Here comes the rain!

Hurricane Irene is heading right for us. This will be our 3rd hurricane since J joined the Navy.

We are ready. But, it's sad to say that others are not. People are just now(2 days before it hits) heading out to stock up. Stores have no bread, no water and no batteries. These are things I keep stocked in my home at all times(bread is a little iffy...but I try to always have it). Another crazy thing is people are calling TODAY to try to get renters insurance! TODAY! Of course they are being told that all new policies are on hold until late next week. I know not everyone knows what to do to prepare for a storm so I'm going to give a little run down on supplies to have and "tricks" i know.

Supplies
Water(they say 1 gallon for each person for every day. I don't have that much. But I do have 3 gallon jugs, a pack of water bottles, every pitcher and bottle filled then ice for the cooler.
Flashlights and Lanterns! I have 3 lanterns and 3 flash lights.
Extra batteries! I can't stress this one enough! Have every kind of battery at all times! You never know when the power will go out and you will need them! I always have AA, AAA and D on hand.
Food. You need food that won't go bad. Soup is a great one! Even if the power is out, soup has pre-cooked meat and veggies(and sometimes grain) in them. Make sure you have a can opener if needed. We also have about 4-5 boxes of granola bars in our kit. We have can veggies and fruits also along with bread, PB&J and dry cereal.
First aid kit. Ours just has the basics: band aids, neosporin, cleaning wipes and gauze.
Plastic cutlery. We keep a bunch of spoons, forks, knives and paper plates in our kit along with a few trash bags.
Whistle. My Dad told me this and I never would have thought about it! Keep a whistle in there so if you happen to get trapped you can make noise.
Blankets & clothes. Our kit sits in the linen closet in the hall so along with the blankets and towels I have a bag of clothes for little and I. Just in case something happens everything comes out of the closet and into our "safe room" AKA the hall bathroom.
Pet supplies. We have 5 days worth of food for both our pets in the kit(I admit I added it last night). But I need to make sure they are taken care of also!
Candles and lighters. Batteries die and you can only have so much of a backup stock.

"Tricks"
Have a safe room! Pick a room in your house that is strong and has no windows(or not many windows). Have your supplies in there or close enough to grab quickly. For us, ours is the hall bathroom. It's in the middle of the house, a decent size and has no windows.
Get renters insurance. This can save you in the end! Everything we have is covered! If Little's swing set doesn't make it, that bad boy is covered! It's a huge piece of mind knowing we won't suffer a huge loss.(we do have a fire box that the really important stuff goes into though).
Fill the tub with water. If the power goes out you can't flush the toilet(water pumps won't work)! If you pour water in the back it will flush! It also gives you water to bathe with if needed.
Walkie-talkies. My neighbors and I are all going to have a set just in case we lose cell service, then we will know if everyone is alright.
Have the car packed and ready to go. If you need to evacuate, you will need to go fast. You don't want to take the time trying to get everything together.
Take out cash and fill the car. If the power goes out you won't be able to get either.
Ice. Fill zip-lock bags with water and freeze if you don't have an ice maker. I'm going to have a cooler for ice and one for water(for toilet flushing in the "safe room"(the tub we are filling is the master since we will be in the hall tub if it gets bad.)
Pull blinds and curtains(tape if needed). This will prevent glass from going everywhere(or help it from going everywhere)
Charge all electronics. My cell phone and DVD player are charging as we speak. Little will get bored and I will need my phone, so it's pretty self explanatory.

I hope everyone who is going to be or has been hit stays safe! Keep us in your thoughts! It's times like this that I wish J was home! But at least I know he's safe under the sea.

Growing up is hard to do

Summer is coming to an end. I'm sad. I feel like it went way too fast! Little was in summer camps almost all summer! And while he had the time of his life, I missed him being at home with me! Now with J being gone, I feel even sadder. Little is growing so fast and all I want to do is stop time. I want him to stay this little. I want him to still want to snuggle with me every night on the couch before bed time. I want him to want to kiss me goodnight! I don't know why it's all hitting me right now....

well maybe I kinda do......

J and I have "decided" that one child is all we need. We have decided to not have more kids.  We've always thrown this around and after 4 years of "trying" we've decided to call it quits. We are perfectly fine with just one child. Our life is easy with just one. Family trips can be made on the fly and at this age Little is very independent and can do most things on his own. BUT sometimes I have this extra burden on me. This is the only shot I've got! I need to soak every minute of every age in because I will never get to do it again......and that scares me. I'm good at being a mom to a "Little". I can do crafts and games all day long.....what if I'm not a good "Big" mom?!?! Not many people I know only have one child, so I don't get much advice. I'm worried he will resent us for him being alone. I know we spend a ton of time with him, we take many family trips and we have tons of friends we hang out with.......I just want him to always be happy. The days of a sticker or toy doing the trick are over and hes a real kid now.

