Christmas Morning!!

I need to write a blog about Christmas morning so when I go to scrapbook it, I won't have to rely on my faulty memory, haha!

Sabe and I could hear the boys waking up around 6:30. Jamesen had passed out on me the night before at 6:30 pm so we knew we were in for an early morning. We had planned to not let the boys do presents until at the earliest 7 but we figured we were close enough. We then spent the next half hour just listening as they played in their room and slowly made their way out.

Seriously they took FOREVER! The living room (so the kitchen we set up, the tree, the stockings, all the presents...) is right outside our bedroom door and they always come into our bedroom in the morning so we knew they'd eventually come our way. We didn't want to rush them over to us by calling them, but we sure were getting antsy in there, waiting for them.

They finally made it into the living room and we could hear them rustling around. We had left some cookie on the plate for Santa and we knew that would be the first place they went to. Then we heard Marcus go, "Oooh, mommy! Kitchen! Look, kitchen!" and both boys cross in front of our door. Sabe and I were trying to be quiet to see what they did and Marcus kept poking his head into our door whispering, "Pssssst, mommy! Kitchen!" it was so funny!

Sabe and I got up after that and we started on the stockings. They had no idea what to do with them at first, haha! Jamesen got stuck on the candy cane full of M&Ms but with some pushing he got through it.... after we pried Marcus' Chuggington Train from him, haha! He was happy to see some Cars 2 cars in his stocking and we ended up just dumping them both on the ground so they could see what all was in them.

After stockings we opened presents. I've been working on taking turns with things (like making cookies) and it went perfectly with opening presents. Jamesen got the first one and Marcus was practically screaming, "OK!! MY TURN! MARCUS TURN!" so funny! He was so cute. Jamesen did really well opening the gifts. I was afraid he would get bored before he would get his presents open, but he did really well.

We did have a melt down though... Jamesen wanted Marcus' toys and understandably, Marcus didn't want to share. We hadn't had breakfast yet though so I'm sure that contributed. Mom I really have a ton of respect for you and how you were able to make a huge breakfast for 9 people... I have a hard enough time doing it for 4! I finally got everything finished and we've all been breakfasted. Now we're watching Marcus' Scoobydoo movie that has a bunch of volcano action in it and he's stoked, haha!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas and what not...

We've had a lot going on since my last post. Thanksgiving went great! We went to one of my friend's houses (the same friend we went trick or treating with). Our kids get a long really well and we parent very similar so it's just natural for us to be friends! Our hubbies get along pretty well too so it's been nice to have them as friends.

Our store has been flourishing for the last little bit. A lot of hats being ordered with this cold weather! I doubt it's continue past Christmas, but for now we're doing pretty good. I'm using all my money from it to pay for stuff for Gemma's room, so I hope it continues! It's the only reason I've got money for her stuff, haha!

A week or two ago we had some pretty freezing temps here. It was cold enough to have some snow flurries in the wee hours of the morning, so I snuck some hats in for the boys in case we went anywhere. We didn't end up going anywhere because I had to wait for repair guys who took a million years, but at least they've got hats no just in case it gets that cold again! They didn't want to have anything to do with them until I took them into the bathroom so they could see themselves in the mirror. After that they put them on just long enough for me to take a couple pics and then they were off again.



We put up our Christmas tree right before Thanksgiving. We'd been searching for the perfect tree for a little bit but couldn't find any in our price range. We wanted to get a nicer tree that would last us for awhile without spending an arm and a leg for it. Finally after searching everywhere, we found the perfect tree at the PX on post. It was even on sale! We snatched up really fast! Of course I had to put it up right away. It was "pre lit" (I use that term loosely) so it made it a bit easier. The "pre lit" was that lights were already strung on it. I ended up having to add to it to make it look ok so the lights were pretty spaced. Oh, I think it's great looking now!

The boys had an absolute blast decorating it! I can't wait until they're older and have a few more ornaments in their boxes to put on.



Our next endeavor was to put lights on the house. This is the first year we've put lights onto a house that's ours. We've either lived in apartments, someone else's house or Sabe wasn't around to put lights up wherever we lived before. It's been really fun and to decorate our house! I know we'll be here for a few years so I don't feel bad decorating. The boys have loved it too. This house really feels like home to us! Anyways, the boys thought it was great watching Sabe put the lights up. Marcus was Daddy's big helper and handed him the hooks. Such a cutie!



I wish we had some pillars to decorate... or money for a few more lit lawn ornaments or something, but for now, I'll take it!


I wanted to get some pics of the boys in front of the tree. The back of our house is really dark so it was hard to get the nice quality, but I did what I could! I got a couple cute ones of them smiling really good.


They're getting to be such hams for the camera. I was trying to take a picture of an order to put on my fan page a few days ago and Marcus kept hopping in front of the camera and saying, "Cheese!" with a huge grin on his face. It was cute for the first few pics but got a little frustrating after a bit, haha!

We're battling pink eye in the house. It's been frustrating and annoying. I got it first. I was told it was "allergy induced pink eye". I've also had "allergy induced bronchitis" here in Georgia as well. Georgia just doesn't like me! Anyways, my eye allergies are pretty bad in the first place, so when my eye started to get irritated, I didn't think anything of it. Finally I woke up one morning to my eye stuck so shut I had to soak it open and it was pretty obvious that it was pink eye. I tried my hardest to keep the boys from getting it, but Jamesen caught it yesterday. Luckily, Sabe and I have been on the look out for it so we caught his pretty quickly and it doesn't look nearly as bad as mine did on day 2. We both have it in both eyes, but hopefully it'll go away fast since we caught J's eyes and my second eye pretty quickly. I've managed to keep Marcus from getting it so far, but I'm guessing it's just a matter of time now that Jamesen has it. Sabe doesn't have it either.

Anyways, that's what going on on our end. I'm turning 23 weeks this week and don't know where the time is going!

Marcus update

We had his speech screening a few days ago. I've been meaning to blog but I've been busy! My store has taken off a bit lately and it keeps me busy in between the boys keeping me busy, haha!

Anyways, we went to his speech screening and he failed pretty bad. I knew he would fail and I knew he would fail pretty bad, but he seriously failed bad. I don't know the total points it was out of, but they said he needed a ten at a minimum to pass and he got a 3. He's made such huge strides in speech though so I was hoping he wouldn't fail quite so bad. He did amazingly in the learning section though and impressed the two ladies with his ability to name cubes and cylinders and other 3D shapes! He got all his numbers, colors and letters right.

He wasn't able to say his name. That one is hit or miss. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. He couldn't say if he was a boy or a girl, but I've never worked on those with him. He wasn't able to pick the smallest or largest out of a group the first time. He's got a great memory though. They went through a few things and he missed like half, but they told him the answer and when they went back through a few minutes later he did it perfectly.

We're going back for a more extensive evaluation in January. He's going to be tested for Autism to rule it out (I doubt he has it... he's never given me any reason to believe he is), a pre eval for dyslexia (I'll be interested to see what they say with this one since I'm pretty convinced he has it) and some behavioral testing since he has a hard time sitting in classroom settings with other kids.

Jamesen is doing really well. Other than being a constant fuss bucket, he's talking so much. I feel really bad actually, he's getting close to being at the same level Marcus is. He's amazing me with his ability to speak and how clear he says things! He's already saying small sentences! Marcus didn't start doing that until after 3! He's such an amazing little boy and so affectionate when he's not crying. He def. has taught me patience. I don't know what his deal is, but he seems to always be crying, lol! It sure does make his smiles and giggles that much better though. It makes me appreciate every toothy grin he gives me so much more.

Gemma is doing great as well and is officially half way done with baking! Her movements are getting really strong. Sabe's been able to feel her move for a few weeks now, but she's really starting to get strong the last couple of days. It's actually hurt when she's moved a few times, haha! She moves way less than the boys did though, especially Jamesen, which is fine by me! Jamesen kicked the crap out of me! She usually only moves after I've eaten or when I lay down to go to bed.

We're doing great here! Just hanging out and preparing for Thanksgiving. We're going to be going to a friend's house. We went trick or treating with them and are excited to do thanksgiving too! She's got a little Autistic boy that Marcus has really taken to. I think they both know each other is different and so they just gravitate towards each other. It's sweet really! Marcus has only seen him a few times, but calls all little boys (in pics, other kids at the park, etc) Logan when he sees them for a week after a play date! Amber says that Logan is really excited about Marcus being his friend too :) I think it's so great that Marcus has a little playmate who doesn't see him as weird because he doesn't act the same. The kids at church his age treat him weird and it makes me sad.

