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.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, MERRY CHRISTMAS AND ALL THAT JAZZ

After doing some shopping around and taking a few holiday photos of our littles I did it. I have created our perfect 2015 Christmas Card!

This year I was hoping to create a humorous Christmas Card. One laced with funny  photos of my goofy little munchkins, photos that showed their true personalities. I wanted a card that stood out and made our loved ones giggle. In true MiniDiva form, MD refused to do silly photos ...ESPECIALLY if they were to be seen by EVERYONE, ha!


But I must admit, This little gem turned out fantastic AND it was perfect timing. Shutterfly is offering 40% off everything until Nov 23 so not only are these SUPER ADORABLE, they're also SUPER AFFORDABLE! Hurry and get your Christmas Cards ordered before the sale ends! Use code SAVE365 at checkout!

Spooktacular Trick-Or-Treating

My favorite holiday has come and gone.


Halloween. We didn't really splurge decorating this year since we had just finished putting our home together and it wasn't in the budget. I was heartbroken and my husband was thrilled. He just doesn't understand. Ha!


We still had a blast. My husband's Unit does a Trunk-Or-Treat that we attended with friends and the kids had a great time. Unfortunately my husband was out of town but he was able to come home over the weekends! Then Halloween night we went to our friends and the Dad's manned the homefront passing out candy while the fun moms took the littles trick-or-treating.

This is the first year my littles haven't had themed costumes. I let them just pick random things. We had a ninja turtle, a giraffe, and Mal from Descendants.  They still look pretty darn cute, I'd say!  Do you match your littles costumes? The MP's did a great job patrolling, handing out glow sticks and one even drove around with his light on and music over his speaker. We didn't do anything too crazy and/or special but we still had a great time.

Guess Who Is Back!?!?!?!

I wasn't ready to, but I did it....

I let MD's little brother go to visit family without me for a week and a half! He's 4 and misses his grandma, auntie and cousins and was SO excited about his trip. I was devastated the minute he left, ha!

My uncle drives truck cross country and just so happen to be in our area and asked if they could steal him for the trip back home to see family. I was so nervous about him riding in a semi for a few days but it was probably the highlight of his life so far. Seriously, he sounded more excited about this than Disney. He had so much fun and of course collected rocks for his collection along the way.

He had an amazing time at home. He was so busy playing in fact he hardly had time for me when I'd call. My family has a lot of land in Northern Minnesota so he was free to play and loved being outside so much. They carved pumpkins, rode the razor, he dressed up for hockey (ha, thanks uncle corey), jumping on the trampoline, jumped on the bed like any kid at grandma's house would do, and had a special lunch out to eat with his PaPa and Uncle Dylan. I'm so happy he had this special time with our family. And to be honest....the last week and a half was a lot easier on me. I missed him so much but for some reason 2 is just SO much easier than 3!



I was beyond ready for him to get home last night! My mom was coming for a visit and just flew him home with her. I think MD was even more excited than I was! It was so adorable to see my always fighting littles scream how much they missed each other and how happy she was to have him home!

Cheer Momma Drama

Well, it has started. The inevitable.

The picking and teasing when a group of girls spends as much time together as a competitive cheer
 team does. MD typically steers clear of it because she is a bit younger than most of the team and she really doesn't understand what the older girls are saying anyway.

Within the last few weeks she has started having a hard time with one of the older girls. MD is a very hard worker at cheer and when they have to run because someone isn't doing their part she has no problem telling them to try harder, ha. Of course I encourage her to be nice in her delivery, but she is 6 so who knows how well versed it is!

The older girl has started saying horrible things to MD. Not just typical teasing but "I'm going to kill you" and "I hope you fall and get hurt" (MD is a flyer and this girl is one of her back spots) and finally told her I'm just not going to ever catch you...and she has just let her fall on more than one occasion.

At first I told MD to talk to the girl and try and work it out. She needs to be able to tolerate situations like this and be able to stick up for herself in a good manner. That changed nothing. I made mention of the situation to her coach after the second incident, when she deliberately dropped MD. The issue continues. If it were just a teasing issue I'd almost be ok with continuing to tell MD to stick up for herself and tell the coach and hope it eventually was resolved but now that she has intentionally caused my daughter to be dropped multiple times I'm furious. Other members of MD's team have attested to what MD has told me.

I want to handle the situation the best I can and not create any tension for MD's team. I believe the next time we have an issue at a practice I will ask the coach to arrange a meeting with MD, the older girl, both girls parents and the coach so I can be sure this is fixed.

What would you do in this situation? Do you believe it is our job as parents to step in our is it better to let a coach handle these sorts of problems?

Much Love
XOXO

Diva Dining

We've been so excited about our new house. We put a lot of work into making it a home despite the fact we'll only be here a little over a year, ha.







My amazingly crafty husband finally built me a large table! It is the Fancy X Farmhouse Table plans from ana-white.com, so we can have friends and family dinners! I miss having large dinners and now that we are in our new home we have the space to do it! I can't wait to try and host a 'FRIENDS'giving at our home.

We got all of our supplies from Lowes and loved the helpful staff and the much appreciated Military Discount! This project was VERY affordable, especially when compared to the alternative of purchasing a similar table for over $1,000! We probably spent close to $100 with the materials to build, stain and polyurethane the table.


Here is what we used for the table:

4 – 2x10 @ 8 feet long 
7 – 2x4 @ 8 feet long 
1 – 1x4 @ 12 feet long 
3” screws 
2 ½” PH screws 
2” finish nails
1 - MINWAY Classic Gray Wood Finish

Find the plans HERE. We altered the bottom of ours in the slightest to avoid more difficult cuts. 

Tea For Two, Please!

I've been working with my camera quite a bit lately trying to improve my knowledge and skill. I love the creativity aspect but it's overwhelming trying to find the perfect balance in every situation.

A good friend of mine Amanda at somewhereoverthecamo.com asked if I'd be willing to take some photos of her precious little peanut, Baby G! And not just any photos...Pregnancy announcement photos!!!

I can't tell you how excited I was! G is such an adorable little thing with a ginormous personality. She's definitely one of my top 10 favorite little people ever. I was just so happy for Amanda and Rob as well. Congratulations to your beautiful family on another Baby Girl on her way!

Here is a few of my favorites from the days. We had to do a REDO shoot because my lighting the first day just wasn't the best.