Horses

Chase loves horses. As I mentioned before there is a big horse racing town a couple miles away. There are studs in a lot of the villages surrounding the town including ours. So on our walks we go by the studs so Chase can see the horses. It took a while to convince him that both white and brown horses were in fact horses. He kept saying the white horses were cows.

 We had a free morning the other day so I decided to take Chase to watch where the horses practice. He loved it! We need to go on a Saturday when it is a lot more busy.

Big groups would go by (I think some type of school).

The jockeys would wave and Chase would just get so excited.

Starting to get a little sentimental about leaving here. We are going to miss seeing horses on our walks or when we drive thru Newmarket.  

Baby Shower

I am not sure if I've mentioned it before but there are 4 girls in our squadron due within 12 days (yep 9 months after the deployment :) For 3 of us this is not our first rodeo so when the talk of showers came around I suggested we could have a joint one. Showers can be a lot of work and I didn't want every Saturday before we leave to be busy with baby showers. So they did. Our good friends put together an amazing shower for us yesterday. We received so many generous gifts from our friends.

A baby book for each of us with cards to write prayers or a note.

The table with food and gifts underneath. They did an adorable bird theme I wish you could see all the details - a branch is running across the table with birds nest, the bird cage in the back and butterflies. The favor was a bird seed cupcake. So creative!

An attempt to get a picture of the three of us. I was not purposely hiding behind the flowers.

Kelly shared a few scriptures. One was going with the bird theme, Psalm 36:7 "How precious is your steadfast love O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings." With recent current events that affect some of us or overseas moves on the horizon how wonderful to know we can take comfort in the shadow of our Father's wings.

Then came time for the gifts! We got in 3 different corners of the room and it was like Christmas. We divided up the gifts and dug in!

We are always happy with diapers! We know how many you go through with a newborn.

E is the only one with a different gender on the way. So she got a ton of blue stuff!

Showing off one of my gifts.

Please, I don't need any pictures of me eating :)

Thank you to everyone who came or gave gifts. I was blown away by your generosity. 

This picture was actually taken earlier in the week when we threw a surprise shower for K in lieu of bible study. I thought this was a good picture of all us preggos. 

Buying a Candy Bar

We are officially a member of the minivan club! Brad was able to take a trip back to the states last week to begin preparing for our big move. One thing we thought would be nice would be to have a vehicle as soon as we get there. We will ship his truck back but that could take a month or so. So as Brad landed in Raleigh he took a cab to the dealer to buy a car. Several hours later he drove away in the van after writing a check for $25,000. The funny thing is, this decision is sooo small compared to buying a house. Brad said that it felt like stopping at the gas station and buying a candy bar. He didn't even send me a picture, whereas I have looked about 500 different house pictures. We barely even talk about our new vehicle and have spent hours talking about the house.

The only way I saw the van was if it was sitting in front of a house he was looking at. So here are a couple pictures I found looking through the house pictures. By the way we are close to putting an offer in on a house but it is not this one.  

I think we are going to be big decisioned out....so any help with names for our boy would be most appreciated :) I'll keep you updated on the house front!

P.S. Huge thanks to the Strohmeyers for picking up the van at the airport when Brad left and keeping it for us for a little bit.

Family Time

On the full day of the retreat last weekend there was some free time in the afternoon. We went to explore a cute little town nearby. We walked along a path and of course the boys had to throw rocks in the water.

Chase was all excited to be able to walk thru a tunnel.

His scowl. He did not want to take a picture with mommy. He's been starting to do this face more and it is so hard not to laugh.

When we got to the park area we had to take the little train ride.

Don't know why there is a water park in England when there are only about 2 weeks a year you could use it but Chase loved it. I love this smile in these next two pictures.

Then we went to feed the ducks. The only thing we had to feed them were peanut butter crackers. The ducks were not having any of that.

A guy had pity on us and gave us a couple pieces of bread. The ducks liked that a lot better.

Some things we will miss about England...beautiful countryside with random castles/estate house.

Thomas the Train

We went on a retreat this past weekend with the chapels from the bases. It was a good time of learning more of God and hanging out with friends. I don't have any pictures of the retreat but on the way home today we stopped by the Midland Railway Centre to see some trains. It ended up being a Day out with Thomas day so that was an added bonus. We were too cheap to actually go on the ride but Chase loved seeing the trains.

When Chase saw this he just started yelling and pointing saying "Thomas, there's Thomas, mommy Thomas." He was so excited.

He couldn't sit still for 2 seconds - he just kept pointing and yelling what he saw.

More pointing :)

They had some old trains that were turned into picnic areas and play areas.

They had minature trains and Chase was excited to see Annie and Clarabel (Thomas's coaches).

When looking at this picture tonight Chase said this was the Island of Sodor. Where Thomas lives in the books and movies. Maybe in another year or so we will actually take him on the train ride.

When we were reading the Thomas books before bed tonight he kept saying " Saw Thomas today. Saw Annie and Clarabel today." It is fun to see your child so excited about something!

British Lingo

Chase has been going to a preschool here in our village 2 mornings a week. I get asked every now and then if he's picked up a british accent. I think he is too young for that and we hang out with Americans a lot more. But as he was jumping on the couch this morning (I corrected him after this video) I noticed he was saying Ready, Steady, Go! That is something he must have picked up from preschool since we would say Ready, Set, Go!

According to my ticker we are in double digits for baby #2. Hard to believe we are only about 3 months away! We haven't done really anything to get ready. The move is definitely what is consuming our thoughts and plans. We are working on Chase being more independent such as dressing/undressing, not being carried everywhere and just doing more things for himself. He is nowhere close to being potty trained - I am still hoping for this summer. Sounds like a good job for grandparents!

Chuck E Cheese

I forgot I had one more post from our trip to Kansas....We met some friends at Chuck E Cheese in Topeka one afternoon. Our kids are at the age where we still had to follow them around so we didn't get too much adult conversation. I don't want Chase to grow up too fast but times like these I wish we could give him some tokens and send him off!

He was actually content to just watch dad play some of the games. Which dad did not complain about.

The adults had some friendly competitions. Brad and I tied when we played.

Chase was dangerous trying to roll those skee balls!

 Showing off our bumps. Jill is having a boy 2 months before us.

Can you say college roomies just like their daddies?

Trying to get a picture with all the kids. One funny part of our conversation. I was asking Kate (the 4 almost 5 year old) about what activites she's been doing lately. Her mom mentioned I should ask what she did last week so I did. She matter of factly told me she wiped her bottom all by herself. It was so funny. I had turn away I was laughing so hard!

We all go so hot at Chuck E Cheese - that place is crazy! - we figured we better get some ice cream to cool down. This was the most adult conversation we got!

Thanks guys for meeting us! It was good to hang out!!