We're potty-training again!!!

No, I don't mean we have a toddler in the house learning to use the bathroom instead of a diaper. I'm talking about something I should have done LONG ago... Let me explain.

For the past several months I've noticed that my three sons REFUSE to flush the toilet. At least 4 times a day I walk into one of our three bathrooms only to find a yellow surprise! (Sometimes there's more than a yellow surprise, which REALLY makes me cringe!) Well, today I reached my limit. I decided that any time I found unflushed urine one of my boys was going to clean the toilet. Not just come in and flush (that trick didn't work). I decided this would be a rotating experience, starting with Hayden. I knew that within one day all three would have the opportunity to learn this skill.

Well, before we left for chapel this morning I found my first surprise. I called Hayden in and gave him the 5 minute lesson... He cleaned the toilet the way I would: every inch, including the floor around. I made sure he even learned how to spray the cleaner correctly... several inches away with a sweeping motion. Let's say he KNOWS how to do it the right way. I wonder how many more times he'll have to.

Soon after we got home from Rangers this evening, TWO toilets had yellow surprises in them. I took Carson and Bailey into one of the bathrooms and made Bailey clean and Carson watch. After Bailey finished I had Carson move to the other bathroom and work.

I can't wait to see if we have to repeat this tomorrow, but let me tell you... boys ages 8, 6, and 5 ABSOLUTELY CAN clean toilets. Don't let them fool you any longer!

(Oh, and as encouragement for those of you out there who are really potty-training toddlers, hang in there. Before you know it you'll be teaching them how to clean that toilet, working yourself right out of a job!)

A Success...

Matt and I began Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University about a month ago.  Let me say, we're LOVING it!  I did not think I could do the "envelope system" so for years, we tried to do things our own way.  The last 2 years we have worked off a lot of debt, but now we're ready to kick it into high gear.  We've learned so much and are really enjoying this!  I highly recommend ANYONE take this class!  

One of the decisions we made this year to save money was to NOT go to PicturePeople for our annual photos.  A those of you who know me well might understand, this was a tough decision.  I tried to work my angle, tried to get a friend to take the pics (but she PCS'ed before we got around to it), but nothing seemed to be working.  So, I decided to take my family to the park and get the pics myself.  

I figured that at the most we would have spent was a few hours in dressy clothes at a park.  And we might just get a few good shots.  

So, on 22 MAY we dressed up in our Easter clothes and headed to our park here on post.  We had a blast and got a bunch of good shots.  I was planning on taking them to Memorial park later that night (it has a lake and sandy beaches) but it was raining.  But the next morning the weather cooperated.  We headed out in the same dressy clothes and I did my 'thang.'  I have put all the pics on my facebook, if you're interested in seeing them.

The 11x13's arrived yesterday and I have spotted a few minor errors, things I would change if I could go back to the day of.  But I am allowing myself some room for error, as that was my first attempt at taking our own photos.  

Saved us a BUNDLE!!!!

The only thing I want to do now is learn Photoshop and Lightroom.  I can do very basic editing, but would like to learn more...

So, success in more ways than one:  I took our family photos myself, and we're working on paying off one last student loan!  God has taught us so much during our financial difficulties (including our own mistakes).  We are thankful for those lessons learned and are teaching our kids how to avoid those pitfalls early!  (We have Financial Peace, Jr. and are using it with them faithfully!)

Off to the YMCA!  Another blessing the Lord has given us for FREE!  Thanks to the YMCA for providing some military memberships!!

Our Trip: Part 2

So I'm back with another installment of our Trip Journal.  While the highlight of our time in Cali for Matt was the guitar stuff, for me it was the time spent seeing famous sights and taking a tour of Warner Bros Studios.  I simply soaked in all of this stuff!  I've never wanted to be an actor, but I would LOVE to be involved in the movie/TV making process!  I LOVE this stuff!

I  know I'm overloading you with photos...sorry.  Here are some of the really neat ones!  

This one is of a porch light (on a brownstone I'm not sure what a porch light would be called).  Actually, it's where they put porch light for filming.  The process sort of reminds me of how a church would use a Fellowship Hall.  One group comes in and decorates it for a wedding.  Then they have to strip it back down to it's bare walls. The next group might be using it for a silent auction, so the decorations will be completely different.  Well, on these streets they remove all the lighting so that each production can have the appropriate look.  For example, a movie set in the 50's would use a totally different kind of street lamp than one set today...

