7 Things NOT to Say to Your Wife...

1.  We're having that for supper???
Husbands, the fact is that if your wife cared for you enough to plan a dinner menu, make a grocery list, haul herself and perhaps a whiny kid or two with her to the grocery store, then back home to even make dinner, it really doesn't matter what it is...just eat it and smile.

2.  I don't hate it, but it's not my favorite outfit you own.
Men! Us ladies do not always have the opportunity to put thought and time into getting ourselves all dolled up.  Whenever we do manage to take a moment and brush our hair and try to look nice, let us be excited about our new outfit...chances are you are behind in the fashion world and what you deem not your "favorite" is probably the latest and chic-est style to be wearing!  Unless we are walking out of the house with hot pants or two different shoes on, let us be!

3.  Didn't those pants use to be loose on you?
This one needs no explanation.

4.  So, what did you do today?
If you walk in the house and it seems to be a disaster zone, this is the last thing your wife wants to hear.  More than likely, she has two eyeballs and can see that her house is far from pristine.  What you probably don't know is that she spent the entire day washing and folding clothes, scrubbing a smooshed strawberry out of the carpet,  satisfying a grumpy and needy 2 year old, making lunch and cleaning up the lunch mess all the while trying to figure out how her lipgloss ended up on the wall and why the stashed bag of candy is MIA.  Just because the house isn't spotless doesn't mean the your wife had a luxurious day doing nothing.

5. When is our anniversary???
Even if you truly can't remember, don't ask your wife.  Call your mom or mother-in-law, or better yet, go look at the marriage license! But please, don't ask us when one of the most important days of our lives took place.

6. Are you going to finish that?
If our fork is still in our hand and we haven't offered you our plate full of food that we've only had 2 bites of, then YES, we are indeed going to finish that.  Calm down, sit back and quit drooling.

7. I'll take the trash out in just a minute.
We know that when you say that it's just your way of getting us off your back long enough to forget we asked you to take it out to begin with and the trash will still be full and running over the next day.  If your wife asks nicely for you to take out the trash, your best response would be to just do it...now.  Especially if she's in the kitchen cooking your supper and trying to figure out where to put the germ-filled, empty chicken package that needs to go in a trash can, asap.

So, what should you say?
Honey, baby, darling...I know sometimes I can be a pain but I wanted to let you know that you do such a good job with the kids and keeping the house running.  I appreciate you even though I don't always show it. I LOVE YOU!

**Disclaimer:  I actually have a VERY amazing husband.  I can't say that he is an offender of all the above statements, but definitely a few of them and that's all it took for him to remember not to say them again :-)  I seriously can't complain too much about a man who cleans my house from top to bottom while I'm out of town...and does the laundry!

***2nd disclaimer: I can't even imagine what his list of 7 things would say about me!  If he reads this, he may come up with a list of a lot more than 7 things that wives shouldn't say to their husbands! Eeek! :-)

It's coming faster than I thought!

Moving day that is :(  I am suddenly overcome with the realization of what we are about to do.  I've never been good with time management so 2+ months ago when we found out we were moving, July seemed an eternity away.  Now I am looking at the calendar and trying to jam pack every little last thing into it before we move.  It has finally hit me that our lives, yet again, are about to be completely different...and just when we were getting comfortable around here!  

We have met so many great friends...so many in fact that I have had a hard time being able to hang out with every one of them as much as I would like!

There are my wonderful church friends that I have enjoyed getting to know and going to lunch at Mellow Mushroom almost every Friday...I will SO miss my Friday lunch dates!!!

Then there are my blog friends that I met through my blog who happen to live here.  We made it a point to get together almost every week.  They have been my confidants...ladies that I could complain to or tell really embarrassing stories to or go see the Pioneer Woman with!

I have neighbor friends who will all move(or already have).  Today, Caleb and I were walking around the neighborhood and he pointed at one house and said, "Blake's House!"  I said, "Yeah buddy, that is Blake's house!"  But what he doesn't even realize is that Blake already moved away too.  

