Cookie Making Party and a trip to see Daddy!

Sunday was a big day for Pres and I. We got to not only spend a few hours with Pete, but we had some new friends over to decorate cookies with us.

Pete is doing great and he looked fantastic. I forgot my camera so there's no pictures...but that's probably a good thing. Pete in his whole Class B uniform with his long black trench coat buckled up plus beret is too much to look at and not mock. Needless to say I didn't know whether to hug him or to raise my hand and "Hail, Hitler" at him. Pres was super excited to see his daddy and the whole visit went very well. The Wings Chapel had such a nice set up for us WOC families with cookies, drinks, and coffee. It was a wonderful time although I didn't do any listening to the sermon (sorry chaplain but you were not as important as talking to my hubby!)

After we left Pete we came home to get ready for our cookie party!

Here Pres is helping me make the cookies!



Look at these cute flour toes! I can't get over them!



Here he is tasting the dough. I think it was a hit.






Some of the finished product.



We had Santa Chef hats that the kids made and lots of yummy candy and icing to decorate the cookies.






These last pictures I got from Megan's blog! I didn't take any of Pres decorating and of the Santa hats! I hope you don't mind Megan. The little cutie under the hat is her daughter and let me tell you she REALLY makes me want to have a girl!!!! So sweet!

Here are the pics of Pres' finished cookies! He actually decorated them and had fun with the sprinkles. He took a bite out of each of his cookies before decorating them, but it was so cute to see him get involved in the activity!





Thank you to Megan and Jodie for sharing this with us plus all of the kiddos! It was tons of fun!!!!

Christmas has finally come to the Alabama Deans!

So...we are back and have had terrible weather here in New Brockton. It has rained and rained for days and there have been such strong wind gusts that there are trees over all around here. My backyard looks like a marsh but...we finally are beginning to look a little like Christmas! My parents came back up with me for a day and helped to decorate and hang lights outside (thank you Dad!). It looks so pretty even with the rain and some minor wind damage to my poinsettias from the stupid storms. Here are some pics of what Christmas looks like at our house.

First off, here's what my backyard looks like...YUCK!




This is the smashed part of the fence from the tree falling into it! It's hard to see the tree, but I think you can get the idea!





This is the outside of the house. I took this quickly between the downpours we've been having.




This is my front porch. It is my favorite part. Thank you to my dad again for putting together the rocking chairs for me and making sure it looked good not once, but twice after the wind last night ripped apart all of his hard work from the day before.



Finally...the piece de la resistance...my tree!!!! BIG thanks to my mom for making all of the bows for me!






Here's a quick pic of Pres. I was trying to get him in the Christmas tree ones but he kept running away and giggling! He's such a silly goose. I caught him mid run in this pic!



I should probably share why he is without his pants because it is funny. While I was taking a picture of the marshland aka our backyard, he decided to go running around in the mud!

Here's our stockings. One for me, Pete, Pres, and the Bean.






Last but certainly not least, the reason we celebrate the season. Here's my manger scene. I absolutely love it!




That's all for now. I should be doing my homework, but will have to get to that when Pres is sleeping. On Sunday I get to see Pete for church! I can't wait and am going to try and sneak some pics of him.

Merry Christmas!

Still in Florida...updates from the sunshine state

So we came here for a visit on Thanksgiving week and we are still here! Pres ended up with a nasty ear infection and I am waiting to head home until the pediatrician gives him the all clear here. She will see him on Monday so hopefully the antibiotics cleared it right up.

I had my doc appointments here this past week and all went well. My cardiologist doubled my medication. I'm not too happy by this, but it was what I expected with some of the problems breathing I had been having.

I saw the high risk OB and everything with the baby is perfect!!!! The new Bean was all snuggled up not wanting to wake up for us. The Bean did (after much prompting from the tech who nearly made me wet myself in her enthusiasm for getting the baby to move) give us a little wave. The stubborn Bean would not uncross its legs to let us tell if I should buy pink or blue. The first week in January I have another ultrasound so hopefully we will be able to tell then. If not, I am going to be dying with anticipation. Here's some pics from the ultrasound this week. If you notice you can only see one leg because the other leg is tightly crossed behind it.




Preston has had a lot of changes the past two weeks. He is talking up a storm and is starting to put three and four words together. This morning he looked at my parent's Christmas tree and said "I like it". It sounded more like "I ike wit." but it was cute none the less. My parent's have their tree on a remote control and Pres figured out how to turn the tree on and off. This occupies him for quite some time and I let him do it becuase it distracts him from taking the ornaments off of the tree!

