Kids say the darndest things....

My friend told me a funny thing Jonas said in primary (at church) yesterday. Apparently they were doing a spotlight of a certain child, and they have everyone stand up and say clues about the child to help everyone guess who the person they are talking about is. And when it's not the person they sit down until the person the spotlight is about is left standing. Apparently the child being spotlighted had 2 brothers and one sister, but Jonas kept standing, and they told him to sit down since he didn't have any brothers.
But he told them he doesn't have a brother now, but he's working on it! My friend told him, good luck on that! lol! He must be saying little prayers that he will get a brother someday!
By the way, I am NOT pregnant, so I have no idea where he got that!

Home from Dubai...

I'm home! And all I can say is WOW! Everything that happend before I left getting ready for the trip is all a distant memory. The trip to Dubai was so needed.

I needed to get away, have some fun and be with my husband for a few days. Josh's Mom and Grandma arrived on Wednesday Jan.17th in the afternoon. The kids had a lot of fun with the Grandma's. I honestly wasn't worried at all when I left them since I knew that Grandma would spoil them rotten, and she did! I flew out of Norfolk on Thursday around noon. I flew to Detroit, and then from Detroit to Amsterdam. The flight to Amsterdam was 8 hours. It was a long flight, and honestly I didn't sleep at all. I tried, but I really was too excited to sleep. I arrived in Amsterdam at 7a.m. the next day and had a long layover there. So while there I found out there was a little tour you could go on where they drove you around town in a shuttle bus, and they made a few stops and you could see Amsterdam. I got to see how they make the wooden dutch shoes, really cool. I bought a pair for Maddie, which she loves to walk in and then tap dance (or stomp depedning on how you look at it!)on our hard wood floors in the dining room. Here's me in the giant wooden shoes outside the shop.

Amsterdam is definately a place I would like to return to and visit, there were a lot of cool museums I would love to go and spend hours visiting.




Doing the tour definately helped the time pass quickly and then it was off to Dubai.
The flight to Dubai is 6 hours. Oh and if you're wondering, Amsterdam is 6 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone, and Dubai is 9. So, I arrived in Dubai a little later than planned because of some glitch in the check in with security getting on the plane. So we arrived at 12:30a.m. on January 20th. It was so nice to walk out with my bags (we figured out Josh couldn't meet me at the luggage there for some reason!) and immediately see Josh waiting among the crowd of people. We got into a taxi and drove to our hotel. We stayed at the Kempinksi Hotel which is attached to the Emarites Mall. I highly recommend this place, it is so nice. Our room was HUGE! Here are some pictures of our room, the hall, the awesome swimming pool, and the view from our room of some of Dubai.






We did a lot of walking around the Emarites Mall, and around several other malls.


We went because each of the malls are different in architecture, and the designs, which made them fun to go to.


We went on a dessert safari that we got to be driven wildly through the dessert, up and down hills.

Watched the sunset in the desert,

rode some camels,



rode on some 4x4's in the desert, ate a barbeque, and got to watch a belly dancer. We took lots of taxi rides to go around town.

We shopped at the local markets where all the tourists go to make deals for t-shirts, drank drinks that were cold fruit with the top cut off and a straw stuck in it,



and we went to the City of Gold

where if you want to get good deals for nice jewelry this is the place to go. Shops upon shops of Gold. On our last night we went on a dinner cruise,

which had us going up and down the Canal. All in all, the trip was fabulous! We had so much fun together. We ate lots of unique food, and found that they have some of the best fruit drinks I've ever tasted! We also got up at 3:30a.m. Dubai time to watch the Colt win the AFC Championship game... We're going to the SUPERBOWL baby! We probably woke up our neighbors with our shouts of joy!
We also got some news while over there, Josh is now an "Official Olmstead candidate" which means he has a greater chance of getting into the program. His interview is scheduled for Feb.8th!! So we will know after that if he will be in or not.
The kids are so glad to have Daddy home, and of course so am I. Jonas was so cute when he hugged Josh, and said "Daddy I really missed you." I really could've cried when he said that, it was so sweet.
I took Josh's Mom and Grandma to the airport this morning, so we have our little family together again, and it's wonderful.

Funny faces..

I realized as I was looking at some photos that I have some pictures of the kids making some really funny faces. I realize I don't post these pictures because they aren't smiling all cutesy or anything, but thought it might be fun to share some of these funny faces with you.