I've been Christmas shopping and I feel so great this year! I've been saving up all my amazon gift cards from swagbucks and a lot of the money from my store to pay for Christmas this year. I can't tell you how good it felt to have money saved up specifically for Christmas and not tap into our savings or put it on our credit card and just try not to feel guilty for doing so. We've got Christmas 100% shopped and paid for and it didn't even eat into our savings or hurt our bills! What a great feeling that is.

Sabe and I have been slowly but surely chipping away at our debt. We don't have much other than car debt, but the car debt is getting us pretty good. We have to be really careful how we spend our money every paycheck or we end up almost starving the last few days before he gets paid again! I've got a plan though. We should be 100% debt free in 7 years and then we'll start saving for a house because eventually we'll get out of the military and need somewhere to stay! Sabe's got at least 15 years left in the military though so we've got awhile.

Anyways, that's it for now. nothing special, just hanging out and counting down to Christmas! The holidays are so much better when you've got kids!!

My kids are awesome.

All day long they've been showing me just how awesome they are. Take Marcus for example. I made tuna noodle casserole for the first time for dinner and not only did Marcus (who use to be SO picky) try it, he snarfed it! He was pretending to be cookie monster. Normally I don't like him using his fingers but he was being so funny I just laughed at him. "Oh greenbeans. nomnomnomnomnom. Oh tuna. nomnomnomnonnom." So flippin' funny. He's such a ham.

Earlier today I was sitting there crocheting away while the boys were playing. Jamesen brought me a book and plopped into my lap (on top of my crochet, haha) and snuggled up to me while I was reading it. He kept putting his cheek to mine and snuggling in. Sooo flippin' cute.

Today at the post office there was a really long line. The boys were a bit crazy but for the most part stayed out of people's way and listened to me. At one point, Marcus went running back down the line away from me and I called him and he came running back, grabbed my hand and pretended to eat it. Jamesen of course had to get in on it when I started laughing and it turned into them both licking me, but it was pretty funny anyway.

I've gotten barely any crocheting done because they've been wanting to snuggle me so much today. I can't say no to two little boys attacking me with kisses and hugs and wanting in my lap! I've got no power against their attacks, haha. I feel so blessed to have their little spirits in my life and that they're healthy. What more could a mother ask for?

We've not really been doing much. We've just been hanging out while Sabe's been gone. I didn't blog about Halloween I just realized. It's a lot easier for me to upload pics on FB so you can see that album here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100177140136719.2482872.17817329&type=1&l=2d75f9f845

They did really well on Halloween for the most part. I was worried J was going to freak out and thought M would be so gung ho. The opposite happened haha! Marcus wanted to ring doorbells, but apparently on Fort Benning, if you're giving out candy, you sit outside and hand it out. He got pretty upset about that and threw a huge fit. Jamesen though... That kid did so good! He was dragging his bag after awhile because it was so heavy. After awhile, Marcus stopped being a brat and just went for the candy. They were so cute in their costumes!

Anyways, not much more to blog about. We don't do much other than go to the park, the post office or the grocery store. I'll try to blog more often for you mom!

Full Blown Terrible Two's

We've hit the terrible two's and we've hit them hard! He's been toying with the idea of terrible two's for the last few months, but it was never this intense. The last week and a half -two weeks however have been full blown melt down central! He completely melted while we were at the pumpkin patch a few weekends ago (a few times too actually) and he also melted when we tried to get him to help us carve pumpkins. There have been quite a few times that I'll be on the phone with my mom or best friend Shauna and J will just go crazy and they get to try and hear me over a screaming toddler.

It's not been ALL bad though, I have to admit. He's sleeping better, though he's fighting naps. He's also gone from calling me meme to calling me ahmee which is really cute. We've also FINALLY gotten him to say please for something without freaking out which is a huge plus.

Marcus had his hearing and eye screening on Tuesday. He passed! Now we can finally move on to speech therapy. I've heard really good stuff about the speech therapy around here so I'm hoping it will really help things to move along on Marcus' talking department. I really don't want to have to hold him back from school a year because he can't talk properly. As it stands, he would not do well in school because he doesn't communicate with you except for when he needs something. He's just started answering questions and interacting with tv shows though so I'm hoping that improves drastically in the next few months.

We also found out that our baby is indeed a GIRL! I was right again :) I'm pretty good at guessing baby genders if I do say so myself. We're going to name her Gemma Nichole. I've kind of gone crazy in the clothes buying department lately. I'm buying everything clearance or second hand so we can afford to clothe this princess! We won't be having a baby shower because we don't know anybody here so we're on our own! I know we'll get some help from my mom but she's got a lot of grandkids to spread the love to so I can't expect too much. We're super stoked though. We would have been happy with another boy, but we're so excited and happy about a little girl! Sabe's already talking about her being wrapped around his finger! :)

I hope to be able to get some good shots of the boy in their costumes. They don't really like costumes too much sadly so I expect lots of screaming and crying when I go to put them in them. I'll post them anyway. You know me :)

Until then!

The clock is ticking

I've got an ultrasound on Saturday at 1130 to find out the gender of our little bub. I'm pretty sure it's a girl though so it's just going to be confirmation. With that date quickly approaching, it's suddenly hit me that I'm having another baby. The constant sickness and fatigue of the first trimester didn't really mean much apparently, haha! I've been feeling better, feeling kicks, buying girl clothes (careful to make sure I can return them in the off chance it's a boy) and it's just getting so real. The clock is ticking. I hit 16 weeks yesterday. I'm over a third of the way there, in fact, I'm almost half way there. by Christmas time I'll be almost 2/3 of the way over and Christmas is coming fast!! I'm going to be having this baby before I know it!

So because of this, I've been really trying to soak up as much of the boys as I can. When I had Jamesen, a lot changed in Marcus and I really miss his carefree little self. He's not been the same. I'm preparing for the boys to change again. I predict Marcus will want to help with the baby... a lot... like I'll have to watch the baby like a hawk or Marcus will pick her up. Jamesen is going to be very jealous.

Anyways, on top of everything, I'm just feeling so grateful for the little spirits I've got the blessing of being the mother of. My kids really are such great and wonderful kids. They drive me nuts sometimes, but for the most part they tug at my heartstrings and make me want to do anything I can to see those giant smiles on their faces.

We went to a pumpkin patch last weekend and had so much fun! It took us almost 2 hours to get there but it was worth it. Sabe and I were actually kind of laughing. Jamesen was really grumpy and done with the car after about an hour. We drove for hours on end for 4 days straight when we went from Utah to Georgia. Why can't they take a 2 hour drive with DVD players? Silly boys. Anyways so when we pulled up, the first thing we saw was this giant playground. What a welcomed sight after being in the car for that long! The boys were in heaven! They went running as soon as we paid to get in and we spent the first almost hour on it.

Then I was able to entice Marcus over to the "chicken coop". It was a little building with the bottom full of corn kernels. I've never seen anything like that before, but it was a huge hit. The boys loved it. Two down falls though, corn in the shoes and covered in a yellow dust afterwards. They had a ton of fun though so it was worth it as well.

We then got to go on the boy's first hay ride. They were so cute and cuddly, just enjoying watching the scenery go by and playing with the hay. Jamesen kept picking up handfuls and throwing it into the air, it was really cute. Marcus just snuggled right up to Sabe and didn't want to move. He stepped in a pot hole and hurt his knee on the way to the hay ride so I'm not sure if that's why or if he was just soaking up daddy time since we don't see much of him during the week.

After the hayride we went and fed the animals. They had goats, a sheep, a donkey and a llama. We were told to feed the llama first because he was a prideful thing and would spit if you tried to feed him after feeding another animal. Marcus was all for it and was super excited to feed the animals. Jamesen, not so much. That is, until Sabe picked him up and fed the llama with him in his arms. He made a munch munch sound while the llama was eating and Jamesen got a kick out of it. He wanted down and then timidly fed an animal. Once he fed the first one, he was all for feeding the others and we went through our food pretty fast. The smiles on their faces were so sweet. Jamesen kept making the munch munch sound when he was feeding the animals. It was really funny! We should have gotten a video.

