February in review

February was a fast and fun month. It started with me running a huge CBRN(Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear) Challenge for all my soldiers. Then I got promoted to 1LT on the 10th!!!

Then Valentine's Day hit and it lasted forever. The kids got boxes from both sets of Grandparents and both were loved! The day before V-day we called Grandma Cori for her giant chocolate chip cookie recipe. She has traditionally made giant heart shaped ones for the boys for years. I thought that we would keep the tradition alive and do it at home this year. I might be a master baker but that is one recipe I will have to try a few times to make it turn out. That will teach me to try and improvise. : )

The weather has gotten really warm here after the first week where we has temps in the teens and a "snow storm" aka 3/4 of and inch. In fact I had a 5 day weekend last week because I had my jaw repaired from some Army damage a few years back and the kids and I slept in our tent in the back yard. They had an absolute ball doing something different with mommy. Baleigh

Last Sunday Thor decided to play barber and cut Baleigh's hair! IT was a terrible mullety-rat tail. So now she has a cute little pixie cut that melts my heart.

WE are officially out of debt! And as a result have started upgrading a few things that we have been putting off. The kids have been sleeping on mattresses that were very used when they were handed down to us. So, we went shopping yesterday and purchase new kooshy mattresses  for our munchkins. They also got their room re-arranged this week. Being as they are getting older we decided it was ok to let them sleep in bunk beds. So Tuesday evening Jake and I bunked their beds and they LOVE it. Thor sleep up top and talks about how he is just like an orangutan sleeping in a nest. In one picture he actually looks a little like one with his orange hair. Too cute.

What a lot accomplished in a short month.

FINALLY!

I just completed that last student loan payment that either Jake or I will make concerning our decade old debt! We are officially DEBT FREE!

We have been working toward this goal for a while now and we made it!!!! The last of our two big debts were our car and student loans. We paid the car off in October for our 5th Anniversary and now as a belated Valentine's gift we have paid off the remainder of what Jake owed on his student loan. My loan is still in existence but is finally being paid off by the Army as was our agreement 2 years ago when I joined.

It feels like everything worked itself out all at once for us financially. Just over 2 years ago we were struggling to make ends meet - not knowing if we were going to make the next month's rent or car payment. We had two babies and were stressed all the time. It feels as though a great burden has been lifted in those two short years. We are financially stable and on our way to a bright future. We can for the first time in our lives start saving for our future as well as our kids' futures.

I'm not going to lie, we're going to have fun with some of this too. Instead of driving home for my sister's wedding this spring we are FLYING!!! We haven't flown anywhere since we got married. It is going to be amazing not having to spend 3 days in transit to and from our destination.Who knows, we might take an honest to goodness vacation before I deploy this fall too!!! : )

We are just so excited to be moving into that next phase of life. It was a lot of hard work and sacrifice to get here but I can now attest to the fact that it is SO worth it!!!!

Picutes from a day in my life.

 These are all pics and videos from the CBRN challenge that we did this last week. I don't have the energy to write it all out right now but it was a glorious mess and fun at the same time. I never want to run one of these again. NIGHTMARE!!!!

                                                                                                                                                                  

Super Bowl and an Early Valentine's Day

                                             Thor "cheesing" over his cookies

                                            Baleigh was very deliberate about her decorating

                                           Thor just wanted to get to the eating part

                                           MMMM frosting

                                          Enjoying root beer floats on Super Bowl Sunday

Super Bowl Sunday the kids and I ran out and got ice cream and root beer as well as a Papa Murphy's Pizza. It was a very impromptu Super Bowl party. I remember having root beer floats on Sunday nights when I was a kid and apparently it is a timeless thing since our kids wanted several. : ) Baleigh kept calling them ice cream floats which Jake thought was hilarious.

On Monday the kids received a package in the mail from my parents. It was filled with valentines, pencils (immediately sharpened for doing "work book pages" per Baleigh's request) home make sugar cookies shaped like hearts and several types of sprinkles and cherry frosting. They had a blast decorating their cookies. I told them that we could save half of them to decorate and eat the following day but that didn't happen. They ended up being a before bed snack. Thanks mom and Holly or Hannah, whoever put that together for them. They really loved it!

A Texas Snow Day!

                                                       Early morning snow adventures

                                                      Our Texas Snowman his name is "Blob"

Friday morning we woke up to SNOW!!!! Granted it was barely enough to cover the grass but it was snow none the less. Thor and Baleigh were our of their minds excited. We were out trying to build a snowman by 6:30AM in the 17 deg weather. I knew that the snow wouln't pack then but they really wanted to try so we did.

At 8AM I found out I had a late work call and didn't have to be in until 10:30. So we went out and played again. The snow still wasn't packing so we used sand toys and packed snow into them to make snow castles. : )

At 9:30 AM I found out that work was for essential personnel only. I am not "essential" so I was free for the day. This was kind of a bummer since I had my promotion ceremony scheduled for 11 AM. I called the place we had ordered food from and thankfully it was still early enough to cancel our order.

                                                            7 AM on  04FEB2011

I went into work for about an hour to tie up some loose ends and then I rushed home because the snow had started to melt. We all went out and constructed the saddest looking snow man "blob" I have ever seen. We actually had to take out large mixing bowls and collect snow from all over the lawn to get enough to get a 12" tall snow man. I am going to attempt to upload the video of Baleigh explaining to Jake what "ingredients" (her word not mine) we needed to make the snowman's facial features.