Storage

Today, Jonny and I made two trips to the storage unit.  We unloaded things that I won't be able to see for a year or more.  I will miss having all of my possessions surrounding me, especially the pictures.  We took down all the pictures in our house, and now I just look at the white walls and think about what is lacking.  I am not looking forward to Jonny leaving.  He is definitely not looking forward to leaving.  This process is not fun.  I will definitely need the support of all my family and friends to get through this next year, and thankfully I have some great family and friends.  My dad is letting Jacob and I move in with him.  I know he is looking forward to seeing his grandson more.

On a brighter note, Jonny and I are planning a vacation to Arkansas starting next week.  It turns out, Jonny was allowed to take leave for a bit, and we are using the time to go somewhere else and relax.  I found a cabin in Hot Springs Arkansas which is right on lake, and we are so excited about it.  I hope that Jacob will sleep in later than 5:15, which seems to be his new wake-up time.

FIRST STEPS!!!

Jacob took his first independent steps yesterday (Sept 19), and I am so excited!  He has been cruising around, holding on to things, and pushing his walker back and forth across the floor, but this is different.  Jonny and I were enticing him to walk back and forth to each other.  Mostly he would just lunge, or sit down and crawl.  But one precious time he decided to take three, teeny, tiny, wobbly steps straight towards me....and he was crying the whole time!!!  He didn't want to do it; he wanted me to just pick him up instead.  It was momentous, and both Jonny and I were there to see it which makes it even more special.  I am going to make this a short blog, because he is awake from his nap, and I need to go get him.  But I just wanted to get this in writing!!

Word to the Green Tower

In case you were wondering, there is an interesting explanation for how I chose the name of our blog.  While Jonny was stationed in Iraq, communication by telephone was sparse and not reliable.  There was a huge delay, and randomly it would cut out.  There were times when Jonny could hear me, but I couldn't hear his voice, only him pressing buttons.  This resulted in a new communication system, whereby Jonny would press buttons to relay answers to my questions.  During one such conversation, I said something to the effect of "bird to the screen hour" and Jonny repeated "word to the green tower?"  In reality, neither of us remembers what I originally said, but we both remember "word to the green tower."  This saying has stuck with us throughout the years, and inevitably ends up in greeting cards and love notes.  Following the incident, I sent Jonny a Christmas ornament and recorded my voice telling him "Merry Christmas.  I love you.  Word to the Green Tower."  Some soldiers overheard, and started contemplating what I possibly could have meant by the saying, and one finally spoke up, "Duh...word to the green tower....the green tower is a Christmas tree!"  HAHAHAHAHA....this is still funny to me, because, darn it, that actually makes sense.  This upcoming holiday season, we should all share this greeting, "Word to the Green Tower!"

Bowling

Today was a laid back day.  Usually I don't favor this type of day, but today was good.  I am more the personality to have a schedule and plans and pack as much "doing" as possible into my weekend, especially when Jonny is around to help execute.  Today, however, we really just went bowling.  And it turned out to be a lot of fun. 

We used to go bowling a lot, but once baby Jake made his appearance we stopped going.  We have tried a couple of times, and really regretted the decision.  You see, Jacob is what we consider to be a "sensitive" baby, if you will.  And previously taking him to a place like this turned out to be no fun, because if we didn't want him to scream we had to pass him back and forth, back and forth, while trying to entertain/bounce him.  Now, he is crawling and pulling up on everything, so you would think the bowling alley is not such a great place to be.  We had our reservations.  But we trudged on.  Jonny made his entrance into the bowling alley looking like a pack mule, carrying a diaper bag, a bag full of toys, two bowling bags, AND a pack and play.  Yes, we brought a pack and play to the bowling alley.  And to our surpise, it actually worked...minus some whining in the beginning.  By the way, Jacob's whining sounds like he is saying "mama" over and over again, but I am not convinced yet he is purposefully saying my name.  Anyways, he happily played in the pack and play for approx. 45 minutes....which is astounding. 

The rest of the day we chased Jacob all around the house as he attempted to grab everything in sight...Jonny's sunglasses, dvd's, the Wii, Mama's hair....the list goes on.  He is 10 months now, and his energy level is always surprising.  If I exercised everyday the way he does, I would be able to run a marathon.  Somedays I feel like I ran a marathon after chasing after him so much, but then when I try to run I know that this training program has not been effective.

My goal is to upload a picture tonight.  If you see a picture, you know I have succeeded.  If not, then I will try, try again....some other time.

Newby

Thanks to my friend, Amanda, I have decided to try blogging.  I would like to stay in better contact with family and friends, but there are only so many hours in the day.  This is my way of trying to make up for all the time lost...mostly due to the Army...and having a baby...and two dogs...and a husband who requires his underwear to be ironed....HA just kidding.  I wanted to make sure you were still reading!

Well, for now I will keep it short and sweet.  I am actually staying up WAY past my bed time trying to figure out how this all works.  Oh, and I spent about 30 minutes just trying to come up with a name that wasn't taken.  I came up with "twodogsandababy" and someone had that already.  Really?  Someone else thought of that already?  I thought I was being so creative...