Why do just a Thanksgiving recap when I can tell you about my entire week

• Went on a girls' day out on Tuesday. Naturally I only thought to take a picture of the food. To be fair though, it was really good food. Knocked out a bunch of Christmas shopping and then hit up the commissary child-free. Mamas, you know how good my day was!

I'd cut a btch for a breakfast burrito from Sonic (good taste- I have it), but this cheesy eggy hammy sandwich was pretty good too. Late lunch at a beef and leaf was amazing as well. I love all the sides!

• Sam really wanted to help me prep for the Thanksgiving meals. I was making cracker mix ("crack" for short), and he wanted to help stir. He'd graze the top of it with the spoon, then pick out 8 pieces to sample until I took the bowl away.

We later took the crack to a friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner and noticed Sam didn't even bother using his hands and just STUCK HIS ENTIRE FACE in the bowl. Ahhh yes, I couldn't be more proud of the manners we are instilling.

• Our first Thanksgiving meal was celebrated around lunchtime with lots of Army friends from our apartment complex. There was a TON of food and it was all amazing. I sampled a bit of everything and didn't have a single thing that wasn't delicious. And even if I did, I was eating so fast in order to continue refereeing kids that it wouldn't have mattered.

The spread, Molly, her confused face, and her boot twin (aka Dada aka Sofia), and one of the spicy turkeys I made (pre-shred).

• Overall, I think Thanksgiving food tastes better when someone else makes it (Mom and Dad) and when you can wear your stretchy pants at the dinner table without judgement. I opted for stretchy jeans and then mostly ate food that other people made. (Compromises.) We attended dinner at another friend's house later in the evening and I took zero pictures there. There were fewer people in attendance and the kids were fully contained, so I was quite busy eating everything in sight and not taking pictures. Overall, I ended up making 2 spicy turkeys, glazed carrots (brown sugar and butta' mmm), butter and garlic bread, garlic chicken puff bites, cracker mix, fudge, and knock you naked brownies. It was a most delicious Thanksgiving and while I really missed my family back home, I'm so very thankful to spend the holiday with Steve this year.
• I had my first Korea blate yesterday! Noel (who reeeeeeally needs to blog more often) was here in Korea visiting her husband, who just so happens to be stationed right down the road from where we're stationed. They needed some Christmas card photos, and I was more than happy to help. 

• And bonus! No one died while I was driving us around! Did I mention that I got my driver's license??

• Naturally I hadn't driven in four months, it was the first snow day of the season, and I'm from south Alabama, so you do the math. It took me 20 minutes to drive home (remember: we live 2.5 miles away), but I ran a red light just to be a Korean badass. (Don't freak out, it was just a pedestrian light. And there were no pedestrians in sight. And everyone does it. I promise.) I was driving yesterday and ran over a small hunk of ice while parking and almost DIED because it sounded like I crushed a small child and punctured the back tire. (I didn't.) Steve assures me my rapid breathing and threats to never drive anywhere again were an overreaction. This winter... it might be kinda long-ish.
• And possibly the best Thanksgivukkah present of all this year- our beloved Auburn Tigers pulled out a win this morning over the always big-headed Bama. Since we don't have cable, I was reading the play-by-play via twitter updates from Auburn and CBS and the anxiety- OH THE ANXIETY! I still can't believe we won. We screamed and laughed and danced and kissed and I'm really shocked our neighbors underneath us didn't call the cops. Generally there is always a lot of racket coming from our apartment, but this was overkill at 9am, even for us. 

Had special Auburn orange hot chocolate to celebrate the big win.

• And I think that pretty much catches us up here, folks. Have a great week, and War Damn Eagle.

