life with the lieutenant

• I believe we left off with St. Patrick's Day, yes?

• One of our sweet friends in Seoul was having a birthday, so we headed on down to celebrate her at the cutest kids cafe ever.

This sign always makes me giggle. And want to visit the flowerpark.

• We got there a little earlier than expected, so we hit up the commissary real quick to grab some non-refrigerated items that we can't get up in the sticks.

I love this commissary, but would probably commit some sort of violent felony if I had to deal with these tiny shopping carts on the regular.

Molly only did open-heart surgery on the back of my ankle once (ahhhhhh resist the urge to curse loudly!), and another mother nearby heard the sound of metal hitting mommy and instinctively "ouched" on my behalf. Solidarity! I know she felt my pain. Or had felt it recently. She was smart and had her kids strapped into a cart.

• Since the party was held at a tiny kids cafe, Steve went and ran errands around post while we partied. Sam and Molly were so excited. Sam kinda went off the deep end during the last 15 minutes though and we hurried out after causing a sufficient scene. 

Crazy

How cute, right??

• On Wednesday, it was supposed to rain, so we hit up Pang Pangs with our neighbors. We were the only ones there and the kids were thoroughly entertained.

• The mom doesn't speak any English and the son speaks limited English, so it was fun watching them try to explain this baseball game to the kids. Naturally they just wanted to TOUCH IT ALL and that was not the point. The boy labeled the kids numbers and tried to instruct them that way but I think they forgot their numbers almost immediately after receiving them. Oh well. A few minutes later they were all back on the trampolines and the boy was trying to fix his baseball game.
• After naps, we played trains.

• And attempted to craft a few things for Molly's birthday party...

Can you guess what this will be???

• I realized while cutting some things out, that Molly has never used scissors before. I don't know at what age children are supposed to have a handle on skills like these (because, super-involved parent right here!), so I just said ok, now is the age! Put it in your hand like so. Ok, don't twist your arm like mine, I'm just turning my arm so you can see what to do with your hand. Hold your arm straight. Now open your hand. No, the hand with the scissors in it. You have to put the paper INSIDE the open scissors, not above it. You are cutting air. You're still cutting air. Let me feed the paper into it for you. Just close your hand when I tell you to. One, two, omg I didn't even get to three and you're cutting air again! Hang on, you're going to do this. Open your hand. Now straighten your arm out and pretend like you are not experiencing rigor mortis. Ok now when I get the paper inside your open scissors, you will close your hand and it will cut the paper. You ready? Ok. Here we go.  ....  OH MY GOD YOU WERE AWESOME!! You cut one straight snip!! Let's save it to show Daddy!! (sign of the cross, blesses teachers everywhere, I am not cut out (harhar!) for this shit)
• Thursday morning brought preschool with it, and we were all more than ready for a break from each other. I went to a friend's house and we crafted birthday stuff and then I got to have lunch with Steve before mad-dashing it through the commi. The weather was freaking GORGEOUS out, so we decided to skip naps and stay outside and play.

• We swapped playgrounds halfway through the afternoon.

• That night I used a face mask that a friend picked up for me in Namdaemun. Sam kept asking me what was on my face. I kept staring at him blankly and saying, "nothing." This entertained me more than it should have.

• It actually worked very well. And we had a laugh at Sam's expense. Just another crazy Thursday night here.
• On Friday morning, I woke up thinking it was Saturday, which is never a good way to start the day. Luckily Steve brought me coffee in bed and read Sam some books and the man knows how to make me a wannabe Saturday morning. After chores, we took out some recycling and played on the playground.

• I had big dreams to make pretty cupcake sugar cookies for Molly's party. Luckily, I had the foresight to know that I suck at making sugar cookies and needed a trial run. So after we came in from the playground (the dough was chilling in the fridge in the meantime), I fed the kids lunch and set to cutting out the dough.

Yes, those are fat cookies thanks to the lying liarpants on Pinterest that led me astray!

• In case I haven't mentioned it before here, making sugar cookies gives me rage. RAGE. I followed this very specific recipe that was supposed to prevent spreading. I didn't want the cookies to puff up so much that you couldn't tell they were cupcakes. I was going to frost them afterwards, but I still needed some shape! Naturally, this happened.

Fatties! AUGH! I HATE LIFE! RAAAAAAAAGE!!!!!!

