The Hansen Family

V-DAY!

2012-02-14T14:34:00.000-08:00

Valentines Day! It was so sweet. Dewy was OF COURSE too impatient and needed to open his gift the night before. He lasted a week and a half with them just sitting in the guest room so I was pretty impressed he'd survived that long without asking to open them. I got him a bunch of new drink glasses in different styles. Champagne/martini/liquor and then a card which I insisted he wait to open till today.

I came out for breakfast and got a nice surprise on my place setting. (I had to recreate this because a certain little man decided to eat my mini-wheat heart)

We decided to make heart shaped egg-toasts. Dewy's turned out a lot better than mine. I was quite impressed.

This week has felt so busy, so any excuse to go out walking is just a nice breather from all the things going on. Sandra and I picked up our schedule again and I walked over to meet her with the boys. She wasn't quite ready so we played inside for a bit. Wes thoroughly enjoyed her swing.
Tucker is one month older than Sandra's boy Todd, and now Wes in about a month and a half older than her new son Colton! Very handy for playdates... and for her and I to commiserate about pregnancy together hahaTodd man! Obsessed with phones like Tucker.After our walk we went to get the mail. We got a nice surprise from Nana Evans! So sweet. Tucker loved the puppies on the card and that when he opened it music started playing. My mom of course knew to send us protein bars... haha. So thoughtful of our goals! Those reeses sure looked good though haha The boys Valentine card we sent out!

My card for Dewski

Another sweet little surprise.

I had a doc appointment scheduled for Tuck to figure out his rash business. She said that using wipes on his face has been causing it. Too much formaldehyde in them. I would have been skeptical but we did just get a different brand of wipe around the time the rash showed up. Hopefully it will clear on up now!

Remember the impatient husband bit? I got this a few weeks ago as my Valentines gift haha. I think it was a bit more understandable though since Dewy needed my sizing and preference between the 2 he liked. I love it! And now I have a dress for his brother's graduation in May.

I made us a special flank steak and chard salad dinner. We also mixed up a peachy mimosa which tasted amazing. I'd like to say we had a romantic dinner together just staring in eachother's eyes, but Dewy is the XO (executive officer) right now. He got about 30 calls all through dinner which he definitely wasn't too happy about. Wes was also in a pretty bad mood and was crying like crazy all night. It was still very nice and in the evening we were able to watch a movie after the boys went to bed. It was a great Valentines!

Heartbreaking!

2012-02-13T13:11:00.000-08:00

Can I just say last night was one of those DISASTER nights. Wes woke up a lot, completely unable to sleep and was only content with me rocking him. Tucker woke up at 440 not wanting to go to bed and they both just fed off eachother's vigilance not to sleep. Since Dewy takes off at 430 to go work out it was all up to the mamma. Here's hoping for some sleep tonight!

Little Smoochy #2 is out of his newborn clothes officially! I just sorted them all out and came across these and decided I'll be keeping them forever. I'll always remember my new little baby in these teeny tiny clothes

We also made Wes's surgery appointment today at Scott and White. The surgeon ran me through all the details and said he may possibly have to stay overnight depending on how he is 4-6 hours after the surgery. She also said that she suspects there's a 2nd hernia on the other side but will be doing a laparoscopy to check. Apparently the left side always forms before the right, so if the left didn't grow in then most likely the right didn't either. We just haven't noticed it yet. I'm just happy Wes-man will have this taken care of come Friday.

Enjoyable Evenings

2012-02-11T17:31:00.000-08:00

Thursday night was the Not-So Newlywed Coffee. It was awesomeeee. Erin, Sandra, and I rode together and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Lisa's house is just amazing. I always think that when I go in, and little did I know her back patio is even MORE amazing. I sat out there with a few girls to enjoy our delicious food and it was so peaceful and comfortable on her smushy chairs, with the fire blazing in her furnace, and the lemon scented candle going. Ahhhh. That will be my main goal once Dewy and I have the bills to make our patio how we want it! Comfort and relaxation!

She had everyone send her photos of their wedding day. Such a cute idea! She had emailed the husbands earlier in the week to get answers to questions about each of us that we had to try and answer similarly. My favorite was the fill in the blank one:

Whenever I want to ....blank.... She wants to ...blank....

Dewy's answer:

Whenever I want to walk around naked, she wants me to put my clothes on

Unfortunately I didn't guess that.

Lauren made another amazing cake. So pretty!

We took off just before 10 and packed the truck full of the gifts people brought for Sandra's new baby, Colton, and Wes. How sweet is that!

Friday was a day of calling many offices over and over again. No one had followed up on our ER visit and I needed to find out when we were going to treat Wes's hernia. I called the number on his authorization sheet and they seemed to have no idea what was going on. I was put on hold about 5 times being switched from one person to another, with no one really knowing what was going on. I finally got an appointment scheduled for Wes to be looked at and to determine a surgery date. Hopefully all the calling and confusion is done and we can just get this taken care of.
While I was making my calls all day I had to make a stop at Ecoblu for a hair consultation. Since I haven't gotten my hair done in so long here my stylist needed to see what was going on with my hair so she could determine the length of our visit next week! Tuck and Wes joined me since it was a 5 minute drop-in.

Yes, yes, I do dress my children like this. And I love it.

Chungsun (my stylist) looked at my hair and said it was looking great. And then she felt it in her hands and made this face.
Note, Chungsun is not Sofia Vergara. This is the EXACT face she made. And continued to make for 3 minutes. She told me my hair felt awful and thin (this is why I love her). She said I need to wash my hair less and start doing a deep-moisture conditioner when I do. Apparently I've been abusing my hair too much with the blowdryer and straightener. Guilty, very guilty.

Well, that was that and then we went to pick up daddy from work. Tucker enjoyed watching their close-out formation.

When we got home I wanted to get out on a walk because I'd been in the car all day and needed fresh air! The boys and I went down to the park while Dewy napped for a bit. It felt so nice and Tucker just LOVES that park.
Eventually we had to go home, but it was a nice evening activity.

Howdy'in

2012-02-09T16:45:00.000-08:00

Thursday was Hood Howdy and playgroup day. I wanted to get all ready and stop and the Hood Howdy before we hosted playgroup this week. They had their wonderful square dancers there as always.

We stuffed the stroller with as much stuff as we could, and then walked home. The best part of all the stuff we got was the coupons! Lots of free cookies/desserts/chick-fil-a and even a free facial. Now THAT I am excited about. The commisarry had a booth and gave us a whole pack of their Birthday Oreos too. We are holding onto that for Tucker treats.

We had a half hour to get ready for playgroup and frosted our cupcakes and made the lemonade. We just do drinks and desserts now that the group is so big. Unfortunetly we've recently learned that we'll be losing 2 girls by May! The moving away begins...

Wes is able to sit in the bumbo now so I can actually get a decent picture of these two smoochies

Tucker does this things all the time where he puts his hands on Wes's head and snuggles in giving him hugs. It's so sweet, I just love what a sweet brother he is already.

Valentines Gifts!

2012-02-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

But first, my adorable smoochy just getting huge! Very happy after a not-so-happy Monday.

We got some WONDERFUL things in the mail today! VALENTINES! Woohoo!

We got some from our cousins and Grammy! Tucker was very pleased...

Grammy also sent a few clothing items that are so cuteeeee. There's nothing better than little men clothes! They are just so cute

So sweet! We also just sent out ours but I will wait till Valentines to post the pictures!

Hernia Problems

2012-02-06T11:24:00.000-08:00

As soon as I changed Wes's diaper in the morning and did my "hernia check" to make sure it was still intact, I knew something was wrong with it. It was extremely swollen and rock hard. I couldn't move it at all when normally it's just a little squishy mass that I push up in the hole. It wasn't budging and every time I tried to push it or move it in the hernia Wes would scream in pain. We decided to wait around a little while to see if it was something just passing through an intestine and would go away. About an hour later nothing was changing so we decided to head off to the ER. I was extremely worried the hernia had closed up and was blocking things outside of it. Ugh, scary!

Since Dewy was with me and we didn't really know how long it would all be we decided to take Tucker with us. In hindsight I wish we'd dropped him off with a buddy because there was so much waiting around.

The ER nurse let us go right back and we waited about a half hour till a doctor came in and decided we should do some ultrasounds and see what was going on in there. Wes was on and off screaming the whole time and the bulge was still just giving him lots of pain with every touch.

Tuck thought the little screws in the door were key holes haha. Such a smartie pants!

They hooked up a mini cord that got Wes's pulse whenever they needed it.

This is the best picture I can get without exposingggg Wes, and I don't think it really shows that well what was going on. Babies have so much chub down there anyway!

We had lots of waiting around to do for the ultrasound room to be ready and doctors to be available. I went in with Wes to do the ultrasound while Dewy waited in our ER room. Wes was NOT happy during the ultrasound with the probe rubbing him. When we got back Tucker had passed out.

Our lovely ER room.

After seeing the ultrasound the doctor decided we needed to go to the Children's hospital at Scott and White in Temple. Some bowel had gotten stuck in the intestines and was causing the blockage down there. That was putting a lot of pressure on the testicles and there was little blood flow going through. They were worried the lack of blood flow would cause them to shut down and they would stop functioning. Eek. That got me nervous. Wes and I rode in the ambulance while Tuck and daddy followed.

It was about 5 hours since we'd gotten to the ER and on the ambulance ride over the mass by Wes's hernia started to loosen up a little. Luckily this meant Wes wasn't in as much pain and calmed down a lot.

The only downside to it loosening up was that the doctors were a little hesistant about why we were even there when we arrived. It had loosened up the pressure on his testes and started to look pretty normal. I still wanted them to do something about it because it had caused Wes so much pain for 6+ hours and it seemed like that called for a treatment. They didn't have Darnall's ultrasound pics so they decided to redo them to see what was goin on down there at that point. Dewy had picked us up some lunch in between hospitals and he went in with Wes to do the second batch of ultrasounds.

They had LOTS of toys for Tucker. He was very happy about them. All in all he was great the whole time. He got impatient towards the end, but even Dewy and I were going pretty crazy.

After the ultrasounds the doctor said everything looked good other than a little swelling. He decided we should do a urine sample to make sure one of the testicles wasn't infected because it was still a little swollen.

We had a computer in our room that had all the ER wait times.... you can't read them all here but you can see we were at the 3 1/2 hour mark at this point and no one was close to beating us!

The urine sample came back clean and we were clear to go. I was pretty upset that they weren't taking care of the hernia but they did get the surgical referral set up so that we can schedule it for sometime this week. Even treats weren't interesting Tucker towards the end of our visit. He kept throwing his reeses pieces under the door and then would try and get us to open the door to get them so he could escape. What a sneak!

We finally got home at 9pm. Ugh! 10 hour hospital day. I do NOT recommend it! I'm extremely relieved Wes didn't have anything that was life-threatening going on, but knowing the problem still isn't taken care of is a little irksome.

Superbowl!

2012-02-06T07:00:00.001-08:00

We had a little getogether here last night for the superbowl. I didn't want to have a crazy party, just a small gathering that was relaxing. It was exactly that and was such a nice night. Other than the whole Patriots losing thing. That STUNK.
trying to eat chips with a fork...

Best attempt at a family photo.... they just aren't that easy to get yet haha. I was just happy Wes was awake and appearsss to be looking at me haha.

Laura and Jeremy joined us, as well as Jamie and KC (some other neighbors on our street), and Erin and Kaleb. Laura made amazing NFL cupcakes and brought fruit trays with yummy dip. Erin brought a buffalo chicken cheese dip that was soooooo tasty. She also brought some oatmeal cream puff cookies that were delicious. Jamie brought a veggie tray and more wine and beer. Excellent! Dewy and I definitely strayed from our healthy eating..... by a LOT haha.

What's a Superbowl party without Joes..... yummmmmmmm. I could only manage one piece with all the other goodies we had there, but Dewy downed four. Four! Joes slices are huge so I really don't know where it all went.

Tucker wanted to try a lot of the foods as well, and then decided to down his juice and the end result was him throwing up on my pants. Poor guy! Just got too excited with all the new foods. Luckily we both got changed and cleaned quickly and the rest of the night was free of problems.

Tucker decided to take a seat on Jamie.... luckily she didn't mind.

Wes was a silent man all night either oggling at us or sleeping. He and Tucker were so well behaved I was very happy.

Tucker kept putting lids on all the men's beers. I think he was trying to tell them they'd had enough.... and he was probably right.

Wes-man snuggling in his favorite blanky.

Haha, I LOVE Jeremy's reaction in this photo. This was towards the end when it all went downhill. Ugggg. Wes does look adorable though, I must say.

It was a very fun evening and even though Dewy and I splurgeddddd big time, we are back to good foods today. Hey, if you're gonna splurge a little mine as well be Joes while watching the Superbowl!

Topsey Drive

2012-02-05T07:03:00.000-08:00

We were planning on getting taxes done Saturday but the office was just too busy so we made an appointment for Monday. We were both able to switch off working out in the morning and even made a run around the neighborhood yard sale. We found Tucker a great play table with train tracks and a train village which he loves! Since taxes were a bust we decided to go out to the Topsey Exotic Ranch to drive through their animal petting zoo. You basically drive very slowly on a trail that has lots of animals you can feed with food you purchase. I thought Tucker might enjoy it.

Not too excited yet...

Deer!

Llamas! They were persistent.... and certainly weren't afraid of getting in your face to get food.

Rams! Tucker liked the animals that didn't put their head in the car. Even I was a little frightened of the crazy ostrich and the HUGEEEE camel that tried to get in.

We let him ride up front since we were going 2 miles an hour and I knew he'd be afraid of it all if he didn't have us to help show him the animals were friendly. Plus we could control his food throwing! He LOVED throwing that food to the animals. Or more so AT the animals.

Bengal tiger in a cage. Why do I always think of Life of Pie when I see a tiger....

Oxe and camel!

I was worried this guys horns were going to dent the truck... so we quickly passed him by. The horns were SO big.

Hello Mr. Camel

cute bison!

zebra! Tucker kept saying HI! to all the animals. The short, cute ones at least.

It was a fun family outing and since it was 530 by the time we got to Fort Hood we ended up just getting some MceeDees and going home to eat it. Num Num.

Shopping in Bulk

2012-02-02T07:29:00.000-08:00

Even though we aren't close enough to Costco to get a membership, we've found that walmart has a few things in bulk that we go through at lighning speed.

Have you ever seen a bag of frozen veggies so big?
and the good ol' 5 dozen box of eggs. We'll go through this in a week if not sooner. We use about 10 eggs at breakfast alone!

and this is what holds me off of eating treats. Technically it's a treat in itself, but I figure one or two mints is a lot better than 3 or 4 brownies. And these things are GOOD.

Tucker isn't quite up to Dewy and my eating level yet. He can't eat a burger with both hands so turkey burgers was out for him when I made them last night. I thought some veggie noodles would be a quick and easy substitute and he looooved them. It was just a LITTLE messy

When he can't pick food up with his fork immediately he gets frustrated and bangs the food with the fork hoping it will catch on. This is an action shot...

I also did some homemade granola last night from a book my mom gave me for Christmas on clean eating. It is tastyyyyy. I'm a fan. Another good, healthy snack!

Well this morning has been complete chaos and I don't think I got more than an hour of sleep last night so I'm going to finish up my mini-break while Wes is sleeping and clean up a little.

Who Raised You???

2012-01-30T10:22:00.001-08:00

WELLLL. Today I had my own doctor appointment. Dewy didn't have to go into work so he was able to stay home and play with Tucker and I took Wes with me. I was a little jealous taking off and seeing Tuck and Dewy heading to the backyard to play around. It's just such a fun age with Tuck! But ANYWAY......

My doctor is insane! Yes. Insane. Would I be writing a post without pictures if he wasn't??? No. It was my first visit with him and he was RIDICULOUS. I should have known when I sat down and he asked me what my blood type and RH factor was. I told him I didn't know what the RH factor was and he went on a 20 minute schpeel about the history of blood-typing and why we need the rh factor and how they tested it on chimps blood. I actually found it a little interesting but by the end of the visit I realized he was just crazy! After his history lesson he started trying to convince me to get the Gardasil HPV vaccine. I have heard MANY things about it, and there is no way I plan on getting it. My friend got one and in her own words, "‎5 years ago today i received the Gardasil vaccine and my life has never been the same. I don't even remember what it feels like not to be sick, constantly tired, and constantly in pain. I just want my life back". Ya, no thanks. It seemed no matter how many times I told him I wasn't going to get it he kept bringing it up and insisted I get it today. He went as far as to fill out the consent sheet for me and told me to bring it back after my husband talked some sense into me....

