Tara's Potty Adventures; Part 1

Tara woke up this morning completely dry. I took her to the bathroom but she didn't want to sit on the toilet...which is weird for her b/c she loves sitting on her new potty seat. I decided it was b/c she was hungry for breakfast. So I took her to the kitchen for breakfast. She ate and afterward she was still dry. So I took her back to the bathroom and got her on the toilet but then she changed her mind. I'm guessing she knew she had to pee and was just too scared. So I reluctantly took her off, I don't want to force her, and put her diaper back on. With in 5 minutes she had filled the diaper. I was hoping she would do it on the toilet w/out me making her. I really don't want to force her, I want it to be something she enjoys. Hopefully w/in the next few months she'll do it on her own. *fingers crossed*

Happy Mother's Day!

This is a day late but I thought I'd do it any way.
Jeff and I have the greatest moms anyone could ever ask for. We love them both, even though he still calls my mom "hey you" and I still call his mom, Rose.They both want to do so much for us and our children. I know they worry and pray for us and I just hope I can be a good mother to my children too like they have been to us. :) Jeff and I love you both!
Here are some pictures of our wonderful mothers...


Loving some time with Tara in Georgia


Cheezin' with Siah in Okinawa


Enjoying some vaca in Hawaii


Another great mother, Jeff's grandma :)


Snugglin' with Tara in Fulton

These moms will follow us anywhere, Oklahoma, Mississippi, the Azores, Okinawa, Hawaii, Georgia...and we love that. No matter how much it cost, they will get there to see us and of course the main reason...the grandchildren! :)
Happy Mother's Day!

Decisions

I've been thinking about homeschooling our boys this coming year. Well, I am already homeschooling Gaber, but Josiah goes to our church school. I really do love sending him and I do want Gaber to have that experience too, but then I want to try homeschooling both and see how it goes. Another reason is the cost. Our school is very inexpensive compared to most christian schools, but still we are a one income family so it takes quite a chunk out of our wallet each month. This coming year it will be almost too much with both boys enrolled. So...this week I have been praying about it and searching the web for curriculum's. I found one called Switched on Schoolhouse. (I actually think my sister-in-law told me about it a couple years ago). Well, I came across it the other day and really liked what I saw. I think Josiah would do good with it and even may enjoy it. For Gaber I'm thinking maybe ACE or abeka.
So that is one of my big decisions right now. One decision of ours was made last week when Jeff was accepted to be a Cadre. He started this Monday as an instructor at the MOB school on base. We have been praying and praying about which path he should take for months now. Well, this door opened up and the plus of it is we get to stay here for a couple more years. I love seeing prayers answered! So this was a big decision for us, because if he didn't get this or the other career he was hoping for, we may have gotten out. But now that he got this job we have decided to reenlist for another 4 years, which will take us to 12 years!
The last thing I have been thinking about is whether to start a very small home daycare to earn us some extra money. Like I said before, we are a one income family and so things are usually pretty tight. But now, with the thought of homeschooling, I'm not sure what I want to do. I'm trying to decide if I could handle babysitting another little one while teaching my boys. I think I could, but i guess I'd need to find a parent who wouldn't mind me being busy with my kids and theirs.
So, there are all my decisions. I need to decide about the boys soon b/c their book fee is due in one week at the school and it is non refundable, so I need to decide before then.
One last decision...I need to figure out why I have ants all over my desk! There is no food or drinks to attract them and I don't even see where they are coming from! I keep killing them with my finger but they keep coming back...time to get serious and spray!

April Pictures

Here are pictures from Six Flags, the aquarium, my parents visit and just hanging out around the house. The last picture of me and the kids is from Easter. :)

Visit

We had a great time with my parents this past week. It ended too fast, like always. Mom and I did a lot of shopping, we always do, Jeff and dad played wow together and we also did a lot of walking. Just about every evening we took the kids and the dog out for a nice walk around our housing area. Its pretty big so we enjoyed taking new paths each time. Gaber had fun running, Josiah enjoyed riding his bike and Tara relaxed as we pushed her in the stroller. :) And of course we made stops at the parks. The only down side to all of the great walking is I lost my nice sunglasses! We looked for them 3 times and they were never found. Pretty sure this woman who was only a couple minutes behind us found herself some nice free sunglasses!
Tara warmed up to my mom with in the first minute! Surprised me, that's for sure. She slowly came around to my dad, she would give him night kisses and a few hugs. She also shared his cereal with him, but as soon as he was out she took off! Josiah and Gaber really loved having them here. They were wondering when we would see them again. I don't think they understand that even though we are in the states, they are still a good distance away.
I'm hoping to drive to Missouri this summer to visit everyone for a couple weeks. My mom and I are already trying to work it out! :)
Keep us in your prayers as we are trying to figure out our next step in Jeff's career. It seems we have 3 different paths to take and so we are praying for God's guidance in this.
I'll try to post some pictures soon of my parents visit.

