Tromping Through The Tulips

1st things 1st ... this week one of Kelty's classmates lost his mommy. I'm embarrassed to say that as we drop our kiddos off at "school" hardly do we take a moment to get to know each other ... most times we are in a rush to get onto our next event of the morning. The only interaction I've had with this family was email communication and an occasional call when the phone tree was activated ... but none the less ... I find myself breaking into tears. She was a teacher on-base and they had 3 young children ... she was 38. I cried when I saw Kelty's little classmate on Thursday ... as I looked at this little boy I knew he would not be going home to his mommy that night, I knew he would never feel her hug again, I knew he would probably never have a memory of his mommy. Next week I'll be bringing the kids their lunches so the dad doesn't have to worry about packing lunches for the kids ... I wish I could pack them a big, comforting hug. *sigh*

Well now, how to recover from that opening ... not quite sure how, so I'll keep it short and simple.

Blumen Schneiden! There are quite a few "cut your own" flower spots scattered along the roads here ... it's great! You'll come across a little field filled with a crop of flowers ... you cut them yourself and pay "on your honor". This is tulip season!!

After I picked Kelty up from "school" last week, I stopped by a nearby flower crop so we could pick some tulips ...

When we were done I counted up my flowers and dropped my Euro change into the can!

Oooh!

On the home front ... Kelty's latest "thing" is wearing his bicycle helmet ... all-day-long. In fact he went to bed holding his helmet the other night. He puts it on first thing in the morning and wears it most of the day, he even wears it in the car ... ha!

On Friday we had a school field trip to the zoo! Kelty was C-R-A-Z-Y! I was "that mom" who spent the entire trip chasing her child ... in fact I had other parents ask me if I wanted to stick Kelty in their stroller and they'd take their own child out. I politely declined and just tried to hold myself together. This little photo was taken while Kelty was showing off his mannequin pose ... a pose he hit on every-single-stump we came across.

A Day Trip to Trier, Germany and the Frankfurt Zoo

The weekend weather was beautiful and we decided to take advantage of it with a couple day trips. Saturday we headed over to Trier, the oldest German town north of the Alps. Trier is nestled in the Mosel Valley and is a quick 1 1/2 hour drive away ... a drive taking us through rolling hills and vineyards. We spent a few hours roaming the streets, browsing through the farmers market and taking breaks for bratwurst and ice cream.

Flowers at the market ... oh how I LOVE fresh flowers! I bought 10 white tulips for 4 euro.

Kelty stretching his legs in one of the courtyards.

Time for ice cream in a fresh waffle cone ... yummy!

One of the things we look forward to sharing with my family when they come out is the laid back environment .... taking the time to sit and enjoy a cafe outside, sitting and chatting, people watching, or like this guy ... sit on some steps with your dog and read a paper. Oh, I love it!

... and the architecture

I love these moments

... and these

Sunday we decided to head over to Frankfurt and visit the zoo. The zoo was pretty packed and it seemed as though the animals were taking Sunday "off" too.

We brought Kelty's Little People animal picture book ... this is a GREAT book! Every time we stopped to look at an animal, we asked Kelty if he could find it in his book.

Checking out the monkeys. Speaking of monkey's ... oh you should have heard the chatter and giggles when we walked passed groups of folks while Kelty was wearing his monkey "leash". I actually heard one man laugh and comment with the word "hund" (dog) and "line". It was a busy day and Kelty is a quick little guy that possesses an amazing skill of wriggling out of your grasp ... better safe than sorry. :o)

I'll Take That To Go ...

There are days when I truly just can't keep up with Kelty. Last night I was cooking dinner ... Kelty ran into the kitchen, grabbed the container of Goldfish Grahams, and ...

... took those snacks to go!

... or maybe he just wanted to give them a ride.

Earlier that day I had one of those discipline moments where I ended up laughing instead of scolding. Yikes! Honestly, I forgot what Kelty was doing but I looked at him, pointed my finger and said "no" ... he looked up at me, pointed his finger and said "AH, YA, YA" at the top of his lungs. I apparently got that "flabbergasted" look on my face because he mimicked it right back! Boy, if he could "talk" who knows what he'd say! I know he's banking all this and one day Al and I are really going to be in for it! Ha!

