2 of 52 Weeks

These pictures were taken at the Camp Grounds where we live here in Baumholder. They were taken on a whim.

The girls and I LOVE sushi. Of course being in Germany there aren't many sushi bars like we were used to in Campbell. The commisary in Campbell had a sushi bar right in the store and many days that was mine and Kamryn's lunch. So I found a lady who makes homemade sushi by the order and sells it, really cheap. The only thing is we have to drive about 30-35 mins to pick it up. That might not be bad for most people but when you have a car with 5 kids three of whom are toddlers, 30 mins can seem like an eternity! We did it tho and had most all of the sushi eaten by the time we got back to Baumholder lol. I decided that this would be a great day since the kids were cooperating to have my oldest, who is awesome with a camera to be just 10 years old, take pictures of us all. I am telling you I think the girl has a future in photography!

Pictures from ZOOM

 I finally got the pics over to my new computer. I could not find a link to offer those of you who live here in Germany I will try to find that and add it at a later date. Taking care of 5 kids by myself, and recoverying from surgery still I am wearing my self a little thin these days.The first pictures of course is my 3 adorable little girls. from left Kamryn, Ramie, and Cecilia. Just look at those smiles!

In the second picture is Kamryn and Turner's long lost cousins.........LOL we told Kamryn the whole time that we adopted her from a Zoo and this was her family. She was so mad at first. Then she saw how cute they were and just fell in love with them. She is such an animal lover, even more than me. I keep telling her she should be a Veterinarian.

Third picture are the Zebras and what ever animals those are in the back ground. But you can see how close you are to the animals and how awesome there habitats are, the animals look good and well taken care of, which ment alot to me. You know I am the type that wouldn't take my kids to the circus because I don't condone animal cruelty!                                                                 

Jeff and Kamryn playing paper, rock , scissors to see who gets to slide first. He is such a big kid lol.

My beautiful family (with out the boys) in front of the Giraffes. They were feeding them at the time so they all gathered right in front of us. It seems like they could just walk right over to you. It was really like being in Africa, and it was so hot that day.     

http://www.zoom-erlebniswelt.de/START/home.asp

I found the link to the zoo, there is an option to switch it to English.

1 of 52 Weeks

52 Weeks is a Weekly Meme that I have joined. They say that moms aren't in the pictures enough (which I believe is true) and have challenged us to post a picture of our selves every week for 52 weeks (1 year)! Lets see how well this works.

This picture was taken in June of 2009 in Germany at a large zoo. ZOOM is a wonderful place to take a trip, it is about 2 hours away from Baumholder where we live.
We started our family vacation at Movie Park http://www.movieparkgermany.de it is the Nickelodeon  version of Disney World. They have Dora, Back Yard Agains, Sponge Bob, Jimmy Neutron, just to name a few. We all had a blast, I have pictures but they are on my "old" computer, I am gonna have to move everything. But I will post them when I get that done.
On our way home from Movie Park we saw signs for this ZOOM and we decided to take a little detour and check it out. We were all soooo glad we did that. They have an Alaska part of the zoo where you can see all the animals native to Alaska and its history. Africa, China and North America as well. The thing we liked about this zoo is that it wasn't walking up to animals and starring at them in cages, they had boat rides where the Hippo's, Rhino's and monkeys were right there, it seemed like you could touch them. The Lions were right there as well, there was a huge trench type thing to where they couldn't get to you but there were no fences or cages. It was awesome you really felt like you were walking threw the jungle, the animals looked happy and healthy, the park really tryed hard to make the habitats for the animals as "real" as they could and the animals had plenty of room to roam. 
The vacation was a hit! Movie Park rocks everyone in Germany should try it along with ZOOM out!

Questions and Inspiration

I am adding some new things for all my followers onto my blog. As you can see I have added a "count down" for when we will be coming back to the states.
I am also adding a "questions" link to the end of all my new posts. I really need everyone to ask me questions or leave me a comment about something that you want to hear from me. example: can you tell me a little about the German town you live in?
Or maybe you have read my blog and have some burning questions about the content. This is a place for you to ask me. Please help me make this a better blogging experience for me as well as for those who want to hear what is going on in our family and in my head :-)
Lets hope I can figure out how it all works myself lol!

