See, I am crazy!

I do not know what I was worried about! We met four amazing families and with so many beautiful kiddos to talk about, I was never in the corner by myself. We spent the majority of the time oohing and aahing over the children and chit-chatting. The kids were all beautiful, here are just a few of the many pictures I took. Unfortunately the older kids were busy running around so I did not take any pictures of he AH kids. First meet the infamous Knoah! Just look at that grin...doesn't it just say "TROUBLE?"
We also met the beautiful Kaela! She is the prettiest little girl with beautiful blue eyes and the sweetest personality.

Here is the handsome Owen. He was the big man, showing off all of his tricks! Look at that adorable face. He reminded us so much of Hannah at that age (except for the fact that he was a boy and didn't really look like her!)

Next up is Aidan, whose Mommy does not have a blog! Just look at those adorable blue eyes. Owen and Aidan both have gorgeous red hair...they almost look like they could be related.

We tried to get the kids all together, I did not have much luck on my end maybe one of the other moms got a better picture. The poor kids had so many cameras flashing at them, they probably were getting tired of it by this point.

Here are all of the Mommies with our beautiful children. From left to right, is Sarah and Kaela, Sue and Aidan, Me and Hannah, bottom: Cat and Owen and Tonya and Knoah.

We had so much fun playing with all the kids and my Hannah absolutely fell in love with Tonya's Hannah! She was still talking about her right before bed. I am so glad we got the chance to meet so many amazing people, thanks Tonya for getting everybody together.

Nerves

If you know me, you probably know that I am pretty shy. When I first meet somebody I tend to come across as being either a snob or a big dork because I am so shy. Don't get me wrong, once I get to know a person it is hard to get me to shut-up. It is that initial awkward phase that I hate. I hate being in large social settings, I hate meeting new people and I hate being the center of attention. I get anxious and worry about every little detail. In fact I even get anxious about simple things...my husband orders the pizza's around here! Sometimes I just want to stay inside so I don't have to meet new people.
I am telling you this because we are meeting a bunch of new people tomorrow and I have been on edge about it all day long. We are going up to Monroe to meet with four other families that also have children with achondroplasia. While I am excited to meet people who are in the same situation as us, I am still as nervous as all get out.
What should I wear? Man I look HUGE in everything, I really need to get serious about losing this weight! What if they don't like me? What if my pies are no good? (Did I mention that I am taking pies?) What if my kids misbehave? What if I have nothing to talk about and I end up alone in the corner?
Seriously people, these are the types of things that have been running through my head all day long. Is this normal? Am I some sort of recluse that should move up to the mountains and stay in a secluded cabin? What has happened to me that I have become such a shy person? Where has all of this fear come from?

Too much chocolate?

I really never thought I would say this but perhaps we got too much candy from our three egg hunts. Take a look at our loot:
Seriously, that bucket is overflowing with candy! Anybody want to place bets on how long it will last? I am guessing that in this house...not as long as it should!

Really, that is a lot of candy...so I decided as of yesterday that I would go on an all chocolate diet. What? I think I hear my father-in-law telling us to just smash it on our hips and call it a day.

An Easter Photo Essay

Our Easter spanned two weeks, as we had Easter at my in-laws on Palm Sunday and then Easter at my parents on Easter. So I thought I would use a bunch of pictures since I have not posted any in awhile due to blogger's picture loader being broken for a few weeks.This was Palm Sunday, our family. Unfortunately my father-in-law only took one picture for us so even though us girls are smiling pretty...the boys have their usual look.

Tater and her Daddy. (Note he has the same look as above photo) Such a sweet picture!

My poor Zandey on the egg hunt. He had a fever all day, and we just assumed it was a combination of teething or ears. So, he was a bit clingy and unhappy for most of the day. When we got home we took his temperature and it was 103.0 under his arm. It ended up he had Rosiolla and had the fever all of Monday and Tuesday then got a slight rash on Thursday.

Little Zandey collecting his eggs at the egg hunt at grandma and grandpa's. I think he did have some fun despite the fact that he had a fever.

Tater finding an egg...notice her facial expression she takes after her Daddy quite a bit in this department. Quite the excitement on finding eggs.

Here she is right after she found her basket. She is showing me her Duckie Fur-real. I forgot to mention that she just had to have a polka-dot dress. I looked all over to find a cute one for Easter, this was a second favorite as it was not the spring colors. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures on Easter Sunday when she was in her dress:(

Is this how I use the bucket mom? This was Easter Sunday and he was feeling much better. We had our egg hunt after we got home from church because my kids do not like to get up early (and neither does mommy).

Here is Tater finding an egg with another goofy face. If I would post pictures of my hubs you would understand that it comes naturally. Also please don't mind how busy the picture is because I was too lazy to crop it.

Apparently I need to be more clear with my directions. He is looking for his basket "under the desk." I laugh just looking at the picture because the basket is just staring him in the face and I had to point it out to him.

Hannah had much better luck finding her basket. She learned how to play the hot and cold game at Grandma Chips house practicing egg hunts. It was so funny because the first time Grandma said you are getting hot...you're burning up, Hannah asked why Grandma said she was going to start a fire. It took us a minute to figure out what she was talking about. Here she is exclaiming that she got "Pongo mobee." Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures at my Mom's Easter...not sure why because I had my camera!

Overall it was a great Easter. We celebrated with family and it was not too busy. I did make three pies from scratch and it took me a lot longer than expected. Of course I waited until Saturday night to start them, but that is typical. I made an apple, coconut cream and a sugar pie. Overall they turned out good, but the sugar was not what I expected. And we got a BUNCH of candy!

He looks so much older!

We took Alex to get his very first haircut here. We mainly went for the fun chairs, for pictures...however I did not really like the chair he was put in. He did a great job at first.
Check out that wicked mullet! If we were back in the 80's he would be stylin'. That is why we decided it was time to get his hair cut, we did not want people referring to our son as Joe Dirt.

We got to pick out a move for him to watch. So of course we picked out the Wigg-les. As you can see below, he was zoned out for the first part of the haircut.

If the stylist would have been faster he would have done awesome, however it took her almost an hour. Seriously, I am not exaggerating it took an hour people. If you know my son you know he does not sit still for five minutes....imagine an hour long haircut.