• It was then that I decided to throw the pans of cookies out the window. Kidding. I wanted to. I taste-tested one instead. Delicious (as something with that much butter and sugar SHOULD BE) but still puffy. Oh well. I will try to ice them and see if they resemble cupcakes or if I will take them up to mail room and tell them to not look at what they're eating and/or judge me for my pinterest cookie fail.
• It was in everyone's best interest for us all to go back outside and forget what happened in the kitchen.

• We went for a walk with friends, got ice cream, and hit up the sand box and playground. Hallelujah.
• We came home and since they had sand in some unspeakable places, I went ahead and did baths. Made some pizza dough and had pizza/movie night. Early bedtime for the kids since we skipped naps and I call that a good Friday night. (Cookies were put in a translucent container so I don't have to think about them/rage.)
• Saturday morning was coffee, breakfast, laundry, books, magna tiles, dishes.

• I can't help but snap pictures of them when they're being this cute. And they tolerate me doing it. Actually, no one really even notices me doing it anymore. That might be an indication that there's a problem, but I don't care, I REFUSE to let any of these sweet memories escape me!
• After we got dressed, we headed out on a walk. Sam wanted to drive his little monster truck that he got for Christmas.

Had to stop and watch the convoy first, of course

• Sam was cracking me up- he hardly sat still and watched it ride. He was either chasing it, or running ahead of it to see if it could catch up to him (it could not). Molly stopped to say hi to a few dogs, and we ended up at the playground.

• While Steve and I never exchange Valentine's Day gifts, when we were back in Pennsylvania in February, Steve got me a mother's ring with everyone's birth stones in it. It wouldn't be ready by the time we left the States, so it was shipped recently and arrived Friday night. It's beautiful and I love looking down at it. Even if my hands are chapped and dry.

• After heading home from the playground, Steve took the kids outside (because always, MORE PLAYGROUND) and I changed out laundry and made lunches. You can spot them down there, right?

• After lunch, Sam kept asking me for favors. And in his mind, that is when I give him something important to do. "Can I have a favor pwease?" Yes you may. Vacuum these floors.

Blurry because I couldn't stop giggling at what I was getting away with

• Steve had to go pick up one of his soldiers up at the airport that afternoon and offered to take the kids with. Ummmmmm YES PLEASE! Three hours of alone time at home??? I was giddy. Even giddier than that time I watched my first born vacuum my floors. While they were gone, I ran up to the commi and saw that we were still out of meat. But this sign.... not sure I'm ok with where they placed the quotation marks.

• The kids had to be good on the way there so that they could watch ipads on the way back (bribery! it works!) (and so Steve could actually talk to the guy he was picking up). Steve dropped the kids off while he took the soldier back to his barracks and since the air quality was just disgusting and folks were melting down about not going outside, they kept on happily watching ipads. And yes, the silence was blissful. Almost makes me want to make this a regular thing. Almost.

• This is not a regular thing because of the attitudes that technology creates in these children. Putting the ipads away caused many meltdowns and those suckers will stay in the closet til the next plane trip. "Gotta charge the batteries!" I wonder how much longer that excuse will work for me.
• That evening I made some lemon bars (pinterest recipe) that I doubled and the recipe was ruined because I doubled it in the wrong size pan and I spent that night mostly wanting to throw another pan out the window, and I think that might be my cue to stop making pinterest recipes for a minute. I was going to make strawberry cupcakes from scratch for Molly's party, but as I was standing in the checkout line at the commi, strawberry cake mix was right there for $0.99 so I took that as a sign from God that I should just keep it simple. Going to attempt frosting on my own, but will leave the cake mix up to Betty Crocker.
• Obligatory Sunday morning photo session

• After church, we went to a birthday party at the kids cafe down the street.

• By the time we were done with the birthday party, it would have been suicide to attempt naps, so we walked home to get some sand toys, and headed back out to the park.

Fish feeders

Molly looooooooves being dirty. Actually, filthy. She was on her belly "swimming" after this. I was too horrified to take pictures because I can only imagine how many feral cats use this as a litter box at night. Baths and a splash of bleach are in order after trips to the sandbox!

• When we arrived home, Molly was pretending to be asleep in the stroller, except I could see her smiling, so I told her to take off her shoes at the door and go ahead and strip for her bath too. Came back and found this.

• It was very ugly waking her up for her bath, but it had to be done. She wanted to go straight to bed after baths, but since it was only 6, we convinced her to eat dinner and watch a movie with us.

• After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the kids finally went to bed. Amen.
• Steve has the day off and Molly is still sleeping (8:30!!) so who knows what today holds. Hopefully more coffee!!