Life and Everything That It Is

Well, the holidays are upon us, and I am spending my 3rd set of holiday's without my family back in Georgia. It makes it hard being so far from them. Especially around the holidays, but I am learning to make Utah home. Little by little it is becoming more and more of a place that I love. We are looking at buying a house, I have a wonderful group of friends here, and more importantly this is where my boys are. Paul has been back from Iraq for about a month and a half, and it has been wonderful. But we are back to our normal schedule of him coming and going all the time even when he is in the states. Kenneth has officially turned 1, he's walking, trying to articulate words of all kinds, and he's getting so independent! Our Luna is almost 2 now, and she is starting to calm down a little, finally! She's a good dog. So I guess that I really have a ton of what I need here! As long as I'm with my boys I'm good!

I am about to start the first job that I've had in 2 years! I'll be working at the daycare in the gym that I go to a couple of days a week! And the best part of it is that I wil still be able to be a full-time Mommy! Kenneth can go with me and it's free for him to be there. I'm really excited about it, it's a little extra money, half off my daycare on the days that I go and work out, and half off my gym membership! I whould be starting as soon as my background check come back from the UBI.

On December 12th Paul and I leave for a cruise to the Carribean for a week and a half with his Dad and Sister. Kenneth will be staying here. I'm going to miss him, but it sure will be nice to be a wife for a week instead of a wife and a mom. i've never been on a cruise, but I'm excited to go! Julian got us balcony suites!

So over all life is going well! I will miss the friends who are moving, but will be making new ones, so all balances out!

5 Down, 25 To Go!!!!!

I'm so proud of myself, I lost 5 pounds in my first week of Farewell to Fat! I cut out soda, and I'm trying to eat more.... yes I said more.... I realized that the reason that I wasn't losing weight in the first place was that I was starving my body... not intentionally, I just was. I was so sporadic with eating that I would unintentionally skip meals. But even now I'm struggling to eat more than a 1000 calories a day. I'm really keeping track, and even when I'm not hungry I'm forcing myself to eat a snack of fruit or nuts. The nutritionist told me that that was the best thing to eat to add calories that weren't empty. I'm pretty excited about all of this! Who thought that by eating you would lose weight? Not me, but wow is it nice! I haven't kept myself from eating anything that I wanted, I've just made sure I didn't eat to much of it, but that I did eat. I could really get used to this!

In other wonderful news!!!!! I am only 8 pounds away from my pre-baby weight! Finally it has literally taken almost a year to do it, but I have! So hopefully by the time that Paul gets home I will be about 5 pounds under that weight!

Last night after I weighed in, and between the class times I took a spinning class.... and let me tell you today I am itching for something to do on my feet because it hurts to sit down on my butt! Ah the things that we do for good health! Now if only this cold would go away!

Farewell To Fat!

Tomorrow begins a competition that I entered at the gym I go to. It's called "Farewell to Fat." It's an 8 week competition to see who can lose the most weight. We get trainers to work with, and we are on a team with 4 other people, the goal of course is to lose as much weight as you can in 8 weeks. They have this specialized formula to find the percentage of whatever they are looking for so that it is a fair competition. I'm REALLY excited about it, if there is one thing that I have always thrived on it's competition. So tonight I had my last hamburger and soda for 8 at least 8 weeks. Probably longer, because once I try to bring them back in I'll probably get sick from looking at them!

Anyway wish me luck at being the skinny woman that Paul married again!

Breaking Heart For Hurting Friends

When we get pregnant with our first child all we can think about is the perfect little baby that we will be bringing into our home. How he/she will have 10 little fingers and 10 tiny toes. How we will watch our baby grow and progress, from their first smile, laugh, time rolling over, crawling, sitting up, walking, talking. We never think immediately about what could go wrong with that child. All we see is a perfect gift.

Last year when I met Crystal she had just found out that she was pregnant and I was getting close to delivering Kenneth. She was 18, newly married, in the greatest time of her life because she was able to get pregnant despite doubt from doctors. She was full of questions, of excitement, of hope and faith that everything would be fine. Then when she hit the third trimester it seemed like little Sidnee wanted to come out long before her due date at the end of May. She was in the hospital for what I think was about two weeks with them trying to stop her contractions. She suffered through the pain trying not to take pain medicine that could potentially hurt her baby. She was a trooper! While there they gave Sidnee steroid shots to help develop her lungs in case she came early so that she would stand a fighting chance. Sidnee cooperated and didn't come out before she had "fully cooked" being born on May 30th as a perfectly healthy baby girl.

