Merry Christmas!!

Well, it's Christmas morning and the girls are enjoying their pile of presents. They are busy building a Lego castle with Daddy at the moment. Hopefully they have enough new stuff to keep them happy and busy during the move and trip to WA. We are going to celebrate Christmas again up there - this time with a tree and stockings. Ellie was so worried that this wasn't going to be a real Christmas because we had no decorations!
The movers will be here tomorrow morning. Although we're pretty ready for them, I know that there are going to be plenty of little last minute things to do tonight in preparation.
So, I probably won't get a chance to blog for a while. We will be heading up to WA before the New Year and Andy will be on his way to Alaska on Jan 8th.

Goodbye

Ellie had to say goodbye to her friend Rhiannon the other day. We sure are going to miss our friends!!

Hard Day

Here is Nick after a long day. It's hard work being a baby!

Walk Like an Egyptian

Yesterday, we had to drive up to Richmond (near Oakland) and drop Andy's Explorer off to be shipped to Alaska. On the way back, we decided to stop somewhere that we've been meaning to go to for ages - the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose.
Ellie has wanted to be an archeologist for some time now and she has always been enamored with Ancient Egypt. I thought she was going to explode with joy when we surprised her and showed up there.
It really was a neat museum - filled with artifacts and some replicas. It even had a replica of a tomb that you walked through under the museum. Ellie was in heaven :)

Nick's first steps

Yes, Nick has discovered that he can stand without holding onto anything. He has taken a step or two a couple of times in the past few days. Watch out world...here comes trouble :)

Change of Responsiblity

Andy had his Change of Responsibility today and he is no longer the First Sergeant for Delta Company. He had a hard time giving it up, but I keep telling him that it's not a big deal - he's going to be a First Sergeant in Alaska also! Just take a break for a while and outprocess :)
The picture is of the frame they presented him with this morning. Isn't it cool? He's going to need an entire room of his own to hang all of these things up when he retires!
Everything seems to be going smoothly so far. The passports are sent away for, we drop his truck off on Thursday to be shipped, and we're doing tons of little things in preparation for the move. On top of it all, there seems to be a ton of parties and get-togethers since it is the holiday season :) We have the homeschoolers party today, the company party on Friday, and the Hail and Farewell on Saturday. Busy, busy, busy:) Time is flying - we have 2 weeks before the movers come!

The Nutcracker

Anyone who has met Kate knows that she can't sit still for more than a few seconds. She is constantly dancing, hopping, skipping, and prancing through the house instead of walking. She throws herself on the floor during conversations and she twirls around while she's talking to you. That's just Kate. Ellie's Brownie troop was singing at the Christmas Tree Lighting for Seaside last Friday and do you think that Kate could sit still long enough to watch? Not a chance. Of course I was crazy to take Kate, Lexie, and Nick by myself with no stroller or anything. They were wiggly....
Anyway, my point in all of that is that Andy took the girls to see the Nutcracker yesterday and he said that she actually sat still. She was so intently watching it - asking questions about what part of the song it was and just enraptured with the whole thing. So, it has been proven that she can sit in one spot for 2 hours. She just has to be VERY interested in what she's doing :)
The girls had such a good time. They got to sit in the front row, so they saw everything up close. Ellie came home with a blue Nutcracker, whom she named "Major Mint" and Kate got Barbie as "Marzipan" from the Nutcracker. They have been busy playing with them all day.

Mug Shots

We actually all have to get passports to go to Alaska - since we have to go through Canada. Here are the kids in their passport photos :) They are so excited about getting their own IDs.

