Truthful Tuesday

Some things you've always wanted to know..and the majority you probably did not.

• I get really excited every day to get the mail. It's weird and I know that. But I hear that mail truck and I get a little flutter of excitment, like a mini dose of Christmas morning.  And if it's a bad mail day (aka no mail, all bills, or stupid mail no one wants to read) it makes me a little sad!  I'm so glad the postal service didn't suspend mail service on Saturday's. That would just be too long for me to not get mail! :)
• When I was growing up I dreamed of being a lot of things. A teacher, a professional tennis player, a newscaster, and then in college, a marriage therapist.  Now I am a Mom and it's the hardest/most rewarding job I could have ever chosen.  I still have no clue what I want to do when this season of life is over but I really hope I find something I love doing.
• I have major anxiety over going to the doctor. Like, horrible anxiety. And it's not rational at all either.  So when I was high risk with gestational diabetes and pregnancy induced hypertension at the end of my pregnancy with Layla and going to the doctor at least 3 times a week, it was horrible for me. Giving birth wasn't exactly fun for me either but at least I had this perfect tiny bundle in my arms each time. I don't like even taking my kids to the doctor or my dog to the vet. Any type of medical environment just makes my heart start to pound. I can cross nurse/doctor off my list of occupations I will never pursue.
• I hate building or putting anything together. My mind has about 0% engineering ability in it. Luckily my husband has an engineering degree and can make up for my lack of ability in that area.
• My "love language" from Gary Chapman's 5 Love Languages is "gifts". At first when I realized that I thought to myself, ugh that sounds so shallow! But the more I read about it, the more truth I saw in it for me.  It's not the material part of the gifts that matters to me, it's the thought of the gift that makes me feel loved. And I absolutely love taking the time to think of gifts for my friends and family, that's how I show love to others.  And the gift doesn't always have to be something material, but could even be the gift of time or help that someone gives me or I give them.  I highly recommend if you haven't figured out your love language, to do so! It's very interesting!

Our Weekend

This was the first weekend of the deployment where we had zero plans. Nada. And the first weekend in which our deployment buddies and the majority of our friends were either out of town or had family of their own in town and were busy.  At first when I saw that this was the case, (I am a planner, so yes, I check out my weekends in advance) I was excited. A whole weekend with no plans! We can relax! And do whatever we want!  And then I was reminded why we try to keep so busy, especially on the weekends. It's lonely. Wherever we went it seemed like we were the only ones there without a husband/dad. Weekends just plain stink during deployments because that's the time during the week that's for the family. We're almost 45 days in and 7 weekends down and I'm hitting kind of a slump. I'm sick of doing deployments. I'm sick of knowing that when one is over there's just another one looming ahead in the near distance.  I'm sick of parenting on my own and I'm sick of missing that fun family time on the weekend. And I'm not looking for sympathy, I know it could be sooo much worse (hello, 6, 12 month deployments!) but it's still hard and although I try and be positive 90% of the time, there's still those days that I'm not.  But knowing that we made it through another weekend, have a visitor coming on Tuesday (Aunt Cat, Brian's sister!), and a trip to Minnesota this week makes my mood that much brighter. And our weekend truly wasn't all down in the dumps, we did do some fun stuff!

Like write a letter to Santa and go to the post office and mail it.  Although now Brady thinks Santa hides in the post office and he asks me about it oh, about every 5 minutes.

The weather was absolutely wonderful this weekend (mid 60's!) so we took advantage and were outside as much as possible. We did a 1 mile run to the "yellow park" as Brady calls it. Brady cracks me up, the kid loves to run distances. It probably looked like I was punishing my child taking him on a jog but hey, whatever gets the energy out!

They ran, and ran, and ran. Thank God for random nice days!

This little girl was in the weirdest mood. She kept doing this weird walk/limp like she was a gangster or something. She makes me laugh.

Get that applesauce, girl. And lady mullet, you get that wind.

So passionate about her applesauce

Can't. Open. Eyes. Must. Enjoy. Applesauce.

Another day outside, so wonderful!

My sweet, extra cautious, little man. He has to wear his helmet anytime his feet touch the petals. 

So that was our weekend! I also spent a lot of time organizing, crafting, and relaxing. I really do feel better, even just after writing out my feelings and frustrations.  I'm ready to tackle another week and get that much closer to our homecoming! :)

18 Months?!

Oh sweet Layla girl, I can't believe you're already a year and a half, a whole 18 months!

It seems like just yesterday you were born.

My sweet,

peaceful,

easy-going,

beautiful,

mommy- milk loving,

little baby.

Didn't you just turn a year old? 

And now you are all toddler, all of the time. I love how verbal you are and how expressive and loving you are. And wow your hair has grown!

"Really? Only half a cupcake? This is the worst half birthday ever!"

"Ugh Mom, drop the camera and clean a girl up!"

And I love how much you love your brother.

But do me a favor? And stop growing up so quick?

Because no one, and I mean no one is ready for this sight.

