Eight Months Later...

Womp womp!

I totally left this blog hanging, oh, eight months ago and for that I can only apologize.  Life kind of got crazy, with field time for the hubby, a new baby for our family, a family vacation to Florida, a deployment underway, AJ starting preschool, and so on.

I should start by introducing the newest member of our family.  We welcomed Amelia to our family on March 22, 2013 at 10:08 pm!  She weighed 8 lbs., 5 oz., and was born via VBAC after an unplanned induction due to low amniotic fluid at 40 weeks, 5 days.

If there ever were two babies who were more different from each other, my daughters are it!  AJ has and continues to be fiercely stubborn, intense, emotional, and strong-willed.  Amelia tends to be easy-going, people pleasing and relaxed.  It is amazing to me how I can have two completely different children, both from the same parents and love them both so completely.

AJ lives to entertain her little sister, which is convenient, because Amelia could sit and watch AJ's antics all day long.  Amelia loves AJ the most.  Of anyone.  AJ gets more smiles from Amelia than anyone in our family.  I can't say that it doesn't make me a little jealous, but I get the snuggles, while AJ gets the smiles.

The other member of our family has been deployed for a little while now and life at home is slowly returning to normal.  We have certainly had our growing pains since he left, and life at home is crazy most days with one adult and two kids, but I think I can safely say that we are not just surviving this deployment so far, but we are thriving.

One of the big changes, other than adding a new member to our family, is that AJ started attending preschool two days a week.  She loves it.  She was so ready to go and have interaction with other kids, a (semi) structured environment, and adults (other than me) telling her what to do.  She started two weeks ago and it has made such a difference in our time together at home.

So there you have the last 8 months in a nutshell.

My Life As An Army Wife

Kelly is doing a "Show Us Your Life" link up for military families today, and as we most certainly are a military family, I thought I'd join in!


For those of you who don't know me, I'm Beth. My hubby and I have been married since 2007 and are currently living near Ft. Bragg. My hubby and I met in high school, dated for a few years, split for a few years, then reconnected while he was a cow (junior) at West Point. The day he graduated, we got engaged and were married 6 months later on December 28, 2007 at the county courthouse. We celebrated our formal wedding at West Point on May 17, 2008.


In early 2008, I moved to join D at our first duty station, which was Ft. Benning, GA. We were there for a few months before we PCSed (military acronym that means "moved") to Ft. Hood, TX. We were at Ft. Hood for 30 days before hubby deployed to Iraq for a year.

Homecoming from Iraq, 2009.

Stopped along the Oregon Trail en route to Washington State.

AJ's first minutes of life.

When he returned from Iraq in March of 2009, we got orders to PCS to Ft. Lewis, WA. The day after we moved into our townhouse in Washington we found out we were expecting our daughter, AJ. She was born March 9, 2010. We rounded out 11 months in Washington with a move to our next duty station, Ft. Leonard Wood, MO in June of 2010, when AJ was 3 months old.

A 3 month old AJ and D somewhere in Montana.

My hubby attended the Captain's Career Course in Missouri and six months after moving there, in December of 2010, we were on the road again. We spent 2 weeks back home with my in-laws and then 2 weeks in Florida with my family before settling into our very first home here at Ft. Bragg. We are currently waiting to hear whether we'll get to stay here or move again this year.

4th of July 2011.

Our most recent family photo, Thanksgiving 2011 in Florida.

Some Updates

I'm not sure that I'm back, but I have been feeling like I should write about the things that are happening around these parts, so I'm heeding the call. I don't even know that I'll publish most of the stuff I write, but I figure I'll see where the spirit moves me.


D was in a 6-month-long school that ended and he was home for about 2 weeks before starting his next phase of the program. This phase is already proving to be a bit more unpredictable than the guaranteed-home-by-4:30-everynight routine we had going on before. One day he's home by 2:30 (sweet!) and the next he texts me at 5:45 to tell me he's leaving the office. Oy!


Either way, its one step closer to the next stage, which is still (typical Army) undetermined. We're not sure if we'll be able to stay here or not, but we've got 3 options and we're okay with all of the outcomes.


As for baby girl, well, things are craaaaazay! She is intense. She is emotional. She is stubborn. She is energetic. She is talking!


She has mastered the stairs. She knows what she wants, when she wants it and she will ask for it (typically) by name. She says "please" and "thank you."


Her tantrums have decreased markedly now that she is able to verbally express what she wants or needs, but that doesn't mean that they don't still grace us when she is told "no."


One of her favorite things to do is wash her hands. She also likes to stand on our step stool, ride her rocking horse, color, watch "tt", eat hummus, wear my shoes, kiss the dog, pick berries off our bushes, carry rocks around, pretend to put chapstick on us, blow bubbles (she calls them "bubbos"), make silly cheesy faces when I take her picture, and sit in chairs like a big girl (even though she falls off them).

