Catch up

I have so much to catch up on!  Here's a quick summary:

Super Bowl 2014: a sneaking suspicion that I might be preggers but I've been wrong so many times before. Waiting for the dreaded aunt's visit so I can start HCG shots. She never came 😄😂😃

July 2014: got the $&!! out of Dodge aka Albany, GA. No tears were shed. The best view of Albany was in the rear view mirror. Sad to leave friends behind, but nothing in the world could make me go back there to live!

Arrive in the 'Cuse. Aww civilization how I missed thee!

Our first pix in Syracuse. A sign of good things to come?

September 2014: David starts school at what soon will be a presidential blue ribbon award school or some such honor.  We LOVE his school!

That same month, Andrew decided to make his appearance. 

Poor baby had a rough 1st month but more on that later. 

October: Kind of a blur but I remember there being superheroes around. 

November:

Still blurry. Sleep is overrated. Thanksgiving was my first venture out into the world with the new baby. Sad that we weren't able to visit our families, but military family is just as fun to spend the holiday with. Very grateful for the Johnsons for inviting us to their thanksgiving celebration. 

December:

Merry Christmas! I was disappointed in the Syracuse Christmas. There was no snow. Everyone had warned me of how horrific the winters were here so I was looking forward to a white Christmas. Alas, there wasn't one and the snow didn't come until later. Christmas was fun with the boys. 

That was 2014 in a nutshell. 

Summer in Albany

This summer it rained a lot. Which is great because it kept the gnats away. However, 21 days in a row of rain can be a major pain!  Luckily it only rained in the afternoons and mornings were devoted to play. All summer, David and his bf Brayden would play to their hearts content! I love that they are able to go outside and we don't have to worry about them getting snatched up. One of the benefits of living on a small base. You know everyone on your street.

Best friends

Some rainy days were delightful (without lightning)

Fun at the splash pad

Panama City Beach 4th of July vacation with cousin Emily. It rained a lot for a few days but that didn't stop us from beach time! 

Then there was girl's weekend in beautiful, historic Savannah...and the beach. We went on a ghost tour. See that big blob of light? That's a...street lamp. Nope, this girl saw no ghosts. I remember at one point looking at the tour guide and thinking that she must have a blast rolling around in tourist money and laughing hysterically at us. Oh well, we got a good historical tour out of it. The dolphin tour was much more successful so that evened it out. 

So as summer draws to an end, we prepare for kindergarten. School starts Aug 5th. Not so sure I'm ready. Oh,but here's a list of what he needs for school 

And that's just kindergarten. I don't remember needing this much in elementary but I guess teachers are tired of paying for supplies out of their meager salary. Onward to the school year!

A November to Remember

In Albany, summer months are hot and humid. On top of that, we have to deal with these pesky gnats that love to repeatedly fly into your eyes, ears, and nose. They love you even more when you're sweating and like I mentioned, it's hot and humid. If you didn't sweat much before, just visit Albany in August and you will be sweating from places that you never thought you could sweat. Since summer lasts pretty much from March to mid-October, a lot of activities are bunched into the few months of winter (laughable) that we have.

First was the Kid's ball. A celebration of the Marine Corps birthday, but with kids. It turned out to be such a success, even if my son didn't want to dance with me :(

Handsome boy

Dancing with balloons

Let's not forget the Marine Corps ball

Then there was the Thanksgiving luncheon at David's school

My little turkey

Boy student of the week!

For Thanksgiving, we were invited to our friends, the Blech's home (sorry, no photos, just lots of cooking). It was a fun time and David had a blast running around in their huge backyard. We were very thankful to be around good friends when we weren't able to travel home and see our families.

Decking the halls in November. Unusual in my family, but a tradition in Billy's.

Photo courtesy of David. He was so proud of putting his dog ornaments together, he had to capture the moment :)

Another reason why we have kids, to send them into the small niches.

MCLB 1st annual mud run before picture. No after picture because we were too cold to think about taking a picture. Why would we have a mud run on one of the few coldest months in Albany? Because we had to wait until the creek was too cold for the Water Moccasins. So glad someone thought of that. We had a blast and are looking forward to next year. David will get to join us.

So, there's our November. Now for December...

Halloween 2012

(I had this done a while ago, but saved it to upload pictures. Oops...I guess I forgot)

I'm afraid to say my little guy is slightly obsessed with Star Wars. I blame my sister, who likes to have Star Wars marathons on her birthday. She did babysit David for the first year of his life so who knows what kind of brainwashing she was doing while I worked. I mean, this kid dreams about Star Wars! If he's having a temperamental moment, all I have to do is say, "How about we talk about Star Wars" and he immediately calms down and starts talking about Luke, Anakin, Darth Vader, etc. So, imagine my surprise when for Halloween he wanted to be Luke Skywalker and asked his reluctant father to be Darth Vader. I guess asking isn't quite the right term. More like demanded. Since I hardly ever pick up a lightsabre and fight with him, I got away with just being a mommy for Halloween. Here are our pictures for this year...

