Where have I been?

Oh you know... doing the usual. Raising a now nearly 15 month old bucket of sunshine and toddler sass, exploring life as a stay at home mom, and waiting. Always waiting. C should be getting his next set of orders soon, so I am hopeful for great adventures in a new city/state, but hopefully back in the US.

Did I mention that I'm pregnant again? That was a shock. After years of treatment and negative tests, imagine my surprise that at an appointment to place an IUD the doctor tells me that won't be possible, as there's a little person in there. Imagine my shock to find out that it's another little boy who will be joining us in September (Oh, and we move in August. O.O I have lost my mind)

With Boy #1, the pregnancy I wrote of last time I wrote in here (nearly 2 years ago. Oy), we had a rough road. My OB couldn't believe my ridiculous (read: Absurdly normal, but poorly timed) weight gain, and so I was tested for Gestational Diabetes 4 times. and then had the shock of my life... and not in the pleasant way. After all that monitoring , all those blood tests, about 8 million ultrasounds.... My doctor missed a very crucial thing- my Son's intestines weren't inside his body.

I have a lot of writing to do, a lot of things to catch you up on. Know that my first son is fine now-you wouldn't even know what he had been through if you saw him now. I am varying levels of fine, depending on the day. My marriage is still one of the greatest blessings to my life. For all that has changed, for all that will change, there are still some constants like Family, Faith, and Food.

Snowflake Swap

Paris recaps are coming, I swear! I'm just getting around to the 700+ pictures Mr. took...   At the beginning of this month one of my friends, Jane, posted about a Snowflake Swap that she and a few others were hosting. I was expecting the holidays to be rough for me(spoiler alert-- I was right), and thought that giving more would help. Plus, I ran two winter gift exchanges, so it was nice to be able to just enjoy it, instead of worrying about everything. I happened to be paired up with the lovely Brittany of Aviation of Love, who is stationed at Ft. Bliss, Texas. Both of us have been at Ft. Bragg, and both of us have immediate feelings of inadequacy when it comes to gift giving. ;) I can say though, that her gift was super thoughtful. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it all wrapped up, so here are the pieces: I got magazines- Food and Wine (now severely dog eared for all the recipes I want to try) and Self...which I had been wanting to buy but haven't.     

  A really cool Essie nail polish...it's chrome! I can't wait to paint my nails for NYE.  

  An awesome Ft. Bliss t-shirt...which made me wish I had sent her something German. (See above comment about inadequacy)  

Really excited because my preworkout  matches!

  And then she was thoughtful enough to include treats for both girls... Which have promptly been devoured! Thanks so much to Brittany, and to the "JAM Awesomesauce" ladies for putting this together! 

On blogging...

As part of one of my courses, we were instructed to keep a blog. For simplicity's sake I am using this one. I figured I'd share why I blog! I started this blog as a way to keep family and friends up to date on what's going on with us. Being in Germany puts us 6 hours ahead of eastern time, so it's pretty difficult to keep up with family, especially family that works. I also thought it would be a good place to get "out of my head" on our journey of trying to expand our family. It's not easy,and the journey can be very isolating. I blog because it's fun for me! I blog because it helps me keep up with my Army Spouse friends.  Blogging, however, isn't for everyone. It's been hard to keep up with (as evidenced my long spaces between posts..), but it's worth it for me. So many people in my course are saying that they don't enjoy it, which I can understand. If you're more private, then blogging definitely isn't for you.  Why do you blog?

Snowflake Swap

Thanks to some lovely ladies, I am participating in blogger gift swap-The Snowflake Swap this year!  

  It's going to be a rough holiday season this year. It's my first time not being with my family on Christmas, and they're pretty much everything to me. It's hard to think about, and I'm sure there will be tears (See here for my tendency to cry. A lot). But the experience of having a Christmas on our own will be a memory we cherish for years to come. Nonetheless, I'm trying to guard myself up as much as possible with plenty of gift exchanges and holiday spirit to distract myself from the emotions that I know will come.     Interested in joining in? Just click on the picture above and sign up!    

I remember....

I remember when the Mr. first told me he wanted to join the Army. I was 19, and after he told me I cried. You see, I was dating a goofy theatre kid and I never thought the military would be a plan (I should've...serving in the military goes way back on both sides of his family). I cried because I didn't know what that meant. I cried because I knew at the least we were a country at war and that meant he was going to be deployed.

