MIA but in our HOUSE!

So I have been absent recently but I have a good excuse! We just moved into our house last Thursday and have been unpacking non-stop since then. Plus this morning we finally got internet and cable! So hopefully things will settle here real soon and blogging I shall do!!

My New Car!!!!

When we moved across country we decided it would be safer if we left my car in GA and drove together in Jason's truck and then ship my car when we got settled. As many of you know our luck here in California has not been great and that luck continued on to our car situation. We hired a company to ship the car and more or less got shamed by this guy...side note do not ever use Fairway Auto Transport. The bottom line of the story is the man lied about when the car would be picked up and a lot of other things. After fighting with the owner of the company and making my mom and aunt sit at their house waiting on a truck that never came, we decided to take a step back and hope that an answer would come to us.

Let me go back and explain that we had talked about getting a new before we moved here and it just didn't work out at that time but we knew if we are going to have another baby we are going to need another car....so then it came to me, why not go ahead and get a new car now.  We found a buyer for my car (my aunt who also bought my last car...I hope she likes my Traverse because she might end up with it!) and found a GREAT deal on the type of car I had been eyeing so we moved on it and bought the car Saturday afternoon!

I love love love it! I had a little bitty Susuki Forenza while Clayton was a baby and while it worked for Clayton and I and the occasional groceries, now that Jason is home and we are traveling more often we needed something bigger and this answered our prayers and all of our needs. I know this may sound selfish or something but I have never had a brand new car or for that matter a car that even had keyless entry or anything fancy. Well boy does this Traverse....back up camera, keyless entry and remote, DVD system, Bose speakers, 8 passenger seating that lays down into the flooring...and the list of fun things goes on and on!!!

I am so excited to take my new car on a trip and test it out!

Barstow Station

Things have not been going the best for us lately and unfortunatly Clayton is getting lost in the shuffle of the annoyance of the tiny room, house date issues and inablility to find a reliable car shipping company. The poor child doesn't have anyone to play with and only the toys that he got for Christmas that would fit in the room. I was starting to get depressed about how boring his life must be.

We had to go to Barstow to finish up my birthday weekend so I thought it would be fun to take Clayton on a little surprise to Barstow Station. He loved it! We ate at McDonald's because we don't have it on post so it was a treat and we ate it in a converted dining car...so much fun!

Clayton's Face when he realized where we were

C eating his nuggets in the dining car

 To finish up my birthday I bought a shirt I bought last birthday adventure but in a different color...I loved it! And then we had dinner at Di Napoli's Firehouse. They serve italian food and the best Tiramisu I have had in a while. It was nice to finish up my birthday....oh oh and how can I forget. On the way out of town we stopped at the Post Office where I found 3 more Cricut cartridges and some money to go toward Design Studio. I found a great deal on the Gypsy for Cricut so I got the instead. All in all this birthday is over and I can say again that it was quite memorable but a good birthday in the end.

New Blog!

I have decided that I want to showecase my crafts and handmade/homemade projects and I don't want them to get lost in the mix of my personal day to day blog. So here it is:

http://www.darlingdesignsbydanielle.blogspot.com/

I'm 25!

Last Thursday I turned 25! I wish I could say it was a fatastic birthday but I can say it was one I will never forget. 

First off as you all know we are still not in our house but there is a house update coming! But for story sake we had moved to temporary housing on my birthday. They told us we could move in Tuesday night but we had already paid for the hotel so why not stay there? Then Wednesday afternoon, after the cut off to check out, we got the first chance to move some stuff over but decided to spend the night in the hotel again...thank goodness because the dreaded stomach virus struck Clayton that night and struck him hard. The poor kid was sooo sick and the only thing that made it ok was the endless supply of hotel sheets and towels (don't think about it, I was totally grosses about how many other people had been through this in the same room!). 

Thursday morning came and he still had a fever so we kept him out of school and moved the rest of our stuff over to the temp room. At this point I was over my birthday, I was trying to get in the celebrating spirit but I was struggling! So my wonderful husband went to Dairy Queen here on post and bought me an amazing cake with chocolate ice cream and brownie pieces and caramel...YUMMY! I forgot to take pictures :( 

The great thing about living on the other side of the country for my birthday is that I am still getting presents in the mail almost a week later! Thanks everyone.

Friday we planned to celebrate for real by going to dinner and shopping. But after we spent like 5 hours in the Verizon store getting our new phones the time disapeared..remember it is an hour drive to get to a store so we have to start our day early and end early in order to get Clayton home on time. Anyway...the restaurant I wanted to go to was in the ghetto but highly recommended and we didn't want to go over there in the dark! So we have not made it there yet! But Jason is off this weekend so hopefully we can finish my birthday weekend.

Friday night after we got home I started feeling bad and by Saturday night our whole family had the stomach virus...it was horrible and I won't go into details but it was AWFUL and poor Clayton was basically taking care of himself!

But I did buy some cute clothes and Clayton got some cut stuff too on our trip and hopefully I will have more to post after this weekend.

This is my new Jukebox to use with my Cricut. Jason ordered for me. I love it!

Clayton looking handsome, waiting for us to leave!

Oh I also got some bread tubes from Pampered Chef and I am so excited to try the out, Thanks again for a great suggestion Em!

Potties and Preschool

Last week was a big one for Clayton! We knew before we got here that we were going to put him in some sort of preschool or part day program. Well as you all already know we are limited in our possibilities with out making that crzy drive. The CDC (Child Development Center) has not ever been my top choice on chlid care but that was the option here. In fairness the only time I have ever used the CDC was at Ft Hood and only once or twice for hourly care, which is sometimes just a glorified babysitter and the kids were always different and the teachers were someitmes different. I found out that they have a pre toddler part day program so we decided to go to the orientation and try it! The orientation was last Tuesday (2-16) and we loved the teacher, Ms. Gonzales and the classroom was great too. they have little computers, gross moter and fine motor skills area. But the best part for me, the crazy planner and organization freak, was the parent board. Ms. G as she likes to be called, puts up the snack schedule and daily lesson plan on the parent board so the parents always know what to expect and what the kiddos did seeing as how most pre toddler/toddlers don't really communicate that with mom and dad! But the other thing I really loved was the snacks, for example Thursday was his first day and they had yogurt and apple sticks/slices and water, which they have to help prepare and clean up...great learning tools. When we picked him up she left me know how he did and what he struggled with and that he had a great time! I was a little nervous because he cried real bad when we left him.

I would love to post pictures of his little class but there are very strict rules about pictures which I kind of like! There has to be a permission slip signed and everything.

Another big event that happened this week was CLAYTON PEED IN THE POTTY!!!! He climbed up on his little stool with his diaper off and shirt pulled up and peed in the potty. We of course started clapping and saying how great a job he did. Since then he has only done it once and had one accident when we spent some time in training pants but there is progress and a start so...YAY!!!

picture of undies

New Hobby?...why not start with some cash!

I have a new hobby of Cricutting, I'm not sure that is a word but let me define it for you: the act of using the Cricut to do amazing arts and crafts projects. I am so excited about using my Cricut. I got it for Christmas from my Jason's mom and stepdad (thanks again!) and have been making list of all the cartridges I want and projects I would love to work on. While searching for ideas I came across this website that is offering FREE CASH for following some simple instructions and reading her blog...too easy right! If you are at all interested in this sort of thing you should check out the website! Here's hoping I win so I can buy some supplies for this crazy expensive hobby!!