Here is where it started to get interesting, I held him on my lap, held his head and finally gave him a sucker just to keep him still. At one point the hubs was holding his head down so that the slowest stylist on earth could finish. It would have been a great experience if she was not so stinking slow. Would I recommend this place to a friend? Well, yes as long as you do not get Ashley as your stylist. Unfortunately I did not take an after picture because by the time she was done he was hysterical and I was just ready to get the heck out of there! We did get a cute certificate with a picture and a lock of his mullet and now he seriously looks all grown up...sniff, sniff.

The right place at the right time

When hubs was scheduled for his second tour to Iraq, we debated on what to do with our house. Should we put it on the market when he leaves so we have plenty of time to sell it, or wait until he gets home. If we sold it when he left, we would not have the extra costs and could save up money. However, when he returned in October, he would still have two months and if we sold it we would not have a place to live. Not to mention the fact that I had a baby and that the market was so good in our area we decided to wait. Mainly because I wanted to be with hubs when he got home!
So we waited. We figured we would sell our house in no time flat. When we were buying our house, houses were selling after only being on the market for a few days so we were not worried. The problem was that we had no idea where we would go. Hubs did not have a job lined up so if the house sold we would have had to put our stuff in storage until something came up. We put our house on the market towards the end of October. Then November came and went with no offers. Then December, of course things would slow down during the holidays so we had only a couple of people walk through the house. By this time I was really starting to get nervous! Our insurance had went up, making our house payment almost 300 dollars more expensive. January started off slow as well, then we started getting calls.
Well, hubs was officially discharged on January 1, 2008. We had decided around Christmas, that to save money we would pack up our clothes and go to Ohio to stay with family during our time of transition. In the meantime Tony's Grandma was getting ready for a three month visit to her daughter's house in South Dakota. In mid January we got an offer on the house, after a few counter offers, we sold our house! Our closing date was February 22. However, we were still not sure what we would do with our stuff.
About the time we accepted the offer, Hubs' Grandma decided that she was going to move to South Dakota permanently. Meaning we would have a place to stay! Isn't God good? The week before our closing, we boxed her belonging and Hubs and his Dad drove her belonging to her. THE WEEK BEFORE! If things had happened in our timing it would have been a big mess. We would have not had a place to live and would have had to move our stuff twice. However, God saw the big picture. He knew that Grandma would be moving and that it would be a perfect opportunity for us. I am so thankful that He is in control!

Welcome Leah Grace!

We would like to welcome the newest edition to the family, Leah Grace. She was born at 8:28 am and was 7 lbs 13 oz and 20 1/2 inches long. Proud sisters Anna and Abbie (above) were so excited for her arrival. Anna and Abbie were at my house waiting for the big news, my Mom dropped them off at 7:00 am. Starting about 7:30 Anna kept asking when her baby would be born and when she could go see her etc. We finally got to go visit at noon and we could not get there soon enough! They are so precious, and we are so excited to have a new niece!

Dude, don't be so moto!

As our house is being (very slowly) packed up I have been reflecting on the past four years of military life. Mainly reflecting on things that I have learned, some deep such as how I can be a strong "single" mom of two while hubby is deployed for seven months, the pride of being married to one of the few, and some silly. For now let us focus on the not so serious. The followings are words and phrases that I had never heard of prior to enlistment and for those of you not in the know I will give you the definition:

Head - bathroom

Field-day - sounds fun, but really it means cleaning

Rack - bed

Moonbeam - flashlight

Go fasters - tennis shoes, you know cause you can go faster in your tennis shoes then your combat boots

Semper Fi(delis) - Always faithful

Devil Dog - a nickname for any Marine

Oorah (not to be confused with Hoorah) - can mean a number of things, like if somebody asks a group of Marines how they are doing, it is usually answered with a loud oorah!

PT - no not physical therapy, physical training

Various ranks

The significance of 10 November - The Marine Corps birthday in 1775, which is to be celebrated every year with a ball

Commissary - Grocery Store

Exchange - a mini mall!

Boot - Usually refering to somebody fresh out of boot camp who is still in that deer in the headlights phase. Commonly used like so: "That guy is so boot!"

Skate - referring to not doing any work, just skating by

Moto - Referring to somebody who is really motivated

Key Volunteers - A network for wives, sometimes really, really informative and others not so much

A few phrases my husband picked up:
That's a negative, or sometimes he just says "negative."

Roger that

The phonetic alphabet, you know like alpha, bravo, charlie which sometimes gets a bit annoying when I want a simple answer to a simple question like how do you spell...

Funny story about hubby field-daying. When he fresh out of boot and at his specialty school he would call me whenever he got a free minute. Usually when asked what he was doing, he would say that he was field-daying and wasn't supposed to be on the phone. With my limited knowledge of such terms I just assumed it was something recreational, like jogging or something. I mean don't you remember when you had a field day at school and would get to be outside all day doing various fun physical activities? It took me a few weeks to realize what he was talking about. Mainly because he started being so specific, saying he was field-daying his room and that his roommate was a slob. Um, ok! I don't know if I ever told him about that or not.

Seriously, it has been a great experience. Being here has made me sad. I miss the community, the instant family, the (ahem) steady job, great benefits and most importantly seeing my cute husband in uniform. Have you ever seen a man in uniform? Seriously, almost any guy looks good in uniform, so take my cute hubby + uniform = hottness!!! That being said my husband is happy to be a civilian. However, I think once he gets a "real" job he will be shocked at how easy he did have it. I mean how many jobs do you know of where you go in at 7:30 get a two hour lunch and usually be home by 4:30? Of course that was not always the case as they "owned" him and technically he was on-call 24-7. It has been a great ride, we have had our ups and downs but we would NOT trade it. So, good-bye Havelock. Good by Marine Corps, Semper Fi. I will miss you...(sigh)

Come join our club! It's really, really fun....REALLY!

