Merry Christmas from the Durrs!

We probably won't be sending out Christmas cards this year so this will have to do for our Christmas card. This has been the hardest year for our family ever. Ryan was deployed last Dec right before Christmas to Kuwait for a year. It was one of the most challenging things I have ever had to go through. It wasn't all bad though. We got to talk to Daddy a lot on skype on the phone. He sent the kids books with DVD's of him reading the story. We had some fun too while Daddy was away. We took two big roads trips, one west, one east. And we traveled all over Texas. (Pictures will follow) We had lots of visitors too! Thanks to my sister Heidi, my mom and Dad, my in-laws and my good friend Maggie for coming to keep us company. There were so many wonderful people around here that were always there for us whether it be holidays or babysitting or just keeping me company. I have to say we were taken care of. I actually didn't have to take either of my kids to the ER once during the deployment. Deployment does seem to be the time that everything goes wrong. I did have to call poison control for Jack twice though. Crazy stuff did happen. While Daddy was away Jack weaned and potty trained. He's such a big boy now. Caroline started kindergarten and started reading! It is always adventurous with two little ones around. But I know I we only made it through this because of the strength we received from the Lord. I am so grateful for the blessings bestowed upon us this year. While all this craziness was going on at home, it seemed Ryan was relaxing in the desert. He was promoted to SGT while he was in Kuwait. I was sad I missed it but still happy for him. But I really do think it was harder for him, because he was away from us and had less to do. R&R was in Sept. and it was so wonderful. I did have to pick up Ryan from DFW airport which is always an adventure and I was lost and so anxious, I just knew something was going to go wrong. I had no idea where I was even going. All I was given was a time, no flight number or where to meet him. Luckily the ladies in the parking toll booth knew. I arrived maybe 5 minutes before Ryan walked off the plane. It was one of the most wonderful moments in my life. We spent the next 4 days in fort worth and we had so much fun just the two of us. The kids were so happy to see him. Jack had been wondering what happened to Daddy and was so excited to finally find him. We had a great time. It was hard to see him leave but I was still happy and excited because we found out right before he left that we were expecting!! We will have a new member of the family in May of next year. Of course the last three months of deployment were filled with morning sickness and tiredness and not as much fun as the first 9 months of the deployment. But I had awesome visiting teachers and home teachers who helped me out so much. And a great neighbor who would take Caroline to school for me if I needed. Anyway it is finally over and we are looking forward to what this year brings. We will have a new baby and will be getting out of the army and leaving the hood. But we are excited for all the changes to come our way! Merry Christmas and I hope everyone has a wonderful year to come!

 Ryan doin ghis job in Kuwait

 This is what they spent their time doing.

 Ryan at his promotion

 First speech as Sgt. Durr.

 Ryan and his weapon.  He was given the biggest one for some reason.

Just another day in the desert.

 Ryan's homecoming.  Happy Wife!

 The Kids were happy to see Daddy too!

No one cared about Mommy anymore now that Daddy was home!!!

More of our house.

 Here are a few more pics of our house that I could find.  I can't wait to decorate everything for Christmas and take pictures!

This room is suppose to be a dinning room but it isn't even by the kitchen and we only have table so we stuck some other stuff in there.

Our house.

Whenever we move I always say I am gonna take pictures and show everyone our knew home. Yeah well we have lived here a year now so I decided to just post a few pics of our house of rooms that I can get clean enough to show people. Nothing too exciting. It is on post housing and my decorating skills arn't that good. But I said I would post pictures a year ago.

Jack's room if you can't tell.

The Princess's room.

I picked these flowers one day and thought they looked so well there I took a picture.

Yeah my fridge is always a disaster inside, out and on top of.

My Rooster Kitchen.

I know i have pictures of my living room somewhere I will just have to find them and post them in another post.

Cheese Face!!

It is so hard to get good pictures of the kids these days because everytime I get the camera out

This happens...


