We like to play with stupid things.

Buy all the toys in the world that you want.  Your kids may like them.  But nothing from the aisles of Toys R Us compares to the stupid junk around your house that your kids really like playing with.

Turkey baster?  Yep.  They fought over it.

Shower curtain?  Yep, most fascinating thing in the world.

Return envelopes.

Cardboard cutout thingy from a box of tissues.

Well, you get the idea. 

Black Beauty.

Our apartment building on post has seen a lot of tenants over the years, no doubt.  The residents of our buildings are only here for a one year course so people are moving in and out every six months on a rotating schedule.  We all share the same community lawn space and with so many people coming and going, no one really knows who's stuff is who's and what belongs where.  There are no less than five satellite dishes on our front lawn, and there are only four families in our building, and we use cable, so that leaves at least two extraneous dishes that will probably just sit there until someone complains to housing to remove them.  (not it.)

I'm always finding random things strewn about our lawn...mostly from the neighbor's kids.  I just ignore the items most of the time and they disappear again.  Sometimes I arbitrarily accuse the kids next door of leaving their socks on the front porch...and then I realize they are my own kid's socks (that DW loves losing his socks).  

On the side of our building there is this random horse.

I don't know how long it's actually been here. Her name is Black Beauty.  AW wishes he could ride her.

But she's kinda broken.  So I told her he can feed her dandelions instead.  He doesn't want to feed her dandelions though.  He wants to feed her handfuls of dirt.

Here you go, horsey.  Yummy yum.

I don't know who left ol' Black Beauty here.  Since she's broken, I guess I should haul her out to pasture, but we kind of like feeding her dirt, so we'll just let her be for now.  (Note to HW - AW still would like a real horse.  Hope you're working on that.)

A quick Easter summary.

Ok.  Easter came and went and I, of course, am behind on updating the blog.  So here's a quick summary of our Easter. 

 The grandparents came to town.

They brought lots of candy and gifts to bribe the kids into liking them.  Here's a giant lollipop, AW.  Have some sticky, sugary fun!

We put some bunny ears on the kids.  

AW wasn't particularly happy about it.

We took them sightseeing.  Kansas City fountains.  

Legoland.

Barbecue.

We forced the kids to sit next to the Easter bunny.  AW wouldn't let his death grip go on HW's shirt, so then we were all forced to sit next to the Easter bunny.

Saw a miniature pony in a store.  (He wouldn't look up from eating for the picture.)  

And tired those little guys out.

Then we perked them up with some chocolate, dressed them in matching outfits, took them to church  and let them hunt for eggs.  

Psst...the eggs are right here AW, let's get this show on the road so I can eat more of "your" chocolate...

And got a family photo out of it.  Where AW refused to look at the camera.

All in all a pretty darn good time.

It was great having family here to celebrate with...and the boys loved being completely spoiled.

One thousand.

Fort Nonsense has hit 1000 page views today!  Break out the wine!

It can be a bit lonely out here in military-family-land. Far from family and friends, far from the familiar places of my own childhood and far from things that were past.  I watch life going on without us back home. I forget what normal is supposed to feel like. I make new friends and then leave them. I wonder where we are going next - feeling like a pin that is just randomly picked up off one portion of a map and then dropped down in another - abandoned in another new adventure.

HW's job is continually demanding.  Some days it feels like I am just slogging along waiting for his work to settle down for a moment so we can take a breath and enjoy where we are, but then something always seems to come up, and before I know it I look at the calendar and another half a year has gone by.  Time just keeps shoving us on and forward without much chance at looking back.

Having this blog to come to at the end of some very long days has been comforting. Knowing family and friends, or whoever, can get a peek at what we are doing somehow makes it less isolated.

Thank you all for visiting Fort Nonsense.  Thank you for reading our stories. As always, I would love to hear your comments.

Now, seriously, break out some wine!

Sharing.

AW is always policing his little brother to make sure he's not having any fun.   AW especially doesn't like when DW touches his things.  (Well, in all honesty, AW doesn't like when DW touches any thing.) No matter what his little brother has in his hands, AW stomps over, grabs it from him, and says, "MINE."  Then he puts the item somewhere out of DW's reach.  DW gets mad and swears his revenge.

DW is on a mission to touch all of AW's stuff.  He loves sneaking into AW's train stash and licking all his Thomas the Tank Engines.

AW:  "No!  Mine!"

Because we tell AW that he has to let DW lick his things, he has come up with a new strategy to irritate his little brother.  He thinks, if you touch my things, then I will touch all of your things. I will read Orbit in your Rock N Play.

I will watch Paw Patrol in your Bumbo seat.

