I'm Going to Miss This

There is nothing more beautiful than a daddy holding his baby girl. I love this man.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Our Christmas wasn't all that well planned this year since we weren't planning on being home, but we've managed to do a few things to celebrate the season. We bought a little tree and decorated it one night and set up our nativity. And then my brother and his family came to visit us on Saturday on their way home. The kids all decorated a gingerbread house and had a blast. They ate A LOT of candy in the process.

We also got all dressed up in our new Christmas dresses for last Sunday. Mango was too fussy to get a picture of them all together, but we're going to get family pictures done shortly so I figured it wasn't worth the struggle. Aren't my girls precious? It was harder than I thought it would be to find three purple dresses that didn't clash.

On Monday, Strawberry finally earned the last of the $50 she needed to so that she could get an American Girl Doll for Christmas. It is by far the most she has ever managed to save and I was very impressed. She saved up her allowance and did extra chores here and there. She made Luke and I count it about 5 times each to make sure she actually had it. :)

Today, we're having a candy-making day and then going to the new Disney Princess movie for our traditional Christmas Eve Eve. I hate cooking. That's all I have to say about that.

Anyway, we hope that all of you are having a wonderful Christmas with your families and enjoying the opportunity to be together. We love you.

Our Chances of Divorce Have Shrunk :)

Luke and I celebrated our 10th anniversary on Friday. Yay! I learned in a communications class in college that if you make it 10 years, you are much less likely to end up divorcing. I'm awful proud of us.

Ten years and nothing to show for it. Teasing! We've got three beautiful daughters, great careers, and a pick-up. Not bad, hey? It has been an absolute joy to be married to my husband and even when things are tough, I'm always able to remember that I've got the greatest guy in the world. He makes me happy. Things are so different than I ever dreamed they would be, but I wouldn't trade what we have. It's us and so it's perfect.

Sadly, we didn't take pictures of our big day, except a couple quick shots with a cellphone at the restaurant. This was our beautiful sunset view off the Ventura pier (through a window with a screen). It was very romantic, even with our little Mango hogging a little attention.

Change of Plans

We found out this past week that Luke will no longer be deploying to Japan, but will be going to Afghanistan as part of the troop build-up. We were, or at least I was, pretty surprised, but the more I thought about it, I realized that I should have known that this would be happening. I mean, it only makes sense. This is what Seabees do! More troops means there needs to be more places to live and it's the Seabees job to build those places. This will actually be pretty good for Luke's career, especially coupled with his previous deployment to Iraq.

We also found out that he will be leaving at the beginning of January instead of the middle of February, which definitely interfered with our holiday plans and we therefore will not be coming to Oregon for Christmas. We're disappointed (especially Strawberry and Apple) that we won't be able to see everyone that is going to be there, but we really need to be alone as a family right now. This is going to be a very hard goodbye. I mean, it always is, but it was sooner than we expected and will be for longer than we expected and probably won't be able to communicate as often as we expected. Thanks for being understanding of that.

I will definitely be using to blog to keep everyone updated on how he is and what he is doing. And of course, how we are doing here at home. That was one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place.

We hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas. Be sure and hold your loved ones tight and remember what a blessing it is that you have each other. Military life is hard on family, but it has definitely given us the opportunity to have a closeness and gratitude for each other that we didn't quite have before. Our most precious experiences have been coming back together as a family after long absences. Anyway, we love you all and miss you and are grateful for you. Have a beautiful Christmas.

Happy Hanukkah!

Strawberry's class did a multicultural Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa program this week and she got to be a candle in the menorah. It was pretty cute. A little frustrating because the room was tiny and packed and even though we were only on the third row, we could barely see her. But we'd been listening to her practice for a month and so we know she sang beautifully. I'm glad that instead of ignoring the religious holidays, they celebrated all of them. And now Strawberry has been asking tons of questions about Judaism. Time for me to find our Religions of the World book and start studying.

My Babies are Growing Up!

Yesterday morning I popped Mango into her carseat and got a major shock. She fits in it! When I tried to buckle her it was too tight and I had to adjust the straps. I kid you not, she has doubled in size since yesterday. I couldn't believe it. My baby isn't tiny anymore!

When I put her in the swing, her feet reach the end of it! Sorry about the busy picture. :] She is three months old now, but I guess I wasn't quite ready for her to not be a newborn anymore. I mean, she's been growing like crazy all along, but she just doesn't seem little to me now. I need to get around some bigger babies and get some perspective.

And then I was downloading pictures off my camera and came across this one of Strawberry. She looks so grown up. Am I really old enough to have a child that big? These pictures are from Thanksgiving morning when Mike decided to take them on a traditional 8-mile run. :)

Strawberry did make it about a half mile from what I hear.

Thank goodness I have sweet little Apple. Apparently she'd been watching Signs and thought the kids on the show had a good idea. She's so little and cute and silly, I can totally still think of her as being three.

. . . Because I'm Four Now!

Apple turned four yesterday and now she's an entirely new person. She spent all day telling me how things were different. "I'm older enough now because I'm four!" "My hair growed longer last night because I'm four!" "I'm a big girl now because I'm four!" It was too adorable. Actually, for the past week she'd been telling me how things were going to be different once she was four. She was going to not run away while we're walking to school. She was going to clean her own room all by herself. :) She's never been this excited about a birthday before. When she turned three, she refused to admit it. "I not three, I two!" And she used to get so mad when you said she was a big girl. "I not a big gayel. I tiny!" But I guess now she's ready to grow up. I said to her the other day, "Stop growing! You're getting big too fast." And she got very upset with me. "Why won't you let me get big?" The funny thing is, I'm totally unprepared for her to be four. When we went to the doctor a few weeks ago, he told me that she is actually in the 10th percentile for height and weight. She is tiny! I had no idea. I thought she was pretty normal sized, but she's actually quite a bit older than she looks. In my mind I'd grouped her with kids that were almost a year younger than her because that's what she looked like, but she really is a big girl now.

