Daddy's gone :( But Max is standing!

Ugh - today was bleh.

I wont say it was bad because it wasn't. Only bad part was having to watch Sean say goodbye to his son. We had to drop him off at the airport on base this morning. He and everyone who is going on the aircraft carrier with him had to fly up to Washington to get on their ship. We now have 3 aircraft carriers stationed at our base and all 3 just so happen to be in port right now so the one our squadron goes out on couldn't come down to pick them up. So they had to leave earlier to fly up there. Thankfully they should be porting here in SD when they come back so at least he doesn't have to port in Washington then fly back.

So after we said our goodbyes (definitely not as bad as I was expecting) Max and I left and we went straight to my friends house who's husband is leaving with him. I really appreciate her going through the same thing as me so we can definitely go through it together. During deployment I was at her house alllllll the time. I may as well have moved in :p her husband and my husband don't get along much anymore but we don't let that phase us.

So Max and I just hung out there with her and her kids. We watched The Time Travelers Wife which was SUCH a good movie. And we took the kids to the park. Then had taco dinner. I came home around 8 and gave Max his bath. I got frustrated because I think Max is so used to it just being he, Sean, and I (mostly just he and I) that when he is around more than just a couple people he kinda clams up and doesn't know how to open up and be himself. He's not used to hearing so many voices and so many bodies moving around. He still has fun but he's quiet for the most part and will have random outbursts of laughter. And then as soon as we are home he's back to his normal, loud, mess with everything, go everywhere, screaming self. He was like this especially in the bath, my goodness.

We hung out for a bit, played, practiced standing up unsupported, which by the way he stood for 5 whole seconds by himself today!! And he could have stood longer but he bent his knee's and squatted down to crawl. My friend and I noticed that he didn't just lose his balance because he didn't fall at all, he squatted down like he meant to. She pointed that out to me and it made me realize that he really never falls back on his booty or forward on his hands anymore. He's learned how to go from standing to sitting/crawling without just letting his body fall down! Yay! His coordination is improving which means walking is on it's way! BTW, when he stood that whole 5 seconds (5 seconds for a baby standing means a WHOLE lot more than 5 little seconds. It's a HUGE deal that I didn't understand until I saw my own baby do it <3 ) he looked SO EFFING CUTE!! He was wobbly and so adorable with his concentration face. And then the dog just had to grab his attention...grr.

Anyway, tomorrow we are all going to go to a linen store to pick out what patterns I want for Max's quilt my friend is going to make for him as his b-day present! I'm sooo excited about that because quilts are so comfy and it will be the size to fit his toddler bed whenever he's ready for it. I'm so excited for that! And then we are going to go to Target just for the fun of it. I need another baby gate and a few things. I'm going to get started on making Max's play area soon :D

Birthday prep and walking excitement

I just ordered all of Max's birthday supplies!! The theme we decided on is super cute (and will be kept a secret until party day XD ) and once it all comes in I'm going to get the other stuff like streamers, balloons, utensils, etc. I also want to get a customized t-shirt made for him. Since Sean wont be here for his real birthday () we will have his birthday party 2 weeks early on May 29th. It kills me to have to do that, but Sean really wants to be there for it (as do I!) so we just have to. Besides, it just means we get to celebrate his birthday twice! We wont have a 2nd party, but we can definitely go out to dinner and something else fun I'm sure. Sean just wont be there for that one

Also today a friend and us went to the Stone Brewery for a early dinner. Thet brew Sean's favorite beer and we were excited to finally try their restaurant. It was pretty good, but I don't think we will go again. But afterwords they had this beautiful park to enjoy and I think there was some kind of Baby Day thing going on because their were babies and toddlers everywhere! Max had fun playing with a few of them. There was this  11 month old baby boy who you could tell just learned how to walk a few days ago. He was in the park area along with us and all the other babies. It was the cutest thing because you could just tell that he JUST started walking because he was so slow and wobbly and was having the time of his life. It made me tear up a bit from how cute it was seeing both his parents slowly following him cautiously. They totally let him lead the way and watched him so lovingly and you could see the pride they felt just pouring out of their faces. It was amazing. I had to talk to them so when they got near us I complemented how cute he was (I love how if you ever want to start a conversation with other strangers with babies you always complement them haha) and I asked how old he was. They told me 11 months. And I said "He just started walking, didn't he?" and the mom just lit up with pride and joy quickly answering back "Yep! This is day 3 and the first time he's done it outside of our house so it's so exciting" and then we continued talking about each others babies.

