I must be disoriented.. I could have swore it was almost April.......

It's snowing. Yes, my folks back in Aviano, it is snowing here in the good ole butt crack of America.. Pennsylvania. I know that I have completely neglected my blog lately, but I have been super busy. I now have my own shop up and running on Etsy selling bows, as you may have figured out if you read my previous post. After dropping a fortune into bows, I decided to give it a whirl and make Rosalie's bows myself. Turns out, I absolutely love doing it and I'm not too shabby. After multiple people telling me I needed to start selling them, I spent 2 days getting my shop up and running. I'm pretty excited about it! Right now I have more pics listed on my facebook than the Etsy store, but more will be listed soon. So let's see.. other than the excited world of bows.. what else has been going on here... Rosalie and I are sick yet again. This weather is absolutely bizarre. One day it's really nice and we're playing outside, the next it's down in the teens. We're down to just the runny noses now, but it's starting to get old. I'm so sick of being sick. It seems like since we've been home all we have done is fight sickness. Speaking of sickness, my sweet nephew Cameron has been in the hospital for a few days now and they aren't sure what's wrong with him. My brother just called and informed my mom that his other little boy Colton was being admitted now too. I'm asking everyone to say a prayer for my lil angels and hope they get better soon. It's crazy how much Rosalie has changed since we've arrived in PA. Her language is picking up and now she is even speaking Mandarin Chinese. She absolutely loves the show Ni Hao Ki-Lan is learning a lot from it! She doesn't say Thank You in English, but she does say Thank You in Chinese. She's getting so tall and is thinning out. She was up to 27 lbs when we arrived here, now she's down to 25.5. She's not the only one losing weight... I am now down 7.5 lbs! I haven't weighed myself since last Friday so that was my last weeks weightloss. 7.5 lbs in 2 weeks isn't too bad! All of Rosalie's Easter attired has arrived, so as soon as the Hour Glass gets their animals in for Easter, I will be taking her over for pics so stay tuned! Well that's about all for now.. CIAO!

Ladybug Creations

Wondering where I have been and why I haven't been posting? Here's a hint............ http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ladybug-Creations/146195798778881?ref=ts#!/pages/Ladybug-Creations/146195798778881?sk=wall

ooh ohh we're halfway there..

I'm excited to say that this deployment is over halfway over. Rosalie and I have been enjoying our time in the states visiting but I'm so ready for us to be a family again. The other day Rosalie was being a terror and was going from one thing to another.. while I'm was screaming nonstop at her, she took off running, whining, and my mom asked her what she wanted. She said "My daddy." It seriously broke my heart.

On another short note.. today was my "official" weigh in day. I'm down 5 lbs. WOOT. 5 lbs in 1 week.. not bad at all! I know next week won't even comapre to that, but it's big motivation to keep up the work!

That's all for now :)

Dear USAF, you're giving me gray hairs.

As if being a spouse of a deployed service member isn't stressful enough, AMC (Air Mobility Command) at BWI made my morning absolutely miserable.

Every time I come home, I travel on the rotator since it's convienent and cheap. The plane leaves from beside Kevin's shop and arrives at BWI, which is where I'd fly into if I flew commercial. The rotator goes by space available, so you're never guaranteed a seat and you don't know til that day if you have a seat. You are categorized by priority and that's how they issue seats. For example someone on emergency leave is a higher category than a retiree that's just traveling abroad. There are 6 categories. If Rosalie and I fly with Kevin, we are considered a Cat 3. If we fly without him, we're considered a Cat 5. Since Kevin's deployed, that makes us a Cat 4. Anyways to fly on the rotator without your sponsor (Kevin) you need a command sponsorship letter.

