Greetings from Ohio!

Lucy and I made the trip from North Carolina to Ohio on Friday, again. The trip went very well this time. In fact, I don't even have any rude or stupid people to report on. Surprisingly, I even let a complete stranger hold Lucy. When a full bird colonel offers to help you, you take the help! ;-) For you non-military folks, that is a pretty high ranking person -- the top rank Jeremy would ever be able to get to if he went career military. Really, I feel a lot different about letting someone with their name and rank on their chest hold Lucy, seeing that most kid-nappers wouldn't probably want to walk around with their identification on their chest.

I was surprised to get off the plane in Columbus to temperatures in the low 70's. Though, by the time we got to Napoleon it was a bit overcast. Yesterday was a bit cooler, very overcast with a few drizzles mixed in, but on a whole not bad weather for Ohio in March. I'm just glad there isn't any snow! I must say, this is a good reminder of why Jeremy & I love North Carolina -- grey overcast days are just not very common there!

Hannah had a basketball tournament at Fairview this weekend. Her team played very well, winning all their games. She had one game on Friday and four yesterday, which made for a very long 24 hours (those bleachers ARE NOT comfortable). I couldn't fit my camera in my luggage, so I had to use my mom & dad's camera. I've gotten so used to my DSLR, though, that I found myself majorly frustrated with their camera. So, I didn't get very good pictures. I'll have to see, when I get home, if any of them are decent enough to post.

My parents are driving back with Lucy & I on Tuesday and then they are staying for a week or so to visit. I'm not looking forward to that drive at all, but I'm sure we'll all survive!

A New Do for Me!

Yesterday I treated myself to a haircut -- something I don't do nearly as often as I should. It's been about 4 months since I had a cut and I was looking pretty ragged. Lucy has recently developed a fascination with my hair, which means she has been pulling large hand fulls out several times a day. This meant I went for something much shorter.

So, what do you think? I like it, though it isn't exactly what I was looking for. I was nervous going in, since I haven't had bangs (that I can remember) in at least 10 years. So far, I'm liking them. We'll see how I feel about them in a few weeks, though.

And a confession for you: I ate 3/4 of a sleeve of Thin Mints while I was typing this. Do you know how many calories are in 1 cookie?!?!

A Lucy Funny

I thought that attitude was something that came along closer to the teen years. Lucy is getting an early start.

A few days ago, Saturday I believe, I was walking around the house with Lucy on my back trying to get things done. She wasn't particularly happy about this and was complaining about it, but it was the best (and safest) place for her to be while I cleaned. Betty came down while this was going on. Lucy immediately began cooing and smiling at her. So, we took her off my back so that Betty could hold her while I finished up. Lucy no more than hit Grandma's hip, than she turned around, looked at me, stuck her tongue out and blew a great big raspberry at me. She seemed to be saying, "At least Grandma knows what I want."

It makes me wonder just what we have in store in about 13 years.

It's been a busy week!

Really, it has. Beyond the normal stuff (Reid's two days of preschool and two different speech appointments), I also had a doctor's appointment and got together with friends on two separate occasions. I also choose this week to start my spring cleaning. I'm going to pick one or two rooms a week and clean them from top to bottom. This week was the boys bathroom, which took a surprising amount of work and more than one Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (they managed to get a lot of paint from their step-stool on my cabinets). I even went so far as to re-seal the grout on the tile, which is still drying right now. I'll be able to put it back together tomorrow and then I'll probably tear apart Hannah's bathroom.

I signed Reid up for soccer this week and he is completely excited about it. Unfortunately, his first practice and game will be when I'm in Ohio next weekend visiting Hannah. Seems I can't win no matter what. He keeps asking if Grandma is going to take him to his soccer ball. He is just too funny right now!

Ross was kind enough to knock one of my living room lamps over this week. The lamp survived, but the shade did not. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a matching shade for the remaining one, so I had to buy two new ones. Not an inexpensive incident in the least. I suppose I should look at the bright side -- I wasn't particularly fond of the shades we had.

So, I have a weekend full of projects ahead of me. Oh, and one of those is finishing the taxes -- yuck!!!

Invoking the power of Murphy's Law

So, I've been meaning to post this for a while now...



About two weeks ago, we suddenly began having potty success with Ross. He had squirted several times for us over the course of a week, however we had no business to report. The boys ended up staying at Grandma & Grandpa's on a Friday night (an unusual occurrence around here). When I went down on Saturday morning to retrieve them, John mentioned that there was a Krispy Kreme run in Durham (or Raleigh, not sure which anymore) that morning. Reid immediately begin pestering us to get donuts. In order to stop the pestering, I told Reid & Ross that we would get Krispy Kremes when Ross did his business on the potty. Now, I figured there was about a 2% chance that Ross would be successful with this anytime in the near future. I was also serious. So, I took the boys home and we went about our day. At one point (I can't remember if it was after lunch or after nap time), I sat Ross on the potty. And guess what he did? Yep, he did his business. Luckily, Grandma & Grandpa had gone grocery shopping that morning, so I was able to call them and ask them to pick-up a box of Krispy Kremes. Wonderful timing on Ross's part, don't you think?



Additionally, the week before all this occurred, I finally broke down and invested in a new stash of cloth diapers for Ross. Now, these aren't cheap. However, they are less expensive than disposables in the long run. Still, I thought we were a long way off on potty training when I ordered those diapers.



I guess the potty training fairy has a sense of humor and goes by the name Murphy...

Look at what I made!

As I mentioned previously, I have wanted to make Lucy a "pillowcase dress". I did that this week, and also made matching bloomers and a hat. Now, I use the term "pillowcase" loosely, as I didn't use a pillowcase at all. But, it is modeled after a pillowcase dress. I am quite proud of myself, as I did not use a tutorial or pattern for any of these three pieces. I simply went off of pictures of pieces that I liked (mostly on Etsy).

I'm really pleased with the way these turned out, though I do want to make some adjustments when I make my next set. The hat is a bit too big and the bloomers are a tad too small (or will be by the time it warms up). The dress is just about right, though I want to try finishing the arm holes differently and will probably make future ones just a touch larger.

The cool thing is that I only have about $5 (if even) in materials invested in this set.

I will try to take pictures as I go and write up my own tutorial, just for the fun of it.

Three down...

...and entirely too many months left on this deployment.

I'd like to be optimistic and positive about this, but I'm not capable of that right now. It honestly feels like this is just never going to end.

The good news is, that I'm officially down another 5 pounds, so 15 total since Jeremy left. I should mention here that I haven't weighed this much (or perhaps I should say little) since before Hannah was born. Virtually all of my clothes are too big, most by two sizes at this point.

As a treat, I bought myself a pair of shoes this weekend. Aren't they cool?

I bought them to go with a dress I got last fall. I've been looking for a pair like this to go with the dress for a while now. I will need to practice walking in these before I can wear them out of the house. I should mention now that it didn't occur to me until this morning that the dress I bought these to go with is probably now entirely too big. Ah, well, these will go lovely with my jeans don't you think?

Good thing they were on sale...