Arithmetic of Life

1 tiny hospital room + 3 little kids x 3 days = 1 husband - gallbladder + 1 tired momma

22 Down, 2 To Go

Today is just another ordinary day for most...and truth be told, nothing is out of the ordinary here at home either. But today is a special day for us. Today marks 22 years of active duty Air Force service from my husband. Today he also reenlists for 2 more years...his last two.

B2 dropping missiles

It's kind of a bittersweet feeling. Part of me is so ready for this journey to be over, and for us to start a new chapter. A chapter where (hopefully) we won't be wondering when the next time Daddy will be leaving. A chapter where Daddy can be more involved in our day-to-day lives. A chapter where we can learn what it is to be a "normal" family.

But, there is a (big) part of me that will be sad to see it all end. The military has been Keith's only job...ever. In the end he will have given 24 years of service to his country. It has, in many ways, been his life. And it has become mine too. When we got married almost 10 years ago, I had no clue what military life was and it was quite the adjustment in the first few years. But, after the adjustment phase came a deep love for this life of ours! I can't explain it, except to say that I feel like I have been woven in to this military family. I feel as much a part of it, in many ways, as I do my own biological family. And when it comes to an end, I feel I will mourn the loss of it. Yes, we will always be a part of the military family. But the everyday-ness of it all will come to an end. It must. And it's only two short years away.

I'm feeling very reflective today. And very thankful as well. I hope you all have a blessed day in the Lord!

(P.S.- The significance of the picture is that my husband is assigned to a B2 base, and his job is to build the bombs that they drop. Pretty neat picture, I think.)

Teach a Man to Fish...

One of the things Keith started doing with the boys this summer was taking them fishing. At first I wasn't sure how well it would go considering Tyler (almost 5) has an attention span about the size of a grape and Jackson (almost 3) has one about the size of a pea. But, they absolutely love it! It probably helps that at the spot where they usually go, the fish start biting about as soon as they bait hits the water. I love that my boys love fishing. I hope it is something they carry with them all through their lives.

My Boys after their first trip to the lake

Their first catch-one for each of them

My handsome honey.

 Is it just me, or does he look like Troy from Swamp People?

My boy after a good day at the lake

If you look closely, you'll see that Jack was so excited that he peed his pants ;)

My sweet baby, hanging out on the bank with his mommy

9 Years

8 Vehicles

7 TDY's

6 Deaths

5 Computers

4 Houses

3 Sons

2 Duty stations

1 Amazing Love

Happy Anniversary, Honey!

The Days Are Long, But The Years Are Short

Well, it seems as though the end of another year is upon us once again. I suppose I, like most people, have begun to reflect on all that has happened the past year. This has been an interesting year for us, to say the least. But looking back on it, it is amazing to see the hand of God in it all.

Here is a little summary of our 2010:

-January was spent preparing for Keith's upcoming deployment, as well as finishing up some renovation projects before he left.

-February-the Hubby left for Guam. I'm pretty sure most of the rest of the month was a blur. I did start my own remodeling projects to help pass the time.

-March- I was in full renovation mode. I tore out our master bathroom fixtures and began a major remodel.

-April- Had a yard sale and then took a little trip back to the mother land (TN) to visit my family. It was good for all of us to get away for a while.

-May-back to reality, back to work. This month was spent choosing tile, carpet, paint colors, etc. I had to rush to get all my projects wrapped up before Hubby's return.

-June-New carpet goes in. Tile goes in. Painting is done. And at the end of the month, Hubby was home.

-July-was filled with Daddy's return, a quick trip to Paducah to visit with family, and saying goodbye to a dear family in our church who moved away. Oh yeah, and we were blessed with baby #3 this month.

-August-Normal summer business. Another yard sale, Lots of gardening, and playing. I got my usual first trimester sickness around the first of August and that was about it for me for the rest of the month.