The process of Recovery

I have been home from the hospital for 4 days. It gets easier everyday, I wish Jeff were here to help......but somehow he always gets to leave right when things get going. Incase you haven't picked up on it I am alittle bitter about that lol.
The kids have been...well as good as kids usually are when their dad is away and their mom is stuck on the couch or bed and can't "enforce" the rules. The boys don't understand what is going on and why mommy isn't up and playing. Yesterday I had my friend Natasha over here helping me all day, she got here at lunch, she was doing dishes, sweeping, and general pick up. Ramie came over to the couch and said "moma how come Matasha is cleaning and you are not". Of course that made me feel like a piece of crap.
I have been doing to much I can tell that this morning it hurt and I wasn't even out of the bed yet.
I have given birth to 5 kids and I am here to tell you, this surgery was 50x worse than laboring a 10lb 2 feet long baby (Cecilia). I have stitches in places I can't even mention and can only see with a mirror. The day I came home from the hospital my "va jay jay" was so swollen it was hard to put my legs together let alone sit down. But like I said everyday it gets a little better. I just hope that by the time we leave it will be better, I could not imagine sitting in an airplane for many many hours in this condition.

Preparing for Surgery

On Wednesday September 30th I will be having my Uterus and cervix taken out, a bladder tack and vaginal re-constructive surgery. I will be having all of this done at a German hospital in a town called Birkenfeld. My Doc is Dr. Von Der Osten. he has very high recommendations and I have heard nothing but good things from other people (americans) who have had surgery by him. I am confident that he knows what he is doing. I just don't like being put to sleep lol.



This week has been filled with cleaning, running errands, getting paper work, making schedules, and tying up loose ends to get ready for my surgery. I will go to the hospital Tuesday morning at 7am and stay. Even tho my actual surgery will not be until the next day. After wards I will have to stay in there for 5-7 days, then come home and basically be on bed rest for 3 weeks. On top of all this the wonderful Army has decided to send my husband to school (on the other side of Germany) for the whole month of October, so he will not be here to help me. Now most people who are not associated with the military are like "just tell them you need your husband home with you" well you see it doesn't work that way. It will also be better for him to go to our next duty station (New Mexico) if he already has this school done and over with so he doesn't have to leave us right away after getting there. If all that stress wasn't enough just the fact that I am having MAJOR surgery in a foreign country is enough to scare the crap out of me, I have been in German hospitals and this is in no way an exaggeration they are scarey, dark, and not sterile looking at all. Basically they look exactly like what you see in horror movies. I will be stuck in a room with no T.V. well there will be T.V. but it will be all German. The food they serve is not like American, for breakfast you get a roll, butter and like this nasty looking bologna stuff with unsweet tea. They provided you with all the water you want BUT it has bubbles in it (how the germans drink that crap I will never know). Lunch is a hot lunch but good luck trying to figure out what it is. Then dinner is the same as breakfast. I am gonna take this as an opportunity to loose weight lol. There is phone service but you have to pay for it, like you buy a prepaid card,
well thats freaking expensive since its in Euro. Maybe I can just catch up on some well deserved sleep over the course of 7 days.......hhmmm that sounds like a great idea! Or maybe read a book I haven't done that in about 4 years!
I am so nervous it is only Friday and I was awake all night last night thinking none stop of things that I have not done, things that I have done, was I forgetting anything (I tend to have a really bad memory). I have two German ladies who have been helping me for the last year and a half or so with the kids, the house, going to Dr. apts with Turner and things like that who will be staying here at the house with the kids while I am in the hospital and also after while I am on bed rest. They are awesome people, the kids love them. Talking to my mom and I was telling her that Ramie was so excited that "oma" (thats german for grandma) was coming to stay with her. My mom said "well thats the only grandma she knows". Its true "oma" is older she was born in 1936 her daughter Monika was born in 1958 so they know how to run a household, I feel completly comfortable with them here. Shoot they will probably do a better job at taking care of the house and kids than I do!
What I am nervous about is the actual surgery I mean I have had 5 babies I know how bad that hurts I can only imagine how bad this is about to hurt LOL. But it will be worth it in the end, no more peeing on myself all the time lol
I will take my computer with me to hospital maybe I will get a internet connection and I will be able to keep up with my blog, that will give me something to do ;-)

