Watch your cheese intake...

For those of you who know my oldest daughter you are well aware that she is dramatic...that's a given. She loves to sing and dance! The ringtone on my cell phone is Carrie Underwood's "Next time he cheats." I love love love that song! If you are aware of my past you probably understand why and if you don't let me explain. My first husband wasn't faithful. I coped with that fact by seeing a therapist for 18 months...that was then, this is now, and I firmly believe I'm a much stronger person because of it. I do however, believe that if Carrie had recorded this song about 9 years earlier I could have saved many counseling hours and many dollars by following her advice! The lyrics of the chorus are words to live by..."I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up four wheel drive, carved my name into his leather seats. I took a Louisville Slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all four tires, maybe next time he'll think before he cheats, yeah maybe next time he'll think before he cheats." Totally words to live by in my opinion!! Anyhow not only do I enjoy fantasizing about what could have been whenever that song comes on, but the tune is fun and just makes you feel like turning it up and singing along...and I do, every time it's on the radio. We were on our way to dinner and Jeff and I were debating whether Carrie said bathroom Polo or bathroom cologne in one verse. So we were saying all the words to the song. Maddy said I know the chorus...and she proceeded to repeat all the words. She was right on the money until she hit the last line. Picture her singing this with all she's worth...I slashed a hole in all four tires, maybe next time he'll think before he eats cheese, yeah maybe next time he'll think before he eats cheese." I thought Jeff and I might turn purple while trying not to laugh! It was so hilarious!! Only Maddy would come up with that!! I believe now we are all very clear on the moral of this story...be careful when you eat cheese around a scorned woman!! Just thought you might need a chuckle this afternoon!

Rylee, This one's for you kiddo!!

I was informed that I had grossly neglected Rylee Van Cleave. There were pictures of her sister on our blog...but none of poor Rylee. I am so sorry Rylee, I found these pictures of you and thought I'd make this entire blog all about you!!

Hope you like it Rylee!!

Playing is such hard work!!

Well...it's been hard work playing here in Fort Sill!! Actually it's been raining so much that the kids were all just so darn glad to get outside that I think they may have overdone it!! LOL

It has been raining non stop here in OK! This has been one of the coolest and rainiest (is that a word?) summers in OK history! To put things into perspective...I remember hearing on the radio last year the week before Sarah was born (August 10) that there had been over 60 days of over 100 degree weather. This year we haven't even broken 100 and it's almost July! Can you believe it?? Of course we all know why last year was so bloody hot...I was pregnant and for those of you who knew me when I pregnant with Maddy, I'm certain you'll remember that that too was a record breaking hot summer in Oromocto!! LOL So anyway...it's been raining a lot!! It might clear up a few hours in the afternoons, long enough to run to the water park or get out the bouncy house, but most of the time it's cloudy and raining. Yucko!!

As you can see today was a bouncy house day! It never got quite warm enough to swim so we tried to entertain the kids with the bouncy house. Sarah loved it! She played in the house with the ball for an hour! She was so cute! And of course the other girls loved having her there as well. She's quite the little star here on Upton Road! After the bouncy house she was so pooped that she crashed in the middle of the floor waiting for her "Ba Ba." Couldn't you just eat her up!! LOL Nope, I'm not partial at all!!

Well the weekend is coming and we need everyone to keep your fingers crossed, it looks like things may clear up a little for the weekend!! I want to get some sun before the big 3rd of July concert! Trac Adkins is coming and I have backstage passes!! Life just doesn't get much better than that...God Bless America!!

Weasels and all things evil...

This week we noticed a little change in Maddy. She was more fearful than usual...she would throw fits about going to bed with the lights off, she wouldn't go upstairs or in the back room alone. And She had even stopped flushing the toilet because she was running out of the bathroom so quickly. She wasn't paralyzed with fear...we just noticed a change. I attributed it to our impending move. She's "lost" several friends here in the last couple of weeks and honestly I assumed she was reacting to that. Well last night I was laying in bed next her when she told me she had something to tell me...let me tell you, that statement could go in any direction...so I asked what it was. She said Will and Ethan (2 older boys who live down the street) had told her something last Saturday while we were at Ethan's for a cookout. This mind you, must have happened before the boys asked the girls to take their pants off, and Daddy forbid her to play with them anymore! So anyway, Ethan and Will told her that there were weasels running around killing all the neighborhood cats and they were coming after the girls next. Apparently those weasels had "sneaked into Maddy's imagination and wouldn't leave." She was afraid that if she flushed the toilet a weasel might "sneak in through the potty and get her while she was washing her hands." Trying very hard to keep a straight face, I asked Maddy if she knew what a weasel was. She said yes, they were wild animals and they were very mean. I asked her what they looked like...she said she didn't know, but they were ugly and scary. I promptly yelled downstairs to Jeff and asked him to bring his laptop upstairs. We proceeded to look up weasels on the Internet and show Maddy what these horrible terrible monsters looked like. With a look of pure relief she decided that weasels looked like "fairy dogs" with long fluffy tails. She's now decided maybe if there really are weasels running rampant on Fort Sill that's not so bad, she'd kinda like to have one as a pet. I'm sure Fergus would love that! Oh the minds of children...if only all fears could be squashed so easily!