-September-for Hubby's birthday he requested a trip to Branson, so that is what we did. For the rest of the month I was too sick to do anything...except check myself into the hospital for a few days. =( We also had to say goodbye to another great set of friends.

-October-both boys had their birthdays and I was too sick to do anything about it. It was another hard month. Hubby was out of town for a week, also.

-November-the sickness fog began to lift...Praise the Lord! Hubby had a very busy month at work. We were able to make another trip to TN to visit our families. It was a great, but hard, trip. The boys loved every second of it and were truly heart-broken when we had to leave.

-December-Well, this seems to be the month where a whole year's worth of activity is crammed into a few weeks. Is it like that for everybody? We are having a revival at church all this week. Next week, one of the missionary families from our church are returning for furlough. We also, have a celebration dinner at church on Friday night. Oh, and the Hubby takes his promotion test next week. The week of Christmas, Hubby has his PT (physical fitness) test. We are hosting a going away dinner at our house for another family in our church. (This seems to be the year of goodbye's.) And then there is Christmas...I have done nothing to prepare this year. I see it being another year without a single present around here. I am fine with that. We are so blessed, and need nothing. But, you certainly do get a lot of strange looks when you tell people that your kids didn't get anything for Christmas.

So, there we are. It has been a busy year, but a good one. God has certainly sustained us, and we are looking forward to what 2011 has in store.

My Two Friends who left me in 2010

Hubby working on painting the front door

The new carpet



My Biggest Little Man feeding the ducks



Ice Cream Date with Mom

Summertime Fun

Back Yard Camping with Daddy

4th of July fun with friends

Sweet Little Man

Me and the Bub

The Boys and Papaw checking out the view in Paducah



Little Fishermen



Somebody got a little clipper happy =)

May you all have a very happy Christmas season filled with the love of the Saviour!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

On Saturday afternoon we were having lunch at our favorite little Mexican restaurant. We were all sitting there chit-chatting while we waited for our food. Very casually Tyler looked at his Daddy and said, " Dad, think you need to get Bosley." We looked at him funny because I had no clue he would even know what Bosley was. I asked him what he said and he said it again. Then he said, "You know Dad...to fix your hair." It was about this point that I began choking on my chips and salsa from laughing so hard. Then to make things better he said, "It's ok Dad, ladies do it too!"

Oh. My. Stars!! Probably the funniest thing the kid has said to date!!

Keith says the TV is going to the curb on trash day. =)

Readjusting

Hubby has been home for almost two weeks now. He should have been off work this whole time, but instead was back at work 41 hours after he got off the plane. Nothing surprises me anymore. =)

He is supposed to be off next week, and has promised to take his little men camping. That should be fun for them! I think I will take that opportunity to work on the house a little. I have an itch to demolish the hall bath now that the master bath is finished. =)

We are still in the getting used to each other again phase. I am not the type that just picks back up where things left off. It takes me a while to readjust after he comes home. Not that I'm not happy to see him, I am. Maybe some of you know what I'm talking about. Or, maybe I'm the only one. I don't know and it doesn't matter. That's just the way it is.

But, anyway. Life has been really busy since he has been back. Work last week. 12 hour shifts this week. Boys constantly asking for their daddy. Tons of laundry to wash, sort, and put away. Meals to be planned. You get the idea...life.

So anyway, we are here. Adjusting...loving...talking...playing...being a family again.

Oh, and in other news-Jack indeed did fall down and break his crown last night. The poor kid was climbing on a chair, fell, and hit his head right on the corner of the fireplace. HUGE knot! He screamed for 5 minutes and then went back to playing like nothing has ever happened. He is one tough little cookie!

He's Home!

You Are Gone

I Am Here

It Doesn't Matter

'Cause I Still Love You, Dear

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY HONEY!!

One Month Down, ? More to Go

One month has passed since Keith left. We are surviving...some days better than others.

