Merry Christmas!

Christmas 09

Here is the picture I mean to send out in Christmas cards to all our friends and family.....oops

One of my best presents of all times!

She loved this present that Nick picked out, now I am hoping she will stay out of my makeup.

Sweet new play kitchen! thanks Grandma and Grandpa

Cameron the poet

Last night as I was putting Rowan to sleep, and Cameron was already tucked into her bed, I over heard Cameron whisper to herself "The last Colors in my world are fading" So Poetic I thought. Just wanted to capture that memory.

Recipe for a clean room

first you must start by instructing your little one to clean there room.

then you must say "let the fun begin" and yes! you must say that first, or the whole recipe just might not come out right.
Start with the misplaced item and proclaim it's existence.
For example if it happens to be a favorite Doll that has lost it's place in the abyss of daily mess that has accumulated over the past week or so, you would say "Doll" "Doll" making sure to say it only twice and no less.
And here's where it gets exciting! then you say "Zoopity" then Say Doll again, only this time you will be adding a Z in place of the D so it will actually be Zoll. So when its all said and done in this case it would be "Doll, Doll Zoopity Zoll." And lastly, after you say the meaningless rhyme you must place the item in its rightful place. And there you have it. your child will have the cleanest room on the block.
Try this same Rhyming method to virtually anything you want your child to do, use your imagination and the possibilities are endless!


Note to reader: Be aware that this recipe does not guaranteed you a clean room, nor does it ensure that your child will be capable of preforming rhymes. And in some cases your your child just might completely hate the notion of Rhyming there way to a clean room, and think you are barbaric to even suggest it. Use at your own risk.

-Brought to you by Cameron Peterson (by way of her mom)-

Isn't that right!

My Bee colony

Thankfully my Little Bumble Bee's are peacefully tucked away in there bed since they were probably about to crash from there Halloween induced sugar rush. Not only did my girls both have Bumble bee's costumes but there cousin Amelia showed up in one and the dogs both escorted us in there best bee attire as well, and I might add that both those little Labradoodles were very proud to sport there stripes.
And, since I am way over excited to get a good deal on something I also must let you know that I only paid 20 dollars for both the girls costumes combined. Craigslist! gotta love it.
The only question I am asking myself at this point is do I just let the kids have a candy free for all tomorrow or do I dispense it at my discretion? hmmm I think I am leaning towards giving it all to them so we can just get it over with, Besides that's how we did it when we were kids.
As you view the beautiful picture of my Bee colony, notice that Cameron has a new hair do. We donated it to locks of love. I like the hair, she looks so grown up and cute with her Bob cut, but I think I liked her long hair a tad bit more. Her hair grows sooo fast, so before long I will be braiding it again.

This is how it went

- We decided we really needed to leave Texas
- Hit the road on On September 21st (why did I remember what day...It was Nicks Birthday!!)
- Hauled a 24 foot moving truck (filled to the brim,) one car, one trailer with motorcycle, Mama, Daddy, two kids, and Grandpa for a helping hand.
- Spent three and a half days driving
- Arrived In Santa Cruz and was soooo happy to be breathing the beachy air again
- Stayed at our friends Kiley and Kims house for about a week and had tons of fun visiting
- Met up with the moving company that had moved some of our stuff from Texas and some how managed to squeeze it in our Uhaul
- Hit the road again headed for Portland
- Stopped in Central Point Oregon at our friends Kevin and Cherries for the night
- Arrived in Portland the next day
- Spent about 2 days unloading our uhaul into a storage unit, that I might add was 3 stories upward and down four long hall ways (don't get me started on that one!)
- And here we are as settled as can be in my parents house.

So there it is for you laid out as best I can remember minus the details. I think I can feel my eye twitching again just thinking of the stress I have endured over the past month or so. Its the wonderful game I call life, hehe. I am day dreaming of the day we will move into a place we plan on calling home for more years than I can count on one hand.

So If you are wondering what the future holds for us now, I will just say that it involves many text books, and minimum wage jobs. Yep, Nick is going to college in hopes of a degree in Civil Engineering. I might add that Moving to Oregon was only a plan hatched weeks before we arrived here. I'm Just grateful to be on the west coast, I think I'll stay here.....for now.

Labor day

We had a really nice labor day. We decided to make the 45 minute drive to Round Rock TX to try the famous Texas Donuts at "Round Rock Donuts" And they were definitely delectable! I really can't say that I am a big fan of donuts but I can appreciate a good donut. Nick sayed they were about as good as Stan's donuts (the Stan's donuts" in Santa Clara CA) and those are his favorite.

