Happy 2nd Anniversary

My hero

My best friend

My love

My husband

I am a little emotional to be spending today alone whlie he is gone, so I'll just leave you with the above pictures.  I miss him like crazy.  Happy 2nd Anniversary, baby! I love you more than I could ever express.  MUAH!

Lauren Grace - 15 months

My silly munchkin is 15 months already! I can't believe it.  I just don't know where the last year has gone.  She (Kaelin, too!) is the most amazing blessing that Kevin and I have ever been blessed with.  There isn't a day that goes by that she doesn't melt my heart, make me cry (happy mommy postpartum tears), make me laugh, and frustrate me.  Lauren Grace is my little music box.  She loves to sing, dance, hum, and clap along.  It is the most adorable thing ever.  She and her daddy share an extreme love for music.  I just loved the nights they would sit down at the computer and listen to songs together.  He would tap his leg and she, on his lap, would sway back and forth, and clap her hands. 
Lauren's new thing is to fall asleep ANYWHERE but her own bed.  She was doing well about going to sleep on her own, but since we moved she has been a bit out of her routine.  She is so stinkin' adorable though. 

Lauren's vocabulary grows everyday.  She has a handful of words that she says clearly and in the right context.  They are:

Mamma, Dadda, Kaelin, Sissy, Flower, What is it?, Who's that?, Hi, Up, Pretty, and Debbie. 

She couldn't quite say "grandma" She caught onto Debbie super fast though. Lauren also says "Dah" for Uncle Jordan.  If we says "Where's Jordan?" ..she walks around looking for him saying "Dah!" 

She also knows how to sign the word more.  We learned that from her cousin Caleb.  That is the only sign language we know but it has definitely helped with the screaming when she wanted more food! 

Lauren loves books, especially her animal and color book. She is just like a sponge and is soaking it all up.  She makes monkey sounds, and yesterday I heard her growl while looking over at a lion magnet.  She also is learning to identify her colors.  She can now correctly point to the colors, Red, Green, Blue, Pink, Brown and White in her color book.  The other night at dinner, we were trying to show her off to her Auntie Kara, we laid 3 crayons in front of her and asked her to pick up the green crayon and hand it to grandma.  She stared at the crayons for a good 30 seconds, but throrougly thought before picking it up.  She picked up only the green crayon and handed it to Grandma.  We were so impressed and excited for her.  She gets excited too and starts laughing and clapping at herself. 

We just love love love love her to pieces.  I can't wait for all of the big developmental milestones to come.  She impresses me daily.  

Kaelin 10 weeks

Wowza! My sweet baby Kaelin is 10 week already?!  Where did the time go?   I feel like a terrible mother for not updating very much in her first few months of life. 
Miss Kaelin is just growing leaps and bounds every day.  She is my little Miss Piggy.  She LOVES to eat.  She slept through the night from 9pm to 5am for the first time on Sunday night.  It was amazing.  It's just what I needed to get ready for my first fitness class in two years. 

Kaelin is smiling all of the time.  She has the most beautiful, infectious smile.  She has started to coo and it is absolutely adorable.  She isn't a big fan of tummy time and is usually screaming within a few minutes. 

I have no idea what she weighs or how long she is.  We are still working on switching over our insurance to this region and have yet to be assigned a primary care physician for the girls.  I faxed in our application last week and hopefully will be receiving that info soon so I can set up their well checks and immunizations.

Although I don't have an stats to share, I will share a few of my favorite pictures of my little munchkin. I just love her to pieces!

"Mini Sue Sylvester"

So stinkin' cute!

I love her beautiful smile and dimples!!

Goals

Today marks 2 weeks since Kevin left.  We are pretty much settled into life here in Illinois. 
We miss him a lot but hopefully with the holidays approaching, time will just fly by! 
I have set some goals for myself while Kevin is gone.  I haven't written them all down but I soon will be, so I can share them with all of you.  My main goal is to become a healthier person physically and mentally.  This last week has been hard and overwhelming and I knew that I had to do something to de-stress.  I checked out a gym yesterday afternoon called Fitness Connexion in Bloomington.  They offer a variety of different fitness classes as well as your regular exercise cardio and toning equipment. Best of all....they have affordable CHILDCARE right there in the gym.  I start my 16 day free trial today.  The free trial also includes free childcare for up to 2 hours per visit to the gym.  I am totally taking advantage of this while I can. 
I have about 50lbs to lose and I am looking forward to surprising Kevin with my new look when he gets home! 
I am going to stay accountable and post my weight on here for all of you to see.  It's embarrassing but maybe with all of your support and motivation, I won't fall off the bandwagon and give up. 

Today's weight:  246.8 (eek! I could cry!)
Goal weight:  198 (weight I was when I met Kevin 4 years ago)

This is my goal during this deployment.  50 lbs.  I can do it!  I will update everyone on my progress on every Monday.  Wish me luck! 

On the road again...

