Insomnia

Karsen came upstairs crying around 2:45 a.m., so I got him settled on the floor by our bed, and then climbed back in bed to get some more slumber...it is now 3:15, and I have realized that sleep is eluding me. As I lay in bed, I kept thinking about my blog and how its time to start documenting our life again! I recently read a list of things successful people do, that really caused me to think, and one item on the list was writing in their journal daily. I don't care so much about worldly success, but I do want to be the best version of myself, and I know that journaling is very important. Over the next little while, I plan to go back and document the last two and a half years of our lives, and try once again to blog daily! Wish me luck...here we go!!! But for right now, I'm going to try to get some sleep!!

Kid Talk

Just thought that I'd share a funny little conversation I had with Parker.

Mommy: "Parker, I think you are pretty cute!"

Parker: "No, I'm AWESOME!!"

Mommy: "Oh ok!!"

Parker: "Chloee is cute, I'm Awesome!"

There you have it!!!
I'm glad that he thinks he's awesome!!

True Love

I am SO in love with this little sweetheart!!!!!

It is kind of ironic because I was the least excited during this last pregnancy about having a baby, but now that Karsen is here, he is my favorite baby out of the three. Just to make it clear, he is NOT my favorite child, I love all three equally, but at the newborn stage he has been my favorite for several reasons. He hardly ever cries, he is so snuggly and cute, and overall has just been a really easy baby, so I have been able to enjoy him more, and have been stressed out a lot less!! The fact that I am not breastfeeding is also a big factor, but that is a topic for another post!!

Veteran's Day

I am so grateful for all of the military men and women who put their lives on the line to protect our freedoms and way of life. I am so proud to be an American and love this country that we live in. I am especially grateful for my soldier, for his hard work and dedication. Travis is a great man, and I am so proud of him for his willingness to serve in the military.

So on this Veteran's Day I want to say a big THANK YOU to all of the soldiers out there, including my very own!

Photo Shoot

The other day I did a little photo shoot of Karsen so that I would have a picture of him to hang on the wall. What do you think?

This is my absolute favorite one!! I LOVE it!

This is the one we chose to hang on our wall. Just precious!

Update

I've realized recently that I am not a very good blogger while I'm pregnant for some reason! I have written more blog posts in the past two weeks since I've had Karsen then I did during all of my pregnancy. Anyways, I figured that I'd better write an update on our lives for my own records! For those of you who didn't hear, Travis did NOT get deployed after all! They told them that they would be getting deployed in a year instead, which was very frustrating. We were happy that Travis would be around, but we were not looking forward to the year of anticipation and preparation again. We had accepted the fact that we would be separated for a year and were ready. But there wasn't anything to be done except to accept whatever came!

Well fast forward a couple of months to October 29th, Travis' drill weekend, and we found out that now the plan is that they will be getting deployed in January. Life is crazy I tell ya! So there is a 95% chance that Travis will be leaving in January to go to Fort Hood, TX for a few months of training, and then will be shipped off to Afghanistan in May. We are ok with this news, and are very grateful that Travis could be around for Karsen's birth and the first few months of his life. Leaving in January is much better timing than leaving in September would have been.

On to more exciting news, Travis got promoted with the military!! He is now a Specialist!! I was able to be there when he got promoted to put his rank on his uniform, which was a good experience! They have a little ritual with promotions where the spouse removes the old rank and replaces it with the new rank, and then punches the soldier as hard as they can in the chest! So I got to slug Travis in front of his whole company, which was pretty fun!!! I look forward to future promotions, just so I can punch him again!!! (I am really not as violent or abusive as I may seem! Travis is amazing and doesn't deserve to be hit, but traditions are fun!!)

Well that's what has been going on with our family!

Halloween 2011

We had a fun Halloween this year! We were fixing costumes up until the last minute, but I think they turned out pretty well.

Our knight/king riding his noble steed!

Our little ladybug!

And our little pumpkin!!

All ready to go trick-or-treating with daddy the jester! (Except Karsen of course!!)

This year we just took the kids out trick-or-treating for about an hour and a half and then came home and had a little impromptu Halloween party with my parents! My parents were kind enough to stay at our house with Karsen and hand out our candy while we took the kids around.

For our "party" we bobbed for apples, had doughnut eating contests, danced to Halloween music, and then watched Casper! It was lots of fun!!

Daddy demonstrated how to properly bob for apples!

Chloee put her face down by the water, but then decided it was more fun to grab the apple with her hand and throw it back into the water, creating a big splash!

Mimi got one!!

Chloee eating her doughnut while dancing!

Parker LOVED this activity!!

Yum Yum!!

Travis and I competing! Travis won, although he did have a smaller doughnut!!

Mimi and Papa competing. Papa won, but only by a hair! It was very close!!

Open wide!

Karsen slept peacefully while we partied!! Such a sweet baby pumpkin!!