Here is Nick and his 2 pound Donut! that's thing was seriously huge, and equivalent to a dozen regular size donuts. They even made it fresh to order, coated with Chocolate. He didn't even get through a fourth of it. So now we can say that we have experienced the 2 pound Texas sized donut. I just stuck with an apple fritter.

After our Donut experience I had to do a little shopping at the outlets since they were soooo close by, and after all how often are you close enough to the outlet mall on a labor day sale weekend. We all got a little something. But I think I scored the most because I finally indulged myself with a coach purse. You may be wondering how in the world I could afford a Coach purse on a soldiers salary..... well lets just say that after my purchase my receipt sayed I saved 230 dollars, SCORE!!! I'm such a sucker for a good deal, but I think that's a good thing, right?

The purse =)

Speaking of good deals Rowan got a new pair a Crocs for 4 dollars!, and Cameron got a new winter vest. And after all that shopping we had lunch at another famous Texas hot spot, called the salt lick Bar-b-que. yumm!! They actually smoke all there meat on a HUGE BBQ pit right inside the restaurant. We got the all you can eat family meal. They bring you heaping piles of brisket, sausage and ribs, along with cole slaw, and potato salad, and they keep the meat coming. they even brought out more meat when we asked for a to go box. And it was quite reasonably

priced. Now that's what i call a good day.

Just playing around

Rowan eating here Birthday cake last month. I just wanted to make one of these animation things is all =) But here are a few more pics of here birthday party. It was just me Nick and Cam, but Rowan really enjoyed herself.


Make your own animation

First day of Pre-K

Cameron has started going to Pre-K. It is fun and challenging.

She really enjoys taking the bus every morning and afternoon. She calls it the Cheese wagon because that's what Daddy called it. I can't believe my Little Cameron is growing up so fast.

The changing winds

Seems like our plans are always changing the closer we get to being out of the army. At first we were going to head straight back to the Santa Cruz area and Nick would get back into trucking as soon as the house sells here. But as of now we have completely switched gears. We made sort of a last minute (or should I say last months) decision to Move to Portland Oregon with my side of the family and Nick will go to school!! After alot of thought, with the new Montgomery GI bill that will pay us monthly housing allowance as well as pay Nicks tuition, we feel like we cant pass up the opportunity for Nick to get back to school. Its a little scary and pretty exciting. But it is comforting to know that we will be with family in Portland to help out in any way possible to make this happen for us. So as of now those are the new plans. I'll let you know more as it happens.

When you can't get up in the morning

What happens when you just can't get up in the morning

your little one gets naked and tears the house apart while the older one takes your camera and documents the whole thing

and snaps a few of herself as well

Happy Birthday Rowan

Happy 2nd Birthday Rowan!!

Dreaming of the pacific

It's pretty hot here in Texas. My air conditioner has decided to work when it wants to. The thermostat doesn't regulate the temperature at all, so if I turn the air condition on it just runs and runs and runs, that's if the air conditioner even comes on. When I turn it to cool it usually starts to heats, so then I have to rattle the switch around for a bit and if I'm lucky it will start putting cool air out, but not usually, most of the time the fan will just kick on, so I have to rattle it around some more in hopes of cool air. Sometimes after I rattle the switch around I go and stand next to my bathroom window to hear if the air conditioning unit has switched on to cooling, I can tell when it has because it makes the louder noise when the cooling has kicked on. It really is quite a ridiculous game I have to play with the thermostat everyday, multiple times. I'm just a penny pincher is all and I don't want to have to pay for the repair, especially since I think it is just the thermostat, that we could probably replace ourselves. My house is three years old and I think I have had to call a repair man out every year. I am dreaming of the cool breeze of the
pacific ocean right about now.