After the animals, we did a pumpkin catapult. It was right down Sabe's alley! We were aiming for buckets but didn't make one. The boys had a blast anyways. The pumpkins were tiny little things and they thought it was so cool that they were actually allowed to launch something into the air without getting into trouble.

After that we went and painted some pumpkins. By this time it was Jamesen's naptime and we had a few meltdowns, but it was still fun. The pumpkins are covered in blobs of paint and sitting outside our door. They're such perfect decorations :) Too bad they won't keep forever. I'm the type of mom to keep her kid's art projects, haha!

After pumpkin painting, it was clear Jamesen was ready for his nap so we grabbed a quick bite of their famous strawberry icecream and headed for home. It was such a great day. The kids had a blast and loved it so much. They do strawberry picking in April. I really want to go but it all depends on how easy going the baby is.

Jamesen is seriously talking so much. It's amazing to me. After having Marcus not talk for so long and be so far behind, it's amazing to have my two year old saying the things he does. He says thank you, bless you, you're welcome and we're working on please. He's a little parrot lately and we have to be careful what we say. Marcus will repeat us and Jamesen repeats everything Marcus says so we have to be careful, lol. He knows almost all of his letters and we're working on colors. He's such a smart little boy.

We've got Marcus' hearing and eye screening on Sabe's birthday (the 25). Once he gets that out of the way we'll be able to put him into speech therapy. He's already doing so well catching up, but I'm hoping that he'll learn better through someone who's 1. not me and 2. trained to teach kids this sort of thing. I'll update you when we've gone to that appointment and what they tell me. I still think he's dyslexic. I hope he's not but he just seems like there's something wrong sometimes. We'll see.

Anyways, I wanted to share with you the faces I've been spending all day every day with. They're so beautiful and sweet to me. I've got my mommy goggles on really tight! :)















Mom I thought you'd get a kick out of this one. It makes me giggle every time he does this.

Another sleepless night

I've had really bad insomnia this pregnancy. I have it bad anyways but lately I just can't sleep. It's almost 2 am and I'm laying awake thinking about things and running through memories in my head. Makes it impossible to sleep. I just can't shut my brain off. So I'm going to blog my thoughts in hopes that I can get them out of my head so I can sleep. I'm sorry if this is totally random or makes no sense.

I was thinking back to high school and back to the me I was back then. I wish I was the me now back then. HS would have one a lot better. I had no self confidence. I had nobody telling me I was worth anything. People at church didn't like me, my siblings didn't like me, my "friends" at school were awful to me. I don't even know why they pretended to be my friends. They kept me around to bully and humiliate me and I was so starved for attention that any attention was worth it, only they made me feel even more awful about myself.

By the time I went to college, I was so ready to leave. I felt a sudden freedom. I was my own person. I no longer had to deal with other people's rules. Only I was still me and I still had this knack of making people think I was annoying or what not. People didn't like me in college either. I dated, but guys never asked me out. I made them think they did, but it was always me planting the idea in their head to make them think it was their idea. They always got bored of me really fast and broke up with me (though I have to admit that most of the time I made it boring on purpose so they would break up with me. I also planted that idea in their heads to make them think it was theirs).

I never broke up with any of my boyfriends in college or high school except for one (he was scary and it was much needed!) I couldn't let go of them, no matter how awful they were treating me or how unhappy they were making me. I stuck around because I needed to feel needed. I drove away quite a few good prospects with that fault of mine too. I was super clingy and needy.

And then Sabe came a long. Sabe actually saw me as something worth keeping. He even told me at one point he didn't want to lose me. Suddenly I was genuinely worth something to someone. Slowly ever so slowly I grew in confidence with myself. I started to like myself and Sabe liked who I was and who I was becoming. He was the reason I had confidence. The only reason. He was the reason I felt beautiful. He was the reason for me trying to be something more than just a pretty piece of meat. He took the time to get to know me and nourish me and help me gain confidence. He brought out the best in me.

Of course he also brought out the worst in me, but that was after I was ok with who I was. I was able to put the two side by side and realize that just because my legs had been kicked out from under me didn't mean that I had been crippled. I'd been hurt, but not enough to ruin me like it would have ruined HS me. Yes I have my bad mopey days where I hate the world or get so fired up over what a certain person has done to me in the past that I'm a ball of negative, but it's not very often. I'm not perfect, but thanks to Sabe I'm getting closer (not that I think I'll ever reach perfection in this life, but at least I'm not as high maintenance as before!)

I just really wish I could go back to HS me and tell her to stand up for herself, to stop letting people bully and humiliate me. To just relax through college and not be so petrified of being alone for the rest of my life that I latch onto boys like a parasite holding on for dear life.

That being said, I've come really far in who I am and yet I'm still petrified of people not liking me. It's so pathetic sometimes. Some of my siblings dislike me and have made it very clear they feel that way. Some of Sabe's family has done the same and I just can't help but feel like they're not judging me on the entire picture. They're judging me on what they want to see and it's so much easier to put the blame on me rather than admitting there might just be a legitimate reason for how I'm acting.

I've become a reactor. I react to things and that's it. I never act anymore. I've come to realize that people don't really know the real me. They have an idea of who I am in their heads so when I act, they see something totally different than what's really there and react accordingly, even though it may be totally unwarranted for them to react that way towards me. I've come to realize that I'm a magnet for drama, especially when it comes to mine and Sabe's family. I can't even sneeze without somehow having drama smack me in the head because of it. So I've learned it's better to just not act. But that even backfires on me. People are expecting me to act so when I react, they don't see that the reason I've just reacted that was is because of THEM. It's really quite frustrating to be honest and it's caused me to cut a lot of caustic relationships out of my life. I can't win for losing and I was sick and tired of fighting a losing battle.

It's really funny for me to sit here and write how much more confident I am only to sit here and realize that while I'm typing it, I'm still very very vulnerable. I'm still desperate for attention. I'm desperate for friendship. I'm desperate to be accepted and not be judged. It's gotten to the point where I don't even bother trying to make friends because the rejection hurts more now than it did even in HS. I'm constantly wondering how certain family member's of Sabe's really feel about me. I'm constantly worried they're spreading nasty rumors about me between each other (and I've got a right to feel that way too as it's happened before and somehow nobody even cared to admit that the person starting the rumor was in the wrong. I was the drama queen for getting upset).

I dunno. I just feel like I'm done. I'm done worrying about other people's feelings. I'm done trying to feel accepted. Here I am admitting that I will probably never be accepted anywhere. For some reason people just don't like me. I have that gene where I tend to say stuff and it comes out completely wrong and by the time I realize what I've said people are super offended and won't listen to me when I try to explain myself.

I've come to the conclusion that I need to just be content with how it is now. I've got wonderful company in my crazy boys. They def. keep me busy during the day and give me plenty of affection. At least I can hope for them to have the gene Sabe has towards his mother; unwavering loyalty, no matter what the situation is, even if she's wrong.

Anyways, I'm starting to get tired. I shouldn't publish this, but I'm going to. I'm going to and then tomorrow morning I'm going to read it back to myself and come to more realizations about my life and what direction I need to go in. We've got big big changes coming up. A double whammy that will rock my world. I need to be prepared in any way possible.

Ugh I need to blog.

I knew this was going to happen. Why did I think I could somehow skip around it and be happy with no problems? Why was I so determined despite misgivings? Maybe because I wanted to feel like I had a normal life again? I WANTED to be happy? I wanted to move on and forget the whole dang thing had even happened!

It feels like Kentucky. Not as bad by any means. I just feel like I've been here before. I feel like a rerun. I'm beginning to feel stuck with no friends, nowhere to go and a husband who is rarely home only now I've got no sister to talk to because I can't forgive her at the moment, I've got misgivings about certain people's whereabouts, and I've got nowhere to walk to. We've got a huge backyard and it's getting cooler but we can't walk to the park. The park near here goes towards the edge of the scary part of town, the part I don't like to go to alone with a car, let a lone walk there!

I just feel like an idiot for getting pregnant again. I should have known our marriage wasn't ready for it. That I personally wasn't ready for it. That our family wasn't ready for the added stress. I'm a lot more emotional this time around.. I've got a lot to be angry about. Sabe and I talked about me going to a counselor but who the heck am I kidding. I don't know anybody to watch the kids and Sabe's job makes him an unreliable baby sitter. I've not gone to the dr for my pregnancy yet because I don't know anybody.