I guess all I can do is try my best. Maybe one day, when he's old enough he will understand the choices we've made and why they were made. It's not always our plan we have to follow and we've come to terms with the fact that a big family just wasn't in the works for us and we are okay with that. So from here on out it's our choice that he is our only even if the "choice" was planned out before we knew it.

It's about that time!

I'm 5 followers away from 250! Which means.....it's almost giveaway time! (perfect timing! I need something to keep my mind off of J being gone!)

Once I get to 250 I'm going to be doing a Scentsy giveaway!!!!  The lucky winner will get a plug-in warmer and 3 bars!! I'm so excited to do this one! Scentsy has taken over my house! I have a warmer in every room(even Little has one!). I love that I can leave the house with them on and not worry one bit about something(kitties included) catching fire!

Ahhh! I'm so excited! So keep a look out for the post and send anyone who might be interested on over so we can get to it!

Woman of my word.

My big girl panties are now on and I'm moving along with the list of things I set out to get done before my sailor returns again. I'm still a little weepy and I cry watching stupid movies, but that's semi-normal in my life. Thank you all so much for being so kind and supportive. I love the friends I've made on here(and my real life ones to!).

We got a piece of good news this week! A while back I wrote a letter to the super attendant of the school district requesting that Little get to stay in the school he was in even though the new house would put him in a different one......it was approved! We are so excited that he will be going to school with all of his friends again this year! They sent out letters to all the the parents telling who the teacher was and I'm pretty sure ours went to the old address! Yikes! But I will get it all figured out. All of the friends got split up so Little will be in class with at least one of his 4 best friends!(thought it's sad they won't all be together again)

I hope all of you are doing well! I hope to be stopping by blogs to give some return love here soon! I feel like I just don't have enough time in my day to get things done! Thank goodness Little has the rest of the summer free of camps!!!!

Sink or Swim....

It's been a long, hard day here today. I'm not much of a whiner, but today I can't help it.

After almost 9 months in port, my husband is back out to sea today. We were supposed to have a little underway to "break us in", but as things always do, it changed and we are in for a pretty good one.

Every time my husband leaves I drive him into work really early. We have this tradition(as a lot of other families on the boat do to) where we get DD and go down and park and eat while we say our final goodbyes.....today's was hard. I ugly cried. You know, that stupid cry where you can't breathe and snot is everywhere.....yep, that was me.

I should be fine with this. We've done this SO many times before. But this was different. It felt like the first time all over again. This will be my first underway in the new house, my first underway with a 6 year old......he will miss his birthday again(the big 25!) and he will once again, for the 3rd year, miss Landon's first day of school. Little things, I know. But I want him here to be there for them. I was a pro at this.....stupid 9 months in dry-dock!

So tonight, I'm having a mini-pitty-party. Lan and I went out to dinner with a friend and got our minds off of everything and tomorrow I will put my big girl panties on and be fine.....but not tonight. Tonight, I won't answer my phone, I will cry a little more than normal and I will most likely end up in bed with the little boy who reminds me so much of the man who just went under the sea. Tonight, I'm sad.

Camping goodies!

We love to camp, but with hubbys schedule always changing, we never really get the chance to go. So we've taken to camping in the backyard or living room.

Here are a few of the goodies that we've been making for our make-shift camp outs!

Smore's rolls!

Crescent rolls

Marshmallows

Chocolate bars

Cinnamon

Powdered sugar

Milk

Cooking spray

Spray the cooking sheet and lay the rolls out.

Add a marshmallow and chocolate piece to each roll(L did two for each)

Carefully roll them up, seam side down.

Bake at 350 for 10-15 min until golden brown.

After they are out and cooled a little you need to make the sauce for the top.

You mix 1Tb milk with 1/2 C of powdered sugar. Then you drizzle it over the top!

They were soooo yummy!

For dinner we always make

Beanie-weenies

Cheese

Baked beans(any brand/flavor)

Hot dogs or little smokies

Foil

Each of gets a piece of foil. Lay it flat and form it into a slight bowl. Add as much beans, hot dogs and cheese as you like(we even use chili sometimes and ass onions).

Once you have everything in, pull the sides up so it looks like this^^

We always cook ours on the fire when we are camping, but here we use the BBQ. Just heat till they are heated through! Unwrap and enjoy!

Leftover room paint makes me happy!

