old!  But she was a trooper and after a week of oral and topical antibiotics I am happy to announce her finger is back to it's normal shape and size!

About a week before Kim and Rob left, our grill bit the dust.  Unlike some people, we use our grill all year long, in any kind of weather, so this left us without a very big means of cooking.  David started looking at grills online and found one that he liked, it was HUGE!  But we love camping and one thing we love about camping is cooking on charcoal.  The grill David picked was a good fit for us, propane on one side, charcoal on the other.  I decided to surprise David and pick the grill up without him knowing; my Dad graciously took me and all three kids to Lowes and after some debate I picked out this one:

The main part of the grill is propane, and the little side grill is charcoal, which also acts as a smoker for the larger section!  We love it, and even got to grill some chicken for everyone before Kim and Rob departed for Virginia.  The nice thing is that the charcoal part is portable, it can be detached from the main grill and sits on it's little legs; so it can go eventually go with us camping!

Our latest venture is one we'll be diving into tomorrow.  A while back of the men David works with started doing Sunday dinner for the men and women on the platoon; so if the platoon was working over a Sunday, they would at least be able to enjoy a nice meal together.  When this officer went to another shift, the dinners stopped, and David mentioned how much he missed it.  So I volunteered to take it over!  Tomorrow at 7:30 pm I will be serving homemade roast beef, gravy, mashed potatoes, pasta salad, green salad and rolls to 30 plus officers.  I am excited and nervous at the same time; can't wait to see if everyone likes it!  I guess all the time I spent in the various commercial kitchens (Dallas Training Center, Papua New Guinea Desitnation Summit, and Family and Friends Tea Shop) will be coming in handy!

Let you know how it goes!  

Seize The Day...

It's unusual for us to attend more than one funeral every so many years, and yet this past week I have attended two.  The first was for my Aunt Janice; an amazing woman, wife, mother and friend whose life touched so many people.  It was a challenge to me to focus on what was important...like Aunt Janice did, and spend my time investing in people.  The second funeral was for a man I did not know personally, but because he was a Police Officer I went in support of his family and the other Officers (including David) who were going to pay their respects.  It was a stark reminder of the reality that faces each of us who are wives of Officers, or firemen, or anyone who lays their life on the line every single day that they go in to work.  Talking with my friend Alicia (her husband works with David) we came to this conclusion. This is not a job so much as a lifestyle, and one that we didn't fully understand until we began living it.  There is a bond for other's "in blue" that I never understood before, definitely a brotherhood.  

My husband (and Alicia's too!) loves his job, and even the crazy hours that he works (3:30 pm to 2:15 am) and honestly I would rather have a crazy schedule and a happy husband than the other way around.  After the big storm we had it was more evident than ever that families of officers are often "on our own" for the sake of the public.  David was not home during the storm, and even though my thoughts were for my kids at first, my heart skipped a beat until I could get through to David, when I realized that he was out in the storm.  He and I did not have a chance to really talk until several days after the storm and I found that my survival instincts had kicked in; I hadn't allowed my real feelings to kick in until I was sure everyone was safe.  As Dave and I sat on the couch I burst into tears; angry that once again I was alone during a time when it would have been more than nice if David was here. Decisions had to be made, and David wasn't available for me to bounce things off of.  He was angry too, but for different reasons.  He was powerless to keep us safe, forced to guard the safety of others while he had no clue what his family was going through.  For a man, that's tough.   

We realized that we have to give each other and the kids over to the Lord every single day. And when David crawls into bed next to me at 2:30 or whenever, I thank God he made it home safe.  I don't know that I'll ever be okay with the public coming first in situations like these, but Dave and I could look back on the situation, compare stories and be proud of each other for the way we handled this one.  More than ever I am grateful for the fact that David and I are a team; a team that only God knew would work.  

All that to say that I have been looking for ways to seize the day and enjoy David and the children every single day.  Some days are easier than others, but it helps when I stop to realize that our time here on earth really is short...only what's done for Christ will last.  Seize the day!