V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N

So this time next week me and the fam will be on our way home to Texas! It's been awhile since we have been home and just been able to visit, so I decided that me and Monkey are going to go ahead and stay for about two weeks after Hubs comes back. The original reason for the trip home is the wedding of one of Hub's cousins. We were only going to be in town for two days, so our four day 4th of July weekend was going to have to be one day driving home, one day at the wedding, one day at my parents house, and then another day traveling back. Hub's little sister is going to ride back with him so he doesn't have to drive alone and then me and Monk are going to fly home after our little visit is done +

I've been really lonely lately because Hubs has been going on a lot of work trips, and had to be at the office really long hours, so it just hasn't left a lot of time for there to be any kind of break from Monk. I love him to pieces but in the 9 (almost 10) months since I had him I haven't had more than one or two 1 hour excursions to the grocery store away from him. So in the 10 months he's been here I have spent every.single.minute with him with the exception of 2 hours. So if you figure that there is roughly 30 days to a month (give or take February and any months with 31 days) and there are 24 hours in a day, and based on 9 months... I figure taking off the extra seven days because even though I'm the only one who gets up with him at night, he is usually a decent sleeper. Anyways back to the math, so 24 hours X 30 days X 9 months = 6,480 hours - 2 hours at grocery store. So that's 6,478 hours that I have spent with Monk. Now I'm not saying the Hubs hasn't been here during that time or anything I'm just stating that I have been.

So needless to say I'm looking forward to going home lol. And I'm not planning on dropping him off and going to party or anything, but I know my parents will be excited to play with him, so maybe I can take a bath, instead of a 5 second shower....

That and my mom is big on working out so going home will also give me a workout buddy, so hopefully I'll be able to start posting weight updates again, since right now my weight has done nothing. I haven't lost anything, but I haven't gained anything either. $

Bringing Sexy Back

So Hubs got home Saturday after being at Parris Island for a week with his Young Marines. The kiddos had a lot of fun, but a couple of them might have had a little "too much" one on one time with the drill instructors haha. But even those kids came back and said they couldn't wait to go back again next year. Here is Hubs and Monk at the unit right after Hubs got back.

Also we called the local news and asked them to come and cover the "homecoming" in hopes that airing it on the news would help get the word out, and hopefully we will have a larger group of recruits at the next bootcamp. Here is a video of Hubs getting interviewed that I took. Poor guy was sooo nervous! He really didn't want to do this haha.

But what's even funnier is that Hubs got super excited getting to see all the DIs. He has wanted to go DI since he joined but the timing was never right. And now recently we have been talking about how he no longer wants to be active duty because he's ready move back home to Texas and settle down. Buy a house and actually live somewhere longer than 6 months. Well now after PI I'm sure he's more gung-ho than ever to re-enlist and go to DI school.

I'm fine with whatever he chooses. I would love to move back home, and I can't wait for us to buy a house but at the same time any time we start to seriously talk about him getting about I have a mini panic attack. The only thing that can ever calm me down is thinking that even if we did get out and it didn't go well, he could just get back in. I guess it's just because our entire marriage has been him active duty. With the way the economy is right now, I love the security (and the insurance) that comes with knowing he can't be fired. He doesn't have to worry about going on strike, or getting a pay cut. Out in the civilian world I don't know of any jobs that offer that kind of security.

Here are some pictures taken before Hubs left

Hubs really likes to play xbox with my dad, Monkey will sometimes sit in Hubs lap and watch him play. I think Monk missed watching Call of Duty so he was taking it into his own hands, he was ready to play!

"Popo, if Daddy can't play with you, I will"

Big Kahuna!

!*~WARNING~*! This post is going to be extremely picture heavy! I tried to chose fewer and I couldn't because there is just way too many cute ideas to not share!

So Monk is going to have a Vintage Surf themed 1st birthday party! YAY! I LOVE sharks though so there will also be shark themed items mixed in. Since the party will be outdoors at a park, we really wont be able to do a lot of decorations. So keeping that in mind nothing will be as elaborate as below but this is where Im drawing inspiration. I am thinking of having a personal smash cake similar to the one below from LePoppy but with a shark instead of a whale, about a dozen or so cupcakes and some iced sugar cookies (kinda for decoration) and sheet cake in the shape of a vintage longboard with a large shark bite taken out.

