Office space

Ava and Ellie have inherited the desk I used as a child in their room. This has become Ava's homework desk. During homework time she told me her and Ellie were hiding in their "tents" from the lions. She said she couldn't work with this "craziness" and needs an office. What 4 year old has an office?

In the meantime, she prefers to do her homework on the bottom shelf of our office "away from the lions" until I can rectify the situation. We might rearrange their walk in closet to make an office for them. Oh how I cherish these moments with my studious high maintenance 4 year old!

Lady Leprechauns

Our red heads just love St. Patricks Day. Shockingly, Irish is one of the few heritages they do NOT come from but we pretend anyways for one day since we have red hair. The girls are truly American Muts since Greg and I both come from multiple heritages with not one overlapping. Here is the adorable little get up Ava made at preschool. I realized after I posted it that the hat is upside down but that is just a more accurate portrayal of our life.

Our little Mini has inherited her green thumb from her grandmothers. She planted a flower at Bible Study this week for me and is so proud of it. It is adorable to see her mothering this little flower by checking on it several times a day and making sure it is watered. Unfortunately her Mommy has a bad track record with plants, but hopefully her grandmathers' genes will prevail in her gardening ability.

 Speaking of gardening, the former tenants of our house planted beautiful rose bushes. This is our first rose of spring.  One of my new years resolutions was to plant one plant and keep it alive. It might just be taking care of our rose bushes because they are too pretty to let wilt. 

Our Dad is a Top Gun Grad!

Greg graduated Top Gun last Friday in Fallon, Nevada and came home late that Friday night. Unfortunately we didn't get to go to ceremony, because the majority of the weekend was for Top Gun Grads only and not toddler friendly. As I noted in a previous blog post, Top Gun is nothing like the movie. It is easier for me to name the things that ARE similar to the movie than are not. One is that you a pilot and WSO are paired up and do all the events in the class together. Greg's pilot is pictured above, his name is Pat Rice (call sign: Turtle) and is staying in Nevada to be a Top Gun instructor. Below is a picture of Greg's graduating Top Gun class. He is pictured third from the left. Greg has said that the class was the most challenging thing he has done in the Navy thus far and he is glad that he got through it. To dispel another misconception about Top Gun, there is no Top Grad distinction or jean short volleyball games on the beach. 

Amazingly, Greg is off till April 10th because the Weapons School is currently on a DET to Guam. In the meantime he has been busy playing "Dad of the Year" and Hunk Hubby to me. The girls literally will wait outside the bathroom door when he takes bathroom breaks. They do not want to let him out of their sight. Greg has been stepping in doing the carpools, cooking, laundry, dishes, even attempting to the girls' hair. The best gift he has given me is the opportunity to take an afternoon nap. 

 Afternoon of bubbles. Of course Ellie has to test if everything is edible.

 Greg the ring leader of the neighborhood kids!

 Between games of princess dress up, wrestling, and helping Ava with her homework Greg has found time to paint our kitchen. It is the first of our lengthy house projects, but we love the finished product. I still have some work to do with shades and decorations but we are happy to have our kitchen back and most importantly, our Daddy back.

Spring Fever

I had to share what my girlfriend Shannon from Virginia Beach sent us. She just got her embroidery machine at Christmas and is now starting her embroidery empire and made this adorable onesie for Teeny Grump. I just love our little man's first personalized gift. Things like this are starting to remind us that we are going to be a family of 5 soon.

Playing "tunnels" with Ellie with all our blankets. The girls really miss their rough and tumble Daddy and are sad that I can't give them horsey rides anymore. I try to fill the void by doing forts and tunnels with blankets since they are 3rd trimester friendly activities. 

I can't believe it took me 3 kids to finally become an "Amazon Mom" member. When you become a member you get free 2 day shipping on almost everything, 20% of diapers and household goods, and tons of special offer deals on all things related to kids. During our 2 days of bad weather  Ava and I took advantage of our new perks on Amazon and snatched up deals on babysteals.com and kidsteals.com websites. Needless to say, because of the lack of stores in Lemoore, the UPS and FedEx trucks stop at almost every house daily on base.  Here is a picture of Ava right after she opened the box of her first pair of Reef sandals. This is a bona-fide Shoeaholic!

We got a taste of Spring this past weekend with weather in the upper 70s and spent the majority of our days outside. We definitely have Spring Fever and it was painful to put back on our long sleeves Monday.

Outdoor Mommy Manicures

Megan and Emmy coming over to join the fun

The girls loving on Brenner. He is a saint to put up with the three Divas on a daily basis.

We are ready to get into the swing of Spring! 

Book Worms

To call me a book worm would be inaccurate. I am more of a book snake.  I come by it honestly because my mom is also a voracious reader. I am hoping it is something that will wear off on our kids too. I was a bit discouraged when I moved here to Lemoore because the library system wasn't nearly as beefed up as it was in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. They hadn't gone into the E Reader stage of renting books yet, there aren't the children's programs that Virginia has, and the libraries are about the size of a gas station mini mart. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the holds on books do not take nearly as long in Lemoore as they do in Virginia. In fact, seven of the eleven books I put on hold came in three days. That is service! The librarians have quickly gotten to know the girls and surprise them with stickers every once in awhile. Lemoore really is a small town with limited services but the small town congeniality really has made up for it. 

