We celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, but I guess it isn’t to the same degree as others.  Bill does not like cards.  He thinks Hallmark and any other card makers have made up holidays so people will buy more cards. (By the way, did  you know that the week before Christmas and Mother’s Day are the busiest times at the post office.)  So yesterday with little fanfare, we celebrated Mother’s Day. We went to church and then had a great lunch before Bill headed out to the base for his alert shift. No breakfast in bed, but I don’t really have a  bed right now so no big deal. Plus I have never understood the appeal of breakfast in bed.  Anyway,  Bill and I got a Garmin Nuvi 760 GPS.  It’s way cool.  It has MP3 and Bluetooth capabilities.  We used it yesterday to find our way to church. 🙂  This present is for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and our anniversary.  The best gift, though, came from Billy. He has an awesome Pre-K teacher. She took a picture of each of the kids and then the kids painted a terra cotta pot with their fingerprints which were then made into ladybugs, caterpillars, etc…  Then inside the pot was a flower with Billy’s picture in the middle of the flower.  I know this sounds corny, but it made me teary eyed.  I love it!  His smile is so cheesy and just perfect.  It is a treasured keepsake.  So Mother’s Day was great and my boys are great.  They make me crazy, but most of all they make me want to be a better mom and I love them so  much.  

It’s been a week since the packers came. They wanted to pack everything. If it wasn’t bolted down, they wanted to put it in a box.  So we hope that everything makes it in one piece to New Mexico. Billy was worried about his toys and wanted to make sure they would be on the truck.  He was concerned other kids would be playing with his toys. I told him they are sealed in a box and will be there when we get to our new home.  When I was little I always thought unpacking boxes was a little like Christmas.  Things I hadn’t seen in a month or two were like new.  Of course, unpacking is also a great way to declutter and I plan on doing that too.  I decluttered a lot before we packed, but we still seemed to have a lot of stuff.  It makes me wonder where all of the stuff came from and why did I need it all.  We are “camping out” in the house.  Base camp is the guest room.  We have all of our essentials including the Wii.  Because if we didn’t have the Wii, we would really be roughing it and that would be no fun at all.

On Saturday, I went on a flight with Bill’s sqaudron.  I came home and Baden had on underwear over his shorts (see post below) and Billy came running to me saying look what daddy did to my hair.  Yep, he had a mohawk.  We are having a heat wave so it was time for Billy’s summer hair cut.  I guess he got a little fidgety and so Bill left it as a mohawk or at least that’s his story.  Billy told Bill, “Daddy, I can’t walk around like this.”  So he got a nice buzz for the summer. 

Baden is fascinated by underwear particularly Billy’s underwear. I guess it’s pretty cool with Spider Man, Spongebob, Transformers on it.  The other day I came home and Baden met me at the door with Billy’s underwear on over his shorts.  It looked so funny.  I thought Bill must have put it on him.  Nope, Baden got the first leg on and Bill just helped with the rest.  Today I was folding clothes, he grabbed a pair of underwear and put them on over his shorts.  We are now calling him Captain Underpants.  It seems to suit him.   I am sure that later these pictures may embarass him, but they are too cute not to share. 🙂

One of the cool things about having a husband that flies is the spouse flight.  Bill’s squadron invites the spouses to come out and fly almost every year.  Today was the spouse flight. It was my third flight in a helicopter and this time I took pictures.  What a novel idea. 🙂  Here’s a bird’s eye view of Washington D.C.

The last two days we have had thunderstorms roll through the area.  Billy does not like storms.  I think it’s more the possibility of the lights going out and he gets afraid.  This started when we were in Oklahoma last year visiting my parents.  A tornado hit in the east part of town.  My parents live in the north part of town so no damage, but we lost power until about 4 am.  Billy was really upset so we decided to say a prayer.  We went to sleep and then the power was on when we woke up.  Billy saw the power of prayer.  Well the last two days he has been an example to me.  When it started thundering and lightening on Monday evening, he said Mommy, let’s say a prayer.  So we did.  The storm passed and we were okay.  Yesterday afternoon another storm came through.  Billy again suggested prayer.  The storm lessened and went through.  He said to me God hears me when I pray.  This makes me feel so good that he is learning the simple truths and knows that a loving Heavenly Father is watching over him.

