PhotoStory Friday: Just A Spoonful Of Sugar

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

This is what my kids bathroom counter top looks like:

In order: NyQuil, Ibuprofin, Tylenol, Mucinex (wonderful stuff), Benadryl and Gentle Vapors (another amazing invention).

Between the three kids I am using all six of these. Each one has a cold, but each cold is different. I also have their dosage cups lined up on the other side of the counter in order of age, so I don't exchange germs (yes, I wash the dosage cups out).

They are all getting over their colds at different times, too. I wish they would all just pick a day and get better.

Along those lines, I am afraid we have created a die-hard child. Noah looks terrible, sounds terrible, and I am pretty sure he feels the same, however he won't give in. He has insisted on going to school the past two days, and even made it through an hour of soccer practice, against my unsuccessful pleading otherwise. I have a feeling that I have "a child just like me" as my dad always wished upon me.

However, all this medicine came in handy last night when Pete was looking up some medical stuff, and asked me if I knew of a common decongestant. Well, he was in luck! I had just been to the store and read about ten different decongestant boxes. My answer was Diphenhydramine.

Are you all proud of me? Put that in your gee-whiz file.

Ballerina For A Day

Annie was very anxious to try on her Halloween costume. She is so dang cute!

Remember Miss USA, 2007?

Her name is Rachel Smith, and she is from right here in Clarksville, TN. So when I took Noah to the doctor yesterday, to a Dr. Smith, and walked in to see pictures of Miss USA in her office, I had to ask. Yep, our pediatrician is Miss USA's mother. Small world.

My guess is that this picture came from right here at Fort Campbell.

Tennessee Tuesday

This is my new project. In an effort to remember what Tennessee looks like after I move, I will be posting a picture every week from somewhere in Tennessee. A lot will come from here in Clarksville, but as we travel around, I will share more of the state with you.

This really is a beautiful state. We have driven to Nashville twice, and the whole trip is a tunnel of trees. The major roads here are enveloped in slated rocks, stacking on top of each other, with just a hint of red to them. It reminds me slightly of driving from Northern to Southern Utah, as the rocks get more and more red.

There are also some interesting things here. This is my first Tennessee Tuesday post:

As you drive East on Tiny Town Road, which is NOT a tiny road, or even in a tiny town, you run into these. Three giant crosses in the middle of a field. There are some benches in front of the crosses, and three spotlights on them, so they must be important. They are near the entrance to a church of some kind, so I assume that they're part of the church. In a way it reminds me of coming upon a temple. You come up around a corner, and BAM! There it is!

It really is a pretty place, and it is even more so because there is nothing around it but fields. It's a very quiet, peaceful, serene area.

Tagged!

This is the first time I have been tagged, and I actually got this one three times! So here goes...

My very talented and quirky brother-in-law, Chris, my country-livin' sister-in-law, Kathy , and my adorable, can't-believe-she-is-11-years-old neice, Jordan all tagged me. It might be hard to come up with seven things about myself (I am not that interesting) but I will do my best!


1. I HAVE to sleep with my feet out of the covers. Doesn't matter what time of the year it is. The rest of me body can be completely snuggled in blankets, but if my feet are warm, I can't sleep.

2. I went to college on a dance scholarship. I was also awarded another scholarship to a different college, and turned it down because some girl that I wasn't fond of decided to go there. I couldn't take anymore time with her.

3. I got engaged while sky-diving. Some of you know this already, but I bet a lot of you don't. Yep, and I thought Pete was kidding, too. We were jumping out of a plane; who wouldn't say something stupid?

4. I could eat a whole batch of cupcakes all by myself, but I can only eat one piece of cake. That's why I make more cake than cupcakes.

5. I am soooo good at the game Mad Gab, nobody will play with me. I win everytime.

6. I collect notebooks and chapstick. I have chapstick in just about every room of the house, all of my bags, and always in my pocket. I buy a notebook if it's cute, even though I rarely need it. I just think up excuses to have a new one. I am currently using three notebooks to write random thoughts in.

7. I know all the words to the Preamble to the Constitution, and I have since I was in third grade. Can't remember what I ate yesterday, but I can remember the Preamble. Go figure.


