Good Evening!!

I hope everyone's had a great start to the week.  We have been busy as usual. I swear I don't know how I function everyday with only a couple of hours of sleep at a time during the night and no nap during the day. My eyes literally start stinging at 8 p.m. when P & J go...I mean "try" to go to bed :)

Well, Sunday was the my first day of deployment emotion.  Porter had a friend's birthday party to attend.  All of fellow marine friends were there and it was a wonderfully grand time with little Joshua hanging out in my Boba (my new front carrier to make me feel semi-normal).  I left the party Sunday to head over to the birthday girl's house with my friends to watch her open presents and eat dinner since all of our husbands are deployed.  Well I noticed I had missed a few text messages from my husband and a couple of calls which would have been my first time literally talking to Stephen since Canada. Soo....needless-to-say, I was all kinds of upset about missing it because of the birthday party, bad timing and a two tired screaming kids in the car back and forth to houses.....ugh!!!

I have learned over these past two days that I'm going to have to either A) keep my phone on me at all times or B) not get upset when I miss communication with the hubs.  Right now at the beginning of the deployment I think I will stick with A :)  It took me a whole day to get over myself, but I was finally able to talk to Stephen yesterday afternoon which made everything all better.  Conversation was quick, but I was able to get out of him that they are still living it large on this deployment.  Instead of sleeping in some kind of shack like they have gone to be trained in twice in California, they are living in actual houses...like a 3 bedroom 2 bath house.  Seriously.  He said their A/C is great which is nice, but he did say that there are a lot flies.  When he was talking to me he said they were just all buzzing around his head. Yuck...but that's the last time I've been able to talk to him.  He said he was busy doing his job again, NAVO (navigations officer).  I can't wait to hear what all is going on once the group they are replacing actual leaves.

As for Porter, he went to the doctor yesterday and it went well.  He is fighting some kind of bug, and his lymph nodes and glands are doing their job.  However, we have to go back in two weeks for a follow up until his lymph nodes are back to normal size again.  Joshua is healthy and...vocal :) Porter was way too chill and Joshua is a grunter.  Awesome! He's crying as I type this  until I actually go in and pat his back and shove that little paci back in :)  And Porter is talking to himself until I walk by to go to bed and then he'll try and coax me back into his room saying he's "too scared to sleep with just himself...he needs somebody to cuddle with him." Ahhh, there is never rest for the weary...NEVER!

Ok, that's all I have for this evening! Here are some pics of the past week and half.  Goodnight all!



This is our last night out as a family!  Stephen took Porter to see Planes as a last father/son bonding session and then we went out to dinner. Last pic of all of the boys together until Joshua is almost 1! Crazy...

 Apparently I'm supposed to be blowing raspberries on Joshua so he knows it's from his Dad.  I'm not a pro at it like Stephen is, but Joshua sure does stop and stare every time we do it!

 This video melts my heart.  Stephen recorded himself reading three of Porter's favorite books for them to watch while he's gone.  This was the first night Porter and Joshua saw the video of Stephen reading the Bernstein Bears "The Spooky Old Tree".  In the video Stephen told Porter to get tucked in, so Porter scooted back in the chair and said "I'm ready Dad."  After the book was over Stephen told Porter goodnight and Porter just waved and said "goodnight Dad!" So glad he did this for the boys to seem like home while he's gone.

 This is a picture Stephen sent of them the first day flying into St. Johns in Newfoundland.  Pretty sweet!

 This is what the flight line looked like once they landed in Canada.  I never get tired of seeing all of the Ospreys all together like this.  It's pretty neat!