David and his pal, Brayden

You say mommy, I say mummy

David: Mommy! Guess what we saw today?

Me: What did you see?

David: A pumpkin that looked like a mommy.

Me: A pumpkin that looked like me?

David(looking at his dad): No, like a...mama? It was wrapped in a white thing going round and round.

Me: Oh, a mummy!!

Lol. How has he gone 4 years without knowing about mummies? I must be a bad mummy :-)

First Day of School

It came a year sooner than I thought. The first day of school. My son started Pre-K the other day, which goes every day from 8-2:30 and loves it...well, he loves it when he gets there. Here are a few pictures:

Eating breakfast before his big day. I made him a nice breakfast of...yep, you've got it! Cereal! Mother of the year award to me!

Sporting his new backpack and shoes. He's so proud...and he even picked out those shoes himself.

I fear I've created a star wars fanatic of him. You should see his lunch bag and cup...At least, Aunt Gracie will have a buddy for her annual Star Wars marathons.

Last, but not least, his super happy face on the first day. Sad to say, I did not have that same look on my face. If anything, I was a bit weepy, and boy, did I miss him that day. All summer long, I'd been looking forward to him being at school, but the big day comes and I was a bigger baby than my baby.

This day marks his third day and this is what I've heard from him so far.
2nd day:
"Mommy, I don't want to go to school. It takes you forever to come get me!" I guess there was not such a smooth transition from a couple of hours here and there to every day for 6 hours :/

3rd day:
David: I want to go back to bed!
Me: You can't. You're a big boy now. You've got to go to school.
David: No, I'm not. I'm 3.

I have 14 more years of this?!! I can't wait...

He really does enjoy school once he gets there. His teacher tells me he's such a sweet boy and on Friday, he came home and told me that he helped his friend button up his pants after they had their potty break, lol. Such a big helper!

Happy Kid's Day

A conversation between David and Billy:

David: Daddy, can me have a happy kid's day?

Billy: A happy kid's day?

David: Yeah, like mommy has a happy mother's day and you have a happy father's day...a happy kid's day.


Out of the mouth of babes.

Big boy

This summer, David has had some pretty big milestones. I enrolled him in swim lessons and was amazed at how much he'd accomplished in a week. Here he is swimming toward his teacher. I was one proud mama!

Now he thinks he can just swim anytime he wants without waiting for me. Gives me a bit of a heart attack, but luckily he does pretty good for that moment it takes me to get to him. The other day, David's dad made a deal with him. If he could ride his bike without the training wheels, he would buy him a new bike. Well, he took him out, took off the training wheels, and helped David push off. It came naturally to David and he took off peadling without a hitch. Once he noticed that his dad wasn't holding him up, though, he immediately crashed! Again another proud mama moment:

I can't believe how big he's getting! Today, he is 4 1/2 years old. How crazy is that? He starts Pre-K in August and I don't know what I'm going to do without my little pal around ALL THE TIME! Ok, I do, but still...

Bend It Like David

It's official. I'm a soccer mom...

One of life's little pleasures is watching 4 and 5 year olds chasing a soccer ball :-)

Go Renegades!!!

It's the end of the world

It seems to me that the world will, indeed, end in 2012.

For one, David walked up to me the other day and said, "Mom, I'm tired. I'm going to take a nap."
I didn't believe him, but it got strangely quiet and I went to check on him. There he was, snoozing soundly on the couch.

Secondly, my husband was allowed to come home early from work just because of our anniversary. He usually stays at work for a little longer than normal working hours, so this to me, was miraculous. I mean, come on, he didn't make it home for the birth of his son ;)

I don't know about you, but I'm going to start getting ready for the end, because if these aren't sure signs, then I don't know what is.

Yes, David...

Growing up, my family wasn't very big on the santa thing while Billy's family was. All he knows about Santa, he gets from his dad. So, this year, David is getting into the spirit of Christmas. The spirit I'm speaking of is the "what am I getting for Christmas and what can I ask Santa to get me" spirit. Well, ever since the holiday trimmings and decorations have been up in stores (September, basically), I've been saying to David, "You know Santa isn't real, right?" His response has been, "I know."

