getting excited

I'm getting more and more excited that we are getting closer to Christmas. Sure we dont have much money this year, which sucks, but we have enough money to hopefully get home to be our families Christmas presents and to show off the present that we were blessed with this year. I've learned over the last few years that money is not everything and that being with my family is so much a better gift. Jake and I spent our Christmas last year away from family and spent it with friends, but this year we are lucky enough to be able to go home and to be able to have our lil man with us to share this Christmas. I love my family and getting gifts is so not important now that I have my son, whom I've waited for so long for.

crazy times

Wow so the last few months have been a total whirl wind. Jake got home from deployment and then a week later our lil man was here. Ever since then life seems so much busier. Jake has had to go out to sea and such since D has made his arrival. I'm learning and adjusting to being a mom, its hard. Plus trying to keep up with everything else. I'm trying to start to 'plan' my days. To try and throw in an hour of school work and an hour of work out time into my day. Plus making sure that a few of the household things are done. But we are doing great. We love having our lil boy here with us. We feel very blessed that we are able to have such a beautiful child. He does have his problems, like really bad reflux to the point he throws/spits up after most meals and most of the day, but we are learning how to help him the best we can and keep him as happy and comfortable as we can. He first smiled last Wednesday and that was a wonderful day. He will be 2 months old in less than a week and we are so very excited for that. Plus with his first Christmas coming up we are hoping to go home and show him off to our families.

This week has been crazy

Well with 2 trips to Labor and Delivery, I should realize that I'm not super woman. Some slight complications have came up, which may prevent me from being able to have Lil D the way I want to. I'm not too excited about the thoughts of a C-section or having to have our first child without hubby, but I will do whatever it takes to make sure this baby comes into the world. I've also realized that I have amazing people in my life. Several of my friends here in VA have been doing wonderful things for me. Such as Kali and Jen who tricked me so that all of my laundry would get finished and even my dishes would get done. Being in as much pain as I've been in has not helped in the housekeeping area. Now we are going to start working on my lil man's room so that if and when he comes home before daddy he will have a place to sleep. I'm so grateful for the people in my life. I have a hard time asking for help, it makes me feel weak and small but there are times when you need help and people can see that and just do it. I just hope that I will be able to repay the kindness that they have shown me. I'm so grateful for the people in my life.

another month down

Wow, it's August. It's hard to believe that he has been gone for 4 months now. But it's wonderful meaning he will almost be home soon. August also means that it's my birthday, something that can be a wonderful thing, but this year is somewhat bittersweet. I miss home alot, I miss Jake a lot, but I'm grateful for the friends that I have made in the short amount of time that I have been here in VA. I don't have any big plans for my bday, just to get through it lol. Next year I can worry about making big plans, since next year will be a milestone. BOO.

And with it being August also mean another month closer to welcoming our son into this world. I'm getting more and more excited by the day, but also more anxious. I've not been well for the last few weeks, fighting off infections and such, so hopefully I'll be feeling better soon. I worry about the effects that it will have on the baby, hopefully none, but still worries me nonetheless. I'm not to fond of having him camp out in my ribs, which just started a few days ago, but as long as he is healthy and happy I'll be fine with it. It's exciting being able to feel him move around and kick. It's also exciting to be able to feel around on my belly and try to figure out if that a arm or a butt or a leg or a head. While I've not had the best time of this pregnancy, there are many things I will always cherish. I just wish that I could share them with my husband in person and not through email, which seems so cold to me. But deployments/separations are apart of this life. We've dealt with being apart before, spending the whole first year of our marriage apart, but that doesn't mean it gets any easier. And now with the anticipation of our baby coming into our lives, it makes this separation all the more difficult. Well back to my preparing/cleaning/nesting/craziness or whatnot of cleaning the house and washing his baby stuff.

