Happy Easter!!

HAPPY EASTER!!  We tried to capture a few pictures before church because we were all looking oh so dapper and I knew that we wouldn't look nearly as lovely after church.  I was right.  Sam slobbered all over his clothes and Ella threw a fit during church and pulled out her hair ribbons.  Oh well, we tried!  As you can see we having a fantastic addition to our photos...MICAH!  He has been home for 2 weeks now.  We are enjoying every minute!!  I will post his homecoming photos later. 

Porter's Joke

Porter told a funny joke yesterday and got in trouble for it.  But before I share his genius humor let me give you a little background.

The house we are living in needs lots of work.  Lots and lots!  Fortunately for me my brother, Matthew, has been out of work for a few weeks and has been spending his time over here helping me remodel.  Matt has a teensy weensy temper and at times has been know to shout and let off a curse word or two.   I have told my boys NOT to repeat anything Uncle Matt says. 

So this is the joke Porter told yesterday:

"Why did the frog kiss the house?"

"Because he was a stupid-ass toad!"

I sat and visited with Porter about what was appropriate and what wasn't, etc.  Then he pipes up and says, "well how come Uncle matt always says it?"  So we asked Uncle Matt.  Matt and I were both trying hard not laugh as he tried to back pedal out of that one!

Porter's other favorite word to say is BAM IT!  That one is my own fault.  Sam has a super love affair with the toilet and is constantly putting his hands in it, dropping toys in, trying to drink with a teacup out of it, sticking the toilet brush in, etc.  It is a constant struggle to keep the bathroom door shut and Sam out of the toilet.  One day I was walking past and noticed Sam in front of the toilet with something brown in his hand!  Three things went through my mind, 1)Stop Sam! 2)Damn it not again and 3) I hope it's not poop.  This all jumbled together and came out, "SAM IT, DAMN IT!"

The boys ran around the house laughing their heads off repeating exactly what I had said.  And clever Porter is in kindergarten right now and they do work lots on rhyming to make new words!  So Bam It was born.  *sigh*  It's tough being a parent!  It's even tougher to be a parent that doesn't curse!  As if there ever was such a thing!  Oh, and it was just a hair clip...that time!  

Meltdown Madness

Long time no blog, right?  Well, life is a little hectic these days.  But my dear sweet daughter provided me with material to blog about this evening.  She is a dynamic 2 and 3/4 year old little girl.  So full of fire, opinion, and gusto. 

This is me trying to think of another way of saying dramatic, fire-breathing, she-devil.  

Holy Moly this girl is something else!!    But she can melt my heart with a sweet smile.   But back to my reason for blogging.

I almost pulled a "Bobbi."  What is a Bobbi? I am getting a head of myself.  Read on...if you dare!

I needed to go to Wal-mart this evening. (with 4 kids...that is another post entirely)  Everyone was ready to go except Ella...aka fire breather.  She was in the bathroom playing with water.  I took her out of the bathroom (offense #1), changed her diaper (offense #2...and yes she is not potty trained yet), changed her pants (offense #3 because she had peed in them) and tried to put socks and shoes on her.  Offense #4 was insisting that she wear her wet shirt.  It was slightly damp.  I told her she was wearing it.  I tried to explain to her that if she wants to play in the water, then she can wear a wet shirt.   She is a typical toddler girl that insists on changing clothes no less than 10 times a day.  She screamed and howled as though deeply wounded at the injustices I was putting upon her.  She threw herself to the ground in a fit of rage, flailing her arms and legs about, grabbing her socks and shoes and pulling them off and refused to cooperate.  I broke out into a sweat trying to get her clothes back on her.  All the while trying to keep my cool so that I didn't lose it on her.  I left her on the floor in the throes of her agony and loaded up the rest of the kids.  I turned the lights out, shut the door and said, "goodbye."

She didn't believe it for a second, but the boys were concerned.  So I went back inside, grabbed her and everything she had peeled off.  I drove to my mom's house intent on dropping her off.  I even told her that Grandma would spank her if she didn't quit screaming! (Nice of me, huh?  :)  )   She calmed down after we got to my mom's house, so I took her to Wal-mart. 

She did pretty well until we started to checkout.  Stupidly I decided to go through the self-checkout line.  Hello...bad idea. And I never remember what a nightmare it is until I do it again! How do you control 3 kids who want to help you scan, bag, sit on the bagging area, run the conveyor, etc.  and make sure that the 4th stays in the cart? 

