I do craft, I'll prove it...

  Crafting sure has taken a backseat since Jack man entered the world.  My only free time is naptime and up until recently I've wanted to nap right along with him.  But his naps are turning into 3-4 hr long adventures, so I've got plenty of time to knock out some projects!

I've wanted one of these gorgeous Home is Where the Army Sends You signs since I first saw them...

Cute huh?  If you would like one of these, check out my friend Robyn over at Peanut Stitches.

Anywho, since the Army never sent us anywhere, our sign would be pretty bare.  We were at Ft. Stewart for 5 years.  Pretty boring.  So I found these cute latitude and longitude signs out in bloggyworld, (if I saw these on your blog, please let me know and I will give you credit, I forgot where I originally saw them!) and decided I could recreate those!

I love them!  I've got one more in the works for our current town.  Bobby and I met in Rochester, NY.  And with his current job, there are bound to be more cities in the future to add!  I can't wait to put them up on my wall next to the old window I found and beautified up with some vinyl!  I'll post pictures soon!

At least I won't buy that!

I wish I had this lil gem of a story to share with Bobby when he was screaming telling me we DO NOT need a new rug for the living room.  If only I had found a 5 foot chicken to teach him a lesson.  You really wanna read that story now huh?  Men will just never understand what is needed to run a household...

Now, let's all read the next part here with some understanding.  I have two dogs, a cat, an 18 month old and a husband.  So I was kneeling on the ground cleaning up bananas and graham crackers smushed into the rug when I got a little too close and got a big whiff of something.  It wasn't utterly fowl, just stinky.  I realized it was my rug.  I bought this baby off craigslist for $100 from some lady who had way too much money and traded up rugs like they are toothbrushes.  I brought her home, along with her runner sidekick, and shampooed the heck out of it.  Hey, fancy or not, I don't know what you people out there do on rugs...  When I was done, I sniffed it, rolled on it, layed on it, practically slept on it to make sure it didn't smell.  Satisfied, I put it on my floor and let Jack near it.  Now here we are a couple years and a move later, and I think it's about time to retire the old girl.  She smells like kids, dogs, and husbands.

I tell Bobby that it may be time to replace the rug within the year and he practically has a heart attack freaks out.  He's all, "Rugs last for 15 years!"   Umm, yeah, remember that 12 year old carpet we ripped out of our old house there Bob?  Gross.  And that was a carpet mean to last.  Not this dinky little area rug.  He gets all out of wack while I try to explain just because your mother may have had a rug that lasted that long it was because a) she paid thousand of dollars for it while I only paid $100 b) she never let anyone near it, let alone eat on it or pee on it  that's mainly Jack... and c) she bought hers brand new where as who the heck knows how old ours is.

Well I finally get him to calm down, and as long I don't mention the letters R-U-G in that order we should avoid all stress related injuries.  One day he'll just come home to a new rug, ask where it came from, and I'll remind him that we both agreed it was time for a new rug.  And then I'll tell him I had a coupon.  Because he always tells me as long as I have a coupon, it's ok to buy it...

Our first midwest storm

  Saturday night we had the worst storm I have even seen.  I would swear it was a tornado, but I guess they are calling it a microburst.  Whatever you call it, it was bad, I was scared, and it did a ton of damage in our town.

Around 4pm that day, Bobby was on his way back from his reserve training in IL.  He called and told me that the weather was awful, street lights out, people driving slow and pulled off the road, downpour and high winds.  It was 90 degrees and sunny where we were so I didn't think much of it.  Jack and I were headed into town to run errands. 