What's worse is that I really don't have a desire to know anybody. I don't have a desire to get close to anybody or depend on anybody. I don't want to have my heart ripped out again, I had enough of that in the last two years to tide me over for the rest of my life.

Sabe and I don't go anywhere, or do anything. I feel like we're suffocating. I feel like we're paddling in circles because we're going in opposite directions. This wasn't how I had planned my life going. Though I feel like if we just hang in there for like 3-4 more years we'll be in a lot better place. We'll have a big chunk of our car debt paid off and have a lot more breathing room, a lot more play money to go and do things like take the kids to the movies, hit up the festivals when they around, go out to eat every once in awhile and not worry about spending all our food money in the process.

I feel like a broken record right now. I'm irritated. Mostly at myself for being too optimistic. I knew this was going to happen. I knew the novelty of a new place all alone would wear off and I'd feel alone.

All alone.

I need to make friends for my kids, so they have more kid interaction. I need to start taking them to the parks on post more often so they get away from the house. I need to DO more stuff. I just feel so stuck, so stretched. It's hard to have the motivation to do anything when you've got things weighing both your brain and body down.

The only thing I can hope for is that when this baby comes out, they're super laid back and don't cry very much. I honestly don't know how well I would handle things if I had another Jamesen on my hands. I'd probably act the same way I did last time (which, for the record... wasn't that great).

At least my boys have each other. If I turn into crazy psycho mom who can barely handle anything unless it's been scheduled down to the minute, at least my boys have each other to keep themselves company. That makes me really sad writing that. I hope it doesn't come down to that again. If it does, I can hope they won't remember this time in their lives when their mom was a crappy mom.

Do you remember...

That one time... when we were in Kentucky... that Marcus got his tongue infection? That coupled with a few other back to back (to back) sicknesses caused him to pretty much refuse to eat and barely drink for an entire month? And that once we got him eating again he didn't eat as well as he use to and was picky?

Well that time is well over folks! We had stir fry last night. Not only did he eat all his baby corn and chicken, he even tried the broccoli and water chestnuts and ate most of the carrots as well! I was shocked when he popped that broccoli in his face, cautiously chewed, gave a little grin, chewed more vigorously and then swallowed with a smile on his face. What an amazing site to see my picky little man eat!

Jamesen, on the other hand, is getting really picky and refuses to eat chicken unless it's in nugget or popcorn form. If I cook something he likes he'll eat the entire thing but if it's something he's not had very often or recently, he'll refuse it all together. Even if he does get something in his mouth (like yesterday when he just had to copy Marcus snarfing down the baby corn) he'll hold it in his mouth without chewed and eventually gag himself on it if I don't make him spit it out after it's obvious he's not going to eat it. He's slowing in growing so I don't really mind. He eats well at breakfast and lunch.

I decorated my house for Halloween today. That was really exciting! I've not been able to decorate for a holiday in awhile because I've been living in houses that weren't mine. I found all my Halloween/Fall stuff and the boys helped me decorate. I can't wait till like ten years down the road when my decorations will have quadrupled :)

Been Awhile

It's so hard to write blogs when there's nothing going on. I feel like my blogs are always the same. I've got a friend who blogs all the time. She and her family are always on the go, always doing things and it kinda makes me jealous. We don't really ever do things. Sabe's schedule really hinders us and I don't know anybody here. There's nothing fun to do either.

We do have a really great ward though so I can't complain. Jamesen has taken to nursery so easily. He complains a tiny bit towards the end when he's so done with being without mom, but he lasts a good hour to hour and a half before he complains. That's amazing compared to the screaming the minute I leave he did in the two prior wards.

Marcus is starting to warm up to primary as well, though he tries to go in with Jamesen every time we pass the door to the nursery. It's a little sad, but he's doing ok.

We've been getting a little bit of cooler weather. We even had to put jackets on the boys for a day or two there! That was so nice! It's been pretty cool the last few days except for the humidity. The humidity really does add on like 10 degrees.

Let me tell you, I miss sleep. Marcus has started waking up before 7 even hits and then he wakes Jamesen up and they both come in bed with me and it's impossible to get a few extra winks in with two little boys in my bed. I miss those days that Marcus would play quietly in his room until I came and got him. I sure do love them though. They're such sweethearts.

We called Sabe yesterday to leave him a voicemail. He's been gone for the last week so I wanted him to have a voicemail of the boys talking to him to listen to. Marcus was distracted so he really didn't say anything, but I told Jamesen to say hi daddy and he so cutely said "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" and then later he said daddy pretty perfectly. I've not been able to talk to Sabe the entire time he's been gone so I don't know how he liked it, but I'm sure he did.

For anyone wondering about my pregnancy, I hit 11 weeks this week. I can't believe how fast it's going. I'm glad it's going fast though because this pregnancy has really been taking it's toll on me. I've never been so exhausted or so drained in my entire life. My meds to calm my stomach down have some negative side effects that I'm trying to deal with, but they're not fun. I want to ditch the meds, but I won't feel better if I do. I feel better with them, but not by much. It's a different not feeling good.

I bought the boys their costumes today. I'm really excited about them. I had planned on Marcus being Frankenstein and Jamesen being Dracula, but when I went to buy the costumes, the sizes were switched. I'm hoping that the Frankenstein, that says it's 2T-4T will fit Marcus and the Dracula that says 3T-4T will fit Jamesen because I really doubt Jamesen will wear Frankenstein's head. He doesn't like hats. We'll have to see when they come.

Sabe's not going to be here for Halloween so I'm really hoping my stake has a trunk or treat. If not, we'll be going on base and going through housing like we did last year. We'll just get an early start so that I can get the boys back home before dark. I don't want to be walking around alone with two little boys in the dark!

Speaking of the dark, I've got a funny story. I'm scared of the dark. No joke. I'm scared of what could be hiding in the dark. Usually I'm ok. It's gotten better as I get older, but I'm still scared of something happening at night one of the nights Sabe is gone. Anyways, last night I was chatting on the computer to my best friend and I started to hear noises. I heard a weird scratching sound which I still can't really explain, but then I heard knocking. It sounded like it was on the side of my house which meant someone was in my back yard which meant they had to have climbed over one of my fences to do it. I was seriously freaked. It was a one-two-three.... one-two-three.... one-two-three. At one point it was almost continuous for about 30 seconds. I was so totally freaked out I was almost in tears. There was no way I could have gotten a hold of Sabin at this point as he's not allowed to have his phone with him and I didn't want to move for fear whoever was knocking would see me and do more than just knock.

After about 20 minutes after the last knock I finally got up the courage to go check on the boys and while I was up I heard the knock again. Hearing it from a different part of the house made it click though. It was canon fire! I live right by a tank range and they're always firing. It always sounds weird and creeps me out too. You'd think I'd be use to it by now, but no.

A few weeks ago I thought there was someone walking around on my roof but it turned out to just be canon fire. I tell yah, that range is going to scare me to death one of these nights!

Huge strides

Marcus is amazing me. I know I've been constantly talking about this but Marcus is making huge huge strides in talking. Today there was a loud crash in my bedroom and I called to him asking if he was ok and he said "Yeah. I'm fine." He's never responded to that question. The first time he responds, he responds correctly. That's on top of a few other sentences he's said today that are all brand new (and of course now that I'm sitting here I can't remember any of them). We've not gone to speech therapy yet (I'm waiting on other people to do their jobs.. really frustrating) but now I'm not sure if he'll actually need it. Obviously we'll see where he stands when he actually gets evaluated and all that, but I'm hopeful he'll pull through this all on his own.

Jamesen's doing really well getting rid of his binkie. He doesn't really complain when I take the ones he's stashed away from him. He still needs them when he sleeps (I'll work on that in a bit), but he's doing great during the day. We purposely didn't bring a binkie with us to church on Sunday and while it probably would have helped towards the end... it wasn't until the last like 20 minutes he was crying and once I picked him up he was fine.

