Kimber's Navy Family

Another year, another baby! We are excited to announce I'm 14 weeks pregnant, due July 1st, 2014. We kept the news under wraps during the first trimester because of my history with miscarriages. This is my 5th pregnancy and my 3rd time making it past 13 weeks. My first pregnancy miscarried shortly after 12 weeks. My fourth pregnancy showed issues on the first ultrasound, at 7 weeks, but wasn't declared a miscarriage until 10 weeks. I had a D&C for both my first and fourth pregnancies during my 12th week. I've definitely felt nervous throughout the first trimester with this pregnancy. We have wanted another baby so badly and that last miscarriage was very hard for me to handle (read " Holiday worries "). We've also kept this pregnancy secret from our children until this past weekend. With my fourth pregnancy, we told our oldest from the beginning and even brought him with us to our first ultrasound. He was heartbroken when we told him that the baby w...

It's Christmas Eve and I'm loving it. I'm cooking our Christmas Eve feast right now, where we celebrate Jesus' birthday and spend time together as a family, eating cookies, watching holiday movies, eating more sweets, and playing games. I love this time of year and I'm loving it this year, being home for Christmas and embarking on our own family traditions. With all that said, I'm feeling a little down. I keep getting these emails from baby sites (that I keep unsubscribed from!) about the progress of our 4-month old baby, the baby that was never born. Our baby would be 4 or 5-months now (since I've never made it to full term). We would be getting past the constant feeding newborn stage and into the fun interaction stage. We would (most likely) be done having children. We would have a nursery set up in this house. We would be celebrating Baby's first Christmas. Perhaps I'm just looking on Facebook at my friends' pictures of their babies' fir...

  What a day. What. A. Day. So this morning the toddlers came in my room yelling, "Hot chocolate! Hot chocolate!" We have been having a cup of hot chocolate every morning since we decorated for Christmas, so that they wanted a hhot chocolate wasn't a problem. The timing of their wish most certainly was. I had them wait. I got out of bed. I came to the kitchen for them to get into a fight over who gets which spoon. I warmed up breakfast. {Mommy tip: make huge batches of breakfast and heat it up over the next couple days. This week we had pancakes and oatmeal. This has made our mornings much smoother!} One of our toddlers had a stinky diaper that he did not want changed. He made it very clear he wanted to remain in his stinky diaper-- though no one wanted to be near him. In fact, he had to go to his room to calm down before I changed that diaper. When he finally emerged, his brothers were yelling, "HOT CHOCOLATE!" I told them if they keep yelling at me,...

As luck would have it, the Navy brought an old friend back into our lives! I love that aspect on military life, the possibility of being stationed with friends again! Our neighbor from Hawaii just moved to South Carolina and now lives basically down the road from us. The last time I saw her, my oldest was about the age of her little 1-year old son. Now I have a 5-year old and 2-year old twins. She has a sweet, bubbly 1-year old who was content snacking on Plum Organic Puffs in a high chair while her and I caught up. As you can imagine, my boys were less than agreeable. 2 and a half is just a straight up hard to manage age. It is difficult to deal with when you have one child. It is even more difficult with two 2 and a half year olds. Even more difficult than that? When you also have an older sibling in the mix. The toddlers want everything their older brother touches. They take his toys, they try to climb in the chair he's sitting on. If he's playing on the floor, th...

I see a lot of questions on Navy wife pages related to TRICare Prime. Sometimes people think that TRICare is bad insurance because it is "free through the military." TRICare Prime is not free for dependents. If you are married to an active duty military member and have TRICare Prime, you pay for that insurance. Check out Tricare's Prime Enrollment fees page on their website . I don't know about you, but if I am paying for a service, I want to use it. Another thing people are very confused about is what exactly TRICare Prime covers. To view the complete handbook, go to TRICare Prime's website  and on the right side of the page under "Related Downloads" select "TRICare Prime and TRICare Prime Remote Handbook." The second page of this handbook will give you a comprehensive list of any phone number you would need under TRICare Prime. When I have a question regarding whether something will be covered or not or if a referral went through or why ...

We moved to South Carolina at the end of August for my husband to go through the pipeline (again) . The first class up date for power school, October, my hubby did not get picked up. This week they put out the list of who will be classing up this time and my husband's name was on the list. This morning when he came home and told me he was classing up, I was very surprised by my disappointment. We've never been "on hold" like we have been here. He has had to muster twice a week while on hold, but he was home before 8 am every morning. By the time I got out of bed, he had already fed the boys breakfast and was cleaning up the kitchen, even on muster days. That was a definite bonus. By mid-November, I think we started grating on each other though. I really wanted him to class up soon. I told my mom, "If he doesn't class up this time, we are going to kill each other!" We don't have a busy calendar here and so we were all spending a lot of time at ho...

We potty trained our oldest when he was three years old-- he's now five years old-- and I am so ready to have our toddlers potty trained as well. However, my husband and I decided awhile ago that we wouldn't potty train our twin boys until they turned three. What led us to that decision? When our first was a little guy, I dabbled in potty training. I would put him in underwear at 18-months and let him feel what it was like without a diaper. We brought him to the restroom with us and worked on his "potty vocabulary." We encouraged him to try to use the restroom. We asked him when his diaper was full if he was stinky... on and on. We never really pushed the potty training, but we highly encouraged it. By the time he turned three, he had decided that potty training was not for him. Diapers were great. I would ask if he wanted to use the potty and he said, "No," every time. In fact, he never used the potty until we actually made him potty train. But, when ...