Princess Jingle Has Returned!

   I'm sure a lot of you have an Elf on the Shelf. We got ours last year. Santa ran into Daddy in Germany when he was on his way home from Afghanistan and he gave her to him to bring home. Kassidy named her Princess Jingle. Well, this year we decided to have a North Pole Breakfast after I saw a million posts about it on pinterest. You can find all those million ideas: here.

   I got to thinking (uh oh! We all know that's dangerous!) and decided that BOTH girls needed an elf. That way when they are adults and want to pass the tradition on to their children, they will each have one. I went to Target and got most of the stuff for our breakfast. I swear that store has it all. And I wanted it ALL! LOL I got paper straws, Santa Cups, Santa Cocoa, a cupcake decorating kit, plates. I think it was more fun than shopping for Christmas gifts.

   Last night I set everything up. This morning I got up and made the special treats. The white donuts were made with the cupcake kit. It came with candy canes and North Pole sticker signs. I sprinkled the sugar that was meant for the cupcakes on the tray to look like snow. The Reindeer Donuts were just chocolate donuts with a red M&M for the nose and pretzel antlers. Let me tell ya, those antlers were a pain in the booty! You go through a lot of pretzels trying to break them into the right shape! HAHA!

   I left Arrington's elf in the box for the event. Princess Jingle brought her now that Arrington is old enough to have her own elf. Let's be honest. The more elves you have the more fun it can be! The breakfast was a HUGE SUCCESS! The girls have been talking about it all morning long. Arrington keeps going to the table to look at her elf. Kassidy remembers all the stuff her elf did last year and keeps guessing what the elves are going to do this time. If you are on the fence about the elf on the shelf, my opinion is: GO FOR IT! What are you waiting for? It's so much fun for the kids (ok ok, it's fun for the adults too!). And it will create life long memories and traditions that can be handed down for generations to come.


         

Holy Emotional Roller Coaster!

   Crap on a cracker! It's been FOREVER since I wrote a blog. Funny how I do good for a while then I fall off the planet. Now when I'm freaking out, here I am, writing a blog. I try my damnedest not to be negative but I need to be honest for a few minutes.

   Things have been crazy. The past few months have flown by. We will be leaving our military life behind in just TWO MONTHS. One minute I'm excited. The next I'm terrified. Then sad. Mad. Thrilled. Scared. Anxious. Hopeful. Dreadful. Then I pull my little Scarlett O'Hara routine and say, "I'll think about it tomorrow." Well...I'm running out of tomorrows. We started packing non essentials. Robert has been looking for jobs non stop. The only immediate neighbors I can actually stand to be around have packed up their house and, while still in the area, are gone from next door. They have been the only constant since we got here. I think that is what is bothering me the most. It's real now. The Lopez Family is gone, and we are next.

   No big deal, right? Well...to most people, no. But we have no idea where we are going. No idea where he will be working. And I have 2 months til I have to be out of this house. Yeah, we will still have Army pay for a few months after, but still. I may be doing a LOT better than I was emotionally, but this would take it's toll on anyone. Not to mention allllllllllllllll of this happens right around Christmas. And Christmas is never a good time for me to begin with.

   I'm so stressed I can't seem to function. I feel like I should definitely have the World's Worst Mom Banner and have to wear it around everywhere. I just realized I haven't checked Kassidy's school blog in over a month. I forget about reading time every night. She should be practicing her writing. I just feel like I've completely failed at all her school stuff. I know there are kids who are TRULY neglected, I see them every day. But damn, if I still don't feel like one of the worst... Today, I got so fed up with the neighborhood kids AND mine, I went out yelling about them leaving the gate open when they weren't even supposed to be in the back yard. Turns out my husband was in the back yard. (The kids had been, but they had shut the gate.) Cue the temper tantrum of me slamming the door and crying on my couch.

   I would give just about anything for a bottle of wine, sitting and watching the ocean. Sad thing is, I wouldn't be able to sit there long enough to drink a bottle of wine, and it's been so long since I've had wine, I might not make it home if I did! I need a break. I real break. Not the mental kind. Already there, it's not helping.

   On a funny (and serious) note: I love my husband dearly. But he has been off work for nearly 3 weeks. I'm pretty confident that that is not helping ANY of this. He NEEDS to go to work. I can't miss him if he's up my butt all the time!

I know I know, it will all be fine. Everything will work out. Everything will fall in to place. Yada yada yada. I'm sure it will. But it just doesn't feel like it today. Today. I want to cry. And freak out. And punish all the stupid people.....







Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooosaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Unanswered Prayers or Something Like That

 
   Today hubby had an appointment that could determine our future. It was a Med Board appointment. (For all of you non military people, that is basically an appointment to decide if he can be medically retired instead of finishing up his enlistment.) Since his enlistment is almost up, and it could mean receiving a percentage of his pay once he gets out, we were hoping they would go for it.

   Well, it didn't end up that way. Because the issue he has is treatable, they can't med board him. Of course we don't have the results of his TBI screening, so it could still change. But they did figure out the doc they sent him to before was a joke, so they are sending him to see an orthopedic surgeon for his knee, which may end up in surgery. So I'm gonna call that a win! Time will tell, but he gets out in less than a year, so there isn't too much time.

   At first I was disappointed. Then I realized that maybe what we thought we wanted wasn't such a good idea. Yeah, it could mean a few decent benefits for him. But would they make up for difficulty in finding a job due to his disabled status? I know a lot of people hire "disabled vets". Or they claim to. But his issues are something he works through every day. For him not to be hired for a job because of it, even though he could perform the duties associated with it would be worse! He isn't the type who can sit at a desk. He needs to work outside and stay active. He can't be sentenced to a desk job because of his back pain and knee problems. He will deal with them like he always has.

   I guess my point is: Be careful what you wish for. Or if you get a response you didn't want, look at it another way. It may turn in to just the response you needed!

   No matter what the outcome, I know we will manage. We will make the best of whatever life throws at us, and we will do it together. I am proud of my husband's military service and I always will be, but it's time for us to be a civilian family. He has earned it. And I will be just as proud of him no matter what job he has next.

P.S. The song Unanswered Prayers came to mind and was the inspiration for this. And it is also because a friends Dad pointed out that hubby looks like Garth Brooks! HAHAHA I hadn't thought about it, but he kinda does. (A younger Garth, that is!)

What REALLY matters

 
   Living here in Virginia has been an eye opener for me. I mean I had friends and lost friends at Fort Benning. But if I thought that place had a lot of fake people, I was mistaken. I have made friends, lost friends, been used and abused since we moved here. More than I ever have in my life. Some of it was my fault. I wasn't exactly my true self until almost a year ago. But since then, I have become more positive, and in some cases more oblivious to how fake people can be. I'm starting to realize it. I just have to keep in mind that it's not me, it's them. Some people seem nice, but in reality all they care about it what you can do for them. They never return the favor. They only come to you to complain, never to talk about happy things. I used to be that girl. But I'm not anymore. I started slipping recently, but I caught myself. No more!

   Yesterday I talked to my mom. She took my oldest daughter (when did she become a TEEN!?!) and her friend to a concert. While they were walking across the street, the girls started freaking out. Two of the band members were crossing in the opposite direction and said "hi" to them. I cracked up when she was telling me the story. I can imagine Sarah's face! And what a cool memory that she will have and be able to cherish forever. I miss her and her sisters more than they will ever know.

   I also sat outside with my little girls for a bit before making dinner. Arrington refuses to wear shoes. When you ask her "Where's your shoes?" She says, "I don't need shoes! I don't WANT shoes!" So be it. No shoes for her. I came across Kassidy sitting in the grass in her Rapunzel dress playing with her hair and singing. So glad I had my camera!

   In less than a month I get to go home. It has been almost a year, so I can't wait. I think part of my problem is that I miss my family and Georgia. Virginia claims to be the south, but nothing is the same to me as Georgia. It is home. The way my husband (and ALL Texans) feel about Texas, is the way I feel about The Peach State.

   I know this is a rambling blog. But I have finally come to the conclusion that I have been working up to for a long time. Friends are nice. Family is better.I have an amazing Mom. And awesome Dad. A wise and beautiful Grandma who is my role model.  All FIVE of my daughters are amazing miracles who get bigger every day. My husband is fantastic. He's not perfect and neither am I, but we make it work.

   After being so busy with shooting, editing, and spending time with my husband and little girls in between, and not having much time for social media other than my photography, I realized that family matters. Family matters more than friends. More than BBQs. More than concerts. More than date nights. More than facebook. More than a social life. I am not in high school. When I get home and have family that I trust nearby, I will have date nights every now and then. But until then, I am happy with my husband and my girls.

