Wow, we’re busy!

I know that in Germany we were always busy out going and doing stuff, but WOW! Since we’ve been here, our calender has been getting filled and we’re still getting used to having things to do during the week.

Landyn got his vest at cubbies last week- so proud! He came marching down the isle with his vest on and his little cubbies bag and book to show me, he was so excited. He loves going there and the friends he gets to see and he is so much coming out of his little shy shell. Tonight was our fourth week at cubbies and when they went to the front to do their song he was up there laughing and dancing with the kids! The first week he stood in the back and wouldn’t move and now he’s jumping around doing the motions. He’s also talking to his teacher more and using the motions they use to teach them their verses.

We also had a visit from Landyn’s new teacher today- he starts school tomorrow! It’s a sure start program which is the equivalent to head start or pre k. He’ll be in the elementary school, they use that play ground and get to visit the different rooms in the school (art, gym and music) but they eat their meals in the classroom together and do a family style dining (I love that part! the kids get to help prepare lunch, set the tables, they each pass the food around and they have serving size spoons they use to get their own food, pour their own drinks, ect.). As far as academics, Landyn is already above where he needs to be, but socially this is going to be so good for him. He’s wanting more and more to hang out with other kids and play with his friends and he’s super excited for school.

Landyn has totally blown us away this last week (or so) with his reading. We’ve been working on letters and writing but out of no where he started spelling and sounding out words. We’ve worked a little on word sounds, but he has such an interest in wanting to know letter sounds and reading. We can read 10 books a day and he’d still want more (not that I would complain about him wanting to read 😉 ). As of now, he can spell about 10 words off the top of his head and I’m looking to get him a few very simple and easy books like Hop on Pop that we can work on him reading himself.

Ayden is turning into a little smarty pants too (with a little attitude behind his lol). He reminds us more and more of Landyn all the time with the way he talks and things he says. I know we need to get some of the stuff on camera and get videos up, he’s hilarious. Today at AWANA our lesson was that God made flowers. We were reviewing our lessons from the last 3 weeks so I was asking how made trees, and starts and clouds. He was getting a bit irritated I guess because his response was “Mom, God made everything, just everything. Ok. I know, God made flowers.” I could write a whole book on the things these guys say (for anyone who missed the facebook post, Landyn not so nicely explained to me that as a mom, it is my job to kill bugs in the house and that I should not be asking him to do it for me).

Although Ryan worked last week on Thanksgiving, we had a nice dinner with the few single guys in his shop. We made everything and took it to his shop and then the guys in his shop played with the kids for a little bit (which scored an early bed time!). One of my favorite things about Ryan’s job here is being able to see him in an office while he’s working. No more having to have a special ID or going through a gate with barbed wire at the top.

Last week the boys also had their first play practice for the Christmas play at the Chapel… more like Landyn had his first practice. We’re going to hep out with props and Landyn is in the play as a child of Esther. His only job is to follow “Esther” around and wave to the camera and pretend he’s excited to be on TV. Ayden wouldn’t leave my side so when we have practice he’ll sit back in the nursery room with me and the other little ones that won’t be in it so that I can keep them out of the way 🙂 Even though Landyn isn’t doing much, it’s another chance for him to just be involved and do something in front of a group of people so he’s not so shy.

Ryan just started his 2nd to last school class and the fact of graduating and being done with this degree soon is starting to sink in. T-10 weeks for him and T-3 weeks for me and then I would love to have about a month break for both of us with NO school work before he starts more classes for his Air Force degree he needs and start to look into his master’s degree.

In the coming weeks we have a lot of little Christmas gatherings to go to including one for our girl Mandy at the kennel 🙂 Landyn and Ayden will enjoy cookies with Santa at daddy’s work and then Santa will read to them at the library. They are both getting more and more excited for Christmas and every time Landyn thinks of something he wants he grabs a post it note and asks me to help him sound out what letters to write for santa to bring it for him. Somehow I have a feeling that me and Ryan won’t get much credit for Christmas gifts this year lol.

 

Switching over

Lately, a few of my mom groups on facebook have posted topics and links to websites that show the different chemicals that are in products that we use everyday. I’m not naive, I know that I can’t cut out EVERY chemical that is in EVERYTHING that we use. But as a mom, it’s my duty to do what I can to make things safer for my kids and that’s what I’m doing.

