Family Field Day

Charles spent the last 2 weeks in the field for an FTX (field training exercise). While he was out there, the battalion invited the families of the soldiers out to the field to see what they do on a daily basis. I was actually really excited about this. Charles explains what his job is all the time but it never really makes sense. With the family field day, I was able to physically see what he was talking about which made me more interesting.

We made it out to the field about 9:30 on a Tuesday morning. It was already 100 degrees outside. They had bleachers and a tent set up to help shield us from the sun. While we waited for the 'boom booms', as Autumn calls them, we listened to the LTC explain what was going on and a few other things. After Alpha battery shot the Paladins, we were able to walk around the explore all the different military vehicles they had out there. Autumn loved this part of the day. She even cried when I told her it was time to move on to the next vehicle. If I put her down to walk, she would just run back to the next vehicle.

Autumn also loved watching/listening to the 'boom booms'. She was constantly pointing out into the field/mountain and yelling 'boom boom'. She clapped just about everytime she heard it. I did have a hard time keeping her ear protection on but I know she had to have been misserable since it was so hot out there.

We left around noon and headed to work/school and stayed in the AC for the rest of the day! I think that this experience was awesome and im thankful that the battalion was able to offer it to us.

The three of us

Paladins

Waiting for the 'boom boom'

18 Months*

Autumn Grace, you are 18 months old today! You are such a handful these days, but mommy and daddy are loving every minute of it.

You are wearing 18-24 month clothes with a few 12 month clothes that still fit. You are in size 4 diapers.

You sleep from about 8:30pm-7:30am with one nap from about 11:30/noon-2:30/3pm.

You are eating just about anything that we give you. You love your bananas aka 'nana' for breakfast and always ask for 'cookies'. You love your juice and milk and chug chocolate milk. We gave you a fresh plum the other day and you loved every bit of it. Your not a huge fan of the fresh peaches though.

You run to your room when we ask you if your tired and want to go 'night night'. You run to your high chair and yell 'nummy' when we ask you if your hungry, and you run to the bathroom when we ask you if you want to take a bath.

You have recently started coming to me while holding your diaper and saying 'poo poo'. Your not always 'poo poo' but you are always at least wet. I bought you a 'potty' the other day so you can get used to having it around but it'll be a while before your actually using it.

The most recent words you are saying are 'poon' (spoon), water, walk, hand, eye, ear, all done, bye bye puppies, thank you mommy/daddy, bow, big girl, nice, opeas (open please), mine, Major, ewwww, and even a few of your friends names from school, Wyatt, Matt, Sean and Caedi. You know what a puppy, cat and monkey say too.

Autumn, mommy and daddy love you very much and are so blessed to have you in our lives :)

Oh Monday...Oh heat...

Its Monday. Ive never been a fan of Mondays. It seems as though just about everything that needs to get done for the week, needs to be done on Monday. And on this Monday, I had to do it all in 105* heat.

Now, for those of you who know me well, know that I HATE being cold and am very often cold. I think 80* outside is perfect. I can handle 90* but when it is over 100*, I think its just to hot to function. It takes a 15 minute car ride for the AC in the car to completely cool down the car. Just walking from the car into a building makes you sweat. The pool is even too hot for days like today. The AC in the house has been running non-stop since last night (thank goodness for military housing and not having to pay electric bills). Unfortunately the heat is supposed to stick around for another week or so. And of course, since we live in lovely Oklahoma, we dont even have a beach less than 15 hours away that we could visit.

Since it is Monday and Autumn and I didnt have much time to do the things we love to cool down, I thought id share them with you via pictures :)

So what are you favorite ways to cool off during the summer heat??