done

We have done a cross country move once again. I forgot how stressful it was to move yourself, as opposed to the Army doing it for you. It took an entire day to move all of our things out, pack them into the uhaul, then pack them into storage, and clean out the apartment. If I didn't have friends to help I would have lost it. Seriously.

We had a family host us for two nights and one day as we cleared out of our apartment. They are the sweetest family ever, such a good example for a young family like ours. They took days off work to help us, to accommodate us, and to make sure we were comfortable. Who does that? It makes me wonder how many of my friends back home would do it. Not that I'd expect it or deserve it, but it astounds me- their level of love and selflessness. It felt like we we're already on vacation, we hung out and got things done but it felt so much better than staying at a hotel.

During the first week of our vacation we had our car towed and basement flooded. It was a little stressful but we moved past it fairly quickly. We need to enjoy our time as best as possible without outside stress ruining our time. It feels like a ticking time bomb now, just counting down the days until Joel leaves. I want to cherish every moment that he is still around. It's been a lot of fun and we've actually been taking advantage of the fact that Sophia is in bed by 7:30 and my mom is home so we can go out. We've gone to dinner, to the movies, and shopping. I just hope things continue to run smoothly.

Until, he's gone...

life as an "army wife"

I've been thinking about what this means. I don't like to call myself an "army wife", like I belong to some sort of elite part of society, or a special club. There aren't any other women going around calling themselves "doctors wives or policemen wives". I just feel a little weird about the label, this is his career not mine. I know we have a special set of circumstances, but I don't like to pride myself on those, or anything really.

We have endured some hardship, and it will get harder as he gets ready to leave. Being married to someone in the military has it's perks and it's downsides, but it all depends on how thankful you are for life daily. I like to look at the bright side. I thank God that we have been able to move across the U.S. without it costing us anything. We have lived in Chicago, Texas, Washington, and Georgia in three short years. Those experiences I will cherish and take with me forever. I was able to witness a beautiful sunrise over Mt. Rainier which is something that I suspect, had I not been married to Joel, would have never happened. 

I met some of the most loving and selfless people, people that I love with every bit of my heart. I received some of the wisest advice from wives and mothers that will stick with me as I raise my own children. I learned how different a culture can be across the nation (yes, I'm talking about you my PNW's).

I am a wife, a mother, but most importantly I am defined by Christ. Everything else is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. I hope to raise my children (if God gives me more) in the fear of the Lord. I hope to establish my home, whether it's in the cloudiness of Seattle or the dry heat of Texas, with love towards my Husband and the Hope that Christ will soon return for His bride.

The storm

I can't wait until the calm after the storm. Yes, that's right, I said it BACKWARDS! That's just the way it is in the military, especially during a pcs. I know this isn't technically a pcs because I am moving on my own, but it sure does feel like it. I love moving, but I can't wait until that final moment when we arrive at our destination with nothing to do.  

No more packing, scheduling, fixing, cleaning, organizing,  and donating!

 

This is my first move with a little munchkin. She's all sorts of craziness, I mean can't you just tell by the way her mismatched socks are styling on her tiny feet? Love this kid! She's made the entire process a little more difficult. She's a big fan of "helping". She likes to throw out everything I put into boxes, which requires me packing everything, essentially, twice LOL.

 See this here? This is the sun room, aka the shove everything out of view room. We have our deployment gear to the right of the shot, boxes of books, all of my jewelry and crafts by the coffee table and more empty boxes. Oh and what's that pole there? Well that's our floor lamp, it has been evicted from the living room because miss sassy pants like to climb it, which typically results in injury.

 Dirty laundry clothes to the left, and an empty bin awaiting things for storage. and a random headband that Sophia dropped.

 My donations to Goodwill, aka clothes I haven't worn in like 3 years but still like to carry around from state to state.

and viola! this is the end :) or rather the beginning of craziness, I haven't even started packing yet :( 

its coming

We had our first FRG meeting and now the deployment cloud really is hanging over my head. It's like a little rain cloud damping up my Georgia sunshine. I'm getting all teary eyed for no reason once again. It hit me like BAM! YOUREHUSBANDISGOINGTOLEAVEFORNINEMONTHS. This is just horrible.
okay, i'm done being a drama queen. Wait, no I'm not.

I mean, look at this.

