Feeling Beachie

1. I love to enjoy a clean house___ but I hate to _clean it myself__ 2. A smile from my child__ makes a day better 3. They Didn’t Think I Could ride that roller coaster______, But I Did 4. Warning: my hero comes home next month and my life is changing______! Pamela

5 Question Friday

1. What do you enjoy doing the most with your spouse? Hmm it has been so long since I have even seen him. Seriously I love when we can go away to someplace fun like a amusement park and completely act like kids and run around and play. 2. How do you eat your taco? From the top or from the side? This is the best question ever. Most days I will either break it up and eat it with a fork or I will break off the extra crunch part (because who wants a taco without meat) and then eat it from the side. 3. Have you ever shut off the basement light and ran like a fool because you knew someone was down there and would get you? Oh man, my hero deploys and I am nuts about the things I do. This deployment my amazing teenager has started making sure everything is locked and the alarm is on. 4. If you could change one thing about you what would it be and why? Give me a month and I will tell you a big one. Okay, I would be quieter and sweeter, I would speak calmer to my kids and show more praise. 5. What age do you think is appropriate to have the "bird and the bees" talk with your children? This is hard. When my daughter turned 10 I took her away to a hotel for the night. We had a brief basic talk then. My husband and I talked to my son when he was about 12. I think it is not a age but a child. I think you tell them as they need to know. With girls I think you talk about menstruation a couple years before it could happen. When my oldest daughter started her cycle she could have cared less because we had discussed it so often. Pamela

Wordless Wednesday

We recently babysat for a friend. I enjoyed it because the baby is adorable. My kids enjoyed it because it was at her house and they got to play with her dogs. Do your kids like to play with other people's pets. I wish they gave our dog this much attention. Pamela

5 Question Friday

1. If you could have been (could be) any profession you wanted (brains and $$$ no problem) what would it be? A teacher or a mom of many. I know that sounds silly but that is all I have ever wanted. 2. How often do you clean out your car? We need to clean it out daily but normally we do it once a week. 3. Do you wish there was such a thing as fashion police or are you deeply relieved? PLEASE, turn me into What not to wear? I wish the fashion police would pull up to my house and teach me how to shop and buy clothes that fit. Did you get the hint that I want help with my shopping? 4. What's your go to food/drink/activity when stressed? Fresh chocolate chip cookies, warm chocolate chip cookies. I also love to turn my praise music up as loud as I can and sing when I am stressed. 5. If you had twins, what would you name them? Hmm, maybe Mercy and Noah or Noah and Jonah or Charity and Mercy. I would love to have twins. Pamela

Feeling Beachie

First let me say thank you to Hilary for making me co-host. This is one of my favorite carnivals. I love all the people I meet and cannot go a week without laughing at something someone wrote. The statements are: 1. I hate _children who complain, whinny army wives, not having money, my gray hair, my lack of desire to scrub my walls and even more than that I hate when I am whinny. ___ 2. I have never been to ¬¬¬¬_a beach with clear water, a strip club, a welcome home ceremony without crying, a musical on Broadway. But most importantly I have never been on “what not to wear”, everyone who knows me knows that I really want to be on that show.___ 3. The hobby I love the most is__baking/cake decorating_ and one day I will _learn to do it on my own without help and without just copying what everyone else does. 4. My favorite store to shop at is__Cato’s fashion___because_I do not know where else to shop and they have pre made outfits. I have no idea how to come up with anything on my own. Pamela

Miscellany Monday

This has been a great week. This week I took the time to enjoy the kids. I took time to enjoy my care bear. I have baby sat care bear for a long time. This week was my last week with her. She is going to preschool. I know it is for the best but I am going to miss her smile. Today I was having a bad day when someone knocked on the door. We do not get guest very often unannounced so I assumed it was a sales person. It was not. It was my precious Care Bear and her family. They brought me a wonderful gift. Let me explain why this gift means so much. Not only because it is from them. But her mom took the time to think about me. Think about what I would like. She even mentioned that she looked at purple things because she knows I like purple. I am so excited that this wonderful family is not moving away and I will still be able to stay in touch. Pamela

