Happy New Year!

In the highly unlikely event that anyone is still actually checking on my blog: HAPPY NEW YEAR! Seriously, I don't really blame anyone for not reading my blog anymore...I mean, really--what is more boring than a blog that only gets about 2 or 3 posts a year (sorry about that!)? Ha ha!!

 Anyhow, we are no longer in Alabama (where we were living the last time I posted). We arrived in Colorado back in October after a 3 day (1,500 mile) drive. It was my first time hauling a trailer...wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be. ;)

I wish I could say it was a horse trailer, but due to unfortunate circumstances (a.k.a. no longer having a horse trailer of our own, being financially strapped, and not being able to find a place to rent with a pasture that was within our budget....), we had to re-home my husband's horse before we left Alabama. That was a difficult decision to come to as Ice would have been the perfect horse for our Munchkin as he was bomb-proof and very good natured.

Anyhow...my husband and I each had to drive a vehicle and haul a trailer on our drive out here. Munchkin rode with Daddy because he thinks our truck is WAY cooler to ride in than our Jeep. No, really, ever since the first time he rode in that truck he thinks the Jeep is second rate. Such a boy! Our cat, Penny, also rode in the truck as there was more room for her in there than there was in the Jeep. That left me with Peeta. HALLELUJAH!

In case you don't realize the significance of a 3-day drive with just Peeta for company, let me just say: it was 3 days of PEACE AND QUIET!! It was almost like a mini-vacation. Sure, I was kind of sad that we weren't ALL able to ride together, but considering that was technically the first time I have EVER been away from our Munchkin for more than a few hours a few times since he was born, it was kind of nice to be able to have a bit of a break and a chance to hear myself think. :-p Plus, I was able to play a playlist of about 7 songs on repeat and listen to about 4 of the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre: The Chronicles of Narnia books without driving my hubby crazy or putting him to sleep. ;-p

Anyhow...we are getting settled in here in Colorado. It snowed the night we arrived and has snowed 3 more times since mid-November--which we LOVE. I have to admit though that I am homesick for my beautiful, GREEN Appalachian mountains. I am trying to be content here though as I know God has a plan for our being here currently...I just sincerely hope He has plans for us back in my beloved mountains over there on the East Coast next. ;-p

Thought I'd go ahead and share some pictures from the past couple of months....

My guys on our favorite hiking trail.

This is the BETTER side of the mountain...it's greener than the side we live on, lol.

Part of the view from the summit of our favorite hike.

A friendly Gray Jay on the trail.

A small Mule Deer buck.

View on the way back down our favorite trail on a snowy day. :)

Munchkin loves, loves, LOVES the snow!

Peeta on Christmas day. :)

Oh, so I totally forgot to continue my yearly tradition of posting pictures of Munchkin from each month and writing him a letter on his birthday.... Bummer!!! We were still in the process of unpacking and getting settled in and it totally slipped my mind. :-(
 

I'm back.... *maybe*

Soooooo, long time no write...not that I was doing very well at actually posting on a regular basis during the past two years anyhow, ha ha. I've been trying to decide whether or not I am going to keep this blog and try to start posting again--or if I'm going to delete it. I still haven't decided either way just yet, so in the meantime I'm going to do a trial run of getting back into blogging again.

The Munchkin and I moved back to Hawaii at the end of November last year--with the help of my mom, thanks Mom! :) The month of December DRAGGED by for me--as I'm sure it did for all of the other deployed soldiers' wives. ;) But, finally, on December 30th my hubby came home safe and sound. HURRAY!!! It has been wonderful having my best friend home again--and nice to not have to snuggle with a body pillow every night while I am sleeping anymore, ha ha. :)

We hosted a belated Christmas dinner at our house for a lot of the single soldiers in our company (as well as a couple of married couples :) towards the end of January. So. Much. Food. I think I made over 300-400 cookies in the week leading up to the dinner. I kept finding new recipes I wanted to try and figured it was the perfect opportunity to do so. ;-p Not to mention all of the REAL food we made as well. Let me tell you...it was super yummy--and everyone enjoyed it, so it was a success. Going into it we wanted it to be a blessing to everyone who came, and I think it was as one of the single soldiers commented on how it felt like it was a real family gathering. I hope seeds were planted that will grow and bear fruit at some point.... Can't wait to do that again with the single guys at our next duty station after we get established there.

Speaking of which...I can't remember if I've already posted about where we are going next or not, but just in case I haven't...we will be heading to Fort Carson in Colorado towards the end of October! We can't wait to have a snowy winter this year. I keep wishing it was fall already, ha ha.