As for a Pete update, he is doing well at Warrant Officer School. He's passed his PT test and his first school test. He emailed me yesterday that he was, "losing weight but still had his mind!" I hope to be able to talk to him on Sunday. He is expecting to meet me at the church on post (we can go to church together) but I will still be here because of Pres' ear infection. Hopefully he doesn't think we forgot about him!

Happy Early Thanksgiving!

Since Pete is leaving on Monday, we decided to have our Thanksgiving today as a family! It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed Christmas music, cooking all day, Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas and lots of yummy snacks! Pres had fun with all of the activity going on and wasn't too sure what to make of all of the time I spent cooking today.

Pete was able to watch some football and he and Pres spent some time outside playing European football! Here's some pics from our day!


Our Thanksgiving mugs. Pete had his coffee and I had my tea!



Pres walking around after our big Thanksgiving breakfast! He had a BIG diaper explosion last night, so we had to do a quick early morning pj bottom change! The top is from the new jammies that Aunt Chrissy got him, and they are super cute!



Our afternoon snacks! Yum! I am totally addicted to LTD Commodities and can't help but buy all of their seasonal stuff! You should see all of the Christmas decorations I have! Thanksgiving is nothing compared! (Ignore the shelf under the table that is not hung! I put all of the hanging stuff on the floor where I wanted it and we are not quite finished hanging everything!)



Mommy and Pres before dinner.


The spread (and yes, I did realize that there are only three of us!)






Time to eat! I'd love to say that my son ate all of the yummy food we gave him. I'd love to say that he most certainly did not take his spoon, mix everything up and then proceed to toss it on the floor. I'd also love to say that we did NOT have to microwave him a hot dog when we had all of that food!







It was a great Thanksgiving and I had a wonderful time with my little family! Thank you hubby for making is such a fun day! I'll miss you when you are gone and I am so proud of you!

Happy Birthday Chrissy!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to say Happy Birthday to the wonderful woman whom I have had the privilege to call my best friend for more than six years now! (Can you believe you've been stuck with me this long?!)




Happy Birthday Glitter





Thank you for always being a true friend and telling me what I always need to hear (even the tough stuff!)


P.S. For those of you reading can you believe that she is 7 months preggo in this picture?! So not fair that she looks that good!

We are here in the heart of Dixie and...umm...

...I was taught that if I didn't have anything nice to say then I shouldn't say anything at all. However (and sorry mom and dad) I'm going to say it all. My goodness does life move VERY SLOW here. Everyone is slow. They talk slow, drive slow, eat slow, and do business slow. It's enough to drive any sane person crazy! Pete remarked that it feels as if we are in a completely different country. One where all of the normal rules and applications that we are used to do not exist. We've been keeping a mental note to sort of share some of the things we have experienced here.

Example 1: Time Warner Cable. Even as only typing those words I am frowning. I will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use them again. The first problem we encountered was THREE weeks ago as we were first setting things up here. We called to schedule service and at first it seemed to be okay. We are in a new house so they have never serviced our home before. They informed us that they must enter our address into their system which takes about 5 to 7 working days. This was strange to us but we went with it. I called back 7 days later and was told that our address had not been put in the system. Okay, this was annoying but people make mistakes. I went ahead and had them do it again and waited two days before calling to check on the status. I was again told that they had no record of our address even being entered. At this point I am beginning to get really irritated. I demanded a reference number and was given one. The next day Pete called and gave them our reference number and I'm sure you can guess what happened next...THEY HAD NO RECORD OF ANYTHING NOT EVEN THE STUPID REFERENCE NUMBER! Needless to say we're now livid and irritated with the whole place. We decided to forget Time Warner and see who else we could get. I looked up some places in the phone book and Pete proceeded to call. The problems was that not a single stupid, redneck business answered their telephones. Grrrrr. Seriously it was just ridiculous at this point. On Monday we decided to go personally into Time Warner and see if we could just get it done there. We got a little further...sort of...the ignorant jackass behind the counter had a very difficult time getting it to put in a service call with our address. I'm not sure why, and was so frustrated that when he looked at me and told me it would be yet another 7 days before they could do anything, I just burst into tears. I also began to talk(okay rant), and talk(rant), and talk(rant) and most of it was not flattering to any person in that office. I had just reached my limit and was OVER being in a stupid small town with limited options. Wonder of wonders, tears did the trick and they miraculously were able to get someone out in two days to do the cable and Internet, but it would still be 7 days for the phone. (Again, don't know why considering it all runs from the same cable and when the guy came today he set up everything for the phone just short of activating it...see...small town rednecks.)

