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!!