Molly's 5th birthday and the sickies

Last pictures as a 4 year old

In all of our unedited, end-of-the-day glory

I was so relieved to finally get everyone to bed that night that I kinda sorta forgot that I had to decorate for Molly's birthday the next morning. So around 10pm when Steve was brushing his teeth, he came out of the bathroom to find me hanging banners and blowing up balloons and telling him to go get Molly's new bike out of the trunk of his car. Whoops. One day I'll probably never get it together.

So we were supposed to have Molly's deer party on Saturday. Sam ended up throwing up the night before, and while normally it is just a freak puke, this was legit sickness and I couldn't risk getting other people's kids sick. I also didn't want for Sam to have to miss the party since his and Molly's friend set is comprised of all the same people. Luckily everyone was cool with us rescheduling the party for this coming weekend.

We had to wake everyone up to get to school on time and do birthday waffles/sing Happy Birthday.

Can you tell she is barely awake yet? Sam was curled in a ball in the corner of the room, refusing to participate. Fun times.

Sam ended up staying home from school and Molly rode the bus to school by herself. Sam slept a lot and was generally out of it the rest of the day.

I kept checking what 2017 minus 2012 was because there is no way that Molly is FIVE. YEARS. OLD. It seems completely impossible.

I can barely even remember her being this tiny (and quiet heh)

Pretty sure that balloon and half a cupcake were the extent of her first birthday celebration- Steve was deployed at the time and I lacked any and all motivation at that point to do more than that apparently.

Big 2 year old in Korea!!

Apparently she morphed into a big kid while in Korea

And last year her birthday fell on Easter while we were in Alabama visiting my parents

I got one semi decent picture of her on her new bike before she headed off to school for the day. A bike was her only birthday request and she really needed a bigger one.

We ended up having weather in the upper 50s that day, which I think we can all agree, was the best gift anyone could ask for after so many cold days in a row. We opened the windows to air out the germs and breathe in the fresh country air.

If it's your birthday, you get to taste test the frosting and lick the beater.

I ended up getting two new 6" cake pans for Molly's party and I made the cakes Friday night (pre-puking) and using my regular chocolate cake recipe, it made four layers. Three layers seemed excessively tall so I stopped there and just stored the extra layer.

Deeeeelicious. And right after I snapped that pic, I took the rest of the cake to our neighbors. I don't have a dome large enough to cover the cake, nor do we need to have cake that delicious sitting around tempting us to make bad decisions.

The best we could do given the time of day, lighting, attitudes, sugar crash, etc.

In addition to her bike, Molly received a stuffed baby deer, a forest animals coloring book, new crayons (twistable crayons, which are basically the best thing ever), and some new nail polish.

With the weather being so nice the past few days, we have been on so many walks around town and Molly is really loving the new bike! Sam is back to school today, just in time for Will to start coughing and acting sickly. Yesterday I forced Sam and Molly to take naps and then Will went down for a nap and for two hours there was a THREE WAY NAP. Let me repeat, all three of my children were napping at the same time, in the same room, and I sat in the living room with the windows open and the birds chirping and wondering wtf was going on, what do I do, how am I supposed to behave? It was glorious. I ended up waking them all up at 4 so they'd eventually go to bed that night and we took another walk or two around town.

We will try the deer birthday party again this weekend, good Lord willing and the creek don't rise. Hopefully the recap of that will contain better quality photos and more cake.

This post contains affiliate link(s) and might earn me enough pennies to one day justify a tiny fraction of my Amazon purchases.

Hooah

Well now. This is certainly an interesting turn of events, yes? Thought we were done with the Army? And maybe moving for a minute? Yeah. Us too. We moved to Minnesota with every intention of building a life here and buying a nice house on a piece of land and getting a few chickens and kittens and puppies and maybe planting roots slightly deeper than a dandelion's. And up until a month or two ago, that was all set to happen. We had our sights set on the cutest little blue house situated on 14 acres and were making plans to purchase in the spring. We knew this tiny house we're in now wouldn't be a forever home by any stretch of the imagination. But it was available and cheap and perfect for moving into given our situation and timeline at the end of last year. We have enjoyed being with our friends from Korea and meeting new (amazing!) friends and neighbors. We haven't locked our doors once since moving in. We still don't have our house key on our key ring. The safety and simplicity and small town living is perfect.