Isn't it just lovely? It melts my heart every time I see it. She loves her Daddy so much. I don't look forward to the day he doesn't "Come home from work". She loves that time, it's their special time. My child will play by herself all day long; she crawls, "reads", explores, and eats. BUT the moment Daddy is home she is glued to his side. What are we going to do? Well, for starters, I need to borrow someone's video camera and we are going to record him reading bedtime stories :) I plan on having her watch one every night. I need to stop procrastinating ASAP. I hope she doesn't forget her Daddy during these nine months. I hope I can give her enough love from the both of us to get us through it! Love you Daddy

slacker

Um, oops? I haven't updated in a really long time. I guess I'm slacking! We went a nice long (is 10 days long?) family vacation. We headed to Chicago to visit family and enjoyed it so much that I decided to move back. My decision is firm now and I will certainly be moving. It was hard to come back to Columbus, it's never been this hard to leave family.

 I've had a pretty hard time adjusting in Columbus. I'm not sure if it's because I have a baby now and no car, which means I cant go anywhere or just the lack of fellowship. I just feel like everyone is so busy, like time doesn't stop at all. I hate it. I really loved being at other posts because I was able to sorta join other families. I never felt left out, and we always had several homes open to us to just stop by and hang out. It felt nice, warm, and welcoming. Being here, I don't get that. I know there are a lot of people that love us and will have us over, but it's never like "hey, I'm bored" or "hey, I'm having a bad day, can I come over?". I feel like we have to have a formal invitation to be welcome for a few hours. There's just so much going on. I don't blame anyone, but it's been hard.

I guess I've had it too good for too long huh? I love my church, and I love my friends... but I need more closeness. I will need it even more when Joel leaves. I can't stand the thought of not being able to just drop in on someone when the loneliness hits me. That's why I'm going home. I will keep myself busy with my best friend and family. If I ever need a day alone or some shopping to just push the loneliness away, I know I have my mom and mil. They love my daughter and that comforts me. It makes me happy to know that I can drop in and have them enjoy her for a few months since she's been away from them most of their lives.

For now, I have four weeks to pack, find somewhere to store our stuff, figure out how to haul a trailer and move cross country for the fourth time in FOUR YEARS :) gotta love the army!

Memorial Day Weekend

This past weekend Joel had a four day weekend, which was AMAZING! It's always fun to have him around for longer than his typical two days off. It felt like a mini vacation, but it's always sad when the last day rolls around.


We enjoyed lot's of time staying up late, listening to R.C. Sproul, eating, and talking. Then Saturday rolled around and we decided to finally take Sophia to the Georgia Aquarium, which boasts to be the largest aquarium in the world. Joel liked it, but the Chicagoan in him still loves the Shedd Aquarium more.

I was skeptical of how much attention Sophia would pay.  

Well, let's just say that I wasn't prepared to have my mind blown. 

She had such a great time! She giggled, stared, banged on the glass, and waved at the fish. She skipped her nap and enjoyed the view. I thought she would give us a hard time but it was easy peasy! I was having such a great time but the "deployment cloud" hung high over my head. I know it's still a season away but I can't help and think of it. I got a little teary eyed as we watched the uber cheesy dolphin show. I was thinking of how much fun we were having and how soon he will be gone. Then I had to snap myself out of it and appreciate the joy we were experiencing now!!!

Now, I will just enjoy my husband until tomorrow morning where the routine starts all over again!!! 

honestly frustrated

I don't know how to be honest with myself about the feelings of frustration I've had to deal with. This is something I wish someone told me about. I know they said motherhood would be hard, but I never really gave this a second thought. It was always in the back of my mind but not something that I really meditated on.

I love my daughter beyond words, she's one of the greatest things to ever happen to me! She brings me so much love and joy every single day. When she was born it was pure bliss, seriously- I hardly slept! I was so enamored with this precious little baby. She was born with a full head of beautiful brown hair and big brown eyes- I was so in love!

Now that she is seven months old, crawling, and exploring the world of shrieking and frustration- well now it's a different ball game. I wish someone would have told me that this was normal, that this didn't make me a bad mother. That sometimes wanting to just "sit" was normal, we all get tired after all!

