I am starting to get to that "overwhelming" place where I find it hard to really accomplish anything. I think that it doesn't help to have two children undoing things I've already done. I'm not freaking out, or stressing, so don't worry about that. I think I am kinda doing the opposite though. I feel like there's so much to be done that I don't even know where to start so I just give up after a while. I kind of just float from room to room, I'll work in my bedroom for a while then Jakob will come in and fuss and I'll have to spend time with him. I'll work in the kitchen for a while, then something else happens and I have to leave what I am doing. I know we'll get packed eventually. Jeremy is on his last day of work today, then he'll be around to help either pack or entertain Jakob while I pack. Lexi's last day here is tomorrow, and that will be a big help too. One week from today we will be on the road to Labelle...hard to believe

The adventures of Jakey...

Since I had such a long post yesterday I didn't write about my wild child and his antics on this trip. Let me tell you that my child has a lot of energy (as most one year olds do) and it might even be a good thing that our planes were delayed, because he'd been riding in a car for a couple hours before each flight and needed to get some running around time. On the train over to our airport terminal (in Atlanta) Jakob was riding in his stroller. There was an old lady (I mean like in her 70's) standing in front of Jeremy and Jakob. All the sudden Jakob just reached up and grabbed the lady's leg right underneath her butt cheek. He got a whole handful. The lady jumped and I said "I am so sorry" but I was laughing. The lady said I'd better watch out for that one, he's a ladies man :) In the boarding area we were sitting waiting for our stewardesses, and feeding Jakob french fries. Food does wonders when trying to keep this child happy. He was walking back and forth in our row of seats. He walks past this very nice leather laptop case (it looked very expensive) and attempts to shove a french fry down in it. We stopped him before he succeeded. On the plane this big black guy (with a shaved head) was sitting in front of Jeremy. Jakob was sitting on Jeremy's lap. The guy leaned his chair back to rest and Jakob didn't really like that because he was sort of squished on Jeremy's lap with the seat back. Jakey was standing up on daddy's lap and just reaches forward and grabbed the guy head. (I think it looked cool to him because it was bald and shiny) The guy must have been sleeping because he jumped about 2 feet in the air. Jeremy could not stop chuckling about that. Thankfully the guy didn't get mad, and we kept Jakob's hands to himself after that. All in all I have a lot of good stories for Jakob about his first plane trip

Well, we have the office mostly packed up (except for the computer and printer) and we got the whole living room packed up on Tuesday night. Thankfully we knew that we'd be moving again eventually, so we didn't unpack every little thing we own. Only the things that I absolutely wanted to have (which included most decorations and pictures :) That has made packing a lot faster. We have a couple scheduled to look at our house on Friday. We are praying and hoping that they will want to rent the house. The guy will be working right up the road from our house at L3, so maybe they will be interested. I've still got to throw a little bag together for our trip tomorrow. We are just taking one carry on bag. I need to call the rental car company and see if they have car seats. I don't think so, but it's worth asking. If not then we will have to check Jakob's car seat. That is cheaper than paying for another seat though. I will take some pictures of our first flight and the town that we will be moving to. Hope you all have a great weekend. <3.

We are flying out on Friday night to S. Florida to meet with a realtor and look at some homes/apartments (please pray we will find the right place for the right price). We fly home on Sunday night. Jakob and mommy will be taking their first plane ride. Yep, I've never been on an airplane before. So many new experiences this year. This afternoon we were invited to a couple from church's home for lunch. They are a very sweet elderly couple named the Iversons. We ate some good ol' country cooking (roast pork, mashed potatoes, corn bread, green bean casserole and more!) and it was so nice to eat someone else's cooking for a change :) Mr. Iverson is going to get a crew of guys together to come on the 5th and help Jeremy pack up the truck. One guy from church (the guy whose wife just had triplets) told us if we want to pack everything before the fifth we are welcome to come and stay at their house. I am just overwhelmed by the thought that these people were strangers to me 7 months ago. Our salvation through Christ has made us family. In other totally unrelated news my cycle is here! I am actually *so happy about that. I know that some girls would like to get a shot and have a cycle only every 4 months. They obviously have never had a problem and skipped 3 or 4 months...that is a miserable feeling in my opinion!!! Anyways, that is the latest going on around here. Hope that you all have a great week <3.

