Getting Caught Up

Alright. I'm determined to catch you up on pictures tonight. Here we go! This is before we left North Carolina. This ornament we made when Josh wasn't even 2 yet. It was going on my sister-in-law's tree. I just had to take a moment because apparently I like to torture myself.
In the one day we had back in town before Phil had to leave again we were able to find a tree and get it all set up. Not really any great pictures of this event this year, but we did enjoy doing it as a family, even though there is no real photographic evidence.
Jeremiah has started to take after Josh in his interest in our camera. I think this is the first picture he's taken on his own. He said he wanted to take a picture of me. So, if you were curious, this is what I look like to Jeremiah.
The FRG (family readiness group) had a Christmas party and do you know who happened to show up? Santa.
I know. You're shocked.
Well, the boys kinda were! We had brought cookies to the meeting and the first thing they did upon seeing him was run to show him our cookies. It seems to them Santa and the Cookie moster must be related somehow. It's not really about the presents. It's about the cookies. Right, boys??
Sometimes it really hits you how much bigger your kids are getting. Every time I look at this picture I have one of those moments. So... we'll just keep moving along, alright?
This is at the Change of Command. At Phil's squadron his CO (Commanding Officer) moved on to a new job and a new CO came in to fill the spot. There's a whole ceremony that goes along with this. I got to go see it. The girls with me are the FRG President, Vice President, former President and my co-ombudsman. Can you tell I'm trying hard to not squat? I'm working on being proud of my height. Haven't gotten very far yet, though.
That weekend was tacky sweater Bunco at Adri's house. It was a really great time! I had never played bunco before, but now I'm sure I will again. I had a lot of fun and met some new girls in the area.
This Saturday we took the boys to "Breakfast with Santa" at Joshua's school. Santa rode in on a fire truck, which is very cool, however we didn't actually go talk to him because not only did we wait in line for a good half hour for an event we bought a ticket for weeks ago, but there was an equally long line to talk to Santa. According to my records Santa already knows loud and clear what both boys want. Josh says, "A wii", and Jeremiah, "a big box of everything!" Not sure how we'll accomplish the latter of those requests, but we're trying. We got to see Santa from a distance anyway. Josh and Jeremiah really enjoyed the cocoa. Can you tell? I think it's the marshmallows.

So I'm off to bed for the night. Phil is leaving in the morning again. Leave (or time off) is coming soon. I can hear it calling already!

Thanksgiving... In Reverse

Yes, I'm still catching up and totally added my pictures on here backwards so here is a look at our Thanksgiving from end to beginning!
Uncle Adam carving the turkey.
Phil and Adam worked on frying a turkey breast. Boy, was it good!
We took a picture for Nana and Papa. I always miss them so much on Thanksgiving. I know they miss us too and just wanted to let them know we were thinking about them.
I have no idea what Josh is doing. They were playing ring around the rosie, though. Somedays I think Josh is either going to be the class genius or the class clown. Not sure which yet.
I took a walk with the kids (that were awake) to appreciate the nice weather we had that day. They collected the leaves and "flowers" (read: dandelions) they found.

Phil and his Dad, Paul, setting up the fryer.
Josh would have been content to spent the entire weekend right here. The girls have a game cube and Josh was completely enthralled!
Jeremiah chatting with Auntie Dana over some cheese and sausage. It's a good place to be.

Driving to North Carolina

We've made this long drive down to Phil's family in North Carolina several times now. The scenery is really nice. It was really great this time of year too. I didn't have a lot of pressing things to take care of on this ride so I played a bit with our camera. I know it's all just landscape shots, but I really like how some of these turned out!
Cotton! I'm pretty sure I've never seen it actually growing on a plant like this. Very cool.



The ride home was much less fun. Most of it was in the dark.

