It's finally Friday!

It's finally the weekend, which is super exciting to me even though I have no plans. The week started out with jury duty on Monday and Tuesday followed by physical therapy Thursday (i'll get to that later) and a extremely long Friday. Being out of the office on Monday and Tuesday also made for an incredibly busy Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I did manage to eat lunch on Wednesday, but that was the only day. Granted, I can definitely afford to skip a meal (or 20), but I like to at least eat a quick lunch at my desk while i'm working!

Can't remember if i've blogged about this yet or not, but I hurt my back last week (not sure how) and after 2 doctors appointments to try to figure out what was going on, my dr. said I needed to go to physical therapy. I really can't complain though. 3/4 of each session is basically a mid morning massage/nap, which I can deal with! A massage would actually be MUCH cheaper than physical therapy, but ya gotta do what you gotta do. As of right now i'm only supposed to go 4 or 5 times and then I will visit my dr. again to see where we stand. Hopefully that will be it b/c I definitely cannot afford to make physical therapy part of my weekly routine!

Emma has become quite mobile in the last week or so! She and Gizmo had a showdown tonight, which I was quite excited to catch on the camcorder. Basically, she chases him as he backs away looking scared of her, and whenever possible (or whenever she's in a vulnerable position) he gets in a nice big kiss on her face. She thinks a quick kiss from him is quite funny, but she seems to be fairly grossed out when he gets the chance to give her a long slobbery kiss (something she and I have in common). She definitely has lots of Chad's laid back personality, but i'm seeing bits of me in there lately as she becomes more and more defiant! The jury is still out on whether she just doesn't understand "NO" yet or if she just doesn't care! We've tried popping her hand after we've told her no to the same thing multiple times with no response from her, but even that doesn't seem to phase the child! If she gets one that stings a little she just holds her hand up and stares at it, as if to say "WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!" That makes both Chad and I a little bit nervous about what the future may hold! She had her 9 month pictures taken last weekend and they turned out really good! We finally got her pictures taken in her long white christening gown that my mom bought her several months ago. In March she will have her Easter pictures taken with a live rabbit (very curious to see how that works out...) and in April she will have her 1 year pictures taken......SIGH. Enough talk about what a big girl she is becoming.

Update on the new deck: Chad has finished the complete top of the deck, which is now huge :-) and now all he has left to do is create the steps down on all 3 sides. This has the potential to take a while, though, since our backyard is fairly sloped (you can't tell by looking at it, but the measurements say it all) so he has to dig out the ground around half of the deck. I'm crossing my fingers that it will be done before he leaves for Arizona!

Well, time for bed. Emma has been asleep for 3.5 hours. Now it's my turn!

Yay for snow and crawling!

Thursday was a good day......... It snowed all night Wednesday night, so we woke up to a winter wonderland on Thursday.

If that wasn't good enough, Emma began crawling Thursday night! Strangely enough, she still won't crawl to get to me or Chad, but if she see's a magazine lying on the other side of the carpet she flies right over to it! She hasn't gotten into too much trouble yet but I have a feeling it's on the way.

So I hurt my back last week and it totally sucks! It happened on Tuesday and I waited for it to get better until Friday. When that didn't happen I went to the doctor, who told me I had pulled some muscles in my lower back. She told me basically that I couldn't do anything that requires me to bend forward for a week. Doesn't sound all that difficult, right? But try picking up an 18lb. baby from her crib, the floor, etc. etc. without leaning forward! It's not too bad when Chad or my mom is here to do those things for me, but on days like today when it's a weekend day and Chad is at work I have no choice. Everyone say a little prayer that my back gets better soon!

Miscellaneous Thoughts..........

