Not me Monday, the Tuesday edition!

Okay, so I did not get so behind this weekend that I didn't find time to write my Not Me Monday!!! That would just be so lame of me! I am not so addicted to writing this really awesome post that I am so going to do it anyways and post it on Tuesday. I in no way wondered if anyone would notice that I hadn't posted it yesterday. How vain would that be??? Okay, so here it goes and don't forget to head over to MckMama's blog mycharmingkids.net to read all the rest of the worlds (seriously people I'm pretty sure the whole world reads her blog!!!) Not Me Monday post! 

So the most impressive moment this past week was when I didn't even consider pulling a pair of (not that dirty) undies out of the clothes hamper for my son George when he ran out. That would never happen for two reasons A) my kids clothes never get so behind in the laundry cycle that I run out of stuff B) I would never ever think about putting (not that dirty) clothes on them. Who would do that??? Not ME!!! I am not thinking, as we speak, if the kids would mind pb&j for dinner tonight. No, I don't make that kinda junk for my kids. Oh but I did sneak some wheat germ in George's oatmeal the other day... hehehe I love it when I get away with stuff like that. My five year old did not use a permanent marker to "be creative" in her bedroom this weekend, meaning that I did not have to spend part of my Sunday scrubbing black sharpie out of my 10,000 dollar carpet! I so did not just tell the world how much I over paid for our carpet. I did not answer a question asked by my oldest this week without even realizing what the question was. Seriously people, an answer did not just jump from my lips before the question had made it to my brain. I am not that checked out around my kids sometimes! I am always present and attentive to what they are saying each moment of the day, I do not want to miss a single moment in their precious little lives...

Even as I am typing this I am not sitting on the couch in the family room with my headphones on so I cant hear three little voices trying to stay awake in their rooms. Its not like I cant get anything done if I don't have the headphones on... I am not so ADD that I just wander from room to room until I look up and its 3:30pm and time for my wild ones to get up whether I like it or not.

Last but not least I am not ending this post because I forgot to write down all the funny things that happened over the past week. I am not that much of a space cadet and I do not forget things ten minutes after they happen! 

Wait what was I writing about...

What is a MILITARY wife????

Update: I wanted everyone to know that I did not write this. It was sent to me on facebook and I wanted to share it with everyone that always asks how we (military wives) do it. This is pretty close to the truth... I'm so glad that so many of y'all have enjoyed reading it and learning more about us (military wives) or just sending me an Amen from my fellow military wives. Y'all are all awesome and I love hearing from you! 

What is a MILITARY Wife?They may look different and each is wonderfully unique, but this is what they have in common.Lots of moving---Moving.Moving.Moving far from home.Moving two cars, three kids and one dog----all riding with HER of course.Moving sofas to basements because they won't go in THIS house.Moving curtains that won't fit.Moving jobs and certifications and professional development hours.Moving away from friends, moving toward new friends.Moving her most important luggage; her trunkful of memories.Often waiting-Waiting, waiting, waiting for housing; waiting for orders; waiting for deployment; waiting for reunion; waiting for phones calls; Waiting for the new curtains to arrive; waiting for him to come home for dinner----AGAIN!They call her 'military dependent', but she knows better.She can balance a checkbook.Handle the yard work.Fix a noisy toilet.She can put together a WOODEN swing set.She is intimately familiar with drywall, anchors, and toggle bolts.She can file the taxes, sell a house, buy a car, or set up a move, -- all with ONE Power of Attorney.She welcomes neighbors that don't welcome her.Reinvents her career with every PCS; locates a house in the desert, the arctic, or the deep south and learns to call them all 'home'.She MAKES them all home.She is fiercely IN-dependent.Military Wives are somewhat hasty.They leap into decorating, leadership, volunteering, career alternatives, churches and friendships.They don't have 15 years to get to know people.Their roots are short but flexible.They plant annuals for themselves and Perennials for those who come after them.Military Wives quickly learn to value each other.They connect over coffee, rely on the spouse-network and accept offers of friendship and favors and record addresses in pencil.Military Wives have a common bond.The Military Wife has a husband unlike other husbands, his commitment is unique. He doesn't have a job, he has a 'mission' he can't just decide to quit. He's on-call for his country 24/7 but for you, he's the most unreliable guy in town!His language is foreign:TDY,PCS,MOS,FOB,ACU And so, a Military Wife is a translator for her family and his.She is the long-distance link to keep them informed the glue that holds them together.A Military Wife has her moments----She wants to wring his neck, dye his uniform pink, and refuse to move to Siberia...But she pulls herself together.Give her a few days, a travel brochure, a long hot bath, a pledge to the flag, and a wedding picture.And she goes.She packs.She moves. She follows. Why? What for? How come?You may think it is because she has lost her mind. But actually it is because she has lost her heart.It was stolen from her by a man...Who puts duty first.Who longs to deploy.Who salutes the flag.And whose boots in the doorway remind her that as long as he is her Military husband,She will remain his Military wife.

