Time

Throughout life, it has always seemed as if you wanted time to speed up.  As a freshman in high school, you wanted to be a sophomore and get your drivers license.  As a sophomore, you wanted to be a junior, to finally be considered an upper classman.  As a junior, you couldn't wait to be a senior and be at the top of the school.  As a senior, you couldn't wait to graduate and enter the fabulous world of college.  See the trend here?!
Well, now days, time is simply moving wayyyyyyyyyy too quickly!!!  I cannot believe it is already the 5th of December!!  20 days until Christmas!!  
When East and I moved down to Mississippi, we knew we would be down here roughly 5-6 months, and then J would get deployed and we would go back home.  The first month, I spent home sick, and wanting to go back to the things I knew and the comforts of home.  But as the months started to tick by, I quickly changed.  J and I made friends down here, we began to know the city, and it quickly started becoming Home for us....
That was 3 months ago, and as I sit here and reflect on that, I am beginning to realize that our time here is quickly coming to an end!  For me, December is always one of the fastest months with Christmas and traveling, and all the fun that comes with Christmas and New Years.  And after December comes our crazy January.  A January that will be spent taking care of last minute deployment details.  For once, I want time to slow down!!!  I want more time here as a family with my husband.  I'm not ready for him to leave and not know exactly when he will be coming home.  I know so many people do this on a daily basis, but I face so much anxiety with this being our first deployment.  
We were watching our Sunday night of TV last night, and I just started ranting.  As each day passes, I grow in anxiety.  I know that it is early, but I still have fears.  I feel guilty that I will get to continue to be with Easton while J misses so many months of his life.  I worry about long nights that I won't hear from J, worrying whether he is safe or if something is wrong.  I fear how it is going to be not hearing from him for weeks at a time.  As I was telling him all of these fears, he quickly reminded me that right now, we are blessed to still have time.  Still have time as a family, still have time to talk, to tell each other we love each other!  I am constantly reminded that things will work out.  
This weekend, Easton said his first words "DADA" and J was here to hear those sweet words! At 6 months old, Josh was blessed to be home with us and hear Dada come from his sweet baby boy!  
So, while I want to get caught up in how quickly time is flying by for us, I take a step back and remember that we still have time together to make memories and spend a wonderful Christmas season together!  Always tell that special person that you love them, and be grateful for the time that you have with them...no matter how much or little that might be.  


And because he is so insanely cute, here is my little heartbreaker:

Helllllllloooooooooo, it's ME (again.....)

Sometimes, I really believe, blogging is NOT for me.  I want to do it so badly, but sometimes, it really has been working against me.  I started a blog when me and my little family moved down to Mississippi, but my old school email got deleted yesterday, and I forgot to change everything before that happened, so therefore, we have the birth of a new blog....so welcome to the second, and probably final attempt at my blog. 
So, since this is a "new" blog, I thought I would dedicate my first post to me and my life in an effort to get introduce myself.  I'm Allison (Alli is what I'm commonly known as though).  Now days, I have so many different titles.  First and foremost, I am a follower of Christ, and completely proud of it.  I am a proud wife (and if you can't tell, I'm a PROUD military wife)!!  I am a mommy to a precious five and a half month baby boy :)  I am also a daughter to the greatest parents in the world, a sister to a wonderful, and extremely athletic, younger brother, I am a student, a friend, a cousin (an overall family person), a hopeless romantic (yes, even though I am married, I still love the idea of romance!), and I tend to hold several other titles depending on the day.  Over the past 6 months, my life has experience several HUGE changes, thus leading me to even start blogging in the first place. 
 I am married to an amazing and incredible person, Josh.  We got married in May 2010, after only 3 months of dating.  (If you think "WOW, that's fast!" or "What were they thinking?!" you are not alone!!  I even got an occasional, "Are you pregnant?!")  But anyway, we were happy and completely in love.  I never thought I wanted to get married young, but it was one of those things, we just knew it was right.  Josh is in the military-the Navy to be exact.  (Yes, we also fit the sterotype of military relationships going fast).  When we got married, Josh was stationed in DC and I was living in North Carolina.  Since he was only suppose to be in DC less than a year, we decided we would continue living seperately, and Josh would come home on the weekends.  We ended up doing this for 15 months, and let me tell you, boy was it hard!!  But we made it through!!! 

 In September 2010, we learned that we were PREGNANT (again, a fast-paced relationship, but hey, it was working for us!)  We were excited and thrilled!!!  After 9 months, in May 2011, we welcomed a 7 pound 13 ounce baby boy.  A picture of pure perfection! 

When Easton was born, Josh got to come home and spend 15 days with us and it was AMAZING!!!  (We were still living in seperate places...DC/North Carolina).  The night Josh had to leave was soooooo hard, let me tell you!!  I think I cried the whole day and night after he left.  Luckily, for the next 6 weeks, we were blessed that Josh was still stationed in DC and able to come home to us on the weekends! 

When Easton was 8 weeks old, Josh learned that he was being restationed to Mississippi, and since he would be going to school for 9 weeks, we would not be able to come with him.  North Carolina-->Mississippi=12 hour drive/$500.00 plane ticket....weekend visits were not an option!  So, in July 2011, Josh left for Mississippi, and Easton and I embarked on what would quickly be the hardest 9 weeks of my life.  It was so hard being married and having a family, but being forced to raise Easton as a single mom.  I was very blessed to have my family within 5 minutes of mine and Josh's house, but it wasn't the same as having my husband there to help me put Easton to bed every night.  But we made it!!  In September 2011, Josh graduated his A-school, and we were finally going to be able to be together.  So in less than 24 hours I packed up our place in North Carolina, and trecked down to Mississippi, where Josh and I started our new life together and for the first time, were finally together as a family!!  We have now been down here almost two months and things continue to change.  We are settling into life and getting used to living the full military lifestyle. 

So, this is the story of our life.  Some days it isn't beautiful.  Some days (most days actually, I feel as if I wear spit-up more than I wear make up) but it is perfect for us to be together.  I look forward to you going on this journey with us.  The primary purpose of this blog is to help keep our family back home informed on our daily happenings when I forget get too busy to call and give daily updates.  Hope you enjoy and welcome to our craziness :)  (And because I want this to serve as a scrapbook for me as well, here are some pictures of my precious baby over the past couple of days/weeks to catch up)

Getting ready for our first "Trunk-or-Treat"--October 23, 2011

Forget all the toys on the top of the playmat, I think I'll just chew on the pole. 

First family trip to the pumpkin patch

Daddy and his "mini me"

Pumpkin patch on the beach.  Kids were running through the patch in swimming trunks!  It was also 88 degrees or so while we were there (88 in October....this never happened in NC!)

My snuggly little boy clean after his bath!!