Retail Therapy

Mark has been gone all week for work and then had a race in Georgia this weekend so Ava and ventured out for some shopping today.  I found all kinds of great deals to spruce up my wardrobe and picked up a few things for Ava.  It was a nice outing for sure!  Since Ava was so good I let her pick out a toy and what do you know she picks a cash register.  As we are waiting to check out she said "purse momma, card".  I got out my wallet and gave her an old gift card and she knew just what to do with it.  She started swiping like crazy.  I've got a shopper on my hands!!!!

Ava swiping the credit card oh no!!!

These pics were taken earlier in the week.  I can finally get Ava's hair in pig tails.  They stick straight out like Pippy Long Stocking but it's a start!  Yesterday Ava chased me around the house looking like this (see pic below).  Play hat, no shirt and baby in the stroller lets go!!!!

Going Away Party for Brooke

One of my favorite parts about being a military spouse is all of the wonderful friendships you make.  On the other hand with all of the frequent moving I feel like we are always saying goodbye.  I hate good byes so I prefer to say see you later!  My friend Brooke is moving to D.C. this week so we all gathered here at my house to have a little going away party.  I first met Brooke in 2003 when we moved to Ft. Campbell.  All of our husbands were deployed and we were there for each other during the deployment.  Brooke moved here in 2006 and we followed last year.  It has been nice being reunited with her as well as Maria and Karen who I also knew from Ft. Campbell.  Being reunited with old friends gives me hope that we will meet up again one day soon.  We will miss you Brooke!!!

Brooke's going away party

Me, Brooke, Maria, and Karen

Taken in 2004.  This group of ladies got me through the first deployment

Brooke, Me and Karen back in 2004

Me Brooke and Karen 2005

Tricycle Fun

On Wednesday's and sometimes Friday my Friend Karen and I have a nanny come to our house to take care of the kids.  It's nice because we can take care of appointments, run errands or grab a lunch date with the hubbies.  We are so happy we found Lauren through a friend!  She is so good with the kids and is going to school to be an early grades elementary school teacher.  As military spouses it is hard to find someone you can trust to watch your kids and without family around it is even more important to find someone if you can.  We are thankful to have her.

This Wednesday she watched the kids at Karen's.  When I went to pick up Ava as usual she didn't want to leave.  She loves going to Karen's house not only because they have toys that she doesn't have but because she loves playing with Abby and Aiden!  Anytime we leave the house she asked if we are going to Abby's house and if you ask Ava what her name is it is Abby.  It is so cute to see them play together!

Yesterday Karen and her husband put their house up for sale and will be moving sometime late summer.  It will be sad to see them go but hopefully the Army will bring us back together again.  The Army already stationed us together 3 times so why not a 4th!!!

Abby and Ava

Grilling Up Some Grub!

As I have said alot lately the weather here has been just plain perfect.  For two or more weeks now the temperatures have been in the mid 70's to mid 80's with low humidity and not a cloud in sight.  Also Mark has been getting home around 4:30 everyday so we have been taking advantage of it and Grilled 3 nights this past week.  Last night everything we ate was cooked off of the grill.  I prep everything in the kitchen and Mark cooks it.  What great team work right!  The menu last night was sirloin steak, garlic potatoes, carrots, and asparagus.  Everything was so tasty!!!!

I couldn't resist adding this one.  With the nice weather Mark has been busy in the yard so we had to make a visit to Home Depot.  I kept Ava entertained by letting her play with my sunglasses.  She is just too cool!

Volunteering

Since 2008 I have been a stay at home mom and I have enjoyed it and appreciate the fact that I can stay home with Ava.  However there are times when I miss having a job and a sense of purpose outside of the home.  I have my sewing business but it pretty much keeps me home as well and I miss being involved with post activities.  Since the beginning of our marriage, almost 10 years ago, I have always worked on post and for the most part enjoyed what I was doing.  Helping the soldiers and spouses or just people in general is what I love and I miss that part of my life.  Recently I was thinking of ways to maybe start volunteering but just never really went out and pursued it.  This time it came to me instead.