So, now i'm thinking that Emma may crawl after all. She would still MUCH rather stand and walk than crawl, but she seems to be trying a lot harder now. Poor thing, she just can't figure out that she has to move her hands. She has gotten really good at moving herself from a lying down position to sitting up though. Most times that we go in her room to get her from sleeping she is now sitting up. And as she plays on the rug in the den she is constantly moving from tummy to bottom, tummy to bottom. She tries SO HARD to go from sitting on her bottom to the crawling position, but she just can't seem to get her right leg out from under her. She tries and tries and tries some more, then inevitably ends up just flopping back onto her bottom. She can almost always get where she wants to go, but it's by rolling, or just randomly moving herself around, not by crawling. Maybe she will crawl, maybe she won't. I've read that it's perfectly fine for babies to skip crawling all together and go straight to walking.

With Chad leaving for Arizona and then us going on our cruise as soon as he gets back (and then he has his two weeks of drill immediately after :P) we are trying to get the house ready for Emma's big day! She turns 1 on April 26th. I know it seems early to be getting ready now, but with Chad being gone we really don't have much time. We have really been wanting a new deck since we moved in. The one we have had 2 (COUNT THEM 2) layers of green astro-turf carpet nailed to it when we moved in. Needless to say, we took it off immediately, only to find the burgundy splintering wood underneath (absolutely gorgeous ;-). Plus it is extremely small and we found out from our neighbors that when the houses were built in our neighborhood the builders set the deck posts on the ground, not in it, so it's probably not the safest thing in the world either. I decided that since you can't do very much at a 1 year old's birthday party that we will have a big cookout for family and friends. To do this we need a new deck (yay!). So Chad has made all the deck plans, ordered the supplies, and taken down 95% of the old deck. Tomorrow (Saturday) he and his dad are planning to build the new deck (or as much as they can). I did get my say in the planning though. I've been telling Chad for a couple of years that when we get our new deck I want no railing. Instead I want the steps to go down to the ground on all sides of the deck. I saw one like this in a magazine and it was beautiful. SO, that's what he's builing. Everyone keep your fingers crossed that it turns out well!

So Chad's big news that has him bursting at the seams is that he's finally ordered his new work/storage building for the backyard. The one he has is very small and metal, not wood. It was really all we could afford when we bought the house, so that's what he got. Now that we have a little (and I reiterate little) extra money he has ordered a custom building from a company in Gaffney. It's much bigger than the current building and it's wood, so he can store tools, etc. on the walls, which he couldn't do in the old building. We still haven't agreed on what we're doing with the old building, but if anyone's looking for one let us know! It's only about 3 years old and still in very good shape. You'll have to contact Chad for dimensions, etc. All I know is that I want it off the property ASAP! Our backyard is small enough as it is!

I guess that's all the yacking I have to do for now. Stay tuned..................

We're BAAAAAAAACK :-)

WOOHOO! It only took me about 9 months to figure out how to get back into our blog! Having a baby really does make you brain-dead!

Soooo... to catch everyone up on where we are....

Emma turned 8 months old on December 26th :-O I can't believe my baby is almost 3/4 of a year old! Where has the time gone?! She is growing up so quickly, but we only seem to love her more the older she gets! Just when it doesn't seem possible to love someone any more, then you do! She is a hoot too. Constantly making us laugh. She has personality AND looks... what a combo! Right now she likes to clap her hands to the music that her toys make (mommy taught her that) and she gives kisses (mommy taught her that too!) She still is not crawling, although she usually can manage to get somewhere if she wants to badly enough. We think she may skip the whole crawling thing though and just start walking. She has been standing (holding her own body weight) since she was about 2 months old, with just the aid of our fingers. Then a couple of months after that she started pulling herself to a stand-up position by herself, and now she constantly wants to be standing up and wants to hold on to our fingers and have us walk around the room behind her! She's going to be cruising the house before we know it!