Somehow he digressed further during my visit and got on topic of where I had Wes. I told him Bountiful, Utah and he immediately said "oh, well then you must be of the LDS denomination, I am in the same denomination it turns out". Even I would say that assuming someone who's from Utah is mormon is a pretty fair assumption, but I know plenty of people from Bountiful that wouldn't be too happy at someone making that assumption about them! The doc further asked me if I was spacing out my children or doing what "our denomination" suggested and no using birth control. First of all, none of your business. Second of all, I never once heard growing up that mormons can't use birth control! What the!

Well after an hour and a half of him shoving Gardasil in my face and telling me I should be "riskayyy" and not even go home and discuss it with my husband and just get it right then and there, I decided it was time to go. While I was walking out he insisted that he didn't own stock in Gardasil he just really wanted people to get it. Ok guy! Ok! Still not going to get it. I am OFFICIALLY changing doctors and Dewy is filling out an I.C.E. form when he gets to work tomorrow. Sheesh. Who raised this guy?

Birthday Season Begins!

2012-01-29T07:07:00.000-08:00

Saturday started the first of many birthdays that will be coming up for us! It started at 930 so we were up nice and early getting ready.

Unlike normal birthday parties where I come from, all the husbands are required to attend along with the moms and babies. All the deployment and field time means that when you're home you spend as much as you can with your family. You have to take advantage of it!

I counted 19 children and 27 adults who attended. If it was just the children it would have been like 19 Kids and Counting, except for the age differences. All the children packed the room on their own without the adults! Can you imagine having that many kids?!

Birthday Boy Talon!

Tucker loved playing with the little kids and obsessed over the balloons the most.

After that we stopped at the commisarry to grab a few things I needed to make dinner. We were having company over so I needed a few items for Turkey and White Bean Chili and all the toppings it requires. The rest of the day was relaxing and dinner was a lot of fun with our friends! Now we have a day to just sit around and relax. Ahhhhh

Bad News at the Doctor

2012-01-28T07:05:00.000-08:00

Friday was quite the day! Dewy was done with work by lunch so he was able to come with me to Wes's 2 month appointment. I'm so glad! The circumstances would have been 10 times as difficult without him there. There were ZERO parking spaces when we arrived so we ended up parking 2 lots over. Good thing we had the BOB.

We went to Bennet Clinic first at 130 to get the immunizations Tucker couldn't get on Monday. He wasn't too happy about those needles! But now he's done with shots for a longggg time. He was filling out the paperwork for us...

We got done right at 240 in time to walk to the next building over for Wes's appointment. We checked in and they got his measurements and then told us they were a little behind. We proceeded to wait until 4 to see the actual doctor which was definitely a stretch for Tucker.

It was much easier to switch off holding each of them and running around outside many times with Tucker rather than struggling on my own to keep them both satisfied! When we finally got in to see Wes's doctor she did the routine checkup. He's weighing 8 pounds and 14 ounces which is great, and is 21 1/2 inches long. Also good growth! She said he was still below the percentile chart for height but his weight was in the 5th percentile now. So at least he's on the board haha. He still is a few weeks behind on most 2 month normalcies, but I am giving him some leeway since he was a tiny dude. When she checked his nether regions she said his groin area didn't look right and shoved her finger on it and all the chub down there went right up into a hole in his stomach! He has a hernia poor little guy. When she said that I was shocked and got very scared. She said he'll have to get surgery within the month to fix it and not too worry because it's pretty common and is a low-key surgery. Ugh, I am dreading it, but want Wes-man to be healthy so I want it done ASAP.

After that terrible news we needed to go to the pharmacy back at Bennet and then finally take off at 5pm. Sheesh! 130 to 5pm... kind of ridiculous! If Dewy hadn't been there I would have DIED. As you can see we were the very last ones to leave since it was the end of the work day!
After that I couldn't stop worrying about Wes. I checked his hernia about 30 times. We had a hail and farewell at Shiloh Inn to go to which would provide some much needed distraction. Wes was passed out for the whole thing because of his vaccinations and Tucker was content to run in the hallways the whole time. We had a very good time seeing lots of people we hadn't seen in forever. It was a blast! We were definitely ready to sit and melt in front of the TV when we got home though. Ugh, too much for one day!

Not About Anything In Particular

2012-01-27T07:02:00.000-08:00

Tuck woke up with a bunch of red dots in his nose region and above his lips. Relapse of his old rash! At least that's what I assumed. He's been stealing Wes's binky on occasion and sucking the life out of it so we figured it was causing the new red dots. The doc confirmed it the next day so no more binky stealing for Mr. Tuck.

Kind of hard to see but they're there.

Breakfast was enjoyable until Tucker threw all his cheerios on the ground.

He then proceeded to eat them off the ground once he got down.

He was so interested in daddy's new outfit he had to wear today.

It was a "payday" formation so Dewy had to wear his dress blues. He's worn them only 3 times since he graduated and in the next 2 months he'll be doubling that for different occasions. I'm glad we're getting some use out of them!

Dew has added a few new things to his coat since his deployment. Looks so colorful now! Unfortunately it's getting a little tight because of all the muscles he's been building. Uh oh!

I finished my wreath project in the off-time we've had in the evenings when both the boys are asleep. And partly when they're awake. It didn't take very long which is just the kind of project that works for me! I love the end result. I kind of wish I'd used an older more yellow-paged book but it was so quick I think I could make another one pretty easily.

I also am working on some Valentines shirts for Tuck and Wes to take pictures in and send out to the family for Valentines. Unfortunately pics won't be up of those until Valentines. Sorry! Suspenseful, I know.

I got a reminder I don't remember putting in my phone today...

And as a side note you can see the only people I chat with all day are my sisters and mommy haha. Such is life when you live far away!

Jaunts in January

2012-01-26T12:49:00.000-08:00

Ahhhhhh, it's that time of the day. Tuck and Wes are napping and I can do what I want. Woo!

Dewy brought his uniforms to the not-so-safe side of Killeen to be sewn. All the shops have bars and signs like this....
I can only imagine what it would be like to live in this area. Eek. F.Y.I. There IS an elementary school not 10 blocks from this shop that has barbed wire around it... big eek.

Tucker tends to try and get involved whenever I'm working out. He likes trying the exercizes I do and sitting on my tummy when I do crunches and things. Probably makes the workout even better haha. I was stretching after a workout and he helped me out by laying on my legs for a good 5 minutes. Thanks buddy

There's that face again. What a curious little guy.

Wes also loves that huge tongue of his

We've been having lots of rain here. So nice for a little bit! Tucker wants to go outside all the time. I'm pretty sure he'd be outside all day if I let him. He got really bored inside with all the rain so I went out with him for a little while. He was in heaven

Doesn't he know you're not supposed to mow the lawn when it's wet???

Today is Spy Night! Yes, every Thursday is Spy Night when a new Archer episode is on and we watch a different Bond movie before. I've been trying to decide what else I could do to make it a "spy" evening. So far the only idea I have is martinis which really only benefits Dewy. Maybe we'll have some nerf gun wars with Tucker.

Along with Spy Night day is playgroup of course! It was at Alicia's today.

Esie's mom is in the hospital having her little sister!!! She was a nervous eater the whole time. Poor girl. I'd be nervous too if I was about to get a little sister.

This boy bounced the entire time. And I do mean the ENTIRE time. Quite a workout

Tucker shoved some toys in our bag to try and take home. What a sneak!

Here he's asking Kerri to figure out the Leapster toy for him. Too bad it was out of batteries!

Now I need to figure out a special dinner for Spy Night and finish putting away the millionth pile of folded laundry. Woo!

Short But Sweet

2012-01-25T12:47:00.000-08:00

Looks like Tucker's learned a new trick on the phone

2 Monther!

2012-01-23T11:08:00.000-08:00

Little Wes man is 2 months old today!!! I told Dewy we needed to do something for his birthday celebration and he insisted it wasn't his birthday even though it seems during the first year every month they are changing so much it might as well be a birthday.

I don't know if Westers looks bigger to you but he sure does to me!
He's been a big smiler lately which is making me happy. His signature face is a grumpy one so seeing the smiles is so sweet.

He's up a LOT more now and so animated when he is. We have his 2 month appointment on Friday so we'll find out how much he weighs then, but my guess is 8 lbs! 8-9... I hope! Actually I hope he's even heavier. I was so nervous with how teeny he was so I just want him to eat and eat and eat. (which he does)

Look at that chubby foot

Wes has had lots of gassiness since he's been born and it's finally settling down a little. Probably since he's about a normal newborn size now. Other than that he hasn't had any complications or reasons for doctor visits. Thank heavens.

This is his signature face.... it's like a grumpy yet snug look. I wonder if his personality will mirror! We shall seeee

Weekend Much Needed

2012-01-20T13:45:00.000-08:00

Every day this week we've had to get ready to go out and do something far too early. Anything before 10 is really too early for me to get the boys ready and feel like I'm 100%. I'm so used to having all morning to do what I need to and then the afternoon to go out and about. Hopefully this isn't the new routine. I love my morning relax time!

Today was no exception. I had to get to the battalion office by 10 to do the annual audit since I am the treasurer for the company. Luckily this is only once a year, but it still meant getting up early to get everyone ready and knowing I'd be missing the morning workout. Grrrr. Luckily all went as planned and we were done by 1030.

Tuck and Wes were extremely well behaved! I was so happy that it went smoothly. Of course the good behavior was achieved by lots of treats and attention.

By the end his clean shirt was a chocolately mess and the stroller was a crumb-fest. I'm just glad there weren't any meltdowns!

Dewy had a short break after that so we drove to the tricare office together and I was able to run in and turn in the paperwork for Wes's enrollment. Another stressor taken care of! Then Dewy dropped us off at home to hang out while he went to a chinese restaraunt for a work awards ceremony. Tucker tried to keep his hat...

Tucker and Wes fell asleep and it was one of those rare times where there's quiet in the house and I can just sit there and do what I want. Yay! I took advantage of the time and redid our budget... exciting, I know! Hopefully the rest of Friday is relaxing and we can have a really good weekend. One very fun trip to Barnes and Noble planned to get Tucker a potty book, a makeup book for myself, and a recently released Archer "How-To" book for Dewy. Woohoo!

Playgroupin

2012-01-19T13:34:00.000-08:00

Thursday was playgroupppp. Woohoo. I was lucky to get a workout in before with Tuck and Wes cooperating. It's definintely not always the case. I followed Amanda to playgroup because I'd only been to Autumn's once before and as much as I'd like to think I can wing it, that usually doesn't turn out so well.

Tucker's starting to have meltdowns when I won't let him play with certain things. Like the golf clubs he kept picking up to hit people with. Oh goodness! For the most part he played really well though. I'm sure it's not easy to be calm with so many little buddies running around.

We finished off the day by staying up to watch the season premiere of ARCHERRRR. yay. It was hilarious and I think this season is going to be amazinggg. Can't wait.

18 Month Doctor Appointment

2012-01-18T13:15:00.000-08:00

Wednesday was Tucker's 18 month appointment. It was a little late but his appointments have always been a few days late so I wasn't too worried about it. His size isn't gonna change much in a few days! We are now going to Bennett Clinic which is closer than the hospital and will be much easier to get to on time. Unfortunately now that Dewy's back at work again I am on my own with the 2 cuties. It's definitely a whole new level of stress than before! I'm always worried Wes is going to start screaming and Tucker is going to have a tantrum and I'll just stand in a corner crying. Eek. So begins the scary part of parenting 2 little men who are so close in age!I have to say the double stroller is what saves me! So handy to plop them in it and control them without having to worry about Tucker running about and carrying a carseat.

The doc said Tucker is doing great. Said he's a shorty which I expected, but will probably have a growth spurt in the next year. Tucker didn't enjoy being naked and having some strange lady poking and prodding him whereas before he really didn't care.

Not too mention he wants to play with EVERYTHINGGGGG

"ummmm, why am i riding around naked mom????"

So comfy.

Of course there was one meltdown by Wes, and many comments from others about how I "have my hands full", but it was a successful visit and now we're done.... Till Wes's 2 month appointment next week.....

Tucker was quite exhausted afterwards

Yep, thumb sucker.

Golden Globes and Good Recipes

2012-01-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

Golden Globes night! I love the awards shows this time of year. There are always so many fun things people are wearing and I love observing the fashion and styles different celebrities have. Not to mention the host is usually pretty funny. Ricky Gervais didn't disappoint!
I noticed Dewy uploaded a new app before it started....
haha, I uploaded it too after I saw it.
My best of the night.... Angelina Jolie. So classy!

and worst..... eek!
Along with the golden globes the day was a good one! Dewy and I switched off going to the gym and right when I was getting back Tim and Brittany were stopping by to see Wes-man. They brought him a nice big pack of diapers and some toys for Tucker. How sweet! Tucker seemed to enjoy the diaper box the most. He kept wanting to be pushed around in it

I was able to finish up the silhouettes. Something I've been wanting to do since Wes arrived. I've decided once a year will be goo to update them. Hopefully next years Tucker won't have so much crazy hair! haha

The weekend is also our food preparation time for the coming week. We got all our grocery shopping done for my various recipes and I made some protein bars for the week. Yes, I said made.

I found the most DELICIOUS recipe that is full of good ingredients. Dewy made a big BLAH face when I told him what was in it. Now that he's had the finished product though he believes!

The recipe is as follows:
½ C xylitol brown sugar (Ideal)
1 - 4 oz. jar baby food applesauce
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 ½ tsp. ground ginger
½ tsp. ground clove
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 large egg whites
1 - 15 oz. can of raw pumpkin
2 C oat flour
2 scoops vanilla whey protein
½ cup almond milk
½ C chopped walnuts (optional

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350.
Spray a 9 X 13 Pyrex dish with non-stick spray.
Combine first 11 ingredients and mix well.
Add the final 3 ingredients (4, if adding walnuts), and mix until incorporated. Spread batter into the Pyrex dish and bake for 30 min.
Makes 24 squares.
1 square = 47 calories, .7 g fat, 8 g carbs, 3.7 g protein... AMAZING!

Thank you bodybuilding.com

We also had a brownie mix we'd made for friends the night before but then they ended up bringing US a dessert so that was a fail. We cooked it anyway and figured out an excuse to give it away. Laura is a huge Saints fan and we knew she'd be grumpy since they lost so we brought them to the Coviellos with a little note.

Dewy has had the day off for Martin Luther King Day which has been wonderful. We've been sleeping and sitting around all day. My body is so extremely sore from the workouts this week it's been using every bit of energy to heal and feed Wes. I would have slept all day if I could! Tomorrow we'll be all rested up and ready for another week!

Finishing Up the House

2012-01-14T11:30:00.000-08:00

Well there are still a few things I need to do for the house, and one more piece of furniture we are waiting on, but it's finally all finishing up!

The mantle just needs a wreath I am going to make...

I want to do a page wreath... they are really simple to make and cheap! And I love the coloring. Very shabby which I love.

Finished the decor for our bedroom...

Got some curtains for the family room!

and matching pillows for the couch!

Ottoman for the couch... finallllyyyyyy. Dewy and I have a hard time relaxing on the couch without something to lay our feet on. This one is perfect because it flips over to a hard table!

I need to find a SUPER huge frame for the dining room, so I'll be searching craigslist and thrift stores for that. After that I'll just need to change the color of some frames we have and add photos to them for the family room wall. That project will take the longest because I want us to get family photos to put in the frames. Who knows when we'll be ready for that! Hopefully within a month!

Wes looked so cute this morning. If only he'd sleep this soundly at night!

Luckily for me Dewy took care of Wes last night because we were bottle feeding him. We had the Briggs and Blankenships over for dinner and drinks and were up late hanging out! It was a blast and the new turkey burger recipe I tried was really good! It has beer in the recipe which lots of people put on their turkeys at Thanksgiving to make more juicy. It worked the same with the turkey burgers and they were juicy and delicious! Laurie and Matt also have a bar at their house and so they brought some of their fun drinks so we could mix up martinis. We made some interesting concoctions.... fun night!