A few months ago I was asked to do the publicity for our MOPS group (mothers of preschoolers).  Since I had experience doing the newsletter for ACS when I worked there and Marketing as well I thought this would be perfect so I accepted the position which will start in the Fall.  Also since Ava will be going to pre-school 3 days a week and MOPS offers free child care on the days we have meetings I couldn't go wrong.  This week another door has opened for me.  My current FRG leader will be leaving soon and she also is the FRG leader for the Battalion. She contacted me a few days ago asking if I would be interested in being the Battalion FRG leader.  I thought about it over night and decided that this was just what I had been looking for.  It's the perfect way to be involved on post and to help soldiers and the families like I have done in the past.  Both of the volunteer positions is all about making sure information is provided to the families of the communities so in some ways they will work together.  I am so excited about my two new volunteer positions and look forward to doing my part here in our community!

A Whale of a Time

The weather here has been just perfect.  Clear blue skies, sun and most importantly no humidity.  The temps have been in the mid 80's with a slight breeze which makes it so comfortable outside.  During Ava's nap yesterday I sat up Ava's new little blow up pool so the water would be ready for her to splash a play when she got up.  I even had time to read my book and get a little sun.  After a two hour nap I couldn't wait any longer so I went in and got Ava up so she could play.  She played for a straight hour until the sun went on the other side of the house and the pool was in complete shade.  Her poor little lips were purple.  She had a blast!

Mom enough with the pictures!

Mommy and Daughter weekend

 Mark has started racing his mountain bike competitively and the races are every other weekend in various towns in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida.  So far he has had trouble with his bike but just bought a new one this past week.  This weekend his race was in Tsali North Carolina about 6 hours from here.  Ava and I decided to stay home so we had a Mommy and Daughter weekend.

 We didn't do much of anything on Saturday except catch up on laundry and sewing projects.  Today however we spent most of the day outside.  The weather here has been just wonderful.  Clear blue skies and sunny with no humidity.  My kind of weather!!!  We started off the day by going to the park to play and to feed the ducks.  Despite my complaints about the small town we live in I am very pleased with the local park that is only 10 minutes down the road.  Ava just loves all of the play equipment and it has a wonderful walking trail and small lake area.  After Ava played we walked down to the lake to feed the ducks.  We walked and walked and walked and finally found 3 sitting under a shade tree.  Ava basically chased them away holding the bread in her hand.  I guess they weren't hungary.  Since the ducks didn't eat the bread Ava decided to eat it.  Good thing it was not old bread that I brought.  We really enjoyed our Mommy and Daughter weekend but are happy to have Mark home to grill us up some food and enjoy the last part of the weekend together.

On a mission!

"Here a go gucks" (here you go ducks)

If the ducks won't eat it I will!

Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh my!

Today Ava and I met up with some of the mom's and kids of our MOPS group in Enterprise.  MOPS stands for mothers of Pre-schoolers and is a great organization of friendship fun and fellowship for us stay at home mom's.  Once a month they provide free child care and a place for us mom's to get together and have some mommy time.  On fridays some of the ladies get together for a play date with the kids and usually take turns having it at each others homes or a local park.  This week they decided to go to a local zoo called McClellan's Critters.

McClellan's was a neat little place about 45 minutes from here out in the middle of no where.  It is not your typical zoo in that you can get up close and personal with the animals and even touch and hold some.  They even had a little baby bear running around free along with a goat.  The baby bear was so cute and friendly.  The goat was cute too but was a snack snatcher.  He kept trying to grab all of the kids snacks as we were checking out the monkeys and even jumped up on the table to try to snag our lunches.  He was quite a handful.  Since it was a small locally owned place and we were the only group there that day it was nice to be able to let Ava walk around as she wanted (I was closely behind) and take our time if we wanted.  Mike was our tour guide and he went around and told the kids all about the animals and even got out a few for the kids to pet.  Ava of course liked them only at a distance.  He favorite was the cow and the camel.  We had such a great day!!!

Oreo the cow

Monkey drinking a coke

Snack snatching goat

A Liger

All day Ava kept pulling on the fence and saying open

This was how Ava was most of the day...running!

