Trip to VA

We are having a good time in VA right now. We have been going to Once Upon a Child and buying clothes for the new baby. Buying for a girl is so much fun! Boys clothes are so boring. We are doing her room in pink and brown and I bought the bedding off Ebay and had it shipped here. 

Cade has been keeping us very busy during the day. It is like he came out of his shell while being out here. He is still so picky on food, but he talks and runs around all the time now. At home he is quieter. He is back to taking morning naps again because he is wearing himself out so much!

While we were here, they decided to do "Easter" for Cade. So Cade got to hunt for eggs one morning. At first he had no clue what to do. He saw them on the floor, but after we opened one and showed him it had m and m's in it, he was all for finding more. 

First Time to Chuck E.

Last Friday my mom and Troy and I took Cade to good ole Chuck for the first time. We went during lunch time and were hoping for a some what quiet time. It wasn't too bad. Until the bus load of kids showed up. Luckily they had a toddler section, so we sat in there. They had a little play climber, two rides and a few games. 

I made a mistake of of letting him out of his chair before he ate lunch. So that didn't happen for him. But he was very excited to play on the climber. Although he tried to climb up the slide, so we have to work on that. He liked to climb the stairs, but hasn't learned that coming down you can just hope someone will be there to catch you. 

He had a blast though. We got some tokens with our meal so he was able to ride some rides. He really liked the ones in the toddler area. He would get up when the ride was over and stomp to get it to go again. Typical kid! 

But he loved it! He was running around and trying everything. Troy followed him around and helped him ride the bigger rides. It was so much fun. 

Vacation Day 3

We didn't do much today because of the SNOW! That's right, it snowed today and since Richmond is afraid of snow it caused a few issues. It didn't do hardly anything. Then it rained afterwards. So we didn't really go anywhere. Mom had a bakers rack delivered today as well, so we needed to stay home for that. Tomorrow we are going to Wal-Mart, Ben Franklin's (a craft store) and Chili's for lunch. Then home for Cade take a nap.

Cade decided he wanted to help Grandma while she was cooking dinner. So his favorite activity to do right now is to help with the pots and pans. Then after dinner last night he got a cookie. He REALLY liked that. As you can tell from the photo.

John is doing good and I talk to him everyday. Today he had another test and got an 100%! He is doing soo good. He didn't get to fly today because of weather. So hopefully tomorrow. He does have a pre-solo test tomorrow of 20 questions. So we are hoping he does well on that too. 

Vacation Day 1

Well it's not really vacation yet. We are in a hotel in Gaffney, SC. We left at 10:30 this morning. I did good. Cade on the other hand, didn't want to take but a hour nap and when he wakes up from naps in the car, you better be ready to get out. So he started screaming after 4 hours, right around Atlanta. He was crabby the rest of the day. We stopped in Strafenburg (sp?) and had dinner at Olive Garden. Then we drove a bit down the road and stopped. He was getting tired and more crabby and I couldn't take it anymore. At least with John and me in the car one of us can play or entertain Cade. I did while we were stuck in a 45 min traffic jam, but after that all bets were off.

Right now Cade is playing with any and all objects in the hotel room that isn't glued down. He is putting it all in his crib, maybe hoping he wont have to go to bed soon? Anyways, I hope to go to bed shortly and then get up early so we can be to my mom's before/at lunch. 

Eye Doctor

Today John wasn't able to fly. They didn't have enough aircraft for every one too. The only good thing was him and his stick body had .2 more hours than they need at this point. So they wont get a DONSA day Friday, but they still get Monday off.

As for Cade's eye appt. It went well. He needs glasses now, but because of his age there is no point because he wouldn't wear them. So he will get them when he is 2. He has a high astigmatism, just like mama. Otherwise we are all doing great. 

John's First flight

Today was John's Nickel flight. Is it the first flight they take and they give their IP a nickel from their birth year as a tradition. Hence, the nickel flight. 

He was so happy when he came home today. Said he only almost crashed a few times, guess I should be thankful for that one! Luckily his IP is always there to correct a few mistakes. John said that he was hovering for a few seconds, before he realized he was and preceded to make the helio take a nose dive. It went like this - IP "John, your hoover" John" I am?" EHHHHEHEHR nose dive into the ground. 

