I love my husband

Cliff and I just celebrated our 7th Anniversary in Febuary. We will be spending our
8th anniversary apart because he will be in Afganistan. I love cliff so much and it is amazing how much our love grows each and everyday. I am grateful for our time apart because it helps us to appreciate each other more and miss each other. You often take a person for granted when they are right there in front of you all the time. It isnt till they are gone even if its a brief period that you realize their importance and how much you love them and vice versa. I couldnt ask for a better husband or better father for my kids. I am very lucky. He is my best friend.

Bye Bye Shorty

As you all know we bought Shorty right before Thanksgiving from Dallas. From day 1 he was sort of the dog from hell. He was super cuddly and kissed up to me. But once I walked away he was like having a kid with the worse ADD ever. His favorite things to do was chew up the carpet in the house, the base boards, the kids. He loved to jump on kids that came over especially little ones like two year olds that are just standing there and takes them to the ground. We finally bought him a shock collar and that worked temporarily. Later...when we got to NC he decided to pick up nipping really bad after we boarded him for a week when we went to Maryland to visit my family. When he got back he kept nipping on the kids. Megan received a fat lip and a black eye from him. he was mostly playing but the playing was out of control. Then one day he tried to bite my arm playing. Being that he was turning 1 he should have been getting better about biting with training and not worse. After Megan getting hurt numerous times Cliff gave me an ultimatium. One day after catching him chewing on the window sill in the apartment and half the wood torn off it. I decided to turn him into a woman who does corgi rescue. She said she would train him and wouldnt give him to a family till he was completely better. She was also going to find him a home that did not have little kids as I didnt realize that corgis are known to be biters since they are herding dogs. Our last corgi was a sheppard/corgi mix and was gentle as can be, but it turns out that was the sheppard in him and not the CORGI. We decided we are never going to get a pet ever again. Not even a fish. All I can say about Shorty is, adios little man.

kids are getting big

Wow, I cant believe how big the kids are getting. Ben will be 1 already next month. Although he's been mistaken for being 1 for many months now. Some people even think he's 2. He is 22 lbs and 29 1/2 inches at 10 months. He is our buff football player. He even has Cliff's huge legs. Megan is also in the 90% for height and 50% for weight at 35 lbs and 40 inches. Zack well we still have hope for him someday. He is at 38 lbs and 42 inches at 6. We have people who ask if Megan and him are twins since they are about the same size. So sad. He still gets girls everywhere we go though. Its been hard for him at school though because the girls are in that stage when they have crushes on boys they act mean to them. There was this one girl that lived at our apartment complex that is in his class. She would come over and try and flirt with him and ask him to ride bikes with each other. But then at school if he'd ask her to play in front of her friends she'd say no and run off laughing. poor guy already has issues with female's mind games. He asked me mommy, I dont understand kayjay. I said Zack dont worry it only gets worse.

Here is a few pictures of them from the last month or so.

Our new House

We feel so blessed to have being able to build this house is beautiful North Carolina. It is a step closer to our dream house. We were so excited to have been able to pick all the designs out and create everything how we wanted. My favorite part about the house is the kitchen and the two story foyer. I love cooking again. I love the countertops the most. We were so grateful for the sale of all options half off. We got all the options we knew we would sell the house in no time later..got to love the home decorating channels advice. :-) We moved in on May 22, 2008. We flew Cliff's little brother Josh out (hehe he's his little bro but he's still 4 years older then me) to help us with the stone floors. They did a great job!!! The house is 3000 sq ft, 5 beds, 3 full baths. I am sooo happy here. We keep getting asked how much it cost and people's mouths drop when we say 178k. Got to love how bad the market is and how cheap NC homes are (this is a more pricy home here to... lol)

Shorty our new puppy

Our new addition is Shorty, a purebred Pembroke Corgi. He is very loving and he adores the kids. He loves playing soccer believe it or not with the kiddos. I have never seen them spend so much time outside before. The dog likes to chew on our carpet, base boards, the kids velcro on their shoes and he digged up Cliff's beloved oak trees he planted from a tiny seed. He was quite mad. All in all he is a curious puppy and with patience and training oh and I mean training he will be a good dog. He loves to lick especially your feet, very weird dog. He likes to come randomly snack on Ben's feet and he just loves it and thinks it is the best thing ever to get his feet all kissed on.

Thanksgiving Day

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had my friend Jeannie and her kids over. Her hubby was working on-call at the hospital and I just knew she couldnt be alone on a holiday. The Neely family also came over. They are our good friends. Cliff and Rob have a little connection since they both served a mission in Thailand and missed each other by 3 weeks on their missions. Cliff speaks a lot more Thai then Rob though since he kept up with it in the military so they dont really speak it to each other. Its still fun to get together and make Thai food though. We are going to miss the Neelys since they are moving next week. The kids all had fun chasing our new puppy outside the entire night. Shorty was so tired he passed out early for bed. Cliff ended up burning the turkey skin 5 mins before it was done. It was hilarious to see this big huge ball of fire. My first reaction to him "what the heck is that." The one and only thing he had to cook got screwed up. It was still good nontheless.

Cliff graduates the Non-Comissioned Office Academy

Cliff went to the Academy in AL from Sept 30-Nov 8th. He did really well and learned a lot of leadership skills. We are hoping it will help him get promoted to E7 in Feb when he tests for it. We are pretty optismistic but you just never know. Making rank in the Air Force is pretty hard. He made e6 his first time so we arent expecting it to happen again.