A Little Bit of Life

Well, I guess when I said to check back in a few days, I really meant about a week. Oops. Sorry about that. I got caught up in.... life...  I guess. Honestly, we haven't had much going on and that is partly (maybe mostly) because Hubs has been gone for the last month. He was doing Army business in Thailand, so I've been a single mommy... which is nothing new for us Army wives. Not that I'm complaining! It's been tons of fun potty training Jax by myself ;) All kidding aside, I don't like to make it public knowledge that I'm home by myself, so I haven't said anything. However, as we speak Ryan is getting on a plane from DFW to Fayetteville, so I think I'm safe now!

I've actually been very focused on getting our house as pretty as possible. We have two showings tomorrow (pray for us!) and, since I've been home alone, all the getting ready has been up to me. It's actually been relaxing to clean all the little things and organize things and touch up paint and trim the shrubs. Well, maybe not that last one. But the rest of it has been lovely. It makes me excited to get out of here and back to sunny California.

I've been keeping Jax with very little to no clothes on all day so that he doesn't mistake underwear for diapers. But this means that all the pictures of him over the past 2 weeks are  either half-naked pictures, or full-frontal. This is also why I haven't been posting as much, because really, who wants to read posts with no pictures? Every once and a while it's appropriate, but most of the time it's no fun that way! 

I'll leave you, friends, with some cute things Jax has said recently....

Yesterday, I had asked him to put his shoes on. His reply? "The wheels on the bus say no no no!" I swear, he is the funniest kid I know!

He has also informed me that for Halloween he would like to be a pirate, a truck, a cowboy with a horsie, a robot, Thomas, and "Ka-chow" (aka Lightening McQueen). This kid sure has a lot of requests!

I can't believe we are already thinking about Halloween costumes! Bring on the fall weather and the pumpkin flavored yummies!!

Potty Training 101

This is a post about pee and poop... so if that turns you off, come back in a few days :)

Jax has been doing really good so far with potty training. I'm still so impressed that he's not even 2 1/2 and he's consistently peeing on the potty. And yesterday, he pooped on the potty for the first time!! I had a little mini freak-out... in a good way.

So here's what I've learned so far in the week that we've been potty training--

1- Offering a treat is good, except when the kid realizes that potty=treat and subsequently wants to pee every 3 minutes.

2-Offering a "big treat" for poop is good, except when the kid realizes that poop=big treat and subsequently wants to poop every 3 minutes (luckily this only lasted one day).

3-Big public potties are scary. And sometimes they flush on their own. Not good for a just-learned-to-pee-on-the-potty kiddo.

4-Buy a folding potty seat to solve #3... and hope that he'll stop saying "No thanks Mommy" every time you bring it out.

5-Pee and poop go IN the potty, not on the floor. Sometimes this is hard to remember. (For him, not for me)

6-Even though there will be accidents, celebrate each success with lots of clapping, cheering, high-fives and bear hugs. Jax insists on the last one :)

Any tips from you, friends??

More Randoms

We had a very lazy day yesterday because I was focused on getting our house ready to sell. We are selling it by owner, so I'm really trying to get it out there and noticed. Check it out HERE

This morning we had a friend and her kiddo over to play. Asher and Jax had fun running around, and of course bickering over toys! Ha!

Other exciting news, I'm potty training Jax!!


I had no intentions of doing it right now... Every time I sat Jax on the potty, he just wanted to get off. I figured it would be awhile before he was really ready. He had all the other signs of being ready, but he would never actually go. Then yesterday he pulled his diaper halfway off so I decided to see if he wanted to potty, and he did!! He quickly figured out that potty=treat, so he's been going more frequently than necessary, but he pees almost every time. He doesn't always go on the potty, but I didn't have to change his diaper all day today! I hope this new development sticks!

On Monday and Tuesday we were dog sitting our friends' doggy, Carina. Jax lovers her a lot and showed it by slightly abusing her ;) She was so good and just let him play around with her!