But.

We came to a crossroads. Steve was not finding fulfilling civilian employment. The AGR (Active Guard Reserve) jobs in Minnesota require ADOS (Active Duty Operational Support- which is just the fancy Army acronym for temporary active duty orders) before being considered for an actual AGR job. ADOS orders can vary in length between one day or multiple years. You do not receive all of the active duty benefits while serving ADOS orders. (Basically they are giving you temporary orders for an unspecified amount of time to see if they like you enough to offer you an AGR job.) There are also no officer openings for ADOS/AGR jobs in this area. This would require Steve to resign his commission (something he was more than willing to do). But with the lack of additional benefits and the commute and the uncertainty of not knowing whether a permanent AGR job would come out of these temporary orders, we had to make a big decision.

So the one road was - Steve would resign his commission, apply for ADOS orders, and hope/wish/pray that an AGR job would come out of it quickly. We could make ends meet, but it would be tight (extremely tight), and require that we stay put in our tiny (temporary?) home for quite a bit longer- until/if an AGR job came through. (And as an aside, the only AGR jobs in this area right now (and the foreseeable future) are recruiter jobs. Sparsely populated area, no common ground with anyone graduating high school from this area, lots of traveling, big commute- it all kinda equates to stress in our eyes. Seems you have to do a minimum of 3-6 years as a recruiter before you will even be considered for another AGR job. It just doesn't sound appealing in the least. Especially when you factor in commute and pay and tiny house and four kids. Anyways, that is a little more backstory to that road.)

The other road was - try to get back on active duty as an enlisted soldier. Since he is 29, Steve's time to do active duty is now or never. Pretty soon he will need an age waiver to get back in. No matter what, Steve knew he would resign his commission. The pay cut would actually be a pay increase for our family right now (which omg, I know, I will do a separate post concerning all of that) and the additional benefits of being on active duty would include on-post housing (aka a house with more than one bedroom aka Will can CIO aka we might actually get to sleep through the night for a week or so before Baby #4 arrives and causes an even greater sleep deficit), a shorter commute (versus a potential AGR job commute here), access to the commissary, etc. Not to mention the desire Steve has to serve and do a job he enjoys. He enlisted with the mindset of doing something in the Army post 9/11, and despite how hard he worked as an officer, he doesn't feel like he "did" anything. (I would obviously disagree with him on that because I think he made a difference in many great ways, but I also did not go through the actual experience of serving, so I can't discount his feelings on this.)

We obviously discussed this at great length before coming to the decision that he would pursue the active duty route. Stability-wise, active duty offered our family more, and trust me, I am well aware of how completely insane that sounds. Our biggest hold up, and source of never-ending guilt, is moving the kids again. I know they are still at an age where every move is an adventure and they enjoy seeing new things and exploring new places and meeting new people. But they absolutely love Minnesota. We all do. We have friends, wide open spaces, a (seemingly eternal) winter wonderland all around us, and the promise of the most brilliant summer we've never experienced. I don't want to uproot the kids to a new school/new home/new friends/new playground just months after arriving here to Minnesota. But because of the timing of all of this, it seems to be our only choice.

The process itself has been brutal. Steve is an odd duck. Resigning a commission to go enlisted? As an E4? Can't be done, said some recruiters. Can be done, but shouldn't, said others. A few just laughed. Ultimately, IT CAN BE DONE if you know enough people and push hard enough for answers and research every friggin Army regulation in existence. We have had an incredible amount of support and I am eternally grateful to the friends that have stuck their necks out (and ears, good lord I have talked a few folks' ears OFF) to try and help us through this. It has been tough, but the no's have only motivated Steve that much more. He is out to do everything he never got to accomplish as a "Powerpoint Ranger."

