Tired

I did not sleep well last night. So today my emotions are truly up and down. Where honesty is involved its been ups and downs for the last week or so. The closer it comes to Mitchell leaving for his field op...then home for a couple weeks..then deploy the harder its been emotionally on me. It really feels like trying to keep an independent teenager in the nest. You want them to stay but it feels like they can't leave fast enough. Mitchell's in no hurry to deploy by no means but his mind frame is the sooner he leaves the sooner he gets back. For all honesty sake I'm ready for this to be over too. During this process of waiting for the time to come emotions seem to be running high..not just for us but for KalieAnn..she knows something big is coming up. In fact I think she's starting to understand that Daddy's leaving for a little while. We've been talking to her about it since Hero's Summer Christmas but what I think helped it really click for her was watching two shows with me; Army Wives episode where their husband leave on deployment and Sesame Street Deployment Video. She's starting to hang out with her Daddy more. When she watched the Sesame Street one it looked like she was going to cry. She's been acting up herself lately and the more I am sitting at the this computer thinking about it the more I'm realizing what might be the underlying issue...I know a lot of this is pre deployment stress but to be honest again..It sucks! I remember the last time he deployed I was a mess for a few months before I got myself so busy that the time flew by. I didn't have kids then...now I will be doing it with three and I'm extremely happy about that. When he is home they keep me pretty busy and I am depending on them to keep it even more true while he's gone.
Well besides the emotional roller coaster that comes with that stuff I will also be busy with two other things..family...and friends. Our friend that has been living with us till the Marine Corps finally medically discharged him which turned out to be yesterday will be leaving tomorrow and coming back with his daughter in time for school. He and his wife enrolled their daughter in school out here so hat she could start Kinder garden and then Arizona schools would then take her as a transfer due to birthday and cut off dates. The family part? I will be blessed with my Cousin and her hunny coming out for ten days. Hopefully all will be gone by the time Mitchell's gets back from his training op. Think I'm becoming possessive of his time now with us? lol Just wait till he gets back.
Another Positive note he graduated Sergeants Course! And with that positive note I am going to leave it there I am exhausted.

Family Time

Living out here in California I get to see My Mom and Family an Awful Lot!!! Its been great! But moving out here I have had to learn to say No on events and things. For the first two months or so of living here we were off doing things every weekend. If not going out to do things people have been over. Our first weekend here as just our family was Fathers Day weekend in June. At the end of June Mitchell started Sergeants Course here on Camp Pendleton. Once he graduates that in August he'll heading to training for a few weeks...home for a couple of weeks...then he's set to deploy in the beginning of October for 6-12 months. So our time as a family right now is more special than normal...just knowing that soon we won't have his wonderful company around. I'll have to admit though that I am very happy about living out here. The deployment isn't going to be easy they never are..no matter how many times you've been through but I've just learned Life itself isn't easy.
This year we get the Privilege of being apart of Hero's Summer Christmas(aka Christmas in July). Impacting Military Families and our church South Shores have partnered up this year on it. I tried explaining to KalieAnn that we will be celebrating Christmas at the beach this year and I get "We can't have Christmas at the Beach Mom!"..
curious I asked "Why Not?"...
"Cause there's no snow at the Beach!!"
So I explained to her again that here in California where we are at we won't get snow even during the Holiday season unless we go up to the mountains. So now she's excited! I'm kinda excited!! The only reason I'm kinda not is cause it just turns out to be the day my older Brother, James is having surgery that day.
For those that don't know my Brother was injured during a Training Exercise. The trauma to his knee was so bad that it caused RSD. So he's having a temporary Nuero Transmitter(hope I spelled that right) put in his back.If this works it will greatly reduce his pain level so that he could possibly start living life the way he wants to..independantly...For me I just don't want to see him in pain. So if everyone can please keep him your prayers. Well that's all to really update on. Looking forward to the day at my Moms house one Saturday! God Bless!

Our Family

Since we have moved here we have added two pets to our family. Jack Jack our cat and Bandit our new Puppy. Picture below are of the kids with Bandit. I'll post more at a later date. Kids have been getting into things non stop today. Its been one of those days where I have been constantly reminding myself that I do love our children. :)

Impacting Military Families Baby Shower

My Mom and a great group of Ladies got together 6 years ago to help Military Families expecting babies. They've been holding Baby Showers at our home church South Shores Baptist. Now they've turned it around into a Non profit Organization called Impacting Military Families(IMF). They do more than just Baby Showers. They also do Hero's Summer Christmas.