The pregnancy is going great too. I've gotten on zofran and it's helped a ton. I'm finally feeling ok and I'm not having break downs thinking of being sick for 40 weeks straight (yes it was THAT brutal!) We had an ultrasound and heard/saw the heartbeat. We're pretty excited :)

On other news, I've been having a lot of drama with people lately. I'm really annoyed with all of this. It's all been coming from family and people who should be supporting me, not annoying me. I'm really frustrated with all of this. I've gotten very uneasy when it comes to my relationships with a few people. I'm afraid their listening to lies from others and forming their opinions from that or a few other things that would paint me in a bad light. I'm honestly so annoyed and I've decided to just to let everybody go. I've deleted a lot of people off my facebook because that seems to be the area that everyone attacks me through. So honestly, if you've noticed you're not on my friendslist, there's your reason. I'm soooo done with drama. I'll probably regret writing this but oh well. I need an outlet!

Ahhh that was nice :)

I've been stressing a little bit about how today was going to go. Sundays are always hard. They go a lot smoother when Sabe's here since there's one parent to each kid. Well Sabe is in the field so he wasn't able to go with me today. I've been really sick too the last little bit as well so I was fully planning on just not going. Then a friend suggested that I eat some crackers first thing in the morning, before even getting out of bed. I've been doing it and all the sudden my morning sickness is a lot less intense and crippling. While I still don't feel well at least half the day, I'm at least able to do more than just lay in my bed and wish I would just puke already because it might make me feel better.

Anyway, back to today... We get to church before sacrament meeting (which in itself is a miracle and just tells me just how much Sabe take forever to get ready!) and they did so great! They really love the puzzles I bring. I leave them in my church bag so they only play with them at church and they're almost brand new toys to them again after the week is over.

I had one of the other ladies with a nursery goer take Jamesen to nursery because I knew if I took Marcus near the nursery room, he'd never stay in his own class. That sort of backfired at first because Jamesen was like "NOOOOOOOOO DON'T TAKE ME FROM MY MOTHER!!!!" at the top of his lungs. I pretty much ran Marcus to his class and thankfully his teacher was already there and took him with her to get copies made while I ran into nursery and calmed Jamesen down. He was pretty fast to calm down though. He loves nursery. I was able to slip out just in time to see Marcus wrestling his teacher who was trying to get him to go into the classroom and sit with her. I stayed in there with him for a little bit, but I started not feeling well and he was being a pain in the butt so I left. He cried "no mommy come back!" which near about broke my heart. Luckily he only cried it for like 3 minutes and then was done.

I sat for the rest of the hour in the primary room getting to know the primary presidency better. They threatened to put me over singing time and I flat out told them not to depend on me for the next few months because of how sick I've been lately. They're some pretty funny ladies and I actually wouldn't mind being in the primary.

Once the class was over and it was time for primary, I went and hid so Marcus wouldn't see me. I came back a few times to check on Marcus and he was doing great! At one point, he was called up to do something and wouldn't sit back down. They let him draw with chalk on the board for a bit and he wrote his name perfectly in front of everyone, lol! I had a pretty proud mommy moment there!

Jamesen did really good in nursery too. I'm so proud of him, and so relieved too! It's nice to not have to stay with him every second of every day without him screaming bloody murder.

oh and by the way... does anybody even read my blog anymore? Seems like I'm talking to myself, lol

One of those moments

Today while I was laying on the floor of the toy room trying not to be sick, Marcus was drawing me pictures. We've been watching Blue's Clues a lot lately and there's one point where Doodle (a drawing board) draws a letter and then draws a picture around it. Marcus did the 4 that were in the video but then started making up his own and then would try to spell the word. He failed at spelling any of the words correctly, but I was so amazed at how close he actually got it for a kid who doesn't know how to read or write. Maybe my working on it with him is actually sinking in a bit! It hasn't seemed like it up until this point. I've been so sick lately that I've taken a break in his homeschooling and maybe that's what he needed, just a tiny break.

He's talking mostly in sentences now as well, which I'm really excited about! They're mostly small (2-4 words) but that's better than nothing! He's enunciating a lot better now and actually says his name right! He use to say Martus but for the last few days has said Marcus. He's such a sweet boy :) He's a little stinker too! I just confirmed that he can indeed unlock the fridge. I've suspected it for a few weeks now, but could never catch him in the act and haven't been sure if I hadn't forgotten to lock it or not. He's really helpful with Jamesen though so I can't complain. He's really is such a great kid and I'm so blessed to have him!

Jamesen is growing like a weed. That kid is huge! He fits perfectly in his 3T clothes, right along with Marcus who has been wearing half 3T half 4T. Jamesen has become quite the monkey. Our pantry is taller than our fridge and has 4 doors, two on top and two on bottom. Jamesen has taken to opening on the doors and then scaling the shelves to get to the top where I keep all the good stuff. I've not seen him do it (he's fast!) but Sabe has.

He's talking so well too. He's saying small sentences, though not nearly like Marcus is. He'll repeat some words after we say them too. I think his constant need for the binkie is hindering his speech a tad. I've been working on breaking him of it, but sometimes... like when you're really sick to your stomach and have been alllll day, you just want a happy kid so you give in. He's not really potty training either, but he's started telling me right after he goes, so that's a good sign he'll be ready soon. I hope to have him mostly trained by the time this baby comes along.

Despite being pretty sick lately, this pregnancy is going well. I'm only 6 weeks so the fact that I'm still pregnant is a great thing! only 6 more weeks until it's a lot less likely that I'll have a miscarriage! Always a great milestone to hit. I'm just trying to make it through each day since morning sickness has really hit me hard this time around. If I keep my stomach full, I can usually at least function through the day, but I have to be really careful because if I over fill my stomach, I get pretty sick too. The boys have been great for the most part though. They've been really good for me when I'm home a lone lately which I'm so thankful for.

We've not really been doing much lately. Just hanging out and waiting for the heat and humidity of summer to fade. The boys are not fans of humidity at all and they prefer to stay inside rather than play outside until the sun starts to set. It should be getting cooler here in a few weeks though, so hopefully we'll be playing outside a lot more soon. Can't wait for the ants to leave! They're pretty ruthless in our backyard. I have to keep a very close eye on the boys so they don't stop in a mound.

Anyways, that's it for now. :)

It's been confirmed...

I must change my name to Fertile Myrtle.



Sabe and I decided to try for a baby and that same cycle we got the two lines. This is the first time we've actually tried for a baby and that "2 week wait" was pretty grueling!

I'm due around April 1. Not quite sure yet though since I've been ovulating every 2 weeks for the last few months and it threw off my cycle. I've not even called for a first Dr's appointment. I'm really not that worried about it right now. Just coasting through.

We were going to keep it a secret for a while but then I just decided I didn't care and posted something on FB without even telling anyone, lol! I called my mom like 20 times, left her a text and a voicemail and she just happened to check her facebook before her phone so even she found out on there, lol! I'm not really caring about people being upset that we didn't tell them before facebook as I don't really talk to anybody anyways. I told 3 close friends but only because I needed a few more pairs of eyes to see if the line I was seeing was imaginary or not. I figured anybody who cared would be on facebook except for my oldest brother who got a quick text and that was that.

I get huge fast an already have a small bump. It's kinda weird to me just how fast I get a belly when pregnant. I was very noticeably pregnant with Jamesen at 9 weeks and here I am about 4 weeks and have one.

The "morning" sickness is starting a bit. So far it really only shows it's ugly head if I let my stomach get too empty. It's hard not to. I don't really feel like eating anything and have to force food down my throat so I don't get sick to my stomach. I've been eating a lot of ramen lately, just because it's fast and is one of the only things that sounds good almost 100% of the time.

I'm getting some strong girl vibes. Even though I've only just started, this pregnancy is already starting out differently than the boys' did. Biggest thing is that I craved salad a few times. I've never in my life craved a salad. It was just meat (usually burgers) with the boys. The sweets cravings are through the roof too. I'm going through the boys' otter pops like there's no tomorrow!

Anyways, enough pregnancy rambling. I'll try to keep it at a minimum :)

My name is Adrienne

and I've become terrible at blogging.

I need to remember that my mother doesn't see my kids everyday anymore. One of her only connections to them is through my blog. I've been meaning to skype with her but keep forgetting. So mom, when you read this, if it's not too late my time, pick up the phone and call me and we'll get on skype.

