Christmas Photos

We did so much over our short 4 days in Maryland. On Dec. 23, we headed to northern Virginia to get together with mom's mom side of the family. There is always football, good food and fun!

Tiana getting to meet everyone! Poor Aunt Marty and Molly went 1 1/2 hours in the wrong direction before realizing it. They were over 3 1/2 hours late but they made it in time to say hi to everyone and bring a yummy dessert!


Dad and mom's brothers

Girl Cousins (minus Valerie)


All the cousins (minus Thomas who had to work)

Mom's mom and her brothers. Mom has a cousin that goes to Virinia Tech (and one going there next year)- we all told them we are huge Virginia Tech fans when the play KU next week!

Go Redskins!!

Mom's brother and niece

News

Just got back from a wonderful trip to MD for Christmas. Have some pictures to post but first want to post some pictures from our news. Our first child should be arriving June 27, 2008! Mom and dad are excited and I am really not sure what to think. Here is the sonogram picture from mom's first appointment, right before Thanksgiving. We told our immediate families over Thanksgiving and have kept the secret until mom's second appointment right before Christmas. We've had so much fun telling friends and family. Thanks for sharing in our joy!

Mom was getting suspicious and told dad but he just thought she was getting used to being off birth control. Well mom wasn't convinced so she ran to K-mart after work one day. Of course all the pregnancy tests are locked up and when she went to get assistance the sales person seemed intent on letting everyone know that mom needed one. Well after getting home mom confirmed her suspsicions and used me to tell dad. He was a little shocked but excited. We took the second test to confirm a couple days later and sure enough same result.

Mom is determined to have a healthy pregnancy and dad agrees (you can tell by all the running gear mom got for Christmas). So far so good, mom is 14 weeks now and still hasn't had to rubber band any pants and back at work today no one commented on how she must have eaten a lot over the break! I will try to post updates every Thursday as that is when the weeks change over.

7 Weeks

13 Weeks (maybe a little bigger)

It's Cold!

I am a Texas dog, and it is hard getting used to the cold! I knew I was in trouble when we had visitors and dad said I needed a bath! I convinced them to let me take a shower inside and dad let me! Wasn't quite sure about it but it was better than freezing outside! We are looking forward to heading up north for the Christmas break with mom's family. We will greatly miss dad's side though. This will be the first year that we have not been able to see both sides during the Christmas break. It was weird having to mail their presents. (It's been a while since I've just done a dog post - thanks for humoring me!)

Dad's Birthday Weekend

This past Saturday was dad's birthday! Last one in his twenties, yeah! We had the privelage of having mom's best friend growing up and her husband come down and visit for a night. We went to Ruth's Chris for dinner and enjoyed our steaks.


We had a very relaxing time, just hanging out and showing them our life down here. Thank you so much for taking the time to visit, we are so grateful for your friendship!

Getting in the Christmas Spirit!

This past weekened really felt like the first weekend in December and a good way to get in the Christmas spirit. We had our squadron Christmas party on Friday night. Like I said before it is not the same when you are a student but we had fun together. I was trying to be postive the whole night - the club was decorated very nicely!

Saturday morning we had to get up early to get pictures by the plane. We are hoping to get them today and get them printed soon. Since we were already up early on Saturday morning we made a yummy breakfast and watched Elf. Dad then did a wonderful job taking Santa to the kids party. We had run all over town just beforehand trying to find a nose that would light up for him to be Rudolph. He had to settle for reindeer antlers. Saturday night we headed an hour away with friends to go on a hayride through a light show at a Christmas tree farm. We were a little suprised at how many other people also had the same idea. The wait for the restuarant was 3-4 hours. But we got hot chocolate and waited a little over an hour for the hayride. It was worth it!
The picture doesn't really do it justice. There was so many lights!

Christmas Decorating

Dad pulls out the tubs of our chirstmas decorations to begin decorating on Sunday afternoon. On top of the tub clearly labeled CHRISTMAS is this - grass seed, tools, football, baseballs, rags - stuff from our shed. Grass seed spilled everywhere. I know that is our fault, we should have closed they bag but still. The movers just take the liberty to throw stuff wherever. Next time I will specifically say "Don't put anything else in my Christmas box!" Decorating is slow this year. I thought I would enjoy finding new places for all my decorations but we just can't get in the mood.

