Catching Up

It's been a hot minute since my last post, mainly because of...

Well, there's been a lot going on around here.

 I got a nasty case of kidney stones, which resulted in three ER trips, a surgery, a six day hospital stay, and my body weight in morphine. I'll spare you pictures. 

A day after my hospital break-out, we went to Disney. 

Now, I know what you're thinking--"Wow, that's pretty dumb!"

This basically says it all. 

And you'd be correct. It was pretty dumb. The first couple of days were okay, but I overdid it and had to stay in the hotel room on the third day while Alex and his family took the kids to the park. It was a bummer to have to sit out a day of Disney, but I took some glorious naps and binged on Taco Bell in bed alone, so things could've been worse. All in all, we had a great trip. This year was even more fun than last year since the kids are a little older and were more excited about it.

And then there was that one day at Epcot where nap time lined up perfectly with cocktail hour, and we got to sip on booze in France with the best photobomber ever.

 Vivi is obsessed with cats right now, so her day life was made when she saw Marie the Cat. That was all well and good, but things got hairy when it came time to leave Marie the Cat. We had to drag her away kicking and screaming, and that poor cat probably lost some fur. 

Bobby met Disney this year with only minimal meltdowns compared to last year. He was still skeptical of oversized gloved rodents, which is fair, but he was also terrified of all rides and fought us to get on them. We had to drag him on them, but as soon as he got on them he had the best time. We averaged maybe five meltdowns a day, which I know sounds bad, but last year it was about fifteen a day, so...baby steps. The best part of this, though, is that despite being a real fighter, he is surprisingly well mannered. So as he was protesting going on the rides, he was screaming, "NO MA'AM! NO MA'AM! NO RIDE! NO MA'AM!"...to Alex. He understands "no ma'am" and "no sir," but he hasn't mastered assigning them to the correct gender yet. So for now, Alex is a ma'am, which is pretty amazing when hollered in public. We're currently working on that. But after realizing that the rides are indeed fun, he had a blast. 

Alex's brother and family met us at Disney, along with Alex's mom and step-dad, and it was so great to spend time with family that we don't get to see often. They have two kids exactly our kids' ages, so the four of them got along famously and ran around in a sugar-filled haze most of the time. 

Another thing going on in our neck of the woods- Bobby is finally potty trained! It only took like 6 months and 17 pounds of M&Ms, but my boy's got it down! He's pretty serious about his bathroom time and enjoys sitting down with a book and humming the Star Wars theme, much to my amusement. And in breaking news, we are currently learning to pee standing up! 

Don't want to leave you with that mental image, so here are some pretty tulips from my kitchen.

Vivi has officially hit the terrible twos. She's a hot mess, albeit a really cute and sweet hot mess. As previously mentioned, she is obsessed with cats and meows at every opportunity. She loves driving her Hello Kitty shopping cart and meowing at the neighbors, which is a pretty hilarious sight to behold. She's wild and fearless and fast; I'd actually love to put a FitBit on her and see how many steps she gets in a day. She's also recently taken a liking to babies. There's a newborn that she occasionally sees on the playground, and she loves harasses him while teaching him about his "eyes" and "nose" and "mouf." I brought out her babydoll, which she has previously shunned during all his other outings, and she suddenly loved it. She carries it around all the time and has named him "Kitty." 

I've stopped asking questions. 

"Gimme your lunch money, bitch"

Oh, and another tiny reason I've been MIA lately is because we are building a house! We will be moving to a suburb of Jacksonville in July, and we decided to build a home since this is going to be our permanent location. This is especially exciting as a military family, because we are so used to moving every three years. When you're a military spouse, you try to make your current location feel like home, but it never really does, because you know you'll have to leave soon. I'm really looking forward to building a home that we love, putting down roots in a place, and not feeling like it's temporary. I can't wait to become friends with my neighbors and not have to subconsciously fret over getting too attached because they're going to leave soon.

 So far we have picked out all the important things, like cabinets, flooring, tiles, etc.  I am, of course, already scouring Pinterest for decorating ideas and having a blast choosing things like the lighting fixtures and the wallpaper that I am going to have to bribe my husband to hang. Stay tuned for posts with lots of design inspiration! It's so fun; I just wish I had a silent investor in my decorating aspirations. :)

So, as you can see, there's a lot going on over here. Some things are the same, and a lot of things are different. 

The most important of which is that Vivi has stopped eating dirt. 

Woot.