Holidays and the Army

As everyone would guess, one of the most difficult parts of being married to a soldier is the distance we're constantly experiencing from our families. Mine being in Minnesota and Montana while my husbands in Oklahoma makes it especially difficult to travel home for the Holidays. We don't want to upset one over the other and a lot of the times we frankly just can't afford the financial burden of traveling across the country with a family of 5 and 2 large dogs.

I feel left out when my family posts photos of their gatherings and I feel heartbroken when I see how grown our nieces and nephews have become without us realizing. It's tough. I miss the traditionally board games, catch phrase and empty wine bottles.

And yet, I still feel blessed. Two years in a row we have hosted Thanksgiving dinner and have been surrounded by great friends. We invited soldiers the first year that had no where to go as well as a few close friends. It felt good not to be alone and it felt even better to offer a celebration to the soldiers in AIT staying at the barracks. This year we celebrated with two of our good friends' families. I love having a house full of little ones and our friends swapping stories.

It's funny how quickly I find myself developing close friends in this new life of ours. I'm normally a pretty guarded individual with well justified trust issues. Most of my close friends have been life long friends and here we are in this new way of living and I feel closer to the families we've known for 3 months then I do to those who have been there from the beginning. I miss our neighbors and friends from Pensacola with all of my heart. We were there just months but we spent nearly every day together going to the beach, complaining about our pregnancies and having fires. They take the place of our families when our families are thousands of miles away. They become the aunt and uncle your kids need, they are the ones who help make sure the kids get to school when you have a sick one and can't leave, when you have family emergencies and forget to work out the details without asking they're already putting the pieces together for you.

 

So, this year... I am thankful for these new relationships and this new way of life. I'm thankful for coming full circle and learning to love the fact I have to make new friends and develop close relationships with complete strangers, ha! I'm thankful for my new
support system and all the new little ones in my life to love on.

Racing with a Diva

Our family was lucky enough to travel with my husband for his AIT in Pensacola, Florida. We were going to be moving from Minnesota to Florida, THE BEACH BABY! This was our first move with the Army. Our first experience with the Army. Our first look into what our life with the Army might be like. I had it all planned out. I was ready and very excited….

But it was our first Army experience. Nothing went according to plan. Everything that could go ‘wrong’ did. Many unexpected twists and turns were thrown at us. We were selling our home and planning ahead we had gotten a POA and the bank was not a fan of said POA, when hubby mailed a new POA the bank didn’t like the notaries stamp(I mean seriously), I wasn’t able to take the job my boss had worked very hard at helping me land, My husbands truck blew up and we had to leave it in MN to be repaired, we couldn’t get a house on the base my husband had training on and a lot of other trivial stuff that made my life hurt. 

But we made it there with the help of our friends loading us up and my mom driving across the country with us! It took us 3 whole days but we did it! As soon as my mom left I felt so alone. 

Then I did what any normal person would do. I tried making all sorts of local friends on Facebook, ha! They had ALL the answers! THEN I made VERY smart decision to participate in the color run with one of these said Facebook friends/complete strangers and drive over an hour with her to the run. 

It was an absolute blast and I love Ashley and her little peanut! The color run was an amazing experience that I will forever cherish. It brought back my high spirits and encouraged me to get out there and try new things more often. My MD was only 4 at the time and rocked it out during the race! She was so excited every time we’d get color thrown at us! All the volunteers were great and would be extremely gentle when throwing the color bags on the little ones and MD would scream MORE at them, ha! Then the after race dance party….That was the highlight for her! 

We were unable to do the color run last year since I had just had baby diva via csection but oh my gosh am I pumped for this years race! I plan on taking a million and one photos and dragging all my friends with! Who would have thought running was fun ;)

I highly encourage you to try and sign up for a local race!  Use our link for The Color Run and get $5 off registration!!! Good Luck Everyone! Share your color run photos and stories with us! 

Bowtiful Braid

We had a great week in our house.


I accepted a position with an office I'm very excited about and my husband had his pinning ceremony.

For his promotion we dressed up and MD wanted fancy hair. I turned to the inter webs and remembered a cool braid I had seen on Cute Girls Hairstyles . 

It turned out to be a lot easier than I expected and it is super adorable. When I was done I loved it but I wish I would have brought the loops under the braid closer to her face rather than the further back side, as it would have laid flatter in the front that way, but I wasn't about to redo it all.

MLK Weekend

Wow, I thought last weekend was busy...This weekend was pure chaos. 

First, MD's daddy had some things come up at work so rather than a 4 day weekend he has worked all weekend in preparation to leave us :(. It has been up in the air when he was leaving but now we know it's Soon! We don't know where he's going or when he's coming back and greatly appreciate prayers! 



Let me just tell you....Doing it all on your own with 3 is so 
much harder than 2 for some reason! Once again MD had 
a saturday cheer practice! Luckily it was 1-3 so we didn't 
have to be up at 6am to get ready for this one, ha!
They learned the ending of their routine and it is so stinking
 cute! We signed a contract stating we wouldn't show routine 
videos, so here is a cute pic of MD in her cheer uniform! 

  
So we spent the afternoon at Target while MD was at cheer! This weekend they have a great selection of clearance clothes with an additional 20% cartwheel! We got MD some shirts for less than $2! I didn't get much of a chance to look through the adult clothes since MD's little brother was restless but the cartwheel discount applies to ALL clearance clothing and ends today! Target is one of my fave couponing places :) The pic on the left is a shirt I got her from clearance and I just Love it! The Bow on the right is an accessory we won from Megan's Hair Candy! Check her stuff out on instagram @meganshaircandy or her etsy shop www.meganshaircandy.etsy.com

(Sorry for the blurry pic, but it was MD in true MD form, haha) RIGHT after cheer we raced off to MD's friends birthday party! It was an adorable Frozen party at this really cool pottery place and the kids got to make plates with either olaf or a handprint snowflake! MD and her little brother had a blast and I'm so glad we were able to make it. This place still doesn't quite feel like HOME but I'm glad to have met some of the other amazing mom/friends I have! I need to get out of the house more often so I remember this!




We skipped out on Church today. We are all exhausted and want to spend time together before MD's Daddy leaves. Plus, we have to go find him a little notebook he can bring with for skyping and finish his packing! He's totally anti-social media so he won't read this and I can tell you all my little secret. I did most of his early on packing since we thought he was just going to have time to grab a bag and hop on the plane. I hid little notes all over in his pockets saying we loved him and missed him, etc! Well then the a-hole comes home and starts rearranging everything packing new stuff and pulling out the stuff I already packed HAHA. Great, now I have to find a way to be sneaky and get the notes into the new pockets! 

Since I have you all here I'm going to open myself up to ridicule! I am taking some photography classes this semester as it's required for my degree (starting in Feb) and bought my camera last semester so I could practice. I want to be able to take my own photos of the kids! This is one I did of MD's little sister last week. Just in our home, using a flat sheet and natural lighting. Let me know what you think, where I can improve and any other tips you might be able to offer me!