Heroes summer Christmas is for Military families that husbands are going to be deployed over Christmas. They in turn do a Christmas Celebration in July. They have us as one of the Families this year. Not sure If I came on and gave an update but Mitchell will be deploying in the fall for 6-12 months.




So why am I posting this? We got the joy of being volunteer's at this years Military Baby Shower. What made this years so exciting is that its the first time IMF has thrown a Baby Shower as IMF. It was great to see and be there to experience that! So proud of this group of people! Here are some Pictures!
Debbie, Josh(Soon to be Dad X2) and Anne(My Mom)

Josh was the winner of the speed diaper game.

Mitchell and Amanda

Mitchell announced the winners of the Baby Food Game and Dirty Diaper Game.

One of the Mom's opening her Gifts! :)

Once again it was a blast to be there! Here's their website! www.impactingmilitaryfamilies.org Just in case you're interested in Donating!!

Settling In

This last month hasbeen sooo busy that it feeliks lits been longer just a month! Thanks to some friends our house is just about to the point of up keep. I still have frames and pictures printed to put inthose frames..curtains to go up. For now....I'm just doing the up keep.
We are currently being blessed with the companyof our friends Bobby & Brooke and their three beautiful girls. I think intersting is the best word to describe it. I have learned that our kids don't take long to go from friends to acting like sisters. I think it only took a day..but I could be wrong. They are perfectly paired off too..and no that wasn't planned.
Along with having a house full Mitchell ended up taking me in to be checked out at the Naval hospital.Ihave ever mentioned that Idon't like Military doctors!? Thelady looked at my results...then proceeded to push really hardon myblatter.."Does it feel like you have a blatter infection?" "yeah kinda butI'm not a doctor..thats why I'm here" Pushing really hard over my blatter "you definetly have a blatter infection!" Then walks out. I was like "Are you freakin kidding me!?!" I have decided if we can...I'm not going to be seen by them! So my bodies been fighting off that infection. Well anyway I'm off to get the rest of my kids down for a nap!

Moving

We made it to Southern Cali Tuesday night. Its definitely been an interesting one with having to take care of one thing after another..can't wait for the day when I can just relax on my couch again and knit or even sleep in our own bed. Until then soo much too do. We signed for our house today on base. So we will be checking out of our hotel tomorrow morning. After we got the keys we went and looked at the house...all I can say is GORGEOUS! Even the girls are excited :) They've already got their room picked out. We still have soo much to do. We were hoping to have our house yesterday but my wonderful hunny needed some uniform items that he needed in order to check in. My mom joined us and I got to see my Best Friend/Sister Bekah. Plus I've gotten to see my Best Friend/Sister Ashley just about each day. She has been the biggest help to us. Tomorrow its trying to get started in getting settled. A lot comes with that. Big one is figuring out when we are getting our stuff. Once we get our stuff we can get Internet set up..a long with everything else. So I wanted to come on here before we left the hotel. Well I'm off to bed...here's a picture of the girls I'll leave you with.

Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

I thought I was busy before! This move has sped up into our sights! Its been an interesting journey! Mitchell hasn't been able to get a whole lot of time off which has been frustrating all in its own. He's still doing the boss' job or fixing things for him. However I've grown used to it.

Our counselor before we left Okinawa told us that Recruiting Duty will either tear your relationship apart or break it up. That its a make it or break it situation! I can't even tell you how close to the truth she is!!! If your not careful with your relationship it can tear you apart! They work such long hours and so much stupid drama that you have to be able to understand both sides! We've come to learn that to help us make it lol!

In the past three years I have honestly felt like a single mother with the benefits of being at home with the exception of last summer. Mitchell had an awesome boss and they were rolling along with their misson so well that he had most weekends off. We spent almost every weekend out on a lake with our boat. Outside last summer though I have to admit it, its extremely hard! Your life is literally spent taking care of the kids by yourself! Husbands are gone before you wake up in the morning and get home if your lucky in enough time to kiss the kids good night. If your misson isn't met they are working through the weekends. A lot of people around here ask.."Well if he's working this weekend he should get time off during the week right?" The answer is No. When we first got here Mitchell would be at work by 8 and home around 11pm and worked through all the weekends. For him to see the girls we'd try to meet him for lunch once a week. Its hard...but when it boils down to it Is there really any aspect of life that's easy? I've found the answer to be No. Especially in the Military lifestyle. Recruiting Duty your facing long hours...long days...the obstacles that you read about above...in the fleet/division your facing training months or deployments...basically months of them not being home and worried about them. We are now looking at being off of Recruiting Duty!!! Now here's the "However" lol he might be deployed in the Fall. So like I said there's always those obstacles in life!