Feeling Beachie

1. I long for quiet___ so much to be __ in a day at my house 2. I don’t like cucumbers __ but I love _pickles__ 3. When I watch_Army wives______ I ¬¬¬¬_cry and tell myself I am never watching it again. __ 4. I have _money hidden__in my wallet. SH! Don’t tell but what if I want something and have no more money in my envelope that month. Pamela

5 Question Friday

1. What's the one thing you buy every time you walk into the store? Milk, and rarely does it go bad, or eggs, how do we run out of milk. 2. If you had a day all to yourself how would you spend it? Take a shower, take a walk, rent a movie, take a nap, go to dinner with a friend, take a nap, and go to bed 3. Are you a speed limit driver? If not, over or under? I definitely do not speed too much. I often remind myself to slow down but I am rarely under the speed limit. Driving on post is the hardest part. Crazy slow driving! 4. What's your favorite dessert to make, homemade or from a mix?? Banana pudding, rainbow cake and cookies, oh wait did you want just one. How about honey bun cake, right now I am addicted to making ice cream using only bananas. 5. Would you rather have a spider or a mouse scurry across your face (no copping out and saying "neither!!")? SERIOUSLY, neither, okay maybe a mouse, I hear they are very friendly. YUCKO! Pamela

What is going on? Are you crazy?

Any suggestions on what is going on in this picture? This morning my girls went outside to play with the dog. You know the dog who has had bad behavior recently and I know it is because we have not been working with her like we should. At some point it started raining and they forgot about the dog and just played. At some point this picture happened. After I took the picture I posted it on facebook and asked everyone to guess what happened. Here are the responses: balance beam? did you offer gymnastics lessons? :) and it's raining... this looks strangely familiar A+" for creativity :) I hope that Hope didnt jump on the other side of the teeter-totter while grace was sitting on it...lol Oh goodness.... Um....my first concern is that the other end of the board is anchored to a car that rolls...other than that...way to go ! Now you know you would have done the same at your age. Who lifted the boards for them? Mmmmm too much Olympics? Going for the Gold maybe? Miss y'all! This actually looks like some of the stunts my siblings and I pulled while growing up. We all lived to tell about them. :o) The truth is I walked out there and started fussing and then said "wait, get back up there so I can take a picture". After the picture I said "don't ever get up there like that again". These girls crack me up! I was more concerned with the tires rolling out from under the trike. By the way have I told you how much I love my backyard. I love that they can run around and play. Pamela

Boys

I was thinking about a funny story today. When we were pregnant with our first child we were so excited. Seriously I think my husband was a E4 and we laugh that we lived in a 4 room shack. It was bad. But we were so happy. We counted the days until we could find out what we were having. My hero so wanted a boy, had to have a boy, knew it was a boy. For whatever reason our appointment was on a Saturday morning at 8am. We walked into the empty hospital (Fort Campbell for those wondering). We promised ourselves that we would wait until we got home to call family and friends and tell them. We had not bought anything for the baby. As soon as that lady said it was a boy he about lost it. He could have cared less about anything else. We left the ultrasound room and he was floating. He was telling anyone walking down the hallway that we were having a boy. He stopped at the pay phone (no one had cell phones) and used money we did not have to call his mom and tell her. We went home and he instantly started going through tools and looking for stuff he could sell because he needed to buy boy things. Okay, I am in a story telling mode so let me tell you another funny story. When we found out we were pregnant the second time my son instantly said it needed to be a boy. He was not happy when it was a girl. Fast forward a couple years and another sister came along. Fast forward another few years and we are pregnant again. We allowed Michael to come along. We reminded him that he was not allowed to pitch a fit if it was a girl. He walked into the ultrasound room. As soon as I the DR put the ultrasound to my stomach he started saying she. Honest it kind of confused me because surely he had not been there long enough to know it was a girl. A few minutes later Michael said “dad when are they going to say it is a boy”. My husband said “they already said it is a girl”. The next sounds you heard were sobs. A few minutes later we let him wait in the waiting room while we talked to the doctor. When we walked into the waiting room he was sobbing into a couch. A lady looked at me and I explained. She looked at Michael and said “oh honey, I have always wanted a big brother to take care of me”. He looked at her and I thought he was going to burst. He tried hard to remain calm before looking at her and saying “I have 2 little sisters to take care of”. We left and went to eat. During lunch Michael asked his father (my amazing husband) to divorce me. Something was obviously wrong with me because I kept giving him girls. It was time for the talk. Pamela

