Oh this is bad

I blame facebook. Who blogs anymore when there is facebook to keep updated on. But I like reading everyone else's blogs and this is my little way of journaling to remember what these boys are doing. Gavin's latest thing is to try walking. He's taking a couple of steps here and there. And then he gets so excited he falls down. He does ok if he forgets what he's doing. He'll just let go, take a couple steps, and then giggle and fall. I'm only ready for him to walk because it's so nice outside and we are out a lot and it's better than crawling. I'm hoping if he's walking he won't notice all the stuff to stick in his mouth on the ground. Everything goes in his mouth. He has two little teeth on the bottom and that's it for now. But he is still teething constantly it seems. And I can't believe he is 10 months old already. Two more months and he'll be a year old. That just seems unreal. It's been almost a whole year. Time sure flies when you have kids. They grow up way to fast.

I've done a lot of work outside and I'm hoping to get our garden in today. My Dad and I put patio stones around my patio to make it bigger. My brother dug up my garden for me (although it needs it again). Tristan and I planted flowers in front of our house and we actually have little sprouts! I don't have the greenest thumb. It's more of a blackish thumb. So anything that grows is exciting.

We took a trip to El Paso for Easter to see Doug. El Paso is big, brown, just looks like it will be hot. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The little mountains are pretty. And the mountains are pretty close. We went to Ruidoso, New Mexico for the weekend and it was a very nice town. They even have snow skiing there. I've never been skiing, so maybe I'll finally get to try. I'm sure we will spend some time there. It will definitely take some time to find my way around there. I'm so not a city girl.

So much

So much has been going on lately, where to start? Well the move went ok. I was so sick the days the packers were there and for the drive up here. We had a couple of good guys, they worked long both days and decided they either needed another day or another guy. We have a LOT of stuff. But it got done. And on this end I see only one thing that got some damage. Not too bad. Of course I can't find the pegs for Gavin's bookshelf, but that's not broke, that's lost. So pretty good move. On move in day, we signed the lease, hurried to go through the house, the movers were here waiting to unload, they started unloading and it started raining. Luckily it wasn't to bad. We have a short driveway and they brought everything through the garage so it didn't get to wet. I had seen the floor plan for the house but not the dimensions, so I had no idea that it is smaller than our place at Knox. I didn't think it was possible to downsize from that. But the rooms here are smaller and awkward shapes. I didn't like it at first but now that I'm settled and a little unpacked, it's ok. I think I like it. The kitchen and living room are open to each other, so that's nice. I'm happy with the way things are set up now. And I really love that Tristan rides the bus to school and we are one house from the bus stop! Although that was some fun for a couple days. We went to his school on Thursday to finish registering him and met his teacher and class. He is the celebrity right now. They told us at the school that he is the last stop being picked up at 7:55, he gets to school at 8:05. Wow long bus ride. But on the way home he is the last stop and he wouldn't get to his stop until 3:50. School gets out at 3:00. So the secretary kind of whispered to me, the bus (and school) is K-8th grade, it's rowdy, if she was me she'd pick him up after school. So I said let's see how he likes it, if it's bad I will pick him up. I was kind of worried too about him being on the bus that long with all those big kids. So my parents and me and Doug are sitting here at 3:25 on Friday and my Dad says he thinks he hears a bus. I look out the window to the corner, no bus. Then someone is trying to open the front door (it really sticks). It's Tristan. He walks in shrugging his shoulders and says "I missed my stop, I didn't hear him call my name". No big deal, he just found his way to a new house on his first day at a new school, riding the bus for the first time. I couldn't believe it. He wasn't supposed to be home for another 25 minutes. So on Monday morning Doug asked the bus driver what time he gets to the stop in the afternoon and he said about 3:20. Well now that's not so bad. So yes he can ride the bus. Although Tristan missed his stop on Monday too, but he hasn't missed it again. Oh and big change from Kentucky that cracks me up. It was 29 degrees here one day and the kids went out for recess. It could be 40 in Kentucky and it was to cold for the kids to go out. Tristan's new school is pretty small and that might be a good thing. There is one kindergarten class with about 20 kids. And the school is K-8th grade and is smaller than his old school that was K-3rd. He seems to be adjusting well and making friends.

I didn't think it would be weird living back in Pekin, back "home", but what's weird is living here in my own house and being close to family. When I lived here, I lived at home. I never had my own place in Pekin. I never thought of that before. But it's strange to be so close to family and they can just stop by. Strange. But that was the whole reason to move here instead of Texas, so I can have my family (who I'm very close to oddly enough) here for help and support. And I can tell you not only are the kids going to be spoiled but me too. I'll miss having grandma and grandpa around for help.