Thanks to some wonderful ladies on the bump I have found a lot of great websites that have some awesome ideas.

Hostess with the Mostess posted this Surf Party and I love every bit of it. Sooo stinkin cute!!! I just wish I could figure out the orange jellies (there's more on her site, you should definitely go check it out and look through her other ideas):

And then I went to LePoppy Design on Etsy and her Blog and found all these wonderful pictures. Now the pictures are of a whale themed party but I can picture it in my head with sharks instead. I would love for her to put together the banner and accessories but Im not sure the price...

The cookies in this picture are acutally made by Just Iced cookies. I love the shark cookie, and the invitation with the shark bite at the bottom gave me the idea for the shark bite out of the surfboard sheet cake.

I am thinking that the main colors for the party will be Red, Orange, Gold/Yellow, and of course Blue.

[Standing on His Own Two Feet]

Yay for Monk! I was loading some pictures to the computer and Monk was standing next to me fiddling with one of his toys when all the sudden he decided to let go of the couch, just like that. He stood there for about 10 Mississippi's (yes I count M's when i want to make sure i can convey an accurate time frame lol) and then he decided he was done balancing himself and he grabbed back a hold of the couch. He went back to playing with his toy like it was no big deal, he does it all the time lol.

So I get this is the new adventure I have to look forward to. As it is he keeps trying to climb our entertainment center, and we can't leave boxes or tall-ish toys pushed up against the couch because he will climb up onto the couch... He's such a little monkey!

So Behind On Everything

Well I forgot to do a Sunday check in post. We had just gotten back home and there were a lot of things to clean and I spaced out. I was eating crud but walking around a lot when we were in Chattanooga so I guess it kinda of evened out. I stayed exactly the same, nothing lost but nothing gained.

Hubs has been sick (coughing, sneezing, wheezing...etc) for about two weeks now and I have been telling him to get his hiney over to medical and get checked out to make sure he wasn't sick-sick instead of just being allergy sick. I told him he needed to go and actually tell them his symptoms and let them know he has a baby at home that we would like to avoid getting sick. So he finally goes to medical but doesn't say anything I want him to. Basically they told him it's just allergies and he was in and about in about 5 minutes. :( He has been taking allergy meds since he got sick, and nothing has worked in the slightest!

To make things even better Monk got a really bad runny nose the other night, and was coughing and sneezing last night. Yesterday i woke up with a stuffy/runny nose and this morning my throat has been hurting really bad. And guess what takes the cake, Hubs leaves for a Young Marine's Parris Island trip on Monday for the week. So once again I'm alone for a week but this time Hubs gets to leave right after he makes us sick!

Besides possibly getting sick from Hubs I haven't been feeling all that great anyway. Right after I had Monk I was really moody, tired all the time, nauseous, and my vision kept getting worse not better which caused me to be dizzy a lot with frequent headaches. I assumed that these would go away after my hormones regulated but they never really did. The headaches are less frequent but thats really the only change. I already went to the doctor because I was worried that I had Diabetes. A lot of people in my family have it (or had it, but lost weight and it went away) so I figured it wasn't that big of a stretch for me to have it. But I got tested and apparently I'm good. But all my problems seem to point to blood sugar issues as the culprit, so instead of asking to get tested again I'm going to make an appointment and make the doctors figure out whats wrong. Here lately instead of just being nauseous I've been throwing up in my mouth a little. I swear if I didn't know for sure I wasn't pregnant I would think that it could be that.

So my new goals for this upcoming week are as follows:

1) Go to Walgreens and get a cleanse. Hopefully it should help with the throwing up thing.

2) Even though I feel like crud do slim in 6 at least three times this week if not everyday.

3) No sodas at all! Water preferred, Un-Sweet Tea if I need a change.

4) I have a tendency to skip meals so I am going to try to eat small size of my palm sized meals every two hours... basically I will graze. This should help keep my blood sugar on an even level as well. (even if the doctors don't think this is an issue)

5) I have been craving ice cream all the time recently so I'm going to go get a bunch of apples and every time I get a sugar craving I'll eat an apple instead. I think this is a great solution because I can put apples in my purse or the diaper bag and keep one with me at all times. I figure even though apples have a lot of sugar its still way less than any other snack that I might reach for out of convenience.

So here are my goals for this upcoming week. Wish me luck!