Thank you Walmart for economy size boxes of "pop ice"

A great week

On Monday I drove to Houston and Picked my Cousins Osanna and Ivanna up from there Cousins House, She and her Husband happen to have 7 children! I think. So of course Cameron and Rowan had a blast playing there all day. My kids didn't have a problem, complaint or fight all day actually I rarely even saw them there because they kept so busy. I guess her well behaved children rubbed off on mine a bit, and It was just such an exciting fun place to be. So that evening we drove back up to Killeen and got stuck in an AWESOME thunder storm, accompanied by countless amounts amazing lightening strikes, and thunder, on the way up. The rest of the week was spent at my house in Killeen mostly just relaxing and eating good food and playing cribbage. Yay finally someone to play my favorite game with! And on Friday we drove to San Antonio and spent the day at the VERY VERY hot zoo, it was a great zoo though, just wish we were in spring weather. I still don't like the Texas heat here even after 3 years. I dropped Osanna and Ivanna off to stay with there other Cousin there and Headed back to Killeen later than evening. So I pretty much had a great week.

This is a train we took at the zoo. Cameron was smiling pretty much the whole way, and Rowan loved it to but wouldn't let Ivanna take her arms off of her. Me and Nick sat in the back with no kids. That doesn't happen often.

The 4th and other exciting things

We decided to park near the base to watch the firework display on the forth then decided to just go and have a peek on base, as we thought it might be to crowded for our liking, and it ended up not being as bad as we though, but what was even better was when we got there Dierks Bentley was playing live. That was a pleasant surprise. So we watched him on a horribly humid night, but it was worth it. Unfortunately my Camera battery died before we could even get one picture off.

On another note my house is officially on the market. I hope it sells quickly. I don't really want to have any attachments here in Killeen by the time we are ready to go. Check it out here.

Just the happenings

Nick put in for his terminal leave today, Hope they will let us go when his contract is up. So I have been working really hard trying to get the house extra clean and get super organized so we can get this house on the market and sold. It would suck if we got out of the army then got stuck here in Texas because we couldn't get the place sold.
lets see what elts.....(think, think, think,) Cameron is getting sooooo big, She walks around the house saying words that rhyme. She'll say "cat, hat, bat" "mommy that rhymes" Its pretty cute. Who says TV is bad, PBS has some pretty good cartoons, not like some other ones. I was listening to one she was watching the other day while I was doing the dishes And I kept on hearing some character say "I hate you" I didn't even know the context it was being said in but quickly I realized I wasn't to keen on Cameron hearing something like that no matter how it was being said. you just cant trust those programs to young innocent minds, so I think I'll stick to PBS cartoons, I haven't heard anything bad on there yet
Rowan is really starting to talk quite a bit now to. She really picks up on things her sister says, which is one reason she says "Rolly polly" (in the cutest sounding baby voice EVER!) Cameron loves collecting Rolly pollys. Rowan loves cheese, if she sees me take out the cheese, she comes running and says "chee" "chee" begging me for a slice. And she really likes to let me know that "yeah" she wants something I have offered her. It amazes me how great she can communicate now, and if she can't really tell me what she wants, she will just take my hand and drag me to what she wants and nudges my hand towards it. They grow way to fast. I am lucky to be there mommy.

Why why why!!!

We are supposed to be free from the Army in about 4 and a half months, around the end of September. Pretty exciting for us as we planned on moving back home to California. Then yesterday before Nick got off work his whole troop was informed that is they were not PCSing or ECSing (Meaning re-enlisting or getting out) before September they were being "Fenced"in as they put it, meaning he'll be Stop lossed and redeployed the following year to Afghanistan for another year. So in other words if we don't re-enlist to go somewhere elts we are stuck here and Nick deploys again. I feel like we are forced to make a decision we don't want to make. We just want out of the army. Nick has fulfilled his contract, and already served a deployment to Iraq for 14 months. I hate having crappy things to write about! Its so frustrating. So pretty much as of now I have no idea what is next for us. I was just about to put our house on the market but now I don't know whether we are stuck here against our will or we will just cave in and re-enlist just to get out of Texas. Its hard to see any good in all this. I hope circumstances change soon. but as of now that's whats going on.

What kids do when theres nothing elts to do.

Some Days you just have to get creative and do the obvious. What child doesn't like "Making music"

Hulu it was so cool

Me and Nick have discovered hulu. So far I give it a thumbs up. We missed Hells Kitchen last week, So Nick just logged onto the internet via the awesome PlayStation 3 Searched the web for hulu, downloaded the Hells Kitchen episode me missed and we watched it right through the PlayStation on our Television. It is pretty much as if we are watching it on cable. It didnt lag at all and the picture is very clear. Who knew is was so cool!

The best Lemon drop EVER!!

How to make the best lemon drop EVER!

- make sure you have lots of lemons because you will want more than one.