If you can't recognize this set, I'm surprised!  The only hope you have is that it is from a slightly different angle.  This is "Central Perk" from Friends!  The real props have been removed from the working set to this room in "the Mill" which is the massive prop storage place.  Fun Fact:  The really cool cappuccino machine used in the show, and seen to the left in the photo was real.  The problem when they first started shooting was that no one on set knew how to use it.  So they hired a nearby barista to teach them how to use it.  Turns out he stuck around to be the character fondly known as "Gunther."  :)

I tried my best to watch the TV show Gilmore Girls.  I really like both the main actresses and think the idea is great.  But for some reason I just didn't have enough interest.  BUT, I do remember Lorelei Gilmore's parents' house.  A few years ago they tore down the old Western Town used to film Little House on the Prairie to build a modern neighborhood.  In this town is Lorelie's parent's house!  The neatest thing about this is that they use these houses as office spaces.  Literally, writers for certain shows spend their hours writing in these modern style houses.  There's a back entrance so that the filming is not interrupted when writers need to go in and out.  You can see in this pic the car of one of the writers!  SO FUN!!  (For more really cool info on this tour, click here!)

OH, this was cool!  The picture below is of the Ambulance bay from ER!  THE ER!  The one with George Clooney!  They wrapped the last episode just before we got there (within a day or two) and were done with it forever.  We were literally the last tour to get to see the bay in tact.  If you look closely, you can see the plywood framing.  They had already removed the sliding glass doors.  Fun Fact:   The "automatic" doors were not really automatic.  They said that they couldn't trust machinery to open just right each time so those doors were really opened and closed by two stagehands each time!!  

And the set below was used for a lot.  If you're a Friend's fan, you will remember Ross' monkey, Marcel.  This is the stage they used when Marcel was filming a commercial, I think.  Anyway, that was probably the only episode I missed!  But look closely...see the fire escape stairs?  Recognize them?  This was the rainy alleyway MJ walks through when thugs try to attack her.  In swoops Spiderman to save  the day.  These are the stairs where MJ removes the mask and kisses her upside-down hero!

Inside the "Mill" are hundreds of thousands of props they can use for movies.  As we walked down the hallway known as "Antique Row" we saw specific items tagged.  This item was tagged to be used in an upcoming Denzel Washington film called, "Book of Eli."  

After a very worthwhile tour we headed to Hollywood Blvd. to see the Walk of Fame.  There were so many stars on the ground...many more than I expected!  I took several pictures, including BILLY GRAHAM's!  How fun is that!  Then, the pinnacle!  We saw JESUS!  Cracked us up!  

Random fact about me...I hate the sun shining in my eyes.  My best friend, Anna, and I are perfect compliments to one another.  She LOVES it!  This works well when we sit in the sun...I face away from it, she faces it!  That actually hasn't happened in a long time, but it used to work out marvelously!  As Matt and I were driving to Rodeo Drive just to say we had been there, we traveled Sunset Strip at sunset.  The name of the road finally hit me!  The SUN SETS right in the center of this road!  Check out this picture of the setting sun!

Stay tuned for more episodes of, "Our Trip."

~Jen

Our Trip: Part 1

I am sure this is the longest I've ever gone without blogging!  I have thought many times over the past month "Oh....I need to write about that!" but to sit down and do it has been difficult with just how busy we've been.  The boys and I are pulling double-duty with school because we're going to Vail for 3 days next week.  We don't want to take school with us!   

The past month has been an exciting one, and also a busy one.  I'll start with our cruise.  My mom and Linda flew in on 24 March to some nice weather.  We all woke up on the 25th with a pretty good dusting of snow.  The kind of snow that would have halted the entire Southeast, but not Colorado.  The roads were fine and we headed to the airport on our first BIG travel adventure in 9 years.  (We went on an adventure for our honeymoon and our first anniversary...it's been a while since then!)  We landed in LA and picked up our b-e-a-utiful convertible.  

(We rented this same car on our honeymoon!  Sentimental!)

We ate at one of the highly recommended restaurants, In-N-Out, for lunch, and found out we really like it!  We ate there 2 more times before we got home.  