A new awesome button!

Update: I totally figured it out! OMG... Okay so the lettering on the actual button are kinda small and I will work on that tomorrow, perhaps even putting in one of his other awesome photos. Tonight I really just wanted to see if I could do it. Okay, so your welcome Chad and everyone else get over to his website and check him out!

I am attempting to create a button for my friend Chad's website. I have been at it for a couple hours now... So its not going well. Well thats not really true, I am about 91% of the way there. Just cant get it to link back to his website... Help, anyone???

Whats that big yellow thing???

George:" Mom why is it so bright out today? Did God forget to make it rain here?"

So on Saturday Ben took the kids to the park and then on Sunday while Dad was out fishing I took the kids to the park. If there is one thing we have learned living up here for the past 4 years its, when the sun is out you find somewhere to go and something to do. I have been looking for just about anything photography related to read in the past couple of weeks and I even chatted it up with this really cool and talented photographer at the playground. Chad DeRosa is a professional photographer that specializes in motocross photography. He has been doing it for a living for about a year now and has an amazing way with pictures. So not only have I been trying to learn as much about my new camera as I can and tips and tricks for taking and editting pictures, but I also grew up riding dirt bikes and going to motocross races with friends, so talking to him and his girlfriend was right up my alley this weekend. Looking at Chad's photos just reminds me how anything can look beautiful if taken at the perfect moment. I took a bunch of pictures of the kids and guess what so did Ben and after some deleting, transfering, and photoshopping, here they are. I dont know if I'll put all of them all on here, but I will be putting all of them on FB, so make sure you check us out there. By the way, Chad's is a professional but I have a pretty big camera and his made my look like a kids toy! I wonder how long it will be before I need an upgrade??? lol Check out his website when you get a chance its www.derosaphotography.com

Why yes that is George peeing in the woods and no he was not with me when he did it.

Not Me Monday!

So here I am again, another week, another Not Me Monday. Head over to MckMama's blog to see what (litteraly) the rest of the world had to say today! (Seriously people everyone post Not Me Mondays, I keep waiting to see one from Michelle Obama!)

What can I say its not like I make list of of all the things that I want to remember to mention in this thing. I so dont have time to just sit around thinking of all the things that I didn't do, but should have done this past week. I most certainly did not go to bed around 1 (or 2) am both Friday and Saturday nights only to pop right back up again at 7:30am the next morning feeling refreshed and well rested. I thendidn't have to listen to my husband declare that I function better on 4 hours of sleep then I do 9 hours of sleep. I also did not then consider seeing what would happen if I tried that little stunt all week, no y'all that would be just plain crazy... I at no point this week put my three beautiful children to bed 15 minutes early and I defiantlydidnt do it twice, which would have meant that everyone was in bed by 6:45pm (when it doesnt get dark till around 9pm). Nope I, being the super awesome cant get enough of my kids mom that I am, spend at least a hour every night reading to them and holding them and just over all basking in the joy of being their mom. I mean its not like I ever start thinking around 3:30 (right about the time they would be getting up from naptime) "okay Mandi only 2.5 hours to go... only 1.5 hours to go. Okay you can do this, just make it through dinner and it will be time for the little monsters angels to work as hard as they can to get out of walk happily to their bedrooms and yell for everything from potty to water and fall asleep straight away." Nope, no way I would never think anything as logical ridiculous as that. I did not take my three beautiful children to the park this weekend at naptime (because that would be silly) only to spend 30 minutes there and decide that I really should have ate before we left the house and then make them leave. I did not have to listen to my 5 yr old complain about how much she really really really wanted some of that (random person at the park's) watermelon and then tell her I was going to stop on the way home to get some for us. I also then of course did not totally (within 5 minutes) forget about said watermelon and drive straight home. Even more so I did not pretend to forget about said watermelon just so I wouldnt have to take all three of my monsters wonderfully behaved children into a grocery store when they all should have been at home napping. Oh and if I were going for bragging this week I wouldn't tell y'all about the fact that while at the park I did not have a 20 minute conversation with another couple about photography, while completely turning my back on the playground and forgetting to watch my children. Nope, no way!... I watch them like a hawk at all times! Because its just nothing like me, I did not snap at Ben today just because he asked me when we were going to put the house on the market. Then I didnt come home and start organizing, but then get totally (in true Mandi ADD fashion) sidetracked and end up making an even bigger mess by exchanging my winter clothes for my summer clothes. If that had happened I might have even gotten sidetracked enough to refold all of my clothes and then run out of time before the kids got up. So then leaving them all sitting in neat little piles all over our bed. Those clothes will not just go from those piles (if they were there I mean) on the bed to piles on the floor, blanket chest and papison chair. No way, if there were clothes on my bed (which there never are because I never ever let folded clothes just sit) myself or Ben would put them away as soon as we saw them. I mean who really sees laundry folded in a basket and then pretends like they didn't see it first. What kind of person would actually take something they want to wear out of the laundry basket in the familyroom without putting the rest of the stuff away? Thats just lazy y'all... And finally tonight. I did not take a job at the baby boutique I told y'all about last week. I will not be working there two days a week, simply because I am tired of looking at this house. I did not call my husband at work with a list (in hand) of all the "good" reasons I should take this job. I never take on more things then I can possibly handle only to end up letting ALL of the balls drop in the end. Nope I know my limits and I never cross them...