And a side note/more explaining- usually a Captain that resigns his/her commission would re-enter the enlisted world as an E5/E6. But the Call to Active Duty Program is only taking back certain MOS's (jobs) for certain ranks. As far as officers go, Steve's branch was only taking back career course qualified Captains, so he was immediately disqualified going back as an officer based on that alone. But if he went back in as an E5, he would need to complete AIT for that specific MOS. Before Steve commissioned as a 2LT, he enlisted and went to basic training and AIT for infantry. Being that I am having a baby at the end of June, going to any AIT would really throw a kink in our plans of him being around for this baby's birth. (#minordetails) BUT, the only way to pick the MOS of your choice is to be an E1-E4. When he commissioned as an officer, he was an E4, so he is just going back to what he was prior to becoming an officer. Like I said before, financially, this is fine. Our current budget is less than E4 salary so we can actually put money into savings each month once he's back in. We were just really nervous that the needs of the Army would trump all, and the proverbial THEY would put him back in as an E5, thus ensuring he'd go to AIT and miss Baby #4's birth. BUT! For some reason, the Army needed him as E4 infantry and he doesn't have to repeat AIT. PRAISE THE LORD.

It has been a bizarre feeling to be standing on the edge of two very different, but equally attractive lives. On the one hand, we could picture ourselves in that blue house in the country. We had come up with backup plan upon backup plan for that scenario if the Army said no. We had multiple viable business ideas, researched potential buildings, bounced ideas off local friends, researched some more, brainstormed endlessly, and made extensive lists detailing how we would go about accomplishing these grand plans.  On the other hand, we could picture living abroad again. Attending military functions. Moving to a new, exciting location every 3-4 years. Exposing our children to new sights/foods/experiences. No matter what, we knew we'd be happy-sad over the outcome. Which I think is the best case scenario for a situation like this.

I only write this long, drawn-out explanation to give some clarity as to why we chose this route. I have met so many of my dear friends through blogging and I know if I was on the outside looking in, I'd want to know what caused all of this to come about. (Or maybe I am just extremely nosy? Guilty as charged.) We gave the civilian life a two year shot. We are big enough to admit that it didn't work out. We are looking forward to the coming adventure and maybe living somewhere for longer than a few months. Of course, with all the excitement of this actually working out (because we still can't believe that this ACTUALLY WORKED OUT), there is the other side that is composed of mostly sheer terror and being very pregnant. Prayers for a smooth move, a house available wherever we end up, a good OB that doth not protest to my epidural requests whether I am 3cm or 10, easy transition for the kids, and the perfect alignment of the stars as far as HHG and good neighbors are concerned would all be greatly appreciated.

Steve will be going ahead of us mid-April to report to his unit and the kids and I will stay behind to finish up school. This will give us time to get on a housing list and schedule HHG (because Mama ain't movin' herself again!) and just give us a little time to process the upcoming changes. We should be joining Steve mid to late May, which gives me a whopping four weeks or so to unpack and nest and meet my third OB (one for every trimester is how I roll) and figure out how to sorta kinda navigate the largest military base in the world.

Oh yeah, did I mention where we're going?

via

Please feel free to inundate me with information! I am all ears!

Sam, Sammy, Samuel, Cool Joe

A brief snapshot of Sam, age 6 (which sounds impossible given that he was born three weeks ago)

1. What is your favorite color? orange
Last I heard it was blue or green, but maybe that was getting overplayed.

2. What is your favorite toy? cars
Judging by the amount I find on the floor each night, I'd say this is 100% true.

3. What is your favorite food? pizza
Whose isn't? I would add that a close second is all the free ice cream he finds outside in the form of clean (looking) snow and random icicles.

4. What is your favorite game? Uno
He's good at it too!

5. What is your favorite animal? Brown Bear
His stuffed animal!! This melts my heart.

6. What is your favorite song? Down By The Bay
If insanity had a tune, this might be it.

7. Who is your best friend? Molly
I'm really surprised he didn't pick his friend Colt, but I think it's sweet that he loves his sister.