In the meantime...we have already PCS'd (Permanent Change of Station) away from Hawaii. Man, was that bittersweet! We were ready to leave--having been there so long and not really being the island/beach/city kind of people, but after you live somewhere for a while it becomes a part of you and you have memories associated with things and places there. Letting go and saying goodbye--not to mention saying goodbye to the people you've come to care for there!--can be challenging. We did our best to wrap up our time on the island by visiting all of our favorite spots (like Turtle Bay resort--where we spent our honeymoon)...and eating our favorite local foods one last time. I am grateful we took the time to do those things as I truly think it has helped with the transition back to the Mainland (we experienced some culture shock immediately after arriving back on Mainland U.S. soil and for the following 24 hours at least--it was a very odd feeling while it lasted).

So, anyhow, that was back in May. After a bunch of driving here, there, and everywhere (or so it seemed, ha ha) during the first week and a half of being back on the Mainland, we ended up back in Alabama--in our own house. My hubby has a course to do here at Fort Rucker before we head to Colorado, so here we are. :) It was nice to be able to come back to a familiar house--though we've had to make quite a few updates/repairs since we've been here--thanks Dad for coming and helping us with those after the hubby started his courses!!!! Hopefully we'll be able to finish those up soon and get the house back on the market--and then *hopefully* sold.

Oh, one other bit of news...we are getting a puppy! Hopefully we will be getting him sometime this next weekend or the week after--we are still working on the details currently. We are super excited and can't wait for him to arrive as we have missed having a dog something fierce! It came down to us realizing that we were going to HAVE to get our next dog as a puppy in order to make sure it is socialized with all of the animals and situations we need it to be able to handle without aggression...I can't lose another dog after getting attached due to it not being compatible again for one reason or another.... I'll post pictures of our new little fella soon. ;)

So, that's what has been happening in our lives lately. We'll see how this 'experiment' with blogging again goes.... I can't make any promises at this point though. I'll just have to take this one post at a time. :)

Quick Update . . . .

Peanut Butter Cup is taking his morning nap currently (which have only been lasting for about 40 minutes the past couple of days, so this will have to be quick!), so I thought I'd try to write a little update while I have two hands.

We were able to move into our new house July 19th, and our household goods arrived July 30th. Since then we've been slowly working our way through all of the boxes and putting stuff away. We are trying to 'de-clutter' as we go through all of the boxes which is one reason why it is slow going. We really don't want to have to deal with so much extra 'junk' next time we move, so if we don't need it--and if it doesn't hold great significant value we aren't keeping it. So far, we've been doing pretty well about sticking with it and have cleared out a lot of stuff.

The packers back in Alabama did a TERRIBLE job with packing, so most of our furniture along with a bunch of our other stuff (including our brand new freezer :'-( I think that was one of the worst things for me) arrived damaged or destroyed. It's sad that the 'professional' movers cared so little about our stuff (like my books! The way they were packed was atrocious! Several of them were folded over to fit in a box--how does that even make logical sense when packing books to treat them that way?!) . . . and I know it's just that--'stuff'--and in the long run it doesn't really matter too much, but it's the whole principal of the matter that is the most frustrating to me. On a good note though, the moving company is supposed to pay to fix or replace what they broke, so now we are just waiting for an inspector to come verify our claims so we can start replacing the important stuff (like the freezer!).

Peanut Butter Cup is on the verge of walking! If it weren't for the fact that he hasn't been given as much of an opportunity to crawl around and practice walking while holding onto things due to the arrival of our household goods and the lack of baby-proofed-ness currently, I think he would have already taken his first steps. *Whew!* Sorry for the long run-on sentence!!

Peanut Butter Cup hasn't been sleeping very well this past week . . . he wakes up on average about 5 times a night (sometimes more often). Most nights I end up sleeping in the glider with him as he wakes up about 15 minutes after I put him down, so I've only been getting to spend about 1-2 hours in my own bed each night. I'm not entirely sure what has caused this sudden increase in night waking--and much lighter sleep. He's been in his own room alone for the past two weeks now . . . we all started off in there when we first moved in so he wouldn't have to make yet another transition when it came time for him to sleep alone in his own room, and then we moved into the room next door. So maybe after a week of being alone in his room he suddenly realized he was alone? Or it could be more teething, or the fact that he is a 'High-Needs' baby and may be going through a phase where he needs to be extra close for a while. It's hard to pinpoint what exactly has been the cause of his 'clingy-ness' at night.