Zander had managed to pass his misery on to all of us. We are all plugged up snotty messes. Except Tater, she just has an ear infection. It is really strange that she had no symptoms she just started complaining that her ear hurt on Sunday. So the very next day we took her to the Doctor and she had a BAD ear infection, so bad her ear drum had popped. Yikes! How is it that she did not complain about anything until it was that bad?
This all leads into our wonderful night we had last night. Tony took me out to OG for my birthday (yummy) and we had a great time. Unfortunately I did not have all my homework done. So when we got home, we put the kids to bed and I had to finish up the rest of my homework. I got it done around one and went up to bed. I was so exhausted from the yucky cold and I just wanted to sleep! I swear that I just got comfortable and I hear Alex crying then coughing then crying some more. So, I went to get him only to be greeted by the smell of throw-up. I get Tony and we start the clean-up process. I clean Zandey and he cleans the sheets. It was pretty funny listening to him rinse the sheets and gag. We get everything cleaned up and Daddy decides to sleep in the chair with Zander. I give him a towel and he looks at me questioning what it was for. Trust me, you'll need it was my response.
I just started to fall asleep and I hear Tony calling me because he needs my help. It is around 3:30 by now and this time Zander got Daddy. He was finally initiated into the club after three years and seven months of being a parent. It was the first time Tony has been around when the kids have been sick, so it was the first time he has ever been the target! I have been thrown-up on countless of times and I told him when he got back from Iraq it was his turn! We start the whole process over again. Get everything cleaned up, I throw all of the sheets, blankets, towels and jammies into the washer. Tony takes Zander back down to the chair and we repeat it again. By this time there is nothing left in the poor guy's stomach. We decide that we don't think that he is really sick, we think it is all of that mucus in there because it is brought on by the cough.
It is now 4:00. Hannah wakes up because her ear hurts. She wants to be in bed with me. Ok, I put her in bed with me. She tosses and turns so I give her motrin. She finally falls asleep and Daddy comes up with Zander. We switch and I take Zander into the other bedroom. Time is now 5:30. Are we going to get any sleep? Hannah wakes up at 9:00 and starts crying because she wants Mommy. Tony brings her into the room and she wakes up Zander. Tony takes Zander downstairs and I lay down with Hannah. Not long later the dog comes running in and wakes up Tater. By this point my eyes are burning and my head is pounding. Thanfully, I have a wonderful husband who let me sleep until noon and then let me take a two hour nap with the girl. Without that sleep I do not think that I could have made it through the day.
I did have a wonderful birthday though, just not a good birthday night. I got my camera and I have enjoyed playing with it. We had my party with my family on Saturday and then my dinner with his parents tonight. So I got to enjoy two amazing meals, two very yummy chocolate cakes and a dinner out with my hubby all in four days. Now on to valentine's day...

Stuck in the matrix

Things are such a mess right now. We came up to Ohio a couple weeks before Christmas without any definite plans on how long we were going to stay up here. We packed a bunch of clothes and took off. Now, two months later we are still here. Living one week with my parents and the next week with his. It is such a hassle to move back and forth every week. Not to mention I never know if I lost something or if it is just at the other house. Right now I am missing two hairbrushes...two! If I was smart I would have left one at each house and been done with it, but instead I had one in my diaper bag and the other I would pack. Well now I can't find either of them.
Not to mention the strain it has on the marriage. You know, being treated (and some of us acting) like you are teenagers again can also put some strain on the marriage. I keep telling myself, just a couple more weeks...just a couple more weeks. You can do this! However it does not seem to be working. Everyday I get a little more frustrated, everyday I hold that frustration in. We don't want our families seeing what a crazy person I am! So for now I just feel stuck. Wishing that things were different. Wishing for that ocean breeze, wishing for a stable job, wishing for health insurance at least for the children. I am just stuck wishing...

Yucky, yucky, snot, snot!

Little Zander woke up such a grouch today which is so not like him. Normally he is Mr. Smiley in the morning. All day long he would not let me put him down, he was whiny and would not nap. He was full of snot, his nose would not stop running, he was coughing and his eyes were all puffy and red. Eventually we resorted to a car ride just so the poor little guy could get some rest. I knew it was his ears, it is always his ears....but hmmm, we do not have insurance. So we have the big debate on if he should be seen or not if he should suffer. (Of course I am the one voting for him to go and hubby is voting for suffering) It was also a debate on whether or not we should pump him full of antibiotics every time he gets the "sniffles." We eventually went and guess what? The boy has a double ear infection.....AGAIN! Not only that but when the doc looked in his ear she said it was "wicked." I believe she said that a couple times. Then she said she wished there was a med student there to see it because it was so bad. The poor baby, it seems like he has only been healthy for a week. Of course the free antibiotic does not clear him up. Oh no, he needs the expensive shot, three days in a row! The doctor wants us to start thinking about tubes, but hmmmm...NO INSURANCE!!! Which is an entirely different post, so please don't get me started on that. For now I would just like everyone to pray that Zandey sleeps through the night. I really do not want to sleep in the chair tonight.

It was bound to happen sooner or later...

About two weeks ago Missy Tater cut her hair. Thankfully it is not noticeable at all, she mainly cut some hair close to her bangs, so it looks like she has a little framing going on. However, it could have been much worse. She was upstairs working with Grandpa in his office when Grandpa had to run out and move his car. After a couple of minutes I got worried when she did not reappear. I was thinking that she probably got her hands on an important contract and it was now covered in pink marker. So I ran upstairs and yelled her name and she appeared from Grandma's room. My first thought went to makeup. I gave her the once over and she had no evidence of makeup. Hmm, I thought I must have caught her in time. I followed her down the steps and we snuggled up on the couch to watch some Dora. A few minutes later I notice a bunch of hair covering the blanket. Odd. So I ran my fingers through her hair and a bunch fell out. Hmmm, what is going on. I ran my fingers through her hair again and even more fell out. By this time I was mentally FREAKING out because I started thinking something was wrong with her. Her hair was falling out, what kind of disease did she have? My heart started pounding and I was getting ready to call my mom (the nurse) to ask her what I should do. I ran my fingers through her hair again and a big clump fell out. Before I really wigged out, it dawned on me that she cut her hair.
Me: "Hannah, did you cut your hair?"
H: "Now Mommy, don't yell at me."
Me: "Hannah, DID you cut your hair?"
H: "Mommy, don't get mad."
Me: "HANNAH, DID YOU CUT YOUR HAIR?"
H: Nods her head and quietly says "Mommy, I said don't yell at me."
Really, how can you be mad at such a sweet girl? We went through the whole conversation about how you don't cut your hair, only the stylist can cut it...yada, yada, yada.
I kept the big chunk to put in her baby book. I would take a picture of it, but I cannot locate my camera at the moment. A picture will follow. Actually a picture can't follow because my blogger is not working right, but when it starts working then a picture will follow.

An American Solider

It is only fitting that on my first RWBF I pay tribute to my husband Sgt. Fries. Although he is no longer active duty, he served for four years with two deployments to Iraq. I feel like there is so much to say and so many people to pay tribute to. He is my rock and I am so thankful that he was able to return to me. Although his sacrafice was not as great as some, his greatest sacrafice was missing so much of our children's lives, before he left for his second deployment he kept talking about how much he was going to miss. Yet he was still an amazing father while he was gone. Like most that were with him, he rose to the occasion and went above and beyond what was expected of him. So, to him and to all of those Workhorses, I would like to say a big THANK YOU!!!