8. What is your favorite thing to do outside? playing with Colt
There's Colt.

9. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? nothing
Quite the opposite of his hoarder sister

10. What is love? valentines
This question is kinda deep so I like that he answered so simply with whatever he felt was most relevant. Other acceptable answers would be: pizza, hugs, macaroni, cake, kisses.

11. What do you want to be when you grow up? a grown up!
DUH!

12. What does Mommy always say to you? pick up your toys
If you know this, then why must I keep saying it?

13. What are you really good at? playing baseball
And basketball, and football, and ice skating, and running, and and and

14. Where is your favorite place to go? Colt and Maverick's house
So much freeeeeeedom!!!! Wide open spaces!

15. Where do you live? Minnesota
He named our town too. I edited it down to the state though.

16. What do you want for your birthday this year? new monster trucks
Yeah because we sure don't have enough of those already, huh?

17. What makes you laugh? someone tickling me
Also anyone farting, talking about farting, planning a surprise farting, etc.

18. What is your favorite thing to do with Mommy? read
And lately HE has read to ME! It is so CUTE.

19. What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy? play monster trucks
I would venture to say "anything" though. He is Steve's shadow.

20. What makes you happy? when someone be's nice to me 
The way little kids talk amuses me to no end. He's starting to talk more and more like a big kid though and is losing his little kid "accent" and grammatical sort of nuances like "be's" instead of "is being".

Sam is one of the most kindhearted little boys I know! He does his best to make sure everyone is included and I miss him a lot when he's at school. He amazes me with how much he can do independently, and while I shed tears at how fast time is flying by with him, I really can't wait to see the man he becomes.

Hello Spring

Another chilly week has come and gone, and we are that much closer to spring! Or at least, what spring should feel like. Today is officially the first day of spring and it's still hovering in the 30s. Tomorrow will have a high in the 20s so I'm gonna soak up 30-something as best I can while it lasts.

A few days last week were warm enough to take walks and venture out to the town playground. It is only a few blocks from our house luckily. Sam and Molly love it. Will got some new tennis shoes at the mall and waddled his way over to the dirt and had a grand time. Normally he is in a much more winter-proof coat onesie that has covered hands and feet, so the fact that his feet were even exposed and able to make contact with the ground was probably incredibly exciting for him. He took his first steps on St. Patrick's Day (probably four in a row total), but thinks it's much funnier to just throw himself in my general direction after standing. It appears he will follow the developmental curve of his siblings and not walk until around 15 months.

The high school has open gym on Wednesday evenings during the winter and this was the first Wednesday we got it together enough to get over there.

Naturally this week is the last Wednesday they're open until next winter, but the kids had a TON of fun. As it turns out, their energy is endless. Huh.

Will crawled EVERYWHERE. He could not would not be stopped. As everyone knows, I am the biggest germaphobe in the world so this eeked me out for the entire two hours we were there, but he was completely worn out after it was all over and got a very thorough bath afterwards.

The kids used to have a bedtime of 7pm. Once daylight savings hit though, we decided we'd extend bedtime til 8. I know a 7pm bedtime gets side eye from some folks, but I comfort myself with the fact that "some folks" don't have to wake up at 6am (and sometimes earlier) with my kids every morning. You see, these are not normal humans. If you let them stay up late to watch television or play with friends, they do not sleep in to compensate for the sleep they missed. They simply wake up at the same time (crack of dawn), with the same amount of energy (where the hell does it come from), and usually, slightly more attitude than they went to sleep with (a lovely side effect). And for those reasons, my children have a very strict bedtime. I can't say extending til 8pm has made a huge difference in anyone's sleep schedule (LOOKIN' AT YOU, WILLIE), but they get the opportunity to do more things in the evening, like open gym.

