Rainy Saturday

Yesterday after we dropped D off at the airport we made a trip to Trader Joe's to cheer us up.  AJ snagged a mini shopping cart that she drove like Nascar through the store.  When it was time to leave she threw a massive fit and now won't stop talking about the little cart.  Its too bad the nearest Trader Joe's is like an hour away.  While we were there we picked up some mini pumpkins and some heirloom tomatoes (amongst other things) to snack on.
 
My college football team is playing today and the game is on tv here where we live, on the other side of the country.  Its not often that I get to watch my boys play anymore, so I'm doing what any sane football-loving person would do, I'm DVRing the game so I can watch it and get other stuff done, like a trip to Tarjay with my little lady.  I love watching home games on tv because I get little glimpses of the beautiful campus and Midwestern foliage that I miss so much now that I live in the South.

Anyway, its rainy and cool(er) here today and D is gone, so I packed AJ up and headed down to Tarjay for a little retail therapy/grocery shopping.  What a great idea, huh?  Payday + Rain + Saturday = Worst Idea Ever.  it was seriously so ridiculously crowded there were no shopping carts left.  How does that even happen?  I decided that since it was insanely crowded, and I was already in what I can only describe as Purgatory, that I'd open the Target red card that is linked to your debit card and get the 5% off every time  you use it.  If that wasn't bad enough, it didn't go through so the cashier lady was trying to figure out what we wrong with their computer and ended up just giving me $3 off my bill, which was nice.  I almost never go to Target, unless I'm already running other errands in town, mostly because we live like 45 minutes away so I figured that getting 5% off would be a nice reward for the few times I actually need something there.  No dice.  Oh well.

On the upside, I bought AJ's Halloween costume while we were there and I told D that it was like divine intervention!  They only had one left and it was her size, plus it was only $20!  I even bought a 5 pack of fake mustaches for her to wear.  She is going as a pirate this year because I figure next year (and every year after) she will insist on dressing as a princess and this might be the last year before she has an opinion.


Also, on a super random note, I recently discovered that you can order Peppermint drinks at Starbucks all year long.  Who knew?!  While we were at Target today I ordered myself a half-caf Peppermint Mocha, which was heavenly.  Speaking of Starbucks, I think this is the first time ever that I've actually completed the Millenium Cohort Study that the military conducts every year.  My reason?  They are sending me a $10 Starbucks gift card.  I'd say 45 minutes of my time is worth 2 cups of over-priced coffee.  ;)

So, obviously my life is just about the most boring thing ever right now since I managed to write an entire post about shopping.  My apologies to you all.  I'll try to be more entertaining in the near future.

Boring Life and Toddler Meltdowns

Tuesday morning AJ was not wanting to wear underwear, so I let her wear a diaper for the morning and in the afternoon I bribed her to wear underwear.  Our day basically went downhill from there.  She was not happy about the whole sitting on the potty thing and she made that known (as if I needed reminding).  She sat 3 or 4 times for me (didn't go) and then decided she wanted to go outside.  After a brief lapse in judgment, I decided that it would be fine to go out for a few minutes.

Oh boy.  When the time to go back inside to sit on the potty came, a meltdown of epic proportions ensued.  She was not happy at all and the rest of the evening.  It was about this time (5:30) that I realized that I needed a few things from the grocery store for dinner, like fudge.  We headed out and of course she was a complete angel while we were out.  Figures.

I gave her a Reece's cup after she ate her dinner and she looked at it and said, "Oh my word!"  I started cracking up and so of course after that she was just trying to make me laugh and be silly.

This morning we went to playgroup in the neighborhood and AJ had so much fun just playing with all the other little kiddos that were there.  We came home and she told me that she wanted chicken nuggets, ketchup, broccoli and ranch for lunch.  She was happy because I let her get the chicken nuggets out of the bag and push the buttons on the microwave.  The best part of it all (according to her) was that I let her squeeze the ketchup on her plate (with some help).

D is supposed to be home early-ish today, which will be nice since we had a little miscommunication yesterday and I thought he was coming home at 3:30 and that definitely did not happen.  Haha!

Tomorrow my Father-In-Law comes to visit for the weekend so AJ and I are going to head up to "town" early and do some fall clothes shopping before we get him at the airport.  It finally got chilly here and I was scrounging through AJ's winter clothes from last year trying to find something that fits to wear today.  I've known for a while that I need to buy her fall wardrobe, but I just keep putting it off because its been so nice here still.  The real challenge is going to be getting all the things she needs without spending hundreds of dollars.