The boys are doing okay. They love seeing Daddy on Skype, and were very excited when a package arrived with new airplanes for each of them. Jackson, of course, is the easiest. He is just too young to understand. Tyler, on the other hand, has his good days and bad days...and quite the active imagination too. He has told people anything from his daddy is in jail, to daddy had a car wreck and is in the hospital, to daddy is being a soldier for Jesus, and on and on. It has been quite embarrassing a few times when he has announced to a complete stranger that his daddy is in jail. Sometimes I explain, sometimes I just smile and walk away.

We are keeping busy; probably a little too busy some days. But it is just so stinkin' lonely here without my BFF. =) I have noticed that I stay up a lot later than normal in order to chat with him, and therefore I have been a lot more tired lately. Now with the time change, I probably will not be staying up to talk to him at night, because it would be around 2 am here when he gets off work now. I think that might be pushing my limits on sleep.

A lot of people have asked when he is coming home. The only answer I have is I don't know. I'm not trying to be vague, I'm being honest. We have heard anything from June to August, but I am just waiting for him to call and tell me he's getting on a plane to come home. That's when I'll believe it. Until then, it's all just a guessing game. I feel like a pawn to the Air Force.

So anyway, here we are. Surviving. Taking life one day at a time. Rejoicing in the goodness of the Lord and looking forward to being reunited as a family.

Random Thoughts from My Noggin

Life seems to be flying by at whirlwind speed these days. We are finishing up the big remodel, preparing for a deployment/TDY, and generally living a busy life with two busy little boys. While this may not be exactly the things I'd like to be doing right now, I don't dare be ungrateful! God is so good to us! We truly do have a John 10:10 life. We are blessed with more than we even realize, and I am so thankful for all the Lord's mercies he bestows upon us.

Keith will be leaving soon. Much sooner than I would like, although we don't know the exact date yet. Tonight we talked, for the first time really, about things that need to be done before he leaves. It was not a conversation that I enjoyed, per se, because it made me realize just how short our time together is. But, it was good for me (the planner) to have some details on paper. If you've never had the pleasure *cough, cough* of being separated from your spouse for an extended period of time, then let me just tell you--the details that have to be arranged ahead of time in order for life to proceed as smoothly as possible for everyone involved is insane! At least for people like me, who need a plan for everything.

We still have quite a bit of things that need to be taken care of around the house before he leaves. Tonight I made a list of small tasks that could be completed in one evening, to try to make it easier to manage instead of one huge list that we are trying to tackle. However, while looking over the calendar I realized that many of the days that could be used between now and then are already filled with things like church, ministry meetings, work functions, etc. I know that if the house projects don't get done before he leaves, then it is not the end of the world. But I would really, really, really like to be back to as close to normal as possible before he leaves. Little things like not having doors on the cabinets and all the contents of my drawers being on the counters is really bothering me. I am just ready for a calm, normal day-to-day life. I think it will help my sanity while he is away. I like to have a clean, tidy, organized house and for the past 6 months we have been living in a functional-at-best house. Momma needs her pretty house back! =)

In other news, I think we have decided to try to sell the truck while Keith is away. It will help us save on maintenance, insurance, etc while he is away; and I am perfectly fine being a one vehicle family anyway. I don't need my own vehicle to run the roads in. It forces me to be at home, saving money, training my kids, and being the helpmeet that I need to be. I'll keep you posted on whether the truck sells or not. Hubby is kind of attached. I'm told it's a man thing.

To wrap up this little blog slop, I suppose I will share that I am having a very difficult time deciding if/when/and for how long to visit my family while Keith is away. While you wouldn't think that would be a terribly hard decision to make, right now it is one of my biggest obstacles in planning. I would like to go and stay several weeks so that my family can all have some real quality time with the boys. Most of our visits are only for a week, and that is split between two cities. This is a great opportunity for the boys to really bond with their extended family, which I want for them very much. But on the practical side of things, that means us living away from "our" home, and in somebody else's house all that time. You know the old saying about fish and company...So anyway, we are praying about what to do there.

