Thankfully no major kitchen mishaps have befallen the Monroe household this week!  We are happily back into a routine and looking forward to my parents coming in town this weekend!  Not only did my parents share their house with us for the winter, they are coming to spend spring break with us.  When so many people are going to the beach, my parents are coming to the arctic. :)  Being an FRG leader, I have meetings, luncheons, etc... during the day pretty often and it is tough to find childcare for Mya, so it works out well that my parents can come help on a week I have a lot going on. Chad has been very busy lately!   At the end of the week, Chad has his Change of Command ceremony.  To change out of his command, right?...no!  He is taking command of another troop in addition to the one he already has! We're not sure how often one person has commanded 2 troops at the same time (especially in theater), but of course Chad is up for the job!  He won...

Ask any military wife that has been through (or going) through a deployment and I guarantee you can find some CRAZY stories of things that happen when the guys are gone.  Murphy's law seems to go in full effect when their boots hit the sand - "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." Don't get me wrong, I have plenty to be thankful for - my husband is doing well, my kids are healthy and overall we are strolling through this deployment as well as can be expected. However, there are days like today.  I'm' not sure if crazy things happen when Chad is home and I just don't notice it as much, but for sure, nothing like this has ever happened to me... First lesson learned - when you boil eggs, SET a TIMER!  I set a timer for most things in my kitchen.  Ask my parents.  I'm a freak when it comes to setting the timer, especially when making toast.  Seriously, who wants burnt toast?  For whatever reason, I didn't set a timer today when I put three eg...

I went to Georgia to get away from the snow, but the week after Christmas, I didn't escape it!  New Yorkers would laugh that 6-8 inches of snow could shut down Atlanta for an entire week, but it did!  The bad thing about this storm was that after the snow fell, it turned to ice.  A layer of ice on top of snow is not a lot of fun.  Two days after the snow, it warmed up just enough to melt the snow a little.  For the next several days everything was a solid sheet of ice.  My parents didn't own a snow shovel, so we were basically iced in the house for a week.  All the schools were closed all week too!  My parents now have a snow shovel and now know the way to avoid 3 inches of ice on the driveway is to shovel it off when it falls! Snow beginning to fall... Since there was a layer of ice on top of the snow, it wasn't easy to play in.  Laundry basket sleds worked well though!  Too bad Addison's snow suit and boots were in NY! ' Army familie...

Ok, in an attempt to catch up on the blog, I am not going to blog all our pictures from Christmas.  Here is a video I posted for Chad on Facebook that highlights most of our Christmas pictures. Here are a few others... Celebrating Brooke's Birthday at Grandmom's This picture pretty sums up so much of December at my mom's house.  My mom and I cooking massive amounts of food and trying to keep the kids happy too.  This was during a Christmas tradition for us - a Happy Birthday Jesus Birthday party.  We Lilly, Reece and Gabi came over to help us make cookies, have lunch and eat Happy Birthday Jesus cake.  This is hilarious.  My Ma-maw does a great job of getting the little kids stuff at Christmas.  Our girls couldn't decide how to use these little dress up skirts.  Addison wanted to wear it on her head and Lilly wanted to just wear the skirt...which I don't think was the way it was intended to be worn! :)