She was however born with a bump on the top left side of her head. They told her that it was nothing to worry about. Now almost 4 months later after having a brain scan yesterday her young parents have been told that their perfect little girl has a brain tumor, and that she has a hemorrhage, and that she has had some bleeding on the brain.

What do you say to your friend who often calls for parental advice when she tells you such devastating news? How do you console her? How do you show optimistic support without seeming to play down the seriousness of the situation? How can you tell her that everything will be okay, no matter what the outcome? They are so young, and they have felt so blessed to have a baby against the odds, and now they have been devastated by news that their 4 month old will have to have a major brain surgery and/or risk permanent brain damage. Even if you aren't a praying person, give it a try for this little family. They could sure use the love and the prayers lifted on high for their little Sidnee. I just pray that God will bless them with the comfort that only He can give them. This is so heart breaking.

PICTURE EXPLINATION: These are pictures that Kristy and I had done of us and the boys on Monday. They turned out so cute!

I am finally back in Utah after a wonderful month back in my home state of Georgia! I have never been so happy to see my son's bed in my whole life! He slept all night, he was happy to do it, and as soon as I put him to bed he just laid down and went to sleep! Tonight didn't even take a bottle! And today he only had one bottle! Could it be that I will soon break him of the bottle? He wouldn't take it at all today, he ate like such a big boy! This morning he had Activia Yogurt and Cheerios for breakfast (I am trying a more natural approach to dealing with the stomach issues that he has, we'll see if it works, at least he loves the taste of it!), then for lunch he ate Chicken and Carrots Ravioli's with a cup of whole milk and a couple more Cherrios, and then for dinner tonight he had a jar of carrots mixed with oatmeal and the rest of his Chicken and Carrot Ravioli's with water and a bite of Mommy's taco! You might think that this is a stupid thing to write about but there are a couple of things that I have realized lately. I'm going to call it, "You know you are a parent when..."

1. You don't remember what a warm meal tastes like for trying to feed a baby that you can't shove food in to fast enough.

2. You get a full night's sleep and wake up the next morning more tired than if you had had to get up 3 or 4 times.

3. You catch yourself talking about bowel functions at the dinner table and it doesn't ruin your meal.

Ah how I love being a Mom! Oh and I think that I have found the perfect PT "job" for me!!! Needles don't bother me at all. AND did you know that people still pay you for blood platlets? $55 bucks if you go twice a week here in Utah.. That's 22.50 an hour. So I will be contibuting to my family's financial stability by giving platlets. If nothing else that will allow us to go out to dinner as a family or save for Christmas. I'm excited about it. And the best part is that while I do it, I won't have Kenneth so I'll donate while watching a movie or taking a nap! What could be better?

Over the Hills and Thru the Woods,

YEP!!! To Our Grandmas' houses we have gone. Utah is a distant memory at the moment full of nothing but my house, friend's, normal life, and my "first born" (my dog). I can't deny that i miss Utah a lot, and I wish every night that it was my bed that I was crawling in instead of someone Else's guest bed. Something about my 4 months old mattress that is waiting on me back at home just shuts down the competition.



We spent our first week with my side of the family. I know that it did my grandmother's heart really good to have someone else in the house. She was so cute, she would get down on the floor and play with Kenneth just like she did 24 years ago with me. Seeing her play with Kenneth seemed to have taken 20 years off her body. I can't imagine how lonely it must be in the house to have all of us girls off and married, and for Papa to have passed on. I get tired of saying prayers with only a 10 month old, she has only herself to say them with.



I amazed me at how easily Kenneth took to all of my family. It was almost like he remembered them all. He will crawl up to them, lift up onto his knees and then lift his arms strait up for them to pick him up! He especially did that with his "Great-Mawmaw". He would push me away, and go for them. It is beginning to give me hope that when his Daddy gets home that he will do the same thing with him.

