Daddy

Carlee Scott and I were missing Daddy tonight, so we watched this bedtime story video together.

Cold/Windy Day

What do you do when it's in the 50's with 29 mph winds? You blow up the inflatable INSIDE the house and let the kids go nuts. Worked well for us today:)

Owen's Redecorating

Whenever I walk out of the room and come back, I notice that Owen has done this:

Apparently, the coasters are supposed to go IN the candle holder...not on the tray beside it.

Rocking Chairs

One of the things that really caught our eyes about the new house when it was being built was that the front porch/patio seemed perfect for a pair of rocking chairs. About 6 months ago, I began researching rocking chairs and was really surprised by how expensive they were. They're just chairs, people! Why so pricey? In addition to price, I was also trying to find a stain that matched our front door. This was a challenge. Last week, I finally found a company that made solid wood rocking chairs in walnut stain. They had a deal for a set of two - perfect! Here they are. I splurged on the little table. How cute is that?

I do have a disclaimer and safety warning. If you are a neighbor or a friendly guest, do yourself a favor and DO NOT SIT ON THEM. I had to assemble them myself and although I am a perfectionist, I do not have much patience for putting things together. I did the worst job! Every time I tried to screw something in, the wood would split. The glue got everywhere. Things kept falling off. So we have screws sticking halfway out and some things aren't glued anymore. Until Will comes home and is able to rebuild them, they are just decoration:)!

Prayer

A few days ago, Will's battalion had an awards ceremony on the FOB (forward operating base...basically their "post" in Iraq). Afterward, Will was asked to close in prayer. Here's the group right before the prayer...

This is a close-up of the guys during the prayer. It's a little blurry but you can see that Will encourages a football-style huddle when praying. Check out these brothers huddled together in prayer! AWESOME!

Sweet as Candy

Here is Carlee Scott this morning...ready for school and proudly wearing the necklace Daddy sent her!

Sleeping Beauties

Just checked on the kids before bed. Looks like Mr. Owen's ears are feeling better. He is sleeping soundly.

I LOVE shots of them sleeping.

I had to get one of the princess, too!

Sick Sick Sick

Have you ever just felt "blah?" I feel that way right now. I can't explain it but I just feel yucky. I am hoping it's not the beginnings of the flu or something, but I just ache everywhere and feel nauseous throughout the day. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one feeling ill. Our poor Owen has a double ear infection. He's been unusually fussy the past few days but has several teeth coming in, so I didn't think much of it. Well, today he only napped for an hour and just started wailing. Nothing would console him. I called the doc and thankfully they worked us in! He is sleeping peacefully now, after a dose of Motrin and antibiotic. Poor lil guy! Carlee Scott is healthy (thankfully!) and is doing well. She has always been a fabulous sleeper (12+ hours straight since about 4 months old), but over the past 6 months or so, she's been waking up all during the night and coming into my room. She asks to be tucked back in or covered back up. The weird thing is that the next day, she has no recollection of it. Sleepwalking? I don't know. I am very hopeful that this phase passes soon. I'm sleepy.

Everything else is going well here. We are doing our best to stay busy. Our weeks normally fly by. As you all know, the kids are in preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 until 2:00. I use this time for grocery shopping, cleaning, and tons of errands. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, we try to leave the house at 7:30 and not come back until lunch. So we go to the gym for Bodypump and playtime for the kids, and then we do the "fun gym" (gymnastics), or ballet, or Bible Study (depending on which day). Then we have lunch, naps for the kids, and lots of playtime in the afternoon. As long as we are busy during the morning, the day goes by quickly.

As for handling the household duties by myself, it's really not that overwhelming. I don't really like taking out the trash and wish Will was here to do it, but how hard is it to drag a trashcan to the end of the driveway? No sweat! I've been able to fix several things by myself that he would normally have taken care of - it's been kind of empowering. I do wish he was here to fix the gate on our fence. Apparently, something has shifted and the gate doesn't latch quite right. If it's a windy day, it'll just fly right open. Well, I can't see it from any window so I would have no idea that it's wide open. That means Jack has a field day and runs out! Thankfully, he is in love with Daisy, Laura's dog, and runs down the street to her house (just a few doors down). It's actually kind of funny. He'll just wait by their front door or he'll peer into their window like, "Can Daisy play?" It wasn't so funny today when Jack ran out our front door when I was greeting the UPS man. He bolted down the street to Laura's house. The kids were in here asleep and I had a moment of, "Do I go after him and leave the kids alone or do I wish Jack well and hope he comes back?" I shouted and shouted for him and finally just ran down the street myself, grabbed his collar, and pulled him back to our house as quickly as I could. NOT FUN! He was resisting the whole time like, "MOM! I want to see my girlfriend!" What a funny dog.

