Celebrations

I am a firm believer that God gives you what you need exactly when you need it. Sometimes we recognize it right away; sometimes it takes hindsight to understand. I'm also a firm believer that if you are open to good things, good things will happen to you {{If you build it they will come, so to speak.}} Whether you're a believer in Him or not, focusing on the good things in your life will always keep the focus off of the bad. Recently, I have been too focused on the bad. Not only have I been trudging through my own gutter but I feel like I've let the negatively of others impact my own positivity. I am not this person. I refuse to be this person. Today, I read a blog about a girl who was driving home from work, hit a wall of water and was swept away by the current. Suddenly, her normal drive home turned into a life or death situation. She called upon God to save her life and through prayer she was able to keep her wits about her and He did {{Say what you want if you don't believe, but the truth is, in the 'foxhole' we are ALL believers.}}

For a number of reasons that I'm not going to waste your time with, I have let myself get into a grumpy slump. The problem with these is that they turn into vicious cycles and I have been praying for help out of it {[I really don't want to be the lady that does nothing but complain about her crazy kids}} and this morning I got it. In some weird way this blog, which I came upon by happenstance, while doing an assignment that had nothing to do with the post I read, made me realize that I am in a slump because I have not been celebrating the things that I should be.

So in an effort to get back into routinely blogging and an effort to get out of my slump, I'm going to start a weekly Celebrations post. I have too many things to celebrate to lose sight of them to things that aren't worth my time.

Celebrations:

2.0 is communicating! She is almost 16 months old now and she is saying so much now. Amongst my favorites: "That's silly!" "That's punnay!" {{Funny}} "Yyyyeeeaaaaaa!" {{her answer to anything we ask her. Much better than No.}} And of course, "Nack" and "dink," {{snack and drink.}} Gone are the days of trying to figure out the source of the broken sound {{ok, mostly gone.}}

This face



House Royalty



{{What? You don't have royalty in your house??}}

The few moments after J walks in from work. The house could have been in full-on anarchy and he walks in and everything is sparkles and rainbows for a few minutes. The daddy's-home-giggles are the best part of my day! {{And they keep me from drinking heavily}}

I am super thankful for school. I barely get adult interaction during the day and school is one thing thats all mine and because I'm focusing on something that I love it makes it my little escape. I am very lucky that I get to focus on something I love, that fulfills me so. The level of fulfillment I get from it is *disgusting*. I also joined ASID {{American Society of Interior Design}} yesterday. I am now a student member. It's not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things right now, but it will be great in the future.



My last celebration for the week is for my Spark. Gotta love anything that makes Mommy feel like a million bucks and get things accomplished during the day!! Whoo hoooo!!

I'm Fat {{A Baby-J Update}}

On Friday I will be 28 weeks pregnant {{Seven months, for those you not up on the lingo}}. This pregnancy has flown by with hardly any drama and almost no puking, a fact I am supremely greatful for, after spending the majority of my first, and the first half of my second pregnancy with my head in a toilet. I can officially say this pregnancy hasn't been awful. Actually, if all of my pregnancies were as uncomplicated and smooth as this one, I might be happy to have ten kids {{but lets not get crazy}}.

Baby J is a very healthy little girl. She's active as can be {{so active at one point I had to go to L&D because I thought her acrobatics and pokey-fingers game were causing unwanted things to happen}}. She is measuring spot on and though she is due Nov 2nd, I have a feeling she'll be making her debut into the world some time the week before Halloween, but we shall see. They all come when they want to. She is a fiesty little thing. She refuses to let them monitor her heart beat for longer than a second and she LOVES calling the 1-800-momsfood line and asking for cupcakes. And skittles. Lots and lots of skittles. This pregnancy I have gained more weight at this point, than I had in my other two, but in my other two pregnancies I gained a lot of weight {{like 30 pounds each time}} very quickly in the last three months. Maybe this time it just evened out over the whole nine months {{Or maybe I'm just huge and we'll play it off like I meant to do it.}}

"Some how" I have managed to stay busy enough to avoid sitting and focusing on the fact that in a few months we will have two children under one and a three year old. J asked me the other day if I was ready {{which effectively, is like asking if I am ready to be run over by a semi and then thrown onto a porcupine.}} Yes, we are ready for a baby to come. The house is {{almost}} all set and even Bug seems to understand another human will be living with us shortly. We have everything we need and Baby J even has her own space in the closet. We are ready but I'm not sure you can ever mentally prepare yourself for what's about to happen. I mean, 2.0 is still up three or four times a night and Bug has more attitude than I do {{which should be some kind of impossibility}}. I also keep getting asked if I'm getting excited {{sorry people, but please refer to the comment about being run over by a semi}}. My husband is coming home from deployment to an infant who was two months old when he left, a three year old and a hormonal pregnant house woman and in the "honeymoon phase" of all of that, we are adding another baby to the mix {{nothing like making all of your life adjustments at one time!}}. While it all IS exciting {{please no hate mail about how babies are blessings, I KNOW we are blessed and I am excited Baby J will be here soon}}, MOSTLY it's all just really scary.

