The Guilt Trip

This is our 3rd Deployment, and for those of you who say it gets easier each time, well you're wrong! Our first Deployment in Winter 2006 it was just me, his Fiancé. I didn't have any responsibilities other than go to work and stay busy, went to the bar with my co-workers, house parties, heck I even jeopardized my relationship doing all that crap, i was 18 and had no idea what i was in for. Thankfully Mike Forgave me for being what i would call the worlds WORST Fiancé and we got married that Fall when he returned. Now for the 2nd Deployment Summer of 2009 I had a Fresh off the Birthday Cart 1yr old. Mckenzy loved her daddy of course but they didn't have that BOND that little girls get over time with their daddy just yet, She had just stopped breastfeeding and everything was still all about mama. I stayed in Texas with my mom and brother and cried myself to sleep because Daddy was missing her Walk and start to talk and really become the McKenzy we all know and Love. Now for our current Deployment Fall of 2011 I have a 3.5 yr old who is attached to her daddy, a newborn who in all terms attached to me and trying to deal with it. mckenzy acts out, cries for no reason, kicks me hits me and just isn't the happy little girl she was before her daddy left, we got here to Texas Oct.31 and Nov. 3rd she lost her dog, Daddy left Nov.10th and she is in a new place, her routine is shot and things are going to hell! its gotten harder not easier, As much as i support my husband i cant help but hate his job, sometimes i find myself asking whats the point what are we fighting for, but i know my husband is dedicated to his country and deep down i know he is fighting for me, our daughters and loved ones and you, all of you, it may seem like a pointless war but its not, and its his duty to keep us safe, just wish he didn't have to do it so far away and for so long. Now i cry myself to sleep because hes missing Alivias first smile, hes gonna miss it all, And McKenzys 1st dance class and anything else she may conquer. Mike is the most amazing Daddy, Most amazing Husband and when hes gone things are flipped upside down, i lose my mind temporarily. Especially this time and i cant help but lay the guilt trip on myself thick! I opted to bring my family down here while hes gone, up rooting mckenzy from her normal day, taking her to a new place, then taking her dog away and then daddy leaves and my attention isn't divided evenly between her and her sister and i feel like she thinks i don't love her, when i love her more than any word can ever express. and today we lost her cat for 24hrs and i literally felt my insides crumbling. THANK GOD we found her because i don't know if she could have taken anymore loss. I do have to say though she is one amazing kid, she is so sweet to her sister even when my time gets split between them, she is the most loving kid Ive ever met. shes always telling me she loves her sister and that I'm the BEST MOMMY EVER! things like that really make your heart smile. and i have an amazing mom who is there for me when i need to vent and my amazing mother in law who is an army wife and went threw all of this with mike and his brothers and shes in my ear telling me I'm a good mom and that this is just a phase, its really helping me get threw it all. but there are times that i just lay that guilt trip on myself and just cant get back up, hopefully 2012 will bring me more courage, self acceptance and confidence, and A LOT more PATIENCE

gotta stay motivated

So I am thinking, maybe if i make it public it will have more effect to stick. 170....one hundred seventy pounds. gross. that is how much i weigh after having little miss livi girl. I was down to 165 but I gained 5 of it back on our trip from Washington to Texas with all the fast food we ate, Ive been craving salads so much lately, i am guessing my body had enough of all that crap. well let me tell you 50lbs is what i am gonna have gone by the time mike gets home in about 6 months. its going to be a struggle especially since i have to get my thyroid back in shape, y'all should see my neck its so damn swollen, i need my medicine altered. I am so tired of looking in the mirror and not feeling the slightest big attractive, I used to be confident in my looks, as bad and self centered as it sounds i used to feel people checking me out lol now i feel like they are saying how huge and ugly i am. my self confidence flew out the roof when i had kenzy and i didnt even get stretch marks with her, but man did i get some with Alivia, she made sure to make a statement... she gave me thighs, and ass and a flabby belly to prove that i was pregnant. Although my girls are worth every pound, every stretch mark and every extra blah that i feel im ready to lose them all! i want mike to come home from this deployment and when he gets off the bus i wanna see him looking for his wife and be standing right there in front of him. i really want to WOW the pants off of him. my mom has a treadmill now and since Alivia likes her swing there is no reason i cant start working out. I also gotta learn to tell that cookie jar to take a hike down cookie monsters alley! anyways, i need motivation, i guess when your three year old looks at you with your shirt off and says "mommy cover that up its gross" that should be enough to get my ass moving, but it wasn't, so i think putting it public on how much i weigh will embarrass me enough to lose it. so each month i will blog about my progress and update my weight. thanks for reading my much personal and much embarrassing post.

