It seems a bit surreal...

that Jamesen is coming up on 2. I think I'm still in a bit of denial that he was born, let alone almost 2!

When I first had him, I had a really hard time bonding with him. I had terrible PPD and it didn't help that he screamed a lot for the first 6 months. I felt so terrible for ruining Marcus' life. I'm so glad Marcus will never remember life without his best playmate and friend. It's hard enough remembering it myself.

They are SO CUTE now days. Jamesen really has become Marcus' partner in crime/playmate/best friend. They hug, they kiss, they hold hands, they share, they laugh, they wrestle, they giggle, they play, they eat, they sleep, take baths... you name it they do everything together. Jamesen has recently taken to climbing into bed with Marcus which is a bit interesting since Marcus' bed is only a toddler bed. One toddler can barely fit a toddler bed, let alone 2! Specially when Jamesen is basically the same size!

Speaking of size... the jayster's barely fitting his 2T clothes we moved him into right before we moved here. The shorts are too small around the waist and the head hole in the shirts are getting to be too snug, as well as the shirt itself being to small. Glad we'll be in GA soon so I can switch Marcus to 4T and Jamesen to 3T. Marcus is teetering on the edge of 4T, so I think it will just fit perfectly to move them both up to the next size at the same time. I don't have enough 3T stuff to clothe two kids!

The weather in Vegas the last week or so has been chilly and wet. It's made me think of Autumn and pumpkins and halloween and trick or treating. I can't wait. Silly of me? a bit... but holidays are SO much better with kids and fall is my favorite season. I'm hoping the GA will stay warm most of the year so that the boys and I can play outside til we explode.

I recently went through all my pictures and picked out all of my favorites from the last 2 years. I'm going to make a mosaic of pictures on one of the walls in our new house. Hopefully we've got a large wall that I can use. I'll buy a bunch of different sized frames and just fill them with pictures. Any empty ones will be filled as we go . I'm so excited to put pictures up and decorate for holidays and watch the boys play with the new puppy we'll be getting when we get there. Life is going to be blissful, lemme tell you!

Sabe comes home in less than 2 weeks. He's doing really really well in his classes and is in the run for honor grad! I'm so proud of him :) Can't wait to be a married mom rather than a single mom though! I'll make sure to post pics of the boys waking up to daddy :)

What's in a... date?

I'm coming up on a date that I don't want to live through. I wish I could just skip over this day and pretend like it didn't happen. This date will forever more be a bad day for me I'm afraid. A whole year.

I've come far in that year though. I'm not the person I was a year ago. I think for the better mostly, but I'm definitely not as care free as I use to be (as care free as a young mom with young kids can be).

I've learned who I can count on and who I can't. I've lost people I thought I'd have forever and I gained people who don't realize how much they mean to me. I've also re realized how great the few that stuck around are and how blessed I am to have them.

I'm hoping that Georgia will be like wiping the slate clean. I'll be in a new place where people don't have preconceived notions of me and won't judge me on who I was in the past. I'll be far away from hostile relationships that I'd rather not deal with. My family can move forward and move closer to being happy and healed after all this time apart and in stressful environments and situations.

I hope that I can wake up when I get to Georgia. That I will be able to slough off all the bad and keep the good things around me to help me heal.

Until then, I'll relish in the fact that my boys love my parents and that they love them back. I'll keep myself busy with my photography and the store my mom and I have started together. I'll work on losing the last little bit of weight I've got packed on me for the eventual addition to our family (whenever that will be). I'll take advantage of anymore rain storms Vegas has to test out the new galoshes I bought Jamesen because his feet literally grew over night and he no longer fit his other ones. I'll relish in the fact that Marcus is speaking in sentences and now loves on his brother an equal amount to beating up on him (unlike the constant beatings we had before). I'll try to remember that Jamesen will soon be a teenager and won't want to be constantly attached to me (aka, in my arms slobbering my face with kisses and raspberries). I'll cherish my children and this time that I have with them.