I feel like it will be like ripping off a band-aid. It will suck while it's happening and then all the anxiety about doing it will be worthless because it wasn't really *that* bad anyways. The good news is I won't be pregnant again for a very VERY VERY long time {{I've already told my doctor that I will hold her personally responsible if it happens again}} and in the grand scheme of things being pregnant for three years isn't that bad... It could be worse...

That Duggar woman has been pregnant for twenty-two years...

I will do anything to keep from doing dishes

See?

Remember this from my last post? The tutorial was very easy to follow and I'm Bug is in LOVE with her "sand castle" {{that kid is SO cute!}}

ugh! Now for the dishes... womp womp

Inspiration

Since J left and I found out I was knocked up again, I have been suffering from some serious lack of motivation to do anything. My house is clean enough, the girls are fed, work is getting accomplished, but other than that, everything else is just sitting. It's not all from a lack of motivation. Between the kids and the dogs, some days I feel like I'm fighting an up hill battle trying to make a nice clean home. Pretty much every time I accomplish one task, one of my children {{be it furry or not}} destroys something else. It's very frustrating and in my case motivation-killing.

However, now that we know that baby3 is a little girl, we have to do some serious rearranging of the upstairs of our house. Right now, we have one child in each bedroom {{us in the master, obviously}} and we use our large upstairs bonus room as a family/man room and an office. Well, that won't work now. We have decided the best way to accommodate three girls is to put them all into the large Bonus {{which conveniently has three walk in closets}}. Then J will have his own man room and I'll have a proper Mama-cave. The room is big enough to last the three of them until J can retire and then we'll be on to bigger things {{and houses}} anyways.

I have been having fun planning a nice girly room for our little princesses and thought I'd share some of my inspirations for their room.

Color Palette

Source

Source

Wall Decor

Source {{LOVE!!}}

Source

I want to do something fun for each girls name, above their bed.

Curtains

Source

Maybe some ombre ruffly curtains to match their color palette?

Something Fun

Source

One of the BEST things we have done for Bug {{and eventually our subsequent children}} is enrolling her in the Dr. Suess book club {{a GREAT gift for any child!}} She loves to read and LOVES getting the books for her in the mail. We signed her up when she was 18 months old, so she has developed quite the collection. I want to turn what is now the office, into their reading/ color area. It'll have book shelves, a black-board wall, a small coloring table and hopefully a nice little place for them to curl up with their books.

Lot's to do... and I can find motivation in the fact that when it's all said and done, this mama will have her own hiding space!

A Very Backyard Photo Bomb

Have you ever had one of those moments in a store when you see something you really don't need but absolutely have to have? Of course you have. It happens to everyone. My problem usually then becomes, "If I get one of those, I'll need two of those. If I get two of those, I'll need to plant five of those. If I plant five of those, then I'll need to get some of that, too." It's a downward spiral. The whole giving a mouse a cookie thing. Anyways, Most days when I have those moments I get what we call "Analysis Paralysis" {{aka a walking zombie in a hardware store trying to figure out cubic yards and square feet}} and I will usually leave the store empty handed with a headache. Today when I had the urge to splurge on something kind of unnecessary absolutely fabulous, I totally gave in.

My first problem is that we got the swing set put together {{btw, total pain in the a$$. Probably not worth the *awesome* deal we got vs. the amount of time and energy going in to figure out the missing ((and extra)) pieces. What's important here is that Bug is SUPER happy.}} I'm one of those people who likes to get things done. Once a project is started, I'd rather just finish it and be done with it. With the swing set in {{and looking awesome in a not so awesome looking yard}}, I really felt like I needed to start tackling my yard projects. The main yard project is going to be to sod. But {{here come the but-if-I-do-that's}} the dogs have done a number on our yard and before we can sod, we'll need to put up a fence to keep them off of it. What's the point of putting sod down if they're just going to destroy it like they've done to our weeds? Those are big jobs. Ones that I most definitely won't be able to handle on my own. So, I picked the smallest two jobs on the list and spent my BEAUTIFUL afternoon filling Bug's sandbox and creating a flowerbed.

{{The kids playing after a day of asking if we were done yet}}

{{Before: Sand pit the dogs like to dig in}}

Step One: Assemble gorgeous blue fountain and LOVE it!

Step Two: Add Soil

Step Three: Plant Flowers

Step Four: Mulch & VOILA!! {{Needs a border but I LOVE it!}}

The next project will be to make a Victory Garden on the empty side of the screened in porch {{can be seen behind Bug in the picture under Step 2}} and add a compost bin. I've never tried to plant anything so the garden {{and the composting}} will be an adventure. It was a lot of work, but sitting on the porch when I was finished listening to a water feature and my two year old play in her sand box was totally worth it!