Our first fun activity on the itinerary was to go see the filming of a TV pilot.  Unfortunately for us, Alyssa Milano and the rest of the cast had invited their friends and family, thus taking up most of the extra seats.  Only the first few "regular" people in line got to go in.  They did, however, give us a green card that ensures we get VIP status when we come back.  I am REALLY hoping we get back there before we move. (HINT HINT, babe!  :)  Plane tickets are VERY cheap to Cali from CO!  

We decided to head from LA to Camp Pendleton and we stopped at a Red Robin on the way.  Something familiar!  Plus Matt had a free hamburger for his birthday!!  We entered Camp Pendleton the way the directions said to and we drove for over 20 minutes ON BASE before we got to the hotel!  That place is HUGE!  Our room was really nice and a very good price!  They also had great mugs for coffee...the perfect size!  (HUGE!)  Only problem was the coffee itself was horrible!

The next morning was FANTABULOUS!  We went to meet T.J. Baden of Baden Guitars.

Mr. Baden really supports our troops and actually sent Matt a guitar while he was in Iraq.  He and Matt spent about an hour and a half talking guitar, war, guitar, music, etc.  I took pics (of course) and we got to see his shop.  Matt was able to teach him a John Mayer lick...that was pretty cool!  Matt had sent Mr. Baden a flag that had flown over the mall at Adl and it was on the wall of their conference room.  I did get a neat pic of the two of them standing in front of that flag.  And one-offs, the the many guitars that will never be put into production but they made them  as testers...AMAZING!  People can buy these but they're not really advertised...one of a kind guitars that are very high quality!  

After we left here, I had to go buy a camera lens.  Mine died, but it's been a good one!  Taken hundreds of thousands of pictures!  After Ritz Camera we headed to the Taylor Guitar Factory for a tour.   This first picture was was great!  Here we are at Taylor Guitars and there's a trash can filled with wood.  Some wood gets put into the finest guitars while the scraps are thrown into firewood box.  

Before.....

After.....

Same kind of guitar, at the beginning and end of the process.  I'm going to post all the pics from our trip on Shutterfly so if you want to see over 50 of the process, I can tell you how to see those!

Maybe Matt can write more about his experiences at these two guitar places later.  

After a great day of guitars, we went to a place my brother recommended, La Jolla.  It as absolutely beautiful there, and we got the BEST Starbucks frapps EVER!  

These birds loved getting sprayed by the waves.

Because we had so much fun these posts will share bits and pieces of our trip. I would love to write it all at once, but I have a life to live outside of the computer, and my boys are ready to play!  

~Jen

Absolutely Random

After our wonderful trip to Crested Butte, Hayden and I ended up quite sick.  We had the worst colds we've ever had, and are still praising the Lord that Matt and the other two boys stayed well.  I will say it was kind of nice being sick while another parent was in the house.  Not only did Matt take amazing care of me and Hayden, he also kept the house clean, laundry washed, and all of us fed.  We are better now, though that annoying persistent cough is tagging along for a long ride. 

Last week we spent catching up on school work (Hayden has tested at 5th grade reading level!!) and getting more in before our "Spring Break."  I have been working constantly on preparing things for our cruise.  Things like renting our convertible for the 4 days in LA before our cruise.  Like cooking 14 meals and freezing them so mom and Linda simply thaw and heat.  Like shopping for a new bathing suit and spring clothes (honestly, my spring wardrobe was quite lacking from last year, and it hit me last week that I'm still wearing winter clothes...won't need those in Mexico!).  I wrote all the instructions for mom:  not that mom can't do this without instructions, but I figured if I've already done things the hard way and figured out what works, I could at least share those with her.  Whether or not she and Linda do things the way I do doesn't matter to me.  But I really do want to leave them with as little to try to figure out as possible. 

My final job is to clean the house today.  That's my Monday job, but yesterday I was quite busy.  I cooked, got my nails done for the cruise, cut the boys' hair, then I went to dinner with a friend who is moving.  When I say "moving" I mean to KANSAS and while I'm on my cruise!  This is the person God put in my life to be my back-up parent while Matt was in Iraq.  She lives right across the street and I could count on her to watch my boys in an emergency or while I went out for a run.  She and I swapped child care and food, ate pizza every Tuesday night for a year, and generally enjoyed watching each others' backs during deployment.  

