This week

We checked out a local gym with some friends.  We were hoping it would be a good PE option but I'm not sold; it was really hot in there and temps are only going up.  I don't understand why Yuma doesn't have good indoor activity options.

Laurel took the boys for a few hours so I could get my hair cut and a few errands run.  Eli made himself a bag for the day (sorry the picture is sideways).  I was impressed by his sewing and had to laugh at what he thought was necessary to pack. 

'Annie' is just a few weeks away and I caught a glimpse of them practicing on stage.  I am so excited that Alison gets this experience and she is loving every second of it.  

I think our table has had sewing stuff on it for the last month!  Alison's new thing is to listen to music on headphones while she works.  It cracks me up.

 

Super exciting things happened for Ben this week!  He turned over his position and...

 

 received his FMF pin!  You can't see it in this picture, but he's got some serious bling going on now.

 

 Alison and Eli both needed a little push in reading harder things (i.e. they have a tendency to settle for what is easy and quick), so I gave them a little incentive and a nice little vocabulary lesson on the word "incentive".  Eli earns $0.25 for every book he reads to me, so we sat for a long time reading a stack of books.  I wasn't complaining about having to sit and relax; definitely worth $4.00.

Eli and Colin set up their own picnic...in their pj's.

 

 

The White's came over for the afternoon.  Laurel and I have hit the jackpot with taking turns watching the kids.  It's a win, win.  The kids play so great together that it really gives us both a break.  Popcorn parties are a regular occurrence when they are here. 

It gave me so much time, that I finished two projects!  First, I recovered our couch pillows.

 

And made a measuring board that will last for many moves and many growth spurts.  The sticky one we have is barely hanging on after 2 moves and Alison doesn't fit on it anymore.  Plus, it only cost me $10 to make it myself instead of $60 off of Etsy :)

Best news of all, next week will be full of much more exciting news!

Sewing week

Sewing class is going well, I'm happy to report.  The girls started on a bag on Monday; the teacher told them it would take two weeks to finish, but Alison couldn't handle not completing it.  The teacher wouldn't let her jump ahead and she was set on having a bag to carry her script in to play practice this week, so she asked if she could make another bag on her own.  I told her that she could use some scrap material we had, but still had to do her school work.  Tuesday morning, she was at the sewing machine at 7 am to make her own bag before school!

Hello mini Ben.

I started a batch of bread and Eli worked on a piano lesson while Alison worked.

She loves ironing, but is really scared of the heat.

She finished this "level 3" project shortly after lunch and jumped right into her schoolwork.  I was a very proud mama.

School was finished, Alison was deciding what project to do next and Eli was pretending to be a bunny when he sat down at the sewing machine and said "I want to learn!".  He's asked to learn before but this time he was like "I'm not leaving until you teach me how to work this machine."  So I  gave him some scrap fabric and showed him the basics.  He caught on like a second mini Ben and was SO happy.  He just chattered on and on..."I love sewing.  This is so fun!  Now I can sew with Alison!  Maybe I could go to sewing club."

Alison got this fabric for a pillow but has quickly moved past "stage 1", so she passed the baton to Eli.  She taught him the ropes of cutting the fabric, sewing the lines, flipping it inside out and stuffing it.

He was hooked.

Anyone need a mini pillow?  We have 8,000.

Wednesday morning, 7 am, Alison and Eli were up asking to sew.  We were running out of scrapes and they were growing concerned about how are we going to get enough fabric for both of them to make projects...I never thought this would be a conversation at my house!  I let them each pick out a few 1/4 yard squares of fabric at Walmart ($0.97 is a great price for a 6 and 9 year old) and Alison helped Eli find an easy "snack bag" project.  She made a water bottle holder for her new bag.

 A dining room full of sewing materials and an afternoon spent helping my littles sew is not how I planned our time, but in a surprising way, I felt like it relaxed us all.

Thursday morning again, the kids were asking and asking and asking when they could sew.  Any spare moment they had, they were in the dining room planning and working.

Alison is not thrilled that Eli is treading in her territory but has been pretty gracious in teaching him some things.  I'm trying to convince her that it could be a good thing if this sewing thing sticks; he could be her helper in big projects.  Eli is pretty set though.  He said, "When I'm 7, I'm going to do level 2 projects and when I'm 8, I'm going to sew my own costumes."  When I reminded him that he turns 7 in just a few weeks, he said "Well I've been practicing for 2 days."  Alison informed me that I better watch out, because this summer she's going to go sew crazy.  I thought this week was sew crazy, so I am a little nervous.  Apparently we need a fabric line in our budget now.

Catching up

We went to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese.  A bonus of having homeschool friends=we went right when it opened on a Thursday and no one was there.  It made that place a little more bearable.  Jon had mentioned it was an "Army" party, so some of the kids dressed up.

We went to a 'coming home poster making' event.  I really have no interest in trying to hold up a poster and wrangle 3 kids and keep track of all of our belongings and try to find Ben in a sea of military men, but the kids thought it was fun and it's somewhat part of the process of preparing for Ben to come home.

 

I just let my kiddos draw whatever they wanted and held baby Aiden.  I met Alyssa right before the boys left (we got to sit next to each other at the ball) and Aiden was just a teeny tiny newborn.  We've hung out throughout deployment and it's been fun to watch this baby grow.  I am SO glad my kids are older!  Can you imagine if Ben was deployed when Alison was this age?  I would have died.  It's nice to just be the friend who jumps in and helps.

The temperature has jumped here and there have been some almost 100 days.  After play practice, we picked up some sherbet to cool us off.

Alison had a friend over and helped her make a pillow.  It was so cool to see her confident in what she's learned.

 

We tried a new Mexican restaurant.  Arizona Donut still wins for best carne asada in my books.

