New Years

It has been nice to have a somewhat slow week after last week. Reese did great in the car to and from Oklahoma and was pretty good- most of the time we were there. He decided while there that he would have his first no nap day- what a nightmare. Since we got home, we have been taking his pacifier away this week and it has been rough at nap time but I think in Oklahoma it was just that he wanted to party. We travelled in groups of 20 pretty much everywhere we went there. It was good to see our family and to get to visit.

I took Reese to the indoor bounce house for the first time today and he loved it. He has no fear and loved going through the maze, up the tall ladder and down the huge slide. That's my little climber. I am grateful for the recent weather because he has been able to play outside with his new toys and continue to show me that he is all boy.

Christmas and his bday went really well. His party went really well- just the right number of adults and kids. Its too bad it was 40 degrees since I had a bounce house (and 70 degrees 2 days before and after) but everyone still had a good time. His Christmas can pretty much be summed up in the word tractor. He got a john deer lawnmower he calls tractor as well as a tractor book, toy tractor, dump truck and a John Deere Gator. My sister gave us the gator (yeah for being the last of 4 boys in the family) and it doesn't have a battery so I feel ok with him playing in it. Problem is my nephew Conner got one with a battery a few days before for Christmas so now Reese is asking why his doesn't go and where is the key:) We will eventually buy a battery for it, but for now I am happy he cant drive it.

Reese is starting to talk up a storm and really but recognizable sentences together.

Rusty has been busy fishing with all of this time off. I think he is working like 4 days in a month- nice! He is off for the weekend hunting with my family. Its been a hard month for him:)

My mom came up yesterday to show us her new car and spend New Years together. I think this is our 3rd or 4th New Years to spend at the local Cotton Patch (so that we can eat our black eyed peas). For New Years Eve I went to our friends house to celebrate with our bible study group and then spend the night and New Years day watching my job run for work- gotta love 1/1 in the pension world. We successfully processed about 32,000 accounts and I am glad to have that over with.

Rusty has finally broken down and bought a new computer so I will be posting new pictures as soon as it arrives. It takes forever to do anything on the current one and I was pretty close to throwing it in the trash the other day!

Holiday Fun

So I have been hearing from you how long its been since I blogged and I couldn't believe it- Oct. I guess that's what happens when its year end and you are in the pension world! Just 2 more days and life will be good again. Whats so hard is this is my super busy season (50 hrs last week and I am scheduled for 24!) and Rusty is working 2 days in the next 2 weeks. Must be nice to be on an academic calendar!

The big news in our world is that after much talk and back and forth we are going on a vacation. I booked it this week so its for sure now. We will spend 4 days in Cabo San Lucas. We threw alot of ideas around but that's the one that seems to have stuck.

We are getting ready for a busy holiday season.
Sat we have family at our house for Christmas with Dad
Sunday we are off to celebrate with the Clarks
Monday we have Reese's bday party and Rusty is off to fish with Brad for 2 days
Wednesday we are off to Christmas with Mom
Thursday we are celebrating Santa and Reese's bday with my Mom and the Clarks
Friday Reese and I are headed out with my mom and sister to Oklahoma to visit family
We of course said as we do every year that we wont tour Texas during the holiday and of course we are! Now if I could just get some time to get a few toys for Reese

Reese is talking more and more everyday. Its often a challenge to understand what he is saying but "boat" ,"truck", "milk" and "juice" are by far the most frequent. He loves to look at Bass Pro catalogs and anything that involves the boat. He adores his father and all the cool toys he has:)

We are doing well and loving life more everyday.

Update

I cant believe how long it has been since I last blogged. It has been a busy month visiting friends and family. We have made several trips out of town and even a day at the farm.

I have been down with shingles for the past week. I almost feel like when I had mono- where you cant even move. I have been so lucky though that my in laws and my father were able to come and help out a few days. I did make it to Micah's baptism, but otherwise I was pretty much in bed for 4 days.

Reese is so unbelievably perfect for his grandparents- go figure. He is acting more like a 2 year old every day with his stubbornness and tantrums but we are making it just fine. He amazes me more every day. He is talking more and more and is my little buddy. His favorite words are boat and daddy of course. He talks non stop about the boat all day. He only wishes it was uncovered so it would be his own personal playground.

