Our new puppy, Pumpkin!!!

So just when I thought my life was getting a little more organized, Bethany was sleeping a little better at night, Grace is finally potty trained, in comes our little Pumpkin! We were not really wanting to get a dog at this point but circumstances presented itself and here she is!!!! She's really adorable and the kids love her. Hopefully we'll have better luck with her than other previous dogs!!!!

Look what I found today!!!!

Fall is here!!!

I'm so glad that October has come. I love cool, crisp air, apple pie and pumpkin patches. Sweatshirt weather and football season is the best!!!! Of course I am reminded of how HOT I am going to be in Singapore!!!!!

We are in full swing with school and Fall activities. Kyle is loving school and doing very well in all of his classes. He has a very cool math teacher (his worst subject) who he loves. She talks to him about her love of snowboarding, skiing, etc and Kyle just loves that she has a nose ring. Hey whatever works, right? His math grade has greatly improved since joining her class!

Grace loves preschool and is learning a lot. The other day she was in her room counting to ten in spanish!!! I was pretty impressed. She loves to color, draw, and sort things. She is still so very sweet and is such a joy to be around!

Bethany hangs with me most days, although I have her in a mom's morning out on Friday's so those are the days I have all the kids in school at one time. I have to say, most Friday's I don't know what to do with myself. Bethany loves to play outside and mostly pick on her big sister!!! She may be smaller but she just loves to annoy and antagonize Grace.....stealing and hiding Grace's toys, shutting the tv off when Grace is watching something, drinking from Grace's sippy cup (why that is appealing I have no idea...both of the girls cups have the same exact juice in them, just different color cups.....I guess the forbidden does taste better). She's really very sweet but definitely has a mischievous side!

Darin will begin his workups for his new ship this Fall with a deployment looming ahead in January. We are hoping they allow him off the ship a few weeks early to return home to prepare for our summer departure for Singapore. We hope he will be able to come home in May as opposed to June to give us some time to prepare for an early July departure. We'll see if it works out! Please pray as we go into this deployment! It's Darin's fifth deployment in six years and he's tired of leaving the family! I am not to thrilled about the single parent thing either!!!! We know we are where God wants us to be but it's not always easy. In Him we find strength!

This is quite long so I'll stop for now!!! Love you all! Lori

First Day of School

Three years in a row
Yesterday was Kyle's first day of fifth grade. He has three different teachers and seems to like them all. He came home excited and did his homework right away!!! That's a good sign =) We have accomplished a huge feat in our family by staying in one place for three school years in a row! We are so happy Kyle gets to finish out elementary school in the same school he's been for the past two years!!!!

Grace tackles Preschool
Grace had her first day of preschool at a local church here in Chesapeake. I was a little worried because when talking about going to school she kept telling me not to leave her so I was prepared for the worst. But this morning she woke up and was very excited to fill her lunch box with goodies to take to school. Her good friend Benjamin is in her class so that helped ease her into a new environment.

While the Cats away
And so with brother and sister off to school, Bethany had the run of the house!!! Here you can see her enjoying her sister's coveted bicycle!!! She had a blast this morning having the house and mom all to herself!!!

My inexperience shines through

So I guess my last post shows my lack of experience in blogging. As you can see from the previous post, I can't seem to navigate this website to change symbols into letters. I have given up after an hour of trying to fix it....what I said in the post was not all that important anyway =) Just a summary of our summer.
I'll be posting pics of the kids first day of school tomorrow. Kyle's first day of 5th grade was today and he came home happy and excited for the new year. Grace has her first day of preschool tomorrow. I'm not sure who will cry more, her or myself! I'll let you know.

Summer Fun

We have had an eventful and full summer with lots of visits from family and friends. We started the summer with Darin heading off to Thailand for two weeks. He enjoyed the time he got to spend with his dad, brother and mom while in Bangkok. He even caught up with some high school friends while there. Later in the summer we had Vangie, Niccola and Mari come for a great visit. We did all kinds of things including touring Williamsburg, Yorktown (okay, to be honest Vangie took Kyle and Niccola and I vegged at home with the girls), Busch Gardens, VA Beach, museums, and the list goes on and on. After that, we went up to Pa for a quick visit and was able to see Erik and Darcie's new house (which was beautiful) and also got to see my sister and her family at Hershey Park for the day! All in all it was a lot of fun. Kind of a let down once all of our activities and visitors left!