Some of the childrens books that the girls have recently discovered and immensely enjoyed are: 

• The Trouble with Tilly Trumble by Lynn Manuel.

• Mother Mother I feel sick, send for the Doctor Quick Quick Quick! by Remy Charlip and Burton Supree

     With Greg gone, my need to be sedentary, this season of the Bachelor being so disappointing, and Red Box not thrilling me I have been flying through books. One of the apps on my phone is called "GoodReads" that my fellow book lover Mo has told me about. It is like Facebook for book lovers. It is a great way to discover new books and read varied reviews. The books up on my list for the next few weeks are these:

• The Uglies by Scott Westerfield (Candace recommendation)
• Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (GoodReads recommendation)
• Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (love his show "No Reservations")
• American Tabloid by James Ellroy (NPR recommendation)
• A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (Jess recommendation)
• In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson (Goodreads recommendation)
• Pure by Julianna Baggott (People Magazine recommendation)

Two books I have read this past month and recommend are :

• Jackie, Ethel, and Joan: Women of Camelot by J. Randy Taraborrelli
• Divergent by Veronica Roth

7 month bump

     Wow the first 2 trimesters have flown by. Each pregnancy has gone by so much faster than the last. However, I believe that for absolutely nobody can the third trimester go by quickly. I've just now started experiencing the woes of pregnancy (which I am thankful haven't started till now) with leg cramps, back cramps, swelling, slow moving, waddling, strange veins showing up, redness, breathing heavy, my bladder protesting, etc. It is the perfect time for Greg to come home soon. I am thankful that we decided to do our cross country move in my second trimester rather than third because I'm not nearly as good of a travel companion now as I was 2 months ago. We are pretty set on a name which will be revealed to all on the day of the birth.  We have discovered that most of our baby gear lasted well between 2 kids and 2 moves but didn't hold on for the third kid and the cross country move. For Ellie, I literally didn't have to buy anything because she was born the same month as Ava which worked out great for maternity clothes for me and most clothes for Ellie.  Jen has been so generous in letting me borrow her maternity clothes for this baby so I have really saved a huge expense there. We got new furniture for Teeny Grump which we will be assembling next week while setting up his room. I am leaning towards a Safari themed room with light blue, light green, and tan as the colors. I'm combing pinterest for neat ideas and of course I have my Martha Stewart best friend Jen down the road to help me create things.
      The only major change I think I will be doing in caring for Teeny Grump will be making his baby food. At a baby shower last year we played a game where we tasted baby food and had to guess which one it was. I almost lost my lunch gagging at how terrible the baby food tasted! I feel terrible that I had my kids eat that.  Maybe that is why they aren't picky now with food because at least it is better than the baby food I shoved down their throats for 6 months! Jen swears by the baby breeza food processor system to make Ainsley's baby food so I think we will invest in that down the road.
 
     

BAM its Banana Bread

One of my biggest cravings this pregnancy (and really even when I am not pregnant) is chocolate chip banana bread. One of my biggest goals too is to spend as much quality one on one time with Ellie before Teeny Grump comes. While Ava was at school today my sweet tooth partner in crime and I hit the kitchen. She is so much fun to cook with because she makes sound effects before she throws things in the mixer, she dances the whole time she holds the chocolate chips, and she just loves being in charge. She is destined to have her own cooking show one day with the enthusiasm and entertainment she puts into the small baking tasks. 

Taking the butter out of it's wrapper. By the way, this Abby apron was made by Aunt Jen for Ava 2 years ago and it was one of her first sewing projects. Look how well it has held up!

Spatulas / Chinese swords

Running the mixer for the first time on her own (with supervision of course- don't be calling child protection agency on me!)

Ellie puts a new standard into licking the bowl after we made the banana bread

You know you have liked every last inch of that bowl when the batter gets in your hair. 

One of my new favorite pictures of Ellie. She was so proud of our banana bread. 

As one of my "go to"/ never turns out strange foods I will bring over to a play date a couple of people have requested the recipe. I actually got it from my friend Annie who got it passed down from her Great Grandma. She might be mortified that I am sharing a family secret recipe on the internet but it's my reward to my faithful blog readers:

Great Grandma Saunder's Banana Bread 

by way of Annie Wrigley:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup of butter
• 1 egg
• 3 (or 4) overripe bananas
• 2 cups of flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp of baking soda
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 6 oz of chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350

Cream together the sugar and butter, blend well until smooth. 

Add 1 egg, 3 or 4 overripe bananas. Combine and mash well.

Mix the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and chocolate chips together well. Pour into a greased and floured baking pan. Bake for 50-55 minutes.