This says it all...

November 5th

I'm sure everyone has watched the news and heard about what happened here on Fort Hood today. It was a senseless act of violence. It is sad. It is indescribable.

I am so thankful to God that Dustin was working nights this week because it meant that he was safe at home, sleeping in the bedroom when it happened.

I heard gunshots this afternoon but I didn't pay any attention to them because that sound isn't uncommon when you live on post. I'm not sure how it happened but I was in the bedroom and Dustin told me his Sgt. called and asked if he was okay and if he lived on post. He told him that something happened and the post was going to lockdown and to make sure to stay by the phone because they needed to ensure 100% accountability for the unit.

Within minutes, the sirens on post were going off. Imagine the old school sirens they used to sound during the cold war. The Announcement said "Attention Fort Hood. Take Shelter Immediately. Close all doors and windows. Turn off all heating, ventilation and AC units. Take Shelter Immediately." I was concerned but thought maybe gas had been released and they didn't want to risk us inhaling it. I told Dustin what was said. I was a little disappointed because I had a chicken in the oven so I knew the house was going to be hot. I was right.

Dustin looked on the internet and found out what happened and then we all sat together stayed glued to the TV, watching CNN.

When I realized that the gunshots I heard were the ones of the shooter, I felt sick. I still feel sick. I can't understand why this person would do this. He shot up the Soldier Readiness Center. This the center where soldiers go to finalize things before their deployment. These families were mentally preparing themselves to not see their family member for at least a year with the possibibility that they might not come home. They never got to say goodbye. Before your spouse leaves it is a high stress time and there is alot of fighting usually. My heart goes out to their families. I don't even want to imagine the heartache and regret they are experiencing.

Please pray for these brave men and women and their families. Pray for the victims and for everyone else who is serving our country. They lay their lives on the line for you everyday and their families sacrifice too so that you can live free with your families everyday. There is a saying that being an Army Wife is the hardest job in the Army and sometimes I really agree.

Brave Rifles 3D ACR 4/3 Longknives

Yum...

I made delicious French Breakfast Puffs this morning. I was inspired because my friend made them yesterday. I found the recipe on Pioneer Woman Cooks.

They are sweet and yummy and moist and filling and dangerous... :-)

On a side note, I went into Kellen's room and this is how I found him. He was quietly watching TV.

Whippy Cake

I just became a fan of Bret Crosby's wife Becki's business Whippy Cake. She has great things. They are girly and cute and sophisticated. She has a contest where she is giving away one of her stylish rosy headbands and beautiful choker. Check it out. Whippy Cake

Kellen's Room

Just a little preface: My hubby is a BIG TIME Gamer. He grew up playing video games, has a big mario tattoo on his back and his Bachelors degree is even in game design. He is already trying to make sure that it is something that Kellen appreciates. :-)

This is what Kellen's room looks like. We bought these for his room either before he was born or soon after and we finally put them up. His room looks awesome now. Its so fun. Sorry that pics aren't the best but you still get the idea. :-)

Here Kitty Kitty

Growing up, did you ever drag a string behind you as you walked so the cat would chase you? That is how I felt this morning but the string was my cool socks and the cat was my son.

I am a big fan of the Toe Socks. I have quite a few pairs and I love that I get to pull them out once the weather starts getting colder.

Here is the stylish pair I'm sporting this morning. Yes I know you are jealous of my pink toe socks with brown monkeys and yellow bananas. And yes that is a bunch of bananas on my big toe.

If you take notice, the top pf the socks have 2 yellow puff balls tied on. These are the object of my son's affection.

I was walking down the hall, looking for Kellen's sippy cup and I hear giggles coming up on me pretty quickly. I thought "Aww, Kellen wants to play chase with me." Nope, nope, nope! He was a man on a mission. I did a couple laps around the house with him in hot pursuit till I sit down and let him have his fill.

He soon lost interest started doing something bad right instead. :-)

Halloween

Our Halloween was so unremarkable that it probably doesn't even deserve a post but everyone else is posting and I guess I'm just a copy cat.


For the record, I'm a forgetful person and thought I put the camera in the diaper bad and I didn't. So all I have is 2 pics I took with my cell phone because then it was too dark to take anymore.