This picture is a classic! I came into the computer room to check on the girls. Sarah loves to sit in the chair next to Maddy while she plays on the computer. Well this is what I found...toys all over the bed and Sarah in the toy bin next to Maddy. Before I could say anything Maddy said..."Well Mommy, if Sarah wasn't little Miss grabby hands today I wouldn't have had to put her in there." Turns out little Miss grabby hands quite enjoyed sitting in the toy basket, as long as she was next to Sis!

Lean Mean Thirteen

For all those out there who are avid lovers of Stephanie Plum don't forget to head out this morning and get your copy of Lean Mean Thirteen!!!! Can you believe today the van is in the shop, so I have to wait until Jeff gets home with the car this afternoon to get my copy!!! Not that I will have much time until late tonight to start reading...but that's not the point...I want to have it in my possession!!! LOL So those of you who read the Plum series...GET YOUR BOOK!! For those of you don't...now is a great time to start!!

Water Park Fun

We have been frequenting the water park lately and last night I thought I'd take some pictures to share! This place is amazing!! It has a huge kids pool! It starts about 2 inches deep and ends at about 2 feet. There is a gigantic climber-sprayer-slide in the middle that can entertain the kids for hours!! If they get tired of that there is also a pirate ship slide that is smaller and not so scary for the little ones...but don't worry if that seems to "babyish" the young ones can go up a hill and there are four slides that are miniature versions of the big slides and they land in the "deep" water of the kids pool! Amazing!! Then there is my favorite feature a lazy river that circles the park. It has a mild current and once you get in you can float on your tummy or floaty and the current will pull you around the river. It's only about 3 feet deep so Maddy can swim around the river without me fearing for her life! (Sarah loves it too...I put her in her little floaty frog and away we go!!) For the more adventurous there is a wave pool. That pool brings back memories of many afternoons spent at Wave Tek!! It is also a graduated pool so Sarah and I can sit in the two inch water and Maddy can go into the three feet water and brave the waves!! That one goes to about 6 feet deep, but thankfully Maddy knows her limitations and I don't have to worry too much about her going too far out!! Finally there are the huge water slides. Daddy is the only one who has actually gone down those slides, but he said they were great! Best part is there must be 30 life guards on duty at all times. Not that I would ever let my girls out of my sight, but if something should happen I have no fear that one of the lifeguards would be right on top of the situation!
We decided to get season passes to this park instead of the base pool this year. Good decision I think! The base pool is nice, but that's all it is, a big pool. Not to mention that the base may need to rethink pricing...we all got season passes to the water park for $90 and the base price this year was $50 a month!! I was a little worried about spending that kind of money when we will be leaving at the end of July and that cuts all of August and the first week of September off the life of our passes, but in just one week I am convinced it was worth it!! Jeff even enjoys it!! In fact it was his idea to go yesterday evening for a couple of hours!! And we all know Jeff isn't super fond of the water...it was like pulling teeth to get him to go to the pool last summer...but with his need to be entertained I think this water park, full of action, is just what he needed!! Really just what we all needed!!

I'm totally a slacker!!

Alright, alright...no excuses from me on my delinquency...I'm just a slacker!! It seems like summer has hit us full force and we haven't slowed down for even a minute!! Last week Maddy had bible school every morning. Now you would think that would mean lots of free time for me...nope! Having to have both girls up and dressed and in the car for the 20 minute ride out to bible school by 8:00am is no easy task. And once that was accomplished I managed to start the day tired!! Bible school ended at 11:30am and it seems we found something to occupy each and every afternoon as well! We've been shopping, swimming, out to lunch, to the movies and finally to the bible school carnival. No rest for the weary I'm afraid when it's summertime with a five year old!!
Come time for the weekend and you'd think I'd have a little rest in store...once again, Nope! I'm married to one of the most restless men in NATO! If Jeffy is awake he must be on the go...or preparing to be on the go. Friday night we had a family night. We ate dinner at Maddy's favorite "Applebeast" and then came home and watched Pirates of Caribbean II on DVD. We are so loving those movies!! We hadn't seen any of them until one was on Disney last week. Maddy, who is normally one of the most fearful kids around, loved it!! She wasn't frightened at all. I think she saw it as very cartoonish, so the "scary" parts were along the same lines as the "scary" parts in Scooby Doo. Saturday morning was of course yard saling with the girls. Saturday evening the girls had one last girls night and went to supper and then to see Knocked Up. That was a real boys movie. We figured that out when there were about six single soldiers about 20 next to us laughing hysterically throughout a movie about pregnancy....and if the F word offends you....stay far away from this one!! It was funny and I liked it, but I really think Jeff would have enjoyed it more. Finally Sunday we took the girls to the water park for the afternoon and then went to see Pirates of Caribbean III at the mall. All in all, it was pretty pirate filled weekend!! I wish we would have seen the series before the Disney cruise...then seeing the Flying Dutchman on Disney's Island would have really been super cool...not to mention Jack Sparrow...excuse me, Captain Jack Sparrow!!
So that's our craziness in a nutshell. The week so far doesn't appear to be anymore relaxing. We are slowing starting to prepare for our move. The borders in the girls rooms have come down and I think we'll start repainting later on this week. Will the fun never end!! LOL Oh yeah...Jeffy and I are having a debate about whether to paint our front door red...I want to, he's not convinced. It's good luck...wanna wager on who will win out in the end!! LOL Life with the Pederson's...never a dull moment!!

