Mothers Day and my kids and my husband

My husband is currently "deployed".  Kind of funny to me because he is only gone for two weeks.  But nonetheless, he is deployed to Belize right now.  He left at about 4am on Sunday - which of course happened to be Mother's Day.  But no worries, the kids have been on their best behavior for the most part.  They were super good getting ready for church (which usually they are not).  They pleasantly agreed to take a picture with me before we left (which normally they wouldn't be so accommodating, but I think they were excited about using the timer button on the camera).  They were well behaved during church!  The girls were pretty excited about receiving a pretty flower like mommy got...   

Then after church they went to Grandma's house for a bit while I relaxed at home.  What more could I ask for?!  Except maybe a few sweet "cards":
PJ did this one with the kids before he left and I found it with a little gift on the table when I woke up that morning.  Love how Brynn listed that she loves me because I'm me.  And how Tyler put I was a good learner - after he made it quite clear how not smart I am a few days earlier - guess he sees potential in me still!  And I love how Dylan was able to write his own with help (we've come far in our "preschool" time) and that he put 'cook' on there - because the boy won't eat anything I cook. 

Tyler did these for me at school...

 ... pretty good he knew I was 33 and that I love to eat "salid" and how I don't like it when he fights with his brother.  He sure does love my tacos!  I wish I smelled like flowers and loved to clean (??).  But it makes me melt that he wrote he loves me so much that he could hug me :)

Dylan drew this for me in church on Mothers Day while he was sitting so nicely...

 ...its the two of us holding hands.  And he let me know that that blob off to the side is my phone... lovely.  I think it is so cute when they just start drawing stick figures :)

More about my cute kids:

We were cleaning up the other evening and I found this...

Yep those are grapes taped to our Little People Rocket.  Tyler said he was just eating his snack and thought to himself "Ew!  These would make great lights for the rocket!"  So he went to work with some paper, tape and his grapes (there are actually several more taped underneath).  Oh, only my Tyler.

Kate is the cutest sleeper.  You lay her in her bed and she just curls up with her blanket all snuggly-like...

 ...she was tired last night and fell asleep on the couch at like 5:45pm.  We've been busy and its apparently wearing her out.

Brynn has gotten herself a job.  At times she has to help take care of the neighbors/DeSio's dog.  Normally its no big deal - she just has to let Wiley in and out of the house when Blair is out of town for potty and fresh air time.  Occasionally they will be gone on little weekend trips and this past weekend Wiley pooped on the floor.  She had me go over and see.  The girl who has been telling me she wants a dog and will totally take care of the dog, etc etc etc, was not so thrilled about the mess.  I told her that this is what I had been telling her she'd have to do if she got a dog.  She said she just didn't understand before - but now maybe she did.  I told her that if I had to clean the poop that I got her money.  So she eventually cleaned the poop.  Good lesson, thank you Wiley for pooping on the carpet!!  ;)  

So like I said, the kids have been pretty dang good so far with daddy gone.  I knew I wouldn't be able to communicate with him much while he was gone - which wasn't a big deal for us.  But of course I charged and packed our camera for him.  And left him with a challenge to take 3 pictures a day for us.  Ha!  He tried to say 6 total should do it.  Honestly, I would have been pleasantly surprised if he had come home with 6 decent pictures from his trip... but of course didn't tell him that and asked him to try a little harder.  Well last night I got to chat with him for a few minutes for the first time.  I asked him how his challenge was going.  And to both of our surprise he said he was doing amazingly well.  It doesn't sound like he is in the nicer areas of Belize.  And he made it clear that he wanted our kids to see what we've been trying to tell them over and over again in how lucky and blessed they are.  They may not get to be there with him to experience the poverty - but he is certainly going to give them a better look and have a few things to share with them when they get back.  So... in a few weeks we can expect a fun blog post from him :)