Thursday, July 05, 2012

My sweet baby girl is 4 months already. It's amazing how quickly time goes by. Don't let anyone tell you that it doesn't and it does not matter how many children you have, it goes by too quickly no matter what. Oh if I could only slow things down.

So Miss Olivia is Miss Personality. She's always smiling and just a happy baby girl. She's rolled a few times, but honestly I haven't really put her down on the floor much to give her an opportunity. I learned that the less you put them down, the longer until they're mobile and lack of mobility is a beautiful thing for as long as you can do it! LOL I'm joking, but honestly I'm in no hurry for her to be rolling all over, because rolling leads to crawling, crawling leads to walking. Sigh...then running, jumping, and then heading to collage. Ok so maybe I skipped some years in there, but it just all goes by so quickly.

Olivia just hanging out in her carseat
she was 3 months old here 

My sweet, happy girl 
3 months old 

My cutie...3 months old 

Silly face...4 months old 

Miss Flexible

She smiles with her whole face 

My beautiful girl 

Jack,Noah, and Jacob 

My beautiful girls...Olivia and Emma 







Sunday, June 24, 2012

Crazy Army Life

Life is never boring when the Army is part of your life, that is for sure! First we were told we'd be staying here to retire and now we're being told to prepare to move before the end of this year. We've been stationed here for 7 years and the thought of leaving Germany just takes my breath away and the tears start to flow, but...I see God working.

Chad is working to get a GS job when he retires. For us to have a housing allowance as part of that move, he needs to be hired state-side. If we remained in Germany and he was hired as ultimately a local hire, there'd be no housing allowance. So this way the Army moves us back to the states, if he gets hired, the government will move us and we'll get a housing allowance there for saving Chad's pay for our bills, savings, etc. We have a lot to still learn about what civilian life will bring us, but it's exciting (I'll admit a tad bit scary, but in a good way). The older boys are just itching to move back to the states. I think they believe we'll be eating out every day, lol.

We do not know where we'll be stationed in the states, yet. Chad's requesting Alaska. If we get that, it'll be an amazing gift, as we have dear friends who leave tomorrow to head back to the states (they don't leave Germany tomorrow, just our post) who are heading to Alaska and to the particular post we'd be able to go to. Emma calls the mom of this family, Grandma, so this would be such an amazing blessing. Chad's dreamed of going to Alaska for years, I think it'd be an amazing experience for our family, and we'd be able to be with our dear friends and Emma's sorrogant Grandma who loves her dearly.

We don't have a pin point date of leaving, no pinpoint new assignment to end this career of Chad's and a way of life we've known. But what we do know is that GOD is in control. We see him working in so many ways and don't see him working in even more ways. So for now, I'm waiting and trusting. Waiting on the Lord (through the US Army) to tell us where we are heading to next. So now I wait,  hopefully patiently and gracefully.




Thursday, June 14, 2012

Couch to 5 K

I thought i needed to update about this journey, torchure, what ever you want to call it! LOL I have taken this week off. I have had a great deal to do and although it's just 20 to 30 minutes, I think my body needed this rest. I've gained over 10 lbs, well I lost 10 and gained it back. I'm frustrated, and I mean really frustasted with that. I'm so hungry and this fat girl really can not afford this mess. I did not gain the 10 lbs this week, it's been over the last 4 or so weeks. I can't say I'm really eating more, I think my body is just holding onto things more. I also have been trying to make sure I'm eating enough. I'm going to talk to someone tomorrow. I did weigh myself yesterday and a couple lbs were off, so we'll see. I haven't added in the Zumba workouts like I'd planned, but it's time to do that next week.

So next week I'll be back on this journey and will let you know how it goes.



Monday, June 11, 2012

Are You a Slob too?

