He took a Pounding!

Daddy O came home Friday morning with a Suprise!

He received his official pounding !

Defined~ The guys all got to punch him in the arm where his new stripe will be attached!

 

This past spring he was promoted and received his new job duties.

However, with all things government and military.

There is paper work.

Sometimes the paper work gets misplaced.
Sometimes the paperwork needs to be redone.

But, alas, it is done.

Daddy O learned the news the day before when he looked at his future pay stub online.

Friday morning before his shift was over the Boss Man asked if he would like to do this thing?

Daddy O chose to not call us.

Chose not to have the formal ceremony.
So much time had passed.

So he came home with his suprise. 
GOOD MORNING Peeps!

 

 

My guys!

My guys....

They are noisy and smelly.

They are noisy.

They are active and crazy.

They give the best hugs.

They are nice to their sisters, most of the time..

They create a ball of arms and legs frequently my floor when the wrestle.

They bring a tremendous amount of humor and laughter to my home.

And they are noisy.

Then there are moments like these,

when they recharge their batteries after a long day of hockey tournaments..

Super Hockey player

Back Flip Daddy's Buddy
Snuggly Flutter Nutter

The many smiles of Mr. Smiley

Before Flutter Nutter was named Flutter Nutter he was known as Mr. Smiley.
He has many smiles, most of which I think are quite infectious. He is a ham, and many think he is adorable. This he knows and works it as much as he can. He is a character. In my efforts to capture just a simple, happy smile I ended up with a slide show that pretty much captures Flutter Nutter as himself.

In all this cuteness, he also has the preciousness that comes with his age. When shopping for birthday supplies he was asked how old he was going to be. His answer, "I'm gonna be Superman!" Totally, not getting the birthday concept. We have been training and quizzing him so he can answer this question now. What does a number have to do with birthdays? Birthdays are all about the cake, fun, friends and party!!

The 30 day countdown!

Someone is always having a birthday. It's true, every day it seems is someone's birthday.
As soon as you know it is someone's birthday, there must be an appropriate amount of excitement and jubiliant birthday wishes given to the birthday person. And then it is mandatory to ponder and dream what it must be like to have a birthday of your own. Because after all, it is always someone else's birthday and "never my birthday." Who was it that thought each person should have only one birthday? And that a birthday should only come once a year? Crazy!

The talk continues and it never stops. Even if the child just had a birthday it is now 363 days, 5 hours and 6 minutes away. They want to talk with you about their cake, what they want to do, possible gifts and who they want to invite!

For the really little ones they want you to know at any given moment how much longer till their next birthday. For a mom like me, it means my children are completely disappointed! I think I need to be that Mom of 18 and counting....cause I am just not super Mom and the Wizard of Oz. I have trouble remembering my children's names much less how old they are! I am a complete disappointment in the motherhood memory contest, because when it comes to remembering the birthday cake they talked to me about July 26th, 2004 and the birthday cake their best friend had when they were 6 on their birthday on Sept. 30, 1998, I completely frustrate them with my blank look and soft admission of, "I don't remember."

So my children would not spend the year disappointed and disillusioned by their memory challenged mother I invoked the 30 day rule! Each child can only discuss their birthday with me during the 30 days before their birthday. During this time, I faithfully take notes. I create a document on the computer. I try really hard to disguise the fact I lost a few memory cells with each pregnancy.

So with the pending arrival of birthday #40 since I became a mother, I grabbed my paper and pen and asked Flutter Nutter what he wanted for his 4th birthday.

Super Man Legos
Batman Legos
Indiana Jones ....(never quite understood...he was talking to fast for his momma)
1,no 2, no 4 parachutes (so he could jump out of an airplane)
Nintendo DS

and then we always discuss the cake,
Flutter Nutter was very descriptive, he knew what he wanted...
The cake had to be green and white striped... so with some food coloring and careful cutting of cakes we ended up with:

(of course when you are 3 turning 4 it is mandatory to reach out and pull pieces of cake off... Taste testing is critical at this age.)
to get a better perspective of the shade of green he chose (after two bottles of green food dye):
Inside look:

But they not only choose the cake, but the decorations...
After some intense shopping at the "Cake Store" and not being able to decide, I suggested we go buy a toy at the store to put on top. For the money he wanted to spend on cake decorations I thought an actual toy that could be played with would be the best option, so we ended up with a lego theme. I suprised the boys with my lego building skill and constructed Flutter Nutter's construction vehicle and placed it on top!
(I do get some of the final say about the icing decorating... )


Their smiles are worth everything!
Deep breathe, I now have 35 more days till I have to begin exercising my memory skills! Just long enough to get through the Christmas season!!

Flutter Nutter's Exciting Find!

So today, Flutter Nutter goes shopping with Mom to find the perfect cake decoration for his birthday cake!

Which will be a whole other post.

Shopping was going so well, we stopped into the Dollar Tree to find treasures for his gift bags.

What does Flutter Nutter find??

Blue Candy Canes! His first thought....
Big Brother, aka "Daddy's Buddy"

Daddy's Buddy does not get red dye.
It affects him emotionally, tremendously affects him.

