Family Picture

In case you are not on my Christmas card list, here's the picture we used this year. We just got back from a fun trip to south England. Forgot the sim card in our camera so need to wait to get the pictures from our friends. So look for a post on that towards the end of the week. Hope everyone had a great Christmas weekend!

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas! Hope everyone had a wonderful day! Brad is busy watching his new movie so I figured I would update real quick. I am really tired so it might be more pictures than words. We had a busy Christmas Eve. Several families came over in the afternoon, then we went to the Ely Cathedral's Christmas Eve Service then stopped by next door (pub) to say hi to our neighbors. After all that we still had to get ready for Christmas the next morning. Here Brad is busy putting together Chase's train table.

 Chase and Wagner in front of the tree. His "cheese" smile is so not genuine. 

We read the Christmas story from Luke and then finished the advent calendar with Baby Jesus.

Chase then went straight for the tree to his first present. 

 Chase went right to work filling Mack with cars.

 Wagner enjoying his Christmas bone.

 Decided to splurge this time and asked for Gap maternity jeans. I have a feeling I will be living in these the next 5ish months.

Playing peek-a-boo with his new KSU blanket.

Enjoying his new train table. Although mommy went a little too cheap and the tracks don't fit together the best and some of the track was not cut right so some pieces don't fit at all together.

 Brad setting up his new pull up bar.

We enjoyed a nice dinner with friends and skyping with our families.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Isaiah 9:6

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Birthday Boy

So I know I am a week late but wanted to wish my wonderful husband a Happy 32nd Birthday! We had a low key day on his birthday. He was night flying so we made a nice breakfast and hung out in the morning. Then Chase and I took chili up to the squadron and lunch with daddy and about 15 others. That's kinda become my tradition to bring lunch to his work. We were going to go out on Saturday night for sushi but the weather kinda thwarted our plans. It ended up working out because we both got sick that night and were pretty miserable.  My husband is such a servant going with me to get food (he starting feeling bad before me), taking Chase to church (wants to keep it a priority in our family)  and picking up some friends at the tube station whose flight got cancelled. All while not feeling the best. I love my man!!

In his new birthday sweater.

 

Of course had to include a Chase picture...

This isn't as bad as I thought it could be - I thought he was dotting the carpet but it was just his hand. I caught him before he got too out of control! 

 I just love watching little boys play. Here we have tractors vs. trucks vs. cars vs. airplanes.  

We are looking forward to celebrating Christ's birth in 3 days!! Merry Christmas!

Stand off

In an effort to keep things real on this blog I wanted to post about our incident this afternoon. In my mind it was just too funny! After running errands on base Chase wanted me to carry him inside. Well my hands were full of groceries and mail so I told him he had to walk. If you can tell it is not that far but that was not the answer he wanted. I finally got him inside the gate and the stand off began. I would help him walk (put my hand under his armpit) but he would break free and go right back to that spot. Both next door neighbors commented on his stubbornness. I finally got a book and sat right inside the house encouraging to come join me. Seriously it was probably half an hour.

  I guess we reached a compromise. I "helped" him inside then I held him on the couch for a while. It was close to naptime. If it was warm outside though- game on!

The only thing I regret is not going out to put a hat on him - he had it on earlier. Seriously is his world going to be rocked in June or what?!?!

I intend to get a post out soon about the birthday boy last week. So check back soon!

Christmas Season and Second Trimester

We are definitely in the Christmas season now complete with cookie making, tons of parties, christmas cards and lots of trips to the post office and stores. Chase enjoys doing his advent calendar everyday and eating the candy that goes along with it. We love reminding Chase that the real reason we celebrate Christmas is that Jesus was born to live the perfect life to die for our sins so that we can have eternal life.

 A few weeks back we got together with some friends to have a more Christ-centered Christmas party. No visits from Santa here :) We had pizza then decorated cookies (we were going to give away but it didn't work out) had great crafts then a dance party to Christmas Carols. It was so much fun for the kids. I would love to do something like that every year. Anyone in NC game?

  The daddies relaxing while the mommies were slaving over cookies and crafts.

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In other news, I am officially in the second trimester! The first trimester was pretty rough. It is very different being pregnant with a 2 year old around. It is harder to workout and I have to cook a lot more often. Also I found out a lot earlier this time so it just really seemed to drag. But I am feeling better now although energy is still lacking. The weekends have been busy with parties and stuff and I feel like it takes me all week to recover! While we miss our family terribly we are excited to have daddy home for a bit and to relax around home.

Christmas Party

Another chance to dress up!! We had our squadron Christmas Party last night at a beautiful estate home. I had to borrow a camera so I only got a few pictures. Huge thanks to the Walkers for letting us share a babysitter!

 We both ordered the turkey but it was really turkey rolled in pork rolled in bacon. Very interesting. Here is Brad with the desserts...we had 3 choices with not one chocolate. Christmas pudding (as Brad would say...wow that is NOT good), fruit cake ice cream and some strawberry thing. Needless to say Brad grabbed some M&M's when we got home.

 Brad won the grand prize from the raffle! A ride in a spitfire (WWII plane). Now that is no big deal to me but I guess it's pretty cool. The certificate says its good for the summer of 2011. So we are hoping they will let him do it in spring of 2011 before we leave! Otherwise I don't mind selling it and making some money!

 With our good friends the Walkers. When we showed up at their house Moon was in his military uniform. So we saved him some embarrassment by informing him he was supposed to wear a suit. We should have let him go though - it would have been funny!

What a great way to start off the Christmas season!!

Thanksgiving in Italy

As mentioned before we went to Italy to spend Thanksgiving with our good friends. Since this was our second time to this part of Italy and I am not always feeling the best I was really looking forward to just hanging out and not trying to see a bunch of stuff. We got there just in time for a wonderful Thanksgiving meal cooked by Becky. Chase went straight to take a nap which probably made the meal more enjoyable for me.

 Brad's kind of dessert. No pies here!

 

The next day was very cold and rainy/snowy. Us girls tried to go find a Christmas market but with the weather just stopped in a cafe for some chocolate. No complaining here! Love the large snowflakes in the window!

Drinking hot chocolate there is like drinking fondue. Very rich.

They arranged for a sitter that night so us adults could go out to eat! I only wish I could have had some of the wine!

The next day we planned on driving up the mountains to see the view and take the kids sledding. I think we get the worse parent award here. We forgot Chase's coat at their house. So there he is in a borrowed snowsuit with my fleece on. Felt so bad for him.

He liked to be held the whole time but he did warm to the idea of sledding. He is just not sure how he feels about snow period. I can't even get him to go play outside here as there is still lots of snow on the ground.

A couple other photos stops on our drive.

Our camera kinda died after this so I didn't get any pictures of our fierce Wii tournaments, farkle games, kids dance parties, yummy pizza and gelato. I think we each gained about 5 pounds while there. Thanks so much Fullers for having us. Hopefully its not too long before we can meet up again!