Gavin is still growing up to fast. Grandma had the great idea of holding his hands and walking with him. So now that's all he wants to do. If you try to sit him down, he stays stiff, he wants to stand. He is standing at this little Pooh table we got him for Christmas and last night he cruised from that to his saucer. If there was more stuff to hold onto, I think he would be cruising. Tristan cruised around the coffee table, but I don't use a coffee table anymore. Tristan also got his first black eye on the coffee table. I still have the table, it's just a plant table usually. I don't know what it will be here. In the garage probably. But Gavin loves the new house because it has carpet and he can crawl so much better. He hunts me down here. He tries the kitchen first and then goes down the hall to the bedrooms. I love that he just crawls to a bedroom to play. It's usually Tristan's room, it has the best toys of course. And Gavin finally started saying Mom. I wake up to "Mom, ma, mommomom, mum, mom" It's just so sweet those first Mom's. It's not even close to his first word but it's his favorite to say now. His first word was hi. Then bath. Anyway Doug is coming back for Tristan's birthday (hopefully) and I figure at the rate we're going, Gavin will be taking his first steps.

Leaps and Bounds

I think Gavin has decided to grow up all at once. He just got it in his head to start doing everything. He's going to kill one of us. Either he's going to jump out of his crib or get some disease from chewing on the dogs toys, or he's going to give me a heart attack. I'll start with Friday night. I've been letting him "cry it out" finally to go to sleep. Friday night he fell asleep in my arms, so I know he was tired. I put him in his crib and of course he woke up the instant I put him down. So I let him cry. And he cried for 2 hours. I went in later to check on him and see how he fell asleep and I could hear him breathing but I couldn't see him in the crib. I freaked out, where did he go? It was dark in there so I couldn't see as well, but there was a bump in the bed. He pulled the sheet back somehow and was stuck under the sheet. His little face was down on the mattress, trying to breath. My biggest fear is that he is going to put his face down and not be able to breath, so I course I freaked out more. I got him out of there and made sure he was still breathing ok and thanked God that he was ok. So I don't let him cry for that long anymore and I always check on him to see how he's sleeping. Oddly enough though, he hasn't cried like that anymore. He cries for about 5-10 minutes and goes to sleep. Although Sunday night I went into his room when he was crying and he was on his knees holding onto his aquarium, looking over it to see out the door. And Monday morning he pulled himself to his knees on the side of the crib. So today I'm lowering the crib mattress. I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to do it until I moved, but last night he pulled himself to standing on me with no help, so to save myself some fear I'm lowering the mattress. He started crawling forward really well on the 13th, he learned to sit himself up on the 14th, and the 16th he learned to pull to a stand. He also has learned to get the finger foods in his mouth this past week. I'm expecting him to walk next week maybe.

Tristan wants to build an obstacle course out of wood all over post. He was telling me his big ideas yesterday while we were driving and one of the obstacle course things is to jump off the water tower. I said "you can't jump off the water tower, you'd get hurt and die." He said "no, with a parachute, you jump off and the parachute opens and you land." Oh that's better. I really think he would jump out of a plane or base jump if you gave him the chance. Gavin will probably follow him.

Ice, Ice, Baby

What else can I write about, but the ice storm. I even saw Louisville on Good Morning America. We got a couple inches of ice Jan 27 and boy did it do some damage. It coated the trees and brought down so many power lines. Our power here went off and on thru the night and finally went off at 5 am. Luckily, mine came back on at 5 pm that day. But some people are still without power around here. Louisville had like 180,000 people without power. What makes it so bad is the cold. It only got down to 65 in my house. I had closed the blinds and curtains to keep the heat in and put a big pot of water on the stove to boil all day just to put heat into the air. It worked. We still have ice on the ground now, it's just a sheet of ice in the yard because it'll heat up enough during the day to melt a little and freeze at night. But starting tomorrow we will be in the 50's and 60's. So we trade ice for mud. It looks like a tornado went through here though. There are just so many limbs down, it's amazing. And anyone with a fireplace could have as much firewood as they want from here. It's all piled up on every street. Here's a few of the pictures.

Thinking of Moving

This is such a different move for us this time. It's not to another Army base. It's to a place I know so well and family and friends that are close. To a house that my husband will not be living in with us. And I know roughly when my next move will be and where to. Since I got my moving dates today and made some clearing appointments, I guess it is starting to set in that we are moving again. I do like being an Army wife and I do like moving to new places, but we just moved into this house last May. I still have boxes I didn't unpack. And I always get sad, sentimental, nostalgic, etc., just thinking of all the memories we've made here. Maybe it's because my parents still live in the same house I grew up in and I can go back to that house and there's my bedroom, and the sidewalk where I learned to ride a bike. But I feel sorry for my boys. Tristan doesn't remember the first two houses he lived in. Gavin won't remember the first three. I know that this is just a house, our home travels with us. Home is where the Army sends you. But this is the house that we brought Gavin home to, where he's had so many "firsts". I thought the same thing when we left Germany. I miss those houses too. And even though this house is a little small and not enough storage space, I've finally adjusted to it. I will miss it. And I've been thinking of the other things I will miss and not miss about Fort Knox.