9 years

9 Years. How life can change in that amount of time. Well life changes every day and things change from moment to moment but to look back over the last 9 years and see how much has changed is amazing. 9 years ago yesterday someone was taken from this world who shouldn't have been. That event changed a lot of things for me. I was 20 yrs old at the time, I liked to party with my friends, do stupid and crazy things, and just wanted to have fun. But the events of July 26 will forever be with me. It took me awhile to even talk about them due to the fact that so many other things were going on. I wanted to be strong for those around me and felt that I would deal with it in my own time. But little did I know that another great loss was heading right for me less than a month later. I grew up that summer. I learned that there was more to life that partying all the time and being dumb. Don't get me wrong, I still like to have fun, but I think that at times I much more cautious than I use to be. Going through the loss of someone so young for reasons that you can't understand takes a lot out of you. I remember sitting on the front steps of my friends house with a few of my friends. We were waiting for Pat to come. His gf Jen was getting anxious and now I wish that we would have driven to find him. I was sitting there drinking milk and eating cookies with my friends talking about a new cd that I just bought and making plans for our upcoming beach trip that would be right around the time of my birthday. My mom had told me a few days earlier that I need to come and spend at least one night at home and not at my friends house. I chose that nite to go home. My mother probably quite possibly saved my life by that request. I left at 11 pm, and Pat arrived shortly after I left. The events that happened after I left will never leave me. Pat was walking Jen home and got into a fight with the neighbor across the street (which I didn't even know anyone lived there until a few weeks prior, and earlier that afternoon I saw that man, he stared at me and freaked me out) who then pulled a gun and was planning on shooting my friend Jen, but Pat stepped in front of her and saved her life with his own. Kevin, the man, had planned on shooting some more, but his gun locked up. So he sat on his porch and waited for the police to arrive. The next day I found out what happened. Going over to the house was so hard for me. Looking at the pavement where there was still blood still freaked me out. Trying to get rid of the blood with bleach, which didn't work will something I will never forget. The days that followed were a blur for the most part, the funeral, the candlelight vigil. We all looked like zombies walking around I'm sure, just going through the motions for the sake of it. But looking back, as hard as that time was for me, I learned so much from it. I became a better friend, a better listener, a more compassionate person. But with those came the fact that I did not have time to deal with it myself. I was concerned with everyone else that I forgot that I needed to grieve, that I needed to deal. And when it finally came time for my turn, I didn't have any time because my Grandmother died a few weeks later, and the whole process started over again. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I was so lost and couldn't even begin to deal with the loss of her. Being there in the hospital when she passed was something I will also never forget. At least having the chance to say I love you helped to ease the pain somewhat, but not enough at that time. My Grams, as I called her, had been an important person in my life. She took care of me a lot while my mother worked two jobs as a single mother to support myself and my brother. She was the one who introduced me to her church, the church that I grew up in, and that everyone knew me and my family. She was the one who helped to increase my love for God and for family. While all of this was going on, all of the loss that I was dealing with, my mother was the one who gave me some comforting words. She reminded me that God never gives you more than you can handle. At that time I was stunned. I didn't think I could do it, I wasn't dealing well at all with things. and felt like everything in my life was falling apart. My mom bought me my first cross necklace, one that I stll have today, even though she upgraded it a few years ago, as a reminder that He is always with me and that when ever I need to figure out how to get through it, just to ask Him for help. Wow this was a lot to get out, and there is so much more than I want to get out, but for now this is all. More will come, since I've been reflecting a lot more, while dealing with my husband's deployment and the upcoming birth of my child.

Deployment + pregnancy= trouble

Let's just say the last few months have been interesting. Dealing with your first deployment is hard enough, especially after you just move to a new area and your hubs leaves 3 weeks later. But to tack on your first pregnancy, well there should be a rule against that. Hormones rage while some gals are pregnant and then throw in the emotions of dealing with hubs being gone and not knowing much about where you live can just make a person a lil crazy. there is so much more that I want to say about this, I have so much in my head and I figure the best way to get it out is to type it out. But I'm hungry lol and want some corn pops.