Back to Playgroup and Autumn's Shower!

2012-01-12T14:33:00.000-08:00

Tucker woke up today farrrr too early. 630 just isn't fun when you're used to 7. I guess it isn't too far off but that half hour really make a difference when you're up feeding a baby all night. I tried to snuggle with him in our bed so hopefully he'd fall asleep again but that failed so we were up bright and early.

Dewy came home for breakfast, I made lunches for playgroup and for work, was able to workout after we dropped Dewy off, and then it was time to get ready and head to playgroup! We missed it.

Tucker was overjoyed when we arrived and kept squealing. It was Autumn's baby shower so we had a little party for her! Lehilina hand made everything and it was all so nice and cute!

Prizes for the games were sugar-bath mixes. Yay. I love baths.

A cute baby diaper wreath!

The lamb cake! (The theme was lambs and pink if you couldn't guess)

So girly!

Tucker was acting a little odd the whole time. He kept going off to play alone. I couldn't find him for a while and eventually heard something behind a rocking chair in Odette's room. He was hiding back there playing with toys. What a goose!

The games were great. We weighed diaper bags to see whose was the heaviest. Mine lost by half a pound to Kerri's Lilly Pulizter bag....

Another game was trying to "herd the sheep" by throwing the sheep cotton balls into the little pen.

I won my round with Kerri with 2 sheep in the pen. It was tricky!

We also had a pin the baby in the tummy.... I did terribly. It was up in the throat!

I need to teach him to smile at the camera....

Then cake time! Tucker wouldn't even try his slice which made me mad. He's becoming so picky! He would have tried it but it had frosting on it. If any food he likes has ANYTHING near it or touching it that he hasn't tried then he refuses to eat it. He doesn't even realize how good frosting is.

Luckily he did enjoy the marshmallow feet! He took two huge bites of that!

Autumn also opened up Amanda's gift. Most of us brought diapers or gift cards which aren't too exciting, but Amanda had the cutest outfit for her!

Yay showers!

After that we headed to pick up Dewy from work since the Copeland Center's computer's are down and they can't register Wes in DEERS yet. Stressful! I need to do that ASAP. Hopefully by tomorrow or next week. Otherwise we'll be getting close to the 2 month deadline.

After 2 weeks of cooking very good, wholesome meals I am going to pick up chick fil a tonight. Time for a break!

On a side note... HAPPY BIRTHDAY HILL-BILL!!! Miss you up in Oregonnnnnn!!!

18 Month Celebration At The Park!

2012-01-11T13:53:00.000-08:00

To celebrate Tuck's 18 month we went to the Bronco Youth Center park! We'd never been to it before when Tuck could actually run around and play and it was the perfect outing for the occasion. It's only a few blocks from us so we'll be going back a lot as long as the weather stays this good.

He cried a lot when we left, poor guy.

Start of a NORMAL Week

2012-01-09T19:00:00.000-08:00

First off I think something got on my camera. Most likely Tucker's slobber. All my photos seem fuzzy or have dots on them!

Today was one of those things-are-getting-back-to-normal days. It feels good. I could use some normal after all the crazy months.

Dewy went off to the gym early early (his choice... crazy man) and then on to PT. The advantage of living on post is that he can come home for breakfast and lunch and things too. So we enjoyed a nice breakfast together and then he was off to his office for the first time since last May! Being home alone with the boys was pretty strange since Dewy has been around with both of them till now. Surprisingly it was an easy morning as far as taking care of both of them. Always a good thing! Tucker took a nap around 10 and I was able to continue with one of the 30 minute workouts I've been doing for a few days. I got extremelyyyy frustrated during it because my flexibility is completely gone and certain exercizes are so difficult now when they were once so easy. My balance has also vanished so I'll be working on those 2 things for a while. After that I changed our address online for anything we would get mail for and then Tucker was up and Dewy was back for lunch! Amazing how quickly it goes.

Dewy was done for the day and I'm glad he was because the couch arrived that we ordered!

We also have a chair coming that should look good with it and then we'll have our family room furniture set up! I still need to do some projects to finish up the decor but it will be very nice to be closer to finishing the room up!

The rest of the evening has been football watching and dinner eating. Pretty enjoyable. Dinners have been wonderful now that I'm back to cooking. Not that I don't love MceeDees chicken nuggs, but I reallyyyy needed some home-cooking. Not to mention how yummy all the new recipes we've been trying have been. Tonight was an oregano/parsley tilapia and a carrot coleslaw salad. We also snuck some peanut butter toast in there for something a little more starchy. Yum yum.

Wes has a grumpy tummy a lot and can get very fussy. Quite different from how Tucker was! I am working on patience with that and trying to eat lots of mild things so they don't bother his tummy. Tucker, on the other hand, has been having a ball. Look at this manly little boy with his hammer and monster truck!

Next project..... getting everything off of the mantle...

and somehow organizing these things to be pretty up there

Sweet little men

Tucker's been giving us this face a lot lately

What a goose!

And Home Again

2012-01-08T13:52:00.000-08:00

We are finally feeling a little more back to normal with our house coming together. Simple things like taking a shower in your own bathroom is wonderful! Having things feel more clean is also super nice. I was going insane with piles of things everywhere, and even though there's still some things sitting around waiting to be put into place it feels so much nicer!

We have even seen some of our friends! The Abbatacola's invited us over for New Years and we had a blast spending the evening with them and the Gallaghers. I was so proud that we didn't just lay around and end up falling asleep at 10. Yay 2012! We were also invited to dinner with the Kreitler's!!! John is home for his R & R and he wanted to see some friends. It was so nice to see him after so long! Not to mention Alicia and Sky. Jace was asleep the whole time and I was grumpy I didn't get to see the little cutie. We had a wonderful time though and even got to see the moon through John's new telescope Alicia got him for Christmas. It was incredible!

Tuck has been a cuddle bug as usual. I guess blowdrying my hair was just taking too long because Tuck layed down and fell asleep between my ankles. What a sweetie!

Phase Two of Move In

2012-01-07T13:39:00.000-08:00

Master bedroom much closer!

Tuck and Wes's room, basically done!

The guest room, aka the room we don't speak of.... haha.

1/2 bath... almost done!

Kitchen.... still looking bare, needs some curtains or something

Study... pretty close!

living room... almosttt done!

The other rooms not pictured are no where close, but hopefully in two weeks it will be completelyyyy done!

Tubby Time Break!

2012-01-06T13:29:00.000-08:00

Luckily we've still had time for baths amidst all the moving in.

Wes hated the water until I put some warm wash rags on him. Then he seemed to love it!

Skinny widdle wegs!

My little ducks!

Phase One of Move In

2012-01-04T12:45:00.000-08:00

Dewy brought everything over from the storage unit that didn't require two people and we had in all in within 3 days. Pretty awesome I'd say! I would open up boxes and set stuff in the room they would go in while Dewy went back and forth. It worked really well that way and Tucker certainly enjoyed running around in the new place, playing with every little thing.

Living room

Dinging Room

Family Room

Study

Guest Room

1/2 Bath

Tuck and Wes's Room

Master Bedroom

Boys bathroom

Master Bathroom

Helping daddy put up lights outside

Oh the fun

At least Wes enjoyed himself

Open

2012-01-03T12:40:00.000-08:00

Well finallllly got the internet yesterday so I am able to blog! A little sidenote.... my blog is open to anyone right now because my dad couldn't read it because of the security pop-ups they have on the government computers with the privacy setting. Therefore it will be open for at least a few months! Posts to come....

Back At Fort Hood

2011-12-27T16:15:00.000-08:00

We made it! And so glad the driving is over...

We took off on Christmas by noon and made it back to Fort Hood by 1030am the next morning. A record! Dewy drove all night which really amazed me but made me super happy. Anything to shorten the driving. We checked into a hotel and brought all our things in and now just get to play the waiting game till our house is ready.

We did some snooping today after Dewy went in to work for a half hour. We knew which house would be ours after all the info housing gave us and went to look in the backyard and to try and figure out which housing plan it was. This is it!
Two car parking area, 3 bedrooms and a study, an extra shed in the back, and a family room as well as a living room. Obviously this isn't too interesting to most people but it is to us compared to our last Patton Park house. We were determined to only live on post again if it was in the new Wainwright housing, but when they enticed us with a bigger Patton home we got curious and now I'm glad we did!

We been debating on different furniture options all night and how to arrange things. I could really use the help of my sis Hillary since she is the master of all decoration and interior design. It's such a strange space they give you to work with. I guess we'll see what happens! In the meantime we'll be waiting for them to tell us it's clean and we can move in. Woohoo!

Our First Christmas as a Foursome!

2011-12-25T16:52:00.000-08:00

Christmassss!!! Is there anything better?! Yes. Christmas with your recently returned deployed husband and a brand new baby boy. It was definitely the best yet.

Once Tucker realized that you could have all the treats in the stocking he couldn't get enough lollipops. I thought lollipops would be perfect since they aren't too messy and don't crumble everywhere. Santa also added some santa straws, a small football, little dino toys, and I also put some ornaments in for next years tree.

Wes got some cute shoes in his stocking

Hillary and her fam couldn't come down so they sent their gifts in the mail. They drew Dewy's name for gift exchange and made him the best card ever.

Wes sat calmly while we all took turns opening presents and Tucker would pick out his favorite present and play with it until someone handed him something that seemed even better.

Can I just say Dewy is excellent at gifts. I requested this specific blender, which I got, and also said we could pick what went in eachother's stockings. He got me the CUTEST makeup bags, the next book in a series I'm reading, a loose shirt (handy for post-pregnancy), perfume, and some treats. What a sweetie! I got him all of his favorite candies and some socks. I felt a little boring after his amazing stocking gifts... luckily I think the iPhone made up for it

One of the many cute photos Lyssa took... one day I'll get a camera like hers although it will be a longggggg time haha

Mike got a longboard that Tucker took advantage of. He loved rolling across the room on it. It was hilarious. I was worried he'd throw up because of the candy he'd had, but he kept insisting on riding!

What a fun Christmas this year! And we lucked out and were able to skype with my dad from Afghanistan for a half hour. That was probably the best part. I felt so bad for him being over there alone. Just a few more months till he's done! Go dad!

Christmas Eve!

2011-12-24T16:30:00.000-08:00

Since we knew we'd have an early depature on Christmas we asked Pam if we could celebrate with her on Christmas Eve. It was so nice of everyone to accomodate our schedule! Not to mention the tasty feast she made for us!

Tucker realized how much fun it was to open gifts!

And played some serious games with his cousins

We will miss Nicole's family till we can see them again! Hopefully in May for Spencer's graduation...

It was the perfect Christmas Eve. Eventually we had to take off to pack our things up in the truck. I knew it would take a while and it ended up taking till right before bedtime. Glad we did it the night before!

Pam's House For Cookies

2011-12-23T17:01:00.000-08:00

We went over to Pam's to enjoy some time with the fam before our soon-approaching departure. Tucker loves Spencer. He kept climbing all over him and liked snuggling.

He's still a little rusty when it comes to posing for the camera...

Pam got a new tv not long before we came.... it was..... amazingggggg. One day... one day.

Our cookie night was very interesting. Wes got hungry right when we were going to start so Dewy and Spencer took over the cooking. Pam got very anxious when she saw them attempting the dough making process and basically made them herself haha. I guess I'll probably be the same with my boys if they don't know much about cooking! They were delicious all the same
Tucker finds joy in the simplest of things....

I think I'd have fun in a flying bucket too though ;)

Wes is 1 Month!

2011-12-23T16:08:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness! One month! Little Wes you have changed completely.

We tried weighing him on Pam's scale the other day and he's at 6 lbs if not just barely below. You never know with clothes, so if the scale was right then he is definitely doing better on the outside like the doctor predicted. Considering my due date would have been 3 days ago he's already weighing more than Tucker did a week after! Woohoo!

Still has the extended belly and his head is still a little unproportional, but he is filling out and hopefully all with fatttt. Yay!

He even fits in his seat now with the infant insert.

Notice cute quilt sent by sister-in-law Megan!!!

I love the infant coo's Wes makes and his little wrinkles he always has on his forehead. He still wakes up a lot but I've managed to keep him from leaking out his diaper at night so at least I don't have to worry about that in the middle of the night! So far he loves being snuggled and sitting upright. I'll cross my fingers and hope I have another cuddly baby! So grateful for my little shmoopsy

Family Party-ing

2011-12-22T12:31:00.000-08:00

Last night was the Johnson family party at my moms. So fun!!! I think it was the best yet. Tasty food as always but really the best part was Tucker entertaining everyone. He's definitely the youngest little guy in the family right now other than Wes and was so cuddly with everyone. He kept cuddling with my cousins and uncles and even put on a nice dance for about 20 of us haha. He stripped off his PJs and danced to Mamma Mia in front of everyone and then would clap for himself. This was all followed by his hysterical laugh that is extremely fake but so funny to hear. Needless to say he was the entertainment for the night.

Nana and baby Wes

The guy standing behind Alyssa came with my cousin and played the piano for everyone which started everyone else on their performance. We heard Dreamgirls from the Christensen sisters, Aint No Mountain High Enough from all the cousins, lots of piano pieces from Betsy and grandkids, and then of course Tucker's sillyness.

Betsy brought a trifle..... haha. I always think of Friends when I see trifles.

Loves musical instruments....

....and phones

Wes has the cutest crinkles on his face all the time. He has such a grumpy face when he crinkles it all up. It's pretty adorable.

We also went to Dewy's grandpa's funeral on Tuesday. A funeral is quite a different experience with 2 children! Tucker wouldn't sit still for any of the talks so Dewy and I switched off taking him out to the hall to run around. Wes was pretty content but his grunts and toots are so loud it made it a little uncomfortable haha. Oh well! It's always nice to see Dewy's side of the family since we see them so little.

When we got to the actual gravesite I stayed in the car with the boys and Dewy went out to participate. It was pretty cold and that would have been a disaster with tiny Wes and Tucker falling asleep.

After the funeral we were starving so we drove to Paradise Bakery and had sandwhiches for lunch which were tasty. For dinner we met up with Dewy's family at Texas roadhouse which was also super tasty. Man I have been spoiled with rich food for a long time! I have to say I'm excited to get back to my own kitchen to do cooking though. I've missed itttt

little Wes is getting bigger! Tomorrow is 1 month! I don't believe it. I knew time would go fast once Dewy got here but this is crazy!

And I still can't believe Christmas is in 3 days. Woohoo! We are doing lots of preparation to leave but will still have a wonderful Christmas Eve and morning. Dewy set up lights in our room that I love and it will be sad to see them go!

Since we're heading out on Christmas we will hope to be back on the 27th. The family occupying our "maybe-to-be" house will be out that day so we'll be able to see it and know if we want to wait for housing to clean it up for us to live there or if we'll want to get a place off-post. Lots of busy things coming up though, that's for sure!

Meals With Family and Something I'd Prefer Not to Post

2011-12-18T14:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we got up and went to the rec center since we skipped Friday. We got a 25 punch pass and are down to our last 8 for this week which means we'll only be able to go Monday through Thursday. Oh bummer! Friday would really be the only other day we'd be able to go since Saturday and Sunday are holidays, so I guess that's pretty good timing for our departure on the 25th! I decided this time around at the rec center I was going to try prepping some of my muscles for weight lifting again. It was all dependent on how well Tucker and Wes's moods were since they would be in the stroller while I did some weights on the bench. Luckily it worked out! I did 3 sets with 8 reps of various exercizes that worked out every main muscle area in hopes that in a week or two I'll be able to REALLY work them out. The warm ups felt really good and even though today I am a little sore it's good to know that my body is getting used to it all again. YAY!

We decided to stop at Starbucks after and got Tucker one of the cakepops that they have now. He loooooved it. Judging by how slowly he ate it I think it was pretty rich.