After a full week with my side of the family I went to Paul's Parent's house. We have had a really good time here. Kenneth got to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa, and he also got to spend time with his First Cousin's Jeremy and Taylor. He also got to meet all of his Aunts and Uncles from his Grandma's side on Saturday and Sunday at the two family reunions that we went to.



Over all, everything has gone great! We are having a blast, even after almost 2 weeks of being here, and though I can't wait to get home, I am happy and content here for now. I have been able to go to the gym a lot. I bought a one month membership in Athens and I went there while I was with Mawmaw, and Tom has an amazing gym that he goes too, and it's free for me to go as his guest. SOOOO I have taken full advantage. So at least I haven't gotten fat and lazy, like I could because it's a vacation! Yea me!

Wednesday morning I leave for Norfolk, VA and will be there, without my baby, until Sunday. Kenneth will be with Paul's Mom, and I'm sure that he'll have a great time, still I can't help but think of how far away I'll be. It will be difficult, but I think that it will be a great vacation! I am feeling so relaxed! This trip has been far better than I expected it to be!

Because My Husband is More Important

Recently I have learned the hard way what a slip of a tongue can do to your husband's work environment. Women have always been the same, we get together and gab about anything and everything that we can think of. Sometimes amongst all of it the information being transmitted gets blurred. You could say "I drank a soda yesterday and it gave me terrible gas!" Then someone one says, "Oh when I drink soda I get an awful stomach ache with diarrhea!" Then someone else says, "Oh it makes me puke!" Next person, "I hate puking it reminds me of when I felt bulimic during my first few months of pregnancy!" And the conversation continues, by the time that the women are talking to their husbands it has turned into, "Hey did you know that Jennifer is bulimic, and that she purges even if she's only had soda?" You think I joke, and this scenario is, but unfortunately a lot worse has happened.

And politics, anyone who thinks that politics isn't in military, surely hasn't met someone who is in the military. It governs our entire life! When we first joined I was warned that I shouldn't hang out with higher ranking Airmen and Officer's wives. That it would only lead to trouble for my husband. I was stupid and young and didn't listen. And a month ago it all blew up because of a situation similar to what I discussed above. I always thought, until now, that there was no need to heed that advice because Paul and I are good people, we mean no harm, I just need friends who's husband's do the same job as my husband! The only problem with that is that Paul is the only married "young" Airmen. (He's actually older than a lot of our Staff Sgts) So to have friends in the wives group of our shop, I have to break those barriers. So I did, stupidly I did.

I love these girls! They have been my best friends since our husband's left in April. It is because of them that I have felt as alive as I have for as long as I have. I didn't know that I could feel that way without Paul around. And yet hanging out with these women has made everything easier on me. I can honestly say that until 5 weeks ago this deployment felt like a breeze. And it has all been thanks to them, and their support, and their company.

But after a rather nasty situation that ALMOST caused the first official fight in my marriage, and could have potentially ended an innocent Airman's career, I have had to withdraw from my support group, and leave the three of them on their own to have fun without me. What was said doesn't matter, all that needs to be said is that Paul's working environment has been a lot harsher because of this situation. And because my husband's happiness while in a war zone is much more important than my own to me, especially since he is currently in a war zone, I am finishing the last 65 days of this stupid deployment on my own.

I'm not completely alone, I know that. I have plenty of other friend's but none of the ones here understand what it is like to be an EOD wife. They have different scripts to read to us at Family Support Centers. They don't say, "Your husband will be fine, he'll be inside the wire." They say, "Your husband is good at his job, the Army Infantry will be there to protect your husband while he does his job." My husband's job can't be done inside the wire, he knows exactly how it feels to strap on his Kevlar and be outside of the nice barriers.

And I have family, but they can't fully understand either. The saddest lesson that I will bring out of this deployment is that no matter who starts it within a group, the higher ranking officers are never going to punish themselves or their spouses, it will flow down to the lowest ranking of the bunch. And until we are older, that will always be my dear, sweet, innocent Paul. Life was so much more simple in Kindergarten. The only drama that we knew was the soup opera that we created within the lives of our Barbie dolls. Can we revert back to that?