One more trip to the Aquarium

This week was free week for Monterey residents so we ended up getting to go to the aquarium one more time. We had a busy day yesterday. We left at 9:30 and didn't get back until about 5. We went to the commissary, the aquarium, a Christmas store, Target, and the farmer's market! The kids were so good :)

Freecycling :)

Now, first of all, I have to say that I love Freecycle. For those of you who don't know what it is, it's a yahoo group in your area where people post things they are getting rid of or things they want - all FREE. I actually got an antique piano off of the site last year so I can attest that it works.
Anyway, although there are some really good finds out there - people post the WEIRDEST things sometimes. The other day, someone posted that they were getting rid of 6 Barbie doll shoes - none of them matching. That in itself is weird. I would think that if you had 6 non-matching shoes you would chuck them in the trash - but that's just me. What is even weirder than that is someone went and picked them up!! What??? You can't tell me that 6 non-matching Barbie shoes is worth the gas that it cost and the time required to pick them up.
I am convinced that there are some very strange people in this world.
If you want to check to see if there is one in your area, go to www.freecycle.org But, if you decide to freecycle, remember that you have to sift through the junk to find the treasure :)

Family Puzzle

We had blank jigsaw puzzles the girls were drawing on today. This is the one Andy made - our family portrait. I sure wish I could draw, but all I can do are stick people. Hopefully the girls will get his drawing talents instead of mine :)
In case you can't tell who is who - Ellie of course has her nose in a book as always, little Lexie is holding a sign that says "I'm so cute" (she's our little "Mouse"), Kate is in her typical pink tutu, waving a sword, I've got Nick curled up in my arm and Andy is Super Sarge :)

Drill Sergeant Woods

I just found this picture that one of Andy's soldiers drew and posted on the board at his work a couple of years ago. I just love it :) It's hard to believe that it's been that long since he was a drill sergeant.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! We went to a friend's house for dinner tonight and had lots of good food - and we don't have leftovers or dishes :) The kids are all tucked into bed, sound asleep. Hope you all had a great day.

Ellie's geography project

Just wanted to share the salt map (made of salt dough) of North America that Ellie sculpted, painted, and labeled herself. I'm so proud of her :)

Me and Nick

Here is a picture of me and Nick from a couple of days ago. He likes to have some quiet time in the evenings with us - after his sisters have gone to bed :)

The Final Countdown

It has just hit us that we will be out of here in 6 weeks. With Christmas parties, goodbye dinners, outprocessing, finishing my college class project, homeschooling, taking care of 4 kids, and sorting through all of our stuff, those 6 weeks are going to fly by. The movers will be here the day after Christmas, so I'm not planning on pulling out the decorations this year. I think that I'm going to let Ellie and Kate decorate instead. They can do as many art projects as they want - and then I can just tear them down after Christmas and I don't have to worry about packing them back up again.
We are so ready to move. I think in part because it's a training post and being here for 4 yrs means we've already seen so many friends leave. We've just been waiting for our turn to go. Alaska is going to be exciting - if we ever get there! Andy will be going up in January and the kids and /i will be staying with my parents until he can find us a house - it will probably be a few months. By the time we get there, the daylight will be back and the snow melted :)

Sick baby

Nick is sick yet again - he and Lexie were sick and had ear infections while we were on vacation. Now he has a bad cough, goopy eyes, and lots of green snot!! The doctor put him on some medicine for the gunk in his chest and eye drops for his eyes. Hopefully he'll feel better soon. It hasn't slowed him down any though - he's still standing or crawling whenever he is set down.

Pictures from the Trip

Here are some more pics from the trip. I especially love the one of Andy with Nick on his shoulders - he's so happy to have a son :)

Nick's Baptism

Here is a picture of us after Nick's baptism last month.