I don't have a picture but all day I sported a Halloween shirt, a black skirt covered in safety pins, exaggerated eye makeup and bright pink tights. What was I? NO CLUE! I just gathered together a few elements of costumes I wore in the past but I was comfortable. I don't know why but I enjoy wearing tights. Pantyhose can all curl up in a little ball together and burn for all I care but me and tights are BFFs. I think that I might go buy some more even though I will have to wear more skirts, that is a cost I am willing to pay. :-)


Kellen's costume turned out basically the same as when I did the run thru. In my head, I had imagined Dustin stepping in to help me and Kellen would turn out perfectly groomed. The reality was there was crying from Kellen and Mama, yelling, reapplying make-up, cursing and finally begrudgingly loading ourselves into the car. Once we got going, we were good and a happy little family again.




Fort Hood implemented a rule that only allowed trick-or-treating on post between 6-8. On paper this sounded like a good idea because I knew that my 15mo wouldn't be able to handle much more. We decided to go to the community next to mine (the Officers' houses). It seems everyone had this same idea. Everyone sits in their lawns or driveway in chairs handing out candy. It totally takes away from the experience of knocking and waiting anxiously to say "trick or treat?" as fast as you could so that you could get the chocolate treasure and hit the next house. It was also slim pickings of houses to go to. Growing up, my Dad would occasionally sacrifice the experience so that he could stay home and pass out candy. They don't do that. The reason I'm thinking is that with the Army, you are here a year and gone the next. The Dads want to be involved in as much as they can.


It just wasn't the Trick-or-Treating that I remember as a kid is all... I feel kinda bad being disappointed because Kellen had fun, we had fun and we got candy that we really didn't need.


Once we were done pillaging and looting, we hit up Subway. (Figured we should Eat Fresh) Kellen fell asleep to and from Subway. BTW I had to put a towel on his car seat and high chair so he didn't cover them with his black hair spray. He woke up when we got home and shared some of Dustin's meatball sub and then I bathed him for 15 minutes. That was 15 minutes of lathering him up, scrubbing him, changing the bathwater and Repeat.


He was in bed between 9 and 10. I was hoping that with the excitement, he would sleep in the next morning. Yeah... That didn't happen. And to add insult to injury, Daylight savings ended so he woke up like normal except now the clock reads 6am...

So this may not seem like a big deal to most people but it is my own personal victory.

Today I sewed a pillow cover for my living room. I have 3 more to go but I think that they will go quicker and be of better quality cause I have ironed out of kinks in my process. This is the before and after. I went from plain to fancy... :-)

I really like the fabric. I'm not sure that it matches the couch but it matches the rug and the candles on my sconce. I just think that the couch color is so faded that even Crayola wouldn't have a name for it.

Freebies

I am so happy that I have started this blogging thing.

1. I have been able to read up on all the people I have lost contact with after leaving

2. I have seen just how creative people are and it has inspired me to be creative.

3. I LOVE LOVE LOVE giveaways. I am hoping to win one of these days but in the meantime I keep plugging away. My latest entry is into the blog of Rookie Cookie, Remarks from Sparks. She does amazing digital prints with all sorts of quotations and scriptures and such. Check out her work on http://www.zazzle.com/logophilia.

Wish me luck!!!

Carving Pumpkins

Deciding when to carve pumpkins is a very important decision. If you do it too early, your pumkins wilts and rots away. If you do it too late, your pumpkin will begin to go bad from sitting there.

The quality of the pumpkins we got was directly related to the quality of the patch we got them from. Dustin's pumpkin started rotting top and mine had a spot on the back where it started getting soft. Kellen's was the only good one.

I love my husband dearly but he can be as stubborn as me. Rather than listening to me, he tried to hold his pattern on the pumpkin. When that didn't work, he tried to draw the design and when he wasn't happy with that, he finally listened and taped on the design so he could punch out the outline.


Kellen didn't like that and proceeded to rip the design off.

Dustin was forced to freehand his pumpkin.


I don't know why but I put Mickey and Minnie on my pumpkin. It was last minute choice but it looked pretty good.


And of course in honor of Kellen's costume, I carved Frankenstein.


On a sad note, due to the state of our pumpkins, we chose not to save the seeds so there will be no delicious roasted pumpkin seeds this year. :-(

"The Pumpkin Patch"

I put the title in quotations because where we went was called a patch but it wasn't.