So meltdown number two ensued.  Once again she laid down on the floor kicking and screaming, removing her shoes and socks.  I ignored her and finished scanning everything.  Then I realized that my last item didn't have a bar code.  The lovely attendant who was giving me pity smiles came to my aid.  Almost immediately two other workers came running over to help her try to find the code.  They couldn't, so one of them ran off to get another one.  By this time I had picked Ella up off the floor and put her in the cart.   She was half hanging over the side, screaming her guts out.  And there we waited for what seemed like 10 minutes.  Steam must have been coming out my ears.

I was tempted to become the token "crazy, cursing, screaming at her kid, spanking them in the aisle wal-mart mom."  But i didn't.  I thought about it though! 

Instead I contemplated the Bobbi.  What is a Bobbi?  Well, my lovely sister-in-law Bobbi has been known to leave the store....without purchasing anything...screaming kids in tow.  I think it is AWESOME!  As I stood there contemplating "the bobbi" the worker showed up.  I had wanted to purchase a fabric bundle that was on clearance. It was $19...wayyyyy too much.  So I didn't get it!!!  I had stood there with a screaming kid (did I mention that she made a kid behind us cry too?)  for nothing. 

It gives me chest pains just to think about it.  She screamed all the way out of the store and continued screaming after I loaded her into the van.

What am I going to do when she becomes hormonal? 

It is a good thing that Micah is coming home in two months.  I may be headed to the loony bin.

After These Messages...

We'll be right back.  Do you remember those famous words from when you were a kid?  Or 'now a word from our sponsors.'  They always indicated that it was time to make a mad dash to the bathroom, or over to the kitchen for a snack.  Commercials.  Yuck.  Now that I have DVR I hardly ever watch commercials.  And I LOVE it!! I don't think I can ever go back.  In fact, last year a friend told me she was thinking about getting a dvr and what was my opinion.  I told her that they were awesome, but her life would never be the same, so if she was prepared to never go back to watching normal television, then to go ahead and do it.  She did.  And she admits that her universe is forever altered. 

The whole reason behind this post was not to ruminate on the past, or glorify dvr's, it was to record a funny thing that Porter does.  My boys love to record shows and then watch them back later. They just haven't figured out how to fastforward the commercials.  All the cartoon channels, especially Boomerang (which is their favorite), have the "after these messages we'll be right back."  Porter will throw his head back and bellow, "I hate your messages."  And then look at me and say,   "Why do they all ways give you these dumb messages????"  It totally exasperates him and totally cracks me up!  You know how it is with cartoon channels, they show the same commercials every cycle and run them about 5 minutes apart.  It's ridiculous.

Micah's Latest

I really need to update my Micah stories, but here is his latest photos. The first two are from doing rocket training the last two are from sling hoist training.

Nothing happens too fast here but I finally got my rocket training

accomplished yesterday. It was very cool and I actually hit the target
every time unlike the first batch of guys who launched a rocket over the
target backstop while they were trying to figure out the sights.

Micah.

Here are some photos from the sling training he organized.  To his knowledge he is the first (in recent history) to do this with the Afghans.

 We had a momentous occasion yesterday here at the Afghan Air Force Kandahar Air Wing. For the past couple of months we have been gathering equipment, expertise, and doing training so that we could perform sling loads. A sling load is when a helicopter carries a fixed external load in a large cargo net that is attached to the helicopter via a sling cable. There are many advantages to performing sling loads. In our case we are often limited by the space inside our aircraft. On a given day and location we may be able to carry 6600 lbs of cargo but we run out of space inside the cabin before reaching our weight limit. In the first picture our guys are loading 2 boxes (called tri-walls because of the triple thick cardboard the box is made from) in our cargo net. In addition we loaded another tri-wall in the cargo area. Normally we can only carry a total of two in the cabin. So in this case we increased our cargo by 33%.  Another advantage of a sling load is the added measure of safety. If we had some type of emergency or if we were engaged by the enemy we push a button and the cargo drops away instantly. Good for us and good for random nomads if it doesn't fall on top of them.

In the second picture I am standing next to the Afghan pilot Abdul Wadoud on the left (Abdul the Dude or Wolfman for short) and the crew chief Shapur in the center. (Micah told me that the Wolfman was conscripted to fly for the Taliban way back when...he was told to fly for them or his family would be killed.  Micah says that he is one of the older pilots who really tries hard.)We don't have official mentors for the crew chiefs yet but it was a positive experience being able to work closer with them. Unlike our older pilots they sucked up the info we gave them like a sponge. The crew chiefs play a critical role in cargo sling ops.
They act as our eyes on the load and we count on them to talk us over the precise location where the load needs to be dropped. They stepped up their game and were nearly flawless. It makes me want to work with
them more and push for some younger pilots as well. The old hat pilots might be able to hold things together for a while but the Afghan Air Force is really going to takeoff when we start getting new pilots out of the training base that opens this month.