Ramblings

We had such a great time in Kansas. We got lots of time visiting family and Nick was baptized by his Grandpa Nick. The girls got to play on the farm and go on nature walks.
Andy and I had a long date - two days in Iowa searching through cemeteries, courthouses, and libraries. Some of you may think I'm weird, but I had a really good time. I'm a genealogy nerd :) I'm sure that Andy probably could have thought of some better ways to spend his vacation (maybe fishing!) but he was a good sport and spent hours looking through microfilm and walking through cemeteries with me.
It took us over 30 hours each direction to get from CA to KS, but we drove without stopping for the night. We just switched back and forth (Andy doing most of the driving) and then we collapsed when we got home :) The kids are such good travelers, I'm so proud of them. Lexie didn't throw up this time - that made for a much more pleasant trip. Maybe the carsickness is going away....
We'll be making another long trip up to WA this December. The movers come the day after Christmas and we'll be up in WA before the New Year. Andy will then fly to Fairbanks and we'll wait at my parents until he has found us a home :) We're excited about our upcoming adventures!

Look out world, here he comes...

When we left for Kansas, Nick was able to slowly low crawl if there was something in front of him that he really wanted. He couldn't sit up on his own yet. In the 2 weeks that we were gone, he went from that to - being able to really crawl on his hands and knees (completely across the room in a flash), being able to sit up on his own, and standing in his crib or up against the couch (or up against anything else he can get his hands on). I'm having a really hard time now keeping all of the girls little toys out of his reach. I have to vacuum a couple of times a day so that he doesn't eat stuff off the floor!! Here is a picture of him today - he's so proud of himself.

Happy Halloween!

While we were in Kansas, Aunt Maria took the kids to get Halloween costumes. She let them go on a Wal-mart shopping spree and they had so much fun :) Thanks Maria!! They got all dressed up tonight and went trick-or-treating on our street and then headed for the "Light in the Night" party at the Chapel. Here is a picture of them before we left. Kate is Ariel (The Little Mermaid). Ellie is a witch (but not a scary one). And Lexie is the cutest little pirate I've ever seen. She was even saying "Argh Matey!"

We're heading out to Kansas :)

We'll be leaving for KS tomorrow night. I just pray for happy kids and a smooth trip. They really are such good travelers. Let's just hope that Lexie doesn't get car sick this time. It would be pretty awful to sit in the truck for 30 hrs with that smell......
The girls are going to be armed with snacks and movies, so they should be happy for a while at least. For those of you in KS - we'll see you soon!

What do you want to be when you grow up??

Most kids want to be a fireman, a doctor, or something normal - not my kids :) Ellie is the budding archaeologist and Kate wants to be a teenager when she grows up. Yes, I said a teenager. I'm not sure what kind of schooling or degree she needs for that one :) I'm sure she'll be great at it though!

More aquarium pics

I took 4 or 5 pictures and I still couldn't get one with all of them looking at the camera at the same time! It's hard to see, but Lexie is holding her treasures we bought in the gift shop - an orange jellyfish and a little sardine puppet :) Nick has had about all he can take - this is when we were leaving...This is one of Kate's favorite parts of the aquarium - you get to stand and watch the water falling over you. She could probably stay there for hours.
We saved our favorite parts for last - the Shark and Jellyfish exhibits. Lexie had been asking to see the jellyfish all day. When we got to that part of the aquarium, we found out that they were both closed. They will be putting in an otter exhibit instead of the sharks - come on aren't sharks more exciting than otters??

Our last trip to the aquarium :(

Living here for 4 years, we've been spoiled to have such a great aquarium so close. We just took what will probably be our last trip to the aquarium a couple of days ago. Here is a picture of Ellie and Kate in the big clam shell.

Katie is officially reading

Katie has read through a set of 24 "BOB books" twice and has now been picking words out of every book she looks at. I'm SO proud of her - and I can tell that she is so proud of herself. She has really matured a lot recently. She and Ellie are sharing a room now and playing together a lot better. Her energy level hasn't gone down any though. She still can't get around the house without running, skipping, dancing, jumping or tumbling about. She really needs to find an outlet for all of that extra energy.

Nick is growing my leaps and bounds :)

I just noticed today that he has 2 more teeth - for a total of 8!!!
He also just started crawling FORWARD today. He's been scooting himself backwards for a while. I think within a week he's going to master it and then we'll really be in trouble.

