Bethany Jane's mobile Mom made

It's been a while since I blogged but as the day draws nearer to my precious little girl, Bethany Jane's, birth, Mom said I should blog about yesterday and today. So, here goes. Yesterday, I went to my OB appointment and I am happy to report that I am 3 cm dilated and 80% effaced! Because of this, my Mom decided to come on up in hopes that I would go on into labor and Bethany would come. I am only hoping Bethany doesn't decide stay put for several more days because Mom won't be staying if she hasn't come by Tuesday. I say Tuesday because I have an appointment scheduled 8:40 AM that morning.  Mom will stay to hear what the doctor has to say before deciding whether to head home to continue the wait. I am hoping that Bethany decides to come before my appointment. But if I do make it then, at least, I hope I get some good news that will keep Mom here!

With that said, today I am having very irregular contractions and still NO Bethany. Yes! I know she WILL come soon BUT the sooner the better! Anyway, while waiting for something to happen my Mom and I made this mobile for Bethany's room. Okay - it was mostly Mom but I DID push pin holes through the circles so she could thread them AND I kept her company. That has to count for something - right? Besides, I AM VERY PREGNANT so even pushing a pin through a piece of card stock paper takes a LOT of effort. I posted a picture of the mobile for all to see.

Well, that's about all this preganant girl has to blog about tonight because I am tired and I want to get some rest in case Bethany decides to come tonight. Hopefully, my next blog will be to tell you that she is here!

It's been awhile..

Where to begin...I'm pregnant!!:) That statement explains a lot. We found out we were pregnant the Monday before I turned 6 weeks. At first it was good and then about week 8 I got into a funk. I had no motivation to do ANYTHING (clean, cook, computer related, phone related, TV, on and on). I definitely made myself take care of the boys, and thankfully Josh only went to two 10 min formations a day for about 2 weeks. I had evening/night sickness and was usually in bed by 8 so I wouldn't have to deal with it. Now, I am 15 weeks and feeling 99% better. I wake up after about 10 hours of sleep, get all my "chores" done before lunch, feed the kids take a nap, naps usually last about three hours while Liam sleeps and Charlie watches a movie in my bed. By the time I get up Josh is usually getting home from work(gets off at 4) cook dinner and ready to go to bed by 9:) It's a pretty good system, although writing it all out sounds really lazy..but hey, I'm Pregnant:)

In other news, Josh is in his new unit. He is currently learning Spanish, and doing really well. His motivation and diligence is very inspiring. Goes in at 9 and home by 4 which is really nice! I am very thankful God called him to this job.

The boys are doing good. Charlie will be starting school in Sept and he is super excited. He is such a big helper and I am so thankful to have him as my oldest. He understands that I am pregnant and seems to have so much compassion towards me not feeling well or having any motivation, truly a gift from God.  Liam is starting to talk a lot more and in sentences which is nice and super cute...A few of his favorites are "I can't get it." (even when he can) and "I got my bottle." He also says "yay" when he does something I tell him too..I love this age!

The boys and I are going to the beach in two weeks with my side of the family, and I am looking forward to it. Josh isn't able to go which is sad but he is totally supportive of us going. I love being able to participate in family vacations. It's hard living far away and missing out on weekend visits.

Well that's pretty much the update. Time to go to bed:)

GA visit..so far

Josh is changing units which means we got a two week block of leave! I love coming down to visit with our families and friends. It's especially nice to get a break from the everyday life. My parents have a wonderful fenced in backyard with a pretty cool swing set that the kids love to play on, and I don't really worry about them as much with the yard being fenced. Not to mention Granny lives right next door, and the boys love running over and seeing her. They also seem to sleep later in the morning when we are here, probably due to how much they play and staying up later so they can spend time with Papa and Gigi!  A little of what we have done so far..

We happened to be down on Josh's and my anniversary. It was so nice! My Mom took the day off so we got the whole day to celebrate! We went and ate lunch at Beef O' Brady's and then went to Tally and used a movie gift card to watch a movie. Then we came back to Thomasville and swam a little at Josh's parents and then they took us to a really nice dinner at Jonah's. It was SO delicious and nice to spend some time with his family! All around nice day!

Sunday. Dad, Mama, me and the boys went down to Shell Point and Wakulla Springs. It was pretty hot but we had a lot of fun. We spent a couple hours out on the beach and then drove over to Wakulla Springs and rode the boat. The boys loved it, especially Charlie. He loves animals, and we saw a lot. Birds, Fish, Turtles, two manatees, and several crocodiles. The first crocodile we saw, Charlie said "OK, let's go" It was pretty big and I think being that close to one startled him but after the 3rd or 4th we saw he kept asking to see more.

This coming Saturday we are planning on riding over to Dothan to Water World. Pretty good price and should be a great little water park that the boys will love. They LOVE playing in water!

All our other time has been filled with swimming at Josh's parents, hanging out at my parents, Josh hanging out with his brothers (Amos and Ryan) in Valdosta, eating good dinners with Granny, having play dates, seeing friends, spending time with extended family and relaxing! Still have a week of fun left!!

Weekend

It's been an ok weekend.

Josh had CQ(24hour watch of the single soldier buildings) on Saturday which started at 9 am and went til 9 am on Sunday. He'll sleep all day so not really a weekend spent with him. He did get ordersOn Thursday to a new unit so he won't have to do CQ for awhile! He's new unit is a training unit for the job he'll do for the rest of his time in the Army, which we are pretty sure will be until he is able to retire. As of right now we are set to move at the end of next year to FL,  Fort Walton Beach area, so I am ok with him making this a career :) All given over to God!