Let me just start this by saying THANK YOU.  Kevin and I have many people to thank for their support and help during the last few weeks.  First of all to our families.  We love you all very much and are so lucky to have such supportive, loving parents, siblings and cousins.  Specifically thanks to Kyle and Mike for helping Kevin carry all of our huge furniture and appliances.  We would have never been able to do it all ourselves.  Thanks to Kevin's mom for her thorough cleaning and Kevin's sister Karla and cousin Ashleigh for keeping the kids occupied while we were busy trying to get everything done. 

Thank you to my parents, and sister for coming down so soon after Kevin left.  The support and love for you all to take off work and be down here to just be with me really meant the world.  I love you. 

Thanks to my dad for not even blinking an eye and driving an hour to pick up the u-haul trailer to haul my car.  I almost had a melt down when they called on Tuesday and said they didn't have any trailers in Manhattan even though I had reserved one days prior.  You didn't even question anything and said you would drive to go get the nearest one. 
Thanks to my mom who stayed up talking with me when she got there even though she was extremely tired and it was after midnight.  I am known to be talkative but at the time I was just lonely.  Thank you for just letting me cry.  Seems like everything makes me cry but you don't judge and always are there to comfort me.  Thank you for putting a fire up my butt and getting EVERYTHING done yesterday so we could head home.  I still don't know how we managed to get all of the cleaning and packing done in just a matter of a few hours!

Thank you to my sister Stephane for being an amazing Auntie and taking care of the girls yesterday morning and allowing Mom and I to get a head start on organizing and then allowing me to have coffee with my friends.  I know you were super exausted at the end of the day.  I totally appreciate your help. 

Sincere thanks to ALL OF YOU!  We were able to get everything done and leave early.  We were able to spend a nice evening at a hotel in Kansas City and soon will be on the road again bound for Illinois.  6 hours left to go today.  Maybe a little longer depending on how many stops we have to make.  Everything is going smoothly so far. 

I am not looking forward to the unpacking and organizing, but I know it will be all worth it once it is finished. 
I know that we made the right decision to move back to Illinois, not only for our financial well being but for my emotional and physical well being.  The year to come will be filled with every emotion from tears to joy, but because of our family and friends and faith, we will get through this! Thank you!

Tasty Tuesday

Cheesy Ranch Potato Bake.

YUMMMM!

Ingredients


4 pounds russet potatoes, cut into 1/4 inch cubes

2 teaspoons chili powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

3 tablespoons butter, cubed

1 (8 ounce) package shredded colby-Monterey Jack cheese blend ( we used more cheese, and it was still just as delicious.  I have never heard of more cheese making a recipe worse!)

1 (8 ounce) bottle Ranch dressing

Directions

1.Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a 9x 13 inch baking dish.

2.Place the potatoes in the baking dish. Season with chili powder, salt, and pepper. Evenly distribute the butter over the potatoes.

3.Cover dish with aluminum foil, and bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, until potatoes are tender. Remove from oven, and mix in the cheese and Ranch dressing. Continue cooking 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly.  I let mine cook a bit longer until it had a nice brown, yummy crust on top. 

-Sorry for the lack of pictures...We ate it too fast!

The day came and went.  It was all so surreal.  I still am in denial.  Maybe it's because I am still able to text him as long as he is in the states.  I am somewhat in the anger stage because they made me drop him off at 5pm for a midnight flight and then ended up not leaving until 3am.  Angry because I left, not knowing that I could have stayed there with him for a while longer because of the later flight, and upset that he never called me to come back because he didn't want me to have to load up the girls and come back.  But I would have in a heart beat.  Next stop? Maine? Germany? I am not sure.  I don't know if I will hear from him.  I have not deactivated his cell phone yet, in hopes that maybe he will have a layover out east and I will get to talk to him again.  After that I am not sure how long it will be before we get to talk to him.  It takes time to get things set up, get internet into the room, get settled, unloaded etc.  I set him up a Skype account before he left. We are so lucky to live in an age of technology where seeing each other half a world a way is possible! I plan on getting him a Skype phone number so he can call us when he has down time and don't have to worry about being in front of the computer all of the time.  I am going to miss him so much. 

It breaks my heart when Lauren walks from room to room saying "dadda, dadda" or when she found his favorite Minnesota Twins - Joe Maurer shirt on my bed and carried it around for a good ten minutes, dragging it like her blankie, saying "dadda, dadda".  It hurts to know that Kaelin won't really know her daddy the first year of her life.  Maybe it's a good thing though the kids are so young.   They don't know what is going on.  I know Lauren will be excited to see Kevin on Skype and when he comes home, but there will be that distance with Kaelin, because he will be so much of a stranger.  I pray that they can develop a strong bond like he and Lauren have, when he gets back.  I am overwhelmed with emotion.  I have this constant struggle going on inside of me.  My head says " There is nothing you can do about the situation, so suck it up and be strong" ...but my heart just hurts and sometimes I just cry, for no reason other than I think about him.  I can't think and countdown a year, it seems too long.  I am going to have to count down in small amounts to get through the year.  365 days sounds too long, but 15 days til Thanksgiving, then 30 days til Christmas, then 7 days til New Years ..and so on.  Marking the milestones one by one, instead of overlooking them for the whole year. 

So now begins another journey in my life.  My year as a yellow ribbon wife.....