I will post more pictures soon.

Catch Up

Dressed up for church. Taking advantage of my ability to dress him cute until he is 2!

I love the way they are looking at each other. Good cousins!

I apologize that its been 2 weeks since the last posting. I will follow up from the prior posting and say that as hard as it is to mentally keep Reese up later, I have been doing that and he is back to a 2-3 hr nap. Who knew 12:30 vs 1:00 would make so much difference.

The highlight of my week was the return of Friday Night Lights. I was a bit disappointed in the episode, but so happy to have my favorite show back.

Last week Rusty was in Virginia all week for training. I was so lucky that it was coincidental that was the week my friend Stephanie was coming for a visit. She stayed for 3 days and then my dad made an impromptu stop on Thursday. On Friday night I went to a Junior League preview party at a local jewelry store with Amy and Angela. I didn't think it would be as much fun as it was. It was fun to dress up and go out for an adults only night. It took me a while but eventually I did get into the spirit of trying on $12,000 necklaces like it was no big deal. I think the best moment was the 40+ caret blue topaz ring that Amy tried on. I cant imagine who can wear a ring that big. The week flew by. Rusty returned home in the middle of the night on Friday. Sunday he spent the day at the lake, but Saturday he played with Reese all day and we had a great family day. I also had a chance to relax a bit and let the daddy son bonding occur around the boat outside.

Reese is OBSESSED with the boat. We nearly couldn't get him out the door to go to church on Sunday with it parked in the driveway. When we went outside he just stood on the slab screaming for the boat. It gets better because he saw a boat in someone elses driveway the other day and cried all the way home. I think he might be a boater one day- what do you think? We met my brother down at Bass Pro a few weeks ago and I think he was a little shocked how Reese got in the boat and acted like he knew what he was doing- opening compartments and all.

On a side note regarding my brother. After living with each sets of parents they did return home about a week and a half after the storm. A tree fell on the house but didn't cause major damage. They were very lucky because they had to condemn 43 houses in their neighborhood. I am very lucky that no one in my family had major damage- not to say that I don't have friends who do.

This past week has been a whirlwind. We have gone to the Children's Museum, played outside every day and had 2 dinner parties. Reese is such a good little boy and he is doing very well with his manners and learning to put things back where they go. It amazes me everyday how much he can do and how much he understands what I say. He doesn't speak a lot (at least that I can understand) but his favorite phrase right now is saying stuck. "I'm Stuck" is a common term in the house referring to him, food, toys etc that he cant get.

Reese and I are headed to the outlet mall on Monday and then on to see Grandma and Grandpa for a few days.

Why no nap?

I promise to post pictures very soon.

We have had another busy week. I was one of the few people who could actually work at my job last week so I was super stressed and busy holding down the fort for many others. I am glad the office is back up and running. In the meantime I had an impromptu dinner party and playgroup.

Angela offered me a ticket to the game this weekend and I had a blast. I hadn't been in many many years and definitely didn't have great seats the past few times I went. I felt like I was back as a band date at the 30 yard line. Rusty happened to be at the game because his cadets were doing the march in and the band performed at half time.

Yesterday Reese and I attended a church picnic with our Sunday school class. It was nice to see alot of my friends from the other campus. This is my 3rd picnic to go to solo- maybe one of these days Rusty can come and help me chase Reese all over the park!

Reese is really starting to act like a 2 year old. The tantrums are starting to really come out. He has not taken a real nap in 2 days so its been fun times around here. Exhausting! We had a great morning with a trip to the park and MOPS but a cranky afternoon. Poor little guy was scaling his crib at 6:45 tonight because he was so tired!

My friend Stephanie , her husband, and their 6 month old are coming for the next 3 days. Perfect timing since Rusty is gone all week to Virgina.