The Boys First Hair Cut

Jeff and I have been talking about getting the boys hair cut for a couple days. We were a little torn, should we go long and let it curl or do the buzz cut look? Kamryn likes to fix the boys hair, she will put gel in it and make one all messy and the other a mow hawk they look adorable, but they have those long strands behind their ears that just look bad.
At lunch when Jeff got home from work he said "you wanna go take the boys to get their hair cut today?" I said "sure". The plan was, first I was going to drop him off at work so I could run some errands that I needed to. Second, run back to the house, pick the girls up from school, then finally go to the barber shop. The plan started out working just fine up until the point when we got to the barber shop! Kid by kid piled out of the van and into the barber shop. I was getting the usual stare by people as I was walking into the barber shop by myself with so many children. There were 2 German women and 1 German man. Both women were working so I asked the man "can you cut my babies hair, both of them?" he said "will they sit?" I looked at the babies and said "I hope so." He pointed to the chair. So I put Turner on the chair and instantly he freaked out so I picked him up and traded Cecilia for Taylor. He sat in the chair and did fine at first, all of a sudden he just went crazy. Poor baby was turning his head, crying, and reaching for me. Finally the dude just stopped and said "no more you don't have to pay". So the kids and I piled back into the van.
I drove straight to the PX and bought a pair of clippers. As soon as I picked Jeff up from work I explained what happened at the barber shop and that we had to fix it. "I can not let my baby go around looking all gaped up like this" I said. He just laughed and said "poor baby". Right when we got home we pulled a chair into the kitchen, took the clippers out of the box, put the boys in the chair one by one and started cutting their hair. Turner did good as long as we had his hands occupied. Taylor on the other hand, he just didn't want his hair cut today LOL. Jeff and I got it done and they look very handsome. Jeff did most of the cutting while I did most of the "moral support" lol. But let me say this.......cutting boys hair is a totally different territory than girls. I'm sure this just a start to a whole new world I am entering with having 2 boys now. I am gladly looking forward to it, after today I think I might need to invest in clippers and maybe finish cosmetology school! LOL

The Dreaded Questions of a 3 year old

I am in the kitchen making my husband an omelet after PT while he is doing the manly "3 S's" (all of those are done in the bathroom by the way). Then he screams out in an emergency manner "HOLLY". I did not drop everything and take off running, because I thought it was just that the twins were playing in the dog food and water. Then Jeff calls out again "HOLLY", I said "OK I am coming", so I walk back there and our 3 year old is sitting in the door way of the bathroom looking up at me with a dumbfounded look. Jeff says to me "look I need your help in explaining something to Ramie, she just asked me, and this is not the first time, about when we got married where was she? was she in your tummy? how did she get out?......I need help Holly these are things I can not talk to her about." So I said to Ramie "how do u think you got out of my tummy?" she said "I dunno" well I took her by the hand and said "come on baby I will show you how babies come out of mommies tummies". Jeff was screaming "no Holly don't do it you will scar her for life". I brought her in the living room sat down in the recliner put her in my lap got the laptop and pulled up child birth on You Tube. We watched a child birth she never said a word threw the whole thing! I was thinking to my self the whole time "OMG Jeff was right I have done it she is not only gonna be scared she is not even gonna want to play with her babies, she is never gonna look at pregnant women the same, what have I done!!
Then the movie was over......she looked up at me, she had kinda watery eyes.......and said ......"moma can we watch it again" I said "you wanna watch it again?" she said "yeah she had her legs up and was crying and going ooooo aaaaaa mmmmm uuuuuuu then a baby came out with blood on it"
We watched 3 more movies until finally I said "ok baby you get it now, thats how babies come out". 
I was so scared that I was going to scar her that I might have just made an OBGYN in the making LOL. I don't know. When she was little all you had to do was pretend that you were gagging and she was throw up, or Jeff could show her a loogie and she would puke. This is a child that can not wear turtle neck shirts! She will vomit! But for some reason is now fascinated with child birth. She even asked me "well what happen when they had to cut the boys out of you?" I said "hunny I don't think they have video's that show that".
It is so funny the things kids come up with and are interested in. Once again this is another reason why I started this blog. I wish I would have done this with Cecilia and Kamryn because I know they did stuff like this to I just don't remember them. I sure do look forward to many more with all the kids and now I have this blog to keep record and share with everyone.