We have a very busy weekend ahead of us. We have visitation tomorrow morning, then I will do the church bulletin. We are having dinner with friends at a Mennonite Buffet tomorrow night. And, we would really like to work a few h0me improvement projects in tomorrow too.

I hope everyone who reads this has a wonderful weekend. Spend Sunday in a local sin-hating, Bible-preaching church worshipping the Saviour. You won't regret it!

~Date Night~

My #1 guy and I went on a date tonight. It was our first date in 14 months! That is a long time, especially when you love your man as much as I love mine. ;) We have been talking about going out, just the two of us, for months now. I wasn't quite ready to leave Jackson just yet, but we desperately needed some time to just be a couple. So, when a family from church offered to watch the boys for us I didn't hesitate one bit to take her up on her offer.

We headed to Colton's Steakhouse first. Being that it was Friday night, it was quite busy but we enjoyed ourselves anyway.


Next, we went for a little retail therapy...








Here I am trying on one of several outfits. This one was my favorite of all that I tried on, but I didn't love it. {Pardon my severely messy hair.}

















We ended up buying some matching PJ's for the boys, and that was about it. I was bummed about not finding a nice church outfit for winter, but that's okay. Here is a picture of my little man modeling for me when we got home. Isn't he adorable? He got a haircut yesterday.
























We finished off the night with a Peppermint Mocha for the ride home. {Yum

It was so nice to spend some quality time together tonight. We definitely don't do it very often, so it is such a treat when we do. I didn't even worry about the boys...too much. {grin}

Keith will be leaving sometime after the first of the year for 4-6 months. I am going to see if we can squeeze a few more date nights in between now and then. My heart hurts just thinking about him leaving...

Friday Foto Fun

Life seems to be busier than ever here at the Lawhon Ranch. We have had two birthdays, a workday, Missions Conference, and two two-week exercises with extended duty hours for hubby in the past month. Add to that the everyday tasks of life, and that doesn't leave much time for meaningful blog posts. I do have a couple of special posts planned for the near future however, one of which is an awesome story about God's provision. Until then, I hope you enjoy some of the pictures from recently.

Howdy Pardner!

He is so stinkin cute!



Messy Marvin

Twins!

Isn't that precious?

He is getting so big!

Doesn't he look so mischievous here?

Mommy and Jack hanging out in the bathroom at church.

Look at his little "toofers". #8 is on the way.

Military Monday

All things military related seem to be attacking me at once, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to ramble a little about the happenings at our little BOnP (Base of non-Preference). =)

If you caught my last post, you know that my husband is now eligible to retire. And to answer the $1,000,000 question, no he has no immediate plans of retiring. He was promoted in December of '08 and so in order to retire at his current rank he needs to stay in until at least December '10. For now that is the plan, and he may possibly stay in longer. It just depends on where we are and how the Lord directs.

My BOnP reference earlier was a joke...sort of. To be totally honest, we had no intentions of ever coming here. None. But the Lord had other plans, and we understand that. I have learned to be content here.

In other news--hubby got word yesterday that a deployment is in our not so distant future- this winter sometime. I am in no way thrilled about this, but it has been 7 years since his last real deployment. Yes, 7 years! So while I don't want to sound like I am happy about it, I do understand that it is our turn. I'm sure as the date gets closer, I will probably not have such a positive outlook. I am going to start praying now that the Lord would sustain me and that I will rely fully on Him for strength to get through it. I am not good with deployments at all.

(This little tidbit doesn't really have much to do with the military other than it happened on base.) Tonight as I was driving around the flight line to take hubby his lunch, I ran over not less that 200 frogs...just on the way to his shop. I have never seen so many frogs at once in all my life. They were everywhere! It looked like a plague. There were also several dozen small white snakes in the road. I really have never seen anything like it. Gross!