Good bye SUCKS

This past week has been, in lack of better words sucky! Last Wednesday the 2nd of November, we said good-bye to our sweet pup Callie, i will not go into detail on that but, in our hearts we know it was for the best. Then Michael had to say good-bye to his mom, well more like a see ya in 6mths but still it was an emotional not fun day. Thursday November 10th was a heart breaking, uncontrollable crying day as we dropped Mike off at the airport knowing it will be the last kiss in a long time. having to explain to Mckenzy that daddy was going to work but he will be back in a few months was hard, she kept asking me "but mommy, what about daddy" i think my entire thanksgiving what am i thankful for answer will be SKYPE, it makes me so happy to see my husbands beautiful face, and it just lights my daughters face up to see her daddy. so THANK GOD FOR SKYPE. saying good bye isn't something that mckenzy does often yet it affects her tremendously, just saying bye to a friend leaving she cries, when my brother goes home she cries, and this weekend her AMAZING god parents came for a surprise visit, she soaked it up she was so happy, they left today and it broke her heart. i don't know how to get it across to her that its just temporarily that we will see them again. i hate seeing her cry, i hate saying goodbye to the ones i love, i wish i could have a huge property and everyone live on it. this next six months is going to have its ups and downs but i know i have to pull threw them no matter what, my husband depends on me, my girls depend on me and i depend on myself to make it as happy and buy as i can. there are so many questions that are going to come from my beautiful 3yr old that im going to have a hard time answering such as; "mommy where is daddy, when is he coming home" "mommy where is Callie" "mommy i want daddy, go get my daddy" i have to learn to answer these without crying, i don't want her to see me cry i don't want her to know mommy is sad, but how do i do that? Anyways this is a big horrible grammar rant, but the moral is saying goodbye sucks, weather it be to a friend who you will see tomorrow or your husband who you will see in half a year. it sucks. thanks for reading.

5 years of Marriage, 6 years of Michael

so today is our 5yr wedding anniversary! Its crazy to think I have been with Michael in marriage for 5yrs, it seems like we just started talking. Let me tell you how we got married, we were on the phone, him in Georgia and me in Texas, he said i have a 3 day weekend, i said well lets get married and that was about it 15hrs later he was in my house and next day we were off to the justice of the peace and then to the lake. No one knew we got married but us it was spontaneous, we had a ceremony planned but didn't wanna wait, we eventually told our family and had a renewal ceremony the following April. Now we are on our 2nd beautiful baby girl! through out these years we have had bumps and smooth sailing, and im proud to say more smooth sailing than bumps, but man the bumps have been BIG! I know that with him by my side no bump is to big, he has seen me at my best and definitely seen my worst a little more than id like him to have seen. God has truly blessed me with the most amazing man, a man who will work 12hrs and still come home and help me with dinner, or baths and cleaning and not say a single word, a man who has a hard day but knows i did to and will hug me and let me vent and hold his venting till im done, A man who no matter how hard it gets he is right by my side, not in front or behind but right beside me fighting whatever battle it is with me. There have been many times where we thought the battles against each other werent worth it anymore, but when we sat down and took a look and saw our future, it wasnt clear unless we were there together, I cant imagine having grand-kids with anyone else, or reading the paper with our gray hair and glasses and talking about the daily's with anyone else but him. No matter how much he can drive me bananas he is mine and mine forever. I still get excited when he gets home from work, and get sad when he has to work late and then get even more excited when he has more than his usual 2-3 days off! I cant even begin to describe the love that has grown since we had Mckenzy, watching him with her makes me love him a million and ten times more, each and every day, he is the best father in the entire world, he really is the daddy that will do anything for his daughter, dress up or wrestle whatever she wants shes got it, she wants to be rocked he stops what hes doing, she wants daddy to feed her, sleep with her, play in her kiddie pool.... answer is always yes! but just watching him love her and know that i will never have to worry if he will leave her or hurt her is the most amazing feeling, knowing that her daddy will be there for her no matter what brings happy tears to my eyes, its something that i didnt have and something that was most important to me for her to have. this blog is probably very bouncy but putting how much you love someone into text is hard, because it is such a strong love, so to conclude this i just want to mention that i am the luckiest woman on earth to be married to Michael Strickler for the rest of my life, God truly gave me the ultimate gift when he blessed me with him because since Michael i have had so many blessings and the 3 most important ones are him and my girls. so thank you Lord and thank you babe for such a wonderful 5yrs of marriage and for my beautiful babies!