   Robert IS my best friend. For life. Til death do us part. Yeah, sometimes I want to strangle him. But I don't. And that's how you know he's my soul mate! HA HA! Kassidy is a handful and a half. But some times, she makes a good choice and I tell her how proud I am of her, and her face lights up and things are wonderful. Arrington is only 2. But her personality is incredible. She's the best "mini best friend" a mom can ask for. My older girls are miracles in their own right. If I start, I will never finish. But they are awesome. And a lot of it I can't take credit for. But they make me proud all the time.

I'm not trying to discount the true friendships I have here. I have a couple of friends who are pretty darn cool. One friendship is just beginning. Another has been around and stuck around even when I pushed her away. The other is country, sassy, honest (even when it makes me mad) and everything I like in a friend. Friends are good to have. But you really only need a few good ones! And family. You need family. Even when you think you don't. Hug them tight. You never know when it will be the last time.(A friend reminded me of this today.) Now, I'm going to turn off the computer, put my little ones down for a nap, enjoy the peace, and then hopefully play outside with them before the rain hits.

My dreamer.

Full of spunk!

My hero in more ways than one!

Can't wait to have an updated photo of them! 

Kindergarten!!!! When did this happen??

   We had Kindergarten registration today. For Kassidy. For NEXT year. It's April. School isn't even out yet and she doesn't go until September. I seriously think that if people had to do this much paperwork before getting pregnant, the human race would be DOOMED! I have writer's cramp, for real! Not to mention, allllllll of that for a school system who has "half day" Kindergarten. Their "half" a day consists of TWO HOURS... I definitely don't understand this, but we will be moving half way through the year, so I guess it will have to do.

   I have to say, I was pretty impressed with myself. I had everything together and ready to go with the exception of her shot record. And her physical, but I can't do that before May. The registration went great. They had it set up so the kids went with the teachers and got to ride the bus without Mommy and Daddy. They got to have fun and learn about the bus, and we could focus on killing a thousand trees in an hour! LOL

   When did she go from my itty bitty baby, to a kid who not only has no problem walking away with a teacher and not looking back, but who was excited about it!?! She is thrilled to death about "turning 5 and going to Kindergarten". She can't wait to ride the bus to school. We had her in Pre K but it was a glorified day care with no discipline so we pulled her out. Hopefully kindergarten goes better!

   I'm ok with Kassidy starting school. I think when Arrington (the baby of the family) starts, I may need an inpatient facility. The older kids are blossoming in all kinds of ways....And the boys are noticing! When that happens with Kassidy and Arrington, DADDY is gonna need inpatient care! LOL

Dear PTSD- GO AWAY!

   This type of blog is rare for me. It isn't going to be positive. It's going to be raw, emotion filled, and angry. If you can't handle that, stop reading. This is part of the life I live. I don't have the choice to ignore it. But sometimes I need to get it out of my system. This is the best way for me to do it. Consider yourself warned.

   My husband was FINALLY officially diagnosed with PTSD recently. At the time I felt relief. We finally had a diagnosis and it was on paper so people couldn't deny it. We had always known it was there. So nothing would really change, right? WRONG. He began having a lot of appointments. The past week and a half he has had to drive 45 minutes away every day for a PTSD clinic. He says it's helping him. But then he yells. He yells at me. He yells at the kids. He is easily irritated. This wasn't happening before. Add to that the fact that our only vehicle was having mechanical issues. He was always gone dealing with that when he wasn't at his clinic. I was beginning to feel like I never see him and when I did he was in a bad mood. Thank goodness we finally got the truck figured out. But the rest is still there. I have felt like I was just going through the motions. Only my motions aren't like everyone else's. I have to go into the kitchen and make sure he remembered to put the milk away or turn off the oven. Make sure the windows are rolled up on the truck and the doors are locked. I have to remind him for the 34th time that you can't wash the 4 year old's ballet leotard with the rest of the clothes. I have to find out that it's stifling hot upstairs because he forgot to shut the front door all the way and it blew open and was freezing downstairs so the heat ran continuously. I have to deal with an attitude if I remind him of something because he is pissed about forgetting. Even though he tells me to remind him.

   Before everyone attacks me, hear me out. I love my husband. I hate that he has to go through this. It breaks my heart watching him have anxiety attacks. But, at the risk of sounding selfish, what about me? I feel like everything is poor him. I posted a status on facebook last night about a rough evening in our house. Someone commented "Poor Robert!". Looking back at it reasonably, this person didn't know everything that had happened, only what I had written. But it still caused me to burst into tears. It feels like that ALL THE TIME. There are things that have happened in our relationship that we keep between us. But sometimes I want to scream it from the roof tops because I feel like everyone just feels bad for him. Like it's not his fault. I feel like sometimes PTSD gives him a constant "get out of trouble" card. An excuse. I'm not perfect. Neither is he. But we still have to have consequences. It feels like there is all of this help for him. But there is virtually nothing for the spouses. Sure we can go to therapists. But if they are civilians and have never dealt with the situation, it's very difficult to talk to them. Even the clinic he is attending acknowledges that they need to have a class for spouses, but they don't know how to go about it. 