Before I could even consider working on the house or packing, I needed to make sure my SC cards were put on computer and CD.  Fortunately I only had about 15 pictures that were not uploaded and burned.  These were of Bailey's birthday party!  I am so amazed that my youngest child is 5 years old.  I look through the scrapbooks I've made and they take me right back to the moment he was born, the baby years, and I miss them.  Bailey has been a blessing, though he has been our most challenging child!  In the past year he has been diagnosed with SPD (originally by the neighbor I mentioned in previous paragraph, then by our doctor, and finally by Occupational Therapists).  After diagnosis, he spent 6 months in OT and graduated the program in record time.  Bear with me while I give you the stats:  At the original testing he was 50 months old but tested at 28 months in fine motor skills.  6 months later he was 55 months old (not quite 56 months old) and he tested at 55 month level.  Right on track for his age!  Most kids take a year to get caught up, and he came from WAY behind!  He's a great learner, just needed some help with his sensory issues.  Last year in preschool he wouldn't TOUCH a crayon, much less scissors.  This year his teacher has to drag him out of "art center" and encourage him to go to others to achieve a variety of preschool experiences!  I'm floored by his transformation!

Birthdays this year have been very low-key.  Those in NC know I love to make a big deal out of them, but this year with Matt coming back just 11 days before Carson's, we were in no state of mind to do anything major.  We went to a movie in the afternoon, then had two families over for cake and ice cream.  For Bailey, we went to Chuck E Cheese's and then had families over.  But he had asked for the same families with an additional two.  Well, let me tell you, this drained Matt.  He had a good time visiting, but for two days after that he was in silent mode.  We've decided (with Hayden's approval) to host his party outside of the home.  Matt's still not accustomed to large crowds in tight spaces.  (I will say something fun about Bailey's party:  We had 5 families here, and in those families we had 11 kids here:  10 boys and 1 girl!  Bless her heart!)

Well, I just spent an hour on the computer updating, uploading, and burning.  I guess I need to get to the real work of the day!  I'll post after the cruise!  I still can't believe I'm going on a cruise!  First of all because we've never been in a financial position to do so, but also because we're not beach people.  BUT:  We LIVE in the mountains so to see the beautiful beach will be nice!  (Poor Matt...he said while in Iraq that he could live the rest of his life never seeing sand again!  Hehe!!  But don't let him fool you...he's really excited about this trip, too!)

A Spontaneous Life

Matt and I have always loved to be spontaneous.  It's part of who we are.  So on Thursday (5 MAR) when we were offered a slot at a marriage retreat scheduled the next day, we made it work!  Matt got a pass for the weekend, we packed, rented skis and left as soon as the work day Friday was over!  

We spent 3 beautiful nights in Crested Butte, CO!  Our boys took snowboarding (Hayden - I couldn't find a snowboarding pic right now so I stuck this sledding one of him for now!) and skiing lessons (Carson and Bailey) We were so proud of all three of them for their courage and hard work in their classes.  Specifically Bailey, who normally has such a hard time wearing new shoes.  He actually skied from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm!  

Matt and I skied together for half a day and that was all I could take!  Matt headed out the rest of the day and I spent a couple of hours working on our "Homecoming" video.  Can't wait to gather all the photos and videos to make this a complete experience!  Our hotel room was UNBELIEVABLY beautiful, thanks to CH Weathers!!!  

The only sad part of our trip is that Matt and Corie had to leave a day early due to sicknesses in their family.  We had hoped to go out with them in the evening.  Turns out poor Matt (Weathers) ended up with mono!  

Overall, a beautiful weekend we didn't expect but are so thankful for!  

(Thanks SO much!!! You know who you are!)

Over the river and through the woods...

And that's where we went!  Over rivers and around mountains to Snow Mountain Ranch, a YMCA of the Rockies retreat center.  We are so thankful for the many ways organizations show their appreciation for the military!  This particular deal is called Military getaway... $80 bucks for 2 nights' stay in a hotel-like room and all meals (6 of them) included!  On site is a tubing hill and let me tell you...that was FUN!  Here are some pictures!  (If you want to see more, go to our Shutterfly site!!  If you don't have the password, feel free to email me!)

Only in Colorado have I seen fire hydrants SUPER tall so they could be reached when the snow piles feet high!

Bailey tubing.  

Matt snow tubing!

Carson tubing.

Hayden snowboarding!