Happy Birthday to My Sweet Boy!

So, today was quite a big day in our household! Not only was it Veteran's Day which is a special day to us for obvious reasons, but also because today was Munchkin's second birthday!

I decided after the fact that I should have put the sprinkles on before the wording, ha ha.

It's scary how fast time flies. Anyhow, I didn't get a chance to do a "Birthday Week" series of posts like I tried to do last year, but I did want to make sure that I did a month-by-month pictorial progression again, so here it is (for the record, it is technically still Munchkin's birthday here in Hawaii, so I'm not entirely late, ha ha). Enjoy!

December 2010: 13 months old.

January 2011: 14 months old. 

This was the beginning of his climbing on anything and everything. 

February 2011: 15 months old.

March 2011: 16 months old.

Boy, is it hard to try to get a correct White Balance when there is something red in the picture!!!

April 2011: 17 months old.

There was a helicopter flying over and he was squinting in preparation to look up at it. :)

May 2011: 18 months old.

Munchkin LOVES goats. He always has a blast when we go to the "Keiki Zoo" at the Honolulu Zoo and he gets to go in with the goats. He's really going to be excited when we get to Virginia and he sees my old goat. :)

June 2011: 19 months old.

When he had his stitches in--poor Baby. :(

July 2011: 20 months old.

Oh, how he loves to be outside!!

August 2011: 21 months old.

And he REALLY loves his smoothies! :)

September 2011: 22 months old.

Playing in the pool with Daddy. :)

October 2011: 23 months old.

Okay, so I admit it, this is a picture from my cell phone (hence the graininess). A while back the Munchkin somehow decided it was more fun to be BEHIND the camera instead of in front of it, and would wiggle his way between me and the camera (putting the strap around HIS neck too). So, it made taking pictures with the REAL camera rather difficult and I kind of gave up on it for a while (which I'm ashamed to admit). 

November 2011: 2 years old. :)

I'll try to write an update post soon about what today actually held for Munchkin. Hope you enjoyed the pictures, as always it was fun for myself to go back and see his progression over the last year...brought back a lot of memories! Goodnight for now!

Letter to Munchkin

I meant to post this earlier, but didn't get a chance to until now....

Dearest Munchkin,

It is so hard to believe that you are turning two already! You’ve grown and changed so much over the last year--from just beginning to be confident with walking alone to running, jumping, and climbing on/over everything (including your baby gate a couple of days ago--which you are now a pro at doing--even after I raised it a couple of inches off the ground).

Just a couple of weeks ago you started having a ‘vocabulary explosion’ of sorts, and since then you’ve made leaps and bounds in your verbal skills. While you still have a long way to go before you get there, I can’t wait for the day that you say “I love you, Mommy” back to me. For now though, we are trying to convince you that “bus” is really not pronounced “butt”. :)

This past year has held many firsts for you: your first set of stitches (and hopefully it will be the only one for a very long time!), your first night in a toddler bed, your first time in a pool (it was a kiddie pool, but you LOVE it--especially the sprinkler that it has built into it :), your first cookie, and soon your first bite of cake.

You’ve become a very independent (in situations that you are comfortable in anyhow, you still prefer to observe new things from familiar arms) and strong-willed little fella, but to be honest we were kind of expecting that. Most of the time when we say “No.” it becomes some sort of a challenge or a game to you and you just grin and do what we’ve said not to do. I have to admit, that has been really frustrating at times. However, I know eventually you will be able to comprehend the reasons behind our instructions (and that we aren’t trying to prevent you from having ‘fun’, but are instead trying to protect you and keep you safe). Until then though, I have to constantly stay on top of you otherwise the next thing I know you’ll have gone into the laundry room and brought the broom back out and started “sweeping” the floors or something else mischievous or unsafe.

You are such a goofball! You love to take pictures with my phone of yourself making goofy faces. Oh, and speaking of phones, over the last month and a half or so you have been making ridiculously cute make-believe phone calls on your cell phone. I love it when you pretend to have a conversation with someone and will pause as though listening to a reply before you carry on and then eventually end with a quick “Bye!” and close your phone.

I can’t wait to see what this next year will bring (though I’m fervently hoping your Terrible Two’s stage won’t be too bad or last too long--especially since you’ve already been showing some signs of it for the last couple of months already!!), and I’m excited to see you change and grow. Maybe sometime soon I will hear: “I love you, Mommy.”

I love you my Little One--forever and always!

Love,
Mommy

Frustration. . . .

Okay, please forgive me everyone, but I need to vent for a minute. . . .  Recently my husband and I tried to get some things resolved with someone, but instead of taking responsibility for their actions the other party simply denied them or passed the buck. Supposedly the issues are now "resolved," but I don't feel that way at all. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't help but feel like if someone doesn't realize what they did and refuses to accept responsibility for their actions and then actually apologize for the hurt they caused, then the issue isn't really resolved (anyone else feel like this? Am I the only one?). I've been told by someone else that I need to be "the bigger person" and realize why the other person is seemingly incapable of taking responsibility for their actions and simply forgive them, but not allow them to run me over again if they do try that in the future (and I know that is good advice). It's just that I am struggling with it because I feel like if they don't realize what they did, they're just going to do it again regardless (because it apparently never happened in the first place . . . yeah right). Maybe I should simply 'turn the other cheek', but this person made my life miserable for a long time so I'm having a hard time. I guess that's just the human side of me wanting 'justice' and resolution.