Time alone

Today I took time for me. I hired a sitter and decided I was going to go out alone. I even refused to meet friends for dinner. I knew I had things I wanted to do for my blog and for me. I had all of these hopes and dreams. I was going to have a quiet dinner and then head to star bucks to grab a tall ice water and set and blog. Get caught up on e-mails, write some e-mails. Make menus for the next month and work on lesson plans. Doesn’t that sound heavenly? Okay, reality is I went to Sam’s to pick up honey and vanilla. After that I headed to Life way to pick up a couple of books. Now I am at a book store, you know the one with a star bucks inside of it. I went to the counter to order a large (wait I mean grand) ice water and was told they could not sell me one. I could buy a large bottle of water for $3 and they would give me a small cup of ice. So I did. Then I bought a mega cookie. So I looked around and all of the good tables were taken. I am not discouraged, I find another table and set down and pull out my laptop. I am determined to get things done and just relax. Only things did not exactly work out that way. First I do not have an outlet so not sure how long my laptop will stay charged. Then I could not get my internet to work. I even got the guts to ask if they have wifi and the nice lady told me how to find it. I was almost in tears trying to get my laptop to connect. I almost gave up and just went grocery shopping. I do not know what I hit but I figured it out and have internet. So now I set here, in the sun, watching the people around me in the glare of my computer because I cannot concentrate. I would love to say that this has been a relaxing time but honestly I have to go potty so bad that I cannot relax. And I am too lazy to pack up my laptop and go to the bathroom. I am curious when do you blog, when do you take time to unwind and relax? I am determined to do it more often when my hero returns home. Pamela

5 Question Friday

1. Thunder storms- love them or hate them? Love them, wish I had a big hammock on the front porch that I could lay in and sleep. I love to set on my porch and watch the storms. I do not like to drive in the rain. I do love to let my kids play in the rain. 2. Do your kids get back to school clothes? Nope, part of homeschooling is we just buy as we need. There have been times when I realize a certain child does not have any clothes and I take them for major shopping. Mostly it is just buy as we find it on sale. 3. Do you golf? Do you watch it? No and no. My husband plays but not often. I think he would go more often if he could. He used to take my son but even he has gotten out of it. Want to hear a secret? My husband does not watch sports. He may have a super bowl party for the sake of having friends over but he never watches it. I am the luckiest person alive. 4. Showers or baths? Showers, if you take a bath then you still have to stand up and shower to wash your hair. Now understand if I had a big spa tub I would always be in it. Sadly, we just have a regular tub. 5. What's the strangest meal you ever ate? I did eat octopus a few years ago for my husband. I only took a couple of bites. I am the pickiest person when it comes to food. I like plain bland food. Pamela

Feeling Beachie

1. When I was little my mom _would do cart wheels down the middle of the street. ____ 2. _Ketchup, __ is my favorite condiment 3. I don’t like to celebrate_Mother’s Day___ because_noone in my house acts like it is a big deal and I end up with hurt feelings. ___ 4. My ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬_children___take up more space _with their clothes__ and I can never_imagine owning that many clothes for myself. I am kind of jealous of them. _________ Pamela Did you see my give away, they are right here. Please take a moment to enter

My morning routine

I am a morning person so this is easy. I rarely set a alarm and if I do I am up before it goes off. I wake up and turn off the alarm. If my husband is deployed then I try to look out the window to make sure there are not government vehicles in my driveway. I know that is crazy but I do. Then I let the dog outside and give her food. If I need to shower, then I shower. But wait I do not just shower. I turn on the water, straighten the counter, pick up the floor, and maybe even straighten the closet out. Then I get into the shower. While I am in the shower I make a mental note of what needs done that day. I always come up with a million blog post while I am in the shower and get so excited. But by the time I am out of the shower I forget them. I am trying to get back in the habit of wearing makeup but it does not always happen. After my shower I come in the livingroom and check facebook, and begin making breakfast. By this point at least the little boys are up and telling me that their stomachs are growling. We do not often eat breakfast as a family when it is non school days. After breakfast it is time for morning chores. After chores we have morning devotions (or at least we try to). After devotions we start school. This brings me to breakfast. When it is a non school day some eat eggs, some eat cereal, some eat oatmeal. If it is a school day or when my husband is home we try to have a real meal together. I try to keep things like scrambled eggs cooked for a couple of days so that there is always real food for breakfast. Pamela