Our move is happening next week. This update might be the last till April! Hannah and Alayna have their routine check ups next Tuesday. If I have the time I will come on and give the update on how all that went. Otherwise we have the Movers coming to pack our stuff up on Wednesday and then pick it all up on Thursday. I am working my tushy off these days trying to get the house in order. I've started packing things that we are taking with us. I'm hoping to have the house to the point that all we have to do is the basic clean up when they leave with our stuff. If that happens then we'll be hitting the road on the 25Th. I still have a lot to do before then I feel like my head is spinning every time I think about what stills needs to be done. I've made a lot of progress but its only a dent in what all has to be finished. So here's to hoping and praying!! Otherwise worst case scenario we'll be out of here on the 26Th. Here are some beautiful pictures of our wonderful little stinkers...

KalieAnn is soo excited about this move! She is such a Girly Girl!!! She wants to move so she can wear her dresses and flip flops! She keeps telling me "Mom it needs to get hot so the snow can melt and I can wear my dresses and sandals. No jackets, tights or boots!" We went and got her some dresses. I let her help me pack them in her suit case. She ran out of the room and came back with all her dress up stuff, toys, and sandals dangling from her fingers. I had to figure out how to explain to her that we still had some time before we needed to pack everything. It was soo funny!

Now heres our trouble maker! If she quiet it usually means she is up to no Good! I've come to the point I've tossed their crayons! I'm soo tired of finding crayons all over our walls! I went to Home Depot and they had those magic Erasers on sale for a box of four for two dollars. I bought 12!! I turned and asked Mitchell "You think this is enough?" He was laughing at me!!! I'd buy a box of four and it would only got two walls if I was lucky! I still have half a room to do and a hallway. So out of the 12 which translate into three boxes I have one and a half left. So I'm hoping that it'll get those rooms done.

Alayna is our Mommy's Girl. Right now she's not getting into a whole lot. She's happy as long as she's in the room where everyone is playing. She doesn't need a whole lot of attention but when she wants it she's pretty good about letting us know. She can't get herself into sitting position by herself but if you sit her up she'll stay sitting by herself for about five minutes before she throws herself into crawling position and rocks.

Now for the blankets I have been trying to get finished in this process of Moving and Cleaning

This blanket I made for a family friend that is pregnant with a boy. Its currently sitting in Mitchell's truck waiting to be delivered. He's hoping to get it to the husband or Dad to be tonight.

Now these two blankets are Hannah's and Alayna's. The pretty pink one I made two of and the second of it has been given to its new owners. I only have one more to make and its KalieAnn's. Trust me she doesn't let me forget its not done yet! Well off to get some more cleaning done!

Something New!!!

So My Husband has been Spoiling Me Rotten! He went and got me the Cricut Jukebox and the Design Software. I haven't got the Cricut Jukebox in the mail yet but I have the Design Software and a new Cartridge. Here's the best part! He only spent like $200 dollars for the 3 things! Now for those of you that don't know how much this stuff cost the Cartridge alone usually goes for $89.99. So that's a WOW! I decided to sit down tonight and start figuring out the Cricut Design Software. I was getting SOOO Frustrated!!! Then My wonderful Husband stepped in and helped me figure it out!! He's the BEST! If you look in the picture below you can see what he helped me figure out. The Welding Technique. The "FUN IN THE SPRING" on the page below was combined and cut out all as one piece. YAY!! I was SOOO excited I had to share!!!!

