Learning As We Go

Normalcy

2012-01-28T18:02:00.000-05:00

I don't usually take the time to write a post over the weekend. I'm usually staying off of the computer as much as possible, enjoying time as a family. Today, though, I have some strange sharp pain between my chest and armpit that strikes with any random movement or breath (I'm guessing some sort of strain-ish type thing from Power Pump) and it's pretty windy and cold outside.

After running errands this morning, we're now lounging around the house watching Tarzan. I was folding laundry when I took a moment to look over at Trey and Andrew. Trey lying on the floor, Andrew sitting next to him with his little hand on Daddy's back, wiggling his toes, both transfixed by the movie. That simple moment just about took my breath away. Just a simple little moment between my boys. It filled my heart in such an honest way. It only lasted a minute of course, not even long enough to last until I pulled the camera out, and now Andrew is climbing all over him and driving his car all over his back. But he is still smiling ear to ear. He's enjoying his Daddy.

I'm trying to ingrain these images into my brain. Life is about to get crazy for us. Trey will be gone for weeks at a time all leading up to his first deployment. I think it's these very simple moments I will miss the most... the normalcy of life that I can't help but feel we've taken for granted all too often lately. My heart hurts for the two of them. But I can't delve into those feelings right now... I'm not quite ready. I just wanted to capture that little moment to have to look back on, and since it didn't make the camera, it HAD to make the blog.

I Work Ouuttttt

2012-01-24T22:32:00.000-05:00

I worked out.. like seriously worked out.. for the first time in roughly two years. You know - something besides walking.

Together, my friend Ashley, who is not quite in the same boat, but it's been a while for her too, and I jumped head first into ~~bodily torture~~ a Power Pump class at the gym. Some of you may know it as Body Pump. Same thing. Maybe not the smartest choice. Maybe I should have eased in to transforming my body. But that's not how I roll. I may slack off for far too long, but once I make up my mind, that's it.

So in we go to an hour long class, filled with lots of anxiety and something that feels a little like hope.
Our instructor is everything like Gloria from Modern Family. And I mean to be a compliment. I loved her. Not understanding that it's been an eternity since I've done any sort of work out, she tried her hardest to convince us we needed more than 5 pounds worth of barbell. Sooo, I take it that means you don't have anything lighter? Which is what we were really trying to find out...

I'm extremely proud of the both of us. I didn't expect us to last the entire hour. I thought we'd be those lame-O's walking out in the first half hour. And while we may have quit on an exercise here and there, we were champs. I was giggling hysterically within the first 15 minutes because I was already whipped. This woman seemed, to me, to be on crack. But we did last the entire hour. Even did ridiculous things like squats around a full track with above mentioned 5 pound bar. Then do four flights of stairs with the bar, taking two at a time on the way up.. blahhhh.. kill me now, I was thinking!!

I was kind of on a high afterwards that lasted for like an hour.. you know.. until my body started to collapse. It's still hasn't picked itself up. It keeps getting worse, in fact. From what I hear it'll be the worst tomorrow, so that's something to look forward to.

I'm going back, though, with all that being said. Twice a week. That's all it's offered. The babe is booked in CDC through the next month, so I'm committed.

It's strange how something so tortuous can make you feel so good at the same time, isn't it? While I dread the next class, I do look forward to a time where I can enjoy it!

Scream Free Parenting

2012-01-20T16:47:00.000-05:00

Last night, I went to a free seminar that Fort Bliss hosted called Scream Free Parenting. This is the title of a book written by Hal Edward Runkel, LMFT, which has been featured on The Today Show, I believe.. don't quote me on that, though! Either way, a lot of people have heard of Hal and his Scream Free program. I, however, hadn't at all. I signed up anyways, with not many expectations, just thinking that it couldn't hurt.

I'm so very glad I went. It was probably the best program I've ever seen here at Bliss. It was run perfectly... they went above and beyond with stuff they had to offer (sandwiches, drinks, coffee and snacks), everything happened on time, and everyone was extremely friendly.

Now.. let's get to the good stuff. As a forewarning, this will most definitely be extremely wordy. I'll do my best not to jump around too much, but just follow me if you can. It's worth it!

Hal (I mean.. come on.. I've been to his seminar and he answered me when I raised my hand.. pretty sure we're on a first name basis) is not only a parenting/relationship genius, he's also quite hilarious. Which always helps when you're listening to someone talk for 2 straight hours, right? He is a happily married, Christian, father of two.. a boy and a girl, and a Licenced Marriage and Family Therapist. So basically, you can trust his word. He practices what he preaches every day.

His teaching goes against what most of society teaches us for the most part. And.. umm.. I like it. I think the main concept here is teaching our kids with natural consequences. Raising them to be able to be full functioning, capable-of-making-decisions, mature adults.

Source

How do we get there? We learn not to react to the anxiety that is almost constantly within you once you become a parent. Screaming, according to my buddy Hal, is defined by your reaction to the stress.. whether that be by actually screaming at your child or spouse, or shutting down and making yourself unavailable to them.. in other words, ignoring the situation.

Why do we react anyways? Once you understand this, it helps immensely in the way you handle your children. It does for me, at least, and I'm fairly certain it will for you.
According to Hal, we've all been lied to about parenting. That's right.. lied to. Follow me through this and it may just feel like a weight has been lifted off of your shoulders.

Lie numero uno:
Your life is over once you have children. Your life now revolves around them. We even romanticize it by telling our kids, "you're our whole world". (Umm.. guilty!)
Sad. We can't, as adults, live up to being someone's entire world. That's a lot of pressure! Think about the amount of responsibility that goes along with being someone's "whole world". No thank you!
If we think of our children in that sense, it builds resentment. Those sweet, adorable children are eventually going to take us for granted and start saying mean, ugly things to us. If we put our entire life into these kids, give up everything that's important to us as adults, we're going to resent them when they hit this stage and can't possibly understand how much we've given up for them. Resentment is not a pretty thing, friends.

Numero Dos:
We are responsible for our kids.
False.
We are responsible TO our kids, not FOR our kids.
I know this may come as a shock to you, but kids have a mind of their own. They make their own choices, as they should, no matter how much you want to make the "right" choice for them.
I know, as a parent, it's hard to just sit back and watch your child make the wrong choices. But isn't that what life is all about? Don't we want our children to be able to make a decision without having to call you for the rest of their lives?
If we try too hard to make the decisions for them, they are probably going to rebel anyways. We're not here to do that. We're here to create the right environment for them.
Our job is to prepare them for life, not protect them from it.

So no, we can't control our children. For me, that is freeing, not discouraging. I've been exhausted trying to control my toddler! Probably because I can't and it's a never ending battle that I didn't need to be fighting. We can't control what they are going to do, but we can be absolutely certain of what WE are going to do! What I'm going to do? That's easy!

Source

Hal's method, along with keeping yourself calm and quiet with your children, is giving them choices, time limits, and consequences.
Again, you can't control what your children are going to do, whether it be putting their bike away even though you've told them a million times to do so when they are done, doing their homework, wearing their jacket.. keeping their room clean.. blah blah blah.. enter in anything you and your kids struggle with.

You can, however, control how you are going to respond to the situation. Do you think yelling and screaming your kid into submission is going to do them any favors, teach them any lessons, or make them respect you? The correct answer would be No No and NO.
They need to learn the consequences of their actions.
"I see your bike has been left out. If it's still there when I come home from the store, I'm going to take it to Goodwill". (The trick there is really taking it to Goodwill, too. Following through with the consequences is more important then whatever the actual consequence is). Said child now has the ability to decide whether it's worth it to her to actually put the bike away.
You cannot make your child do homework. You can have grade expectations and consequences if the expectations are not met.
You can tell your child to wear a jacket. You can even let them pick it out. If they don't want to wear it, especially if you are not around when they are supposed to be wearing it, they won't. And what do you care? Will people give you funny looks if your child is dressed properly? Yes, they sure will. Get over yourself. Why fight that battle? You don't wear your jacket, you'll be cold. That's your decision. Not me.. I'll be snug and warm in mine.

You get the point here. Natural consequences.

I don't want to rewrite the book for him, I want you to actually go out and buy it. He should, after all, get the credit. Plus, he says this all a little better than I do.. and remember.. he's pretty hilarious at the same time. There is so much more to delve into. I didn't cover half of it. My husband and I are going to be sitting down to read it together. If any of this sounds even remotely interesting, please run out and buy it. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I will leave you with some of my favorite thoughts from him last night though:

-He says that no matter what country he teaches this in, there is always one phrase that everyone knows: Kids push our buttons. Well, when did we give them the remote? We gave them the remote when we thought we could use one on them.
-Kids test us because it's the only way they know how to ask us to be better leaders.
-We move away from the impossible - controlling someone else's behaviour/choices, to the really, really difficult - controlling our own.
-What would our house be like if our kids know we don't give second chances, but we won't get mad when they make the wrong choice?

Here is the Scream Free website. Go check it out! Let me know what your thoughts are!

What are your thoughts? Do you already use natural consequences with your kids? How does it work for you?

Toddler Antics

2012-01-18T17:33:00.000-05:00

Today started out like any ol day around la casa.

Cries through the monitor. Shutting said monitor off. Cries and whines out of my mouth. Cranky toddler demanding milk. Making three separate breakfasts for three separate people. Whyyy?? Sweet husband making my coffee, but, umm, I'd like some coffee with my creamer dear. Then balancing the line between getting myself ready, tidying the kitchen, changing poopy diapers, getting and keeping my child clean, playing, encouraging independent play.. like how I worded that?

Oh, wait. It's not even 8:30 in the friggin morning!!

Make my own, stronger, coffee tasting coffee. Throw in Cars with a tad bit of guilt so I can actually get myself ready this time, and excitedly head out the door with enough good behavior enticing bribes in my purse.

We are making our way to Michael's to use some of those gift cards! Cricut cartridges and scrapbook paper here I come!

Then it happened.

Andrew wanted to walk into the store himself, he caveman like told me with grunts and pointing. He's allowed in unbusy parking lots as long as he holds my hand. He knows the drill.
We get into the store and much to his dismay, I put him in a cart. Enter in the slight fussing. It's cool though. I can handle this. I have a cup of water, Goldfish, Kix, cars, Cars stickers, a book with animals in it, pencil and paper. I have a half hour easy with all of this, right?! We do it all the time.

Wrong. Absolutely wrong.

As I'm finally deciding on the cartridge I just have to have, the meltdown starts. Each above mentioned object is making it worse and before I know it, my sweet, loving, charmer of a son is screaming at the top of his lungs, crying real crocodile tears, and arching himself back while kicking his legs everywhere like he is preparing to combust.

I was in shock. At this point I foolishly thought I'd be able to let him settle down, distract him on the sticker isle and still be able to browse the 40% off pads of scrapbook paper. HA!

I got the stares. Y'all know what I'm talking about. The, "how is she going to handle this" and "Hmmm.. someone can't control their kids" stares.

It was intensifying. I didn't know what on God's green (or brown if you live out in our neck of the woods) earth to do, so I just snatched him out of that cart, left it there with my beloved cartridge card, fought back tears, and left. Drove away. All of that for nothing.

What am I getting into here?? I was so angry with him and let him know it. He may not have been able to understand my flow of "You do not act that way in stores while mommy's trying to get her creativeness on" and sounded much more like "blah blah blahblahblah" to him.. but he heard that tone alright.

He cried the majority of the 15 minute ride home, but when he stopped and I looked back at that sad little, snot covered face, my heart just melted. I felt terrible. I didn't apologize, but I sure wanted to.

I'm in uncharted territory here! All of a sudden, I'm regretting every time I've rolled my eyes at some kid who was screaming in a store.

I have no clue how I'm going to handle these things in public.. at home when these tantrums sprout up, we just ignore it. For now though, I think the simple solutions would be for someone to make a Go To For Everything You Need store, where parents with kids 3 and under can shop. If you go here, it's understood that you'll be shopping amongst screaming children and it just has to be cool. No one is going to cut their trip short. We're going to get what we need, screams or no screams.

This blog post is brought to you by a 3-hour, and still going strong nap. We both needed this today.

The Fever

2012-01-11T11:16:00.000-05:00

I'm a little anxious about writing this post, it being so personal and all. But that's what I do, right? It's on my mind constantly.. and.. this is real life, so I'll just throw it all out there.

I have the fever. Badly. I desperately want to be pregnant again. Now. Well yesterday, actually. I'm so very ready. What's the big deal, you ask? There are so many real, legit reasons we should wait. And only one good reason we should just go for it. You know.. the whole pros and cons list. Remember, I'm a list-maker.

Our current plan is to start trying in July. For the following reasons:

1) I need to be much healthier. I let my weight loss efforts completely drop off over the fall and end of 2011. Completely careless, I was. Now, I weigh almost as much as I did at the end of my last pregnancy. Lord, I can't believe I admitted that to the world, but again, I'm striving for honesty here.
My goal is not necessarily to lose weight. But more to just be healthy. I'm eating better. Drinking more water. Being more active. No more Red Bull. Adding in vitamins. I'm sure weight will come off, and that would be extremely welcomed, but my main focus is my quality of life. I was in the best shape of my life when I got pregnant with Drew. I want to be there again and not pushing 200lbs at the end of the next pregnancy.

2) I've been taking Zoloft since the Spring. I obviously cannot get pregnant while taking that. I'm fully dependent on it and afraid of the monster I'll become while not on it. I need to give myself time to ween off of it. Safely. Which requires a trip to the doctor to talk about this. Ehhhh... Not looking forward to this process. I apologize in advance to my friends and family for my future personality. Once I get pregnant, I hope to be fine. I'm a very pleasant pregnant woman.. like my body needs those hormones to balance out.

3) If I got pregnant on this cycle ( I want, I want, I want, I want), the baby would be due in October. That is such a busy time of the year. August - Andrew's birthday. September - Trey's birthday. Then all of the holidays that follow. Busy, busy, busy.
If I get pregnant in July, his (or it's.. see.. I want another boy so badly that I assume) birthday would be in April.. perfect.)

4) After going through my ending months of pregnancy in the El Paso summer, I vowed to never be pregnant in the summer again. So my original timeline of July is perfect. Baby out by April.. no sweltering summer pregnant months.

5) Trey would make Captain before we had Number 2 if we wait for July. That one's obvious, right? More money for two babies is a big plus.

That's about all I have. Good reasons to wait.

Here is my only reason to go for now:

Trey would be home for the delivery. Big pro, but my only pro besides just wanting it.
I have family that would be willing to come around and after my due date and that would be necessary, but nothing beats your partner being there with you.

July will be here before I know it, right?

Delta (because I'm too mad to think of anything more creative)

2012-01-09T15:33:00.001-05:00

I'm HOME! We had such a great visit during the holidays.. seriously.. probably the best one ever.. but traveling to and from was a massive nightmare.

I know this is long, but take the time to read it.. especially if you are a frequent flyer. If you just so happen to be an airline employee, especially from Delta, I'd love to hear what you think of all this!

I took a chance and made some changes to our traveling ways. Note to self: change isn't always good. If in ain't broke, don't fix it.. and all that jazz.

We usually fly American Air through Dallas into Charlotte. This time, I chose Delta, it being the best deal I could find. On the way we did, home > Dallas > Huntsville. On the way back, Columbia > Atlanta > home.

Here are the reasons (I'll try to shorten it up as best possible) I'll never fly Delta.. unless they offer me a free ticket for my troubles.... again. Nor will I ever use the Atlanta airport.

- The Atlanta airport closed while we were en route. We circled the sky for an hour and 1/2. A 3 hour flight with a toddler became a 4 and 1/2 hour flight... yeahhhh.. about that...
No fear though.. the whole airport is closed, so our connecting flight can't leave either. Apparently, they can't leave for another 4 hours, we find out when we finally deboard! Our pilot hadn't even left his prior destination so they couldn't even guarantee that the flight would leave at 11:30pm. Remember the toddler, folks.
I get all that. We can't control the weather. Neither can airport/airline employees. But we can drive to Huntsville and make it there before the flight does. We ask for our luggage. They wouldn't have been able to get it to us for another few hours, they say. Really?
We decide to let our luggage go on and we rented a car. End of story. We get there a little after midnight. All is as well as possible.
I foolishly thank my lucky stars that the bad leg of the trip was with Trey and not while I was flying alone. Ha!

- We get on the plane in Columbia, back away from the door, and sit.. and sit.. annnddd sit. Atlanta airport is closed again.. because there is fog. We sat for an hour. Wonderful.

*Then there's the whole thing about being the first to volunteer for a different flight and voucher, but them giving it to some man that didn't even vocalize his desire to switch. After she told me I could have it. Whatevs.. I didn't fight it.. figured I was on the plane I was supposed to be on.

- My connecting flight home wasn't affected by the airport closure apparently, and still left at 11:05. My plane touched down, never mind all that time it takes to get to the door, at 10:30. I didn't even wait for the stroller to come off the plane. I ran like 10 miles, with Drewsky in my arms, and breathlessly got on my plane, thanking God that I made it and wasn't stuck at the ATL airport until 7pm.. with a toddler. Yes, my stroller is still sitting in Atlanta somewhere.

- Now we wait to take off for a while because there is more luggage than expected and they have to take the time to get it on. They brought someone's instrument on the plane because there wasn't room. Remember these facts. They'll be very important in the next bullet. We finally take off and all is right again. I'm 3 hours away from being home. A very long 3 hours, but I digress.

- We land.. have a nice, much anticipated reunion with Trey, go to the luggage area and wait.. and wait.. and wait. Along with half the other passengers on that flight. Enter in the Delta employee that nonchalantly tells us that if we don't see our luggage, it never made it on the plane in the first place. There wasn't enough space on the carrier. For reals?
That would be something worth mentioning, dontcha think? And they thought an instrument is important enough to put on the plane in a closet to make sure it goes through, but not a friggin car seat?? A car seat is pretty much mandatory!
I'll save my full reaction and move on... I fill out the proper paperwork, leave with promises of a phone call within the hour to get my reference number and enough hope instilled by them that I'll have my luggage later that night.

- Enter in this morning. Never got a phone call. Still don't have luggage. I called and turns out that ALL of my information was entered in incorrectly in the computer. Wrong cell number. Wrong street number. Wrong street name. I have precise, very pretty I might add, handwriting. They added a letter into the street name. Complete carelessness. Good thing I called to see what was up.
I hung up with more hope that my stuff would be on the plane that landed at 12:45 and I've still heard nothing.

I'm irate. I would have never complained about the weather incidences themselves, but all of this together? Too much. They'll hear all of this from me. I'm just waiting to see my actual luggage at my door before I start my rant to them. In the meantime... my complaint list just keep growing and I look like a bum with no hair straightener or makeup.

Enjoying Life

2012-01-04T16:31:00.001-05:00

I'm still here in South Carolina enjoying the living daylights out of my family and friends. I desperately need to go back and document the holidays, but it will have to wait. Think of it as a little treat. Just when you start to miss all the hullaboo, we can take a look back and relive the moments all over again.

I'm currently sitting in my mom's cozy, quiet living listening to.. absolutely nothing. My brother looked at me about an hour ago and wanted to know if he could take Andrew to run a few errands. Yes please, I said! Peace and quiet - I'm in heaven.
So, I just wanted to check in and express how much fun we are having. Andrew is loving spending time with my fam. I can't even begin to explain what it does to my heart to see how my parents react to him. Seeing them do things which should be the norm.. playing outside, taking walks, reading books, drinking milk, playing ball, and driving cars.

I've just been soaking it all up.

I do miss that husband of mine something fierce and Lord knows I can't wait to see my Ft. Bliss friends, but once again, it's going to be very hard to leave.

Why can't everyone be in one place. I'll have to see how this flight goes with just me and the babe.. I might have to make another trip back out in a few months. Let the saving begin.

Mum - Please remind me how much fun we're having after I'm done flying back and proclaim that I'm never doing that again!

If ya like it than ya shoulda put a PIN on it

2011-12-19T22:58:00.000-05:00

Clever huh?

Have you seen the pin that said something about wishing there was a big red button to press that says "I actually did this" when you actually complete a pin that you pinned? (how's that for a opening sentence??) Ha!
I totally agree. There at least should be some kind of way to check things off without erasing them from your boards. I can't help it.. I'm a helpless list maker and the whole point of lists is to cross things off.

Good thing I'm a blogger. I can broadcast to whoever cares (let me believe you are all dying to know this, mkay?) that I do complete the things I pin. Or have intentions to. Okay.. really I'm just showing off. Humor me.

Recipes
* None of the pictures below are my own. Had I known I was going to be showing off, I would have snapped pictures. In the future.. get ready for it. Correction. One will be my own. Oh, you'll know it.*

Parmesan Roasted Potatoes by zoomyummy.com. These were just okay. Nothing special and I probably wouldn't take the time to make them again. It was probably umm.. me.. though.

http://pinterest.com/pin/132645151494467132/

IHOP pancake recipe by cookinupnorth.blogspot.com. These are delicious. I was serious when I got onto FB afterwards to declare that I'd never buy a box of Bisquick again. Yum and Easy Peasy.

http://pinterest.com/pin/132645151494540907/

Crock pot Orange Chicken by team-t-adventures.blogspot.com. No. We did not like this at all. But I think it's just that we don't like Orange Chicken and I thought we did. I feel like it's a good recipe if you like that dish!

http://pinterest.com/pin/132645151494546061/

Crescent Breakfast Ring by bacontimewiththehungryhypo.blogspot.com. Really good. Especially the first time I made it (Thanksgiving morning). The other two times have been a little off, but I have no clue why. Just hasn't been quite as good as that first time. Definitely worth it to make on your own!

http://pinterest.com/pin/132645151494530051/ - Mine for sure didn't look like that!

Delicious Apple Crisp by chickwhocooks.blogspot.com . Ohhhh yeahhhh!! Fabulous. Make it. The end.

http://pinterest.com/pin/132645151494530063/

Pioneer Woman's Mashed Potatoes. If you're looking for a low-fat side, don't even bother clicking. It sounds too good - and is even better than it sounds - so don't tempt yourself. We eat mashed potatoes so few times a year that it doesn't matter. Amazing! Creamy. Buttery potato goodness.

http://pinterest.com/pin/132645151494485262/

Chili's Skillet Queso by moderationrecipes.blogspot.com. Tastes just like Chili's!

http://pinterest.com/pin/132645151494499335/

Chicken in a Blanket by plainchicken.com. We really liked this one! Good to eat during football. I'll definitely make it again.

http://pinterest.com/pin/132645151494473946/

Crock Pot Honey Chicken by mmmcafe.blogspot.com. So very good. It's a new favorite of ours! Need to make this again real soon!

http://pinterest.com/pin/132645151494469590/

Mexican Stuffed Shells by thewaytohisheart.wordpress.com. Another new favorite. Perfect substitution for a boring ol' Taco Night.

http://pinterest.com/pin/132645151494473704/

Ohhh my that took a long time! Clearly, my husband is thankful for Pinterest! Speaking of that man..

I've also started this idea taken from blessedmommy.hubpages.com. 101 sweet things to do for your husband. I'm not very good at expressing my feelings towards him and find myself all too often getting caught up in the business of life. I want to show him how much I appreciate him through simple acts of kindness. I've only done the first two.. I umm.. forgot. See. Life is busy. But I'll jump back on tomorrow!

http://pinterest.com/pin/132645151494547723/

I did this just this weekend with the plates of cookies I made for neighbors! Same ribbon I'm noticing now, in fact.

makeandtakes.com

This is a good little workout. Kept me sore for days. Obviously, I need to do it more often!

gonnagiveallmysecretsaway.tumblr.com

Source: mommysavers.wordpress.com via Jessica on Pinterest

Ohh my gosh.. just figured out I could embed the pic instead of saving the picture, copying and pasting all the sources.. blah blah blah. That could have saved me an hour. Anywho.. I did that ice cube thing above and Andrew loved it! Freeze the cubes with a bit of food coloring in it. Pop one in the tub with your kiddo and watch the crazy fun take place.

Source: moneysavingmom.com via Jessica on Pinterest

Fun with Scarves. So many neat ways to wear them.

Source: photo.tutsplus.com via Jessica on Pinterest

The perfect website to help with any beginning "photographers" out there. Seriously, if I can even begin to understand about aperture and shutter speeds.. you can too!

Speaking of photographs. Look at this picture that I took.. in the dark.. of our Christmas Tree.. all because Pinterest taught me how.

Source: Me.

And this one when I was just playing outside with my camera last night. Around 10pm. I know.. crazy life I lead :)

For the only lighting being that dear in the corner, I have to be pretty proud of myself on that one. That's taken in manual.. and it was definitely better than the one taken in auto. My little point and click was never capable of taking pictures in the dark! So thank you Canon.. and thank you Pinterest for teaching me about photography!

And just because this has made me laugh more times than I'd care to admit.. I'll end on this note..

Source: weknowawesome.com via Jessica on Pinterest

Thoughts from the shower

2011-12-16T13:36:00.000-05:00

I do my best thinking from the shower. I can't be the only one. I really think it's the only time of day that I am truly alone. All day. No toddler pulling me in one direction in the other. I don't hear kiddy sing along music or the sound of "ca's" driving around the house. No husband to interrupt my thoughts with a random conversation about work, football, or brilliant ideas that only he could think up. No phone ringing or beeping with text messages. Nothing. Just me, steam, and silence.

Most shower sessions are very random. For instance...

