Forever my Marine

Chapter #22

Chapter 22
Nobody’s POV
After finishing Frozen, they decided to watch some other Disney movies. Currently watching The Lion King. Louri and Devon are dancing and singing to I Just Can’t Wait To Be King. “Everybody look left, everybody look right, everywhere you look I’m standing in the spotlight!” Devon sings, while everyone is enjoying them being silly together. Scarlett pulls out her phone recording the cuteness in front of them, loving every single bit of it. Seeing how happy Devon is singing and dancing with his Mama. The song ends and they plop down on the couch catching their breaths, everybody clapping their hands for them. “Thank you, thank you.” Louri and Devon say. They continue watching the movie, singing along and being goofy. Not a care in the world.

Louri’s POV
After Lion King, I notice that it is getting late. Time to get the kids to bed. “Alright, it’s time for bed.”
I say. “Aww, do we have to?” Devon asks. “Yes little marine, it’s getting late. But tomorrow is Mama and Devon day.” I tell him as his eyes get wide in excitement. “I can’t wait for you to teach me how to make a birdhouse!” he says. “It’s going to be great.” I tell him. “Now please go upstairs and wash up, your Mommy and I will be right up to tuck you in.” I say to him. He nods and gets up and says goodnight to Chris, Shanna, Bri, Melanie and my ma and heads upstairs to get ready for bed. I see that Louisa has dozed off on Chris. I get up to grab her and he stops me saying he will bring her up. I nod and kiss her on the head. I turn and say goodnight to Shanna and Bri and then to Ma and Melanie. Scarlett stands up holding Maya who waves to everybody and says goodnight. We head upstairs and Scarlett goes to give Maya a bath while I grab some PJs from the girls room. Chris changed Louisa and put her down in her bed and put her stuffed teddy bear next to her. He gave me a small smile and headed out of the room. I grabbed Maya her PJs and headed back to our room and into the bathroom. Scarlett just finished up giving Maya her bath and was drying her off with a towel. “All set for bed?” I ask. Maya nods her head sleepily, fighting to stay awake making me chuckle a little. Scarlett hands her to me and I bring her out to our bed and get her dressed. We bring her to her and her sister’s room and tuck her in, grabbing her stuffed koala bear and handing it to her. We whisper goodnight and kiss her on the forehead, getting up to leave, I turn on their nightlight and close their door slightly leaving it ajar. We head into Devon’s room and see that he is already in bed. “Goodnight Little Marine.” I say to him. “Goodnight Mama, goodnight Mommy.” he says. We give him a kiss on the head and walk out of his room and go to our room and start getting ready for bed ourselves. Even with being tired, we both do our Outset skincare routine and get changed into our PJs. We both get under our covers and turn off our lights and cuddle into each other. “It was so cute watching you and Devon singing the Lion King.” Scarlett says. “It was a lot of fun. It’s one of my favorites to sing with him.” I tell her. She smiles and gives me a kiss and we fall asleep in each other’s embrace.

Scarlett’s POV
In the morning, I wake up to an empty bed. Well this is not how I wanted to wake up, I think to myself. I roll over and see that it's 7 am. I get out of bed and head downstairs and see Louri making breakfast. I walk up behind her and wrap my arms around her, she tenses a little but relaxes once she knows it’s me. “Why are you up early?” I ask, into her back. “I couldn’t sleep, I want to make sure that Devon has the best Mama and Devon day today.” She says, while making eggs and making me hug her. “Baby, you know he will have the best time with you.” I say to her. “I know, I’m still a little in my head about the deployment.” she says. I let go of her and turn off the burners on the stove and turn her to face me. “It’s understandable, but you are doing everything you can now up till when you leave to spend as much time with us as you can. Making all these great memories so that we have something to think about while you’re away.” I tell her. “You are right,” she says. “I usually am,” I say with a smirk, making her laugh a little and turn back to making breakfast. “There’s coffee in the pot.” she tells me. “Oh thank goodness.” I say as I make my way over to the pot and grab my Best Mommy mug from the cabinet and pour myself some coffee. “So good.” I say after taking the first sip. “You good, coffee fiend?” Louri asks, making me chuckle. “Yes, you always make great coffee.” I tell her. I take my mug and sit at the kitchen counter watching her cook. She makes scrambled eggs, pancakes, waffles, sausage links and cuts up fruit too. When she cooks, she goes all out. She sets up the table and brings out the pitcher of orange juice. “Ok we are all set.” She says. “I’ll go wake the others and let them know breakfast is ready.” I tell her. I head upstairs and start waking everybody up. They head downstairs and I grab the girls and carry them downstairs. Louri takes them and puts them in their high chairs and gives them their sippy cups and cuts up their food for them. “Wow Lor, you went all out.” Shanna says. “Just wanted to make sure we had enough food, you know how much Chris eats.'' Louri says. “Hey.” Chris says, making us laugh. “It’s true.” Louri says with a shrug. We plate our food and start eating. Once we finish eating and clean up, Shanna and Bri say they will take the girls for the day. We say bye to them as they head out. My mom and Louri’s mom decide to go out too and do some shopping. Chris tells us he’s going to head home but will be back later this week. Leaving just the 3 of us.

