Can I please punch someone?!

Not really. I mean, it might feel good, but I'd rather save someone the embarrassment of getting their ass kicked by a pregnant woman and just hit a punching bag instead. OOOO...kay.

So we still haven't been picked for orders yet. Big sigh. It's getting down to the wire, and super stressful. In a perfect world, we would've known where we were going by now, and we'd have "hard" orders cut, and we would be making new living arrangements, or buying a house, or those kinds of things. But no. We are set to move in November, and still have absolutely no freaking idea where that will be. Honestly, I wouldn't be complaining (well maybe a little bit) if I wasn't pregnant and worried about where my family will be living for the next 3 years, not to mention, with a newborn. What if we have to move to another country? Shoot, even Hawaii (which hands down I am loving the idea of more and more every day) would be tough because of flying with a newborn, and the rules about quarantining our dog for X amount of days. Even though it's a "state" it's an island and they worry about disease and whatnot. I get it. But it would still be stressful. The whole topic is stressful, but it is nice to know and very reassuring that some people in Hubby's command have his back and are trying to help us.

Then there's this "family" issue. It just seems like everyday, family feels further and further away. NOT everyone, but some are just becoming more and more distant. "Some" is really fine with me, but it's still hard because no matter what, it is family and even if you want to be close (in a communication sense) maybe it's better to not be. It's a hard pill to swallow, but I guess unless you really really really try hard enough, people just grow apart. Even family members. It's really not a "new" issue, but it seems like things are spreading thin these days.

I've been a pretty diligent "pinner" these days. I've got soooooooo many "crafts" I want to do before (if) we leave WA. I get so excited about doing it, but to actually physically go out and find the stuff and sit down to make it seems exhausting. Not really exhausting, but more like the only time I'd be able to do it is when little man is napping and well, I'm selfish. That's "me" time for blogging, or watching [grown-up] TV, or working out, or doing homework. I need to find a balance with things...and soon. (Like, before October soon!) Ok, well, with all of that being said, I'm going to make a schedule for myself. Like, divide nap time up into 30 minute intervals of things I want to do. That really only gives me 4 tasks to be completed, but that's better than none right?! Holla...getting organized already!

And of course I must leave a picture for you all to see :) Later Gators!

(Forgive the scratches in the screen...Bear is a baby when he wants to come inside)

And SPEAKING of Bear...this video kind of makes me laugh. He barks, hears his echo, and barks at it. It makes me laugh :) And I need a good laugh today.

Building. Playtime. S'mores.

I have two very busy guys in my life. Soon to be THREE busy guys in my life...I can already tell baby child is going to be a busy body because he is WAY MORE ACTIVE in my tummy than little man was! Hubby got a preview of that last night. We were watching Battleship and baby child was kicking and moving around so much, so I grabbed Kev's hand and put it where all the movement was going on and his face just lit up. But anyways...we stay pretty busy, especially on the weekends, and especially when it's sunny outside!! But my boys had a project the needed to finish for me, and well, it got put up! I'm pretty excited about it!!

Little Man got to help Daddy put up my shoe rack.

Obviously he opted for no pants...I mean, who really wants to wear pants while they work?

I'll just drill right here for you Daddy.

And wah-la....Mommy has a mini shoe rack! 

I realized that even though I have a TON of heels, a lot of them are wedge heels, and wouldn't fit on this. But the ones with actual pointy heels are up...and I love it! They were all just laying on the floor before (all my closet floor space is taken up by tennis shoes, flip flops, and other heels) and little man always felt the need to throw them around our room. So now they're at least off the floor. Still within reaching distance for little man, but we make it a game to put them BACK on the rack!

After we got some indoor stuff done, we headed outside for my preggo pictures, but of course, playtime happened. It always does on sunny days. We all got to play a little, which was great...especially for Bear. I can't really wrestle with him anymore, and normally Bear is pooped by the time Hubby gets home, but not yesterday!!!

Big ol' Bear needed that intense rough housing for sure!! He later went inside, drank a gallon of water, and passed out on the kitchen floor. Love him :)

Little man was running around like a crazy person playing with chalk. He loves to write on ANYTHING with chalk. Himself included! He's the happiest when he's either naked, or outside. It's a little cold to combine the two right now, but oh if we could! 

So then Daddy decided he wanted to dress little man up like Mel Gibson in Braveheart. 

Hence ALL the blue chalk all over my child's face.

He didn't care....I doubt he really knew.

