Day 115

He's HOME!! Well, he's stateside at least! I arrived at Fort Bragg just after he did tonight and we've enjoyed just being together this evening. Sans kids. Awesome. I'm going to enjoy the next few days of togetherness and freedom so very much!!

Day 114

Last day, last day, LAST DAY!!! SOOO very excited! I planned on doing all sorts of fun activities with the kids today to make up for the fact that I'll be gone all week, but that quickly turned into me trying to get the house in order and letting the kids entertain themselves. It went OK at first. Maura volunteered to ride Bennett on the scooter--which he absolutely LOVED!! BUT, like always, playtime disintegrated into a game of chase, which always leads to tragedy. This time it was Bennett's eye. Poor baby!

I probably shouldn't be giving you a preview of coming attractions, but we were working hard this evening!

Ouch! He's going to have quite a shiner. I still think he looks handsome!

Day 113

113 days. It's been a long, long journey. Some days I felt like we might not make it to the end. Some days I was so tired and frustrated and angry and sad. Some days were full of happiness and joy. Through this whole journey, I have learned to lean more on God and trust in His perfect plan. I may not always feel like it's perfect, but He desires to love me and bless me and SOMEHOW this must fit in. I learned how much I depend and trust in YOU and how much of that trust needs to be transferred over to the Lord. I learned that I am a much better parent when I parent as part of a team. I get frustrated easily with the kids and there's no one around to tag out with. Some days it's not pretty and the kids tell me I hurt their feelings when I yell at them. Some days this makes me feel like a complete failure as a mom, but when I ask for their forgiveness and give hugs and kisses, I realize that this is a whole lot like how God feels about us. I disobey, God disciplines, I get my feelings hurt, then ask for and receive complete forgiveness. I only hope that I can model Christ for them. Now that you're winging your way back to us, I have so many hopes and dreams and desires for our family. I want us to be so much better, so much closer, so much more in love. You all are my greatest earthly gifts and I always want to treat you as such. I love you so very much.We are blessed, BLESSED!! I can't wait to lay my eyes on your handsome face on Tuesday. I love you!!

Day 112

Sometimes you just feel like a game night. Sometimes you even play by the rules. Sometimes you don't even cry when you land on the dog, or the bird or the "spill the basket."

...but sometimes you do.

Day 111

We celebrated Friday with some cookie baking, eating and movies tonight. Mmm, chocolate chips! The kids were VERY helpful--Tristan helped by cracking an egg all over the counter and floor. :)

Day 110

I just hung out at home tonight with my cheetah, kitty and little daddy.
We had cheetah hunts...

and barbecues once the gazelle was in the bag.

We had kitty naps.We had lots of lovin' on babies, which was cute and sweet and wild when he whipped the babies up into the air!

But he did pat his baby, sing her a song and send her off to dreamland. So sweet!

Day 109

Yesterday was...interesting. I got a call late in the afternoon from Mom asking me to hurry back home(I was shopping. :) Her neighbor had just called to inform her that a tornado had just touched down near their home. Mom rushed home to find complete devistation at the back of their property, a very worked up horse and absolutely no damage to their house and barn. We headed out today for a quick peek at the damage. The kids were VERY interested in all this and had a lot of tornado questions. The scene was very intimidating--the pictures don't do it justice.

Day 108

You asked for it, you got it! Maura's make believe creature is a Feathered Cheetah. Apparently this creature is not only the fastest land mammal, but it can fly too!! She's so creative. I challenged Tristan to come up with a make believe animal and basically got a lot of silly talk and no action. He's just not an arts and crafts kind of a guy!!

Day 107

We had a fun MLK day. I so enjoyed my four day weekend with the kids even though we didn't do very much. This morning, I took them swimming at the Pavilion. Mom and Alex met us there, so I wasn't completely off my rocker by attempting it! We swam for awhile while Bennett tried to drown himself and we finally froze and then headed to Steak and Shake. Man, those kids sure do like those shakes. I was so very, very good--taking only a tiny sip. I sure did want a shake! When we came home, Maura had a big idea about how to transform herself into a peacock. She came up with the design and structure all on her own. I was pretty impressed! She is definitely our beautiful peacock!

Day 106

Never a dull moment around the Allen household. Today we played pet shop, complete with bowls of cat food(Cheerios) and water for each of my new kittens Jewel, Rainbow and Fluffy. The kids loved it!

Then, we danced around in our underwear. Actually, that was just Bennett, who REALLY wanted to wear a pair of Tristan's skivies and was THRILLED when I put them on him. He wore them all evening!

Day 105

Today was a day for "Winter Tree" decorating at Grammy's house. They were actually Christmas trees bought at 75% off clearance and were lots of fun for the kids. We had a great day at Grammy and Pappap's house playing Pick up sticks, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys...basically all the old standbys of childhood.
Bennett clapped for himself every single time he put a cookie on the tree successfully. Hmm, overpraise much??

Maura, our artist.

Tristan, our engineer.

Bennett, our chipmunk with HUGE brown eyes!!