We actually weren't planning on having a party, but two girls in her Primary class had birthdays this month and she'd gone to this fancy princess parties and so I couldn't just make it a family affair. We invited over two little boys from the neighborhood and their big sisters. I had no idea how much noise four extra kids could make. Holy smokes! Apple really really loves to play with the boys. At Strawberry's party, she spent the whole time playing with the boys instead of the girls. And every day when we go pick up Strawberry from school, she's got 5 or 6 1st and 2nd graders chasing her around the schoolyard. She loves boys and boys love her and this party was no exception. Those three were just going crazy. It was so funny too because I'd never really seen boys that age play together. The whole time they were just piling on top of each other. First outside in the grass, then on our porch swing, then on the LazyBoy, then on the couch. It was hilarious. Meanwhile, Strawberry had the older girls at the kitchen table doing a craft that she had pulled out. It was funny.

Apple was pretty underwhelmed by the presents we got for her when she first opened them. It was funny because she was trying to act excited, but she was sort of, "Um, what the heck is this?" She'd say "wow" and "cool" and look at it funny and toss it to the side. Luke and I were feeling sort of bad that we hadn't gotten her anything she wanted. But she'd never experienced a remote-control car before and once we had it out and the batteries put in, she was absolutely giddy. All 6 of the kids were crowded around it, giggling their heads off. I love when something is brand new and they have that super-excited awe. Through the evening, she discovered how all of her presents were pretty awesome, so Luke and I were able to high-five each other on a birthday well done.

Are You Jealous?

This is how we spent our weekend. I love Southern California. This was Mango's first trip to the beach and, unfortunately, after I took two pictures (one of Luke and one of Strawberry), the camera battery died. The rest of the pics were taken with my phone. :( Oh well. She didn't get to play in the sand or water or anything, just stayed in the carrier except for the photos. It was sure beautiful out there. We get to go to this nice private little beach on the military base where you can always see some kind of wildlife playing in the water. This time we saw 3 sea lions. We love the ocean so much. I keep telling Luke he has to make Admiral so we can afford a beach house someday. :)

Hey, this is my 100th post!  Congratulations to our family.  :)

Doctor Visit

Today was Mango's 2 month doctor appointment, the one with all the shots :( When they weighed her, I was actually surprised because I thought she was such a big baby, but she's 60th percentile for height and only 30th percentile for weight. So she's actually a skinny little thing. Wouldn't know it to look at her though. She is chubbers! It's funny because Strawberry was 50th percentile for both height and weight, but wore 0-3 month clothes until she was at least 4 months, but Mango is already wearing 3-6 month clothes. Weird. Maybe they shrunk the baby clothes. I really thought she was going to be over the 75th percentile for both height and weight. Her head was about 25th percentile. Anyway, this is all stuff only a mom cares about, hey?

She did pretty well with the shots. She cried for about 5 minutes and then went to sleep. Strawberry cried for the rest of the day with her 2 month shots and Apple cried for 1 minute then was fine for the rest of the day. It's really fascinating to compare how all my kids are different. Mango has definitely been the fussiest. She doesn't cry uncontrollably, but she knows what she wants and isn't very patient. She's pretty loud. A lot of times, she sort of sounds like a little bird. She's got a really cute cry. At least it isn't annoying. :) And she doesn't like being put down. She does, however, sleep at night very well and stays asleep in her crib. She is also the only one to absolutely reject bottles and pacifiers, which is probably why she is the fussiest because we can't just stick the plug in. Anyway, she's a great baby and we love her like crazy.

Luke left for Japan this morning and will be gone until Thursday night. Strawberry was very upset. We keep forgetting to tell her about this stuff until the last minute. She has not been doing well with his absences so far. She really is a daddy's girl and it is tough for her to be without him. I remember the first time he left, in 2003 when she was just a year old. She was devastated about it even then. Every time someone came to the front door, she would run to it and call his name, but it was never him and she would come to me and cry. It's a little bit frustrating for me though because I miss him too, but I don't get to wander around sobbing about it because I've got three little girls to take care of and it just isn't fair that they get to mope and I don't. This deployment is going to be especially hard because I'm doing it on my own this time. Before, I was living with Mom and Dad and so there was an extra set of back-up parents so I actually could mope and be depressed and my little ones wouldn't be neglected. Plus, I had a job to distract me from how sad I was. Oh well. I guess it's time for me to toughen up anyway. :)

On a happy note, we split the girls up into their own rooms this past week. They were driving each other and us crazy sharing a room and since we have a whopping 4 bedrooms now, we decided that they could have their own rooms. We moved the computer and bookshelves into Mango's room and the treadmill into the garage. We let the girls decorate their walls with vinyl stickers and it turned out really cute. They have these adorable night lights at IKEA that are ladybugs and flowers. It's going well so far except we're getting, "This is my room. GET OUT!" a little too often. I just can't wait until Mango is old enough to fight too. :p

Blessing Day

Mango was blessed this past Sunday by her daddy. It was a beautiful blessing and there was a wonderful spirit there. She did, of course, cry through most of it, but Luke did a great job of ignoring her. He said she probably wouldn't have cried if he could have just held her the way he normally does, but the other guys started bouncing her and it was startling her. Oh well. :) Grandma and Grandpa Cowley were able to come down to meet our little princess and to play with our other princesses. It was a really fun weekend.