1) Why does it seem, that even though most everyone we all know are adults, that a lot of the times we can't talk to each other like adults. I find that often, when people are mad at each other/thinks someone's upset with them/ has their feelings hurt, that it's based off of assumptions. We assume tone through text or email and don't clarify. We hear something that someone said and let it fester forever. Someone unknowingly does something to hurt our feelings and we never clear the air. I think, as a general rule, most of us hate confrontation, even if it's done in a kind, gentle manner. We don't pick up the phone and ask our friend or family member what they meant by that text and make sure we weren't reading into it. We stick a tone into it and let ourselves get all worked up.. possibly over nothing. When rumors are started and we hear that so and so said this or that about you (or anything like that) we play into it instead of talking to said person and finding out what's really going on. When our feelings are hurt, we don't sit down with the person who did whatever it may be and let them know how it made you feel.
I'm not talking about myself at the moment or any certain situation (I don't want my friends reading this and racking their minds over whether or not they did something to hurt me.. ha!) I try to put my fear of confrontation to the side and talk things out with people. If our relationship is important enough to me, you'll know if something is wrong. I've just seen this happening a few times lately and it makes me sad. Important relationships that you may really benefit from aren't even given a chance because of assumptions.
If you feel like I'm talking to you right now, and again, I'm not speaking to anyone in particular, maybe you should think about this and work on fixing a relationship over the holiday. Tis the season, right? Yes, I do feel like every bit of a Hallmark commercial, but just go with me here. I felt the need to share, maybe someone needed to hear it!

2) Trey took on a temporary position (that he someday in the near future will actually hold) this month and let me tell you.. I almost forget what he looks like! He's working very long days and we hardly see him. I've been sick with strep and exhausted, but not really complaining (to him at least.. my poor girlfriends!), but the other night he came home and let me know just how badly he felt about it all. He was actually apologizing. It was a particular night that he wasn't home until after 8 and had been gone since 6:30. I let him know that, although it's been a little difficult and tiring, he had no reason to be feeling badly or apologizing. I know that if he could choose, he'd be right here with us. First of all, he's getting great experience and is actually enjoying himself. Secondly, I don't have to worry about whether or not he's hurt or alive at the moment. Too many of my friends' husbands are deployed and 4 guys from their unit have been killed in action over the past two weeks. Enough said. He's home. He's safe. You won't see me complaining.. too much.

3) I don't have any Christmas presents wrapped and it's the last thing I feel like doing. It's all big chunky toys. I don't know how to wrap things like that.

4) I thought I was dying last week. At the very least, I couldn't explain why I was so tired. I couldn't make it through the day without either napping when Drew did or crashing as soon as he went to bed. Turns out I had strep throat. A day and 1/2 on my antibiotics and I feel like a new woman! Such a relief!

That's all. My thoughts aren't always as involved. Sometimes they are ridiculous and wouldn't be deserving of a blog post. Like the last two points. But some need a way to get out!

Torn

2011-12-13T22:12:00.000-05:00

December always seems to fly by faster than any other month doesn't it? Happily chaotic seems to be the right description of my life in December. Especially since we moved away. It's a month chock-full of giddiness, mushiness, and love. Lights and decorations everywhere. Cookie baking. Shopping. Gift exchanging. Cookie eating. Picture taking. Packing. Flying. Xanax. (What? It's nerve-wrecking flying with a toddler. Especially by yourself.) Visiting. Flying some more.

Chaotic, but I love it all. Well, most of it. I could really skip the whole flying part, but it's a necessary factor unfortunately. An unpleasant means to get to the desired end.

Trey and I are leaving soon since he has block leave. We'll be flying together to Alabama.(He hasn't been home since he joined the Army.. he's a little stoked). After some time there he will fly home and I'll be driving to SC. He had a few more days of leave, but I didn't want to rush my time with my family. He wanted to get back early anyways, so our plan worked out.

I'm so excited to have that extra time to spend with them.. I haven't seen them since March.. but I have to admit to having mixed feelings about it.

Let's just say that after having 9 New Years together, the next two we'll be apart. This year is by our choice. Next year, not so much. I feel terrible for choosing to spend that time away from him when next year we won't have that option. Will I regret that? Not that I can do anything to change the situation now.. changing tickets is expensive. And I'm so much looking forward to spending time with my family, that I don't know that I would even if it were free. Which makes me feel even more terrible.

I know that I'll have a great time. I know that I want Andrew to get that time with his grandparents. It will all be fine and I'll be flying back here to the EP before we know it. I'm sure I'll have a bad moment or two on NYE where I'll be missing him to pieces and feeling bad that we're not together.
But I'll enjoy my family 100% while I'm able to be under the same roof as them. Then I'll come home and make the most out of the next year with my best friend. And hopefully my parents will visit us in 2012 :) *hint hint*

Waaaaa - my heart's a little torn!

Leotard Optional

2011-12-07T21:15:00.001-05:00

No, this isn't an x-rated ballet class. That's the color of my nails. Booyah!

I hardly ever spend money on things that aren't a necessity. We're a one income family with a baby. I have to be a bit frugal, ya know? And I have a really hard time putting my wants.. or needs even.. above my boys'. Especially when one of those boys is a little debit card happy -ahem-

Enter in the control freak, budget-lover's dream. We started Dave Ramsey's envelope system a few weeks ago. I know almost everyone knows about this, but just in case you haven't, you need to know a bit about it. Look into a little further, but basically, you set your budget. Figure out what you pay for necessary bills and keep that in your account every check. Set an amount for other things, (groceries, gas, entertainment, etc.), make an envelope for each category, pull out the cash each payday and stuff your envelopes. Once it's gone, it's gone.

Heaven. For me, seeing the money makes it harder to spend. It's tangible. I can see it slipping away or adding up. It holds me accountable. We have envelopes for anything you could think of.. I think. We have quite a few. One of them just has my name it. I get a certain amount and spend it on whatever the heck I want. So yeah.. I basically have an allowance. At 28 years old. It's cool though.

So yesterday... I almost didn't allow myself that OPI nail polish at Sephora. I've never even walked in that place. In my defense, I had no clue what I was missing. $9.50 on a bottle of nail polish? Are you kidding me? My brain screamed at me, telling me how unacceptable and irresponsible that is. But y'all.. they had samples out. And it looked so so pretty on my fingernail. And it was called Leotard Optional. Cute, right?
My friend, JG, has an OPI obsession (come on.. you know it's true. She has so many that she's having a giveaway on her blog that ends Sunday I think. Go enter and tell her I sent you.)
Where was I.. oh yes.. JG.. she entered into my mind a lot. I kept thinking about how happy her OPI makes her and how fabulous her nails always look. I thought about my little envelope with my name on it. I don't have to justify whatever I buy to anyone. It's my envelope. And here I am justifying it to y'all.. but really.. we're just telling stories, right?
So not only did I get Leotard Optional..

blushingnoir.blogspot.com

I also got Chestnuts About You. Two. Yup! I did it. How could I resist Chestnuts About You? It's sparkles.

http://www.manicuremommas.com/2011/11/notd-sephora-by-opi-chestnuts-about-you.html

I had no buyers remorse and now my nails look fantastic. I may even stop biting them again.

A little nail polish.. specifically OPI.. can do wonders for your soul. Trust me on this one!

As a side note, I know the whole kids' book swap thing has been going around, but if you haven't had the opportunity to sign up and want to.. please let me know! I've done my whole part and have started to even get books in for Andrew, but two of my girls aren't able to do it anymore so I need replacements. Let me know if you're up for it and only if you are serious about it. It's not fair to others if you don't follow through. You only mail out 1 book and get 6 other people to sign up, and you have potential to get 36 books in return. Easy Peasy! I need 2 people.

True Meaning of Christmas (the next Charlie Brown special)

2011-12-06T11:13:00.001-05:00

I've had these jumbled up thoughts in my head for almost a week now and have been trying to get to the computer to sort them out (I've tried talking about it multiple times, but my mouth, unfortunately, doesn't have a backspace button), but I've been busier than normal. In a good way. I've allowed myself a little more freedom in my social life area and it's done my soul a ton of good. Most importantly, I helped friends get ready for Nancy's sweet baby shower that was held on Sunday. Nancy and I discovered we had locked up talent that was dying to be let out.

Not perfect, but keep in mind that this was the first time either of us had ever even touched fondant.

And Ashley convinced me that I need a Cricut when we worked on this together.

I seriously want one so very badly. Good thing my birthday is in March because my Christmas present was used up with a camera. Which I love.

Speaking of Christmas.. let's get down to the point.

Growing up, Santa was EXTREMELY good to us. The presents always extended far out, half way across the living room. It was SO MUCH fun. I'll always have warm, fond memories of waking up on Christmas morning and seeing the room dimly lit by the tree and other decorations, and feeling the magic of Santa Clause even as an adult. Having younger brothers helped too. I'll always remember both of their excitement.. coming to frantically wake me up so I could see what Santa brought. We'd all sit down in the living room, my mom with her coffee, camera, and a huge grin on her face. My dad with his OJ, trash bag, and sweat pants telling us all to "relax". Ha! He loved it all just as much.. I think we were all just a little too hyper for him.. and I'm not sure why the sweat pants stick out so much.. but they really do. We'd open a present one by one, each taking turns and would stop half way through to refill drinks and maybe get a little something to much on. This was like a two hour affair.. at least. I loved it. I have such great memories of Christmas with my family.

Which makes my conflicting ideals that much more difficult. I'm struck with my strong dislike of the commercial side of the holiday this year more than any others. The constant countdown reminders of how many days you have left to shop. How Black Friday might as well have started on Thanksgiving itself. I'm seeing people break the bank.. literally.. trying to get gifts for everyone they feel obligated to buy for.

We're choosing not to do that this year and it's a great feeling. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to give. It's one of the best feelings. But it becomes such a hassle around Christmas. I hate that gift giving is EXPECTED. I hope this isn't coming out wrong. I want to give.. within our means. And that's what we're doing this year. My side of the family usually gets a gift for everyone.. this year we're doing a $25 limit Chinese gift exchange. It's going to be a blast and we'll be able to just be. Together.

In our immediate family.. Trey, Drew and I.. I want to focus on the real meaning of Christmas in the years to come. I want to talk to our kids about Jesus' birth. To show them what it's really all about. To teach the importance of giving.. ironically. But giving to those that have less. We'll still have all of the fun decorations and Santa will be a part, but I don't know that we'll have presents filling up the living room on Christmas morning.

I saw this on Pinterest the other day.. which is what sparked all of this.

source: http://www.giventolove.com/2011/11/four-gift-rule.html

A big part of me wants to stick with this. The item they want and read can be from Santa. The other two can be from us. If we do this, we can take whatever money left of what we budget and sponsor a child that may not receive anything.
We, as a family, may not have excess.. we may not have the best of things.. we definitely don't keep up with The Joneses in other words.. but we have plenty. We have everything we need. We are warm, clothed (even if I do have to do laundry twice a week), and always have food on the table. Andrew is in no shortage of books or toys. We take all of this for granted and I want to teach him that others may not have ANY of this, and we can be in a position to help.. if we don't spend all of our money of gifts for him that he may WANT but not NEED.

I can't help but go back to my fond memories growing up though, and feel like he'd be missing out on that. It's a smaller part of me that thinks like this, but it's obviously enough to cause some conflict. When he's older.. but still young.. how would I deal with the whole, "but Johnny gets a ton of gifts from Santa.. am I not being a good enough boy?" type of thing.

I'm probably thinking way too much into this, but that's what I do. I have no idea how I'd answer that.

Anyways, that's where we are and we'll sort it all out. In the meantime, we are very much enjoying our lower-key Christmas this year. It's going to get busy soon with traveling and chaos, but right now, it's calm, beautiful, and peaceful. And Andrew almost has putting coins in the Salvation Army bucket down pat.

~ 15 Months ~

2011-11-30T22:25:00.001-05:00

I feel like I just wrote the 14 month update the other day. Seriously. Either way, this month has been a blast! We are having SO. MUCH. FUN. with our little Andrew.

I know that he's understood what we've been saying for quite some time now, but because I knew that, and it didn't seem like he did understand, it was very frustrating. Now, it's a whole new ball game. So much so that we all of a sudden have to be very careful what we say. If you say, "ready to go bye-bye", you better be ready to head out that door because he's running to it. If you say, "get your socks and shoes", he does. He gets them, brings them to you, sits on his bottom for you to put them on and he's running for the door. "Let's get a diaper change", "bath time", or Let's go upstairs" and he's running to the stairs. "Pick out a book", and he does. Looks for whatever specific book he's wanting at the time, brings it to you and lifts his arms up to be picked up to the couch.

I know it sounds so simple, but it's amazing to us. Just watching him grow, comprehend, use toys the way their supposed to be used, stay on the sidewalk because he understands he can't go in the road... I love it all. I love being able to communicate with him. I feel like it's been one-sided conversation all this time and now it's finally paying off. He can "tell" me when he wants water by giving me his cup or going to the fridge and pointing to the water thing. He can show me when he wants a snack by going to the pantry and pointing to a certain thing. Or when he wants a banana by going to the area of the counter where they are kept. Too cool.

He is full of affection. I get so many hugs throughout the day. And now he pats or rubs my back along with the hug. Too sweet. And his little kisses.. be still my heart.

Stats:
Who knows, really. I took him to the doc a few weeks ago for a lingering cough. He weighed 22 pounds and was 32 or 33 inches, I believe. Pretty sure 32.
He is wearing 24 month Pj's with a tad bit of room to grow. Mostly 18 month clothes, but some outfits are getting a bit snug. Still in size 5 diapers. Moving up to a 5 and 1/2 or 6 in shoes.

Words:
(old words)
- Car (ca)

- Dog (daw)
- Outside (ou-taaaa)
- Dada and sometimes daddddy
- Maaama

(new words)
- I really believe he is saying I love you. It sounds just like this, "ya ya ya". He'll repeat that every time I tell him I love him. See.. affectionate. Little squish face.
- Some kind of variation of What's That? Sounds like "ehh daaa". Says it every time he points to something in one of his books.

Food:
We're still going strong here. And not only is he NOT a picky eater (Dear Lord, please don't reverse this on me for bragging on my kid.) he is a much more healthy eater than most adults! His faves are grapes, bananas, green beans.. well any type of bean actually including things like lima beans.. seriously.. what kid likes lima beans? This one. Goldfish, Cheerios, and Animal Crackers. I've given up trying to give him things like chicken nuggets or fries. Which is totally fine. It's not like I wanted him to eat that stuff.. that was just reserved for my lazy days. He'll eat sweet potato fries that I bake, but not frozen regular fries. He'll eat my baked chicken nuggets made from a chicken breast, but not the Tyson stuff. I know how lucky we are and I pray pray pray this continues!! I'm not sure where all of the food he eats goes.. I swear he doesn't stop eating. Ever.

Naps:
He still takes his morning nap without fail. Always at 9am and lasts either 2 or 2.5 hours. The afternoon nap is up in the air. I give him the opportunity to go down between 2 and 2:30. Whether he chooses to nap or play is up to him. I would say that 2 or 3 times a week he actually naps.. for another 2 hours. If not, he'll play for about 45 minutes in his crib.

Firsts:
We covered most of them, but let's see...
He knows where all facial features are and will point to them when you ask. He loves hair right now and wants to play with ours constantly. Which is pure heaven to me.
He's very aware of his own body parts (legs, arms, belly) and loves to point parts out while being changed. Loves to watch his hands pop out of his sleeve.. thinks that's the greatest thing ever.
Combined with the stuff up top of the post, I'd say we've had a big month!

Andrew, we love you to the moon and back!

Anndddd... Is this how our monthly pics are going to go from now on? This is the best one I could get..

The rest all look a little something like this...

I'm not giving up.

What we've been up to

2011-11-30T11:47:00.001-05:00

First off, we had a great Thanksgiving. It was truly wonderful and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I cooked my first REAL meal. In years past I've admittedly served my little family of two - cringes - a turkey roll. My mother has always been appalled, and yes, she is right. She raised me better than that. I knew I had to woman up and start making a real Tday meal soon, add in two extra soldiers who were away from loved ones, and it was settled. I was going big.

I was mostly scared to clean the bird out, I'll admit it.

But, our good friends, The Galas's, came over to drop over some spices that I found myself without and ended up staying for hours. Nancy gave me some added confidence and in the end, the turkey was actually extremely perfect.

Everything else was homemade except the cranberry sauce. Sue me, nothing beats that canned jelly goodness. The gravy would have been disastrous if it weren't for Mel's husband, Al. God bless him. We all enjoyed the meal, some more than others, and I can't lie.. it's made me feel all kinds of good inside to hear my husband brag on me endlessly for the past week. Love that man.

We did a lot of playing outside on Thanksgiving in between cooking.

Yes, I realize this face is a bit of foreshadowing to the trouble this kid is going to be in the future. I'm totally aware and preparing myself.

The next day, we put up our Christmas decorations. I couldn't wait a second longer and I'm so glad we did. I love that I can get that calming glow from the tree starting at 4:30 in the afternoon and get to enjoy it all night. Andrew is pretty infatuated which thrills me even more.

He had the whole "be gentle" thing down on the first two days, but he is getting braver and thus, less gentler by the day.. Bless his heart... or mine.

We've been playing with Jingle Bells.

And venturing into the world of Sensory Bins. I'm getting all kinds of ideas. Getting our materials gathered and organized. Oh yeahhh.. we're gonna have a blast. I started with water yesterday. Which was easy and I knew he'd have a blast.. but oh-so-messy. Totally worth it.

And finally, busy turning 15 months old. Yes, mum, there's a post to come!

A Little Reminder...

2011-11-21T21:14:00.001-05:00

... definitely for me. Maybe for you too.

There are many different ways to parent. There is no right or wrong way. Well, I totally take that back. There are lots of wrong ways. But I'm not talking in the extreme sense here. Once you have the basics down.. you know.. making sure they're fed, clothed, and have a warm place to lay their precious little heads.. the other stuff is a personal choice you make. One you make based upon what works with your family. We know all of this. So, my point?

Sometimes I forget this little fact. Sometimes, I see what's working so well for others and think, "ohhh that's what I'm doing wrong. I'll do exactly what she's doing. That'll fix everything." Basically, I can be my own worst critic at times. My mind can be tricked into doing something I'm not comfortable doing, just because someone else is doing it and doing it well.

My SIL has been my parenting guide since day ONE. Her baby is 7 months older than Andrew, so she's been through everything and it's still fresh in her mind. Plus, she has set a high standard. She's an amazing mother! For the most part, our parenting beliefs have matched up exactly, so it's been real easy for me. Let her go through all of the trial and error and then have her walk me through it.. ha! And for the first year of Andrew's life, it's worked out perfectly. Everything she was advising me on, I 100% agreed with and wanted to do with Andrew.

Enter in our visit together. Andrew starts acting up and being extremely clingy to me. It looked like we were starting the next bout of separation anxiety and I'm thinking.. perfect! Mel is here! She can help me fix this. Because at that point, in my mind, I have been horrible with discipline. I felt like I wasn't disciplining at all. I knew that she has been implementing time-outs for quite a while, so I turned to her. I wanted her to guide me through this time-out thing. I wasn't planning to start them quite yet, but I just had had it up to here with my son and didn't know what else to do. Combine that with the fact that Addyson was getting time-outs and it was correcting her behavior... I was on board.

So, that afternoon, when I was getting lunch ready in the kitchen and he wouldn't let me do a thing.. crying and clinging to my leg, Mel walked me through time-out. Because that's what she would have done with Addy.

It broke my heart. I hated every single second of it. My stomach had that awful, gut-wrenching feeling because he was crying more. Now to the point of hysterics and I just wanted to hold him. "What is wrong with me??", I was thinking. I'm going to be a total sap. My son is going to walk all over me and he'll never have boundaries. I was completely beating myself up and now even more confused than ever. And, surprisingly, it took a few days of that, until I got to the point where I had to excuse myself to fall into a pit of tears in my room, until I realized that... when it comes to discipline.. for the moment... Mel and I aren't quite in sync in our methods anymore. And that's okay.

It totally works for her. Just because I won't do it quite like she does, doesn't mean that I think she's wrong. She's obviously doing a lot right. Her daughter is so very well behaved and such a sweet girl. And Mel is fierce, but at the same time completely loving and interactive. Like I said above, she's an incredible mom, we are just different at the moment.

Always listen to your gut. A few days after Andrew started being extremely clingy, whiny, and just all around constantly needy like that.. he got a slight fever and started the whole runny nose, cough escapade. And then broke 2 teeth in the back. There was a reason he was acting like that. And instead of giving him the comfort that he needed, I isolated him in a separate room and used my "firm" voice. Remember that you know your child better than anyone else. I think I was feeling pressure and totally lost sight of that. If I had been more focused on the way Andrew and I handle things, and less concerned on being just like Mel and Addy.. (Ha! I have to laugh at myself)... I would have known that.

Also, I realized, once I took a step back, that I do discipline. I just do it differently. I pick my battles and the battles I pick may not be the same as hers.
1. There is no throwing. Of toys or food. He gets one firm warning (No Throwing) and I show him the appropriate ways to use said toy/food, and if he does it again, the object gets taken away. If it's a car, the car is gone. If it's food, he's done with his meal. That works for us at the moment. (I'm finding a lot of the times with food, he's telling me he's done and doesn't now how to tell me otherwise. So he's learned that if he throws his food, I put him down, and he's done. So, clearly we need to work on that :)
2. Absolutely no hitting. This he will get a time out for. Like above, he gets one warning. If it happens again, time-out. And honestly, I've only had to do the time-out two or three times. The warning is enough now and the behavior happens less and less. I'll get to the point where there aren't any warnings with this, but for now, this is working.

There are other little things, but we don't need to get into it all. You get the general idea. I'm just not as big of a time-out fan as others are. Yet. When he's older, that's totally the route we'll go. If it works for him... that's my plan anyways. I definitely won't use it ever again for when he just needs some mama comfort. Yes, sometimes it's an inconvenience, but this won't last forever. He won't need me forever, sadly. I've found that giving him something to do in the kitchen works wonders. And at times, if it doesn't, and he just wants me.. dinner can wait.

Merry Christmas

2011-11-20T18:49:00.001-05:00

No, I haven't gotten sucked into the Christmas before Thanksgiving hype. Just because I'm itching to put the tree up and it's hard to walk by the closet that holds our decorations... I've still held out. Okay.. maybe I'm listening to Christmas music in the car. Sue me. I have to start early so Andrew can learn all the songs.

Santa did, however, visit our house early. Well, for me at least.
I had already put the bug in his ear that I wanted.. no.. really needed.. a new camera this year. My old, slow reacting one just wasn't cutting it in this fast-paced toddler-run world.
THEN.. then.. my camera disappeared, which I believe I've mentioned. Ummm.. I absolutely cannot let a month go by without taking pictures. Not possible.
So now, thanks to Santa Clause himself, I'm the proud owner of one of these babies -

A Canon PowerShot SX40! While it's not as high tech as it would have been (ya know.. since we didn't have another month to save) I think this one is perfect! It's a step up from the point and click that I had, but not so much to overwhelm me... I think.. ha! Plus, it came with a bag, a little tripod, and an extra memory card. Hopefully I'll have lots of fun pictures to share :)

Anyone have any experience with this camera, by any chance?

Oh, and remember this post from Friday? You know.. about this smoothies. Way to leave a sister hanging! You mean to tell me that none of y'all have any smoothie concoctions to share? Except my dear friend Kristy? Y'all are in trouble!!

Foodie Friday

2011-11-18T12:40:00.001-05:00

Second day in a row with a post! I'm on a roll!

Although I have no pictures (because my camera has mysteriously disappeared of the face of this earth. For real. It's nowhere) this is still a great recipe that can be made quickly and enjoyed any time of the day... as a meal replacement or a snack. I mostly will make this for my breakfast, but it's great if you just have a hankering for something sweet and don't want to use 300 calories.

I just put stuff together, so it doesn't have an official name, but here is how you make my Chocolate-PB-Banana Smoothie:

You'll need:
1C fat-free milk (Smart Source is a great option)
2 spoonfuls of light vanilla yogurt
2T Nesquick dry chocolate mix (or whatever you use.. carnation is even better to use, actually. You know.. vitamins and all)
2T reduced-fat PB (preferably the creamy variety)
A banana
As much crushed ice as you'd like

Blend all of this together. I use my Ninja and it takes like 25 seconds, but anything will work. And viola.. a delicious smoothie.

Warning:
You'll become obsessed and drink one every day for about 3 months. Don't worry, it may taper down to one every other day after that.

We're hard core into smoothies right now, but this seems to be the only consistent concoction so far. Do you do smoothies? Have any winning combinations you can share? Please?

Cousins

2011-11-17T21:25:00.001-05:00

I know.. I know.. not the most creative title ever. But you'll have to cut me some slack as I try and transition into regular posting again. The creativity isn't flowing by any means.

Our life is attempting to slow back down after our month of visitors. Good luck with that around the holidays, right?! In other words, it's just the three of us in the casa for a while. And while Andrew loved having his Mimi and cousin here with him for two weeks, I think us mamas learned a valuable lesson. Two weeks is too long of a visit for toddlers. The one visiting wants their own toys. Own bed. Own house. The one having the visitor doesn't want to share their toys or their mama anymore. Wants their space back. And they get cranky. Andrew is coming along, adjusting back to normal life, and seems to like other kids again. Yes, for a while there he was pretty ugly to other children. It wasn't a proud period. All of that being said...

I'm SO SO thankful, like deep down in my heart thankful, that they got that time together. It wasn't an easy trip for them to make, nor was it cheap. But they did it and I loved it.

Growing up in Massachusetts (for the first 12 years of my life), I was extremely close to my extended family (proximity and relationship-wise). And there was a lot of them.. see..

Circa summer '09 - Can you spot me?

We were/are so close. Getting together for holidays, birthdays, cookouts, just because. And while we're still close in our relationships, life has gotten in the way. Some of us have moved. Almost all of us have our own families now. While we used to all be in the same state, just a short drive away, now we're spread across the county. Massachusetts, South Carolina, Texas, California and Oregon. And this is just my mom's side. Factor in my dad's side and we add in Maryland and Ohio. And we've never lived near each other, which makes things even more difficult.

So, after we moved away from everyone and started our life in South Carolina, I just knew my future family and I would NEVER move away. My children would see my parents all the time, not just for special occasions. We'd go over and hang out just because we felt like it. My kids would go to school with my brother's kids. They'd be best friends.
Ha! Best made plans, right? While I know that I'm living out God's plan for my life and not my own, this whole ideal was something I haven't quite been able to let go of. While my convictions that I'm doing God's will are getting stronger, and in turn, I'm coming to terms with it all, it's still something that's caused me heartache.

