Iowa Sweet Corn

Nick's folks brought a suitcase full of 48 ears of sweet corn from their garden. We have eaten it for just about every meal and then we decided we should freeze the rest before it gets bad.

Mom and I had about 15 cups to freeze. We froze about 6 bags, so I figured I can ration it to about once a week until we move! YUMMMY!

More Pictures from the Homecoming and Nick's New Appendage

Here are a few more pictures from the homecoming:

Nick and his Mother

Nick and his Dad

Addison and Trevor at the gates

Nick walking into the hangar with his boys in his arms, and the girls in front of him

Taking it all in...

Once we got home, Addison would NOT let him out of her sight. She followed him all over the house. It wasn't even 5 hours that he had been home before he was fixing the ceiling fans. (We had one fan in the family room that was possessed and would start and stop whenever it pleased)

Addison was right by his side, and sometimes had to be right in his arms while he fixed it.
Always had to have a hand on him...
The day he came home he tried to sneak away from Addison to go upstairs and take a shower. She was soon pacing the hallway saying "Daddy? Daddy? Where you? Daddy? Daaaadeeeee?" And when I told her Daddy was up taking a shower, she ran straight to the door trying to pry it open it. Once successful, she was quickly making her way upstairs and ran into the bathroom and ripped open the shower curtain and screamed, "There you are!!!!!!"

(Now he knows how my life has been the last 7 months.... sometimes you can't even go to the bathroom or take a shower without having some visitors! NO PRIVACY!)

This morning she was helping him check his emails...
Napping with Tyler the day he came home...
Here is a delicious "Welcome Home" gift Nick got from his sister and her family...

As you can see he enjoyed it thoroughly!

He's Home!!!!!!

It was an early morning as we were up before 5am to get ready for Daddy's arrival! We got to the hangar just after 6am.... they were still putting up balloons, and setting up the food and bouncy houses. The plane was scheduled to land around 8am.


These are just SOME of the amazing banners that were hung in the hangar. A definite record for any homecoming for sure. There were well over 200! Thank you to all who took the time to make them!!! They all looked great!

Since we left so early, we didn't have breakfast at home. There was plenty to eat at the hangar... here are my banana babies.
And one McMuffin...

Jim & Julie's Banner from Iowa
(you guy's did a great job!)

Mom and Me

My mom and me and all the kids hanging out at the hangar while we all wait.

Trevor and Addison

Watching the plane come into view...
Landing...
Almost time...
Watching the plane come around...
Waiting for the plane doors to open.
We had a few drawings before the plane arrived. One was for the "FIRST HUG/FIRST KISS" off the plane. Nope, I didn't win that one, but I DID win a free one hour massage AND a bottle of campaign!!

Another perk was that there were about 6 or 7 babies born during the deployment. All the new babies got to come in front of the gates and see their daddies come off the plane first!

Once they got the stairs up to the plane, they let the "new babies" and their families up closer. It was great! I didn't know we would be able to be so close!

THERE'S DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!

Reacquainting with daddy.

Tyler meeting Daddy for the first time.

and a quick hug for mommy.

Nick had gotten the kids gifts and had to unpack them right there in the hangar. One of the items unloaded was this....

My little "white russian"
(tee hee)

Finally warming up to daddy..

All together again.

Let's Go Home, Daddy...

We are enjoying a beautiful day at home (with Daddy!)...

Thank you so much Lesley for coming in so early and taking pictures for me! It was nice not having to balance baby AND a camera! You rock!

Mommy, I have another Grandma Here!!! (and a grandpa)

This afternoon the boys and I picked up Nick's parents at the airport. As we walked in the house, Trevor yells out "I have another Grandma here!!!" I guess he thought it was pretty neat to have both Grandma's at his house.

Tyler was happy to meet his Grandma and Grandpa Turner.... here is Grandma Judy holding Tyler for the first time.
And surprisingly, Addison warmed up to Grandpa Larry instantly. She has been trying to communicate with him, but poor Grandpa hasn't mastered Addi Talk yet.
They brought 48 ears of sweet corn and a carry on bag full of fresh garden tomatoes... all from their garden back in Iowa. YUMMMMY!

So.. guess what we had for supper? Sweet corn and sliced tomatoes... oh and some other items, but those didn't matter. All the kids (plus McKenzie's pal Katelyn) helped Grandpa husk the corn out on the back lanai!

Bayfest is going on this weekend on the Marine Base so my friend Alaina took McKenzie and Katelyn to the Black Eyed Peas Concert, and Andrew stayed with us and played with Trevor.

The boys had a blast together playing outside, chasing Addison before bed, watched a movie, and played puppets.

Here the boys dug out all the train bridges and lined them up on the floor.
Then all of a sudden they were standing at the front door, hands in pockets, just talking about stuff. So stinkin' cute!
Trevor cashed out around 1030 PM on the couch... and Andrew stood at the door a while waiting for his mama. Then he decided to retire to the rug under my dining table... apparently that was a little more comfortable. I promise I offered to rock him or let him lay on the couch before he ended up on the rug.
But now that he's there, I'm afraid to wake him up... poor baby! He played too hard tonight! Mama's on her way!!!

This week...

This week has been busy and crazy! My mom has been knocking out my to-do's for me. She is awesome!!! I have waited to post these because I don't want Nick to see too much of what we have done around the house!! (And by 'we' I mean my mom!) I'd like to leave some of it a surprise for when he walks in the door!

A little paint here..
Some weed pulling there...
I caught Addison looking at her "Who Loves Baby" book. There are pictures of Daddy on almost every page. She loves it! And she draped her blankie on her head all by herself.


Ok, my favorite project we did this week has to be that we recovered our chairs. We have this small table and 4 chairs that we eat all our meals at and the kids have just destroyed the fabric on the seats over the past few years. I am mortified to be showing you what my chairs looked like before: (Cue the Horror Movie scream)

TA DA!
(And this time we used a patterned vinyl)

Yesterday Me, Mom, Addison and Tyler did a little shopping. Kenzie caught this one of Tyler and me when we got home.... she says he looks like a little spider monkey sleeping on me.


Addi scored a new hat on our shopping adventure.
Here is a sneak preview of our "Welcome Home Banner" for Daddy...