In Tucson, you could drive around town and fins a variety of pop tents with people selling pumpkins under them. That isn't the case in Texas. As far as I can tell, you had to buy your pumpkin at the grocery store. That just isn't in the spirit of Halloween so I did an internet search for pumpkin patches. The one we found was in the neighboring town about 40 miles away. The description sounded awesome so away we went.

When we pulled up, there were alot of cars and we figured it would be great. We were wrong. There was a hay ride but it was very short and too expensive so we opted out. I'm not a big fan of sitting behind a tractor with strangers and dry grass sticking me in the butt anyway. There was a 'petting zoo.' It had a few goat, few sheep and a llama in a seperate isolated stall. Kellen liked the animals and chased them around.



The pumpkin selection was disappointing. There was a tent with different types of pumpkins. When the supply got low, they would bring some more over from some secret hidden area. We chose 3 of them. One for each of us.




In all honesty, I shouldn't really complain because I did enjoy hanging out with my friend Trina, her husband and sons. And when we got there, a really nice lady gave us her tickets cause she was leaving so we didn't have to pay for any of the activities and only paid for our pumpkins.

Halloween

Last year for Halloween, Kellen was supposed to be dressed as Lil' Squirt from Nemo. I say supposed because Kellen fell asleep at 5pm and didn't wake up till 10 so he could eat and go back to bed. It was cute because you can't control a 3mo baby and sad because Dustin bought the costume for him while I was still pregnant.

This year I couldn't decide on a costume for my little man. I kinda wanted to dress him in the traditional Jack-o-Lantern costume but also wanted something a little more homemade. As a joke, Dustin suggested Frankenstein because of the way Kellen still walks with heavy steps. I laughed and drew a line on his forehead with my eyeliner and we both knew then that it was perfect costume. I didn't think that Frankenstein would look right as a blonde so I bought some of the black hair spray. The other day I figured that I should do a 'dry run' to see how it would turn out. I just want to state that my son can be really strong and fast when he wants to be. Especially when he is trying to get away from a can spraying cold wet hair dye.

Texas

Here are a few pics of Texas that I have taken.



This pic was of my neighborhood this morning. I am still amazed by the weather here. It is beautiful. The fog this morning made the air thick and sauna like to breath.



This is my little house in Texas. We are actually a duplex so I only showed my side. There isn't anything distinguishing about it but we like it. I am feeling more and more like home everyday



We also went to the Waco zoo last weekend. Kellen loved it. We are going to go to Austin soon and go to their zoo too. I love all the animals and Kellen is wide eyed the whole time because there are so many new things to take in.




This is LBJ Lake at Marble Falls. We went away for an overnight stay at the Horseshoe Bay Resort. It was a marriage retreat put on by Dustin's unit. It was hard being away from Kellen because it was my first night away but he had fun and so did we. We are really thankful to Dustin's SSgt who was nice enough to watch our little man so Daddy and Mommy could reconnect.



This is a shot from the hotel. They had an amazing Oriental Garden walk and a Palm Trail. It was all green, warm and definitely lived up to its 5 Star status.

Getting Crafty

So I have been bit with the crafting bug. Unfortunately, I am not that creative or good at implementing the ideas I might have. But yesterday I actually accomplished a few things I was hoping to do. I stuck with the Halloween theme.



I set up this little Halloween village that Dustin bought years ago but I thought that the wall above it needed some sprucing up too.

So I made this spider out of construction paper. I think I am most proud of it cause it took me back to grade school. My spider web behind it sucks but I was in a hurry to get it up there.



Kellen is going to be Frankenstein for Halloween and I wanted to add something to his shirt and this is what I came up with. I got the idea of how to do it from Jennifer Hall. She has an amazing Etsy shop and she posted a really great step by step on how to do the bleach stenciling.



I liked it so I made him another shirt. I found 2 more plain shirts of his that I want to do too. It is just time consuming cutting out the design but definitely worth it.

What's been happening in the Lonestar State...