Questions for you, a recap of how Sam's been shafted on Christmas his entire life, and some Alabama news

• A few of you commented on my fancy new blog design and I am here to tell you that it's allllllllll thanks to Miss Eliza. Secondary thanks go to her creativity and patience because I doubt that I am easy to work with. I mean, just ask my co-workers and they will whine at you and make sad faces and tell you I don't make jelly sandwiches fast enough. (I don't.) Luckily Eliza wasn't relying on me to make her lunch and she worked with the weird time difference and made my blog look much more.... me. I feel like I have ARRIVED in this blogging world. Hello everyone!
• I am seeing all these holiday gift guides pop up everywhere but none of them are helping me because they don't tell me exactly what I should get Sam for Christmas. This poor child. His first Christmas was not blogged because, well, I didn't have a blog. But I will just tell you that I don't think he got any presents for his first Christmas. I'm sure his grandparents gave him something awesome, but a well thought out, brain-stimulating baby gift from me, he did not receive. His second Christmas, he got a pillow. Well, it was technically a pillow PET and he still sleeps with it to this day (and the pictures of him cuddling it that Christmas make me tell my ovaries (very loudly) to hush). Last Christmas, Steve was deployed, Sam still didn't really "get" Christmas, and he got a potty. A potty that he still doesn't really even use unless he wants a sucker and has four drops of pee to spare. So basically he's gotten the shaft on Christmas gifts since the beginning of (his) time. We are still holding fast to our three-gift-rule ("if it's good enough for baby Jesus, it's good enough for me," say it with me everybody!) and so that means that both sets of grandparents get to give him a gift and Steve and I get to give him a gift. Extra free space is not a luxury we currently have, so we can't have anything too big. If you have any ideas for someone whose interests change daily, please holler at your girl. Things take forever to ship here so I need to order said gift yesterday.
• Where can I get a pair of leggings that are made for a normal chubby person? Leggings that are fleece-lined, not from Target, don't sag when you bend over, can be worn with a big sweater, and don't give me horrific muffintop. I see everyone wearing leggings and I want to just shake them and ask where they came from! Except I don't know any Korean so that might not come across the right way, and I haven't done that yet. Just asking YOU, Internet, to see if you have found a hidden gem somewhere that I need to know about! Link me, please and thank you so much.
• Am I the only person who hadn't seen this yet? I just watched it for the first time last night. If I hadn't been exposed to local Alabama news channels my entire life, I would think it was some sort of spoof. In reality, just another day in LA.
• Steve has staff duty today because the sun might be snuffed out if he ever had it on a day that didn't end in Saturday. Who's good side do you have to be on to get a weekday staff duty spot? Saturday staff duty eats up Friday night (gotta go to bed early so he can get up early), Saturday is a bust for obvious reasons, and Sunday is spent recovering due to the whole no-sleep-on-Saturday-night thing. So it's business as usual around here this weekend. Laundry, cleaning, some Baby Einstein videos, some "chekkin' my's emails", and reading some books. Lord only knows what they'll eat for dinner tonight since the nuggets are low and the hot dogs are gone. Time to start praying for a fish-sticks-and-the-loaves type of miracle! (because we're low on bread too)

I chekkin' my's emails and pitchurs.

Up. To. No. Good.

My thoughts on motherhood, leggings, cake, poop, and puke, but not necessarily in that order