So when Melissa and Addy came to visit and our kids started playing together immediately.. when they laughed together.. when they walked around the house together.. heck even with they "fought" (you know.. the best way toddlers know how to fight) with each other. It did good things for my heart. To see this..

I know the distance will change things. But, as parents, we can make sure our kids are still close. Technology is wonderful for that these days. I can make sure we talk about his Grandparents, Uncles, Aunts, and cousins a lot. Look at pictures. Make an effort to Skype frequently. And make the visits as much as we can. And I'm sure they will do the same.

It is what we make of it! I plan to do as much as we can!

Back to life - Back to reality

2011-11-09T14:42:00.000-05:00

Our visitors are gone and it's back to real life! We dropped Melissa and Addyson off at the airport this morning, said our tearful see-you-laters (only minimal tears because they were sort of in a rush and we'll see them in two months anyways), and made the ... ummm.. very quiet 2 minute ride back home. Andrew was looking for Addy in the car seat next to him and it made my heart hurt a little. While they were definitely sick of each other for the past few days, I know he still got used to and enjoyed her being there. But back to their own life they must go! I'm pretty positive that Mel has a sinus infection and she's not doing very well flying, so if you happen to read this in the next few hours.. send up some quick prayers for them if you will!

I won't lie, the quiet is really nice right now. I miss them dearly, but I value my alone time as well, so I'm okay with it. Plus, I really missed blogging :)

Andrew is down for a nap and the house has been cleaned and thoroughly disinfected. Not because I wanted to scrub any remnants of them away or I think they're gross.. we've all been so sick. No fun! I think Andrew and I are turning the corner though, while unfortunately, Mel was getting worse and I really needed to get these germs out of my house. No one wants to be sick during a 4-day!

So, we had a great time over the past two weeks. We didn't get to do all that much, but we spent plenty of time just being together. Isn't that what it's really all about anyways? I think so. I spent some much needed face time with my SIL. Since we chat.. on average.. two or three times a day, it was nice not to have the phone glued to my ear! She got to hang out with her brother. Trey and I got to really know our niece. Andrew got to familiarize himself with them.
Our kids played at the park together. We scrap booked together. We laughed. We coughed. We ran errands. We vegged out on the couch. We took walks. We got our kids dressed up and trick-or-treated. We watched lots of hours of Nick Jr. and Cars (and Dexter!!). We built towers with blocks and sang lots of ABCs and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We fought off sleep deprivation with coffee together. We Pinterested together. We Neti Potted together (gross?). We made tunnels out of boxes. We colored. We just did life, really.

Lots of good memories were made!

Hmm.. 14 Months!

2011-11-08T22:43:00.003-05:00

My company (SIL and Niece) are still here, but since we are all sickies and all in bed except Trey and I, I wanted to write a little blurb. Mostly because I need to do Andrew's 14 month update. I knew I skipped his picture, but I completely passed over his monthly blog shot-out. And since I've started his first years' scrapbook... I realized how important that is..shewww that's come in handy!

This is what my little man is looking like nowadays -

I know.. I know.. I don't know how I stand all of that cuteness either.

He's a full blown walker.
A touchdown signer (you know.. throwing his hands up to make the touchdown sign)
An open mouth kisser and a hugger that pats your back.
A non-hand-holder.
An almost runner.
A food lover.
Still a car, rock and dirt lover.
A very talented colorer and a sidewalk chalk enthusiast.
A skillful dancer who jams out to Fresh Beat Band.
His favorite song is Friend Like You by above mentioned show.
A great sleeper.. still.
A mommy ~~obsessor~~ lover... still.
And the cutest, sweetest little boy that ever existed.

Stats: If I had to guess, I would say 22.5 to 23 pounds. But I'm not positive. He's wearing 24 month PJs with room to grow, 18 month pants and shirts and size 5 shoes.

Words:
(same as last month)
- Car (ca)

- Dog (daw)
- Outside (ou-taaaa)
- Dada and sometimes daddddy
- Maaama
(New)
-yeah yeah yeah yeah (in a sing song voice... repeating me)
He also point to everything and says Da.. kind of like he's asking me what it is maybe? So we talk about lots of random objects during the day. His favorite thing to point out right now is the moon, cow, balloon, and rabbit from Goodnight Moon. So precious.
He babbles in full sentences, but I have no earthly idea what he's saying.

Food: Still everything. Even pasta now. He wouldn't eat that last month, but he thoroughly enjoyed it tonight. I know I need to get him to start practicing with his own spoon.. like.. yesterday, but I'm telling you.. I'm just not ready. I'll be sucking it up real soon though! Lord, give me patience.

Naps: Great napper. Back to his two naps a day, usually, so it looks like we don't have to give up that 2nd nap just yet! First one from 9 to 10:30-11 and the second one from 2-3:30. Talks to himself to put himself to sleep while listening to Scout play his bedtime music and usually does the same when he wakes up.. unless he's hungry, then I'm sure the neighborhood hears his screams.

Firsts:
That whole touchdown thing. It's gotten to the point that he throws his arms up if he even sees football on TV. Yes, we're proud.
Walking :)
Figuring out his little shape toy (He always puts the circles in the right spot and has just recently gotten the star)
First long vacation with his Mimi and Cousin Addy.
He dances and gets really excited when his Daddy does the B-A-M-A chant. (Trey really wants to make sure we remember that ) :)

Struggles:
He's going through another bout of separation anxiety. And apparently that's normal at around 15 months. Back to the basics of always telling him where I'm going and talking to him.. lots! Hopefully that will work again.. and at least this time he can walk to where I am instead of being stuck in one place.
More teething.
Getting him to understand that he cannot go outside first thing in the morning (it's freezing) or right before bed and us trying to figure out the best way to handle those tantrums that follow. .
We're also trying to sort out what behavior we want to correct or accept. And come to an agreement on how we are going to handle the correction.

Dear, dear Andrew,
We have more and more fun with you by the day! You are such a joy to be around with your coy smirks and contagious laughs. You are really growing up and you continue to amaze us by the minute! I'm so grateful that God thought we were worthy of being your parents. I only hope that we do better than good enough with you!
I can't believe you are walking (and almost running) through our home, discovering new things everyday. I love how curious, yet still cautious you are. I'm really loving this stage and not rushing it one tiny little bit, but I know the next few months are going to be a lot of fun.
We love you to the moon and back!
xoxo, Mama and Daddy

If you've gotten this far.. ughh.. you're awesome! My life will be getting back to normal soon and I'm looking forward to blogging more regularly. I have a few things to write about already planned, just have to find the time :)
BTW.. I have almost 200 followers now. It's crazy to me that you all take the time to read about my thoughts and our life. It's pretty flattering. But I want to know who you are and get the chance to get to know you. Introduce yourself with a quick hi if you'd like!

Foodie Friday

2011-10-28T09:27:00.000-04:00

I miss blogging so much! I realize it even more so when I sit down and actually start typing. I just haven't been able to fit it in, I'll get there though!

I definitely wanted to share a new recipe we tried this week though! I could go into a thousand fun adjectives to explain how delish it was, but let's just say when hubby took his first bite, all I heard was a big heart, "Ohhh my God!!". Yup. It was that good. And I found it on Pinterest, so see, all of that time wasted can't be a bad thing!

It's called Honey Sauced Chicken and I found it here!
But I also had fun with it so I could show you my attempt :)

Honey Sauced Chicken

Here's what you'll need:

A few chicken breasts (we used two, but there was plenty sauce left over if you need to use more)
1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup chopped onion (or 1/16 cup onion flakes)
1/8 cup ketchup
1 Tbs. vegetable oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes

Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper and throw those in the crock pot.

Mix together honey, soy sauce, onion, ketchup, oil, garlic and pepper flakes.

And pour it over the chicken.

Afterwards, cut your chicken up into bite-sized pieces and return to crock pot to mix with your sauce. (or if you're like me and only use 2 chickens, just spoon some of the sauce on top of the bites because that will be too much sauce.)

You can serve it however you'd like. I got a box of Rice a Roni's Fried Rice and put the chicken on top of that. I think next time it would be great to add in some veggies to the rice!
My end product looked like this..

In the original recipe, her sauce looked all thick and coated on the chicken and I'm not sure how she accomplished that. Unless she added in some flour?? or something and didn't say? But basically, if yours doesn't come out like that don't freak.. it's still scrumptious.

Try this! Your family will thank you. If you have any other ideas on how to serve it, please share :) Happy eating!

Put one foot in front of the other...

2011-10-21T10:44:00.000-04:00

... I'm nowhere near ready for him to be walking out the door, but Drewsky took his first solo steps over the weekend (Saturday, Oct 15th)!! It's so exciting. We've been waiting for this for quite a while, as we've been quickly tiring of walking around with him as he holds our fingers.

The best part of it all was that Trey's parents were here for the weekend to see it happen, and my parents were able to see.. maybe not the first steps, but the ones shortly thereafter, over Skype. I'm also pretty sure it was in the middle of the Alabama game, which is only appropriate.

He's gotten more and more confident with it over the past few days. He'll go from sitting, to standing and starts walking now and is up to about 5 or 6 steps at a time. It's really the cutest thing ever to see his little hynie sashaying from side to side.

Good timing, Andrew! You're really getting so heavy to carry around. Also, trick-or-treating will be much easier in your cute little lamb costume.

Crappy phone pic.. but it's still cute.

Randoms

2011-10-11T22:51:00.000-04:00

I just need like and hour and 1/2 added to the day. Couldn't we all use that?

I have a few spare minutes to blog, but my mind isn't capable of putting together full, concise paragraphs at the moment, so it's another fun random post. Yay!

First, and most importantly, Fort Bliss lost a Marine, SSGT Christopher Diaz, recently. The other day was the funeral and burial. The night before, it was posted all over FB that the westboro crazies were coming to protest the funeral. I won't get into how sick this makes me as 1) I'm sure you all know and 2) we'd be here all day. What I will do is boast about how incredible the Ft. Bliss community is. A very large amount of people showed up to support this family and westboro did not! I'm so glad for that family! Some of the pictures that I've seen so far are just breathtaking..

All photos were taken courtesy of Jessica Brooks

All scrap booking stuff is on sale at The Hob Lob for 40% off until the 15th. I couldn't be any more excited. But, don't you wish money grew on trees? That's wonderful that it's on sale and all... but if you have very little extra money, it doesn't matter too much. That all being said, I'm going tomorrow to pick up juussttt a few things.
~ Ahem ~
All of that above was written yesterday. I'm just sitting down to finish quickly, and have to admit that I went a little crazy at the Hob today. But I am in scrap booking heaven! I can't wait to start on Andrew's 1st year book. I may or may not be just waiting on the 335 pictures I ordered from Snapfish the other day to come in. Woopsies! But as my good friend Nancy pointed out... that's less than a picture a day. I think I did pretty good narrowing down a year's worth of pictures.

My in-laws are flying in on Thursday. I'm so excited to have some visitors. It's just a short visit, but we're going to make the most of it. It should be a fun few days :) I'm hoping Andrew will take his first real steps while they are here. He's so so so very close. As in has taken one or two wobbly can-barely-count-as-steps-steps. We're so close and I can't wait. No matter how many people tell me, "I'm in trouble now". That really grinds my gears (said in my best Peter Griffin voice).

I've finally joined Pinterest. Got sick of fighting it and it's the best thing that's come into my life. A little obsessed? Possibly.

That's all for now. I can't promise that I'll come up with any note-worthy posts anytime soon. Unless you can find me that extra hour and 1/2 in a day!

Overwhelmed

2011-10-05T22:22:00.000-04:00

I may have set a new record for myself. Longest days straight without blogging? Possibly! It feels like it.

I was doing so well there for a while. I have a section in my super awesome organization binder just for blogging. So I always have a place to jot down ideas when they come to me. (Because after three years of blogging.. almost going on 4 I think(!!)... that's how my brain works. Blog worthy or non-blog worthy events). I have a schedule set up and I usually have so many ideas in my head that, on Sundays I can map out my week of posts. And I mean.. it does get planned out. But you see where that's gotten me.

I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water. A lot of it is perceived as worse than it really is, I think, because Andrew has decided that 5am is the ideal time to wake up for the day. Not cool, kid, not cool at all. I've gotten to the point over the past two mornings that I'm just turning the monitor off and let him cry.. not because I'm cruel.. but he's GOT to remember that's it's much more fun to sleep until 6:30. I don't fall back asleep anyways, because I can tell that he's not going to go back to sleep. And we're all out of bed by 5:30 and starting our day. Sounds miserable, doesn't it? It is.

Then, I mean... he's 13 months old. I guess that's the magic number with kids... you know.. the one where they start to get extremely determined to have their way. I know it's normal and I know it comes with the territory. If we were sleeping until a decent hour of the morning, I think I could handle it better. But an exhaustion that coffee can't even kick makes tantrums harder to deal with. It makes it hard to get excited about going outside for the 10th time in one day. Please don't get me wrong.. I love how much he can interact with me now. I love that part of this stage. He's almost walking. He's doing better and better about showing me what he wants. He's so incredibly lovey. Sometimes I feel like we're having real conversations. He laughs so much. But I have to get better at planning actual activities with him. Which I've always been excited to do. Doesn't he realize that if he'd just let me sleep for an extra hour and 1/2, we'd have so much more fun?!
My rope is very thin these days. Gone are the days where I could take him anywhere I pleased and he sits and smiles and let's me do my thing. Ha! Gone are the simple days at the Grocery store. Gone are the days where he'd basically do anything I wanted him to do. The nerve of him to have an opinion of his own!
So.. we fight battles daily. I win some, I lose some. Plenty of tears are shed... mostly from him ;) He kicks and screams and yells all of his frustration out multiple times a day. By 4:00 I think I'm going to lose my ever loving mind if I hear one more shriek/cry/scream. Trey comes home and I fight the urge to run out the door while he has it open (kidding, kidding.. kind of). And then it's all forgotten the second he says, "mama" in that sweet little voice. Or cuddles up to me to read. Or hugs his dog or glow worm. Or even better.. me.

I know this is just a season. Can you tell that I have to tell myself that a lot? I have less and less time for myself, but I know that's only going to diminish even more so. I'll be okay with that eventually. I'm just having a hard time balancing all my roles. Wife. Mother. Friend. Daughter. Between wife and mother... I'm really, really slacking at being a good friend. Any free time I get that's not used on Andrew goes to trying to keep my house in some sort of an order. My poor friends! I can't tell you how many emails have sat there.. unanswered. I do good to answer a text message the day after I get it. I've been a huge flake all around and even screwed up with a play date. I feel terrible.

I know I will sort everything out. I'll adjust. I'll be able to balance everything better. I know I need to MAKE time for myself. To get to PWOC (I didn't make it this morning and it crushed me), to blog (I NEED to blog), to.. ya know.. have a conversation with a friend (If I have any left ;) )

So bear with me. If anyone has figured toddlers and time management out, feel free to leave me your magic tips!

~ 13 Months ~

2011-09-29T16:32:00.000-04:00

Holy Moly... do I have a toddler or what? I do. I do. I have a very.. ummm.. strong willed toddler. He is still as sweet as ever, but I think he just gets so frustrated. He wants to do so much on his own, but still needs me to help him out. I can see how that would be a little angering.. don't you? So we work through the tantrums and soak up the sweet moments even more so! Like when he crawls towards me, saying "maaama" every so sweetly, climbs in my lap and rests his head on my shoulder. Yeahhh... I'll take that all day!

Stats: He doesn't have another well baby appointment until 18 months, so unless we need to go to the doctor before than for any reason, I won't know his exact height and weight for a while.
He's wearing mostly all 18 months clothes. Definitely 18-month shirts, onesies and PJ's. Almost ready for 24 months for PJs. Can still get away with 12-month pants. The waist in everything is too big for him, so I've given up on that! Ha!

Words:
- Car (ca)
- Dog (daw)
- Outside (ou-taaaa)
- Dada and sometimes daddddy
- Maaama
Yes... those have been his first words. In that order. Don't worry.. I know where I stand anyways :)
He's been saying Dada for quite a while now, but now he actually associates the word with Trey.

Food: Ummm... everything? There is nothing he won't eat! Except he wouldn't eat spaghetti the other night. That could have just been coincidence though. (For those that have children that are a little older and are picky eaters.... were they ever like Andrew is? I'm afraid to be too confident in his eating now if he's guaranteed to go through the picky stage later.)
He especially loves vegetables.. I know.. I know.. I don't know where it comes from. If I put every food group on his high chair tray.. I promise you he will go for the veggies first. No, I'm not complaining :) Still just drinking whole milk and water. Not at the same time of course.

Naps: Up until Monday, he was still taking 2 naps a day. He was in the process of moving them between a half hour or an hour later in the day, but he was still taking them. The morning nap was lasting and hour and 1/2. Either the same for the afternoon nap or as long as 2 hours. Since Monday... not the same story. He's refusing his morning nap. He will scream and scream and scream some more until I go and get him. So we've moved his afternoon nap up a bit and we'll see how that goes! Unfortunately for me, that nap isn't lasting any longer.

Firsts:
-Playing Patty Cake
-Clapping
- Making that indian noise by hitting his mouth with his hand.
- Saying Mama and Dada and associating it with us.
- Shaking and nodding his head. Especially while dancing. Kids got some moves.
- Plays Peek-a-boo. By either pulling his blanket over his head or crouching down behind the ottoman.

He still isn't walking yet, but is cruising along furniture much more and much faster. He's walking a little more while holding onto his car too.
He's getting a little attached to his blanket. He's never had a security item before so that was a little out of the blue for me.
He's getting really good at being able to tell me what he wants. Pointing at things. Saying "CAA" in an incredibly needy and urgent tone if his car goes under the couch, the entertainment center or in the pantry. And you know.. good old-fashioned meltdowns. We've just started to teach him Sign Language. Hopefully that works out.
He loves to make towers out of two or three of his blocks at a time. He loves even more so to knock them down.
Cars is still his favorite movie and is a magical lifesaver in a pinch. Or for babysitters :)
He's all of a sudden terrified of dogs when he's always loved them. Normal? He still likes them from afar. On TV, in books or from far away. Not so much when they get close to him though.
He still loves reading his books together, but he's got a little too confident with turning the pages. He rarely gives me the time to finish reading what's on the page.. silly boy!
Your Daddy suggested that you go to CDC (daycare) a little more often because you are slightly attached to me. You do not like to be away from me. So, I bring you in twice a week, only for an hour and 1/2 and things are getting better. Plus, you are in watch care for a few hours every Wednesday morning so I can go to PWOC. I don't always like to drop you off, but I know it's good for the both of us. It does warm my heart to sneak up on you when I pick you up and watch you for a little bit. It's usually nap time when I do come to get you, but you're never sleeping. One time you were even trying to wake up the other kids by banging on their little cots... haha! You're going to be THAT child, aren't you??
He loves his independent play. Which I know is a good thing. But sometimes he's already pushing me away when he just wants to play by himself. LOL.. he'll literally pick up his toy that he is playing with and go to another room if I try to play with him when he doesn't want me to.
This kid cracks me up!

13 Months

Because in reality, that's what a lot of our day looks like lately!

Andrew, we love you so very much! Even when you look like you do in the picture above ;)
You make my heart explode with love and you make your Daddy more proud than he ever thought possible. I can't imagine my life existing without you!

Weekend in Review

2011-09-26T18:49:00.000-04:00

I had a REALLY busy weekend.. compared to my normal weekends. Busy. (side note: I accidentally wrote Busty and then laughed incessantly). Very busy. But in a really good way. A few days in a row that really filled up my cup.

Friday night, Trey and I had our friends, Nancy and Bryan, babysit Andrew so we could go out to dinner with Jennifer and Fritz. You've heard me mention them quite a few times (Jenn is the one I went to high school with.. and now we live in Texas together). F is deploying.. umm.. very soon and we wanted to get one last night out with them before he leaves... and since Trey can't be available this week.. Friday night it was it. It was bittersweet. We went to Cattleman's Steakhouse.

both pics found on Google Images

Which is beyond amazing. This coming from a girl who could live without steak for the rest of her life and really not feel like I'm missing out on a thing. (I've been telling people that this place was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, but apparently that's the one in Oklahoma City. I'm not sure if they're the same thing. If not, this one needs to be on the show too. For reals). We had a great time with them (even walking through the stinky petting zoo in heels afterwards where Jenn and I came very close to revisiting the food we just ate), but it was hard to put the reason we were eating together that particular night out of my head. I can't imagine how she feels (or any of the other number of women who's husbands are leaving) if I've been worrying over it this much. I know she will thrive while he is away though.. she's an OUTSTANDING person :)

Another good friend of mine, Ashley, had her baby boy Friday afternoon. I was able to go to the hospital and visit Saturday morning and ohhhh myyy... he is precious! He's just perfect. I don't feel comfortable sharing pictures of other people's babies, so you'll just have to take my word on this one. Perfection wrapped up in a tiny 6 pound 12 ounce body.
Ever since I gave birth to Andrew, I've become super sensitive to others having babies. You can't understand the true miracle of it all until you've had a child yourself, I don't think. I know I never did. I had NO comprehension at all for the amount of love you experience. None. And now.. I do. And I want everyone to experience it. And to see that new understanding in the eyes and written all over their expressions.. it does this girls' heart good.

We then spent the day at JG and her husband's house watching football all day on Saturday. Minus Andrew's new found extreme fright of dogs (WTH... seriously.. the kid has always loved dogs. Loved them. It was his second word. All of a sudden... he clings to me like a koala bear around a tree when they are around. What up with that??) we had a great time! Especially when JG made Pioneer Woman's fried chicken. Slurp.. excuse me while I salivate at the memory of it. Best fried chicken (that was mostly baked) in the entire world. Yes.. including Chick-fil-a. Wowzers. Bama won.. good for us. OU won.. good for them. Too bad the Pats couldn't keep it rolling on Sunday.

Sunday morning, Fancy Nancy and I got out of the house super early and decorated the *mostly* outside of the new parents' house. We were so incredibly excited. It looked pretty darn good if I do say so myself. I hope they enjoyed it all! I also hope it's not too hard to take down!

So yeah... friends + babies + good food + football = a pretty awesome weekend!

Silent Sunday

2011-09-25T15:33:00.001-04:00

In an effort to take more creative pictures (you know.. other than pics of Andrew. Inside. Playing with cars.) and to also do more outdoorsy things with him, I'll use a lazy Sunday post to put up my favorite pictures from the week. Plus, it'll make my mum happy.... This week I have two that I couldn't choose between :)

At the park, down the street from our house.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Foodie Friday

2011-09-23T16:56:00.000-04:00

One of my goals in my quest to better myself for my family, is to try a new recipe once a week.

I became obsessed with the Crockpot Girls website recently, so I've tried quite a few actually. The one I was planning to post today was a Chicken Pesto Pasta that I found here. Butt... surprisingly, we didn't so much like it. I think it was just the brand of pesto I used though? I'm not quite sure, because I usually love this meal. This one had a funny aftertaste.

So, instead, I'll share the roast I did on Sunday (from Crockpot Girls). Trey said it was the best roast he's ever had. That is saying something!!

To Die For Roast

1 (4-5 lbs) beef roast, any kind (we used a Chuck roast)

1 package brown gravy mix, dry
1 package Italian salad dressing mix, dry
1 package ranch dressing mix, dry
1/2 C water

*Place beef roast in crock pot
*Mix the dried mixes together and sprinkle over the roast
*Pour the water around the roast
*Cook on low for 7-9 hours

We'll definitely make this one again :)

Officially Fall... almost

2011-09-22T23:33:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow marks the first official day of fall and I've finished my Fall Bucket List just in time!

When Katie first posted hers for all of us to not only oooooh and ahhhhhh over, but actually print it out as well, I was straight giddy. A Fall themed decoration that serves a purpose... bonus! I could hug her through the computer for giving me the adorable idea.

When I clicked on the link to print it out, I thought I'd be able to change the "to-do" items. You know.. make it my own without having to do any of the work? Not so much. Seems I was going to have to dig out my old computer skillz.

I love your ideas, Katie. I do. From the looks of it, you're going to have a few months worth of awesome family fun. But... I live in the desert. Beautiful, crunchy leaf piles? Not gonna happen for us. And while I love pies, I've only attempted to make one and it wasn't very fun for me. I'll leave that one alone too. So you see... I just needed to make my own list. But I'm ever so grateful for her posting her creativeness for the world to see so I can copy it :)

I also have no free printable to post like she did. Not because I'm not super nice like that... I.. umm.. don't know how to do that. If anyone does know how and is that interested, feel free to leave me directions. I don't mind sharing.

I can, however, show you what I did with mine. I have my dry erase marker ready for checking off all the fun things we have planned! Ta-daaaa -

That's a big picture. Good thing I just dusted!

PWOC

2011-09-21T15:59:00.000-04:00

How many of my military spouse readers take part in your PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) on post? If you don't know what I'm talking about, or you just haven't quite gotten around to trying it out yet, I strongly suggest you do.

For those that don't have any idea of what PWOC is, here is a link that can tell you all about it. It's a chance to have some fellowship once a week with other Christian military wives. We socialize, eat and drink coffee, do some worship, and break into smaller groups for different Bible studies. If you're into that sort of thing, please go and check your local group out. Fort Bliss's group means the world to me and I can feel the changes it's making in me.

My faith is always something I have struggled on and off with. There have been times where I so strongly believed in everything the Bible says, but other times, when I was filled with doubt. I had too many questions. The devil has worked wonders in my life and I'd have to say, has taken precedence more times than he should have been able to.
Over the past year, my strength has been unshakable. God's done some awesome things in my life lately and I've finally been able to just let go of any doubt I had. Now, my faith in God and His word is something I can't imagine doubting or questioning. But that doesn't mean I don't still struggle. I have so much to learn. I have stories to learn in the Bible that have been ingrained in most people's minds their whole lives. I want to have scriptures memorized and have them get myself or others through tough times. Or use them to praise God in the good times. I need to be able to live His words out more in day to day life. I could go on and on, but I see myself getting very side tracked here. I attribute these changes that I've seen in myself to going to PWOC. Well, to God of course, but He put me here.. at this post.. with this group.