Baby alligator

Mike the tour guide showing the snakes and letting the kids hold them

Ava kept going back to oreo

"Hi Camel"

and back to the cows again

Spring and all things new

What is it about spring that just makes you want to just change things up a bit and make everything new and fresh.  I am sure it is in part to the beautiful weather along with the flowers and trees blooming.  This past weekend Mark worked hard on the rest of our landscaping project out front which looks amazing.  Also all of the bushes that were already in place have bloomed which was a nice surprise since we didn't know they were flowering bushes.

Our house was built in 2006 and for whatever reason the right side was never landscaped by the builder or the previous owner.  Since I am all about balance we had to change that.  Mark did a great job and even installed new landscape lights.

Such a nice surprise to see the bushes flowering.

Look closely and you can see our little grasshopper friend on the flag.  Another part of the spring is bugs and pollen which I am not a huge fan of.

Another new thing is my new do.  After 9 months of researching where to go to get my hair cut I finally decided on Toni at Rituals.  Many people had suggested other salons and hair stylist but Toni was the only name that came up more than once and that was in the town I live.  I have to say I was very pleased.  She was nice but not the gossipy too talkative type and really took the time to ask alot of questions about what I wanted.  Earlier today I had posted on facebook to get feedback on what I should do and my friend Tabatha suggested lots of long layers with sweeping side bangs.  I described to the stylist Toni exactly that and she went to work.  She even styled me with curls and a whole new look.  I felt like a new woman as I walked out of the salon on this gorgeous spring day with my curls bouncing in the wind.  Hopefully I can style it myself!!!!

Also while I had a sitter I checked out this cool little shop next door to the salon called "Just Imagine".  It was full of beautiful things for the home as well as jewelry.  The first that caught my eye was this little silver bird.

What a perfect "spring like" addition to our master bedroom!

Then I stumbled on the jewelry.  Some of the Jewelry was around $30 and some was below $10.  I saw these and fell in love!!!  And only $6.95 too!!!!  They are off white and perfect to go with all of the summer sundresses!!!

And now for my favorite new look...  My new do

This is after I was in and out of the car a few times in the wind but it held up pretty good. I just love this time of year!!!!

Ready or not....

A few weeks ago I introduced Ava to the potty.  She wasn't quite ready so I didn't push it plus with all of the upcoming traveling I decided now wasn't a good time for it.  Last night Ava came to me and said she needed to go potty so we went straight to it and for the first time she actually had a result.  I made such a big deal about it that Ava looked at me strange LOL!!!  We plan to take it slow.  I am not sure we are ready (meaning Mark and I).  This morning she had a dry diaper so every few minutes I asked her if she needed to go and she said no.  I asked her again a little later and she said yes but it was too late.  She had already gone in her diaper.  Baby steps!!!

Easter with Friends

This Easter my friend Ashlee and her husband Mike and their little boy Brayden came from Kentucky down to visit us for the weekend.  They are on Spring Break and are on their way to Destin beach.  Since we couldn't go home to be with family for Easter it was nice to have our great friends from home to come visit.  They arrived on Saturday afternoon so we spent the evening out to dinner at our favorite Restaurant La Parilla and then took them to an ice cream shop where they serve home made ice cream.  The kids had a lot of fun eating their ice cream and playing.  On Easter Sunday the kids woke up to easter baskets and had fun checking each others out.  Next we got all dressed up and went to Easter Brunch on Post.  It was not what we expected and had the worst server in history but we had fun anyway.  The kids wanted nothing to do with the Easter bunny so we headed back home for naps.  While napping the Easter bunny brought eggs and hid them in the yard.  They had a blast finding all of the eggs.  Brayden was such a gentleman and even gave Ava a couple of his eggs.  Brayden is a year older so he was teaching her and helping her all weekend.  It was so cute and fun to watch them play together.  Ashlee and I have been friends since collage so it is nice that we have stayed in touch over the years and now are kids will be great friends.

yummy ice cream.  Ava loves her shakes!!!!

Trying out Bryden's bed to watch a movie

Spoiled by the Easter Bunny.

We tried to get them to stand together to take a pic.  

Waiting for Brayden to get up to start the hunt.

Checking out all of the candy.  Ava opened every egg and dumped them out to see what she got.  Her favorite were the suckers!

Ashlee and Mike