• Bullet posts. I am just starting to accept that this is the way I'll blog from now on, unless I have some grand, amazing, detailed story (and a full 2.5 hour naptime! Ha!) to share with you.
• My birthday was this past weekend, and it was just a great day. I made funfetti waffles. Out of cookie mix. Again. Because when I see a box with a picture of funfetti on it, I just assume it's cake, even though my eyes must CERTAINLY notice that there are cookies on the front. It's the second time I've bought that stupid cookie mix. (Seriously, who here (or anywhere for that matter) is making funfetti cookies?!) It was also the second time I googled "how to make cake mix from cookie mix". Turned out perfectly in case any of you ever end up in that situation of not-being-able-to-read-while-at-the-grocery-store.
• I arranged for our sitter to come over the evening of my birthday so Steve and I could escape for dinner. He took me to Mad For Garlic and it was just as good as the first time (and slightly more expensive because they serve WINEADE. Like wine + ade. I don't even know what kind of magical crack they put in the ade but I CAN'T GET ENOUGH.). Steve's birthday plan was to let me pick out a cupcake from one of the bakeries downstairs (we were in that gigantic 10-story mall), but I've had a few Korean desserts now and..... meh. They aren't sweet. Which is probably why all these Koreans are so skinny, but I made a test batch of Knock You Naked brownies earlier (practicing for Thanksgiving!), so we hightailed it home and had some of those while watching Seinfeld. Because we are 85. And itching for diabetes apparently.
• I sausaged myself into this pair of fleece-lined Korean leggings this morning. (Is anyone surprised after reading the previous bullet point?) After wearing them for 7 hours, I have come to a few conclusions.
• First of all, SUB-bullet points! Isn't this impressive?
• Secondly, Korean leggings that state "free size" (aka one size fits all) do not include Americans. 
• Thirdly, judging by the low-hanging crotch in these things, I am assuming that my legs are too long/thighs are too big to wear these.
• Fourthly, I don't think they are meant to be worn (but omg I just typed WEARED like my middle name is Cletus) as pants a la Pinterest and their chunky sweaters with leggings trend. I think they're just like an undergarment to actually keep you warm under your real pants.
• And fifthly (not to be confused with filthy), I am still wearing said leggings. It took a lot of effort to get these babies on. And they're actually very comfortable. So until we venture outside later, I'm wearing them.
• My children have this mission to make me question my sanity multiple times a day. They like to pick Mondays to really test the limits since they know this is the longest/worst/most horrid day of the week. Today I took my rage out on our white tile kitchen floors (I wanna stab the person who made that design choice! White! In a kitchen! On the floor! Stab stab stab!) with about, oh say, 14 clorox wipes. Sam, noticing that things might have gone a little too far, would periodically come over and pat my bottom and say, "Yer 'dorable an bewtiful Muwmmy." TOO LITTLE TOO LATE, SON. (*insert crazy eyes here*) Yes, he can be sweet, but where was this sweet boy when I was trying to put shoes on his psycho hellion alter ego this morning?!
• Steve just texted to say that there are snow flurries up on post. I'm just.... I don't know if I'm ready. And YES, I'm very pro-4-seasons and I do think snow is beautiful. But once it starts actually snowing, then I really have to buck up and potty train Sam. Or potty guide. Whichever is more PC these days. Anyways, Molly did her horrified look at me the other day and grabbed her bottom, which usually signals that she just pooped, so I took her in the bedroom to change her. Only nothing was there. So I asked if she wanted to sit on the potty and she got really excited. I sat down on the floor next to her and read her a book and I could smell the signs that she'd done the deed! She tried pulling the same trick today as we were trying to walk out the door, but apparently she just wanted to air things out and have a book read to her. Not like I wanted to actually leave the house or anything today! (OMG WINTER IS GOING TO KILL ME, ISN'T IT)
• Related: My child must be the only child on the planet who does not respond to incentives. Or threats. Or candy.
• One of the things that the kids and I like to do to spice things up during the day is to visit new-to-us playgrounds. (We are so wild, I know!) Luckily, there are so many playgrounds around here you can throw a rock and hit five, and then that rock will ricochet and hit three more. So we wandered into this apartment complex and they had a pirate ship playground. No one was on the playground except for one elderly lady. She was sitting off to the side, but eventually came over to look at the kids. She pointed at Molly and asked me something. I don't know Korean (do I look like I do?), so I just responded, "She's 2," and held up two fingers. But she kept asking the same question over and over, but started grabbing and pointing at her crotch as well. At this point, I start to assume that maybe she is not completely stable, so I just keep nodding and smiling and saying, "She's 2," and try not to look horrified. Eventually she left. Five minutes later she reappeared with a bag of diapers for Molly. Oh. Well that makes more sense, I guess. I really need to learn some Korean. My sign language skillz are clearly lacking.
• Also, Molly is not two yet. I just round up because Koreans do ages differently than we do. When babies are born, they are one. So when American babies turn one, Korean babies turn two. And that has nothing to do with the time zones. (Har har!) So technically, in Korea, Sam is 4, although in America, he just turned 3. Just means I can register them for Korean preschool that much sooner! Huzzah!
• Is everyone sufficiently confused? Yes? Well now that you're all on my daily level of confusion, let's talk about how Molly puked up her lunch into my waiting hands at a playdate (fruit loops and rice- you really can't beat that color combination), the other mothers there just handed me baby wipes and kept talking, and then we all (including Molly) went right back to eating our lunches. Steve once finger-swabbed Sam when he had food go down the wrong pipe, he horked up his entire stomach onto his plate, got a hug, and then we all sat down (after clean up) to finish dinner together. When did this nothing-will-gross-me-out transformation occur? During pregnancy? During birth? Upon viewing the placenta? (Probably) Who even knows.
• Molly got boots. They are her favorite thing ever (besides puppies) and she refuses to be parted with them. (You should see the song and dance we have to put on to distract her at night so she doesn't go to bed with them.) I don't know where she gets this shoe obsession. I am no fashionista. Neither is Steve (thankfully), so she doesn't really have any role models in that department. It's going to be really ugly when she outgrows them (hopefully one day in the very distant future).

