Near and Far

About a year ago I blogged about things that came out of my then 2 year old toddler's mouth. He still says some of the most random, hilarious, and infuriating things, but now I'm discovering that I say some phrases that I NEVER expected to say. Never, ever expected to say. "Gentle love! We love our brother gently!"                   - I know this is a battle that I will possibly never win, but whatever we can do to get Cam to his second birthday. "Let go of Cameron's neck!" "We do NOT put straws found in the Target parking lot in our mouths." "How many more screws did you swallow?!"                     -He swallowed one and threw it up pretty quickly and was fine afterwards. I, on the other hand, was not. "Why are you eating leaves out of the tree?" "I heard you when you said that you like to wear your underwear backwards and inside out, but your butt is not fully covered w...

Everyone has a life experience or two (or more) that completely changed them. Changed them as personaly, emotionally, mentally, physically, and about any other way a person can be changed. For me it happened three years ago at 2:30 am on March 23, 2012. I woke up not feeling well. I was nine months pregnant so waking up not feeling well had become a very common occurrence. This time it was different. For about two hours I got up and went to the bathroom until it felt like the cramping was getting closer. I attempted to wake Ross up in the calmest and quietest way I could, but when you nudge a future dad and say "I need you to wake up and help me time these contractions", they don't seem to stay calm.  We called my doctors office to see what to do next, even though the contractions weren't regular and were still more than 5 minutes apart. We were those  first time parents. LABOR IS SCARY! My doctor was on a mission trip in Haiti, so his partner returned ...

For years now my mom, sister-in-law, and grandma have gotten together to go Christmas shopping in Oklahoma City. I missed out on going with them the three Christmas' we lived in New York, but was always taunted by the Cheesecake Factory picture :) Since we are back in OK I was able to join in on the shopping fun for a day this year. The event as a whole has not changed much over the years (except that now we are buying for a LOT more kiddos), but this was the first year to ever take kids along. I learned a few things both about shopping with kids and about my insane two year old. I have been told that Levi resembles Ralphy from "A Christmas Story" a few times lately. He's blond, round faced, blue-eyed, and has an ornery look most of the time. I get the resemblance for sure, but there are moments when I'm terrified that he may really be Ralphy. Levi looks oddly similar at times. Every Christmas Eve I try to take in the movie "A Christmas Story" a...

This whole pregnancy thing really puts a damper on buying clothes and liking the way they look. And why must they make so many maternity shirts with horizontal stripes? As if we didn't feel wide enough, let's put fabric that will create circles around your ever growing belly. Cool. Thanks "designers". But thankfully I have discovered something that is the perfect size and is typically on sale! Bath and Body Works candles and Wallflowers. I do not have to worry about the size I purchase, because it is already done for me. I don't have to worry about it shrinking in the wash and being too short or too tight. I do not have to look in the mirror at yet another grey shirt with horizontal stripes. And I am happy. On a particularly bad "I'm pregnant and fat" day, I waddled myself into the mall and spent a silly amount of money at Bath and Body Works. When warning Ross before he could tease me about it when he saw it on the bank statement, my exact words...

If you have ever wanted to know what kind of insane things will continually come out of your mouth as a parent, just wait until you have a mocking bird of a 2 year old to repeat it all. We have encountered certain things coming out of Levi's tiny mouth that make us laugh hysterically and some that make us cringe with shame. Ah parenthood, how you humble us so. Levi is a talker. He talks a lot. There is very few breaks in the day where he is quiet and not jabbering about something. Whether it be now taking possession of most things in our life (I think this is due to the recent move and his want for normalcy) and referring to things as "my (insert noun)", to saying my warning phrases I use when he is in trouble. Here are some of the most recent gems and I'll provide how they are perceived in our world. "My Nuno (Juno)"- We like this a lot. He loves his dog, but he has an odd way of showing it by randomly hitting her with anything he can grasp. The dog is ...

Disclaimer: First paragraph is a little insight on how my brain bounces. Please remember this as you bounce along for the rest of the blog :) I have very little patience. My mind goes in thirty directions, takes four U-turns, and then starts taking hard lefts and rights. My brain in a funny thing and my mind is an odd place. Add some pregnancy (yep, it happened again) hormones, and things just get really strange. While pregnant with Levi, I watch Scarface. A lot. Actually, I watched quite a few gangster/mob themed movies. They aren't typically my favorite movies, but for some reason tiny baby Levi inspired me to watch them often. I'm not really into Scarface with Baby #2, but my mind has definitely not been what I was classify as "normal". I have NO memory, rational decision making skills(poor Ross), desire to eat healthy food, or many other things that I normally would be perfectly capable of doing. Tonight, for instance, I attempted to put the leftovers from s...

When I was writing the update post on Thursday it came to my realization that I never did a blog about when Ross came home. At the time it felt like a very personal experience that I wasn't sure I wanted people to be a part of, but then I remembered how many people we had backing our little family up for that time and I think it was a pretty awesome moment in our lives. So, here we go. Four and a half months late, but here is that amazing night. Ross had left his FOB a week or so before, but thankfully we had a website that kept us at home updated when the welcome home ceremony would be. To most that was not needed, but for some reason Ross and I had very little contact that week and I was very happy for that website. We were the fourth or fifth ceremony from this particular deployment and every single one had been delayed anywhere from 3-30 hours late. I was a little internally torn on this, because our ceremony was scheduled to be at 2:30 am and I was not looking forward to t...