Victory Cake

For anyone who was prayin' for me while I took my GREs in London yesterday-Thanks!

"Daddyless" Dino Park

Today I actually summoned all courage and took the kids to the Dinosaur Park alone, in the rain, and mud. We actually had a blast and got more than a little filthy. After the park, we came home, rested for about a millisecond, and then attended a four-year-old's birthday party. My kids are currently tanked up on sugar and adrenaline, somewhat sleep deprived, and ignoring a movie. I am pretending not to notice that they are building a fort out of the couch cushions and dangling from the light fixtures. (Ava is taking a break from these activities and "blasting off" in the bathroom.) Still, I ignore. The slide show is from the dinosaur park today. Click on "view all images" to see a bigger version and the captions. Enjoy!

Check out my Slide Show!

Reason # 1,735,987 That I Love My Wife (and stuff about the kids of course...)

Don't expect me to do this blogging thing, but until Ava learns how to blog, I'll need to do this whenever Ness deserves some recognition. (Although Ava is understanding "Uno" these days, I believe she is about 5 years away from actually blogging.)
A quick story about Ava and Eli. We were at "The Play Place" - an indoor jungle gym on Milden hall. Eli was sleeping and Ava had made very good friends with a 5 year old girl named Jasmine. At one point, Jasmine pointed out that she doesn't play with boys. When Eli woke up and wanted to play, Jasmine refused thereby putting Ava in a difficult position - at least I though it would be. Nope. Ava refused to have anything to do with Jasmine until she agreed to play with Eli too! Made Daddy very proud.

Ava has moved on to 100 Piece puzzles. OK I helped, but she really is getting better and better at them. I learned that I need to find ways to explain how to do things in a way that she understands. For puzzles, the key is for similar colors and patterns to "Find their friends" because we don't want Yellow to be lonely and therefore it needs to meet other Yellow friends and to not meet Red or Green friends. Actually, now that I just re-read that, it sounds a little racist, but don't worry. Ava and I will only "talk racist" to the puzzles.


"I tuck!" Who would have thought getting ones little horsey would be so precarious.

Who would've known that Ness would work with someone who is good friends with the son of Wayne Hyzenga (owner of the Dolphins) and had an extra ticket? Of course, he offered it to her to give to me, and of course they are on the 50 yard line 25 rows from the front. And the fact that she wants me to go to London early so I can finally get to see the Tower of London is reason #1,735,988.

Reason #412 that I need to watch what I say...

Today Eric and I were discussing what to do about lunch since we needed to go to base at lunch time. I said, "How about Subway- I don't think I can handle eating any crap (burger king) today".
Ava whines, "But I want to eat crap!"

The countdownt to Halloween

Yes, I still read to them, and, thanks to them, my lap is plenty big enough to hold them both!

Today we went to a Halloween party at the Officers Club on base. Ava has been begging to wear her fairy costume for ages, and as you can see, she is quite happy! (The wand is homemade!) Eli is my rather reluctant chicken...ah hem...rooster.

Punkin Pickin

Yesterday we took a trip to the pumpkin patch to choose our future jack-o-lantern. Eli wants a plane carved on his and Ava wants a fairy...should be interesting.
Eli slept through the cornfield maze...I thought it was kinda boring too. At one point, a monster jumped out at us. Ava did not like the monster. She bolted to the exit like her tail was on fire screaming, "I don't like monsters!".
Here is my little farm girl, cheesin for the camera after we had narrowly escaped the monster!
Eric, who can't stand for his children to be afraid of anything, took Ava back into the corn on a "Monster Hunt". Here she is trying to quietly sneak up on that monster to scare him!

And they'll have fun, fun, fun....

...Till Ava makes the T-bird sway!

Somehow, I don't think Eli quite has the hang of this...

Mama's two little punkins

And here I am, taking a picture as my son plays with medications on the stove. 10 points to you if you can spot the knife in the background. I need to go fill out my mother of the year application now- cheers!

Is there anything more beautiful...

Ahhhhhhhhhh

Remember the ELMO!