How lucky I am to be blessed with healthy children. Despite everything I've been through, I hold on to that. My children are my life. The one light to guide me through the dark tunnels life has forced me to go through. I'm getting close to the end of the tunnel. I can feel it. Soon I'll be there and it'll be like waking up. I'll wake up and I'll be ok. I'll be able to truthfully say that I'm happy and I'm happy with where I'm at in my life.

Thanks for everybody's support and love. It's greatly appreciated.

The sun did not shine.

It was too wet to play.

So we sat in the house

all that cold, cold, wet day.

Too wet to go out

and too cold to play ball.

So we sat in the house.

We did nothing at all.

All we could do was to sit, sit, sit, sit!

And we do not like it.


Not one little bit.

I'll be paying for that one all day...

Shauna (my best friend for those who don't know) wanted to take me out for my birthday. While my birthday was a few days ago, we did it last night instead so she could keep on track with her studying and things like that. Knowing us, I decided to put the boys down early so we could get a head start. I knew that if we didn't start early, we would be staying up way too late and would both end up paying for it today since the boys get me up early and she has to get up early for school and the like.

How I was planning for it to go was that I would put the boys down at 7 rather than 8, they would play for a bit because they weren't tired and eventually fall asleep right on schedule. I would get home and be in bed by midnight since I usually don't end up going to sleep before then anyways, the boys would get up at 530 like normal and we would have a regular day.

Not what happened at all.

Apparently the boys were tired enough that they were out long before 8. Apparently Shauna and I were both bestie starved because I didn't get home until right before midnight. I had to then take an hour to shut my brain off before I could sleep, so I got to bed a little after 1. Of course, wouldn't you know it, if you put the boys down an hour early they wake up an hour early too, so at 430 on the dot, their light was on and they were up playing. Attempts to get them back to sleep were unsuccessful and now here I sit, watching Totoro with the boys at an even more ridiculous hour than normal.

It sure was good to get some time with the bestie tho. We talked a lot, like we always do. We also went exploring and found this community (for the lack of a better word) of stores. The buildings and everything looked like something out of Italy and quite a few times I gasped at how beautiful it was. If there weren't a million people to get in the way, it would be an amazing place for pictures. They had this adorable forest themed playground that had me wishing the boys were with us so we could watch them get excited over all of it.

It was worth it, just won't be happening again for awhile. At least... until Sabe's with me so he can get up with the boys while I sleep in a bit!

What's with teenagers?

I took the boys to the park yesterday. This park is usually deserted so I never thought it would be packed. If I had known, I would have taken them somewhere else.

There were a couple people there when I got there. I could tell there were some middle school aged boys there jumping around, but there didn't seem to be too many. I pulled the boys out and let them run to the park. Not even two seconds later, one of the middle schoolers yelled "There they are!" and a huge pack of boys was walking our way. Insert a bunch of cursing, name calling, pushing, shoving, etc... you know, stuff normal people do when they see their friends (rolls eyes).

They soon started playing tag and every time the "it" person got too close to one of the others, the f-bomb went flying. 10 large(r than my boys) boys jumping and running between my two tiny boys... my heart rate went through the roof! I finally lost my temper when one kid full on pushed Marcus to the ground so he could step over him and get away from the kid that was chasing him just moments before another kid pushed Jamesen down the long swirly slide upsidedown and on his back. I blew up a bit on them and of course the two kids had some snide remark like "If you don't like it, just go home!" and all the other boys started laughing.

I had no choice but to scoop my boys up and leave because I knew since I had opened my mouth, they'd go out of their way to hurt my kids. I had to drag two crying kids who only got ten minutes on the playground back to the car and force them into their carseats. I didn't want to take them home so soon after taking them there, but really I had no choice but to leave and keep telling Marcus I was sorry as he was crying "Park!?" frantically.