We were driving home after dropping Carina off on Wednesday and I saw this beautiful sunset! I love when the light from the sun shines rays out from behind the clouds! A phone picture really doesn't do it justice.


It's amazing how much kids copy things that they see you doing. Little things that would never even occur to you. Like putting sunglasses on your head! He's been doing this all week!


I'm always posting pictures of Jax but we can't forget about my first baby, Mojo. This is her usual position in the evenings on the couch with me. She's such a sweet girl!


I took Jax to our neighborhood park yesterday morning because the weather was much cooler than it has been recently. Jax was using this stick and saying "Mama, I'm digging for gold!" then when he would find a tiny twig, he would get super excited and say "GOLD!!!". Ha!


He's always making me smile!

Randoms

We've been busy with swimming, gymnastics, mommies group, and running all kinds of errands (as always!) but it's been a good week. Here's some pictures from the past few weeks. I actually have more from the past few days but I'll post them this weekend. Enjoy these for now!

Jax got this TeeBall set for his birthday and he loves it!



We go to Barnes And Noble pretty regularly to play with the Thomas train set. Jax was very set on wearing his hat... backwards :)



Mom and I made this pizza while she was here. Fresh mozzarella, corn, onions, red bell peppers, garlic, parmesan cheese... Yummmm-o! The recipe is from the July Cooking Light magazine, with a few of my own tweaks.



Again, Jax is wearing his hat backwards. He's pretty obsessed with hats these days!


One of Jax's favorite games is to turn the laundry basket into a car. He sits in it and we push him around. And by we, I mean Ryan, because Mommy get too tired too fast!



Happy Friday, friends!

Chahhhhhleston

That's Charleston for all y'all non-Southern folks :)

While my mom was here, we decided to take a little trip down to Charleston for a few days. It's about 4 hours away and neither of us had ever been. We spent last Wednesday evening scouring the Internet for hotels and ideas about what to do there. There really is SO much to do, we had to pick and choose what we wanted to do the most.

{Unfortunately, the weather was really hot and humid (something I'm more used to, but my mom is not) and it really got in the way of a lot of the things we would have liked to do. }

Thursday after gymnastics, we loaded up the car and headed South. The drive was very easy and Jax did a great job. We checked into the hotel just before dinnertime, then headed downtown to find a place to eat. We had planned on checking out a restaurant that had gotten some great reviews... but their AC was broken and it was miserable in there! We decided to wander a little and we came across this little gem, Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Que. It was AMAZING!

(I couldn't get a good picture of the little wiggle worm :) )

I am so glad that we ended up there instead of the first place!

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel because we had promised Jax that we could go swimming in the "heated" indoor pool. Apparently heated just means room temperature-ish, because the pool was not very warm! After that, we headed back to the room to try to get some sleep (which is hard when sharing a bed with a 2 year old).

The next day, we headed to Boone Hall Plantation.

It's considered to be the most photographed plantation in the US.

Parts of The Notebook were filmed there! (Side note- we came home and had to watch the movie, of course. The plantation was used for the outside shots of Alli's family's summer house. It was fun to compare the movie with the pictures that we have!)

After the plantation, we found a place close by to eat lunch. Then we jumped in the car to drive to the oldest living thing east of the Rockies, the Angel Oak Tree. It was about 30 minutes away and we knew it would be perfect for Jax to be able to get a quick nap. The tree was HUGE, and the limbs had to be supported because they were draping all the way down to the ground. It was beautiful!

We left the tree and headed back to downtown to go to the Children's Museum of the Lowcountry. It's bigger than our kid's museum and Jax had a lot of fun!

We went from the museum to go eat dinner at Jestine's Kitchen. It's famous for having Rachael Ray eat there on her show $40 A Day. Anthony Bourdain has also eaten there. I have to say, I wasn't super impressed. We got the "famous" meatloaf, and it wasn't good at all. The sides were better, and the mac n cheese was delish! They did have good desserts, but overall we were kinda disappointed.