Rosalie and I came to the US as Cat 4s and had no problems with our letter. The other day I faxed it to BWI and I called this morning to confirm that they received it and that we were signed up. The guy gave me a hard time saying our letter said Kevin was only TDY and wasn't deployed and that didn't make us a Cat 4. I argued with him and it got me no where. I had the letter in my hand it said "CAT 4: for dependents of deployed service members who are deployed for more than 120 consecutive days" and then it listed his deployment dates, which was more than 120 days. Even though there were FOUR paragraphs saying I was the spouse of a deployed service member, they wouldn't accept it because when the girl typed the letter she wrote "TDY DATES FROM x days - x days" instead of writing "DEPLOYMENT DATES FROM x days - x days." One stupid lil typo cause me one big headache this morning.

So. I do the first thing I can think of.. email Kevin's flight chief. Sure enough, he was on vacation. That's the kind of luck I have lol. I needed to get a hold of Kevin's squadron because that's where they do the letters but I didn't have a phone number or an e-mail. One of the other spouses gave me the email address of the MSgt in charge while the flight chief was gone. I emailed him and he got me a new letter from the commander within 2 hours. I faxed it to BWI and they said I was good to go. Everything worked out but needless to say, I was a wreck all morning.

Onto some happier notes!

I started planning Rosalie's "big girl" room for when we PCS. I'm doing it in a Paris theme. I found this bedding at Pottery Barn and had to order it as soon as I saw it! It's a hot item right now. It JUST came out and the sheets are on back order so those are the only piece to the bedding that hasn't came yet. I ordered her a paris themed growth chart and a sign for her door. I found a shelf with hooks on it, baskets, a big eiffel tower to stick on the wall, and tons tons more cool stuff. I have it all bookmarked and am going to order stuff here and there. We still have 11 1/2 months.



I also treated myself to a new diaper bag. RARELY do I buy anything for myself. I absolutely LOVEEE it.



Since I've been back in the states, I have REALLY blown my diet. Well, when I realized my jeans were getting snug I decided it was time to get back on track. Before coming to the states I was down 6 lbs of my 20 lbs goal. I decided to start back at zero since I wasn't exactly sure how much I had gained back since my mom's scale is naturally off from mine. Since I started back at zero, which was less than a week ago, I'm down 4 lbs and I feel great! I'm going to weigh myself every Friday and I'm hoping to be down 20 before Kevin gets back from his deployment.

In honor of St Patty's Day, Rosalie and I decided to do a lil photo shoot. The pics turned out so cute! Hope everyone has a wonderful St. Patrick's Day!!!

MY FAVORITE!

Quite the blog slacker I have been.

So we've been in the states officially for 1 month and are finally starting to enjoy our visit. Rosalie had to make another trip to the pediatrican office last week to get her ear checked out because she wasn't gettin any better. Sure enough it was still infected. They put her on a new antibiotic and changed her diet. She seems to be doing much better so we've been getting out and visiting and shopping. Yesterday we had a VERY chill day of lounging. Wednesday, we went to Altoona with Miss Kate and went shopping. Oh I love her. I never thought I could be so close to one of my cousins the way I am with Kate. I think in another life we were sisters. lol. Anyways, we went to Altoona because I was determined to get a new Vera Bradley diaper bag since they put a new Vera store in and I needed new sunglasses because mine got broke on the plane. Well, I struck out on both. I found a print in Vera that I liked, but couldn't find a bag in that print. So I waited til I got home and ordered the bag and wallet that I wanted. There are suppose to be here tomorrow. WOOT. I had to get our rings cleaned and inspected too while we were there. Rosalie came home with a new strawberry purse and a tutu and shirt from gymboree and a big thing of play food. It was nice to get out with my best friend and Rosalie was so well behaved.

Tomorrow, my Dad is having his annual mine safety training class here. It runs all day and my mom always feeds them lunch. I volunteered to make them cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I'll have to do about 3 batches to make enough to feed everyone (there will be roughly 30 people here) so as soon as I'm done writing, I have to start on them. I make everything from scratch so I'm looking at roughly hours.