Kate's train of thought

I forgot to blog about this earlier. While we were at my parents', Kate asked my mom if she had a mom and a dad. My mom said that she did. Kate asked if they died. My mom said yes. Then Kate said "Now you can do whatever you want".

Andy at Ft. Bliss

Here is Andy and the other First Sergeants in his class at Ft. Bliss.

Nick has 4 more teeth!

Isnt' he getting so big? He has 4 new top teeth that all broke through the gums about 3 days ago. He's really taking it well though. He is such an easy baby compared to his sisters :) I am very thankful for that!

I'm 30!!

I can't believe I actually turned 30!! Seems so old :)

We're taking the FAIRY to Alaska :)

Kate is adorable. We were talking about how we will be moving to Alaska later this year. She seemed very confused about how we were going to get there. She asked if we were going to take the ferry and I said yes. I told her that our truck was going to ride on it also. Then she was really surprised and asked if it was an adult fairy or a kid fairy :)

Kate loves blackberries

My parents must have an acre of blackberries which Kate couldn't stay away from while we were there. She would disappear and I would find her sitting in the middle of a blackberry patch, covered head to toe, shoving them in her mouth:)

We're back

Well the trip back from WA was better than the trip there. Our air conditioning was fixed and we stopped at my Aunt Barb's halfway through to spend the night. We have found something out though - Lexie definitely gets car sick. She threw up twice on the way (and then Kate through up from watching Lexie throw up). Of course, they did it within the first hour of the trip. We started with a very stinky truck. It has taken me a couple of days to clean it out.....
The kids had a great time up there, visiting with Gram and Papa, picking LOTS of blackberries, and playing outside in the fresh air. We made it to one of Andrea's Highland Games (she came in first place - go Annie!), and to a family reunion. It was nice to see everyone again.
Above is a picture of Nick and my brother David.

We made it to WA!!

After a VERY long trip, we've made it to Washington. The kids were really good, but it was extremely hot the entire way and our air conditioning wasn't working. I had to roll the windows down to cool us off a bit (not that it helped much). Because of that, the girls weren't able to watch movies since they couldn't hear them at all. Plus, Lexie threw up less than halfway into the trip and I gave the girls popsicles to try to cool them off - what a mess!! By the time we got here everyone's hair was in knots, everyone was sticky, and the car was pretty stinky :) It took us 20 1/2 hrs to make it here. We got within an hour of my parents's house when we got stuck in traffic because of a bad accident. We ended up moving 3 miles in 1 1/2 hrs. It was pretty frustrating. We're here now though and the girls have been busy picking blackberries and playing outside. I'll post lots of pictures when we get back....

Nick has a tooth!!

I wondered why I have been sore for the past few days and now I know.... Nick got his first tooth in today and it looks like the second one will be through by tomorrow. They are the bottom front teeth. He'd better learn quickly not to bite!!

We're going to WA!!

For those of you in Washington, we should be driving up at the end of next week to visit for a few weeks. We'd love to see you all!!!

Lexie, the 2 year old monster....

Ok, so Lexie has definitely hit the "terrible twos". She has been able to climb on things for a really long time, but I guess I've just been lucky that she hasn't done it much in the past. This past week she has been into EVERYTHING!!! This morning before church, she got into the fish bowl (at least she didn't tip it over like she did earlier this week!) Anyway, I had to get another church dress on her and then while I was wiping up the fish, she got into our bathroom and started squeezing out all of the toothpaste onto the walls and into the sink. I then cleaned that up (and changed my pants since I got toothpaste all over myself). While I was doing that, she got into the office and started squeezing out all of the glitter glue. I was about to pull my hair out by the time we left for church :) What a handful she has become.

Ellie and Nick

Isn't he getting so big?? Ellie was holding him for awhile today while I was trying to get some things done. She just loves being a big sister :)

Here is one more of Ellie yesterday - she had so much fun!

