He's baaaack

He is finally HOME!!!


Making signs



Delicious cake Taira and Sierra made


Waiting not so patiently



He's HERE!!!






Avery was a little overwhelmed with the amount of people so I was holding her when Andy came up to us. You can see Evan was so excited. Avery took a little bit to realize it was really him.


Our neighbors had signs to welcome Andy home too but I didn't get pics :(






Thanks so much to Dawn for taking pics and Israel for doing the video!

Oh yes

Have you ever had such a rough week that you leave the house without putting shoes on? Well I have. Today. I was rocking my blue fuzzy slippers to take a redbox movie back and grab some lunch. At least I didn't have to go in anywhere.

I see a light

What.a.week.

If I didn't see the light at the end of this loooong tunnel, I may run for the hills screaming.

It started last Sunday when we got snowed in for a few days. This also coincided with Evan getting sick. He had a high fever, body aches, cough, runny nose, and threw up. It melted enough for me to get him to the doc Wednesday. The doc declared it a virus that has to run it's course. During the exam, he was kind enough to throw up on both of us. I had a change of clothes for him. Not for me though.

That evening Avery started throwing up and running a fever. It was a very rough night. Words cannot describe what the fear of throw up does to me. I don't know why I freak out (only on the inside, I don't lose it in front of the kids). We all had a "slumber party" in the living room that night so I could monitor fevers and catch throw up. Fun times! NOT! Thankfully the throwing up was short-lived but we were all exhausted. Avery developed the cough and runny nose after the throwing up. I'm still confused how this even happened.

So fast forward to Friday night and they are both fever free without meds. I thought we were in the clear. I sanitized the house and washed even more laundry (yes I am quite the germaphobe).

Yesterday, the fever was back for Avery. 101 degrees. SIGH I can control it with motrin but as soon as it wears off, her fever is back up to 101-102. Her cough is bothering her and me. ;) She ended up sleeping with me half the night. She just looks and feels miserable. I seriously hope this isn't something new. We need to get better because we have something very special to do on Thursday.

So that is what has been going on with us. Like I said, I see the light at the end of the tunnel or I would be calling the men in the white coats myself.....

Snow Experiment

We did a little snow experiment before "the sickness" hit our house. It has been a very long week.

I had planned on doing this but got the idea to use the microwave and salt from JenniferP's blog. Thanks Jen!

I got a bowl of snow from outside and we talked about it.
How does it feel? cold
What color is it? white
Does it snow in winter or summer? winter

Then we got to the experiment part and I asked them what they thought would happen when the snow was:
in the freezer? A- it will get hard E- it will get softer
left on the counter? A-it will still be snow E-it will turn to frost
mixed with salt? A- it will turn to ice E- it will turn to frost
put in the microwave? A- we can make hot cocoa ;) E-it will melt

Then we did our experiment!

Scooping snow into each bowl


For fun we also made snow icees


The bowls


Adding salt


Microwave



I didn't get pics of the counter and freezer part. Evan wasn't feeling well.

We learned that snow in the freezer gets harder. Snow left on the counter melts into water. If you add salt, the snow melts a little and makes frost. If you put snow in the microwave, it melts into water (which technically you could add chocolate to and make hot cocoa lol).

Monkeys make bread

We recently discovered the ease and joy of monkey bread (aka cinnamon bread, pull apart bread, etc). It is perfect for A&E to help make. They were asking for it today so I figured since we are snowed in, I should put them to work!








Scooters aren't just for riding. They can also be used as a step to steal monkey bread. ;)

snOw-M-G

Snow = torture to me. I dislike cold weather. I can't stand that Arkansas doesn't salt the roads so it makes driving anywhere impossible. I don't like that it gets your clothes wet and you freeze trying to play in it.

A&E however, are ecstatic! We have about 3" and counting. Schools are canceled for tomorrow (my #1 reason for disliking it!) Andy isn't here to play with them in it when I wuss out and have to come inside. (My #2 reason for not liking it).

It was worth going out in it tonight though to see them so excited. Plus Murphy loves it too and it wears him out to run around and play with the kids. If you don't hear from us, we are snowed in for a week from a measly 3 inches. ;)








Pretty sure this thing doesn't have 4wd ;)



Avery making snow angels


Evan throwing snowballs at Avery

ARGH! So embarrassed

It is widely known that young children do not have a filter. My two definitely do not but I think they also inherited some of that from their father. ;)

Yesterday we went on a lunch date to Chili's. We were sitting in a booth and there was a lady on the other side of A&E who had a bandanna on her head. I assume she had cancer and had lost her hair from chemo.

A noticed her and asked if that was a pirate sitting behind her. It took me a second to catch up but then I realized what she meant. O M G I could have died. I don't think the lady heard because she didn't acknowledge us at all but A was pretty loud when she was asking. I told her no and she needed to eat and stop worrying about other people. For the rest of the meal, A kept saying "Argh, matey!". I was seriously hoping for the floor to open up so I could just drop in a hole somewhere. Either the lady was ignoring us or she didn't hear.

After she left, I explained to Avery that the lady didn't have hair from being very sick and she wore that on her head to keep it warm. It was like a hair bow. I don't think she understood but wow. If I had a muzzle, I would have used it!

They do love each other. Here's the proof!

I know I have been MIA. I am still burnt out from blogging for 24 days straight. ;)

On the days A&E don't have MDO, they come to our bed and watch tv and let me have some time to wake up. I got up to make breakfast this morning and went back in and found them like this.
(The quality isn't great but I was afraid they would move before I could grab the real camera!)

They do love each other!

2010 Year in Review

2010 was a pretty good year (minus the whole Andy being gone half the year and the horrendous 3's that no one warned me about ha ha).

Here is our year in review in pics!

January 2010


February 2010


March 2010


April 2010
A&E turn 3!!!


May 2010


June 2010


July 2010


August 2010
Andy deployed


September 2010


October 2010


November 2010


December 2010