whatta week!!!!

ok first off, it's been one heck of a week! cory was FINALLY able to take leave starting monday after working a month straight of 16-18 hour shifts having the occassional sunday afternoon off..... but the good news is all the inspections that they were doing went fantastically! his shop passed with flying colors!! so hooray!....anywho, monday and tuesdays went by without a hitch, we sat around and were lazy all day...:D... well i had to get up early tuesday because i went to see the dermotologist about my face..he agrees its not rosacea!! YAY! its called perioral dermatitis...and thankfully its easier to treat then roscea, however, its not easy to treat when pregnant......*sigh*.. so the doc found something that seems to be making it at least calm down, i dont feel like im a lepar any more..... anywho, so i got the girls these way cute hats and they LOVE them... so i took pictures...




Kaylee(^^) as usual has to try to run from the camera.... oy.. and nikoy actually smiled for me... granted the cats looking a little disgruntled...




we also decided since cory and i got fun "toys" with our tax return our girls should get something out of it too, so we went ahead and bought them each a Vsmile handheld Vtech gameboy thingamabob.. lets just say THEY LOVE THEM! they never put them down..unless the batteries die...im just going to say, whoever invented recharable batteries should be knighted.......





kaylee's had a hard time figuring it out but she's getting there!!

anywho..

wednesday we decided to completely spotlesize the house, which sucked because after being so lazy all day monday and tuesday,...we had our work cut out for us.. :D so we managed to get 90% of the house clean, and we called it a night, had some dinner, thursday was AWESOME!!! we got up and finnished what we had left of the housework, and decided to go out and about and have some fun! so we decided since the gartenschau (garden show) in kaiserslautern was opened for the season we'd go have a looksee! and it was well worth the 12 euro we paid to get in!! (children under 6 are free...

they had pretty gardens to walk through (hence the name "garden show") with LOTS of photo ops!

I love tri-pods and timers... wish i had my wireless remote....:D (hint hint cory)

cory actually took this picture, proving he's got just as much of an eye for art as anyone else i know..

the girls found an old phone booth and it was cute..

and i LOVED this statue, if i had a garden this would be my center peice... its so cute!!!

nikoy and kaylee posing on a giant rat....thingy...

now we're walking across the bridge, lets go see some dinosaurs!!

cory and the girls sitting on an ancient aligator thingy..dont ask me what these are called, i am NOT smarter then a fifth grader...:D and dont worry it cant bite, cory's holding the mouth shut, see?

and anyways its not real..

pretty flowers...again "garden show"..

awww dinosaur love...

this was a cool scene, the brachiosaurs are trying to protect thier baby from the naughty alosaurus! (the actual names of these dinosaurs may be wrong, do i look like a dinosaur expert??)

i loved these flowers, they smelled SOOOOOOOOOOO good!

this is one of my favie dinosaurs, its a toss up between stegosaurs and ankylosaurs...notice the pregger tummy...yeah...its there....

he he, my superman takin on a torosaurus! its part of the triceratops family...
see? i learned...

this is one fella i wouldnt want to meet in a dark alley...

the girls HATED this! they may look happy and smiling, but thats only because cory's on his way over to save them from the hungry dinosaur head....

he saved the girls, but got himself digested,,,

:) whenever we go to the zoo corys always pulled towards the rhino's so it only seemed appropriate to take his picture with the ancient ansestor!

this was just a cool stone thing sitting in the middle of a grassy field, i dunno if we were suposed to touch it, but we did anyways...

this was nikoys favorite flower at the show, its called a pink diamond...very pretty huh?

now we're walking towards the playground... nice view huh?? :D

good ancient doggy....

cory took the girls down this HUGE slide that looked terrifying. kaylee came out without a scratch or bump but she didnt want to do it again..

nikoy came out backwards and upsidedown....she refused to even go near it again...

but she did seem ok with climbing the rope ladder.. untill she looked down..

lots of rope stuff...

kaylee enjoyed the giant sand box...

and cory was just being his usual yummy self...

i sat and watched from the sidelines..:D

they had these awesome swings that were like those bird nests that hang from the trees, the girls climbed in through a hole in the bottom, and...

sat comfortably while it gently swayed, cuz the mom of the 8 year old next to nikoy freaked out that her son was scared of heights and therefor none of the other kids could have fun...

nikoy and her daddy on the cool springy...thing..

they had a big wooden dinosaur that the girls got to climb all over too.. thankfully we got out of it splinter free..

