Another Wonderful Week

Life is soo much better when Daddy's home. Not that we begrudge the work that he does, but we sure are glad to have him home to play with. See? Happy face!!

A little friend of ours turned one this week and since all we had to wrap her present with was Christmas Paper, we just flipped it over and decorated the blank side and mad our own. The kids REALLY like the stamping!

I love seeing this! I work really hard each week trying to find books for Jakob that would be interesting yet readable. This week's treasure find was the Dinosaur reader. He loved it! It's so much fun listening to him discover his readings and telling us all the cool facts he gleans from them.

Daddy's Back and Seaquarium!

We went to the Miami Seaquarium this week with Hazel's Coop. Jakob got to skip school and we had an awesome time. the shows were the best!
See that lady? Apparently I wasn't suppose to be taking Jakob's picture with these birds. After snapping a couple of times I realized she was talking to me and repeating over and over again, "You can't take pictures with these birds, please move on and take pictures with the birds farther in." Yeah I totally know where my kids get it from! ;-)

The best part of the week was the fact that Daddy came home! he brought us all little gifts from Puerto Rico. Hazel got this cute little summer dress....
both kids got little frogs...
And Jakob got a ship in a bottle! So much fun!
We are all settling back in with Daddy being home. We have adopted a new limbo status as Mike was informed that he would need to put in a dream sheet since he is advancing. We will know later if that actually means that we are transferring this summer.

I'mmm Baaaackk!

Ok wow yeah it's literally been FOREVER since I last wrote. So much has been going on and a lot has been hard to deal with, but this is not the post to get into that. Right now I wanna talk about the cool stuff we are into. And show off my beautiful kiddos.




They've gotten big huh? So beautiful a perfect mini me and mini Mike. They are growing up so fast I can't believe it!

Part of the reason I have been MIA with my posts is because my camera suffered a big boo boo and had to go to the Dr. Now that its back I can show you the types of things that we get into lately.
We have our school time at home. Hazel is soo smart and I am excited to have both my lovies home next year all the time!

We give Mommy "hairdo's". I really think this is her way of getting me back for brushing her curls.

We go to the Zoo and play!

And we go to Michael's and learn how to make H2O!!

As you can tell we have been into a lot of stuff here lately and loving every minute of it. I plan on keeping this blog for family members and such but I am starting another blog Confessions of a Coastie Wife. I plan on using that blog as a way to document and categorize the different things that are helpful as we homeschool, budget, and live life from post to post. Hope you all enjoy!!

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!!