He has a test tomorrow as well. He has done so great on the other two, but I am a little worried about how he will do on this one since he has to get up at 330AM now. Every other week he will be on mornings, so he will have to get up at that time. Which is why he is already in bed. He went to bed at 9 tonight. 

Tomorrow, Cade goes to the eye doctor in Dothan to see how his eye sight is doing. He seems to be tripping over ants right now. I can't tell if its his age, or he isn't seeing things clearly. So we will find out tomorrow afternoon. 

Other than that nothing much else is going on. I am driving to VA a week from tomorrow to spend some time with family out there. I am trying to find someone to make me a diaper bag I like, and trying to find a good double stroller, which is stressing me out! I am still sick every day. It sucks! But what ya gonna do? 

Random thoughts

So I woke up this morning before Cade and had all these ideas going through my mind. So I thought I would sit down and take a moment while John and Cade are at the shoppett to write them all out. Always helps me see things better.

First, Cade is suppose to get the captain's bed that I used while growing up. We like the idea of not having to shell out another $100 or so for a toddler bed, then getting a twin bed. Although it is a bit harder to find cute toddler bedding because of this. But then John reminded me that when we moved here, the movers broke a slat on the bed, so in order for John to fix it he had to nail the removeable slats to the bed. So in order to get it out of that room and into Cade's he will have to rebreak the bed and renail it. He is not sure it will survive a 18 month old for long. So our other option is to buy a bed frame (about $30) then a headboard or me make one. I have seen it done tons of time on tv (tv is good for something right?). No matter what we have to buy a dresser. Cade never had one. We bought those awesome shelfs from IKEA, that fits in his closet. Right now John is storing his stuff in the drawers under the bed, so we have to get another dresser. Just trying to see what would be cheapest. And I want a used dresser, because it has to last a toddler. Once the next kid needs a bed, we will get rid of the captian's bed and buy matching twin beds for the kids that way if because of a housing situation they need to share a room at least their furniture matches. Which leads me back to I should just make a headboard for now or keep the captian's bed if possible, so we can buy the two beds together to match and then buy a nice dresser set to match the beds a that time also.

As for Cade's new bedding, since he likes something for 5 minutes at a time I am picking it out this time. I have chosen to go with Eric Carle's bedding. Target used to carry it, but no longer does. So I have to order this offline on Ebay. We are going with the hungry catipiller theme.

I thought of today a way to decorate it. I am going to buy some hungry catipiller books off line cheap used ones and cut out the pictures in them to frame. I want to spell Cade's name and use some of the art to do this. 

I have been thinking about painting the bed rooms as we will have to move the furniture around anyways. I got the kitchen down and it looks GREAT! We had a friend stop by last night, a guy, and he walked in and was like "did you paint this?" John piped up "yea! doesn't it look great". Gee thanks. The guy was really impressed that just changing the color slightly made such a big difference. My goal is painting the hallway this week. I would love to paint the entry way, but the entry way shares a wall with the living room and the china hutch happens to be parked on that wall. So until I figure out how i am going to fix that issue, I am holding off on the living room. I could paint the other two walls, but it might be months before that china hutch gets moved. So I could start of John's room. Right now I took all his pictures down and hung them in the entry hall. The desk in now in the office, and the quilt rack we sold. So there is the bed, mom's old school desk and a hutch still in there. So that wouldn't be too hard to knock out of the way. 

I am getting anxious about this baby. I have been so patient. We find out in a week from tomorrow what it is. I keep having dreams it is a girl. I did post a poll at the top for every one to take their guess. I put girl. So sad! But mom's family is really pulling for one. We are screwed if it is. We have no girl clothes. As much as I tried to get neutral clothes for Cade, we didn't. But I do have the bedding picked out if it is a girl. 

Alright, well John and Cade are back and I need to dry my hair.

John's First week

His first week went well. He got a 98% on his first test. There were a lot of 100% and other scores so we just have to hope that he does good on other parts so he will get a high rank in the class.

Cade and I didn't do much. I finished painting the kitchen today. So I am done for the week. I will tackle the hallway next week.