St Patrick's Day! Everyone was so excited. Sam's class had been experiencing visits from a sneaky little leprechaun all week at school and he was really into it. The night before, at 10pm, I realized I had forgotten to set out St Patrick's Day stuff. I scrambled to write a note from the leprechaun, set out the Lucky Charms that I actually remembered to buy a week prior, and poured some green food coloring into the carton of milk. Nothing crazy, but he really enjoyed it so I'm glad I remembered!! Since it fell on a Friday this year, we didn't make any crazy green food (fish Friday- would prefer that not be green), but we did go to a family dance that the elementary school put on at the community center.

It was SO stinkin' fun. They had this photo booth, music that was popular from when we were in 6th grade, and just kids running around everywhere having a blast.

slow dance with Daddy

The PTO was selling dinner and juice and Sam got in on more than a few juice barrels. It lasted from 6-7:45, which is the most perfect amount of time for an elementary school dance to last, in my very humble opinion.

Turns out that no, I do not own any green clothing and yes, my blood stained chambray shirt made YET ANOTHER public appearance! #shame

We had too much fun

We got everybody home and bathed and put to bed before realizing how extremely OLD we both felt after dancing and chasing the kids around all evening. As we were sitting in the living room lamenting our achy bones, we heard the kids' door open. Sam was whining his way down the stairs and before he rounded the corner, Steve guessed that maybe he wet the bed (he did drink a lot of juice at the dance). Seeing him standing there though caused us both to leap into action as he was covered in vomit stew! So. so. so. GROSS. I showered Sam off while Steve stripped his bed and put on fresh sheets. He got it on everything (these kids have so many layers to their beds to stay warm), so the laundry that night and the next day felt endless. He finally got all cleaned up and back to bed (with a bucket) and luckily we didn't hear from him for the rest of the night. Pretty sure it was just a juice overdose coupled with a lot of running around. He woke up feeling fine the next morning.

Good thing too, because we had some trash to burn!

But first, a hot dog dinner

The previous owners of Rick and Monica's house/land had made a nice burn pile at the back of their property. They added some old carpet and we added some old doors and then Rick added some gasoline and a bit of fire.

It was fun to watch but I can't wait to have a regular bonfire and roast some marshmallows.

Finally! Some warmth!!

Sunday morning, Will woke up suuuuuper early and the big kids actually slept in, so we missed church. We played over at Rick and Monica's for a while since it was nice outside (nice = in the 40s) and then we all went swimming in the next town over.

We stayed until they closed and then had plans to go to the pizza shop in that town with our friends for dinner. We went into the locker rooms to get changed and mine and Molly's clothes were gone!! I couldn't believe it. We searched every open locker and trash can and stall and they were nowhere to be found. I wasn't (and still am not) mad about it, just kinda puzzled as to why someone would take clothes. I went out to the front desk and told the sign in lady and she was horrified. "Do you want me to call the police?!" Well, no. Not for clothes. I'm sure there isn't much else going on, but I don't think my old clothes warrant a police report. She kept apologizing like it was somehow her fault and kept insisting that she run home and grab some of her clothes for me to wear. I told her it was fine, it's warm out, we will just be sitting in the car until I change, no big deal.

I'm literally glowingggggg omg need sunshine

We all ended up skipping out on pizza since it was so warm and beautiful out (warm and beautiful = 55* and sunny). No one wanted to sit inside a pizza shop when there was weather like this to be had outside. We drove home and I showered the kids while Will napped in the car with Steve, got our clothes on, and then headed out to Rick and Monica's for a dinner picnic. A friend of theirs brought over some massive Legos and the kids played with those and then ate pizza and cheetos off the tailgate in between races and running.

We headed home afterwards, showered Will, changed sheets, more laundry, bedtime routine, zzzz....

Big kids at school today and at only 9:30, Will is already up from his morning nap. Molly's party is this weekend so it's time to rock and roll on some projects to get ready for that!! Happy Spring!

