The New Year Brings New Beginnings

Hannah playing on the porch of our new house!

2012 has barely begun and it has already brought so many changes for our family! First of all we PSCed from Fort Benning, GA to Fort Lewis, WA!  This was a very welcomed move since I am from the area!  I can not even begin to say how amazing it is to be back HOME with all our friends and family!  Hannah is LOVING all the time she gets to play with her cousins, and being spoiled by the rest of our family and friend.  

We were lucky enough to be able to get moved JUST in time for the holidays!  We had a wonderful Christmas with our family and rang in the New Year with friends! After the New Year we started moving into our new home!  It has been a project house, but is really coming along nicely!We are all settling in and loving it!  Hannah especially likes her very pink and very princessy room that daddy painted for her!

Josh signs back into his unit this week, and then the real fun will begin!  He will be back in a line unit and there is a high possibility that he will be deploying to Afghanistan this spring. That is something I am not looking forward too, but it is unavoidable now that his drill sergeant time is over.  We have many fun family events to look forward to before then though!  For example Hannah's 2nd birthday party will be taking place in less then 2 wks! 


Though life has been busy one of my "New Year" projects is to keep up with this blog.  It is more of a personal goal for myself so I can look back on it later in life.  I have our whole lives photographed, but I would like have written memories also! So look forward to many more post and I apologize in advance if they are boring! LOL. 

Times of War, PRAY

A friend of ours was injured in Afghanistan early this morning.  Though I personally did not know him well, Josh did.  When I told him the news I tried to hold back my tears.  It is times like these that this war becomes real, and the sacrifices our men and women in uniform are making made clear.

I can see the pain in my husbands eyes when he hears that yet another one of his brothers in arms has been injured.  Not only can I see his pain, but I can feel it.  As I read updates on his condition I can only imagine the feeling of helplessness his wife must be feeling. My heart truly goes out to her.  She reports that his condition is stable and he is being transported to Germany as we speak.  I thank God that he has survived this, and pray that he is soon returned to his family.

As I pray for him and his family I can't help but to also pray for Josh. I pray that I never find myself on the other end of the phone call, that is ever Army wives worst nightmare.   In the 3 short years Josh and I have been married I have sadly learned that phone call, that dreaded knock on the door by th unknown man in uniform bearing bad news, are all too real for too many loved ones left behind.

So tonight I pray.  I pray for the Simion's and Jeremy's safe return to his family.  I pray for the safety of all our troops. I pray for my husband, and the years he has left serve.  Basically tonight, I pray.

Mother's Day!

Happy Mothers Day to all the wonderful Mom's out there!  I hope everybody's day was as special as mine!

I love being a Mom and even more then that I love being HANNAH'S MOM!  All I needed today was her and Josh.  I got them and so much more!  My day started with sleeping in (Josh got up with Hannah), and breakfast in bed!  I also got flowers and a new Coach bag!  To top it off I was also taken out to Mexican for lunch.  My husband sure knows the way to my heart!

It made me feel special that Josh went out of his way to make sure I had a special day.  It feels nice to know I am appreciated! :)  I am oh so lucky to have such an amazing husband and daughter!

Catch up time!

Life has been busy and the days seem to be flying right on by!  I took Hannah to her 15 month appointment last week and she has grown 2" inches and gained almost 3 pounds since her 12 month appointment last January!  Besides getting bigger she is also FINALLY starting to walk and has been talking up a storm!  Her new favorite word is "NO"! LOL. It surprises me how something like her telling me "NO" can be so cute, yet so annoying at the same time!

I still at times struggle to find a balance in life.  Taking care of Hannah's needs and wants are my number one priority in life (I am not complaining about that) and I wouldn't want it any other way, but I often times forget to take time out for myself to do the things that I enjoy.  I feel like I have in away let myself go. I guess I am trying to find a balance of the person I once was and the mother I am now.  Does that even make sense?

