In transition..

So we are transtitoning to our new location...which is fancy for I have packed most of our crap and now the kids are bored!! So we have been keeping ourselves busy with a few of the free events around Miami and a couple of playdates. Check it out!


We made a little Music at the History Museum...

Made some Plaster Caster Art at the Art Museum....
Showed off how we were "Too cool for School"....
Chilled with Cheetos and Friends...
And of course Marked all over ourselves while Mommy packed boxes!
Hazel has gotten REALLY artsy here lately and wants to color everything. She is naming shapes and colors and asking for me to point out words to read. All because she sees her brother do this!! LOVE IT!!! Unfortunately Hazel has officially been dubbed dangerous with crayons and markers as I have found evidence of her presence on the walls, floors, keyboards, and the boxes. More to come later!!

On our way to the allergist and the bottom fell out...

Ok last time I was on here, we were on our way to the allergist... literally I had blogged and was going to grab my purse and walk out the door. That is when I got THE PHONE CALL. It was from TN and I don't usually answer number I don't recognize on my cell but for some reason I did. It was our landlords. Calling to say they were going to sell the house, and not just put it on the market but short sell it, that we would go into a month to month lease with them but we were going to have to find somewhere else to live. AAAAHHHHH!!!!

Long Story Short we found out the Landlords were being shady and actually are in preforclosure, and have been pocketing our rent money instead of paying their mortgage. We employed the use of a realtor and found a house 3 days before Mike left for Cuba! Pending the Home Owner's Association's Approval, we move in August First. It's a bit smaller of a house but we are gainning the use of a pool and an excersise room!! YAY!! Pray for me and the kids as I am packing the house by myself. Mike is still deployed and will not be home until right before the move. I will post pictures of the new house as soon as we move in.

Our "problem" child

Last week we had a horrible scare here. Hazel woke up Monday morning with a little bit of a scratchy throat and a really low fever. She acted like she just didn't feel good but nothing extreemly abnormal so we were just gonna wait the day out. By mid morning she start to sound like she was having a little difficulty breathing so I whipped out my Vick's Baby Rub and went to town on her feet at her lung reflexes. She napped and seemed much happier and found a new dress in her closet and was willing to dance around and pose for some oh so cute pics....

I had tried to get her in to the Dr's office and couldn't because it wasn't the Dr's day to be in that office and they couldn't get her or her PA to come down and see Hazel (grrr). But since she was in such a great mood I figured she was comming out of it. After Mike got home I started worrying because she was sleeping so much and her breathing became a bit labored again. For those of you who know, I am obsessed with my daughter's ability to breathe because of our stint in the NICU. All of those fears that I have been able to control started flooding back and I was worried that eventually I would have to sleep and could not watch her to make sure she was ok. That's when we decided to just go to the Hospital to be on the safe side......

Well after being life flighted to Miami Children's Hospital, 2 1/2 days in the PICU and the rest in a "regular room" we are finally home with the diagnosis of CROUP!! I am skeptical of course because Hazel has had croup before but they treated her for the croup and it worked so that's all that matters. It was truly a terrifying experience to watch Hazel deteriorate so quickly. He chest started to retract very deeply and then she just went limp for about 20 minutes. It's crazy though because this came on within 24hrs and 24hrs later she was eating and singing the theme sone to The Last Unicorn.

Thankfully Jakob was in wonderful hands between our church family and my mommy's group friends. They kept him entertained and he was able to spend the night at their houses for much anticipated sleepovers!! Hopefully this is the last hospital visit we will have for a long while, we are off to the allergist today to rule out any irritants.

EEEK I have gotten behind again!!

We have not fallen off the face of the planet, we have just been busy with life. We have all been just pursuing our own interests these past few weeks and unfortunately there is not a lot of photo documentation on this because of the fact that my camera officially crapped out. I have a new one now (thank goodness) and hopefully will soon provide you all with tons of pictures to satisfy seeing the kiddos.

Jakob has been really exploring the world of responsibility these past few weeks. He is constantly wanting to try different things around the house that are helpful. So far he has learned to make his own peanut butter sandwich (cleaning it up is still not mastered but oh well), to unload the dishwasher (which he has now taken on himself to do without being asked to), and reading to his sister every evening. I am in love with how he reads to Hazel! He chooses books he has heard over and over again so that he can read them quicker, but he does actually read them because when he gets to a word he doesn't remember or recognize he spells it for me to tell him. It is great reading practice for him, bonding time for the both of them, and a nice pause for me to get last minute bedtime things in order.

Hazel has been a total nut here lately. She teeters between baby and big girl almost daily in her speech and manners. Potty trainning is going well and has its good days and bad. She has taken to having a preference to what she wants to wear and often is the one to pick out her clothes her shoes and her hair accessories (is this truly MY child? lol). She is a complete and total Daddy's girl when he is here, but a brother's girl when he is not. Her biggest development this past week is the removal of the crib railing and the addition of a little bed rail. So now she is sleeping in her bed "big girl style" and is doing pretty well.