Follow me through a bunch of rabbit trails...and some poo

Miss Tater-Tots had her first ever dance lesson tonight. She was so adorable! Her Grandma Chips bought her a cute little leotard outfit with matching slippers. The bummer deal is that is in an enclosed room so we watch them on a little tv which means no pictures! It was cute to watch though, the floor has little blue squares to sit on and since her cousin Anna is in the class they sat next to each other. One problem she had was when they went to the ballet bar and Missy Tots could not reach it. Her teacher told her to just touch the wall. I think she did pretty good for it being her first class. I was a little worried about how well she would listen, and on occassion the teacher had to personally get her attention but I think that is normal for a three year old. I think that she likes the class and we plan on signing up for three months as it was our trial night. There was one little incident that happened after the class. There was a little boy there who was probably 8 or 9ish, who was a rambunctious little fellow. (As a side note I would like to think that my children would be able to sit still or at least do as asked when they are that age as it was only a half-hour class, my second side note is that he had nothing to do so was probably bored) Anyway, after the class let out Hannah walked past him and he said "She has a really big head!" Thankfully Hannah did not hear him, but that is the first time that we have ever really had anything like that happen. I was not prepared for it. I just let it slide even though that is not what I wanted to do. Up until this point she just looked small for her age, now it is starting to be noticable. I have to question myself as to how we are going to deal with this. I would like her to be able to just shrug it off and not let it bother her. To be able to stand up for herself and say, yes my head is big so what? Or when people call her shorty she can just laugh because she is short. I want her to be the strong one, even though on the inside I want to protect her from the hurt that it will cause her, the sneers of the uninformed. It hurts my heart when I think of all she will be up against, but I know that she has spunk and she will get through it.

********This next part talks a lot about poo!********
So, we are almost there I can feel it. At least I hope we are and I am not just getting worked up over nothing. Maybe she won't be the first one to have to delay entering the public school system because she won't go "poopy in the big girl potty." Because I was seriously starting to wonder if it would ever happen. Tuesday night she actually pooped in the big girl potty...all by herself. With no coaching, coaxing or forcing. She just went in there and pushed it out. Of course we sang and danced and jumped around, she even got a prize out of the deal. Then later that night she pooped in her pull-up. It is sort of like take one step forward and two steps back because she'll poop and then will refuse to sit on the potty for months. Then tonight she wanted to try again and bless her heart she tried, and tried and tried. She tried for over an hour with little success (just a few little "poops" came out). Poor girl was so tired because it was past her bedtime, she just started crying saying that it hurt and she wanted her diaper. I talked her into trying some more with no luck. I still made a big deal about it and she will still get a prize in the morning, but I just wish it was not so hard for her. I sometimes wonder if it has anything to do with her short stature. I mean how would you like to try and poo when your legs are straight out in front of you?

Smarty Pants

It all started a few months ago when Alex would say "me" whenever he wanted something. Me turned into "dis" (this), he sees something points with one finger and says dis! Now he is starting to say more and more everyday. Here are some of his words:

Dada
Mama (only when crying...little stinker!)
Ball
Dog
Alllllll d (all done)
a-choo
uh-oh
Abbie

Yesterday it sounded like he said cheese, but I have not heard it again so I can't be sure if he said it or not. He is so smart and is learning everday. I just cannot beleive that he is 15 months old already!

Jingle Bells

We FINALLY got a tree on Sunday. There was much debate at the Tater-Tot household; get one, don't get one, artificial, real.... So while hubby was at a friends watching the game I made an executive decision because my little girl wanted a tree. She was so excited to pick out a tree, although I was a little bummed because going to wally world is not the same as going to the real tree farm in Ohio. Anyway, the entire time she kept talking about jingle bells. "Are we going to put jingle bells on our tree mommy? I really want jingle bells!" Mind you I had no idea what jingle bells were. The next morning we could not find the tree stand, hmmm maybe the shed. I braved the spiders to look for the stupid thing. Not there. Hubby went to storage, not there. Well maybe the garage, yep right where he said it wasn't! Well our tree stand is from the lovely tree farm in Ohio. It is the kind with a spike in it that you pound into the tree. Only at the farm they do it for you, well obviously that was not going to happen. So hubby pounded away. After not much progress I suggested that he should hit it harder. Well that is all it took to crack the water bowl. Next step, improvise. While I was telling him to go get a new one, he had it in his head that it would not be that hard to make one. So when I was not looking he took one of my nice big plastic mixing bowls and drilled a hole in it. Nice. For now it is holding its own. So, a couple of hours after planned the tree was up. Which actually worked out nice because it was Alex's nap time. As I opened up the bin with all of the decorations Hannah exclaims "Jingle bells! Are we going to put them on the tree?" I was kind of surprised to see that they were the actual bulbs that she must have noticed when we put up the rest of the decorations last week. When I told her we were, she shouted "Cool dude! High five!" It was so cute.

Here she is with her jingle bells. The entire bottom of the tree was full of glass bulbs, which I explained we had to move so that Alex could not reach them. She did not mind, she thought she was big stuff helping and kept saying "I put this high so Alex can't reach." She was quite proud of herself. In the end there was this small group left.

OVERWHELMED

I have been feeling a little out of sorts lately. A lot of it has to do with our life circumstances, it seems like everything around me is changing and my personality hates change. Not to mention the stress of not knowing what the future holds. Not knowing if hubs will find a job in time, not knowing if we will sell the house before we run out of income, not knowing in what city to start looking for a new house etc, etc. So I am feeling overwhelmed, beaten down, low and basically depressed. Which is such a bummer because it is Christmas and I want to be all holly and jolly but I can't. I am trying to just breathe and trust that God has it under control. I am having a hard time trusting. I am really just trying to take it day-to-day and just enjoy having my husband home but, every day brings us one day closer to not having an income. That freaks me out just a little bit. I am really at a loss, I have never felt this way before and it is starting to scare me.