After dinner, we wandered over to the ocean and walked up and down some paths lining the waterfront. We also let Jax play in this water fountain.

He LOVED it!

The next day, we went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Obviously not a local restaurant, but it's always so yummy and it was close to the hotel!

We packed up, checked out of the hotel, then headed to the South Carolina Aquarium. The tickets were pricey, plus you have to pay for kids older than 1, so we had really been debating about going. We ended up deciding to check it out. When got there, I asked if it was really necessary to pay for my 2-year-old. They ended up letting Jax in for free! I was so glad they did because it was a bit of a disappointment. We are used to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and this one was much smaller and had fewer exhibits. It was still fun to look at all the pretty fish!

Overall, Jax had fun and it was a good way to end our wonderful time in Charleston!

PS- Half of the pictures are from the camera, and the other half are from my phone... sorry about the blurriness/coloring in those ones!

Mercies in Disguise

As most of you know, we have been struggling to get pregnant with another baby. We have officially been trying for a year and it's really taken a toll on me. I get so discouraged and am consistently in a negative mood, which is no good for Ryan or Jax. I have my ups and downs but there seems to be a lot more down than up over the past year and a half.

Over the past week, I've really felt things shifting towards positiveness... Is that a word?! I've had multiple people tell me that they have been praying for me/us, and that they feel as though God is preparing me for the future. That I will remember this difficult time in order to be a witness and support for others who are going through something similar.

I've also come across the song "Blessings" by Laura Story multiple times over the past week. One person suggested it to me through a text and two other people posted it on Facebook. I think God is trying to tell me something! Check it out on YouTube or download it through iTunes. I've been playing it over and over and over... And clinging to every word! Here's the chorus...

What if Your blessings come through raindrops?
What if Your mercies come through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near?
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?



This morning during my quiet time, I was looking up "promise" verses and come across 2 Corinthians 1:21-22. This is what it says,
"Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set His seal of ownership on is, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (Emphasis mine)

That last line just really got me. His Spirit is a deposit in our hearts as a guarantee of His promises. Amen and amen!

I hope that song and that verse can be an encouragement to any of you who are struggling, like it has been for me!!

Swimming Lessons at the Pool

I have been trying to get Jax into swimming lessons on post (Ft. Bragg) since June. For one reason or another, it just hadn't worked out. I accidentally signed him up for the wrong one, then had to cancel it. Then we had visitors the next month. Then I missed the sign-ups and the class was full.

A few weeks ago, I finally got him registered! We had almost missed it again... he was the first person on the wait list, but thankfully someone dropped out. I swooped in and picked up their spot as soon as I saw it was available.

It is 30 minutes twice a week for 4 weeks.

We are halfway done and so far it has been a lot of fun!

I've been putting Jax in the pool and under the water since he was just a few months old. I know that it's the best way help kids feel comfortable in water as they grow.

I'm so happy that Jax is old enough to learn actual pool skills

and really enjoy himself while he's swimming!!

3 birthdays later...

This past Tuesday was my birthday... which got me thinking about how big my not-so-little-anymore boy is getting!

He was born 2 months before I turned 23

(and had an extra 20+ pounds on me. Blah!)

Last year we were in California while Hubs was deployed

This year we are back home, and my mom was here to celebrate!

It's been a very rocky year, but we have so much to look forward to over this next year. I can't wait to see what God has in store for us!

A Break

I don't have a ton to say right now except that I'm taking a small blogging break... Probably about 2 weeks. In all honesty, I've been having a rough time. After the good news about our fertility testing, I thought this month might be THE month. And then I was a few days late. I started getting my hopes up way more than I should have, especially after multiple pregnancy tests came back negative. Then my monthly un-friend showed up. So needless to say, I'm not having an easy time. I'm having a big pity party with lots of "why me's?". So I need a break. I know my God is good and faithful, but I'm having a hard time understanding why He has put us in this place. I will take all the prayers I can get. Thanks, friends.