We also stopped at Dewy's moms to hopefully finalize some plans for dinner, but ended up waking up Dewy's brother who just flew in from West Point the night before! Woohoo! I love when we get to see Dewy's brothers. It's such a rarety other than Mike who lives with his mom. We hung out with Spencer for a while and then went back to my parents and layed low for the rest of the day. We drove out to Olive Garden for dinner with Dewy's fam and Tuck's cousins who are visiting and had a tasty time. Tucker got a little restless after our long wait to be seated but otherwise we had a fun time with the family and all the goooood food.

Today we took off to brunch with Pam and Mike at Marie Callendar's and then went shopping for some funeral clothes. Dewy's grandpa passed away 2 days ago so on Tuesday we'll be going to his funeral. Poor Grandpa Fred! Dewy is named after him (Andrew FRED Hansen) and I constantly say "Ready Freddyyy???" whenever we're going somewhere. It will be sad to think his grandpa is gone now when I say that. Pam took us to Macy's and got us some nice clothes to wear since all I packed for Dewy were a few casual sets of clothing. Silly me.

Dewy has been getting on my case to take new progress photos for our bodyspaces on bodybuilding.com. I have been avoiding it but decided it was a must since I will want to see my progress as time goes on. This of course means I am posting photos that I would prefer not to because I am wearing tight clothing with some nice after-baby overhang. But hey! This is the before! I can't wait to see that after....

All future progress pictures I'm just going to post on my bodyspace. So if you want to know what kind of workouts I'm doing and see how my progress is going you will be welcome to go to this link: http://bodyspace.bodybuilding.com/Tinkski/! I never thought I'd be sharing my weight and measurments with anyone..... but I really think I'm going to get somewhere with my current goals. We shall see!

PG-13: Partial Nudity via Gingerbread Cookie

2011-12-15T10:10:00.000-08:00

We decided to make a little holiday treat the other night. Tucker was only too eager to help.

I thought it'd be a blast for him getting his hands in the dough and helping mix... but he was completely grossed out by it. He kept covering his ears when I'd try to put them in the dough to show him it was fun. Apparently not.

He wouldn't even PAT the dough. I mean this boy loves to pat. He'll pat knees, heads, walls, baby Wes, but he won't pat cookie dough.

Our array of cookies. We decided to do a bear for each of us... I added some biceps to Dewy's bear. We also got a random duck in there and an AK-47 I think.

Tuck loves looking in at things cooking. When the oven is open he knows everything is hot and tells us all "hah hah hah" repeatedly to warn us.

I think we used too much dough for each cookie because they came out rather fat haha

We got candies galore to decorate them with and ended up not using that many haha. We decided to let Tucker eat his heart out of the goodies and eat he did. He didn't do that much decorating which we expected but he certainly had fun eating chocolate treats which is a rarety.

You may have not noticed baby Wes in my lap. He's just so teeny! We always have him snuggled in blankets because of his thin skin and how cold it gets.

I did little Wes and Tucker bears. The reeses were supposed to be hair...

Tuck's duck. Well Dewy put the frosting on and the only reason the nerds stayed there was because he didn't seem to think they taste good.

Dewy's version of mommy and Wes..... hahaha

and little slowly-chubbing-up Wes.

It was very fun and Tucker was hilarious the rest of the night with all that sugar in his system. It may not happen again till next Christmas haha.

Man, Tuck and daddy are back to being best buds. It's so sweet to see and makes me very happy Dewy is back.

Yesterday we did the completely responsible thing and went shopping for clothes with all the money my parents were giving us for Christmas haha. We debated between blowing it all on clothes or getting something we would need for the house later on. Clothes won and we had a fun day at Fashion Place shopping shopping! We also went to Cheesecake Factory for lunch which was super delicious. It was a nice day out and about although I think today we're ready to hang out and relax.

On a side note, we've still be going to the rec center every morning to walk/workout and I actually ran a few laps today! It was so excited I kept going too fast and then having to walk because I would get winded too quick. I probably ended up jogging about half a mile total which is pretty pathetic but I guess it will be a long road to old workouts. Woohoo running a little!

Loving Christmas Lights

2011-12-12T15:01:00.000-08:00

This Is How We Do It

2011-12-12T12:05:00.000-08:00

Some highlights from our Utah vacation thus far!

Getting pizza at Pier 49. Tucker wasn't picky about it at all which made me happy.

I made some Christmas wreaths the other night and since we didn't have green dye ended up just going with sprinkles. I may do this from now on because that greenish tinge has always looked a little gross, and sprinkles still give it a green appearance!

Very fuzzy photo. I think the cold that night was getting to my eyes because when I took all the photos of Tucker running around to see the lights they looked clear to me, but when I got home every one of them was fuzzy! Grrrr. We had a fun night going to Dairy Queen and then going to see the Founders Park lights in the neighborhood. Tucker ran around like crazy and made all these cooing noises at all the lights. We can't stay outside for too long because of Wes-man, but it was definitely worth the trip.

Yesterday we went up to Dewy's dads to celebrate Christmas with him since we aren't sure exactly when we're leaving yet and didn't want to cut it too close. Nicole and her kids are in town too so we were able to go together and have all the cousins hang out for a change! It was so fun. It makes me so grumpy that we can't all live closer and do family things together. Such is life I guess! For now at least...

Tuck enjoyed laying in his old carseat...

LOTS of present opening! These kids got spoiled with all the little toys grandpa Hansen got.

My little baldy... oh i love him!

Tuck got this little basketball hoop. He LOVES it!

Conway had a nice dinner for us and we had lots of good time to catch up.

Then back home to decorate the tree!

Tuck decided he would become a climber and go up the ladder all night. Eeek! That's one way to stress your mommy out

He also just plopped down is Lyssa's lap to enjoy some videogames.

We also got to hang out with some friends this week. Krista and Liz came over Friday evening and we talked the night away! It was so fun to chat with them about life. We also met up with Dewy's friends Matt and Justin at DQ. Oh how old we feel! It's amazing how quickly we're all growing up. I still can't believe we have 2 kids now. Well more fun things to come till the end of this month!

December 8th Already?

2011-12-08T16:00:00.000-08:00

First things first, this is a bill I'm glad I don't have to pay...

Yay Tricare! I have to admit I do love that everything is always free with our health insurance. Even though it does require that your husband be gone so much. Having a baby would be quite expensive otherwise.

We have been having a great December! So much family time has been wonderful. We've gone to the rec center every morning to go walking while Dewy works out. It feels nice to be moving and I am definitely taking advantage of how well my body is doing after having Wes. I seem to remember not being able to do a thing after having Tucker for a few weeks. This has been heaven!

Tucker enjoys all the pretty Christmas trees that are up while we wait for daddy to finish his workout.

We went to Wes's 2 week check up yesterday morning which went wonderfully. Dr. Freestone said he's doing great and is now 4 lbs 14 oz which is awesomeeeee. I'm extremely happy he's gaining weight quickly and hope he keeps going! Everyone in the office greets Dewy with a "oh hiii!" and a "so glad you're back!" haha. They all knew our situation and it's funny to see their reaction with him back. Wes is 17 1/2 inches now and his head is 13 inches. He still has a kind of alien look to him with his large head and tiny body, but he is slowly filling out and it makes me very happy. We also had a hearing screening for his left ear today because it didn't pass while we were at the hospital. It passed today so we are all good! Woohoo healthy baby!

Tucker has been cuddling anything and anyone lately. Including the poor cat.

haha oh he cracks me up. He's been such a sweetie with his new little brother. He's been in a hitting phase lately and although he is slowly getting out of it he has been 99% soft with Wes. He seems to know it's baby brother whenever I say it and will start making a cooing noise and going "be be be be". Oh I am just loving this brother thing already!!!

Dewy and I have gotten some Christmas shopping done and poor Tucker can't take any more of it. The video below will display his reaction to how fun it is....

Movies, Friends, and Date Night

2011-12-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

On Friday we had some friends over! My lovely friend Shawntae who I've known forever brought her two little sweeties over to have lunch and play. Tucker was in heaven! He was so excited to have another little boy so close in age to him to play with. Goodness he is going to love going back to Texas to see his friends.

He and Kingston were soooooo cute. They were so friendly! Tucker even patted him "soft" a few times. You know he likes you when he does that!

Shawntae also has a fairly new baby girl. I can't believe we both have 2 kids now! Feels so surreal

The size comparison is quite dramatic. I hope little Wes is that big in a month and half!

That evening we decided to venture out to try a movie with the boys. The Muppets! It was pretty successful. Pretty. Tucker was infatuated the first half an hour, then got a little bored and needed popcorn to hold him off, but then it got cool again and he was entertained till the end. Wes slept through it all and when he got hungry I was able to sneak him out for a little bit. It was just nice to go see a movie again!

Yesterday we went to the rec center to "workout." Well I "worked out", Dewy worked out. My workout was walking around the indoor track with Tucker and Wes. Dewy's workout was serious weight lifting... I can't wait to be really working out again! Nonetheless it felt so nice just to be in a gym again and Dewy felt much more himself after having not worked out for a week. What can I say, we are obsessed!

I was very excited for Saturday night because I had booked a hotel for Dewy and I in Salt Lake a week before he got back (not knowing we'd have little Wes of course). It was right next to the Gateway mall in Salt Lake so we left Tuck with Sarah and Lyssa and took little Wes out for a date night. It was so fun! We checked into our hotel and then went to decide on a restaraunt for dinner and walk around to see the fountains and Christmas tree.

We ended up picking Z' Tejas southwestern grill which was nummyyyy. I got a glass of pinot grigio and drank about half and Dewy got a Vesper martini (James Bond specialty). First drinks for both of us in a very long time! After dinner we were debating between Breaking Dawn and Immortals at the theater. We ended up going with Breaking Dawn since I thought the action sequences in Immortals would be too loud for Wes's ears. Hmmm. Breaking Dawn. We both thought it might actually be good, I mean all the hype, come on, there had to be something behind it. It turned out to take spot number 1 on our worst movies ever list. We laughed through a lot of it and seriously couldn't believe we'd just seen it! It was ridiculoussss and will be "imprinted" on me forever haha.

We got some yummy breakfast this morning and now are back at home. Man I missed Tuck a lot just for being gone one night! He was sure happy to see us. Planning on making a tasty dinner tonight and then another fun week ahead! Woohoo!

Some pictures to satisfy you baby lovers.....

WINDY

2011-12-02T20:07:00.000-08:00

Centerville made national news yesterday! All night we'd been hearing tonsss of wind blowing the trees outside and it sounded like a lot more than normal and by the morning we could see it definitely was. The Santa Ana winds did some serious damage to the area. Stepping outside was like walking into a hurricane. The whole city was basically shut down for the day...

no stop lights working

HUGE pine trees about every other house had fallen down. These things could crush a whole house if they'd landed on one. We saw 2 houses that had trees on them as well as some that pushed power lines over and blocked off roads.

Almost every building had some part of it torn off by the wind.

This is the tree in my parent's yard that used to be one tall pine tree. Now it's just a half.

We also saw lots of car damage from flying debris which made us scared enough to stay inside all day.

The only power in the city was the reserve fire station power and whatever generator power certain grocery stores had. EVERYTHING was closed! Luckily my parents have a furnace so we were able to keep the house warm with a fire. Their gas stove also came in handy with cooking because you could turn the gas on and light it with a match. Dewy and I ventured out once to try and find a food place that was open and got about 2 towns over and ended up just going into one of the grocery stores that was partially open. Talk about crazy! We were extremely nervous about sleeping overnight in a house with no power and heat coming through with Tuck and Wes and were planning on going to a hotel, but then Dewy's mom's power came on late in the evening so we went over there for the night. Thank heavens! Luckily today most all of the power is on again and we are seeing tons of cleanup all over the city. So much damage done!

Did I mention how good life is with a husband here??? It is the best. I missed it so much!

Christmas Sightings

2011-12-01T20:02:00.000-08:00

Tucker in new Christmas PJ's, walking around in daddy's shoes.... check

Tucker opening daddy's Christmas gift a little early so he can have a phone.... check

An amazing decorated house.... check

Clever neighbors.... double check

I love Christmas!

Life is Good

2011-11-29T12:23:00.000-08:00

We have had a very good week :)

Once I had little Wes, Dewy's mom called the Red Cross for me to notify them that I'd gone into labor to try and get him home sooner. They were able to schedule him to come out on the next main body flight of soldiers that was coming which was Monday! I knew the weekend would be a lot easier for me since I had a new baby to distract me, but Dewski would be flying flying flying allll weekend. Four flights I think. Nope five. Kuwait to Germany, Germany to Maine, Maine to Killeen, Killeen to Dallas, and Dallas to Salt Lake City. Eek! I felt very bad for him. I was so excited once Monday arrived. It never really felt real until we were on our way to the airport.

Pam ordered a great sign for us to hold

I kept telling Tucker dada was coming all day and he got very excited every time I said it. I was so nervous at what his reaction to Dewy would be.

So excited!!!

And THERE he was!!!!! It was one of the best moments of my life! Dewski and I ran and hugged and then he came over to meet his new little son. My mom videotaped it all and I'm so glad she did.

Dewy pulled out a stuffed dog for Tucker and even some chocolate.

Tucker cuddled right away and it made me so happy that I'd put in so much work to incorporate Dewy into books and dolls and videos everyday so that he'd recognize him.

A family of four now!

And back to mommy to tell her he is tired and wants a looong nap.

Life is good. And I am so happy now. Having Dewy back just makes our family feel complete again and I finally have my partner back.

Since Monday we have been happy as ever and now get to pick up where we left off and just enjoy life. I completely lucked out with Dewy's deployment and how short is has been. It felt like forever even though it was 7 months. I'm so glad he's back and we can enjoy this wonderful time with our boys. Deployment #1 over!

After some nap time its back to wrestling the night away with daddy (Ok really just until 8 pm because then everyone is too tired to stay awake any longer). Except for Wes, who is always ready for a nap!

Now we are just going to spend our days catching up on little videos of life and sharing silly stories of our time. Lots of time celebrating the holidays with family before we drive back down to Texas to start moving into our new house.... so there is a lot of work to do later..... but who cares, thats a problem for later!

The Birth in Pictures

2011-11-25T11:55:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the best!

When I walked into the hospital alone I decided I should run into the bathroom to get a last picture of the belly before Wes came out. 36 weeks and 2 days!

I had a LOT of anxiety at this point so I took a picture of the long walk to the labor and delivery area. It was a little relieving that I could hardly hear any noises and it seemed empty.

All set up and getting news on when we were starting. Eek!

Sarah was my go-to person and was with me through EVERYTHING. She kept saying she'd stay the night with me but I told her there was no way I'd let her. She stayed with us for every second of it other than that though. They gave her a "birthing-partner" mug full of goodies... lucky her.
One last goodbye before mommy has baby and we aren't just 3 anymore!

Baby Wes joins us

I feel so lucky and so blessed not to mention I have the most wonderful family and support system. Even though Dewy wasn't there it was really the best experience and I'm so glad Alyssa got some amazing photos. What a great day!

Wesley Andrew Hansen

2011-11-24T17:16:00.000-08:00

Our new little sweetums arrived yesterday at 5:38 PM, weighing 4 pounds and 6 ounces.

Since I have a few days to hang out at the hospital I decided I'll blog with some of my off-time and just write about little Wes's labor and post all the pictures when we get home.