As for me, I'm counting down the days until Thanksgiving so we can spend some time in (hopefully) sunny Florida! This year we're holding another recipe contest, but instead of appetizers we're tasked with making anything as long as it uses 5 ingredients or less and costs less than $20.


I've been busy with lots of things, but I also feel like whenever there is something I really want to do, like go to the Spouses' Club meetings, or MOPs, things come up (either AJ gets sick or something else). Speaking of AJ getting sick, she's had a few minor colds over the past few months, she also had her first ear infection. It cleared right up once she got on an antibiotic, but we were trapped in the house for almost 2 weeks! Ugh!


We've been trying to be more financially responsible as of late. This means we're introducing some new practices into our everyday lives, namely spending less, saving more and not eating out (like, ever). Its obviously not as much fun as spending more, saving less and eating out all the time, but we all have to grow up someday, right? I guess this is my time.

So folks, that's the update from our house since I last posted a month and a half ago. We're getting ready for Halloween and I, for one, am very excited for all the candy.

Thug Life...

Woo. Things have been really boring around here lately. I'm not even kidding.

Today?

I did no less than 5 loads of laundry.

I find myself tweeting about awesomely interesting things like AJ eating fish sticks ketchup for lunch. In my defense, she was really excited about it and I'm pretty sure I became her favorite person ever for a few minutes.

See, I used to be her fave person 100% of the time, but now we're smack dab in the middle of an awesome new phase. It includes AJ only wanting me to hold her and carry her around when I'm trying to do something that requires hands and or bending over, like unloading or loading the dishwasher, frying bacon, laundry, vacuuming, cleaning the oven, making meals, well, you get the picture.

The problem occurs when I try to put her down.

She screams. She cries hysterically. She bites herself and anything nearby. She pulls her own hair. She bangs her head on the floor. Have I mentioned she cries hysterically? To the point where I snap and go all crazy mom.

Its not bringing out good qualities in either of us. If you're a praying person, please, pray that we get through the next 2 years unscathed.

Oh, and if I'm not trying to keep the house liveable? Perhaps I'm sitting on the floor, ready to play? She wants nothing to do with me. I don't exist.

Gotta love kids.

Obviously, you can understand why feeding my daughter ketchup for lunch makes me the best mom ever, since she spends the majority of the rest of the day freaking the f*ck out when I walk the 10 feet from the family room to the kitchen.

Also, the other day we were playing in the street (don't judge) with the neighbors and she tripped and fell. Since she was mad at me from earlier, she decided that she'd rather have my neighbor, Allison, console her. Literally, she looked at me and then snuggled in with her new mama! Ha!

Lessons you can take away from this post: consider yourself blessed that you aren't me right now, at least when the baby toddler is screaming and you find yourself reaching for a second glass of wine at 10am iced coffee.

In parting, I leave you with a fabulous picture of my gangsta baby, Notorious AJG...

...Complete with carrot cigarillo.

Watch your backs. ;)

Laundry, Vacuuming and Poison Ivy?

I don't have much to say today based on the fact that I spent my day doing super fun things like eleventeen loads of laundry and vacuuming out my car (yep, it was one of those days).

The other tidbit of excitement here in my life is that I somehow managed to contract poison ivy without ever touching the plant itself. I'm a total winner, here, folks! I'm very, very, very allergic to poison ivy so my doctor said that its possible someone else came into contact with the plant and then the spores jumped from them onto me they touched something that I came into contact with later.

My mom said that its possible that I got it when our neighbors were doing some burning over the weekend. The spores apparently can be carried by smoke and still can cause the rash in severe allergic reactions.

So anyway, regardless of how I contracted the super-gorgeous rash, I'm being treated with a bevy of medications and since I started this regime, I've already noticed a marked improvement!

Other than the case of the mysterious poison ivy, we're just trying to catch up from having tons of family in town the past two weekends. I should be totally caught up about the time AJ and I leave to go to Hometown, USA in two weeks! Isn't that just how it goes?

I'm Not Feeling It

I feel like there isn't anything to blog about today (or this week really).

I actually have a lot that I could talk about, but doing so would make my location very obvious and while many of you already know where we're stationed, I don't really want to broadcast it here, mostly out of respect for my hubby.

With that being said, we're getting an invisible fence installed today (yay!) and hubby is home sick from work (boo!). He was in the field last week and while he was gone AJ and I both came down with a 24 hour (flu?) bug. Well, I'm pretty sure he has it now. He texted me early this morning and said that he was puking and then he practically ran through the door and upstairs at about 0800.

Yesterday I went to the dentist to get a cavity filled and have another filling fixed. They were quick and it was (relatively) painless so I can't complain there. Guess I need to step up my tooth-brushing game!

Oh, we are also supposed to go to a wedding this weekend but its looking like that won't happen either, as our babysitters backed out on us. Boo.

Such a glamorous life I lead, no?

Hopefully something exciting will happen and I'll be back to my regular, enthralling bloggy self soon!