Out to dinner with the kids!

Tonight we decided to go out for dinner to the Golden Corral. We only have 2 kids, but we are a chaotic mess when we try to go out in public. Sometimes we do manage to pull off looking like a nice sweet family, but tonight was not one of those nights. We walked in and were lucky to have nobody in line in front of us. As the girl at the counter filled our drinks, some people came in, and Bethany started unwrapping and handing out straws. I stopped that as soon as I could. People were a bit confused, but they just said thank you. Then I carried the tray and Aaron carried shea who was twisting and whining because she wanted to be put down to walk, and he helped guide bethany who was not at all paying attention and kept wandering off. So we got to the table and I went to get the kids plates of food while Aaron got them seated. Then we took turns going to get our food. Finally we all sit together to eat. Shea is eating a bite, throwing a bite, so Aaron was trying to keep her from throwing food while he ate too, then Bethany had an all out screaming fit because we would not let her eat a piece of watermelon that she found on the floor under our table. She did not want to eat anything on her plate, but she decided mine looked like fun to play with. So I was trying to eat and keep her hands out of my food. Then shea started farting and giggling, so Bethany thought that was hilarious and started burping repeatedly. When they decided they had enough of whatever was on their plates, Aaron went to get them some ice cream. Bethany ate hers up then tried to help the kid at the next table eat his. Then she had a fit because we wouldn't let her. Meanwhile Shea was happily eating her ice cream, but she kept missing her mouth. She would take a big spoonful and aim for her mouth only to have it fall off her spoon into her lap. The lady at the table next to us started laughing when Aaron reached out and caught a big handful of melting ice cream and dumped it on a plate. She told us thats how you know you are a parent is when you do things like that. We were not so awful that we were disturbing other customers. (well maybe one or two), but we were definetly a mess and when we finally just started laughing (because what else can you really do at that point?) some other parents near us were laughing too. Thank goodness we were at a family restaurant full of other parents and kids. We know better than to go somewhere fancy. But I do have to ask myself is it was worth getting kids cleaned and dressed to drive across town and pay a restaurant to let us scarf down some food and keep our kids from causing a riot, when I could have just made a box of mac and cheese? The whole point of going out was to give me a break, lol. Going out takes more effort than staying in, I think.

Bethany was in a parade

Bethany's school had a freedom parade on 9-11. All of the kids marched in the parade. Shea and I watched and took pictures.

Labor day

We really had a great day today. This afternoon we went to our neighbor's house and spent the rest of the day with her and her kids. (Her husband is deployed.) We played some volleyball with the kids, and then the adults sat in the driveway chatting while we watched the kids color on the sidewalk with chalk and play in the sprinklers. Shea played in the baby pool. Then we cooked up some frozen pizza's and ate outside. We stayed outside until bedtime, gave the kids a quick bath, and they went right to sleep! I am loving that we live in a neighborhood with a yard now, so we can do fun things like this. We had a few funny moments like when Aaron sat down in the lawn chair and broke it, and when I discovered that Aaron had put Shea in a regular diaper instead of the little swimmer I got out for her. She had a really big bubble butt, so I took her in to change her to a swimmer diaper, and discovered her bathing suit had a huge pile of that stuff they have in diapers to absorb liquid. Poor kid. Aaron thought it was hilarious. The kids got good and dirty. At one point Shea used the hand she was holding her ice cream sandwich in to start digging in her ear. When we got them home they were covered in dirt, and ice cream. But they had tons of fun! We all did!

Halloumi

This will probably seem silly, but I am excited about cheese! Ha ha. At the store yesterday, we came across Halloumi cheese in the imported cheeses section. Don't ask me why we were looking. Back in my flight attendant days, I had a lot of layovers in Cyrpus. Sometimes I would layover there 5 days at a time, then be back a week later for another several days. It was my most frequent place to layover. I love Cyprus. It is an island mostly owned by Greece, but partially owned by Turkey. The sectioned owned by Turkey is bare for the most part. But the larger part owned by Greece, has resorts and a beautiful beach with clear water. Halloumi cheese is made in Cyprus and hard to find anywhere else. The hotel we stayed at, would serve it every morning for breakfast. I love it. Aaron tried a piece, and he thinks it tastes a bit like mozzerella at first. You can grill this cheese by itself. It doesn't melt like regular cheese. And it is so good. I haven't been to Cyrpus since I quit flying, but I miss flying very much. And I miss the people and the places, and the job very much. So coming across this cheese kind of takes me back as silly as it sounds.

