Highlights

So much has happened in the last few weeks that it seems as though it's been at least a few months! I'll try to hit the highlights...

I found out that I OFFICIALLY graduated with my Bachelors degree from UGA's Terry College of Business!!!

Jonathan came home and we had a blast! There wasn't enough time to do everything we wanted but we are thankful and blessed to have had the time that we did. Caitlyn is still enamoured with Jonathan and it is so sweet to watch them together. It just breaks my heart to think of how much they will miss out on in their relationship right now. However, I know that he will be home in less than a year and they will find each other again and probably have an even stronger bond! Jonathan and I went away for the weekend to Big Canoe while he was here. It was amazingly peaceful and beautiful and we had such a wonderful time relaxing!

Jonathan is back in Indiana and still has not left for Afghanistan. We feel like we're in perpetual deployment mode right now and it's so disheartening. While I'm glad that he is not yet in harm's way, we would both just like to get this over with so he can hurry up and come back home to us!

I got a job!!! I am officially Communications Officer I, Gennifer Bradford! YESSSS!!!!

Caitlyn is doing great. She's growing like crazy still and snuck out two teeth in the last week, the top left and bottom right. I can feel the bumps of the other two teeth so I am sure it will be no time before they make their appearance. We finally got our TriCare mess straightened out and took her to the Pediatric Surgeon. The Dr. seemed to feel there was nothing to worry about but gave me the option of doing an ultrasound. I decided to go ahead and take a look for multiple reasons 1) For my own peace of mind. Utrasounds are fairly non-invasive. 2) Let TriCare pay for it while we're still on it! We don't have a co-pay right now!!! and 3) The person doing the scheduling was right there in front of me. That was another issue we previously had.

Aside from Jonathan being separated from us, life is going really great. I miss him SO much! I know Caitlyn misses him, too. So, in the meantime, we'll just be trying to stay busy and hold down the fort.

Go to Sleep!

Well, it's only 28 hours until Jon's expected to arrive home!!! That means it's 4am! And I still haven't gone to bed. I have A LOT of cleaning left to do and I wanted to run an errand or two while Caitlyn was with her grandmother. There's just something about being able to hop out of the car kid-free that makes me want to take advantage of it every chance I get, especially when I only need one or two items. The effort of loading her up, unloading her, purchasing my one item and then loading her back in the car and unloading her at home just seems entirely too tedious for one little thing. I often question how much I truly NEED this thing. I guess that's saved me quite a bit of money, though! I just can't seem to get my brain to shut off tonight. It's not even thinking about everything I have left to do, either. The house isn't bad to clean when Caitlyn's not here. I'm about a third of the way done and the big things I have left to clean are the bathrooms. I got a head start on the master bath so all in all, I don't think it will be too bad tomorrow! I would LOVE to get the junk room sorted out or at least start on it. It's going to be a big project. I just can't seem to get my act together when it comes to filing and shredding papers! Also, we're selling most of the large furniture in there and I'm wanting to remove the dresser from the closet and purchase at least one more shelf to go in there. I think organization is much easier to do on shelves so I'm pricing the chest in there to sell. I just need about $12 for it to get a shelf! I can't stand living in all this junk anymore. It wasn't this bad before Caitlyn was born but when you have a baby, the walls start closing in if you don't start purging items from your life. Now, if I could just purge all of these thoughts from my brain, I could function later on today!!!

Diapers, Diapers, Diapers!!!

Last night I gave Caitlyn a bath and let her play a little before we did the night time bottle. I purchased a bunch of Huggies diapers super cheap so those are our daytime diapers and that's what I put her in post-bath, with the intentions of changing her before bed. I completely forgot to change her!!! So, early this morning, guess what I was doing? Changing bed sheets! We've had this problem with the Huggies during the day, too. We tried Huggies when Caitlyn was first born and this was our issue so we switched to Pampers. I thought since Caitlyn was bigger that maybe things would have fit differently, especially since I went with the Baby Dry instead of the Gentle Care. The other issue I have noticed is that if I keep Caitlyn in Huggies all day and switch her to Pampers at night, she gets a diaper rash during the day! The following day, I smother her in Butt Paste and use all Pampers and it clears up pretty quickly. Ultimately, once these Huggies are gone, I'm not buying anymore unless they are practically free!

Last month I had to purchase the Parent's Choice (Wal Mart brand) diapers and I still have half a pack of those left. They didn't have any other brand in her size! Talk about complete and total crap! Sure, they are cheaper but I ended up using twice as many diapers in a day to keep her dry. That somewhat defeated the purpose!

The big winner for diapers in my book is Luvs! While the initial impression of them was that they were cheap, they are diaper champs! They are distributed by P&G just as Pampers are. I feel like they are an excellent solution for a daytime diaper and I have always had confidence in Caitlyn taking long naps in them! The only issue I have right now is finding a store that carries Luvs in her size! In the meantime, I'll be hitting up Diapers.com!

Merge and Update

I decided that it no longer makes sense for me to have a separate blog for pictures and my thoughts. It worked when I was blogging a lot more but now I feel like I need things to be more simple. So, I have combined "Serendipity" and "A Picture a Day" here!

I know I haven't posted for awhile. Yep, I'm one of "those" people who starts out strong and then fizzles out when I get busy. So, a few updates since the last time I wrote:

~ Jonathan is coming home for a week before he deploys. We are very excited for him to be here and have more than 4 days to spend with us, as we originally were told. We are also sad because this makes the deployment more real. After all of this time of knowing it was coming, the time is finally here.

~ I have been working on getting a job with the Gwinnett County 911 Center and I'm almost done with the whole process!

~ I finished all of my assignments for my online course. As long as I passed the final exam, I will have my Bachelor's Degree!!!

~ Caitlyn has been a busy little bee! At her 9 month check up she was 30 inches tall and 24 pounds!!! She's still in the 98-99th percentiles for height and weight. She now has four teeth and is eating mostly big girl foods. Her favorites include cheese and bananas. My big girl started crawling Easter weekend and can now pull up on objects and get herself back down without a problem. She often stands in front of a chair or the couch, playing with a toy and will forget to hold onto it for a full minute at a time. It's only a matter of time before she takes those brave first steps! She's also started pointing at everything. She's really into using that pointer finger for just about everything and it's even cuter when she says "Oh!" while she's pointing. She's incredibly talkative and it seems as though she always has something to say, even if I don't understand it all just yet! Caitlyn has started drinking lots of water now, too! I'm proud of my big girl, even if it makes me a little sad that she's not really a baby anymore.

~ I'm 25 today and while I know it's a young age, I sometimes feel very old! I suppose it's more maturity than actual age but it seems like Jonathan and I have been through so much in the last 5 years. So much has changed - almost all of it for the better. We have grown up in our marriage, especially Jon! I look around me and see all of these blessings and I am so thankful. I'm even thankful for my cats! They are all very loving in their own ways and between them and Caitlyn, I'm never lonely! I miss Jon terribly but I know that we will be together again. We are strong and I know that we will make it through this.

Here are a few pictures from the past few months to get you all caught up!