So, when we finally moved onto base housing, we were able to stop for a bit in our unpacking and attend Billy's work Christmas party. For this party, we were asked to bring in a present with our son's name on it for Santa to present to him. (Whatever happened to giving out candy cane?) Anyway, earlier David had asked for a Buzz Lightyear and we found one, got it wrapped up, gave it to Santa so he could give it to David. When David's turn came, he got on Santa's lap and proceeded to freeze. Santa handed him his gift, a quick picture was taken, and off of Santa's lap David jumped. He walked toward us, holding his gift, in a daze, like he'd just met his biggest idol. Then he opened his gift and found his Buzz Lightyear.

He still looks dazed :)


Now, whenever I ask David, "You know Santa's not real, right?" He just says, "Yes, he is! I met him!" His dad couldn't be happier and I...well, to be honest, I have been using Santa as a means to keep David a well-behaved boy. I mean, come on! What mom wouldn't?

My little peacemaker

The other day, I was a bit upset with Billy and speaking rather loudly to him. David pipes up from his little corner where he was playing with his cars, "Mommy, I know how to make you happy. I will dust your room for you!" He proceeded to get up, got the duster and started dusting. I laughed. It definitely made me feel better and took the wind out of my sails. I'm sure Billy was grateful, too.

Makin' the bacon

A conversation between David and Billy.

David: Daddy, can we play trains all day tomorrow.

Billy: No, buddy. Remember what I told you?

David: I know...you have to go to work and make the bacon.

Never Ending October

I thought October would never end! Now it's finally and actually Halloween...what did we do to celebrate? Why we went to Outback Steak house! Yea us! Nothing but excitement at the Lyman household. Actually, I want that to be a new tradition. Go out for Halloween and forget this trick-or-treating business.

It's actually been an eventful October for us. First Billy was promoted then left the very next day for a couple of weeks to inspect the reserve unit in California. David and I hung around Albany and explored the area a bit. We went to Chehaw Play Park which he absolutely loved and has constantly begged to go back. One night, he even prayed about it. "Please bless mommy. Help her to take me to Chehaw Park tomorrow." We also went and checked out a local diner that was rated one of the best on Urbanspoon and some random, kind-hearted stranger paid for our meal. I have to say, that I'm rather fond of Georgia and the southern hospitality. People will speak to you and say "hi!" It's great!

This time of year is filled with lots of festivals and activities. There's the Harvest Festival, Peanut festival (on a side note: boiled peanuts=disgusting), pumpkin patches...I guess you just have to know where to look. Not that we attended any of them. My old brain does not ever remember the dates or times for them. However, the base had a bunch of activities for the kids and we attended most of them.

The first one was the CDC fall festival. Child Development Center, in case you were wondering. No disease festivals this year...sad, I know :) The CDC had little games and activities in each of the rooms in their care center such as the cake walk, bowling, cookie decorating, etc. It was fun to see kids dressed up in their costumes, going from room to room and getting their treats. David was Superman that day.

Always shy and hesitant at first, then the loudest kid by the end.







Our next outing was the harvest festival. They had bouncy houses set up, free food, hay rides, trunk-or-treating, and a movie in the park. David decided to be Thomas that day.

My little Thomas, so proud of the pumpkin on his face.

Daddy and Thomas











Then, building 3500 and 3700 had trick-or-treating at their offices for all the CDC kids. I think it was just an excuse to get out of work for a little while. Either way, the kids loved it and it was darling to see them all dressed up. David wanted to be superman again.

Superman and Minnie Mouse

David and cute little, Lily

Such a super little man!

All the candy from all his activities and trick-or-treating still to come.







Here in Albany, I'm told they always have trick-or-treating on Saturdays. We took David to base housing and let him trick-or-treat there. Sadly, Billy wasn't able to come because he was the marine on duty for that day. We met up with friends and let the kids loose. David had so much fun! I developed blisters on my toes. So, if it seems like we weren't very celebratory for Halloween...well, it's only because it's been Halloween for the last couple of weeks. Looking forward to November and hopefully, moving into a house!

Jacksonville, FL:

To escape the insanity of living in a motel, we decided to take a little break over labor day and headed for Jacksonville, FL. Nothing could be better than a weekend at the beach. A beautiful beachside hotel, lovely weather, and a great location, this was definitley a great way to ease the stress of being kind of homeless. I can definitely see us retiring in Jacksonville.



Running on the beach with his dad


Look at my tan!


Fun in the sand!



Beach baby!

At the Jacksonville Zoo. We were hoping to see the manatees here, but to no avail. Oh well, photo ops.



FYI if anyone ever ends up in Jacksonville on Jackson beach, the best restaurant to try is called Sliders! Such delicious, fresh food! Yum!