Mike has been working his heart out with this patrol. Over the past few weeks he was home MAYBE for a 18 hour period (including sleep) a week. This has been hard for him and all of us since we miss him so much and when he is home he really needs to sleep but wants to stay up and be with us. Thankfully this patrol is over and he has a couple of weeks to recover and wait for the results from May's service wide which will determine whether or not he advances this year.

Me, well I have been doing the usual home stuff. I decided to quit smoking and as of right now I am almost three weeks smoke free!! Unfortunately I have gained some weight with it, but am confident that I will knock it off all in good time. It frustrates me because I have pretty much undone most of the work I have accomplished being down here, but I would rather die of a heart attack than of cancer so. (I know real great way of looking at it right?) I'm still going to school and all of that is going well and I am looking forward to accomplishing this degree.. FINALLY!

Well that's us in a nutshell, I will post some pics soon and continue to catch you all up on our lives. Love!!

My kids are so great!!

Yeah so the more I am at home with my kids the more I love them!! We are really starting to embrace the "the world is your instructor" attitude and it seems to work well for Jakob. Hazel just does what everyone around her does, and things seem to come to her easy. Jakbo suprised me though this afternoon as we snuck out for some Little Ceasar's Pizza (it's a $5 dinner!!), we commented on how he wished we could get the square pizza that they have advertised there. I told him that that kind of pizza was more expensive and cost more money so we weren't going to get it. He then asked me why things that are really good cost more money than just the good stuff.

I hesitated because I wanted to completely dive right into supply and demand but was worried that it would fly right over his head. We have been having some issues with Math this week, so I didn't want to frustrate him. I tried to simplify things as much as possible but in the end went back and explained the idea of supply and demand. When I stopped trying to make it simple enough for him he really understood what I was saying! After that he was done and went back to listening to the radio.

And speaking of radio, I must say I am totally impressed with Jakob and Hazel's taste in music. Jakob is a total top 40 fan, but loves to let me have "my turn" with the radio and jam to Queen, Eagles, and Pink Floyd! I know my mom would be proud, me I am just amused at how versatile he is.

Ok so I did it

Well not the grand extravagant way I intended, but I started a blog for us Coastie Spouses. Hopefully as we gather more and more positive posts and I become a bit more computer savvy, I will transfer this over to a website/blog to better organize things. But anyways www.coastiewivescorner.blogspot.com is underway!! Spread the word!!

The Scheme and The Dream

Ok so I have been toying with this idea for a while now and finally I just have to do it. I want to create a website for the Coastie Wives!! Ok gotta give a little background....

One thing that Mike told me over and over agin at our first unit together was "It's all what you make of it." He was of course referring to my constant fear of being transferred ANYWHERE other than near family. I must admit I brushed these words off quite a bit until we received orders to MIAMI, FL!!! In my world, that is the end of the earth!! Not really but I haven't traveled much at all. We found a house, moved in and just had to put all of our trust in God that everything would work out alright as this was to be our first boat station as a family. Obviously we are doing great as we have made some wonderful friends. Unfortunately the same is not to be said of the rest of our unit.

Mike comes home almost every rotation telling me how so in so's wife hates it here. There's nothing here, it's too hot blah blah blah. We are all spread out over the area so it's not really feasable for us to mingle on a regular basis like back in NC (I miss you girls!!!). Basically from what I can see these women/families/men have not been put in touch with anything in the area that interests them and they feel alone and miserable. So much that one family is completely leaving the Coast Guard!!!

As there was no welcoming wagon for me either I can completely understand how daunting moving to a new area can be, which is why I want to start a website for all us Coasties to come together and leave positive info from different stations and mingle with others so that we all feel more comfortable when moving to a new area. This is what I want, but I am stumped on how to accomplish it. My ideas and wants WAY surpass my computer abilities so I am having to take it slow and figure it out. Any help would be appreciated!!!

Ha!! I FINALLY figured it out!!

So I finally figured out how to change my background after some blogstalking!! Now I just have to get a better pictue of me and my family!! Yay for midnight ramblings!!!

More Cake and a new Ju Jitsu Student

Ok Thursday was Jakob's Birthday and we really spent it doing nothing. Nice relaxing day, mainly because I had a slight case of insomnia the night before and I was spent. So Friday I made it up to Jakbo by making another cake. I still had strawberries from our organic co-op, so we went for a huge strawberry shortcake. It turned out great! I made it completely from scratch, even the whipped cream. After that we had a nice evening of eating cake and watching The Last Unicorn. Not a bad way to spend the night right?

Jakob got a new Gi for his birthday from Ganny and Papaw. His Sensai said it seemed to make him run faster! LOL Well as they were getting ready for testing Hazel decided to join the class. Sensai is really great about letting Hazel participate and she pretty much stuck with the excersises for a while. She can sort of count to ten in Japanese and loves to try and do the punches and kicks. Needless to say I think we are leaning towards becoming a total Ju Jitsu family!