So are you a slob? When I hear that word, I picture one of two scenerio's....a home that has food/dirty dishes all over the place or a home like what you see on the show hoarders. Now, I'm not "that" bad, but if anyone saw certain rooms on a bad day, week, month, etc...well I'd be horrified. Mostly my bedroom is our "dirty little secret". It's AWFUL. It's the room that everything gets shoved, thrown, and piled into when company is coming over and then is promptly locked, because you don't want to CHANCE anyone accidently opening the door and seeing the horror-fest!
I'm the best cleaner when we have company coming...well guess what...company is coming! Today the kids have been hard at work (and play and messing around and fighting...sigh..you get the picture) cleaning the top floor (their rooms are up there, so it's their responsibility). So today I'm going to start on the disaster that is the Master Bedroom. We had it cleaned up about 3 months or so ago. It was nice and relaxing for me to go into, relax, read, surf the web, watch tv, sit and talk with the kids privately, and biggest yet...I was leaving the door open, when company was over. Now though, oh no, no,no,no. When I went to have Olivia we got a new bed. A wonderful, comfortable, huge...King Size bed. then baby gifts were tucked in there, until I had time to go through them (which I have), then baskets of laundry were brought in there (because I hadn't had time to fold them and someone was coming over) and once they're in there, they just sit and oh you know that they also magically double and tripple over night. Then paperwork was brought in and a sweet little toddler dumps said paperwork, and well  you're tired from night-time nursings, and well seriously the room is packed full again, no room to walk without walking on something (besides a bare floor) so I get out of there as quickly as possible, avoid it as much as humanly possible during the day, and then crawl back in there at the end of the day, to collapse in bed, wake up and repeat.

So today's the day. Most of my day is gone, but the baby who only wanted to nap on me is finally awake and very content in her  bouncy seat, so I'm about to head into the warzone. I'm going to take a before picture and then as I make progress I'll take pictures. I do not know if I'll show the world, but it'll be there for ME and that way I will hopefully never go back.

So besides the inspiration that company is coming, I'm also inspired by: http://www.aslobcomesclean.com/

Do you know her? I LOOOVE her. She's my inspiration. After my company is gone next week, I'm going to start using her tactics. We have a lot of things happening in the next year (a GREAT, BIG MOVE across the ocean...sob-sob-sigh)...our beloved little Army post here in Germany is closing, and well Chad's never fully recovered from his injuries in the wreck he had almost 2  years ago, so medical retirement is beginning. Downsizing is now a MUST. We will most likely be limited to about 10,000 lbs which may sound like a lot to some of you (especially if you've never moved or your a minimalist) but we're not, we also have large pieces of furniture and 5 living children, and have lived in Germany for 7 years (next month)....so we've acquired a great deal of furniture (upgraded in many things). I want to get rid of everything we don't need or want (we have an attic and garage so it's easy to stick things there and then not think about them until you go up or in there and get that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that at some point you MUST deal with it). So my goal is, get the living space of our house dealt with first. Sort what we want to keep, toss what needs to be tossed, sale or give away what we simply don't need any longer, but someone else does!

Oh and on a side note..I AM still doing the couch to 5 K, I'm just still stuck on Week 5, but tomorrow we're moving to week 6. I'll blog about that tonight or tomorrow after day 1.





Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Life's been busy, but so good! Lots of BBQ'ing with friends, birthday's, ballet recitals, baseball games, schooling, and running (like literally), and learning how to really use my camera which I've had for way too long, to not know how to use it truly properly (aka moving it away from AUTO and going into those other scary parts of manual!!)...it's a work in progress, but I AM seeing progress in my photographs so that's good!

                                                              
                                                               My beautiful Olivia Joy who's
                                                           now 3 months old....

                                                  Mr. 2 year old...enjoying his birthday gift
                                                new basketball hoop and basketball!
                                                 Earlier in the day at Jacob's baseball game
                                               Our sweet Birthday boy!!! I can't believe he's 2

                                                    Sweet Emma Grace who loved playing
                                                      baseball this year!
                                                     Jackson as catcher

                                                              Jacob up to bat

                                                      Kids on a field trip
                                             field trip...we went on an art field trip,
                                          no pictures inside, but the art is gorgeous
                                                    This is where the castle is that we visited
                                               on our field trip
                                                      beautiful German fields
                                                            My beautiful babies



