1. Around 6:30am this morning I received a text from Chris saying they were departing Fort Polk!!! Let the bus ride begin, thank God!! That should-- hopefully-- put him home sometime tomorrow afternoon!
2. The county cancelled school! For the 4th day in a row. It's a bit unbelievable, isn't it?! This is turning out to be a mid-school year vacation for them. Certainly they're going to have to make this week up somewhere in the remaining months of school. I've heard the kids will now go to school on Monday of President's Weekend in Feb (originally scheduled to be a long weekend). I've also heard mention of extending the school day, although that seems awfully hard on all parties involved. Maybe they'll end up going to school longer in June. We'll see…
So in related news... I'm pretty much TAPPED OUT of ideas of things to do with the boys all day long… and all of the things I need and want to do (a big grocery shopping run, a hair appt for today I now need to reschedule, lovely bathroom cleanings) is made so much harder with all three helpers at home.
Chris is currently stuck at Fort Polk, Louisiana (with about 700 other soldiers) because of weather conditions. And by "weather conditions," I mean the 3 inches of snow and ice the South received. But if you've turned on the news any time over the last few days, you've seen how completely crazy it's been down here with all of the school closings, road blockages, highway accidents, and deserted cars. It's NUTS.
The chartered buses started bringing soldiers back from Ft. Polk on Tuesday. The first two movements of buses finally reached Fort Bragg on Wednesday and early this morning. Thank God. And we always knew Chris would be on the last bus out… but it's a 20 HOUR bus ride, without traffic. And now the buses want out of their contract because of the long drives, weather conditions, etc. Which leaves Chris-- and oh by the way, 700 soldiers-- maybe without a means of getting home.
I'm sorry. WHAT?????
I want to scream. I'm pretty certain Chris wants to scream. He likens Polk, which has completely shut down due to the weather, as "a prison, babe. This place is like a prison."
Do these bus drivers know he is leaving for Afghanistan in about 2 weeks? He was supposed to be home today! He was supposed to be hanging out with me and the boys, enjoying a four-day weekend with us. Instead, we're not even sure he'll leave tomorrow. For the 20+ hour bus ride. Which means he'll miss most of another weekend. And James's basketball game and Henry's basketball camp.
And I already know what I'll hear… "I know I should have off, babe, but I can't. We're leaving in X days and there are things I just HAVE to do before then." Which I get. I get it. But that means we'll miss out on these supposed "days off."
I don't usually complain about Army stuff. But this just sucks.
I miss him. And the boys miss him a lot.
In the meantime, the boys are enjoying their 3rd snow day in a row (ahhh!) and I'm doing my best to do the same.
Fingers crossed for willing bus drivers, safe roads, and sunshine to melt those "treacherous" 2 inches! ;)
Naturally the boys wanted to go play outside immediately upon waking. Lucky for me, I was able to hold them off until about 10am. Putting everyone's snow clothes on was a special treat..
Henry was the only one who didn't look like he was going to hurt me...
All of the kids in the neighborhood were out playing!
The only hill in our neighborhood happens to be Mr. Mike's driveway...
Ava enjoying snow :)
Pete refused to wear his winter coat.
Naturally.
How many kids can fit on one sled?
At least two!
Here is a video clip of Pete sledding and the kids playing…
Lucky for us the county just cancelled school for tomorrow again. And Chris is stranded in Louisiana. Deep breaths…
The boys got off of school yesterday for the Blizzard of 2014.
Right.
So I did what I always do when I don't know what to do with everyone.
I put Peter in the bath. Three times.
And then we dug out a bunch of art supplies for Pete and Henry to get creative with. Peter found an old box of letter flashcards in one of our art boxes and totally surprised me by knowing about half of his letters!! Pete certainly doesn't get them all correct but I didn't realize he knew any. (Let's blame/credit "third-child-learns-by-osmosis-not-like-1st-and-2nd-kids-did-with-individual-learning-time." ) Pretty darn good for a not-even-three-year-old though...
So… that took us to 8:36am. I looked in the cupboards, pulled out a bunch of ingredients, and started baking. I must have been desperate because I am really not a good baker. I much prefer "cooking" over "baking."
First up, banana oatmeal granola bars my friend, Allison, posted on Facebook:
Yikes. These didn't turn out very well in my opinion.
The banana in them made them too mushy. :(
Then… blueberry muffins…
A standard. The boys and their friends ate
them up in a few minutes.
Then, "best chocolate chip cookies" (as proclaimed by almost 6,000 Allrecipes.com reviews). They didn't disappoint. Here is the recipe if you're interested: A Must Try!
I baked about 1/4 of the batter on the spot. They were
devoured! Then I did what my friend, Krissy, told me she does.
I balled individual servings up and froze them in a ziploc container. Now
all I have to do is take a few balls of dough out at a time to bake whenever
we want homemade chocolate chip cookies!
I didn't see one drop of snow all day yesterday but over night, we got about 2-3 inches. The county called off school (for today) around lunchtime yesterday so the boys are excited for a day of sledding (although we have no sleds anymore), snowball fights, and snowman-making. I see lots of wet, cold socks, mittens, and people in my future. :)
to my glory days. That's what "roller skating" with the boys yesterday did-- it brought me right back to being 8 years old at the Roller Rink in PG county, skating to Bon Jovi! Man, was that fun as a kid! Now I put "roller skating" in quotes because my poor children never actually skated. Instead, they (for lack of a better word and completely-inappropriate-but-true) ATE SHIT for the entire time their skates were on.
Here the boys are at the beginning of the party, pre-skates and full of optimism...
Look at that joyful laugh...
And then the skates went on and BAM! They dropped like flies. That's James and one of his classmates, Gabby, all tangled up. She was as bad as the boys were...
Henry stands...
…and falls.