Update:

Since we left Tucson on 8/25
-Car broke down in Benson (8/25)
-Left my Visa at the McD's in Benson and didn't notice till I was in Lordsburg (8/26)
-Left my phone charger at the hotel (8/26)
-Missed our furniture delivery by 3 hours and had to wait a week for them to come back (8/27)
-Dustin had emergency surgery to have his gall bladder removed (9/2)
-Found termites in our new house (9/8)
-Went on a Overnight Marriage Retreat at a 5 star resort and left Kellen for the first time overnight (9/25)
-House treated for Red Paper Wasps (9/27)

And as of now, the house in Tucson still hasn't rented so we have been paying the full mortgage on it to sit there empty. Please pray for us that it will rent soon.

We are getting settled in Texas. I really like it here. The weather reminds me of Round Valley without the wind. And if you know Round Valley wind, you know how nice it is to not have to experience it. :-) Everything is really green. It rains regularly and most days have been warm and not too hot. Our house is alot smaller than our house in Tucson but I really like it and it is cozy. It really helped me figure out what we really needed and what was just taking up space.

Kellen is settling in like a champ. Dustin is back to work after his surgery and doing well with his job. He works with some good people and his superiors really like him because he is older than the average solider he works with and they can trust him with more responsibility. He is working on getting his packet together now so that he can go before the board and hopefully will becoming a sargeant soon.

I have met one girl here that I have become friends with and have a few more acquaintances. I also joined the the Enlisted Spouses Club so that I can get more involved. I am also getting to be a better cook and trying new recipes. I enjoy domesticity.

So far Texas has been a good move for us and hopefully there is more goodness and another baby to come. ;-)

House Cleaning and randomness.

Recently I have been trying to start packing up my house even though we still don't know where we are moving. I am surprised at all the 'crap' we have accumulated. I know that everyone knows they have a lot of junk they could get rid of but it is different to know something and actually see it. Throwing things away has been very therapeutic for me. I have been feeling very out with the old and in with the new. Too bad I can't go shopping for all the new I want to bring in. :-)I am loading up the back of my car with the stuff I am going to take to Goodwill. I thought about a yard sale but it seemed like more hassle than worth the money I would get.

Kellen is so cute lately. Not that he isn't cute all the time. Whenever there is music on he will either stop what he is doing and check out the TV to see what it is or he just starts dancing. He is a dancing machine. I will start making up songs sometimes just to see him dance 'cause it makes me smile.

We are slowly but surely getting to the end of Kellen's nursing. I started the weaning process when he turned 11 months. He took to milk pretty quickly but we had some set backs while in Cali. He still wants to nurse first thing in the morning and I think that it is going to take a little longer to break that. I am sad and excited. He is a big boy *Yeah!* but he isn't my little baby anymore *Tear* Overall I am proud because I wanted to just try nursing to see how it went then made the 3month goal then 6 month goal and then a year and I did it. I know there is data that shows it benefits to keep nursing passed the first year but I think it is time. He has 7 teeth and unfortunately, it is hard on my marriage. So hopefully by Kellen's birthday he will be a whole milk boy the whole time.

I can't believe Kellen turns ONE in a few weeks. Talk about time flying. I am sad that Dustin won't be here for it but Kellen won't know any better. I will probably just make him his own personal cake and let him go to town. I am going to have a party once Dustin gets back. Kellen still isn't walking or talking but he is really close to both. He learned to give kisses. Totally cute. His mouth is open wide and he makes the smacking sound.

San Diego

So Kellen and I took off for the Fourth of July week to San Diego. My sister and her 2 kids live there. Her husband does too I guess but he is deployed on a ship somewhere Asia-bound. :-)

I got there on Tuesday afternoon and came back the following Monday. It was great to spend time with my niece and nephew. I haven't been around them much in a long time so I got to catch up with them, more like just play with them. Kellen Loved playing with his cousins. He thrives in social situations so I feel bad when it is he and I here all day but we still manage to laugh all day.

First thing Wednesday morning, we had to go to the hospital because my nephew was getting a procedure to check his stomach and throat. He has had ongoing problems that I won't get into. I felt really bad though because they told us to be there at 8am and they didn't start his procedure till 10:30am. He wasn't allowed to have anything to eat or drink. We were thankful when we were finally back in the car and homeward bound.



The next morning I went to a Yoga class that is mixed with Tai Chi and Pilates. I REALLY enjoyed that and wish I could do it here. That night we went to the San Diego fair. That was fun. The kids really enjoyed it. The kids won goldfish and that was the highlight of their night. I had my first and probably last Deep Fried Twinkie and Oreos. The Oreos were really good but rich. I think that I tried them primarily for Bucket List reasons.