Fires, iPhone photos, bubble baths- oh my (I still can't come up with titles)!

Not too much to report on here, just the same old daily grind, so we're going bullet-style again.

• I am so beyond desperate to get my kids into a preschool that I called a Korean friend from Ft Campbell (on FaceTime), hijacked my way into a building in my apartment complex (there are codes you have to punch in order to get in the main door of each building), rang the doorbell to the Korean preschool, and then handed the phone to the worker who answered the door. After lots of chatter between the two of them, (and me standing behind the double stroller of doom) the Korean worker handed the phone back to me and my friend said, "They're full." Wah. Walk of shame back to my building.
• The post office burned down last week. All mail was saved and no one was injured. In the meantime, there is no mail stuff happening in our town.

From the wives' page on FB. Panties were definitely in a twist over the memes created.

• Steve made me a bubble bath and gave me champagne and then not even ten minutes later I had to shower off and fall in bed lest I puke my guts out and/or pass out from the heat that was radiating from that tiny tub. Our water heater is.... (I hate to use this word but nothing else really seems fitting)... AMAZEBALLS. You press a button and whammo! Instantly hot water comes streaming out of the faucet. It will literally burn your hand right off if you're not paying attention. Anyways, I might have gotten a little too cocky with the water temperature, and my desire for a super hot bath really did me in. While I did not puke or pass out, I did waste a glass of champagne, and that makes me pretty sad.
• After a few days of really crappy weather, the sunshine finally came back and I wasted no time in loading the kids up in the stroller and walking to post. We don't live far from post, but it sometimes doesn't feel like we live all that close either (only 2.5 miles). An hour later (errr, yes, I walk slowly sometimes), we arrived at the playground and I let the kids out to play. I spent the first five minutes congratulating myself on what an awesome idea this was as the kids happily ran and played. Then minute six provided me with the reality check that I so needed and I had two kids whining in my face because they both wanted to swing on the ONE baby swing. First, let me take a moment to kick the playground designer in the shins because how dare you only put one baby swing on the entire playground?! You may as well not even put swings out if you're going to cause meltdowns of this magnitude! The whining! The screaming! The shrieking! The JUDGEY EYES. I tried to let them take turns, but while one was pouty-swinging, the other was standing there indignantly, screaming for the entire post to hear. And then swap, lather, rinse, repeat. Overall, I feel that if I am going to have people screaming at my face and fighting over pointless things, I could be sitting in my sweatpants drinking a second cup of coffee, not sweating on a playground in Real Pants while other mothers side-eye my lack of control over my offspring.
• Well that got ranty real quick, huh?
• Sometimes Sam grabs my phone and starts taking pictures and the results are usually funny. Also worthy of note, these are the only photos I'm in, so thank God he takes them, otherwise he might not remember one day that I was present for his childhood.

clockwise- crazy face while sitting in a carseat // Steve wearing boots in the house (big no no) // I clearly haven't had coffee yet // lamenting the fact that I cannot wear these Army sweatpants out in public // washing hands // being tackled // chopping veggies in a sweater that makes me look much puffier than I actually am (hopefully)