Josh's Mom and Grandma will be arriving tomorrow afternoon! Then Thursday I'm headed out to see Josh! I'm very excited! I will definately post pictures when I return! I'm sure I'll have some good one's to share!

You know there's trouble when....

Your four year old comes downstairs and says it's snowing in his room! So I go upstairs and He and Maddie, and probably Eliza had taken out this foam packaging out of a box for a statue I was given for my birthday, and ripped up the foam packaging to make it look like it had snowed! And it had snowed, all over the entire attic room upstairs on BOTH sides! I wasn't thrilled at all since I had just gotten the entire thing cleaned and vaccumed yesterday. And so I had to do it again because Eliza was trying to eat the snow. GRR! It's funny now, but at the moment it wasn't.
This has been a nice quiet weekend at home for us. I have spent a lot of time cleaning and trying to get everything ready for when Grandma Nori and Great Grandma Betty Hensley come to watch the kids for me to go on my trip.
The Colts won yesterday, and for the first time EVER, I'm hoping the Patriots win against the Chargers so the Colts will get tp play the AFC Championship game at home. We shall see, the Patriots are trying to lose right now!
Josh said something cute in his e-mail to me yesterday before the Colts played. If the Colts won we'd be able to watch the game together next week... and now we will! YEAH!
UPDATE- THE PATRIOTS WON, so the COLTS WILL BE PLAYING AT HOME!!! WOO HOO!!!!!

I would've been on an airplane right now...

But due to bad things going on in the world, my flight to see Josh had to be changed since they wouldn't be in Dubai, and since I didn't want to go there alone, we changed it! So I'm now leaving Thursday afternoon. I'm getting excited, and now thinking of all the things I need to have done around the house before Josh's Mom and Grandma arrive on Wednesday to take care of the kids. Not only am I going to see my husband in a week, but he's going to be returning home with me!! I'm so glad, and the kids will be so excited too! And, on our flight back we'll be in Minneapolis for a longer layover, so we will be meeting up with my longtime friend Eli and his wife Tiffane, I can't wait to see him again and meet his wife for the first time! I'm just looking forward to spending a weekend at home, and getting laundry washed and put away, and me starting to pack for my trip!

Walk a mile in her shoes....

I realized something about myself today that I'm not proud of, but I'm going to admit it and get it out there. I have been judging someone I go to church with because of her sons behavior, now not to say that I know she's not trying, or that our sons are exactly alike, because they aren't. I'm sure she is trying, but I have been judging her thinking she's must not be doing enough, since he still continues to act up. I realized that I'm being a hypocrit. Yep, there it is. That's what I am, a hypocrit. As the saying goes, walk a mile in their moccasins. This woman puts on a brave face at church, but no one sees (I'm just guessing here) the tears she cries, or the prayers that are said to receive some guidance on what to doto help her son. No one knows (until it happens to you) how humilitating it can be to have your child brought to you for misbehavior at church or to be told your child was terrible at school.

Recently Jonas has been acting up/or out if you will. I know he misses Josh a lot, I'm not saying that justifies his behavior, but I do know that every child deals with things differently. He truly does miss his Daddy. This deployement has been difficult for him. He's had a handful of incidents at school, but the majority seem to be happening at church where he misbehaves, and no matter how many timeouts were given during the block of church time he has continued to act out. Recently I've taken a new approach, that I'm hoping will work. What's the new approach, grounding him from his favorite things. Before now I didn't think it was right to ground as he wasn't old enough to really understand. When he realized yesterday that I was actually going to ground him as I had warned him would happen, it definately sunk in. (instant remorse was shown, but of course didn't soften my heart to change my mind) It will take time, he is a good boy and wants to be, it's just learning to control all that energy and all of those emotions that he has and seems to freely express. That is the challenge that I face, and have been facing alone for now. Jonas and I will make it through this. Now don't get me wrong, I love this kid so much. He's really so much fun, and says stuff that cracks me up! And it's so fun to watch him learn new things, and see that look of enjoyment on his face. I just have to remind myself that he is only 4 and still learning, and honestly so am I! IF you read this far you deserve a medal for reading my ramblings.

So we're outside when...