Stay tuned for whats next...

Wednesday Wish Day

Ok, I'm back {{I think}}. Since J left I have been moping unmotivated lazy indifferent distracted. I haven't really wanted to do much, much less complain about it. Beyond caring for my children and doing my household duties, I've kind of been slacking. Yesterday when I woke up felt different and I feel like I got more done yesterday than I have in the last week {{but really I didn't}}. The most important thing I did yesterday {{other than enjoying our GORGEOUS weather}} was making a Deployment To Do list. Lists make me happy. They give me warm and fuzzies and make me feel productive even if all I've done is just write a list. It's a pretty ambitious list that has a "short-term" and a "long-term" side. It includes things I've discussed here previously and new things I added to keep me busy {{hey, I have 7 months to fill}}.

After I made the list I prioritized it. As I was doing this, sitting outside on our pretty screened in porch on a gorgeous NC day, Bug was playing in our sand pit weed & sticker infested no grass at all backyard with the dogs. J and I have talked about having sod put in since we moved in. the builder said they seeded but I could probably put up a good debate to that. While watching her chasing the dogs, digging in the sand and falling on her face {{she is my kid}} I decided to add a play set to the list. The more I thought about having a play set, the higher on the list it got. When I realized that if we had a play set, on any given day when my child was driving me bananas, I could send her right outside to play. Suddenly, this was the best idea I've ever had!

This morning I found one that I liked and that Bug would definitely enjoy {{We could put a piece of wood back there and it would make her happy}}. Not only that but the huge amount of sanity saving play time this would give me {{Have I mentioned that yesterday was day three of listening to her favorite make-mommy-want-to-hang-herself noise??}}, makes this almost an instant necessity. Unfortunately, its not in our budget today. Probably won't be tomorrow, but hopefully soon. Also, there's the silly little detail of putting the damn thing together {{probably NOT something I can do by myself}}.

So, my wish for this Wednesday is the play set fairies will visit in the night and drop off a fully assembled {{and paid for}} wooden play area.

Probably not gonna happen... But it's Wednesday. I can wish all I want.

Deployment Rules 1, 2 and 3

Any military spouse can tell you the number one rule of deployments is, as soon as they leave, things will inevitably fall to smelly, smashed up pieces. In the last 72 hours 2.0 has started MAD teething {{which makes her want to be held ALL day and not want to nap}}, Bug has learned to open the fridge {{yay for raw eggs being found all over the kitchen}}, the laptop cable for our computer died {{thank goodness for my old phone book Dell laptop cable fitting}}, our TV is probably dying {{the picture keeps shrinking and I cant fix it}} and I'm pretty sure I found mouse poop this morning {{EFFING AWESOME!!}}. Oh and for some reason, no matter how hard I try, I can't grow a third arm so I always have a free hand to carry my phone.

J left on Tuesday. When J's schedule changed, my BFF changed hers so she could be here with me and I'm not quite sure how I would reacted if she wasn't there. She was able to keep me distracted enough that we were all making jokes and laughing right up until they called the 5-minute warning for the end of family time. We hugged and kissed and hugged again and then he chased us off to prevent a long drawn out "see you later". Bug was upset that we were leaving him, but I think my ability to keep myself together, kept her from freaking out and once in the car I was immediately relieved for that part to finally be over with.

So, he's gone. And inevitably, as is how it goes, it is time for everything to explode, die, overflow, get lost or ruined, and or fall apart. The really sad part about all of this is that, as far as I'm concerned, not growing a third arm is my biggest problem right now. The second rule of deployments is that you will become tethered to your cellular device as you {{and those around you}} never thought possible. Being married to your phone is one of those little ticks you get after they leave. You wait for days to hear from them, compulsively checking your email, Facebook, Twitter {{well, I would if I had one}}, MySpace {{hey, it could happen}}. Take a shower, check your phone. Pick up a crying baby, check your phone. Tie your shoes, check your phone. Hear a beep, chime, or church bells; Check your phone. It's an illness. Then you panic when you try to check your phone and you can't find it. I've had three almost-meltdowns because I couldn't find my phone when I've been sitting on it. This is where that third arm would really come in handy. I'd never have to put it down.

Of course, not putting down your phone doesn't stop other retarded things from happening. J sent me a message yesterday saying he would call soon and then in the four hours after that message, I got five phone calls from telemarketers. Deployment Rule #3: As soon as they might call, every sales group in the western hemisphere will call from numbers that *might* be your spouse. There is always this awkward moment of serious let down after you answer expecting your spouses voice and a woman asks if you've ever considered AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, ADT or voting for Mit Romney. Seriously, These things happen to me.

