Just hanging out

It's been a while.  I keep forgetting to post :).  

I have decided to start Discovery Toys again.  I am really excited about it and really nervous at the same time.  I love that it is a way to make some extra money and I love the products.  I am nervous because I always have lots of great ideas, but I never can seem to execute them.  I get very nervous at the parties.  I get all tongue tied and forget what I need to say.  Things are a little harder now then when I started DT the first time because I don't know anyone.  However, the customer base here is huge!  There are so many families here with children, I just have to figure out how to reach them.  I already have 3 parties of my own planned between April 9th and the 1st of May.  My goal is to schedule at least 4 parties in May, get one recruit and sell $500 in May.  My goals for June are to book 5 parties, get two recruits and sell $750.

Lopez and I watched Fireproof last night.  I think this is a great movie for married or engaged couples to watch.  The acting was kinda bad, but the message was great.  This is a Christian based movie, but I think even people who are not religious can benefit from it.  It shows how to "fireproof" your marriage.  It is about husband and wife whose marriage is on the brink of divorce.  They get so busy with their own lives that they forget about their love for each other.  It takes a book called the Love Dare to bring them back together.  There is also a book called the Love Dare, I think the movie is based on it.  I bought the book for Lopez and I to read.  The Love Dare is a manual on how to treat your spouse.  It helps you remember why you fell in love with your spouse to begin with.  I am really exicted about reading the book.  I don't think our marriage is in any trouble, but I think the book can only make us stronger.

We had a huge storm here at Fort Stewart today!  It poured buckets!  There was even a tornado warning.  I kinda like storms though.  I like to listen to the thunder and rain.  I am a little worried about Selly's little garden she planted though.  I think the flowers will drown.  She will be heart broken.

Selly had her first official playdate at Ft. Stewart yesterday.  I think it went really well.  They played with Jacob's dinosaur of all things, made lunchbag puppets and drank yogurt through silly straws.  Selly was soooooo excited to show the little girl her bedroom.  Unfortunately they woke Jacob in the process, which didn't make me very happy.  

We also went back to the Tree House yesterday.  Giselly and Jacob had a ball!  Lopez talked Giselly though climbing to the 3rd level.  She was so proud of herself!  

How could I forget the new bike!!!  Giselly got a new  bike this week.  A big girl's bike!  It has training wheels of course, but she is so very proud of it.  It is a pink Barbie bike with tassels and a bell.  Problem is she can't figure out how to pedal.  She just can't figure it out and Lopez and I can't figure out how to teach her.  

Jacob is still nuts as usual.  He is a stubborn baby.  He barely has any words.  He says, "mama", "dada", "ut oh", and we think he says "thank you".  He is still not walking either.  We keep practicing, but he is just content to crawl.  We have decided to decorate his room in cars and trucks.  We bought a cute comforter set the other day, but that is as far as we have gotten.  I hope to paint one wall in his room blue and get some wall stickers like we did for Selly's room.  Lopez is not to thrilled about the painting.  I told him just to tape the wall for me and I will paint.

We are contemplating a dog.  Not sure if I have posted about this before.  Lopez and Giselly really want a dog but I do not.  We had a friend offer to give us their dog because they can't take care of it anymore.  It is already house trained, spade, and is up to date on her shots.  I want to make my family happy, but I am not sure I can handle the extra responsibility, so we shall see.  We did go to Petsmart today to look at their dog pens for the back yard.  There were so many dogs in there!  There was a great dane that was taller than Giselly!!  It was HUGE!   Oh the dog the friends want to give us is a boxer.  It is really pretty and well behaved.  I will post about our decision whenever we make it :). 

Well I will end this for now.  

Getting used to the schedule

This week has been kind of tough.  Before Lopez went to training, I was used to him being home by 5:15ish every evening.  His new unit told him to expect late evenings and I am not to thrilled about that.  It is hard for me to get used to the schedule.  It has totally messed me up.  I am used to having dinner ready at 5:30, eat, relax a bit, bathe the kiddos and then bedtime at 7.  Well I can't put them to bed at 7 if he is just walking through the door.  I want them to get to see him as much as possible.  They totally adore him.  Not to mention that I am starving at 5pm, but I want to wait and eat with him.  

I am trying to adjust.  I start dinner later, but still feed the kids around 5:30-6 because they are hungry then too.  Then I eat with Lopez when he gets home.  I sneak a few bites of the kids meal or eat a salad to hold me over until he gets here.  I just think it stinks for him to have to eat by himself.  I don't know why it is so hard for me to do things on my own.  I have been doing it for the last 6 months.  I will have to do it for an entire year when he gets deployed.  I just get so anxious and aggravated.  By 5:30 I am about to lose my mind.

