Derby time!

Its Derby Time!  

This is Christian's Pinewood Derby Car.  We worked on it together and we are proud of how it came out.

I don't have any idea when the race is because I don't get much communication from anyone at Cub Scouts.  I sent a note with Christian this week for his den leader and gave him my email address and phone number so we'll see what happens.  I was really frustrated with the whole thing over the holidays.  We showed up both weeks for his meeting and no one was there.  Nobody told me that there wasn't a meeting...for two weeks.  Christian didn't get to participate in their holiday gift exchange because no one told me that he needed to bring a gift.  I really felt like it wasn't fair to Christian.  We are new to the whole Scouting thing and still learning.

Dominic called yesterday.  He was up at midnight there because he had to go pick up some of his guys that were coming in from their mission.  We didn't have much to talk about oddly enough.  I think that since we email each other several times per day sometimes, we don't have much to say when we talk.  It does seem odd though.  He did say that its warming up there but that it is still cold at night.  He got our package with the mattress pad.  He said that it was much more comfortable but he wasn't sure yet if it was going to help with his back pain.  We will have to wait and see I guess.  He ordered me an anniversary gift too.  It will be sent to the house so I'm excited to get that.  His birthday is on Monday.  I sent him a card with a picture of his gift inside.  I think he's going to be happy.

It is really cold this morning.  It was 25 degrees when we got up.  I am running out of firewood too.  I guess I will have to buy some more.  There are a bunch of people that sell firewood in the paper and they will deliver and stack it for me.

I made Mason's 12 month well baby check up yesterday.  It will be the week before his birthday.  I really cannot believe that he is already almost a year old.  So much has happened in his first year and I feel like he's still my baby.  He's getting ready to walk soon and is much more steady on his feet.  I don't know what to do for his birthday.  I would like to have a small get together but I just don't know yet.

I am going to dinner tonight with my friend Leslyn.  It has been a while since we've seen each other, so I thought it would be nice.  We will go while Christian is at Sylvan.  I'm looking forward to some adult conversation.

Is it my lucky day?

Okay, that's it!  I'm done!  I have had an eye infection that started in my left eye 6 days ago.  Two days ago it spread to my right eye.  I have been using Erythromycin because I have it and didn't have to go to the doctor to get it.  I had an eye infection when I was pregnant with Mason and since I was pregnant they wouldn't give me the drops.  Erythromycin is the nasty, goopy gel stuff that you use for babies and kids typically.  Anyhow, I have been using that only it hasn't been working.  I REALLY didn't want to have to go to the doctor but as of this morning, I had had enough.  I woke up with both eyes "glued" shut...again!  So I called the appointment line to get a same day appointment.  They had one at 8:40am which was fine, it just meant that I had to hurry.  We got to the clinic on base at 8:40 exactly.  So much for being 15 minutes early.  I get checked in and go to sit down.  About 20 seconds later I hear "Mike-us....Mike-us".  I'm thinking...honestly, is that her best rendition of my last name?  REDICULOUS!  Well apparently it was because when I went up to her and said "Macias?"  She said "Brianna?"  Yep, thats me.  And she had an attitude!  So we get back to the room, the boys are being great.  She takes all of my information, the doc comes in, asks me a few questions, looks in my eyes and sends me off to the pharmacy.  This is by far the most painful part of the whole thing.  In most cases we sit in the pharmacy for close to an hour.  Not this time.  We were in and out of the clinic with my eye drops in 20 minutes.  I never saw it coming, but I couldn't be happier.

A great day!

Hi all,

I got an early morning wake up call from Dominic this morning.  He called at about 7:40.  For some reason we got cut off and since that was his second call of the week, he couldn't call back.  We talked for maybe 10 minutes.  He said that he will be going on a mission tomorrow night and will be in Iraq for two days.  He's also hearing that he will get to go to Africa at the end of the month.  He sounds good and seems to be staying sane although he is easily annoyed by some people.  That hasn't changed :)

The boys were all still asleep when our phone call was abruptly ended so I decided to take a shower.  By the time I was done all of the boys were awake.  We got ready to go run a few errands.  I needed to get dog food and fish food, so we went to the pet store and Walmart which are right across the way from each other.  The other good thing was that the stores were quiet because most everyone (except us) was at church.  That made it much less stressful for me and the boys behaved themselves...this time.

I ordered all of the pictures that my sister took of the transformation that has taken place at my moms house.  It was almost 200 pictures.  I picked them up and a photo album to put them in.  When we got home Mason went down for a nap which turned out to be almost 3 hours.  That gave me so much time to get things done.  I was able to put all of those pictures in order then into the album.  What a change!  The house looks amazing!  I also did a couple loads of laundry.