Speaking of "talking" ... Kelty said his first "consonant, vowel, consonant" word the other day, without the pause to form each part independently. The word was .... "want". Whoohoo! We have to break down words for him so he can learn to form each sound, for example ...

Mommy: "wa"
Kelty: "wa"
Mommy: "n"
Kelty: "n"
Mommy: "t"
Kelty: "t"

The other day at speech therapy he connected each part together on his own! It was a huge success and we were ecstatic! The process his slow but steady ... it's a lot of work. We actually have to teach Kelty how to shape his mouth and make each sound; there are still sounds he can't make but we'll get there eventually.

On yet another note .. we were playing a memory match game the other day at home .. you know, you have a set of cards with pictures flipped over and then you flip them up one at a time and try to remember where the match is. To my amazement Kelty did this without prompting ... we had 12 cards out .. and he remembered and matched each and every one. I had forgotten to post this earlier (bad momma) but Kelty has been pedaling his bike for over a month now! Whoop!

Great Day ... Crappy Ending

We had such a great day Saturday ... an afternoon of family yard work, play-time, and then ... we took Kelty to the barber shop on base to trim up his hair. Kelty sports the "long and shaggy look" sorta that "surfer dude" thing ... I love it. Anyway ... this is EXACTLY what I told the women cutting his hair, "I want the TINIEST bit of a trim ... I want to keep it long and shaggy". What we ended up with was a MULLET .... I'm not kidding you people!!!

Seriously, what the HECK kind of haircut is that!!!!

Do you see how she cut the sideburns???!!! One choppy cut straight across ... and then she kept going and chopped the hair that falls behind his ears!!!

Kelty's hair was totally "chopped", it looked like one of the classic "my kids got a hold of the scissors and cut his own hair". I was so upset .. unfortunately taking most of it out on Al since he's the one that wanted the trim in the first place (I later apologized after I cooled down).

We even had a fun evening planned that night ... we had a babysitter ... Al was going out for a "guys night out" and I was going over to a friends house for a "girls night in". We ended canceling our plans and I had to re-cut his hair and try to salvage what I could. I know it's just hair, but he's my little boy and this women destroyed his hair.

I hope it grows out fast, I want to cry every time I see Kelty's hair. But you know what ... Kelty doesn't care and I guess I shouldn't care so much either. :o)

Easter ++

Whoa ... it took me like 5 days to write this post and then I decided to delete it, simplify it and move on! Here is the wrap on our eventful Easter weekend!

Saturday we took Kelty to base for the flying squadron's Childrens Easter Party. They did a really nice job with the party ... we had brunch, followed by games and crafts ... and though we didn't stay for the egg hunt (Kelty was terrified of the Easter bunny) we had a really nice time! Saturday night we colored our Easter eggs ... Kelty loved it.

Making a hand print craft at the squadron

Coloring Easter eggs

Rubbing on an Easter egg tattoo ...

Sunday was jammed packed ... church followed by church brunch followed by brunch with friends followed by an Easter candy hunt with our neighbors Heinz and Evi! It was a great family day!

Kelty's Easter Basket ... more like an Easter table!
The Easter Bunny left a trail of candy-filled eggs from Kelty's bedroom door, all the way down the stairs and leading up to the table.

Whoa! The Easter Bunny even left some sweets and things for Mommy and Daddy!

The hunt begins!

Kelty had so much fun finding his eggs!

After the egg hunt we enjoyed a little craft time. A few weeks ago my friend Michelle posted about her daughter enjoying drawing with dobbers! I had never thought of that! That same day I hopped on-line and ordered a set for Kelty ... they came just in time for the Easter Bunny to add them to his Easter basket! I caught a picture of Kelty drawing straight lines ... I was pretty impressed that he started doing this on his own.

Ready for church!

Handsome Daddy and Son!