Liam has not be sleeping good at night or taking very long naps, and it's been wearing me out. I changed him to a toddler bed because he climbed out of his crib onto the dresser and I thought that meant time for a toddler bed. It's been about two weeks but I am thinking that he doesn't feel comfortable in the toddler bed. So today I put the crib back together and made sure I didn't put anything beside it that he could climb on to. Trial and Error, right? I am hoping this gets him back to his 12 hour nights and 3 hour naps!

This made me lol...While I was putting the crib together Smokey(the dog) and Charlie were down stairs. Charlie came up and I asked him what Smokey was doing, and he said, "He has to get his tail." hahaha. Smokey loves chasing and getting in weird positions to get his tail. Funny how Charlie worded it.

Today (Sunday) the kids and I went to church. Pastor Michael Fletcher is doing a 4 week series on Questions. Today was the first one I went to, it was pretty good. He is a really good preacher, really down to earth and real! With all the talk of Jesus coming back yesterday he made a short comment about it that I thought was really good. He qouted Matthew 28:18-20  Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” He said I don't think Jesus wanted us to sit and calculate when He's coming back, rather go and share Him with everyone we know...good point huh? 

Well I guess it's time to go, Liam is awake.

Power of Prayer

So a little background to catch you up to speed....While Josh was gone to his month long training in April I went to Thomasville to spend time with the family. Shortly before I left my mom and I talked about losing weight and helping each other, well last week she calls and tells me she has lost 11 pounds...UMMM HELLO!! Way to go Mom, not so much on the way to go Alison:( I have only lost 2 pounds since we decided to start this weight lost thing. So that day I knew something had to change and I needed to get my butt in gear. I couldn't let me my mom out do me...lol. That night my friend invited me to Yoga! It was a lot of fun and hard and relaxing and nice to get away and be by myself! I thought I could totally get use to this and on my way home I prayed that God would give me the motivation and the desire to workout and eat right. Well the next day I went on a run/walk..I ended up running a mile and walking 3. It was AWESOME. I had on this cool shirt that had a nifty little pocket that held my MP3 player perfectly. While I was on this run/walk I took the time to  hear and mediate on God. I put my MP3 on shuffle and prayed that every song would be God picked. Well about half way through I was getting tired and then this song came on called "You Are for Me" by Kari Jobe..I just have to say WOW! It was just what I needed. The song in a nut shell is what the title is, about how God is for me. I don't think I have felt the presence of God so strong in a long time. God was answering my prayer, prayer to get serious and have help losing weight. But in the bigger picture I felt like God was telling me that He is there and that He cares, even about the little things, like losing weight, and all I have to do is pray and ask. Which is something I have been struggling with. I of course pray but when I ask for things I don't really feel like I deserve the wants and the needs that I have, so I usally just pray and then not really expect them to be answered. Of course I don't deserve anything, but thankfully God isn't a God that gives us what we deserve. He is a gracious, loving, merciful, caring God and that is what I am being re-taught, and I say re-taught because I know, but sometimes I let the world and satan cloud what I know. And as I sit and write this out I see that I am definitely being tested this week (who knew blogging could be an eye opener). Just today I gave into my circumstances and didn't pray, but at the end of the day God worked it, and all is well and good! And as far as the weight loss, I have been doing REALLY good. I've been working out and eating right, which is definitely making me feel better about myself:) and showing me know that God is still with me and for me. It's a great feeling!

Now I'm off to pray that Josh will come home or atleast call me...Oh Army!! :)

Growing Up

Talk about a full week of my boys growing up! Thursday we went and signed Charlie up for Pre- K. He'll be going 5 days a week from 8 to 11. He is SO excited and has been asking every day if he can "just go to school" .It might be a long summer..haha. It is so hard for me to believe he is old enough to be going to school. When I took him to get his school shot the nurse asked me how old he was and I said 4 in total disbelief, looking at him thinking there is no way my baby could be that old. I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday and how I thought we would never make it through a day of school due to how clingy he was to me. And now going to school is all he can talk about. They grow and change so fast, and it's definitely bitter-sweet,

To add to our growing up week. Liam decided that it would be a good idea to climb out of his crib Thursday night and get on top of the changing table. It scared me and I think it scared him too. He was crying and had a very scared look on his face when I went to check on him. So back to bed he went and the changing table was moved out of the room. Then first thing Friday I went to the store and bought a toddler bed. Josh and I came to a decision that we would rather him roll off a toddler bed a couple nights then try and climb out of his crib and fall. Well when night came and we laid him down I couldn't take my eyes off the video monitor. I was so worried and started doubting if it was too soon. Then after about two-three hours of staring at him and nothing going wrong and I realized my worry was really just sadness of my little man being big enough to be OK in a toddler bed. He only woke up once but went right back to sleep and he never rolled off.

Where does the time go? My sweet little baby boys aren't babies anymore. I am so very proud of them though. Charlie is such an awesome little boy with so much personality and sweetness. He loves helping out around the house and will do anything I ask him with so much excitement. He randomly says "I love you and I really love Daddy" and always asks to give me a hug and a kiss.   And Liam is just a bundle of joy. He loves giving hugs and kisses and he is so cuddly. My favorite thing is how he calls me "Ma" and Josh "Da" I love my boys and God definitely knew what He was doing when He gave them to us!

And with all this growing up the crib is now empty ;)

My first blog EVER

I don't really read blogs and I never really had an itch to start one, but I thought I could jump on the bandwagon and try it out. My days are usually filled with lots of interesting things that my kids do, crazy and insigthful things Josh says, the dog driving me crazy, and random other little thing, so I am not promising it's going to be interesting, but it definitely will be fun for me to write it all down.  Hope you enjoy whatever it is that's to come!