Kate had a little too much fun with the cotton candy. Thank God for baby wipes :) I don't know what moms did before they invented them. Spit, I guess. It would have taken everything my salivary glands could make to have cleaned her up!

By the way, her T-shirt says My Mom Rocks (I just noticed that in this picture it looks like it could be My Mom Sucks!) Depends on the day I guess....

Ellie joined the Army

Ellie was feeling very patriotic on Independence Day and she signed her life away to the Army :) She made her dad so proud! After the 4th of July parade yesterday, they had a "Living History Day" in Monterey. Ellie was recruited along with these other kids and they got to practice drilling with their weapons. When they were done, they were paid a gold coin.

Wedding

Here is another of us at the wedding yesterday. The girls had a ball since it was on the beach and they were able to run around and dig in the sand. What a beautiful place to get married!!

Wedding in Carmel

We went to a friend's wedding today on the beach in Carmel. The girls got all dressed up and played in the sand.

A picture of me

Ok, I'm in trouble from Andy for not having any pictures of me on here. So, here it is - a picture of me, Ellie, and Lexie from this afternoon.

My Dad Rocks!

My Dad Rocks!! Ellie saw this T-shirt and just HAD to have it - even though she doesn't like pink. Of course, not to be outdone, I had to get Kate the My Mom Rocks! shirt :)

Ellie is on diaper duty

Ellie was very proud of herself when she took the initiative today and asked to change Nick's diaper. She was successful - and now that I know she can do it, she's probably going to wish that she didn't.......

Rice Krispies

Whoever invented Rice Krispies marketed it the wrong way. I mean, the cereal is neat and all - it snaps, crackles, and pops, but if added to a liquid and left to dry it can actually hold better than most glue or paste out there. Andy and I know this very well since our kids love this cereal and we don't love trying to chisel it off the floor when they're done eating it :)

Nick Rolled Over

Nick rolled over for the first time yesterday. He was laying on the floor in the living room with Andy and he rolled from his tummy to his back. He looked really surprised. We had the girls out in the backyard playing so he wouldn't get flattened. I was starting to worry that he'd never roll over, sit up, crawl, or walk since I'm ALWAYS carrying him, but it looks like he's on his way to moving....

Change of Command, Part 2

Here is Andy at the company Change of Command.

Ellie, the belle of the ball

Here is Ellie, all dolled up for the ball. Doesn't she look beautiful??

Army Ball

Here is a picture of Andy and Ellie before leaving for the Army Ball tonight. Andy said she was quite the little lady and got tons of compliments from everyone. They really enjoyed themselves. I'm so glad that they had a good time. The other kids and I stayed at home for movies and pizza. We were too tired to go to Vacation Bible School tonight.

Traveling with kids

Ok, so I got a trial run for my trip to WA. On Wednesday I took Andrea to the airport in Sacramento (3 hrs one direction). It was fine while she was in the car - we had to stop and use the bathroom 3 times and she was able to take them in for me. But, after I dropped her off (and got stuck in rush hour traffic) things got ugly. Nick was screaming, Ellie was crying because Nick was screaming in her face, and Kate and Lexie were fighting with eachother. Over 4 hrs later we made it home. After 7 hrs in the car we were all pretty beat and I was asking myself, "How badly do I want to go up to WA??" It's not going to be a fun trip......

Andrea

We have enjoyed having Andrea here visiting us for the past couple of days :) I really wish she didn't have to go tomorrow. We're going to miss her.

She's here to PUMP US UP!!

Aunt Andrea was here to give the girls a good workout.....before they finished off the chocolate cake!

Ahoy Mateys!!

We celebrated Ellie's 7th birthday today with a pirate bash! Unfortunately, Kate and Lexie are sick and we couldn't let any friends come over to enjoy the fun :(
Captain Andrea was here for some swashbuckling fun though!