Rejuvenation

My husband let me sleep until after 2:00 pm today!

Last night we got our friends Natasha and Christian to keep the boys and my friend Mandy got the girls to come to her house while Jeff and I went to the movies. We didn't get home until almost 2 am after saying thank you and good bye to the sitters it was after 2 when I finally went to bed, Jeff was pouring him self a beer and sitting down to watch TV. Next thing I know I am waking up the next after noon around 2:30 pm or so. I can't believe it! He has never let me sleep in. He got up and took care of the boys all by himself this morning no me, no Kamryn, no Cecilia. He changed their poopies (we all know how bad the first morning poopies are), he feed them FOOD. Got the girls home and played with them, there is still a HUGE fort in the middle of the room made with all the table chairs and blankets I own lol.
I don't know what has come over him. Wait maybe he has finally seen the light, maybe it has finally occurred to him that if he lets me get just a little bit of extra sleep on the weekends I won't be in such a bad mood and tired all the time. You know what I shouldn't care what the reason is I am just really glad he let me do it and I just really pray he lets me do it again!

By the way it is now 5:00pm and he has been asleep every since I got up LMAO!! We all need rejuvenation!

Digging In Sand

I go to these peoples houses and they are always so organized and clean and smell soooo good. Even when they aren't expecting me! It just kills me. I just want to know how do they do that? I mean I could do that but I would not get to spend any time with my family. I know I know I have 5 kids (that REFUSE to pick up after there selves) but still there is no reason I shouldn't be able to walk into a room in my house at any given time and it be half way clean.

I am not saying my house is the dirtiest in the world, but by no means are my towels all folded nice and neat and all the forks and spoons going the same way etc....We do have 7 people living here, but I do wish that I could get just a little bit more order around in this place.
I have tried the chart board, I have tried chores, i have tried allowances, I have tried just doing it myself, NOTHING works. Dude I need some help!
It really doesn't help that we live in such a small apartment. Maybe when we get to New Mexico it will get better, we will have a bigger place and the weather will be nicer so the the kids can go outside more often. Its just really hard for all of the burden of both the kids (all 5 of them) and the house, plus cooking, paying bills, and all the other errands that need to be done be on me! Jeff works and he works hard, shit he has been to war 3 times. So I don't expect a lot out of him, and he sure don't give whats not expected lol.
Take this week for instance I clean house all day while fighting off the kids and just praying they would hurry up and take a nap, then at night I am so tired that I don't want to play with them, I want to sit and watch a movie on the couch with my husband and my glass of wine. Yes I feel good because my house is clean, there are no dirty dishes in the sink, the floors are swept and moped and the laundry is (halfway) caught up. But I feel like a total jackass because I don't even think I have said 2 words to my kids all day except "hold on", "take it in there I just cleaned that", "put it in the dishwasher", "wait mommy is cleaning", "get your sister to do it"...........I feel bad!
So today I said "damnit the house is just gonna have to be messy". Ramie the boys and I have played all day, we made forts, we played with Kamryn's wolverine gloves, we played dress up, I read books, put make up on Ramie and just layed in the floor doing the airplane with them. Now its only 1pm and they are taking a nap! I got to fix lunch (Hamburger Helper) Jeff's favorite, which made him happy. I don't feel like such a looser mom and I don't feel like I have been "Digging In Sand" all day.

The First Day Of School

All I could think the night before as I lay there with no sleep is, "I am not getting old, I don't feel this old, do I look like I have a kid in the 5th grade, Oh my gosh I have a kid in the 5th grade 2nd grade and 3 still at home!"
I remember how my mom looked when I was in the 5th grade, she already had gray hair, drove a P.O.S, and was not "up on the fashion". Was that me? Could that become me? Even if I don't think I am like that do my kids and there friends think that?
5th Grade that's a pivotal year, you discover your body and how its changing. The boys start noticing you and this is the time where you start trying to figure out what "click" you belong to. I remember it as being one of the hardest years besides high school I had. I got glasses that year, started my period, got hair in those "places" you get hair, and started shaving.
My teacher humiliated me in front of the whole class which ruined me for the rest of the year. She thought she was doing something good but really it killed me. She made me and another student stand up in front of the class against the wall, she showed off "what great posture you have Holly, you see how Holly's back is flush with the wall and 'the other student' back is not" I towered over him like the statue of liberty. Well there came the name "Holly green giant"! Man I thought I would never shake that name lol. Kids can be so cruel.
One thing I am happy for, my kids don't have to ride a bus here. I hated the bus! From what I see on the news and you tube its only worse than what it was back then.