Baden is in the nursery at church.  He does pretty good.  I will stop by and check on him through the window to make sure he is okay.  He is usually playing and looks content.  Today, he escaped.  As I was sitting in Relief Society, my friend brought Baden to the door.  I thought he must need a diaper change. Nope, he had opened the door and was wandering around the foyer.  I took him back into the nursery and went back to Relief Society.  Then a member of our bishopric came by the RS door and motioned for me to come and talk to him. He told me that no one in the nursery knew the child that I brought in.  I looked at him and said, “It’s Baden! Baden Powell.”  He looked at me and started laughing.  I have to admit I did too.  I guess they didn’t think Baden was my child since to them he doesn’t look like me. This was a little bit of a stinger, but that ‘s okay.  He even said to me well he doesn’t have brown hair so he couldn’t be yours.  I said he looks just like Bill but with hair. (Sorry, Bill 🙂  Well things were all straightened out and there were many apologies.  I don’t blame the nursery workers who were all substitutes today.  I know what it is like to be in nursery.  I was the  nursery leader for a year and half.  It’s hard to keep one eye on the door and one eye on all of the kids.  It’s a tough calling, but I know that the children are well taken care of and loved.  Maybe instead of Baden, we should just call him Houdini.

We are painting and we had to take the door knob off of the bathroom door downstairs.  Baden likes bathrooms.  I keep all of the doors closed for this exact reason.  Baden is never very far from me so I can try to stop what he may do.  Well he escaped me.  I went into the downstairs bathroom.  Baden had been there.  Toilet paper and a  turkey baster were in the toilet.  I am not sure how he got the baster, but he did.  Okay so I threw the baster out and went on with my day.  Later I was upstairs.  I went into the hallway bathroom and opened the lid on the toilet. Baden struck again.  A very soggy Elmo was staring at me.  I rescued Elmo and got him in the washer.  Luckily the toilet upstairs is low flow so there isn’t much water.  I think back when Billy was Baden’s age and he never went into the bathroom.  I guess he just didn’t care.  I wonder if that is why it was so hard to potty train him? So if my theory is correct, Baden should be a breeze to potty train. I sure hope so.

It doesn’t seem possible to me that we will be moving in two months.  It seems so long ago that Bill was given this new assignment. We have been busy painting especially the trim in the house.  The people who owned the house before had painted all of the doors and trim a colonial blue color.  It just seemed to fit with the house and we never changed it.  Now we must since it should be neutral.  It does brighten things up and doesn’t look too bad, but it sure is a lot of painting.  Our household goods will be picked up at the end of the month and we will be “roughing it” with just the essentials until we make our way out west.  We are excited about the move. Billy tells me every day that he wants to move to New Mexico, but I know that he will miss Maryland.  It will be an adjustment, but we are trying to make things easier by looking for a house to rent since base housing has a long waiting list.  So we will enjoy Maryland for a little while longer. When Billy tells me he wants to go to New Mexico and asks what is taking so long, I will just say we’re almost there.

When Billy was about Baden’s age, he loved tomatoes. Not to eat, but to carry around. He liked the smooth skin, I guess.  Ocassionally I would find a tomato in the living room or in the toy basket. Luckily, I would find them  missing soon after I bought them so no yucky messes to clean up.  Today while at the commissary I figured out what Baden likes – butter.  With a just few more items to get, I picked up some butter for baking.  I put the box in the cart and went in search of ‘Elmo’ cheese.  My search came up short so I turned to start pushing the cart to the checkout.  That’s when I see Baden squishing a stick of butter in his hands.  He had opened the box, unwrapped the butter and was enjoying the feel of butter in his hands.  When I saw him the only thing I could say was oh, no which Baden repeated over and over again.  I got it all cleaned up and usually I would have just bought the box, but another stick was missing and was on the seat of the cart with no wrapper to be found.  I guess I just panicked because I was a bad shopper and hid it really far behind the cream cheese. I have never done that.  Billy ended up with butter on his shoe. I am not sure how that happened and Baden had butter on his jacket and of course in between his fingers.  It was another exciting day at the commissary.