Weekend Wedding Trip

Eric's brother, Tyler, got married last Saturday in Seattle. We flew in late Thursday night to be there for the big day. Friday was spent playing with cousins, celebrating my father-in-law's birthday and ending the night with the rehearsal dinner. Saturday we drove through the snow and rain to get to the temple. The sealing was nice, we were glad to be there. We got to visit with the Gowen's for a couple hours before the reception that night. The Madson's traveled up to Shoreline to visit with us at the reception. Afterwards, we headed east for a 24 hour trip to see my family and play with cousins. It was a whirlwind weekend, WAY TOO SHORT. We were so glad to be able to see our families and good friends. Oh and we had an interesting trip home, but that's crazy enough to be its own post. Here are a few pictures from the weekend, not taken by me, of course, because I never think of pulling out my camera, thank goodness Lisa was on the ball.

Crocs

I know that they're generally not that cute, but for kids, I love them! Our kids had outgrown their last pairs and so we went to the Croc outlet last night for replacements. Lillie picked out a pair of flip flops and she said, "I could never dream that I could have these flip flops!" And I think she said it a couple more times before we left. Henry loves his pair so much that he insisted on wearing them to bed last night. Sometimes Henry calls them "Kroc center" which is the YMCA-like fitness center that we visit all the time. Funny kids. Life-changing shoes. Ha ha.

Astronauts

On Sunday during church, Lillie and I had this gem of a conversation:

Lil: "Is heaven in outer space?"
Me: "Uh sure, yes."
Lil: "Is Jesus an astronaut?" Ha ha.
Me: "Uh, no, but He created outer space and all the planets and stars."
Lil: "He must have been tired!"
Me: "Jesus rested on the seventh day, so he must have been."
Lil: "Was He sweaty??"
Me: (silence) "I don't know."

I'm glad she left it at that!

Mardi Gras Weekend

I know that this doesn't mean anything to most people, but it's a big deal around here. Eric has Monday and Tuesday off of work for the holiday. There are parades almost daily...or at least, there were. It's been pouring rain outside today and all the parades have been postponed or cancelled. I sure hope that the weather clears up at least one day in the next four days so that we can say we've been to a Mardi Gras parade. I'm sure it won't hold a candle to the Rose Parade, but I still want to experience it.
Another damper on the day is that Eric is on-call this week. In fact, he is off fixing someone's tooth right now. I sure hope he isn't there all day. Because of the rain, he's taken the car, and I don't know how long I can take being cooped up on a Saturday. Last time he was on-call, he was called in 4 times, I hope it's less than that this week. PLEASE!!

Trip to Baton Rouge

 

Eric and I made our first trip out to Baton Rouge last weekend to attend the temple. It's hard living two and a half hours away from the temple, and so we were overjoyed when our friends wanted to swap Saturdays so that we could go. It was wonderful, of course, and we're hoping to do it again sometime.

4 Year Well Check

At the end of last month, I took Lillie to the doctor for her well check. I can't remember any of her stats. Grrr... the military nurses don't tell you what they are, and even if they did, everything is in centimeters and kilos, so I don't know what they mean anyway. Stupid. I do remember that she was just above the 25 percentiles for height and weight. I know she weighs 30 lbs on our scale. I guess I should pull out the measuring tape to see what her height is... oh well. She was so cute to see interacting with the doctor. She was a little shy but also loved getting all the attention. One thing she did NOT like, however, were the four shots that we had to get that day. It made my heart ache to see her hurting. Lillie was mad about it for a couple days. She did get a sucker and a sticker and I took the kids to the children's museum afterwards to help lessen the blow.

Henry at 20 Months

 

Henry hit twenty months back on the fourth. It's crazy for me to think that he's closer to two years old than one. In fact, I was expecting him when Lillie was this age. Whoa, whoa, too soon. But really, he's such a delight to have in our home. Henry is starting to put a couple words together, he's saying new things all the time and is getting easier and easier. Lillie and Henry get along very well. They play together a lot: trains, cars, dolls, doesn't matter. He calls her "Wee", sometimes "Wiwee", it is so cute. He's a tall kid and weighs about 25 lbs, 5 less than Lillie. Still loves to play with cars the most, trains a close second and planes taking third place. He's still a mama's boy, wants to get in a little snuggle time everyday. Loves to read books and climb on things. He races around on our sectional at top speed, sometimes falling off, thank goodness nothing has been a serious injury so far. Henry still loves his binky, we've been trying to get him to only use it during naptime and bedtime. Sometime's he'll throw it back into the crib and sometimes we have to hide it the moment he puts it down. I love being his mom.