Christmas was a little disappointing last year, I couldn't find any non-red dye candy canes.

I couldn't find the white ones we had bought him the year before.

But today....

Flutter Nutter is big brother's hero.

Best part is we can have candy canes in the house this year.

I was not going to buy candy canes again this year if we would leave out Daddy's Buddy!

No worries there.

This smile was perfect and a thrill for the whole family.

Merry Christmas to Daddy's Buddy!

I love my husband...

enough to try and not annoy him on his one night off. I try really hard....
I sweetly ask him with a lot of bouncy excitement to go to Bed Bath and Beyond with me

& the kids.
He can go home afterwards while I finished up my errands.
I want to show him a bedspread I have had my eye on.
Before I left the driveway I remembered I didn't have my Old Navy coupon.
I went right to the spot in the house AND it wasn't there!
I figured the fatest way to find it was to go to back to the site and re-print it.
It is, afterall, a 30% coupon off your entire purchase.
So I go to the site and click print...
The printer jams!
Hockey Player is sent in to ask me if there is anything he can help me find.
LOL ~ Dad's way of trying to get me to hurry up.
I tell Hockey Player to tell dad, "I will be there in a minute and don't tell Dad what I am doing, I will explain later.
I remove the paper and re-print, yet again.
The printer jams AGAIN!

This so can't be happening!

Hubby will never consent to shop with me & kids again on his night off ever again.

This time I accidently bump the power cord and it unplugs and falls down back behind everything. I have to play twister to get the cord back to the printer. Turn it back on and viola...

Getting ready to click print yet again and here comes Big-O-Daddy-O.

I smile and quickly tell him, I couldn't find it, I thought it would be faster to reprint, the printer jammed, so I fixed it, printed again, and jammed again, and the cord was bumped and fell down and now the printer is doing its crazy little dance it does when this happens and I am trying to hurry for the sake of the family and....
Guess that coupon isn't as critical as I want it to be.

So trying yet again to not test his patience, and I really want that coupon,
I check yet again the original spot where it was suppose to be....
It's there!
Hmmm, so glad my husband loves and chooses to not strangle his coupon clipping wife!
We finally get to BB&B to find out, they are completely sold out of the bedset, I so adore.
Boys and hubby go home, mission canceled!
And I went to Old Navy and used my coupon!

Favorite Quoteable of the week ~

Big-O-Daddy-O asks the Mom...

BODO: "Will you take Fun Mom shopping?"

Mom: "For what?"

BODO: "Clothes"

Mom: "Clothes?" (SHe has more clothes than she needs already...I am befuddled, shopping? )

BODO: "Yes, (In all seriousness he says this) Clothes,

preferable something that fits like a box or a sack on her.

I finally get it. But this has to go down in the record books.

Dad asks Mom to take daughter shopping for more clothes!

If only....

This on the heels of "How many pairs of shoes does a girl need?

Friday Fun !

Days after I returned from Ireland, we were blessed to enjoy the company of our bubbly neice Sarah. She moved in for 5 days while she waited to board a flight that would whisk her away to Hawaii and her new life with the man she loves.
But first she had to weed out her luggage. She just had too much to take. To my daughters' delight she decided to leave behind shoes!

This led to 2 discoveries. Bubbly Neice's shoes fit my 8 year old and 13 year old daughters. Which led to this photo. Bubbly Neice is 21! She has tiny feet.
Can you pick which feet belong to Little Princess and Fun Mom!

The second discovery belongs to the Big-O-Daddy-O.
This past week he felt compelled to ask me how many pairs of shoes a girl must have?
That was just too much to take. I quickly told him he was asking the wrong person.
Dialed the phone to mom of a beautiful little 3 year old princess.... Her response,
At least 30 pairs!
She quickly asked him, "Are you having girl issues?"
At least we didn't call up Miss Bubbles in Hawaii....

Ross Castle ~ Killarney, Ireland

All I can say about this place, is this guy had one awesome view from his castle in every direction. Way back when, I would have wanted to be good friends with the owners! :)

Wicklow Mountains

Glendalough, translated means 'The glen and 2 lakes'
The fall colors were breathtaking. I was completely suprised by the beauty of all the colors. When I envision Ireland, I imagine emerald green. It is afterall the Emerald Isle. However, every where I looked there was beautiful color and vistas.
We stopped to visit the bell tower (or sometimes referred to as round tower) and the surrounding grounds.
The entrance to the grounds is a large archway. When entering to the right is a stone wall. Engraved in the stone is a cross. This cross was a symbol to all who entered that they were entering a place of sanctuary. This just caused such a stirring in my heart, that the image of the cross would announce you are entering a place of sanctuary.

Ireland ~ They are here!

This is a video of some random shots early in the trip!

While the men are away, we will play!

Hockey Player and Big-O-Daddy-O were in Tulsa for a hockey tournament.
I took the other 4 honyockers to Exploration Place for Free Museum Day.
The little guys were very into all that was there to discover. When the older 3 were little we had memeberships and we were there quite a bit. Now...not so much. Whenever we are available on free days. The highlight this time was making a bubble with themselves inside.