Where does the time go?????

It never fails I try to be better about posting and then I look up and it has been months since my last post. Like my title of this blog says seriously where does the time go? Well since my last post daddy has come home from his deployment and life couldn't be better. All of the pieces that were missing, now fit perfectly together to make this beautiful thing called "family!" It truly feels like our family is complete with him home. We are so not looking forward to the next deployment which isn't too far away, but let's not talk about that yet;) It took a couple of weeks for Parker to really warm up to Michael but now it's as though the never left. Michael is honestly such a wonderful father any chance he can get to take Parker out and explore and do "guy" things he jumps on it. When it was warm it seemed like every weekend they would go to the river together and of course Parker loved it but I think Michael enjoyed it just as much if not more. The chance to bond with his son meant so much to him. He is such a hands on father and I am so appreciative of all that he does for me and his son! So as you can imagine with all of this male bonding time Parker is back to waiting at the front door when he sees daddy's car pull in the driveway after work, and he usually is jumping up and down so anxious to begin their nightly routine of wrestling, tackling, fort building (with my couch cushions) and just being roudy boys;) I guess I am not sufficient enough at this "wrestling" thing, because he has no desire to wrestle with me. It truly is amazing to see how much Parker is really starting to understand things. For example the other night we were having an all family wrestling moment, where daddy would pretend to sleep and Parker and I would count to three and tickle him well we were worn out and I got up to start dinner when I hear little fake snores coming from the floor we turn to see Parker pretending to sleep, snores and all peeking through one eye anxiously awaiting the tickle torture;) We thought it was so cool! I also am proud to see we have officially somewhat started to show interest in potty training well maybe not potty training but at least discomfort with a nasty diaper, where as before he could care less;) I was cooking the other day and he came into the kitchen shook my pant leg and said "mommy poop yuck" ha ha ha! I have never been so excited for my child to poop his pants! Like I said it's a start and we will take it considering we have heard little boys are harder to potty train, I can tell you right now it's not going to be an easy process with Mr.Parker, getting him to sit at all is hard let alone sit on a potty until he goes to the bathroom ughhh the horror ha ha ha! As always here is a smorgasbord of pictures! Well hopefully I will post before Christmas if not have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New YEAR!!!!

"The first of Many"

I have decided to reflect on the past eight months and after a friends message to me with these words "The face you have given to sacrifice is something that many people need. The current conflicts have not required sacrifice that many
previous wars did, and as a result Americans are less emotionally
involved. The way you talk about your struggles and joys allows some of
us to find personal emotional attachment to all the news stories." I decided that I wouldn't just reflect in my journal tonight but here on our blog for everyone to read. When Michael first left I questioned my ability to raise Parker alone that was my biggest fear was being a "single" parent when all I had known was having the love and support of another parent in the house. It was something that absolutely scared me to death. Little did I know the one thing I was most scared about would be the ONE thing that kept me going. I can't lay in bed and have a bad day I have a little boy with the most beautiful hazel eyes and eyelashes that go on for days yelling "mama" every morning anxiously awaiting my footsteps coming up the stairs to snatch him up and love on him as if we have been apart for years. On days when I did not get a phone call and had expected one yet again I had a crazy little toddler to take away my worries and fears of why that phone call didn't come. I did very well with very little tears shed for the first few months. Until one day driving down the road coming home from the gym I don't know what happened but I burst in to tears literally so hard that I had to pull the car over to catch my breath. There was no song on the radio that made me sad, there was no thought in my head that caused these tears but this amazing little boy in the back seat that had grown so much since his daddy left that made me realize just how much my husband, his father, my best friend was missing out on. And how much I had missed being able to lay in bed with him at night and talk about how amazing our son is. I continued to cry for a long time, I cried over all the things Michael will miss out on and how much it will always be present that no matter how great of an event something is/was it won't be as good as it could have been because daddy wasn't there. The realization that we can never get this time back as a family and Parker will never be this age again for Michael to see was almost to much to bear. I had been sad for myself and sad for Parker at our loss of not having daddy around but I had yet to really think about how much my husband must hurt. Don't worry as I was crying I quickly grabbed my purse and pulled out a sucker for Parker, when all goes wrong suckers make it ALL better. So as he sucked on his sucker and I cried until my heart felt a little better. I picked up the pieces and told myself out loud " you had a good cry now get it back together and move on." And that is exactly what I did. I most definitely have my good and bad days but I try never to let it affect the way I raise Parker, I don't want him to look at this life as negative I want him to be proud of what his father does and in order to be that I must ensure that he has the best possible life that he can have even when his father is away. Something I have always prayed for is patience and I think God answered my prayers in the form of a deployment and a very active child. The struggles I have endured during this deployment have made me into a better person. I feel better and stronger than I have ever felt. It is somewhat of an empowering feeling to know you can handle all of it on your own, don't get me wrong I would take having my husband here WAY over empowerment;) Never have I felt more connected to my heavenly Father than now. He has carried me through this and given me opportunities to keep myself grounded and my spirits high. I know my future holds many more deployments but I also know that I can and will survive each and every one of them and hopefully better myself, my family, my faith, and my marriage through it all. I have missed my husband more than I thought possible so much at times it truly did hurt but my love for him has only deepened. I can't even begin to thank you for the prayers, the messages, and the emails sending your love, gratitude, and support. Just knowing that people appreciate the sacrifices that I, my husband, and my son are making makes it feel so worth it. So once again thank you for keeping my spirits high and continue to pray for Michael's safe return!!! Cheers to my first deployment;)