He also has his long time buddies Asher and Trey that were his first real buddies that he could play with with and he goes crazy about when I tell him we are going to go hang out with them and then his newest buddy, Caden....Caleb walks around the house chanting Caden's name constantly!  He will come up to me and say, "Caden's house?"  He wakes up in the morning asking for Caden...I can't even imagine in a couple of weeks how heartbroken he will be when we won't have playdates with his buddies anymore.

We have found an amazing church, Golden Acres Baptist with amazing people and an awesome pastor. I sing on the praise team on Wednesday nights and one of the sound guys, Gene, stopped Seth and I Sunday morning after church.  He said, "When's the last time yall had your family picture taken?"  I told him that we had never had them professionally done.  Then he told us that he was a photographer and that he would love to take our picture, free of charge...he said he's been watching out for us and that he has a son in the Marines so he knows how military life can be with a family.  I just wanted to cry when he told us that!  I am ecstatic that he would do that for us...they will be pictures that we will cherish forever. 

 Then there are the men who make the Wednesday night coffee.  Caleb and I always get there early so I can practice singing before church.  Those sweet men are always there to hand Caleb a coffee cup full of marshmallows to snack on and they always wait to put the coffee away until after I'm done singing so that I can get a cup...they've become our buddies too! 

We also help out in the youth group on Wednesday nights and I have grown to love all of those kids.  They have shown me things about myself and taught me in so many ways.  They all just love Caleb to death too and they are all wonderful babysitters!!! :-)

There are so many people that we have grown to love..I can't even name them all.  I know that there is a time and season for everything and that we will move on to Fort Rucker and meet new people and find a new church but Fort Benning will always hold such a special place in my heart.  Caleb was only 10 months old when we moved here, just crawling around and now he's walking and running and hitting and biting (oh, woops...I guess I won't get into all that today...haha).  He has learned so many new things, good and bad!  We made it through our first deployment and came out the other side much stronger people.  We bought our first home and Caleb had his first real buddies.

I look at all of this change that the army brings about and some days it's fun and then there are days like the one I will be facing when will wave goodbye for the last time.

I am beating myself up for not making time for everyone like I wish I could have and I look back on things that people have said to me or done for me and I wonder if they truly know how much I appreciated them right in that very moment.  For all the times Caleb and I were the third wheel while Seth was deployed but it meant more than anything in the world that someone took the time to invite us somewhere and get us out of the house...I can't even say thank you enough.

I just hope that all of our friends here know how special they have been to us while we were able to be here.  

The army life may be changing constantly but God is always constant!  I know He will be with us to give us the strength to say goodbye to this town and all our wonderful friends and give us the same strength to say hello again to new faces and places in a new town.

Okay, enough sad stuff...I've had my good cry for today...tomorrow's my birthday!  

Williamsburg

I keep putting this post off but I have to post about our trip to Williamsburg.  I left Caleb with my family in Virginia for the weekend and drove to Williamsburg to pick Seth up from the airport so we could spend our very first weekend away, by ourselves, since Caleb was born!  We had SO much fun!  I thought I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself for worrying about Caleb, but I was wrong...we enjoyed spending time alone, not trying to entertain a 2 year old or make sure he's not getting into anything he's not supposed to.  Believe me, we love our little Caleb and enjoy this bittersweet 2 year old stage where one minute he's behaving horrendously and the next, he's the sweetest angel you ever did see.  However, 3 days away from him gave us a much needed break to relax and take time to enjoy each other.  Here are some, okay maybe a lot, of pictures we took while we were there:

We stayed at the Williamsburg Winery and it was beautiful!

Breakfast (my favorite part of the trip..haha!)

I just felt so fancy!

We ate our breakfast on a side wing with tons of windows and a view of the pool and courtyard.

We had quiche, fresh fruit, toast and the best coffee you've ever tasted.

We spent our first day at Busch Gardens.

We saw the huge Clydesdales,

 Seth almost bought these ridiculous sun glasses out of desperation.

We took a really dumb picture that makes us look old and crazy,

We rode a horse, or whatever you'd like to call this:

We stomped grapes in Italy,

We tried on some really amazing/creepy masks

That night we ate at Shields Tavern...we definitely felt like we were in a time warp!  Everyone was in period costumes and we ate by candlelight...absolutely no electric lighting in the room! The food was amazing and the portions were huge!  The dishes were replica's of dishes they found when they did some excavating in the back yard...how neat is that?

