Blue Moon...What?!?

CUPCAKES!!!!

 Its going to be a Happy Birthday for a certain Aaron Malone=)

A Beautiful First...

They may be weeds to you, but to us they are Wish Flowers! When they are given to you from a wonderful little boy who is your Everything they are the most beautiful flowers in the world!

May He Rest In Peace

Today I attended the memorial service for a dear friend of mine's husband. We have a pretty close knit group of friends so we decided that even though most of us had never met him (a common theme in the army), we owed it to her as her friends to be there. 

When we arrived, the church was already packed with standing room only. There were so many soldiers and friends/family members there to pay their respect that people lined the walls as well as the front entry way. It was amazingly overwhelming to see all of the love in the room for this family. 

I could barely see the front of the church with the Fallen Soldier Memorial and pictures, but could hear the members of Sgt McCoy's Company talk about him. Some of the stories made you smile, while others made you cry. This man truly made an impact in each and every one of their lives.

It was hard to sit there and not tear up. Not only from the sadness of this family's loss, but I couldn't help but imagine myself in the same situation. Just having the thought pass through my mind had me crying harder. 

Towards the end of the service they perform what is called The Final Role Call. They go through all of the soldier's names in the company and then come to the Fallen's name. They call it once...silence. They call his first and last name...silence. Then they call his full name...silence. *crying as I type this* Such a simple act was SO powerful and emotional at the same time. After the Role Call they went into the 21 Gun Salute. I lost it.

The world has lost an amazing husband, father, son, and soldier. My heart goes out to his wife and two daughters that were left behind.

RIP Sgt McCoy

It's a Must

One cannot truly be great at piano, unless a purse is upon your shoulder.

Dinner Time

 Nothing like sitting back and relaxing while two of my favorite men cook me dinner!

The Day After

We woke up not feeling so well and the rash looking horrible, but J was in pretty high spirits=) Sleeping in until 11 left Mama in pretty high spirits as well.

 Even though it looks awful, I think Jackson's favorite part of all of this is the oatmeal baths. What kid doesn't like extra bath time?!

The Sickness...Part Deux

Jackson was diagnosed with an ear infection last Tuesday. He was put on Amoxicillin and seemed to be doing better until today. When he woke up he had a weird rash of bumps (not red) on his back and his teething rash on his face. I kind of shrugged it off knowing he was cutting teeth and our pollen count in ridiculously high for this time of year. 

We went about our day and headed to a playdate at the park with some amazing ladies. When we left I showed the now red rash on his back and belly to Jess. She kind of thought along the same lines as myself and it possibly be due to allergies. 

The next couple hours flew by and before we knew it, it was bath time. We stripped J down and popped him in the tub. The rash was now Bright red and ALL over his body. First thing Aaron and I both thought was that it could possibly be an allergic reaction to the Amoxicillin he was on. We started googling, as any responsible adult would do, and noticed that he had a couple of the main "severe" side affects. Dry skin, dizziness, and rash/hives. 

We called up Nana to run it by her and learned that she has had a similar experience and just stopped taking the medicine and the rash eventually went away. I was pretty set that it was the medicine and decided to not give it to him anymore. We were on Day 8 anyway. He would only be missing out on two days of it. 

After we hung up I started getting Jackson ready for bed. The rash was spreading pretty quickly and just looked awful. I started getting the guilty feeling that I would regret not taking him in if this got worse throughout the night.

I looked at Aaron and told him that we were going to Urgent Care. I would rather have them laugh at me for being a first time parent (the reaction I get a LOT from Bach) just to know he was okay. We packed the diaper bag and an emergency stash of drinks, food and entertainment for us and we were on our way.

Of course the waiting room was packed, as always and we were ready for at least a 2-3 hour wait. Once we were seen for Jackson's initial stats we were called back into the room to have his rash looked at by another nurse to make sure it wasn't anything bad. The nurse didn't think it was strep or the chicken pox, but they did a throat culture anyway. I was hoping with the quickness of this action we would be seen super fast. Boy was I wrong!

We walked into the Clinic at 8:15 and around 10 we were told that they weren't seeing anybody else and that we were all being transferred over to the emergency room. Who...were already running 4 hours behind. YEAH!!!!

I wish that we weren't there for something that could potentially be serious or else we would of left. I just didn't want to go home and have him start having troubles breathing or worse! So we sucked it up and walked over. 