Peaceful

Life has been so peaceful lately, we have ridden ourselves of the negativity and focused ourselves on the positive and the lord has brought us so much peace since doing so. This year has blessed us with soon another beautiful little girl, Great new friends a goal to work forward to and it has brought mike and i even stronger together. This time last year was insane, we had a new family drama every day, lies deceit and just all around negativity, we finally decided to let it go and not fight with it anymore but as a family the 3 of us started attending church, and that brought us so much peace, we had found where we needed to be, things became more clear with who we wanted in our life and what we wanted in our lives. Since then we have grown so much, Mike is taking all the right steps to become an RN and i couldn't be more proud of him, in his 2009 Deployment to Afghanistan he volunteered at the hospital and he was so happy doing that, and i knew that he was meant to be in the medical field, i would support him no matter what he chose to do in life as long as it made him happy, its going to be so nice to hear him gloat about his job instead of hearing things he doesn't enjoy. Mike is an amazing cop, he knows his job i think even better than the back of his hand but i can tell it doesn't bring him the happiness he deserves considering all the hours he puts in. Mike Also Just put on promotion and is now an E-5! after all his hard work and dedication it was awesome to hear him say he made it! As Far as Education goes for me i think i finally figured it out and settled on dental assistant, its a job i can work part time and still be a full time mom, being a mom is my passion, i love being home with mckenzy and i dont want to miss anything, being a dental assistant i will have weekends and holidays off and i can work till the girls get out of school and be home with them. Mckenzy is growing like a weed, she seemed to have gotten taller over night, at her 3yr check up in April she was 5th percentile for height and now shes 25th! still 5th for weight but im sure we all know by now that kid is gonna be tiny lol. she counts to 12, says most of her ABC's, knows her shapes and colors, knows a handful of songs and can pretty much describe each book that is read to her, her vocabulary shocks us every day and its just amazing to see her grow. So 2011 has brought us so many blessings and clarity that it can only get better and better from here on out :)

Not Gonna Lie

So as most of you know, Mike is deploying sometime the end of this year before the holidays. I have been telling myself over and over that its a good thing, and trying to look on the bright side of the situation that when he comes home well be debt free! meaning anything we wanna do or where ever we wanna take the girls we can we wont have to worry about the credit card bills that take up half our checks.... BUT I cant help but stay up all night sometimes crying and sometimes just thinking of all hes gonna miss, all I am going to miss, and most of all what the girls are going to miss.. Alivia is going to be about 6wks when he leaves, he is going to miss her first smile, and laugh and possibly word, first time sitting up and crawling and trying new foods all of it including her first holidays, i tell myself well at least he saw all that with Mckenzy, but its still painful to think im going to enjoy all of that alone. and then the subject of Mckenzy just tears me apart, she IS a daddys girl to the Tee, she knows when he should be home, she waits for him, they play and laugh together everyday, she wakes up and asks "mommy is daddy at work?" and then after i answer she proceeds with " hes gonna be home after my nap?" both of the answers to her questions are yes. Mike often comes home for lunch or to say hi or drop off a coffee being the wonderful husband he is, and she cries when he leaves running to the door or the window saying "i want my daddy back." it kills me to think my answer to her first question will be yes for 6+ months and my answer to her 2nd will be no for that period of time as well, and i dont know what shes gonna think when she only sees him thru the computer and asks for him back. Mike is going to leave a 3.5yr old and a 6wk old and come back to a 4yr old and a 7-8mth old. Im going to miss him so much, 6 yrs with him and hes been gone a total of 12mths, he is my best friend, the one i go to when i need comfort or a laugh, he makes me smile just by watching him with our daughter, he drives me nuts but i wouldnt trade any of it for anything or anyone, he is my lifetime the one i will grow old with and as much as i try to tell myself that its gonna be okay and that ill be okay ill have my family around.... its going to be VERY hard.

Wow! So much for keeping up with the Family.

So I just realized that I haven't posted a blog since April 2010, pretty pathetic for someone who made it to keep up with the times lol. So here it is, Its now July 2011, I am 7mths pregnant with our 2nd little girl whom we are naming Alivia Eveline Grace Strickler, she is due to arrive September 27 2011! We are thrilled and Mckenzy couldn't be more excited to have a baby sister! she already talks about feeding her and tickling her, its going to be amazing watching the bond between sisters grow. Mike has been crazy busy ever since we moved up here to the ole' wet state of Washington, We got here June 2010 and he went into base training, then to his squadron and soon after was tasked to work army MP so did that, then went to ALS, now hes back working MP for the Army, and was just told he is to deploy November of this year, so much for sitting down right lol. I gotta admit I am very nervous about this deployment, I knew I'd be having to adjust being a mom of one to now a mom of two but didn't anticipate taking that journey on by my lonesome, Because he is due to leave November he will probably be sent to training in October, leaving me with a brand new baby and my feisty 3.5yr old. I know i will come out of this super at multi-tasking but its scary, McKenzy is very much a mamas girl so dividing my time and attention will be a task but I am sure in time will be easy, lets just pray miss Alivia will be an easy baby like her sister he-he. Well that's all I have for now! till next time, promise it wont be a year from now lol.