OH the things a little guy has to do to protect his basic Sesame street rights. This week we have had Logan here to visit for a few days. Logan just turned one and is very into electronics...especially the TV. Eli is almost two and has such a passionate love affair with the TV, that we are starting to worry. It doesn't matter what is on, Eli loves the TV. (I actually caught him hugging the TV a few days ago, but I just couldn't bear to take a picture.) Anyway, Logan very much enjoys pushing the buttons, and Eli just can not allow this. When Logan even gets near the TV we hear, "No Yogan! My TV!" The two circle each other in Wyatt Earp fashion before Eli "herds" Logan back away from the precious television. Eric says it is a bit like having a sheep dog. A few times Eli has had to "take Logan down". This never seems to bother Logan, who is convinced that at some point, he will elude Eli and capture the TV.

PLEASE SEND KLEENEX!

Sorry we have been absent the last few days. We have all been down with one of these nasty British colds! If I had posted, it would have gone something like, "I blew Eli's nose, then Ava's. We all had some Gatorade, and then blew our noses again...and so on." Not very interesting. Yesterday, because Ava was feeling better, we took her to gymtots. She jumped on the trampoline for awhile and then informed me that her rib was tired so she was all done. Eli kept it interesting yesterday by spiking a high fever and sleeping a lot. I can tell he is still not feeling well today because he is currently "torturing" his shoes because he can't get them on his feet. I am tuning out the wailing and gnashing of teeth.Here is a picture of one of our lovely autumn spiders- I think they are actually called Harvest Spiders. My children and Eric are fascinated by them- I am scared to kill them, so I mostly just threaten and coerce them to live in someone else's yard. (The spiders, not my husband and children.)
Because it is rainy and cold, and the snot is flowing freely in our house, puzzles have been a good diversion. Here are two of my "children" with their completed puzzles. Don't be fooled because Ava's is bigger...I'm sure that Eric's was really challenging too! Good job hon.

Welcome to my life...

I know that I have done a "my life in pictures" entry before, but today I actually carried my camera everywhere I went....sooo (probably more for my amusement than yours!) here is a typical Conderman day...
Oh my gosh! It's cloudy, drizzly, and dreary. Oh yeah, I forgot, the Saxons angered Ra back in the stone ages and now the sun doesn't shine here. (Eric is so gonna rip my pathetic grasp of history to shreds for that statement!) Anyway, at least it is not foggy, flooding, or mud sliding...so all in all, a good day! Here we are off to Mildenhall to play at the indoor play park.
Because my children are boycotting sleep and waking up at around 5am these days...Eli did not quite make it through the 25 minute drive. I got to listen to "I need a nap" and "Go, go, go, go for G" the whole way there per Ava's request. Fortunately he woke up shortly after arriving, unfortunately, (and anyone who has kids will know this) sleeping for 20 minutes counts as THE nap. (so no afternoon quiet time for mommy:( Oh well.
Watching my kids race each other down the slide, chase each other all over the jungle gym, and seeing Ava push Eli's little bottom up the last platform to the top of the play area reminds me why my life is so great. It helped keep the atomic meltdown, over who got the most french fries at lunch, in perspective. For the record, it was Ava. She got 15 and I only got 12. Not Fair!
After lunch we went to the BX and the kids made a new friend. If anyone with $279.00 is still looking for a gift for our kids....
We dropped a tired Ava off at school, and I brought an even more tired Eli home, hoping that the nap miracle would take place. It didn't. So, he helped me clean bathrooms and then make lasagna. If anyone visits a year from now and still finds mozzarella in odd places in our kitchen, well....
After Eli and I walked the 2.2 mile round trip to get Ava (Eli slept), Kate came over with Logan for Survivor night. My children are a bit out of control by this point. We call it "sundowning in the Conderman house".
During Survivor, when I obviously was not paying enough attention, Ava snapped about 30 pictures with our camera. Here is one of the "floor and furniture" series.
If only the gate would a really keep them in!
Eric tells Ava and Eli a bedtime story. In my wild imagination, I envisioned that this would put them to sleep. It is now 845 and I just heard a crash that shook our light in the kitchen, followed by wild laughter. But I'm going to pretend I didn't.