Let me tell you, that got me SO excited for when Max learns to walk! Before I was in no hurry for him to walk at all. I mean, I of course want him to, but I didn't want him to do it too soon. I wanted it to happen at 1 year and would even have been ok if he went a little longer just because I was enjoying him crawling and being a baby still. I felt that when he started walking, no matter the age, he would be a toddler and I just wasn't ready for that. But now? I can not wait!! That baby showed me that even with walking you are still so obviously your mommy's baby. And it just looked so fun to be able to follow your baby around. I imagine the 3 of us walking in a park, Max wobbling his way wherever he wants and us following him...I.Can.Not.Wait. Time to start really practicing walking with him!

Happy Easter!

Well, it's passed 12am so it's not Easter anymore, but I can't sleep. We are back in the Desert (aka our home town) and spent the whole day with family. Sean's grandma, then all his Aunt's and Uncle's and cousin's got together for dinner and we played whiffle ball which was so fun. Max was so funny, he kept crawling around the field, haha. I was soooo beat when we got back to my parents though. I dozed off at 8. Sean woke me up at 9 to kiss me goodbye :( He has to work tomorrow and we brought seperate cars so i could stay longer with Max since my mom has the week off of work. He looked so good today. He always wears band shirts but today he wore just a simple long sleeve gray thermal and it was a nice change. Anyway, I said bye to him and knocked right back out. It's like my body knew that for once I'm able to take a nap when I want since my parents were spending time with Max. Well, I woke up feeling so much better at 11pm :/ everyone was asleep and I couldn't fall back to sleep. Still can't. Max is sleeping inbetween my parents in their bed, awww. So I'm in my brothers room all by myself. I miss my boys :(

AND I'm still dealing with baby fever. It's not soooo bad, so I think instead I'll call it the baby bug. I keep thinking that if i just spend some QT with Max it will help ease it since he's still my baby, but it just makes it worse cause he just makes me want another one even more, lol. He's the only baby in Sean's family so everyone was lovin' on him today and of course I got a few "So when's the next baby coming?" and I would just say "Eventually, we are still happy enjoying just Max" because if we even hinted that we are wanting another one but still want to wait....well, they would push us to hurry like crazy! Even while we do want another right now, we are still stern on waiting a bit more. Because we really are enjoying QT with Max. When I think about that, it really helps back up our choice to wait still. We love just having our perfect little boy right now <3 Speaking of which, have I mentioned how much I LOVE him?? GAH! He looked sooooo adorable today in his Easter over-alls outfit and playing in the grass. I freakin love that little man!! And I love his daddy and how they are together. They are such best friends and have the best father-son relationship already <3 Man, I love my lil family :)

Nope

I really don't want to talk about it because I'm so sick of talking about it, but thought I should let everyone know that we backed out on the house. Almost as soon as our offer was accepted, things got crazy and SOOO stressed. People were calling us left and right trying to sell us their mortgages and insurances and we just started to feel that this wasn't the right choice. We weren't excited about it anymore and honestly we just felt that it wasn't meant to be. We also decided that we want to move back home when he gets out in 3 years so we are just going to wait until then. On the contrast, we also felt we would really miss San Diego, too. I really like being in a military town and neighborhood. I think no matter when we move, I will miss that feeling of being around people who go through the same as us, who are young and just trying to raise their families with military pay and often without their spouse's.

And it made us appreciate the home we have now. It's only 2 beds/1 bath but it's big enough for what we need right now and really does offer us a lot. Plus, the location is the best. So we both just realized fast that we are happy here and want to stay. :) We have decided however that this place needs a total re-do. We have a little family room that we don't use because Sean has a bunch of his crap in it that we never touch. So we are going to go through it and thinking about turning it into Max's play room. We want to buy a bedroom set! The one we have now is unmatching and OLD. So King size bed and new bedroom set, here we come! We are also considering painting. I'm SICK SICK SICK of white walls. Makes a room feel so dead. So really considering it.

So, we are glad it's done with and feel a lot more at home here now after such a horrible experience trying to buy a house.  

We......

GOT THE HOUSE!!!! :D :D

We're so excited!!! We close in roughly 30 days, don't have the official day yet. I can't believe it...We still have to go through with the appraisal and home inspection to make sure nothing is wrong with the house. But it looks in tip top shape so we are hopeful everything checks out ok.

On a side note, I'm also feeling very nervous and anxious. This is SUCH a big commitment. And we are moving to a new town. And Sean will be underway during the move! Not only that, but he will most likely be gone the first 2-3 weeks we live there so I will be all alone :( Oh well, I'll live and Max will keep me busy. Plus we will be closer to our families so I can go home often. And we will be in our very own home that I love!!