Wednesday I went in for the ultrasound that I had planned on to make sure Wes was healthy and see if an induction at 39 weeks would be a good idea. The ultrasound tech said everything was growing normally and she would have a doctor come and explain why he was so small and why I might have small babies. So a nice woman came and told me how the placenta grows differently for everyone with their individual pregnancies, and mine just so happened to grow so that the baby gets less nutrition because it squishes the cords that send it all to baby. So if I have more children, this is basically just how it's going to go. Small babies are my future. But anyways, she said that in Wes's particular case some of the food wasn't being delivered to him and that it was her opinion we should get him out within a few days because he would be getting more on the outside. When she said that I was kind of like, Ah! Ok! Nervousness kind of set in and my hopes to have Dewy here were again let down haha. I know it's not particularly funny, but just the fact that he found out he could be here so much earlier and we thought FOR SURE he wouldn't miss it... that definitely should have ticked me off that it was too good to be true haha.
So the doctor called up my doctor and told him the news and he suggested I take an NST test while I was there and then we could plan on an induction within the next few days. Well, outside I was pretty calm about all of this, but inside I guess I wasn't because the moment the NST started and my bp was taken it was up at 170/180 and the NST tech was freaking out and telling me to drink some orange juice quickly because she knew they'd make me go into labor today. I thought for sure my spike in BP was because of the news they'd just given me and didn't really think it was a permanent thing, but I guess they thought it was still very risky.
So we sat at the NST getting stats while they talked over the phone with my doc and decided what to do. Once I was done they had me head straight to Lakeview Hospital to be admitted. So I drove off alone to Lakeview, updating my family along the way on getting stuff ready and tryingggg to get a hold of Dewy.
I got to the hospital and up to the labor and delivery (which was emptyyyy) and got settled in my labor room. It was so big and spacious and sooo nice compared to the cramped space where I had Tuck. I was already feeling extremely spoiled. My family came over and we chatted while Wes was monitered and we waited for my doc. Once he got there he decided we'd try and break my water and then see if I'd contract enough on my own before we used any pitocen. He tried to break it himself and was sweating after a few minutes and said we'd probably have to start on pitocin if it wouldn't break immediately, so he took off for a bit and after about 10 minutes I started feeling that "flow." Talk about weird. I never remember my water breaking with Tucker even during labor and it's the strangest sensation to feel like you are uncontrollably peeing your pants verryyyyy slowly.
I told my nurse and started feeling contractions so we knew there was no turning back.
At this point I'd finally gotten a hold of Dewy and he was freaking out at how sudden it all was. I was mostly scared because i didn't want that terrible pain again that I had with Tucker and wanted to avoid it at all costs.
The water breaking started at 11am, so technically that was the beginning of labor. By around 130 they had given me some pitocen and I was moving along very steadily and contractions were getting faster and harder. I asked her how long it would take to get an epidural when I wanted one and she said a few minutes..... oh, you mean not a few hours or at all??? Wow, how convenient.
The contractions got much worse and my mom and sister's massages weren't cutting it for relief (although they did feel AMAZING). When i told her I needed it she rushed the anesthesiologist in and within half an hour it was in and I was starting to feel some relief. Ahhhh. I couldn't even believe how amazing it was that it could take so much pain away. What a relief!
Labor continued on and the only other medication change I needed was some ephedrin to get my heart rate up a little because it had gone down and Wes didn't like it. After that things were extremely peaceful and I just layed and relaxed and tried to sleep. I didn't know labor could be like this! Not labor at all!
The nurse came to check me at 5pm and I was dilated to a 6. She was hoping I'd have it by the time her shift was over at 7 so she seemed pretty bummed. Dr. Freestone came in as well to check up on us and to let us know he'd be going home for a bit but would be back the moment we needed anything. So they both left the room and my mom and sister and I were looking through tv channels trying to decide what to watch when I started feeling that pushing feeling. I didn't think much of it at first but then asked my mom to get the nurse to check me again. I thought it was silly because she had literally been in there 5 minutes before. She checked and imediately let out a "oh! Yep, there he is, time to go!" 6 to 10 in five minutes? How does that happen???
She and my doc rushed back in and were getting everything ready and my sis was trying to get a hold of Dewy. They had everything set up really quick and the pressure felt extremely strong so I knew that baby was comin out soon. I got my legs up and after one push out came my little sweetie! Talk about heaven! There was zero pain and I couldn't believe I'd already done it. The doctor said with his size and Tucker already paving the way there wasn't any worry of a tough push. Woohoo. After that it was cleanup and the first precious moments of holding Wes. They were so wonderful and unforgettable.

It was such a wonderful experience compared to the first and it made me think that at least this part of Dewy being gone had been easy. He was finally able to get a hold of us a while after labor and was so happy to hear about his new little son.

Now it's bedtime in the hospital and Wes and I are going to cuddle cause we're going home tomorrow! Woohoo!
LOTS of pictures to come, but if you can't contain yourself my sister has already posted a bunch on her blog. Look for Autumn Time Is Here in my list of blogs at the bottom of the page!

Thanksgiving preppp

2011-11-22T13:45:00.000-08:00

This boy thinks he's a cat!

I scheduled a doctor appointment yesterday so that I could discuss the options of having the baby in the time frame Dewy could be here and to make sure it would be a safe option. I decided to take Tuck with me because I knew we'd just be chatting the whole time and I also wanted the doctor to meet the big brother! Tucker only brought one book to me to read to him at the office....

Hmmm...... hurry home dada.

Doctor Freestone and I discussed my worries about being small but really wanting to have the baby while Dewy was here so we wouldn't be anxiously awaiting labor in time to go to Texas. He scheduled an ultrasound for me for Wednesday so my nerves could be eased and we could make sure baby was as healthy as can be. I'm extremely anxious for it and am also excited to see baby on that ultrasound screen again. yay! Other than that he said we can plan to start stripping my membranes in 2 weeks and seeing if my body can be assisted into labor naturally. If it doesn't kick in then we will induce at the latest by December 13th! So I should be having a baby by then! Woohoo! This is all dependent on Wednesday's results and that baby is growing normally and will be safe enough to come.

36 weeks.....

I am cooking Thanksgiving for my family in the house which will be soooo fun! First Thanksgiving in the new house! Sarah and I went on the big shopping trip today and picked up everything. I made a million to-do lists and recipe lists and Sarah caught one of my many ditzy grammar errors I seem to make so often....

It would be kind of silly to "de-thaw" a turkey :)

Tuck has been such sweetie amidst all the chaos and food planning.

Almost Turkey Time!
a much bigger turkey than my baby will be

I also sent off a little something in the mail that I can't reveal yet, but by next week will be able to :)

Other than that I'm feeling just a little excited/anxious/nervous about everything that's going on. Just a lotttt of emotion involved in it all. I'm actually surprised my blood pressure hasn't been skyrocketing at my doc appointments, but also relieved that I'm still doing well.

Tomorrow will be a busy day of ultrasounding and prep for Thanksgiving. Yay holidays!

Balloon Boy

2011-11-20T17:04:00.000-08:00

This was at breakfast the other morning. There was a woman making balloon animals for kids and all Tucker wanted to do was squeak his and annoy everyone there. Personally, I thought it was adorable haha

Crazy Times Ahead

2011-11-18T15:04:00.000-08:00

It's been an interesting week. Pretty hard one with lots of highs and lows.

I took a lot of good pictures and uploaded them to photobucket on my phone but for some reason the website doesn't work like normal right now and it won't let me login. Grrrr. So I will just have to use the most recent photos of what's been going on.

Amid lots of crazy news and poor Chewy's accident life has still been going along. We went to IHOP with Pam and Mike. Tucker ate soooooo much. Thought I must have been forgetting to feed him somehow because he ate until he was looking a lot more pregnant than me.

Rubbing his oh-so-big belly

He was loving looking through the glass and blowing kisses so I went to the other side and surprsied him.... silly checkout computer

Mommy!

He was saying 'peez' to us all night which made me happy. I've been trying foreverrrr to get a please out of him before I give him things and it's finally paid off. Woohoo

He has taken a lesson from my brothers and has learned how to properly lounge about and play videogames. Well, at least hold the controller.

Cracked me up the first time I walked in the room and he was sitting there lounging on pillows just holding a remote haha.

The army has once again proved how undpredictable it can be.

We got news this morning that Dewy and the rest of the battalion will be scheduled to come back in about a week instead of the already altered dates of early December. I have to say I feel bad if any people already had Thanksgiving plans and travelling dates because now they'll have to change them. It's wonderful news though and now I am beyond excited with the short countdown ahead. I only hope I can get everything ready in time before he comes! We have a few tricky situations to sort out since he has 25 days of leave starting when he gets back (15 for immediate return and 10 for maternity leave). Since he will most likely be to Utah by the 28/29th we will have to cut our holidays short in Utah and probably head back to Texas around the 20th. Which also means my OB here will be scheduling an induction early so Dewy can be sure and be here for it. This also means we will most likely be in a hotel for Christmas searching for our house to buy. I have no complaints at all though. Christmas in a hotel? who caressss!!! I will have a new little baby and my husband. Two things I truly can't wait for and will be so grateful for. It was pretty hard burying little Chewy in the ground and saying goodbye, so just enjoying the company of the people I love will really be the best thing ever.

Going to be the best Christmas ever!!!!

We'll Miss You Chewy

2011-11-17T13:46:00.000-08:00

I'm really not enjoying writing this post right now.

Poor Chewy was hit by a car last night and is gone now. We'll miss our little puppy a lot. That's all I can really write for now. We love you Chewy

Novembelly

2011-11-09T14:34:00.000-08:00

We had a very sweet moment last night where Tucker discovered where mamma's bellybutton was and became very interested in it.

He was sooooo fascinated by it. Eventually all the poking started to hurt. After a while he wanted to just cuddle with the belly and I couldn't help but wonder if he knows he's got a little buddy in there soon to come out.

What a snuggle bunny I have on my hands

Still obsessedddd with da da videos as well. Now he brings up random dvds to me to put in the computer to play him thinking every one of them has da da on it. So sweet.

I have all my little projects in our room that I'm working on and am in the middle of a few. My growth board for Tucker was done but then I decided I needed to add some sort of accent to it. As you can see I tried stenciling with green (since green will be the main color of Tuck's room when we get back). After I'd tried a few designs I decided stenciling wasn't the way to go. Maybe a nice green ribbon wrapped around the top or possibly some green truck shapes or something on the top. I'll figure out something!

My other projects involve new silhouettes for Tucker's head and then eventually baby's, as well as a cute sign for Tuck's room. Man when I get into nesting all I want to do is things for my babies! Going to have to do some projects for the actual house sometime soon....

We got some news that 1st brigade is going to be staying in Iraq until next June or July and they all have been planning on returning in January just like us. I'm keeping my fingers crossed they don't change their mind about Dewy's unit too. At least someone made up their mind about someone's unit. Sheesh! Getting sick of all this waiting around. But hey, almost mid-November. I figure they have to decide on something before December comes or I can basically assume they're going to prolong it.

Uncertainty like this makes me want to do one thing. Shop.

In order not to splurge I focused all my shopping energy on getting something cheap but needed. Enter: yellow hoodie from Rue 21. $14. Hooray!

And hello bump! Maximum capacity almost reached...

Why, Hello Snow!

2011-11-06T08:21:00.000-08:00

This weekend we had a nice layer of snow that fell overnight. It wasn't the permanent kind that starts off winter, but one of those preview snowfalls where it melts the next day. It was so nice to see though! It felt so good outside with that chill!

Friday afternoon we made a trip up to Logan to pick up Sarah from USU and have her show us around a bit. Dewy's brother came with us and we all had a fun time. Sarah showed us this cute little park nearby the school that had an awesome jungle gym that Tucker loved

We made a stop at the mall in Logan which Sarah didn't know existed. It's one of those smaller ones like the one by Fort Hood that has all of the essential "mall stores". I told her we needed to check Bath and Body Works for their acne cleanser. The stuff is amazing! Sarah has been looking for a good one and I told her their Wexler line was definitely the best stuff for our families genetic face-type. No, I'm not a Wexler representative trying to sell it. I just love the stuff!

After that we had dinner at Firehouse and then made the drive back through the canyon and back home for ice cream. Num num.

We found some enormous glasses in my grandpa's basement and Tucker enjoyed seeing people put them on.

Mamma!

Tuckman!

Lyssie-poo!

We got 2 very special packages on Saturday. Both from daddy! There is a program for deployed soldiers where they record them reading books and can send the book and dvd back home to their kids for free. We got these 2 and Tucker just looooves them. He doesn't want the video to end and I usually have to keep playing it a few times or he'll whine until he sees da da again.

Sitting so nicely watching da da read stories.

I also got the carseat adapter in the mail and wouldn't you know they sent a Graco instead of a Peg Perego.... oh goodness. I was sitting in the store when the guy put in the order and somehow he ordered the wrong one. How do these things happen! Good thing baby isn't here yet....

That dilemma is the least of my worries right now though. I'm more excited about all the baby stuff even if people mess up orders. Right now my worries entail how awful this pregnancy is feeling right now and the unending mystery of when Dewy will get back.

Pregnancy is throwing me for a loop this time. It's been very similar to Tucker's in many ways but also extremely different. I felt little to no nausea which was the bestttt thing ever, but I have started getting horrible headaches and stomach pains. That and lots of labor aches that bring back terrible memories haha. The lack of sleep it's all causing and the constant exhaustion is really wearing on me. I can't wait to have a normal feeling body again! You people are crazy who love your pregnant body. Mine just does not cooperate. How small I am has also been worrying me a little lately. Worrying, you say? I'm sure it's every pregnant woman's dream to not gain too much weight, but it really makes me nervous that I've done something wrong that's causing it. My last appointment my doc said people's babies are usually around 5 lbs at that point and I just laughed because I know baby is not even close to that yet. I've tried to come to terms that maybe I just have small babies, but my doctor said it's usually caused by a history of smoking or drugs, which I can say have NEVER been something I've tried. It all just makes me nervous that something will be wrong with baby, but Tucker turned out ok and he was small, so as long as it happens the same way I will be ecstatic. Getting close little baby!

Dewy's constant change of return time has left everything kind of up in the air. I've decided it will happen when it happens and we'll make all the tough decisions when the time comes. Certainly the most convenient time would be towards the end of January, but something tells me December may be more likely and will be a rollercoaster ride. Time will tell cause the army sure won't.

Time To Crack the Whip

2011-11-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

We've been up to lots of things here.

Lyssa, the ghostly apparition, making spaghetti...

A little project I am starting for Tuck and little man #2. This piece of would will eventually be a growth chart/board. Almost like a giant ruler. I went to Home Depot and they not only cut whatever piece of their wood you want to your custom size, they also discount it to 51 cents if it has any sort of bend in it. 51 cents for a growth board, yes please.

I chose this one specifically because of all the little nicks and knots it has in it. Thought that would make it look a little more vintage and distressed. Which is the look I'm going for. A white stain was all I needed!

I've sanded, washed, and stained the first coat onto it. Staining of course requires lots of dabbing with wet rags and drying, but the first coat is done and I'll be on to the second tomorrow. Finished project to come...

I decided to make something elseeee this week to send to my dad and Dewy. Not much of a surprise for Dew, since he'll read this, but I had to send it off immediately after I made it so it can get to them as fresh as possible. Zucchini bread... mmmm.

I had another doctor appointment which went very smoothly. Did I mention he is a male? haha. It's been pretty strange having a male doctor that will be the one delivering the baby. Besides the fact that he's a man, I only imagined I'd meet the person who actually delivered the baby when I was delivering since that's how it was with Tucker. Dr. Freestone has kept everything so lighthearted and been so helpful, I am almost positive this will be a much better experience than with Tucker. You never know though..... ;)

Yesterday a CERTAIN ITEMMMM arrived that I am ecstatic about! The double stroller! YAYYY. All I had to do was attach the wheels and cup holder. That is until the car seat adapter/snack tray arrives. I took a trip to REI to get one specifically for our Peg Perego carseat and they said their computer's showed 5 in stock but they couldn't find them anywhere. So it's being shipped for free to Pam's. Yessss, can't wait for it.

Tucker thought it was a huge new toy for him and kept climbing up in it. Apparently it can also be used as a jungle gym.

We took a break from stroller excitement to go to Paradise Cafe with Pam and Mike where I trieddd to get Tucker to eat something. He only wanted to cookies though and once they were "all gone" (or possibly hidden) he stared in the bag like... nooooooo, where are they????

Then more playing in the stroller....

I feel like even though I have a long way till baby's due date I am much more prepared now. It seems like with Tucker I was getting all ready months and months before. This month I will have to make all my final preparations for baby! Last month of just one child! Ahhh! I can't believe it.

F.Y.I. Today we have a forecast for snow.... oh my goodness I'm a long way from Texas!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T19:42:00.000-07:00

What a Halloween! Dewy messaged us this morning saying I needed to see his Halloween costume on facebook. I sent him Superman undies foreverrrr ago as a joke and he wore those and a cape with another guy that had Batman undies. Oh my gosh! Insanely funny! I'm glad they could give everyone a laugh out there.

We spent most of the day getting the finishing touches of Tucker's costume ready. I had to find black boots for Thor and my final resort were little girl boots! They were so shiny, they looked perfect except for the little flowers on the bottom.