In addition to Classic, I am now a small business owner (very small!) as well! My mom and I have started our own company called "Amazing Grace Designs" (Emma's middle name is Grace). Right now it's basically an internet company. Our web address is http://www.amazing-grace-designs.com/. We are selling embroidered specialty and children's items as well as handbags, hairbows, etc. We are still in the process of determining our final product list, so the website doesn't have all of our products yet. It has been a very time consuming (not to mention expensive!) process getting the business and the website up and running, but hopefully it will be worth it when all is said and done. Please pass the web address on to anyone that you think might be interested. Also, if you are looking for something specific to be embroidered or monogrammed, please email us and ask (you can email us from the website). There is a good chance we can find what you're looking for. Also, if you have any suggestions on website changes, products we should offer, etc. please let us know! We want lots of feedback!

Here's something that most of you don't know yet. Chad found out this past weekend that he is definitely going to Arizona for 6 weeks for additional flight training. To make a long story short, the Apache he was trained to fly at Ft. Rucker is a more advanced version, which his unit in Columbia was supposed to be getting early this year (all they have now are the old versions.) Well, they found out that they're not not getting them until the end of the year at the earliest (gee, the army not knowing what they're doing/talking about.... what a shocker!) It's already been since like July since Chad (and several others) have flown, so now they have to go to Arizona to learn how to fly the old Apache model, which his unit has. OK, so that wasn't completely a short version, but shorter than if Chad explained it! So, it looks like he will be leaving on Feb. 18th and coming back home on March 29th. Honestly, 6 weeks is not that bad for Chad and I (sadly, we're used to it by now), but now that Emma is here it is going to be a lot harder on all of us. We've decided that Emma and I will try to go to Arizona for a long weekend in the middle of the 6 weeks so that we can see daddy!

I fully intend on trying to post on a more general basis now than I used to, but we'll see how that goes.... keep checking back to see if i'm able to stick to that one!

Emma's Room!

Chad and I finished Emma's room this past weekend and we love it! Here's a sneak peak!

Our last outing before the baby comes!

Chad and I spent a weekend in Atlanta before my official "no travel" date arrived. We'd never been to the Atlanta Zoo so that's what we decided to do. Our favorite part of the zoo was the Gorillas (apes?). There were 4 babies that were adorable and two of them were twins! We stayed around long enough to watch feeding time which was hilarious. One of the mommy's kept stealing food from her baby! Let's hope I never get like that!

It was a nice weekend so the zoo was a perfect choice! Good thing they didn't catch Chad escaping when we left!

Gizmo's Christmas Picture!

For those of you who don't know, Chad and I talked about it a lot and decided we weren't able to give Foxy the amount of attention she deserved, especially since i've been pregnant. It was becoming increasingly harder taking care of both of the dogs by myself and I knew it would only get harder over the next several months. Chad's cousin Barron and his wife Chesley were looking for a dog and after Chesley visited Foxy she decided they were perfect for each other! Foxy has been with Chesley and Barron for a couple of weeks now and the three of them absolutely adore each other! I know we made the right decision!

Gizmo got groomed last weekend and looked so cute I had to take his Christmas pictures! They cut off a little too much of his mane, but he still looks adorable! And he even got his teeth brushed while he was there!

So anyways, here is a picture of Giz after getting groomed and a picture of him in front of the Christmas tree.

As you all know, Chad and I are expecting a baby on May 8th! We are super excited and counting down the days.

I've had 3 OBGYN appts. so far and all have gone well. My last ultrasound was done on Oct. 2nd and showed the tiny face of our 2mm length baby! CRAZY! Not sure how big the baby is now since no ultrasound was done at my last appt., but the baby had a strong heartbeat at 150 bpm.

I'm attaching one of the last ultrasound pictures. I think it's the cutest one!

My Husband the Pilot!

As some of you know, I went and spent a week in Alabama with Chad. Not exactly a hoppin town, but it was a relaxing week and we got to spend it together! This was the first time since April that we got to spend more than 2 days together.

On Friday I got to go to an airport that he was flying into and see him fly! I took like 100
pictures, but i'll just post the best here. :-)

I spent 5 days, including the 4th of July, in San Diego mainly for a co-workers wedding. We do the majority of our business for work in San Diego, so I have many staff members there and Classic's owners, Ray and Donnine, spend a lot of time there. I've been wanting to go for 4 years and this was finally my chance! I had no idea what it would be like or how beautiful it would be! I figured it would be a bit of a culture shock for me, but in different ways I guess.