Facebook and Moving

I have been having serious issues with my milk supply again. I went on my Circle of Moms applications on Face book. In that application their is a Nursing Mothers Group. I went in there asked for some help because I've done everything that I can think of. This lady recommended Momma's Milk Tea; here's the web page www.bulkherbstore.com. This weekend I am going to order some and give it a try! It sounds interesting but I am going to try it! I'm really hoping it helps. :)
Now for Moving! I am getting so excited! Mitchell has everything all set up! The Movers inspection is on the 3rd of February. TMO( The Moving people) are set to pack everything up on the 24Th of February and then pick it up on the 25Th! We'll spend a day cleaning the house and then hoping to be on the road to Colorado the 27Th. We're hoping to be in California the last week of March.
We also have Doctors appointments scheduled for the 23rd. Alayna will be having her 6 months check up and Hannah her 2 year check up. Well that's really all there is to update on for the moment! God Bless!

First Cereal!

Alanya had her first taste of her Rice cereal last night! I can't believe how big she is getting! However she was not very fond of it... as you can see below. She would be mad at Mitchell if he didn't give it to her fast enough and then he'd give it to her and she'd mad at him...poor Dad no win situation lol. It was funny to watch and once again SOOO Happy to have my camera back!

Blankets

I realized its been awhile since I've updated my crafts and A LOT of that hasto do with the fact weturned inour camera to get fixed and got it back yesterday. YAY!! Can't tell you how nice it is to have our camera back! So here are some pictures of the crafts I've been tackling between all the cleaning and getting ready for our move.Not sure if you recognize this blanket or not but the last time I posted about my crafts I wasn't very far along in it...so heres the update on that one.

Here are the materials that I am using for my next project. Just a random pattern we picked out of that book. My husband chose the blanket...I am just knitting it :)
Heres the blanket :) Well started

Heres a project I haven't accomplisahed yet. These are those fleece blanket pieces that your suppose to just cut and tie knots...but I always sew them together in case of a destructive stinker like mine that likes to untie them all. Well got to go run andpick my oldest from school!!!

Back

Just for an update...my back is slowly but surely doing better. Mitchell has been having me take shower when he gets home..he massages it... helps with the kids so I don't have to lift them as much and yesterday he got me heating pads to keep on it. With all that effort my back is showing improvements. He has to work today so I do what I usually do when he works to pass the time...clean. I don't know what it is about cleaning that just makes time pass and is so therapeutic butit helps me. However this morning I've been workingon the laundry thinking that wouldn't bother my back...which brought the thought "you really don't know how much you use something till you either don't have it or can't use it." Its a thought I think we all have had at one point in time but it seems to be on mymind a lot lately. Well I'm going to try and edit some pictures so I can get themprinted at Costco. Hope everyone enjoys their Saturday!

Stairs

As parents we constantly worry about our children and stairs. We worry about them falling down stairs...well I fell down the stairs yesterday morning. I was headed downstairs to go wake up the girls to get them dressed and ready to get KalieAnn to school. I have fallen down this particular set of stairs a couple times and I have to say this is the hardest hit I have taken from them. My feet slipped off one of the steps and found myself landing lower back first near the bottom. Needless to say KalieAnn was late but only by like five minutes to school. I've been taking Tylenol since and I woke up this morning with my whole Torso hurting but every time I bend it feels like shooting pains in my lower back. If I keep my back straight up I am fine but bending or even picking anything up hurts. So I've finally given in and called the doctors office. I'm waiting for an on call doctor to call me back. I made the decision when I realized this effects me taking care of Alayna. It hurts to bend down and pick her up...or put her down...if I'm holding her and my back is straight I'm fine. So we'll see...just thought I'd put the update on.

Anniversary & Moving!

This Year is going to be another busy Year! As usual we start off every year celebrating our Wedding Anniversary. This year we celebrated our 6th Wedding Anniversary. Our neighbor was kind of enough to take a family picture for us before we went out to dinner.

The little stuffed Animals you see tucked nicely in their jackets were Christmas Presents from my Mom. She made each of them a backpack with little outfits crocheted to fit each animal. The Girls love them!!! The Animals were even kind enough to join us for our anniversary dinner. They wanted them tucked in the jacket just like I do with Alayna when we go somewhere. The day before we went to walk the Mall of America. I put on Alayna's backpack..then my jacket so I can keep her tucked in my jacket all nice and cozy warm. So the girls wanted to do that with their animals.

I got my hair cut and I'm lovingit. Its such an easy style for me to do. Take a shower before..wake up pin it back..and whola I feel pretty...oh so pretty! She took three and a half inches off and layered it so it wouldn't be so full that it would just drag everything down with it. My hair tends to not only be thick but theres a whole lot of it. So when I let it grow out it weighs down and if its not layered right its curls and fraysout like a triangle. So I really like the job this lady did!