A new dress for Lil

 

I LOVE to sew. I really do. In fact, I want to go do it right now, but that's beside the point.
The other day I was checking a good craft/sewing blog called Homemade by Jill, when I saw an adorable little coral pink dress and thought, hey, I could make that. My friend Krista recently gave me a nightgown pattern that could be adapted to make it, so I went and got some cute linen fabric and started adjusting and cutting. Other than some extra large sleeves that had to picked out and slimmed down, it was pretty easy to make and actually turned out how I wanted it too. (That doesn't always happen, things usually turn out better when I follow an exact pattern.) She wore it on Sunday and looked so cute! She had a cream headband and a bun in her hair and a pearl necklace to finish it off. Adorable. Seeing her then, you'd never believe that this is the same girl who has been getting into trouble at preschool as of late.

Can you tell she loves being four?!?

Frankenarms

 

If you're facebook friends with Eric, you've probably already seen this picture, but Eric had 12 lipomas cut out of his forearms about a week and a half ago. They already look so much better. Most of them will hardly leave scars, which was hard for me to believe when I first saw him. He said he felt like a human pincushion, but other than that, never really complained. He'd been wanting to get them out for years, all the thanks goes to an air force surgeon, who is also our friend, for making it happen. Eric keeps getting weirded out about not feeling any bumps when he runs his hands over his forearms. A good weirded out, he's had a couple since high school. Honestly, it's one thing that I hope our kids do not inherit from him, since it's hereditary.

Rainbow Raucous

I still haven't written about Christmas, it's kind of a daunting task, so instead, I'm skipping ahead to Lillie's birthday to help motivate me to keep up this blog and not get overwhelmed about how far behind I am.

Lillie turned four on Monday, which happened to coincide with MLK Jr's bday and so Eric had that day off from work. And because of the extra long weekend, my parents decided to come visit us, so we had an EXTRA FUN time. The birthday extravaganza started on Friday with a birthday party for Lillie's friends. It was rainbow themed and our house was filled with color! The kids played, ate rainbow cupcakes, opened (Lillie TORE through them, lots of practice at Christmas) presents and took bags full of colorful candy as a party favor. It was a fun time, I had fun decorating for the party, of course, and to top it off, my parents were flying in that afternoon.







Unfortunately, in the chaos, I didn't get a photo of everyone there. Oops, this is the best I got of about half of them. Gonna have to remember next year.



We went out to eat at Back Bay that night, Lillie dined on shrimp and frog legs.

The next day, Saturday, we swam at the Kroc center all morning, Lillie's favorite place, then went to our city's visitor center in the afternoon, and finished off the day with bbq at The Shed. Man, I love their ribs.

The last day of partying was Monday, where we took my parents to New Orleans to see the city... after taking Lillie to the Waffle House for her favorite breakfast. Once we were there, we walked around the French Quarters, enjoyed local music, explored the Riverwalk, ate at Cafe du Monde, rode on a ferry across the Mississippi River, and walked around the old cemetery. It was such a perfect day to end a wonderful weekend.

I really loved having my parents here and so did my kids. Lillie loves my mom and Henry loves my dad (he wouldn't give my mom the time of day :/ ). We're so glad they came.

Monday night we had an impromptu birthday party with cake and ice cream and Lillie opened her presents. We got her an American Girl doll and I've been making it clothes the past couple months. Lillie loves it and it's a good thing because those clothes were a lot of work, but really quite fun, I kinda love sewing doll clothes, who knew?

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

I am going to have to come up with a new nickname for Lillie now that she is four years old and definitely no longer a baby. I am so lucky to be her mom, she is such a spunky little girl. We love her so much!

2012!!

Not gonna lie, I have high hopes for 2012. I want it to be my best year yet. I've decided to challenge myself and I've chosen a theme for me this year, which is "Be Strong". I feel like I could handle some major growth this year, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Usually I'm just trying to hang on-- to my sanity, to get through each day with two living children, to make dinner, etc. But they're getting older, and therefore a little easier, and I just feel like I'm in a good spot to focus a little more on me. I've gotten back into an exercising mode second half of the year and want it to continue and to see more results. I want to be more humble, to be more patient and to serve others more. I want to strengthen my knowledge of gospel doctrine. I know it won't be easy, but I'm excited to see the difference in me 12 months from now. All I gotta do is make it happen. :)

Merry Christmas Newsletter

We weren't able to get our Christmas cards out to all those who we wanted to. But if you're able to forgive us, here it is in digital form.