90210 and busy days

I have been crazy busy with extracurricular activities and have really fallen behind on posting new pictures and blogging. Everything seemed to get busy with the kick off of the school year(which is funny since none of us are in school). I started in a local MOPS group this week to add to the fun. Reese started his new Kindermusik class and loved it. We will go at 9 on Thurs so he will show up 30-40 min late to school on Thurs. Funny thing is this puts him at school just in time to straight to MDO music time. Double music time on Thurs for him.

Reese was very sick last weekend. but still took a day trip to Houston. Reese and I went down for a gymnastics 3rd birthday party and ended up getting to spend some time with my sister and her family as well.

Reese is doing well and didn't even make a peep amongst the hurricane winds last night.We have had a lot of strong wind but we are very lucky. The local Starbucks is even open- how silly is that. I had my bathtub full of water and had things unplugged and a few things moved up off the ground but I am of the camp that its better safe than sorry. I can still remember the sound of Kelley's bedroom window breaking in hurricane Alicia. I think Rusty finds it a bit amusing how I handle the storms vs him. It's sort of funny that he is home actually. Since he isn't attached to a unit he doesn't get called up for storm duty. This soldier is taking an afternoon nap

We still have power so I took the opportunity during his nap today to watch the new 90210. We don't have the CW on our satellite (I have called many times to complain) so I have to watch it on line. I thought it was pretty good. Between it,The Hills and my new found show Million Dollar Listing on Bravo, I think I should move to California. I would need many millions of course to buy a tiny house, but I could get used to the beach and sun year round. Life without hurricanes would be nice as well- but then there are the earthquakes to think of.

I was surprised by the new 90210. I watched every episode for 10 years of the old one. It is a bit nostalgic to me because my life when it started and my life now is so very different. Better now- just different. More responsibilities for sure. My biggest when it started was probably if some boy liked me and if I was going to get to hang out with my friends on the weekend. Its funny how you think everything is so tragic when you are a teenager and looking back its so silly. This is an issue I face alot when I spend too much time up at the sorority house. When Rusty was deployed and I was up there I sometimes wanted to say to the women when they were complaining "Send your husband off to war and then we will talk about a real problem". You all know I am too nice for that and only see the good in everyone but sometimes it would have been nice.

I thought Shannen D(Brenda) gave me the creeps and was very awkward when she and Jennie G(Kelly) try to play nice. Its so clear they don't like each other. I have been wanting to get Tori Spellings book where she talks about their fall out. Here is what I think- if 2 of them said Shannen was horrible- does she have a chance to win that fight. I do like how they did use Andrea's daughter and Kelly's sister on the show. It makes it tie back to the old one a bit more.

The show made me a little nervous for the life Reese will have in high school. I was so naive and never even knew where to find trouble. I used to think I wanted a girl, but then I think of the awkward teenage years and I think of how silly I was. Ang and I were just talking the other day about how we were crazy emotional and cried over everything- blame the hormones.

Guest bed

After 8+ years of marriage there are very few things that Rusty and I do not see eye to eye on. One of the areas that we never agree on is the guest bed. We have 2 guest bedrooms- each one with a full size bed and each with a desk. Rusty is constantly wanting me to take the bed out of his room so he has more space. My thoughts are that I gave up my huge beautiful desk (where I will add that I do earn a living unlike his desk where he looks at fishing web sites) to have a small desk and keep a guest bed once the nursery was made. Not to mention that in another few years one of the guest beds will become Reese's bed which leaves us with only 1 guest bed. No reason to get rid of one to buy one in a few years.

All of this to say that the guest beds are used alot. Its especially nice when we have guests during the week to utilize the bed in his room so that I don't wake up a guest at 6:30 am when I start working.

Bryan lived with us for 3 months this summer and stayed entirely in Rusty's guest room. Since he moved out on Aug 15 we have had the following house guests

• Bryan
• Marie(3 nights)
• Brittany (2 nights)
• My Dad
• Brook, Tracy,Robyn and Allyson
• Ryan

I think you see my point!

I meant to write this post yesterday and had it on my mind and then today I find out from Stacy that Rusty was talking about getting rid of the guest bed last night at bible study- ha! He wont be winning this one! As you can see we have plenty of space so come and visit

Since this is the biggest argument we have in our marriage, I think we are doing pretty well!