Our neighbors, Heinz and Evi hid candy and an Easter basket in their back yard for Kelty!! Kelty loved it and Heinz and Evi really enjoyed Kelty's excitement! He was so very cute!

He took every piece of candy out of their basket and put in his own basket ... he left the Easter grass behind too!

So what have I been up to which has resulted in a sadly neglected blog? Filling Etsy orders! Almost every night I have either been filling custom orders or responding to customer requests for wholesale/large quantity pricings. I've had a couple orders this week that were for 30 - 40 letters each and I recently responded to an inquiry for 90 letters!

This week I also finished up the last of my physical therapy (yeah, I never told you about the physical therapy I've been doing for my wrecked ankle ... the one I injured back in October!!), Kelty is still undergoing speech therapy twice per week and we've met a nutritionist to help with Kelty's diet (reserved for a later post) ... and ... he also has "food therapy" added onto his speech therapy appts. Needless to say ... it's been hectic. I'm looking forward to "some kind of normal" again soon. Don't worry ... I'll catch you all up to speed on Kelty's food therapy and nutrition stuff in a later post.

Thanks for hanging in there with us!

Awarded ...

I recently received TWO blogger awards (ok, one of them was early March).

Alexia over at The Mommy Rambles gave me the Beautiful Blogger Award! Thanks so much Alexia ... and I'm sorry that it took me over 3 weeks to pass it along. Alexia and I met through the blogging community! We visit each others blogs frequently and she always leaves the sweetest comments! She posts a lot of great book reviews and shares some really tasty recipes ... in between she'll "ramble" about other great things going on in her life with her 2 kiddo's.

The rules of this award are:

Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
Copy the award and place it in your blog.
Link the person who nominated you for this award.
Tell us 7 interesting things about you.
Nominate 7 bloggers.

Post the links to the 7 bloggers you nominate.

Michelle over at The Travis Life passed along the Fabulous Sugar Doll Blogger Award! Thanks Michelle! Michelle and I met while our husbands were stationed at MacDill AFB in Tampa! Our husbands were deployed together while we were both prego ... but we didn't know eachother yet! Al would tell me during our phone conversations about Adam and his wife Michelle who was also prego and due at the same time ... telling me we needed to get together and meet when they get back from their deployments. Well ... we did meet ... and were friends from that point on! We went to "birthing classes" together and "breast-feeding classes" ... we had our children exactly one week apart ... both by unplanned c-sections! We confided to each other our triumphs and struggles as first-time moms as we were both also transitioning to the life as a stay-at-home moms!

The rules of this award are:
Tell us 10 things about yourself
Pass it along to others!

So .. I'm combining the two and sharing 10 things about myself. At the bottom I've nominated a few friends for each award!

Here we go! ...

1) I reminisce about my dance/performing days at Disney ... EVERY day. I miss is dearly and feel a lot of ache in my heart that those opportunities are in my past and will most likely not be a part of my future (except when I make it back once a year to perform and keep my status and show approvals!) ... but that's not the same as doing it every day!

2) I think I'm addicted to blogging. Time either writing my blog or catching up on some of my favorite blogs is somewhat of a midday escape for me ... it makes me feel connected to the outside world!

3) When I go to bed each night and reflect on my day, I rate each day as a "good mommy day" or a "bad mommy day". Good mommy days are when I feel like I've done most everything "right" ... bad mommy days are when I feel like I've let my little guy down (maybe I wasn't patient enough or didn't have enough 1 on 1 play time).

4) I ONLY use WHITE paper towels and napkins. I cannot have "patterned" paper towels in my kitchen ... it drives me nuts. Occasionally Al will pick up " patterned" paper towels and I will give him the look from hell. They immediately go downstairs as with the cleaning supplies and never see my countertop. I know ... it's weird.

5) I've always envisioned having 3 children! Right now we are content with our one, amazing little kiddo ... it scares the heck out of us thinking of having another child right now ... as we know how exhaustively hard it is to raise just 1 child! I carry around a lot of guilt for considering letting Kelty be an only child.

6) I'm a Captain in the AF Reserves. Most of my friends know this, but if you've met me through blogging ... it's not something I really talk about!