Thor likes grapes... a lot

I wanted to get some pictures of Tucker playing in the nice fall weather in his costume so we went to a park with Jack.

LOVING leaves!

smashing leaves with the hammerrr

One thing I did not plan on was Thor eating his hammer... hmmmmm

We met up with Pam and Mike at McDonalds for a quick bite before trick-or-treating time. The one here is insanely nice and has all these fountains outside of it. I'm not sure if they meant for them to foam over like this or not....

Thor likes MceeDees!

I ask Jack to take a photo and this is what I get... haha, blur mc blurry. Oh well. Yummy!

After that we went to visit Nana at South Davis Hospital where she works because one of her patients loves Marvel characters. He loved seeing Tucker's little Thor outfit. Tucker didn't need too many treats but we got a few (and mostly mommy's favorites haha). Now Tuck has passed out by 830 and I am enjoying relax time watching Hocus Pocus. Woohoo! Just missing Da Da!

Sick as a Dog

2011-10-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a rough one.

I woke up feeling the usual grogginess and then on to feel lots of nausea. And then lots more nausea. I kept getting flashbacks of Tucker's pregnancy with how bad it was and wondered what brought the sudden onset. Once the evening hit and we had accomplished zero items on our list of things to do and had taken 2 very long naps I knew something was wrong. My mother-in-law and I decided it was the flu and hopefully it would only last a day. By dinner time I couldn't move off the couch and didn't want to eat a thingggg. I think I had water and an apple yesterday. My sweet mommy brought me some medicine to help me sleep through the night and Pam was so nice to give Tucker dinner while I layed on the couch. Ugh, seriously don't know how people manage being sick with children. Definitely seems impossible to me! Pam brought Tucker down when it was his bedtime and he dozed off to sleep nicely and I took a nice bath that seemed to help a bit. I tried to sleep but about an hour into it was getting bad nausea again and ended up sitting in the bathroom most of the night. Luckily around 5am I felt like I could drink something and went and got some orange juice which tasted like the best thing on the planet. After that I ate saltines and drank orange juice and I felt muchhhh better. I still haven't had an appetite today and have been about 30%, but much better than the 5% I felt like the night before.

I felt like we needed some fresh air today so we went to the park for a long time that's right by Pam's. It felt so nice in the cold air and Tuck even got to wear his monkey hat. After that we went to take Chewy to the house. I love all the painting that is being done! It looks so good! Painting, floors, lights, and the house is done! It is going to be soooo cool!

Tucker loved dusting the kitties

I HEART this monkey hat. Definitely cheered by day up by a zillion times

serious hat hair

painting is so exciting

Oh, how sweet. My mom and dad's initials

and lastly 32/33 weeks along. Woohoo! I feel like I've lost about 10 lbs since I got sick yesterday so no doubt I'll be shoveling my face tomorrow from starvation.

October Over=Check

2011-10-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

Well almost.....

Chewy's kennel has been out of the way by the back door... that is until Tucker decided his favorite thing to do was take out all the dvds and throw them in a pile. Now it's blocking the dvds. Since then Tuck has decided it is his new climbing gym and gets on top of it and is stuck without a way to get down. Silly goose. Pam's cleaners certainly think it's entertaining

Such a big boy now!
We went to a dinner Sunday evening for my mom's, grandma's, and aunt's birthday celebration. We met at my grandma's to have appetizers and then took off to Olive Garden. Tucker is such a friendly little guy. He would let anyone pick him up and was so smiley.

Nummy Olive Garden.

Grandma and Grandpa!

We had quite a crowd there with my aunt's family, our family, and my grandparents. They are headed off to Mexico on Tuesday for the winter so it was also a farewell dinner for them.
I told Sarah we were a lesbian couple for the night since I'm prego and have a little boy and am alone as usual. Here was our best lover shot.

famski!

uncle Troy and aunt Kathy

It was such a fun dinner and the only ones missing were Dewski and my pop!

In other news, baby has kicked it up a notch in my belly. He's moving like crazy and seems to be having a party in there! It's definitely a lot more tiring this time around always needing to hold little Tuckman. Whenever Tucker takes a nap I make sure to lay down and relax if not sleep.

Seems like things are changing every day with plans for Dewy to come home, but hopefully by December we'll know for sure and be able to make our plans for January. In the meantime we are enjoying the wonderfullll fall weather and making sure we are ready for baby. I also have lots of Christmas shopping to do.... eek!

Movie Time

2011-10-23T11:32:00.000-07:00

Spoiled

2011-10-19T19:13:00.000-07:00

First off! Dewy made it to Kuwait. Hooray! My relief is indescribable. I am just happy knowing he's in a safe zone with all that goes on outside of it. He was moving while I was which was kind of coincidental.

Monday I called my new Personal Care Manager and was able to schedule an appointment for the next morning. Not only that, but I was still worried about Tucker's rash and new cold he has eveloped and called his new doctor and she was able to get him in the next morning as well. As if that wasn't convenient enough they are both in the same building a few doors down from eachother. Is this what normal doctor care is like? haha. Definitely feeling a little spoiled.

Meeting Lyssa and nana Evans at the park for lunch

Loving the fishies on the walls at his doctor's office

The doctor gave Tucker a flu shot while we were in for our visit which he wasn't too happy about but other than that it was very nice and quick. Lots of toys everywhere!

Even at my appointment they had some toys in the office which was really handy since I took Tucker along with me. The military insurance we have is very specific with who you can see and who you can't, so in order to be seen by an OB I needed to get a referral first from my PCM. He referred me to a doctor who came highly recommended and was covered by tricare and set me up an appoinment for the next morning. I am so unaccustomed to all this quick healthcare...

After doctor appointments we went out to get Tucker's costume materials so I can start sewing it. Woohoo. We also started working on a scrapbook for Dewy's mom that she requested. It's for her oldest son's years at West Point whose scrapbook she never finished.

We decided to go to my brother, Mike's, marching band competition since I hadn't seen him play yet.

I thought Lyssa dressed like that woman from Terminator 2 since she was still in part of her construction work apparel.

Tucker was MESMERIZED by the bands whenever they'd go on the field to play. He would clap for them when they were done with everyone else.

Wearing a hoodie.... crazy!

I wanted to geta picture of Mike in his full uniform but he'd already changed out of it by the time we got up to the band.

I've been on a Dexter craze and decided to rent the season I'm on since netflix would be too slow. There are still Blockbusters around here unlike Texas so Lyssa and I rented them and started watching them at Pam's.

Today I took off early to drop Tucker off with my mom while I went to my first pregnancy appointment which was 30 seconds from my grandpa's house. That will definitely make it easy to have my family babysit Tuck when I need to go in. And especially when I go into labor! Although this time it's looking like I'll probably be induced again. The doctor told me he wanted to revert to my original due date on December 11th since he thinks the earlier the due date predicted is the more accurate reading. So now I am 2 more weeks ahead than I assumed. He said if my blood pressure starts going up like it did with Tucker then they will induce me right away instead of waiting around and having a billion NST tests like at Darnall. Ah, thank heavens. I told him to make sure that before anything baby was healthy enough to come out and that once he was then I'd be happy to deliver anytime. In reality the sooner the better (as long as baby is developed enough) since I still have no idea about dates when Dewy will be home and I'd rather have more time to plan with baby. It would give me a little more time to get used to things. I predict I'll be having baby sometime around the 11th of December. Eek! That will be a crazy time.

After the appointment I went to get Tuck and continued scrapbooking while Tuck napped. Then we were off to play with Chewy for a bit at the house and see all the progress for the day. Followed by picking up my little bro from school for my mom and planning out a trip to the pumpkin patch this weekend. I feel like we always have something to do here which is very nice and will keep the days going quick. That and the wonderful weather have really been making life a lot easier. I still miss Dewski like crazy and can't wait till he's back and we can be our own family again and he can see his sweet little men. Just a few more months!

Arrival

2011-10-17T11:23:00.000-07:00

So long dear Patton house! We will have so many good memories to look back on here! And see ya later Texas!!!!

Not the best pic by the way, Tucker obviously isn't looking at the camera and I'm not really smiling in the shadows. Oh well! I wore these clothes for the drive and once we got to Utah was about ready to change into sweats and a long sleeve T. Woohoo chilly weather

Closing up with housing went pretty smoothly except for a few things they fined me for that seemed silly. Leaves in the backyard, for example. They had literally fallen at the beginning of the week and then it stormed for 3 days and I wasn't going to rake them while they were soggy... and then the mornings had been so wet that I wasn't going to rake them then either! Oh well. Seems like anything with the lawn should have to be taken care of by Trugreen anyway since Dewy is gone. But WHATEVER housing office, whatever. Peace out.

Tuck man enjoying the car ride! Most of it at least. That first evening he got a little fussy when he wasn't in his bed to go to sleep and in his carseat instead. All of Saturday he was cheery though and we could entertain him easily enough. Having someone to help me there at the end and drive with was the best! My mom was so helpful. Normally Dewy and my drives have some sort of time constraint so I'm always hoping we get to our destination asap, but this time around it really didn't matter much since I knew we'd be in Utah for so long. It was so nice after weeks of working and moving preparation to just sit and relax in the car and not do anything. Ahhhhh.

We arrived Saturday night since we stopped to sleep in a hotel Friday night and unloaded all of our things and were off to bed immediately. Tireddddddd.

I am staying at Dewy's mom's house until the house is finished because it's not quiteee in liveable condition yet, but will be soon. It has been sooooo wonderful and my stress level is at an all-time low haha.

Doing a little dress up with aunties and uncles...

Yesterday we took our time organising all our stuff, unpacking, doing laundry, and getting some groceries. Now we are all set to go about life again! Chewy sleeps with us here in his kennel and during the day I bring him to the unfinished house where people always are working on stuff to hang out. We went to dinner with Pam at Iggy's and then Mike and Jack came over to watch the new season of the Walking Dead. I'm still iffy about it because of all the zombies. Looks promising though.

His new outdoor kennel and leash line to run all around on. He's in heaven.

Yay seeing family!

Mmmmm falllll. I loooove fall.

Today I got us dressed in long sleeves and pants and then once we were outside realized we needed some light jackets as well! Quite a change! We made some yummy eggs and canadian bacon for breakfast then got ready and took off to see all the new happenings at the house and drop off Chewy. Then we headed out to the fabric store to get some items for Tucker's costume! Time to begin sewing it! I can't wait. It will be so fun to make and so tinyyyy with how small Tucker is. I also got my PCM here and he could see me as soon as tomorrow so I can get my referral for an OB. Awesomeeee. I was worried I wouldn't be able to be seen for a while but they slipped me in quickly! Woohoo!

Now we're going to get some lunch with nana Evans and then start on Tuck's costume. Yay Utah!

I Love Hair Trims

2011-10-12T08:52:00.000-07:00

Chewy and I have a new understanding. As long as he keeps up his new attitude that has come with his new haircut I will be civil with him. Friendly, even.

I am also LOVING the no shedding part of his trim! No tracking in mud, grass, and leaves on his long fur. Pure love.

He also looks a lot more puppy-like to me now. I mean he IS only 2 years old, I guess with his long fur he just looked much older.

I wanted to get him nice and cleaned and cut before I did carpets and we took off on the drive. Nothing like a dirty puppy to drive me insane for a 22 hour drive. I realize it may have come at a bad time since we will be in Utah soon and the temperature is about 20 degrees colder with snow imminently approaching, but it had to be done. And I love it.

Other news with us is that we are busy. That's about it. ALTHOUGH... when I am just wandering around cleaning, scrubbing, doing whatever, I have been watching episodes of Dexter.

There haven't been that many great shows that have started up, and even Survivor has been somewhat dissapointing thus far. Dexter has saved me! I started from season 1 last weekend when I was cleaning cupboards and am about to start season 4. It's awesomeeeeeee. So if you are having doubts about this seasons line up of shows... feel free to join me and start Dexter. You won't be sorry!

Cleaning and Clouds

2011-10-10T12:12:00.000-07:00

Well going to keep it brief since there is a list a mile long of things I need to do. Rats!

Our days usually go the same. We wake up and get some breakfast, then head out for whatever errands I want to check off on the list for the day. We usually get done right around lunch and then come home for Tucker to nap and for me to begin the cleaning. The list of errands to run is finally getting smaller and I think other than these blasted floors we'll be set for when my mom gets here and won't be too rushed. You never know how long these floors could take though.

Friday Tucker's nose started running a lot and then all night he was coughing up a storm and crying a lot. Poor guy. We had planned to go to a wedding Saturday but then when I saw how much he was coughing and my own nose starting to run, we decided against it. I certainly wouldn't want to be the one who brought their coughing, sick baby to a wedding ceremony. That bride would hate me. Now Tuck and I are both coughing and sniffling lots and getting through this once-a-year-cold. This is what happens when it doesn't rain for 4 months! A cloud shows up finally and we have colds. Ridiculous.

Who put this bear cub in my shopping cart?

30 weeks tomorrow! I've started doing that terrible thing where the day you change pregnancy weeks you automatically start telling people you're another week ahead because you figure that's the next week coming up. I am here to say that I am legitimately 30 weeks tomorrow though. And will be 31 next Tuesday and so on...

This seems to be the part of pregnancy where I just don't grow. Of course I've bumped up in weight but the bump just doesn't seems to stick out more. I guess it just kind of all goes in my back and butt and boobs. Flippin boobs!

Surprise Shower!

2011-10-06T16:17:00.000-07:00

And yes it was a surprise! Alicia thought for sureee I knew they would have one for me but I honestly didn't think of it at all since I still have a while till my babe comes.

Before my shower I had my final Darnall baby appointment which was quite exciting. Normal hospital here I come! The midwife said my glucose test went well and measured my belly and as usual I'm measuring small haha. I guess I just have small babies! Afterall Tucker was only 5 lbs 12 oz when he was born, I guess I just never saw myself having small babies when my mom had little chubsters, including me. Although I have to say it's nice to have a consistent pregnancy as far as baby's and my health go. Yay!

So back to the shower!

Alicia made all these cute things! So talented!

Flowers full of gift cards... mmm, yes please!

prizes for games
Me and my shmoopsies... one not quite so obvious from this angle

Here are all our mommies and their kids!!! These little kiddies will probably look huge after 3 months!

Lehilina, Alegria, and Odette!

Amanda, Lacey, and Mollie!

Alicia and Jace (missin little Skylar!)

Allie, Lee, and Evie

Kerri, Quinn, and Madden

Autumn and Cinda Sue

Just missing miss Shelly, but can you blame her since her wedding is Saturday!

Amazing foooood

Amanda made her adorable chocolate bar wrappers. How cute is this

Playin games.... they got a little silly. hahaha...

Kids sitting so civilized eating their cake

It was such a cute little party, I enjoyed it so much!

Moving is coming along slowly it feels. I feel like I'm so busy every day but am making slow progress. It sure feels like a lot though! Hopefully I will be ready when my mom gets here. I tend to get over anxious about these kind of things and am usually ready with plenty of time to spare. We'll see how it goes this time around!

The Moving Begins

2011-10-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

hmmmm.... notice anything strange about this particular dishwasher load?

can you imagine if I hadn't seen that box Tucker slipped in there??? Powdered sugar dishes! Oh goody! haha

Thursday morning we were about to head out for our walk with Sandra and I got a text from Allie saying there was a little event at the 1st cav building where the kids could get free stuffed puppies and breakfast! So we went on our walk and then rushed on over. Tucker loves dogs, so I knew he would love it.

Not posing for pictures anytime soon.

The moving process has been coming along nicely. It always feels like so much progress every day which is very nice. The only time I've gotten frustrated is when I tried to take apart the futon... those things are ridiculously complicated. (note, that is the only MOVING frustration I had. Have had many more frustrations, mostly with a certain DOG)

Yesterday we took our first batch of things to the storage unit and it went so quick we ended up taking 2 trips today. The truck is so useful! It's really coming in handy now.

Mmmm, becoming very familiar with these.

Friday we continued to sort through things and took a break in the afternoon to go to a park in Killeen with Laurie and let her puppies and Chewy meet. They were all very playful and we walked around the park for a long time. Such a nice trail!