After our first stop, the sky had changed and you could tell the storm was coming our way so I decided to head to the grocery stop down the street from our house instead of close to where I was.  When I walked into the store, it was still sunny and blue out.  I was in for maybe 15 minutes, we just needed some quick things for dinner, and the sky outside had turned black and it started pouring.  One of the cashiers offered to stay with Jack while I pulled the car up.  By the time I got the car, the winds had picked up and the power went out in the store.  I quickly loaded the groceries and Jack into the car and headed out.  I barely made it 100 yards when the wind picked up so much I swore the car would flip over.  I called Bobby hysterically crying that the car would flip.  I could see the wind and rain and it was horizontal.  That was really all I could see too.  We stayed put since I was too afraid to move.  It lasted about 10 minutes and then I could see where I was going. 

I told Bobby I was going to try to drive home.  We only live 1/4 mile from the store, I could make it.  Well the road to our house had two trees blocking the way so I had to turn around.  When I finally got home, it had started to hail.  I got Jack inside, noticed the dogs had freaked out and scratched the back door to pieces, and then noticed our patio set was missing the umbrella.  When I got closer, I noticed the glass top was shattered all over the deck.

Luckily, Jack, Bobby and I are all fine.  Just shaken up.  Bobby followed the storm most of the way home, but made it home in one piece!  Power was out for about 7000 people in our town and some people still do not have power.  Our town is being pretty great about clean up and restoring the power though.  They have set up a shelter at the community center and have man power from towns all over helping remove downed trees.  Here are some shots from our tour of the damage...

I'm still an Army wife...

  Well an Army Reserve wife now.  Bobby is away for his first Army Reserve training weekend.  He has to go a little over an hour away into Illinois.  I'm not exactly thrilled over this.  In Bobby's new job, he gets 2 4-day weekends off a month.  And that's pretty much it.  The other two weekends, he works 12 hour shifts.  So the Reserves are cutting into my weekend time.  Now I only get one!  I know, I know boohoo, at least he's home. 

Trust me, I am completely thankful he is here with us, gets to eat (most of the time) dinner with us, sleep in his own bed, and play with Jack everyday.  I just am not handling this transistion very well.  Bobby's hours are not what we were expecting.  His shifts are crazy and not anything normal humans should have to work.  But his plant is Unionized and the hourly workers make too much money with the schedule the way it is to want it changed.

I'm not sure what to expect of the Reserves.  He is stabilized, so no deployment looming.  We are beyond thrilled with that.  But it still worries me.  I guess it's because we just came from Ft. Stewart where units barely get 12 months home between deployments, and the time home is spent mostly in the field.  It must be my Active Duty wife brain that knows never to believe it until it's over.  The Army always changes things.  I don't feel strong enough to handle a deployment with a child.  I have said over and over, I don't know how families do it, and do it multiple times.  It breaks my heart to think of all the kids who have to say goodbye to their moms and dads.  Those parents are much stronger than me.  I don't want Jack to have to say goodbye to Bobby like that.  So the Reserves scares me.  I just hope everything works out like we want it...

Sore butts

 Poor Jack-man has the WORST diaper rash going on.  He's had some diarrhea from teeth coming in (so I diagnosed, he had no other symptoms, just call me Dr. Mom...) which caused a small rash to break out.  So I took him out of his cloth and put some disposables on with some diaper cream and waited for results.  Well nothing happened.  Actually, something happened. His rash got worse.  He ended up with little ulcers all over his bottom.  He cried, or rather screamed when we changed him.  I cried when we changed him.  It was not good.

So I called around hoping to find Jack a pediatrician.  No such luck.  Apparently in our town, every pedi is either booked up till September or not accepting new patients.  I really didn't want to drive to another town, so I took Jack to the Express Care clinic.  A short, for hospitals, 45 minutes later, we left leaving the Dr. confused on what to do since it wasn't yeast like she was expecting.  A couple creams and a week later, Jack still has a bad rash.  So I've been trying all the at home remedies I can find.  Vinegar and tea tree oil in the bath, a olive oil/water/tea tree paste on the butt, cornstarch dustings, and going commando most of the day for Jack.  So we've gone through a ton of shorts, but I'll gladly take laundry over screaming babies.  Any suggestions on anything else I should try???  My poor little man...