I am very excited though because he starts a 10 vacation tomorrow.  The army gives soldiers 10 days to get their family settled in housing.  He just had to wait to get settled into his unit first.  We don't have any travel plans, just getting the house put together.  Mainly putting all the clothes away that I have been avoiding like the plague. 

I have been trying very hard to stay off the computer.  Somedays it is my only link to the outside world, so it is difficult.  I have been taking the kids to the park the whole week.  They have had so much fun!  We have a park right behind our house, but we have been walking to one that is a little further away.  That way I get in some exercise.  The parks are not really design for Jacob, but he has fun anyhow.  He won't stay in the stroller or let me hold him, so I bit the bullet and let him play in the wood chips lining the playground.  He tastes a few, but is pretty good about not eating them.  

You know what else stinks?  We only have one car now.  I am so not used to that!!!  The only thing keeping me sane is that fact that we bought a new stroller.  It is one of those Sit and Stand ones.  So far Giselly actually stays on it, so that is nice!  With it I am able to walk to the park and if I ever remember to get my i.d. out of the car before Lopez leaves, we can go to the shoppette.  Big deal huh?  Well when you are stuck in the house with no transportation, the shoppette seems like a lot of fun.  

Tomorrow is our 5th anniversary!!  I can't believe that it has been that long!  We have been through so much the last 3 years alone, the time has flown by!  I know things can only get better and I am really looking forward to the future.  Lopez and I follow the Golden Rule in our marriage and it has served us well.  We treat each other the way we want to be treated.  We never yell at each other, call names, or talk down to one another.  Of course we get angry at each other, but we are really good about talking things through.    It makes me sad to know that people treat their spouses so bad.  I can't imagine treating him bad or speaking ugly to him.  I am so blessed to be married to him.  He makes me feel beautiful even when I look a hot mess, he never makes me feel stupid for my crazy ideas (I have a lot :)), and he really listens to me.  

I think that is all for tonight.  A lot of rambling as usual :).

We have our stuff!

We got all our stuff on Friday morning.  We have spent the last two days unpacking.  We have almost everything put away except for our clothes, we are both avoiding it like the plague.  

We had a really nice weekend.  We went to Savannah yesterday to hit up the Target.  We were on the hunt for nice stuff for Selly's room.  We wanted to make her room really cute so maybe she will actually sleep in it!  We found a really cute comforter set, but it was $80!! We walked around the store and thought about it and decided that was way to expensive for a 3 year old.  So we settled on a super comfy, fuzzy pink blanket.  Then we found these flower stickers to put all over her walls.  After Target we went to Lowes and bought some paint.  Let's just say her room looks like pink threw up in it.  It is sooooo cute though!!  It is not quite finished, we still need to put up curtains in her room, some pitures we bought the other day and a little lamp that she just adored at Target.  Giselly is so in love with her new room.  

I also got a steal on some ducky decor for the kiddos bathroom.  I am so flipping excited about it. I only paid $30 for a shower curtain, trash can, soap dispenser, cup holder, ducky toilet seat, ducky rug, shower curtain hooks, tooth brush holder and adorable ducky stickers for the wall.  I got it off a lady on craigslist.  It is used, but in great condition.  Brand new all of that would have been a lot of money.  

Lopez and I have never really decorated anywhere that we have lived.  We always knew that we wouldn't be staying very long.  That is really sad in my opinion.  So even though we know we will probably not be here longer than 3 years, we have decided to decorate and we are having a ball!! Next is probably Jacob's room.  His is a little more difficult only because he will have to share with the older boys when they come to visit.  I saw an absolutely adorable animal plaque for a child's room the other day.  I would have loved to have bought it for Jacob's room.  However, I decided that the older boys probably wouldn't appreciate that too much, it was pretty babyish. 

We bought Selly a pool today.  She absolutely adored it.  She wouldn't sit down though because she didn't want to get her "babeing soup" wet.  She is a nut.  We met more of our neighbors.  They have a 4 year old boy and a 1 year old boy.  I am trying really hard to remember everyone's name.  I am horrible with names!  It is really embarrassing sometimes.  

Well I better go for now.  

We have a house!!