Now the running...I'm still trucking along. I will admit I'm not loving running still. I'm doing it and proud of myself, but I still don't enjoy it. Maybe I will one day, but 6 weeks into it (I am only on week 5 in the program though because I repeated week 4 and I am thinking I may repeat week 5 as well). I'm going to complete this though and plan to continue running after I reach my goal of 5 K's aka 3.1 miles. My friend who's doing this with me and who is a runner, wants us to plan on doing a half marathon one day and as much as I hate running, I think it'd be pretty amazing to do 13 miles, I believe it's 13.1 miles for  half-marathon (haven't looked it up, because right now it's a horrifying thought lol) but it's something I know I could do with the proper training! Chad's been really supportive and the kids are all excited that I'm doing this and I really think they're proud of me for doing it. I'm planning on adding weight training so that I can get my metabolism up and working better. Ladies in case you don't know it, weight training is necessary to actually lose weight (you can't just do cardio...we need to build muscle to make the weight come off). As I run I am often saying to myself, with God all things are possible. I am also about at a point where I'm going to be running with music, my Ipod is full of Christian music so it'll be me praising the Lord as I run through the pain. He's given me the will and desire to do this and I won't stop. I'm so thankful to serve an AWESOME GOD, who gives us the ability to do things we don't think we can, didn't want to do, were scared to do!





Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Update on Friend

Thank you for praying for our friend who was injured in an IED attack in Afganistan. He made it to Landstuhl last week and Chad was over there for a apt himself and was able to see Drew for a few minutes. He then left 2 days later for Walter Reed and Jenn was able to join him there. He's still got a long road ahead of him, surgeries ahead of him, etc...but they're relying on the Lord and he will see them through this. Please continue to pray for both of them, as he learns to live with the aftermaths of this accident, his wife, and their unborn baby who's growing in Jenn's womb. We serve an awesome GOD who can do all things.




Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Prayers for injured soldier

Army life has many ups and downs and a few days ago we were reminded of not only the downs, but how fragile life is, especially for active duty soldiers. Friends of ours who left here last summer and moved to a stateside duty station, he was hurt in an IED incident. He finally stable enough to be transferred to Landstuhl Army Medical Hospital, here in Germany. It just so happens that Chad has been up at Landstuhl since early Tuesday morning for an apt on Tuesday and two apts today. Chad was able to see Drew as the staff wheeled Drew out of surgery and back to his room in ICU. Chad had an apt at 2:30, he'd been up in the ICU waiting room to see if he'd be allowed to go in and sit with Drew for a little bit. We don't know if they'll let Chad in with Drew or not, but his wife will not be coming over here, becasue he's not going to be here long enough to fly her over, so we're hoping they'd let someone who knows and cares about Drew to be with him, even if only for a few minutes. This would also give his wife a personal account of how Drew's doing before he gets to the states and she can join him. He had life altering injuries (I don't have permission to share those injuries so I won't post them here), but please be in prayer for Drew and Jenn and their unborn son.




Saturday, May 12, 2012

Week 3 of C25K

Yes 2 posts in a row, but I want my C25K posts to stand on their own.
So this past week I did week 3. It consisted of the normal 5 minute brisk walk, then 90 second jog, 90 second walk, 3 minute jog, 3 minute walk...and repeat all by the initial 5 minute walk. The 90 second jog amazing felt much easier, while I really felt like I was going to die on Monday from the 3 minute jog, but I of course did not. I am so thankful for my friend "S" who's doing this with me and keeping me motivated, cheering me on, and pushing me and not letting me give up (or letting giving up be an option). I must say I feel very determined. There's a BIG part of me that does not want to keep going, but there's an even bigger part of me that must keep going. Friday, I was sore from Thursday's workout, and as I was getting up and getting ready was thinking of all sorts of excuses of why I should just skip the day...I was sore, tired, and just simply didn't want to. I then looked in the mirror and said "but you want to get healthy and loose weight even more than all those other things, so shut up with the EXCUSES and accept you're going and just get over yourself!"...funny what telling yourself "shut up and pull on your big girl panties" can do! So I did it. I was slow, it hurt, I was a sweating, gross mess, and oh yes I WAS tired after it was all said and done, but I ran for a half a mile in total, and over all did over a mile in walking/jogging combined. I finished week 3 and am now off to dreading week 4. I have decided that I'm not going to complain this week. I'm going to push through the pity party and just do it. This week will consist of