Nothing but a house full of sick kids

It started on Friday with a routine check-up for Tater. I took her to her new PCM in order to get a referral to the endocrinologist. During the check-up the doctor looked in her ears and said that it was so full of wax that she could not see into it. She gave us some ear wax softener and sent us on our merry way. Saturday shortly after I put the drops in she started crying saying that it hurt. I looked in her one ear and it had blood in it. I was a little freaked out by this, but hubs did not seem to think it was that big of a deal. When asked if it her Tater always said no, but she would not let us touch or clean out either ear. Normally she loves getting her ears cleaned so this kind of worried me as well. We ignored it for the night thinking that if she complained that it hurt we would take her to ready care. Then today when I put the drops in her ears she did the same thing saying that they hurt her. So at about six I convinced hubs to let us go to ready care. We got there and the doctor looked in her right ear, the one with the blood and said it was fine. He looked in her left ear and she SCREAMED, and fought because it hurt. She then would not let him finish the exam without a fight, that girl is a tough one. Daddy held her arms, the doctor her head and I held her legs. Fun times. The problem: a badly infected ear. Not sure what the blood from the other ear was, he said it possibly ruptured and is repairing itself but he just saw some scar tissue.

As we are about to leave I decide that maybe Alex should get checked out. He has had a cold since we were in Ohio. Whenever he has a cold that drags on like that it is always the ears. So, once again I convince hubs that we should stay at ready care to get the boy checked out. His story is slightly less dramatic as he had an ear infection in his right ear and a "slight" upper respiratory infection. So antibiotics all around!

By this time it is a little after seven. Hmmm, I wonder what pharmacy is open on a Sunday night? I take out my phone and start calling every pharmacy under the sun, to find out that all of them close at six or seven on Sunday. As I am calling hubs is driving through town to all the ones that I have yet to call. Apparently, you can go to the auto parts store, get a tattoo, get fast food, rent a video, and go tanning BUT if your kids are sick you cannot get them antibiotics.

Ball

Here is a picture of us last night at the Marine Corps Ball. I was a little sad knowing this would be our last one, and the last time I see hubby all spiffy in his dress blues. He on the other hand was very excited knowing that this was the last ball!

The pirate and the princess

Alexander has been making this face lately, we call it the pirate face. He makes it when he is mad and fussing and he makes it when he smiles. It is quite the face!

Here is the princess, showing off her outfit that Grandma Fries bought for her. I put it on her to see how it fit and she did not want to take it off!

In the blink of an eye...

Just the other day it hit me how fast my children are growing up. It started with a conversation between some friends about sleep habits. One of the gals was talking about how she loved to rock her three year old to sleep because that is the only real snuggle time she gets with him. Another, who has teens, said that she missed that age and how she wished she could rock her kids again. That started me thinking, it won't be long before I do not get to hold, snuggle, hug and kiss my children like I do now. I was holding Zander just eating him up, when it hit me that one day I won't be able to do this. One day he will be a young man embarrassed by his mom's kisses and not long after that he will be a man. Once he is a man I will only get the hello hug with a kiss on the cheek; no more snuggles! The same with Hannah, she is such a big girl already that I have started laying down with her for nap time. Just so I can smell her hair and snuggle close for that little bit of time. I mentioned this to hubby and he got nostalgic, saying that he too misses cuddling with Hannah. He said how much he enjoys it when she crawls up on his lap and reads a book or watches a movie with him. He too noted how it will not be long before she no longer wants to do these things. I remember the day she was born so vividly, how could three years have passed so quickly? It saddens me to realize how much I take for granted during my time with them. How often I shoo them away so that I can "get something done". Already they are so big, no longer babies but a toddler and preschooler. I know they are still so young, but before I know it they will be tweens, teens and young adults. So, for now I have decided to stop worrying so much about homework and keeping the house spotless and instead focus my attention on them. However, when I fail out of school and I cannot show my house because it looks like a tornado tore through it, at least I will know that this season too shall pass.

The crazy man has moved in

I never knew the craziness that was involved in selling a house. I mean seriously people, do not call and expect to see a house in 20 minutes! As a mom of two young children I need more than 20 minutes to frantically run through the house and shove a bunch of junk into hiding places, um I mean put things in their rightful spot. This has happened twice now. Once yesterday in which I obliged and once this morning. This morning I told them no way, the kids were still sleeping and the kitchen was still a mess from supper last night. There was no way it could be ready to go in 20 minutes. So, we kindly asked them to pick a later time, for which they no showed. Ah well at least my house is spotless again.

Also, the house knows man! It knows that we are trying to sell it and is working against us I swear! Since we put the house on the market we have had: the dishwasher break, the hot water heater start to leak and the tub faucet start to leak. Therefore we have spent a lot of money in plumbers lately.

The worst part of it all is that we do not know where we will be relocating to. This of course means that we cannot start to house hunt. I mean the best part about selling your house is knowing that you are going to find a bigger house...hopefully a much bigger house.

Mean Ole Mommy

Poor Alexander Jay has been subjected to a very mean mommy the past five nights. I decided that it was time that he be weaned from the rocking, nursing and paci all in one shot. I figured that it would be easier than doing one at a time and that he would be so upset about being put to bed awake that he would not even notice the paci being gone. It all started when my friend called to tell me she was going to get rid of her sons nuk that night and she wanted some moral support. We went back and forth for awhile talking about the pros of doing it and so forth. I talked about how I wanted to get rid of Zander's soon and how I should start placing him down awake and she encouraged me that now was a good time. So on Sunday night we went through our regular routine and I nursed him and started to rock him, but he was fighting me. He did not want to go to sleep, so I gave him some extra snuggles and kisses then I placed him in his crib. I did however nurse him beforehand. (I have yet to decide if we are ready for a complete wean, he does not seem ready and I'm not sure if I am either.) He cried his little eyes out for maybe fifteen minutes. It was not that bad.....the bad part came at around 1:30 am when he woke up for his midnight snack. He screamed and screamed. It broke my heart to hear him cry like that but I knew that if I went in it would only get worse. So, husband went in and it got worse. We knew at that point the best thing to do would be to let him cry. Thankfully, after that he slept until 7:30. By then I was so engorged I caved and brought him to bed with me. Monday for nap, he barely cried five minutes. Monday night, same thing maybe five minutes. By now I think he is getting used to being put to bed awake, but he still makes noise about it. He also still wakes up around 1:00 every night, but sleeps until 8:30-9:00 which is much better than before. He is also taking better naps now as well. So I know that he is getting better quality of sleep, but it is still hard to hear him cry and know that I need to let him cry. I do not remember it being this hard with Tater. She basically weaned herself, so that was not a problem, and she was already sleeping through the night when we started putting her to bed awake, so maybe that makes the difference. We tried to skip the nursing part tonight, actually hubby tried and it.did.not.work. Mr. Zander was very upset, worse than usual and I could not stand it, so I rescued him. At least we are down to only nursing at night, for awhile it seemed like we would never get there. Before Sunday we were down to before bed, then usually 1, 3ish, 5ish and 8ish. Which is a lot, but he did not nurse during the day. It is sort of funny because when he was nursing all the time I remember thinking that I could not wait to be done with this and now that he only nurses once I don't know that I am ready. Like I figured he has not missed the paci at all. Maybe he does and he just cannot vocalize it, but he does not act like he misses it. He is more of a blankie guy anyway and I figured it would be easier to do it now then wait until he is older and more attached to it.