My boy turned 7!!!

Last Sunday we had Jakob's Birthday party. It was a potluck party and I had a lot of kids there who had May Birthdays, so we took advantage of us all being together, and gave them their presents then as well. It worked out great because everyone was excited about getting something and I don't have to remember to get anymore presents this month!!! I had this great idea that i was going to make a dino cake for Jakob. It was suppose to be a stegasaurus. Hazel called it an alligator. I think it's cute. Jakob liked it, and that's all that mattered.

Jakob's Birthday Climb

Jakob had such a fun time climbing before we decided to take him back and let him have another go at it. This time he brought his friend George, and they both climbed their little hearts out for an hour! Mike took them this time since I was at home getting ready for the party and making Jakob's Birthday cake (pictures to come). But he came home telling me of how the belay commented on how Jakob was a natural, which of course makes you feel proud. I absolutely loved the last picture of them working together to figure it out!

George Getting a little help. This guy was amazing! He really worked with the kids.

Miami Goin Green Event

This was a festival dedicated to all things "Green". I say that but it was kinda interesting to see what a money making theme "Going Green" can be. Personally I like to take the simpler approach (ie: Borax cleans everything!!), but it was fun none the less. There was some fun things for the kids to do and it was a beautiful day, so why not right?

Jakob holding a snake at the Science exhibit.

Standing in front of a display for a water bottle filter (the ppl to the left were arranging water bottles to show how many would equal one filter in their special water bottle.

Awesome sculpture there at the park. And yes Jakob recognized that he was lying over a Manatee!

Homeschooling at it's finest

So I must admit I have become EXTREMELY relaxed when it comes to "teaching" Jakob. Sometimes I feel as though I am just being lazy and then days come like this one where I would have missed this wonderful opportunity to see his thought process progress and an ultimate lightbulb moment happen for him. Here's the story:

This was a Thursday and we had been going full blast all week long with playdates, bootcamp, Ju Jitsu, and miserably trying to keep the house up. I had officially declared this our "lazy day" which basically meant we were not going anywhere.

Since bathrooms are Jakob's chore I though I would make a game out of my tile in the shower being in desperate need of a scrub, so we talked about making our own volcanoes. We made one in a glass in the kitchen, which he thought was the coolest thing. Next I told him that he could make a volcano in the shower and use the bubbles to clean. I was shocked he went for it. He stayed in the shower for about 15 min scrubbing with a toothbrush and making little volcanoes everywhere (my shower is super clean now thanks to him!!).

After that we had a discussion about volcanoes and dinosaurs and why dinosaurs lived in dino land (which we re named as "Long before I was born time"). He was having a little trouble understanding the part about rocks getting so hot that they melted so I took him to the computer and showed him pictures and videos of volcanoes. We then visited documentaries on Pompeii and there he understood the process of fossilization when it comes to volcanoes.

Needless to say I was having a pretty proud mama moment. But it got better.

He then asked for some paper so that he could draw pictures to show Mike when he got home how he learned to make a volcano. He put them in chronological order and numbered them so Mike would understand. Afterwards he and Hazel went outside to let the puppy pee and I gave them some chalk to doodle with. Jakob proceeded to draw in detail everysingle type of volcano we had seen on the computer. He even drew pictures of the "mummies" of Pompeii!! I was so impressed. He finished off his explorations with his own photography seeion where he took pictures of his art with his camera.

Now all of this seems simple and I know he would learn relatively the same things in a classroom, but I felt so honored to not have to give up that moment. I feel like I missed so much when he was a baby and now I don't have to give up some of his firsts anymore.




Drawing the cloud blasts

Taking his own pictures

Posing next to his art.

I really wished I could have gotten some better pics of his drawings but everytime Hazel sees the camera she has a fit trying to get it. Ahh the joys of being Two I guess.

Earth Day Picnic

First Off let me tell you how much I LOVE having my camera back. Although I am not the best photographer in the world by any means I absolutely have to have a way to snap our life as it happens. On this day we went and met up with some friends from another Meet Up group that I belong to. It was the Organizer's birthday and in an effort to raise $$ for the cost of the group and a new revolutionary project they have started (more to come on that but you can go to www.birthgirlz.com to check it out) everyone got together and had a picnic and donated goods to raffle off. It was a WONDERFUL time! The kids played, I got to do yoga in the park, and of course we ate some really good food with some awesome people. All in all a pretty awesome day!

Jakob Chowin down b4 rushing back out to play!

Hazel had her eye on these super cute wool covered soaps that one of the moms donated and was eyeing them the whole time she was explaining how she made them.

Still eyeing the soaps, so I had to enter the raffle and win her one! We scored a BEAUTIFUL purple one with lavendar scents!

Yes we have a new puppy!

Her name is Neela. She is a mut about 16 wks old. Other than chewing on everything in sight she is the sweetest thing ever!

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