A little update on Marcus. I think he might be dyslexic. He's got quite a few signs and we've got a slight history in our family as well as a history of ADHD which also contributes. I've gotten into contact with the school system here because we don't live on base and can't utilize any of their school programs. They say it's too early to test him for dyslexia, that we have to wait until 5 to do so, but I had a good long chat with the lady over stuff like this in the district and she set us up with an appointment to get his hearing and eyes checked. It was today and I totally spaced it. I'll have to fill you in when I'm able to get another appointment! Ack!

Anyways, Marcus has given me no indication whatsoever that he can't see or hear. He can hear me perfectly fine when I whisper to him. We whisper daily during Jamesen's nap and have full conversations in whispers. He usually speaks so quietly I can barely hear him. I'm sure he can hear himself so I'm not worried there at all. He'll be going into speech therapy though which I'm thankful for! As long as we show them a copy of our lease and a utility bill, they'll give it to us for free! How amazing is that? I'm so excited to be able to speak to Marcus and have him answer questions and have full conversations.

I've been avoiding calling the dr about Jamesen's bump because it's gone way down in the lasts few months. You can barely feel it and you can't see it unless you're looking for it. Before it was prominent enough that you could see it because of the bump in his hair but now you can't see it at all. If I can get away without having him have to go through surgery, you can bet your eyeballs I will! I'm worried that if I go see this other Dr., he'll be surgery happy and guilt me into it just so he can make money. The original guy we talked to said that it should go down by the time he hits two and if it hasn't he needs to be reevaluated. Seems to me like it's going away on it's own though.

Anyways, enough about that. We're having a lot more fun in Georgia than I was expecting we would. We've been mostly staying inside though. The boys are very much hating humidity so we only go out in the evening if we even make it out now days. It's just way too hot and humid for any of us! The fun we've been having is the toy room! it's really amazing to me how much mess that room contains. They take toys out sometimes, but usually they just play with them in there so I don't have a trail of toys throughout the entire house I need to clean up at the end of the day. There are a ton of toys in there, but I've got a good organizing system that makes clean up relatively fast. We spend most of our day in there. The boys are loving the train table and are constantly handing me trains and track pieces to put together. They're so cute with it!

Jamesen has started repeating movie lines. It's so funny to me. I wonder if he would have started that on his own if Marcus didn't do it so much. Jamesen just has to do anything Marcus does. But hey, if it gets him talking, I'm ALL for it! I think I'm doomed to make kids who are super busy yet slow in speech. But boy when those boys talk, I hang on their every word!

Marcus is such a smart little guy. He's doing so well in the homeschool preschool we've been doing together. We hit a snag recently though. We've started the "early reading" section and he's just not putting the words together. He'll sound it out and when it comes time to tell me the word, he says a random other word. Case in point: the word was bug. He would say buh. ug. guh. buh..... uh.... guh.... buh-uh-guh, buh-uh-guh, CAT! I think his speech is impeding his reading. Hopefully we can rectify this with speech therapy. I know he could do it if he just understood what the heck I was wanting of him. Once he catches on though, he'll be reading in no time. that's always how it is. It takes awhile for him to really understand what I'm trying to get him to do but once he does, he doesn't need any prompting me from whatsoever.

More on Marcus. He is officially 100% potty trained! We finally got him to click with the not wetting the bed at night thing. He's been in underwear and accident free for almost a week so far! So proud of my big guy! I desperately want to potty train Jamesen too, but he's proving difficult. I ask him many times during the day if he wants to go potty and he promptly replies with "No!" Oh well, I'm sure it'll happen sooner or later right??

So yeah, we're doing good. Just hanging out :) Thinking about getting a dog :)

Jamesen is 2!!

I don't even know where the time has gone. Jamesen turned two on the 7th and both Sabe and I were blown away. I swear it was just yesterday that I had Marcus, let alone Jamesen! It's so funny to me too because when Marcus was this age, I already had a 2 month old Jamesen. That would not have worked this time around, let me tell you! Jamesen is not ready to be a big brother. He gets jealous when Sabe takes any of my attention, let alone Marcus or heaven forbid a BABY take my attention away!! When we have another baby, we will have to really work at preparing him for it.

We're going to be starting potty training once we get the house all unpacked and I can devote all my efforts to it. We've started having him sit on the potty before bath time. He use to cry and scream if I even acted like I was putting him on there but now that I've pulled out the gumball machine, he's a lot happier to sit because he knows he gets rewards. I'm doing the same thing that I did for Marcus. He gets rewards just for sitting on the potty in the beginning. Once he gets use to sitting on the potty, I'll try to keep him on there for longer periods of time in hopes of him accidentally going where we'll make a huge deal out of it and he'll get huge rewards. Hopefully he'll catch on as fast as Marcus. Once I got the gumball machine, he was potty trained in 2 weeks flat. Minus over night...

I'm not buying anymore training pants though. I should have enough to get me through until the house unpacked and then it's underwear 100% of the time for Marcus man. I'm debating whether or not to just go underwear the entire time with Jamesen as well and see how that goes. We'll see. We hope to have both boys in underwear 100% of the time by the end of the year. I don't know if that's an unrealistic goal or not. I guess we'll see.

The boys are doing great. We've been making Marcus speak full sentences to us lately to encourage him to talk and it's really helping out a lot. He's been so late with talking it's made is really lax in making him talk. We're so happy he can actually communicate with us that we let the bare minimum slide. For example, he would say, "Drink?" for a drink, but I've been coaching him to say "Can I have a drink please?" I swear I would give that kid anything (within reason of course) if he properly asked me for it. Like today... He clear as day said, "Can I have some car cake please?" talking about Jamesen's Lightning McQueen birthday cake I made. I was so happy! I've also been trying to coach him to answer questions with something other than no or silence. He will now answer "Martus!" (we're working on it) when asked what his name is and "Fweem" when asked how old he is.

Before I forget, I have to rave about what a great husband I have. I wasn't feeling very well this morning. My allergies have really been acting up. I think I'm allergic to something in our carpets (like always it seems). Anyways, so I was in a really bad mood today and we got into a fight and I was just not feeling well and I was cranky, so I went to bed. I didn't even say a word, I just went to bed. He let me sleep for almost 4 hours this afternoon. He got the boys lunch, put Jamesen down for a nap, switched out the laundry, loaded the dishwasher and then went back to sorting through boxes. I woke up to a messy living room (he was going through a box of paper work) but I was well rested and MY chores had been done. Even after I got upset at him and was fighting with him he still went and did all of that. Sweet huh! :)

I need to take some pics of the toy room. The boys spend a lot of their time in there while unpacking goes on. I've sorted through it all and organized it so it's easier for me to think when I go in there. We've got a ton of toys so it would just be a huge mess if I let it go unorganized. They are LOVING the train table. Jamesen was like 10 months when it went into storage so it's nice that he's older now. He doesn't wreck the track like he use to. The move damaged the table though (and my washer too!!) I don't know how they'll compensate us for it as it's still usable, but I guess we'll see. At least it's the place they go to if we can't find them! It'll randomly go silent so I'll go searching thinking the worst and they'll be playing in there nicely, totally absorbed in what they're doing :)

Anyways, I'll keep you updated on the preschool and potty training front and once we get unpacked and decorated I'll take more pics of the house. Until then, the current album of pics on Facebook as that's faster to upload pics and everything.

Tidbits on jamesen...

Anybody who personally knows Jamesen knows that he's very stuck to me. He rarely goes to anybody else and all Hell breaks loose if I so much as leave the room!

I made it to my breaking point. I was so done. I had had it with the clinginess and the never going to Sabe and the always crying behind the bathroom door if I shut it, etc. I posted a giant rant online to some online friends of mine, but nobody had any suggestions but to wait it out. I was frustrated and over it so I went to bed.

That's when the miracle happened...

I swear it was over night like right when we got into the new house that he all the sudden didn't need me as much. Maybe it's Sabin coming home coupled with us moving into the house so we're STABLE, but he's changed. He's going to Sabe a lot more often and crying a lot less often. About a week and a half ago we were all walking through a parking lot towards the PX and Jamesen let go of my hand to grab onto Sabe's and didn't even look back at me.

The biggest thing though... and if you really know Jamesen you'll know how bit this is... is that he stays in nursery on Sunday by himself. He doesn't last the entire time, but the two Sundays we've been going to this new ward, he stayed in there for at least half the time without me or Sabe! Seriously that's amazing because I'm not use to being able to just leave him and not have a meltdown on my hands. We were in Vegas for 2 and a half months and the longest he lasted in nursery was 5 minutes. Literally. Once he realized I was gone, he would start the water works like the world was ending.