My girlie-girl has been really into lip gloss, purses and anything girlie right now. So when we are at the store she always asks to pick something out and depending on the day we let her. (I am trying to teach her that she does not always get something every time we go to the store but that is an entirely different post.) Lately she has been choosing these little make-up bags only they are full of the plastic make-up. Which is actually good, only I wanted her to be able to play with the real stuff as well, so I pointed out that she could get a little box full of make-up. It had lip gloss, lipstick, eyeshadow, rings, earrings, brushes and nail polish...everything a little girl could want. When we got home that night she put some on and was so happy to have her own make-up. Shortly after it was bath time so we cleaned her up and put her to bed. I meant to move the make-up somewhere high so she would not see it in the morning, but I forgot. So of course first thing in the morning she wanted to put her make-up on. I obliged and she put her eyeshadow on and some lip gloss. She was gorgeous. Then we spend all day working around the house and I forgot all about the make-up. Until bath time when I went to wash her up and noticed that her eyes were all red and a little swollen. I do not know if it was from wearing the make-up all day, or if it was from being outside around the mulch, but her little eyes were red. She looked pretty awful, I almost wish I would have taken a picture just to post it here, but I did not. We gave her some benadryl, but they were still a little red this morning. Needless to say the make-up went in the trash just to be safe....plus now I do not have to worry about her getting into it when I am not around...BONUS!

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After seven LONG months of cute husband being gone, he is finally home. In case you were wondering, he has actually been home for almost two weeks now, but still he's home. As the time drew near there was much to be done. The most important thing was getting all our junk packed up and ready to make the long trip back to NC. I was so stressed out about that, anyone who knows my son knows that it is not possible to get anything done when he is awake. He is in constant motion and always getting into something. You can't leave him alone for more than two minutes as that is the window of opportunity for him. However, I did manage to get everything packed, somewhat organized and ready to go. Thankfully, my parents went with me for the long drive so that I would not have to try to do it on my own. It was sort of a bittersweet end to our time in OH, as we do not know what the future holds for us. That could very well have been the last time that we were up there for that long of a period. On the other hand my husband was coming home, so that excitement outweighed the sadness. We split the drive up over two days and the kids did surprisingly well.

We arrived in NC on a Saturday and cute husband was coming home the following Friday, less than a week to get all of our junk, I mean stuff unpacked and to make signs for Daddy. Luckily my parents stayed through Tuesday giving me a little help with both. The kids loved making the signs....well Hannah did, Alex did not get to get too close to them. We made two big sheets for Daddy, the one pictured above that we hung on base and the other (that I do not have a digital picture of) we hung on our porch. We also made a couple of smaller signs, one for at the end of the road, one for in the yard and one for on the stroller. There were quite a few hung on base and a couple really creative ones. My mom and my favorite was one that said Iraq: 120 degree, our bedroom 1,000 degrees. Welcome to the heat! We laughed for days over that one.

By this point Hannah was getting very excited about the idea that Daddy would be home soon. I had explained to Hannah that Grandma and Grandpa were driving us to NC and they would stay with us for four nights, then when they left we would have three nights left until Daddy came home. I think that in her three year old mind she took this to mean that the sooner Grandma and Grandpa left the sooner Daddy would be home. Everyday she asked them if they were leaving, when they would say no she would say "Yes, I want you to go and my Daddy to come." It was a little bit cute and a little bit sad at the same time. Anyway, Daddy's plane was scheduled to land at 11:15, then they had two hours of processing and we could see them at 1:15. Unfortunately their plane was delayed...of course and they did not land until 1:15, meaning we could not see them until 3:15. I had struggled for days with what time we should arrive on base. After all I had two children and I did not want to end up sitting there for two hours with two crazy kids running around. At the same time I did not want them to end up being there early and us missing him. So, I decided I would leave my house at 2:00, planning on getting there around 2:15; only an hour to waste.We were in no hurry and kind of took our time, I dropped off some videos, got gas, got Hannah something to drink at McDonalds, and then went to the designated area. When I unloaded the kids it was 2:30, and I was like great, what am I going to do for 45 minutes? By the time I got the kids in the stroller, the sign attached and over to the homecoming reception the guys sea bags were already unloaded and sorted. Hmmm, maybe we wouldn't have to wait long after all. I took a few pictures of the kids waiting, took some video and the buses were pulling up. What?! It was not even 2:45!

I actually sort of ignored my husband and video taped Hannah's expression as he walked up. She was so excited and she jumped right into his arms. Alex was a little wary but went right to him as well. In fact it did not take him long to warm up to this guy called Daddy. As you can imagine, Hannah was Daddy's little shadow for quite a few days. She would even sit in the bathroom while he took a shower. She was worried he was going to go back to "Myraq" and kept asking about it. I explained over and over that he would just be going to work on base and would be home for lunch and then home for supper and to spend the night. I think she understands although she will still ask sometimes if he is working in "Myraq". We are somewhat adjusted to being "married" again, now if he could just find a job we would be all set.

So much to do....such little time

I have not had much time to get online lately....there are so many posts swirling around in my head right now. I just need to make the time to get online and do something about it. For now I will leave you with a video of Zander walking on the beach. I just love it when babies are learning to walk, they look so cute toddling along.

Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

My dear sweet baby boy, it does not seem possible that you are already a year old! It seems like it has just been a blink of an eye and already you have grown and changed so much. You are such an easy going little man, so happy and full of laughs. It does not take much to make you laugh. You have such a love for your sister, it is evident in the way you light up in the morning when you see her and in the way you follow her around throughout the day. All of the sudden you have turned into quite the little monkey. You climb on anything that you can find, just today I have had to get you down from the little rocker (many times), the fireplace ledge, the fish tank ledge, your sister's doll bed, a step stool and I'm sure there are more! You are so busy....always getting into something, finding the one thing in a room full of toys that you should not have! Not to mention the fact that everything goes straight into your mouth. Right now you love peek-a-boo, you just laugh and laugh at that game. You also love the water and taking a bath, in fact you try to climb into the tub whenever you get the chance. You have taken to milk quite well, although you still prefer your mommy's milk and are quite boisterous in making it known. You cry and throw your head around trying to make your point known.
You are an amazing little boy, with an amazing personality. It has been so much fun watching you grow these past 12 months. I am excited to continue on this journey with you and I hope that the joy that you have now stays with you as you grow. You are my baby, and I am so thankful for the blessing of your life. Happy birthday little man!