So far we’ve quit using their body wash on them and for now they use my bar soap (still has chemicals, but much less), I’ve made our laundry soap, face scrub, kitchen and bathroom cleaner, dryer sheets and just finished up a batch of dish washer detergent and rinse agent. Kinda sucks being over here and I can’t get everything I need for my homemade recipes, but I’ve searched and adjusted to find ones with ingredients that are easy for us to get.

Laundry Detergent:

1 Bar of grated bath soap

1 cup of Borax

1 cup of washing soda (I used activated baking soda from the laundry isle).
Just mix it altogether really well, 2 tablespoons per load of laundry.

Dryer sheets:

cut up a flannel receiving blanket into strips or squares

1/4 cup all natural fabric softner

3/4 cup warm water

Mix the softner and warm water in a container or bowl with a lid (a baby wipe container was suggested but we used an old plastic bowl with lid) and then soak the flannel pieces in it. Use 1 or 2 per each dryer cycle. **This one also ends up being much cheaper than buying dryer sheets**

Cleaner:

1 cup of Borax

1 cup baking soda

1/2 cup iodized salt

Just mix it altogether and use it as you would a powder bleach. ** I also put some vinegar in a spray bottle and use that as a cleaning spray. Still looking for a way to get a few essential oils to be able to scent things.**

Dishwasher detergent:

1 cup borax

1 cup washing soda or baking soda

1/2 cup coarse kosher salt

1/2 cup citric acid (I cut out the citric acid because we can’t get it here and I haven’t found a place to ship it here yet).

Rinse Agent:

Vinegar. I also read that FRESH lemon juice added in, but I haven’t tried that one yet.

Facial Scrub:

2 tablespoons oatmeal finely ground up

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons 100% aloe vera (this is one we get luck on- we have hundreds of wild aloe plants all around us!)

1 teaspoon lemon juice

 

In case anyone is as curious as we were- here is a link that you can type in your product and it will rate it. The entire site has great information, but it’s a scary read

http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/

Now that we’re here…

So we’ve been here in the Azores for a little less than 2 months now and there is a lot going on. The boys both remember everyone from our visit home and I love hearing them talk about their family and pretending that they’re going to visit. I know we have a facebook but I could update my facebook 25 times a day with the stuff that our kids say and do- this is much easier 🙂 We’ll keep this updated with the stuff we’re doing, pictures of the kids and all the craziness that is around us.

Since we’ve been here, we’ve added to our family- our German Shepherd Mandy is our newest and last addition! The kids love having a dog, although Ayden keeps saying he wants a little dog like Buddy or Oreo (and I can only imagine him carrying a little dog around and breaking it lol). Mandy was rescued from an abusive home and we don’t know much about her but it only took her an entire 3 days to warm up to being with us. She has  vicious bark but is a big baby and mostly just playful.

So far the boys have started AWANA (Landyn is a Cubbie and Ayden is a Puggle), Landyn has started football, we do story time at the library every week and we are waiting to hear back this week if Landyn gets into the preschool program here. We’ve had 2 AWANA meetings and so far Landyn has learned 4 Bible verses and Ayden will tell you that “God made the starts, moon, sky and everything”. They’ve both made friends and having a big play park right behind our house has been a blessing. The boys will also be a part of the Chapel’s Christmas production on base.

We’ve also found a church- The Azorean Baptist Church (ABC). The church is off base and is pretty small but the people there are amazing. Since it’s such a small base everyone knows everyone; after our first week here we were seeing people that recognized us from church or from the park but we had no idea who they were. We’ve been here for less than 2 months now and when we go anywhere, we’re starting to recognize the same familiar faces.

Ryan is coaching Landyn’s football practices (Landyn is still in the start smart program so we only have 6 practices and it’s just going over basic drills but no games). We’re all adjusting to Ryan’s new work schedule but so far we really like it. He works 12 hour shifts but it’s a Panama schedule so he works 2, off 2, work 3, off 2, work 2 off 3. His job here is a little different and the kids can stop down and say hi to him at work as long as he’s not on the flight line. The kids also get to see some pretty neat air craft that stop through 🙂

And since we’ve been here I’ve been finishing my last online school class, helping in Ayden’s Puggles class at AWANA and we’ve finally finished unpacking our last few random boxes. Landyn is working on his letter sounds and starting to sound out words and Ayden is learning his ABC’s and 123’s and between their learning, reading (at least 10 books some days lol), trips to the library, trips to the park and art projects we stay pretty busy during our day.

Ryan works for the next few days so the boys and I will be busy making ornaments and trying to squeeze in some play time at the park in between the rain 🙂