Love you pretty girl! Happy 18 month (half!) birthday! :)

Our Weekend: Leaf Edition

Since it was Veteran's Day I thought I would skip my normal weekend post yesterday and do it today (whew, right?! I know you were just checking this like crazy to see what we did this weekend.)  We actually didn't have much planned this past weekend which was great because I feel like all we do is go, go, go and sometimes it's just nice to go at our own pace and relax a little. But did we just do nothing? Ha, yeah right.

Brady BADLY needed a haircut so Saturday morning we went in for a little trim.  This is his "maybe sneaking that Hershey kiss before bed was a bad choice because then I'd be up talking to myself until 11 at night and then be woken up at 7 am by my sister and now I have to get a haircut" look.  

Well she went a little shorter than I was anticipating and it kind of ended up like a buzz cut. 

Oh well....

what are you gonna do?

It was a beautiful morning out and Brady had been begging to play in the leaves so I raked a pile up for them to jump in. I'd been putting off raking the yard and I knew it was going to be getting colder out so I had a couple options. 1. Pretend the leaves don't exist. 2. Just rake the darn yard myself or 3. Call a service and pay a bajillion dollars for them to remove the leaves. 

Well I went a little out of my comfort zone and picked option number 2. I figured I have 2 helpers, I can do this, right? 

These "helpers" needed a lunch break about 5 minutes into raking. And then proceeded to watch me as I worked. 

Layla came and helped though, sandwich in hand

Get that sandwich, girl

Sandwich still in hand

I thought it'd be fun to change her outfit and try and get some cute fall pictures of her. Ha! Miss Attitude, I Am Toddler-Hear Me Roar wasn't feelin it.

And then a second after crying her eyes out, she was thrilled.

And running around

This hair picture is for you, Daddy. The lady mullet lives on.

And it was all fun and games

Until it wasn't

All in all, I bagged up 13 bags of leaves, am still sore, and vow to never do that again on my own. I vote for option number 1 next time.

Saturday night we had a deployed family event at the squadron full of pizza, cookie decorating, conversation, and sugar high craziness.

Like brother, like sister watching Cars on the big screen. Not pictured: the 2 hours of crazy cookie sugar high running around-ness.  We decided to maybe skip out on the cookie decorating next time around. 

This weekend we also read some books,

got some fro-yo,

ate makeup brushes,

and completed my fall wreath with my friend! :)

All in all, a good(ish) weekend! Another one down! :)

Veteran's Day

Happy Veteran's Day to those who are serving and those who have served. May all of our troops come home safe and be honored.

And to my favorite veteran of all, thank you for your selfless commitment to our country and to our family. I love you and can't wait until you're home in our arms again!

What We've Been Up To

Well another flew by, woohoo!  We're about half(ish) ways done with this deployment! Things are going pretty well. Brady has now started telling me daily that he misses his daddy and asks when he'll be home, so that's tough, but otherwise things are going alright.  The time is going by quickly, we are staying very busy, and we're trying to stay as positive as possible.  There is a chance that Brian may have to deploy again a little over 2 months after he gets home again for about 100 days, so that's disheartening, but we're just going to try and take it one deployment at a time.  (If you can hear that, that's me shaking my head, pouring a glass of wine.) But anyways, here's what we've been up to this week:

1. Playdates, playdates, playdates.  And not just only for the kids, I've done some too! Craft and wine night with a friend counts as a playdate, right?! :)  

Our MOPs table group had a playdate at the Omaha zoo where we got a little penguin lesson and got to watch them feed the penguins!

It was pretty cool!

I guess seeing all the fish the penguins ate made Brady hungry??

The best picture out of 20, sigh.

Playing with friends at Bounce U

 2. Christmas Shopping.  I know it's only November 8th but I've been really getting a jump start on everything Christmas around here. I've been planning Advent calendars, Christmas gifts for family and friends, and making fun holiday plans. I think I've been rushing it this year because Brian will (hopefully) be home right before the holidays!! And since we recently got Amazon Prime (dangerous!) I've been doing a lot of shopping with just one click!  And not to overshadow Thanksgiving, we're really looking forward to going home to Minnesota and seeing everyone. And we do talk about what we're thankful for every night too! :)

Can you guess which gift is for who?? :)

3. Preparing for Winter. Blah! It's starting to get colder here and darker earlier and earlier. I had to go through their winter things and make sure we had heavy coats, boots,  mittens, and hats.  I know the first snowfall is just around the corner but I am so not ready for it. 

Trying on their boots, pants optional.

4. Trying to get healthy. We've been alternating between sick and healthy for about the past 3 weeks. Right now I'm the only one that's sick and I hope it stays that way!  I just can't seem to kick this bug. Staying up until 1 am watching Lifetime movies probably doesn't help it, no?

Getting a rare snuggle session in with my teething miss.

 5. Eating cupcakes.

Don't worry, we're still doing that.

We drove 20 minutes to get Caribou, Mommy's favorite coffee, at the only location in Omaha, 20 minutes away. It was worth the cupcake mess, I think.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! :)