Sad Weekend for the Pederson's

Well this weekend started the moving season for us. A super close friend of mine left as well as 4 of Maddy's best friends....yikes!!

The Washington's left on Saturday. We met them three years ago. Rob is a Marine and was posted here to teach the CCC (Captains Career Course) with Jeff. They have three kids, Hunter 13, Taylor 10 and Ashley 7. Three years ago, Tanya happened to be driving through the Chick-fil-a drive thru a few days after they were hailed. Another friend, Maggie, and I were eating lunch and letting the kids play at the play land. Maggie and I recognized Tanya from a hail and farewell a week or so earlier and yelled for her...while she was literally driving thru...to join us for lunch and she did. (actions like that...screaming to a virtual stranger in the drive thru can really only be understood by military wives...LOL) There began the Three Amigas!! LOL We started having coffee every Friday morning and that turned into shopping days and finally family nights. Maggie and Bill (the hottest US Army officer I've met to date...a fact almost everyone I know is fully aware of!! LOL Oh yeah, and he bakes cookies!!) have two kids Christian and Nick. Nicky is Maddy's age and Christian is Taylor's...so we all fit pretty well. The three families became great friends. We did lots of game nights, dinners, balls, etc. Bill was sent to Iraq in Sept. 2005 and was there until they were posted to Leavenworth in Jan. of this year. So Maggie and family left first, now it's Tanya and family's turn. Gotta love being the one left behind...okay it's only for a couple months, but still...it sucks!!

Tanya and Rob packed up this week so Maddy was lucky enough to get to spend lots of time with Ash. We also got to have a some downtime with Rob and Tanya too. Saying goodbye is never easy, but I know we'll see them again so it wasn't awful...Maddy might not agree. Actually it wasn't as bad as it could have been. We had gone swimming with them Friday evening at their hotel. We left with plans to go swimming Sat. evening after they had finished cleaning their house. They got done a little earlier than expected and got on the road. I didn't get the message until an hour after they had left, so we weren't able to meet and do the big goodbye thing. Probably better. First of all, I'm an emotional basket case most of the time, but during posting season I'm a thousand times worse!! And Maddy...well I told her and she was busy playing with her friends next door, so she said "oh, Okay." Later last night she had a little breakdown and a good cry...but it was really, manageable...I guess that's a good way to describe it.

Now our housemates leave on Monday. We have been very blessed with the Lewis family next door. They were wonderful neighbors. They have three girls...Courtney 10, Caitlyn 6, and Chasity almost 4. Because we actually share a house the kids were like siblings. They packed up this week too. I took all the girls, Maddy, Ashly, Courtney, Caitlyn, Chasity and Sarah to the mall for lunch and playtime on Thursday...now that was fun!! LOL They were actually really well behaved and played at the play land for 2 1/2 hours!! Anyway..."the girls"...as Maddy calls them a thousand times a day, had their things loaded on the truck Friday and they march out of their quarters on Monday morning. I talked to Myra (the girls' Mom) yesterday about doing a goodbye similar to Ashley's. Maddy will be at vacation bible school on Monday morning and I thought it might be easier if they just left without the big formal farewell. I'm not sure she agreed, but we'll see. Maddy understands they are leaving...for Pete's sake, the four girls lined little chairs up in the lawn and watched as the movers loaded the truck. (and then the movers proceeded to load Maddy's chairs right on the truck with the Lewis's belongings!! LOL) She understands it, but I don't thing she needs to be slapped in the face with it. It will be a hard enough transition without a tearful, emotionally charged goodbye. This is by far the hardest part about being a military family. Even if we aren't moving, the farewells are a constant part of our lives. That being said so are new friends that we learn to make fast and hold in our hearts forever. Sounds silly, but it's survival! We may not have our lifelong childhood friends right here, but we develop lifelong bonds quickly and they are just as strong. Our friends are our family, they have to be, most of us aren't lucky enough to have our family with us. So saying goodbye is never easy!! And this is only the beginning for us!! Super!!