And we couldn't get him to look at the camera, so Hubby said "I've got Cheetos!" Worked like a charm.

After we came inside, and washed up a bit...we ate dinner. May I PLEASE recommend Soy Chicken from the Crockin Girls. AH-MAZING. Serve it with rice, and a veggie (Hubby made his special green beans) and it was the most perfect meal! But then we decided that since it was a little chilly outside, we would make a fire inside! And...have s'mores!!! 

It was definitely a "Sunday Funday" for all of us!!! I still think it's absolutely absurd that we can have a fire inside the house in the middle of June and it be perfectly alright. I mean, it's still cold outside. I was wearing a winter coat the other day!!! With jeans, boots, and a long sleeve shirt! I guess I just miss the warm weather (i.e., FLORIDA!). But from what I hear and see, they're getting pounded with tropical storms and a lot of rain. I actually miss those kind of storms. We have rain with no thunder or lightening here. Odd I know. But stay safe all my Florida friends and family!! 

23 Weeks Photo Shoot

Okay okay...I know I'm missing a week, but my MIL has my 22nd week pregnancy pictures on her camera, so when I get a copy of those I will post them, but I wanted to get my 23 weeks pregnant pictures up today. Hubby and I have decided that by MIDNIGHT tonight we will have come to an agreement on a middle name for 'baby child.' We know the first name...but it's the middle name we've been struggling with. Ok..enough about the name..here's the photos!

Hubby is definitely getting better behind the lens!! He's getting more and more creative with his directions and I'm so thankful that I have a wonderful husband that's excited to do this project with me for our new little bundle of joy!!!

Homemade What?! Play Dough. Yes sir.

Since little man is napping and I've got the chicken in the crock pot for "Soy Chicken" tonight, and I'm kind of looking for reasons to put off some homework reading I decided to make some play dough for when little man wakes up.

I was checking my normal Mommy/Coupon blogs that I always do, and one of them had an pretty cool recipe for making homemade play dough and I thought I'd give it a whirl! It was super easy, had ingredients that I happened to just have, and well, it gave me a little bit of an arm workout. All in all, I'd say a success.

Here is what went down when he woke up:

As always our "craft" time is short lived. He has the attention span of...well....a typical two year old. So we did get some use out of it, and I can keep it in a zip lock bag for later use. But it was something different that we haven't done yet...in fact, I feel like I've been depriving this little guy because this was his first time ever playing with play dough! It was interesting and fun though. Definitely doing it again!

Let's Play Catch Up!

Whew!! It has been a while. Or at least it feels like it. I know twelve days isn't really "a while" but I feel slightly behind. As far as "blogging" goes I guess. And cleaning my house...but luckily hubby is home this weekend and that's what we've been doing. He's so sweet for helping! So....time to play catch up!

The last time I was here, I was writing about some of our family (my in-laws) coming to visit us and me [not] cleaning my house. Well, visit they did and it was AMAZING! We had such a great time with them!! We stayed busy the whole time and their visit, (as always) flew by.

We took them to Fort Ebey Beach, where we found driftwood, and HUGE rocks for them to take home back to the midwest. Of course, little man was all about climbing over ALL the driftwood he could, and picking up his sticks.

Hubby was DETERMINED to send his folks back with some big rocks, so there was a pile formed throughout the beach visit, and Decklan was very intrigued with one black rock in particular...

So he sat by this rock, and was determined to hold it all by himself.

And of course, Daddy had to help him with it...

He started to realize how heavy it was, but Daddy was still helping him...

AHHH!! It's SOOOO HEAVY!! (He learned.)

Oh this kid is always a barrel of laughs that's for sure! So we spent a few days beach combing the different beaches of Whidbey Island. We found a ton of rocks (the guys estimated it was about 400lbs of rocks!!), some driftwood, and other little treasures. 

Grandpa was showing Decklan his walking stick.

Decklan wanted the stick for himself.

But it was kind of big, so Grandpa had to help him balance it out. It was entertaining.

The weekend brought us two major holidays....Father's Day and My Birthday! Well, my birthday isn't declared a holiday...yet, but a little celebration was had! We went down to a little town called Langley and enjoyed all the scenery this town has. It is adorable!!! Hands down my favorite part was getting the gourmet cupcakes! Of course, my in-laws spoil me because I ended up having to "share/give" my WHOLE cupcake to Decklan the first time, so they sneaked off to the cupcake bakery right before we left and got me my own for our birthday song singing that would take place later!