Cade is doing better at eating. But not so good when John gets home. He just goes crazy. He starts screaming and crying. He wants all of John's attention or he doesn't want anything and will just stand there and scream. Its crazy because I am tried and John is too and Cade is fine with me all day and literally as soon as John walks in he goes crazy.

John Starts school

Today was one of the first days that John was actually gone all day. It wasn't bad, Cade was great. Into EVERYTHING, so I was on my feet all day and warn out! But it was sort of one thing after another, a comedy of errors if you will.

I started off by getting sick as normal. Then was excited and had energy to get started painting. So I was looking at the paint and the color tab and notice it is like white. Like the same colors my walls are. So I texted Steph and she said her walls were darker than the trim. So I emailed housing and asked them. See when I went into SW I specifically asked for the person who does the housing account here. I knew what colors already that I needed, but wanted to make sure. I told him I wanted to paint the walls and to give me the same paint they use. He said they use Panda White. So I start thinking about how odd it is that they are putting white on the white walls and beige on the trim. Who does that? You put darker on the walls than trim. So I ask him again and make several comments about how I have painted a few houses before and that is the first time I have seen that and I thought it was wrong. He assures me that they use the white on the walls. So now, needless to say I have 5 GALLONS of TRIM paint, not wall paint. So I am off tomorrow to exchange it for the right paint and start painting.

Then I am in communication with a lady who wants to buy our old dinning room table. So she calls a few times, lost on base. Finally she tells me she is close to the house. I realize then my son smells like ass. I also realize then he had been feeding the dog, however the gate was across the kitchen so there was no way he was feeding the dog dog food. So I realize in all my wisdom that he found where we stashed the cat food in the front entry hall closet. Not only was he feeding the dog, he was feeding himself. So I get onto him for it, rush him back to change his diaper. Which of course make me sick. So I rush to the bathroom. While I am in there, Cade isn't. Which is odd considering he thinks it is hilarious when I get sick. So I come out of the bathroom to see the lady walking up to the front door and Cade dumped out both bowls of cat food in the entry way. The dog is like "buffet!" and starts trying to eat as much as possible. He starts to choke because he isn't even swallowing it. Luckily the lady buys the table and the chairs (those old wooden ones) and takes them away. 

John got home at 630 tonight. He didn't really do much today but pt and sit around with guys trying to waste his time. So tomorrow is his actual first day of classes. He has to read and study 3 chapters tonight. And apparently they are quite long.

pics that wouldnt load

tried to load these last night with the blog, but after two hours of "loading" I finally get a message that it cant. 

Its me at 15 weeks, and some recent ones of Cader Bee. 

We aren't doing much today. A lady is coming to look at the antique table, I'm going to look for the chairs we bought at the same time and see if I can unload them on her. She has an antique shop in Ozark. Getting so close to the stroller we want!! We are also trying to decide if we should register again for this baby. I look at it as more of a list for us to know what we need to get. But we can't decided. I don't know if we have enough time to think about it though. JK

Sunday night

Things are good here. I am sitting here typing this with Meg in my lap and LAV on my feet. John is splashing with Cade in the bathtub, he is such a water monkey. 

We have a four day weekend this time. Friday and yesterday we went to Dothan. Starting to look at things we need for the next baby. We are having to sell strollers so we can get a new double one. We thought about keeping our singles, but Cade is still to young to trust that he wont run off. I have decided on the nursery theme if it is a girl. If it is a boy there are a few that I have in mind. It is exciting to think about things like that again. We don''t know much for the new baby, but a few things we cant reuse from Cade. We have moved John's desk out of his room and into the office and we sold the antique quilt rack and old travel high chair (which really was the size of a real high chair). I also have our old old dinning room table on craigslist as well and will be posting our strollers on there once we get the cleaned. I forgot that I also sold our coffee table as well. All this past week! Now I am on a hunt to find other things to sell. 