Example 2: The Library. Since we were having all of this trouble getting Internet and I need it to do my school work, we decided to try the library. It is actually a really nice facility with a cute children's area and many computers hooked up with Internet. I was surprised and impressed. I went up to the librarian to see about getting a library card and was flabbergasted by the requirements. I'm not sure you guys are ready to hear them because they are so laughably small town you might not believe me. I need to have the normal basics-proof of residency, but after that it gets stupid. I need to have two personal references that are local. Ummm...dumb redneck...I just told you that I was new in town. How on earth could I know two people?! How about I use my husband...nope can't use him...okay...well...then I guess I can't get a library card. This seems small, but added up to all of the nonsense with Time Warner, I was so frustrated. Luckily I could still use the Internet (only for an hour) without a library card, and did so to get my school work finished.

Example 3: The Trash. Oh what a pain in the butt this one has been. The local trash people will not take boxes (even broken down) unless they are in a garbage bag?! WTF! So...you see...they will gladly take our boxes as long as they are put in a nice trash bag. Even though said garbage bag is square and in the shape of the boxes. Yeah...figure out that one for me. It's one that irritates Pete to no end. In fact, he was so frustrated yesterday that he went out there to talk to the trash guys. He had just finished working out, so his tattoos were showing and he looked a little mean. Those trash men looked terrified and unfortunately they probably had reason to look that way. Pete was so upset I was waiting by the door with Pres in my arms in case I needed to bring out the little guy to calm down daddy. I think my poor hubby finally reached his own personal stupidity limit and was having his talk (rant!) time. It ended with the trash guys saying that they will come back later for the boxes, so I am assuming that Pete made his point loud and clear.


Despite saying "stupid redneck" more in the past week than I have in my life, we are really loving our new home. It is spacious and roomy and the huge backyard has limitless possibilities. I personally am loving have a Commissary to shop at again and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE all of the yummy world wide variety they have. How many grocery stores can you go to and see Korean pilots shopping in the Asian section of the super market?! It was really cool to see that they were there AND that they were able to fill their carts with all of the exotic selections. It is like a bigger and more worldly Publix (although still not quite a Wegmans) and it is a nice treat.

Yesterday we drove the 45 minutes to Dothan which is the closest bigger town. We were delighted to find all of our favorite stores and enjoyed picking up the things that we needed. It's a little strange to have to plan to trip to go shopping, but it was a nice family outing.

Fall Festival...better late than never...Pres at 16 months...and here ya go Chrissy!

***I can't find the camera with the move, so pics will have to come later...whenever I can find where Pres hid the camera!***

We had a wonderful time at the Winter Park Fall Festival. Pres loved seeing all of the kids in costumes and the different activities. He went on his first hay ride and had the most fun watching the trains go by from the train station nearby.

My baby boy is growing so quickly. He is changing daily and the last little bit of baby is slowly leaving. He's finally figured out that he has been blowing kisses backwards, and while it is cute to see him do it the right way, my heart broke a little knowing that I would never again see the backwards kiss blown to me simultaneously while he is saying "BU-YIIIIEEEEEEEE". It is just another reminder that he is growing much faster than I would like. He's come into his own and temper tantrums are par for the course. His favorite time to throw a big hissy fit is as we are coming in from playing outside. He simply goes limp and lays on his belly saying "oooohhhhhhh, ohhhhhhhh". I suppose in Pres language this really means, "I DO NOT WANT TO GO INSIDE!" It means most days I must step over him to get into the house and then proceed to slide him away from the door so that I can shut it up tight because he can now reach all of the door handles!

His words are amazing and I can't believe how well he enunciates them. He speaks clearly and likes for you to look at him when you have a conversation together. If you do not look his way, he will take his chubby little hands and put them on your cheeks and turn your head until you are looking at him. He is copying EVERY word he hears now! "No" is not very big in his vocabulary but I tend to tell him "enough" rather than "No" so I'm sure soon I will be hearing "enough" yelled at me when he is unhappy with something.

Last but not least Pres is now in a big boy bed! He loves it and the transition was so easy that it had to just be the right time.

Favorite Books:
Any truck/train book
Books that he can lift flaps
Hickory Dickory Dock (still and Lord help me I want to throw it away)

Favorite activities:
Anything outside
Playing with Thomas the Tank Engine

Favorite Food:
Pizza
Waffles with Chocolate chips
Macaroni and Cheese
Hot Dogs

Favorite Memory from Mom:
When he wakes up in the morning he comes into my room and says "Hi ma-maaaaa" with the sweetest smile on his face. I wish I could bottle up the sound of his voice and the look on his face. It could end all wars!

Favorite Memory from dad:
The night that he pooped in the tub. It was gross and funny at the same time-PETE