We don't really have anything planned for the weekend, but I'm sure we'll find lots of fun stuff to do with Grampa here!

Our Weekend

AJ wasn't feeling all that great this week and by the time Friday rolled around, we all were ready for a nice, relaxing weekend at home.  I'm glad we didn't make any real plans because she ended up coming down with some sniffles yesterday and was pretty sad.

Saturday we just stayed home, D mowed the lawn in the morning and then during nap time I ventured out to the grocery store for our week's worth of food.  D recently told me that he wants to eat healthier, so naturally I made some super unhealthy snacks for game day!  In my defense, we were planning on watching some football, and I had planned on making the stuff before he told me that, honest!

I was really considering going to the Commissary for my groceries because its much, much cheaper than our local grocery store, but luckily decided to just stick close to home.  I'm glad I did, because I totally forgot that the Commissary was having a case lot sale this weekend and I heard it was a total madhouse!

After I got home I made the snacks real fast and we got to watch the second half of the Army v. Northern Illinois game while munching on Buffalo Chicken Dip and Lil Smokies in BBQ sauce.  It was super yummy!

Today has been the official starting day of potty training, take 50.  AJ has just been having so much trouble with it, mostly because of the power struggle.  Every time we start to try it I decide she isn't ready and we go back to diapers.  Well, this time is starting out a lot like all the other times, but D and I are ready for her to be done with diapers, so we're going to really stick with it.  She has the ability to do it, but she doesn't care, so that has been our struggle so far.  Not to mention that she wants to do what she wants to do, when she wants to do it.  Have I mentioned she's 2?

Cross your fingers for us and if you have any helpful tips or words of advice for us on the whole potty training a strong-willed child, please, pass them along!

This afternoon we're heading across the street for a birthday party.  AJ's BFF turned 2 last weekend and today is her party.  With potty training and the sniffles, I'm not sure how long we'll last over there, hopefully long enough for some cake!

So, I Think I'm Back....

I left this little blog pretty abruptly more than 6 months ago and want to apologize to those of you who missed my random postings (hi, Mom!).  In all honesty though, I did have several people, both family members and other bloggers ask me if I was ever going to start blogging again.  My answer, even until a few days ago was always, no, and I couldn't really explain why.

I just think I wasn't ready to get back into the heavy-duty commitment that I felt blogging had become to me.  Yes, I felt like it was something additional amongst my list of 9,000,000 things I had to do everyday.  That isn't how it started for me, and I knew that until I didn't feel that way anymore I couldn't come back here and start blogging again.

Part of my absence is due to the fact that, for me, blogging was mostly about the community, as opposed to the actual writing.  A few months before I stopped writing I got to a point that I felt like I couldn't spend as much time in real life actually doing things as I wanted to because I needed to blog about everything.  Funny how that works, isn't it?

Anyway, I'm sure you can guess that lots of things have happened since I left you all 7 months ago.  Lots of things are the same as well.  We still live here.  Hubby started a new job which I will never, ever talk about on here.  Many of my friends have moved away, but many new friends have moved here as well.  We're still cloth diapering AJ, with every intention of potty training, like, yesterday.

And AJ, oh, AJ.  If I could even describe to you all the pain, joy, sadness, euphoria, frustration, love, anger and every other mix of emotions that she goes through every single day.  Oh, to be 2.5 again.

She is talking, and knows what she wants.  She has started recently picking up on phrases that we use, like "Mom, I'm having trouble with this," or "yuck, that's disgusting!"  Haha.

AbbyDog is still hanging out.  I think she really likes it when we leave her and go away for the weekend, though.  We have our neighbors come by and let her out and feed her and stuff, but for the most part she just gets to sleep, uninterrupted, for the entire weekend.  Come to think of it, that sounds fantastic, where do I sign up?  She always seems much happier to see us on Sunday after we take the little terrorist out of the house for a while.  ;)

We've gone on a few quick trips, one up to Baltimore, MD to see some of my family and another down to Myrtle Beach, SC for an Army-sponsored marriage retreat on the beach.  Um, more beach, less marriage retreat, please.  But hey, the hotel was beautiful, the food was free (and yummy), and the whole thing was free, and that is all that counts, right?

So there you have it folks.  I glossed over a bunch of stuff I'm not really ready to share on here yet, but I wanted to update you on where we stand.

As far as blogging daily again, well, I can't necessarily promise that, but I am going to try and get on here with some regularity and keep you all up to date on my life.