He had just busted out of his cocoon and is now a beautiful butterfly.

I cried because I was a drama queen. (Seriously. Pulled my Gbig aside to ask her advice and cried at meeting. Drama queen).
Then that Summer he dumped me. I remember sitting in my sorority sister's apartment and watching chick flicks and talking about how he'd be back and he's just a dumb boy.
Then that fall he realized he's really dumb sometimes, and we got back together.
I remember doing pretty horribly on an assignment right after he left for OSUT (basic Training). I remember that professor pulling me aside. He'd never had me in class, but said that it didn't seem like me. I cried to him and told him my boyfriend had just left. He patted me on the shoulder and said his son had left too, but it gets better.  I remember that extension of grace. (And I remember that I was yet again, a drama queen)

Photo from Ciulla Photography

I remember after we got married, that I was so excited in April because he was done with school, I was about to be done with school, and we were going to be able to be done with long distance! (I can hear my veteran spouse friends laughing...). I remember him holding me when he told me that he'd be deploying the following month. 
I remember the joy of buying our house, and getting a puppy.

She's grown just a tiny bit...

I remember crying when the rumors of the next deployment came up.   I remember crying the nights before he left, but not at the parade field...which garnered me criticism. (Seriously).
I remember crying with relief to hold him in my arms again both times.   I remember the blast we've had on marriage retreats, at balls, and at Hail/Farewells. 

I remember falling apart on the drive away from our first base, our first home.   I remember crying on the plane to Germany. 
Why post this? (Other than to illustrate that I'm a pro-level crier/drama queen)
So often as military spouses we tear our fellow spouses down... whether it's that she's crying over him being in the field, or NOT crying during the deployment. That our civilian friends couldn't possibly understand what it's like to live through a deployment, and how stupid they are for thinking that a business trip is in any way equal to one. (For the record, most know it's nothing alike. They're just trying to connect on the premise of missing their person). What if we remembered how it was when we first started out? When that first week of him gone felt like walking through hell? The time we learned to turn off the news when he's gone? 
I have a feeling we'd be much kinder to each other. And in a life like this-where we are often uprooted away from family and friends, and expected to do it all with minimal resources- shouldn't we be more focused on helping one another, instead of laughing at or criticising someone who is just starting out, sad and scared? When will we, as a community, realize that our war stories are very rarely helpful?
I remember...the day I decided to start living in and extending the grace and understanding afforded to me many times over by many people.

Random Thoughts...

I can't seem to get much of a consistent train of thought going today, so we're going for the bulleted list with some pictures.

 - I've been in a seminar called "Culture College" for the past few days learning about Wiesbadern and Germany-traditions, customs, language, orientation to the city and the post, etc. It has been great, but also exhausting.

 -Seriously....is EVERYONE pregnant right now? Cause that's kind of how it feels. I'm just sitting over here...on a break till the end of the year.

 - I'm now in the time of year where I don't buy things for myself. My birthday, Christmas, and my anniversary are all very close to each other (like... 13th, 25th, and 31st....) so I try not to buy much for myself, so that I can give more gift ideas and thus be surprised and happy with them.

 -blog is about to get a facelift thanks to Jane! She is all things fabulous and isn't even mad that it took me almost two weeks to finally look at the mockup for long enough to tell her what I thought. Seriously, she's an angel.

 -I'm excited to hopefully explore Frankfurt and Ludwigsburg this weekend!C is on a four day so we're going to explore some of the local area. (and hopefully get some castles in before the end of castle season. Yep...there's a season for castles. Who knew?!)

 -I really need to start carrying around a notebook for blog post ideas.. and reminding myself of what I wanted to tell/ask people and things I need to do.

 -Still no HHG. I just want my bed people!!

 -I'm excited for the next few years for us. But I'm also already planning the next move, even though I barely know when and where that will come along. I know this time next year, C will take command and do that for a year, and then we'll have a few months before our DEROS date (earliest we can go back to the states). but otherwise everything is up to what his next move is...and that changes daily. Gotta love it, right?

 And now, I leave you with two photos from our Farmer's Market adventure! More to come once I upload them to my computer. :) xo, Jess