Danielle's 5 month stats

Oh my goodness! In all the excitement of Brian leaving, I forgot all about Danielle's doctors appointment on Wednesday. She measured off the charts, my giant baby! Not quite off the charts but almost.

Head - 43cm - 90th percentile
Height- 25 1/2 inch- 80th percentile
Weight-16lb 7oz - 90th percentile

She is laughing now, and trying to talk to the dogs. It's pretty cute actually, she looks at them and squeals to get their attention. She is starting to pet them, but it's more like slapping them on their head. I'm so proud of my puppies, they either move away or stand there and take it.

The previous weekend, we took Danielle to the zoo and I have pictures of the animals on MySpace. I have to put some pictures up on here. This last weekend we had a picnic lunch up on Transmountain. Maryann is going to have a heart attack when she sees the picture of Brian holding Danielle on his shoulders, and the mountain cliff behind him. Sorry!!

Danielle is back on cereal but this time she's eating it from a spoon. If you can call it eating HaHa. Its getting better at going in her mouth than down her chin. I probably won't start her on solids until the end of next month. I want her to get the hang of eating the cereal, and I am making her food so I want to get some batches stocked up on. Then she'll be six months so I know her belly can handle it better than now. My baby is almost 5 months!!!

He's Gone

After a long drawn out process of driving onto post to drop off bags, then hanging around the gym looking around at all the families, we said Goodbye to Brian in 3 short minutes. I tried not to cry, but when he bent down to kiss Danielle, the tears slid down my cheeks. It was so hard to be strong and hold it in, when I'm thinking this isn't fair. This wasn't supposed to happen so soon again. We were supposed to have another year or so before he went back to Iraq. But it's his job, the Army is how we pay our rent and put food on our table and clothes on our back and diapers on Danielles bum.

Then it made me think, which is better: it being a first deployment where you have no idea what to expect, or it being a second, third, fourth deployment where you know exactly what to expect and how freaking hard it's going to be. I still haven't decided yet. Give me a few months to shake the daze I am in.

The hardest thing so far is that Danielle has no idea what's going on. She is too young to wonder where Daddy is, when she wakes up tomorrow. But will she remember him...I have to prepare myself for that. I wanted to play the dvd of Brian reading her a bedtime story but my nerves are too raw tonight. That will start tomorrow as her bedtime ritual. Right after her bath, I'll put the movie on while she's waiting for her bottle. *SIGH* It's the little things you have to do as an Army wife, to keep your family together and united across the country.

But we wait...always waiting...because he is worth the wait.

Earnings of 2009

So being a stay at home mom gives me some extra time on my hands. Idle time, you could say. While I'm waiting for my transcription certificate to come through, I was looking at ways to make some money from home. I found a great blog from a local Army wife here at Bliss with a few sites to earn money from the internet. So I signed up for a few 'get paid to read emails' and such, and I'm curious how much I can earn. I know, I know, it won't be much, but shoot, if I can earn $30 a month, that's gas for my car right there! Yes...I can fill up my gas tank for $15. I love my little Accent.

I'm going to post my earnings, and which sites I got them from at the end of each month. With Brian being gone, I'll have much more time on my hands to do things here at the house.


On another note, I am also working on getting the rest of this baby weight off. All I'm doing is tracking my calorie intake and exercise into a website - www.myfitnesspal.com - and taking Danielle for a 2 mile walk about four times a week. Occasionally, if Brian isn't too busy, I run to the gym for the elliptical and treadmill. I want to get to my good weight before we get pregnant again, in August hopefully!

New Year Update!

I know, I know, its been too long since I have updated this. We've been home from PA and Chicago for almost a week now. Danielle and I were gone for 3 weeks flying from here to there back to here again. Of course she did great on the plane, she's a pro at flying. It also helped that flying from PA to Chicago I was surrounded by traveling Grandmas Haha. I think I upset one when I didn't let her hold Danielle when she offered to help. Sorry, you might be a nice Gramma but you are still a stranger.

PA was really good! I was surprised, honestly! Hey, my family+get together=DRAMA. You know I love you guys, but its true. We had a dinner at my mom's house, even Denny chilled out and ate for a bit. Darla and her crew came up from Virginia. The only people missing were Aunt Liz and Steve. I got to meet my niece Jade, sweet kid, very smart. She had me and my mom laughing so hard that we were crying. Little leprechauns and invisible flying birds. You had to be there ;) If I missed seeing you while I was in town, I'm so so sorry. I had no internet and no phone until I got to Chicago.

Then off to Chicago. Danielle did so great when we had Christmas at Grandma's house, despite there being about 20 different people there. Dinner at my mom's was a different story. She didn't even have an afternoon nap really and fell asleep in Gina's arms. Too cute! The annual stair picture was chaos, as usual. Danielle sat straight up though, I will post the pic on here later. She didn't even flinch when Santa came to visit either!! That was shocking most of all. Actually she got kind of bored with him, since she already had gotten her presents Haha. Pics of that later too.

We are still adjusting to being back home and it just being Mommy and Danielle during the day. There's only me to entertain her but we're working it out. I just have to figure out her nap schedule with being back home and it'll be fine.

Brian is leaving for Iraq very soon. I can't give you a date but you'll either hear from him or me when that is. We are just getting things ready for that and once he's gone, it's just another adjustment to deal with.

Danielle's getting fussy, its nap time so I'll post pictures tonight.