Finallllly Friday...

This week couldnt come to a close seeon enough.. This mommy is tired. So, Im happy to say that we are now 5 school days away from Spring Break!!!! Im ready for a break with the kids feeling well. Hopefully we will get a few things done around the house. One thing that I have not mentioned is we are re-doing the house. Something to keep me busy while Darin is awy. I boxed up most the house, and sold some furniture before we went out of town and had the house repainted while we were gone for the week so the kids wouldnt be around the paint, and well that is as far as we have gotten. I have not bought any new furniture, I have not unpacked the boxes.. Is it really bad that the luggage we carried on our trip is sitting in one of our bathrooms? HAha!! But if it was, I would not blog to tell the world... HMMMM. SO im going to bed for this mommy is feeling like IM getting sick and pray that I dont. SO maybe just maybe I will have the energy to get a few things done this weekend. Well, if I do anything that dont include an insurance card that will make me happy.. Enjoy your Friday

If an apple a day can keep the dr away--- we better buy an orchard!!!!

IN the last 2 weeks we have had nothing but sickness all thru our family. My grandmother and Uncle both in ICU in 2 different hospitals. My step dad, Khloe and Kinlee all have had pneumonia and now both the boys have strep. Ethan has a little more he has impetigo as well, and he is having high blood pressure which we are scared could be another bigger problem when we research it all. That will be another post on its on... For tonight I have to show you how bored I am.... I draw up all the kids meds and put them in their color coded syringe so when I line all the kids up I don't have to rush and measure the kids meds out so I like to take me time and read and measure before I call the kids in...

Pink is for Khloe, Blue for Brayden and Yellow for Ethan. Just for the record Khloe and Brayden take their meds like champs. Ethan on the other hand DRAMA QUEEN!!!!! Just keep us in your prayers we will get thru all these antibiotics, and moving on to get Ethan into another dr for a closer look at his heart and his blood pressure... Oh the sweet fun of being Dr. Mom.. Im just blessed beyond words to be able to stay at home and take care of them...

Nothing like deployment

Hers is the last of my "army" post. Not the last I talk about Darin but the last of the updating..Something about seeing a yellow ribbon makes me cry... Makes me so proud to be a military family...
Now for my favorite part- you have to look for the good in deployments so my favorite thing to do is Care Packages!!!! I love going out and finding things that I think Darin will like, I like for him to have a piece of home there. This won is all nice and packed and goodies will be in the mail tomorrow my love...

The Farewell Ceremony. Feb 5

Over 3000 soldiers that were deployed with Darin this is a pic of our local unit that he is a part of at the ceremony... During the color guard ceremony-- this was actually my favorite part, listening to them talk about the importance of the color guard.

You can see in the above pic the ground was sooooo muddy people were getting stuck it was so cold and such a mess, they bussed the families to the parade field at 8 that morning and it was soooo cold and the ceremony didn't start until 12.

During the ceremony, our Gov. came up from Nashville, to give them a farewell it was an amazing ceremony and glad we were able to be a part of it, now I'm counting down the days until I'M sitting there waiting for the "WELCOME HOME" ceremony....

After it was over the soldiers came marching down the roads, this was awesome watching all these soldiers march and call cadence I love to here the unison they have. Then as the march by you think 3000 selfless people are walking by you that are giving there life for us to have freedom, I wanted to reach out and hug each and every one of them.

...Here they come.....

It gives me chills to be so close to these HEROS. I will pray daily for their safe return and the families they left behind, this is my husbands 3rd tour not that it makes it any easier, but I'M at a peace that even I don't understand.

GOD BLESS THESE SOLDIERS!!!!

OH MY!!!!

Don't say that I didn't warn you, that as the week came to a close I got more and more emotional then with each minute and mile that passed it got worse and worse. I hate good-byes... Here we are about to leave the hotel... I love this man.
Here is one of our biggest supports, my aunt. She is my rock and always there for me, I don't know what I would do without her, and perhaps with her backing me up maybe that where some of this extra strength is coming from...

My mom is more like me, we cant pull ourselves together. I love my mom. She is my best friend, I can fuss at her, bless her she takes it, I can cry and she will cry with me, she can nag me do death about cleaning my house, but no matter what she is always there for me. She loves her son-in-law.. To this day we cant hardly talk about Darin without us crying normally if I'M crying she cries... Bless her heart.

LET THE TEARS BEGIN--- (notice my poor mom crying in every pic, this is why you cant see me I could barely stay strong so my kids could get there good- byes over with it)

Daddy and Ethan did pretty good, poor Ethan had no idea how long daddy would be gone, Darin was gone alot this last year and he thought it would be like that this time, and to much of his surprise daddy is gone for a longer time, and he is having a pretty hard time. We are talking to a councilor at school and thankful for all the support out there.