Well, I guess that ends my ramblings for today. I started writing this around lunch time and it is now after 10:00. I need to get the house in order and get to bed...if I can. Hubby is on nights and I have no one to snuggle with.

The Day They All Dream About

20 years ago today my Airman entered boot camp. That makes him officially eligible to retire. Woohoo! What an accomplishment. We are so very proud of our hero!

Congratulations honey! Thank you for all your hard work and sacrifice, both for our country and our family.

~*~Seeking His Will~*~

Do you ever wonder if unsaved people have as hard of a time making big decisions as saved people do? I mean, why wouldn't an unsaved person just make the most selfish, self-promoting decision? Anyhoo. That's another topic for another day.

However, what brought that thought to mind is something that is very much on my mind right now. There is a situation going on with Keith's job right now that involves a big decision for us. In the flesh, the decision seems like a no-brainer. But we do not want to act in the flesh. This is something that will have a big impact on our family, and that is not something I want to do out of God's will.

I am being pretty vague right now for a reason. I feel like if we share too much with too many people, we will be more sensitive to other people's persuasions and possibly less sensitive to the Holy Spirit. So for now, I just want to ask those of you who will to pray for us. Specifically for wisdom in making the decision, for clear direction, for peace, and that the Lord's will be done.

Once we have made a decision, I will share the details. Either way. The specifics are just too interesting not to share (in a big world/small world kind of way). And because I know that inquiring minds want to know.
=)

7 Years Ago Today

We said "I Do"!

We blew off our plans for a big wedding, hopped in the car, and got married at the Wedding Bell Chapel in Pigeon Forge, TN. Though the $49.99 drive-thru option was tempting, we decided to go inside and actually stand up during our vows =). I had a 104 fever and three days later passed a kidney stone. It wasn't exactly a storybook wedding, but definitely one of the best days of my life!

In the past 7 years, God has blessed us tremendously. If it were not for Him, I can honestly say that we would not be together today. I just want to give Him the glory for all He has done!

Happy Anniversary, Honey! I love you!!

Hubby Said "No!" =(

I found this on a local online ad service. Unfortunately, hubby was not interested. He has since taken to making fun of me about it. =) I personally think it sounds like a wonderful pet and also a frugal investment. We would no longer need our alarm clocks with a rooster around. I'm sure the neighbors would thank us as well.

WANTED: Good home for purebred special needs houdan rooster
We have a beautiful purebred houdan rooster. He is about one year old. He was
stepped on when he was little and his leg was broken. He gets around fine, but
doesn't use his leg much. He is very healthy and robust....for pet only.....not
for eating!!!!

LawFam Photo Update

My handsome hubby! He has really been working hard, helping me out, and doing so much to around the house since he came back. He even made me dinner tonight and then brought me ice cream in bed. Yeah, he's awesome! =)

Tyler-bug is doing great. He is at that stage where he is just a complete handful from the minute his eyes open till the minute we duct tape them shut at night (kidding!!!!). But he is so fun and so full of personality. There isn't much he can't or won't say. He talks very clearly, when he wants to and amazes me everyday with the new things he has learned. He is all boy and I love it!

Little Jackson-bear is just so sweet. I love that precious baby more than words can say. Look at those sweet baby blue eyes. Don't you just want to eat him up?? He recently got a new big boy carseat, because at the ripe old age of 4 months he had officially outgrown his other one. He is growing so fast; I just wish it would slow down a little so I could savor his babiness (<--New Word) for a little bit longer.

Here's me and my new 'do. It was time people. I had major "new mom" hair going on before. My hubby was so sweet to take me Saturday for a cut and highlights while he watched the boys. Really people, I love that man!

My Valentines

Man Time (Notice, tools must be present for this to take place)


Being silly at Cracker Barrel

Not so happy face

Happy Face

Waiting patiently for the doctor to see his bubba.

My sweet baby at the ER.