I am NOT a person who enjoys drama and was sincerely hoping that everything would be resolved and that we could all move forward, but now I feel severely disappointed, stuck, and like I was run over all the more by this person's refusal to accept responsibility. Anyhow, please pray for me friends, I really need it right now! Pray for God to help me accept that I can't change people and to be more forgiving in that light. I'm so stressed right now. : (

 

We Found a House!

Yep, as the title suggests we found a place to call home for the duration of my hubby's deployment (though it's hard to fathom it really feeling like 'home' without his presence!). It's a cute little house in a beautiful setting, set back from the road and relatively private. My mom was awesome and did all of the running around checking out the various houses we have been looking into, taking pictures, and then promptly e-mailing us the pictures with descriptions and thoughts (thanks Mom! :).


We submitted applications for two different places, but one of the places--though it had a nicer house that was somewhat more convenient in a lot of ways--we had some concerns about, so we prayed that God would close the door on their end if it wasn't the place for us. To make a long story short, the door was closed. We were accepted for the second house and sent in the security deposit today.


As I'm sure you can imagine, not having to worry about finding a place to live now is a HUGE stress reliever!! Though the house isn't perfect and I'm going to have a LOT of baby-proofing to do, I am very grateful to not have to worry about finding a place to live anymore (especially one that fit all of our specifications!). So, without further ado, here are a couple of the pictures my mom sent....

 

Off to the right is the horse pasture....

 Just another view of the front....

So there you have it! Our future home. 

Oh, please be praying for the truck to sell quickly! The guy that was going to buy it last weekend backed out, but there is another guy who wants to take a look at it tomorrow, so we are praying that will go well. As much as we hate to see it go, we do need it to sell so we can have the money we need for the move. 

I will try my best to keep updating more often as we prepare for the move and deployment...I know things are bound to become pretty hectic and stressful at times around here, but I will *try* to post more often. I do miss blogging!

Life Update

Hello everyone! Hello . . . anyone? Hellllllooooo? Anyone still here reading this thing? I wouldn't blame you if you're not (though I guess if you just read that, then you haven't given up on me quite yet--YAY!). :-)

Well, for those of you who are in fact still reading this, I shall attempt to give you as much of an update as I can before something catastrophic happens and I can't write anymore, ha ha.

My hubby came home the first week of September (WOO-HOO!), and it has been SO wonderful having him home again (of course :-). Munchkin still gets worried though when Hubby has to leave for work and he gets clingy to his daddy as soon as he realizes that Daddy is about to leave. I try not to dwell on it much, but seeing him react that way makes this upcoming deployment even more difficult. . .it's not like I can effectively explain to him at such a tender age why his daddy has to leave and when he will be back. I think that breaks my heart more than the thought of being apart from my Hubby myself--at least I understand where he is going, why, and for how long--and therefore have the ability to come to terms with it--Munchkin doesn't have that luxury at this point in his life. :-(

Anyhow, before I go getting all sad at the thought of my sweet Munchkin's utter confusion at the disappearance of his daddy, I guess I'd better change the topic to something else (albeit still deployment related--as is most everything in our lives right now!).

We are still searching for a place to live in Virginia. We have a couple of prospective places, and are supposed to hear back on one of them this weekend, so we shall see. We are trusting God to open/close doors as He sees fit, though I am really hoping He will open doors sooner rather than later! Not as I will Father, but as you will. I have to constantly remind myself of that.

I am slowly starting to put things in boxes to be put in storage here while the Munchkin and I are in Virginia . . . it's slow going with a Munchkin who rarely naps these days (unless we are out driving during naptime--and sometimes even then he won't nap) and would get into everything I'm in the process of trying to box up if I let him. So I think I've gotten a grand total of 4 boxes packed in about 3 weeks time. Yay me. :-p I'm on a roll y'all! Okay, so maybe I'm not quite going at the pace I should be yet, but I intend to get there . . . I just don't know when. :-p Thankfully, after we first moved here I insisted that we start organizing and categorizing our random "stuff" so quite a bit of that is already boxed up in plastic tubs, so at least I don't have to worry about all of that.

Oh, we are selling our truck. A guy from another island is buying it tomorrow morning . . . to tell the truth, I'm glad he lives on another island--if I had to see someone else driving our truck around I would be so sad. I know it's just a worldly possession, but we are still very sad to see it go. We knew it was going to have to happen before we left the island since we will need to get another bigger truck at our next duty station (one that is actually able to haul the weight of a horse trailer with horses in it without straining), and though we did contemplate keeping this one as my primary means of transportation, it just isn't practical as a Baby-Mobile. Plus, now the Army has suddenly announced that they aren't going to pay to store anyone's vehicles like normal during the deployment, so it's not like we had much leeway to change our minds anyway in the end. I'm going to miss it. I didn't realize last Sunday would be the last time I would get to ride in it until this afternoon. *sniff*

One last thing, please, please, PLEASE join with us in praying for a homeless friend of ours--we don't know much about him yet--just that he has fallen on hard times somehow (doesn't matter how), but we think he might be a Brother in Christ and he could really use your prayers. So, please, won't you take a minute of your time and remember to pray for Raymond and his dog, Coby. I know he would appreciate it--more than you might ever know. If we are able to track him down this weekend we are going to give him a weatherproof Bible, so please pray that God would use us to minister to him. THANK YOU.