- In a cocktail shaker Mix:
1 whole lemon squeezed
1 shot of vodka Citron
1 shot simple syrup
1 shot of cold water
1/2 shot of triple sec

Shake, shake, shake, shake, in the shaker with plenty of ice until very very cold, pour into a martini glass, enjoy.

if you like you can rim your glass first with fancy sugar. I don't bother buying that expensive rimming sugar. I just take a bit of regular white granulated sugar and mix it with a few drops of food coloring, any color, and mix it with a fork until evenly disbursed. Then take a small lemon wedge, put a small, shallow slit in it, and rim the glass with it. then dip your glass in the sugar, and give it a little twist. yummmm.

Amazing!

Susan Boyle Rocks! Not much more to say about that, but check her out here

Monster trucks

We went to see a monster truck show last Friday. It was so fun. I having been wanting to go to one for a few years now. Both the Kids loved it.

Four year olds know many things.

My little Cameron has quite interesting things to say these days. A few weeks ago she asked me "mommy will you teach me how to shave my legs" I just love all her silly questions she asks. Her need for information and understanding is intangible. And sometimes she will just pretend she knows all about something she really has no understanding of, for instance sometimes when she sees Rowan signing something to me, see will choose an object or animal off the top of her head and make some strange hand movement and say "momma this is how you sign" whatever it may be. I really need to write some of these things down, I want to remember them when she is all grown.

He's so great

So we are in Santa Cruz spending a little bit of Nicks leave time here. It's vacation although I really just feel like I'm home. I have been having a great time visiting with my friends and family here, then last night I came down with Mastitis again. I guess that probably makes about 6 times in the last year and a half that I have had it, grrrrrrr. I am very sick of it. Its such a good thing I have Nick home because he is the biggest help ever!

It just reminds me again of how great he is. So I'll brag about him a bit.
He gets the girls ready for bed at night and reads them books, he picks out there clothes, does there hair, he lets me sleep in and cooks them breakfast in the mornings. And on days like these that I am feeling pretty sick he basically does it all. I am so grateful for such a loving husband and Daddy to our girls.

Well I should be feeling quite a bit better by tomorrow morning once I have had the antibiotics running through me for 24 hours, just in time for the next leg of our journey. We are heading up to Portland on Thursday to visit with my family, I can't wait!

The story of my life.... continued

I know, I know its been quite a while since I have posted here, but My husband finally came home for good! so I have been a little pre-occupied. It has been so so so great to be a family again. So I am going to try and put every thing in a "nut shell" here so I can catch you up.

I had surgery the morning after Nick got home to fix a umbilicus hernia I had, it was a bit more painful than I expected but I was very grateful to get it over with. I expected Nick to be home a few day earlier so I didn't have to have him taking care of me and the kids directly after her got home but It turned out to be best that way anyhow because he only got three days off then had to go to reintegration classes daily after that for about 2 weeks.

Since Nick has come home, Rowan is over joyed to have him back, I pretty much don't exist anymore unless she wants milky from me, but that's alright with me. I have actually been able to leave her and go run errands.



Cameron had her 4th birthday about 2 weeks after papa got home, and it just so happened to land on super bowl Sunday, so we just went over to a friends house and watched the game, ate some food and sang to The birthday girl.

Me and Nick finally have dirt bike. We have wanted to start riding together for a little while, so when Nick was on leave back in August he bought me the little Suzuki 125 and we just got him the Kawasaki 450 once he got home. so We are very an anxious to be able to go ride them.

Note to reader- If they are not "street legal" bikes, police officers still don't care if you are "just taking a spin around the block" nor do they care if you only have a licence and not a motorcycle license.

Note to self- Leave dirt bike in Garage from now on unless I am in the dirt on private property =)



Grandpa and Milena just came out this last weekend for a visit and to watch the girls while me and Nick went to his squadron ball. We got to stay over night in Austin by ourselves, what a treat that was. It was the first time I had left Rowan over night and It went pretty well. I'm ready to do it again!

Now I just need to clean out the other closet

I am cleaning out the closets, cabinets, toy box, book shelves and I am having a much needed yard sale tomorrow. I hold on to way to much stuff that I don't need, mostly because I hate to throw out good things, especially things I could sell, besides who couldn't use a few extra bucks theses days. However I am still holding on to all those adorable little baby clothes I hold so dear to my heart, so that I can gift them to someone special one day. So hopefully if all goes well tomorrow I will be a penny richer (hopefully more) and much more organized.