The Fourth was really fun. We went to the beach with some of Hailey's friends. I got a little burned and Kellen had SO MUCH FUN!!! He Loved everything about it. He loved eating the sand and splashing his legs in the ocean. We were on the base so the beach wasn't as packed and we had a good spot to watch fireworks. San Diego does a show called Boom over the Bay. They set off the same fireworks show in 3 spots so no matter which way we looked, we saw a great show. Kellen liked the fireworks. He was in awe and didn't get scared by the noise. The down side was that it took 2 hours to get home because the traffic was so bad. It took us less than 30min to get there.



Sunday we went to an outlet mall. I'm not a big shopper but managed to spend money and get a few cute things.

I don't know if San Diego is a place I want to live but it was nice to visit. There is just so much to do that it will definitely be on my vacation list.

As a whole I had a really good time. I LOVED the weather. Totally a change to come back to Hot As Hell Tucson. I never really paid much attention to how much time I spend alone (with Kellen of course) and now the quiet in my house is a constant reminder. It is a hard spot that I am in right now. I know that we will be moving. I just don't know where so I am stuck in limbo. I don't really want to go out and develop new relationships with people knowing that I am leaving in about 6 weeks. I guess I just need to focus on buckling down on packing up my house.

To end on an up note: I finally get my braces off next week!!! I got them on 2 weeks before I knew I was pregnant and will get them off 2 weeks before Kellen's birthday. I am going to chew gum, eat caramels, corn on the cob and everything else that I avoided. :-)

Kellen's Eye

Kellen just got over an eye infection. I guess it was some form of staph infection. I took him to the pediatrician last week because his eye was red and looked like it had a scratch. The doctor said it looked like a scratch but it was pretty big. She gave him a prescription and we scheduled a follow up. Well the medication caused his eye to become more red and when I took him in for the follow up, they refered me to a pediatric opthamoligist(sp?).

Dr. Miller is the head of the department at University of Arizona. Cool! He said it looked like Kellen actually had some form of staph infection. He wrote him a new prescription and abracadabra! he is better. I took him back to the doctor yesterday for his follow up and we are all clear.

The doc doesn't know how or why he got it but sometimes babies do things that can't be explained. :-)

Day to Day

So since I have been home from Oklahoma not much has happened.

I babysat my friend Mariesa's daughter Mia for a week. That was fun. Mia is 7yo and she was really helpful. We went to the pool and watched alot of Disney Channel. I bought Kellen a little blow up pool for the backyard and he loves it.

I have been baking alot lately for no other reason than boredness. I made banana bread, zuchini bread and brownies from scratch. It is really relaxing. I really enjoy cooking and baking but I don't like doing it for myself. I need someone else here to enjoy it for me to really enjoy it.

My sister Hailey was in Tucson for a few days. She finally came over the day before she left. It was great to see my neice and nephew. I haven't seen them in a really long time and I couldn't believe how big they were. Hailey finally got to see Kellen for the first time too. My Dad came down that day too. I know he really liked seeing the kids. We went to Red Robin for dinner. Unfortunately it was Sunday and we were going to walk around the mall for a little bit but it closed. I think that I am going to go to San Diego to see her soon. I am thinking about maybe going for the Fourth of July. I haven't been since Addy was just a baby and I think it would be fun. I don't really want to go to Round Valley for the 4th because I just don't feel like I fit in there. Everyone has there own lives and it feels like I spend alot of time just watching TV.

Oklahoma Recap

So I should've written this awhile ago. I actually did but when I tried to post it, there was an error and the whole thing erased. I was mad and didn't want to rewrite it till now.

Kellen did amazing on the flight. He either sat on my lap playing and looking out the window or he slept. I was really proud of my little man. Everyone on the plane was telling me how lucky I am and boy do I know it. I felt sorry for the parents who were walking the aisles all flight.

During the landing I was taking in the landscape and noticing how everything was green and pretty. It seemed that everything was outlined in little squares and the there were little ponds dotting the land. It was all very quaint and then it hit me. EVERYTHING WAS FLAT!! Like really really flat. I am not a mountain girl but I never knew how much they meant to me till I realized there were none to be seen. When I was flying back, I was so happy to see the rugged landscape.