Bumpdate

Apparently I am 25 weeks and change into baby #4's pregnancy and I couldn't be more oblivious. I am actually struggling to remember what most people write in a bumpdate. And why anyone would want to read it. (Casey's awesomely hilarious bumpdates not included in this generalization.) Do you care that my baby is the size of a cantaloupe? Mostly I'm wondering if this is one of those colossal Walmart GMO-enhanced cantaloupes or like an overpriced organic tiny baby cantaloupe from Whole Foods. Someone please chime in with answers. I kinda wish the OB office had a life-size model of how big baby is for each appointment. It would sure make visualizing this tiny person easier than picturing a human cantaloupe.

Speaking of OBs, I love mine. I typically seek out female OBs because I feel like they "get it" more. I don't want a man telling me during labor what I should be feeling because he never has and never will experience those things so who is HE to tell ME what I should be feeling?! GET ME AN OREO AND AN EPIDURAL OR GET OUTTA MY FACE OK. But this guy- I like him. He has really awesome 1980s hair and a very laid-back Midwestern approach to everything. He doesn't talk to me like this is my first rodeo and never makes me feel rushed through any appointment. He probably knows it is my own mini vacation to come to these appointments and he takes it slow. And now, excuse me while I go copy and paste this onto a Yelp review for him.

I finally busted out my maternity clothes. Well, maternity pants. I have a very well-loved pair of black leggings that are in heavy rotation. I actually ditched about 70% of my maternity (and regular) "wardrobe" a few weeks back on an epic purge and have never been happier. I love love love having less options in the clothing department. Makes getting dressed that much easier. I'm still wearing my blood stained chambray shirt because it is just the right size for pregnancy and (I tell myself) the blood stains aren't that obvious... Not sure what is worse- the fact that a regular shirt of mine is the "right size" for pregnancy or that I don't consider blood stains to be offensive enough to throw a shirt away. Whatever, don't care. I am wearing a coat 94% of the time anyway, and the other 6% of the time I am with people who know about the bloody incident and why my shirt looks that way. Now whether they judge me behind my back for still wearing it or not... who knows.

chambray-bloody-non-maternity-but-works-during-maternity shirt in question// covered by a coat// out in public even// my standards are hitting all time lows// also, I do not have a glass eye, I believe the mirror has a smudge// I will keep you all (yes, all four of you) informed if I ever, in fact, get a glass eyeball.

I don't really have any symptoms to report. I get lightheaded when I stand too long in the mornings. So church is interesting on Sundays. I typically just grab my excuse (Will) and walk him around outside of the sanctuary or sit down in the hall when I feel as if I might keel over. Is bitchiness a symptom? Because if it is, I am suffering from it. Heavily. And while mostly painless for me, I'm sure it's painful for those surrounding me. I need more sunshine and less Molly-talking-into-my-ear-while-standing-two-feet-from-me. Aka WE NEED SPACE.

The kids are still excited for a new baby, although Molly still expresses some disdain over the fact that it's not a sister baby. Molly wants to name him John Deere (re: obsessed with deer and anything deer appear on), Sam changes his name preference according to whatever we're talking about at the time ("Let's call him Junior." me- Oh like Stephen Jr? "No. Just Junior. That's a really good name.") and Will- well, Will obviously has no idea what's coming. He has a mouth full of molars popping through and still thinks it's hilarious to wake up screaming for a banana at 3am. I am terrified at how gigantic my eye bags might soon be with Will waking up randomly for bananas and 4th Baby waking up to eat every 45 minutes. I can't understand why my kids don't enjoy sleeping more. I love it. Steve loves it. It makes sense that they should love it too. I am open to any and all sleep-related tips and tricks for Will. Please send them my way. Just remember that he shares a room with two other kids at the top of a very creaky/dangerous staircase.

Back to the bump- Steve and I have/had a short list of first name contenders. (We are absolutely stuck when it comes to middle name- no clue whatsoever.) I typed them in a note on my phone one day while we were driving back from Fargo. We were talking names one evening and he asked me to read the list to him again. I read it and he said, "Oh that is not possible. Was that a sarcastic list you were sending to one of your friends?" WELP. BACK TO SQUARE ONE.