Kimber's Navy Family

I keep reading all these posts about life with a newborn  {note: strong language in that link}, life with twins, life with triplets , life with a toddler... So here's a day in my life: a husband on rotating shiftwork {his shift changes each week}, homeschooling a kindergartner, 3-year old twins, an infant, and a dog and cat. 4:00 am Baby #4 wakes up for first feeding; feed laying down in bed 5:00 am Put baby #4 back in bassinet and go back to sleep 6:30 am Hear toddlers fighting in bathroom. Break up the fight over who gets to use the sink first and send them back to their room. Turn on Keurig. Clean the catbox, sweep the laundry room. 6:45 am Brush teeth, hair, make first cup of coffee, grab my laptop and start writing at the kitchen table. Send toddlers back to bed multiple times. "Is it 7:30 yet?" No, no, no... back to bed! 7:00 am Have all three boys sit on their beds until 7:30 {when they can come out of their room} due to wrestling. Give oldes...

At the risk of sounding like a crazy Tula lady, I decided to write a blog post on Tulas. A friend of mine was asking me about Tulas the other day and when I started explaining the different kinds {canvas, wrap conversions} and about the stockings and buy/sell/trade pages, I realized there is a lot of information to take in and that I must, indeed, sound like a crazy Tula lady. So here it goes.... {In this blog post, I am only going to discuss the Tula buckle carriers , not the ring slings or woven wraps .} First of all, you are probably wondering what a Tula is. It is an ergonomical baby carrier, along the same lines as a Boba or an Ergo ; all three of these are also in the same price point. I really like this blog post by the Happy Hippie Homemaker that explains the differences between the three, " Ergo vs Boba vs Tula carrier comparison. " The blog post is biased towards Tulas, but it still does a good job showing the differences between each carrier. Why did I c...

Having four children does not equate to being up four times as much in the night. I'm always telling my first time mom friends who are worried about ever sleeping again, "You will sleep again. The newborn phase is a phase ." When your sleep is interrupted it feels like it will last that way forever, which it doesn't. It can feel like children will forever wake you and so I try to reassure my friends that their kids will sleep, it won't last forever, and-- hey, see?-- my kids sleep great. Last night was not one of those nights. 6:30 pm Since my hubby has weird hours right now with the Navy, the kids and I went to a friend's house for dinner. Before we left, I had put the children in pajamas so I wouldn't have to wrestle them by myself into pajamas when they were tired and excited from doing something different. I felt very proud of my cleverness when we got home around 6:30 pm and let the boys watch The Croods while our asthmatic toddler did his ...

Our 2-year olds wrestling on a hotel room couch last PCS ;) I wrote a blog post before titled, " PCSing tips from a Navy wife and mother of three ." We have a PCS coming up in the next couple months and so I wanted to write another blog post about how we start preparing several months before an upcoming PCS. Move Notebook The most important aspect to a smooth PCS is organizing all your paperwork which is why the move notebook is so important. I wrote a blog post called " Write it all down " where I explain how I organize our move notebook. The other day I spent the morning getting our move notebook ready for our next move: throwing out and filing paperwork from our last PCS, printing off new note taking pages, adding sections for our new kitten and baby #4. Move notebook: ready. Donating HHG The next step {and one you can never start too early-- seriously} is going through your household goods (HHG). One of the difficult aspects of being a Navy fami...

One of my good friends is doing MOPS this year and has been talking to  me about their theme: being brave as a mother. I can think of several times as a mother that I have had to be braver than I thought I could be, the first coming to mind when one of our son's was in the PICU for 4 days with RSV and there was nothing else the doctors could do for him. Since then there have been other things: asthma flare ups, injuries, sickness, late nights, solo parenting ... Then there have been other times where the lines aren't as clear and I'm praying and praying that I'm making the right choice: disciplining a 6-year old {very different than disciplining 2 and 3 year olds}, disciplining 3 children, speaking up for my parenting choices to others when I'd prefer to stay silent... Last night was a new one for me: having the courage to enjoy the holiday. It has been 4 years since my husband has been on a submarine-- 3 years of college and now going through the officer pi...