The waiting room was PACKED! Sick kiddos, people with really bad cuts on their bodies, and then others who were moaning so much it had to be bad. Around 1030 I finally got Jackson to sleep. With him out of it I took a quick scan of his body and noticed that the rash started turning into blotches and it was now all over his face and ears. We definitely had to wait it out and be seen.

Finally around 1am people who were transferred over to the ER at the same time as us were being seen. I knew we had to be close. Little did I know that it was about 2 hours later. By this time I had sent Aaron to car to get some sort of sleep for the night seeing how he had to be up in a couple hours. I promised him an sms if it was serious. Our name was finally called about 315...7 freakin' hours later!!!!

Once in our little room Jackson was awake and playing (he only slept for about 4 hours). The PA came in rather quickly so I was hoping for the best, again. He asked a couple questions and took a look in J's ears and at his body. As soon as the once over was done he said that it could be two things. An allergic reaction to the amoxicillin or mono. I know wth?? Mono?!?! (Jackson...who in the hell have you been kissin?)

I looked at the PA and asked if they were going to do any tests to see if it was in fact mono and what they could do. He said that they weren't going to run any tests. I almost died! After 7 hours of waiting, he was expecting me to leave with a guess as to what was wrong with my child?!

 I understand that with an allergic reaction there isn't much you can do, but telling me that you can't say for a fact what is wrong with him...RIDICULOUS!! 

I was beyond exhausted and started crying from the frustration. This is why we went to Urgent Care and not the ER. If it was just a reaction they could of told me after a max of 4 hour wait what was going on. 

I asked what I am supposed to do in the mean time and he replied that I could give him Benadryl. I laughed and had to tell him that J gets a weird allergic reaction to that after being on it a couple days so I don't like to give it to him. He had a nervous laugh and said that he had never heard of that and just shrugged his shoulders dismissing any other meds to give *fml* He left the room and told me that he could look for some anti itch cream for him.

In total we were in and out of the back room in 10 minutes. With no real answer, but a guess between two possible problems and told I could buy an oatmeal bath at Walmart if I wanted to. 

It was like pulling teeth, but I did get him to tell me that Jackson wasn't contagious and that it should go away within a week or so. I was beyond mad at this point. I quickly signed the release papers, popped J on my hip and stormed out of the ER. I woke Aaron up by slamming Jackson's diaper bag onto the front seat of the car while telling him that I didn't get any answers and we have to go to Walmart.

In the end it was a long, extremely tiring night. We made it to Walmart and then home to give J an oatmeal bath and finally got him in bed around 5am. If I would of known that it would of gone down like this I would of just stayed home and kept him in bed with me so I could check on him throughout the night. 

This is a picture from when we first got to the hospital. It got a lot worse after this.

Cool Dude!

I know I know, I'm bringing back then 90s when I say that phrase but I couldn't help it! When Jt (my brother) was little he would put on a pair of sunglasses and immediately give us a double thumbs up and say, "cool dude"! So it is forever ingrained that when a little kid puts on sunglasses you say Cool Dude! Without further adieu....here are My Cool Dudes!!!

Mmmm...sushi!

He didn't actually eat any sushi, but an attempt was made on the rice that was wrapped around it (it was spicy crab and cucumber inside...fyi). The boy does love him some rice and soy sauce though=)

The Things We Learned Today

 Shovels are just Big Spoons!

 I have a good lookin' plumber crack!

 Water comes out of this thing and I can turn it up HIGH!

 I'm going to be a hell of a GQ Model one day!

Wish Flowers are AMAZING!!!!! 

I still need to learn how to blow them instead of eat them, but one thing at a time.

Doin Man Stuff Mom!

Picking Flowers and Making Wishes

Happy St Patty's Day

For the first time in a couple of years, Aaron was home to celebrate one of our favorite holidays together. St Patrick's Day! I know its not the most romantic of holidays, but its one of "our" holidays=) To make sure we were in store for the trifecta of fun we made sure to bring Jess and Viv along with us to see what kind of Shenanigans we could get into. I have to say we had some fun!!! We managed to find a Pub Crawl that bused us to and from 4 local bars in town. All I gotta say is GENIUS!!!!! Here is the evidence from the night!

I Survived...

...and kicked some MAJOR booty while I was at it!

Today was the 10-mile race that I somehow talked myself into doing. We were lucky enough to have Callie and Cory come over and watch Jackson for us while we dragged our butts on post for the 7:30 meet time. 

