Abby's mishap

So there I was, at home baking muffins for a friend when the phone rang. It was Abby's school. More specifically, the school nurse. She informed me that during PE class Abby had fallen off the monkey bars and hurt her arm. So off to the school I went, Kaitlynn still in her PJ's. When I got there the nurse thought I should take her to get an X-ray just to be on the safe side. So off to the ER we went. Now anyone who knows Military hospitals can feel my pain because there we sat for 3 hours waiting to be seen. the triage nurse didn't even want to do the x-ray because he thought it was fine but I insisted. Then when the doctor examined her he thought it was fine too. He made abby move it all around and bent it back and forth a few times. He looks at me and says, "i don't think it's broken because if it was she would be in alot more pain, but I'll go check the x-ray and make sure". As soon as he walks out of the room Abby starts crying. I ask her what the matter is and she says "that really hurt when the doctor was touching my arm". Poor thing was trying to be so brave. I told her she needed to speak up if it hurt. Then the doctor came back into the room with a shocked look on his face and says "It's broken, in two places". I told him about Abby crying after he left and he felt so bad. So we walked down the hall to the cast area and a little while later we left with a bright pink cast. The following day we had to go back to the hospital to have it by-valved which means they cut slits in the cast to give it room to breath in case of swelling. Hopefully on June 18th she'll get it removed....if not, then at least she'll get a new cast, one that stops below her elbow.

Birthday for Kaitlynn

Well on May 20th our littlest family member turned 2. I'm trying to figure out how she turned two when I feel like she was just born 6 months ago. But somehow 2 years have passed and Kaitlynn Joy is now entering the terrible two's. Although, they don't seem too terrible. She is so much fun and loves to laugh and giggle and chase Abby around the house. She loves when we hold her upside down and help her do somersaults. When we are done she says "gan" "gan" (which translated is Again). Her favorite things are her baby dolls and she always has at least one in her arms...most of the time she has two. Sometimes I sneak up on her in the playroom just to hear her talking to her baby doll...she is usually saying "sshh" as she is putting the doll carefully in the baby crib and wrapping a blanket around them. It's too cute. Of course she says a lot of other things in Kaitlynn language and I haven't figured it out yet!! She is definately a daddy's girl and when Tim is around no one else matters. When tim has to leave the house for work or an errand she stands at the door and crys for 5 minutes. Then until he comes home she asks me 100 times "where daddy?". Oh boy, this next deployment is going to be hard for her!! She loves her big sister too and trys to do everything that abby does. Abby loves her too. Abby was so excited about Kaitlynn's birthday that she couldn't wait until her real birthday but had to give her presents early. Abby wanted to give her something that was only from Abby so she went up to her room and found about 10 toys that she thought Kaitlynn would like and brought them downstairs and told me "i think Kaitlynn will want these toys for her birthday". With my heart full I told her "OK" and gave her wrapping paper. She wrapped them all up by herself, made her a card and waited for Kaitlynn to wake up from her nap so that she could give her the presents. It was so sweet and had me in tears. I'm so thankful that God blessed us with two girls, sisters....who I pray will always show that kind of love to each other!!

Where does the time go?

It seems like just yesterday that Abby was a little toddler running around the house in a diaper and now she is 5 1/2 years old, going to Kindergarten, starting to read and now...Abigail lost her first tooth! Yes, can you believe it, she's old enough to start losing teeth!!! Well, it was a very exciting event in the household. She woke up on a Tuesday morning and while getting her clothes out for school she jumps out of the closet at yells "Mom, my tooth is wiggly". At first I didn't believe her but upon examination I found a much "wiggly" front bottom tooth. Of course Abby wanted it to come out right away but I convinced her that waiting for it to fall out on it's own would be the least painful way (for mommy too). Luckily that was a morning that Tim was home and he was also able to enjoy the excitement. Well on Wednesday night at dinner the tooth had enough of the wiggly stage and popped out. Abby was thrilled. She even had two friends over at that time and they were so excited for her too. Kids are so cute with the wonder and excitement of losing your first tooth. That night Abby carefully placed her tooth in a little bag and left it under her pillow for the tooth fairy. Of course the tooth fairy did not disappoint and left her $2.00. Now every night Abby has added praying for her new tooth to her bedtime prayer. Not sure how long it takes for a new tooth to grow, but Abby sure is excited for it.

Here is her tooth in the "wiggly" stage


And now it's gone....

Happy New Year .....a little late

Hello again. I promised myself that I would try and post something on this blog every week but somehow life has gotten away from me and I have not met that committment. I always thought that being a stay at home mom would give me PLENTY of time to do the things that I wanted to do. But I am learning that two children can keep me quite busy and there isn't much time left over at the end of the day. So here I am, trying to get back on track again.