Brisk five-minute warmup walk, then:

  • Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
  • Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
  • Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
  • Walk 1/4 mile (or 2-1/2 minutes)
  • Jog 1/4 mile (or 3 minutes)
  • Walk 1/8 mile (or 90 seconds)
  • Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes)
I will finish off with at least 1 lap of walking, more if my calves are still tight after the first  lap. I'm hoping it'll be nice enough that I can do it at our outdoor track vs the indoor one. I find it easier to be outside and am actually looking forward to the day when I can start going off the track and start going on the road and different paths. I think that will happen when I finish up this 9 week program.
I'm going to be looking for a double jogging stroller so I can take both Olivia and Noah out on morning jogs this summer and fall and let the older kids ride their bikes. Hopefully I can find one that I like and for a decent price.

So far I've lost 9 lbs. I will not be weighing myself every week, but instead every 4 weeks. Next week, I'm going to start Weight Watchers. I'm hoping I can find my old stuff that I had and use that program (for free) and if not, then I'll sign up online and do it there or find another program I can use. I'll write more about that next week and share what I'm going to be using for this side of my fight to lose the pounds and get healthy! I promise that what ever I use, will allow for snacks of not so good for you things here and there, otherwise I'll not make it. (That's why I love Weight Watchers...it keeps it real for people, so they can still have a treat here and there, but not over-indulge. )

BTW if you're here, leave a comment! I could really use the encouragement! Thanks to the one who emailed me last week and I'd love for you to share how you're doing with the C25K. Let me know if anyone wants the link.


Our Week In Review

We made it through very gently even Jordyn's 12 anniversary of going to Heaven (May 8) and today (May 12) of burying her. I cried a couple times, but amazingly God just surrounded me in so much love and his gentleness that the day was actually just simply not horrible like it usually is. It was a beautiful, sunny, mild day...honestly it was much like the day she went home to Heaven 12 years ago. The Lord has filled my life in so many ways that I never could have dreamed of. I thought I'd never have another child again (little did I know that day that I was already pregnant with Jacob). I thought I'd never be able to love another child the way a mother should. I knew without a doubt that I'd hurt like that for the rest of my life and at that time I WANTED to hurt like that forever. I know that may sound crazy, but during those days, weeks, and months after Jordyn died, the pain was what kept her alive in so many ways for me. If you've lost a child I think you might understand (although we all grieve differently). Thankfully though, that pain has eased tremendously and although at times the wave of heartaches comes soaring back and the tears flow easily and I think of "what might have been"...I find I can rejoice for Jordyn more than anything. She's in Heaven, with the King of Kings. She's got our Savior to hold her, kiss her, and tell her how perfect she is in HIS eyes! (Pretty extroidanary if you ask me!). She will never know pain (physical or emotional) again, she only knows our Lord and his Amazing Grace.

Tuesday's are our very busy day, so even if I had wanted to wallow in self-pity and grief, there wouldn't have been much time. Instead we had school to do, ballet to go to, T-ball game to play (both for Emma), and Baseball practice for our 2nd oldest, dinner to make, baths to have, teeth to brush, beds to get into, and oh yeah a newborn to nurse, snuggle with, and lots of diapers to change. Oh did I mention a toddler who is almost 2 to chase, and an 11 year old to try and keep in line? As much as I despise the saying in terms of grief, life does go on. Life does not stop, grief although allowed, is not available to just wallow in, not at this time of our lives. Jordyn was remembered and thought of. Words of love and comfort were given all over facebook and off the computer. Grace was shown from dear ones, but most of all from our Lord and Savior and for that I'm eternally grateful.

