Oh yay, my friends!!!!!

I've been meaning to tell you that I had the wonderful privilege of seeing both of my best friends this spring.  My friend, Missy Kennedy came to visit while Chris was deployed and I saw my friend, Amy McCullough while we were down at Disney.  Here are some pictures!!  I think the ones with Missy are still on my camera--I'll add those later!

Phew........Disney!

Here are some pics from our recent jaunt to Disney World.  We had a wonderful time and the boys loved meeting all the characters.  Cal LOVES Minnie Mouse and I really thought he would faint when he saw her in person!  They seemed to enjoy all the little rides, especially the flying ones.  Michael was scared of the trolls in the Maelstrom ride at Epcot.

We went to Animal Kingdom the first day, Epcot the second, and Magic Kingdom the third.  Magic Kingdom was so crowded that the other two parks seemed deserted.  All in all, Disney is a really great time, but an extreme amount of work with 4 and 2 year olds!

So, the reason I say "Phew........Disney" is because we are just now recovering 1 1/2 weeks later because both of the boys got this stomach bug right as we got home--guess there were some great germs on all those handrails--yuck!!

Okay........I feel this is becoming a pattern.

Once again, I sit here wondering where all my time has gone as I realize I haven't posted to my blog since New Year's Eve!  Wow!  Would you like to know where all the time went?  I was consumed with the boys--having to do everything for them and all the house stuff while Chris was deployed for 67 days--like they say on the bear hunt:  phew--we made it!!

Now that we have our family life back to normal we are in moving mode.  Our house is on the market to rent or sell, we are sorting, organizing, cleaning, donating our stuff and preparing to greet the packers on April 28th.  If all goes according to plan, we should be packed and loaded by May 1 and heading up to NJ shortly thereafter.  We are going to try to live on base since we'll only be there one year and we won't know about that until we get there.

I have also become obsessed with sewing purses using patterns and fabrics by Amy Butler.  I made 8 purses while Chris was gone!  I am also going to try to make some new rag type quilts for the boys beds--we're going to try and put them in the same bedroom up in NJ!  That should be interesting. 

I hope to do better at updating more regularly--sorry!  We'll keep you all posted on our new contact info when we get it.

My Cute December Boys

Christmas Pics

Michael's Bday Pics

These pictures go with my previous post so I won't add a lot of copy--enjoy!

Where have I been?????

Okay--sorry!  Has it really been two months since I posted to my blog--wow!!  I thought I'd get in a quick post before the year ends and update you all on what we've been doing the past couple of months.

We had a wonderful time trick-or-treating on Halloween with Michael's best buddy, Jacob Iannace.  Originally Michael was planning on being "Thomas the Tank Engine" and we had the costume.  I went to the store to purchase a costume for Cal and Michael saw the chicken costume and it was meant to be.  If I'd had a little more time, I would have tried to fashion some sort of "egg" costume for Cal, but the Woody worked out great for him--he even wore the hat for quite some time.  Of course, you can't really count on the weather to be even slightly cold here in October, so we were really surprised that Michael didn't pass out from heat stroke all bundled up in all the chicken fur (feathers) that comprised his costume.  Anyway--it was fun!

We traveled to three states during a two week period around Thanksgiving--NC, NJ, and AL.  We got to see almost our entire family on both sides and the kids had an absolute ball with their cousins.  After Thanksgiving,  Michael stayed at his Nana's house all my himself for a week.  They made a mansion of a gingerbread house, played on tractors, loaders, and concrete trucks, and of course, Michael got undivided attention and also a "yes" to practically everything he could come up with that he wanted to do.  That's what grandmothers are for, right?  It made for a difficult couple of days when he got home and had to share me with Cal and all the other household duties that make up my day--but we all recovered!!

We had Christmas at our house twice this year.  We celebrated with Chris's mom and dad the weekend before and then my parents, grandparents and aunt came down for Christmas.  Santa dropped off a big boy bike for Michael and a kitchen for Cal.  We had Michael's bday party the weekend before Christmas with a few friends--I can't believe I have a 4-year-old in my house!

Now we're looking forward to Cal's 2nd bday in January--he's decided he is a big boy now by starting to climb out of his crib and also climb on everything else.  So, we turned Cal's crib into a toddler bed the day after Christmas and he's good to go--he loves climbing in and laying his head on his pillow!

Hope everyone has a Happy New Year.  It's almost 10pm on New Year's Eve and I'm not even sure I'll make it until midnight :-)