Happy 2nd Birthday John

December 23rd certainly was a happy birthday for John. He was so much more animated this year which was a lot of fun. We began the day going into his room with just one gift, the main gift we got him. We saved the rest of the gifts for the afternoon when we sang and had cake.


A football (or feetball as John says)!! He wanted to jump off the bed right away and go play with it. We postponed our morning routine so he could get in some good throwing practice before the normal bible story and prayer.


Later in the afternoon came THE CAKE! As many of my friends know, I make an awesome red velvet cake, recipe courtesy of Southern Living. Even people who aren't cake people (Tara, Ivy Spaulding) like this cake. So we decided to be nice parents and share a piece with John on his birthday. He gobbled it up and we were a bit nervous because we don't really give him sweets so we didn't know what would happen. Sure enough, two hours later the cake made it's comeback when John threw it up all over our white carpet. Grandma came to the rescue and fortnuately there is no stain. Dave and I were mad though because we wasted a good pieced of cake!!! Next year we will think long and hard before we give up a piece of cake to John on his birthday :) He likes pickles a lot so maybe we will give him a birthday pickle instead. Good idea.


My parents are here to celebrate both John's birthday and Jesus' birthday. Here is a picture of them with John at the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola. We have enjoyed their visit a lot. They are our first house guest so I had to scurry to get the house ready for them. Hopefully I will get my act together and post pictures of it soon.

We hope you have a blessed Christmas and Happy New Year. We are certainly glad 2009 is over. It has been a very trying year with moving four times. I don't ever want to do that again. However, it was also a year with several bright spots such as (in no particular order) all our wonderful friends in England, I finished my Masters, Dave had a successful deployment, we became pregnant with #2, bought our first house, and I dined at Chipotle for the first time. But please, bring on 2010. I will be the person in Times Square with the silly "2010" glasses. Wait, who am I kidding, Dave and I will be in bed by 10 on New Years' Eve.

Cheers 2009!

Bits and Bobs part 2

We are just days away from John's 2nd birthday! He was born on Dec 23rd and we have never really been able to fully celebrate it. Last year we went to Paris a few days beforehand (for our anniversary which is tomorrow!) and Dave got very very sick the day we left France. So we canceled the festivities for John once back in the UK. This year we are excited that my parents will be in town to celebrate. Then that night Dave and I get a date night! WOOOO HOOO! Is it bad that we go out on John's birthday? Oh well. He won't remember.

As several of you know, we have been debating on whether or not to "do" Santa with John. Both Dave and I grew up with visits from Santa when we were young and we both enjoyed it, as did our parents. However, in the past few years I have not felt so go about doing it. There are many reasons (detracting from the real message of Christmas, feeling like I am not being truthful, etc.) that were plaguing me. I also met many families that don't "do" Santa and they all seemed to have very merry Christmases. Please don't take this as a "holier than thou" thing. I don't have any less respect for parents who "do" Santa. It is just a personal issue that I have that just rubs me the wrong way.

Anyway, Dave still really wanted to do it, so I felt that I should submit and let him lead and that if he really wanted to do it, it isn't a life or death issue. We would do it without a lot of fanfare from my end. The funny this is once I told this to Dave, he seemed to loose a lot of interest in the Santa thing. He hasn't even spoken about it to John at all! I asked him what the deal was, and he said that for some reason it isn't that important to him. We identify Santa in the books John reads or the Christmas scenes he sees, but we don't give him any more fanfare that a snowman or a Christmas tree. We are happy that we aren't spending a long time in lines waiting for pictures to be taken and that we don't have to buy extra presents (did I mention we are cheap???). So as for now, Santa is part of Christmas but not the big to-do on Christmas morning. Again, this is not a "holier than thou" issue. I wanted to post about it because I have several friends who knew my dilemma and were curious about the outcome.

It is funny how when you move to different bases, there are positives and negatives about each one. Here at NAS Pensacola (a Navy base), they don't offer the 20 hours of free childcare when you move like the Air Force does. When the man at the Fleet and Family Readiness Center told me this, I almost cried and said, "what am I supposed to do with my 23 month old during my HHG delivery??? We don't know anyone here!!" Then he told me there was drop-in care at the child development center (CDC) on base. ohhhhhhhh boooooooooooy. I love me some drop-in care! $3 an hour buys me workout time, shopping time, errand time.... anything. It is a huge blessing.

Well have a good weekend, Happy 5th Anniversary to us, Happy Birthday to Dave's dad (Dec 21) to Uncle Brady (Dec 23rd) and to JOHN (Dec 23rd)!