*Forgive the 29...that was a sick joke my husband was playing on me. Oh wait. Damnit, I am 29.*

I am so grateful for all the wonderful birthday presents my family spoiled me with! I won't list them off, but please know that I am so thankful for all of them and they were all perfect! And I'm lucky to have the great friends (and relatives) that I do that called or texted me to wish me a Happy Birthday. It means so much to me, so thank you!!

So one bad thing that I failed to mention was that other than that first day, I didn't take ANY pictures. Big sad face I know. It's just that venturing out with everyone and a crazy toddler kind of kept me busy, and forgetful. But on the flipside, my MIL is basically a professional photographer, so she always had her camera with her...but as always, we waited until the last minute to get the pictures off of her camera, and it was going to take too long (she literally takes 500 pictures in one session which I LOVE!), but we just ran out of time. So she's going to get those to me soon and I will then share them! But hubby did get me a beautiful rose arrangement (among other things) for my birthday, and I just snapped a photo of them today, and here they are....a week later.

They are gorgeous. And it was a beautiful gift that I have enjoyed since my birthday! The following day was Father's Day and as I said before, it's always nice to be with family on any kind of holiday, but this one was very special to us. It was Kevin's first Father's Day with Decklan (he was deployed last year which technically would've been the first one) and his step Dad was here. We didn't do too much, but it was perfect. Grandpa Joe made us some wonderful banana pancakes (yes, he cooked on Father's Day because he is the KING of banana pancakes!!), the guys worked on some wood projects in the garage (which meant that they did get to go and spend some time at Home Depot), and we hung out around the house. I know we did a lot more...but I can't honestly remember (darn pregnancy brain!). I did get to talk to my Dad for a bit, but he was out with my brother at Hooters (haha!). Typical "Josh" move, which I later found out they went to Hooters per my Dad's request, but it still cracks me up. Basically though, all I need to remember about this day was that it was great. 

Monday brought our day into the city!! We made the trek into Seattle! Well, we kicked it off with a stop at the Brian Carter Winery where Kevin and his Momma did a wine tasting and we walked out with four new bottles of wine! When Kev and I first moved out here, my Momma took us to a restaurant in Bothell called Russell's where we tried and fell in love with a 2008 Brian Carter Cab Franc called Abracadabra. Oh man is it tasty!! So we knew that we had to stop there and get a bottle or two of it, but Kevin also fell in love with a few other bottles, so needless to say, they came home with us! After we went there, we went on a little excursion/adventure for the Freemont Troll. Which by the way, is NOT under the Freemont Bridge, but the Aurora Bridge. Which I knew from being there once before, but that did not mean I remembered how to get there! But we finally found it! It is definitely a landmark if you ever visit Seattle. Many people go there to see it and take their picture with it! After we saw the troll, we headed down to Pikes Place Market. If you're ever in Seattle...YOU MUST GO HERE!! It's a historical place that you have to see. Just like the space needle...which we went up on as well! But Pikes is always a fun time. Just grab a baguette and walk around enjoying the people (crowds) and the scenery. They have the MOST GORGEOUS flowers for next to nothing, fresh fish (yes, this is where the people throw the fish), amazing fruit, decadent cheeses, little crafts, and just neat things. I always try to find an excuse to go there while I'm in Seattle. After we left Pikes, we headed for the Space Needle. This is another place that if you come to Seattle, you have to at least go and see. But, seeing how neither of my in-laws had been to the top (the Observation Deck), we decided to go for that ride. The views at the top are stunning. You have a 360 degree view of Seattle and all the Pugent Sound, as well as the Cascade Mountains, The Olympics, and Mt. Rainier. It's definitely breathtaking. And of course, my no fear child couldn't get close enough to the edge. 

It was definitely a great day that ended with an AWESOME meal at Buffalo Wild Wings! Hubby and I had NO CLUE we had one so close to us. It's in Lynnwood, but still, we thought the closest one was in Oregon...little did we know!! 

The last few days with our family flew by! We tried to fit in as much as we could with another beach visit, eating at awesome seafood restaurants (Seabolts!!), and just spending time together. But it always seems to go by faster than we want it to. I know when my MIL sends me the pictures I'll remember everything that I missed, then I'll probably just do more posts :) But it was an awesome visit and if it was their last time out here to WA, I hope we made it memorable. Actually I know we did! Now, we have to plan a visit for my Mom, and then my MIL is coming back out here for the birth of the new baby, and then we shall see what is in store for us as far as moving goes because that could mean another visit from the family! So much to look forward to!!!