We have been having missions conference at church this week. It has been tiring. You have to rush around once your hubby gets home to make it to church on time, you get out kinda late and then go home to do it all again the next day. It has been so worth it though. Last night we had a missionary from Mongolia speak. He told a story of an apartment building that blew up right next to their home. He heard the explosion and went outside and saw flames and smoke pouring out of the building. He told his wife to get the first aid kit and ran to the building. He found the owner of the building inside and both men escaped just before another explosion rocked the building. The owner of the apartment building was pretty badly burned. The Mongolian people do not get involved in their neighbors business, it is their culture. They would have just watched as the man lay in the street hurting and possibly dying. The missionary and his wife began to clean the mans wounds and apply medicine to them. He heard the people around them say in Mongolian "that man is a Jesus man." The people knew because of his actions that he was a follower of Jesus. I have been challenged this week about my own witness. The great commission tells us to "go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" that is not a commandment only for preachers, it's for all of us. I may not be called to go to Mongolia, but Cartersville Ga. or Ft. Meyers Fl. are places where I'm to be a witness for Jesus Christ. I can also support missionaries who are led to go to other places in the world that I may never be called to go to. Being a witness for Christ takes thought. You have to think about how your actions (no matter how small) reflect on the Lord. That means when I'm in the grocery store and a woman wants to argue about the price of something I cannot get irritated and lose my testimony (if you can't tell I was in Wal-mart the other day and a woman brought in someone else's sale papers and wanted all the stuff she bought at the price of the other company's sale paper...and it was a little irritating :). I have also been challenged that even though money is tight in our household right now God's economy has not run out of funds. The preacher last night said it's really an issue of how big do we believe our God is? My God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He is able to supply all my needs, I just need to give, God will provide. He quoted this verse:

2 Chronicles 16:9-

For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.

God wants to show himself strong in our lives for his own glory. He is just looking for someone who will be willing to let him work

I thought I posted when we had to be down in S. Florida, but I guess I've just had to tell so many people that I thought I told y'all too :) We are leaving around the 3rd of October. Jeremy's reporting date is October 10th and he starts work on the 12th (the 11th is a holiday). We have a lot to do and only about 2 weeks to do it. Still waiting on the bonus money that they're supposed to be getting us. The whole move is kind of dependent on that

More Pictures...

Stargazing...

just discovered the lights in the sky

can't take my eyes off them

daddy telling about the stars

it's really hard to take a pic in the dark without somebody's eyes being shut (lol) because of the flash!

I love this picture <3

Last night was a beautiful night. The weather was cooler, but not too cool. We sat out on the back deck after church and Jakob ran around and me and Jeremy just talked and enjoyed the fresh air. After a while we turned off the back light and showed Jakob the stars. At first I don't think he really noticed them, but after a while...the top pictures happened. He just stopped in his tracks and looked up. Then every few minutes he'd stop and look up at the stars. He laid down with daddy and looked at the stars. It is so neat to re-discover things that we're so used to through the eyes of a child. We love our baby boy. (Aunt Amber, those pj's are from you :) and he looked so grown up in them) 


Oh, and this morning it was 55 degrees when I woke up. This is why I will miss NW Georgia!!!

Well, I was trying to post some pictures but it keeps saying the upload failed. I will wait till later today and try again. I've never had that happen before. In other news...we still have no idea when our reporting date is for leaving. We're hoping that they will let Jeremy know today. We have a lot of things that we need to plan for (packing, finding a new place to live, etc.) that depend on when we are supposed to be down there. On Friday I told the girl I'm babysitting for that we are for sure leaving and she broke down crying. I felt soooo bad. She said she knew it wasn't my fault but she had a lot on her plate right now and a hard time finding a babysitter in the first place. I still feel kind of bad, but people don't really know our situation personally so they can't understand why it's a good thing that we're moving. We (me and Lexi's mom) haven't gotten to talk since Friday, so I'm hoping that this afternoon when she picks her up she'll be feeling better about our move. Lexi has to have surgery on her eye (to tighten the muscle) the end of September, so I know she's worried about that and just having Lexi adjust to a new babysitter. Jeremy was telling me last night how in high school he didn't know what he wanted to do after he graduated (for work) he thought maybe sports medicine (the man looooves football!!!) but once he quit playing football and got further and further away from sports he lost the desire to have that job. Then he took a science class (some kind of biology) and was just so interested in it. He took more and more science classes a few at the University of Arizona and decided that he really wanted to be in wildlife management/forestry. To hear him tell the story you cannot miss his passion for what he does. Even though I do not!!! want to live in south florida (mostly because of the heat, and it is farther away from our family) I am very happy that Jeremy is getting back to "his" work. I will try to post the pics again :)

Well, Jeremy got "the" call today and he got the job! He of course is excited and very very happy. I am excited for him to get to finally do the work that he's been wanting to do, and working in the everglades is every wildlife biologists dream (or so he tells me :) We don't know when our reporting date is yet. The lady from the human resources office that called him said that we don't qualify for a pcs  (move paid for by them) because we have already taken one in the last year. Jeremy did talk to the man who will be his boss and they do have the ability to pay off your student loans, or at least pay a part of them, so the guy is gonna submit all the paper work and see if he can get Jeremy's loans paid off. He also said that if Jeremy commits to working for them for a year they can give him a bonus of 10% of his annual salary to help with our move. Of course both of these things have to be approved by the people who handle the budget down there, so we'll see. I will keep you all updated. Thanks for the prayers :)

My handsome baby boy

A sweet smile for daddy

A bigger smile

Aha! You've got to hand it to the boy, he knows exactly how to get what he wants (lol)

                                                                   

Period .

