this and that

Currently my three men are fighting over our new ipad... Nic just downloaded a book onto it and so is reading on it, while Maximus and Colton are tackling him trying to wrestle it out of his death grip he has over it....

Yes, we bought an ipad.  And so far we surely do not regret it.  We bought it mostly for the children.  We'd been thinking about buying one and when my sister was here she had brought her's...and the boys had such a great time playing with the apps (mostly all free btw) that we decided to go ahead and get it.  It's also, in our master plan, going to help me out when Nic's gone on exercises to various countries in the Pacific.  For example, going to the commissary or the PX - it'll be much easier to have them in the cart occupied with a game than running around with me chasing them, pushing a cart, with Elora strapped to me in her snugli.  Because when that happens, all I want to do is go home a cry, hehe, so hopefully we can bypass all that!

Maximus started First Steps Football this past Wednesday.  It's for 3-4 year olds and they basically practice throwing and catching and do a little running around cones.  It's cute.  If only Maximus would participate....he is the most shy child ever.  He hid behind Nic's legs the entire time, and no amount of encouragment or bribing would get him to come out and even go near the other kids or the coaches.... Hopefully next week will be better.  We have 5 more sessions....

We have had minor success with potty training Colton.  He doesn't wear a diaper anymore.  He wears the thick underwear and sometimes the plastics over them - he usually wets himself a couple times a day but lately he's been doing a much better job of telling us he has to go potty and his accidents have been fewer.   Having him wear underwear is helping us to know how often he pees and when he usually has to go - so it's been good, even though he pees in his underwear fequently.

Elora is growing - she is SO BIG!! Ok, she's still a newborn, but I feel like she's getting big, fast!  Of course I can't believe she's almost 2 months!  She still sleeps a lot and some nights she'll sleep for several hours and others she's up every 3 hours on the dot.  She doesn't normallly go to sleep for the night until 10 or 11 pm - which is such a nuisance.  She gets tired around 8ish but she can't stay asleep for long (like 15 minutes at a time) before she wakes up and cries because she doesn't want to be awake. So we're constantly putting her to sleep from 8sih until 11ish when she finally goes to sleep for good.  Some nights it's 1AM and some nights its 9PM, but she always sleeps away the morning.  Hopefully we can get her to switch it, so she sleeps earlier at nighttime, but naps in the morning.... But all in all, we can't complain - she really doesn't ever cry unless she's tried - pick her up and rock her and she stops- or she's hungry - feed her and she stops.  So all in all she's a wonderful baby :-)

I've started working out.  Finally. And it feels good :)  I've ran only twice so far, but hopefully I can start doing it more...It's hard because I have to time it around feeding Elora (which is every 3 hours) - I don't like exercising unless it's RIGHT AFTER I feed her so I have time to shower and relax before I have to feed her again.  And then I have to work around when Nic is home...It's hard during the week, because he gets home and we immediately have dinner then throw the kids in the tub, then I usually have to feed Elora and then clean up after dinner and clean up the living room and then put the boys to bed/rock Elora (divided between Nic and I) and by the time I would be able to have any free time it's around 10pm and most likely almost time to feed Elora again and I'm exhausted.... So basically unless I plan on waking up at 5:30 and running before Nic goes to work, then it's basically not going to happen.  And if anyone knows me, they know - me waking up early to work out? Nah, I love me sleep too much.  That would never happen!  Besides, waking up several time in the middle of night makes me a zombie most days unless the boys are gracious enough to let me sleep in until at least 8.

Nic bought me a kindle!  He said it was his way of saying Thanks for bearing his children :)  How sweet!  It was completely unexpected but something I've been wanting for a while.  The libraries here never have any books that I would enjoy reading, or if they do - they only have like #2 and #5 in a series.  It's also nice because since we have the ipad, we got the kindle app, so Nic can read any books I buy on the kindle, on the ipad and vice versa.  The only thing I would change if I could, is have an option on the kindle for a light so you could read in the dark. 

Nic's been busy at work with "this and that" type stuff.  We've been able to eat lunch with him several times since he's come back from the Phillipines - the boys have been loving that.

It's hard to believe it's already November...That we've been here for almost 7 months.  The time has literally flown by!  Maximus is starting to miss his cousins in the States more and more - which just breaks our hearts.  He'll look really sad and we'll ask him what's wrong and he'll say he misses his cousins.  He told me the other day, after skyping with Lilly and finding out she just turned 3, that he should go buy her a doll to give her cause she would really like that, and then we could place it in her back yard... but wait, we can't do that because we don't live in America *insert Sad Maximus face* ...But hopefully the next 2.5 years will go as fast as our time already here has - for his sake.

Nic and I just finished watching the HBO miniseries The Pacific.  GREAT... I highly recommend ya'll to watch it if you can.  It's good.  Think Band of Brothers.