So, here we go. Once we get the official closing date, we will give our housing office our 30 day notice and hire a moving company. And get the home inspection done. And then wait to get our keys!

Home??

We may be getting our dream home! We went house hunting again today and saw a whole bunch of houses. We were getting discouraged though because the first 4-5 we really didn't like. Then we saw one we finally liked a lot, but it's just slightly farther away than what we're comfortable with. So then we had just one house left to visit but I wasn't feeling it at all because it didn't have any pictures or anything since it was just listed today. But it sounded nice. But I totally didn't expect it to be the one...Well, it is THE ONE! I knew it after just a few moments in the house. 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 1800 sq ft, the backyard has a view of a park with a playground! And that playground is a super short walk away! I LOVVVE the kitchen. I felt so comfortable in it. One of the bedrooms is downstairs so it's perfect for guests (or a office, but I doubt we'd use it as one) and the other two share a jack and jill bathroom which I think is awesome! The master has everything you could want in one plus a great view. Not to mention the whole thing has so much character and the layout is so different and fun!

So we fell in love...but then I got so scared of not getting it. There is so much competition right now, it's horrible. So we put a offer in for over the asking price. Well, to my surprise, they gave us a counter offer!! Which was the same price we offered but just asked for a certain way they want closing to go. So we accepted that and sent it back and now just waiting to hear if it is officially accepted!! We are standing on freakin pins and needles here waiting to find out if we got it or not....please, please, please say we got it! I want this house!!!!

Happy Spring!

I think it's amazing that today is the first day of Spring and the flowers on our bush's bloomed TODAY and new leaf buds showed up on our tree in the backyard TODAY. What perfect timing, mother nature. I have to say that I am pretty sure that Spring is my new favorite season. I never had a favorite before. Just liked them all. But for some reason this time I am really seeing the beauty in it. I love seeing all the freshly bloomed wild flowers and the warm, bright sun just puts me in the best mood. Life just feels so fresh. I love it!

Today was so great. It was a perfect 78 degree's so we decided that today is the perfect day to go to the beach! I have been looking forward to this day since last summer. Max was too young during the summer to enjoy (or even notice) the beach. And I couldn't expose him to the sun like at all because of how young he was. So every time we went to the beach I'd just have him covered and usually asleep. So I couldn't wait until next summer so he would be a little older and able to actually have fun. Let me tell you, it was everything I hoped for and more! Max LOVES the beach! It took him some getting used to at first because he's never been exposed to sand or that much water before so he was definitely scared at first. Well, of the water. Not the sand. He was so intrigued by the sand and then ended up absolutely loving it. I'll get to that later, though. Sean took him to the shore and introduced his feet to the water. I was worried the water would still be too cold to go in, but was surprised to see it really wasn't. At least not to Max. When the little waves came up Max would fuss from just not knowing what the hell they were lol.

So then Sean put him down on the damp - but no waves - part and all of a sudden a switch went off and it's as if he just realized how open and free it was. He smiled big and took off crawling! lol it was so funny! Then he all of a sudden wasn't scared of the water anymore and took off towards the waves! So Sean watched over him while I snapped away with my camera (duh) and it was just such a blast. He got pretty pissed if Sean tried to pick him up, haha!

Then after a while of playing in the shallow water, he got drenched and had mud all over him. So we took him to get rinsed off and attempted drying him when he realized we were back on dry beach sand so he began kicking and whining so bad and we didn't know why at first. So we let him go and off he went onto the sand, lol! He loved crawling in the sand so much so we just let him be, though he constantly wanted to go visit other people on the beach so we had to keep dragging him away, lol. Then Sean took him down to make a sand castle...that was a no-go since every time Sean would start anything Max would just trample over it! lol! It was hilarious. So after playing some more I saw Max start to rub his eyes so I knew it was nap time even though he was for sure going to put up a fight. But me being super mommy now I would able to get the job done and he just knocked out. So he and I laid together on the sheet we put down on the sand while Sean went body-surfing. Max and I took a nice nap together. It. was. lovely. I love napping on the beach!

So that was our first family beach trip. I can't wait to go again! Here are a few pics from today -

Love this pic of us. He looks a lot like me!

Checkin' out the sand

Nervous

Looking at the Ocean.

Then freedom!

Going to the water!

Ooooohhh....

splish splash!

Having too much fun!

yay!

I love him

Best buds

He's my best bug too!

This is when he just took off!

 

And this is Max destroying Sean's castle, haha!

And bonus - Video of Max walking! Kinda....haha.