Monday, January 27, 2014

Once There Was a Snowman

Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman... Once there was a snowman tall, tall, tall....
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In the sun he melted, melted, melted,  In the sun he melted...
And did the limbo!

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This was mostly done by our family, then some neighbor kids joined at the very end and were a great addition to our picture.  Steve used our trampoline step stool to get that head on top.  Still- pretty impressive!  And look at those huge snowflakes.  New York snows can sure be beautiful!

Gingerbread Houses

I was able to find a Gingerbread House kit on sale after Christmas and since we were home so much with snow days, we took advantage and had a fun time building houses with Steve and the kids.  Anna was  blissfully sleeping during this adventure!

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Where to Next?

(written January 13th)

We got our initial list last week from Signal Corps with 137 options for our next post.  This time they did something I have never heard of before- they asked us to give them our top 50 places.  Yep- 50!  Usually you submit just a top 3.  There were some stipulations that went along with this list. 
1) If you haven't been OCONUS in the last 4 years, twenty of your top thirty needed to be OCONUS. 
2) You had to list 50 places.
3) If you didn't follow these rules, they would consider your assignment per "needs of the Army"
Also, If your dwell time was great than 2 years, there's a good chance you'll get either a deployment or Korea

Steve also had to choose KD jobs for his career advancement, and some of the assignments were marked as "priority"and therefore will be filled first. Tricky thing about this-  There were less than 20 KD jobs that were OCONUS.  So we just added some others in order to fulfill their requirement.  

So... we listed places such as Germany, Belgium, Japan, Hawaii, Alaska and Korea for OCONUS.  And for CONUS places like CA, CO, WA, AZ and TX.  It will be very interesting to see what we end up with!  I am hoping that we will have some news within the next month.  Nothing like the Army to keep you waiting.  

Ryan is looking forward to his 5th birthday in February and he kept asking to have all our cadets from last year attend.  I think we'll at least get Jake and Kyle to Skype in that day.  Ryan has requested just about every transformer auto-bot available as well as some punching gloves.  Maybe get some MMA started in our house?

Things keep busy here.  Anna is talking a ton, but still we can't understand what she says.  She doesn't even say mom or dad, but she babbles all day long in her own language.  She has a few signs, like "more" and "please" and her ear-splitting screams still manage to get her point across :) She is getting better at playing with the boys and loves to run around and play chase.  She also knows how to fold her arms for prayers and Steve has taught her the "fist bump".  She knows we like it and always laughs afterwards or starts clapping.  She really is an adorable little girl.

Quick Christmas recap

Christmas was amazing for our family.  Last year was so rough I decided to make some major changes. 

1) we didn't talk about Santa.  If the kids brought him up, I just smiled. 
2) we talked a lot more about Christ and Christmas. 
3) we had the kids deliver Christmas cards and gifts to the neighbors
4) we encouraged the kids to make homemade gifts for each other and they all really enjoyed that
5) we had our nice Christmas dinner on Christmas eve to get the mood going (and so I could nap on Christmas day...)
6) we had the kids enact the Christmas story as Steve read it Christmas Eve
7) Each of us received 3 gifts (just as Christ did).  With 8 people opening 3 gifts (not to include a few family gifts and gifts from friends) that's already 24 presents being opened.  We always open one at a time so all can enjoy the excitement.  We actually took a break in the middle to eat breakfast then continued opening gifts!
8) we made sure each child was extremely appreciative of the gifts they received (it made the giving part much more enjoyable for them!)

It was a very magical day for the kids and probably one of the best we've had as a family.  It helped that we had a nice dusting of snow the night before to make our Christmas a white one! 

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Potty Training

Tommy has been a tough case when it comes to potty training.  Jimm-a-nee!

Today, after having an accident (we tried underwear again), I stuck him on the potty and told him to sit there until he went.

A few minutes later I walked in with a smile on my face and asked, "Did you go yet?"

Tommy glared at me and responded, "I don't like you."

I closed the door and walked away.