Cater-pod-UGH-illar!!

These creepy things are hanging out all over the place. Little e tells me that the caterpillars that are inside will turn into ugly brown moths.




I'm going to take her word for it and hope that they disappear sometime soon.

Who Isn't...

grilling cinnamon rolls this morning??

Just one more thing that has E grumbling, 'Where is my model home?'

Stay tuned for more old house fun.

Board Breaking and White Striping

Little e has moved on to board breaking in the world of Tae Kwon Do.

Here she is holding her board prior to class. Hard to believe that this sweet little thing could have enough power to break a board with her hand.

She actually broke one while waiting for class to start, so my initial fears were put to rest.

Ready, set, ACTION!

That was called, 'Palm heal strike'.

Since that picture was taken, she has broken several more boards using her feet and elbows. I am not looking forward to the day that she does it with her head... ugh!

She also earned a new belt a few weeks back... it's called 'white stripe'...

...why, I am not sure, since it clearly has a yellow stripe on it. But who am I to question years of tradition?

After each achievement, we can clearly see a sense of pride of accomplishment in her.

I cannot get over how old she looks here. Time is definitely flying by.

Congratulations!!

SUKANDA!!

Moving is hard. It stinks. Having to start over every 3 years, give or take, really can take it's toll on you.

And the worst part about it?? Consoling your kids because they miss their friends, adjusting to the new neighborhood/house, finding activities and schools for the kids, unpacking, dealing with move damage... the list can go on and on.

Nope, not one of those things makes me fear moving.

Finding a hairdresser... now that frightens me. Especially when you live in the land of the mullet... women included. There is no discrimination here. After looking at everyone's hair for the past 3+ months, I was very distraught. I had not seen one person that I wanted to find out where they got their hair cut. Then, while on a field trip with e's school... it happened. I finally found someone who had cute hair. I immediately and shamelessly marched right up to her and asked her who cut her hair. Thankfully, being a military wife has helped me to abandon all reservations and not feel strange at all going up to complete strangers and asking them anything.

Enter, Sukanda (cue harps and choir signing 'Ahhhh').

She is a cute little lady from Thailand that does a wonderful job cutting hair. After seeing her work, I was confident enough to let her not only cut 4+ inches off my hair, but she also thinned it for me.

Whew, one more thing checked off my list. MD is getting closer and closer to home every day.

Look What I Made!

Jacinda over at Creative Legs has been taunting me with her insane amount of creativity and talent which prompted me to dust off my crochet hook. OK, I actually had to go buy one, but lets not split hairs, shall we?

My Grandma taught me how to crochet when I was a kid and I basically got really really good at doing one long chain and I think maybe I could go back and forth a little, but I don't believe I ever really made anything.

Little e saw a poncho that the neighbor lady had made and has wanted one ever since, so when I went to this website and found a free pattern that said, 'easy', I was hooked... no pun intended. Because if it says 'easy', it must be, right??

Well, if you have never crocheted or looked at a pattern, you've got a surprise coming... because they are written in hieroglyphics. Here the first line of my 'easy' pattern...

'Ch 3, make 2 more dc in same space, [skip next ch, 3 dc in next ch] 17 times, skip next ch; join with slip st in top of beg ch - 18 Blocks.'

What the ???

I promptly emailed Jacinda and then later picked up the phone to ask her what any of that meant. She got me started by trying as hard as she could to dumb down the lingo for me. I started crocheting and making up whatever stitch I thought would work, because I was making a poncho after all... no one would ever know if there was something wrong with it. That's the beauty of things that you just throw over your head... no accuracy required. I am making scarves next!!

And I got this done just in time for summer. Thankfully, I made it plenty big enough that it will fit for years to come. Princess M, one is on its way for you too... perfect for those chilly days in CA.

Spring in the East

Ahhh, Spring has officially arrived on the east coast. The cherry blossoms are everywhere and are beautiful!!

Last weekend, we headed up to Washington D.C. to play tourist. We parked our car at the closest Metro station and jumped on the train... 'Bullet train, bullet train, yeah' (parents of young children: name it)... and headed to The Mall.

We did all of the touristy things... we went to the monuments, The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum (one museum was one too many with the girls), had street vendor hot dogs for lunch and looked at the thousands of beautiful blossoms.

We also enjoyed the many, many kites that were flying.

Turns out that last Saturday was the first day of the Cherry Blossom Festival, complete with a kite flying competition. Had we have known, we would have never gone... the amount of people on The Mall was insane. We are so glad that we went though. One more adventure under our belts.

These cool pictures were edited with Photoshop, which is one of my new favorite things. I can't wait to see what more I can do with it... stay tuned!