then it was time for a game of tag!

daddy won.....

yay! icecream!!

so after an awesome time of running playing screaming and icecream eating, we let the girls each pick a souvenier, nikoy got the cute duck looking dinosaur,

and kaylee got her pink "sara-tops"

(more pretty flowers..)

so that was our thursday, we walked back to the car, and went home, cory grilled some steaks, we sat and watched a movie together and it was nice... so friday, (oh today!!) we got up at o'dark thirty (about 7 this morning...:D its too early for me..) and cory had an appointment, after his appointment we went swimming and we learned that 9 am is the PERFECT time to hit the pool! the lap lanes are normal, but the kiddie section was empty, the girls had the whole pool to themselves!! after swimming we went and had lunch, and then cory had another appointment, we finnished with that and we went to the BX (military store kinda like kmart..it sucks just as bad.) and then we came home ate dinner played some halo and now im updating a blog, and wondering, why now? its five to midnight, and sunday is easter which tells me i'll be updating again mondayish, so,, oh well huh? anywho.. i would like to announce that as of monday (april 13th) i'll be 30 weeks along! and the baby is doing FANTASTIC! he's kickin like a pro, wakes me up at about the same time every morning with the thrashing and kicking and he must have changed positions because im starting to get the annoying foot in the ribcage...*sigh*... other then the petty annoyances all is well and good!!! and no, still NOTHING on cory's MEB, hopefully soon...hopefully.... anywho, i'll be hitting the hay now, im tired... :D.. LOVES YOU ALL!!

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHH!!!

so I'm a little frazzled...what else is new???
so when Cory and I found out i was pregnant with nikoy (it doesn't seem that long ago..) we decided that if it was a girl we were going to do a care bears
nursery, and if it was a boy it would be superman. well i had it my way then, now its Cory's turn, but trying to find superman baby bedding is not possible unless i want to make it, and finding superman material is even harder, so we decided the rest of the decorating will be easy enough, its the bedding that will be difficult... so we thought we would just do solid superman colors (red yellow and blue) and get a cute fleecy superman blanket right?..well i have been on so many different websites today my head is spinning... and trying to find solid colors for cribs is next to impossible!!! see this is my idea so far..


i haven't decided if i want a dark blue or a lighter blue, but I'm thinking it'll be the royal blue because the lighter blue doesn't quite fit with the red and yellow, i know i want the bumpers or the ruffle to be red, the sheet i want either blue or yellow, and YES i am using bumpers... i used them with nikoy and Kaylee and they both survived to tell about it, theres been a lot of "don't use bumper they'll suffocate your baby!" and even the odd, "if you use bumpers take them out when your baby is 6 months old"....so use them when the baby doesn't move enough to really need them, but once the baby is active enough to stick its little arms and legs between the bars or be like nikoy and Kaylee both were with their heads crammed in the corners, take them out..... hmmmmmmmmm doesn't make sense does it? the bumpers are staying, i don't know how many mornings the girls would have woken up with headaches from cramming their heads in the corner of the crib. so I'm keeping the padding thank you... anywho.. I've also been told that bed skirts are a waste of money, but I'm doing it anyways because i like hiding the under the crib baskets and what not, so there... and as far as blankets aren't safe till the baby's a year old....baloney... to a point.. if your wrapping it up in a huge heavy bed spread, yeah i see the danger, but a warm little receiving blanket, i see no harm in that.. the first few weeks and months the baby cant move enough to get to tangled in the blanket anyways. so, yeah.. honestly this world is becoming to soft and "oh keep it safe.. keep it safe!!"... "you use blankets in your crib? your a bad mother"...sheesh. i had blankets in my crib and I'm still breathing!!!! any who... so back to the problem.. if anyone knows any online stores where i can buy solid colored crib separates let me know,. I've tried babies r us, I've tried amazon and eBay, and i don't trust eBay, and a recent amazon thing has made me lose faith in amazon as well... target doesn't ship to APO addresses, and wal-mart shipping takes way to long, (estimated 6-8 weeks!! I'd have to order NOW) or if anyone has any idea where i can get a decent crib set pattern I'll find material and make it myself!!!!! all i need really is the pattern for the bed skirt and the bumper pads. I'm sure it wont be difficult to find blue or yellow sheets...i think I'll do a red skirt, blue bumper and yellow sheets.....monkeys..... decisions decisions.... anywho, change of subject!!

