potty training

so, i wasn’t around a lot with johnny to do hands on potty training. when i was home at night and on the weekends, i went with the flow. he took a long time because he had developed a strong will and a strong sense to do what he wanted so he chose when he would pee in the potty and when he would just pee in the pull up. so mad props to my sister in law for getting him on track with the potty, but it was almost a year process because once he got the pee down, it took another 6 months to get him to do #2… and we just achieved that 2 months ago.

so ruth, darling, i feel well accomplished as a mother. i am teaching her and she has been amazing. first day she was getting the hang of it. yesterday she killed it with no accidents and did a #2 (which is really quite exceptional) and today she is still doing great. but johnny …. uggghhhh …. is acting out because the limelight has shifted from him to her. he’s having “accidents”. so i want to just jump out of my skin.

anyways, since ruth has been doing amazing with the potty training, i’m not chasing after her with a wet rag we have been able to play. we went camping in our living room yesterday for over an hour. hunting bears and roasting marshmallows over a fire. such love.

blessed be your name

the weather couldn’t be more perfect this past weekend. i wanted to freeze this weekend in time. ryan was out of town in NYC for a quick overnight getaway with the boys, which gave me a full weekend with the kids in Florida’s first true fall weather.

opened windows and doors filled the house with the crisp fall air. we painted outside, drove around with the sunroom and windows down singing at the top of our lungs, took naps on the porch. it was a perfect weekend.

i took johnny to go see where the wild things are. since he loves E.T., i figured this movie would be fine for him. wonderful movie and he did really well. he just kept asking questions about what was going to happen next to my friend Rachel’s little sister Beckah. and wanting more reeses pieces.

i made a pumpkin loaf last night, too. from a real pumpkin. i outdid myself. and can’t stop eating it.

my friend’s first little baby came into the world yesterday, too. maren eleanor harper mctague. so precious and i can’t wait to meet her.

blessed be your, Jesus.

Change.

So, I haven’t updated this blog in well over a year. This time last year, Ryan had just come home from going to Iraq. We used the blog to communicate. You can read below the posts that chronicled this short but intense journey. God is so gracious.

Which leads me to why today, of all days, I am starting back blogging. Well, it’s probably because I have plenty of time on my hands. I just left my job of 2 years working at an advertising and marketing agency. Stress, long hours, high demands. It started wearing me down, but I kept on pulling through. But God laid on my heart very heavy 8 months ago that I need to be home more and with my kids. But I took that feeling, and instead of doing it, I kept working, searching for new opportunities, working, searching for new opportunities, stress, demands, crazy hours. I stayed put in a vicious cycle. Thinking and praying, God send me something, open doors, move this mountain – staying faithful by not quitting.

Well, I kept not doing anything. To make a long story short (I’m sure I’ll expand on the whole story at a later date) I finally made the move. Tuesday. Put my two weeks in. Well, today I was told that my pay would end , really no more work left for me to do, so if I wanted to wait out the rest of my two weeks, I would have to go on as a w9 contractor and do temp work. Felt like a kick in the pants. Awkward. So, I felt it best that I just cut the cord. Like it was my decision.

God. This is all in your court now. I love you and I know you will be faithful to me. This is the beginning of this story. First time I have ever truly stepped out in faith without true knowledge of what is happening next.

SOOOOO…..

In case you haven’t gotten a rundown of what’s going on or the story behind it, allow me to explain.

As most of you know my Army contract was up last Sunday, the 17th. Because of that I was to fall under a stop-loss. The Army just made a ruling that would entitle any soldier on stop-loss to an additional $500 a month. Myself, along with most of the people in my group would, at some point in the deployment, fall under stop-loss and make the extra money. 

On Tuesday we were standing in a group when one person said that the stop-loss bonus wasn’t happening so I decided to call the Army Human Resources Command out of St Louis on behalf of the group and find out the truth of the matter. 

Well, as I was explaining my story to the operator I really found out the truth of another matter. As I explained that my ETS(Expiration Term of Service) had come up Sunday she put me on hold and came back to tell me that several things were a little strange. First of all, the Army is not allowed to cut orders to anyone within 60 days of their ETS. My orders were dated June 24th and my ETS was August 17th, only 55 days apart. I also learned that if your ETS comes up before you report to your unit, in other words, if you are still in a training environment, you are to re-enlist or be sent home. On top of that, if I had been gone for 25 days it would have been considered an automatic two year re-enlistment. 

After I found this out I had to go up my chain of command to figure out how to handle it. Turns out I looked like the guy in jail who is “innocent” and no one believed me. The folks at HRC said that would happen because this was all a big mistake to begin with. After a lot of phone calls and trying to figure this out I was taken into the commanders office and told that I was going home. 

The next day was my de-mobilization. I was told by the de-mob NCOIC that someone must have made a big mistake somewhere because they wanted me gone quickly and quietly. On Wednesday morning I went from being on active duty with deployment orders to being completely separated from the Army with a plane ticket home in four hours. A process I was told that day takes at least five days. It was pretty funny that day because I had several places to go to complete the process and whenever I got to a new station the guy taking me around took me right past the lines into the back to get done what we needed done and very quickly. 

The only reason this has happened is because God had a plan and Rachel and I did what He asked. There were so many things that could have happened that would have sealed my ticket to Iraq but the Lord intervened and brought me home. 

Leaving my family was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. The only reason I was able to do it was because I knew that it was God’s will and that He would be looking out for them. This experience has been so encouraging to Rachel and I and it has just reassured our faith in Him. This was just another time where I had no idea why God was doing what He was doing and that it made no sense, but we were faithful and followed because we trust in Him and He saw us through. 

Thank you all for the support and love that you have given to me and my family. There is a longer, more detailed version of the story that I will be happy to share if you want. It would take me a day to type it all.

Pictures

Ryan Incognito

So I’ve been talking with Ryan and he’s a little bummed right now. His days have turned into 12 hour work days at Ft. Leonard Wood and he is not finishing work until 10 pm. The worst part is that the training could be accomplished in 6 hours a day, disregard the 2 hour lunch break, 1 hour break between each session and the mandatory 3 hours of simulation per day – this all could be done quicker. But, the army is hurry up and wait. He won’t be able to get online at al during the week and hopefully be able to walk or catch a ride the 2 miles it is between his barrack and where they have wifi on base. 

I’ll be posting for him as much as I can. In the meantime – he just texted me and said we’ve been married for 1339 days. That just goes to show how much time he has on his hands right now.

He misses you guys.

Ft Leonard Wood

We are in Fort Leonard Wood now and we have a couple weeks of training here before we move on. Internet is sparse here so I will try everyday to find a connection. I miss everyone a lot. I will update when I find out more information.

Johnny’s a photographer

Click the picture to go to the gallery

As Promised…. The Powder Incident

Kids haircuts