I'm hoping that this is just a phase that will pass quickly so we can all get some deeper sleep at night! A couple of weeks ago though I was doing some research and came across and article that describes him to a T: 5 REASONS WHY HIGH-NEED INFANTS SLEEP DIFFERENTLY I already knew he was a 'High-Need' baby, and reading that article cemented that fact in my mind--along with explaining a lot of why he has been doing the things he does.

Well, the Munchkin has awakened, so I guess I'd better end this here for now! I hope everyone has been doing well!

Update! Long Time Coming . . . Sorry!

Hello All!

It's been awhile hasn't it? Quite a while. Since Peanut Butter Cup is sleeping currently I figured now would be a good time to sit down and write an update on where we are currently.

The movers came and packed up all of our stuff June 14th and 15th and we flew away from the Mainland to our new home on the 23rd.

Since then we have been staying in a hotel and doing a lot of house-hunting . . . all the while hoping and praying that a particular, new housing community on-Post would be opened up for officers (there is a shortage of officer housing on-Post) as it was currently only for enlisted. Last week we were told that, yes, two streets would be opening to officers, but that there were still a bunch of people ahead of us on the waiting list, so we probably wouldn't be able to get into one of those houses and would have to wait and see if any more streets would be opened up for officers--but that it might not be until the beginning of August, if it happened at all. On Monday we found out that there were supposed to be 10 houses allotted--and we would have been called and offered one that day--but there were actually only 8 houses and they were going to have to get approval for the other 2 houses and that could take anywhere from two days to two weeks. So we waited. Wednesday evening we got a call saying that one of the families who had been offered one of the eight houses had found a house off-Post and turned down the on-Post house, so if we wanted it, it was ours! We went in on Thursday morning to look at the house, and OH. MY. GOODNESS. It is GORGEOUS! The house is brand new, and so much bigger than we were expecting and it has a fenced yard (it's a small yard compared to what we are used to, but by Hawaiian standards, it is pretty big, so we are really happy about that as well). Even better though: we get to move in on Monday! No more hotels for awhile! YAY! Plus, our household goods should get here in two weeks or less, so we won't be without the rest of Peanut Butter Cup's stuff that we have been missing (e.g., his swing and jumper, ha ha).

So, that is what has been happening here. Getting the house in that particular housing community is such a huge blessing! I will post pictures later . . . .

Oh, and we bought a new 'Baby-Mobile', ha ha. It's a Hyundai Santa Fe and gets a lot better gas mileage than our xTerra did! :) Which is awesome in Hawaii because gas prices here are as ridiculous as ever.

Ooooo, and remember how excited I was about getting the freezer? Ha ha! Well, we just bought a washer and dryer and I am just as excited! I've never had a brand new washer and dryer before, so the thought of being the first person/family to wash and dry a load of laundry in them is pretty thrilling to me. :) Bear with me folks.

*Update on Peanut Butter Cup* The day that the movers came and picked up our stuff (June 15th) Peanut Butter Cup pushed himself up to an almost sitting position. The day after we arrived in Hawaii he cut his second tooth (the bottom left), and a few days later he was sitting up like it didn't take any effort at all and saying "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma" a LOT. A couple of days after that he pulled himself up in his playpen. Several days later I couldn't do anything to keep him from pulling himself up and now he isn't satisfied with sitting at all really. We think he will be walking by about 9 or 9 1/2 months . . . he is just past 8 months now, so we shall see. :) So, there have been many changes in the past month for my little Munchkin!

Well, I guess I'd better head to bed here in a few minutes. Hopefully it won't be quite as long before you hear from me again! I'm not sure how long it will take to get internet at our new house after we move in on Monday . . . it may not be for a couple of weeks, but hopefully it will be sooner. Hope you are all doing well! :)

Really Quick Note

So, this past week has been CRAZY busy! We've been trying to get everything done that needs to be finished before we move, and we finally got our flights booked! It's SO nice having an actual date instead of an estimation to work with now--despite the fact that now we have very little time to get everything done in.

Sunday we drove to Mississippi to take Quigley to the breeder. . .update about Quigley: we have now decided, after working with him and observing him, that we ARE going to take him to Hawaii with Penny and us. Now we just have to wait until his 120 days are up before we can have him shipped to us (hence the reason we took him back to the breeder). We did hear that there may actually be an exception to the 120 rule for military families, so when we get a chance sometime in the near future we will call the Hawaii Department of Agriculture and check into that.