My first Rag Quilt

Do you quilt? Have you ever thought about quilting? I would like to say I love to quilt but considering I have only made 2 quilts that would not smart. The first one I made with my husband’s help. This time he is not here so I had help from my daughter. The plan was to do 7*7 squares but sadly my cutting skills are not that great and they ended up being 5*5 squares. Okay remember I am not an expert and can hardly sew a straight line. So do not look too closely to my lines. This was such an easy quilt to make. I did choose to have the back a different design than the front. I like the way it came out but may make it easier by just using the same on both sides next time.  Supplies: I used 6 different fabrics and I want to say 2.5 yards of each Batting- I used a mostly cotton batting because it was suggested to me, I love that I have friends I can call all the time Rotary cutter Rotary mat- I need a bigger one Sharp scissors, I think it is called snippet scissors Okay step one   Cut your fabric into squares- this is where my cutting skills were not awesome Cut batting into squares slightly smaller Now layer the top with the bottom and put a piece of batting in between, making sure you have both pieces of fabric facing out.  Now sew an X on each one to hold them together.  ****you are seriously half way done, isn’t this so easy.  Okay so now you have all your squares cut out. This is when I called friends and said oops forgot how I wanted to design this, please help me. I literally have pages of scrap paper where I was calculating out rows and design before I decided to just do it in rows.  Now lay them out on a big sheet (or whatever is easiest for you). You could pin them together or just stack them. I stacked them up.  Now sew each piece down one side to the other, only make sure to leave ½ of an inch on the edge. Now that you have the first and second row done (I did 13 across), you can sew those two rows together. Make sure you remember to keep the ½ inch boarder.  Once you have all of your rows together then you can sew around the edges one time. Now the easy part. You know all those seems that are sticking up on one side. Snip little lines in it (making sure not to snip past the seam line.     The last step is to throw the quilt in the washer. Sadly, I have not had a chance to do this because my washer is broke. That will be fixed tomorrow afternoon.     I am so excited about this quilt that I have material to do another one already.  Pamela

Piper Reed Give Away Day two

Did you hear about my Piper Reed book give away? If not you can find it right here. Well, guess what they are letting me offer another book. I am telling you this is not a book you want to miss. I am going to be giving away three books this week. I am giving away Forever Friend , Rodeo Star (I have not read this one, so if you win I will be jealous) and Navy Brat. This give away will work just like my last one. You can have separate entries for following me on facebook or twitter. For sharing this contest on facebook or twitter. This time you can have a extra: all you have to do is have a friend (or a hundred) enter the contest and leave a comment saying who they are. Please make sure you leave an e-mail address so I can contact you if you win. If you do not want to leave it in the comments you can e-mail it to me at prmpetrie@yahoo.com Pamela

Miscellany Monday

What a week. First my washer broke on Monday or Tuesday. On Wednesday I took clothes to a friend and on Saturday I went to the laundry mat and got caught up. It looks like I am buying a new washer this week. OUCH! I will say if I had the money I would chose to continue going to the laundry mat. It was amazing how quickly you can get laundry done when you have access to ten washers and dryers. The best part of the laundry mat experience that they had miss pac man. Do you remember miss pac man? I wish I did not have kids with me because I would have loved to play that game. Speaking of clothes, I went to Cato’s this week. I love Cato’s. As I was leaving my daughter pointed to this picture and said “mom, when you get skinny I want you to wear that outfit”. I guess I better work on getting skinny and learning to wear heals. Pamela Did you know I have a fun book give away right ">here. It is a great book for kids.

