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. :)

Letter to My Munchkin

(Sorry if this letter is a little disjointed or choppy. . .I wrote it while exhausted, and still don't have the energy to go back through and edit it at the moment, ha ha. I wanted to post it yesterday, but didn't finish it until late last night and so I put off posting it until today. . . .)

Dearest Munchkin,

Happy 3rd Birthday!!! It really doesn’t seem like that much time has passed since I first laid eyes on you and instantly fell in love.

This morning we celebrated your birthday with Daddy over Skype--which was lots of fun! You opened your presents and then we sang “Happy Birthday” or “The Cake Song” as you decided to call it (you asked us to sing it to you periodically while you ate your frosting--along with a little bit of the actual cake--after we’d finish singing you’d blow on your cake as though you were blowing out your candle again, ha ha!), then you blew out your candle like a pro, and it was time to eat cake! Your cake was a layered yellow cake with chocolate frosting and tons of sprinkles (you were so excited about the sprinkles!). Daddy had cake too and Uncle Tony even dropped by Daddy’s room for a few minutes to get some cake and to wish you a happy birthday. =) You had fun playing with your new train set and trying to figure out what the pieces of your doctor’s ‘kit’ were for while Daddy watched. It was definitely a fun morning and I think we all enjoyed ourselves quite a bit!

This past year has been an interesting one to say the least. The “Terrible Two’s” hit with full force not long after you turned two and it’s been a battle of wills ever since. You’ve also gone from a vocabulary consisting of about 5 words to speaking in broken sentences 90 miles an hour. You say some of the funniest things and make me wonder where you come up with this stuff.

Along those same lines, your imagination has really blossomed this year. You are always imagining that your ‘friends’ (Bob the Builder, Thomas the Engine, the bear, skunk, robot, shark, t-rex, etc.) are either playing with you, joining us for a meal,or chasing you while trying to bite you.

You finally started sleeping through the night. There are still occasions where you wake up and need some help going back to sleep, but those are a rarity now (for which Mommy has been very grateful, ha ha).

This was the first year that you really got a chance to play in the snow, and you had a BLAST...so did I--it was a lot of fun running around and playing in the winter wonderland with you.

This year has been different from your first two, because this year it’s mostly just been you and me. We said goodbye to Daddy on New Year’s Day this year and he headed back to Afghanistan for a year. I was worried about how you might react to Daddy’s absence, but as always you have been a little trooper and have been so brave while Daddy’s been away.

I wasn’t sure how you were going to react when Daddy came home for 15 days of R&R at the end of May, but God answered my prayers and the reunion was more beautiful than I could have imagined. I hadn’t told you that Daddy was coming home, but once we’d arrived at the airport you started saying, “Daddy? Daddy?” I think you may have recognized it as the place where we’d last seen him. . . . It came as quite a surprise to me all the same though. Once we’d made it into the airport and had gone up the escalators we could see Daddy’s camouflage uniform at the end of the long passageway and you immediately started saying, “Daddy! Daddy!” Daddy spotted us also and we met somewhere in the middle where you instantly went to him and wanted to hug him and hold his hand.

On the way home from the airport you kept opening your arms out wide and saying, “Hunk” (which translated as: “hug”)--you were so happy to have Daddy home you didn’t want to let him go! Also on the way home that day you put three words together for the first time--you’d been playing with Daddy’s sunglasses and kept taking the head strap thingy off and then saying, “I did it!”

Ever since that day your vocabulary and communication skills started to take off and improve by leaps and bounds--which has been incredible to look back on and see how far you’ve come. Now you are speaking in long sentences (they don’t always make sense, but usually they do....) and using big words like: “obstacles” and “telescope”.

Back in August you tripped while playing a game of tag/chase with Grandma and you hit your right cheek on the edge of your wooden rocking chair--which left a gash about a half inch long which required a trip to the hospital. . . . The doctor said you could get 1 or 2 stitches, or we could have it glued. We chose the glue to ease any further ‘trauma’ on you. Just like the first time you gashed your head open, once you’d gotten past the initial pain from it (about 5-10 of crying) you were back to your normal self and wanted to bounce around. You were so well behaved for the doctors and sat so still for them. I was proud of you for being so brave!

As I said before, this year has been interesting to say the least! I am looking forward to this coming year--especially knowing that Daddy will be coming home soon to share it with us! I just can’t wait to see the way you light up when you realize Daddy is home! Soon My Baby. . .soon.

Mommy loves you and can’t wait to see what this new year holds!

Love always,
Mommy

The Year in Review--Munchkin Turned Three Today!