When I started going to PWOC last year, I wasn't very committed. I would go here and there, but if something else came up, I had no problem skipping it. Now, it's probably my absolute favorite morning of the week. We get so busy during the week with day-to-day activities. With household chores and taking care of our babies. Things can get so.. routine. And busy. Wednesday mornings, my soul has a chance to regroup. It means SO MUCH to me that my baby is taken care of while I recharge. While I spend the morning in prayer, praising God, and focusing on the things that really matter. To quite myself. To remind myself that no matter what is going on in our lives this week, not only is God looking out for us, loving us and standing by our side... so are about 150 other women. There is something so powerful about hearing all of those women singing together. Praying together. Lifting each other up in hard times, like deployments (imagine going through a deployment....not alone but with this huge group of unfailing support.. wow!) and celebrating the good times.
It's hard for me to stop in the midst of our daily craziness to appreciate what God has given me and my family. To remember to go to Him with my problems... because He's right there waiting. So not only does PWOC refresh my mind and soul and remind me of these things, but the study that I've gotten into this year provides me with a little bit of quite time each day (yes, I have to physically schedule it into my daily organizer, but it does get done and that's what matters) to redirect myself as well.
There were so many wonderful choices.. two others that I wanted to do (Power of a Praying Wife and Shepherding a Child's Heart), but in the end, felt powerfully led to do Hope for the Homefront. I'm so glad I chose that one. The others would be great to read on my own time anyways, but this is great for me right now. We've been focusing on fear so far (which I struggle with A LOT) and how instead of letting it cripple us, we need to trust in God's word more. I love the way it flows. How it makes me think without spelling things out completely. It's pretty awesome. I've heard from multiple others that have read it and loved it as well! (Just came to me.. but I could possibly see a give away coming up when we're through with it!)

So..that's all. I just felt overwhelmed with these feelings of gratitude towards this group today and wanted to share. From those that have known me the longest, this post may catch you off guard a little. I've never been very open with my faith. I'm not sure why. It's always made me feel a little awkward talking about it, but I know it shouldn't be that way. I'm a little uneasy with even putting something as personal as this out, but I shouldn't be. I should be anxious (in a good way) to hit that publish button. Ready to share my faith with anyone who may benefit from hearing about it. I know that's what we're supposed to do. I'm working on fixing that... just another area I need to grow in.

The day Andrew turned ONE

2011-09-20T16:42:00.000-04:00

I didn't think I'd ever get around to posting about Andrew's birthday party!

We had so much fun! We did a Dr. Seuss theme (because I love Dr. Seuss and at this point, I can still control things like birthday themes) and I got LOTS of good ideas from other blogs and online in general. While I did the majority of these decorations myself, the ideas mostly came from quite a few months of Google searching!
Andrew had 20-something of ~~our~~ his closest friends over. We chatted, ate, did presents, and soaked up the cuteness of a special little one year old! I let the pictures do the talking. This will be a heavy picture post :)

The birthday boy:

The decorations:

The Cake Smashing (kind of):

Much to my surprise, he did too much enjoy the taste of cake. Not a sweet lover I guess. He does enjoy playing with frosting, though.

The love:

This is Jennifer. She made Andrew's outfit and her cake. So yeah.. she's awesome!

The Great Pumpkin Post

2011-09-19T11:56:00.000-04:00

Happy Monday! I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. Ours was just so-so. Lots of time spent around the house since Trey had staff duty. I hate when he has that over the weekend! I'm feeling good and positive this morning though, so let's not go down that path. Moving on!

As most of you know, Autumn is my favorite time of year. I'm borderline obsessive. It makes me giddy. Summertime sucks the life right out of me.. I know, I know.. very un-American of me.. but it's true. I'm not a fan of Summer. So fall.. it brings me back to life. That being said, I'm sure you find it strange that I've never cared for any pumpkin flavored treats. (No? You don't find it strange and don't particularly even care for that matter? If you love me.. bear.. beer?.. bare?? with me and keep reading anyways. I need suggestions at the end.)
But I also lived in New England until I was 13 and don't like ANY seafood. And spent the next 13 years in South Carolina and don't like grits. So, obviously, I'm a go-against-the-grain kinda girl.

So.. there's been no pumpkin bread, pies, pudding or cookies in my life. Until a few months ago. Then Nancy Galas (see.. that's two mentions of you on my blog now. You need to make one yourself so I can link to you when I mention your name and the world can see how fabulous you are) and her cookies walk into my life. Nancy makes pumpkin cookies from scratch. I don't know what possessed me to try them.. you know.. since I don't like pumpkin.. why would I like pumpkin cookies?? ~~But I did. And I proceeded to eat 20 more in one sitting.~~ I had one or two that night, and seriously, they are the melt in your mouth goodness that everyone was raving about. Okay... maybe there is something to this pumpkin thing.
Fast forward a few months further. I'm gallivanting around El Paso with JG, ( I know... jealous??) and of course, we can't resist the urgent calling for Starbucks. She orders a Pumpkin Spice Frappacino (hello.. I didn't know they made a frap in that flavor!) and I'm intrigued. Not quite enough to go out on a limb and order my own. But enough to take a little sippsies of hers. I've had two since then. And this outing was just 4 days ago...

Here's where you come in. I've only gained 5 pounds in the last 2 months, so obvi, I need to gain more.. ugghhhh!! Kidding. I really need to lose it plus another 20 but that's not what we're focusing on today. I'm working on a fun, decorative fall bucket list, a la Katie, (yes, you can see it when it's done) and one thing I want to do is make a new recipe using pumpkin. Please note.. I didn't say it had to be fresh pumpkin. It's perfectly okay to use it out of the can, right? I mean.. we don't all have to be Nancy Galas's in this world.. right??
So what should I make? Give me your best pumpkin recipe. Ready.. set... go!

Smoothie goodness

2011-09-16T09:59:00.000-04:00

For about a month now, I've been on a smoothie kick. I bought a ton of frozen fruit. Had a smoothie loving genius website bookmarked. Found one in particular that is just about the best thing I've ever tasted. Which includes no frozen fruit. And I've made it just about every morning since. Intrigued? I kind of made it my own and this morning, I feel I should share it with you.

You will need...
1 Cup milk (I choose to use Smart Balance Fat-Free milk)
3 small spoonfulls of Light Vanilla Yogurt
2 Tbsp of reduced-fat cream Peanut Butter
2 Tbsp of any kind of chocolate poweder mix (I've been using Nesquick, but that's just because my Carnation ran out and I'm using what I have before I buy more)
1 whole banana, sliced
Some crushed ice.. I have no idea how much I use. I don't measure that.

Blend and enjoy! If you try it, let me know what you think.

Side note:
As I was up browsing the Internet from 11:30 to 1:15 in the morning last night (not feeling too hot and Trey had a PT test this morning. I couldn't go back to sleep and didn't want to keep him up!), I saw a post that brought something about my last post to my attention. This girl definitely got the wrong idea, so in case there was more misconception out there, I thought I'd clear a little up.
My quest to become a better wife is my decision. My husband has never made me feel the need to do this. I want to. And that does not, in any shape of form, make me feel like I am a second class citizen behind him. I'm no less of a woman because I'm a stay at home wife and mom. I have a complete understanding of my worth.
I'm under no impression that I am going emulate the Proverbs 31 woman completely. I will not be making clothing for my family nor will I be rising before the sun comes out every day to fix him breakfast before he heads out. At the same time, there is nothing wrong with women that can do that. If I can learn to sew a button, that would be wonderful! Will I continue to bring my husband a cup of coffee on the weekend with his breakfast... at a decent hour? Sure will. And not because he requires it of me. Because I want to. I love to do things like that for him. And he's not grunting in his recliner and slapping me on the ass as I do so. He's full of appreciation. And will probably turn around over the weekend and mop all of our hardwoods and catch up on the laundry that I got too busy to finish.
This is about bettering myself. About being more organized and more effeciant. It's about making sure my husband knows that I'm his number one fan. And that, my friends, sure does NOT make me any less of a woman.

The wife I want to be

2011-09-13T16:17:00.000-04:00

Proverbs 31
10-31 A good woman is hard to find,

and worth far more than diamonds.
Her husband trusts her without reserve,
and never has reason to regret it.
Never spiteful, she treats him generously
all her life long.
She shops around for the best yarns and cottons,
and enjoys knitting and sewing.
She's like a trading ship that sails to faraway places
and brings back exotic surprises.
She's up before dawn, preparing breakfast
for her family and organizing her day.
She looks over a field and buys it,
then, with money she's put aside, plants a garden.
First thing in the morning, she dresses for work,
rolls up her sleeves, eager to get started.
She senses the worth of her work,
is in no hurry to call it quits for the day.
She's skilled in the crafts of home and hearth,
diligent in homemaking.
She's quick to assist anyone in need,
reaches out to help the poor.
She doesn't worry about her family when it snows;
their winter clothes are all mended and ready to wear.
She makes her own clothing,
and dresses in colorful linens and silks.
Her husband is greatly respected
when he deliberates with the city fathers.
She designs gowns and sells them,
brings the sweaters she knits to the dress shops.
Her clothes are well-made and elegant,
and she always faces tomorrow with a smile.
When she speaks she has something worthwhile to say,
and she always says it kindly.
She keeps an eye on everyone in her household,
and keeps them all busy and productive.
Her children respect and bless her;
her husband joins in with words of praise:
"Many women have done wonderful things,
but you've outclassed them all!"
Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades.
The woman to be admired and praised
is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God.
Give her everything she deserves!
Festoon her life with praises!

Wow.. did you read all that? That's a lot to live up to, right?!?

About two weeks ago, Sara Horn, who writes, My So-Called Life as a Proverbs 31 Wife, came to our kick-off day of PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel). She was an awesome speaker. She opened right up and made you feel like you've known her all your life. She is a military wife herself, and shared some of her experiences that led her to write this book. I could go on and on about her and what she said, but then this post would be much longer than it already is going to be... so let's get more to the point!

My friend Ashley, who was with me, won Sara's book and I wasted no time in demanding that she hand it over to me as soon as she was done. Mistake numero uno. Who would have guessed that she'd finish it in like 3 days? Not I. Mistake numero dos. Of course, with her raving about it, I couldn't wait to start it. And of course I'm sucked in. And now, of course, I'm on the mission to become a better wife.

I may get some rolling of the eyes with this one, but I'm going to put it all out there anyways. My blog, right?
I've been trying for two weeks now..scratch that.. I've been fighting with myself in my head for two weeks now... about how I'm going to go about this. I've been actually trying for two days. Yes, I want to be a better wife, and mother on that note. Yes, I want to make better use of my time. But how? Where am I going to find more time in the day? Where's all of that energy needed going to come from. Can I really do everything without complaining? What if he doesn't notice? I'm supposed to just keep picking up after everyone with no thanks? What if I fail?

I have a lot to work on. I need to develop A LOT more patience. My husband is a wonderful man and I love him with everything I've got, but my heavens he can infuriate me! I'm signing up to "never be spiteful and treat him generously all my life long". That, my friends, is a long time... hopefully. I'm just now developing a crafty side, but I sure am not about to be knitting and sewing. I mean.. I think I can learn to sew a button on. My husband knows how.. maybe he can teach me. "Up before down, preparing breakfast"??? Seriously? Does the coffee maker even work before dawn? " She senses the worth of her work, is in no hurry to call it quits for the day." Yes, I understand that keeping up house and home is important.. and I like to have a clean house. Clean clothes are kind of important too. As is dinner being made every night. But, no hurry to call it quits? I can't call it quits soon enough! There's more.. read it for yourself. Something like making my own clothing, my clothes always being elegant, and always saying kind things and having a smile on my face.

Gosh.. is this woman perfect, or what? Do I think I can do ALL of this? No. Not a chance. But I can be a better wife than I have been, that's for sure. I guess that's my point in all of this jumbled mess. My husband works hard for us.. for me to be able to stay home and raise our son. He's up and out the door way before the sun is even thinking about coming up. He shouldn't have to come home and do any work around the house after that (IMO). It's not JUST for him, though. He never, ever complains about anything. He thinks I'm pretty amazing just the way I am. But, it's also for me. Having my house in disarray stresses me out to.the.max. I hate to see clutter. I hate to see crap all over the place when it shouldn't be there. I hate to see laundry pile up and I hate even more so to have to do multiple loads at a time. I LOVE organization. I love to feel put together. I love to have good meals planned and cooked to feed my boys. I love to feel like I have a purpose. And for now.. this IS my purpose. To take care of my family.

So, how am I going to make this work? What is my plan?
First and foremost, I had to admit something to myself that embarrassed me. I'm pretty positive that there are a lot of others who can say the same. I had to cut out A LOT of internet time. I can be fairly certain when I say I have an addiction to the internet. To Facebook more specifically. I'm not sure why other than, on some days, it's my only form of communication with an adult. I'm sure it runs much deeper than that, though, but the why isn't important here. Maybe we can delve into that at a later time. Maybe.
I'm forcing myself to shut down the computer more often. I'm making a weekly list of things I want/need to get done and I will not go to bed before it's all done. I'm realistic. It's not like I'm not giving myself a moment to breath. I'm just more disciplined. I WILL get everything done. I'm making a very detailed planner with my friend Jaci later on this week and I'm sure that will be a big help. The main motivator will be pretty new pens.
I'm making a conscience effort to be nicer to Trey. It's not like I'm evil to him as it is, but I'm going to make an effort to bring him up more. To hold my tongue when I want to lay into him. To compliment him more. To trust his instincts more. To let him lead the way without doubting him. To stop nagging. To stop complaining when I have to put his dish in the dishwasher or his coke can in the recycling bin... again. I'm very strong willed and stubborn... so this is going to be harder for me than it sounds.
I want to be more creative with dinner plans. Try different, more nutritious meals.
I want to interactively play with my son more. I feel like I already do a good enough job with this. But, I want to better than "good enough". Now that the weather is cooling off, I want to take him outside more. I don't want to turn him down so much when he points to the door and says, "utahh" (outside). I'll go out with him more and play in rocks and dirt. Take him to the park more and for more walks. Sit and play with his new ABC puzzle. Read more.

I think that is a good starting point. Will I change overnight? No way. Will I need to call a friend to vent at times? Most definitely. Will I get the praise I'm looking for? Probably not at first. Will this improve my marriage? I'm very confident that over time, it will. I'm confident in the fact that this will pay off. That Trey will notice the effort I'm making and start trying harder himself. My main goal isn't to get anything from him in return, but it wouldn't hurt. That would just improve things even more so. But I have to start with myself.

So there you have it. A plan to improve myself and my marriage out there for the world to see. Thoughts? Ideas? Has anyone read this book? I'd love to know!

10 Years

2011-09-11T09:52:00.000-04:00

I wasn't planning on writing anything. Not because I feel this day isn't worth the time to write or it's not important enough, but because I just plain don't have the words to express what I'm feeling inside. So this won't be long. It may not be beautiful or eloquent. And I guarantee it won't adequately express how I really feel inside. But I have to attempt.

As I sit here, watching the memorial coverage. Relearning the mass numbers of people that lost their lives. 343 firefighters. Over 3,000 children lost a parent. Let that soak in for a moment. 40% of people will never have any kind of physical proof that their loved one actually passed. I can't imagine that. How do you get past the tiny shred of hope that your family member will walk through the door one day?
I've shed so many tears this morning already, hearing the names being called out. Seeing the family members walk through the memorial for the first time. Hearing the young man speak that lost his father.. his father that never was able to teach him how to drive, see him off on his first date, or watch him graduate college. Seeing the 10 year old children rub their parents name on the memorial who will never KNOW their parents. There is so much more...

My heart is filled with honor and respect towards all of the people who ran towards that chaotic scene when everyone else was running.. literally.. for their lives. That takes a special heart. Courage that I'm not sure I could ever possess. God bless them. And our troops! The men and woman who saw this day unfold and then joined the Military, purely for the fact that they wanted to do something. Knowing what it would bring into their lives. That it could take their lives. They did it anyways.. knowing they could pay the ultimate sacrifice.

I'm filled with all of this emotion this morning and am desperately trying to hold on to every single detail and feeling, because I never want to forget, and I watch my son, so innocently crawling around the room, while his mother and father shed tears... he is smiling, playing and laughing... how am I going to teach him about all of this? How do I make sure he really KNOWS what happened that day? Will he ever truly understand? I want him to understand why his Daddy does what he does. Why he can't always be home with him. But, seeing how innocent he is right now, I can't say that I look forward to the day that I have to explain to him that people aren't always good. That there are people out there who would like nothing more than to bring as much hurt as possible to all of us.

I'm not really sure how to wrap this up. I've literally been staring at this line for about 5 minutes. I just heard a quote from Bush (God, I miss him) where he mentioned that with the first plane he thought it had been some kind of mistake, with the second plane he knew it was an act of terror and with the attack on the Pentagon, he saw it as an act of war. We've been at this war for so long now and people are tired. We want our family members home. We're tired of loosing people. But, this day reminds us of what these soldiers are fighting so hard for. That some gave the ultimate sacrifice for something that mattered. They are the definition of hero and their fight and struggle wasn't in vain.

I, for sure, will never forget. I won't let myself. Today, especially, I will keep everyone who has lost someone on that fateful day and every day since then in my prayers. I will carry them in my heart today. I wish I could take just an ounce of their pain away. I hope they know that they have an entire county (and I'm sure even more) praying for them, thinking about them, and sharing in their pain.

Mummy Post

2011-09-09T11:44:00.000-04:00

I'm just gonna sit here this morning and gush and boast about my baby. Because I can. Because I don't do it often enough. Because he's hit mama in the face about 20 times since last night and I need to focus on the positives. Because who wouldn't want to sit here for the next 5..10.. minutes (depending on how slow of a reader you are. Also depending on how long my fingers let me type) and read about Andrew??

We seriously hit the jackpot when it comes to baybays. I could have been given a hellion.. I'm not sure what we did in life to deserve this boy. I wonder if all parents think like that no matter what temperament their child has. If Andrew was a horrible sleeper, didn't want to eat anything I put in front of his face, and cried all day long, would I still be thanking my lucky stars? Probably.

I'm sure I would. First of all. He has the cutest face I've ever laid my eyes on. For real. Look at it.

Even when he's sleepy. If fact, I'd argue it got even more adorable.

And homeboy can rock a mohawk.

Aside from be aesthetically pleasing, he's a pretty darn entertaining and such a sweet kid as well. We got the whole package with this one. Need examples? My pleasure!

The day after we came back from Ohio, he broke out with this pretty high fever. It reached up to 103.2 briefly and even at that high of a temp? He was a gem. In fact, he just got sweeter. He would still plaster a smile on his face. Still say "Ca" (read: car) over and over again while driving them around the house. And up the walls. Still looked at us like we hung the moon.

He's doing this sweet thing now where he carries his blankie with him when he gets up from sleeping. It gets left on the living room floor, so it's not like he has to drag it everywhere ala Charlie Brown, thank goodness, but he likes to have it in the general area. Occasionally throughout the day, he'll lay his head down on it, look at me and smile, and wait for me to croon "awww awww baby" at him. Love.

Naps and bedtime have gotten so easy. Seriously, new moms, start them on a routine (and do the same thing for naps and actual bedtime) and let them fall asleep on their own ASAP. It WILL pay off. He loves to go to bed. I bring him up and have always sung You are my Sunshine to him. Now, I can't even get all the way through the song before he is flinging his body back towards the crib and smiles when I put his blanket over him. Most of the time.. not a peep and he is out.

He hugs his stuffed animals and kisses his books all day.

He's definitely associated the word "dada" with his actual father and not the fan, window, or book. He even looks at me and says "baba". I know.. I know.. not the clear Mama I was looking for. But it's cute and I'll be his baba if he wants me to be.

His laughter while clapping is infectious.

While he's standing up, holding on to something.. if you start chanting "dance dance dance", he will happily oblige with a big grin. It's too funny.

I swear he is starting to sing with the songs on the radio. Of course, it just comes out as, "bllahhh goblah blahhhh, ludahludel ludelllll", but he has a certain pitch there that lets me know he's singing along.

He's playing a little bit of peekaboo on his own. And also trying to do the whole indian noise thing with his hand and mouth by himself. He can thank Auntie Vicky for that.

I'm just in love and it continues to amaze me every day how much more room I have in my heart than I thought I did. How in the world am I ever going to love the next one as much as him? My hearts going to grow out of my body if it finds as much space for him (yes, we're going to have another boy. Duh.)

While I sit and think more gushy thoughts over the little Drewsky, feel free to leave tips on getting him to stop bitch slapping his dear mother... other than a firm "NO" because apparently that is hilarious to a 1 year old.

Let's catch up, shall we?

2011-09-06T16:46:00.000-04:00

Look at this new blogger website setup. They claim it's faster and cleaner. We shall see!

It's been a while since I've sat down to type and I really don't know where or how to even begin. You know what that means.. bullets!

- We just got back from a weekend in Ohio for my cousin Kristine's wedding. We had such a great time for multiple reasons. Of course it was awesome to be around my parents, brothers and Vicky (my future SIL ;) ) I loved hanging out with them and seeing them spend time with Andrew. On top of that, the wedding was perfectly planned. It was beyond gorgeous, everything went smoothly (as far as we could tell), and tons of fun. But most of all, I loved reconnecting with my dad's side of the family.
It's been far too long since I've seen all of them. Life got in the way. Priorities weren't where they should have been. I was honestly a little nervous because within the past year, words where exchanged that shouldn't have been. But then we got there. None of that mattered... the time past or the harsh words. I was taken back to the age of 10 all over again and it was like time stood still. In short, I'm so thankful we went. I left with a rekindled, genuine attachment to my family and have vowed to not let this happen again. I didn't realize how much I've missed them. I'm still tearing up when I think about them. Trey loved them and was really impressed with the area. Seeing my Grandmother with my son was the ultimate highlight. I hope we got enough good pictures. To sum up what was supposed to be a short snippet.. this long weekend trip was good for the soul.

- When we got back, we realized that the weather has broken around here. The unbearable heat is finally gone and I hope gone until next summer. It inspired me to turn the air off and open the windows (at least until around 1pm.. baby steps), do a little fall cleaning, take out the fall decor, and paint my nails grey. It's my favorite time of year, y'all.

- I'm not quite sure what's up, but Drew has a temperature of 102.2 last I checked. I noticed today that he felt really warm. He's been just a tad extra clingy and whiny, but I chalked that up to the traveling and all the attention he got over the weekend that he is not longer receiving. It's been as high as 102.5. He's still eating more than enough. Everything I've read though has said to not call the doctor until it gets to 103. I know we are not far from it, but with him acting normal for the most part, I feel comfortable waiting it out. Germs from the plane? Teething? Just a plain ol' cold? Who knows.

- I REALLY need to jump right back on the WW train. It's been slacking. Well, non-existent is the more accurate term to use. After seeing yet even more friends doing it with success and all the calories that were consumed over the weekend (I haven't stepped on the scale, but I can tell a difference in my clothes), something's gotta give. My discipline!! Where did it go??

- A good friend is going to be leaving me soon. "A good friend" doesn't really do our friendship justice. We've been friends since high school and it just so happened that our husbands were stationed at the same post. How's that for a situation to strengthen an already existent bond?? My stomach already knots up when I think about her leaving, but mostly I'm in denial. It's not going to be good when reality hits me like a brick. I have to switch subjects now.

- Something to lighten the mood... GO.
We'll have lots of visitors over the next few months, thank God. I LOVE having people come to stay with us. Especially now that we live on post and love our home. I really enjoy getting to show off the area we live it to our friends and family. Trey's parents will be coming in about a month, then his sister, then my brother. It's all pretty much back to back. I'm excited.

I think that's all for now. Off to the Commissary for some German goods. Don't ask.. long story. It has something to do with Book club, birthdays and a turtle.

~ 1 Year Old ~

2011-08-30T22:09:00.000-04:00

I'm surprised I still have followers! Things have been quite busy around here and as much as every ounce of me has wanted to sit down and blog at the end of the day.. I just haven't had it in me!

But, wow!! I have an official toddler. He's hit the big O-N-E. Crazy. His birthday party went perfectly. It was so nice to see everything that I had been planning and designing for a few months come together without a hitch... besides him not even remotely enjoying his first taste of cake. Yeah.. that was a little anti climatic.

But don't worry. It was slightly forced on him so we, as parents, could have the proper frosting-faced picture for memories.

And seriously.. it was worth the meltdown that followed shortly after this. Look at that face! A very tiny amount of cake or frosting ended up in his mouth. Mostly, he just liked the feel of it squishing between his fingers and piled it up in his highchair. It caused me quite a bit of anxiety.
I'll dedicate a whole post to his party later. Hang with me for just a little while longer. We'll get back into town (oh yeah.. we're flying outta here soon too) soon and things will get back to normal on my blog.

We took him to his 12-month appointment on Monday, and here are his stats:

Weight: 22.5 pounds (50th %)
Height: Just a little over 30 inches (85th %)
Head Circumference: 47.5 cm (know idea what percentile that is)

Diapers: Still in size 5. This is the longest he's even been in one size.
Clothes: Mostly 18 month clothing. Can still fit in a very few 12 month pieces. Pants and shorts are so awkward right now though. His little waist could still fit into 6-9 month, but length wise he needs 18 month.. soo.. yeah.. it's tricky.