I flew into the San Diego airport at night, and was first stunned by how big and busy the city looked from the air. Once I got on the ground I was surprised that the city seemed much more urban chic than I expected! Honestly, I thought San Diego was full of PETA, hemp wearing people, not people driving luxury sports cars and SUV's. The city is full of houses sitting high on cliffs and beautiful views of the ocean and the lower parts of the city. There are tons of huge beautiful parks near the beaches and the marinas and they're so neat because they are huge and full of people enjoying full days there with their families and friends.

If my family wasn't all so close to me here, I could honestly probably live in San Diego. Well, except for the fact that an 800 square foot house there is in the $600,000 price range! CRAZY! It is an awesome place to visit though and i'm hoping to take Chad there soon! After all, Ray and Donnine own a condo there, so we have a place to stay! :-)

My Birthday Weekend :-)

So my birthday was last Thursday, June 8th, and Chad's present to me was a weekend in Atlanta! We stayed at the Hilton downtown, shopped, went to the World of Coke, and went to the Georgia Aquarium (for those of you who don't know, it's the largest aquarium in the world!) The World of Coke was very cool! Who knew learning could be fun?!


The aquarium was so much fun! My favorite animals were the penguins! We went to a 4D show that was great, and one of the best things about the day! We also found Nemo while we were there (but they call him Deepo!) I'd have to say the aquarium was the best part of our trip (besides the shopping!) since i took about 85 pictures there and only stopped snapping them because I ran out of space on my flashcard!



We ended the weekend on Sunday afternoon, each of us going in our separate directions. Sometimes it seems like we're getting used to the way our lives are right now, but each time one of us leaves it seems to get a little harder on both of us......

Marissa

Daddy Comes Home!!!

Chad was able to come home for Memorial Day weekend. This was the first time he's been home in 6 weeks, so the babies were very excited to see him! Seeing as how I get to do it every day, I let him play daddy for the weekend and take care of Gizmo and Foxy. They (meaning Chad and the dogs) loved every minute of it!

My new money saver!

So, after driving to Alabama to see Chad a couple of times in the Durango, I realized I had to buy a new car with better gas mileage! I drive thirty miles to and from work each day and it's a 360 mile drive to Alabama (one way). So........... I knew I wanted to get a Honda, but I couldn't afford a brand new one. I looked around for a couple of weeks and looked at a couple of different Hondas before finding the one I got. I found it online and went to look at it in Greer the next day.

It's a 2001 Accord and it had less than 35,000 miles on it when I bought it! That's 7000 miles a year, and i've already driven almost 8000 miles this year alone! I drove it to Alabama two days after I bought it and was amazed at the gas mileage! It used to cost me $60 to fill up the Durango. Now it costs $35 to fill up the Accord. I used to have to fill up about 40 miles before I got to Chad's house in AL, and with the Accord I still had 1/4 tank left when I got there!

So basically it boils down to this..... it used to cost me $180 just to drive to and from Alabama once, and now it costs me less than $70. And............. I do it in style!

Marissa

Our CRAZY Life!!

Ok, so for those of you who are completely unaware of our crazy life recently, here goes..... Chad has been at Ft. Rucker in Alabama for flight school since January of this year. We anticipate him graduating around May of 2007. We know, May of 2007 seems like a long way off! TRUST ME, WE KNOW!! I keep hearing that it will all be worth it in the end. We'll see..........

We try to see each other every other weekend when possible, but it's a 5 1/2 hour drive each way, so it's not always easy! Plus, Chad is really busy with homework and studying, so weekends off aren't always an option. We're doing the best we can though, and both have internet cams for our laptops so that we can see each other every night. It definitely helps, but it in no way compares to the real thing.