They look so cute playing and then they do what I call the the cheese face whenever I want to take a picture. I try to tell Caroline open your eyes more or close them or just smile normal. It only makes it worse. How could such a cute little girls school photos turn out so horribly wrong. I will spare you those. I was like really photographer you charge 40 bucks and this is what we get really. It's like they don't even make an effort to take a good picture. They are still cute though and I love taking pictures of them! I am hoping his is just a phase and his years school pictures will be better.

Celebrating Caroline's Birthday at Ft. Meade!

On Caroline's real birthday we celebrated with family and friends at the Ft. Meade bowling ally. They have dollor thursdays. It's a dollor to bowl, a dollor for shoes, and a dollor for pizza. It was a good deal and the kids had so much fun. They were super cute bowling and did well. I am the worst boweler ever, but the kids are great!




Caroline and Maggie

Caroline bowling. The kids kept wanting to slide down that alligator thing.

Jack Cheesing for the camera.

He had to do it all by himself.

He had his own specialway of bowling.

He liked to back into the ball to make it go down.

He was so cute.

Celebrating Caroline's Birthday in Texas!

Before we left for our summer adventure we celebrated Caroline's birthday at Ft. Hood. We met a few of her good friends at the pool and then did cake and presents with just family. It was very laid back and very enjoyable. Jack took a nap during the whole thing so it got to be all about Caroline which is a rarity with Jack around. She got a little mermaid barbie and a prince charming and a few outfits for them, a movie (barie and the magic pegasus, I hate those barbie movies.) and she got a big barbie doll house, which I somehow got for free from Amazon. She loves it and it took forever to get it together and I thought I took pictures of it but I guess not. She loves it and was so surprised. It is always easy shopping for Caroline. She is really into Barbies but we mostly only do the Princess ones cause they usually come with more clothing. And it was difficult finding a normal looking Ken doll. I don't know what is going through the head of people who make these things, so we went with Prince Charming. She loves the pool and has become a very good swimmer and has even gotten to practice her swimming skills at the six flags wave pool this summer and then later in the ocean. She loves it and wasn't scared of the waves at all but she was scaring me. Oh to be 5 again...

Caroline in the pool with her friends.

Jack having fun in the "poo" too.

My second attempt at a castle cake. Hey the pan cost like 30 bucks so I am gonna use it as long as I can. It turned out a lot better this year, we'll see if I can do better in years to come.


Caroline holding her Ariel Doll and cheesing for the camera.

My Baby Girl Turned 5!!!

I know this is way late and I know I say it everytime, but where does the time go? I can't believe Caroline is five! She is getting to be such a big girl. She finished Pre-K last spring and will be going to kindergarten in the fall. She loves school and was the teachers pet for sure. Always a good girl and super smart. She is so nice and patient with her little brother. She loves church, swimming, monkey bars, and Rapunzel. She is always telling me she will never cut her hair again because she wants it to be long like Rapunzel. Well whatever stops her from taking the sissors to her hair again. She loves playing with friends and her cousins. She is very social and is a great friend. She gets naughty from time to time of course, but I am so lucky to have such a wonderful daughter. It is hard to believe that she is gonna be a moody teenager one day. For now she is my sweet little girl growing up too fast. I love you Caroline!!

Caroline in the spring flowers in Texas!

Caroline and her awesome teacher, Mrs. Rives.

Sibling bonding.

This is generally how I find the little monkeys after I send them to bed. Jack loves his sister. Tonight I went up to give them something and they were in bed together and Caroline was "reading' to Jack. So sweet. And don't you love how Jack is all sprawled out. I love it when they play together. They are the nicest to each other in the bath and have so much fun in there and trouble as you can see from my last post. But Jack has trouble going to sleep and I think it is so sweet that he is comforted by his sister. I hope they love each other as they grow older and not fight all the time, cause we got plenty of that going on already too. But I think they are friends first, and always will be.