I asked Dominic what was the most exciting thing he had done this week.  He said that he and another guy got to take pictures in front of one of Saddams palaces/compounds.  He said the AF has converted it into offices or something.  He also said that he got to eat at KFC and it tasted good.  He said "that is on the exciting list".

Dominic said that there is a medal for having 60 non-consecutive days in Iraq.  After his two days this next week he will have 11 so far.  He carries the Easter picture of the boys in his flight suit every time he flies and he carries an American flag in his backpack.

I am going to make a quick dinner tonight and finish up some laundry after the boys go to bed.  Sounds like a relaxing evening to me.

I must be crazy!

What was I thinking?  Taking the boys out to dinner, alone?  Ugh!  I should have known.

Yesterday when I picked Christian from school, he presented me with his Free Pizza coupon for Pizza Hut.  He earns things like this often because he reads so much.  They have to read either two chapter books or ten easy books per month.  Well, Christian often reads three chapter books per week!  So needless to say, he got a coupon for a free pizza.  Of course that meant he wanted to go that night.  I decided that since the coupon is only good for one month we should just do it and get it over and done and that way I couldn't forget about it.  I knew that it would be an experience but I was feeling optimistic.  After we picked Christian up from Sylvan we went to Pizza Hut.  We stood there waiting to get seated for maybe 6 minutes which by the way is more like 15 when you have a diaper bag loaded down with everyones toys and video games, juice cups and snacks in one arm and a twenty pound baby in the other...and the two big boys can't keep their hands off of each other and Ayden thinks he's a race car running in circles.  Yeah, I know.

So we finally get seated, thank goodness where no other patrons were seated.  I let Ayden and Christian sit next to each other because that is where they both sat to begin with.  Big mistake!  Ayden was on the open end of the booth, another big mistake.  He climbed all over the seat, squished Christian, climbed under the table, got out of the booth and ran into the booth next to us (which was empty).  All the while Christian is not helping the situation by hitting Ayden and egging him on.  I had had enough by that point and we didn't even order yet!  So I moved Ayden over next to me where I could be on top of his behavior.  He did fine after that.

Once we got our food, everything was fine.  The boys ate their pizzas and I had some pasta.  I couldn't wait to get out of there and back home.  Too bad you can't use those coupons for take out.

Such a nice voice

Dominic called today.  It is always so nice to get to talk to him, even if its only for a few minutes.  We caught up a little bit.  He said that TSgt B is supposed to be sending me some pictures today.  I hope so but that's what he said yesterday and she didn't do it then.  So we'll see.  We talked about going on vacation.  We have been planning on going on vacation together for a while.  We will go after he gets back.  We just have to decide where to go and what to do with the boys.  I think we should go to Alaska.  We can stay on base there and save big money on hotels although billeting isn't as nice as a real hotel would be.  Anyhow, Alaska is a place that I don't want to miss out on and Dominic wants to go there too.  I don't know, its just an option.  Its sort of strange though, I have no idea where to start for planning a vacation.  We've never done this before.  We are anxious to be able to go somewhere together.  We deserve it I think :)

Anyone have any good ideas?

Sylvan Report

I had my second meeting with Sylvan today.  Christian has completed 28 hours of tutoring with them.  He mastered all of the second grade skills and is now working on the third grade skills.  He has only mastered one skill so far.  The director expects that Christian will master two more skills between tonight and tomorrow night.  His progress has slowed on paper but at home and based on his progress report, he is doing amazingly well.  His math grade went from a 77 (C) to an 85 (B).  They started doing multiplication in school yesterday which he has already been doing at Sylvan, so he is one step ahead of the game which is great.  I am proud to see the accomplishments that he's made.

Kuwait Camel

This is "camel" 

From the mouth of babes

Yesterday was a good day.  Christian went back to school and had a good day.  I sent with him a letter to his teacher to inform her about the whole ADHD thing.  I didn't get a response which doesn't surprise me.  I don't get much feedback from her unless its negative.  I went thru Christians binder on Sunday to get it ready for school.  I found a thank you card that had been torn into about 6 or 8 pieces then taped back together.  I read what I could and it was a thank you card for the candy.  When Christian saw that I had it, he took it to go throw it away.  He's still upset about that whole thing.  I'm just not sure if I should talk to her about it or if I should just drop it.  The easy thing would be to just drop it for sure, I'm just not sure what she'll say.  I guess he ripped up the note in class and she made him tape it all back together.  She told him that it wasn't her fault because he just put the candy on her desk and didn't tell her what it was for, so she assumed it was for her.  It just seems to me that when you have a food assignment that would be what it was for.  I don't know.