Despite feeling overwhelmed at times, more then anything I am thankful for Josh and Hannah.  I really do love being a wife and a mother.  I have been blessed with a very happy energetic child.  Her personality is so cute and lovable! She is social and outgoing already!   I know more then anything that she is my purpose in life.  Her and Josh are the life that God had planned for me all along. All I had to do was let go of the things of the world that I THOUGHT I wanted and expect the wonderful gifts that God wanted to bless me with! :)

 

Water for Elephants

There are few things I love more then a good book.  I find that I can lose myself in reading and actually picture the characters as if I am watching a movie in my head!  I have a vivid imagation and I love to escape to a make believe world! 

Since having Hannah I find I have little time to enjoy this simple pleasure anymore.  I have too many interest and not enough time to fit them all in anymore! LOL.  I did however find time to read "Water for Elephants."  I was an amazing story something I would suggest to anyone who loves to read!

It is about a 93 year old telling his story of when he was a young man and ran away with the circus!  It is romance, deceit, murder and much more.  I found it not only entertaining but very interesting!  I could barely put it down... just ask my husband who got very annoyed with the night table lamp being on while he was trying to sleep!


If you aren't much of a reader I recently saw a preview for the movie version coming to theaters later this month.  I am sure it won't be as good as the book, but I will see it anyways. That is how much I LOVED the story!  I loved it so much that I had to bore all 8 of my readers with this blog! LOL

So much for security!

When my husband re-enlisted we knew we would make sacrifices, we knew we would be moved from post to post, and we knew that we would face deployments.  In exchange we were getting guaranteed paychecks and health benefits. Well today the government has disappointed us greatly by following through with it's threats of a military pay freeze.

LES's were released earlier today confirming what everyone feared.  No one is getting paid after April 8th.  This means that when payday comes around on the 15th every military member will be receiving roughly half of their regular pay and if they don't settle on a budget, by the time the 1st rolls around there will no paychecks at all.

This baffles me.  How can our government with hold pay from those who put their lives on the line for our country.  How do they sleep at night knowing the position they have put thousands of families in?

 
The one thing we thought we would never have to worry about is how we would pay our bills or how we will feed our daughter, but now I am questioning these very things.  Realistically we have the savings to make it for a couple months and I really don't see it going that long, but the fact that I even have to wonder or question it makes me sick.  What kind of country do I live in when men and women on welfare and unemployment receive constant paychecks and my husband who has been wounded in combat defending our country pay is being withheld? Someone please tell me where the logic in that is!

The principle of this is what bothers me more then anything, but as my husband says on his facebook today "Don't worry America, I will continue to fight for you even if my family and I have to live in a card board box!"  and I in turn will continue to support him.

Another weekend come and gone....

Hannah outside playing and enjoying the Georgia sun!

It seems as though the days have just been flying by lately! In a way this is good.  It means we are getting closer and closer to moving back to WA, but that means we are getting closer to our unknown future and I hate the unknown! 

I also LOVE and HATE how fast Hannah is growing up.  It seems like only yesterday I brought home my tiny 4 lb princess and now she is starting to talk and is on the verge of walking.  She has been saying "Mama" and "Daddy" for months but just this last week she has added "Thank You", "Ducky", and "Kitty"  She isn't quite walking on her own yet, but she is getting there!

Princess Hannah in her Princess buggy!

It is difficult for me to gauge if she is advance or falling behind since she was born almost 2 months early and the doctors say she could take up to 2 years to fully catch up.  I know for a fact that she isn't behind on walking, but she also isn't ahead.  Her social and verbal skills however amaze me.  She has been trying to talk for a long time now.  She sits and reads her books to herself in her own baby Hannah language and hold conversations with me in this same language.  It is so amazing to me to hear her start to actually make out "real" words!  She also listens and understands very well.  For instance she has a little pink car that I push her around in and when I tell her to honk the horn she does it on command!  This and other little things always seem to amaze me!    It is so wonderful to see her develop and grow especially after her rough start, but it also is sad that time goes by so fast and I know she won't always be a baby! :( I love to take pictures of her though...and dress her up in what Josh calls "ridiculous" outfits, but I am positive he means ridiculousLY CUTE outfits like the Easter outfit I have her in above!