Cory came home from work the other day with a new chair... its supposed to be mommy and daddy's chair, but it has become just daddy's chair. mommy will stick to her glider which has been relocated to the baby's room, which is also still for now the storage/workout room......i personally like to put my feet up and still be able to rock, daddy's chair doesn't rock in the lounge position so daddy can keep it. :) the one feature on this chair i do LOVE is the butt warmer, and it vibrates and massages my achy back.... but, if i want to rock i cant put my feet up... oh well... anywho..


silly girls... nikoys been working on her head stands and kaylee is mad that nikoy can do something she's cant, so kaylees been practicing too.... whats a mommy to do?

so im sitting here....

yeah, I'm sitting here reading through my blog list, and lightning strikes my brain.. I'm 28 weeks pregnant now, which means i have 12 weeks to get ready for this baby to get here! and other then an outfit from my mom, and a couple packages of onsies i bought, I'm not ready. so, now I'm sitting here making lists of all the "hundreds" of things I'd like to have before baby gets here, stock up on diapers, wipes, formula (NO I'm not breastfeeding...) and it'll be a week or two before i can get in to see the WIC people, i still need clothes and Binky's and bottles and and now I'm totally excited because it also just dawned on me.... BABY SHOPPING SPREE!!!! ..:D i love shopping and spending money..unless I'm spending it on me...then i don't much care for it...weird huh?... any who.. its still hard to believe I'm already 28 weeks, and I'm hoping and praying the time continues to fly until he's born, because i truly don't enjoy the whole pregnancy thing, but i truly enjoy the whole baby thing..:D. so time should continue flying right up until i get home from the hospital ( i hate staying in the hospital, if i could just have the baby and go home i would...) then time should slow down a bit so i can enjoy the babyness of the baby. and hopefully it wont be long after the baby's born that we'll be able to go back to the states... I'd like to be in the states by Halloween, but hoping for at least Christmas is getting to be more realistic.. we still haven't heard about Cory's MEB, and the wait is getting almost as unbearable as the wait for the baby... in fact if we had found out we were pregnant at the same time as the MEB process started, I'd be having a baby A LOT sooner!!.... any who.. nothing new besides the getting ready process, and the waiting...oy...:D so yeah.. *sigh*

twas a beautiful day!

the sun was out! and it was still cold! but it was a beautiful day!

so we decided to go to the park and play! the girls were more then thrilled with that idea, so daddy came to get us for lunch, we dropped him back off after a tasty meal of taco bell...(can you smell the sarcasm?) did some various errand running, and went to the park!!

the girls haven't been out a lot lately, #1 its been freezing cold still, and #2, the spring rain has set in, so now its freezing cold and its raining....*sigh*.. OK its not FREEZING, its high 30's low 40's ish.. it bounces back and forth.. cant wait till it gets into the 50's-60's..:D *sigh*

this is a fun spinning ring, the girls sit and i spin it! :D

they have gotten it into their heads that slides are more fun if they do it together!! :D which is way to cute!! they love playing together, they had a play group going at this play ground and usually nikoys off playing with the first "big kid" she See's but she stuck right by Kaylee the whole time! i was so proud!!


this slide is awesome, I've been down it a few times(not lately..) but if your not ready to catch yourself at the bottom you go shooting out across the playground on your butt. wee

taking turns.. i think Kaylee's causing a traffic jam..."get in line!!" he he he..

This made me laugh really hard... i had to get a picture of it... talk about spontaneous graffiti...

LOOK! the tree's are waking up! so after an hour or two at the park it was time to go pick up daddy.. but he wasn't done working yet..

so we stayed to help him out any ways we could. the girls colored daddy pretty pictures, and i played secretary....

over the weekend we got to go to a birthday party!! they had it at the Kid zone, which is basically a wanna be chuck E. cheese or peter piper pizza depending on where you are...

fun and pizza... yummy..

the girls even got to eat cake!!! :D

nikoy learned that it pays to have a game guru dad, anything he put coins in, popped out a bucket load of tickets! nikoy thought it was awesome! the grand total i believe was 335 tickets in the end...

these are just pictures i had fun doing..:D playing with my camera again.. nikoy makes a fantastic model since she kinda forces herself into the picture.. Kaylee is more the type to run and not be in the picture, which is why I'll be getting a wireless remote for my camera here soon. it'll be much easier taking portraits of kids when i can set up my tri-pod and actually take the picture without having to be behind the camera to do it.. I'll hopefully have that this weekend! any who.. a few more fun picks..:)

Nikoy LOVED doing this, she thought it was so cool she could make her fingers look like letters!

new outfits!!