He has 8 teeth, which I don't think has changed since last month. He's eating just about everything that we eat. Minus peanut butter. His new favorites are French Toast, NutriGrain Bars, and carrots are back on the fav list, much to my delight. He is back to eating just about everything. It's been really easy. *knock on wood* I believe I have completely weaned him off of formula as of today and just has a cup of milk in the morning and right before bed. He hates juice. Will have nothing to do with it even watered down.. he LOVES just plain water. I'm sure that will be great for our dental bill! And grocery bill for that matter.
So.. for the record.. favorite foods (I'll try to narrow this down, but I'm sure I'll want to remember this one day): Cheerios, Goldfish, yogurt, bananas, eggs, carrots, French Toast, NutriGrain Bars, apples, grapes, broccoli, and potatoes. He eats way more than that.. but those seem to be the faves.

First word was car. Yup. Car. Not mama. Not dada. Car. To him, a car is anything that has wheels. Our house is now filled with cars and trucks. He also "says" dog and outside. No one else would be able to tell he is saying those two, but I've put it together.

Other firsts this month -

He can climb. Very well.
He's scooting along furniture.
Clapping.
Playing "come and get me". It's really the cutest thing. He crawls just a little bit away from you then looks back and grins out you until you chase after him.
Hugs his stuffed animals.
Kisses everything.
Babbles even more constantly.
Starting to be able to show me what he wants without crying.

I'm sure there is more that I'm forgetting.
He wants to be outside all the time! Doesn't he realize it's over 100 degrees out there? He doesn't care. Not one iota. He just wants to play with rocks and dirt.

Andrew,

This has undoubtedly been the best year of your Daddy and my life. You make life worth living. You bring a smile to my face every single morning. No matter how tired I am in the morning, I find you playing in your crib, bouncing around and just so genuinely happy to see me, that my day can't help but be started on the right track. It's so exciting to see the changes in you lately. You are more fun then ever to interact with and you're just soaking up everything you see. You're growing so very fast! I have to say, I absolutely love this stage and I can't wait to see what's to come in the next year.
We are so glad that you are ours to keep and love forever. So very thankful! You are the reason for my smile. We love you to the moon and back! Happy 1st birthday!

Birthday Happenings

2011-08-22T16:46:00.000-04:00

It's birthday week in Casa de Norton!! Decoration making is a full time job (along with nap changes - Drew, fatigue problems - me, and poop issues - Trey.. I kid, I kid.. that one is for Drew too) and the excitement is building!

We had his 1 year photos taken last week by our awesome photographer friend (who is sadly leaving us.. any other friends have any photography skills they want to work on???). A few samples below :)
One of his presents was purchased over the weekend. I love the B. collection from Target. We got him the B. Zany Zoo. It's pretty awesome! And umm.. let's just say he better enjoy it! I also want to get him one of those big foam puzzle piece mats to put in his room. Preferably one that has the pop out letters and numbers. I'm still on the search for that.

Now I just have ingredients to buy for the party food, make said food, pictures to print, finish the decor, hopefully will get around to making that slideshow (why is that such a daunting task for me??) and enjoy the party!!

Here are some of the pics that were taken last week :)

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to?

I'm such a big boy now!

We had to hide his cars throughout the pics to keep him from crying and ending the whole show

My favorite :)

Emotions - Looking back

2011-08-18T11:08:00.000-04:00

I'm sure that everyone that knows me in real life is just about sick of hearing me talk about this... but I'm really confused about where the time has gone in this past year. Do I really have a toddler? Almost.

I'm having a bit of a hard time.. emotionally. Most people look back on the day of their child's birth and remember it as the happiest, best day of their lives. It's natural for me to keep looking back on that day around this time, but for me, it was the absolute WORST day of my life. I had never been so upset. So scared. So helpless. Over the period of 9 months (or longer) I looked forward to meeting my sweet boy.. then the moment came and it was nothing like I envisioned. I held him for not even a second before he was taken away. I didn't hear that first shrill cry. I heard silence and doctors rushing around. I barely knew what he looked like. He was taken to a different hospital and I was able to "spend some time with him" if you can call it that, on his third day of life.

This time takes me back to the uncertainty. Uncertain of what was going to happen to our baby. Would he ever make it home to us? Would there be permanent damage of any sort? A time where I can't put the amount of despair and sadness into words. I came home with an empty belly and had no baby to fill the empty bassinet that was ready.. right next to the bed I now had to sleep in. With no baby to wake me up at night.

I made the mistake of looking back at old blog posts this morning (which is where most of this is coming from).. and read this. I blocked so much of this out. But here it is in black and white to take me right back to that moment in time:
My little monkey is doing better and better by the day. Thank you so so much for all of your kind words and prayers.. keep them up.. they really are making a difference!

He is no longer dependent on a breathing tube. They took the big one out. He still has a little help through a tube is his nose, but he is doing all of the work himself.
He doesn't need the Dopamine anymore either. He is completely off of it now and is controlling his blood pressure just fine!
They are feeding him my breast milk through an IV. He has other IVs that are giving him fats and vitamins, but today they are working on uping my milk and lowering the other IVs. We pray that goes really well.

Our biggest concern now is a good bit of shaking we noticed today. It's like he's going into little mini convulsions and I hate to see his poor little body go through it. They did some blood work which came back all clear, and now we're waiting on the doc to read the EEG results.

He's gained almost 2 ounces and now weights 7 lbs and alllmost 8 ounces.

They won't tell me any kind of date that we can take him home of course, but the nurse kind of made it sound like he may be able to come home soon depending on the results of the EEG. I don't know that for sure though, I very well just may have been reading into what she said. I can't help but get my hopes up though. It's very encouraging to see all of the progress that he has made, but it's getting harder and harder to leave there every day without him in our arms. I'm emotionally exhausted! Especially after today...

We went for our first visit this morning. Trey and I were in the room together (they only let 2 in at a time, so grammy had to wait). I was able to take his temperature and Daddy changed his diaper. We weren't in there for much longer before everyone was kicked out since a new baby was being admitted.
We went back for our second visit at 3:00.. this time it was me and Grammy. The nurse told me right away that there was yet another baby being admitted soon so we don't have much time, but she felt comfortable with me holding him since they had him on his side and his hematoma seemed to be doing fine. Music to my ears! I was going to hold my precious baby for the first time!!

She got a chair ready for me to get comfortable in, brought over a blanket to swaddle him in, and left us sitting there for 15 minutes. She comes back... tells Grammy to put the blanket under him when she lifts him up.. the nurse swaddles him.. the walked away for another minute to help another baby (keep in mind there are plenty of other nurses in here the whole time). She comes back just in time to tell me the new baby will be here in 10 minutes and she doesn't feel comfortable with letting me hold Andrew. Not only for a minute???? I ask her. She tells me that's fine, picks him up and bit then sets him back down saying it just wasn't possible today.

Are.You.Kidding.Me??? I bawled. I understand there is nothing they can do if there is another sweet, poor baby that needs to come in, but like I said before, there were other nurses everywhere. Why was is necessary for her to leave us sitting here alone right after she tells a new mom that she is going to be able to hold her baby for the first time 4 days after him being born. I was a wreck.

First time I touched my baby

I forgot about all the tests that were done on him. Forgot about all the waiting. Feeling like they were taking their sweet time with our lives. Feeling utterly helpless. Being played with when it came to holding him for the first time. Forgot about all the tears that were shed on the drives to the hospital and in the hospital itself. Buzzing the door for a nurse to let us in. Scrubbing our hands. Suiting up in the hospital gowns and masks.

But, God was with us. He protected my mind.. the memories. (If it weren't for this blog, I would have forgotten all of these little heart breaking details). He got us through this difficult time. He got our little boy through it. He made Andrew a fighter.

And now look at the three of us. Getting ready to celebrate a year of LIFE. The happiest year of life I've ever experienced. You would never know that he had all of those troubles when he was born. He is thriving and one of the happiest little boys I have ever seen. We are beyond blessed.

7 months old

An assortment of thoughts

2011-08-10T17:46:00.000-04:00

Do you ever get the urge to write, even though you have nothing in particular to write about? No? Just me? Well that's how I feel right now. I've tackled my to-do list and the babe is still napping, so it's time for a brain dump!

I'm having a Scentsy party on the 17th. Does anyone want to buy anything? You should. You really should :) Here's the link to use, justin case.

I've recently picked up scrapbooking (I know.. I'm a little late jumping on the train) and I LOVE it. I've always wished I was crafty, but didn't think I had any skillz. I would saunter around in Hobby Lobby, just oooing and ahhhing over everything in there. I'd leave feeling inspired, but would never know quite what to do. Scrapbooking has always appealed to me since I love my pictures so much, but I didn't know where to even begin! It's a daunting task! Luckily, when I moved here to Bliss, I made friends with a group of girls who have been around the block when it comes to SB'ing. We do monthly-ish SB nights and I'm officially obsessed. It's brought that well hidden crafty side right out of me. Of course I'm no pro yet, but I'd say I'm doing pretty well for my first book. I'm working on an Army book for Trey. Next I'll do one for my pregnancy and then... then.. Drew's first year! I can't wait to do that one!!
If you SB, do you have any helpful websites? How do you orgainze all of your supplies?

Here are a few of my best pages so far..

That's the definition of "together" at the bottom

4th of July fireworks at the river at Ft. Benning

The background paper is a letter pattern of sorts. So, I plan to take certain parts of letters we wrote to each other while at Basic and fill up the rest of the page :)

I went with my friend Ashley today to check out a kids' consignment shop I'd heard about. I had high expectations... which were shot down as soon as I stepped in. First of all, it was H-O-T in there! Hotter than it was outside, which had to have been in the mid 90s. Secondly, it was about the size of my living room and mostly all girls clothing. And most importantly, their items weren't THAT cheap. I mean.. cheaper than a normal store, but maybe more like a store full of sale items. Not consignment prices.
There was a Goodwill next door, so we figured, why not?! That's where I should have started out, my friends! Walked out of there spending only $5 for 4 winter shirts.
I had a little bit of a dillema in there though. I found the cutest pair of Christmas pj's that were 24 months. I'm having to buy 18 month pj's that he'll need to be in soon, so the rational side of me thought they'd probably be perfect. The emotional side couldn't buy them. They looked SO big. My baby couldn't be that big by Christmas. Nope.. not him. So there they sit.. still on the shelf. Am I crazy? They were probably like a dollar!

Our computer is going out the window very soon if someone can't tell me what is going on with it. The cursor has a little mind of it's own. I'm typing away, telling it what to do, and all of a sudden the cursor is five lines up and I start typing in another sentence without realizing it. Pretty annoying. I make sure to keep my wrists up in case it's just extra sensitive, but I can't really take it anymore. Please help!

End of brain dump... I'm ready for Drew baby to wake up and entertain me :)

This is what's for dinner tonight

2011-08-07T21:07:00.000-04:00

Grilled Fresh Tomato and Greek Salad Pizza

I saw this recipe a few weeks ago in the USA Weekend section in the Sunday paper. It looked mouth-watering so I clipped it out, but honestly I was a little apprehensive. I was nervous about grilling a pizza.. if I could pull it off. I don't grill too well.

SO glad I gave it a shot anyway! It's the perfect, light summer meal.

You'll need:
4 large Italian Plum Tomatoes, sliced thin (juice from sliced tomatoes reserved)
2 Tbs. olive oil, divided
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound store-bought (or homemade if you roll that way) pizza dough. I used Pillsbury.
salt and ground black pepper
3/4 cup Mozzarella cheese
4 cups packs arugula or baby spinach (I used the spinach)
1/4 cup chopped kalamata olives (I left those out)
2 ounces crumbled feta (I used low-fat or fat-free.. I can't remember which)

Turn all burners of a gas grill on high. Meanwhile, mix sliced tomatoes with 1 Tbs of olive oil and garlic. Set aside.
Spread dough onto a lightly floured surface. Using a dough scraper or sharp knife, quarter dough crosswise. Transfer to a large cornmeal-coated baking sheet.
Reduce grill heat to medium; lift stretched pieces of dough on grill. Cover and cook until bottoms are spotty brown, moving them around and punching dough down as necessary to ensure even cooking (I mean.. I just patted it once or twice.. whatevs), 3 or 4 minutes.
Return pizza crusts, grilled side up, to baking sheet, topping each with a portion of tomatoes (reserving any remaining garlicky tomato liquid). Lightly sprinkle tomatoes with salt and top with a portion of mozzarella cheese.
Return pizza to grill; cover and continue to grill until pizza bottoms are spotty brown, 3 to 4 minutes longer. Transfer to a cutting board.
Meanwhile, toss spinach with olives, feta, remaining oil and a light sprinkling of salt and pepper. Drizzle in reserved tomato juice; toss to coat again. Top each pizza with a portion of salad. Cut into pieces and serve.

This was fun to make and even more so to eat. Something about it being grilled just made it so much better! We definitely plan to do this again and play with different toppings!

Warning: This is a long one

2011-08-04T22:47:00.000-04:00

This post will be a tad bit scatterbrained as I'm feeling a bit.. well.. scatterbrained. It's just been one of THOSE days. You know one where I've had to collect specimen samples from my child so of course he wouldn't poop. Until the most inopportune moment when he went while I was driving, dug into his diaper and proceeded to smear it all over his body and eat it. YUM. So of course if spread to me.. and the carpet upstairs... and I called my husband crying and letting him know that I would not, after all, be joining him for his Hail and Farewell tonight. Since you know.. the baby has had ONE 15 minute nap at this point, I haven't showered since Tuesday morning and I now have poop in my hair.

There. I feel much better. (and don't worry.. I've showered by now)

On to the real topic of the day. Back to the subject of friends, which, I know, I've touched on many times. But here it is again.

When I moved away from hometown, SC, I already had my tight knit group of friends. I've never had a problem finding people and forcing them to be my friends, but when I moved away, I never ever suspected I'd be as blessed as I am sitting here now. I had a lot to learn when it came to the ways of the military.

Friendships - real, true, amazing friendships - form very quickly. Of course, you don't have that instant bonding with EVERYONE you meet, but it happens a lot. See, you don't have quite as long as the normal person would to forge a friendship. People come and go and you never know when. You meet someone, you click, and you don't know how long you'll have together.
You need them. You need these people, you need these friendships. You are thrown into a totally foreign (to you) place and only have the people you live with. You need people to bring you up when you are down (because you WILL have your down moments), to grab a cup of coffee or a cocktail with you, to vent to, to laugh with, to tell you that you should absolutely NOT walk out of this house with those jeans on, to have play dates with, to give you some adult conversation, to hold your hand through hard times. The list just goes on and on and on.
You have to have people to depend on. Because, honestly, you can't depend on your significant other 95% of the time. I don't say that with any bitterness at all, so I don't want it to read that way, but it's true. I know Trey would drop everything for us if he could, but I also am fully aware that Army comes first and he didn't make that rule up. He hates it, but it's a fact. We knew that from the beginning. He's either in meetings, in the field, training to deploy, or deployed. So, no, he can't come home out of the field and take care of the baby while you have a stomach bug and can't leave the bathroom. But, you have 5 girlfriends volunteering to take you to the hospital, take the baby for the night, bring you soup, gingerale or crackers.
You need people who understand the things you go through without having to explain anything. I LOVE my friends back home and they know that. But this would be 100% more difficult if I were still back home while Trey did his Army thing. I don't mean to sound like I'm in some secret society or anything, sometimes I feel like that's how I sound, but as much as I've always had friends that were there for me, it's different in this world. Everyone else's lives still go on. Their husbands would be home every night to have dinner with them and relax with. I have some girlfriends who, usually, it works out that their husbands are not coming home on the same nights mine isn't. Instant girls night!! It's great. But we also understand when plans are ditched at the last minute, because, "YAY my husband's coming home".
You need people to not look at you like you are a complete loon if you randomly break out in tears because you miss your mom and dad SO VERY MUCH. And people to step in and take that roll when your real mama can't! (Hi Sue and Maridee).

I've been lucky enough to meet a great group of girls like that. I really do count my blessings. I've also been lucky to not have to say, "See you later" to any of them.. until now. I've only known Melissa IRL for a few short months.. just for the summer. But now she is gone and let me tell you.. I felt that goodbye like I was losing a friend I've had my whole life. We bonded.. and we bonded very quickly. The two of us, plus Jaci, had the best time together over the summer. Now she's headed back to law school and (not to sound too dramatic.. it's just the truth) I've felt like I've had this little hole in my heart for the past few days. I will always miss her in my life (until we're stationed in the same area again), but I do realize how lucky I am to have met such an awesome person.. someone who I will always consider a great friend.

Nancy and I had a great conversation about this lately, plus Trey and I were laying in bed the other night, talking about all of these people that have come into our lives. It's crazy when you really think about it. What if we never left hometown, SC? How can it just be a random thing that our paths crossed with the people that it has. Two years ago I would have never imagined this. That I'd have these wonderful friends that are more like family. That I'd open myself up to and have true friendships with people from Oklahoma, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Wyoming of all places (sorry.. but not many people know someone from Wyoming).. all over the country.

Of course I do miss back home. But I'm thankful for all this. I'm thankful for the opportunity I've had to broaden my horizons. To meet and become close to the people that I have. Without this crazy, sometimes inconvenient, life that we live now, I would never have known this was out here.

I'll say it again at the risk of pooping out butterflies... I'm truly truly blessed!

On somewhat of the same note, this has been weighing heavily on my heart lately, so I thought I'd share and ask for prayers. I know of so many girls right now that have either just said "see you later" to their husbands for a deployment or who will be VERY very soon. It's the first time that I've been so close to people that are going through it and seeing it happen the whole way out. (hearing they'll be leaving, watching them get ready, counting down the days, etc.) and it's heartbreaking, but also makes me very proud to know them at the same time. It's going to be a hard year for some of my dear friends.. please keep them in your prayers and I promise to do the same!

Sneak Peak

2011-08-01T10:07:00.002-04:00

Celebration Banner Blue Birthday Invitation

Personalize unique party invitations at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

Now that mostly everyone should have their invites, I wanted to share with all of you! Here is a little sneak peak into Andrew's first birthday party. We are SO excited and I have LOTS of cute ideas. I'm almost done preparing everything and can't wait to share the rest with everyone :)

~ 11 Months ~

2011-07-29T10:56:00.001-04:00

Really? 11 months old?

I have one more month of having an actual "baby". I have no clue how the time has gone by so fast. Looks like it's time for me to adjust to having a toddler. He already is one in his mind... I just have to get with the program. A toddler. The word even sounds strange on my tongue.

Stats:
I have no idea how much you weigh, how tall you are, or any of that stuff since we haven't had an appointment since 9 months. But, that just means you've been relatively healthy. You know, besides falling flat on your face from a chair... we'll get to that later.
You are wearing size 5 diapers.
In mostly size 12 clothes, but those are getting too snug with jumpers and shortalls and are still too big in shorts. I just put away your 9 month clothing over the weekend and took out your 18 month. Stop growing so fast!
You have 7 teeth. Three on the bottom and 4 up top.

What you're up to these days:
You are completely DONE with purees. You much prefer to feed yourself, so we've had to make that transition this month. I had quite a bit of guilt come along with this because you were getting such healthy things with the purees. All those fruits and veggies that I could cook up and freeze ahead of time. It's not so easy to do that with real food! So, now you get things like turkey hotdogs, chicken nuggets, chicken breast, meats from the refrigerated section, cheese, yogurt, crackers (especially Goldfish), mac and cheese, corn dogs, fries if we're at a restaurant, cereal bars. You will still eat every fruit out there and get those on a daily basis, but you're not as quick to eat your veggies. You love green beans and will tolerate carrots, but that's all so far.
You are crawling around the house like a madman, but you do this funny crawl and only use one knee. You push off the ground with your other foot.
Your preferred method of getting around though, is walking while holding onto our fingers. We love that you are starting the whole walking process, but that's a little hard on our backs! You are standing up on your own if you hold onto something, but you haven't figured out that you can walk around that object on your own yet.
You're favorite thing to do lately is read. It makes my heart very happy to see how much you love books. You'll stop whatever you are doing if your books catch your attention, pull them all off of the shelves until you find just the one you are looking for, then bring it to me to read to you.. over and over and over again. Lately, we've been reading about 6 or 7 times a day...
You also love to kiss right now. You kiss everyone and everything. I LOVE when you give me kisses. You also kiss your toys and every single page in whatever book we're reading. We had a play date with your friend Bennett today. You tried to give him lots of kisses and kissed their dog plenty. I hope your loving spirit stays with you!
You are all of a sudden a cuddler which I LOVE LOVE LOVE!! You've never been one to cuddle with me, even when you are tired, and now that is exactly what you do. You just lay your little head down on my shoulder and I eat it up! Or sometimes you'll crawl over to me just to give me a hug. Be still my heart.
You have grown more independent over the last month and don't so much mind if I leave your side. It's been wonderful! You crawl around the house by yourself to explore. I can even go into the kitchen to make dinner/grab a drink/etc. without you screaming and crying. Selfishly, I am thankful, but I'm even more happy to see the confidence you have in yourself.
You still love anything to do with cars or trucks and dogs, but you also now have a fascination with planes and birds. You love watching planes while we are outside (we live about 2 miles from an airport) and will even look for them if you hear them from inside.
We've moved you into your big boy car seat, but still have you facing backwards. We plan to do that until you are two since that's what the pediatricians say to do nowadays. (Like how I snuck in that PSA?) You love being in the car and just babble away to yourself, so I don't think it bothers you.
You are "talking" more and more. I don't think we can really qualify anything as your first word quite yet, but you say things that are awful close to "dad", "yeah??" and "dog". I don't think you really understand what they mean yet though, and are probably just putting sounds together. Seeing as how you called the fan Dad the other day, I'm probably right. You do love to chat with your toys though!
You are beginning to be quite assertive. You know exactly what you want and you definitely are testing my limits. I'm not letting you get too far! Right now we are really working on letting you know it's not okay to throw things. It seems to be working, especially today. You have been nicely giving me your toys or books instead of throwing them at me. Yesterday you did get in a little bit of trouble for throwing your lunch on the floor. You know exactly what "no" means... you just pick and chose when to listen to it :)
You got your first big boo-boo. I tried to do timeout with you for the first time (again, throwing your trucks around) and was not thinking properly and put you in your little chair. It's about a foot off the ground. I don't know what made me think that you would sit still in this chair, and of course, you didn't. You leaned forward and before I could get to you, fell on the hardwood floors, right on your face. You screamed and cried immediately, had a bloody nose, and a bump forming on your forehead. It scared us so much, but you were over it long before I was. You stopped crying in a few minutes and within 5 minutes, you were sitting on the couch with dad eating meatballs, while I was still crying in our bedroom. I cried off and on all night until I went to bed. I think these types of things are going to hurt me a lot more than they hurt you :(

Andrew,
Your Daddy and I love you more than you will ever comprehend. I know you are almost a big boy and not a baby, but you will always be a sweet baby in my eyes. You are just growing up right before our eyes and while we do love seeing you grow and learn, it's a little sad to know we can't rewind time. I pray a whole lot for you! I pray that I am strong enough to be the mother you need me to be. I pray that you have a kind, loving spirit. I pray that I can teach you about Jesus and be able to answer all of your questions about Him. I pray that your dad and I are good role models for you to follow. I pray that you stay as happy as you are.. to continue to laugh more than you cry. I pray that I am always around to help you make the right decisions and that when you are old enough to make them on your own, that you are the type of man who has faith in himself and chooses the right paths. I pray that you take chances and will not be afraid of the world.
I want so much for you! I'm really looking forward to seeing all of the new things you will learn over the next year. This time last year, I didn't even know what you looked like. I couldn't even really understand what was going on inside my body.. couldn't really grasp it. Now, here you are and impacted our lives so greatly for being such a little person. We can't imagine our lives without you!

Now, the birthday party planning gets serious!

11 Months

Daddy was in charge of taking pics this month..

Is it Fall yet??

2011-07-27T10:51:00.000-04:00

I'm over this whole summer thing. More and more... I'm deciding I'm NOT a summer girl. Yes, cookouts are great, but it's more fun to grill out in the fall when you don't have to risk getting a second degree burn to stand out there and grill a burger. I've never been a fan of it staying light later anyways. It being light isn't going to ensure I stay outside longer. It's hot and I have a baby that goes to sleep at 7pm for the night. I'd rather the sun start to go down earlier so we can get an evening walk in before he goes to bed. Plus, there is something cozy about it being dark with all the family home together, eating dinner, watching TV, snuggling on the couch with a good book, etc.

So... let's chat a bit about why the fall season (and even winter) is like heaven to me, shall we?

1) Football
Ahhhh football season. It really is the most wonderful time of the year. I've had the love of the sport instilled in me for as long as I can remember. I love everything about it. Putting hope into something you can't control. There's something exciting about that. The passion for your team and the (most of the time) friendly banter said passion creates between friends. Game day gear. Game day food. Seriously, my husband and I live for college football Saturdays (and whenever I can watch a Patriots game here in Cowboy land.. ecchh). We wake up bright and early to catch Gameday (LOVE to see where they are at, the rivalry between the fans, and see whatever small town famous restaurant they choose to highlight) and we are glued to the games all.day.long.We will watch any SEC game we can... and anyone else who may show some promise of making it a good game, but whole-heartedly route for SEC! It makes the day even better if we can get together with another couple who loves the sport as much as we do (Hi Jaci). COME ON football season... you're right around the corner!

2) Weather
After a full spring/summer of temperatures that reach over 100 on most days, I can't stress enough how much I'm looking forward to cooler air. I know, I know, I live in the desert and it doesn't get cold by any means. But with no humidity... the 70s and even 80s are perfect for me! My body has acclimated and when it gets too low into the 70s I may need an extra layer.. just sayin'. I can already picture the windows open and catching a cool breeze every now and then. We'll be able to walk more because we don't have to start our walk by 6:30am at the latest. We can walk whenever the mood strikes. Being outside more in general makes me a happy camper.

