Life As We Know It

Well, here we go again. Tomorrow, Adam should more than likely be signing another contract with the Army. It will only be 2 years from tomorrow. He reached out to NJSP and they told him the hiring process is long and with him being Active Duty, they would more than likely not pick him up for this next academy. However, they would pick him up and keep him active until he is out of the Army for a following academy. So, we figure, this two years gives to figure it all out. It allows him to hopefully get through the hiring process without the stress of what ifs and how will we support the kids. We can plan more and prepare more. It's not what I had hoped for, but it is what it is. I am finding the positives in the whole thing. Hopefully we will stay here and won't have to move. The girls would have major stability. Allie would be in this school through third grade, which means she would have completed k-3 here. Emily will be here for Kindergarten too. We have never lived in a home as long as we have lived here. That would put us in this house for 4 years. Previously, the longest we have ever lived in a house was 14 months. So not moving is nice! Pray for us that it all works the way we need it to!

It's Only Been Two Years

So much has changed in our life in two years. Some people have their life stay the same day in and day out. They never move, they never switch jobs and never meet many new people. Well...that's not the case here! Let's see...Well, I guess first would be that in June 2012 Adam re enlisted for 3 years. Clearly, a new re enlistment window opened up for him. Oh and in April 2012, we got a puppy, Lucy. She is a sharpei and now she is 2 1/2 and awesome, gross, but awesome. We love her lots! Emily turned 3 in May of 2012. Allie started Kindergarten in August of 2012 and turned 5. Then, Adam left for training in August of 2012 and when he got home at the end of the month, we decided we wanted another baby. In October 2012, we went and stayed in NJ for three weeks during our PCS to Fort Benning, GA. During this stay, Superstorm Sandy hit NJ pretty hard. We were without power for 5 days (which was NOTHING compared to what most people in NJ dealt with) but we decided to pack up and head down to Georgia. So we went down on November 4th. We signed for our house on November 5th and the movers came with our things on the 7th. I found out I was pregnant on November 8th. I am telling you, our life is ALWAYS exciting! We were so very excited and thrilled that is happened so quickly. However, this meant absolute exhaustion and all day sickness for the first few months in a new place and new house. It definitely made adjusting hard. In February of 2013, we found out we were being blessed with a baby boy. I remember crying the moment the tech said he was a boy. My pregnancy went on without any other problems other than a lot of contractions and a few ultrasounds but we made it to my c section on July 8th. On that day, our lives changed forever. We met this amazing little boy and he was the fattest little thing. He was 10 lbs 2 oz and 22.5 inches long. I now know why I was in so much pain towards the end. Our sweet AJ is just the best. Fast forward thru all of those changes and that brings us to the night before my 30th birthday. Allie turned 7 last week as well as started 2nd grade. Emily turned 4 in May and will be starting real Pre K next week. AJ turned 1 in July and is trying his hardest to walk. Last week, Adam took a test for the NJ State Police. We are hoping and praying he moves forward in the hiring process and that he gets the job. We would love to move back to NJ and raise our kids where we were raised. We are so entirely grateful for the Army and this life and all it has provided and taught us. However, this is a wonderful opportunity for us and a chance for stability for the kids and for them to be raised near their grand parents, aunts and cousins. No matter what in the end, we will be okay though. I guess we will just have to wait to see where life takes us next!

The Last Day Of My 20s...

Today is the last day I will be a twenty something. It's the last day I feel like I am in that young lady range. Tomorrow, I will be thirty. What's the difference between today and tomorrow? Well, I am not quite sure. I sure do know that this is not what I expected I would feel at thirty. I'm not feeling like I am an old lady now or anything like that. However, it is just surreal. How am I thirty? Wasn't I just ten or twelve? I remember not even being able to imagine what it would be like at thirty. When I was ten, I imagined I would just be married and have lots of babies! Then in my later teen years, I kind of felt like when I was thirty, I would have it all together. I felt like I would have this great career as a teacher, teaching second grade in a good district. I would maybe be married and have one baby by now. I now look back and think about how life goes by in the blink of an eye. I can remember so many of my birthdays vividly. I have so many memories from my childhood and I feel like it was all just yesterday. I feel this way for myself, and now here I am raising a 7 year old, 4 year old and 1 year old. How is this happening? It probably sounds so silly to keep questioning how, but really, I cannot grasp it. Sometimes I struggle with how fast life moves. It makes me so sad that my kids are growing up so quickly. I can only imagine how my mom feels. I am her baby, and here I am turning thirty. I still feel like I am barely a twenty year old and my sisters are not much older than that. 

I have to say, turning thirty is refreshing. Growing up, I feel like we were taught not to ask a woman her age. Growing old was something to be embarrassed of for women. I am proud to be thirty. So what, I still have a year and a half left on my degree. So what, I haven't lost the 15 pounds I have wanted to lose the past 6 months. You know what? I have my husband. He is one heck of a man. He loves me more than I imagined anyone ever could. We have been thru it all, and still, we have come out better than before. We have built this life together that is just wonderful. It's not perfect, but it’s perfect for us. We have these three awesome kids that drive us nuts and make our hearts melt in the very same minute. I don't think I ever imagined my life holding this much love at thirty. I don't think I ever imagined being as happy as I am (well minus the bad days in there obviously!). I am lucky, I am grateful and I am happy. 

Instead of dreading growing older, I am going to embrace this new decade of my life. I am leaving behind my twenties and being "young", but gaining a time in my life where I am hoping to just become more confident and stronger as a wife, mother and just as MYSELF. I am hoping my thirties brings new and exciting changes for our family and hopefully takes us back to our roots. I feel like I conquered a lot in my twenties. I got married, I carried and gave birth to three children, I moved to Germany, I moved to Kentucky, I moved to Georgia, I proudly stood by my husband and raised our children while he was in Afghanistan for 27 months. It's not a career and maybe I didn't party hard in my twenties, but I have so much more in my life than I anticipated at this point. Every day I am grateful that life has taken me where it has. 