I have to admit, the boys were great sports about it. They laughed the entire time even when they kept falling.
Peter had the skates on for about 5 minutes and then declared that he just wanted to watch. He's no dummy.
Henry and the birthday girl, Jessica...
Poor James was just a HOT MESS out there. I was genuinely afraid he was going to crack a knee or elbow the way he kept falling so hard...
Smart Pete…
Henry taking a breather from the pain...
Here are James and Nicolas, trying to make their way around the rink once. It was a stitch watching them!
Although it was fun (and funny), it left me feeling like I usually do when Chris is gone and I'm on an adventure with the boys-- like I wish I had two more sets of hands. I think the boys would have had more fun if I could have taken them each out individually to really practice. Of course my skating skills are very rusty (but I never fell and managed to have fun going around a few times solo!) and James preferred to be with Nico, Henry's bottom was sore, and Peter seemed overwhelmed by the lights and music and speed of some of the skaters (not to mention a sore bottom!).
Here's a video towards the end of the "skating period" (James, Henry, and Nicolas retired their skates right after I filmed this and ran around in their stable tennis shoes for the rest of the party).
James holds on for dear life, Nicolas goes down hard, Cortney tries unsuccessfully to convince Nicolas to go around the rink again...
Doesn't this scene look so classically 1985? Boys and girls hanging out at the Roller Rink...
I can't imagine why we'd go back again but it sure made for an entertaining Sunday afternoon!
It's hard to believe we're already half way through another school year. On Friday, James and Henry brought home their second quarter report cards. The boys continue to do very well and we are so very proud of them. To celebrate, the boys and I went out to dinner at our favorite kid-friendly restaurant in town, Casual Jacks.
My three handsome dinner dates…
James now orders off of the adult menu and literally eats twice as much as I do. Henry and Peter aren't far behind.
The next morning the boys woke up starving (obvi) and requested I make pancakes. I turned around to serve them breakfast and wondered, "Don't these kids wear shirts anymore?!"
An early morning of multi-tasking… pankcakes and play-doh machines.
Our Saturdays continue to look like this…
… an all-day marathon of basketball camps and games. By 2pm yesterday (after leaving the house at 10:30am), the little boys were done…but at least they were quietly coloring. And James's team won their first game so he was excited!
Grandpa and Ita sent a big stack of coloring/ painting/ sticker books for the boys on Thursday which refueled our dwindling supply!
Thank you again... They love doing these activity books!
On tap for today? A roller-skating party for James. He was invited by Jessica, a friend in his class. I think it's nice that she felt comfortable inviting a few of the boys too. Since the party is only 2 hours, I plan to bring the little boys and skate with them while James is with his friends. Should be interesting!
This week has seemed a bit "off" since the boys had a 4 1/2 day weekend for MLK's birthday on Monday, a teacher workday on Tuesday, and a delayed start because of cold temps yesterday (not a flurry in sight though!).
Over the weekend we played at our favorite park, located on Pope Air Field. Unfortunately it's about 20-25 minutes away so we don't get there as often as I'd like.
We were the only ones there so the boys had the entire park to themselves!
After playing at the park, we came home and finished James's Abe Lincoln project. He had to create a mobile with different parts of Abe's life written on different parts of the mobile. James was very upset that it didn't "really" look like Abe Lincoln which left me figuratively scratching my head. Really?? He really thought the two of us were going to be able to DRAW Abe Lincoln's face to scale and reality? Too funny. (Which reminds me of the time back at West Point when James came home distraught after a snowy day in Kindergarten. "MOM! The teachers said we were going to have indoor recess but there was no indoor playground!! We just sat in our classroom with puzzles." ha ha ha…)
Apparently the park and Lincoln-drawings left one of us very sleepy...
pretty baby
Hard to believe it's already Thursday again. Almost another weekend!
Since the boys had a 4-day weekend, we decided to go downtown and check out the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh today.
I've wanted to check this museum out for awhile now.
Cool globe out front!
Silly boys!
All three boys enjoyed the museum but Henry definitely seemed to get the most of out it-- which isn't surprising considering he absolutely loves anything animal-related.
I think Henry would have checked out
the frogs and bugs all day if the
other boys would have let him!
One of the Woodland exhibits...
You may recall that Henry has wanted a Venus Fly Trap for some time now (we recently purchased our second seedling packet/ terrarium and, just like the first, it fell over and splattered everywhere before it began to sprout. Sigh.) Here he and Peter are checking out indigenous, carnivorous plants (which, incidentally enough, are more plentiful in NC than anywhere else in the world. Who knew?).
A snapping turtle (who had such a cute little face!)...
T-Rex!
The museum was almost empty since
all area kids were in school today.
More dinosaurs...
Peter entering the "under water" exhibit...
The museum had an entire floor dedicated to Anthropods (an invertebrate animal of the large phylum Arthropoda, such as an insect, spider or crustacean)...
The boys got to pet a blue-tongued skink...
I passed on this opportunity.
Unfortunately I didn't think to take pictures in the Butterfly Room but it was awesome! There were probably 10-15 different types of butterflies flying around. The museum guides handed out information sheets so we could identify and find the different types. Some even landed on us!
A beautiful day!
After almost two hours the boys asked if we could go to Marbles Children's Museum (literally around the corner from the Science Museum) so we did. We had such a fun day together. I love taking the boys to new museums and with Chris away, it's the perfect all-day activity. I need to start researching the next one for us to visit...
I am a stay-at-home mom to 3 energetic, funny, sweet, and crazy boys. I married my best friend, Chris, and love our life together. The Army is sending him overseas soon so I thought this blog would be a great way for him (and the grandparents!) to keep up with our hectic life. Unfortunately the Army keeps us too far from family and most of our friends so hopefully this will help us stay connected.