I will lounge happily in your swing.

And...well, you get the picture.  Little does he know that his silent protest has little to no effect on DW.  He is still going to touch everything.  

 And put it in his mouth.

That's what little brothers are for - making sure your cool stuff has a good coating of baby saliva on it.

Fashionable guy.

Spring is officially here.  The weather has been gorgeous and warm this week.  But, someone hasn't gotten the memo.

 I guess I was a really good mom all winter and drilled it into this kid's head that he needed a hat, coat and gloves every time we left the house.  So now that it's warm out, AW is the one telling me that he can't go outside without his gear.  I was able to convince him to go sans jacket on this day, but he insisted on hat and gloves.  He didn't want to hear that it was 70 degrees.

And he played at the park like that for a good half an hour before deciding to take them off.  A great thing about being two years old - no one side-eyes you when you're wearing winter clothes in April.  They actually think it's kinda cute.

You didn't cross your fingers, did you? (mad face)

DW had one more good puke in him last night.  Silly me, I thought we were done!  So HW and I cleaned him up, took him to bed with us and then spent the next several hours lying awake staring at our little puke machine.  Anytime he moved we jumped, ready for puking action, but he just kept falling back asleep.  At around 4 am I decided he'd be better off back in his crib because mom and dad need sleep sometimes too.

The rest of the day I clorox'ed everything in sight.  There must be an end to the madness!  AW was my helper.

He decided we needed ALL of the cleaners out.

And after all my hard work scrubbing away, I found him in the kitchen licking the floor for no good reason.  

Kitchen helper.

AW loves helping in the kitchen.  And pretty much the only way I can make dinner while keeping two kids happy when HW isn't home to distract them is to wear one and let the other one "help."

There are these cute things on the market called "learning towers" that are a safe way for kids to be helpers in the kitchen.  They retail for about $200 and take up a huge amount of room, so we did our own version with a fold away step stool.  It doesn't have the fancy height adjustor or four-sided safety enclosure but it was 25 bucks and takes up zero floor space when folded. I just have to keep a close eye on him while he's using it.

Here AW is "helping" me make lasagna.  

Yep, we need garlic powder, AW. Good job.  Ok, now we need salt.

Ok, whoa, that's a lot of salt.  AW?  Hello?  Stop pouring salt everywhere!  Oh, you have stopped listening to me and are just dead set on pouring salt now.  Ok, I get it.  Backing away now and finishing dinner while you are in the "zone."  Now, I know what you are thinking.  Stop the kid from wasting salt!  Well, then we have a half hour meltdown to deal with and I've got to get dinner ready in 15.  Calculated risks, people. Everyone's happy at this moment in time and everyone will get dinner.  I'll clean up later when they go to bed and try to reuse that salt for cleaning purposes.  Did you know pouring salt on a wine spill right away will help pull the stain away from fibers?  All good wine drinkers should.    

A trip to the museum.

Well! It's been a while. I bet you thought I forgot all about this blog.  I totally did.  Ha ha. Just kidding. I have been working on another writing project the last two weeks that has just eaten up what VERY little free time I already have...and then everyone started puking.

Yes, a puking toddler, infant and mom are really a bad trifecta of disgusting cleanups.  Good thing we have a great HW to help us out when we need him and a great washer and dryer to wash our stuff.

It all started, I believe, on this fateful trip to the local children's museum.  If you've never been to a children's museum they are just a fancy way of saying "here's a place to take your kids when you are tired of them messing up your own home. We built a bunch of rooms with toys that they can freak out in and then someone else has to clean it all up."  But you don't feel bad about taking them to these places because it's called a "museum" so it's "educational."

Here's AW in the room with the balls.  Seriously, it was just a room with a ton of golf balls and things to throw the golf balls down.

Here he is with his pal on a Lego Submarine re-enacting scenes from The Hunt for Red October. 

 Take those Russians down, kids.

And here is Andy playing veterinarian receptionist.  He is very good at making appointments, keeping callers on hold, and watching your baby that you left on the counter, too.  Good multitasking skills.

 And this is probably right about where he picked up puking disease:

It's really a calculated risk taking your kids out in public.  You know your kid likes to lick weird things.  You know other kids like to lick weird things.  You know diseases spread through licking things.  But you can't keep them locked up at home all the time, you just have to take your chances out there.

A few days after the museum AW started puking.  Just when we thought it was all over DW started puking.  And then I started puking.  And then AW started puking again.  It was a cute little puking ring around the rosie game.

But now we are better, yay!  (cross your fingers that we are all better.  DO IT. because I can't take any more puking.)