Fun at the Beach

Look how sweet and cute these kids are! My two little water babies, well one is a water baby and the other is a sand crab. I bet you can't guess which one is which...

For any wiggles fans, the song running through my head right now if "Having fun at the beach. Fun, fun, fun at the beach" I'm sure you know the one I am referring to. Anyway, we have been visiting the beach daily since being in NC and the kids have been loving it. Well, Hannah has been loving it and Alex has been loving the sand. Seriously, the kid eats the sand. Can't get him to stop, to him it is some sort of delicacy. Whenever we look away he shovels it in. Hannah is finally enjoying it. At first she was nervous and did not want to play unless she was hugging right on my side. Gradually she has gotten better to where now she is back to where she was last summer. Wanting to go out in the "big" as she calls the deep water, and jumping and playing at the edge. We took a ferry to an island yesterday and she loved it. She wanted to stay on the boat, of course by that point in the day with no nap I would have gladly let her...I don't think the captain would have been down with that though. We only have a couple days left and I am sad. I wish we were here to stay, and mostly wish that hubby was here with us.

MIA

Geese, it has been so long I forgot my password! We are past the half-way mark, officially we have 96 days until the middle of October, unofficially hubs thinks he will be back the first part of October. Of course we all know how that works....nothing is official until the day of and even then it will change. Last homecoming I almost missed because my KV did not call and inform me that it had been moved up an hour. How awful would that have been if I missed his homecoming because she was "out for the day and didn't have her list with her to call". Ummm, I am still bitter over that one. Anyway, I can't believe that it has been over four months. Yet October seems so far away. We are visiting our house in NC right now, so it almost makes things worse. Everything here reminds me of him, everywhere I look there is a bit of him left behind. It is comforting and hard at the same time. Thankfully I hear from him quite often, I do not know what I would do if I didn't. I am actually very blessed because I usually hear from him daily via email and IM. I do not usually talk about how much I miss him. I'm not sure why, maybe I feel like I need to be strong for those around me. Maybe I feel like it is a sign of weakness, or maybe I feel like I am protecting my children. Who knows, but I miss him so much that it hurts. I can't wait to hold him in my arms again, to smell his neck and kiss him endlessly. I can't wait to be able to reach out and touch him whenever I want, to be able to talk to him whenever I need to and not have to wait until he calls me in order to do so. As a matter of fact, I am even looking forward to arguing with him and not feel the guilt over the fact that he is so far away. To you two-and-a-half months seems like the blink of an eye, but to me an eternity.....I miss you my love, please know how much I miss you.

Changing

Month seven has been a fun month for Alexander. Although he is not crawling yet he is well on his way. Whenever he is playing on the floor he is always on his hands and knees rocking back and forth. It won't be long before he is chasing Hannah around the house getting into her toys. Won't that be fun for all? He is also sitting up and trying to stand! His two bottom teeth popped through and he got his first ear infection....a double ear infection. Most of the time he is still his happy-go-lucky self despite the problems with his ears and teeth. He loves "playing" with his sister and it is so much fun to watch them laughing! I can't believe another month has flown by.

Where's Waldo?

My girl loves to sleep with stuffed animals, especially ones that are as big as her! The other night when I went in to get ready for bed this is what I found. Can you see her?

Changing

Here he is looking handsome in his Easter suit at six months old! (Just pretend this was posted a month ago) It is hard to believe that he is six months old. It almost seems like he grows overnight, we wake up and he is bigger. He is eating his vegetables now, we are slowly making our way through them. He has had squash, carrots, sweet potatoes and green beans. Next he will eat peas and then onto the good stuff: fruit! He is still very grabby and everything goes directly to his mouth. Everybody we meet wants to know if he is always so happy, which he is...unless he is hungry or tired, even then he is not too bad. He just smiles so easily, all it takes is for somebody to look at him and he gives them the biggest smile. Such a cutie! As you can see he is very tall, here are his six month stats:
Height: 28 1/2 inches 95%

Weight: 17 pounds 7 ounces 50%

I haven't forgotten you

Ummmm, hi. What can I say....uh, the dog ate the internet and that is why I have not posted in so long. What? You don't believe me? Then you obviously don't know my dog! Anyway, we are in Ohio and Hannah is enjoying all the extra attention she is getting. She loves playing with her cousins and every morning she goes through the list of names asking if she is going to see them today. I see Yah-yah? I see Abbie? I see Anna? I see Grandma Pries? On it goes until we have covered everybody. A few times she has asked to go to Hannah's house, but for the most part is happy to be here.
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On the Daddy front, Hannah misses him so much. Occasionally she asks if we are going to see Daddy, or if Daddy has to work tomorrow. It is hard to explain how long it will be before we will see him again. She has her own little collage of Daddy pictures and shows them to everybody that walks into the front door. It is pretty cute. She finally talked to him on the phone, she is not a big phone talker so she was just listening to him talk. The other day she said about four sentences to him so he was excited! He says that he is bored over there, which is a good thing to hear! He is working the night shift so there is not much going on, but it does give him time to work on school work....or watch tv or play video games! When I talked to him on Sunday he said it was like living the movie Groundhog Day. Everything is the same over and over again. What more could we ask for?
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So, from now on I will try to keep this thing updated on a regular basis, especially since Alex is seven months tomorrow and I just posted his six month stuff! Ooops!

