Vacation to Indiana.

My in laws are celebrating some big milestones this year. Collectively, as a family, we had one goal, to try to get all of us together to celebrate those milestones, and a chance to be all together as a family. 

The last time that we have all been together was back in September 2010. 

 

My brother and sister in law hadn't even met Callie in person yet! So this vacation was much needed for all of us to get together and celebrate our parents, and new family members who have yet to make an entrance. (Both my sister in laws are pregnant!) 

The drive up went SO much better than our trip back to Indiana, last January. Callie was far less fussy this time. Besides having two year old temper tantrums over wanting water and not juice, or "Wilson's foot is touching me." The drive was far far easier this time. 

We stopped for the night both times, and that also helped out tremendously. I somehow got out of having to drive at all. (Muahah!) 

I didn't pack very well though. Wilson barely had any clothes to change in and out of. I blame it on our fridge breaking the night before we left. We had to toss everything in our fridge out. 

I wouldn't have minded just the fridge, but the freezer also broke, so I had to throw away stuff I wasn't planning on having to toss out. 

Rawr. So I was a little side tracked, and forgot to pack Wilson more clothes. 

Now that we are back, I've got the fun task of trying to restock everything. 

We also had to try to leave the house as clean as possible, because once you get back, it's like a tornado hit. Our house seems so cluttered! The heat and humidity is zapping my energy, and I'm in the postpartum vacation blues. 

So it's back to life in Florida for us. A lot of little things are coming up, like preschool for Wilson, Andy sewing on Staff Sergeant, and hopefully more beach days for the Kirks! 

Henderson Beach State Park

Today was Father's Day, and we spent it where else? At the beach! 

The water was a bit rough, but it was yellow flags so it wasn't too bad. 

Nice and hot outside, the water felt great getting to cool off in. 

If only I could somehow get rid of all the sand that we seem to bring home with us. 

I got the kids to cheese for me a little. Gosh, they are cute! 

Henderson is one our favorite parks, because we hate dealing with traffic, it's pretty close to us, we don't have to worry about finding parking, and it seems to be just a nice spot in general. 

I can't wait to get to explore other areas in Florida, though! Hopefully we get a chance to go sometime soon and I can blog about more fun stuff! 

My first time...

In my 30 years of life, I have never mowed a yard. It was something that just never happened. 

Andy and I aren't super big yard-work people. I like seeing nice yards, but we have always maintained as little as possible. 

Especially living on base where they did our yard work for us. Well, at first they did. Then they told us to take care of our own flower beds. No thanks!  We tried to keep up on weeding and trimming. 

Moving off base, renting a house, we knew we would need to do a little more. No one is coming to mow our yard here. 

So we invested in our first actual lawnmower. We had a push one that we didn't like. 

I did a little research, and thought an electric lawn mower would be a good fit for us. We wouldn't have to worry about gas and oil. We don't need a riding lawn mower. So we bought the electric one. 

We originally got a Black and Decker, but when it got delivered, it must've some how cracked while in transit. So we had to load it up and take it back. 

Andy did all this by himself. So he gets there and the lady tells him that his model is discontinued, so he had to get a different model, but apparently it was nicer than the one we were originally going to get. 

I didn't do before pictures, because I basically did this on a whim. 

Callie was asleep on the couch, and Wilson was doing quiet time. 

I'll be honest. I was too lazy to rake. We have constant leaf raking to do. And I was just like, "Eff that. I'll just mow over that shit." 

We got two batteries and I was able to use both to mow the front and back. I had a decent charge on both. I could've kept mowing in the front to mulch the leaves more, but the Mosquitos were attacking, so I figured it looked okay. 

It looked better than it did anyways. And now I can say I have mowed a yard! 

Wilson is 4 now

Wilson's stats for 4 year is pretty much where he has been his whole life.

At 4 years:

your child is 34 pounds, and that is

at the 32nd percentile for weight.

your child is 40 inches, and that is

at the 41st percentile for height.

He's pretty much always been in that that 30-40% range. The funny thing is a lot of his friends who are boys, were always in the 90th percentile, so he looked like such a munchkin compared to them.

I'm glad he's where he is at, because it is SO hard getting him to eat, and eat well. He's constantly on the move and wanting to play and just not sit still. He loves to drink, almost too much, and I think sometimes it keeps him from eating as much. 

He's having a hard time fitting 4t bottoms, some fit well and others practically fall off. I'm sure by the time he turns 4 they will all be fitting nicely. He's wearing size 9 shoes, so I don't know if they are small or not, but I think he'll be in 10s soon.

He seems to be very excited about school. We took him once, and he wanted to bring his backpack, and was running around, super excited. So I think after the initial period of adjusting, he is going to like going. (I HOPE!) No separation anxiety with that kid! 


He has taken to stealing my phone and calling his Grammie. I think it's because I have a picture next to her name, so he sees and recognizes it. As far as I know, he hasn't called anyone else. 

He is still delayed in his speech, when he talks, sometimes you can understand him, and other times, he gets too excited and starts jabbering. I'm hoping that with continued speech therapy and school in the fall, he will catch up with that. 

His favorite movies right now are Nausicaa and all the Toy Story movies. He really likes watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I don't let him watch that very often. I try to have him watch the Leap Frog shows, and Team Umizoomi, Bubble Guppies, Fireman Sam, and Thomas the Train. 

He's constantly getting into everything. He knows how to unscrew everything and I constantly have to go in the bathroom and make sure he's not getting into my makeup. 

He loves to catch bugs, and loves the lizards outside. He also is not afraid to smash bugs for me, like spiders. ICK. 

I thought he was doing better with tantrums, but he still has them every now and then. 

He loves to play, and never wants to stop. One of his favorite sayings is, "No, it's not time to go home!" 

He's a great kid, I'm lucky to be his mom.

5 years

So I made a little photo collage that I tried to upload to Facebook. It didn't work, so here is the version I actually like!

Anyways, slacking as usual on my blog. Whoops! 

A different kind of bath.

The munchkins thought this was pretty cool! And so did I! I put a blue and yellow tablet to make this greenish water. Didn't stain my tub with any coloring either. Fun times while taking a bath! 

Splash park!

So the splash pad part of the Niceville Children's Park, opened on May 1st, and we just finally got to checking it out. 

Based on my previous adventures last summer with two toddlers, I assumed I would once again be trying to chase after both kids, who are running in opposite directions. 

I was very happy to see that they both enjoyed playing in the water park, and no frantic chasing them around. Wilson really loves the park and he didn't try to leave once!  

They especially loved this "bubble" fountain as they called it.