My pretty girl complaining that she has to be in a picture...

the flowers are finally starting to bloom and the baby's pick em'..:D yes the colors odd, i was playing with some filters..:D

my sleepy girl..:D he he he.... any who.. that's our life this week! not much to report! we have an appointment later this week so I'll let ya know how that goes!! Cory's been putting in 18 hour shifts, he's working himself to death as usual.. but his shop is going through some government inspections and he get to make sure none of his program have any problems.. so he leaves at all hours of the morning and he gets home at all hours of the night.. goes to sleep wakes up at all hour of the morning and gets home at all hours of the night, it really is a vicious cycle... hopefully this will be the last week and he'll get a break. we're thinking about taking some leave to spend a weekend at neuschwanstein again, we'd like to go inside the big castle, and I'm looking forward to taking all the hundreds of pictures i can..:D and now that Kaylee can walk it'll be more terrifying for me..:D (she was only 7 months old last time we were there...)so yeah... any who.. still haven't heard anything about Cory medical stuff, hopefully it wont be to much longer, I'd like to be back in the states in time for Christmas! :D that would be so nice!! any who.. love you all be safe! LOVES!!

96 days and counting!!

so i was pleasantly surprised to discover i have less then a hundred days to go till baby Shaun gets here! yay!! we're so excited!! OK a few more exciting events, to note..:) the 16th, Monday i believe... started off like any normal day, i woke up, fed the girls, checked my e-mail, then put the girls in their room with a movie while i cleaned my house up a bit, i got my kitchen spotless!! my living room and dining room were pretty much spotless, save for a few spots.. anywho, Cory had left for work super early, he got there at 4:00!! so he was off early! *YAY*!!

anywho, i was in the process of switching laundry loads when i heard him walk in, so i called out to him to let him know where i was, and he starts yelling that the small bathroom is trashed, that "someone" had left a present for me... so i immediately thought, well Kaylee's potty training maybe she forgot to flush, or then again, the cat likes to cough up hair balls in places she thinks i wont find them,... anyways so as all these nasty images were going through my head i open the door to see this HUGE box sitting on my perfectly immaculate toilet seat..

yes this box is huge!! and it is my new Nikon D-90!! I was so excited i very nearly screamed..i grinned and grabbed the box and sat on the couch with it instead....it felt like Christmas!!.....so i opened the box as Cory explained that this was the last one in any of the Saturn stores (its a German electronics store, kinda like circuit city, or something..) in Germany!! few! what luck!

the only downside to getting this at a German store is that the users manual is all in German! oy.. luckily for me though, the Nikon website has a down loadable version, so no biggie.. and if i really want a hard copy i can order one.. again .. no biggie...:) so i decided to play..:D

keep in mind, these are the first few pictures I've taken, and i have no owners manual to help me figure things out, so it may be a while before i get any good... but it did a fantastic micro of my kitty's eyes...

here's Jazmin after a bath... she wasn't to happy with me...

:D yes we got the girls Easter dresses already.. we had to buy them while they had them..:) and well, with a new camera i couldn't resist getting them all dolled up! isn't Kaylee GORGEOUS in yellow??

my girls defiantly love each other..they are ALWAYS hugging each other, the other day i walked in to find them asleep and snuggling on nikoys bed.. unfortunately Cory had our dinky camera, and i hadn't gotten the d-90 yet, so no cute picture.. sorry.. moving on..

MY 4 YEAR OLD LOOKS 14!!! she's getting so big! its so making me feel old.....

i LOVED Kaylee in this pic! the look is priceless!! and oddly enough nikoys smiling pretty too!..weird huh?

this is my little super model doing the super model thing...man I'm not looking forward to her growing up!!

this is a Little over exposed, but it turned out pretty anywho!! Cory came home with these flowers a few days ago.. my face was horribly swollen, and i looked like a teenager going through puberty and it was infected and well lets say I've been avoiding mirrors like the plague cause they made me feel like a leper.... and Cory knew my self esteem has been suffering ALOT lately so he brought me home flowers to tell me he still thinks I'm beautiful....*sigh*.. i love my man..