I don't know what happened, but I'm very happy about it. 2 years straight of barely being able to leave his side has really worn me down. I think I've paid my dues with clingy kids! Hopefully our next one is the most laid back lazy baby ever!

Long Winded update

I've been avoiding writing this update blog because of all the stuff that has happened, but the longer I avoid it, the more stuff goes on and the more I avoid. So... no plan, just gonna write and see what happens. I apologize in advance for any long windedness and what not.

The trip went well. It actually went really well. The boys did so awesome in the car. The only time we had to stop a ton was when Jamesen got sick and was running a really high fever on the last day. He did ok until about half way through and then he was burning up like crazy so we had to keep stopping. He had the fever for a few days, but no other symptoms and nobody else got what he had, so I have no idea what it was!

We made it to the extended stay hotel and it had a pool! At first, Marcus only wanted to be in his floaties and Jamesen didn't want to have anything to do with it, but by the end of the 11 days, they were both swimming! It was crazy the transformation in Marcus. He was so terrified of the water outside of his floaties and wouldn't put his face in the water at all. The last few days though, he was actually swimming short distances. It was so awesome!! I was so proud of him. We were too stoked about it to get a video though. I even promised my mom I would get one and we just didn't think about when it was time. Sabe has a couple 4 day weekends coming though, so I think we'll take the kids to the nearby pool and I'll try to remember to get a vid of it.

We opted out of base housing because it was taking too long to get into. They changed the way they do things (or Benning has always done it this way, I don't know)... anyways they changed the way they do things and it was going to cost us a lot of money to stay at the hotel and wait. We were in the house we found for about 2 weeks and they called us, saying they had a key for us. We wouldn't have had any money for the hotel had we waited for them. Our house is great! It's got huge windows for my photography. I love it! The boys love it too. They love all the room. There's a ton of room though because our household goods aren't here yet. There's tons of space without, lol! It comes in on Jamesen's birthday and I can't wait!! So ready for my bed!

The only problem is that I have to keep the boys inside. We can't go outside because of all the ants. We've got two huge fire ant mounds in our huge backyard and a big one in the front yard. I've been trying to kill them for a few days but nothing has been working. It kills some of them, but not the entire mound. We decided to go out and get some fire and killer tonight. The boys just want to be outside so bad. Hopefully it works soon. I'm so sick getting bitten! Luckily Sabe and I are the only ones that have gotten bitten by fire ants so far. The boys have been bitten by black ants. Their bites don't hurt as much or for as long as the black ant bites.

I'm in a new vehicle. We were (and still are... ugh) paying A LOT in car payments. It was suffocating us a bit, so we went to see what could be done. I'm now in a Maxima. It's a really fun car actually. I love it. It took a bit to get use to being in a car after being in an SUV for a few years, but I still love it. It's got a lot of trunk space and the boys have an easier time getting in and out of it. There's more leg room between the front seats and the back seat too, so they've got more room than in my Pathfinder.

All in all, things are going great. I hope my photography picks up as I've finally got a room for all my photog junk and great lighting in my house! I need to find a few locations for outdoor shoots, but that shouldn't be too hard. You can see pics of the house and recent pics of the boys in this album on facebook. It's easier than posting pics on blogger!

Anyways, thanks for reading my long windedness :) Until next time!

Day 4 of 4

I'm sitting in the extended stay hotel that we will be staying in until we find housing! So excited about that! We were able to bring Gary in as well as she's excited about that too! Poor thing has had a pretty crazy trip!

The morning started off late again. We (again) forgot to set out alarm. We packed up as quick as we could and set out. This was our worst day out of the four as we made SO many stops. First we had to stop because Marcus didn't tell us he had to pee until he was crying because he had to pee so bad. Then we stopped because we could have sworn Jamesen had pooped, but apparently he was just really gassy... Then we stopped to get gas and again for lunch and to let the boys play (in Tupelo, the birth place of Elvis Presley!) and again because Jamesen was being really really fussy.

I went to pull him out of the car and one touch alarmed me because he was burning up really bad. Sabe went and got him some meds since all of ours was packed and poor thing fell asleep on me inside a super cold mcdonalds. I slept for most of the rest of the way. When we woke up he was acting like he wasn't feeling well, but he wasn't fussy either, just looking around. Poor thing. I hate to see my babies sick.

Anyways, short post tonight as we're all really car lagged and tired from four days of driving. There's a pool here so we're going to hit that up tomorrow as well as go grocery shopping since our room has fridge and stove. We'll probably start looking at off post housing too, to see if we can find anything we like. We'll see I guess!

Day 3 of 4

We are in Jonesboro, Arkansas!

We all slept in this morning! It was nice to not have an alarm clock set and a crazy strict schedule to follow for the morning. We almost missed the lame breakfast the hotel offered because of how late we got up. Being ahead so many times zones makes me feel like the boys are sleeping in rather than getting me up at all crazy hours of the morning even though...really.... it's crazy hours in the morning in Las Vegas!

Anyways, so we went to the zoo today. It was a rather small zoo, but ended up being perfect. Jamesen fell asleep on the way to the zoo and woke up just before we went inside. His nap was maybe 10 minutes at best so he was super cranky through out the entire zoo and didn't want anything but for me to hold him. By the time I was so done and ready to leave, we had run out of zoo to look at and left. It was perfect timing!

After the zoo, we hopped back into the car and started our drive. I've fallen in love with Missouri. It's so green and alive! It's such a beautiful state (the part that I saw anyways) and is my favorite state so far. Kansas City was a bit hairy to drive through, but it was still a really beautiful state. When we got into Arkansas, we hit a crazy rain storm. there was one point where I couldn't see anything but rain on my windshield and two dip little specs of red that were Sabe's tail lights. I was so petrified of getting into an accident that we pulled over a few minutes and waited for it to stop. Well, it didn't stop, but it let up ever so slightly and we decided to push forward. The slowing was go (yes I really wrote that. it's called a spoonerism and they're funny enough for me to leave for you to laugh at) so we didn't make it to our third destination point, despite making great time and everything. The zoo, coupled with crazy storms, caused for a bit of a delay. We COULD have made it to Memphis today, but decided not to since it was still raining when we stopped for dinner and was getting dark by that time as well.

Nothing really crazy today except a couple of older kids beating up on Marcus a bit at the park at the zoo. We finally had to walk away because Sabe was about to punch some kid out, lol!

We should be in GA tomorrow. It's only 400 or something miles away. Can't wait to see you there!

Day 2 of 4

We're making really great time! We're in Springfield, MO, about 650 miles away from Fort Benning!

Last night was rough. It really was one of the roughest nights of my life. The boys slept like angels but I sure didn't! I'm an extremely light sleeper the stupid hotel we stayed at was just full of noises (like clicking water pipes!). It didn't help that I was sleeping next to Jamesen who kicks and flails in his sleep, as well as having each of the other 4 occupants in the room snore me out at one point during the night, among the noises of people taking showers (at 3 in the morning), flushing toilets, letting their doors slam and other noises. Glad I brought RockStars with me!! I really needed it today! I've been really crabby though, my poor family :( Hopefully I get a good night's rest tonight so I'm not as grumpy.

The morning started off ok. We got the kids up and breakfasted, packed the car and headed out. Jamesen has been fussiest in the morning both days so I think it's a trend... We made it through though, with lots of movie changes and shoving of snacks in his face (most of which ended up on the floor after being played with... another trend). Not too long after we started (maybe about an hour and a half/2 hours into the day) Jamesen started to get really fussy, so we stopped to let him stretch his legs. He was being so cute walking around with me. We found some toy planes that you pull back and let go to make zoom and they fell in love, so we had to get there. Cause for much less screaming coming from the car seat behind me, thank goodness.

We got stuck waiting for a train. I bet we were the only car waiting for that loooooooong train to go by that were actually happy to be there watching the train go by. It was sooo long and the boys loved every single second of it. Lots of "Train!! Choo choo!" coming from the seat behind my mom and giggles and pointing from the seat behind mine. It was so fun to just see how excited they are during something that before kids, I would have been so annoyed about! I swear I was more excited than they were when I realized a train was coming!