Pumpkin Oatmeal

We all love Pinterest. You know the place that I cannot say. I am always corrected on how I pronounce it. Anyways, I have found a ton of recipes that have to be made at my house weekly. My favorite one is pumpkin oatmeal. I found the recipe on Budget Bytes. She has a ton of amazing recipes. The reason I love this recipe is because I love pumpkin, I love anything healthy. She crumbles her and eats it with milk. I have not tried it cold. I have only eaten it warm with a side of fat free col whip. The recipe is very simple: 1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin purée 1/2 cup brown sugar 2 large eggs 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice 1/2 tsp salt 3/4 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 1.5 cups milk 2.5 cups dry old-fashioned oats If you want to know exactly how to put these wonderful ingredients together just head over to Budget Bytes and find out how. She will even break down the cost for you. Pamela

Piper Reed

I have written about Piper Reed before. Several months ago my girls and I read Piper Reed, Navy Brat. I wrote about it right here. This afternoon my girls and I read Forever Friend. This book is written by Kimberly Willis Holt and illustrated by Christine Davenier. I loved Navy Brat but this book was amazing. I laughed and at one point while reading it I had tears in my eyes. Not because it was sad but because I could relate to the mom in the book. This book was hilarious. I had a hard time keeping a straight face. I think rather you’re in the military or not you will enjoy this book. Honestly, for us it hits home because they move around and their dad is a chief. I love that this book talks about making new friends and staying in touch with old ones. Something that is hard for my children. This book is a great book because not only does my 12 year old enjoy it but my little kids are kept entertained by the action of it. I will close this book review with one phrase that you will only understand if you read the book “GET OFF THE BUS”. How would you like to read this a book? I am giving one away this week. There are three ways to enter: Follow me on facebook Follow me on twitter and tweet about this give away Look on amazon and tell me what other Pipe Reed you book you would like to read. Pamela Petrie

Feeling Beachie- Belly Fat

1. I have no desire _run, all my friends run and I feel like the odd man out. __ 2. I love the smell of _gasoline and good cigars because I do not know, seems weird to me. ___ 3. I wish that my _belly fat__________ would magically disappear________ 4. In one month I, well next month I will have my hero’s arms wrapped around me. I cannot wait. __________ Pamela

5 Question Friday

1. What is a must in a hotel room? If it is just my hero and I it must have a good bed with awesome bedding. If we have the kids then it must be 2 rooms with plenty of floor space for sleeping bags. 2. Which Olympic event would you be best at? Losing your keys, organizations, screaming the loudest would be great events for me. Childbirth is pretty fun to me too. I guess I could do gymnastics. Only I would be just doing flip flops. 3. What's your stance on the Chick-fil-A subject? Support chick-fil-a, love them. I feel like we live in a country where we are allowed to express our religious views because of people like my husband. I am in awe of people who are willing to stand up for what they believe in. I think it is only going to get harder to stand up for what we believe it right. Yes, I was in line to get Chick-fil-A for over 30 minutes the other day and it was well worth it. 4. One thing you said you'd never do as a parent, but totally have. Parent using suggestions from other parents. My mom did this and it made no sense and was stupid ideas. Luckily, I have better, stronger friends then she did. My friends are more grounded in their values and can explain them. 5. What's the weirdest thing you've ever found at a yard sale? Hmm, I know I should be able to answer this because I know I have seen several crazy things. Used underwear or lingerie are some of them. Okay putting this one on facebook Pamela

Aunt Candi

Recently my girls visited my mom. She took them swimming with my sister in law. A couple of really fun things happened. First after telling my mom that Grace could NOT swim she put herself under water and went swimming like she had always known how. Hope on the other hand would not let go of her Aunt Candi. She has always had a special bond with her. On this day she would not stay off of her and at some point told Candi it was time to get out of the pool so they could have a talk. I have no clue what they talked about. It looked pretty intense. Do your children have a close relationship with there aunts and uncles? I think part of the reason I want a large family is so my grandchildren will have lots of aunts and uncles. I honestly feel guilt for my kids when I hear about there friends staying with aunts and uncle. We take every minute we can get with Aunt Candi as a special time. Pamela