Along with most other military kids our kids will be changing schools this year. I can not imagine how hard that is. I never had to do that as a child, I went to the same school with the same kids from kindergarten all the way to graduation. I guess that can be just as hard, never being able to shake the 5th grade nick names lol. At least our kids get a chance to make a fresh start every 3 years. A total reinvention of them selves if thats what they choose to do.  

So, how did the morning of the first day of 2nd and 5th grade for our 2 oldest girls start?
Jeff and I had it all planned out, we were going to get up and both cook breakfast for the girls while they got ready, then together walk them to school (its across the street). The alarm goes off at 6am...the next thing I know its 10 mins after 7 and Jeff has already cooked breakfast, gotten the kids up, had a shower and was getting his uniform on. He had let me sleep in knowing I didn't sleep well. I got out of bed walked into the kitchen and sure enough the kids had not even touched the big breakfast he had gotten up early to fix, and 2 of their friends were already standing inside the door waiting to walk to school with them. I felt bad for daddy, he is not home very often for these precious moments and when he is he trys really hard to be a part of it.
He and the girls set off at 5 till 8, he comes to me and says "do I walk them all the way to their class or just to the school?" I said "just ask the girls what ever they want you to do." A few minutes later he comes back and had the biggest smile on his face. He leaves for work, comes home for lunch at noon and has the cutest little pink sparkly back pack filled with a Dora coloring book, pink and purple notebook, pack of crayons, markers, clue sticks, scissors, and a huge pack of construction paper and tells Ramie that he wants to see her homework when he gets home tonight. She was so excited, we sat in the floor after he left and colored, cut, pasted, and stickered. Jeff made sure that all of us had a good first day of school today despite all of our fears.   Its those things that are the reason why I am doing this blog.

Starting off on this blogging journey!

I have no idea how do this (blogging). I am a very good talker and "story teller" so we will see how this all pans out.
I wanted to start doing something like this because last night as I sat with Jeff watching T.V. it came to me that I could barely remember things that I at the time it happened told myself "I wanna remember this". My mother in law has told me before that I should keep a journal of some kind and write down all the little things the kids do that I don't want to forget. That of course is an awesome idea, but when you live in a house of chaos all the notebooks around here either get colored in, spilled on, ripped up or just plain lost!
My daddy has always told me that if you can't say it write it. That is something I have used A LOT. 
In the past people have told me "Holly you could write a book", that is something I would really like to do and have actually looked into it, not only for me but Cecilia as well (she has a great imagination). Right now this is the best thing for me and in the future we will see what happens.

Ok  if you are reading this and you don't know me, or if you do know me maybe you don't know all there is to know about me. For starters my name of course is Holly Staton I am 30 years old married to a wonderful man who is also in the United States Army. We went to school together and also went to his Jr prom. After that we went our separate ways. He moved to Auburn Alabama and I moved to New York (Bronx), In the year 2000 I moved back to Scottsboro, met a guy Andrew and had my first child Cecilia. Things didn't work out with Andrew and I which was for the best, but we are still real good friends. By chance Jeff and met back up and now 9 years and 5 kids later here we are! Of course I am leaving out SOOO much but that is the run down.
Jeff , the kids and I now live in Baumholder Germany, we have been here for almost 3 years. I am so ready to leave here, which we will be doing soon. White Sands Missle Range in New Mexico is where we will be moving to later this year.
We have survived as a family threw 3 deployments to Iraq and one move to Germany LOL. It is and was very hard leaving everyone, having the boys over here by myself while he was deployed and I was half a world away from our families. But we did it!! The saying "what doesn't kill us only makes us stronger"......that is now our family motto!

Jeff had taken the kids to get school supplies and clothes that is the only way I have been able to sit here and do this lol.......he is back now and they want to model and show off all the new things.