3) Holidays
All my favorite holidays packed into a few short months! Andrew's birthday, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. Perfection! I become a child during all of these holidays. It means playing make believe, time spent with family (or in our case our Army family), decorations, and food. I'm so excited to see these things through Andrew's eyes. To see him dressed up for Halloween. To hear what his heart is thankful for. To teach him the real meaning of Christmas and show him all of the classic Christmas movies I grew up watching. I think it's going to be pretty magical. Of course, along with all of these holidays comes lots of 4-days for my husband. More family time = a happy Jessica.

4) Decorations
I LOVE fall decor. Going to Hobby Lobby and seeing it all front and center yesterday may have given me heart palpitations. I make great use of the strands of colored leaves because I don't see that outside anymore. The pumpkins, scarecrows, signs declaring how thankful we are... I can't get enough. I love earthy tones anyways, so bringing all of these things out makes my home feel nice and cozy. Light a pumpkin pie or harvest leaves candle and I'm good to go :)

5) Clothing
Speaking of being cozy and comfortable. The perfect pair of jeans? A cute, ruffly tank with a warm cardigan? Yes please! I think this year I will live in cardigans and tunics. Time to do a little shopping very soon. My body has changed over the past year (for better or worse) and the closet needs some work. Any suggestions on where to stock up on some of these items without breaking the bank would be wonderful!

6) Did I mention football?

A season for everything

2011-07-25T17:36:00.000-04:00

I've never been one to be a "neat freak". I like things to be in order and I like my house to be clean on the surface (aka a glancing eye would think things are immaculate, but let's not take the white gloves out to really check it out, okay?) but you won't catch me cleaning the floors with a toothbrush or cleaning the baseboards any time soon. I used to spend a few hours on the weekend straightening up and doing light cleaning, but that was it. My how things have changed...

At some point, I must have blinked a little too long and my little baby has become this toddler-like creature and is into everything. He has to touch everything. One single toy does not entertain him for longer than a 2-minute period. He eats big people snacks and prefers to eat them on the go. He's eating finger foods and thoroughly enjoys ~~throwing it all over God's creation, stressing his mother out~~ discovering the new textures of it all.

So now.. now... while I feel like I'm constantly cleaning up after this child... I have to let some things go. Like I said, while I was never OCDish about cleaning, but I've had to give up on the surface appearance of our home. I do my best. There are times (like right now) when I've been extremely productive during nap time and get to enjoy a swept, dusted, and wiped down, good smelling home (for about 20 minutes), but I promise you it's never like it once was.

If you come over, whether it be planned or not, you are guaranteed to see handprints over every glass surface imaginable. They ARE rather adorable little handprints though. You're pretty likely to step in a pile of cracker crumbs. Maybe even a whole one that has somehow been looked over by the human vacuum. Any area within 2 feet of the highchair will probably be disgusting. Unless it is between 8:15 and 9:30, 1:15 and 3, or anytime after 7:15.. I absolutely promise you that my living room will look like a tornado ripped through it. Toys everywhere.. watch where you step. Books thrown all over the floor (my boy loves his books, thank God). Chaos. Total chaos.

And I wouldn't have it any other way. Sometimes, I do have to remind myself of this. I'm human.. of course it stresses me out at times. But, I picture it the other way around and that makes me really sad. I can't imagine not seeing those little handprints. Not having little toy soldiers, cars or airplanes to pick up! When I really think about it.. it puts a huge smile on my face. This is just a season in our lives. The toys are only going to get bigger and have more threat of breaking something. One day my house will be clean again.. you know.. on the surface... and I'm going to miss all of this.
So for now, I'll remember how blessed I am! And for now.. I'm going to print this off and hang it somewhere noticeable. So next time I step on a lego and want to scream I can remember how thankful I am for that lego.

Summer Pasta Salad

2011-07-19T22:12:00.000-04:00

My mum gave me this gem of a recipe a few weeks ago and I finally got around to making it tonight. Ummm.. delicious. The perfect summer night dish.

Simple, but perfect. It will not disappoint.

Whole wheat penne pasta
Chicken.. canned, grilled, baked.. whatevs. We used canned, cus that's how I roll, so I'll use that in the directions
Zucchini (or summer squash. Whichever you'd prefer)
2 cucumbers
Cherry tomatoes
Feta Cheese
Greek salad dressing

Cook the pasta according to the directions. In the meantime, warm up your tasty canned chicken with a Tbsp of butter. After just a few minutes add your zucchini. Sprinkle some oregano and S&P and let that all simma for a bit until your zucchini/squash has reached your desired crispness (or mushiness if you're into that kind of thing). Drain the pasta and rinse with cold water.

When it's all done, you basically just throw the rest of the ingredients together and enjoy.

For all of you WW people...I used the serving size of all the pointed items and added as much vegetables as I pleased and it was 11 points.

If you decide to try it.. and you would be silly not to... let me know what you think!

WW Monday

2011-07-17T22:08:00.000-04:00

But really it's Sunday. I'm early.

I've been a failure at all things Weight Watchers lately! Not only have I not kept up with the Monday Link-ups (which, if you've been reading for any amount of time, shouldn't surprise you), but I haven't been keeping up with the diet period. At all. And honestly haven't been since we moved.. what a month ago?

In this past month, I can't tell you how many times I said, "I'll start counting points again on Saturday". Saturday would come around and we'd have a cookout. Who wants to count points during a cookout? Not this girl. "I'll just wait until Monday". Monday rolls around and it doesn't happen again, but for no good reason. Saturday. Monday.. blah blah blah. Too many careless girls nights and too many cookouts. Not enough cooking going on in the casa, too much going out to eat and ordering takeout (which clearly isn't good for the weight loss... and never mind the budget!).

Tomorrow this all changes back to point counting and healthier options! Why the conviction now, you ask? How am I so sure I'll magically and faithfully be tracking points tomorrow? I saw a picture of myself today. Standing next to my two wonderful, gorgeous, in shape friends, not only did I look like a midget, but I wasn't at all happy with the state my body was in. Honestly, I thought I looked better than that (I have a very healthy self-image, which sometimes fails me). I reminded myself of an oompa loompa. (no clue how to spell that).

That's what it's always taken for me to get back on track though. A little slap in the face. A slight nudge.
I don't remember when I started this journey, but whenever it was, I've lost 12.6 pounds since then. Which is great. Four pounds of it is due to the bug from last week, but that's neither here nor there.

I've been doing good with our morning walks, but will do better.
More fruit. Less crap. More veggies. Less laziness. More determination and self-discipline.

Back to weekly weigh-ins to share with you all. Lucky ducks. I'm not going to start the link-ups back up again. There just wasn't enough participation for me to make sure I have the post done in time. I do still love to read your weight loss posts though, so let me know how you're doing!

Murphy

2011-07-11T21:53:00.000-04:00

Ahhh.. the dreaded field.

Why is it that as soon as our spouses leave us for any amount of time, Murphy has to stick his Law into our business?? We're all cursed, I tell you!

I won't go into much gory detail, but no more than an hour after my husband left over the weekend, I was I-L-L. Bad. I have a baby to take care of, wth am I going to do-bad. After a few dear friends came to my rescue and an ER doc prevented me from dying.. I'm pretty sure I had food poisoning. This was no regular ol' bug. Yuck-O.

I'm on the mend, but keep thinking I am better off then I really am.. that takes a lot out of you! I thought I was fully better today, but turns out I pushed myself a little too far. In no form or fashion am I back to where I was on that horrid Saturday morning, but it'll be another early night tonight. I'm flat exhausted. And still can't eat very much. On the positive side, I lost 4 pounds in a day. Take that Weight Watchers!

And ya know.. as bad as we think we have it.. I feel bad for those boys of ours out there. I know, I know, they signed up for the job, but it's gotta be rough and I know I wouldn't last 5 minutes out there. Trey was able to call me for just a few minutes today and he sounded like he had been run over by a Mack truck. Poor thing. He couldn't go into much detail at the moment, but the little detail he did give me was enough. Walking around the dessert in all that gear in 100+ degree weather, eating crap for food and sleeping under the stars. Plus it stormed there yesterday, which he did say actually felt good. I'm sure! They are going out to do some kind of mission in the middle of the night tonight, so I'm sure tomorrow will be an even better day ;) We do both know that this is important training that he needs for a future deployment, so we just embrace the suck, right? I don't know how these soldiers do it for an entire year! It puts things into perspective. At least I have an air-conditioned house and a cozy bed to sleep in.

Drew and I plan to spoil him with lots of hugs and kisses when he gets home. I asked him what he wanted for dinner for his first night back and he said steak and green beans. So that's what'll be on the menu one night this week!

Success!

2011-07-06T15:44:00.000-04:00

PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) started it's summer session this morning. I've really been looking forward to it!

I stopped going earlier this year because there was just too much going on with Andrew. They provide free child care while you are attending and at first, it worked perfectly. Then he got a little older, caught a few colds, sprouted some teeth, and discovered that the world was falling apart when I wasn't by his side. The last time I went, they had to call me back to come and get him after he had been crying nonstop for almost an hour. That was the beginning of our troubles and I didn't feel comfortable going back for the next few weeks.

They took a break for a few weeks, we've been putting him in CDC weekly for a few weeks (trying to get him used to being without me), and I've been more than ready to get back into it.

So off we went this morning with high hopes. To say I wasn't nervous would be a lie, but I told the sweet ladies watching him that we've had separation issues and if things get out of control not to hesitate to call me. I left and he didn't cry, but I had my phone glued to my hands the entire time.

If you've been paying any sort of attention to my blog, you know that this is something I have really, really been struggling with for a while. (or if you know me in real life and have heard me complaining about it constantly and begging for advise.. yeahh.. sorry about that!) I've talked to everyone about it possible. Googled it a million times, searching for answers. Complained until I've been blue in the face. Taken to more alcohol than usual after bedtime. Have had to be medicated to keep sane. And just plain cried.

Funny that we started a study today about hearing God speak to you. How we need to put ourselves in a position where we're ready to listen to what He has to say. How we need to go to Him with EVERYTHING.. the big stuff and the small stuff.

Wow. Not once have I thought to pray about this. I've turned to everyone else except God. I haven't asked for more patience. I haven't asked Him to show me what to do to make my son more secure. I thank God for him.. a lot.. but to be really honest.. I haven't prayed ABOUT him or over him since we've had him out of the NICU. Fail. Big fat fail.

I'm so quick to run straight to God when the big, ugly things come about. Or when I really want something. I don't take the time to praise Him when things are just swimming along normally or when I have little day-to-day issues. This all smacked me right in the head while I was listening today.

And wouldn't you know it... I walk over to pick up Andrew and he was as happy as can be. He did wonderfully. He played a lot. Drank his entire bottle. Ate gold fish and graham crackers for the first time and apparently loved them both. They said the only time he got mad is when they changed his diaper (normal.. the kid is perfectly happy sitting in his own filth) and when they stopped feeding him and took him out of his highchair (typical). This made me so happy. I was thrilled that he was able to be social. That he was fine without me. I'm in NO WAY under any assumption that all of our problems with this are gone (in fact, when we got home, I left him for .2 seconds to get my phone out of the dining room and he freaked) but we're making progress.

I almost had given up on solving this until he just plain grew out of it. I have run out of ideas and I think we've tried everything there is to do. But, God's totally got this!

~ 10 Months ~

2011-07-05T22:12:00.001-04:00

I'm so late with this. So late. I blame the move again. How long can I get away with that?

Anywho.. my baby is now 10 months and 1 week ( I had to look that up on the calendar and not as late as I thought.. I take back that second so late).

Stats as of June 15th:
Weight - 21.5 pounds
Height - 29 inches
Head Circumference - Big. Just kidding (kind of) I actually have no clue.. sorry!
Diapers - Size 5
Clothes - 12 months in everything except shorts.. those are still 9 month because of his little waist.

Andrew has changed so much in this past month. Mostly really cool, fun changes!
He's finally crawling. Mostly low-crawling still, but he does crawl normally as well. Now he's started to crawl with one knee down and the other foot down that he pushes off of. Does that make sense?
He's walking while we hold his hands and does such a good job with that! Let me tell you though.. I'm ready for him to do it unassisted. It's not so easy on the back!
He's pulling himself up but mostly just to his knees. Unfortunately, that means we sometimes have fight to get him to sleep because he's trying to get out. We've found him asleep sitting up multiple times.. I know.. He's a little weird. I'm not sure where he gets that from.
Speaking of weird.. he does this thing where he sits down on the opposite side of the "coffee table" from us. He'll slowly pull himself up and even more slowly bring his head up so he can see us and then smile and growl. He thinks it's the greatest thing ever.
He is blabbering much more. He makes all kinds of noises (practicing talking) and it seems like he thinks he's having a conversation with you and he thinks you can understand everything he's saying perfectly. He'll babble on and then look at you and smile like he's saying, "ya know?? Isn't that great???".
He's not very content with pureed foods anymore. If I make more complex recipes he's good, but mostly, he wants finger food and to feed it to himself. Today for lunch he had a half of chicken breast cut up into tiny little pieces and a very little bit of an oatmeal, cinnamon, raisen mix.
He has 7 teeth now. Four on top and three on the bottom
He still is loving cars and trucks more than ever. We can now add a few things to the list though. Tanks. As in Army tanks. He sees them a lot now that we live on post (every morning on our walk) and spazzes a little bit every time we pass it. And airplanes. We were in the Costco parking lot last week when he noticed one for the first time. He pointed up to and squealed. We live about 3 minutes from the airport.. so we're pointing at airplanes quite a lot throughout the day now... It's great fun.
You stick your tongue out on command and I'm very entertained by it. I'm sure one day I'll regret this, but not for now.

The separation anxiety though?? That has really got to go! I'm going to be driven off the deep end..

Andrew,
How are you 2 months away from being a year old? I can't believe how big you've gotten! You are just changing every day right before our eyes and I want to beg and plead for time to slooowww down. You bring an indescribable amount of joy into our lives and I'm not sure I can picture life without you. You are the best decision we ever made! Every time you give me that goofy smile, look at me and laugh, "give me kisses" aka blow on my cheek, growl, and touch my face while I'm reading you Goodnight Moon.. my heart swells two sizes bigger.
I may be a little biased, but I'm pretty sure you are the cutest kid to ever be placed on this earth. I hear comments on your big, blue eyes just about every day.
I thank God for you every single day. I'm not sure what I did to deserve having you to call my own, but I won't question it.

We love you sweet boy!

Busy Bee

2011-07-03T17:13:00.000-04:00

I'm surprised I still have anyone following this ol' blog!

I don't know what is going on - ahem.. having a 10 month old and almost 800 extra square feet to keep up - but I have zero free time lately. My days have been jam packed full and I'm too tired at the end of the day to even make my fingers type. Not that I'm complaining.. life has been great.. my blog has just taken a back seat for now. I'm not giving it up, though, you can't get rid of me that easily!

So.. what have I been up to?

Andrew turned 10 months (yes mom, I know I owe you a 10 month post) and there have been so many fun changes with him. Still working on getting rid of that separation anxiety, though. It's bad. Like can't leave his side without him wailing bad. Yes, I'm asking for suggestions. Throw some of your mommy knowledge at me.. even if you think I've probably tried it already. I probably have, but I'm desperate.

I have a friend here that is a photographer and she wanted to take some pics of Andrew to build up her portfolio. Who am I to deny her that opportunity.. what kind of friend would I be? Umm.. they are amazing. Here is a quick sample..

Do you die looking at those? I do. Every single time. So there was that.

Then.. I've become great friends with Mel. Are you jealous? You really should be. She's such an awesome girl and even though she's leaving next month (I already tear up a little when I think about that) I'm so very glad we met and we've been giving this opportunity to get to know one another. We've been busy with a girls night with my other fav, JG, and have another one planned for this week (and another one for the week after.. they don't know about that yet), a day of shopping and Taco Bell, and explaining the lawyerish details of the Casey Anthony trial to me. It's been wonderful. Ohh.. and grilling out...

Trey and I hosted our first big cookout last night in our new home. Our house was full and I loved every second of it. I love having people over.. our last house didn't so much allow for it with it being so small... luckily we have much more space and a great backyard for entertaining. Hopefully, we'll have many more nights like that during the summer and over football season!

And the best news? One of my bff's from back home had her baby today! Precious Madison Leigh was born at 1:13 eastern time. Congratulations Ashleigh and Matthew!! I can't wait to meet her :)

Settling in

2011-06-26T15:45:00.000-04:00

Well that was not a planned hiatus! Our Internet was supposed to be set up the day before we moved into our new house, but wasn't working the day we moved in. Why, you ask? Oh, that would be because AT&T doesn't serve our new address. You'd think that would be something they'd tell you when you tell them what your new address is going to be.... just a thought.
But that can't be my only excuse. I've had service for a week now (through TWC which is actually cheaper, so eat it AT&T) but I just haven't felt like blogging. One.. I've been busy. Lots of stuff to organize and much more space to clean in this house! Two... it's always a little overwhelming for me to start back up once I've taken a break. I'm not sure why that is. Just need to get in the habit again, I guess. But, I figured with Drew's 10-month coming up, I sure better start or else my mother wouldn't be very happy. 28 years old and still striving to please the woman ;)

We are just about settled in our new beautiful home, minus a few random objects here and there. Once we get the main, highly used stuff up, it's hard for me to find a space for the crap that's left over. Or the motivation to even put my mind to it!
We got a pretty rug yesterday since we have hardwood floors for the first time. We have a few decorations up here and there and have mostly just pictures to arrange on the wall and one wall to paint. I'm sick of living in white boring walls. We'll have to paint it back to white when we leave, so just painting one accent wall seems like the best thing to do. Add a little homeyness, but not too much work to do when we PCS (move).

Like I said, we are just in love with living here. I'm loving living on post! The convenience is wonderful! My morning walk is longer and much more beautiful.. hello grass and trees and good-bye yapping dogs at every other house!

Now that I have this random, almost thoughtless post out of the way, hopefully I can slowly start posting more again. There probably won't be a link up again tomorrow, but feel free to blog about it without me. I'm still reading along!

What if....

2011-06-14T15:59:00.000-04:00

*I know.. I know.. two posts in one day! To my defense though, the last one was a scheduled post I wrote yesterday*

Whoever said that the feeling of being homesick goes away is a liar liar pants on fire.

Sometimes I wonder what our life would be like now if Trey never joined the Army. If we never left our hometown.
Would we have been able to keep up with our mortgage and still be living in our home? We were dangerously living paycheck to paycheck.
Would we have decided to get pregnant at the time we did? Would we have Andrew right now? Let's say we did. Our parents would never have to miss him. We could go and spend an unlimited amount of time with them. My parents house would look like they had a grandchild besides just the pictures on the wall. Maybe they'd have their own stash of bottles, diapers, baby food and toys. (Trey's parents have a granddaughter that does live in the same town, so their house does look like this already). I could see my mom and dad loving on my baby and I feel like my life would be more complete.

I'm struck with a stabbing sense of regret and sadness when I hear about my friends that are able to do this on a regular basis. Just something as simple as going over their parents house for dinner.. to watch a movie.. to grill out. Visit them when one of them is sick or in the hospital. Spend holidays with them. Watch a game. Anything. Sometimes, it's little things that stop me in my tracks. The other morning when I was drinking the same type of coffee my mom drinks. I was instantly back on her beautiful deck drinking it with her. Or today when a loud truck drove by. For the quickest nano-second I pictured my brother pulling up in our drive way and plopping down on the couch asking for some munchies and a Gatorade. Do you know what I would give to experience these little mundane things????

But, on the other side... What If he didn't sign up.

What if we never moved away? Would I still be that same dependent girl who never grew up? Never did anything on her own? I barely knew how to keep up with bills before he left.. so serious. I can remember while he was at OCS in Benning and I made my first road trip down to see him. It was the first time that I ever.. in 26 years of life.. got in the car and took a road trip by myself. I was scared out of my mind. (Rightly so, apparently, I almost died.) And after a summer of making monthly 5-hour road trips to Benning, I friggen jumped in that same car, by myself, and drove 18 hours to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Me. Ask my friends.. they'll tell you how unlike me that is. I grew so much. I don't know that I would of ever had the chance to do that otherwise.
I look at the people I have in my life now. I've met so many amazing people. It's crazy to me to think that I wouldn't have met all of them had we not made this decision. When you're an Army family, you learn that you don't have all the time in the world to form a relationship with the people you meet. So, sometimes, when you meet the right people, it's instantaneous. After the obligatory, where are you from? Do you have children? How long have you been in? What posts have you been to? That's it.. it's like you've fast-forwarded 2 years into a friendship: you have their number, your FB friends, and they immediately are an irreplaceable part of your life. I've been so blessed in this area.

If he hadn't joined, we probably never would have had the opportunity to see the places we have seen over the past 2 years. That's sad to me. While we were eating dinner at The Edge of Texas last Friday night, sitting outside, looking at the mountains, we talked a lot about that. No, El Paso is not the most exotic location in the world. But, it's beautiful in my opinion. We never in a million years would have randomly said, "hey.. let's book a flight to El Paso for vacation this year". But, I'm incredibly thankful that we're here... experiencing a new to us culture. Viewing a part of the country we wouldn't have otherwise. I'm getting opportunities that not many people get. Because it's not just a vacation, because we live here and will for at least another year and a half (probably more it's starting to look like) we get to take our time. Explore the area. Travel to surrounding locations.
Fort Sill, or Lawton, OK rather, was a hole in the wall, crap town. But I can guarantee you that if we weren't stationed there for a bit, I never would have seen Oklahoma City.. which we loved btw. I never would have met the people that I did there that I now would consider some of my great, great friends.

And this is only 2 years into our experience. Who knows what else we will see. Who knows who we will meet. I don't believe there are any mistakes. The places we go and the people that become part of our lives.. it all happens for a reason. So, yes, while there are the drawbacks of being homesick and missing out on time with family, I still have to say that I love our life and I'm very thankful for where we are in it. And hey, the pay will only get better. Soon, I'd imagine we'll be able to afford flying back home more often.. now I just need to come to terms with the hassles of flying with a child/children.

On the move

2011-06-14T04:00:00.000-04:00

I can't tell you how many times I heard all variations of the phrase, "enjoy your baby while he isn't mobile.. once he's on the move you're in big trouble". Either this is something people say just to say or I am abnormal. Because now that this guy:

is on the move, life has been so much easier.

Last week (around Wednesday or Thursday) Andrew up and decided he wanted to "crawl". He's not crawling on all fours, but has taken the low crawling route. Let me tell you... he's perfected it. That boy can move. I'm loving it. He's so much more independent. For the most part now, if he wants something, he goes and gets it. Most importantly, there is a significant less amount of whining, crying and screaming in this house. He's wanted to do it for so long. So when he couldn't we had a mini tantrum. Or when I left his sight.. tantrum. Now he can just follow me if he wants to. Yes, he still has the meltdowns when I leave the room at times and he'll sit there like he doesn't remember that he can move, but it's SO. MUCH. BETTER. And he moves around with this smile on his face like he's either thinking about how proud he is of himself or he's just having the time of his life. That... makes this mama's heart happy.

I guess where all of the warnings from other parents come in about how my life is going downhill from here (slight exaggeration for dramatic effect) is having to keep my eye on him constantly. This is true. While he is up and about for the most part, my eyes are on him. I don't mind it though. It's forcing me to forget about some of the other things that need to get done and take some extra time to play with my babe. And we're having a great time!

WW Mondays

2011-06-13T04:00:00.002-04:00

Ahhh.. is there anything more relaxing than laying in bed blogging? Well, yes, I'm sure there is.. but I'm super relaxed right now. It's really Sunday night as I'm typing this, btw, and Trey has staff duty (he has to stay at work through the night.. be there in case anything happens.. perform checks around the barracks.. that sort of thing. They take turns doing it and it works out to where he does this about 2 or 3 times a month. Just a little FYI for non-military family and friends!) Anywho.. while I would much rather him be here with me (especially because I'm afraid of what lurks out there in the dark) I do find it nice to watch what I want, eat popcorn for dinner if I want, and blog in bed every now and then! I call it looking on the bright side.

Ohh.. you don't care about my rambling and just want me to get on with the WW stuff? Good, because I can't wait to share my progress with you this week :) :)

This week I lost 3.6 pounds!! Wooo-hooooo! And that's not even the best news. It gets better.
1. I've met my first goal, which was 5% of my body weight, which was 8 pounds. I'm down 8.8 total pounds now in just under a month! I can't tell you how good that feels. How good I feel. No turning back now!
2. While leisurely walking around Target one day this week with Trey, he randomly told me that my legs are looking great. Of course, as I cheesed, I asked him what exactly he meant by that. I needed to hear what about my legs looked so much better (I have short midget legs.. I have never, ever gotten a compliment on these gams). He was talking about the definition in muscle tone. Guess all of those walks are starting to pay off.
3. My pants are getting looser on me. (Is looser a word?). I comfortably wore a pair of shorts that just a week ago caused a little too much muffy top.
4. My wedding ring is loose.

How do you like that for a progress report?!?

Now for our subject of the week. Hopefully, y'all will be more help to me than I am to any of you. I suck at lunches, but most days I don't really care. I eat the same thing almost every single day and it doesn't bother me. Most of the time.
Ready for this excitement?
A turkey sandwich made with reduced-cal, whole wheat bread toasted just so.. not to crispy.. just enough to give it a little toasted texture. (2 points for 2 slices). Add 6 slices of some flavored turkey breast (Deli Fresh) (1 point). Pepper. Cilantro. Jalapenos. Lettuce. (all zero points). Then I'll have either a yogurt (Dannon Light Toasted Coconut flavor - 2points) or 16 red-fat Wheat Thins (3 points) or maybe just some fruit.
That is my go to.
I may throw a wrench in my day by making a little salad with shredded lettuce, above listed deli meat (1 point), cilantro (zero), and 2 Tablespoons of Light Ranch (2 points). With fruit on the side. Sounds boring, but I love it. I'm a simple kind of gal.

Clearly... I need help. Can't wait to hear all about your week!!

Flashback Friday

2011-06-10T11:27:00.000-04:00

This time last year I was 29 weeks pregnant and looked like this...