So I haven't been nursing Jakob for what...a week and a half or something now? I don't really count the days, I just know it seems like it's been a really long time now. For a few weeks before that he only nursed once a day. I know that before I got 
PG with Jakob I had sporadic menstrual cycles (yes, I'm going to talk about my period, if this bothers you then you'd better go ahead and skip this post). Seeing as this is my first child I have never experienced this before, but I'm thinking that somewhere along the way of my nursing slowing down I should have started my period. I keep feeling kind of achy, thinking I'm gonna start any time, but...nope. My first doctor (you know, the one who operated on me then later entered rehab for drug and alcohol addiction) told me I had PCOS (polycistic ovarian syndrome). She didn't know too much about IF, so I don't know if the diagnosis is right or not. Dr. Ripps said I don't have PCOS. I would be more inclined to listen to him, but if I don't have it then what the heck has been going on with my cycle my whole life??? I want to go talk to the woman who owns the herb shop downtown. I would like to see if she can help me with my cycle naturally. All the doctors say is get on birth control pills and that will help. Women in my family don't do well with BCP's so I have avoided them almost my whole life (minus a few months when I was first married) and fortunately for me I do not need them for pregnancy prevention. My first step should be to go buy a PG test and make sure (I say this with a roll of the eyes) I'm not pregnant before I start taking herbs to help me cycle. I'm sure I'm not pregnant, but it's good to make totally sure first. It's funny, with having so much trouble getting pregnant you get a phobia of PG tests. I hate taking them. I feel like they are the plague and I need to stay as far away as possible. Even now, when I'm not wanting to be PG, or thinking I am PG I loathe taking a test. I don't know why, that's just the way I feel about it. I keep waiting and thinking maybe I'll start on my own, but that does not seem to be the case. I think I'd feel so much better if my cycle started, I think I will plan on going to visit the herbal lady very soon...

My little fella has started to "dance" to music. It is so funny watching him try to get into the rhythm of a song. He also has different kinds of dances. He loves to watch the wiggles and they do a lot of hand motions, so a lot of times his feet and legs are not doing anything, but his arms are going crazy : ) I am putting up a couple of videos and I'm sure you'll crack up (just like I do) at my little dancing king

Well, the week came and went... Jeremy was contacted and asked for his last 3 years of performance evaluations (which were all at Eglin) so he e-mailed those to the head guy in Fl. Not even 10 minutes later the guy called him to tell him he got them, and to ask (once again) if he enjoyed visiting the project and so on (things Jeremy already told him). That's all we got out of this week though. It still seems hopeful, but we'll see. Somebody down there mentioned that the hiring process takes a while...I'm seeing a pattern in all the things that happen in my life. I think *someone* is trying to teach me patience :)

My husband is excited and very happy this morning. Could it be he got the new job(?) , won the lottery and never has to work again(?) ,  really really loves his wife(???)...nope, none of the above -though I think he does really love me- . Today will be the first game(s) of the college football season. Excitement is all over the Preston household (lol) He'll probably watch as many games as he can tonight. Thank goodness for espn360. We actually debated getting cable to watch football games (we haven't had cable in our house since we've been married) since we don't have anyone to go to "visit" and watch the big games and *he decided that he didn't want to spend the money for t.v.   I was actually quite surprised about that. We do get to watch a lot of games online with espn and we will be signing up for gatorzone to watch all the Florida games online. I never thought I'd be a college football fanatic, but that's what marriage does for ya. He watches "My Fair Lady" and other various musicals with me (and likes them :) and I watch football with him (and like it). It's all about compromise  ; )

I have no babysitting today, and Jeremy's off work so I'm going to get a haircut(!!!) It has been 8 months or so since I had my last haircut, which has helped me to grow it as long as I've ever had it 

(I love to chop off my hair :) but it's time for a trim. Night before last I dreamed that I chopped my hair short, and woke up wondering if that's what I should do. I love short hair on me! (lol) I *think* I've decided to just trim it for now...