When I was in middle school, I never would have dreamed of getting a bunch of my friends together at a park that clearly says it's for 12 and under, curse up a storm and play tag in between the little kids, pushing and shoving them out of the way when it suits me. What is with teenagers these days? No respect what so ever! I can tell you right now, if I ever caught my boys doing something like that, they'd be grounded for the rest of their lives!

Easter Highlights.

We had a great Easter! The only thing that could have made it better was if Sabe was around to see it all too. Sadly for him, he'll be seeing it all through pics as well this year. Hopefully as we go through the years in the Army, he'll alternate between holidays so I can get pics of him and the boys at least every other year on the holidays.

For the last few weeks, I've been gathering stuff for the baskets. I was excited when my mom found these two adorable baskets! They're so durable and totally adorable! This is what the baskets looked like after the Easter Bunny stopped by :)


Jamesen made a B-line for the baskets when we woke up. The look on his face was so priceless. I wish I could have snatched a pic of it, seriously so awesome!


Took me a minute to get Marcus interested, but once he saw Jamesen digging around his basket, he had to have his own, lol


How classic is this... Both kids grab candy the first thing out of their baskets. Seriously, these kids take after me so much. Sugarholics!!



The biggest hit though, was the light up noodle monster things I found at walgreens. They love them! My 8 month old niece thought they were pretty great too! Best thing, they were cheap!



My mom had a pumpkin that she bought around Halloween and never got around to carving. Fast forward to Easter and it's still there, sitting on her porch, perfect like she bought it yesterday. Marcus kept wanting to bring it in and carve it, so my mom decided to carve it into a bunny. The boys loved it! Here they are in their cute Easter outfits with the pumpkin. They were kind of grumpy right before this. Marcus was hungry (hence the eating..) and Jamesen was really sleepy.




We had the hunt right after my nieces got to the house. Since all the kids were 5 and under, we decided to skip the candy and go with small toys for the hunt. We figured that would be better for everyone involved seeing as how all the kids are hyper anyways and add sugar they become the energizer bunny on crack.

Marcus had a lot of fun. My dad was going around with him so that I could take pictures and they were so cute together! My dad would point the area of the toy and Marcus would gleefully run over and grab it, throwing it into the basket my dad was holding for him.

Jamesen wasn't really that into the hunt. He found the two eggs in the sand box right away and put them in his bucket. But then... he took his bucket over to a corner and dumped everything out and gave up on the hunt. I'm glad I got this one picture because it's the only action shot I got of him during the hunt! Silly kid.

Here's another shot of my mom's crazy holiday mixing up tendencies. The fake trees are from my wedding reception that she's just kept around because she bought them. She decorates them with every holiday. I think it's such a cute idea! She bought lights for every holiday and hangs them around on the trees. She use to have ornaments on the tree too until we got here. Jamesen liked taking them off.


And because these pics are so dang cute, here are my smiley boys playing in the pool. I added some hot water to it with buckets from the sink so it wasn't so ice cold. They loved it and were all smiles!








Thanks for looking! Hope you had a great Easter!

Holidays are so much better with kids

When I was a kid, I loved holidays. I love my birthday, Christmas, Halloween... Everything. I loved all the excitement and everything that goes with holidays. I was sad as I got older because the excitement dissipated and holidays were just not the same...

Then I had kids...

I don't know who's more excited about waking up and seeing presents under the tree or Easter baskets full of stuff waiting for us to dive into. Wait yes I do, ME!! I get so excited wrapping the presents, picking the costumes, filling the baskets, etc. I just can't wait to see their faces when they see everything and watch as they find all the goodies they've acquired.

Easter is tomorrow and I've been dieing for it to hurry and get here! We colored eggs yesterday and the boys loved it! At one point, Jamesen actually stuck his face into one of the dyes and tried to blow bubbles, getting a mouth full of vinegar water. The look on his face was hilarious! I wish I could have captured it!

I can't wait to play Easter bunny tonight and go on an egg hunt tomorrow. I just wish Sabe were here to witness the gleeful faces of these beautiful boys too. Oh well, maybe next year.