Last night instead of just Jackson having baseball, Jacob did as well. Normally Jacob plays on Saturday's, but because our post has 2 teams this year and today's scheduled game was against the other team from our post they decided to move the game to Friday evening at 5:30. Jack's game was at 6:30, the only thing splitting the fields is a park...so we started off at Jacob's game and a good friend came to watch (her daughter plays on Saturday mornings so we never get to watch each others kids play, so it was really great having her there to cheer our boys on!). Jacob's team won (yeah!!) Jacob got walked (although I was already down at Jack's game by the time he went up to bat since he sat out the first two innings...go figure the first gave this season they'd have him sit out , when normally he plays the whole gave...oh well). Jack's age group still does the ridiculous "no score" junk, no one's "out", coach pitches (it's called "Coach pitch") and if the kid doesn't hit after 5 pitches, he just back to sit on the bench (I'm not a fan of this whole politically correct sports junk...oh and yes they ALL get trophies at the end of the year, because well no one's a loser ..ugh sorry I digress). Anyways, I went to watch Jackson and tried HARD to keep my big old Momma mouth closed when it came to cheering for him, but well I failed pretty miserably. When he went up to bat I kept quiet, but darn it when he got on base...I was a cheering fool! LOL Now now worries, I'm not a crazy sports parent who's pitching a very LOUD fit over the other teams, even when the coaches don't follow the rules (if you're going to have rules the coaches need to KNOW them and FOLLOW them...in my opinion). I'm just a mom who cheers for her kid to RUN when he needs to run or STOP when he shouldn't! LOL Jack did great. He's quite the hitter and I think if he paid more attention when his team was out on the outfield, he'd be quite the catcher of balls (he's not afraid to get in front of the ball, he just needs to pay attention enough to see the ball coming towards him at what ever position he's in...sigh lol). Emma's just instructional tball for 3-5 year olds, so honestly it's just nothing more or less than herding cats. Yes, herding cats. They're a crazy, wild, don't hardly pay attention most of them, little messes! It's fun, especially when you're just standing on the sidelines watching. Now when you're filling in for (or I'm sure the full time) coach or assitant coach (as Chad is) then it can be a bit stressful, especially when one or two parents are just standing around not helping to guide their child as they're supposed to. I filled in a couple weeks ago as Chad had to work late and the other coach had left for Croatia that morning with her family (perks of living in Europe..vacations to other countries at the spur of the moment, literally!). So there I was, trying to get 6 (a few kids were missing) 3 through 5 year olds to practice. I was stressed, since I had not planned on filling in (Chad was supposed to be there by the time practice started!...HA HA) I was not prepared. Let me just say, I have NO DESIRE to be a coach for this age. They're NOT bad children, they are just wild, wonder, live in their own little grass picking, rolling around in the dirt, wandering off to other parts of the field....toddlers. Yeah, I'd be good with an older age, but NOT instructional! But it was a new experience for me and makes me even more appreciative of Chad and our other coach for this team and the coaches of this age we've had for the older (now) kids! So as you can guess, there are no losers, only winners of Instructional. The all just play to have fun and learn the basic idea! (hopefully)

So here we are to today, which in Germany is now Sunday/Mother's Day. Our plan for the day is a busy one, but should be good. Church, quickly home, get Emma ready and she has ballet (recital is next weekend so they're doing extra rehersals). Come home, change her into her recital costume, take her to my friend's who is a photographer and is taking the ballet photo's, come home and we'll be having a BBQ with friends. I will hopefully be good and tired by tomorrow night and will collapse in bed.
















Sunday, May 06, 2012

Well I finished up my 2nd week of C25K. Let me tell you, it hurt..running for 90 straight seconds. I know for those who are in shape or run on a regular basis, 90 seconds doesn't seem like a big deal...but when you're out of shape like I am and have not ran in a VERY long time...90 seconds straight is big. I did it, and in the morning, I start week 3. So what does week 3 entail for me?
5 minutes brisk walk, 90 sec. jog, 90 second walk, 3 minute jog, 3 minute walk...then repeat (not the 5 minute brisk walk). I'm terrified of this week...the 90 second job was horrible, so 3 minutes is terrifying. Oh it's going to be hard and painful! I'll do it though, feel free to pray for me! :)