Friday, May 30, 2014

5 on Friday

So I missed last Friday, but since we were in PA visiting family I completely forget...and probably wouldn't have done it even if I remembered.

Here's my 5 random thoughts for Friday :)

/one/
We are pretty excited for a full 3 days off in this house.  Well, technically it's Caleb that gets the 3 days off from work, but we enjoy it too.  Now if it would stop raining we could probably do some fun stuff.

/two/
I'm getting extremely frustrated dress shopping.  I'm trying to find a nice, decently priced dress for Caleb's graduation this summer.  I'm sure it's going to be hot so i'm looking for a short, formal style dress, preferably dark so I don't stick out.  It was fun about 2 months ago when I started looking...so many dress returns and try ons later, i'd take anything.

/three/
My sister and her fiance move to Virginia on Monday!  Morgan got a nursing job about 15 minutes from us so that will be fun.

/four/
Speaking of 4, Casen Jo turns 4 in exactly one month.  Where did my baby go?  He's requested hotwheels, books, and a spiderman mask for his birthday and would like a spiderman party.  Let's see how many times that changes before the actual day.  He's also asked that his room be changed for the color orange to blue...the little stinker!  I knew this would happen.

/five/
What do you other families like to do when you need to get out of the house but don't feel like spending a ton of cash?  We've started going to Barnes&Noble and letting the kids play with their giant train set and Casen sits and looks at the books as long as you let him.  (bonus, the Starbucks inside for mom and dad.)  And with Petsmart next door we have a good couple hours of free family time wandering.


Pretty boring thoughts for this Friday, but that's about it around here :)

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Memorial Day

Caleb had Friday off from 12 hour shifts and Monday off for Memorial day.  So we packed up and headed out Friday night to visit the whole family.  My brother Tyler just got a job working for the same company my older brother does, so we drove up and my parents and sister drove down and we all met in the middle at their places.  We stayed nights with Uncle Ty, but spent most of our day at "Mac's house."  I'm bummed that I got basically no pictures from the weekend.  But we had a good time.  Casen and Mac are quite the pair and at a fun age to play together (when they don't have to share.) I'm still waiting on some more pictures, but for now this is what I have.









We went to Hershey chocolate world.  I couldn't get a picture of Baby Cam because they were in the seats ahead of us, but the kids had a blast and they wanted to ride more than once.


We drove back to our house Sunday night to avoid the traffic.  Memorial day we had some yummy steaks and pasta and spent the day relaxing, catching up on our lack of sleep.


Tuesday, May 27, 2014

And all we can do is remember...

We had a great long weekend.  I'm still gathering my lack of pictures for hopefully a tomorrow post of our travels and family time.

But until then,
this is a video of Caleb's deployment in 2011-2012.  If you dont have the time to watch the whole thing, skip to 8:30 on the video and watch the memorials of the men lost on this deployment.  Thinking of all the families that didn't get to experience the homecoming at the end of the clip like I did.  It is an experience i'll never forget and am forever grateful for all the sacrifices all of our service men and women make.


"It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country, in defense of us, in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray haired. But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives -- the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for our country, for us. And all we can do is remember."   -Ronald Reagan

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

We're Still Here....

Even if it doesn't seem like it.

Here's a completely random family update.

Caleb's been working 12-12 for the past week and a half so our mornings are spent soaking up time with him because by the time he gets home the kids are of course sleeping.  They kind of hate this schedule, i'm not a huge fan of it myself, we miss dinners and bedtime with him. It's not about the hours because we're definitely used to long days (thanks marines,) It's just the actual time of the hours when kids are involved. But i'm so incredibly proud of him.  He's doing awesome in the academy and these 2 weeks are most likely the most challenging of the academy and he's still doing great.  12 more weeks until we get to celebrate his graduation and we can't wait!  And i'll just squeeze in one more time that I am so so proud of him!


Casen is still being Casen :) I don't think there's any major changes going on for him.  He's growing like a weed and getting wayy too smart.  His current favorite things are Spiderman, stickers, and any animal books.  Now that we've been settled for awhile he's turned into such a young gentleman.  We're no longer having trouble with his sleep or attitude and it is awesome to just be able to enjoy our little man.  He's also an awesome big brother.  He shares whatever he has and helps whenever he can.