Atlanta

Last Monday and Tuesday we drove up to Atlanta with the kids. On Monday we went to Six Flags. It was a lot of fun, but about 1/2 our time was ate up with having Tara. Jeff would go stand in a line with Josiah while Tara, Gaber and I would wait for them to get back. We probably won't take her again until she is older. Even with that, we had a lot of fun. Josiah rode his 1st roller coaster ride, the Mind Bender! Jeff said it was hilarious! He looked over at Josiah as they approached the top of the first hill and Josiah's face had terror wrote all over it! (Jeff can demonstrate it for you sometime :) At the end of the ride Josiah grabbed his chest and said he wasn't riding any more roller coasters! For the main part of the day I stayed in the kid land watching the boys run from ride to ride. Tara even got to ride a couple with her brothers. I never thought I would spend so much time at kid rides while at a Six Flags park. I guess parenthood will do that to ya. :) Later that night we got a hotel room and took the kids swimming until about 10.
The next day we went to the aquarium and the children museum. The aquarium was a bit expensive for us and just not as good as we thought it would be. Not planning on going back. The children museum on the other hand was a blast! There was so much for all three of our kids to do...but poor Tara napped threw most of it. By the time she woke up she had only 30 minutes left to play before the closed. It was funny to see the difference in our boys here. Josiah pretty much stayed at one machine on the same controls the whole afternoon. Gaber on the other hand zipped around the building trying out just about everything! We do plan on going back to the museum, its called Imagine It. We'll probably make it an all day thing this time.
I'll try to get pictures up soon of our mini vacation. :)
All has been going well here. Jeff's sister had her baby last Monday! We have a new little nephew, Brody. He sure is cute too! We can't wait to get down to Florida to see him!
Had to take our van in today. The passenger side window got stuck down. Blah. It will cost us 300 some bucks to get it fixed. Yay. We could have paid just 85 dollars to have them put it up but Jeff wanted it working, I guess I agree. :) 300 dollars is a whole lotta green just to put a window up and down. Oh well.
My parents are coming down here on Thursday!!! I'm so excited! They will be staying until Tuesday. I wish they could stay longer, but I'll take what I can get! The boys are so excited about having mima and papa here. They want to show them their room and toys and yard and bathroom and everything. :)
I think I'm gonna lay down for a bit before I have to pick Josiah up from school. So, that's it for now.

Too Much Yellow!

It is allergy season here in Georgia. We knew this when Jeff started suffering with allergies a couple weeks ago. I thought maybe it was just from him being out in the field all week playing in the weeds. Surely his allergies will die down when he's been home for a couple days, but they didn't. Now I know why. Yesterday afternoon when I got in the van I saw yellow covering our van, and then noticed it was all over the roads, sidewalks and even in our house. Yep, it is pollen all over everything! No wonder Jeff is having such a hard time. Last night he washed our van and mountaineer. This morning we had a new covering of the yellow dust. I've never seen anything like it. Jeff had said he is allergic to Georgia. He was joking before, but now he's serious! The weather man said there will be no relief for the allergy sufferers until we get some rain, and there is no rain in site for a while. I do love the blue skies but for Jeff's sake I would love some rain right now!
Other than that, today is a good day. Jeff got the oil changed in our van, hadn't done that since we bought it in November. He is at the church right now doing a car wash with the teens. They are raising money for church camp. (Today was a good day for the car wash with the pollen all over everyone's cars!) Tonight we have a teen activity. Jeff is teaching them a new game, I forget the name. Tomorrow of course is Easter. Looking forward to a good Sunday in God's house. I get to teach the teen girls so I'm excited and nervous about that. I've only taught them twice before. We will have Easter dinner alone. We invited some people over but they all have plans to eat dinner with their parents, grandparents, cousins...what's up with that? Eating with family? Who does that? Oh yeah, people that live near family do that! ha ha. We've lived far away from our family for so long that we've forgotten that people actually do things with family on holidays. Overseas you celebrate the holidays with your friends from church...they are your family. But boy would I love to celebrate with our parents and siblings.
Anyways...
This coming week is Josiah's spring break!!!!! WoooooHOOOOOOOO! Can you see I'm excited? I love sleeping in and I love spending time with all 3 of my children. Jeff also took off work for the whole week...YaY!!!! So Monday we are driving up to Atlanta for a couple days. Our plans are to go to Six Flags, the aquarium and the children's museum. I'm so excited about this coming week. I sure hope we have a good safe time.
I will post some pictures next week of our fun time in Atlanta.
Hope you all have a blessed Easter weekend. Take some time out to remember why we have Easter. Why did Jesus die? Why did he rise from the dead?