Will's doing really well. He has been invited to go on several missions and he takes it as a huge compliment that they'd want him around. He assures me that he fully assesses each mission to decide what is best for him as well as the soldiers protecting him. It's kind of neat because he says that when he goes out with a platoon or company, they are super protective of him. I keep thinking of how odd it would be to walk the streets of Mosul with no weapon, but Will seems to be handling it well. He has made some good friends and is really feeling his purpose being fulfilled. I love that.

Speaking of Will, he thought Carlee Scott should have her own special piece of jewelry from him. He sent this adorable, tiny, delicate necklace for her and it arrived today. She was SO excited. So while Will is gone, I have a To-Do list (shocking, I know) for my goals for our house. We moved in last May but it's only about a third decorated. We just got to a point where we had to stop and wait. The essentials were done but all the other stuff was put on the back burner. So I've brought those things back to the forefront and hope to get it all accomplished before Will comes home. One thing on my list is to put things on the walls in the playroom. I ordered a laminated map from Amazon and put it on the wall today. It looks really cute!

Carlee Scott and I checked out the map before bed. We talked about Texas, where we live...

Virginia, where all of her grandparents live...

...and of course South Carolina, where we go to the beach!

I've also ordered some letters for another wall in the playroom and when I get those up, I'll take a pic and post it. As I cross things off the list, I will try and remember to post about it. I'll probably forget to post about half of it, but be on the lookout for some.

That's about it from here. American Idol is on and I'm about to watch that and get some more things done around the house. Hope you all are enjoying a wonderful week!

More Pics From Will

Will was invited to go on another "trip" today into the city. He sent some great pictures!

Here he is with two good friends he has made in this company. I love how Will's the only one smiling...can you tell he is LOVING his job???

Here is Will's chaplain assistant with some children. The job of the assistant is to protect the chaplain, since the chaplain is not allowed to carry a weapon.

The guy to the far right is the new battalion commander. Will says he's wonderful.

1st Cavalry Horse Detachment

I took the kids this afternoon to the 1st Cavalry Horse Detachment area out at Fort Hood. It was really cool! Carlee Scott was timid at first, but it didn't take long for her to run wild in the place (not a good idea with horses around). I'm glad she had fun but it was exhausting trying to keep her from spooking all the horses! We went with our friend, Tracy, and her daughter, Eleanor. Tracy's hubby is the S3 in Will's battalion and it was fun being together while our boys are together so far away. Actually, if you scroll down to the memorial pictures, look at the one with the four top guys touching the boots. Tracy's hubby is the second one from the left.

Hello, horsey.

This mule was HUGE. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Hello again, horsey.

Me and CS with a nice horse. CS hadn't totally warmed up to being so close yet and she was holding on for dear life!

This picture cracks me up. At the last second, the horse nudged in closer to us and CS squealed with a mixture of fright and excitement.

She's getting more brave now.

Tracy and sweet Eleanor.

First pet!! She was so excited to touch him.

By this point, she would run up to each horse and shout, "HEY! What you doin'?"

Here's the pretend horse, Chocolate.

Tracy and Eleanor with Chocolate.

This is a sweet shot of momma and daughter.

Yeah, check out the top right corner of this one. Yep, that's Carlee Scott running away from us. Drives me crazy!!! She is constantly on-the-go.

Sweet girls!

Cuties!

Photo op of the kids and me for Will!

Progress

We are making good progress with integrating Jack with the children. Although we still have some issues (he is just WAY too hyper), he's beginning to realize that the children are not chew toys. I love this picture from just a few minutes ago. CS said she was riding Jack like a horse!

Saturday

I just knew my addiction to Starbucks was a bad thing! Today, I turned the corner too tightly and scraped the back end of my van across the yellow barrier pole in the drive-thru! UGGH!!!! Look how terrible this is! Good thing I was already planning to have the van's scratches touched up while Will was deployed.