Arya...not sure where to begin with our crazy little lady.  She is such a social butterfly.  She says hi to literally everyone she sees, stranger or not.  She is sleeping through the night (hallelujah.)  She has been for months now, but it just makes a world of difference for me to get solid hours of sleep, even if it's only for 5 hours.   She eats pretty much everything except steak, strawberries, and french fries.  She is talking quite a bit more now.  Her newest words are chicken, drop, and cute.  She is a little spitfire.  She has a temper that Casen never had at this age, so i'm really hoping she's getting it all out of her system now.  We love our little lady and the fact that she loves wearing her sunglasses upside down.  She adds the perfect amount of spunk to our house.


That's about it around here.  I still have 2 more rooms to share to continue with the unfinished room, but I have to get the playroom in presentable picture mode first :)

We're making backyard plans for a fence and a fireplace and all that summery goodness so hopefully i'll be able to post about that soon as well.

And here's some random pics of the kiddos, because that's usually all anyone looks for anyways



Wednesday, May 14, 2014

the unlived in living room

Behold our unlived in living room.

If we used our front door, this would be the first room you walk into.

Since we don't, this is the last room you see on our first two floors.  Remember that we have a tri turned quad level home.  So our laundry and family room as well as the bathroom are on the base floor.  Climb 5 stairs and your into our kitchen and then this living room.  Then of course you would climb the large set of stairs to get to all the bedrooms and second bathroom.  4 more stairs and you'd get to a walk in closet and the finished attic that at the moment is the play room/guest space.

We've already decided this house will not be good when we get old because it's a lot of climbing.  But I love love having separate spaces for everything.  I think I love it so much because we lived in apartments for 4 years before so everything was all in the same general area.

Anyways, let's get back on track here.

We decided since the family room is carpeted and has a fireplace, it felt more like a place we'd like to hang out.  So that's where we've put all our new stuff and spend all our time.  This poor living room rarely sees us, except maybe some little curious fingers eager to play with the blinds.

Eventually, we'd like to turn this room into somewhat of an office, getting a desk and possibly keeping the computer there. (i have decorations to hang, just waiting to see what we'll use for the family room first.)  For now it just houses all of our old furniture and will perhaps come in handy if we ever have a lot of company at once.  We've left the color same as when we moved in for 2 reasons; one, because there's no wall separating it from the stairs, so whatever color we choose has to be the entire upstairs hallway color as well.  Second, because I chose such a bold color for the kitchen, I don't want a competing color in such a close room.







Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Progress

Are you sick of our house yet?

I'm not :)

The next couple days i'm hoping to show you the couple rooms we have left that we've made progress in, but aren't yet complete.

Our house has this ever so pretty red front door
But, unless your the pizza delivery guy, it doesn't get used.

We use our side entrance as our main entrance.  It's closer to the garage and you enter into the perfect room for dirty shoes.

When we first moved in it looked like this


And currently it looks like this


It houses our washer and dryer, as well as way too many shoes, and all of our odds and ends cleaners and lots of leftover paint.

Eventually we're going to organize all the stuff better and possible get some more/better shelving.  I'm also definitely going to be putting up some sort of decorations.  But this is how it sits for now and it works pretty well for us :)

Monday, May 12, 2014

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was a quiet relaxing Sunday here at the Geiger household.  Just what was needed before this weeks craziness begins.

It actually started Saturday.  Caleb decided to take Casen to go see his first movie in theaters.  Casen loves all of the superhero movies, especially Spiderman.  So they went to check out the new Spiderman.   He did awesome and sat through the whole thing, but anyways, with just Arya here, I was able to get my whole house in order so there wasn't much to do Sunday.

Sunday morning we had cinnamon rolls and Starbucks and I got a lovely gift.  I love Fossil.  I started looking into the store when I was picking out a watch for Caleb's deployment return gift.  Ever since then, we've been hooked.  We have a few watches and I love all of their bags, but their price tag tends to be a little over what I like to pay for things, (let's be honest, anything over $20 makes me nervous.)  A few months ago we were walking around the store and I pointed out some bags I thought were especially cute.  Caleb remembered and he...I mean Casen and Arya...surprised me with one for Mother's Day.

If you haven't checked them out, you should.  Here's a link :)



For lunch we packed up a picnic and headed to a new park.  I wish I would've taken more pictures of the actual park because it was so pretty.  It reminded me a lot of the parks in California.  It will definitely be a spot we head to again, especially because it's free!  It had water, a museum, and a nice playground for the kiddos.  We were around 85 yesterday so the heat got to us a little sooner then we would've liked.



Sunday evening we had one of my favorite dinners and then headed to the store to pick out some yummy dessert :)

I'm blessed to be a mom and so thankful for my babies and my husband.