The "lavander loo's" newest patron

The last few days (and weeks) have really flown by! Eli continues to wow us with his extending vocabulary and his "shrinking" clothes. Daily I watch my "baby" recede to make way for a little boy that is growing up much too fast! He is as polite as ever and tries (usually successfully) to do everything Ava does. His newest passion is the toilet. I certainly don't relish potty training and the memories of "Potty training boot camp" with Ava do nothing to encourage me. Eli is adamant to the point of temper tantrums that he wants to "Pee-pee ah potty yike Ah-va". So, on Oct 23, 2007 it is "P-day" in the Conderman household. For three days Eli will go pantsless and I will thank my lucky stars for hardwood floors and organic cinnamon smelling disinfectant (thank you LL). Pray for us...and our children.

Unfortunately, kids just don't understand photo ops.

Ava is ever my amazing, brilliant, funny, fashion conscious little girl. She has to be bribed to wear anything but a dress. She loves making up jokes and getting Eli to laugh. It sounds sappy, but she reminds us daily just why we had children. Eli (at nearly 2) challenges us daily on that very decision, but we remain confident that he will continue to remain brilliant and funny, and his constant rebellion at EVERY DECISION WE MAKE will slowly (or quickly:) fade away.
*As a little bonus Ava story: Today Eric and the kids dropped me off at work for a quick meeting. Ava asked if I was going to "eat another dead horse". "Beat a dead horse", Eric corrected and no she only has to meet with her commander. Ava thought about that and then asked, "Does he eat dead horses?" Boy, I hope not!

Girl time

This afternoon, Ava followed me into the bathroom. She sat down on the little step stool and sighed, "Girls need to spend time with girls". "Who told you that?" , I asked. Ava looked at me wisely and said, "It just came from myself".
By the way...The winner of my little photo contest has been decided. I won't tell you who, but if you recieve a box of chocolates it's pretty safe to assume it was you. I giggled over all of my entries and if the dollar wasn't dropping like rock, I'd send you all a box! I will be posting a new contest soon (because I am just so amused by it!) so stay tuned!
One last thing....Aunt Carissa, if you are reading this...Ava has written letter after letter to you on her aqua doodle. She claims that they say the most profound things like: I love you and I hope you can come visit me soon! and I hope you like "Charles-man". To me, all of her letters look like: MOMLVOELIAVADADLLLOCOOOM (or some variation)

Who wears the pants?

Here is Eli shortly after winning the "last kid standing" contest. It's rather funny to watch him continue to "play" with her even after she passed out. After reading a book to her, Eli ran his little cars all over her arms and head yelling "Vrooooommmm!" He then tried to put a sock and shoe on her, and finally Eli covered his sister with a blanket, gave her a kiss "nigh nigh" and went on to his next task (looking for "floor snacks"). I wish I could sleep this deeply....

Here is a picture of my men playing a duet...
Twinkle, twinkle little star
I don't know where my pants are
They could be hiding near or far
(Maybe in the neighbors car)
Mommy, don't get in a huff
I still can't get my diaper off!

I'm not sure what my children have against pants... Actually Ava enjoys folding laundry so much that, once the load is folded, she will take off her own clothes and fold them!

Poor Horsey!

Last night I had a work meeting that was only supposed to take an hour. It took two. Unfortunately, Eric and the kids were waiting on me to get done so that we could grab dinner as a family. When I FINALLY got out of there, I jumped in the car, apologized to Eric for being so late, and then made some comment about "beating a dead horse" for the last hour of my meeting. Well, Ava was aghast, "Mommy, why did you kill the horse? Was it a big horse? What color was the horse? Why couldn't you just put the horsey in time out?" When we met up with Kate and Kenny for dinner, the first thing out of Ava's mouth was, "Mommy and the other nurses kill horses at work". Great...gotta watch what we say around this one.

Check out my Slide Show!

Gas! Gas! Gas!

Today I had gas mask training at work. I got to watch someone read power point slides for 2 and a half hours, take a three hour lunch break (before you start wondering where your tax payer dollars are going- let me add that it was my day off), and then wear my full chem gear including my gas mask for 2 hours. By the time I got to take it off, I think I was breathing steam....imagine being in a tiny elevator with 13 obese people (who ate nothing but broccoli for lunch) and the heat is broken in July in San Antonio...and you are wearing a snowsuit. That is what gas mask training is like. At least I got to come home to my adorable children when I was done!

Yes, they are true military brats in every sense of the word!