A few pictures

We are all doing fine. Life is just a little crazy right now. I am beginning to wonder if we will ever finish unpacking and getting organized. Bethany and Shea are playing in one of the boxes right now. They are happy. I was invited to join another playgroup, so I am going to try to get the girls out and about. Today I have an appointment to see where I should begin on getting Bethany squared away and in school. Here are a few pictures.

We are in Texas

Well, we have arrived in Texas. It's umm okay. Actually it is just going to take getting used to. We couldn't stand Columbus for the longest time, but the last year or so, we got really attached. So hopefully it won't take us too long to like Texas. It is a huge change. GA had lots of trees and green. It had humidity, but I think i got used to it. Texas is less humid, but very hot! It is also flat and brown for as far as I can see. But I do like that despite it being like 100 degrees during the day, as soon as the sun sets, it goes down like 20 degrees right away. I do like that there seems to be things from both the western part of the US and the East coast. And there is a 7-11! For anyone who doesn't know, when I was pregnant with Bethany, I craved slurpees like you wouldn't believe! There were commercials for 7-11 slurpees on all the time, but no 7-11 stores in the state! We had to drive to Florida, lol. Anyway, it kind of became a joke that the next place we live better have a 7-11.

We are still in a hotel. Aaron will sign up for housing on Monday. We hear there is little to no wait for housing right now. We drove around Fort Hood yesterday and got a good look around. I have also found a playgroup for the girls. We are just very eager to move out of the hotel and into our own place. Bethany is about to start helping me type, so I better wrap this up.

Knock Knock!

Bethany is cracking me up lately! Well I shouldn't say lately. She makes me laugh all the time. Her latest thing is trying to get the hang on knock knock jokes. It is pretty funny. She says "Knock knock!" I say "Who's there?" then she yells something totally off the wall and falls apart laughing hysterically. It makes no sense, yet it makes me laugh. Aaron taught her the one that goes "Boo" "Boo who?" "Well you don't have to cry about it!" I don't think she even gets the joke which makes it even funnier.

Some other funnies... Aaron has 2 missing teeth that simply never came in. so he has a retainer thingie with 2 false teeth attached. The missing teeth are toward the front of his mouth. Well Bethany noticed the silver bar that goes across his teeth last night and wanted to know what it was. He tried explaining it, but she got confused, so finally he just popped it out. I wish you could have seen her face. Her eyes got really big. Now she wants to know why her teeth dont come out too.

She is such a bossy little mommy. She is always fussing at Shea. She literally follows her around all day and takes things away or tells her to finish her food, or get out of something she is not supposed to be into. She also has started playing with a baby doll but all she does is tuck the baby into bed and tell it, "Go to sleep, DO NOT get out of bed again!"

Bethany is one of the pickiest eaters ever. I have never seen the child eat a piece of meat until today. Today I went through Wendy's for lunch since it was 1 om and they had not had lunch. We were on our way back from Wal Mart. Aaron and his mom had been working in the yard too so I knew they would want food. Anyway, while we were eating Bethany looked at Donna's ( my mother in law) burger and asked her, "Is that a crabby patty!?" Donna told her yes it was and asked her if she wanted to try it. Bethany said yes, and took a bite. I totally expected her to spit it out, but she didn't! She said she liked it, but would not take another bite. But this incident has given me some sneaky ideas... Thank you Spongebob!

Speaking of Spongebob, little miss Shea whose vocabulary consists of the words, ball, no, baby, mine, etc.. tries to sing along to the Spongebob song. whenever it comes on I hear her say something that almost resembles Spongebob, lol. Have I mentioned we watch a lot of Spongebob these days? That portable DVD is a lifesaver when you are traveling.

Another Shea story: The other night she was making noises in her sleep, and then I heard her say, "Nee nee! NO!!" I had to laugh. Nee Nee is what she calls Bethany.

Well I think I am done telling sotries about my babies for now. Rest assured there will be more. There is never a dull moment with those two.