• I took the kids to a Korean market the other day and that's not stroller-friendly. Alas, I do not feel I have the upper body strength (yet) to stick Molly in the Ergo on my front, while I have Sam in the structured carrier on my back. It would be an epic squat if I ever made it off the ground, that's for sure. So anyways, I had Molly on my back and Sam in the umbrella stroller. We witnessed a lady almost get hit by a car (the stereotypes are true), soooo many dead fish (and their accompanying dead fish smells), and lots of crazy leggings. (I am thinking about snagging a pair.)
• Steve and I are going on a date tomorrow and I could just DIE from excitement. Not that I'm desperate to have a break from these kids or anything, but only 14 hours 10 minutes and 23 seconds to go! Eeeeeeeeeee!!!
• Fall seems to be winding down over here. This makes me so sad because it has been such a beautiful season! I love seeing the yellow leaves blanketing the sidewalk and in the same second, I hate it too because that means they're not on the trees where they belong. I have a winter coat for everyone except myself so I fully expect this to be a fantastic winter.
• I still haven't gotten my Korean driver's license. Or updated my phone.
• The Halloween Reeses are gone and the yoga pants are out. That is all.

Halloween 2013 (with links to Halloween 2011 and 2012 that you will probably want to click on)

This was the kids' first time doing Halloween. For Sam's first Halloween, we just dressed him up, took some pictures, and then handed out candy at home. Last year, Steve was deployed, I dressed up the kids and took them to a FRG Halloween event (a bust), and then handed out candy at home. This year, we don't live in a place where trick-or-treating is actually A Thing, so we dressed the kids up and went to Trunk Or Treat on post.

This look of confusion and fear was a common theme throughout the evening.

Since this was a new experience for them and people were decked out in scary costumes and some folks' trunks were borderline offensive, it was hard to get these two to collect any candy for us.

More confusion - mostly over why Molly's BFF Dada (aka The Cookie Monster) (aka Sofia) has candy and she doesn't.

Sam only got happy when he saw a blackhawk fly nearby.

But who could be happy with a costume that doesn't even fit?

My mom gave me two of these Aubie costumes when Sam was a year old. In my haze, I assumed that he wore the 18-month costume when he was a year old and I had packed the 24-month costume for Korea. Had I actually LOOKED at the thing, I would have realized my mistake, but oh well. He's cute AND prepared for the flood. (Also, three years old and tiny enough to fit into size 18 month clothes..)

Isn't she the cutest squeakiest thing you've ever seen?

We somehow ran into Alabama fans (can't escape them no matter how far you travel, apparently!), but the most important person we saw there (the guy handing out the Reeses) was wearing an Auburn jacket and gave the kids extra because we are "raising them right." Thank ya kindly and a War Eagle!

As good as it gets these days... This was the best out of... six attempts? LE SIGH.

Bribed with a sucker. I love the sound of silence.

A turtleneck on a baby! Oh my goodness I do think that's a cute look. Really accentuates the whole having-a-neck thing, which wasn't even possible at this time last year.

Since the whole getting-candy-from-strangers portion of the evening did not appeal to my children, we ended up on the playground. A playground we've been to many many MANY MANY TIMES. And they proceeded to go down this little slide 42 million times like it was the latest and greatest attraction. Every other time we've been to this playground, no one has given two shits about this slide. Well. All that changed on Halloween. After we peeled these two away from the playground, we headed home and had pizza and sorted all 12 pieces of candy.

If this doesn't make you sad, I don't know what will.

The next night, we went over to a nearby apartment complex where some Americans had set up a trick-or-treat extravaganza for the kids. Except it was more like four people sitting on the sidewalk handing out candy. But don't fret, these people were handing out GOOD STUFF. Like tons and tons of Reeses. And since there were approximately eight children trick-or-treating, we ended up with more than enough Reeses to make Mama happy. I mean, poor Sam and his peanut allergy.

My dad made us our Chick-fil-A shirts and my mom sent us the to-go bags for the kids to use as candy bags. We are really hoping to somehow convince AAFES to open up Chick-fil-A's worldwide. Because, I'm sorry (I'm not sorry), no one wants to eat Burger King and Taco Bell at the PX food court when they could be eating Chick-fil-A. NO ONE. A friend even told me, "I would paint my whole body in Polynesian sauce if that would help the cause." No, we're not desperate, why do you ask?

After we got home from trick-or-treating, we sorted candy (yesssssss) and then realized that that smell had been coming from MOLLY the entire time and it wasn't just that funky Korean air. (How lovely.) So that kicked off The Weekend Of The Stomach Virus and I've been eating Reeses ever since. How was your Halloween? Do your pants still fit or have we all just decided to wear yoga pants til the spring?