Friday, May 9, 2014

5 on Friday

I remembered 2 weeks in a row...things are looking good.

So here's my 5 random thoughts for this Friday.

/one/
I got a date night!  For those without young kids this is probably no big deal.  But for Caleb and I it's big news.  We maybe on average get about 4 or 5 dates a year...yea an entire 365 days.  So when they do happen, it's news worthy.  We never actually got the chance to go on dates when we were "dating." We went from talking though skype, email, and phone to being married.  Not that I would trade getting married when we did for the world, but when we do get to go out it feels like we're back before we were married. Caleb told me he had to stop for gas on his way home from work and ended up bringing me home beautiful flowers.  We went out to dinner, wandered the mall (so much more enjoyable when you're not chasing little ones.)  And we stopped at a little cafe and picked out some super yummy chocolates for dessert.  It was just what I needed.
/two/
Speaking of the date, we couldn't have done it without our trusty babysitters.  Morgan and Tim have made a few trips down for some interviews.  Morgan actually got a job offer while she was here so they should be moving down near us sometime in June.  It's nice to have people you trust your kids with.  They love her and she likes to spoil them.  I don't remember my babysitters ever ordering pizza and taking me out for icecream :)  Plus we got to spend some girl time doing some wedding shopping for her upcoming day.  That's always a bonus.
/three/
Caleb is going to start working longer shifts and getting three day weekends the next couple weeks.  I'm really looking forward to the 3 day weekends.  However, he's leaving for work at lunch time and won't be home til midnight.  Casen's trigger for meltdowns seems to be Caleb not being here to have dinner with us, so i'm really hoping the work days go smoother than i'm expecting.  Also, these will be extremely difficult weeks for Caleb in the academy, so hopefully he gets enough rest and is able to push through too.

/four/
Anyone have any new exciting recipes to share?  We're into the 80s and 90s weather wise so I don't love running the oven.  I'm out of crockpot, stovetop, and grill ideas.  So, if anyone has any, please share!

/five/
We have new flowers!  We had our daffodils come and go already so it's nice to see these guys popping up.  Thanks to the previous owner because we all know I do not have a green thumb.  I can't even keep a cactus alive.


And here's an extra picture just because.
Casen asked for a bucket and water because his motorcycle needed a "car wash."  He's so much like his dad!

Monday, May 5, 2014

Both moms requested a new family picture for Mother's Day.  So yesterday we headed outside to try and get one.  It is not so easy with no photographer and two little ones, but we finally got one.

So here's the updated Geigers :)


Friday, May 2, 2014

5 on Friday

I've seen this done on quite a few blogs and since I seem to have a lack of posts lately, I figured I'd jump on the band wagon.  Caleb has been working some crazy hours (thanks Nascar) so our life has been a little crazy and we've had a lot of non blog worthy posting days.


So here's to 5 on Friday...hopefully I will be able to at least be diligent about doing these.

/one/
Tonight we have a family ice cream date.  We are pretty darn excited.  Caleb and I are pretty guilty of putting the kiddos to bed and deciding we are craving something delicious.  Caleb makes a quick run to the grocery store down the road and we go to bed with bellies full of deliciousness (and calories and sugar...)  So we decided at the beginning of last week that if we made none of those said trips that on Friday we would head to our local ice cream stand for a family date.  I think it's just what everyone needs after the last 2 crazy weeks.

/two/
Last week I realized this horrible truth
My kids have grown up.  I don't know why seeing them both brush their teeth on their own led to this realization.  But it did.

/three/
This week I got into the spirit of spring cleaning.  All my tiles floors have been scrubbed on hands and knees and my wood floors have been "Bona'd"....even under the bed (now I totally know what you were talking about, Liz.)  And I have seen wayyy to many bugs, really, one is too many.  So the house will also be getting sprayed inside and out.

/four/
I can't wait to be able to finish our family room.  It's the last major thing inside our house that i'm itching to change.  I'm thankful Caleb deals pretty well with my impatience.  All of the colors in the room just didn't come out as I had envisioned as well as the set back of not being able to fit a couch in because of the rooms location, so i'm ready to try and fix it.  Hopefully a recliner, some pops of bright red, and we're hoping a nice big picture of Gillette Stadium will do the trick.  It's the room we're in the most so i'd like it to be comfy, cozy, (and pretty wouldn't hurt.)

/five/
And last, but not least, thank goodness it's Friday!


Anyone else up for starting 5 on Fridays?