   The difference between me and a lot of spouses who deal with PTSD is I didn't really know him well before his worst traumas occurred. But I can tell you, it's just as hard. He wasn't like this when he first came home. I guess it can have a delayed effect. I don't know. And I'm guessing the two deployments since didn't help either. The stress of the Army in general. Every day stresses of life. It still sucks. It's still hard every single day. For our whole family. PTSD isn't in individual disease. It affects everyone in the person's circle. Parents, spouses, friends, children. It hurts. It hurts to feel like sometimes he doesn't care. It hurts to watch my daughter's face when he tells her no to something just because it's the first thing he can think of to say rather than listening to what she is asking for. It hurts to watch him be so angry and not know why. And it hurts for him to direct it at me. 

   Don't get me wrong, 90% of the time he is an amazing husband and father. I know that what I deal with is mild compared to what others go through. He isn't violent. He doesn't hurt me physically. He has progressed in so many ways. But it doesn't hurt me any less. Emotional pain is still pain. I have tried to pretend like everything is so great. Like if I kept telling myself that then it would be. Positive thinking only goes so far. Most of the time it works. I can put on a happy face for my kids and other people in my life. Last night after the kids had gone to bed, my happy face broke. I don't know why, other than the fact that you can only bottle things up so much until it overflows. 

   I don't really know why I wrote this. I don't REALLY want sympathy, just for people to realize and maybe acknowledge that it isn't just the soldier who deals with this. These wars have created an internal hell for many many people. Not just the ones who went into battle. They come home and it's a battle for all of us. It's a battle I'm not going to lose either. Walking away isn't the answer. I'm going to keep fighting. This disease won't beat this family. I may have crappy days and cry and be mad and want to run and hide. But I won't actually do it. He deserves better than that. And I deserve the husband I love, not the broken version. Our truck was broken. We tried a lot of different things before we finally found the right one and fixed it. I know that this is a process. I know it's going to be hard and frustrating. But it will also be worth it. 

Iraq:He made a difference!

 
   As almost everyone who reads this is aware, my husband has served in the Army since 2006. This includes two deployments to Iraq and one most recently to Afghanistan. His second tour in Iraq wasn't as "bad" as his first. But it will probably be much more memorable. I remembered him talking about this guy named "Troy" that he worked with. All the other soldiers talked about him too. Troy is not his real name, just the name he went by. At the time he was an interpreter for our Army in Iraq. He was young. By my math, just 18 or 19 years old? I always heard good things about him. Funny stories too!

  Well, Robert returned home. I still heard stories about Troy from time to time. Then after we had moved to Virginia, Robert got a message from Troy on Facebook. He was asking if would allow him to send papers from the government here to us because the mail system in Iraq was non existent. All we had to do was get it, scan it, and email it to him. As it turned out, he was trying to come to the U.S! We haven't talked about it much, but we did it. After some back and forth, Troy made it to Texas last year! I mailed him all of his paperwork that we had been saving for him.

   A couple of weeks ago, Robert got another message from Troy. He told him he was joining the Army. He wasn't sure what his job was going to be yet, but he had done very well on the ASVAB. Then today while we were at the commissary he got another message. Troy is going to be a medic. My face lit up with a huge goofy smile. And I watched my soldier husband tear up in the middle of the snack aisle. Most soldiers who have been to Iraq can't point to someone or something later in life and say, "THERE! That is where I made a difference." My husband can. He didn't look at this guy and say, "No, you're Iraqi, I'm not helping you." He knew in his heart that this young man could do great things if given the opportunity. So he helped him. Did he do anything major? No. He gave him a mailing address to use. But not everyone would have done that. To Troy, it was everything. He has been nothing but appreciative and excited to be here. He is a wonderful guy who is giving back to the country who is helping him. Whether you agree with the wars or not, sometimes, even when you think we aren't making a difference, we are. And sometimes, if you make a difference in one person's life, it can make the bigger picture seem more worth it. I know it did for my husband today. He went through some hell during his Iraq tours. But he made a difference. I am so proud of both of them. I can't wait to meet Troy one day!