We have fruit!

Our summer garden has exploded over the past 2 weeks. William talks about wanting to eat his "wegetable food". I keep trying to explain to him that the plants need to produce fruit and veggies for us. He keeps asking when....it is so cute. If you can grow a garden with your kids, I highly suggest it. It is so much fun and great for learning. If you don't have land for a garden like ours, try small containers for tomatoes.

Here are some recent pics of the growth. These are from Tuesday and Wednesday, May 8 and 9. The last pics were from the last week of April. Look at this growth.....it is amazing.

These are our tomato plants.

These are the corn stalks. They are probably measuring around 6 inches in height.

These are the bush and pole beans. A bit smaller than the corn stalks, but they are pushing up.

Here are some small cherry tomatoes. It takes all I have to not let William pick them....at least we have the fence. Without it I would have to worry about Lisa too.

William LOVES running up and down the rows in the garden. And, just for your information, this is normal dress here in the Capozzoli household...at least for William....shirt and underwear. Be happy he has the underwear on, sometimes it is just the shirt! Aaaahhhh, boys. Loves being naked....like other members on BOTH sides of the family.

Our tomatoes with their cages....and a flash of Lighting McQueen. For those of you who don't know Lighting. He is the Pixar character on William's underwear from the movie Cars.

The cucumber and squash in our pumpkin patch.

An entire view of the patch.

Our pumpkins and cantaloupe.

RTB Open house, sweet loves, and one gross sack!

The 6th Ranger Training Battalion Open House was on Sunday, May 6th. In a previous post I wrote about Open House and the activities that RTB puts on for the public. Check out the label "Army Life" for information. Anyway, the 5K/10K that Kevin and C Company organized was a HUGE success. The company and Kevin are VERY proud of themselves. Both Kevin and I participated in the race. Kevin ran the 10K and I walked the 5K. It was a great morning!

Open House also had a great turnout. Two of our friends came with their families. Both have boys who were so excited to see snakes, Alligators, shoot weapons, and paint their faces. It was great fun seeing the excitement on their faces. One boy, Jacob, talks about Army all the time (his daddy is in the Air Force), so to see Army stuff and play Army Ranger was thrilling for him. It was too cute! William loved being with the kids and going from demonstration to demonstration. He really wanted to get his face painted. By the end of the morning, we were all so tired and ready to head home. My sweet Paulie amazed me and everyone by just sitting in the wagon and occasionally talking/squalling as people passed by.

William REALLY wanted his face painted, but did not want me to take his photo. This is the best shot I could get....without getting told "NO" by him. He was so proud of his face....he was a worker man just like Daddy.

As with William, now that Paulie is getting older my two favorite times of the day are returning. I LOVE the mornings when I get to awaken my loves and am greeted with sweet smiles. The second favorite part of my day is when my loves are fast asleep (in their own beds) and I get to relax with Kevin. This morning I was greeted by these sweet faces and just could not resist a photo shoot. Every mom should be so lucky to have sweet smiles like these!


My William has turned into such a sweet, loving big brother. I knew he had it in him...it was just hidden for some time. Paulie is a lucky boy to have a sweet big brother.

Kevin and I have been trying to get our backyard to be more pleasant and user-friendly. We have a sandbox for William to play in and the garden is REALLY take off......look for future posts on the growth. Last summer, we purchases a mosquito deleto and thought that is was not working. With spring arriving, we cleaned up the backyard and tried to getting the deleto working.....um.....I think it is working. Here is a photo of the sack after changing out the propane tank. This was taken after 2 weeks of use! Look at all of those mosquitoes....yuck, yuck, yuck is all I have to say.

Our house, part 3

I tried to take some pictures of Camp the other day. It was so hot out we only made it to the playground, or as Dora says "play park". I am going to try and take some soon. Here are the ones I did manage to take.

Pics of the playground as you drive into the housing area. The pool is over by the black car in the background, as well as the gym. It is a TOTAL boy gym, so I don't use it much.

This is the first circle of homes as you drive thru the housing area. We are walking towards the playground...out of the housing area....to orient you.

This is the second circle of homes. Ours is on the right, with the mini-van in the driveway.

Another view of our circle...the other side.

Our house, part 2

On Tuesday, William and I cleaned up the front lawn. We are getting ready for Open House this weekend. Open House is when the Ranger Camp opens up to the public and we have demonstrations of Ranger training....hand to hand combat, repelling, weapons shooting, ambush raids....typical Army stuff. With people coming out, they want the Camp looking nice. And, I am sick and tired of having leaves in my entry way. I love the tree in our front yard, but I hate the tree in our front yard. Not a fan of the leaves it drops. Anyway, here are some photos of the house.

This is our backyard from our porch area. I think our tree might be dead....not too many leaves on it. In the background is William's sandbox. We are hoping to get a swing set in the backyard this summer.

A view of the back of the yard towards the house. You can see the garden.