I'm going in beginning of April to the dermatology clinic to figure out whats wrong with my skin.. they thought it was rosacea, but its not... so hopefully a skin professional will know what it is and how i can make it go away!

another pretty shot... :D so yeah. lots of fun!! fun fun fun..nothing new to report as far as us coming back to the states, we still havent heard about Cory's MEB, we were supposed to find out at the beginning of the year, and well, its late!! Cory's been so busy with work and studying that i think he may be slipping slowly into madness..... i wish i could help him at least with the studying, but its against the AFI, its considered test compromise and he could get in SERIOUS trouble if anyone found out i was helping.. they want him to do it all by himself... but he's a big boy, he can handle it. as long as i keep a handle on the housework he seems less stressed. so that's how i help. i give him a clean place to study! anywho.

baby's doing good, my next appointment isn't till the end of march. i know he's growing cause my tummy's getting tighter and tighter every day, i got my belly bands in the mail and was disappointed because they were a bit to big.. now they're almost to tight..:D oy.. anywho. I'm still enjoying the kick boxing tournaments going on in my belly, it lets me know he's all good! I'm sure much like, my pregnancies with Nikoy and Kaylee, it will get old and I'll start getting irritable with it, but I'll get over it.. anywho.. that's about it... st. patty's day has come and gone (happy birthday roo!!) and Easters on its way... the girls can't wait.. we're doing Easter stuff at our house this year, so cant wait for that mess... anywho.. LOVES!!

amazing news!!

you know when you go to tuck your kids into bed at night and they quietly ask "can you check under my bed?" and you get on your hand and knees and sure enough the only thing under there is dust bunnies and forgotten toys? well, i have done the impossible.. I've managed to capture a picture of the monster under the bed... warning , this is not for the faint of heart...

he he he, my very own monster!! ain't she cute? we decided to keep her...

anywho, as i mentioned in my last blog it will soon be my grampa's 80TH, and my gramma birthday is just before his, so yeah.. I've made these for them! my gramma's been asking for these for a while..sorry for the wait gramma!! LOVES!!

and enjoy!

(mom I'll be mailing these to you hopefully this weekend!! LOVES!!)

happy pictures!

so i was able to talk to my mother the other night, and i learned that my grampa is celebrating his 80Th birthday soon!! happy birthday grandpa!!

:) anywho, so i discovered much to my surprise, the last picture i have of myself, was the toga party, which i don't count because I'm not exactly me in those pictures, I'm cleptopatra.. and before that was...a lot longer ago.. so i decided that with the help of my bitty tri-pod, (cause my nice big tri-pod met an untimely demise when its leg fell off...) to do some self portraits!!..so yes i caved and i now have preggo pictures....to help me remember all the "fond" memories of watching my figure go from semi-out of shape hour glass, to pear....*sigh*..anywho, whilst i was picturing myself, my girls got jealous, cause the camera was out and they weren't in front of it, and i needed some up-to-date pics for my grandfathers present so i went ahead and got them all cutsied up, and well these are the result.. now all i need to do is get Cory in a good mood so i can get some pics of him, and some of us together..:)...wouldnt that be nice? anywho, I'll post those when we get them.. for now, enjoy these!

oddly enough Nikoy actually smiled.. there were no funny faces, there was no goofiness (OK there was very little goofiness..) she sat and smiled like the angel she (usually) is...

Kaylee was her typical self, as soon as the camera was aimed at her she started crying.. so i had to threaten her with constant tickles if she dared to stop smiling.. i think it worked.. i got some good grins, Kaylee is terribly ticklish all you have to do is make her think she's going to be tickled and she starts laughing.. fantastic..

Nikoy being good again..weird..

another picture of me threatening my daughter..:D.. ("smile or I'm gonna tickle the monkeys out of you!") my children are monkeys..

see....still acting good...and being my little super model..:D

this picture was FANTASTIC!!! can you see where i photo shopped it? I'm still learning.. I'll eventually be good enough to take people pictures and erase anything they don't like about themselves (to a point..) like i can make my freckles go away, or peoples braces! or anyother...imperfections..:D..soon ...

OK.. now is the preggo pics... ..enjoy... 0_0*.....

look at that gut... :D that's my boy!!

keep in mind, i am only 24 weeks along, im going to get MUCH bigger....isnt that a pleasant thought?....O_o....

unfortunately because of the pregnancy i cant take my rosacea medication, so until this baby pops out i get to deal with looking like a teenager in the throws of puberty with the bright red breakouts...and cover-up? not likely.. only makes things worse... so yeah..
anywho.. that's me preggo... my feet hurt, my back aches, and don't get me started with the kick boxing tournaments going on in my belly....:D...the joys of motherhood eh?...he he he