I have another meeting at Sylvan tomorrow to check in on Christian's progress after another 12 hours of instruction.  I am anxious to hear how he's doing even though I KNOW he's doing amazing!  The other day he asked me if 5x5 was 25....uh yeah!  He gets it!  He totally gets this whole math thing now and I couldn't be more excited!

I was pulling a few things out of the fridge to make some dinner for the boys last night.  Ayden walks up and says "mom, you don't have a pee pee".  Oh great!  Well he's too young for that conversation so I quickly agreed and moved on.

We had our neighbor girl over to play over the weekend for a little while.  She and Christian were playing with playdough at the kitchen table and she was making food items with it.  Christian was making robots.  Well, she said something about making meatballs to put in her burrito and it made me chuckle to myself when Christian said to her "I'm pretty sure that you don't put meatballs in burritos".  That's my boy!

Time to move on?

My dad left this morning to drive back to California.  The boys and I are going to miss him.  Ayden especially.  He and Papa have a special bond.  I was sitting in my chair relaxing after I put the boys in bed and I all of the sudden missed having my dads company.

The boys and I just hung out at the house for most of the day today.  We ran a couple of errands later in the afternoon, nothing major.  I think we will go to Walmart tomorrow for a few things.  I need to get Christian new school supplies for the next half of the year.  

I've been thinking a lot about moving.  This house is great and its special because it is our first home however I am NOT emotionally attached to it.  Dominic on the other hand IS.  He would have a hard time moving because we have done a lot to our house.  We put new windows in, we updated the bathroom, painted all the rooms, built a deck, changed all the lighting fixtures...etc.  In my mind, those things just add to the value.  The fact is that we have outgrown this house.  We have a lot of furniture and every wall has something on it.  The house looks cluttered now and I don't like that.  Here's what we need:  at least 4 bedrooms, a dining room, two living areas, maybe a bigger garage or a small piece of land and a bigger kitchen for sure.  I am going to use this time while Dominic is away to make some improvements/updates to areas that I feel are going appeal to a buyer and hopefully I can convince Dominic when he gets back that we NEED a bigger house.  Now that we have no credit card debt we could probably qualify for a bigger loan too.  The homes here haven't lost value like they have back home.  I think the biggest problem is that unless we buy something that is newer, we will have to do some work.  It seems that people spend more money so they can drive a new car than on their homes here.  We had that problem when we were looking for a home when we got here.  It was a frustrating roller coaster of emotions that we were on.  Anyhow, we'll just see what happens.  There's no huge rush.

I'm going to hit the sack.  Mason is back in his crib tonight so hopefully he and I will both sleep good.

Only God knows what is to come in 2009!

Happy New Years!

Yesterday was a pretty good day.  We went to the mall so that we could go to the Cowboys Pro Shop.  They were having a sale so that was good.  We found a few things.

Then we went to JCPenneys to find a foam mattress pad for Dominic.  He called yesterday and said that his back has been hurting pretty bad.  The seats on the planes are basically jump seats.  They are just nylon straps, there is no cushion at all.  I am going to send him a cushion too.  He also said that the beds are awful.  I asked him if he wanted me to send him a mattress pad.  He seemed to think that might help.  So we found a nice one, Memory Foam.  

We got a package from Dominic yesterday too!  That was exciting.  He sent Ayden a big camel with a boonie hat on.  Mason got a little teddy bear with an AF shirt on.  Christian got two snowglobes one from Philly and the other from Ireland.  They are great.  He sent me two magnets.

We ate a good dinner last night then just settled in to wait until midnight.  I let Christian stay up, but Ayden was sent to bed at dinner.  He fell asleep around 8:30pm.  It was hard for me to stay awake until midnight...I really just wanted to go to bed.  We watched the re-run of the ball drop then went to bed.  Christian slept on the couch in front of the fire.

I got three emails from Dominic this morning.  One was really exciting!  Our friend Ben who has been deployed for several months is on his way home and came through the base where Dominic is.  Ben asked around and found Dominic at his desk.  Dominic said that he looks good and is glad to be on his way home.  He said they talked for about an hour and took a picture together.  It made my heart happy to see that they got to hang out for a bit.  How exciting!

One of the other emails was to say that he got my Christmas card (he still hasn't gotten our packages) and he got a card from Aunt Betty.  He said to tell her thank you!