St. Patrick's Day Easter Egg Hunt

After church on Sunday we went to a very cold Easter Egg hunt sponsored by my Dad's work. The Easter Bunny was there. Blake didn't like him this year. No surprise there really. Avery had a great time looking for the eggs......and got quite a few. Allie spent most of her time looking for the non-existent Golden egg so was extremely sad and dissapointed in just the few eggs she ended up getting. Blake was so anxious to get out there. He was getting very impatient waiting for the horn to blow saying they could get out and start looking. Once it did, he had little interest in getting the eggs. He just wanted to watch the other kids go after them. I did manage to get him to pick up a few and once he realized there were treats inside I'm sure he probably wished he had picked up the pace a bit. :)

Grandma & Grandpa Visit & More

After our big snowfall we had some special visitors come into town......Grandma & Grandpa Huber! The kids were very excited to see them. Unfortunately, they were all kind of under the weather most of the time especially Avery & Blake. We tried to keep our distance from Grandma as much as possible so she wouldn't get their germs.



coloring in the new coloring books from Grandma & Grandpa

 

 

The other day Allie came home from school and wanted her after school snack.....which prompted the other two to want one as well. They all climbed on the couch to eat, even though they know they aren't supposed to eat on the couch! They were so cute I let them stay. Shame on me! Blake is becoming quiet the cheezer when it comes to getting his picture taken.

A couple weekends ago we went to Build A Bear in Indy.....you won't see Blake because he wasn't really all that excited about it.

Just about every Wednesday we go to Crafternoon at the library. We always get there late because it starts before school even gets out. We usually have less than an hour there but we squeeze in as much as we can. Allie loves it! Avery has been once but it's really for kids in 1st grade and up.

We had to put this stool up about a month ago. I was afraid Blake was going to seriously hurt himself.

most times he was standing on this

Trying to climb up with very little room to stand

falling off

Blake loves headbands

Snow Day!!!

It finally snowed!!!! We took advantage too because I highly doubt we'll be getting anymore. We had SO much fun. Well, Blake....not so much. He ended up sitting on my lap, at the bottom of the hill, and we just watched the girls sled. He did end up trying it out with Allie and they crashed.....oops! He usually loves being outside. The girls are out there playing with Papa right now. I asked Blake if he wanted to go out and he just shook his head no!

I'm such a whale in this pic but Blake is super cute

 

Midnight

 

Last night Blake woke up at 11:50 pm! I mean he was wide awake. I was SO tired. I turned the lights on over the fireplace and told him to play with his cars.....and he did for 2 hours! It was kinda cute listening to him quietly chat away and make noises for his cars. I had a hard time keeping my eyes open and defintiely dozed off a few times. One of the times I woke up to him giving me a little kiss and whispering something to me. :) Another time I woke up and didn't see him anywhere so I jumped up and he was right on the floor beside the couch, where I was, lying down......I think trying to go to sleep. I barely missed stepping on him and he popped up. I asked him if he was ready to go to bed and he shook his head yes.......and he went right to sleep.

A Day in the Life

I figured I would update on Derek. He seems to be enjoying his job and basically working around the clock. Only time to eat and sleep (about 5 hours). He still manages to squeeze in a Skype call or phone call just about every day and if he can't he'll usually send a quick email. 2 months down, 4 to go. These past two months have been extrememly slow. He's been on two deployments before that were 3 months long and I don't remember them feeling like this. Probably because we still have so far to go.

I'm not exactly sure what he's doing over there. It's one of those Top Secret deals. Like I said, he's enjoying whatever is he's doing and feels like he's making a contribution. And it's a hands on job, which is what he truly enjoys.......although he is now going to be taking on a leadership position on top of all of whatever he's already doing.

Our life prior to the deployment was crazy too. With his job as General's aide for much of the time we were in Texas we barely got to see him. He had to work long hours and was gone a lot (an average of 3 weeks of every month). We would still get to see him most weekends though, thankfully. After his aide job was up he left for Squadron Officer School (SOS) in Alabama. That schooling was 8 weeks long. We did meet up once in Houston to break up that time........and celebrate Blake's 1st birthday. THEN, when he got back he was doing several different training classes for the deployment that sent him away for long periods of time between October - early December, even missing Thanksgiving......and obviously he missed Christmas. I am SO looking forward to us being able to spend more quality family time together. Hopefully this next job allows it!

Here are some pictures, the first is recent and over "there" and the others are from SOS this past summer/fall.

The Grasshoppers. The guy on the left, NIMo, is one of the Commanders out there. Derek will be working with him in his new leadership position. He also was General Heitholds Aide a few years before Derek was. The girl in the middle, Kaylee, also worked with Derek and General H. She was there visiting for a couple days.

These next three pictures are of Derek's squadron at SOS. One in their blues, on in PT garb (they made and designed their t-shirts, and in their daily BDU's.

One weekend Derek and this guy went over to Atlanta, where this guys Dad works with Boeing. They were able to get into the flight simulators and do some flying.

Derek's SOS squadron had to make goals, so they made a goal that they could eat 1,000 wings as a squadron (over the 8 week period). And they did! You might notice some spots on Derek's arm.........he got into some poison ivy or oak whlie he was out there.