Louri’s POV
After everybody leaves, Devon gets excited about our day together. “Let’s change and we can head into the workshop.” I tell him, making him run upstairs. “Well that was easy.” I say to Scarlett. “He’s definitely ready.” She says. We head upstairs and change ourselves. After getting dressed in jeans and a flannel I walk out of the closet and Scarlett whistles at me. “You look sexy.” She says, making me laugh. “Thanks babe, you look good too.” I say as I see she had put on light blue jeans, white tshirt and one of my zip up hoodies. We walk out of our room and Devon comes out of his room and we are matching. How did this kid know to wear a flannel? “Mama, we are matching.” He says. “Yes, we are Little Marine. Are you ready?”
I ask him. “Yes!” He exclaims and we head downstairs and outside to the workshop. I unlock the door and turn on the lights. I grab an apron for him and hand it over to him helping him tie it in the back and I put one on myself. I then grab safety glasses as we will be cutting wood and I don’t want saw dust getting in our eyes. I hear a camera click and look over and see Scarlett taking pictures on her phone. “Ok first we gotta grab wood and bring it over to the table saw.” I tell him, as we walk over to the slabs of wood I have in the shop. We grab a couple different pieces and walk over to the table saw. I grab the measuring tape and help him measure even pieces and make marks in the wood for where to cut them at. “For this part, I want you to watch because I will be using the saw ok?” I ask him. “Yes Mama.” He says, standing off to the side. I turn on the table saw and start cutting the wood. Once I finish cutting the wood, I turn off the saw and grab the pieces and walk over to another table. “Now we are going to sand down the edges and ends, so that they will be smooth.” I tell him and grab some sand paper from one of the drawers and hand him a sheet and show him how to do it. He takes the sheet and starts sanding down the wood. “Good job.” I tell him. “Thank you Mama.” He says. “Next step we are going to make holes for the pegs.” I tell him and grab one of my drills and help him to the holes needed. Once we finished making the holes, I grab some pegs and we put them into the holes and attach the wood pieces together. We then screw the corners to hold the wood together. “Ok, the last step is to paint the birdhouse.” I tell him. He chooses which colors he wants and starts painting. I walk over to Scarlett and give her a kiss. “You guys are doing an amazing job.” She says. “Thank you, it’s a lot of fun teaching him.” I tell her. “He’s definitely going to remember this for a long time.” She says. “Mama, I’m done.”
Devon says. I turn and see that he has painted the birdhouse in a forest green color, somewhat matching Scarlett’s eye color. “Looks great buddy, now we gotta let it sit and dry and then we can hang it up outside and put some bird food in there and see if we can spot some birds going into it.” I tell him. We place the birdhouse on another table to dry and I start cleaning up and putting stuff away. “This was so much fun Mama.” Devon says. “Yes it was Little Marine.” I say to him, giving him a hug and kiss. “While we wait for that to dry, why don’t we go grab bird seed from the store and maybe we can also buy a bird bath so the birds have something to bathe in?” I ask him. “Yes please!” He says excitedly. We put our aprons away and head out of the workshop with Scarlett. I lock up and we head back inside to put on our jackets and we head out to go to the store.

A/N: Hey everyone, Chris again. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. I don’t know much about woodwork, just made it up as I wrote. See you all in the next chapter 😊