If you know me, I am always with a device that will let me take a photo. I am always ready to share those photos too, in fact, my Facebook page is more about my kids than me. And, each year I love taking family photos to treasure the stage/age that my kids are in, and it's also a nice way to have at least one set of photos a year with ME IN THEM. This year was no different, except that I've got a smokin' body thanks to a boot camp that I've been doing for the last five weeks and I wanted to show that off in some photos. As we got ready the morning of the pictures, my boys understood that this was important to me and that I wanted them to cooperate, smile nicely and be good. That however, was the exact opposite of what they did. Between the sassy, crying, mouth open, tongue out, fit throwing faces, I ended up with not a SINGLE photo of all of us smiling. Which is all I wanted. In the car I deleted about 30 photos right off the bat because they were horrid, and then, ...

It's not often I complain about being a mom, in fact, I've wanted this my whole life and I've got some pretty adorable, smart, and healthy boys to show for it! And heck,  I get to stay home with them and I get to participate in their growing up process, and I know that there are people who would give anything to be in my shoes. But, the breaks are few and far between and there are days I'd give anything for time alone in the car say... on a drive home from work. But, recently, there are days where I can think about leaving them for an over night trip. Something we've not yet done. Yes. I admit, it's been three years and my husband and I have not had a night away from our kids. We've gone on dates and have spent many a nights up with wine, cheese and chocolate while we enjoy adult company, one another, or even a favorite TV show, and, if we lived closer to family and if our house hadn't flooded, I can assure you that we'd have had more of these ov...

  I have to admit, nine years ago I didn't understand the importance of this day. I understood the word Veteran in the most vague of terms and figured that it probably meant more to my step-dad, uncles and grandparents. In fact, I didn't really even understand the military, where I'm from, there are no active duty bases, and the military community of reservists was small, so, I couldn't understand why people would sign up for war. In fact, I was so niave that I thought that being in the mlitary meant that you were just signing up for war. I didn't understand the military spouse, the 50s style language of "honor" and "service" to ones spouse and country, and why so many of them stayed at home with their children instead of working. And of course, I could never understand the sacrifice of what it means to be "military".  Sure, I'd seen war movies, I'm a history major: I've read testimonials, books and papers, and I've un...