Cheers

Bits and Bobs

Thanksgiving with all the cousins (five boys and a baby girl). By the way, I am pregnant (did I tell you?) and due in May. My sister-in-law Rachel, mother of the only girl in this picture, is really hoping for a girl. I am hoping for a human as I last gave birth to John who is part crazy-monster, part cheetah (he runs all the time).

Overall our move went well, but they packed all my cookbooks inside my cookbook bookcase instead of removing the books and boxing them up like usual. Above was the result. Bummer but not too big of a bummer since I didn't really care about the bookcase and we will get reimbursed. but who does this? Weird.

We started a tradition last year of each member of the family taking turns picking out an ornament and placing it on the tree. Well it was much crazier with an almost- 2 -year-old so we ended up rushing most ornaments on the tree before John could get them and either eat them, throw them or crush them. Since then, John knocked over the tree twice so I have had to redecorate on my own.

The big boy bed! My parents got John his big boy bed and it is really nice John has taken to it quite well so far. I feel fortunate that Dave and I both get excited with each new stage John enters, instead of being weepy for the old times. I really hope we are able to maintain a vision of excitement as John gets older and becomes more independent.

Our verse for this month has been Hebrews 13:8- Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Now that is something to celebrate!

Merry Christmas! And send us your Christmas cards. I love Christmas cards!

Pictureless update

So this is what happens when I don't update my blog. I have a million things I want to write about so it makes for a long update. My apologizes in advance.

Here's the short update:
We left San Antonio and moved to Pensacola. We closed on our house pretty much on time, and we got our house painted prior to driving up to ATL for Thanksgiving. We spent the holiday with Dave's family and it was so great to be reuntied with them once again. We then headed back down to Pensacola to begin our new life as Floridians.

Long version:

• Well leaving a place is always hard even if we had only been there four months. In San Antonio had started to make some friends, John and I had a routine, and now it is all turned upside down. There are two things that scare me most about moving: what will we do each day?? Who will be my friend? I have one friend in Penscacola right now. Hopefully that number will increase soon. I will choose to be joyful in the interm.
• The house closing process is crazy and everything is last minute about it. Thankfully it only happened two hours later than planned. We got our painter in immediately after we closed and he began painting only to discover that the colors I picked were HORRIBLE! The whole house would have been peach-colored! I was in tears as we had just paid $200 for paint and we needed the place painted in 1.5 days before we left for ATL. Thankfully, the painter told me to go back to Sherwin Williams where I spent 45 minutes as they custom-tinted all the paint for me to my exact specifications (for free). The painters then worked really fast and got the job done!
• We had a great time in ATL with the cousins. John has been alone for so long lately so he was in heaven spending time with all the little boys and their toys. We also experienced great hospitality from Rachel and Kristin, my two sister-in-laws. It was great to see Dave's parents as well.
• So now we go back to Pensacola to receive our household goods shipment. We will get two shipments. The first one will be all of our stuff we put in storage 3.5 years ago before we left for England. I can't wait to see my stand mixer again! The second shipment will be all our main items we had with us in England. We've been without this stuff for 5 months so I am excited to see it all again. I am most excited for our bed, our Bob stroller, and all my kitchen stuff. We are hoping for damages to our TV, couch, and desk so we can be compensated and be able to buy a new couch, TV and desk.... he he sneaky sneaky.

All in all we have lived (not visited, but actually lived) in four different places in 2009. Dave has lived in Afghanistan, England, Texas and now Florida. Me and John have lived in New Mexico, England, Texas and Florida. The Lord has been very faithful to us and we have grown very close as a family, but it has been a rough year. We are excited to get estabilished in Florida and we hope you will visit!

November

"Cheese" - John with his picture frame he made at church.

Before I continue I just want to acknowledge how nice that was of Dave to write the previous post about me. I am definitely not mother of the year but it was nice to be complimented.

• So yes it is November and I am way late on posting our memory verse. Our verse this month is Genesis 1:1- In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Dave is good about asking John, "Who made you?" or "Who made the moon?" etc. to which John responds, "God." We got a little lesson in catechism from our friends the Kings so we are trying to be more diligent in teaching these principles to John.
  