Mr. accident prone

This is one of many of a string of injuries Jack has had recently. I often find myself asking questions like how many times are you gonna bleed this week? Or how many food items are you going to dump out today? But Jack already has one scar under his chin from an incident with the stroller and side walk. But within the last few weeks, Jack fell and bit his tongue and was bleeding like crazy everywhere, and of course I had to take him to a sitter that night because I had to drive the youth to Waco. Then about a week later he busted his lip messing around in the car. His hand slipped and he face planted into the shifter. I was like oh my gosh you are bleeding again? And of course that night I had to take him to the same sitter for Young Womens. She probably thinks I abuse my kids. We gave him some popsicles and he was happy about that and the next day you couldn't even tell anything happened. He looked awful though. But then the next night in the bath I run to put cloths away in the room accross the hall and Caroline yells for me to come back and I see Jack holding my razor and his leg is just bleeding and it wont stop. They put their step stool in the bath and got my razor down out of the shower caddy. Those nuaghty little monkeys. I guess Jack had seen me shave and decided he wanted to try it out. It was so sad, he was just like "ouch ouch" I could not get it to stop bleeding, but I am a terrible mother and never take her kids to the hospital or doctor. So I just put a Bandaid on it and called it good. It did stop bleeding and he was fine, but really how much blood is this boy gonna loose. I feel like something else happened between the tongue bite and the busted lip, but I can't remember. He is just so clumsy. Caroline only had one bleeding incident at this age. I do remember her getting hurt a lot though, but not as much as Jack. Now you all are probably calling the authorities on me. But he is tough little boy, and I promise if it is real emergency I will call 911.

Jack the 2 year old....

My little boy has grown up so much and sooo fast. I do not know how he got so big.

Jack right after he was born. He was so tiny.


Jack at 1 year old. I was giving him his first haircut. He was so fat still. I can't believe how much he has changed in just the last year. Where did my fat little boy go.


Here is my two year old little boy. Don't be fooled by that innocent face. He is 100% a two year old. tantrums, irrational behavior ect...
Jack is a boy through and through. He loves cars, balls, and toy story. He gets so excited when he hears the opening credits of toy story. Of course he won't sit through the whole movie. He is too cute. He doesn't say too much, but is starting to more and more everyday. His favorites are Mommy and No. Whenever I leave the room he says "Mommy, Mommy, Where are you?" He is definitley a Mama's boy. I love my little boy so much. If you told me I would love him this much before he was born, I wouldn't have believed you. He is super naughty though don't get me wrong, but I am slow to anger when it comes to Jack. So he is pretty spoiled I'm not gonna lie, but I hate to see my baby boy cry. Thats where Daddy comes in. He loves Daddy too and whenever Ryan or any other man (like the maintence guy) are aroud doing some kind of handy work, Jack is right there to help. He always wants to be where the men are. It's funny how my kids are just so gender specific, though Jack does for some reason like to steal Caroline's panties?? Once I found a whole stash in his room. I was wondering where all her underwear were going. Anywho I could gush forever about my naughty little bitter, but I will stop, but I can't get over how much he has grown and changed. I really was in denial about him growing up.

Jackers turned 2!!!

Mr. Jack turned 2. Can you believe it? I thought he was gonna stay a baby. Anywho these are some picture from his little party we had for him. i didn't take as many pictures as I did video tape, but I am not sure how to get those off the camera let alone onto the computer. He was a cranky boy because he woke up at 6am that morning. But he enjoyed opening presents and eating cake. We had a pinata, but the kids didn't really get it, but they did hit each othe with the stick so we had to end that game. Jack's favorite present was his Toy Story underwear. Hopefully this is a sign he will be easy to potty train. So not looking forward to that.

Caroline and her little friend Gracie. They matched.


MMM cake. His hands were all blue because he already got into the icing and then he got it all over the place.

Birthday boy!

woody cake