We also visited the governor's palace and someone was nice enough to take a picture for us...I love people who offer to take a picture!

Isn't it beautiful?

We spent a day walking around historic Williamsburg and a day shopping at the amazing outlet mall!

This wins the award for the most interesting thing we saw, not really sure what it is...some type of boat car???:

We couldn't forget to take photo's of outfit of the day...even Seth let me take one of him with his new Columbia outfit on ;-)

(My new purse my mama bought me for my bday!)

We had a GREAT time!!!  It was fun and relaxing and a trip we will never forget :-)

Patriotic Pops

These red, white and blue popsicles are so yummy!  

I will have to be honest and say that getting the tri-color popsicle wasn't the easiest thing I have ever done, but well worth it because Caleb loves them and they are made with real fruit!

Here's how-to make them:

Get some popsicle molds...I tried two different kinds that I found at Walmart for under $3.  Unfortunately, the first set of popsicles were eaten faster than I could take a picture of them so I just have pictures of the cool, rocket shaped ones...which I find to be the perfect mold for Patriotic Pops!

For the white:

1 cup sweetened coconut flakes

1 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbl sugar or splenda

Mix in  blender or food processor

Red:

Strawberries, about 6

Splash of milk (enough to allow the strawberries to blend well)

1 tbl sugar

5 drops of red food coloring (optional)

Mix in blender or food processor

I also think watermelon would be a great strawberry substitute!

Blue:

1/2 C Blueberries

4 tbl juice (I used apple and prune mixed, any kind would work though!)

1 tbl sugar

4-5 drops of blue food coloring (optional)

Mix in blender or food processor

If you end up making too much for your molds, you can always store them in your freezer until you are ready to make another batch!

You will need to pour each color in separately and let freeze completely.  When it was time to take my popsicles out, I ran water on the outside of the molds to help it come out easier.

They are so yummy and I didn't even feel bad about letting Caleb have one for breakfast this morning.

He started saying, "bicycle, pwease???" 

Translation: bicycle=popsicle

My favorite is the coconut so I also made myself some Coconut Ice Cream Bars with the same recipe I used for the Patriotic Pops...luckily Seth isn't a fan of coconut so they were all MINE!!!

Muah hahahaha!!!

These are perfect for a July 4th cookout, a hot summer's day or apparently breakfast too! :)

ENJOY!

Patriotic Candy Flags

I LOVE July 4th! It is quite possibly my favorite holiday for many reasons.  I have always been a self proclaimed lover of all things patriotic...no wonder I married a military man!  Even my favorite song is the National Anthem (Star Spangled Banner)

Here are some cute candy American "flags" that would be perfect for a little July 4th treat.  

All you need are some blue candies (I used m&m's from Fresh Market but you can find solid colored candies at just about any craft store) and some peppermint sticks.  The rest is pretty self explanatory :)

Aren't these fun...and yummy!?

I saw a similar craft in Martha Stewart Living but I changed mine up a little because I had never heard of the candies she used!

My mind is filled with all kinds of other July 4th crafts...do you have any to share?

On a side note, my sister in law is having a $25 Visa gift card giveaway! Head on over to enter!

Just Checking In from Virginia!

Caleb and I are visiting family in Virginia one last time before we move further away from our state that we love.
Here are some fun pictures from our week here so far:

Pool time with The Great Aunts

First experience with a karaoke machine...and he loved it

Taking advantage of daddy not being with us and sleeping in the bed with  mommy

Ma bought him his first "Build A Bear"

Virginia Tech fan already!

Yes, he was on sale

And our adventures aren't over yet!

Big Boy Room

We are moving in exactly one month.  When we unpack, we will not be setting up Caleb's baby crib.  Instead, we picked out a great twin bed set for his big boy room!  It's bittersweet for me.  I have so much fun watching him grow up and learn new things but at the same time I am so sad to see him go from my little baby to a little boy.

  However, I AM excited to decorate his new big boy room!  I have found so many great ideas that I can't choose just one! 

 Here are a few inspiration rooms I have found:

(The walls in his new room are very similar to the color in this picture):

Any favorites?