I don't think I ever really grasped what was growing inside of me! What a miracle. I looked at him now and am just in awe. What a difference a year makes!

Rambles

2011-06-09T15:58:00.000-04:00

This is one of my rare occasions that I have not a thing to do at the moment. Sure, there are a few things I could be doing ( ie: starting laundry, cleaning a few bottles, or PACKING) but Drew is napping, my legs are a little sore from all of the power walks I've had this week, and I'm kinda sleepy, so I'm just lounging for now. A lounger with an urge to write with nothing in particular to write about. So.. you get some random rambles today. Lucky ducky.

Trey has been on leave since last Wednesday and it's coming to an end. I'm dreading him going back to work. Not only has it been beyond nice to have him around the house (the company and an extra set of hands? Sweet.), but I've also taken a little vacation for myself as well. Less of sticking to a schedule. I haven't been planning meals or cooking elaborate dinners. Not that anything I cook on a normal day is elaborate by any means, but things have just been more chill. And it's been nice. Waaaaah!

I'm so very excited about our move. We can't wait to be in our new house!! But the whole moving process? For the birds. Not my cup of tea. Couldn't I have just gone home to visit family and friends and come back when everything was done and set up nicely? Is that so much to ask? I did invite some friends over one day next week to come over and help me pack last minute stuff (read: almost everything). They must love me.. some are actually coming even after I warned them how disorganized I am. It's not my fault.. it's the ADD. I did bribe with wine and lunch. I'm not stupid.

Planning is in full force for the big first birthday. I've got the perfect theme/color scheme and I can't wait to get more details in place. I don't know that I will share much on here until afterwards, but who knows I may. I have a lot of work to do which I will be starting in FULL FORCE after the move. I'm excited. I have decorations to find/make, invitations to design and beg Jennifer to make, pick out pictures and songs to do a slide show with (oh yess that's happening and it's going to be my favorite part of the day), a cake to design and find someone to do... fun times!

Does anyone want to come visit us? I'm getting the itch for some visitors. Anyone? Bueller?

I have my pictures painstakingly organized on my computer (saved in folders going from year to month and then saved by date.. yeahh). I've been worried for like two years that it would crash and I'd lose everything. Seriously, I don't know that I would ever, EVER get over that. I've never done anything about it though.. until yesterday. We bought CD's to transfer them all to. Trey wants to then delete them off the computer to add space.. I would rather not. Three years of pics. Is it going to really clear that much up?

We have a Hail and Farewell (dining in event to welcome newcomers and wish well to people leaving the battalion) to go to tomorrow night at The Edge of Texas (little restaurant on the Texas/New Mexico border that we've been wanting to go to anyways.. yes we're that close to New Mexico.. it's not a long drive at all). I'm trying to find a babysitter, but we may have to take him with us. Normally it wouldn't be such a big deal, but it's his bedtime. I don't foresee fun times. I am looking forward to going though. It will be my first one!

The child is beckoning from his ~~cage~~ crib. Free time is OVER.

Oh BTW...

2011-06-06T22:28:00.001-04:00

I don't think I've mentioned this on here, but it's finally our turn to move on post! After a full year of waiting we were offered a house a few weeks ago. I can't tell y'all how excited I am!! I've always wanted the experience of living on post and as far as I'm concerned there is no better place than Ft. Bliss to get that experience! I love this place more and more every day.

The houses are beautiful. Especially for an Army post. The PX area (Freedom Crossing) is unheard of in the Army world.. literally the first of it's kind. For instance, we went to the movie theater right behind the Commissary (which is super nice and brand new with reclining seats) last Friday night. The atmosphere all around the theater was So. Much. Fun. First of all, the weather at night here during the summer really can't be beat. No matter how hot it gets during the day... it can get up to 110-115 I believe... it always drops down to the 70s or so at night. It's perfect! Anywhoo.. just for my friends and family that don't live here, let me set the scene for you.
Right outside of the back of the PX you have a fountain next to a Starbucks where there are usually little kids running all through it. That sight alone always makes my heart happy. They are so care free and having a blast. You cross the street and have a Dairy Queen, Smashburger, an Irish Pub, Buffalo Wild Wings and the theater. Between the pub and the theater there are large cushy chairs and couches facing an outdoor fireplace. Helloooo! You don't even feel like you are on an Army post. Every Friday night they hold karaoke. Soo.. lots of people + gorgeous weather with a slight breeze + the joy of watching people sing their hearts out + a drink in your hand + a cushy comfy chair = a great time with your friends and family. Or in our case last Friday.. part of a perfect date night. So friends and fam... come on out and visit us! Doesn't it sound fun?

On our way home we were talking about how nice it's going to be when we don't have to make the 20 minute trek back home after enjoying nights like that. So soon.. so so soon. I'll be in the same neighborhood as a few of my buddies (although I will miss living seconds away from Jennifer!!) which will be fun. A skip and a jump away from the Commissary and Freedom Crossing. A bigger house. And for me.. just the plain experience of living on post. We'll see if my ideas are naive or silly, but I am feeling pretty patriotic about it. I look forward to being a part of the community!

We called a moving company that someone told us had a good rep around here. Just to get a quote. We didn't have very high hopes, but turns out their prices are very reasonable. We are going to pack ourselves up and bring most boxes. All they are going to do is transfer all the big stuff for us. It's perfect. It's just a little bit more than renting a UHaul. Not having to do all that work is worth it to my husband! He's definitely not lazy, but has a bit of a problem with asking for help. I was enlisting help for him and doing a pretty good job with it... must be a man thing! All of my Bliss Buddies are more than welcome to still come on over and help transport boxes *and stuff* though :)

In less than two weeks, we'll be making the big move!

Weight Watchers Monday

2011-06-06T04:00:00.001-04:00

Welp, I'm going to be real honest here. Another week, another disappointment. And I haven't the foggiest idea why. Unless the doctor's scale is different from WW's scale. I had a doc appointment Friday morning so considered that my weigh-in. I was planning on going in to WW to weigh in real quick that day anyways, but after stepping on the scale at the docs office and having it go UP *point* 4 pounds since last week? I couldn't do it. I've been debating about switching to online only anyways. So much cheaper and the etools program is very helpful for me. THAT made the decision pretty easy for me!
I haven't the foggiest idea where I'm going wrong. I stayed within my daily points almost every day. I only used 5 weekly flex points. And yes, I'm choosing my points wisely. So unless it's the frozen breakfasts I'm eating in the morning (WW brand at that) or the Smart Ones desserts (that's not allowed to be the problem. I look forward to those all day) I'm having at night, I'm at a loss. I even walked 5 out of the 7 days for 45 minutes each time. I did have my blood drawn for labs while at the doc Friday morning. Not for this reason, but there is a history of low thyroid in my family. I guess it's good to rule something like that out.
All that being said, I'm NOT giving up! I know this works and I'm going to keep on truckin' on. Even though the scale isn't showing anything, I know I've gotta be doing good by cutting my portions way down anyways. Plus, I have to buy a new belt. I was already on the last hole... I noticed earlier this week that I either need to buy a new belt or poke a new hole! So, I guess there is an achievement after all :)

On to our topic.. what motivates me?

Most importantly, is my family. I want to be healthy and live a long and fun life with them. I never want to tell my son that I CAN'T run around with him. I don't want that to be a chore. I want to enjoy his childhood.
I want to set a good example for him. I can't very well tell him he can't have those french fries or cookies or ice cream if that's all I'm sitting around eating. And I can't expect him to be active if I'm not.

Also, I want to feel good about the way I look. When I look in the mirror, the reflection doesn't resemble a thing what the girl inside me feels like. Does that make sense to anyone? I'm self-conscience about the way I look right now. I'm always tugging at my clothes making sure they fit right and are covering up the "fatty parts". Always hiding the chub. I want to be able to throw something on and just feel good about myself. Not try on half a dozen items out of my closet and rip each thing off in disgust.

All in all.. I just want to be a better me. For myself and my family.

What about you? Link up and let us know!

Random thoughts

2011-06-05T00:16:00.000-04:00

Most importantly, I'm really late in giving the final update on my dad. Let's just say.. he took the really scary and expensive route of getting a check-up. They did the catheter and found no damage or blockage. After that.. they didn't really know what to do with him and released him. He went to his long time, trusted family doctor on Tuesday and was told that the first diagnosis (before all of this heart crap) was correct. Vertigo. While we are EXTREMELY thankful that his heart is in tiptop shape, that was a little much!

I just saw that someone was led to my blog by searching for "13 weeks pregnant fat belly at bottom". Really? Awesome. Way to remind me that my belly is stretched beyond recognition and jiggles like a bowl full of jelly. I hope you found what you were looking for.

My husband and I celebrated our 4th anniversary this week :)
He spoiled me like never before. Thanks to him I will be enjoying a 4.5 hour day at the spa next week and sporting a new Welker jersey come football season. He also took a week of leave from work. We also dropped Drew off with a trusted couple we are great friends with here last night and had an adult dinner that did not include a highchair, baby food, picking toys up off the floor or diaper changes. The weather was gorgeous and we were able to drive with the windows down. Went to Starbucks then enjoyed a movie. At the movie theater. I can't tell you the last time I've been to a movie theater. It was an amazing night spent with my best friend. While we both did talk about that sweet boy of ours from time to time and it was wonderful to have a night just to ourselves (first one in 9 months that didn't have anything to do with work), we wouldn't trade him in for the world. One night was nice. We like having him around too much to do more than that :)

Remember to come back Monday morning for our Weight Watchers post. The topic this week will be, what motivates you? It can be anything and I can wait to hear from everybody!

It all started as a normal day..

2011-05-31T21:58:00.000-04:00

complete with a walk in the park with a friend (3 miles.. go us), a few naps (for Drew, not me, pinky promise), lunch, and playing with toys.

It ended with a court date in my near(?) future. Let me back up..

Right after Drew's second nap (around 3pm) we're sitting on the living room floor, goofing around when I hear a bunch of ruckus out by the side of our house. I look out the window and there are two HUMONGOUS dogs that seemed to have gotten my neighbors gate open. I freaked a little because they have an older basset hound that I kind of consider like 1/18th mine. He's always outside and barks to let me know when someone is coming. Sometimes annoying, but always comforting. Anywhoo..

The two dogs were terrifyingly big, have I mentioned that? They are running away, but houndy is now out. I don't have the neighbors number and I sure wasn't going out and risking my life with those two beasts running around. I called the police and when finishing up with them, manned up a bit and went out to make sure the hound was okay. I canceled the police call because I saw the owner of said beasts grabbing the dogs from the yard across the street and herding them into the back of his pickup. They drive away and I think all is good. Until...

Neighbors are outside. Wifey is by the front door and assured me the hound was now in the house. Hubs is across the street in above mentioned yard. I asked her if she saw the beasts, yes she had, she says... and did I know that.. grab a tissue... they KILLED the little pup across the street!!! Mauled it to death. My heart still breaks.

We saw the house that the owners of the two dogs lived at.. we see the guy tell his lady about the sitch, she freaks, and walks down to us. She's all worked up until she learns what dog it is that was killed by her dogs. Then says "she doesn't f'ing care" and "she has told that woman to keep her dog inside two times". REALLY?? The poor pup was in it's own yard. And it doesn't matter how annoying the little pup was that roamed the streets. You're dogs violently killed it. That's someones dog. Take responsibility and show some heart. The family wasn't home. They have kids of all ages. They are going to come home to that.

She struts back home. And this is where it gets hard for me. We discussed what to do and it didn't take long to know we had to call Animal Control. That could have easily been any number of the little kids that play outside all day. Andrew and I sit in the driveway quite often (He has a big obsession with cars and it keeps him entertained. With a yard full of rocks.. the driveway is the spot to be).

I had to run to the store and told the neighbors to come right over if they needed anyone else to talk to Animal Control. When I get home, the dead dog neighbors and the ones next to us are all outside. I head over and those kids had just found the dog. Next door neighbs tried to talk to the mom before the kids had seen it, but it was too late. The kids were bawling. It was heartbreaking. The mom walked down to the killing dogs house and chicky completely denies she even has dogs! Can you believe it??

Animal Control guys shows up and after not too long, one of the girls knocks on my door and asks if I'll go and talk to him. Since home girl denies everything (not sure how she thinks she'll get away with that.. the poor fam got pics of the dogs through her window) they are going to need witnesses to testify in court. I couldn't tell that family that I wouldn't do it.. I'm glad to help them.

It's just a sucky situation though. I know it's going to mean putting those dogs down. I know they were vicious. I know they did very wrong. But I still can't help but feel a little bad about helping to put them down. I even feel bad for that stank woman who's going to get her dogs taken away. But when it comes down to it.. I know it has to be done. Unfortunately they got out. What if it happened again? And what if next time it's not "just" a dog that caught their viciousness? They were getting into people's fenced backyards. That's scary.

So.. yeah... blahhhh

At a loss!

2011-05-31T11:21:00.000-04:00

It's our 4 year anniversary on Thursday.

My husband is horrid at surprising me. Don't get me wrong he has spoiled me this year, big time, but he's very very bad at actually making anything a surprise.

With that being said... I have nothing for him. Zilch. Nada. I've been waiting for a creative idea to hit me and with 2 days left.. that idea I've been waiting for hasn't even tapped me on the shoulder.

Ideas? (is it pathetic that I'm coming to blogger for this? I think so, but it didn't stop me from doing it, clearly)

Weight Watchers Mondays

2011-05-30T04:00:00.001-04:00

Happy Memorial Day everyone! I know most of you are off spending some QT with families and friends, feel free to link up any day this week! I hope in the midst of all of the fun times, hamburgers, hot dogs, lakes and pools, that you've taken a moment or five to remember and pray for all of our fallen soldiers and humbly thank them for their ultimate sacrifice. I know we have.

This week our focus is going to be on breakfast ideas, but first, I want to share my.. errrmmm.. progress with you all. I was excited to jump on that scale, but also a little unsure. It was very anticlimactic. I lost .2 pounds this week. Not 2 pounds.. just wanted to make sure you saw that point before the two. Yeahhh. I think I snacked a little too much this week. I used a lot of my extra weekly points, but didn't go over which I guess is why there was a teeny tiny bit of loss. I went out to dinner with some girlfriends one night too. To Olive Garden. I thought I was choosing wisely by ordering off of the appetizer menu (got the Grilled Chicken Flatbread), but not so much. My meal was 29 points. And that's only because I didn't finish the whole thing. Would have been worse. I'm still not very comfortable with eating out.. clearly.
I did get 3 good walks in over the week, but I need to do better.

It was disappointing, but also motivating. I got a little slack with the extra points. Yes, I know they are there.. but that doesn't mean I need to use them quite as much. I used at least 1 or 2 every day. I need to drink more water (gosh that is so hard for me) and get at least a walk in every day. I've been thinking more and more about starting Couch to 5K in again as well. We'll see about that! And even less snacking. Hopefully I'll have a more exciting update next week!!

Breakfast ideas...
I'll admit something - I do a lot of frozen breakfasts. I have a baby that.. at the moment.. is not very happy when 100% of my attention is not focused on him. Yes, it's every bit as fun as it sounds. Some morning I could get away with making a nice breakfast, but most I can't. Yes, he's the boss around here. He's running things. Soo.. it's much much easier for me to throw something in the microwave. More expensive? Yes. Less time consumed? Yes. Very tasty? Yes.
I never use more than 6 points on breakfast. If I can get it in in 5.. even better. Jimmy Dean Delights are spectacular. Turkey sausage breakfast bowls.. yum. Canadian bacon sammies on a honey wheat english muffins.. delish. Both of those are 6 points. The bowls even have a few potatoes in them. Bonus. Smart Ones has a few tasty things that I've tried as well. Breakfast quesidillas (5 points and I LOVE them) and they have a breakfast skillet that is just alright. I don't know if I'll try that again.
When I do have time to make my own I either have a fried egg (just use Pam.. zero points) or scrambled with one whole egg and one egg white. Always, always add in a splash of hot sauce. Canadian bacon and a slice of white bread. I really love oatmeal and would love to find a way to fit that in to mix it up a bit, but I haven't found a way to make it without blowing points.

Anyway.. eggs everyday? I could use some other suggestions! How did you all do this week? Link up and let me know :)

9 Months

2011-05-29T22:04:00.000-04:00

Little Andrew,

Or not so little, I should say! I'm clinging on to these last few months of you being a "baby". Of course, you will always be my baby, but soon you will technically be a toddler and I just can't wrap my head around that fact. How is it even possible? You don't even look like a baby to me anymore. You look like a (very adorable) little boy with all of your hair (your daddy thinks you need a haircut, but I'm not allowing it yet) and 5 *almost 6* teeth! You have two bottom teeth and three top teeth with one more on the way!

You are so much fun these days! I sat down to do a post earlier in the week about all of the funny little things you do, but then realized how close it was to your 9 month post and thought I'd wait. You do things every day that just make me laugh so much!
- A lot of the times when you find yourself on your back and get too excited, your legs just kick a mile a minute. Up and down, over and over again.. and with such force! It's crazy. I know that once you figure out how to do that when you are on you belly.. there will be no stopping you! I think that I'm in trouble when I have to keep up with you!
- My goodness.. in the bathtub.. you are a spazz! You LOVE being in the water more than anything (well maybe not more than eating dirt!) You can't get enough of splashing. You kick your legs up as high as you can reach them, hold them there for a second, then kick them down as hard as you can. I'm a sopping wet mess by the end of your bath. That's while I'm washing you. When you sit up to play you do the same thing with your hands and then wait and watch all of the bubbles you make.
- You think it's the funniest thing when I tilt my head to the side real far to look at you. You have the sweetest little laugh!
- You also love to look at pictures of your family. You look at them and smile and giggle. You love even more to look at pictures of babies. Your whole face lights up.. with real babies too. You LOVE little kids!
- I had Ellen on the other day and at the end there were a few people waving at the camera saying "bye Ellen". You about lost it. Laughed and laughed and laughed!
- You have this look where you tilt your chin down and look up at us with your eyes cut upwards. I've been perplexed as to where you learned this, until I caught myself giving you that very same look when you were acting up in your high chair. Woopsie! I better start being more aware of the things I do around you!
- You love to play "catch" with the foam ball Daddy bought for you or one of those colorful rings you stack up. We sit across from each other.. I roll it to you, which delights you.. and you kinda of fling it back. It's your favorite game.
- You've started to play with your toys a little differently. Instead of just holding them, switching them from hand to hand and shaking them around excitedly (well you still do all of this), but now it's like you're starting to realize they actually have a purpose. You'll take almost any of them (rattles, plush football, plastic planes, boats, cars.. whatever) and slowly move them along on the floor back and forth. Sometimes you make that classic, little boy brrrrrrrr sound like you're driving them. It's too cute. You're also realizing that you can make them touch. If we are holding one, you like to take your toy and touch it to ours. This may not sound like a big deal, but it's definitely a big difference I've noticed this month.

playing with his super heroes

- You're into sharing now. You want me to try your bottle a lot. I really appreciate that buddy. You also want me to chew on your toys. It's a lot of fun.
- You are very interested in mommy and daddy's mouths. You're amazed that we too have a tongue and teeth and you always want to find them. I have to remind you a lot that it's not okay to pick mama's nose.

You are still wearing size 4 diapers, although they are getting a little tight on you (how far do those things go up?? He has a long time left in diapers and we are already up to almost a 5!). Definitely 12-month PJ's. Mostly 12-month clothes as well but I can fit a few 9-month outfits on you. We went to the doc with you about 3 weeks ago and you were 20.5 lbs.. you have to be at least 22 now. You are SO heavy!

You still aren't crawling. I'm thinking you are going to skip right over that phase. You roll around everywhere. You can sometimes go from laying down to sitting up. You can definitely go from sitting up to laying down. You'll get on all fours, in crawling position, rock back and forth, then lay down and roll to where you want to go. You're trying to pull yourself up now. I've turned into a jungle gym over the last 2 days. Ohhh boy is that fun! Needless to say, today we bought you little musical table today for you to climb all over that.

You are such a noisy little baby. But mostly happy noises. You are so very happy. Except if I leave your sight. Ohh Drew.. you do not like me to leave your general vicinity and I'm waiting patiently (for 3 months now) for you to get over this stage. It seems to be getting worse though. I need to enjoy this time.. one day you won't want to be anywhere near me!

We love you more and more and more by the day, sweet boy! We thank God for you every chance we get. You've brought more joy into our lives than you will ever know. I'm enjoying every second with you and really look forward to the future. Before we know it you are going to be walking around and talking... I can't wait!

We love you sweet Drew baby!

Update on Dad and a WW List

2011-05-26T10:55:00.000-04:00

*Be sure to check the bottom of this post for a list of weekly WW topics!*

A big huge Thank you and hug to everyone who left your thoughts and prayers on yesterdays post. I've been holding up okay.. but I've definitely had my moments. It's hard being so far away. You feel useless. Feel like you're be a nuisance to everyone when texting and calling to get updates and just check-in, but that's the only think you can do really. It's been especially hard because Trey has been MIA with work.

He is still in the hospital. I've been getting conflicting reports.. from his labs came back clear and there is no sign of heart attack, then heard last night that that was not the case and some level of whateveritscalled was high which means there was a heart attack. He did the nuclear stress test yesterday, which was four hours long and they were told there was damage seen at the tip of his heart (bottom I guess) I talked to him last night and he sounded much much better than he did on Tuesday. He was perfectly content with his bed positioned just right, his table pulled up with Cheez-Its (his staple) and whateveritwasthathewasdrinking and the remote, the Bruins game (which I'm guessing in the end didn't make him quite so happy) and the prettiest nurse in the hospital waiting on his every beck and call. So yeahhh.. hearing him with his normal outlook was reassuring.

They did the catheter this morning and he is already done with that.. results are good. No blockage and no sign of any previous heart attack. He is in recovery now and when I asked how he was feeling, he said, "not bad I guess" and he is ready to go to the beach and have a margarita. Ha! I don't know what comes next. On one hand, it is GREAT that it wasn't a HA, but now what? I just pray that they do find something (he knows something is off) and that it is very simple and very, very treatable.

On another note..
I've been thinking about subjects we can chat about on WW Mondays. Thank you so much for all of you who took the time to comment and link up. I'd love to see more participation, but I don't think we did so bad for the first week! Here's what I have thrown together.. feel free to add suggestions of what you'd like to hear/talk about!
And of course on every Monday be sure to share your progress!! That's the most exciting part :)

May 30th: Healthy breakfast ideas
June 6th: What motivates you? (someone in your life, health reasons, an upcoming event, etc)
June 13th: Healthy lunch ideas (I really need help with this one!!)
June 20th: Exercise tips
June 27th: Healthy dinner ideas
July 14th (I figure no one will want to do this on July 4th weekend!): Inspiring quotes

That's all I can think of for now. Like I said, feel free to add your ideas!

My Dad

2011-05-25T10:35:00.001-04:00

It's times like these where it really SUCKS - for lack of a better word - to be away from family.

I got a call yesterday from my mum saying she was at the hospital with my dad. Not to freak out too much, but it was his heart. He was awake, hungry and complaining. I was on my morning walk with Andrew and was stopped in my tracks. "Don't freak out too much".. I don't know why people bother telling me that. Of course I'm going to freak. I kept on with my walk all while texting trying to find out more info. (Of course this is on the one day during the week that I can't talk to my husband).

I don't know much more information. I was able to talk to him. He was transferred yesterday to the heart hospital and they are doing tests.
He's had issues with his heart before. His father did as well. He already has a pacemaker that was put in a while back. It's working just fine, but his heart beat is still irregular. They did labs and he didn't have a heart attack. This morning he was brought in for a 4-hour nuclear stress test, and they are hopeful we'll have some answers by this afternoon.

It's hard to hear your dad in obvious pain or discomfort. It's hard to imagine him in the hospital. My heart really hurts, not being able to be there. To give him a big hug and kiss. To be there for my mom. It just plain sucks.

Please lift my family up in your prayers! Pray for his comfort, my mom's peace of mind, and for those doctor's to find some answers.

*One thing that really made me smile last night, was to hear that he was very upset that he couldn't watch American Idol at the volume he would at home. He would usually have it cranked up to 60 and can't really do that in his hospital bed.* Always a sense of humor in this family!

Weight Watchers Mondays

2011-05-23T04:00:00.005-04:00

Yeahhh.. I couldn't think of anything clever to go with Mondays, but there you have it.

I'm starting a weekly meme for any of you (the more the merrier) to contribute to. Weight loss is hard.. a lifestyle change is even more so. I know I can use all the motivation possible, so I'm sure you all could to. What better way for us all to get together and help each other out?? So, be sure to link up at the bottom of this post! (this is very new for me, so if it doesn't work, try not to be too annoyed! I'll figure it out)
I've decided to do Weight Watchers as you all know from last week, but feel free to add in tips that have worked for you even if you are taking a different approach!

This week, let's share how much you have lost since you started your journey, how much you have to go to meet your goal, and the biggest thing you have learned so far that you were doing all wrong.

On Friday, I did my first weigh-in (they will normally be on Saturday) and drumroll please.....
..... I LOST 5 POUNDS. Yay yay yay!! I'm so very proud of myself. I went in there only expecting to see a loss of 2 at the most, so you can imagine my surprise. A big "Are you kidding me????", was said and the sweet lady assured me that no, she was not in fact kidding. I gushed and gushed and she gave me two stickers. Which only added to my excitement. I'm a child still, I swear it.
My first goal is 5% of my weight, which is 8 pounds, so I am almost there. I have 31 pounds to go before I get to my ultimate goal. A long way to go, but I KNOW I can do it!

For me, this week.. I think the biggest thing I learned was portion control. Holy moly, does that make a difference! And I was eating wayyyy too much! It has really helped to measure everything out this week. Especially salad dressing. Two tablespoons is A LOT less than I thought it was! The second biggest thing I think would be... no mindless snacking. Before WW, I would get everything out to make a sandwich, and snack on an extra piece of cheese while I made it. And that can be applied to anything. Always munching on something. Those little extra things during the day really add up!

