Living Between the Sirens!

Thanks to Tropical Storm (now I think "depression") Fay...we have been experiencing some interesting weather here in Central Alabama. Many of my close friends know that this interesting weather was one of the reasons that I was nervous about living here in Alabama! Just give me a basement, even if it's small, and I would be much less nervous; but here, there really are no such things as basements! Yesterday the sirens went off four times for our county. Justin would go outside and look, I would go turn on the TV; and all four of those times were for tornadoes that were at least 15 miles away from us. Still a little nerve racking but doable. I was thankful that Justin was home and we had several discussions about what particular "closet" or "inside room" was the safest for our brood just in case!!


Bright and early this morning as we were getting ready to head out to school, the sirens started again! It was raining pretty hard, but when we turned on the TV this time the warning was for us...in fact the words they used were "If you are in Prattville, take cover!" The next few minutes they start tell you how many minutes until this funnel cloud will be in your town...so we hunkered down in the bathroom and said a little prayer!


We had the radio on, and set up the computer so that the boys would be a little bit distracted! It worked out well, except Eli's whole goal in life was to grab the computer! He is quite a persistent little guy!!


Seth taking a little break and laying down at Dad's feet. On a side note for those of you who know he was sick and took a quick trip to the ER on Saturday morning...he is doing better. He actually has a little color in his cheeks and felt well enough to go to school today.

Justin just relaxing?? They tell you to bring pillows and blankets with you for protection...we figured the bean bags would work nicely?



I couldn't get outside to take a picture of the weather, but this is a shot of the water pouring off of the roof! We have a small lake in the back yard...and rain is expected all day again today!

When it was all said and done, Prattville came out unscathed...the warning was lifted (watches are still in effect most of the day). The boys went to school just and hour late...and we went on with our morning - at least until the next siren!! For those of you who have gone through this many times will probably just laugh at us...but for us western kids this is a whole new ball game for us!

Thanks Fay for gracing us with your presence!! And our thoughts our with you Trevor as you, your friends, and your boat get hammered with Tropical storm Julio! Be Safe!!

Praise God!

This is the story of the Mulkey House in Colorado Springs...as many of you know we moved out the end of July as the Air Force has moved us to Alabama. What the AF doesn't do when they move you is find a renter/buyer for your home. Vonnie and I had put a lot of faith in our property manager to be able to get a renter in our house by 1 August. As you might know 1 August came and went without a renter...we made our first month's worth of Mortgage and Rent payments...it didn't hurt us horribly, but did make us a little nervous and uncomfortable.

Three more weeks passed, we have had some stuggles with our property manager, Vonnie and I were starting to get to the point of inviting the Manson Family into renting our house, just to have someone in the house, and not to have to continue making double payments. Meanwhile God had provided for us to be able to do this for 3-4 more months...even though it would not have been desirable. We were even starting to really believe we needed to be back in Colorado Springs after Alabama for financial reasons...not because God has put a clear desire in our heart. (Vonnie said in My heart...apparently she REALLY REALLY wants to go back there!!)

Thursday afternoon I (Justin) finally gave it over to God. Knowing that we have not been in need, and we have learned a little bit more about being good stewards of what we do have. I didn't want to continue making double payments, but I had a little more "peace" about God's faithfulness and us not being in need...only want.

I came home from "work" (if you can call being a college student a full time job--work) on Friday and was 6 steps into the house when Vonnie told me we had prospective renters for our house. (Retired military, 1 older child, no pets...)They had EXCELLENT credit, and we were only waiting for a report from their last landlords...(Remember we were ready for the Manson Family...so it didn't greatly matter to us!!) Their previous landlords were sorry to see them go and when they went into the house it was "LIKE NEW!" Needless to say, this was much better than the Manson Family.

We just wanted to take a minute to show how God truly had a much better plan than we were willing to settle for, and also used the "hardship" to grow us in the stewardship area. Thank you all who may have been praying for us, and those who haven't please praise Him on our behalf, the next time you talk to Him.

First Week of School!

The older Mulkey boys were off to school this week. Zach missed the Kindergarten cut off date by about 2 weeks, so he is in a 4 year old "kindergarten" and Seth is in a 3 year old "kindergarten." They have been so excited about heading off to school, and it has been a perfect opportunity for them to start making some new friends!


Isn't this what you would stereotypically think a church in the south would look like? This is where the boys are at school, and also the place we decided on to be our church home. We had some information about the school and church prior to arriving here, but one of our main goals was to have some consistancy for the boys - especially since this is such a short assignment! Little did we know that the people in this church (who are very familiar with the "10-month" military families) welcomed us with open arms! It has been great...the boys not only love school, but have really enjoyed a Wednesday music class and Sunday morning classes as well.


This is Monday morning, the boys were headed out to the car. Zach is wearing is "Duck" name tag because he is in the "Ducks" class, Seth is in the "Fish" class! Don't worry Seth isn't attached to his stuffed animal, the teacher asked for each of the students to bring a stuffed animal - the animals got to spend the night in the classroom. The boys did great...it is so fun to see them growing up and experiencing life!

This is a picture inside Seth's class, compliment of his teacher Mrs. Smith! Who wouldn't love to be his teacher??

It is just the start of a very fun year...learning, field trips, parties...and making friends! We'll keep you posted along the way!!

A Birthday Tradition!!

Today Justin finally joined me as a 33 year old!!

Happy Birthday Justin!! We are so thankful that you are home so that we can celebrate this special day with you! The past year certainly has been full of adventures for you and we are certain that this year won't be quite as exciting...but we hope that we can still make many memories just being together!! So cheers and blessings to you! We love you.

