One year ago right at this time, I was desperately wishing that, on the way to the hospital, I hadn’t told Jim that I didn’t like the way 26 looks so I hoped Ben would hold out and not come until after midnight.  LOL  Hours in to total back labor and I was hurting something fierce.  If anything would possibly disuade me from birthing another child, its the thought of another 24+ hours of total back labor.  But, in the end, I’m a mother and I’d do every second of that pain again in order to have my son.

So, we’re back from Indiana.  And we’re pretty well adjusted back to life here.  I feel like we’re in a good spot right now.  I’m not hearing from Jim much (he calls about every 10 days, we IM every few days) still and we’d love to hear more.  But life is good right now.  If I could get a handle on keeping my house fairly straightened, I’d say life is really good.  I’m by no means a perfectionist in the housekeeping department (as anyone who has ever been in one of our places knows!!) but, man, it just never ends!!

And, with that, I hear both of my kids awake.  So I shall cut this short, go put them back to bed and head there myself.  More tomorrow, I promise.

Yikes, another long-time-no-write here.  There hasn’t been much going on yet I feel pretty busy, too.

Mr. Benjamin has started walking!!  Its still those early steps where they don’t realize what they are doing.  And each time it has been to *ME*!  Just a few here and there, just like E did.  I’m hoping he doesn’t take off until we’re in Indiana.  One less airplane ride w/o a new walker wanting to get down and go.

We leave for Indiana this weekend.  I’m really excited to see my family and get away from here.  I can’t wait to get some cold weather!!

We’ve had crazy amounts of rain here lately.  It has rained a LOT in the past month and then, last week, we got around 20 inches in just a few days!  Lots of buildings have been flooded, roads closed, etc.  The past couple days have been pretty dry.  Hopefully the land can dry out a bit now.

As for me…I’m in a bit of a funk.  We’re two months into the deployment and I’m feeling pretty good about that.  But that means I still have ten more to go.  And probably six until I see Jim again.  We just passed the one year mark of being here.  I’m not where I want to be as far as being involved in the community.  I can’t do some of the things I want to do, though, because I can’t be away from Ben too long.  He’s yet to actually swallow any food (he loves to chew it though!).  Plus he’s just really a mama’s boy.  I love that yet I’m itching to do a few things by myself.  Hopefully that can happen in the new year.  I’m also on the lookout for a good babysitter.  I get 20 hours of free care at the center each month but I really think Ben would do better for longer periods of time if he was at home.  Jim finally got internet in his trailer, so we’re able to talk more often.  That has gone a LONG way in how well I deal with the deployment.  Most days we get to IM at least once.  Much better than once a week phone calls!

We’re back from a wonderful trip to Indiana (I’ll try to post pictures & write about it in the next few days).  We actually got back a bit ago but its taken me awhile to get back into the swing of things.  Jim went back to work the end of last week.

Ben is full-steam into crawling and moving onto cruising the furniture.  Jim has him on the deadline to walk before he deploys.  I’ve laughed at Jim with the crawling.  He was so anxious for Ben to start since he was deployed when E did.  Now I think he’s regretting that! LOL  It doesn’t help that, with the layout of this place, its harder to do some babyproofing.  In our place when he was a babe, the living room & kitchen were completely separate, so it was easy to keep her out of the kitty food & water.  Plus we spent most of our time upstairs in her room (the computer was in her closet & there was a TV in her room).  And it was obviously totally safe for her.  And she had no big sister to chase after!!

Elizabeth is doing okay.  Turns 4 next week.  I don’t even know how that is possible!  She’s developed a lot of fears & separation anxiety.  We’re muddling through it but not well.  I expect it will only intensify when she finds out about the deployment and it actually happens.  *sigh*  I got the name of a good child psych if we need it.  They’ve recently hired a few new ones because of the demand with the upcoming deployment.  *double sigh*

I did the kids’ bathroom and it looks cute!  I need to take pictures.  I haven’t done the bedrooms yet.  I need to find a couple picture frames still.  I’m planning to do them one day while Jim is at work.

Trying to choose a border for Elizabeth’s bedroom.  You can see her bedspread & the cork board I already ordered for her here:

Bedroom Pictures

The two borders I’m debating between:

Border #1

Border #2

I love the more vintage look of #2 but I’m thinking the shades in #1 would better match her bedspread.

I think I’ve pretty much decided on this one for Ben’s room.

(Links fixed!)

I know its been awhile since I posted.  I just don’t feel like I have much to say lately.  Let’s see…

My night bible study is over.  It was such a good study.  Beth Moore’s Breaking Free.  But it was also very hard emotionally.  Those hard emotions, though, were shared by many and I’ve come out of it feeling much closer to the ladies in the study.  I love that God is bigger than my anger.

My day bible study on base is also over until the end of the month.

I’m working on redecorating the kids bedrooms & their bathroom while Jim is gone.  I can post my plans & pics, if anyone is interested.  I’ll definitely post when they are all done.

Ben started sitting a couple weeks ago.  He’s also *finally* broken his first two teeth through.

Jim is gone for the month.  Missing his birthday at home yet again.  He’s in California near Death Valley.  Says its hot and ugly.  One of my top bases I hope to NEVER get stationed at (it took over the spot of Hawaii LOL)

Elizabeth is going over to the hourly day care for two mornings next week.  And I’m counting the seconds down!!  Yes, yes, I know that sounds terrible.  But, truly, she talks from the moment she wakes up until she’s asleep.  And then IN her sleep as well.  I need S-I-L-E-N-C-E!!  I’m one who used to crave noise.  It helped me stay focused on my task.  Now I crave every second of silence I can get.

Elizabeth starts back at AWANA in a couple weeks.  She loves it and can’t hardly wait for it to start back.  She had my iron her vest already.   I’m thinking I may start doing my grocery shopping those nights with just one (non-talking!!!) child.  At least once Jim deploys.  Until then, I think I’m going to snag those nights for myself.

I haven’t been sewing much but I plan to spend the weekend on my machine.  When we go home in September, I’m planning to hit some fabric stores.  I have yet to find a good one here.  I found one that has a HUGE variety but it makes me nuts to go in there.  There is little organization to it.  The flat bolts of fabric are stacked on top of each other (rather than standing on end like books @ the library), so in order to see what is under the top one, you have to pull the stack out and look through it.  Like I have that time with two kids in tow!!  HA.  I’m hoping to go to Hobby Lobby and Jo-Anns, at least.  I have a list of projects.