The plans sent to me from the Army said that Dustin would get 6 hours off the night before graduation and of course they changed their plans. That night he was granted about 5 hours and we were restricted to on the base only. I'm sure we could have easily left base but neither of us wanted to risk it. So that night we drove around alot because Fort Sill is a large base but only because it is spread out. The only thing we could have done was going bowling and that was packed. We drove around for many hours just talking. That was nice. Kellen didn't immediately recognize Dustin but he warmed up to him quickly and it wasn't long before he was showing off. :-)




The next morning was the graduation ceremony. They changed the location of it at the last minute but Dustin was able to send me a text to let me know. The ceremony was short and sweet. I wish I could have gotten pictures but I was trying to keep Kellen preoccupied. I have a copy of the program. I guess I can scrapbook it. :-)



After Graduation, we went out to eat with a few Dustin's new friends and we went to the mall for awhile. I felt bad for his friends because none of their wives were there. You could tell they appreciated that I drove them around and they were able to get off base for a little bit. There really isn't much to do in Lawton, OK when you have an infant and only a few hours. Once we took in all we could take in, I took Dustin's friends back to base and left Dustin with Kellen in the hotel. This is what I came back to. It was too cute.



The next day we lucked out with our flights. Dustin was put on standby for my flight so we were all on the same flight from Lawton, OK to Dallas, TX. When we landed, we had enough time to grab something to eat and then my flight to Tucson took off. I guess after I left, someone bought Dustin coffee and upgraded his seat to first class. It is really nice when people notice and appreciate the sacrifices that Dustin and all the other people serving in the military make for ourselves and our country.




Dustin was originally scheduled for 13 weeks of training. I guess that he will still be training for that long but there has been alot of in between time. He had to wait for 2 weeks before each training class so that has added another month to his time gone. He said that he was told his next graduation will be August 7th and he should be home right after that. Yeah! We are going to have Kellen's birthday party when Dustin gets home.



Still no word on where we are going to be stationed yet...

Tooth

Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you that Kellen cut his 6th tooth on Tuesday. He is a teething fool! I will have to take a picture to show you all of them once this last one comes out far enough to see it.

OOOOO-klahoma here we come.

I am on my way to Oklahoma for Dustin's graduation. I am SOOOOOO excited to finally see my husband again. I fly out today and will get there this evening and I will get to see him tomorrow night. Yeah!!!!

I will update you on my Okie adventure when I get back on Thursday.

Obsession

Kellen and I have each found new obsessions. Mine his food and his is inadvertently exercise.

I was at the Entemanns outlet last week and they had samples so I took one and fell in love. These delicious little bites combine Twinkies and chocolate. And the best part is that they are only 100 calories. I think I have eaten more than one on only one day. I gave one to Kellen last night and he loved it. I felt guilty because I was giving my son junk food but I rationalized it by telling myself that they were only 100 calories and he had eaten all of his dinner. :-) He was a little sugar high for a few minutes and raced around in his walker and then he went to bed so all was good.

Speaking of racing around in the walker: Kellen LOVES LOVES LOVES chasing the cat. He truly LOVES her and she barely tolerates him. Whenever he gets the chance to be near her, he goes for it. Unfortunately for him, he isn't sneaky for fast and she usually gets away. Sometimes when I feel bad for him, I will hold Videl so that Kellen can 'pet' her. That consists of him taking handfuls of hair, him squealing in a really high girly voice and then he rubs his face on her fur. It is really cute and then I have to spend 5 minutes cleaning all the hair from his hands and face.

We also made up our own game. Kellen is in his walker and I will 'run' away from him and hide around the corner. He chases me and I will pop out and say boo. He totally knows it is coming but it still doesn't stop him from loving it. He laughs so hard and I love it. I know everyone says this but the laugh of your own child is addictive. It is the only surefire antidote to whatever ails you.

Fur-Baby

It's official! My son wants to be a dog. I left him alone in the living room one night and when I came back, I saw he had crawled into the kitchen and was eating out of the dog bowl. It was too funny but I grabbed him up before I took a picture. The next day, the same thing. This time I was armed with my cell phone.

Later, he decided that he liked Holly's new bed and wanted to spend some time there too. :-)