Brayden is daddy boy, this was a harder good- bye. Brayden says daily how much he misses daddy and please bring him home. Is daddy stuck at the hotel? HE really don't understand but bless him they are such sweet kids.

Then mommy lost it....

WE had a hard time saying good -bye . Darin is the love of my life. WE have lots of problems, we disagree alot, but never ever a day goes by that we are not thankful for each other and know that we are always there for one another, and he supports me in all that I do, and I try my hardest to show him all the support in the world.

The next time I hug his neck. Ill be just as tearful, but thankful happy tears....

Day 4 and a few of my favorite pictures from the trip...

While on my trip a part of me couldn't stop smiling, holding my hubby close in my arms walking around a beautiful down, on a family vacation enjoying it with our kids, what more could I ask for? (you can tell this was before the end of the week go to me,LOL) Here a few of my favorite guys in the hotel lobby having breakfast while looking at the beach, Poor Ethan is like his mommy, we really don't do breakfast.

OF course mommy had to drag everyone out and attempt to get a few more pics of my little family, as you will see Khloe hated the beach and kept her head buried into her jacket so there are no pics of her on here right now... She was not loving the brightness of the beach. Oh my guys, how I love them!!!!!

And we had to attempt to get a family pic, I know that we all stress over the "perfect" family pic but to me just as long as we are in the same spot together and no one is crying this is good enough for me...

It was windy but we were all together, and I wouldn't trade that moment in time for anything..

I know these last few post have been very short, but Darin is now safely tucked away in Iraq and he is able to get on here and check the blog so I need to get it up to date so he can keep in touch with whats going on...

Day 3 of our vacation- New Orleans

We decided we would journey on down to New Orleans and experience Bourbon Street.... All the fun of Mardi Gras...

WE walked to the French Quarter...

Watched boats come in...

And journey allllllll the way over to the Super dome. It was a great fun day to experience such a fun place, still so devastated to see the damage of Hurricane Katrina, it can be heart breaking...

Day 2 of our Vacation- Biloxi

On day 2 we just went around and enjoyed some great family time, nothing to exciting just walking around and taking in the nice weather The amazing shrimp boats

All of this area has been rebuilt since Hurricane Katrina its amazing at the amount of damage that is still there 5 years later, it was so much to take in.

Here we are with my kids, my cousin Kelly and my mom went with us to help with my little crew.

We went walking, looking at the Hard Rock casino. Beautiful area

Brayden was really wanting to play in the beach, it was 60 degrees, which is nice weather, but not nice enough for the water my little buddy was sad but pushed his limits

And my favorite part of the day just being in my hubby's arms.

At that moment, I was a total piece, I wasn't thinking about deployment, or war, or the fact our house was completely upside down and being repainted while we were gone, I wasn't thinking about anything just being comforted by my hubby and nothing else seemed to matter....

Where have I been??

I know that I said that I was going to start blogging more often and all that good stuff, but my friends life around here has been crazy..... I'm going to work very hard on keeping my blog up to date, now that I know my hubby will be checking it on to keep up with his little family, as I type this I'm happy to say that he is still in C@mp Shel.by but all this will change soon, I will not give out specifics for the safety of there travels. But here is what we have been up to.. Last Friday our town got some of the most snow and ice that we have seen in forever, normally I'm sooooooo excited about this, but this time-- not so much! I knew that I was going to be driving my kids, my mom, my aunt and her grand daughter over 500 miles to see Darin, To spend a week with him before he makes his big journey.. You thought he was already deployed? OK, glad you asked!! He has been deployed since Dec. 5th, but they have been in C@mp She.lby doing more training, they are leaving sometime this week for Ku.wait but that I will announce later, just say a prayer daily for their safe travels and he will be held there for around 2 weeks to adjust to the climate, time difference all that good stuff before they had to Ir@q for their mission, he will return home sometime in December. But back to the journey. You see I was soooooo determined I was going and nothing was going to stop me, and it didn't..I drove on an ice covered interstate going 20 mph all across TN. These were the interstates.. But after we left TN, and got into Alabama all was well, and this was taking when we were less then an hour away. I was one very happy mama.

The kids were restless, so was my mom. She had to personally entertain this wild child the entire way and Khloe never went to sleep only one short hour long nap for the 8 or 9 hours we were on the road.YIKES!!!

But all the bad weather, kids screaming, potty breaks, drink stops, allll of that was worth it, we kept our eyes on the prize and we got our solider....

Here he is, one happy man to see his crazy family coming in the barracks, we love him dearly.

*Ill post more on our trip later, but for now I'm emotionally drained.