I admit there are times, like two nights ago, that are totally wrong but it happens to all of us. Sophia woke up from her nap, and I popped in a workout video thinking she would be okay to play through it. WRONG. She kinda whined and moaned through the first ten minutes and I Was SO frustrated because I knew she didn't want anything! A few minutes later I felt beyond horrible because I knew it was just my selfishness. It's all perspective and heart after all. We have good days and we have bad days, but it all depends on how *I* feel because she never really does anything different (unless she's teething). She's a sweet little baby just trying to communicate her frustrations, she doesn't know that whining all day is draining to mommy's ears :) 

This may seem stupid to some because she's only seven months but I shut the video off and talked to her. I told her I was sorry for being selfish and thanked God for showing me that. I was feeling drained and just played with her instead, that's all she wanted. I hope that as she gets older I will be able to communicate my failures and sin in hopes of her coming to understand grace.

attempting

this weekend we attempted to take a few "family" photos.
Which really means: sticking our cam on top of the ledge above the fire place, adjusting to a self timer with multiple shots, and running to get back in place! 

 

I love the picture above. It's a perfect description of Joel's personality without saying a thing. He's always silly, always happy, and always makes us smile. He's constantly cracking jokes, and i love it! 

Mother's Day turned out to be a lot more than I really expected. I had a great time sleeping in, eating foods that went straight to my waist, and having tons of coffee. It was a perfect weekend, after we got over our rough start. 

Mothers Day

As my first Mother's Day approaches I'm flooded with all of the memories that I have stored in my heart and I can't keep them straight. It's been seven long, beautiful, challenging, life altering months. Motherhood has been everything and nothing I thought it would be.

I've stayed up countless nights feeding a baby, changing dirty diapers, and in the process crying myself because I just want to cuddle under the covers. I've stared in amazement into the eyes of the most beautiful brown haired little girl and had my eyes flood with joyful tears because she's here, she loves me, and she is OURS.

Sophia was born at 2:48 a.m. after about 18 hours of labor. I pushed for 15 minutes and she was here. I was terrified because I thought I would push for a lot longer, I wasn't ready to be a Mom yet- I still had another hour or two!!! The moment that the nurse placed her onto my chest, I gasped, looked at Joel and just cried. That moment in time was perfect, God gave us a little blessing. He allowed us to raise a little girl in the fear of the Lord. Do you know how SCARY, wonderful, & amazing that is?

I have the responsibility to raise her and teach her about God. I know I will fail her, make her upset, and let her down, but I'm glad to know that's not where our hope is, we grow with grace in the Hope of our Lord. I hope some day that God will soften her heart and make her see Him as Savior. I hope we will share the greatest common love anyone can ever share.

This weekend has come not in a way that I expected it. She's been sick for 2 weeks and I'm so drained, stressed, and tired. I thought that I would be excited, we would go to dinner, and I'd have a great weekend. To be honest, I just want to sleep :) Happy Mothers Day!!!!

Soli Deo Gloria!

selfless

This week, I am learning about being selfless. Little Sophia is battling a cold for 2 1/2 weeks now. It has developed into a double ear infection, bronchiolitis, and diarrhea- ouch! She's been waking up 1-2 hours earlier and battling every nap, when she does finally go down: her coughing wakes her up!

I am tired and she is cranky to say the least. I am learning to be selfless with  my time & my sleep! It's so hard to not WANT to go crawl under the covers and just sleep. I have to keep remind myself that if I'm feeling cranky and tired, she must be feeling 10x's worse. Please keep us in your prayers for a speedy recovery and a patient loving Mommy.

In other news: Sophia is crawling!!! She is getting into EVERYTHING! She wants to eat every power cord she can, including but not limited to: PlayStation control charger, Daddy's cell phone charger, Mommy's computer charger, & her monitor. It's been challenging running after her, but very fun to see her chubby little legs go!

Enjoy the photo bomb of her being a little trouble maker!!!

 

So Mommy had to strap me into my car seat to feed me because I kept rolling and crawling everywhere! Then she left me in there for 20 minutes so she could have a cup of coffee!!! 

 

Mommy built me a fort of pillows! It's the fluffiest fort I ever did see!!!

MMM Mommies water is so yummy

 Hello bloggers! I shall tell you about my day...

 Oh no! I've been caught! this is my naughty face !!!

Okay, good bye!!!!!!