After that I wanted to head over to the housing office because one exception to living off post Dewy has suggested is that we try to get on the waitlist for new Wainwright housing instead of all the other neighborhoods. I figure there's no harming getting on the list even though it's a long shot for January! They have the BEST toys in the housing office!

Yesterday we took off bright and early because I wanted to get a prescription filled at the Clearcreek px and didn't want to wait in any sort of line. And we didn't! It was great. And afterwards we went to the storage center and got all signed up and leased out on it. Finally ready to move things in! We went home and got our first load brought over and if it hadn't been so hot might have taken over another. Later we headed over to Bretta's to go down to Austin. She's been dying to have me try her favorite Mexican restaraunt called Pappasitos. Mmmmm. Tasty.

red lighting due to darkness and neon lights!

Pappasitos was super yummy and it felt so nice in the evening sitting outside enjoying our meals. Finally cooler mornings and evenings around here! But don't let that fool you. Still hot as ever during the day!

Well the BEST news ever has come and that is that Dewy will be home in January/February. FINALLY a date to plan for! Even if he didn't get leave in October this means he'll be able to see little baby while he's still small. That makes me very happy. This being said, I have had lots of inquiries if that is going to change my plans to go to Utah. The plan is still to go since I would still be here having the baby alone and you never know whennnn the army is going to change it's mind about these things. This will give me just the timeline I need to come back down in January and hopefully be seeing Dewy soon after!

This week is going to be pretty repetitive but plenty busy. Truck loads to the storage unit till this house is empty of all but necessities and then clean clean clean! Luckily we'll have some other activities in between to help keep it from being too dull. Final full week here! That seemed to creep up really quick!

Sleepy Time?

2011-10-01T06:01:00.000-07:00

Since I painted Tucker's room again he's been sleeping in my room in the pack n' play to avoid paint fumes. It's gone really well since he goes to bed before me and I use all his same bedding. I think he must have had something sweet before bed time a few nights ago though, because it was 9pm and he still wasn't crashing and decided it was best to throw his blanket, daddy doll, and pillow out!

2nd to last Playgroup :(

2011-09-29T13:09:00.001-07:00

First off I am 29 weeks along. Do you ever wonder where in the world your stomach holds everything when a baby takes up so much space? It really is amazing. Feeling like.............

lots of lower movement and pushing int he pelvis region
rib kicking has officially begun
anger at Tucker for sitting on little brother has also begun
acid reflux...check
more leg cramps... check
heat bringing me to exhaustion... double check
getting more and more excited for little... oh wait, i can't say the name. I'm so excited for the little sweetie!

Well our time here is running out and getting much busier as it gets closer to moving day. I try to get as much time in with friends as I can without making the day too stressful. We will miss them a ton!

We took off on our usual walk this morning with Sandra and even by 9am it was FLIPPING hot. The weather keeps saying 99....98.... lies! It has been over 100 yesterday and today. I just wish they wouldn't lie.... it's not very nice.

After our walk we booked it over to the 1st Cavalry building because Allie had text me right before our walk and said they were having a cute little event that Tucker would like. It was a great little storybook time with free stuffed dogs for all the little kids and a little breakfast served. Tucker loves dogs and books.... and obviously food, so it was the perfect event for him!

Last week we were out of sandwich cheese for playgroup so I improvised and made a feta sandwich. I wouldn't let that happen again today when I realized we were out of bread. No turkey and cheese-wich today! Unfortunately when I ran in the commisary I got distracted by their deli salads and grabbed one of those instead. Equally delicious, but we are still without bread and I need to go to the store tomorrow.

This was our 2nd to last playgrouppppp! It will be so strange not to be planning on that every Thursday until January pops around again. We will miss our little buddies! Hopefully next week I can get some mommy and baby photos of all the mommy's. I've been dying to do that forever and this will be a good before and after opportunity for when we come back in January. Yay playgroup!

Those Things That Just Come Up

2011-09-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

Well it was a good thing we had Tumbling canceled this morning because yesterday at the car repair we discovered it had some serious problems that needed fixing and so it will be there all day today! Oh cars, can be so expensive sometimes! A leak in the rear wheel axles melted part of the brake pads, so those will be replaced and the leak will be fixed. A small $700 sum. Oh well. It's good to have savings for things like these that come up. And cars always seem to be the main reason for extra money use.

Good old axles....

Tucker enjoyed walking around the Toyota shop and searching for treats in his bag. Once he realized there was a box of donuts on the counter we were done for and I slowly had to feed him one.

playing. playing.

Lisa was kind enough to give us a ride back to our house after dropping off the car, and then we had a few hours at home to hang out and continue getting things ready for the move. I started freaking out when my phone went black and just stopped working. Nothing would fix it! I tried holding down the off button and then the home button. Nothing! I went into panic mode because how in the worlddd was I going to know when the car was done, and how in the worlddd would I be able to call Lisa and tell her I wouldn't know when it was done. And without a car and a phone not working you start feeling a little stranded. Eventuallyyyyy I finally found a tricky solution to fixing my phone and was able to get a hold of Lisa and toyota and pick up the car that evening. Right after that we were off to meet with D company's new FRG leader and the commander's wife and talk about what's coming up. We finalllyyy made it home around 615 and by then I was pooped from a day of heat and stress. The remote is also missing which meant no survivor! THAT is trouble.

First Thunder Cloud Since Mayyyy

2011-09-26T17:57:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those crazy days where it all kind of speeds by because there's so much to do. After breakfast and getting Penny set up for another week with us, we took off to get one of our last bracelet orders we'll ever have to do. Woohoo! I have 2 more that I'll probably put through and then that will be ITTTT. One of them was being purchased by our unit for a family of a soldier who was just killed. There were 34 of them and when I delivered them to the battalion office the commander was overjoyed they were done so fast, but then he realized he'd forgot to order them black instead of the usual silver, because that's protocol for people who have passed. Dangggg. Poor guy. Now they will either order more or just give out the silver ones, although I'm not sure if that's ok.

After that we didn't end up having time to run by the car service stop like I'd hoped so we went home and Tucker took a quick nap before yoga. I also needed to grab a snack to eat because baby is just hungry a lot, but usually not for very much. Half a turkey sandwich? Yes please. And I literally just mean turkey and bread. Delicious, I know.

Yoga felt great even though towards the end I couldn't do most of the positions like normal and just kind of slumped over like a corpse. Tucker was of course upset the whole time I was gone. After we got loaded up again we headed to the hospital to fill out prescriptions for Tucker's rash and I needed more prenatal pills. Luckily they give them in 4-month supply bottles so I'll be completely set for Utah.

Next we headed out to the Toyota car service and unlike earlier in the day they were jam packed now and couldn't see us, so we'll have to go back in the morning for them to diagnose what's going on with the car. Leaking yellow fluid and now it smells like burnt rubber when I get out. Notttt good. Let's hope it's a quick fix and nothing toooo pricey.

We got home from the 106 degree day, sweaty, gross, and ready to change into baggy clothing. And then the sky started to change!

Does this scare anyone else? It looks like 2 possible tornadoes or maybe some aliens coming to plant spaceships underground through the lightning that inevitably will follow. Tucker and the puppies and I were staring out the window at all the craziness when we got a ring at the door!

How sweet is this! My lovely sister-in-law sent these. I'm sure she knows just how it feels sometimes here and it's so nice to know that we are cared about even though we don't have family nearby! Yay Megan!

Well I'm now reminiscing through old videos on photobucket as I doze off and am ready for another day tomorrow. Come on rain!

Wednesday Through Sunday

2011-09-25T06:34:00.000-07:00

It's been a week. Ok, actually 5 days since I posted. Dang, not even a week.

Wednesday we had tumblingggg. Tucker is much more happy to go to tumbling now and even spent about 70% of the time on the trampoline instead of 99. Branching out!

We planned on heading out on a day trip to Austin with Kerri afterwards to go take care of some errands she needed to get done. I just love a change of scenery from lovely Killeen any old day, so I was happyyyy to go along. Plus I knew if we were passing through Round Rock there was one stop we had to make.

We first went to REI to get Kerri's double stroller wheel fixed. I must confess I am desperately wanting a BOB double stroller with baby on the way and just Tuck's Peg Perego. So far the best deal I've found is 20% off with a free infant car seat adapter on Amazon. Even with the discount and extra savings it is quite a pricey stroller. My next option is considering taking out $50 every paycheck from what I usually spend and seeing if I notice.... maybe I won't and I can easily get enough for half of it then ask for donations for Christmas hahaha. A nice stroller could make all the difference with 2 babies. Trust you me. I'm determined to get one.

Anyways, after REI we took a jaunt to a little park nearby so the boys could run about and get out of their strollers while we ate lunch. Tucker wants to do everything on his own now but still isn't quite stable enough so I ended up following him around playing most of the time so we avoid some nasty tumbles.

Then we were off to the Domaine to Tiffanys. Ahhh Tiffanys. Everything's just so shiny and pretty. Kerri's new little man, Madden, is quite a cryer. He is usually not happy unless he is being held upright, so even in his stroller he is just a grump. Poor Kerri! I tried to help out by pushing him around the store in his stroller while Kerri dealt with customer service, but he was still unsatisfied and only when I held him was he finally happy. Hooray!

Afterwards we were in need of a refreshment so we stopped in Starbucks. I got Tucker an apple juice (yes, even after all the Dr. Oz drama), and he drank it all down pretty quickly.

After browsing around the mall a little longer we headed home but not without a stop just for me first!

Round Rock Donuts are addictinggggggg. We didn't actually get this big donut but it is what they are famous for selling and not to mention how flippin delicious their normal ones are. Kerri laughed at me when I said we were getting a whole box of donuts. How could we go all that way and just get one! I sent her off with 3 and have only had 2. Somehow people seem to pop by a lot just after I've gotten donuts and I must send them off with some. They are just too delicious not to share.

My normal Wednesday plans for yoga got kicked aside when time ran out in the evening, I'm sorry but Survivor trumps just about anything! Alicia has decided she wants to start watching it and so when we decided we needed to make Allie a birthday dinner and what better night to do it on than Survivor Wednseday!

Thursday I got a picture message from Amanda...... LOOKKKKK!!!

I have already told her about 3 sets of shirts/onesies I want her to make from her business for me because they will be so cute and she surprised me with these! They are just so cute!

We went on a nice little walk Thursday morning. This is about the nicest sky I've seen it in Texas. If only there were clouds more often...

Thursday was also playgroup. I'm sure we will not be missed once we go to Utah for a while. It's a full house nowadays!

Friday was busy with a trip to the hospital EARLY EARLY so the doc could check on Tucker's rash. They said I need to start weaning him off of his pacifiers because they think that's what's causing it. I'll try that and see if it helps but it's been 2 days so far and all I have is an extra grumpy baby with lots of teeth coming in.

We went to breakfast with Laura and then later that evening I went to a coffee at Club Hood with all the ladies from the unit.

Yesterday we picked up some more boxes and planned to go to Tucker's little friend Max birthday party but didn't make it. Now it looks a little windy out and mightttt be cool too so I think we'll go for a walk. Sounds relaxing enough!

Not Ideal

2011-09-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

Well I wrote out a huge long post with lots of pictures that I have ended up saving in my drafts. It's just not what I want to talk about right now. Although I still want to recall all the things we've been up to lately so I will post it later.

Life is not the easiest right now. I blame it solely on the deployment... although it could easily be a mix of pregnancy hormones as well. I have no idea when it's going to end and I'm sick of all the "could be" this day or "could be" 5 months later. Stupid army. Lots of times life goes by quickly now and I'm extremely used to being alone here and having that independence, but there are just some days when communication is not good with Dewy and you just feel so separated and on your own dealing with everything. Friends can help to a point but even then you still end up alone dealing with things. And the worst part is your spouse being oblivious to everything that goes on, and probably never being able to understand what it's like. Just like I'll never understand what it's like for him to have to see people pass away there and all the other things he goes through. This stupid lifestyle just makes it hard to stay connected. This is just another bump in the road of deployment but it sure feels like a mountain every other day. My sister-in-law Megan told me something that is always running through my head..... that no matter what time is going to keep passing and eventually it will be over. So i'll just wait for time to pass until I'm in a good mood again and can feel more normal. Justttt another bump in the road

Another Week Down

2011-09-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

My weeks end on Tuesdays since Wednesday is a new week of pregnancy for me. I definitely look forward to them

Painting is officially done! Big step to check off the list. Thank heavens. Didn't take tooooo long and it was nice to have something physical to do while watching tv rather than just being a blob as usual haha.

September seems to be speeding by... some daysss. Some days not so much. The slow days seems to align with the days that are 100+ degrees. Are those over yet?

Someone's getting much more mobile and refining his fine motor skills.

Still alternating walking and yoga with Sandra 4 days a week and the yoga is really starting to get difficult. Baby is getting big enough that the extra weight is throwing me off while baby seems to be getting more uncomfortable in most of the positions. I may have to switch to swimming instead on Mon and Weds!

I had a doctor appointment last Thursday and normally I sign Tucker up for the daycare during them, but this time around I considered it a big waste since I was going to go in and out without anything interesting happening. And that's just what happened! I took a little video of Tucker wandering around so Dewy could see what a mobile crazy man he is now.

The appointment went wonderfully and I always seem to forget to ask them the questions I have about things at the end of the appointment. I've been having lots of leg cramps this time around and seem to be seeing little spots all the time out of the corner of my eye. It's so weird! I'll swear I see a bug moving and then focus on it and it's nothing. Quite a relief but definitely didn't happen with Tucker's pregnancy!

I have news about Dewy's deployment even though it's not much. We know that he won't be coming home anytime before December 31st. This being said I can now finalize my plans to go to Utah and make it known that it's basically a done deal. Depending on when he does come back will probably determine when I come back from Utah. He's thinking January or February so I'll be planning for that and we'll see what happens! Finally something to make life a little less complicated.... for now.

More Baby #2 News

2011-09-15T17:27:00.000-07:00

Well I can officially say Dewy and I FINALLY decided on a name for baby boy #2. Don't you dare ask because I'm afraid if we say it too much we'll change our mind! I had my 26 week appointment today and things are going great with baby. They said I am measuring good, have consistent weight gain, there's plenty of fluid around him, very good heartbeat, my heart rate is good, and not much to update on! I will need to go in to do the first (and hopefully last) glucose test next week. Oh goody! Ick, not a fan, but I guess an hour of sitting around the lab relaxing won't be too bad.

Yay 26 weeks!

I ALSOOOOO decided on a halloween costume since Peter Pan was vetoed by Dewy. He wants that to be our plan next year so he can dress up as Captain Hook and little man #2 can be in on the action.

Instead... Tucker shall be....... THOR!!!

Isn't this amazing! I can't wait to sew my own version up. Gotta love how into it this kid is. I can't imagine anything Tucker would like more. He gets to carry a hammer around all night for heaven's sake!

House

2011-09-15T06:25:00.000-07:00

I love this blue! You can def tell my mom grew up on the upper east coast with this new design

Time For Tumbling

2011-09-14T13:19:00.000-07:00

Things have been pretty busy lately with all the moving preparation and I've found that in the evening when I would normally sit down and blog I'd rather paint and watch endless episodes of Friends. Oh how I love Friends. We've been going on walks and to yoga with Sandra and that has by far been the best mood-booster. I highly recommend it to any prego woman!

This morning we had Tucker's tumbling class. Woohoo!

Kerri wanted to ride together so she would know where to go. Tucker was super happy when we got in the car with his friends, but unfortunately he wasn't so happy when we got there.

I think he associates any place with lots of strange kids running around as daycare and thinks I'm going to leave. It took about 15 minutes for him to stop crying and just enjoy all the gym toys.

Quinn scrambled about!

Once we had tried the trampoline that's all Tucker wanted to do. If I were actually paying for this class instead of having it free because of Dewy being deployed, I would consider it a waste and just go buy a trampoline for Tucker since that's all he seemed to want to do. He probably did enjoy being around all the little kids once he realized mommy was sticking around though.