Okay, back to the drive to Mississippi. . . . It took us about 4 hours to get to the designated meeting place and then we ended up being there for a couple of hours before turning around and driving home. It was sad watching the breeder drive away with Quigley! I e-mailed her this morning to check on him and she wrote back a nice long e-mail update to let us know how he's handled the past two days. It seems like he is doing okay, we can't wait to have him back with us though!

Moving on. . .the packers came yesterday and packed up all of our stuff. And this morning the movers arrived to pick it all up, which is what they are currently doing. I'm just hoping that I didn't forget to keep out anything major from the stuff that got packed. . .it's hard trying to predict what you are going to need for the next 1 1/2 - 2 months that it is going to take for our household goods to arrive in Hawaii, so hopefully we didn't miss anything--and hopefully everything that we kept out will fit in our suitcases, carry-ons, and the two plastic tubs we are planning to ship the stuff in that we need more quickly. We shall see here in the next week or so I guess.

Tonight we are driving up to Kentucky (overnight) to take Titan to his new home for the time being--as long as he cooperates that is. He has some trailering issues that I haven't had much time to work on. When we tried to load him Saturday to take him to the vet, he absolutely refused--no matter what we tried--so tonight could be rather interesting. I really hope and pray that he will just cooperate because we HAVE to get him to Kentucky in the next couple of days.

After we drop Titan off, we have to turn around that night and drive back down here so that we can finish getting everything done around here that we need to.

So, this next week is shaping up to be just as crazy as the last week has been. It will all be over soon though--YAY!! We can't wait to get out of this place and get to Hawaii, though we already know we are going to get island fever at some point and wish we were in a place where we could drive for 12 hours straight like we are going to tonight, ha ha. We're just so ready to be done here. . .have been for a long time now! The fact that it's already been three weeks since my husband graduated and we are still here has made us even more ready to leave as soon as we can!

Well, I guess I'd better go for now, hopefully I will have a chance to update here again before we leave, but in case I don't I will write again after we reach Hawaii!

A Good Night

That's what last night was; Peanut Butter Cup only woke up twice and was relatively easy to put back to sleep after feeding him. Needless to say, we all got a LOT more sleep than we have been used to lately. I kept waking up expecting him to want to be fed and he would still be asleep, ha ha. So, the fussiness from the past few nights before last night is still unexplained. . .of course, it is possible that last night was a fluke--though I certainly hope not!

My mom and sister are on their way here currently--they are driving about 12 1/2 hours today, so if anyone reads this today, please pray for travel mercies! They are coming down to see us one last time before we cross over the Pacific Ocean to our new home.

My husband's graduation is almost here! He finished his classes a couple of weeks ago, so aside from having to go in for accountability and trying to 'clear' (which has been taking up a LOT of time) so we will be allowed to move (oh the fun of being in the military! Ha ha), we have been working on getting the house ready to sell or lease.

We sold one of our vehicles yesterday (praise God!). The army will only pay to ship one vehicle so we opted to keep our truck and will be looking for something cheap once we get to the island. That is one less thing for us to worry about now.

We have decided to give Quigley back to the breeder after talking to one of our neighbors who used to own two Australian Cattle Dogs. He said that the same thing happened to both of them (kids sticking sticks through the fence at them and basically just tormenting them -- why do children have to be so cruel?) and after each dog had bitten 3 times each he'd had to have them put down. :-( It hardly seems fair considering it wasn't originally the dogs' fault. After our neighbor told us that though, my husband and I talked and we decided that we'd rather Quigley go to a new home where he'd have more of a chance to live, versus us taking him and him being in close contact with kids and then maybe have to have him put down eventually. Another factor is the size of the yards in Hawaii -- they are so small, it really wouldn't be fair to him as he needs room to run. :-( It just makes me so sad (even though I don't really get along with him) that we can't keep him and that the kid next door has been so awful and made Quigley the way he is now.

On a somewhat happier note, we've 'tentatively' decided to keep Penny (one of our cats). Now that our other cat has been re-homed, Penny has been a very well behaved kitty (ha ha). That makes me feel somewhat better as I was dreading being pet-less in Hawaii. Not that there aren't PLENTY of animals over there in need of good homes, it's just that my mom is 'keeping' a cat for us back at her house already, and there are mostly only pitbulls, terriers, and little ankle-biter breeds (please don't be offended by that if you like those breeds!). . .none of which we really like. So, the chances of us getting another dog or cat over there are slim. It could happen, but it doesn't seem likely. So my not-so-little-anymore Penny will likely be crossing over the Pacific in a few months to join us after her blood tests come back negative (it takes 120 days to clear her so she won't have to spend that time in quarantine).