O.k., now for the blog!! The Mulkey's have a long standing tradition (I'm really not sure how long), of having Checker board cakes for their birthdays. According to Justin, he and his brothers starting having these cakes "around Junior high or so...?"


I had never heard of one of these when I joined into the Mulkey family, but my sister-in-law Gennie bought me one of these special cake pan kits - enabling me to make these for Justin!
A lot of time, work and preparation goes into a cake coming out as perfect as it is in this picture; and since I had been under the weather for several days (fever, chills, probably the flu) Justin firmly believed that I would not be able to complete this task in time for tonight's big event. So...he called for reinforcements.


"Hey guys...the ingredients are 2 of those, 1 of those and 1 of those..." Seth is a serious worker in the kitchen and always wants to know what the ingredients are!


A little bit less egg yolk certainly won't hurt at all, right??


Once all the mixing is complete, the cake batter must VERY CAREFULLY be poured into separate divided areas!!


"Like this!!" Then just repeat that step times three cake pans!!

That's where mom gets involved...to ice the cake - Justin asked if I was going to let the boys help. "Are you kidding?" Well, looks like I could have used it...at least Zach would know how to spell "Birthday."

I was quite sure we would end up with more of a marble cake...

Not bad for a finished product!!

Happy Birthday Justin (and Trevor too if your reading this!!)

FATHER OF THE YEAR!

Hello all...sorry no pictures on this one...I just wanted to pay a tribute to my WONDERFUL wife.

I came home from school today and we cancelled dinner guests because she was sick, Eli has a fever, Seth and Zach are their regular busy selfs.

Vonnie dealt single-handedly for the last year with these situations by herself. SHE IS TRULY MY HERO!!!

I made every effort to help out and be wonder dad...here is how it went.

Vonnie laid down for a nap...Eli laid down for about 45 minutes, and Zach and Seth played computer games for almost an hour! I know, I know...FATHER OF THE YEAR!! Eli then woke up and was cranky, so I figured I would put him in a bath...that worked for about 5 minutes and then he got cranky again, but now he was wet and needed clothes on.

Meanwhile Zach and Seth were starting to get a little hungry, so I set to making them dinner...Mac N Cheese and chicken nuggets! I know, I know, FATHER OF THE YEAR! (Just in case you were wondering, dry pasta WILL catch fire and flame up if you put it in direct contact with the electric burner on the stove!) But everyone got to eat...

Zach gets up from Dinner and says, "I am going to lay down for a little rest with my lights on..." (Bizarro World!--or more likely another gift from God) He fell asleep and we put a diaper on over his big boy pants. Now I am going to tuck Vonnie in and hang out with Seth for a little while...

Beauty...

I was sitting by the kitchen window clipping coupons from the paper when this beauty dropped by for a visit. I watched her for a while before it dawned on me to try to grab a picture! She must have been a model in a former life because she didn't scurry away even when I got close!

Progression of Crabbiness!

Eli is usually all smiles! But like most of us he has those days in which this shirt (thanks Megan)is extremely fitting...today was one of those days!!

It didn't really start out like that! In fact at the grocery store most of the elderly ladies stopped, cooed at him, made him smile, and then made some comment to me about him NOT being crabby...but he's a pretty good actor!

Here's how the rest of the day went..."Hey mom look outside..."

"Really Mom, look outside, let's go out...I am SOOOOO bored in here..."

"I know it's pouring rain outside, but I still want to go outside. Aren't you tired of me hanging onto your legs all day?"

"If you won't take me out, I'll just climb out on my own!."

"Fine, you win...but you'll hear about it for the rest of the afternoon!"

The Fish...

Between our neighborhood pool, and our backyard blow up pool our boys have turned into fish! Because it is so hot here, the water comes out of the hose nice and warm, instead of cold, so the boys have made very good use of the backyard pool.

Eli enjoys this more than his bath...maybe because the rules aren't as strict. I let him stand up (not allowed in the bath), I keep the water running slowly (not allowed in the bath), and he can splash as much as he wants (kept to a minimum in the bath).

Seth also is a big fan of the blow up pool...and of spitting. He loves to drink water out of the hose and then spit it at whatever or whoever happens to be in front of him at the time. He was a little put out when I told him spitting in people's faces wasn't really o.k., so he resorted to just spitting over the edge.

Unfortunately I didn't capture a pool picture of Zach; but I did however grab this one of him jumping! Susie, I especially thought you would appreciate this one!! These boys have so much energy, I wish I could tap into it!!

Settling in!

We are almost settled...we have had a very busy week! We are successfully unpacked; everything minus a few last minute things are put away in their new places, the boxes are broken down and waiting for pickup, the thousand pounds of packing paper have been taken away by the sanitation department! The only thing left is to hang curtains, put together the outside play equipment, and organize things a bit! With each move things get easier in one way (we work well together, and know what needs to get done), but things also get harder (an extra child here and there make things busier). We had to take a lot of time to stop and play and to occupy these busy boys to keep them out of trouble and to keep them happy!

Eli was quite a helper...especially in the kitchen. Everytime I turned around he was into a cupboard emptying the contents that I just put in...

The boys saw me unwrap the craft bin and we had to take an immediate "painting" break!

We headed out one afternoon to a small local park. There was a pond, ducks...and lots of bugs!!

Zach piled up in some packing paper - believe it or not, that was from 2 boxes...It's amazing how a piece of china can be wrapped in just one piece of paper, but a small plastic spice bottle can be wrapped in a dozen! Nothing was broken, so I really can't complain!!