That little incident caused me to change my order from a Grande to Venti. Here's my buddy, Mr. Venti, who somehow made all my frustrations go away:)

So then we came home and decided to decorate cookies. Will's family's church in Richmond sent us a Valentine's cookie decorating kit. Carlee Scott was SO excited. Yes, she's using a knife in this picture...I cringed the whole time.

Owen prefered to just eat the cookies.

Carlee Scott decorated for only a few minutes and spent the rest of the time eating the decorative candy.

He's getting so big!

Then DADDY called for Carlee Scott!!! Hooray!

Good News

We finally got the approval from our insurance and Carlee Scott's appointment is set for June 2! That was the earliest available. They are sending me a packet of paperwork and once I complete and return them, we are put on a cancellation list. So I am hopeful that the appointment may be moved up!

Happy Day

It's always a happy day when you come home and there is a package outside...especially when that package contains a little blue box like this......with this printed on it...

and THIS inside!!

Will sent this to me as a Valentine's/"Thanks for being so supportive last week" gift!! Isn't it adorable? I LOVE it. He said it represents how our hearts are always next to each other, even though miles separate us. Awwwwwww! My husband is THE GREATEST ever.

Hope you all have had a great Thursday! Mine was super-productive while also fun. The kids had Mother's Day Out today, which they both love. I dropped them off, ran a couple errands, made some phone calls (setting appointments, signing up for some training at Fort Hood, etc.), went to the grocery store, enjoyed a pedicure with Laura, met up with Melanie to do my taxes, baked brownies, picked up the kids, put them down for naps, cooked a meal for the Derby's (this is the family of Will's battalion commander who was KIA last week), woke the kids up, delivered the meal on post, and then still managed to take both of the kids to Chipotle by myself with no major incidents (except for Owen choking on a chip and throwing up). All in all, it was a great day. The best part about today is that Will should be calling me in about two hours! HOORAY! I haven't heard his voice in exactly two weeks. That's too weeks too long in my opinion:)

Today

Sorry about my lack of posts over the past couple of days! There hasn't been a whole lot of new things happening. After last week, I was exhausted and so we've kind of laid low this week. The kids are doing well. I have followed up several times to see when we can finally get Carlee Scott scheduled to meet with the Child Development department of the hospital. This began over a month ago and we're still waiting! Apparently, we have to wait for our insurance to approve the appointment and then the department is booked four months out. So she will likely not get evaluated until July or August (ugh). Owen's doing well. He's beginning to communicate more, which is fun.

I had my first FRG Steering Committee meeting today. For those not familiar with the Army lingo, FRG stands for Family Readiness Group. This group is basically tasked with taking care of the families back home and supporting our soldiers abroad. A battalion is made up of companies and for each company, there is an FRG group, which is normally led by the company commander's wife or another volunteer. Once a month, those FRG leaders meet with the other FRG leaders in the battalion, as well as the FRSA (Family Readiness Support Assistant...employed by the Army), and the wives of the senior leadership for a Steering Committee meeting. Since I'm the Chaplain's wife, I get invited! :) The meeting took over two hours, but we had a lot to talk about, in light of last week's events. It was a whirlwhind of information, discussion, and debating (how we can improve our communication in times of crisis). I loved being a part of it. Tomorrow night is my company's actual FRG meeting, where our FRG leader will basically pass on the info from today's meeting and we can discuss how to better care for our own specific soldiers. Since Will is the chaplain for the whole battalion, he's attached to the headquarters company (which is HHC).

Will continues to do really well. He's been busy meeting with the new battalion commander, counseling soldiers, and doing a lot of debriefing. He says that everyone is doing as well as can be expected and that the new commander has been welcomed nicely. Below are some photos of Will from today. Just as an FYI, Will only goes on missions that he is invited to go on and only those which are deemed safe (relatively). I think it's an enormous compliment that he is asked to be a part of what his soldiers are doing. He, of course, is loving it!!

Will with a platoon leader.

At the market.

Market again.

The stryker vehicles. Will took this picture out the back hatch of one. He thought these were super cool. I agree!

February's Charm - PERFECT

Dear Jack

Dear Jack,
You are a super cute dog, but you have to stop destroying everything. Thanks for the giant hole you ripped in our very nice pack-n-play. Kind of defeats the purpose now of having one. Thanks a bunch.
Love,
Mom