7) My career hopes for the future: Continue to teach dance and own/operate my own studio. Complete a master's degree ... I have no idea in what ... I'd love to get it in the dance field but I don't know that my body can handle it anymore! Al and I would like to own/operate an all inclusive lodge that offers expeditionary trips .. hopefully in Alaska, Colorado or even Washington.

8) I look forward to the day when Al and I can rock-climb and do some mountaineering with Kelty! I can't even begin to tell you of all the hopes I have of all of us out backpacking and rockclimbing together!

9) I was blessed with an AMAZING childhood. I was raised in a strict household but it was filled with A LOT of love and support! I pray that one day Kelty loves me the way I love my parents! My parents are pretty awesome!

10) I mourn the death of my grandparents every day. I miss them. We were so blessed to have them in our lives for so long and that they were a HUGE part of our life.

Ok, well ... I think some of these may have been a little more sober than I was expecting but apparently I may be a little emotional right now ... and no, I'm not prego. Ha!

And the awards go to ....

Beautiful Blogger Award:

Michelle @ The Travis Life: You hit me with the Fabulous Sugar Doll Award but I'm hitting you back with the Beautiful Blogger Award ... you must tell us more!

Megan @ The Guttman Adventures: Awesome mommy of twin boys! Our husbands were stationed together at MacDill as well! We formed a great bond during our weekly playgroups. She has some amazing mothering skills and is so hands-on with her twin boys ... no small feat!

Katey @ The Frost Family: Another fabulous mommy that we met during our playgroups at MacDill. She's raising the sassiest little cutie-patootie girl! Another mom who always has her act together!

Rachel @ Shawn and Rachel: My sis! Rachel is still practicing "frequent" blogger updates! She has a good excuse ... wife, full-time job by day, fitness instructor and personal trainer by night .. and in school to be a physical therapy assistant!

Daneen @ By Love For Glory: Daneen is one of my old college roomates! We graduated way back in '98! Whoa! Daneen is an established Aerospace Engineer who has turned her life to serving the lord and spreading the word of the bible in Africa. She served in Peace Corps and is now getting ready to head back to Africa with Scripture Union!

Carolyn @ The Illusion of Control: Carolyn and I met while performing at Disney together! We were cast in Disney Stars and Motor Cars Parade and Fantasmic! together. We really got to know each other well during some loooooong Fantasmic rehearsals ... she is such a beautiful person ... inside and out!!

Stacey @ Fun To Craft: Stacey and I met through blogging! She has a great blog ... you should visit! I really enjoy her posts and the sweet and frequent comments she leaves back over here!

Fabulous Sugar Doll Blogger Award:

MJ @ The Muses of a Bug: MJ! We were partners in crime at Disney during our "Town Square" days at the Magic Kingdom. So many fond memories! She was such a huge supporter of my dreams and ambitions at Disney! She's one of those people whom you feel you were destined to meet!

Gwen @ The Green Family: Gwen and I met through our neighbors Tina and Jordan while we lived in Tampa. Gwen is so sweet and gushes over her new baby boy over at her blog! Gwen is balancing life as a mom working outside the home!

Amanda @ Imperfectly Beautiful: I just adore Amanda! We met through blogging ... she is so creative and has an awesome blog filled with GREAT ideas! We found out after several emails and blog chatter that we are both military spouses!

Alexia @ The Mommy Rambles: Alexia hit me with the Beautiful Blogger Award and I talked about her a bit at the beginning of the blog ... I really enjoy hopping over to The Mommy Rambles and seeing what she has posted to share ... and I always look forward to her kind comments!

Ok ladies ... get to it ... spill some scoop!

Awarness RIbbon Applique - Giveaway Winner!!

... and the winner is Beth over @ The Thrifty Ba!

I used a random number generator and "3" was the number generated. Congrats Beth, you were the 3rd comment/entry in the giveaway!

Beth, I'll be contacting you!

Thanks everyone for entering my 1st Giveaway ... and as promised ... a new Giveaway is around the corner and I don't think you'll want to miss this one!