We are now gearing up for the beginning of the school year. Kyle will be going into the fifth grade. He is finishing up with his ice hockey class just in time to start fall soccer. Grace will be going to three day a week preschool at a local church near our home. I think she is going to love it and learn a lot. Bethany, I think, is going to enjoy the run of the house while both siblings are at school. Not to mention all of mom's attention.

Darin will be deploying again sometime this winter. Please begin to pray for our family. He is really dreading another deployment and I don't know how to face another six months as a single parent. (we think his float will actually be only 4-5 months which will be a huge answer to prayer if it happens as they say it will) After he returns from his deployment it will be time for us to PCS again (move assignments for all non military readers) so we'll see what the Lord has in store. I'll post more on that later!!! (see the bottom of the blog for more pics of the kids summer outings)

Our Little Houdini

So our adorable, sweet Bethany has been giving us fits lately. This morning I put her in her crib for a morning nap and went to take a quick shower. About five minutes later I came out of my room and went to check on her. As I peeked into her crib, my heart began to race as I noticed her blanket all balled up in the corner...with no Bethany to be found. I raced throughout the house and found her quietly playing in the living room!!!! This afternoon she proceeded to bruise herself up pretty good....falling into a chair at the chinese restaurant, running into the post of the stairs in the kitchen, poking herself in the eye with a slightly pointed toy, just to name a few. Need we mention she can squeeze her arms out of her carseat no matter how tight we make the straps??? Don't let the dress fool you, she's a bruiser!!!!! (we'll totally leave out the part where she slapped daddy's cheek today for absolutely no reason at all)

On another note, we have been told we won't be needed in Singapore any time soon. Which means we will stay on our original schedule of moving next summer, 2009. But, with that comes yet another deployment. Looks like we will be facing another deployment in January. We'll think about that another day!!!!

My version of Footprints in the Sand

I have a whole new view of the Footprints in the Sand poem. As you see, Grace had a great time today playing Chef. She was in her room so long I had to keep checking on her to make sure everything was on the up and up. Obviously I gave her to much time by herself. She comes running out to me and says "mommy, come look. I made paw prints like Blue (Blues Clues). As I round the corner into the living room I see she has indeed made prints from the living room, down the hall, and into her bedroom. No not of sand, but poop!!! Since we have just potty trained she had been going "Commando" this afternoon...obviously an error in judgment on my part! After I cleaned the trail of poop, all the while trying to keep my one year old from stepping in it, I thought how nice it would be to be a "work out of the house" mom!!!! Not that I would really want to at this time in my kids life, but it did seem awfully tempting!!!!
Hope I gave you a laugh! Love you all!

A Day At the Beach

With Darin over in Thailand for two weeks, my dad decided to come visit us in Va. Today we ventured out with the three kids and one of Kyle's friends to Sandbridge Beach. The kids all loved the water. Bethany had a blast in the waves. Kyle and Brandon were very gracious to let Grace build a sand castle with them. Then we went to Pungo Pizza for lunch. We had a great day!

Official Start to the Summer

We have just finished our first week of summer vacation and I think it's off to a great start. We had all three kids in Vacation Bible School at our Church, Deep Creek Baptist Church. Grace especially loved the praise music and learning all the motions to the songs. Kyle enjoyed the competitions throughout the week and was glad to find a few kids on his "team" from school and soccer. Bethany did well in the nursery while I helped with the opening rally!
Darin is off for an impromptu trip to Thailand for two weeks so pray all of his travels are safe and no problems arise! He has not seen his dad in two years so he is very excited to go!
Hoping my kids aren't bored to tears this week after such a hectic schedule last week!!!

Just beginning!!!!!

I have to admit I shyed away from blogging for a long time thinking how self indulgent it would be to devote an entire website to talk about myself and my family. After all, is anyone that interested really? But as I viewed my friends blogs and researched it (minimally), I found it might be a really good way to keep in touch with family and friends located all over the world. Since Darin is in the military we move around almost every two years. Our most current news is that it looks like we will be moving to Singapore in the next few months. So I thought this might be the perfect time to enter the land of blogging. So, be patient. I'm new to all this!!!