Post church snuggles:

Both Alison and Eli's math lessons called for making cookies.  Eli's was supposed to make apple cookies, which sounded gross to me, but he really wanted to try them.  I loved how he wanted to try something new, so we made them.  They actually were pretty good; they tasted almost like a mini apple pie.  You know it's getting hotter in AZ when shirts are back off in pictures.

Alison let me convince her to make chocolate peanut butter cookies instead of what her book called for.  YUM!  I wish math called for cookies more often! 

Things that got me through deployment

"Wow.  It seems like you're actually doing pretty good."
Words from our pastor, while eating dinner together.



There have been moments where I've wanted to meltdown, but for the most part, I have felt pretty good over this deployment.  What made this one different?

1.  Being able to talk to Ben.  It wasn't a lot, but just having some sort of contact with him every day made a HUGE difference in my world.

2.  Ben continued to handle our finances and bills.  It was just one small thing that was off my plate.  Thank you technology!  He even did our taxes!  Both deployments, our internet bill has suddenly stopped coming out automatically.  Last time it was a huge headache for me to try and fix it (since he was first on the account, they wouldn't talk to me), but this time he fixed in 2 seconds and all was fine.

3.  I continued to get up early in the morning before the kids.  This is tried and true in my life; my days go much better when I get up before the kids and have coffee and have some quiet time.  It was still true even when I was tired from flying solo...I just drank a little more coffee :)

4.  I took a little more time for myself.  I would literally run circles around our block, which I'm sure made the neighbors wonder about me, but it gave me a few quiet moments to myself.  I also signed up the kids for "parent's night out" at the Y and it gave me an evening to myself at least once a month.  I made an effort to get haircuts and a few pedicures and bought some new clothes; just little things to keep taking care of myself.

5.  The kids are older.  They are able to help with dishes and cleaning up the house (not always willingly, but they are able).  They can all shower and dress themselves.  Most of all, Alison is now able to help watch the boys while I'm working on something.

6.  I planned events throughout.  We had a "Falloween" and Valentine's Day party.  We went on day trips to San Diego twice and Phoenix once.  These little things gave us a project to work on and something we could anticipate and plan for that was closer than daddy coming home.

7. Maya.  Yes, having a dog helped me this time.  I have slept better and felt safer and enjoyed taking her for walks.  Moral of the story; get a dog.

8. Preparing meals ahead of time.  Weeks went much smoother when I would plan meals and prep as much as I could for the week on Saturdays.  Especially during our school weeks, it made our evening so much more enjoyable with most of dinner was already ready, I just needed to add sides.

9. Family coming to help. The timing of family visiting worked out perfectly.  Every time something broke, someone was here to help me fix it.  When I was just about to burn out on running things, they were here to swoop in.

10.  Friends.  Laurel would often invite us over for dinner or take the kids for an afternoon.  I think what made it awesome is, it was a blessing to her too because all our kids play so well together.  I didn't feel guilty or like I was a burden or she was just doing it to be nice.  She was also willing to take several crazy trips with me.

Meredith would often text me and tell me to bring the kids over and insisted on me taking each kid individually on dates, when they were really struggling with daddy being gone.  She brought Alison a calming CD of scripture music when she knew she was struggling to fall asleep (our kids handle stress by not sleeping).  She also came over for coffee every Thursday morning.  It was one hour a week I knew I could have an adult to talk to and it made a big difference in my world.

Julie and Andrea called every week and then flew all the way across the country at the point of the deployment when they knew there would be lull.

Jamie held my hand through lice.  I'm not sure I would have survived without her guidance and encouragement.


I think keeping busy and blogging will get me through the next month...we'll see if it works :)

Sewing Class

Not sewing related, but the boys came down this morning, dressed like this saying, "We're best buddies!" and I pray that they always are.

Tonight we had our first sewing class!

These are all girls that go to our little church!

Aveline, Lilly, Alison, Maddie, Alison and Aline

It seemed like a desire to learn to sew kept coming up in conversations between the girls.  The mom's would agree that they would like to do something and I finally decided it was time to make it happen.  Maddie's mom found this wonderful teacher and we've committed to Monday night sewing class for the next 2 months.

I don't think I could have dreamed up a more perfect situation.  The teacher homeschooled her kids and is now homeschooling her grandkids.  She's been sewing since she was 8 and has taught it for most of her adult life.  Tonight, she helped each of the girls become familiar with their machine and make a pin cushion.  She was great with the girls and was not even phased by the extra little boys and dog running around the house (we tried to keep them outside, but there was still some commotion).

3 other moms stayed and helped.  They took turns prepping food (we had dinner after class) and wrangling the boys and helping girls with sewing needs.  I'm pretty sure I would not have survived without them!

Alison was a little bored while the other girls set up their machines but was pretty proud that everyone called hers the "fancy" machine.  She's already claimed tomorrow "sewing day" and is ready to make 10,000 more pin cushions.  Anyone need a pin cushion?

After class, I had another one of those moments that it just made me happy to see our house full of friends.  Kids were sharing dinner and running around the backyard and the moms were all in the kitchen chatting.
Perk of having a greyhound: kids are entertained by just watching her run.

Pictures from Ben

Ben must have been cleaning out his phone this week, or finally had some down time and I got several pictures yesterday :)  He really should be telling the stories behind these pictures, but here's the little that I know.

He's been leading groups on trips out to town.  He's drinking Turkish coffee:

All I know about this picture is it looks like Ben got new shoes.

 

He's bringing home some spices!  I'm excited about that.

 He had to go on a hike early in the morning, wearing his 40lb backpack.  Somehow they're all smiles.

"Fire in the hole!"

We're in the final month and I can't wait to have pictures of Ben HOME!