If I didn't find it all almost funny, I'd probably be a mess right now {{or be day drunk constantly}}. For the most part I know how lucky we are: the girls and I are safe, J is safe and my mom will be here soon for a visit. Even at my loneliest, I have found that I'm not truly alone, it just feels that way. And there is always wine {{sweet, sweet, feeling killing wine}}.

J will be home before we know it and in the mean time I can work on that third arm.

2.0

Monday 2.0 will be four months old {{16wks}}. Can you believe it? FOUR MONTHS!! Since I will probably be fairly busy on Monday dealing with other things, I thought I would post about it now.

At four months, she's a talkative little button. She'll have "conversations" with anyone who will stand still long enough to chat with her. She has the cutest ridiculous cheeks that roll down over her collar bone and even some little dimples when she smiles, which is a lot. She's not a fan of tummy time but I try often. She LOVES Mommy. Bug was an instant Daddy's Girl. 2.0 seems to be more of a Mommy's girl {{which I am perfectly OK with}} and she melts my heart with the love on her face when she smiles at me. She is a little porker. We go through about 2.5 boxes of formula every two weeks and she has the leg rolls to show for it. She likes to see what is going on around her but will also sleep pretty much any where, through pretty much anything {{the other night a power outage sent our smoke detectors off and both girls didn't even move}}. She is also looking more and more like her sister did - which means she is taking after J. There are some differences but every now and then she throws a face and I get flashbacks to when Bug was little. She is now sleeping through the night {{it's been a full week!! Woo hoo!!}} in her own crib. Now that we all are sleeping better our mornings are that much happier. She is a cozy little baby. Content to be cuddled or happy to just play and check things out. SHe thinks her big sister is hilarious and Bug still finds 2.0 entertaining and is still willing to share her stuff with her. The other day we had to have the please-don't-feed-baby-sister-cheerios talk. I'm enjoying the sharing as long as possible, though.


One Day Old

One Month Old

Two Months Old

Three Months Old

Four Months Old

I truly am one blessed Mama!!

A Few of My Favorite Things - 3rd Edition

~ A full nights sleep!! And {{AND!!}} having both girls almost on the same sleep schedule!! Yes!! I FEEL LIKE A NEW WOMAN!! Last week, I decided it was time to move 2.0 to her own room. She's a noisy little piggy when she sleeps. Grunting and snorting. Groaning and squeaking. The first night, her and I kind of had it out about it. She fought me for a good two hours and after giving up at 11pm, I was determined to win. The next day I laid her down, when Bug napped, in her crib. They both slept for two full hours {{Insert crazy maniacal laughter here!!}} Seriously, TWO FULL HOURS of free time!! That night 2.0 went right to sleep in her own crib and slept. All. Night. I thought it might be a fluke so I didn't say anything, lest I curse the situation. Here we are three nights {{and mornings}} later and it. Is. AWESOME!!

~ Day Dates with the husband. We're so romantic. We have an opportunity to drop the kids off for a couple of hours and what do we do?

Why go to the gun club, of course!

Our Secondary Security System {{Every girl should have one!!}}

It had been almost 7 years since I've fired a weapon. My shot grouping was awesome but couldn't hit the center of the target for nothing. The good news is, I was hitting the target and with the range pretty much right across the street, I can go practice whenever I want.

~ Having plans for Bug to get some social interaction {{even though its kind of self serving because I get to see one of my favorite people and it will give me free time too}}. Today Bug is going to start going to The Little Gym for playtime. As much as I think it's important for me to get social interaction while J is gone, it's probably just as important for her. So we are starting this week so she'll have something to look forward to during the week.

~ Big Blue.... Walls {{haha! Dirty mind!!}} I painted the main wall in our living room on Friday to cover up my child's vandalism artwork because people were supposed to be coming over on Saturday and I just couldn't stand for there to be primer squares on the wall for company. I had been planning to do it anyways but sometimes painting in color can be a bit scary. The color turned out PERFECT!! I loved it so much I painted another wall blue {{also pre-planned but again color can be scary!}}. Advice to you if your thinking about painting - embrace the fear and doooo eeet!

~ Orders. I <3 orders. They make my day/week/month. I love doing something that is for something so special and so personal, like for a wedding or a newborn. It makes me happy to be a part of someone's day and possibly maybe even make it a little more special. I got to blast some champagne glasses for a wedding coming up. They are a surprise so I can't share them just yet, but they are fantastic!! I hope the bride loves them as much as I do!! If you'd like to see more of the stuff I do you can check out THIS page.

~ Tax Returns. I mean, really, Do I even need to say more than that?

~Daddy-Daughter dates. J took Bug to make a "tweasure" box at the Lowe's. It was very sweet and they both loved it!

Have a great day!!

The Positive Side of Prison - The latest in the Crayon War Saga

There are some moments you have as a Mom that make you all warm and fuzzy inside.