Halloween 2011

I have not blogged in a really long time, I have been in a little bit of a negative place.  Things are amazing in my life.  I adore my kids, they are the biggest blessing ever.  My husband has been the biggest support and help through the last year.  I am getting ready to graduate from college!! (finally)  Everything is great in my life, but sometimes it really just feels like there is a lot of obligations.  My days are spent doing laundry dishes and homework, but the house is still a mess when my husband comes home.  Its really discouraging... BUT!!

I am blogging to say that last night was REALLY REALLY fun.  Dan was out of town so it was just me and the kids for Halloween.  Usually that means extra stress, and the kids fighting but last night the kids behaved.  They were all excited to trick or treat, there was no fighting, crying or fit throwing.  Everyone just had fun together, it was even relaxing.  I cherish these good moments with my kids. 

At the end of the night after the kids had all their candy in their bags, and they were sitting at the table admiring their loot they decided that they wanted to give it away to the Marines who could not be near their families.  I am so blessed, my kids have the sweetest hearts. 

My mommy batteries are FINALLY recharged!! 

Tommy is the best big brother ever, it was his idea to give all his candy away

I did Georgia's makeup for the night, she felt so pretty and special she even asked for "the eyelash makeup" (mascara).

Little Stevie is getting SO big she is now 14 months old.  Her favorite thing to do is give kisses and she tries her hardest to keep up with her siblings.

Katherine was surprised every time she got a piece of candy and she would run down the driveway to me so excited to show me what candy she had.

Tacky Sweater Party

Last night I went to an awesome party hosted by these two lovely people

They have an incredibly beautiful baby girl that is just a month youger than little Stevie

I totally stole that picture from someones facebook page (thanks Lisa)

because I took none of my own .

Everyone wore their tackiest christmas sweaters, except Dan and I.

We wore tacky Marine corps moto gear sweaters instead.

The party was really great, and I loved all of the people there. It was also kind of weird for me. Though I was the same age, or younger than a lot of the people there we are in totally different life stages. Many of the conversations with the girls circled around finding jobs, working, traveling, getting married and wanting babies.

I was a little jealous at times. I could not even contribute to many of the conversations.

I feel like I have fast fowarded through, and skipped many experiences.

Now, I am a stay at home mom, I have 4 kids, and no desire for anymore.

I am still a college student, but getting a job in the near future is not very realistic.

These are some things I realized last night:

-These girls are some of the friendliest, most amazing, and accepting

people I have ever met in my life.

- I think any stage of your life can be good,

but I think you have to make up your mind to enjoy it.

-There are a LOT of times that I am envious of other people that have a carefree life,

But I think everyonce in a while they might be a little envious of me.

Now for the really cheesy part:

-I realized that I am really happy

I spend my days surrounded by joy and laughter of my kids

(sometimes screaming and crying too)

I am SO lucky to have found and married my soul mate

(who loves me for everything I am)

My life is nothing like what I expected it to be at 26

(I think it is probably much much better)

Rainy Day

It has been incredibly rainy the last few days here.

My kids and Husband made the best of it by playing in the puddles and rain. Georgia and Tommy adopted my quirk of not liking water in my face, so they did not stay and play in the rain too long.Katherine LOVED playing outside in the rain, she was even wearing her nightgown the whole time.

This is the love of my life all soaking wet. I love that he is enough of a kid at heart to do silly things with the kids. Even though I think the neighbors might think we are crazy.

It was really really pouring down rain

Bed Rest

So, I have been on "bed rest" for quite a few weeks of this pregnancy. During that time I pretty much considered bed rest sitting down to watch TV a little more often than normal. I noticed contractions here and there, but they didn't really bother me. So then at my last dr. appointment, they sent me immediately to labor and delivery at the hospital. 3 previous pre-term babies, and I was dialated to a 3 and 50% effaced. CRAP, this again.

The dr. gave me a choice between Mag. or some blood pressure meds, both would stop labor. I knew Mag makes me vomit uncontrollably, so I picked the blood pressure meds.

Little did I know they should have said would you rather vomit uncontrollably or have a migraine so bad you would rather die. They both sound so nice, what would you choose???

After thinking I was seriously having some kind of brain annyerism, they finally took pity on me and gave me some more meds to fix my headache. They told me they were giving me stadol and phenegren. At that point they could have told me they were going to hit me with a hammer and I would not have cared.

Once they injected the meds I felt this weird thick sensation move through my body finally stopping in my head. The really crazy thing is the dreams! Very, very disturbing dreams. Have you ever had a dream so bad you can't even talk about it days later? I have one image in my head still, that is just haunting me.

After a really long night of this, and being woken up every 20 min for blood pressures, vital signs, and moving moniters. They let me go back home.

Let me just say I am SO incredibly thankful for some of the friends that I have that would take care of all three kids at the drop of a hat. I don't know what I would do if I was worried about my kids while all this was going on.

My mother-in-law flew in to save the day. I have been ordered on strict bedrest, and I will do anything to avoid going back to the hospital. So, here I lay.

