Near and Far

Lately I have found myself looking into the future and wondering what life will hold for our family. We have many different factors that will make it an interesting ride for us. I (shamefully) find myself looking around the house we have lived in for 6 short months and thinking that we will be packing it up in roughly 15 months. That is ridiculous to me. We don't even have all our pictures on the walls and I am already subconsciously packing it up and moving it back to Oklahoma. Dumb. I caught myself thinking about pinning things on Pinterest for kid's school parties. Levi is 7 months old! He will not be in school for another 4 years (Yes, I know they will fly by. No need to remind me.) Let me be honest, I probably won't even remember Pinterst in 4 years. I will not pin those wonderful teacher gifts, snacks for class parties, or the other wonderful ideas. If I have to eat these words, I will be very happy though! Most recently I have been thinking about the ever-looming...

It's day 9 of Ross being in Louisiana for some classes. Day 9 of it being Levi, Juno, and I. Day 1, although, of my first experience of "Tropical Force" winds. Being an Oklahoma girl, I have had many windy days. Sing along with me, "...where the wind come sweeping down the plains!" I know wind. Wind is wind, until you are home alone and you do not like to be in a dark house alone. I am aware of how childish it is, but I am not ashamed to admit that I am afraid of the dark. So at the moment, I am terrified of the electricity going out. We are currently having 35+ mph winds with 40+ gusts. The Weather Channel continues to remind me that power outages are "likely". Fools are not calming my nerves, so I turned them off. I love having the power to change the channel. I posted a status on Facebook on Sunday that I would like to elaborate on a bit. I answered a phone call from two of my nephews. Ben was asking me questions about Levi, if he could crawl (he...

It's been close to two months since my last post. Things have been a little hectic since the last post and I'm greatly looking forward to having some calmness. Life with a six month old equals never having calmness EVER again. Ever, ever, ever again... First things first. LEVI'S TESTS CAME BACK NORMAL!!! We had his last blood test and evaluation with the specialist mid-August and everything came back normal. This is such a huge blessing. Unfortunately Levi didn't hear the phone call with the good news, because he didn't instantly understand that he doesn't need to eat every three hours anymore. We are still working on it, but the boy likes to eat! Think about us as our grocery bill is going to be insane in a few years :) Levi, Juno, and I made another trip to Oklahoma the last part of August and stayed through most of September. It was kind of a spur of the moment decision to go back that was made and we left all within a week. We made it back home just in t...

It's going to be a short one. We are preparing for Ross to leave for another month long training period. This training in California is specifically for his upcoming deployment. Deployment is something that has been lingering over us for quite some time now and it seems to be finally happening. But this isn't about Ross's deployment. The past month or so has been pretty rough for the West Point community. Ross has had several friends injured while in Afghanistan recently. They will forever wear the scars of their job/calling, but they will do so proudly I am sure. They will do it because they have lost friends, classmates, teammates, friends by association, in the past few weeks. The names are becoming too familiar. It is all we can do to pray for the injured and their families, mourn the loss of friends, and thank a soldier when you see one. Please keep Ross, his friends, coworkers, and all soldiers in your prayers. This is a hard job and they are doing it willingl...

Yesterday marked an anniversary that shocked, scared, intimidated, thrilled, and surprised us. It is odd how a tiny plastic stick has the power to do all those things in a 3 minute time frame. Crazy tiny stick. I had not been feeling well for a couple weeks, but I also thought it was just the being busy with a new job and summer running around. I had gotten sick a couple times which was very strange because I rarely get sick like that. Again, I didn't give it a ton of thought. It wasn't until late the night of July 31 that it came to me. Headache, dizziness, nausea, crying A LOT, throwing up after every meal, drink of water, cracker I ate, and so on...  Oh my gosh, I'm pregnant. I sat through my sex ed classes in school, I had the talk with my mom, I had friends who had either had babies or were pregnant. I knew where they came from and how to prevent them, but due to some medical issues I was no longer on birth control and God has a sense of humor. This was not our fir...

Levi and I have been here with our Oklahoma family for about a month now. We have been having so much fun with the family and friends! We (a term I use loosely since Levi doesn't understand anything) have also picked up a few things that I would like to share with you. Ben (age 6): Will Levi be a daddy when he grows up? Me: I hope so. Ben: I want to be a daddy when I grow up. Joe (age 4): I don't! Ben: Joe, you don't want to get married and have a baby like Ross and Kayla did?!?! Joe: Nope. Dad while watching "Days of Our Lives" "Is that girl related to those Kardashian things?" Me: How much do I love you? Ben: I know, I know... To the moon and back... Dad: Kayla, you should wean Levi and leave him here. You and Ross can make another one. Joe: Sorry Kwaya... Joe: Got your nose Wevi! A few things have happened that have been milestones for Little Man. He now giggles (one of my favorite noises ever) and this morning he finally rolled o...

Thanks to a bit of "bloggers block", I haven't been able to get a post together that I have been pleased with. I have started 3 posts over the past month, but I disliked them all. Sheesh... You would think I was being paid for these or something. Levi and I are in Oklahoma with the family. We arrived after a (thankfully!) non eventful car ride from New York on June 21. Thanks to my dad who flew into Buffalo, NY, we made excellent time and got to Oklahoma a day early. Levi did VERY well on the ride! We only had a couple melt downs that made me question the decision to drive 1,500 miles with a 3 month old. One in Springfield, MO made me understand those moms who freak out and yell at the gas station attendants who are working in a establishment without a changing station. I didn't yell or freak out, but I think the entire parking lot knew that Levi was EXTREMELY upset and that I was on the edge of screaming myself. Dad got us back on the road and we drove as quickly a...