Day 104

SNOW DAY!! I wavered back and forth between really not wanting a snow day until you're here to share it with us and being excited about having an extra day to a three day weekend. It was a fun, semi relaxing sort of day. I mean as relaxing as getting up at 7, sharing my workout with two preschoolers, one of whom was glued to my legs, feeding pancakes for breakfast, cleaning up the sticky mess left by aforementioned preschooler when he dashed his plate to the floor, attempting a shower while all three kids were running around our room, making a loaf of banana bread with all three kids helping, gathering snow clothes for all three kids, resizing Tristan's ridiculously short snow pants, making sure everyone went pee-pee before shoving them into their clothes, having Bennett fall unmittened into the snow within the first five minutes of being outside, crying, wanting to be held and NOT put down, Tristan freaking out 15 minutes into our playtime because he discovered he was starving, mopping up melted snow from the JUST mopped floor, telling Tristan "no, we're eating leftover pizza for lunch and I'm NOT making you a sandwich, skyping with my honey with all kinds of crazy going on around us, putting on a movie for "quiet time" while I rocked Bennett and finally taking a nap myself, being jolted awake from my nap after 15 minutes by the honking of a bike horn(WHAT were we thinking???), drifting back off to sleep and being awakened by blood curdling screams, racing downstairs to find that Tristan hit Maura, turning off movie, with tears ensuing of the part of both children, sending Maura to her room because she chose that time to mouth off, cuddling with Tristan and reading all our new library books, cuddling with Tristan, Maura while Bennett crawls all over me and attempting to continue to read, preparing three kids plates, cups and silverware, getting three sets of hands washed, cajoling Maura to at least TRY the lasagna, finally bribing with the promise of strawberry shortcake, cleaning up, playing a few rousing rounds of "Mr. Scary Monster" with all three kids, bathing a tub full of crazy, getting everyone into jammies, having a dance party, brushing three sets of teeth, putting on a movie for the big kids, reading tons of books to Bennett(he did all the signs in the signing book), putting Bennett to bed, hearing thumps from our bedroom that indicated that someone was coming through the ceiling, turning movie off to the tears of both, painting toenails, reading bedtime stories and FINALLY getting the kids into bed kind of day can be! :) Still wish you were here??
I knew that I needed to get a photo of Bennett early on in our snow adventure because I knew he wouldn't last long. After all, it was 19 degrees!! He was pretty excited, initially, about the snow.

He wouldn't keep his gloves on, though, and he didn't like touching the snow barehanded, so when he got to the bottom of this slide, landing with his hands in the snow, he was pretty much done for the day. I held him for the remainder of the very short time we were outside.

Tristan and Maura were both very excited about the snow. Tristan asked me to get him this shovel out of the sandbox. Silly me--I thought it was for him to shovel snow. It was--into people's faces. Stinker.

Little Angel making an angel.I love this hat, but it drove him nuts coming down over his eyes.Fun, fun times. Too bad we were only out for a grand total of 15 minutes! Oh well, better luck next time when you will most likely be with us!!!

Day 103

I REALLY needed a little bit of luxury in my day, so despite the fact that it was A)Frigid, B)Snowing, and C)I hadn't seen Maura all day, I left the kids with a sitter and headed out for some ME time. I know you aren't going to care what my toes look like, but believe me when I say that it makes me feel just a wee bit better about myself!

Day 102

We took a trip to the library today, despite the nasty rain, so that we could dance, sing and play games at the Little Movers class. Alexandra was SO excited to see her cousins arrive(although 15 minutes late!) She came back for some playtime and she and Bennett enjoyed their books so much!

Day 101

All this warm weather lately has me thinking spring!! It was time to roll out some strawberry shortcake and the kids pigged out! Mmmm!

Day 100

It was a beautiful day today, perfect for some football, outdoor play, and curbside raiding(I pulled two strollers out of someone's trash. Aren't you excited!!). Tristan found his football tee inside and asked to be allowed to go outside to kick. He meticulously set up his tee, placed his football inside, backed WAY up, and...
THIS happened! Bennett the Menace strikes again. I kept telling Tristan that he had to be quick, but he still wanted to back halfway across the yard before kicking. Lets just say that the same scenario occurred more than once! :)

Our little terror at work! By the way, he's loving these froggy boots. I pulled them out today and he made the most unearthly croaking sound! Not sure how he knew they were frogs, but he KNEW! "IBBIT!"

Maura's report card actually came home on Friday, but I forgot to get a photo til I sent it back today. She got all M's and several smiley faces, especially when they were grading on sight words. So proud of my baby!!

Day 99

Sweet, lovable little stinker man. He's so independent, so tempermental that he always wants to do things for himself and gets MAD when you do them for him, but he's still just a baby at heart. He gets so sad when I yell at him and he very much still needs his cuddles. Love you so much Tristan Man!

Day 98

I asked Maura to go to her room while I read to Bennett and Tristan and put them to bed. When I got to her room, I found my little scholar getting her science on. She made herself a little study spot with her blanket, pulled out her anatomy poster and grabbed her science books. So sweet. I love that she's so very interested in science. I hope that her love of learning will carry on into her adult life and will stand her in good stead.