So today we got the keys for our house! It is really nice inside. Not fancy or anything, but 200% better than our place in Puerto Rico and much bigger than our place in Rock Hill. It has TONS of closet space!!! It has an eat-in kitchen and a dining room area. We plan on using the kitchen to eat in and use the dining room as a play area for now. Giselly will have her own room (hopefully we can get her to sleep in it). We bought her new pink sheets for her big girl bed (not a toddler bed). So she is VERY excited. Jacob will have to share with the older boys when they come to visit, but I don't think he will mind ;). One thing that I LOVE is that the laundry room is upstairs right next to the bedrooms!! The kids also have their own bathroom upstairs. I don't have just one, but two pantries and a broom closet in the kitchen. It does have tile and linoleum all downstairs even in the livingroom which sucks, but upstairs has carpet. I went and got my steam mop today so hopefully all that tile won't be too hard to keep clean. I am so flipping excited about the silly steam mop :). We have a nice patio in the back and a carport on the front. We can see the playground from our back patio. There is a HUGE closet on the back porch. It could fit a motorcycle in it and still have space. We have met the neighbors to our left and they seem nice. They have two little boys. We saw a bunch of little girls about Giselly's age playing on our street, so I think she will have plenty of playmates. We have one more night in the hotel and then we will tough it out on the air mattress until Friday when our stuff arrives :). I will be without t.v. for a few more days, but I already have the phone and internet set up to be turned on Thursday night. Since we were put in the older section, they did tell us that if we want. we can upgrade to the new units in 6 months. Not sure if we will do that or not yet. I guess we will wait and see. The new ones are REALLY nice, but I think we will be happy with what we have been given.

Beautiful weekend!!

We had a beautiful weekend here in GA!!!  

On Saturday we went to a birthday party, we work fast huh? :)  I joined a meet-up group here and one of the ladies had a birthday party for her son.  She invited the other mommies in the group to bring their kids, so we went.  I thought it would be a nice way to meet some new people and get out of the hotel!!  She had the party at a place here on post called the Tree House.  It is a neat place for kids here.  It has a small area for little kids Jacob's age and a bigger area with slides and all sorts of climbing aparatus for the older kids.  Giselly took a while to warm up and was content to sit outside the door and collect stray balls for a while.  Once she felt comfortable she was off!  She had a blast!  Jacob had a grand old time too.  At one point I had to practically dive across the floor to grab him though because he decided to climb on top of a table instead of the area meant for climbing.  Luckily for him (me), it was a short kids table, so he hadn't gotten too high :).  The ladies I met were super nice and I can't wait until we get settled so I can get to know them better.  

Today we went on the search for Target.  It is in Savannah.  It was such a gorgeous day, when we actually found Target, we kept driving!  We wanted to see what else was around.  We found two malls and lots of nice places to eat whenever we manage to get a date night ;).  We ended up going to one of the malls and walking around for a bit, then hopped back in the car on the search for historic Savannah.  We found it and were so excited!  Historic Savannah is beautiful!!!  We didn't get out and walk because we did not even come prepared for a stop there.  We just drove around and took in the view.  We also made plans for every where we wanted to check out when we go back.  We have to buy a good stroller before we go back though.  Right now we just have one of those cheapo umbrella ones for Jacob, I know Selly would tire quickly of walking around.  There were so many cute little stores and wonderful looking places to eat.  I didn't see Paula Dean's restaurant, but I looked really hard.  We did see a Five Guy's.  Which if you have never been to one is probably the best hamburger joint I have ever been too.  If they would have had easier parking, we would have stopped there.  Lopez and I used to eat at a Five Guy's in Maryland all the time when we lived there.  We LOVE it and were really disappointed that there wasn't one close to us in Rock Hill.  So it is a little drive and we have to figure out where the heck to park, but at least we know where it is.  

On the way back to the hotel we had to stop and get something to eat.  We pulled into a shopping center that had two places to eat, a Pita sandwich shop and a pizza joint.  Well, I am sure you all know where we went.  The pizza joint of course :).  I am so glad we did.  The place was awesome!!  The service was incredible.  They even ended up giving us Giselly's meal for free, just because they don't sell pizza by the slice after 4 pm!  We told them she couldn't eat a whole large pizza by herself (duh), so they made her a little tiny pizza and gave it to us for free.  It was delicious.  So good we saved the address on the GPS thing so we could go back on another trip.  

When we got back to post, Lopez took Selly to the hotel playground and they stayed for an hour.  She was so excited when she came back in because there were some kids for her to play with.  I think she is really missing her pre-school in Rock Hill.  She cried almost every day when she had to go, but she always had so much fun!  She has such a tender little heart and gets her feelings hurt easily if someone won't play with her or someone hits her.  It sticks in her mind forever!  Sometimes we worry about her.  

So, one thing you will see (if you don't already know this about me) is that I can never make up my mind about anything.  That is one reason I haven't made it through college yet.  I changed my major about 5 times!  Anyhow, I think I have decided that I will still do the home daycare, even though Lopez may be leaving in Nov.  I decided that it will be a great way for me to bring in some money and spend time with the kids.  Plus it will help me keep my mind focused on something positive instead of the pending deployment.  I tend to get things stuck in my head and that is all I can think about.  Instead of dwelling on him leaving or being gone, I will focus on the day care and my kiddos.  The army will train me (again, I had a home daycare in Fort Richardson) and help me set my daycare up.  It is hard work, but it makes pretty good money.  I have learned from my mistakes though and will not have any infants.  In Fort Richardson I kept 3 infants and about lost my mind!  I hope to get 2-3 children over the age of 18 months.  That way Jacob will be the only baby.  Plus I already have appropriate toys for the older ages.  I am hoping that the income from the daycare will help get us caught up on our bills and allow us to have a good visit with Kevin and Javy this summer.  