I now Tag:

1. Mandie, at Plain and Precious Life is my best friend, makes me laugh at myself and has kids that are almost as cute as mine! TAG!
2. Grammy Juli has known me since I was about 5 years old, has super cute grandbabies, and is the silliest grandma around! TAG!
3. Jenni at The Gilbreth Family is an amazing photographer, and has the smartest 4 year old on the planet! TAG!
4. Darci just got an adorable new haircut and has an awesome husband! TAG!
5. Jessica at The Crazy Nutt House has children that are two days younger, two months younger and one month younger than mine, respectively.TAG!
6. Jess at Tooths Of Wisdom is an awesome friend, an awesome snowboarder, and is going to be an awesome dentist! TAG!
7. Itol at Love Is All So Simple is my favorite and silliest cousin, and has 6 children! She is the best mom on the planet! TAG!

Take A Tour

Well, here is our new house! It took so long to get these pictures up, and I am warning you now: The rooms are not clean! Deal with it! I will never have a clean house! This is our first house, and although we are taking notes about the things we like and don't like, we can't complain much. The house is right next to Noah's school, five minutes from the main shopping areas, ten minutes from the base, ten minutes from the church, and we even have a few member families on the block, with more down the road. We haven't put much up on the walls; a few pictures and that's about it. We are moving again in 10 months, and I don't see the point of putting everything up. So, I hope you enjoy the tour!

All the houses here look similar because they were built by the same company. We are in a "village." In Utah, we would call it a "cookie-cutter home."

When you walk in the house, you enter into the family room. This room, plus the dining room, is hard wood floors, which we DON'T like. We thought we would, but living with it for the past two months has changed our minds. We bought everything except the book shelf when we got here. This is our "nice" room.

Through the family room is the dining room. It's large and spacious, which we are not used to. As you can see, we have a door that goes to the back patio. And we had to buy a 6 person table!

Here is the kitchen. I am sure that I have a picture of it when it was clean, but I couldn't find it. This kitchen is actually not much bigger than our kitchen in Wisconsin, just a little more moving room. This kitchen is my biggest gripe about the house. The door you see goes to the laundry room, then out to the garage. There is also a bathroom around the corner.

Above the garage is what is called a "rec room." It's pretty much just a large, open room. We have made it the "media room." We have our TV and computer in it, and it also leads to the toy room, so it is pretty much always cluttered. This room still has boxes in it, although they are all empty.

The toy room. It's small, but perfect for our toys.

Next to the rec room is the boy's room. It's big and spacious, and has a large walk-in closet. We have wondered though, why did they put a bedroom right next to a rec room?

Next is the kid's bathroom. It's bigger than our old one, so I am totally happy!

Next is Annie's room. Another big room with a walk-in closet.

The master bedroom. SO NICE! We have our own bathroom, a ceiling fan, and yes, that's right, TWO walk in closets!

The master bathroom. It has two sinks, again, something I thought I would love. Not so much. It's a waste of space. But I am not complaining. We have three bathrooms!

No New Pictures

So, I had planned to play PSF this week, however, Pete took my camera to work, along with my card. Thus, I have no pictures to post. Crap.

This week has been a busy one. We decided to start potty training Annie, so we bought all the fun stuff that goes along with it: big-girl underwear, pull-ups and a little potty. Noah never used one of those, so we had to go get one. And it's musical! I knew she peed in the potty today when I heard some royal music playing behind me.

Cooper has a cold, poor baby. His brain is coming out through his nose. I am doing my best to keep it in there.

Pete is planning and preparing some big report/presentation at work, so he has been gone every night this week, and will be gone most of the weekend. Wait, I thought we were out of school?

Tonight we had our first parent/teacher conference for Noah. He is doing well in school, and is even behaving, much to our suprise. Apparently, "School Noah" and "Home Noah" are two different kids. He sits, and listens, and tries really hard to do what he is told at school. His teacher says he tested a little above average going into school, but thinks he will go to well above average because he is already a little ahead in a few things. He went into school already knowing all the colors, shapes, alphabet and numbers to 20. Most kindergartners don't, which suprises me. And he likes school. That's a plus.

And I have been shopping! I can't help it! I got an awesome shelf for my living room, a beautiful dress for Annie and some cool lotions. Oh, and I went back to the gym full-force this week. I am so freakin sore! It's been about 2 months since I have worked that hard, and although it's worth it, the first week is awful! I miss my gym buddies, and honestly, my classes in WI. One class I took this week had some really cool, funky, popular music, mixed in with a whole bunch of Christian-music-gone-funky. Not that there is anything wrong with that kind of music, I just thought it was odd. Well, it IS the YMCA. It's all Christian based values. Good stuff.

So, that's our week. Tomorrow we have an Army Fall Festival to attend. It should be fun; lots of pumpkin painting, and yummy treats. The best part is Pete HAS to get off of work early for it! It's required!

So, stay tuned. As soon as my camera migrates back from base, I will add some more pictures.