We stopped for lunch in the city we had planned to stop for the night in when we charted out our route 2 days ago (Kansas City, MO), which was really exciting. We almost stopped at the zoo since we got there at 3 pm, but apparently there was some shindig going on and it was closed. I was pretty sad about that since I'm a collector of zoos. I hope to get at least one zoo from each state under the boy's belts in their lifetimes. I was really bummed we were missing out on it. Sabe asked someone where a park was and they sent us to a "frisbee golf" field that had an old rusty swingset and lots and lots of bugs. Not exactly what we were looking for... We made the best of it though and took the boys for a walk looking for the train tracks we could hear trains passing by on (with no luck!) and eventually pushed on a bit further.

We made it to a town with some weird name.. can't remember what it was and were going to stop there for the night until we actually stopped there. it was like a modern ghost town, it was kind of freaky. It was like one of those places that you stop and stay at the one hotel only to get axed down by some crazy during the night. Needless to say, we left quickly, dodging a few cops along the way and made it to Springfield.

I was pretty bummed about the zoo in Kansas City so I decided to see where the closest zoo was to us and was excited to find out it was 12 miles away from us! Since we've been making such great time, we've decided to stop by the zoo for the morning, eat lunch and then head out afterwards, which I'm so excited about!!! I love the zoo :)

Gary is doing great. She was freaking out and meowing pretty much the entire way from Vegas to Utah, but since has been doing great with Sabe. We brought her into our car for a bit to help entertain the boys while we were driving the 60 miles from freaky ghost town to Springfield. They were so excited to see her and kept giggling and laughing as they pet her. She's very loved in this house!!

So far, this drive has been going 100 times better than I was expecting and I'm actually having a lot of fun. The boys are doing great, my mom and I are having a great time chatting and making fun of each other and we're all just enjoying the time we've got together. I don't know where we're going to end up tomorrow. Our original plan was to make it to Memphis, TN, so I'll probably write you from there tomorrow!

Day 1 of 4

I'm very pleased to say that day one is done with and that it went smoothly. We're in Nebraska!

When Sabe and I were planning our route last night, we broke it up into 500 (give or take a few) mile chunks. It's about 2000 miles from Eagle Mountain, UT to Fort Benning, GA. There were quite a few routes that google maps gave us and of course we chose the fastest one. It brings us north into Wyoming, cuts all the way through Nebraska and then goes down towards Georgia from the Nebraska/Missouri border. Our day one destination was set for Sidney, Nebraska.

We got a tiny bit of a late start since we forgot to set an alarm. The boy's woke us up at their customary 730 and we scrabbled to get everything together since we wanted to leave at 8. 815 rolled around and we were pretty satisfied that we were packed. After saying our goodbyes to Jared and Amber (love you guys!! Thanks again!) we headed out (with Gary in tow this time!)

Jamesen started out fussy, even before we made it to Wyoming. He was pretty fussy and sleepy after just an hour in the car and I thought that was pretty foreboding. He fell asleep right before we stopped for some gas so we tried to make it quick, but since Marcus refused to pee in their self flushing toilets, we took too long. Since the car wasn't moving, Jamesen woke up after only about 20 minutes. Lucky for us, it wasn't really a bad thing, since he was pretty happy after at that for another hour and a half.

We stopped for lunch somewhere in Wyoming... I can't remember. The only place with a play place was McDonald's. I usually HATE McDonald's, but honestly this play place was so awesome!! It was big enough that I even fit comfortably in it and could go through the tubes fast enough to chase the boys. At one part I could even stand up straight without hitting my head. The boys loved it! Sabe and I snuck some Subway in though... I don't really do McDonald's.

After lunch we hopped back in the car and kept driving. After a movie or two, Jamesen was back out and Marcus kept getting excited over the trains we kept passing and seeing Sabe's truck in front of us. He went ON AND ON about "Daddy truck!" and kept saying, "Hi Daddy Truck!" So. Flippin. Cute. After Sabe being gone for 11 weeks, he gets all antsy when he thinks Sabe is leaving again, so he was very happy to see Daddy's truck driving with us and see Sabe whenever we stopped.

After Jamesen woke up from his nap, he was pretty fussy, but we kept changing movies on him and pushing snacks on him, until we finally made it to Sidney at about 7 pm Utah time. We stopped for dinner and asked someone where a park was so we could let the boys run around. After failed attempts at getting them to eat dinner, we decided just to play. Sidney is pretty small. their "man road" has 2 lanes on each side. Anyways, it was small enough that we got a lot of weird looks by the other people at the park. Apparently it's one of those "everybody knows everybody" places and people were a bit put off by the fact that some strangers were barging in. the park was great though. It was a bit old, but the layout was awesome and it had such a variety of things that the boys just ran from thing to thing laughing and giggling.

Once dinner and the park was over, we decided to hop into the car and drive some more to get a head of our schedule. Tomorrow is our longest day and we wanted to get a good chunk out of it down. We managed another 100 miles since the boys fell asleep and are staying the night at North Platte. Our next destination is Kansas City, Missouri. Cross your fingers we have another great driving day with no incidents or fussy kids!

First leg down!

Well, our first leg of our journey is down. We made it to Utah in one piece!! We started off great and I was thinking to myself "wow, for once we made it out on time!" only to have Sabe go "Did we grab Gary?!" and we had to turn around and go find the dang cat we left behind! That added an extra hour onto our trip and sapped most of Jamesen's nap.

Marcus did amazing. He really is such a great little traveler! He didn't make a negative peep at all! Only happy squeals and exclamations from time to time. Jamesen on the other hand... has a time limit. He'll be quiet and watch a movie for about 2 hours and then we can pull another half hour out of him with constant distractions from other things and then the constant crying starts and he's inconsolable until we pull him out and let him run. Once he gets the chance to run around, he'll start his clock over again and give us another 2 hours of quiet. It made for a long trip to Utah. We got here at 11 pm Utah time and we were hoping to be here by 7 pm Utah time.

4 hours difference! Can you believe that? Leaving Gary, Jamesen being fussy and pulling a heavy trailer behind us really cost us a lot of time! Luckily we won't be pulling trailers on the way to Georgia and I hope we don't forget Gary. The fussiness is to be expected, especially since we're going to be driving for 3-4 days.

Wish us luck! We leave on the 9th. We could really use some prayers that the boys do well. 4 days of driving is a ton for an adult. My poor boys :( I hate to put them through that, but it will be SO nice to get into our own house and just settle in for the next 3-4 years!

Enunciation

We are starting to get clear and precise words from Marcus. I know most of you might shake your heads at that seeing as how he's almost four, but that just shows you how amazing this is. He was so far behind and in the last 6 months has almost caught up with his peers. We've still got a ways to go, but he's speaking in sentences frequently (though he usually leaves out some of the "filler" words) and is really talking up a storm. He said tomatillo and giraffe clear as day today. Makes my heart leap with joy.

Another thing that makes my heart leap with joy is Jamesen's word count. He's been saying "Hop up" a lot lately (what we say when we want the boys to "hop up" in their chairs for dinner or anything you climb and sit in/on) as well as pickle, airplane, and a few others I can't think of at the moment. He's also behind his peers, but so far ahead of where Marcus was at this age that my heart just sings.

We're getting ready to start out treck to Georgia. I can't believe how fast these weeks in Vegas have flown. Sabe comes home late Friday, the boys will wake up to him Saturday and then we'll have a wonderful day of being a family. Once the boys are in bed, Sabe and I will pack up as much of the outside toys and my bedroom as we can. Sunday we'll get the moving trailor and the hitch to attach it to my Pathfinder all before lunch, then have lunch and leave for Utah where we'll spend a few days with my brother and his family (who I and my kids just adore!). We'll drop the trailer off, have the army come and inspect all of our stuff in the storage unit and then they'll pack it up and take it all over to GA to wait for us to get there. We'll leave the next day (the 9th) and get to GA as fast as safely possible because those two boys will not be happy about so much driving!

Our plan is to wake up in the morning, drive 3-4 hours, stop for lunch either at a place that has a play place, or find a park and let the boys run around for an hour or two and then hop back into the car for another 3-4 hours. If we time it right, it should take us driving all of the 3 days and then another 3 hours into the 4th day to get there, depending on traffic, weather, potty breaks and speed limits. Please keep us in your prayers that the boys will cooperate!