I was super nervous about being the only walker/jogger and coming in last. I ran into a friend and decided that we would try to keep pace with each other and do intervals. My goal was to finish the race as close to 3 hours as possible.

I gave Aaron a kiss good luck and let him make his way to the front of the pack while I stayed towards the back, knowing I wouldn't need to be in front of half of the people there. 

We started out walking the first half mile to warm up before starting the first interval of jogging. As I found my pace I realized that I took longer strides then the two girls I was with. When we stopped to walk again I looked back and saw that I would have to wait for them to catch up to me to stick together. I made a decision that I was just going to do this for me and make my own pace. If they caught up to me awesome, if not I would be okay. 

I started to run again and decided that I would go as long as I could, aka not be out of breath. Surprisingly I passed the 1 mile marker and then the 2 mile marker. I had just run over a mile without stopping. HOLY @#$! Batman!! After realizing this I was pumped and just kept with it. 

My method was to run until I was out of breath and then walk until I could breath again. Well, I wasn't running out of breath. What ended up slowing me down was my feet. Since losing weight my shoes have become a little big and with my feet sliding around my toes were going numb. So crazy to think that my worst problem wasn't being tired, out of breath, or hurting. 

The miles slowly started to add up and then out of no where I was at the mile 5 marker. I was halfway done! Still pretty amped I flew through mile 6...and then the dull drums hit! Mile 6-7 stretched on FOREVER! My hip started throbbing and my feet started to bug me like they were blistering. I slowed way down and ended up walking most of this mile. By the time I made it to 7.5 mile water station I was worn out and dying of heat. We started the morning at 55 degrees and by this time it had to of been somewhere close to 75. I literally forced myself to push on because there were only 2.5 miles left and I HAD to finish!

Finally there was a light at the end of the tunnel as I saw the water tower on the parade field where the race started. I knew I wanted to run the last straight away and cross the finish line so I held off until the last turn. As soon as I turned and passed the MP car I picked it up to finish strong! After a couple strides my right calf started cramping really bad. I started walking to try to work it out. I knew it would happen, but didn't think it would happen so close to the end. I tried jogging again and just couldn't run through the pain. I limped along and tried to walk it out. 

As tears were forming from the pain, I saw Aaron loaded with our bag of drinks and protein bars making is way towards me. I didn't think he was going to come back for me like he did the 5k, it meant So much to me...even if it was only for the last 400m. I know how proud he was for attempting this race and he knew how important it was to me to just finish it. 

When we met he had a surprised look on his face. He asked how I was doing and if I had turned around early. With a dumbfounded look I said of course not! I asked what the time was and he said 2:15. I almost died because I couldn't of heard him right. After repeating it a couple times I realized that I was an hour ahead of my goal! Aaron had thought I had turned around to be coming in so early and was ready to hike back a couple miles to help push me to the end. 

Knowing I was so close to finishing ahead of  "schedule" I pushed myself to run through the cramping. I finished the race at 2:17!!! I could not believe it!!!!!! I know I have been working out a lot (zumba twice a week and Curves 3 times), but I didn't realize that those would help me run. I had a biggest loser moment as I was crossing the finish line and started getting teary eyed about how far I have come in the past year with my weight and the things I am able to do now. It just amazes me. By finishing this 10 mile race I now know that I can do anything!!!

We survived! Final times Aaron 1:39 and Krys 2:17!!

Ooh, I learned that one of Aaron's Sgts ran the race and finished pretty close to 2 hours. Totally boosted my ego more. I finished about 20 minutes behind a Sgt in the army. Holy Ba-Jesus!!!! Woot Woot...Doin My Happy Dance!!!!!!

What Trouble We Could Get Into

My Kaiso-Bug

Kaison definitely took his hat off to the chef for the taco salad that we enjoyed for dinner tonight. He enjoyed them SO much that he had to spread the deliciousness all over his body! I can't believe how much I love this little boy. I also can't believe that he is leaving me in a couple weeks *sniffle...deny, deny, deny*

Cheese

I had a little fun with the shampoo. We created the curl hawk!! He was cheesing for the camera, but wanted to see it at the same time. Hence this pitiful face=)

Lunch Date With Daddy

Daddy has been working really hard lately and hasn't been able to come home for lunch. So, Jackson and I decided to bring lunch to him and surprise him with a picnic. It was a beautiful day outside so a little playing happened too!

We Love Playing with Daddy

***disclaimer...J had 4 doses of medicine and no fever since starting the meds. This is the only reason he is outside enjoying the beautiful 75 degree weather***