We have a little over 1/3 left in each of the gallons of paint we got for Little's room and I knew I wanted to do something with it....I just had NO idea what! So, while my MIL was here visiting, she got Little this really nice shelf at the craft store. It was just plain wood and I knew instantly what I wanted to do with it! So a few nights ago I went to town with the shelf and the paint!

Getting ready to start!

Little helping me!

(the paint we had for his room has primer already in it so it was SUPER easy to cover the shelf!)

Half way done!

Finished! Just needs to dry now!

Hanging on the wall!

My best tip for hanging things lately(especially in base housing) is those amazing 'Command' strips! The large picture hanging ones say they hold 20 lbs! I did 4 of the large ones and 4 of the small and even putting some pull into it, it won't budge! AND I love that it won't leave a mark on the walls when it's time for it to come down!!

While I was having fun with paint I also turned his UGLY black lamp into this.....

It looks soooo much better now!

And it goes with his decor so much better!

Ps. That little cubby thing....AMAZING! I feel like his room is finally done! One or two more(small) painting projects and he will have the room I've been hoping to give him for a long time!

Home-made bubbles!

I'm going to take a break from the boring picture-over-load posts and show you a few fun things we've been doing around here!

A few days ago we decided to make home-made bubbles! We've tried the dish-soap and water before, but it didn't work out the best, so when I found this new recipe, I was all for trying it out! I'm so glad we did! It was perfect!

Pretty simple!

2 1/2 Quarts of water

1/2 a cup of light corn syrup

1 cup of dish soap!

mix the first two till they are blended then slowly put the soap in.

 Then we went around the house to find anything we could use as "blowers"!

The whisk and slotted spoon were the best!

Sailing!

One of the things I really love about living here is all of the different things they have to do(for all ages). Landon is trying so many different things this summer and he is loving it! One of the things hes really taken to is sailing! I never would have thought my kid would sail boats, but he now knows a little on how to do it!

This past week, he spent a few hours each day on a sailboat in the water a few miles from the house. He would come home and tell me all different things he learned. He even told me they practiced capsizing one day! I love it, and I love that he is so open to trying new things!

Here he is on his first day of camp leaving our house. He looked so stinkin' cute in all his gear!

Day 2 was a little nicer so he didn't need a sweatshirt.

One day when I got there he was so excited to show me all of the different knots he learned!

Picking him up on the last day.

It is so pretty out here, I just love it.

Landon is really finding his "spot" in all of the activities around here that J and I are talking about possibly staying here for good.....we shall see!

New House Part Three: Things!!!

I love that everything is coming together. I feel much more at home in this house and I think it shows.

With the added paint in the two rooms, the themes we had picked out before seem to "pop" even more. Then with the added bathroom, we gave Little the freedom to pick any theme he wanted!

He picked sea life/submarines! I love it!

Here is the bathroom.

The shower curtain has subs on it, then a fish rug, sub toothbrush holder and a whale soap dispenser!

His bathroom is also a really good size! Big enough that you can get dressed in there and not feel like you are bumping against the walls.

Then I added decals! This little sub is L's favorite!

Crabs, sea horses, jelly fish and bubbles are all around the walls. We even have a dolphin and a school of fish somewhere in there.

With the decals and the sub holder on the toilet.

Now on to Little's room!

We really tossed the idea around of letting him pick a new theme(space was on the top of the list). BUT I asked him is he liked the hungry caterpillar still and when he said yes, I decided to milk it until we leave here in a few years. I promised him new paint, decals and a few new things to add to it and he was sold!

His bedding with the painted walls!

Decals! We added a border of the food that was eaten in the blue all around his walls, and a skinny caterpillar, fat caterpillar, cocoon and a butterfly are all spaced out to!

Little loves this one hanging from his TV hutch. Right next to it on the blue wall is the caterpillar like I just hatched and flew away he says.

He loves all of the things on his walls and this past weekend we bought some things to add to it all. We got a shelf that we are going to use his room paint on, some room letters we are going to paint and add things from the book to, some canvases that I hope I can paint decent scenes from the book onto and a big white piggy bank that I hope to do the same with! I will post them as I do them...if they aren't that bad. lol.

Now the living room!

We got these couches in SC when we lived there almost 5 years ago! They are still going strong and are in perfect condition! We've always had the red/brown theme and I haven't wanted to switch it up yet....so it stayed!

J and I picked out the same rug at the store!(I love when it's that easy!). Our living room is a little smaller then our old one was, but we also have it "turned" the other way so that makes a big difference.

All of our DVD's.....I swear we watch them! Haha.

Mine & J's chairs. His is the stupid brown bucket one that he RUFUSES to get rid of! One day I will win and it will be banished to a different room!

I hope you enjoyed our little tour! I might post the rest as I get them done, if I ever get them done. lol.