Christmas Newsletter 2011
This year has been the busiest one yet for our family. Here’s what we’ve been up to:
Eric has had a monumental year as he graduated from the University of Southern California’s dental school in June. Like the three years previous, he worked very hard the last year to meet all of his requirements, studied hard to pass the second part of his dental board exam, and consequentially, celebrated hard on graduation day. He and I took a week’s vacation to Kauai to celebrate his accomplishments and our eighth wedding anniversary…awesome vacation. In July, Eric finally left us in Washington and headed down to the Air Force officer’s training in Alabama. It was a miserable 5 weeks for him and us, and made us wonder what we’d gotten ourselves into. He survived, thankfully, and we traveled to our new home in the south, where we’ll be til next August, while Eric completes an Advanced Education in General Dentistry residency.

I have had the fastest year of my life thus far. The first part of the year was spent in survival mode as Eric spent many long hours at school and I was left to figure out how to keep my kids entertained and fed day in and day out. The second part of the year was spent living out of a suitcase. We enjoyed the month spent in Utah and Idaho visiting Eric’s family and the almost two months spent at my parent’s house in Washington. And although I was a little less than excited about moving to Mississippi, I really love it here. We are enjoying our time in the Air Force. We are fortunate to live in a house for the first time in our marriage. It’s so nice to have the extra space, backyard, and quiet. We live on the base, so our little housing community is very close knit. We love all of the people in Eric’s residency program. We’ve made great friends. I love living on the gulf coast, we’re only a couple minutes to the beach. Plus, we’re only two hours from Florida and have made a couple trips on long weekends to visit their beautiful beaches.

Lillie enjoys being a Mississippi girl. Her birthday is in January, so she is very excited to almost be four years old. Some friends and I put together a co-op preschool three days a week, so she is learning a lot. Her coloring, writing, and reading have come a long way since we’ve started it. Lillie is a very sweet, smart and confident little girl. Her favorite things are princesses and trains, and she loves to be in charge and definitely runs the show around our house.

Henry has changed dramatically over the past year, there’s a big difference between being 6 months last December and being 18 months now. He is all boy. He loves cars, trucks, trains and airplanes and is always carrying one around in his hands. Henry’s vocabulary is growing every day. It’s so nice being able to communicate with him and understand his wants. He is only about 5 pounds less than his big sis and only a couple inches shorter. Henry is a busy little guy who loves to make messes but has the sweetest smile.

We feel so blessed at this time of the year. We are so grateful for our families and friends, many of whom have become surrogate family members while we live so far away. Lastly, we are also grateful this Christmas season for the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, for His life and example.
We hope this letter finds you safe and well. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

A Visit to Santa

Santa Claus came to the base! He was such a nice guy and look at his awesome beard. Best Santa I've ever seen. The kids liked him too.

Family Photos

My seriously awesome friend, Krista, took some photos of my family last weekend. Although we had rain and wind, there are so many that turned out good. She's amazing. Here's a goodie, not my Christmas card photo, not ready to unleash that yet, but I love this one. Such sweet kids.

www.kristaadamsphotography.com

Pensacola Air Show

Like I said in past posts, we went to Pensacola, FL for Veteran's Day this year. There was a Blue Angels air show at the Navy base there. I thought there'd be a few people there, but it was packed with thousands of people. And as we were driving in, we just happened to see our friends crossing the road right then. What are the odds? So they were nice enough to help us park and wait for us so that we could sit together. I also thought that there'd be a couple of planes flying around, but it was so much more than that. Loud jets, crazy trick planes, fireworks, skydivers, etc, all in addition to the Blue Angels. It was seriously cool. Like jaw-dropping, covering your eyes but peeking through your fingers, shaking the ground cool. Both of my kids were in heaven. After the sun went down, they had a special night show with planes that shot off fireworks, tons of regular fireworks and a grand finale of "the wall of fire". It was the most fireworks that I'd ever seen at one time. Seriously, I was thinking, man, are these ever going to end? I wonder what it's like on the Fourth of July?!?

We had a blast. Definitely the best moment of Lillie and Henry's lives.