Command Christmas Party

Yep I'm super behind. Thanksgiving threw a wrench in my schedule... and so has getting ready for Christmas. Needless to say, I'll be doing some catching up.
A couple weeks ago was Phil's command Christmas party. We had a great time! A night out without the kids? Really yummy food? Good friends? A recipe for a great evening indeed!
This is Lauren and Rachel. I love these girls. They do, however, make me feel really really tall.
It was the the aquarium. Phil gave the crocodile the stink eye and the crocodile gave it right back.


It was a great way to kick off the holidays this year!

Reason #1 to Have Kids

Joshua made this for me the other day. Last year at Valentine's the thing he kept asking for was this. A Scrabble valentine. How can a mother turn down a potentially educational toy? It has been that and more! Even Jeremiah likes shuffling the letters around. That day he used it to make my heart melt, though.
"Il never stop loveing you" either, Joshua.

Finally the Zoo!!

I've tried several times to get to the zoo here. Something always gets in the way. Time, money, weather...
This week we finally made it! The weather was perfect. We could not have possibly picked a better day to go. Our friend and my co-ombudsman, Adri, came with us. It was so nice to have the company!
The boys absolutely adore Adri. Can you tell?
This is Billy the giraffe. I'm pretty sure he's sticking his tongue out because the boys would not stop hollering at him "HELLO BILLY!!!"

Jeremiah was looking forward to the seeing the elephants. I was tickled by this one. Fortunately, there were others to see and he did come out eventually.


Josh could have picked a better place to sit, I think. Some things you just need to learn the hard way, I suppose.
Yes. They are wild and crazy and unpredictable at times. For example, Jeremiah... who for some reason didn't really want to come out of the cage.
The boys are getting so much bigger. With a bit of a struggle, both of them managed to get up on this thing. I'm constantly amazed at the things they've figured out how to do.
These little monkey's were so much fun. And by that, I mean the boys. They were great at the zoo. I'm so glad we got to get out in the sunshine again. All that rain made all 3 of us a little crazy.

Andalo's Clubhouse

Honestly, this weekend... it's been horrible. Most of it I probably brought on myself because of my inability to shake a bad attitude.
There were lots of other contributors, though. First, our routine was completely thrown off by that nor'easter we got around here last week. They canceled 2 days of school added to the holiday already scheduled on Wednesday so 3 days last week Josh was home all day. On top of that, I had plans! We had several fun things to do on his days off and after school that all ended up squashed by the storm. Not exactly fun to go see farm animals in rain and 40-60 mph winds! Then even on Saturday it was still drizzling which ended my zoo-going plans pretty quickly.
Then there's the fact that Phil wasn't coming home this weekend. The past few weeks have been a somewhat regular (although irritating) routine of him coming home very late every Friday night and leaving partway through Sunday again. This week he didn't come home. We knew it was coming but combined with everything else the separation was even more difficult. Then there's the fact that at least one wife I know of drove down to where the guys are to visit over the weekend. We just couldn't put up the cost for that sort of trip, so it was out of the question.
So throw all those things into one pot with cabin fever and an irritable mommy and what you get is a super not fun weekend.
Today the weather was beautiful! The roads were mostly clear (aside from some tree debris and a couple flooded underpasses). We went to church and the Children's Museum. Actually, the Children's Museum in Portsmouth that we've visited before has closed for renovations. In the mean time they've opened a smaller clubhouse for the kids to go to. It was great to let the boys just play and blow off some steam while I got a chance to relax and not have to work so hard to entertain them.

Josh was really excited that they had some of the grocery store set up there. It's by far his favorite part of every children's museum we go to. I find this ironic since he's no huge fan of our regular grocery store runs. Even so, he filled his basket to overflowing!
This just cracked me up watching little Jeremiah try and lift this full basket up onto the counter. These must have been some older brothers hanging out but they had so much fun role-playing with the boys. Jeremiah's groceries cost 99 cents, if I remember right.
Then they have this area with foam bricks. It's great! We built up a fort and I dropped the boys in...
I couldn't even get a picture before they knocked it down! It was definitely good fun, though!
Tomorrow we're back to our regular routine again. I have more plans again, so hopefully the weather and everyone's moods hold up!