Sorry it has been soooo long

Sorry it has been so long since my last post I promise not to go so long between posts next time;) I am posting a whole bunch of pics from the last few weeks. Many are from July 4th when we were in Kansas City! We had such a great time as always. We went to Dinosaur Cafe (think that is what its called) Parker loved it! I also had to post pics of my cupcakes I made on the fourth they turned out really cute and tasted sooo good;) We really haven't been up to too much other than trying to get ready for daddy to come home. Right now it seems to be consuming my thoughts ha ha ha as I am sure you can imagine. I am really sad because we have done some fun things in the last couple of weeks but I couldn't find my battery charger for my camera so I didn't catch any of it:( Luckily I finally found it just in time for daddy to come home, do NOT want to miss getting pictures of that. So it really is official our baby is truly not a baby anymore. With everyday that passes he gets more independent and learns something new which its usually a new word! Parker is really starting to talk, it cracks me up because he will try and say anything you ask him to, and sometimes well most often it comes out sounding hilarious! Yes I am that mom that asks him to say things like "watermelon" and "cantaloupe." Oh it is just too funny! So in the last two days he has just started to take off with his talking. He walked into his toy room and went running to Elmo and said "Melmo" apparently he really has listened to me all those times I was referring to his Elmo doll and then my neighbor has watched Parker for me a couple of times, she was outside today when "we" (Parker with his bubble lawn mower) were mowing the lawn and he yells out "Hey Kim" ha ha ha! Cracks me up. He is really learning how to string words together to form sentences it's so amazing to see it all click. His favorite thing to say right now is "stop it" wonder where he learned that;) My friend brought her new baby girl over and when she started to cry Parker walked over with his finger pointed at her and told her to "stop it." Oh dear;) We have known all along that he wouldn't stop talking once he started and I am really starting to realize that I am probably going to want to pull my hair out when he is actually able to say everything that he wants too. Between him and Michael I will never get a word in! Well hopefully in the next week or so I will be blogging about daddy coming home and posting pics from his homecoming. Please pray for his safe return, and if you want to throw in a sooner than later return that would be great too;)

So it's been awhile, a LONG while since I have last blogged so I need to be a little bit better about that. It's funny I thought for sure with Michael gone and no distractions once Parker went to bed I would be able to blog all of the time BUT with Michael gone and doing the whole "single" parent thing I am EXHAUSTED every night. And about the only thing I want to do is look at fb, watch a little tv and go to bed;) Thinking and typing takes too much energy, ha ha ha! No, I love blogging just need to take the time to do it. We have tried to stay as busy as possible as we have done through out most of this deployment. It helps pass the time, plus I feel so fortunate to be able to stay home with Parker I want to get him out into the world doing hands on things as much as possible. Although venturing out without any help at times is a little overwhelming, if you have met Parker you know he is a BUSY bee! He NEVER stops if his stroller isn't moving then he is whining to get out, he wants to go, go, go! My mother came to visit and as always it was fantastic. I was pampered courtesy of my husband at the spa! I got my hair done and a massage, it was sooo amazing! It's funny I even enjoyed the car ride to the spa I turned up the music and sang the whole way there. And not once did I have to push play on the dvd, hand back a sippy cup, pass snacks back, get hit in the head with a bouncy ball, or console a crying toddler! It was wonderful, although I was excited to see my lil man after my spa day away from him. While my mom was here my cousins from AL came to visit and brought their beautiful baby girl!!!! We had such a great time visiting with them, but Parker was SUPER fussy the whole time and I just knew something was going on with him. Sure enough his fever spiked later that night and so I decided we should just go ahead and take him to the ER. Nothing was making him comfortable and when he only wants to snuggle in your lap you know something is wrong because as I stated before he doesn't stop for two seconds. So luckily we were in and out in 30 minutes, yes you read that right 30 minutes it was CRAZY. But don't worry we made up for the great time by searching forever for a 24 hour pharmacy. It ended up being his ears. He had a double ear infection. Poor baby. So he seems to be doing much better and our ped said at our follow up his ears looked great. Oh and he weighs 36 lbs now YIKES, such a big boy. We are really starting to count down the days until daddy is home. Can't wait!!! We miss him so much!!!!! Well I will try to blog sooner;)