Georgia gets stung by a wasp, and I lay here

Katherine gets a diaper change, but not by me, because I am in bed

Tommy wants to play on his scooter, so I watch from the window

They need help finding shoes and sunscreen, and I tell them from bed where to look

My MIL is incredible for taking over all my duties,

it is hard to let her, because I FEEL FINE!

I have tons of energy... sigh

I have a feeling I am going to be blogging a lot in the next few days>

Ready, ready, ready, ready...ready to run

So... I am running away... from North Carolina. Wishing I could completely run away from reality. I guess Utah is about as close as I can get to that. I have decided to go to Utah for a few months. I figure I am going to come back when I get called for a house on base. I will probably hold my name on the list for a month or so. That way I can stay at least a month.

I am putting all my stuff in storage and just hoping everything works out.

catch up

The last 3 1/2 months
1. Thanksgiving- After completely ruining the 2008 turkey I tried again, and I made the most awesome turkey EVER! We injected it with flavor and wrapped it in bacon. It took forever to cook but it was amazing. Thanksgiving is my favorite time to be around a lot of family, but this year I spent it with Dan and the kids. We also took thanksgiving dinner to some of the Marines on duty.

2. CHRISTMAS- We had a GREAT Christmas! We drove to Utah and got to see a lot of Aunts and Uncles, cousins and grandparents. We missed the Hoffmasters, but we did not miss the horrible-ness of Indiana during winter :) The cousins went sledding, and we opened presents almost every day we were there. It was really awesome, I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family.

3. CNN interview- I got interviewed by CNN... Even though I was embarrassed about crying it was a really cool experience and I am glad I did it.

4. New Years Eve- Dan and I were planning to go to his CO's house for a New Years party. I was a little worried because my period was late so I took a test to see if I was going to be drinking that night... Needless to say the test said I was destined to be the designated driver of the evening.
On our way to the party a car pulled in front of me, and I hit her going about 45 mph. She was belligerently drunk. Our car was towed away, but gratefully someone came from the party and came and picked up us and the kids. We were planning to go home, but they suggested we go to the party anyways. So we did, and we had a blast.

5. DEPLOYMENT- A few days after the New Year, Dan left for Afghanistan. He has now been gone a month and it has been incredibly challenging. I feel really lucky whenever I hear from him. The hardest part for me is to see how it is affecting the kids. I think it is the hardest on Tommy. When ever he is too happy, he will all the sudden get really sad and say "I wish daddy could be here". Sometimes he bottles everything up and just explodes and gets mad at me. Georgia has been acting out and challenging me. She doesn't really express her feelings but she REALLY has been testing her limits. I didn't think Katherine would notice at all, but I think she actually did regress a little. She is fine now, but...

6. Number 4- So as I alluded to earlier, I am pregnant... with number 4. We knew after Katherine was born that our family was not complete with 3 kids. We were thinking we would adopt a child a few years down the road. Well... Our plans changed when I got a positive pregnancy test. I have had a really hard time telling people, I can hardly wrap my mind around being 25 and having 4 children. I hate when I go to the store now with 3 kids and people make comments. Pretty soon I will be hugely pregnant walking through the store with 3 kids and people will just think I am bat-shit crazy.
I am really ok with having another kid in the family. Dealing with all the pregnancy stuff with Dan being gone is really a challenge. I have had some morning sickness, but the real evil has been the fatigue. I could sleep 16 hours a day or more. But my kids don't, I have to be up, I have to do some laundry. I can wear dirty sweats 6 days a week, but I have to have clean clothes for the kids.

7. COLLEGE- I truly think it is college that gets me pregnant. I have enrolled in college 4 times, coincidence that I have 4 kids??? I don't think so. So I am in college now. It is free as long as I stay full time. It is online, and I have about a year and a half until I graduate... The school I go to is really flexible with family schedules. This time I am determined to finish!

Well that's the last 3 1/2 months of my life... Hopefully I will get another post in before another 3 months goes by... Maybe some pictures too!

Man, I hope I get laid tonight

"Dan, my mom reads this!"

"Ok, is she aware we have three kids and are currently married?"

"...sigh... Ok, but you have to annouce you are ghost writing this."

(Kim reads the previous three sentances)

"DAAAAAN!"

HEY! I'm Kim's husband Dan and I am ghost writing this blog. Do not adjust your computer screens, you just read that. That just happened. Really.

So, Kim got really into blogging a few months back, but it has been a while since her last post, so I decided I should do it. Now, the bad news. I am not equipped with a vagina.

Why does that matter? I don't know. But I thought it best YOU know. If I did have one, that would be weird.

So, I went in to this diatribe on FiST duties, but that got boring and I deleted it. Check out NAVMC 3500.7 Artillery if you are interested. Anyhow, Kim hasn't been up to too much. The kids are good. My job has been extremely bogged down in admin stuff lately, so I could use a break.

So the baby has been getting in to stuff. Georgia has gotten past her monster phase. The more things change I suppose. Kim loves me. She just told me.

Well, now I see why I didn't start a blog. You people are getting this for free. That's crap. You all OWE ME!

Love,

8====>

Dan

P. S. Check you out some FOTC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY8jaGs7xJ0