Towards the end of the class the music comes on and all the kids run around the room together. Tucker didn't quite understand so i had to run for him and carry him around. I got quite a work out! Quinn was the fastest boy on the track haha

It was very cute and now I know Tucker definitely needs a tramp! He loved that thing

Afterwards we headed home for a few minutes and then were off to yoga. I was hoping since Tucker didn't get a nap in that he would sleep all through their Kids on Site, but unfortunately it just made him all the crankier for them. Poor childcare workers! I was SOOO tired at yoga and decided it was because of all the running I had done earlier. It was brutal.

Now we are taking care of random things and SURVIVOR starts tonight!!!! WOOOOOO!

Other things from this week:

Tucker loves his daddy book. Constantly brings it up to me and loves when we get to the end and give daddy kisses.

Paintin, paintin! This wall and Tucker's room are completely done except for what I can't reach and will have to get a ladder for. Oh goody.

And I'm at 26 weeks today. Yes. Finally getting higher up there haha.

News with Dewy is basically nonexistant, except for the fact that we SHOULD be finding out what will be going on by October 1st. I think it's just another date to tease us with though and that we'll know a few hours before they get home. Let's hope it's better than that.

Smooth-Sailin Saturday

2011-09-11T06:04:00.000-07:00

Well Saturday turned out to be fairly normal even though I had somewhat dreaded going to do nails and lunch with Girl X. Luckily she is far more normal in person as I had always thought, even though she did say lots of very odd things and seemed to be extremely judgemental of my every move with Tucker haha. I really just didn't care though and the end result is that I have cute purple toenails now, so ha.

Earlier in the morning I had decided to start on boxing anything and everything we don't use and is just there most of the time. Our house looks so barren! I may have a lot of extra time on my hands since it seems like this is going pretty quick, or the cleaning could be much more time-consuming than I thought and I'll be stressed out towards the end. Who knows! So far it's easy-peasy!

After coming home from lunch Tucker took a long nap and gave mommy more packing time and watching football in the background time to make it feel like daddy was home. Then since I didn't feel too tired like I usually do in the evenings we went to meet Laurie and Robin and their friends at Pluckers to watch the Texas game. Woohoo! Actually I have some friends who go to A&M here, and I also am obviously from Utah and they were playing BYU... so I was a little torn on who to cheer for, but I decided on Texas since I would have been mauled by everyone in the place.

Mmmm, good fries.

The first thing Laurie said when I got there was "OH! Your belly!" haha, I guess I'm showing a little more now.

We had an excellent time with them and Tucker was an angel. No fussing at all! He has been fussing a lot lately when we go out and I'm pretty sure it's because 2 more teeth just popped in. Now he's back to his dapper self!

Today is Patton Pool, relax, and plan out the coming week day. Ahhhh Sundays.

So Long Belongings!

2011-09-09T18:04:00.000-07:00

While packing is exciting and time consuming and keeps my mind busy and focused on the time ahead, it's also so sad to see our home slowly disappear and have it turn into the empty house we moved into!

Goodbye dining room!

Bookshelf starting to disappear

About to start the painting process in Tuck's room. Now is the only time I can do it since he is fast asleep in the pack-n-play in my room. I'm sure he'll rejoice when he wakes up and sees that mommy is in the bed next to his!

We got a package in the mail that made my day. Tucker's grammy Pam sent him the Fox and the Hound and sent baby a little onesie that I love. So sweet.

Tucker and I had a busy day getting another batch of bracelet orders taken care of and getting the paint that you have to use for these houses out in Killeen. The housing office specifically said MONARCH PAINTS, and I searched and searched in the location that had about 5 different paint shops and NOOO Monarch Paints. I googled it on my phone and it said it was in the area on google maps... but still I couldn't see it. I called the company myself and they said their name was Pittsburg Paints... great! I immediately saw it and had passed it about 5 times and the only time I saw the word Monarch was on their truck in tiny little letters below Pittsburg Paint. Oh sillyness. As Ross would say "What's with all the sillyness???"

Well off to paint until I get tired and a day of what might be fun tomorrow... we shall see.

Busy Week...

2011-09-08T18:45:00.000-07:00

This week has been a tad overwhelming. Not so much with moving things, but with how busy the days have been. I also have not been able to sleep much which really stinks. I hate waking up so much during the night! I am actually planning tomorrow to be a chill day of staying at the house and packing things up so I can relax haha.

Things of note:

My little sis and I have started skyping a lot because she's just started college and is at her laptop all the time and I just love to hear what's going on. We were sitting and watching Tucker and laughing hysterically because he kept getting up on the dog bowls that he had brought over, balancing on them, and his attempts to get off were always face plants into the carpet. Which were followed by him giggling and trying to get up again haha. So cute!

Tucker and I made a stop at the housing office to give them notice about our move and to get the dreaded cleaning checklist. It actually doesn't look TOO bad and I feel like I have so much time to prepare that I can easily do it by myself. I will be sure to take precautions around all the cleaning chemicals though since I have little Tuck and baby in my tummy.

I've been hanging out with Alicia a lot because John took off and once someone's spouse leaves they become much more available haha. All this free time just opens right up! And it seems to just go in shifts with each of us as our husbands go and come. We drove out to a craigslist seller's house to purchase a desk... they asked her to go inside while I waited in the car with the babes. I made sure to take a picture of the house when she disappeared inside (yes I am THAT paranoid about creepos out there). You never know who you're dealing with on craigslist.

I saw quite the typical crash right by the gate I go through. Whoever drives this greeny is really living up to their stereotype...

This week has been craziness with all sorts of things going on, so a relaxing weekend with a trip to the nail salon is all I need..... but if you read my last post you may find that's not what it's going to be haha.

Building Building

2011-09-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

My sis put up some pics of the house so I thought I would post them also since it is so exciting to me!

love love love this porch!

garage!

and of course one of those perfect Utah sunsets in the background. I think I took them for granted while living there because Texas has really been lacking. Probably thanks to the constantly clear sky that is free of clouds and full of sun.

Looks like it's moving along so nicely! The house of course is furthering the complications of moving because the finish date is unknown at this point. October has been what the workers have been saying and I hope they're right because that's the latest I can travel and still have our health insurance cover baby's birth. I'm taking this all in stride and I'm not really stressing over anything yet. Call me early October and I might be though.

Time Keeps On Tickin'

2011-08-31T18:43:00.000-07:00

So if these countdown charts look like they're going quick to you, then good for you. haha.

The deployment chart is kind of useless since I have no idea when it's going to end, but I still enjoy having the maximun amount of time on there. Unless they lengthen it, then I'll be making a new chart. Grrrrr.

Today we got up and got ready for Tumbling. Oh wait! Tumbling isn't till next week so we got up and over-eager for nothing haha. We hung out at the house doing lots of needed cleaning then took off to yoga and met up with Sandra. Yoga feels SO GOOD. I just need to push myself to get there more often. Some days I just feel so exhausted and the thought of getting everything together in the heat and having to leave Tucker crying in their daycare is the last thing I want to do, but I really think it will be the best thing for my body and overall well-being while I'm prego and also while Dewy's away. It can definitely be nice not worrying about the little man for an hour and a half. Must get to yoga more often!

Wish My Dewy Was Here For Times Like These

2011-08-30T17:31:00.000-07:00

Tucker's adorable clothes arrived yesterday so I had to try them on him right away. The pants are a little big even though they're both 12 month sizes, but that's how Tucker's sizing has always been so I'm not too worried! I just love them!

(notice the scratch on his left leg? his little sandals did that to him and I didn't even realize it. Poor guy!)

Last night we had a "town hall meeting". It drives me insane that they call it that and in no way does everyone from our unit live in the same town, so what the heck.

Since Tucker had been throwing up all night I decided to keep him by me in the stroller. He was exhausted anyway so it was definitely the best option. We got lots of information about the deployment and where it is headed. Right now the range of time for coming home is either Nov/Dec or next May/June. Not a wide range at all! Some people are getting RandR right now and they clarified that it's only people who have high priority needs. The RandR will stop in September as they get ready to move to Kuwait and they don't know if they'll start it up again after they are there or not. It all depends on when they come home. So now we have another month to wait it out before we MIGHT get more information. My plans are still in full force to go to Utah and have the baby and if we do find out something more certain and that Dewy would be home a lot sooner then I can put all my efforts into getting us into a new house. This has all been extremely frustrating not knowing what's going to happen, and although the army has always been this way and I'm pretty used to it by now, I really just want to know when Dewy will be able to meet his new little son. Sighhhhh.

Today had some shocking news. My brother-in-laws mother passed away very unexpectedly. Ugh. My heart just goes out to my sister's in-laws and how tragic it is. Makes me think of the last time I saw her and how happy she was waving goodbye to me. She and Hillary had been making plans to send packages out to Dewy's company for all the soldiers and now she's gone. It's just amazing how quickly these things can happen and makes me constantly think I need to cherish my time here more.

I think this year has just had one of the hardest lessons I've ever needed to learn with so many people I care about and lots of Dewy's schoolmates passing away. Life just goes so quickly and we need to cherish the time we have and not waste it. Kathy will really be missed!

Read Half Now and Half Later...

2011-08-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

I have been slacking a little with the blogging. No excuses other than life just gets a little overwhelming at times. Hmmm, where to pick up....

Thursday we were off to playgroup as usual and Amanda had a delightful surprise!

So cute! I really think Amanda is one of the craftiest people I know. She makes things on the spot that are so cute and creative! She had also tried out a s'more cupcake recipe which was delicious. Now that I share things with Tucker I usually only get a taste though haha.

the babies still able to sit in their carseats and be entertained.... what a nice stage that was.
Evie, Jace, and Madden

We had a fun time at playgroup and then headed out to the grocery store. I feel like we go through fruit, eggs, and milk so quickly! I need to get more today in fact.

Friday.... hmmm. Friday seems a blur. Oh wait, we had PLANS to go to lunch with Laura and PLANS to go to a coffee in the evening when the childcare was. All of this was thwarted by Tucker throwing up and not feeling well, so we stayed home and had a relaxed Friday.

Dewy was able to talk to us a lot over the weekend which is always nice. We got to skype once and chat on the phone a few times. They had a little fitness competition which sounded insane. They were in pairs and took turns doing 100 reps of like 15 different exercises. Pretty sure I'd be out after the first 100

Saturday Tucker seemed to be feeling better so we headed out to Odette's butterfly birthday party. Tucker and Jace were the only little men there. It was adorable but I also hoped Dewy wouldn't be upset that Tucker enjoyed the butterfly party so much haha

another amazing cake!

Tucker walked right up to Amanda and Jim and just stared at them. I thought it was funny and he even did some high fives when Jim asked him. So cute! He always walks up to men with a quizzical stare. Makes me wonder if he's confused why there are men around at all since he is mostly around women nowadays.

I really think I have the happiest little boy ever. He is constantly happy and giggly, I just love it. Dewy's mom always said that he was the happiest kid and could always be happy in any situation (which is still true) and it seeeems like Tucker is the same way. I should probably wait a few years to be sure though haha

After the party we planned on going down to Austin. Mostly because I like walking as my means of exercise and since it's too hot to walk outside and I've gotten sick of walking around Target and the mall here, Austin was my next option for some variety. Alicia said she'd love to join us so we headed down!

Oh to have a little girl and get matching kitty clothes!

Happiest boy!!!

Thank heavens for how cheerful Tucker is. It really brightens up my mood when things get rough here, and they get rough a lot. Some days just drag on and on. I kept telling myself before Dewy left that I didn't want to be counting down every week and always hoping for it to go quicker, but it's almost impossible not to do it turns out.

After shopping Alicia insisted on buying me dinner for my birthday. It was so nice of her and I am officially in LOVE with Pappadeux's. Talk about amazingggg seafood.

Sunday Tucker started throwing up again so I got nervous that his stomach didn't agree with something we were eating. Unfortunately he continued throwing up into the night and neither of us got much sleep, explaining why he's taking an extra long nap this morning and I actually have time to blog. Oh wait, he just woke up. See ya!

birthdayyyy

2011-08-24T18:38:00.001-07:00

I got so many nice calls today! I didn't feel like it was just me and Tuck all day because I was constantly on the phone. I even got to talk to my dad who's in New Jersey getting ready to go to Afghanistan. It was so great! I got wonderful cards in the mail from everyone and Emmy drew me the cutest birthday picture. It was so sweet!

Dewy picked these out for me online! I was so impressed!!!! They fit perfectly and they'll be wearable through pregnancy, how sweet is that! He said it took him forever to go through the sizing charts they had online and make sure they'd fit me. He has such good taste. He also made me some other really cute gifts and got to call me for a long time. Woohoo!

We had a greatttt day. I made us waffles for breakfast and after a morning of chatting with family and Dewy we took off to go to Olive Garden for a late lunch/dinner.

First booster seat use! It went perfectly and it was so nice to have him up by me instead of so far below in the highchair haha.

I even let Tucker try chocolate milk for the first time and he was in heaven. After he'd tasted it he refused to take a good picture.

Daddy even joined us

Once we got our check I realized I needed to see if Tucker liked their nasty mint/chocolates.

Dewy loves them and I can't stand mint and chocolate. I had to see how Tucker felt about them...

It was a really good birthday even though there was ONE person missing. So proud of my hubby and what he's doing. It wouldn't be easy to be away on fun occasions like birthdays, and I'm glad I can at least go out and distract myself at Olive Garden and shopping with my baby boy. Missin my Dewski!

Sale Sale Sale

2011-08-24T07:14:00.000-07:00

SALESSSS! Woohoo. I love sales. There are MANY right now, so you should take advantage.

I thought I'd see if there was anything I'd want from the Lord and Taylor sale and of course found some things for Tucker instead! This is what always seems to happen. I just love little boy clothes!

$5.59 sale price

$3.47 sale price

$3.47 sale price

$5.99 sale price

add in the additional 15% off with the BIG promo code and all of this was $13.88! Not to mention free 2-day shipping with their trial offer (just have to make sure you cancel it right after). Woohoo sales!!!

I also spotted the cutest sign that I think I could easily recreate with some canvas and ribbon. I will definitely put this up in Tucker and baby's new room when we move into a different house, and I can make it in the meantime. So cute!

Party Weekend

2011-08-22T08:55:00.000-07:00

3 birthdays in 3 days! Eek, what a weekend! Well, 4 if you include the cake for Alicia's birthday Thursday at playgroup. 4 birthday's in 4 days! EEK!

Saturday morning we were off to Copperas Cove for Alegria's Toy Story Party. There were lots of cute toy story decorations and the most amazing cake! I seriously don't know how people make cakes that look so professional. The kids had fun playing all the little toy story games Lehilina had made up. Lots of cute ideas!

Tucker still hasn't quite caught on to instructions yet, but he enjoyed watching.

I looked over at one point and it looked like he was waving to me for help haha. "hey mom!"

um, ya, lehilina madeee this.

pin the part on the potato head

coloring, coloring

ranch fountain, very inventive. I never would have thought to do something like that.

It was a fun little party, and afterwards we were off to get some groceries. I felt super exhausted walking around the store which isn't normally the case and Tucker seemed to be in a bad mood too, so we booked it home for nap time. That night Kristin and Sandra came over for some dinner with their kids. Chewy was in heaven of course with kids running around. Almost like playgroup!

Sunday I felt no motivation whatsoever to leave the house during the day. I brought half of the boxes inside and put them all in the guest room and took out all the packing paper. I even started getting some of Dewy's gear out of the way and in boxes. It went a lot faster than I thought and we got everything other than big furniture boxed up from the guest room. Even though we still have a while before we're going anywhere I wanted to get started on things I'm not using right now. The less stress the better down the road!

We eventually did get out Sunday evening to go to dinner with friends at Giovannis. Yum! It's so far out in Copperas Cove I probably never would have tried it if Allie hadn't told me it was delicious. Tucker reallyyyy enjoyed his food. Unfortunately he's at a point where he gets bored really quickly and wants to bang forks on plates and create chaos. I'm still not sure how to deal with this other than asking him to stop and trying to entertain him in my own way, hopefully I can figure out a solution to the craziness.

After we got home it was relax-time and plan-for-the-coming-week-time. Busy week ahead and I turn the big 2.3. Ok, maybe that's no landmark, but I just love any occasion to celebrate. I'm extremely anxious to open Dewy's package he sent for me....eeeeek. Baby will be 23 weeks on my birthday too! Kind of crazy how that lined up perfectly! We will definitely need to do some celebratinnnn