Now for last but not in the least not new news...We are moving!!! We're going to be stationed at Camp Pendleton, CA. Mitchell is trying to get TMO set up for the last week of February so we can be out of here on the 1st of March. We're looking at going to Colorado for a couple weeks before wehead out to California toget moved in and visit with Family. I am sooo excited but I have been sooo busy trying to go through things and start getting rid of things we don't need anymore or don't want to take with us. Its one of the good things about moving every couple years. It makes it easier to get rid of those things that sit in the back of your closet that you tend to forget about. Well I'm off to go hopefully get some work done around the house.

Rolling Over!

I'm pretty sure the title for this update pretty much speaks for itself. Our little Alayna is now rolling from her back to her tummy. She hasn't quite gotten the tummy to back perfected just yet. She rolls onto her stomach and just tries to go. She wants to be able to just get up and go. I keep trying to tell her she needs to take her time...but she isn't..she's determined to get this figured out.

I LOVE this shot of her!!! Her beautiful smile perfected with drool about to come off her chin.
Our typical Alayna :)

New Year!!!!

This year was the first New Year that we were success full in staying awake for. We usually just go straight to bed...then roll over give whom ever woke up first a kiss on the forehead and say "Happy New Year Sweetheart." We tried to get KalieAnn and Hannah to stay up with us but they were tired, acting it and went to bed around 10:30pm. So we figured we'd watch a movie then head to bed before we knew it Mitchell got text messages from the guys saying Happy New Year! We paused the movie...he got up checked his phone...looked at the time on the oven.."Oh Guess its the New Year"..came back and we finished watching the movie. As you can tell New Years is similar to the change time for us...oh look at that its time for it. If you know us you know we're not real big drinkers. But here are some cute pictures of our little stinkers on New Years or the day after...not totally sure the exact date.

Christmas!!

Christmas Eve we have started our usual tradition. We make sugar cookies or a Gingerbread House. This year we made sugar cookies...and it will probably stick with us for as long as the kids want to do it. We told the girls that "We need to make the sugar cookies so that we have cookies to put out for Santa!" It got KalieAnn all kinds of excited! Except this year we waited to do it after our traditional Christmas Eve dinner, Open Faced Hamburgers. very Yummy! So We were up late with the girls getting the cookies made and decorated. Alayna was the first one to bed...Mitchell and I being the last...even our Dog, Dodger was in bed before us.

We put Alayna in her bouncy on our dinning room table so she could be a part of it. I even picked her up and let her cut out a cookie or two before we put her to bed.
KalieAnn and Hannah next to the cookies and milk they set out for Santa.
We let KalieAnn and Hannah open one gift before they went to bed on Christmas Eve but because Alayna was already in bed we decided she got to open the first gift! She was just like any other cute little three month old...more interested in eating the present than opening it.

Then a picture of each of the girls and one of the presents they unwrapped. After Halloween last year we went Kohls and got the girls some costumes since they enjoy playing dress up.

Long Over Due Post

There are going to be more than one post since I am soo awful at keeping this updated these days. There's just so much to update that I am going to do pots by subject rather than just try to fit it all in one. This One will be about our wonderful trip.
Mitchell and Mataya with their nothing short of Proud Mom after Pinning Mataya. I still can't believe she's a 2nd LT. in the Marines...well I can believe cause one of the many traits they share as siblings one defiantly is stubbornness and once they put their minds to it they'll accomplish it...So I think the better way to phrase it is...weird lol. But She truly does look great! It was a lot of fun being able to go out and see her.

Mitchell was able to give her, her first salute.

That was a very busy week. We flew in Wednesday..her family day was Thursday...Graduation and Commissioning Friday...Washington DC Saturday...we even got to see some friends/old neighbors of ours from Okinawa...then Sunday....we went and walked the Marine Corps History Museum....I"m probably going to being missing a lot of details here because my mind is currently drawing a blank...but Monday we had lunch with a couple that we knew from Camp Pendleton back when we got married...their wedding was the day before ourss..It was awesome to see them again too...then Tuesday we went to Arlington Cemetery before we went to to the airport to come back here. The wonderful freezing cold. :) Our trip was a blast!