 Whew, am I behind or what? Well, here's my attempt to get 'back in the blogging groove', here is this year's month by month picture progression of the Munchkin.

December 2011
The Munchkin has had a fascination with the horses from the start...not sure if he remembered anything about being around Ice or Titan before we moved to Hawaii--or if it's just in his blood (hehe), but he's never been afraid of them.

January 2012
Deer-in-the-headlights look. Ha ha.

February 2012
He loves to be outside. =)

March 2012
Such a Goofball.

April 2012
Wearing Daddy's hat.

May 2012
"Look Mommy--a plane!"

June 2012
Oh how he loves that tricycle.

July 2012
His face has changed so much this past year!

August 2012
Yet again, he tripped and hit his face on a toy...I'm thinking I should put him in a padded room with only stuffed animals for toys.

September 2012
Still fascinated with the horses. ;)

October 2012
He's looking more and more like a little boy and less like a toddler.

November 2012
We were able to Skype with Daddy this morning while opening presents and eating cake! So much fun! =)

 That's it for now. I'll try to post again soon, but we are in the midst of preparing to head back to Hawaii currently....

 

Book Review: Short-Straw Bride

This is the last book review I am going to do for a while as I am in the process of preparing for my return to Hawaii--I've been meaning to write a 'normal' post, but it's been taking me a while to actually find time to sit down and get it done...hopefully soon though.

After I had requested a copy of Short-Straw Bride to review I thought to myself, “Oh goodness--what have I gotten myself into? It’s a romance...it’s probably going to be off-the-wall cheesy.” (What can I say? I’m a realist...over-cheesiness just isn’t my thing, ha ha.) The book’s description still sounded intriguing though, so I was looking forward to reading it despite my apprehension.

I started reading it the same day it arrived, and less than 24 hours later I’d finished it. That was the fastest I’ve read a book since before my son was born, I think.... In brief, Short-Straw Bride was truly a fun book to read! I loved every minute of it and discovered--much to my relief--that it wasn’t really all that cheesy. In fact, it was one of the most ‘sensible’ romances I’ve ever read--while still being romantic nonetheless.

Short-Straw Bride is about Meredith, a young woman who delivers a warning to someone she was indebted to and through a chain of events end up having to marry him. It being a hasty marriage of obligation neither is sure of the others’ feelings and  have to adjust to being suddenly married. There is more to the story, but I don’t want to give anything away. :)

The author, Karen Whitemeyer, has the talent for writing a story that really draws you in and takes hold of you while you read it! I definitely found myself growing attached to the characters in the story and was excited to see the story unfold as I continued to read.

I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a fun read!

A big ‘Thank You’ to Bethany House for providing a free copy of Short-Straw Bride for me to read in return for an honest review!

Book Review: Fearless

Fearless is a book much like Outlaw Platoon in that it is a story about one of our military heroes--and that the story contained within it's pages is one that is unequivocally incredible. It is the inspiring true story of Navy SEAL Adam Brown, a man who made some bad decisions early on in his life, but rose above those choices and continued to fight--and conquer--his personal demons to become a man truly worth looking up to. It is a book about second chances, patriotism, love that never gave up, and--most of all--faith. Adam Brown’s extraordinary life was an incredible--albeit difficult--journey from utter hopelessness to a life that was filled with purpose.

Right from the start this book pulls you in and makes it very hard to have to put it down to attend to other things. I remember laughing out loud at one point in the beginning of the book when the author, Eric Blehm, was illustrating what Brown had been like as a toddler--the similarity to my own son and the understanding of how his mother must have felt each time he did something outlandish gave me some common ground with the story and drew me deeper into it’s pages. Brown’s never-quit attitude (despite seemingly impossible odds on more than one occasion) made me examine my own attitudes when faced with not-anywhere-near-as-impossible of odds.

I don’t want to give anything away, but the title of the book truly sum’s up Brown’s life in a single word--from the start of his life to his final breath--he truly was fearless. Brown overcame adversity time and time again that others would have never dared to challenge. His deep convictions and unwillingness to quit despite the odds being stacked against him on many different occasions led to his becoming a part of the legendary SEAL Team Six.

Eric Blehm did a fabulous job in retelling Brown’s story. His style of writing and story telling truly draws you in and helps you envision the events he retold as you read them. May Brown’s story never be forgotten, and to GOD be the glory!

WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group kindly provided me with a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

If you would like to read the first chapter of Fearless for free, please click on this link: Fearless Chapter 1.

To watch the book trailer on YouTube, please click here: Fearless Book Trailer.