Finally over...

Okay so here it is, the final drawing y'all will see posted on this blog by me. I have no doubt that I will post many more drawings done by my beautiful and talented daughter (and other two equally talented children should they decide to make something for me) but no more from me. I'm done!!! I am going to post not only the drawing I just turned in buy also my "artist statement" that was due along with it. Enjoy and let me know what you think. (Unless its mean, then you can keep it to yourself thank you)

Mandi w6 a3 For this final drawing I decided to revisit my strawberries from week one. I thought this would be a great way to see just how much I had absorbed from this informative yet extremely short course. I know it sounds cliche, but this class has been truly rewarding and one of the most stressful things I have done in a long time. And I have three kids under the age of five people! hahaha So back to my strawberries. I started this drawing thinking that I would do it over a couple of days. Because my friend Cyndi pointed out to me one day that it helped to come back to something with fresh eyes and I wanted to do that with this final assignment. I cant say that it came out as great as what I saw in my head, but I can say that if I was looking at this thinking "A person that has only had a 5 week online course on drawing drew this." I would think it was pretty stinking impressive. So I am going to leave it on that note. I am pretty stinking impressed with myself tonight. Thanks for all the feedback I've gotten over the past month and a half, from my fellow students and Kelly. I learned a lot. I'm sad that I could have learned more had there been more time, but I have discovered that I can draw and that I actually kinda enjoy it. Funny, didn't see that coming... Mandi

We Heart Art...

My friend Sara over at Domestically Challenged is hosting a blog carnival with two other blogs on her site 3baybchicks and I'm living proof God has a sense of humor. All three are really fun sites that I spend time on all the time. This carnival is called We Heart Art and its all about promoting art and creativity in ours and our children's lives. I wish I could say that we do arts and craft projects all the time around here, but truth be told, even the thought of the mess makes me do stuff like this: I mean it really stresses me out. Can you say, vinyl table cloth-personalized brown paper bag placemats-indivitual egg cups and huge old white t-shirts. As you might have noticed only one of my three children is still in the picture. My other two had already decided that it wasnt worth the effort to try to stay so "clean". So we pay big bucks every month for our older two to go to preschool three times a week and for Carolina to go to an art class once a week. Carolina is really our little artist. She loves anything having to do with creating. Some of the things she comes up with are so amazing. These are just some of my favorites from her class: I have never considered myself an artist and over the past month I have had to take a drawing class for college. While I cant say that I "found my passion" or even really enjoyed everything about the course, I can say that there is something very theraputic about drawing. Especially when you learn some of the techniques and can actually produce something that looks like what you thought it would in the end. I have posted about it throughtout the whole course here on my blog. You can find my first drawings here and here is one of my last drawings and the photo I drew it from. I couldnt quite get Carolina right in the drawing and after a few hours spent on it I stopped. The best part about taking this course has been gaining a real understanding of something that both Carolina and Ben love. Do I think this is something that I will continue to do on a regular basis? No, but I can now look at a picture that my beautiful creative daughter has created and truly appreciate all the hard work that went into it. And that is worth all the hard work that I had to put in over the past six weeks!