Slugs!

If your sweet little girl and her adorable friend come running to you with a surprise in their hands... beware... it might just be a handful of slugs.

New Kicks

I love my new Simple shoes. They are made from organic cotton, hemp, and recycled tires. You gotta love a company dedicated to recycling. The best part - they are so cute. Don't worry, I only rolled up my jeans to show off the entire shoe.

Chalkboard Labels

I am a sucker for things like this...

They would make great teacher gifts

or

they could help organize all the treasures that the girls collect.

I found them in the Stampin Up! Summer Mini Catalog http://cousinsh.stampinup.net

Irrational Fears

Deployments... what have they done?

I have found that when you have an irrational fear knowing that it is irrational doesn't make it go away. I always joke that I have PTSD from all the deployments. When Gene is going someplace I become melancholy and have anxiety. He is planning to visit his Mom for less than a week and my mind immediately went to "what if he doesn't make it back?"

Making it back - it sounds so morbid but it is a part of my life and other military spouses out there. Some don't let themselves touch on the worry, others let it consume them. I am more pragmatic. I plan. What would we do, literally? This was a real question last year. A soldier, who grew up a street away from where we currently live, was killed in action (while Gene was deployed). On the way to school the street was lined with American flags. It brought pain to my heart and questions from the girls. We had to talk about it... it is our real life. We came to the conclusion that although it would break our hearts that we are a team and we would be fine. The girls know that. I know that. Gene knows that.



So, I ponder the questions:
"What have the deployments done to me?"
"What have they done to my family?"
"What have they done to our marriage?"
"What have they done to other people?"

Maybe I will alter the questions to:
"How have the deployments changed us?"

Change has it's pros and cons. I know this - We are closer to God.
We are stronger.

T-shirt Pieces

I have been experimenting with t-shirts for the girls. I was trying to swap sleeves to make the plain t-shirts look more fun. Greta's shirt, the purple with yellow ruffles, was from a stained yellow t-shirt and a plain purple t-shirt. The ruffles were so easy to make. Since t-shirt material doesn't fray all I had to do was cut strips, put in a basting stitch, make the ruffle by pulling the threads, and sew them on. I would make one for myself if I thought I could sport the horizontal ruffle stripe as well as Greta!

Gigi's shirt started out as just a sleeve swap for the fun of it but as we were sorting through winter clothes we found a favorite long sleeved shirt that had holes in it. I couldn't bring myself to throw away her "Girls Rule" shirt. A snip around the decorations, then some zig-zag stitching, and viola - the "Girls Rule" shirt lives on.

Teacher Appreciation Gifts

The clipboards I decorated - so cute.

Teacher Appreciation Day is May 5th... I am way ahead of myself.

I read a blog last week that featured decorated clipboards. Here is the tutorial - http://www.howdoesshe.com/clip-board-tutorial-make-it-cute

Lucky for me, when I was at the Scrapaganza garage sale there were three clipboards for $1.50 just waiting for me to bring them home. I already had the paper, ribbons, distressing ink, spray paint for the clips, and Modge Podge. Woo Hoo!

ReALLy!!! Great homecoming fashion statements.

What a beautiful cover model.

Suggested fashions - love those heels.

Let's see... I was eight or nine months pregnant with Greta and specifically remember the brand new blue gingham maternity shirt I picked out for this event. BTW, we stood in the rain with hundreds and hundreds of other families members in the middle of the night for hours waiting for the bus to pull in.

The top picture was the day Gene left... again. He doesn't like this picture because we are smiling but our hearts were breaking. The second picture is his return. We all had matching pink t-shirts that were screen printed with a picture he had mailed to us. The drawing was of a stick figure soldier (Gene), sleeping on a cot, dreaming of his kids.

Note the fashion choices that correspond with the suggestions from the magazine! Hmmmm, hurry and pick the kids up from school so we can race to airport to pick up Dad. I think we all had on fairly clean t-shirts. What a beautiful day!

Wow, and I mean Wow - the cover of this magazine made me snicker every single time I walked past it at the Arsenal. The women are always so young, exceptionally beautiful, and appear to be stress free - just like me (sarcasm). I have a wonderful friend from Kansas, who is a civilian, who commented one day that she can tell who the military wives are... we all look exhausted and have our kids tailing behind us. She said it with love and it was the truth. Ft. Riley was one of those posts where every single soldier seemed to always be deployed.

Don't get me wrong. There are thousands of young and flawless military wives out there but, in my experience, most of them are like me. We are worn out by deployments and moves, although we love our transient life. We come in all different and fascinating shapes, ages, hair color, and ethnicity. As we are all different we all have one thing in common. We love our soldier and give everything we have to do our job, even when we are feeling broken.

My favorite part of this month's Military Spouse is the redeployment fashion. So, I had to show you my fashion sense during redeployment verses their suggestions. I hope you get a laugh out of this. BTW, look closely in the magazine picture... do you see what I see? Not a single wife is of the legal drinking age, pregnant, or standing in the rain with their kids. Heck, the model that was featured is 19 years old. Funny, funny stuff. Thank goodness there are wives out there who look and dress like that... I don't think I could attract the attention that would sell the magazine - if I were ever on the cover. Maybe I should try it.

Gold Shoes

This makes me smile!

Happy Easter

We had a small Easter egg/fruit roll up hunt at the house with friends.

Lovin' the gold shoes!

So many blessings.

I hope you had a wonderful Easter! As Greta says - Easter is all about Jesus dying on the cross for us, coming back alive, moving the rock, and going to heaven. What a fabulous day to celebrate.

Bike! Yike!

This is my favorite. She looks so baffled about the whole situation.

She's so please with herself.

It is official... Greta can ride on two wheels. Gene is the bike riding pro... when I tried to teach Greta to ride her bike sans training wheels last year, I fell and broke my elbow.

Pouting...Who me?

No one can get to me like Gene can... and not always in a good way. He can turn me into a pouting lovesick teenager in no time flat. He says I am too sensitive. I say he isn't sensitive enough.

The girls and I went on a mini-vacation. We were gone for TWO whole days. I am not used to being the leaver. That is his job - thanks to the Army and training exercises, deployments, and long work hours.

I probably called Gene four times the first day. The next day I thought I would be tough and wait to see if he called (please refer back to the teenager reference I made earlier). Well he finally did call, in the late afternoon. He stated "I didn't mean to call you. I had my days mixed up and I thought you had forgotten Gigi's softball practice."

Where is the love?!?! Where is the romance?!?! The proclamations that prove his undying love for his beauty queen?!?!?

But, he does love me (us - I know it says Porter girls - which is plural). This is what we found waiting for us on the counter when we got home. I love that guy more that cake.