Maddie says, "Mommy take my picture!" Well who can pass up an opportunity like that when your child wants you to take their picture! So I got my camera out and snapped some cute ones of the kids! It was fun.

Being 29....

Yesterday was my 29th Birthday. It's amazing to think that I'm 29. Growing up I used to think that once you were 29 you could never again share your age, and now I really don't care who knows how old I am. I think if I live to be 100 I will be proud to share how old I am, hopefully by then I will have become a little wiser than I am now. As I reflect on my 29 years, there are those early years of my life I don't recall, and then some I wish I could forget, but realize how much I've grown, and believe it or not matured (although I still have a ways to go). I still feel like I'm 21, but then again, I can't really relate to what 21 year olds I know are going through, or at least most of them. To celebrate I had friends over for Pizza and girlie movies, it was fun! And I needed it because I got some bad news yesterday. We are going to have to move the dates of my trip back to visit Josh. We're still working out the details, and I'm crossing my fingers that the trip is still on. I can't really say why they had to change things, but apparently stuff going on in the Middle East area caused them to not go to port as they planned. Josh couldn't tell me this, but told me enough that I figured that much out. Either way he will be home at the end of this month, and on a positive note he is now the 2nd Alternate on the list for the Olmstead program, and they are going to interview him, sometime around the beginning of February or end of January. YEAH! Today the kids and I went to the park, because it was 73 degrees here! It's crazy how warm it is, and in other areas in the country they are getting a ton of snow! I got some cute pictures!

Pictures from Christmas and Marilyn's....

Here are some Christmas day pictures, and some pictures from Marilyn's. The cat is Sammy, and Eliza had fun trying to find him, which was usually under the bed, which is what she's looking at, the cat! It was too funny! Enjoy!

The best day ever.....

I'm singing this song right now (if you don't know it, watch sponge bob's Best day ever show... it's hilarious!), I'm singing this because in 10 days I'm going to be taking my first ever trip over seas! That's right I'm going to be meeting Josh in Dubai! We have been talking about this for over a month, going back and forth on the if's and when's and everything has fallen into place and we finally got a date that I could go over! I got my passport a month ago, Josh bought my plane ticket, I got the Grandma's plane tickets, and am all ready! So next Thursday Josh's mom and his grandma will be catching a flight out of Pensacola to here. Then I will leave the following day!! I will only be gone a few days, but we're going to have so much fun with just the two of us! And we're hoping (cross your fingers) that he will be returning home with me since they should be coming back a week or so after that. Anyway, I'm thinking this about the best Birthday present I could have ever asked for. I'm giddy with excitement right now!! WOO HOO!

Being on your own with the kids for the Holidays 101

Things I have learned about doing Christmas and the Holidays without the help of my spouse:
1.Wrap presents as you get them, otherwise you will forget how much you have already bought and won't notice that the pile of toys in the back of the closet is getting increasingly bigger.
2. Things that require batteries, or have lots of those little plastic cords keeping the toy in the box should be opened prior to Christmas day and assembled in order to insure that Mom is not spending 3 hours opening those things. (yes this did happen)
3. Buy toys that come in one piece, not toys that have 109 extra pieces, even if you think your child will like it... YOU WILL REGRET IT! (see number 2)
4. Plan to be home a full day to allow your children to play with their toys, and don't expect them to want to share their toys (especially if they are 3) even days later with their cousins that are 6, so don't allow them to take on the trip!
5. Leave on road trips as early as possible to avoid all the other crazy people like yourself that are going to visit others for the Holidays, or just plan to be in the car sitting in traffic for awhile and find ways to amuse three kids. (which we did)

That's just 5 things, I'm sure I could name some more. It seems Christmas creeped up slowly, and ever since time has flewn by! I will post pictures later. We spent two days at home the went to see my sister Marilyn up in Maryland. We had a lot of fun. Eliza especially loved their cats, and the kids had fun seeing their cousins. We got home yesterday and have had a nice start to the New Year. We talked to Josh several times over the Holidays, and that was nice to hear his voice. We miss him a lot, and are now on the final stretch and counting down the days till he returns, which should be by the end of this month! YEAH! Anyway, I'm also counting the days until my 29th Birthday! (yes I'm 29, and can't believe it!) I plan to have all of my best girlfriends that live here over for movies and pizza, and of course cake, and lots of junk food, it should be fun!