Just Because

Today was sort of an off day; we did not do much. I had to write two article reviews for my class, one in a memo format and the other in a paper format. Of course they were both due by tonight and I waited until today to do them! We did go to the post office and mail a package out to Tony. When we got back home I told Hannah how messy the living room was and she looked at me and said "Oh.My.Gosh.Mommy, it's messy." It was so funny I just laughed! I think she picked that phrase up from her daddy because I do not say that. Then, she was running around without a shirt on because she spilled water down the front of her and just because she has a perfect nose like belly button I drew a face on her belly! She was running around in her typical fashion and since I was busy most of the evening working on my papers, the hurricane Hannah roared through the living room again.
Alexander is just getting so big so fast...and I'm not just talking size wise either. He no longer stays in one spot on the floor because he scoots. However, he hates to be on his stomach so he scoots on his back. If I recall correctly this is how his sister started out. He is just so grabby, he will stare intently at something I have (like a glass) and as soon as it gets in his reach he is grabbing it! I have to be extra careful with what I'm holding now. He is also getting very vocal and is very loud. He just squeals away. Since Daddy has left he is getting pretty spoiled; when he wakes up at night I end up just leaving him in my bed. Oh well, we have seven months to break that habit.
I am so excited because Tony is settled in and has started working, which means e-mails. In the past two days I have gotten almost 50!!! Mind you that is back and forth chatting so most of them are only a couple of sentences, but I am so blessed to be able to stay connected with him. I talked to him on the phone last night as well. He is working the night shift right now, which is great for me because his hours are like 3pm-12am my time. Meaning I don't have to wait up to talk to him like I did last time.
Anyway, that is just a bunch of ramblings from today. My creative juices have not been flowing lately, so I apologize for the randomness of this post. I do have a picture to post of Hannah's belly face, but I will do that in the morning.

Top of the mornin' to ya!

One of the local beaches was having a festival to honor all the local Irishmen and women. So we went along with our friend Becky to have some fun. Hannah had the best time! Of course Becky spoiled her (and me) rotten. She bought her tickets to ride rides and me some coffee and food. The first thing she wanted to do was to ride the helicopter ride. I wasn't sure if parents were allowed so I just put her on the ride and left. She got upset and would not wave at us or even look at us the entire time. Instead she just sat there with her mad face on. We then attempted to go on a couple of the blow up things...of course she couldn't go in by herself. In both of them she freaked out and wanted to leave, but as soon as we got out she wanted back in, go figure. We finally went back and she rode the helicopter again. This time when I put her on the ride she said "Mommy watch." She waved and wore her proud face this time around. I think she realized that she could do it by herself. Alex was a trooper the entire time, just hanging out in the stroller. There was Celtic music (bagpipes) that Hannah really enjoyed, as well as lots of different craft booths. Of course what is a festival without food? Unfortunately, by this time it was getting crowded, Alex was getting fussy and we were all getting a little cold; so we just grabbed some food and left. No funnel cakes though:( I wish I would have thought to take the camera with me because I would have loved to get some pictures of Hannah riding those helicopters.

Update...

Just a quick update, so far we are doing pretty good in the Tater-tots household. We have an awesome ya*hoo group for the families that has been great! Haven't heard from hubby yet, but I got a message from the KV and she said the hot line had been updated today. So I called it and it said they were waiting for transport to their location. So, hopefully I will hear from him in the next couple of days. Tater seems to be adjusting well, she has been her usually joyful self. Yesterday when we were picking up her prescription she was prancing around in circles singing one of her praise songs. Very cute...until she started yelling them! Anyway, just wanted to put a quick update.

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Update on my update...I just talked to him!!! The connection was great and we got to talk for about 20 minutes! They are still waiting on transport so please pray for safe travels

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P.S. Are my comments working? I haven't gotten one in a long time, so give me a shout if you are out there....

Broken

Well, today was the day that we have been dreading...Daddy left for Iraq earlier today. It was a lot harder then I expected. I thought I had prepared myself mentally for it, but I was not prepared for the emotions that flooded me when I saw my husband say goodbye to our children. It was especially hard when Hannah was crying:(

We thought that she was prepared because she was so excited about going to Ohio, unfortunately I think that she was just focusing on that to "help" adjust. When Tony got dressed today and said he was getting ready for work, it was an instant meltdown. She did not want Daddy to leave. I think this made it even harder for Daddy.

Here are my two men, looking so identical:) Of course Alexander did not understand what was going on, so he was Mr. Personality. Smiling away at Daddy, which made me so sad. He loves playing with Daddy and all the sudden this person is going to go "missing" from his life. In seven months when Daddy returns, Alex won't even remember him.
I wish her hair wasn't blowing in her face for this picture, it is such a sweet shot.
Daddy with his two kids, notice the tears in the girls eyes! They are going to be so big when he returns...well Alex will be so much bigger, Hannah will just be older.

The highlight of the day was when Daddy took her over to the "big truck." It was the first smile of the day and it got better from there! Here she is driving!
She has already talked about him a couple times today; wanting to call him or show him a picture she drew. As you can tell it has been an emotional day. I do not remember it being this hard the last time!!! Thankfully, we will be going to Ohio soon and that will keep us busy for the deployment. If you haven't noticed there is a countdown at the bottom of the page. It is tentative because I don't know the exact date or time that he will be returning so I just have it set for October 15th at 5pm. Please keep us in your prayers as Daddy travels and we adjust!

Tub Time!

Changing

The boy is now five months, geesh he is getting so big. He has been discovering so much lately. About a week ago, he found his feet and now he loves grabbing them. He has also figured out how to really get his jumper to bounce. I think that is one of his favorite places to be, sitting in his jumper just a bouncing along. He has now rolled over I think three times without any assistance, but that is few and far between. Last night we gave him cereal for the first time. I was planning on waiting until he was six months, but I wanted Hubby to see it before left. Hubs laughed when I told him we were going to do it and said he didn't think he was ready. Well, boy was he wrong. Alexander opened his mouth right up and would practically eat the spoon he liked it so much. I guess he was ready!

I go to hio Mommy?!

I haven't posted about Badoo lately so here are a couple of little stories about what the girl has been up to:
Two Fridays ago I took her to get her hair cut. She was such a good girl, she sat there with no problem and admired her puppy dog cape. The problem came when she was all done. She. did. not. want. to. take. off. that. cape. She was so mad at the hairdresser. She would not even look at her.... Later that day we were talking and she said "Hannah, get a hair cut," and used her fingers as scissors across her bangs. It was so cute. Then she said "I wear puppies..." with a sad expression!
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We have been talking to her lately about Daddy leaving for Iraq soon. Trying to explain that he won't see her for a long time but he won't forget her etc. We also add that she will be moving to Ohio and will get to see her grandparents, aunts and uncles and play with all her cousins. I think she zones in on that point and forgets about Daddy leaving. The first thing she said to me this morning when I woke her up was "I go to hio Mommy?"
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We gave brother some cereal the other night, Hannah of course thought this was such a fun thing to do. She sat next to me as I fed him and watched. I asked her if she wanted to taste it and she exclaimed "NO! I TOO BIG!"