Kimber's Navy Family

I always dreamed about having a daughter. After two miscarriages (one of them being a molar pregnancy ), 4 boys (including a set of identical twin boys), and a rough start to our 6th pregnancy , I felt that our chances of having a girl were pretty low. I've heard throughout this pregnancy: "Oh, my old neighbor growing up had seven boys! Then they had their girl." "My mom's best friend has five girls." "Our cousin is pregnant with her fourth boy. They are stopping after this one! No more boys for them!" And then myself. I have two friends with four boys: one just had her 5th and it was a girl, the other just had her 5th and it was a boy. Ahh! So I scheduled my 20 week anatomy scan at my last OB appointment. The earliest they could get me in was 4 weeks away, when I would be 22+ weeks. I really thought I could wait that long. It would be torture, but I figured I just needed to hunker down and wait. I called my mom and told her to mark her calen...

"We are pulling up one more chair to the table... Baby #5 due June 2016!" The last time I wrote a blog post was on November 1st, 2015.... so Happy New Year! What's been going on over here with me?! Well, first of all, we are expecting again! Baby #5 is due June 2016. We are thrilled. Of course we are hoping that this one is a girl. A friend of mine with four boys recently gave birth to her fifth and it was a girl. I feel like there is *hope* but I also feel that after delivering 4 boys, it is a bit of a long shot. Who knows. Fingers crossed, right? I'm 16 weeks right now so we should find out in the next 2-4 weeks what the gender is of baby #5. I think the biggest reason I haven't blogged in so long is that this pregnancy was off to a really rocky start and it sent me into a bit of a depression. Initially the pregnancy didn't look viable. The ultrasounds didn't look good and we weren't given much hope. In fact, they ran bloodwork to rule out ...

Bear with me... I love Project Runway. I love watching people pursue their dreams and have an opportunity to let their creativity run wild, to focus solely on their passion. (When, as adults, do we have a chance to be thrown in neck deep to forget about the rest and just do what we love?) As I was watching Project Runway this season, I started thinking about a common theme through all the seasons of Project Runway, creating that moment . Runway fashion is about that moment when the model turns the corner on the runway and the audience gasps at the design and innovation of the created piece. It isn't about practicality or what went in to the outfit or the budget or any of that; it is that elusive moment of excitement and intrigue over what you are witnessing for that brief period of time. The model walks down the runway, pauses, let's you take it in, and then turns-- vanishes-- poof! She has gone back stage and the moment is gone. You are left thinking about what you saw. ...

I'm super tired and working on my second latte of the day. Fairly certain the plans I had today (i.e. get dressed) are going to go out the window, so why not just throw in the towel now, curl up on the couch, and write a blog post? I wrote a post awhile ago called, " Why do I feed our toddlers? " Since we recently moved and I'm introducing myself to new people in a desperate attempt to make friends, I have been hearing a lot of comments like, "4 boys! Wow!" and "I don't know how you do it with 4." If you read my last blog post , I don't know how we are doing life right now either, so here's my response: Why I have 4 children 10. I enjoy mess. Unless I'm picking Play-Doh, Legos, sand, or small rocks off my feet when I walk on our hard floors, I'm not happy. Thankfully our children provide me with that lovely experience daily. 9. I enjoy mess. Let's not leave off the carpeted upstairs. Who likes walking in the dar...

You know what's hard? Life. Marriage. Being a parent. All of that. I've been feeling like a failure lately in my endeavors. People say things to me like, "I don't know how you do it!" and "You are a supermom" and "4 boys? You are amazing." Most of it is lip service from strangers, the go-to things that people say to moms (and moms for 4 boys). It goes in one ear and out the other most of the time, but lately those comments have been giving me stress. This was a crazy move for us, a big change returning to boat life and living across country from my family. I feel like I'm barely holding on and that I'm frequently dropping the ball with our kids. We wrestled with our decision to send our oldest to public school instead of continuing homeschooling him. We wrestled with the decision to homeschool our 4-year old twins instead of re-configuring the budget to send them to preschool. We've been wrestling with the decision on whethe...

One of the things I hear about all the time is the idea of a "Navy family," not as in my blog title, Kimber's Navy Family, which refers to our nuclear family, but a temporary family comprised of military members and their families supporting each other. People post pictures about how they love their Navy family, "Don't know what I would do without these girls! Love my Navy family!" Or make comments about how their Navy family helped get them through certain times in their life. I myself talk often about our Navy family . The past couple weeks, the concept of a Navy family has materialized once again in real and practical ways in my life. While we were away from the Navy community during my husband's years at college, I almost forgot about how present a Navy family is and just how much help our Navy family offers. Our Navy family truly becomes far more than just people we meet, but family , people that step into our lives and lift us up, people that brin...

Picture taken by Liz Benroth Photography Back to life with my husband on submarines. I've been posting about our STA-21 journey for a couple years now, since I started this blog. And now we are here-- our household goods have arrived, we are settled in a new house in a new state, and we are at our new duty station. It was brought to my attention a little while ago when a civilian friend of mine-- a friend who's husband is not in the military-- that when I say we are "back on submarines," people don't have any idea what that means. (Or for that matter what STA-21 and duty stations and PCS-ing mean.) So for everyone who is curious, welcome to Kimber's Navy Family. What does it mean to be married to a submariner? Submarines are called the silent service . They run secret, classified missions and operate undetected in the waters. As such, they have stringent operations security (OPSEC) measures. The exact dates they leave and come home are cl...