• The reason I am late on posting this month is I have been convicted about how much time I am spending online these days. You see, being TDY for this long is pretty lonely at times. It is easy for me to try and escape that loneliness by constantly checking facebook, email, or just searching for junk online. However, I have noticed that this kind of behavior has left me feeling lazy and disengaged from those around me. Therefore I am trying to spend less time online and more time being productive, hanging out with John, calling a friend or just sitting and praying. Its a work in progress.
• Dave and I both love sweets so much. It's just crazy. And I am a sucker for baked goods. But since we are just here TDY I don't want to spend a lot of money building up staples in my kitchen (like flour, sugar, spices) only to have to throw them out when we move. So I haven't really baked anything. But that doesn't mean I don't crave it. So last week I decided to text my mother-in-law and ask her it bake me cookies. In fact, the text read, "Please send cookies." AND SHE DID! We love her and her cookies. Anyone else want to send me cookies? I will also accept cakes too. Red Velvet please.
• We only have two more weeks here in Texas! We really can't wait to move to Pensacola. I am so excited. However, in the past few weeks San Antonio has really redeemed itself in terms of the weather. It is just perfect here. Today at bible study one of the older women looked at me and said, "Look at you in those shorts!" and I said, "I lived in England three years so I am going to wear shorts as long as possible." Are you with me Lakenheath ladies??
  

Lastly, I am posting this during game 6 of the World Series. I am really hoping for a Yankee win tonight so we can have our lives back. Above is a picture of John and Dave during the national anthem. Yes, we do have clothes for John but this was just before bedtime so he was already stripped down.

Cheers from Texas... t-minus two weeks!

Three Cheers for Mom!

David here, making an unusual appearance on the blog. I just wanted to take some time to write about Kate being a mother.

The other day at around 5:30-6:30 PM John was whiny, not listening, throwing things all over the room and just altogether doing what he does best every day at that time. It seems the late afternoon just before or just after dinner is always John's rough spot. I have a tendency to get frustrated during these times for selfish reasons. These reason's go like this: the news is on and I want to hear this story, the baseball game is starting and I can't hear their analysis of the Yankee pitching staff, a great article is in the New York Times and I've had to read this sentence over 5 times in between getting hit by a toy, getting pulled to come outside and ask John where things are, and John's fake cry because he wants more "fishy cracker." But the other night I witnessed Kate get creative during this time. She took John over to the couch sat him down and started singing to him. All of a sudden this tornado of energy was transformed into a docile, quiet, kitty cat lying in his mom's lap. As soon as a song would stop John would immediately ask for, "more music." It is moments like these where I see Kate being such a loving, caring, and smart mom that I just want to tell the world about this wonderful girl that I married.

Like any mom, Kate gets frustrated, tired, and fed up with John as he approaches two years old. But everyday she evaluates new ways to interact with John. She is constantly bringing up assessments of what appears to be working in our discipline and what does not. As most of you know Kate is a very smart woman. She could be bitter or bored about spending all her time with a 2 year old that gets angry because he can't drink his water the way he wants too. But instead of focusing on her desires she has put them aside in order to not miss out on this precious time with her son. Most importantly she desires to teach him about God and the world he created, and she is always coming up with new ways to do this. This, after all, is the most enduring aspect of her motherhood.

Mom's everywhere thanks for what you do. But to Kate who I see everyday close up, I will never be able to thank you enough for being the mother that you are to our children.

Oh how I LOVE Albuquerque!

This past week we were all able to make the trip out to Albuquerque. Dave hadn't been there in almost four years so it was great to have us all there together. You know when I was growing up I never really appreciated living in ABQ. I always wanted to live in the middle of New York City because I thought it would be so cool. Well, now I know that my life would not be so cool there and New Mexico is really the perfect place for me. There is a ton of outdoors stuff to do, the seasons are perfect (snow in the winter, hot but dry summers), the food is great (green chile on everything... even sushi), and the people are wonderful. Above is John with his friend Mikayla at the zoo. He can not stop talking about Mikayla or "mee-ka" as he calls her.

At the botanical gardens with Mikayla, her mom Michelle, and us. Michelle and I have been best friends since high school and her family is like another family to me. They were so gracious and spent a lot of time with us this week.

Mikayla initiated holding hands with John. From that point on he was smitten with her, but she lost interest in him pretty quick. Oh well, maybe she will come around some day :)

At a pep rally for the UNM Lobos with my dad and Mikayla

Checking in with Lobo Louie and Lobo Lucy

Enjoying the miniature train exhibit

We spent a lot of time with my parents, and with Michelle and her family. Michelle is fortunate to have both her parents and in-laws live in the same town as her. I wish that was the case with us! When I get to see my parents interacting with John I can't help feel that this is the way it is supposed to be, and by that I mean having families live close to each other. While the military life doesn't really afford us this opportunity, we will definitely savor our visits to NM as much as we savor the green chile!