Rough Night. . . .

Last night was a rather rough night for all of us sleep-wise. It all started when Peanut Butter Cup would fall asleep in my arms, but then would wake up and start crying every time I'd put him down in his crib. I tried rubbing his back, singing to him, turning on one of the baby toys attached to his crib. . .nothing that usually works was working last night. He would just cry and cry and hold up his arms for me to pick him up. After the first three failed attempts I started to wonder if maybe he is either going through a growth spurt or is begin to seriously teethe (I'm still not any more enlightened as to the cause for his fussiness as of this morning). In the hopes that something would work I decided to give him a couple of homeopathic teething tablets to see if they would help. . .interestingly enough, it was after that when he fell asleep and stayed asleep when I put him down again.

Except for one nearly three hour stretch, he did the same thing as the night before and woke up once each hour, which made for very little sleep for all of us. Because he's been waking up so frequently the past couple of nights we are really wondering if he is going through a growth spurt. Though he seems to be on the verge of separation anxiety currently -- does that manifest itself at night as well, or is that usually just something that occurs during the day when he is with new people? I'm not sure, so if anyone has any thoughts, please feel free to share. :-)

With the upcoming move I keep wondering how we are going to swing not having his crib for an unknown amount of time. Co-sleeping is out of the question for us (though nights like last night definitely make it tempting!). We were thinking of him possibly sleeping in his playpen because I know a lot of other couples have done that, but the problem is that he doesn't associate his playpen with sleep at all, and doesn't usually want to stay in it for very long. :-/ So, I'm a bit concerned about how that would work. Any ideas?

One Week Down...Three to Go!

Of the last phase of my husband's school that is.... I'm so excited about him being done and us (hopefully) being able to spend more time together as a family without the stress of him constantly needing to study. Not to mention the fact that sometime soon after that we will be moving! We are so ready to leave this place though we still don't have an exact date yet of when we will be leaving. I'm not sure how much longer after graduation we will be hanging around here to get things done around the house to prepare it for being rented out. Hopefully we will be able to get a lot done in the two weeks between classes ending and graduation so that we won't have to be here much longer afterward. I need a change of scenery.

There is still so much left to do before we move however. For example: sell the xTerra, find homes for the cats (Panda = YAY! Penny = :'( ), find someone to watch Quigley (our Australian Cattle Dog/Blue Heeler) for a couple of months until his FAVN bloodtest comes back negative and then stick him on a plane bound for Hawaii, find a place to board my horse for the next 3 or so years (I'm sad that I have to leave him for so long, but there is no way I can afford to have him shipped to and from Hawaii and he's such a good horse -- albeit untrained currently -- that we aren't really willing to part with him) -- and then drive him to wherever that may be, replace the carpet in the house, and find a property manager for the house. I'm sure there are many other things to be done in the next five or six weeks, but those are the highest on my priority list right now. I know that everything will come about in God's timing, I just can't wait until all of the animals are accounted for (they are my main concern).

On a totally different topic...one of my cousins had her second baby today -- a BEAUTIFUL baby boy! I'm so thrilled for them! They already have a little girl and she'd told me before that looking at pictures of Peanut Butter Cup was making her excited about having a boy. :-) I think being on the mom side of things now makes me more thrilled when I hear about someone else having a baby than it ever did before...maybe that is because now I understand and know how much love a parent has for their child and how amazing the whole experience of being a parent is. Babies and children are such a blessing! I'm so excited for my cousin, her family, and the new addition -- I can't even put into words how happy I am for them!

Speaking of precious baby boys...my little Peanut Butter Cup is still teething with no sign of the 'toofers' (ha ha) yet. Since I've never experienced a teething baby before I'm not sure if this means anything as to how much longer it will be before a tooth emerges, but for the past few days he has been pulling in his lower lip over his lower gums and just holding it there. Also, if I try to gently push his lip down so I can see the gums, he will pull his lip in like I just described and squeeze his mouth shut (it's so cute when he does it). If he decides that he wants my finger in his mouth though, in it goes. Yesterday he had my hand and he tried each of my fingers one by one -- starting with my pinkie and working his way towards my thumb. :-) He would put one finger in his mouth for a couple seconds, pull it out, look at it, grab the next finger, look at it, put it in his mouth, and so on and so forth. It was too funny! He was concentrating so hard. :-)

Well, I guess I'd better go try to get some sleep before Peanut Butter Cup wakes up. Goodnight everyone!