passing the time until you are home;)

Wow what a busy month April has been!!!! Busy is great when you are trying to make the time go by faster;) April held many special days like my birthday which I was surprised to receive an email with a gift certificate to a day at the spa from my wonderful husband!!! April also is our anniversary which once again held a wonderful surprise a beautiful bouquet of lilies and roses!!!! I think the best part of April was getting to spend a weekend with two very special friends of mine. Our first military base to report to was Fort Bragg. Of course I knew NO one when I moved there to be with Michael after we were married, I had just left a wonderful teaching job and left all of my friends and family and the only home I had ever known. So it was very scary to say the least. Long story short I met two women who husbands were also in the same training as Michael and they quickly became our friends, family, and support all in one;) I was very lucky to have been moved here with one of those friends but our other friend stayed stationed in NC after her husband graduated. With all of our husbands away she decided that her and her daughter would make the flight to come visit Jess and I!!! It was fantastic all the kiddos together!! Addison, Resa, and Parker, how fun it was to see them interact and of course to spend time with my two great friends. Seeing Ashlee when we first got to the airport brought on a lot of emotion for all of us, we very soon were all teary eyed, there is a bond between us that is very strong we are all facing the same hardships and really understand one another. It was AWESOME! So of course saying goodbye was rough:( But Parker and I will be making the trip to NC next summer when the hubbies are away again. We also visited Chuck E Cheese for Parker's friend, Ethan's second birthday. Parker thoroughly enjoyed running around playing on everything he was in kid heaven;) As for me I have really been getting into crossfit lately, a style of working out and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I workout with a trainer three days a week and I am now a protein eating machine, I am eating "clean" as she would call it. I am seeing the results and fast. Its honestly been amazing to see how far I can push my body, it has given me so much confidence to realize how much I really can handle, she pushes me and I am LOVING it. It also helps to focus my attention on myself for a bit, because as we all know once you become a mom its easy to lose yourself in your child, I LOVE being a mom but I have to remember myself as well. Even more so when it's just Parker and I, I have to keep my energy high to keep up with my lil monster:) I hope this finds all of you doing well:)

Happy Four Year Anniversary Baby!!

Tomorrow April 20th is our four year anniversary! Truly that was the best day of my life, I always knew in the back of my mind that something was special about Michael. Dating wasn't easy for us between the age difference, the distance between us, and different backgrounds we struggled at times to make our relationship work. But one thing always held true in the three years that we dated the realization that not being together was far worse than any trial or tribulation we had to go through to make our relationship work. He truly had my heart from the moment we went on our first date. He is my rock. I have learned so much from him in the seven years we have been together, he makes me want to be a better person. I love the way he looks at life and often times I see myself striving to stay as positive about things as he does. He is a firm believer in God, a devoted, loving husband, and an incredible, caring, hands on father. I pray that Parker has his outlook on life and drive to always better himself. We only get this one life here on Earth and I thank God, THANK God that he has led me to such a beautiful man. I am so in love with him and although we can't be together right now just knowing he is my husband is enough to keep me smiling. I love you so much baby and I am so proud of you and our beautiful family. Thank you for always listening to my needs as a wife, respecting my role as a mother, and understanding my feelings as a woman. Happy Anniversary baby, I can't wait to celebrate MANY more with you! I truly don't know what I would do without you!