We have the squadron Christmas party tonight. Since dad is in training it is just not the same - you don't feel quite part of the squadron. Tomorrow dad gets to ride in the back of the plane when Santa comes to the kid christmas party. It is a good excuse for mom to go! Also tomorrow morning is pictures by the plane. I won't post any but hopefully Christmas cards will be out in the mail soon!

Birthday Dinners

On Saturday night of Thanksgiving weekend, the fam headed out to Outback to celebrate all the guys birthdays. Thanks to mom's mom and dad for their generosity!

Can you tell that Tiana is at the grap anything in sight phase!

We had dessert at Outback then came home to open gifts!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Here are a few pictures from our Thanksgiving day. Here is my attempt at an "around the table" shot. The turkey gave us a scare (try telling 4 hungry people that dinner might be late)but everything turned out wonderful!

Tiana got a cookie for her first Thanksgiving! Luke and I soon figured out to stand right by here and we might get a treat too!
The mandatory after dinner nap. That's how I feel when I watch the cowboys too!
The girls sitting around chatting afterwards.
The boys cleaning up? It didn't last long!

With Daddy

Tiana

Have lots of pictures from Thanksgiving but since it takes forever to load them I will do several posts. We had a wonderful weekend at mom's parents house. Thanksgiving day was beautiful outside so we took Tiana outside for a little photo shoot. She loved the leaves. Aren't her cheeks just too cute! She brings so much joy to our family! I have a good picture of her and her dad but I must not have added this morning. I will post it later.

(Since I am still my mom's kid - she had to get a picture of me in the leaves too!)

House

Recently, I 've just been posting about our weekend trips. Well we enjoyed a nice weekend home so I don't have much to write about so I am posting a few pictures of our house per request of dad's parents. The house is pretty old and is getting demolished in a year to build new ones so we will be the last to live in it. Our street is beginning to feel like a ghost town as people move out and no one is moving in. Our favorite thing about it is that it is a single family unit! We have only had a duplex up to this point.

There is a door from the carport that goes into the kitchen/laundry room/mud room. It looks kinda junky but a lot of stuff has to fit in there! I have a lot less cabinet room than the last house and we had to buy a mircowave since our last house had on built in.

In the back of house is the living/dining room area. It seems like most houses on base combine these two rooms. Sometimes we open it up and put the couch along the wall but if people are over to watch tv we have the couch here. We are only here for 8-9 months hence the very simple decorating. You sometimes have to watch yourself to not buy new stuff for every house you are in! Out the door in the living room is a little patio area and back yard.

The bedrooms are along the hallway that sticks out in front of house. The is one that is closet to the road. We are ready for visitors! We like how all the rooms have ceiling fan/lights.
The middle room is the office. Here is dad busy at work studying. He should have his first flight on Tuesday!
And finally here is the master bedroom. We are in the process now of looking for a new bedroom set. There are 2 closets here and a bathroom off the room. There is also another bathroom in the hallway and a hall closet and entryway closet.
We get asked a lot if we are allowed to paint. Yes but normally you have to paint it back to white, since they are demoing the house we shouldn't have to but we decided not since we both work full time and it is temporary. Maybe when we are somewhere longer or mom is home during the day.

Quick Weekend Trip

Mom and dad took a quick weekend trip to visit mom's friend and grandma. Mom's friend had a baby at the end of August and this was the first chance to run up and see her. It's amazing how babies can bring in visitors! Here is mom holding baby Kathryn. She was even dressed in purple for us!
Mom and dad then headed over to mom's grandmas for a nice lunch and visit. Maybe next time we will get to stay longer and see the beach!

Charleston

Mom and dad headed down to Charleston with some friends for the Citadel homecoming. All the hotel prices were way high for the weekend so it was just as cheap to rent a condo on the beach for the weekend. It was beautiful!! Here is mom still laying in bed and the view from the bed!

View from the deck in the morning!

The boys enjoying the view...

At the football game.

The little guy was such a trooper throughout the whole day! He looked so cute in his Citadel jersey! He also got a toddler Citadel Nalgene bottle from the gift store - it is adorable!

We went downtown for seafood after the game and stopped by a market along the way.
We enjoyed our extra hour on Sunday morning and went for a run on the beach.

The last stop we made was to Rainbow Row and Battery Park in downtown Charleston. We packed a lot in a short weekend but it was a lot of fun!