Another view of the back yard and back of the house.

The front of the house. Ours is the one with the blue mini-van. And, yes, I did trade in my SUV for a mini-van. After having William and having my back thrown out by taking him in and out of the Tahoe I realized that form and function are more important than image....for me. So we now have a mini-van. And it has more room than the Tahoe! I love it!

Another shot of the front of the house.

A side view of our house. Kevin ripped up this portion of the grass because it was Dollar weeds and has put down grass seed. We are waiting for it to take off.

Summer garden update....we have growth!!!!!

While I was away the garden grew by leaps and bounds! The tomato plants have started to get flowers. The flowers will then bear the fruit! The seeds that we planted have sprouted and are pushing up through the soil. Kevin had gone out for work and was not able to see the garden for about 24 hours. In that time period, he says the garden growth took off. It is wondrous to see your hard work turn into something that will produce many meals and memories for our family. Here are some pictures. These are from the weeks of April 19-April 30th. We will post more as the garden grows.

A tomato plant with flowers.

Our corn that is pushing up through the soil.

Some of the beans that are coming through.

Another plant with a flower.

Our cantaloupe plants.

Our house

I thought since I have this blog I would take some photos of the house here on Eglin Air Force Base to have a record of it. We have taken photos of every home we have lived in....but I just store the pictures or they are on my computer. So now I can display this home. The house has a very useable floor plan. It can be small at times....I do try to keep it tidy. When it is tidy it does not seem so small. When it is dirty and things are EVERYWHERE (because of children) then it seems really small. Even if you can't visit, at least you can see where we live. I should take some photos of camp too. Note to self, take pics of the LONG drive and camp. I will also try to take some photos of the front and back of the house.

Here are some photos of William's room. It is an under the sea theme. He loves the fish! I painted the room and then my mother helped me paint the sea grass. William even has some fish nightlights.

This is Paulie's room. Bright and cheery. There really is not theme....like William's room as a baby, green was his theme....so I guess yellow would be Paulie's theme.

This is our kitchen. I painted the walls green, then I stenciled them with a cream paint. I also painted the cabinets the same cream color. It really brightened up the kitchen. If you have even lived, or visited, military housing quarters....I am talking the OLD ones....then you know just how beautiful the kitchen cabinets are! Angie, think Benning and imagine how small, dirty, and dingy those cabinets made the kitchen. This is a major improvement!

This is the kitchen and office/play area looking in from the dinning room.

This is our office/play area right off of the kitchen. This is where we spend alot of time. I did not paint in here because the existing color was complementary to the kitchen.

This is our family room which also looks into our dinning room. I painted these walls a nice camel color. Actually, Kevin painted these two rooms...as a Mother's Day present for me. Kevin is not much of a painter so for him to paint that was very thoughtful.

This is our dinning room/area that is right behind the family room. It also looks straight into the kitchen. Kevin also painted this area for me!

This is our bedroom. For a master bedroom in military housing this is HUGE! We are able to fit two dressers, a large bench, and a king size bed in this room! We also have a walk-in closet....which is big for military housing. I painted this room a dark putty color and then stenciled one wall with a lighter color. This was my last room to paint and took the longest.

Back home and back to reality......aaaahhhh

We made it back to Camp Rudderville in about 9 hours! I can not believe the drive went that fast or that the boys were soooooo good. We even stopped for breakfast and lunch along the way so that we could stretch and get some energy out. William and Paul were so good. They slept the first few hours and then William watched his shows while Paul drifted between sleep and play. It was a good drive. I am glad that my mother was able to help me. I still don't feel comfortable driving for 10 hours with the two of them myself. Maybe when Paul is older and not so bottle dependant!

When we arrived home my FABULOUS husband had cleaned the entire house, washed our bedsheets, was doing laundry, AND had cooked us dinner! I am so surprised and so happy! I am wondering though.....who are you....this person masquerading as Kevin.......? Who ever you are, I need to leave more often! It is wonderful being missed so AND coming home to a warm, clean and loving home! I truly am blessed.

A big milestone happened for Paul while visiting my parents......he is off COMPLETELY of his nighttime bottles! YAY!!!!!!!!!! It was the smoothest transition. I said...well, tonight is the night that the bottles stop. We'll see how it goes. And he slept through the night! Amazing! Occasionally he will awaken for a binkie and cry out....but then it is right back to sleep. He goes to sleep at 8PM and awakens at 6AM for a bottle. This is so doable! I tried to work hard to get this pattern for the grandparents. They are coming to visit/sit with the kids while Kevin and I travel to Italy. I know that constant awakening at night is tiresome.....so they will no longer have to worry about Paulie. Just Lisa....making sure the old gal gets out during the night so she doesn't pee in the house.

Well, enough rambling from me. I will put some new photos up soon. They are of the garden while I was away......I have to upload them first.....and I no longer have two willing babysitters. So it may take some time. Check back.