Things I'll miss:
1. Living across from an airfield and hearing and seeing the C130's and Apache's fly at tree top level on their approach.
2. The tanks and gunfire from the range down the street. Not as loud as in Germany but I can still hear them.
3. The bugle calls throughout the day and especially Taps played every night at 11:00pm. It's usually quiet enough in here that I hear it. And every night it's a reminder that so many of our soldiers are still at war and so many never came back. I will really miss that.
4. The friends I've made here, although most of them have moved already, I still miss them.

Things I'll not miss:
1. Going through a gate every time to get on and off post.
2. My new neighbors.
3. Some of the ridiculous Army stuff.

Anyway, it's time to start the countdown to moving day. Time to clean, organize, and purge the house. Again.

I finally went through the 370 Christmas pictures. And here's a few of the good ones.

Doug made it to Texas ok and is now in Fort Irwin, California. I'm still making plans to move to Pekin. I feel like I'm operating on half brain capacity right now though. Gavin has not slept through the night since we went to visit family for Christmas. It was enough of a schedule change, or change in bed, or location, noises, I don't know what but he has gotten used to waking up like every hour. I finally gave in to the dark side last night, I let him sleep in bed with me. It was easier to get him back to sleep that way and I finally got a little more sleep. He has started to really scoot backwards and just today got up on his knees to crawl. No forward crawling yet but he does do a little low crawl/scoot somehow. I know because twice I've found him chewing on the dog's toys and once he was chewing on the newspaper. This kid is going to keep me on my toes. Tristan was such a good kid I could leave anything laying out and he didn't bother it. I never really baby proofed with Tristan. Gavin will stick anything and everything in his mouth. He had his 6 month check up and he is 17.7lbs and 27 inches. He's my little butterball baby. My little butterball, but he is moving all over. With any luck he'll wear himself out and finally start sleeping all night again!

Fun, Interesting, and Exciting News

Or something like that. So to make a long story a little shorter....
Doug got an email on December 17, from his new battalion commander wondering where he was. Seems while Doug was in Fort Stewart for four months, orders came in here and the personnel guy put them in a file cabinet and forgot about them. So the brigade got his orders in September, we found out on Dec 17. We were supposed to be in Fort Bliss, Texas. Doug is on his way there now, he cleared and is hurrying to join them and go to Fort Irwin in a couple days. He is deploying in May-ish. Since the timing was short and horrible and in no way do I want to live in Texas, I'm staying here for now. Our big plan is that when he gets done at Fort Irwin, he will get things straightened out at Bliss and then come back here to move us. And I hopefully will not be going to Bliss. I'm moving to Pekin! He's going to be gone for a year, I don't want to go to Bliss and certainly not to live there by myself, so I'm not. I will be the wimpy Army wife and go home for a year. I'm actually kind of excited about it. And then when he comes back from overseas, we will move to Bliss. The only nice thing I know about the place is the housing seems nice. Otherwise all I've heard is that the crime rate is high and trucks get stolen often. We went to the zoo in Louisville last Saturday, and while we were in the desert house I was looking at the habit range for all the tarantulas, scorpions, snakes, yep they live in Texas. More reasons I do not want to move there. I've always said, kind of jokingly, that Kentucky is as far south as I want to go. I kind of meant it. I don't like the heat. I know I'm being a wimp, but I don't care. My parents are on the search for a rental house for me. Tristan is excited to move to Pekin too. I'm not happy about moving in the middle of the school year like this, but it's going to happen in the Army so might as well get used to it.

Anyway, we had a busy Christmas holiday as usual. And I will put pictures on next time, I haven't even put them on the computer yet. We did our family Christmas here at home, then took down the tree, packed up and went to Lockport. We definitely had a white Christmas up there. It was nice and brutally cold. I like it, but it's hard to do anything outside with the kids. I worry about them being warm enough, especially Gavin. Tristan got a cold while we were there, so he didn't get to go sledding like we planned. But we saw all the family and had a nice Christmas Eve and day there. Then we drove down to Pekin, saw some of the family, we went ice skating, and Doug and I went to a movie alone. We came home and Doug started clearing post and getting ready to leave.

And that is all the news for now. There will be big changes coming soon.