So the holidays were great. We traveled to New England to spend Christmas with our families. It was really cold and snowy there!! We left North Carolina wearing t-shirts and arrived in New Hampshire during a snow storm. How is that for drastic changes. Abby really loved playing in the snow and even though it was 8:00 at night when we arrived at my parents house she still went outside with her grampy to make snow angels in the front yard.



We were able to see Tim's brother who drove up from florida for Christmas. He brought with him his girlfriend and her daughter. We enjoyed getting to know them. We also were able to spend 2 nights with John and Crystal Boyer. It's great that they live in NJ and we can stay at "Hotel Boyer" on our way to and from New England ;-)

On the day that we left New Hampshire to come home my sister Amy was also leaving. She had a flight to Denver Colorado that same day. She accepted a job transfer and now is a resident of Colorado (don't worry...she said she will NOT become a bronco's fan). So that was a tough day for my parents. But Amy is doing well and meeting lots of new people and enjoying life in Denver. I hope to visit her sometime this year and see how beautiful it is.

As for this year....Tim is currently in school in South Carolina. He is attending the chaplain advanced course there. He attends school mon - fri and then comes home for the weekend. The girls and I could have moved to South Carolina with him but then we'd just have to move back to Fort Bragg in 5 1/2 months. That just didn't sound like a fun time. So we opted to have Tim just communte back and forth. This way abby can remain in her same kindergarten class and we can stay in our same house in the neighborhood that we love. After the class Tim will join the first battalion, 7th Special Forces Group. He is really excited about this even though it means another deployment this summer. As for me, I am staying busy with the two girls. I also have picked up my quilting hobby again and am enjoying making gifts for friends. Time seems to be flying by. Abby is in Kindergarten and we are working on reading!! I can't even beleive it. Kaitlynn will be 2 years old in May and it seems like just yesterday that she was born. She is a very active toddler and very funny! She makes the funniest faces and keeps us laughing.




Well that is all I have time to blog for now. I hope your new year is going well! We miss all our friends that are scattered all over the world and I hope this blog helps us stay connected. God Bless!

Hard to say goodbye

The army life is great in the sense that you get to meet all sorts of people from all over the country. But the bad part is that eventually the time will come that either you will move away or they will. This past week we had to say good bye to some very dear friends of ours, Justin and Beth. They needed to move to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri so that Justin could attend his captain career course. They were one of the first couples that we met when we moved to Fort Bragg over 2 years ago. Justin was in Tim's unit and we also attended the same church. Beth was so nice and made me feel immediately welcomed in the 37th Engineer Battalion family. Justin was a HUGE blessing to Tim while they were in Afghanistan because he would lead the worship servce for Tim. Beth was a true friend to me during the deployment and always had a hand to help or an ear to listen. She was even at the hospital when Kaitlynn was born. And now that Beth and Justin are expecting their first baby (a girl, the first of January) I'm so bummed about not being able to help Beth out when the baby arrives. Saying goodbye was really hard, but thank God for the phone and email so we can stay in touch!! I'm really looking forward to visiting them over the summer. I hope the time goes by fast....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

To all our friends and family that are scattered around the world....Happy Thanksgiving and we miss you all!!

I hope everyone had a happy turkey day. We had some friends over for dinner and they actually brought the turkey (I was not ready to make a turkey!!). Well Justin grilled the turkey in the grill and it was AWESOME!! Best turkey we've ever had. If you are ever wondering if you should try it....let me encourage you to give it a try. Brine it first, then grill it. Justin said it only took about 2 hours (for a 12 lbs turkey). We had alot of yummy food and some great time of fellowship. Of course i don't think I can eat again for a week!! I hope each one of you were blessed with a great day!

First Report Card

So Abby received her very first report card (I didn't realize in kindergarten that you got them!!). She received all "M's" - which stands for Meets grade level expectations. And for her learning skills she got all "1's" - which stand for Consistently Observed. So we are very proud of her. The next day after her report card we had our first parent teacher conference. It was fun hearing about how Abby is doing in school. We were concerned because she is a very young kindergartener...since she is a september baby most of the other kids are older than her. But the teacher reassured us that she is doing GREAT and even said she is more advanced than alot of the other kids in her class. So we were happy to hear that. She said Abby is a wonderful addition to her class and the aid even told me that she wished she had a whole class of Abigails. Maybe they say that to all the moms, but I was proud either way. When asked how she was doing socially, she said that Abby has many friends in the class and she said that all the kids want to be Abby's friend. I'll post the teachers additional comments too:

"Abby has done well adjusting to our kindergarten routine. She demonstrates knowledge of the letter names and sounds we have studied and is beginning to sound out words. She understands the math concepts we have practiced this nine weeks and does well with sorting and graphing. She can count to 29. Thank you for all of the time you put in to her education."

I can only hope that all the parent teacher conferences and report cards are that good!!