So here is goodbye to my twenties and hello to turning thirty. I am ready for all it has to offer! 

Spring is a coming!

So, its February...which means it is about that time to get the girls spring and summer wardrobe together. I always do it way in advance, because otherwise you cannot find anything. Emily will hopefully fit into a good chunk of Allie's old clothes, and I slowly started shopping for Allie. My mother in law went out and got the girls a few things the other day, and always gets them plenty for their birthdays, which is perfect because Em gets summer clothes and Allie gets fall clothes. Tomorrow I plan on digging out the giant bin of Allie's summer clothes from last year to see what still fits. Some of her things SHOULD still fit, and I hope they do so she won't need to much more.

With spring coming, this also makes me want to make a few recipes that I won't make in the summer. I found an easy recipe for chili that the girls would probably love, its called kid chili...so hopefully they enjoy it. I also found some soups for Adam and definitely want to make chicken noodle soup as well. It is funny how certain recipes are related to the spring or winter. Once it gets warm out, we grill quite often. So, I need to make a solid list for the grocery store tomorrow with all of the things I need to make the recipes I want to make.

Spring also means a visit to NJ! I cannot wait to take the girls back for Easter. I am excited for us all to go to church as a family and celebrate Easter with everyone. We have a lot planned for our week in NJ, but I am beyond excited about it. We are going to look at houses, hopefully go to the zoo, go to the shore, go to the Franklin Institute and so many other things. I have to remind myself, that next summer we will have access to all of those things!

Spring also means Emmy's birthday at the end of it. I cannot believe my baby girl will be TWO. Everyday I almost cry at something new she says or does. She is so smart, its ridiculous and talking so much, I cannot even keep up. She is talking in a lot of sentences and can go thru one of her little baby books with 100 pictures and name at least half of them. She knows a lot of her body parts and can even sing twinkle, twinkle (well, to the best of her ability). When did all of this happen? I wish that I did not essentially wish away a year of my kids life while Adam was gone...even though I enjoyed and embraced those days, I feel like that went even faster with him gone. So for now, I hold on extra tight to them!

We're going to be civilians!

It is such a crazy and scary thought. For the past almost 7 years of our life, it has been committed to the US Army. Every decision, every thought, every movement has been centered around the Army. We knew his ETS date (the date his contract with the Army is up) was coming up this year, and we had talked about getting out, but the other day the Army said we had to re enlist that day or not at all. We chose not at all because he would of been sent to Korea, which meant ANOTHER year apart. Now he is hearing he can still re enlist in the fall again, but we are very much focused on getting out. We already told our families, we told his parents we will be moving in with them in October and we have already started talking about job opportunites. He should have almost 60 days of terminal leave, probably more like 50, so we will be living in NJ before Halloween. This is ALL so crazy to me. It is everything I (and we) have talked about for a long time, but it is SO scary to think about. We have been essentially taken care of by what the Army provides, financial stability, health insurance and housing. By December, poof, it will all be gone. I KNOW we can make it, I have faith in us. The problem is making sure Adam keeps the faith in us too, because so many people tell him horror stories of the outside world, that he thinks we will never survive without the Army...and I feel as though, we can't survive much longer in the Army (deployment wise). So here goes nothing. We have stopped hanging pictures and decorating the house, and started making plans for how things will need to be packed already. We head home for Easter, and thats our last visit before we MOVE home. Wow. So crazy to think about!

So my kids have to be growing, right?!

I feel like alllllll my kids do is eat anymore! Like, Allie has always been bad with snacking, she is definitely more of a grazer than a meal eater...but the girl can also clear her plate. My girls are fantastic eaters, they aren't picky in the least. Allie knows what she likes, so she can be a little hard to please, but Emily literally eats anything. Lately, they both want to eat all day everyday. Today after a discussion with Adam, I feel like I really can't even keep up with their eating and they go thru certain snacks so fast anymore. So I decided, I am going to attempt to make some snacks for them instead of buying everything. I have an endless, well not really, supply of flour and plenty of baking things left from the holidays. So I have found recipes for gold fish, cheez its, oreos, pop tarts, pretzel bites, and graham crackers. Tomorrow, I plan on trying out of the pop tart recipe and maybe the pretzel bites. I also need to work out some new lunch recipe ideas for them. I planned our meals for the next week, and am planning on a good food shopping trip to further meal plan and make more homemade snacks. Hopefully it all comes out yummy!

Meal Planning...Here I Come!

Well, after a very expensive food shopping trip...I have realized, I really need to meal plan. Last week, we ate out two nights in a row, very not the norm for us. We were just "out of food". Well, I didn't have any meals to really create. Then I got creative and I found one or two things I could make with what we had...then, finally Sunday we went shopping and spent TOO much money. However, it should give us meals for at least week...and we also stocked up on things like "sides" you know, like rice and noodle sides that you make in a crunch. I just really need to get real with the situation of meals. Sadly, I still have to go food shopping AGAIN this week, but I am working on finding some meal planning resources and I will shop with a LIST instead of just buying what I see. It's also hard, because we have still only been in our house for a little over a month now, so we still do not have all of those essentials that we normally have. So, I am going to attempt to meal plan and see if I can't cut some of these food bills down a bit and also make my life a teensy bit easier! I am enjoying the process of looking for recipe ideas and finding resources online with the process. I just wish I was as good as some of these moms!