John should start Areo Med Tuesday. But he wasn't able to get his full UPS slip so we aren't quite sure how that is going to play. But he is still determined that he is starting. 

food is the worst enemy

So for the past week or so Cade has become increasingly hard to feed. He no longer wants to eat baby food, even turns his nose up to his favorites. So we are once again on the look for something he can feed himself. He likes cheese again, which is a plus. So tonight we tried yogurt which he loved, we tried chicken sticks (gerber kinds) hated them, noodles again and hate them, but he liked poppyseed dressing, but only if i poured it down his throat. AHH he is so picky, I just don't know what else to feed the boy. Of course he likes chips and junk food, but I cant feed him a diet of that. So I am struggling again. John is even getting irritated with him because of the situation. 

Otherwise we are doing fine. I listed a few items on craigslist today to try to get rid of. I got 7 emails on our old coffee table and sold it! I also got one email on each additional item I posted. It's just crazy. I only posted them this morning at 10 or so. Now I keep looking for more things to post! 

This week has been long and stressful but also very productive. John has been "working" with Lyster to get his full UPS slip to allow him into AreoMed. He says he is going no matter what. But it all comes down to a Major up there that is keeping an eye on John and his case. We have a DONSA day tomorrow and Monday and class starts Tuesday. So we are hoping things get taken care of tomorrow. We were worried that since tomorrow was a DONSA day that John was just out of luck, but the lady from Lyster called and said that they would call him tomorrow, so luckily they are open. 

I am still trying to decide on what picture to submit to the contest. It will be the only time I can enter Cade. He was to young last year and will be to old next year. But next year I can enter the new baby, so let us hope that it is as cute as Cade.

Oh what a beautiful baby....

Ok, Its that time of year again. Last year Cade was too young. But this year we are all set. It's time for Live with Regis and Kelly Beautiful baby contest. Our only concern... what photo to submit. So we need your help. The photo has to be within a month old. Posted are the ones we like, if you have ones you want us to look at, email them to us. Otherwise help us vote. 

here is the link

http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/regisandkelly/contests/babies09/index.html

Back home again

We got back just fine. We ended up taking a new way home through Miss. It was 
great fun once the GPS couldn't locate us anymore! Apparently we were off roading for 
quite a while, which was very interesting at 9 at night in a place you have never been before. 
I wish we would have gone through it during the light so I could at least see the new sights.  
But we made it in shorter time than normal. 
 
Things are going good. I went to the ob two days ago. They diagnosed me with 
that severe morning sickness thing (Hyperemesis Gravidarum) and put me on two kinds of
anti-nausea drugs. I lost more weight so they are worried about me not being able to keep down 
my prenatal since I can’t keep down food. So whats new?  He told me to start taking two 
Flintstone Gummies a day. Which is what I am doing. And that works pretty well. I go back 
feb 9th of the big u/s. but John can’t go with me, so it will be sad. He wont be able to go to 
anymore of them. I am going to have to put Cade in drop-off when I go since it takes us at least 
40 min toget there. 
 
Otherwise we are fine. John is hopefully going today to get out of close hold 
and into areomed hold. After he got home Monday he went and get a temp UPS slip 
and had his hearing tests. He did great. So then he went and talked to some guy 
and explained to him what was going on and the guy agreed john needed to be fast 
tracked. So even though dunker is full, he told John to show up and they will 
let him take it. They run the dunker course almost every day so he just needs to 
pick a day to go up there. He is also suppose to be slated to start areo med Jan 20th. So 
I go to being a single mother again. But it is what we wanted and we waited so long for this.
I am so excited for John to start so we can get on with our lives. 
 
Yesterday I went and met a new wife, Heather. She is older, about 10 years older than me. 
has a 3, 11, and 12 year old. She is from my army wives website. She was really 
nice. We talked just about normal stuff. So we are hoping 
to put the kids in drop off and just us go out to lunch one day. We will see 
if that happens. 
 
We go Monday to bham for Cade, hopefully the last time. Not sure if John will 
be able to go or not. Today we are putting together Cade’s new playroom as I bought a run at 
Target to put in there, I just have to move the cat crap out. I think I might put it in the corner 
of the living room by the back door. It will be hidden by the china hutch and fake plant. I just 
have to make sure it doesn’t stink. Otherwise we will have to keep it in the office with the door
 open at all times and a gate across it. If anyone has any other suggestions let me know. I
 thought about putting the food on the fridge, but that is where our new wine rack it. And the
 dog eats it, so I have to keep it away from him.