That's about all that's been going on here. Today is my wonderful husband's birthday and this is our 3rd year in a row that we have been separated for his brithday. This year deployment; last year TDY; and the year before he left for Italy.

Here's some pics of my lil hambone :)

pettiskirt love

Growing up, I always wore the best clothes and had the best accessories. When I had Rosalie, I gave up having the best of everything and splurging on clothes, shoes, and purses so that she could have the best of everything. Besides, it's more fun dressing her up than me :) haha.. if you know me, then you know most of Rosalie's wardrobe comes from Gymboree and she has tons of frilly tutus and bows and she is always dolled up the way a little girl should be!

Anyways..

I just had to share this pettiskirt outfit I ordered for her. The woman that made he birthday tutu outfit is making it. The only difference in hers is that it'll have an R instead of a number. Of course as soon as I ordered it I had to contact my bow lady and have her make matching pigtail bows :)

Isn't it stinken cute? Little girls are so much fun!

The Pennsylvania Crud.

I have totally been off the radar this past week and a half. I apologize lol.

If you didn't figure it out by the post about Bon Jovi, I am indeed in Pennsylvania. It's been planned since December that I would come home the first week in February, even though I had been telling people I wouldn't be home til February 24th. My dad and I came up with a big sneaky plan so Rosalie and I could surprise my mom for her birthday. We actually pulled it off. My Dad, my brother, and John came and picked me up at BWI Thursday night (the 4th) and we arrived in PA about 11-midnightish to a VERY surprised mom. The flight went OKAY. I'm not going to say it was terrible or great, but everything went smoothly. Rosalie wasn't too bad but also wasn't on her best behavior. It was probably as good as it could possibly get flying solo with a 15 month old. She didn't sleep nearly as well as I thought she would. The time change did really take a toll on her and we had a hard time getting her back on a sleeping schedule. It took about a week.

Well after a week of being here, Rosalie and I both got sick. After a couple days of her not getting better, my mom managed to get her in to my nephew's pediatrician. He is AMAZING. I think if we lived here, that's where Rosalie would go! Well it turns out she had an ear infection. First one ever. The doc let me look in her ears so I could see what it looked like. The healthy ear was white as chalk when you looked in. Her infected ear was fire engine red. No wonder she was so miserable. My mom took her home for me because I had an appointment that afternoon. Not only did she have a kid with an ear infection, but Jacob came home sick from school with a stomach virus and sure enough Rosalie ended up with it too. By evening she was puking everywhere.

The next morning she SEEMED to be doing better. We ran over to this little country store that sells primitive decor and is literally 3 minutes from my house. It's my FAVORITE place to shop when I come home. Rosalie slept the whole time we shopped. (And I got TONS of cute stuff for my house) We left and Rosalie was getting whiney. I thought it was because it was her lunch time. We decided to meet Dad and John for lunch. We made it from Berwinsdale to my Dad's garage (which is 5 minutes) and Rosalie was puking everywhere. We turned around and went home..Rosalie and I spent the next few days in the house recooping. She seems to be doing 100 times better, but it still a little congested.

So as you can see, we haven't really gotten to enjoy our time here yet. We've gotten out a few times and went shopping and my brothers have both been over a few times... but that's the extent of it! We're both starting to get cabin fever big time! lol My mom did get me an awesome coming home present.. a Kindle! I honestly didn't know if I would like it or not. Kevin asked me back at Christmas time if I wanted one and I said no because I liked having actually books. I didn't get to use it until this week because I had brought a book with me. I absolutely love it! I just bought my 3rd book. I'm reading the Sookie Stackhouse series.. AWESOMENESS. SOO GOOD!

I also haven't been camera happy either on account of Rosalie being sick. Here are some of the pics that I haven taken :)

Uncle Matt pushing Rosalie around.. she sure is one loved little girl!

Reading Blues Clues to Uncle Matt

In PapPap's truck heading out for dinner

hanging out with John

These 2 hambones.. she sure does like him!