Just be warned that tomorrow I may have a completely different plan!  

Beautiful day

Today was a beautiful day!  It was 75 degrees and not a cloud in site.  Lopez had to work this morning, but he got off early.  When he got back we went to buy me some new summer shirts (yippee).  I found some nice ones really quick and then we were on the hunt for a boot place for Lopez.  

The boots the Army issued him are not very comfortable for long road marches.  Lopez and I always get the boots resoled with a tennis shoe sole.  Today he heard the unit he is going to does a lot of road marches!  Well, Hinesville, GA is no Fayetteville we learned very quickly today.  There was only one boot place, and it took us forever to find it!  In Fayetteville there were lots.  

The weather was so nice that Selly and I spent over two hours at the hotel playground!  There were some other kids taking advantage of the nice day, so Selly had plenty of playmates.  I grabbed me a magazine and soaked in some sunshine.  There was a little boy about 9 years old and he ran Selly to death.  It was so funny.  He was pretending to be a monster and chased her around and around.  She had a blast.

Gotta go, Selly is fussing.

So here we are.  We made it to Ft. Stewart!  We have been here almost a week as I type this.  We are currently staying in on-post lodging and will be here until March 11th.  On March 11th we are suppsose to get our house!!!!!!!!  We have not been able to go into the house yet, but we have been stalking it all week :).  It is a 3 bedroom townhome, 2.5 baths.  We can see a playground right out of our back door, plus there are at least 2 more in walking distance.  I am very excited about the house, even if we can't see it yet.  I figure it can't be any worse than our apartment in PR.  I am pretty sure that this one will have hot water!

We did find out some sad news.  Lopez is set to deploy to Afganistan in October.  We knew this was a possibility, but not something you can ever fully prepare for.  I only heard about it yesterday and already it consumes most of my waking thoughts.  Most of our relatioship has been spent apart, so you would think I am used to this sort of thing.  I just don't think I can get used to being apart from one of the few people on the earth that loves me no matter what.  He doesn't judge me, and sometimes I am pretty nuts.  He puts up with my mood swings, my crazy rambling, weight issues, and constant babbling :).  He never complains about any of the stuff.  He makes me feel like I am o.k. just the way I am.  It sounds corny, but we complete each other.  We understand each others sense of humor and can always make each other laugh.  I just don't think I can get used to losing him for a whole year.  I am scared to death of him getting hurt over there or worse.  I am in an online community for army spouses, and one of the ladies just had her husband KIA in Afganistan.  Something like that really hits home at a time like this.  

We knew this was a possibility when he signed back up.  It was a chance we felt we had to take.  If you know us in real life, you know that Lopez and I have really struggled financially the last 3.5 years.  We felt that this was the best decision to help get us back on our feet.  Lopez is determined to go up in rank and really do well with his military career.  Our mess the last few years was completely our fault, we made very poor decisions that caused us to have to stay with friends on 3 different occasions in the last 3 years.  It was humiliating.  We had to make this decision so we can care for our own kids.

None of the reasons make a deployment seem any easier.  I am so selfish.  I stayed awake last night worried about having to care for the kids by myself again.  The thought of spending 24 hours being totally responsible for them without any help again, scares me.  I have been known to have small outburst of anger, where I yell and am just ugly to Giselly.  I don't hit her or anything like that, just yell and say ugly things.  I am worried that this stress will cause me to go back to that behavior.  I hope to be able to see a doctor about these concerns.  I don't want to spend the entire year yelling at the kids.  I want to be a happy mom that they are not scared of.  

I am worried about Lopez.  I worry about him constantly now, when he is here with me.  I know I am being irrational, but when he is late coming home for lunch or after work, I immediately think the worse.  I will sit and think that something terrible much have happened to make him late.  I have been like this since we first fell in love.  The thought of losing him hurts so much. How will I survive a year of him being in a war zone?  He won't be able to call me every day, I will be sick with worry.

Ugh.  I guess I will go for now.   If you pray, please pray for us.  Pray that we can make the most of the time we have before the deployment, pray that we have a wonderful visit with Kevin and Javy this summer, pray that I can keep it together for my husband and my children.  

All of my post won't be such downers.  I will keep you updated on the happenings of our life :).