During this week, I will work on compiling a list of weekly topics so you can be more prepared (if this even works!) Please participate, y'all! Don't make me feel like the loser blogger that I probably really am that has no friends ;) And let your friends know about it as well! I'm telling you.. I'm really going to need the motivation!

I can't wait to hear from you all!

Just a little teaser

2011-05-20T15:06:00.001-04:00

I had to weigh in a day early this week and I have some exciting news...

... that will have to wait for Monday's WW post.

I'm making some progress with the linky set-up, but I'm not quite there yet. Hopefully I can get it all figured out over the weekend! Either way, come back on Monday for lots of weight loss talk :)

Enjoy your weekend friends!

*Edited to add*
I have my post scheduled for Monday and I'm pretty sure the link up is working :) Be ready to post about how much you have lost so far in your weight loss journey, how much you have left to go (if you want to let us all in on that!) and the most important thing you've learned so far that you were doing all wrong to begin with! I'm so excited!

Why we blog

2011-05-19T18:38:00.000-04:00

Have you ever found yourself trying to explain blogger to a non-blogger?

I found myself trying to do just that yesterday and I actually had a hard time explaining. Let me set the scene...

I was on the phone with my SIL chatting about this or that. *That is how 80% of my time is spent during the week while I'm doing other little odd and ends things, but that's neither here nor there* At some point, I don't remember exactly how, my blog came up. I talk about it all the time. Like a lot. So, it comes up rather frequently between us. I've given her my link before, but she is really not into things like this... I knew she never read it. And when I bring up my blog, it's kind of just excepted as a fact of life and we move on. She has never really asked me too much about it.. until yesterday.

She was kind of giggling (okay really giggling) because she cannot fathom why I (we all) would spend so much time on our blogs. What the heck do we talk about. "You have HOW many people that follow your blog?" I told her that was small cookies compared to some other people. She couldn't understand why I would take time out of my day to follow other blogs. Read about peoples lives that I don't know. *For the record, I know she wasn't making fun of us... too much.. she is really just curious about something that is such a big part of my life*

I had a hard time explaining our breed of people. It was hard for me to put into words why I blog other than I like to write. I like to have that connection with you girls (but again, that is soooo hard for some people to understand). I mean.. it does sound a little crazy, right? I love that I've gotten to "know" some of you, but that doesn't sound right to non-bloggers. Why would you want to get to know these people when you have your own "real life" friends. Maybe it's not something I can explain, but I truly do value those of you that have taken the time to read about my life and share your viewpoints and let me into yours.

For me and the little military niche that I am in, that aspect is easy. I can identify with you girls. None of my "RL" friends can relate to me when it comes to this lifestyle. Why I packed up everything I knew (my family, job, friends, etc.) to follow my husband around the world. Why I join an FRG. The crazy hours and acronyms.. you know.. all of that good stuff. A "RL" friend will always be sympathetic and will always listen.. but you guys get it. You've been there. That's nothing against those that don't, but it's nice to have you all.. who have been there. Not to mention, no matter where we get sent, I'll most likely already have a friend at our new home.

So I guess that is my reasoning. It's a hobby. An online, very public, story of our life. Something that helps me connect to people that can relate to me. Something that I'll always be able to look back on and remember the little and big moments. Something that gives me an outlet.

How about you? What are your reasons for being the "crazy" blogger that you are?

Favorite New Things

2011-05-18T17:20:00.000-04:00

No, no.. I haven't gotten contacted or paid to do any of these reviews. I'm not that cool.. YET. These are just a few things that I've tried lately and really, really liked. And I really like you too, so I thought you should know.

Mio
Zero calorie flavoring you can add into your water. It's better than Crystal Light because it comes in a little container and you can squeeze out as much as you'd like. Want just a little something something to your water.. just a quick squeeze will do. Want to feel like you're drinking a Hi-C? Go ahead and squirt it 5 or 6 times. It's up to you. And for $3 something (Target) you can get 24 squeezes. With flavors like Berry Pomegranate, Strawberry Watermelon, and some other Mango flavor I have... I'm in love. If you really want to get crazy you can mix the flavors. Watch out now!

Pop Chips
One day, hubs and I are casually strolling through Costco (one of our favorite past times) and I'm searching high and low for all of the best samples when I came across something called Popchip. I non-comitally taste said "chip" with no intention to buy a bag when YUMMMO... my taste buds were sure surprised by that little ditty. We tried the BBQ flavor and I was immediately instructed to buy a bag.
They aren't fried or bakes.. not really sure what they are to be honest, but delicious and better for you than your normal chip alternative. Since I have no idea what I'm talking about technically, I'll let them tell you..
All natural.

Nothing fake or phony.
Our all-natural pledge: no fake colors, no fake flavors, no preservatives, no fluorescent orange fingertips, and no wiping your greasy chip hand on your jeans. No, really. We only use ingredients you can feel good about eating. And we leave out the bad stuff, like hydrogenated oils and msg, that give snacking a bad name. Because popchips™ brand chips have no preservatives, make sure to get a good chip clip after opening the bag to keep our popped chips fresh. Or better yet, just eat them all at once.
I've seen them at Target too. Get them.

The Ninja
A month or two ago my blender broke. It was great quality.. I just clumsily knocked it off the counter. Nothing is THAT great of quality. It broke into 100 tiny pieces. Yeahh.. it was just as fun as it seems. Normally, it wouldn't be that big of a deal, but I've been make most of Drew's food. The blender worked just fine for that, but since I needed to buy SOMETHING, I wanted to see if I could make the food pureeing process a little smoother (ha.. get it?). I did lots of lots of research and finally decided I wanted to try this Ninja thing out.
You've all seen the infomercials, right? I promise, it's as AHmazing as it looks. Ohhh my gosh! I cannot rave enough about this thing. So quick and much more quiet than the blender. And I can make a lot more at one time. It comes with two different sized pitchers so you don't have to use (and clean) the big one if you just want to make a little salsa or something. Very powerful. To puree, you push the little motor thing (again.. not so swell with the technical terms) down for about 10 seconds a few different times. Viola.. you have puree. Want something chopped? Oh, that will only take about .5 seconds. Seriously.. hold that little bugger down for like a nano second and you have perfectly chopped whateveritisyouarechopping. $44-something at Target. (see a trend?)

EOS Shaving Cream
Stands for Evolution of Smooth.
So true. *turns out they have a whole line of products.. just found that out while getting the link. Excites me*
Anywhoo.. I will never use another shaving cream again. Normal priced. Not normal results. First of all, the smell will cause you to salivate. The only one I've tried is pomegranate raspberry. Delish. Sometimes I smell it just for fun. It will help you shave when you don't really want to, but really should. And then.. when you do shave those gams... it will newly define smooth for you. Wow! I think that if you didn't live in the bone-dry desert like I do, you may not even have to use lotion afterwards. Yeah.. it's that good. This, I've seen everywhere. Feel free to buy this at Target while you are shopping for above items, but you can also venture out to Walmart, Walgreens, etc.

That's all I can think of at the moment. I made a list of items and lost it. Go figure. But I'm pretty sure there were more things listed. Don't you all think that I should get paid for this, or at least get a lifetime supply of these products? I sure do :)

Linking up help!

2011-05-16T22:38:00.000-04:00

There seems to be a lot of interest in doing a weekly topic on everything weight loss, which really excites me. I was hoping it would turn into something like this.

I'd like to post on Mondays. I'll think of some clever name (maybe). Every week I will share my progress with WW, any tips I've learned, recipes we've tried and enjoyed, etc.

I want it to be one of those link posts where everyone can join in and link to it and that's where YOU come in. Yes you :) I have no clue what I'm doing. I've made an account at Simply Linked, but that's about all I could figure out.. making my account.

I clearly need help.. anyone up for the challenge?

Weighty Issues

2011-05-16T05:00:00.002-04:00

I did it. I done joined Weight Watchers.

I never imagined myself like this 8 months after having a baby. I don't know why. Actually, I do know why. I compared myself to other girls I knew that have had babies. Good friends, acquaintances. Some that bounced back with minimal to NO effort. Some that somehow found the time to exercise all hard core - all while caring for a newborn, keeping up house and home, and working full time. Talk about determination.. geesh!
You can't do that though. Compare yourself to people that aren't in your gene pool, that is. I should have known better. I've struggled with my weight my entire life. The majority of my time has been spent on the overweight side. One time I lost it in a very unhealthy way (aka pretty depressed and therefore not eating much of anything and working out excessively) and the other time being from.. duh duh duh.. you guessed it. Weight Watchers.
So after struggling for a few months now, trying to find the time to work out, going from diet to diet, I ended up being far more confused and frustrated than ever. What really works? Counting calories? But it has to be more than just that, right? The type of calories you eat have to matter. Do I get rid of all carbs, some carbs, sugar? That's not reasonable, for sure! I'm bound to fail with that (and I did). Is real sugar better, or fake? I need to choose all of the"light" options to stay in a respectable amount of calories a day, but if the bottle says "light", that just means the sugar has shot up. Gahhhh! These are the thoughts that have plagued me for months now. Multiple times, I couldn't take it and just gave up all together. Only to gain those 5 pounds back, get disgusted with myself and start some other diet.

Enter WW. I know it works. I've done it. It's realistic. It's changed over the years, and incorporates more of the lifestyle Trey and I have been trying to live. Instead of doing a calorie counting based point system, it's all based on high protein and fiber, low fat and carbs. Win win! Trey gets meals cooked that work for his weight loss efforts, and I can FOCUS on the low carb foods, but add in little bits here and there based on points. Make sense? I probably didn't explain it well enough, but it works in my head. I'm excited.

Here's the ugly truth. I weighed in today at 164.4 pounds. I'm 5'3. This isn't okay. I'm very unhappy with the way I look and feel. I dread going on walks with my little family.. isn't that horrible? So not how I pictured myself. But, I'm changing it. I'm doing something about it and that's what matters. I have a destructive relationship with food. My life revolves around it. Borderline obsessive. So, not only do I want to change the way I look and feel... I want to be able to think about daily life and how food mixes in without breaking out into a cold sweat. In fact, I want to think about my weekend plans without thinking about food at all. Food needs to hold less importance in my life.
I plan to surround myself with supportive, encouraging people. I know Trey will be so very supportive. I know I need to actually GO to the meetings. The online option wouldn't work for me. I need to be held accountable. So between supportive friends, a loving husband, weekly support and weigh-ins, seeing results and hopefully feeling better about myself, I have to be on to a winning combination!

I'll keep track of how I'm doing here. Are any other of you girls out there doing WW? If so, let me know! We can help each other along and share recipes. I know I'm going to need help with meal ideas for sure.

Days 26, 28 and 29

2011-05-12T09:48:00.000-04:00

I'm really ready to get back to regular posting!

26
My dream wedding? I had it. I was surrounded my an indescribable amount of LOVE. I felt beautiful. We had a blast. But. Most importantly? I married my best friend. And. In ways I never could have imagined on THAT day? We're better than I ever could have predicted. Sometimes crap got in the way. We've had our bad moments/spans. But right now? Right now, I count myself lucky to say that... almost to the day 4 years ago... I made the best decision of my life by choosing that man to be my husband. I'm thankful that he chose me too. Planning a wedding can be extremely stressful and a PIA to be honest, but if you can come out on the other side of that day and KNOW in your heart that it was the best thing you ever did... you had your dream wedding.

I don't have a good original picture of the city I live in, so I'm skipping day 27.

28
Do we have a year to sit and read about everything that stresses me out? No? Okay, I'll just list a few things. Not having enough time in the day. Money. When I KNOW something is just not right with my baby and I can't figure out what it is. Getting lost. Worrying about when/if I'm every going to live in the same city as my parents again.

29
Three wishes.
1. I wish I could magically lost 34 pounds without having to do any of the work.
2. I wish either ourselves or my parents were rich so they didn't have to work and could fly out and see us whenever they or we wanted.
3. I wish/hope that I'm the best mum ever and I'm doing all of the right things for Drew. That he will grow up to be super smart, never make bad decisions because he will instinctively know better, and will be a well-rounded individual with no emotional hangups caused by his parents.

I may or may not do Day 30. I did well enough on this challenge, right? Even though it took twice as long as it was meant to and I picked and chose the days I wanted to complete? Yes, I did wonderfully? Thanks, I thought so too :)

Day 24 and 25:

2011-05-11T16:02:00.000-04:00

Blah.. I'm skipping Day 22 and 23. I've already covered both of those things. We already know that I have way too much crap in my purse/diaper bag and I've definitely already talked about my favorite movies.

Moving on -

Day 24: Something I've learned?
I work better when I take the time to be organized. I swear I have undiagnosed ADD. It's way too easy for me to get distracted when trying to stay on a task. (I just had to turn the TV off because I couldn't choose whether I wanted to pay attention to The Doctor's or blog... blogging won). There are so many things I want to get done throughout the week and if I don't write it all out by days, it will never get done. I have to break it all down. If not, I'll start something and never finish it because with my mind racing, thinking about everything else I want to do... if I go into another room.. forget it!
Knowing this about myself and accepting it, we bought a dry erase board with the days of the week on it. On Sunday, I can write out what I want to get done on which day and my week runs much, much more smoothly.

Day 25: Ipod
This is either going to be funny or embarrassing, depending on how you take it. I'm very random with my music taste. I'm supposed to put my Ipod on shuffle and let you know what the first 10 songs are... here we go!

1. Flashing Lights - Kanye West
2. Lot of Leavin' Left To Do - Dierks Bentley
3. Santeria - Sublime
4. You Are Not Alone - Michael Jackson
5. Calling You - Blue October
6 Poker Face - Lady Gaga
7. Good Directions - Billy Currington
8. The Bucket - Kings of Leon
9. Prom Queen - Lil Wayne
10. Patience - Guns N' Roses

*that was really fun for me, so I think I'll do 10 more, yes?*

11. Fairytale - Sara Bareilles
12. Songs About Rain - Gary Allan
13. All My Rowdy Friends (have settled down) - Hank (haaa!)
14. Red Sam - Flyleaf
15. Paper Planes - M.I.A.
16 - Falling Slowly - The Frames
17. Lose Yourself - Eminem (greatest song to work out to ever)
18. Nothing Else Matters - Metallica
19. ATLiens - Outkast
20. Carry On Wayward Son - Kansas

I loved that! Off to go sweet and mop with the Ipod going strong!

Day 20 and 21

2011-05-07T11:58:00.000-04:00

I didn't feel like I could write enough about nicknames and since I'm more than a little behind, I figured I'd combine two days!

This nickname section is going to be pretty boring. My name is Jessica..duh.
My husband calls me Jess.
Most of my family calls me Jessie, which is only excepted by them. I will look at you like you're insane if you are not a member of my family and you call me Jessie. It's happened only a handful of times in my life, and it's weird.
Except my brothers... they call me Jess too.
Then there's this other lady that calls me Corky sometimes. Yes, Corky as in Corky from Life Goes On. Remember that show? She's a little Corky-ish herself.

And that's about it!

I have two favorite pictures of myself. That are saved online at least. Here they are :)

Minutes before I was to walk down the aisle to my hubby. I love the anticipation you can see all over my face

Me and my boy. So happy. Self explanatory.

~ 8 Months ~

2011-05-06T16:41:00.001-04:00

Here we go.. another month post. I still say time has gone by at lightening speed. Is there a fast forward button on time once you have a child? I heard that somewhere recently, and I'm starting to believe it's true.

You are getting so big, sweet boy! We very much enjoy watching you learn and grow. You are such a great joy in our lives and everyone's lives that you are a part of. You are very loved! A sweet lady at Walmart said the other day that you were her angel sent to her for the day. You love people.. I think you are going to be quite the social butterfly! When I'm carting you around from store to store, I swear sometimes I think you're just waiting for someone.. ANYONE.. to glance your way so you can flash them that big, beautiful smile of yours. And everyone just eats it up! I can't go anywhere without someone commenting on how precious, cute, happy, you are. And "ohh my goodness, those big blue eyes!". You are something else little Andrew! I hope you continue to be a happy, people loving, sweet boy!

You had a doctor's appointment about 2 weeks ago and you were 19.3 pounds and 28 inches long.
You are still wearing size 4 diapers.
Clothes: 9 month onsies and pants. 12 month Pj's and some shortalls. You're a big boy! My body is starting to feel it. Something has got to give. Either I need to start pushing weights, or you've got to learn to walk ;)
You're eating more and more foods and you are getting better at using your two fingers to pick stuff up. You're a pro at the puffs!
You are still only saying da-da. Sometimes I think you are waving hi and bye-bye, but I don't know if you are intentionally doing it. You sure do that a lot though!
You are so close to crawling! You rock back and forth when you are on your hands and knees and have learned to go from that position to sitting. You're trying really hard to go from sitting to crawling position, but most of the time you fall flat on your face. This morning you were successful at it for the first time, so we'll see!
You love the pictures on our wall with all of our family members. You look at them and smile all the time. If you aren't looking at them, all I have to say is, "Where's your family" and you look straight the pictures and start cheesing. It's precious :)
You've found your tongue this month and you love to stick it out and try to find mine. In fact, you seem to be quite obsessed with my facial features. When I give you your bottle, you touch from nose to mouth to eyes while I tell you which part is which. You also try to pick my nose, which is not socially acceptable.
If you are reclined you can hold your bottle by yourself, but make a mess of the formula if I give it to you sitting up. Your car seat has seen this! You are just OKAY with your sippy cup, but definitely an improvement from last month. You're actually much better with a straw than a sippy cup!
You LOVE to be outside and that can cure the most fussiest of moods. Your favorite thing to do is watch cars and trucks pass by. It excites you greatly. Your favorite toy is also Chuck the Truck. I do believe we have a typical boy's boy on our hands :)

We love you sweet boy! More than you will understand until you have a child of your own. Especially as my first mother's day is around the corner, I'm more thankful for you than ever.

Day 19: Something I miss

2011-05-05T19:09:00.000-04:00

I'm going to be real honest here.
I MISS waking up when I WANT to wake up.

Trey and I were laughing the other day about this. Joking around *kind of* that I have the most demanding boss in town. We pictured him in a little Stewie voice:

"I'm awake, come get me mother"
Feed me, I'm hungry
I'm sleepy, put me to bed.
Fetch me that toy.
I've peed myself... change my undergarments.

Ha! I love being Andrew's mother, but yeahhh... just for one day I'd like to do things (specifically, sleep) on my time.. not his. I know this is just a time though and before I know it, I will be missing these times!

Day 18: Eating out!

2011-05-04T09:12:00.000-04:00

I LOVE to eat. Really, it's one of my favorite past times. Which is why I'm joining Weight Watchers on Saturday. It's the only thing that works for me. I've tried multiple things since having Andrew, and really most of my adult life. Weight is something I always have, and I believe always will, struggle with. And WW... is my answer. I'll be going to meetings every Saturday morning for a while. After a few weeks maybe I'll just do the weigh-ins, but this girl needs the accountability. WW online would not work for me. I plan (you all know how that goes, so don't hold your breath) to do weekly updates... even starting by telling you my starting weight (eeeks... that will be embarrassing), but wish me luck.

Anywhoo... sorry! Got off on a little tangent.

Right now, I would have to say that my favorite place to eat is Taco Cabana. I really have simple taste. This place is cheap, but oh so amazing. I eat there at least once a week. I need to get that in in the next few days one more time... after that I'll have to look at the dreaded nutrition information. Lord, please tell me that the #2 meal, which consists of 2 beef tacos in a soft tortilla shell, plus chips and queso are only 2ish points! :)

Calm down mum, Andrew's 8-month post is coming soon!

Day 17: I can't wait!

2011-04-30T10:23:00.001-04:00

Today I'm supposed to blog about something that I am looking forward to. Easy!

We have been on the waiting list for housing for almost a year now and we are so close to the front of the list! I always knew that I wanted to get the experience of living on post at least once. If we don't like it, fine, but we have to try it, right? And there is no better place to try it out! The officer housing here at Bliss is amazing and I don't think it can be beat. Not for lower ranking officers at least. They are beautiful, stucco homes!

When we moved here last year, it was very hard to find a home to rent. The market is crazy here with the rate that the city is growing, they can't keep up! Landlords are taking advantage of the situation and raising the prices of rent. Sadly, they can get away with it I guess... we all need a place to live! We were lucky to find the home that we did, but we aren't overly happy with it. We only have about 1000 square feet and the neighborhood isn't the greatest. Very busy area and we have to dodge broken beer bottles far, far too often while walking. Plus, we have no storage areas besides the garage. Not even a linen closet! No bueno!

When we move on post, we will gain at least 700 square feet. Trey will be closer to work. We drive on post at least once a weekend, so we'll save some gas and time there. We'll be closer to everything... doctors offices, the hospital, commissary, etc. We'll be right in the middle of the city, so it won't be as big of a deal to drive "all the way over" to the west side (we LOVE it over there). I'll feel like I'm a bigger part of the Army community. We'll have GRASS IN THE BACKYARD! Air Conditioning! No more swamp cooler :) :) I'll have a nice 5-mile track to walk. I cannot wait!

I'm not so much looking forward to the whole moving process, but I really think it will be worth it!

Day 16: Dream House

2011-04-29T21:33:00.000-04:00

Oh heyyy... the last post was my 400th post. 400th!! Never would I have thought :)

So, my dream house. I think about this all of the time. Trey and I talk about this all of the time. We have big plans.

We don't want to buy again until we are settled somewhere. Selling our house in SC was a nightmare and we don't see the need to put ourselves through that mess again when we know we'll be moving every few years. That being said... we have a while until we get to live in this dream house of ours.

I've never put all of our thoughts together to organize,so this will be good for me!

It has to be somewhere between in the middle of nowhere and in civilization. Trey would be happy if we didn't have neighbors for miles. I need to be pretty close to at least a grocery store and would like to live in general vicinity of people. I want our child(ren) to be able to ride their bike to a friends house. Sooo.. yeah..that's where we'll start.
A wrap around porch is a must. Two rocking chairs. Very comfy patio furniture in the back with a built-in grill and lots of shade in the backyard. My mom will plant me a beautiful garden.
I'd like 5 bedrooms. A luxurious master suite with the perfect bathroom.. must include garden tub. I've still yet to have one of those. I'd like a bay window where I could have a little reading nook. A bedroom for each kid. A playroom. And a guest room.
The kitchen will be very big and open. I would like an island with that thing that will hold your pots and pans above it.
Trey wants a fireplace in the living room, it needs to be open (so you can walk around it). I'm not sure which room will be on the other side of it. Dining room? Another sitting room? We'll see.

And that's all I have for now!

Day 15?: Faith

2011-04-28T16:03:00.000-04:00

Ohh my gosh... who woulda thunk that it would take me so long to get through this? Ohh.. all of you? Because I never really follow through with anything I start? Grrrrr... I WILL finish this. I'm determined.

Anywhoo...

Favorite Bible verse. To be honest, I'm not as disciplined and studied as I'd like to be with the Bible, so I had to look a few up (because you know I can't just do one). There was one I was specifically looking for and haven't been able to find, but when I do find it, I'll let you know!

Psalm 91:14-16
"Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."

Ephesians 2:8-9
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast."

Romans 8:38-39
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angles nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

1 Peter 4:9-10
"Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms."

I could go on and on and on really, but here is one more..

1 John 8-10
"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives."

Day 14: Reminiscing

2011-04-26T12:24:00.000-04:00

Today's post calls for a picture of me from this time last year. Here we are at his BOLC graduation:

Trey looks like a fat bastard. His words, not mine.. ha! I think he looks adorable. He's pretty hot now though. I was five months pregnant and, ironically, in better shape than I am now! How's THAT for motivation??
Beyond our appearances, this was such an exciting time for us! Finally finishing up BOLC, which Trey was miserable through, and for the first time, on our way out into the big world of the Real Army. This seems like it was just yesterday.
We have been feeling very nostalgic, realizing that it's coming up on a full year that we have been here in El Paso! Armed Forces Day is in a few short weeks. That time last year, we had just been here for a few days and still living in temporary housing on post, not having a single clue where we were going to live. Fort Bliss did a big outing to celebrate that day (including a chili cook-off, which I love) and were able to walk down to the park for our first Fort Bliss "event". They are holding it again this year, over at Biggs Park, and we can't wait to go. Last year, we were so new to the area and I was wobbling around with Drew in my tummy.. this year we can walk around with him in his stroller and celebrate being in the same place for a year!

Day 13: Goals

2011-04-20T10:36:00.000-04:00

First and foremost - lose 30 pounds. It's awful. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I need to change this lack of motivation ASAP. I refuse to have another child on top of all this weight.

Get my Bachelor's degree. I have my Associates, but never finished because I didn't know what I wanted to do and wasted enough time as it was. I think I have it narrowed down now, so hopefully this will be in the near future!

Volunteer more with Trey's unit and other functions I've gotten myself involved in. Here's my secret.. I really am shy deep down. I know.. those that know me best are probably laughing right now, but it's true. It's hard for me to put myself out there. Fear of rejection, maybe? I'm not quite sure. I desperately want to get over it.

Find a home church here in El Paso and really get involved as a family and better my faith. Learn more. I've started going to a weekly Bible Study with PWOC every week (which I'm skipping this morning, but that's neither here nor there)

There you have it!

Day 12: I will not leave the house without..

2011-04-18T16:09:00.000-04:00

Usually, the baby. He's on my hip at all times.
Luckily, my purse doubles as a diaper bag. It's pretty sassy and awesome for a diaper bag.
In that contraption, there always HAS to be the following: diapers, wipes, food of some sort for the monster (#1 - he's always hungry. #2 - what if we broke down or locked ourselves out of the car and were stranded for hours. Fed baby = Happy baby), toys, water bottle, wallet with debit card and Mil ID, Berts Bees chapstick, cellie, keys, and sunglasses because I live in the sun city.

Y'all... I'm getting better, but it does take me about 15 minutes to get out of the house. And that's after we're both dressed and "ready".