Only my kid...

...Actually sleeps with her slippers on.

Madeline found these old slippers of Ella's and wears them to bed nightly now. And my husband told me new slippers would be a waste of a Christmas gift for these girls. Shame shame.

Ella the Artist

If I am ever wondering why Ella is being so quiet I would say 90% of the time she is sitting at a table or on the floor drawing. She loves to draw and create. I think the craft bin is opened multiple times a day by her. I am going to say she gets her artistic ability from her Auntie Monica and Granny P and her craftiness from her Gma. Madeline on the other hand totally takes after me and when she draws a circle and tells me it's a zebra I think to myself "heck yeah that's a zebra, Madeline!" Because I know that's probably what my zebra would look like too if I tried to draw one.

She made this to send to her Aunt Jenny and Uncle Phil 

This is a drawing of her mama and daddy on a date. Don't you love our googly eyes?

She said this is a "snow woman"  

This is a drawing she did one morning of our elf. 

I wish I could figure out a way to keep all of her drawings.

Welcome December!

I can't believe it's already December. When I think back to a year ago, I remember not being overly excited about the holidays. I was still excited to celebrate with my girls because they bring that magic back into the holiday. But it wasn't the same with Tom away. This year, we decorated the day after Thanksgiving and I am loving every bit of it. Our elf, Henry, arrived that day as well and the girls have been waking up extra early to "elf hunt" every morning. Awesome. Really awesome. I think I am going to ask Santa for some sleeping dust for my kids.

Last Christmas, my younger brother and I, along with my mom, sorted through bins upon bins of decor and ornaments. She sent me back to OK with ummmm I'd say 8 bins? Needless to say I can't thank her enough because our house is filled with so much Christmas love now. I find myself smiling reminiscing about decorating my childhood home with her and putting up all of these Santas which now adorn our bookshelves and window sills. The only thing missing is our families to help us enjoy it all. But making new memories with my own family is the next step in growing up, right?

The girls loved helping to decorate the tree, while I about had a small heart attack with each box they opened and didn't put properly back together. Or every ornament they hung up "not in the right place" or one on top of the other on the same branch. I felt like the biggest Christmas Nazi ever. (Is that word appropriate for my children's blog?) At one point I had to walk away and tell myself that this is supposed to be a joyous time and the girls are loving looking at all of my (my mom's) old/new ornaments. Our tree wasn't just 100% purchased at Target in one swift trip. The ornaments on there (95%) of them have special meaning. I have collected them from all over the world while traveling. My mom has collected them since she was a child. There are homemade ones from Ella and myself and Tom and even his mom. I could honestly tell you a little story behind every one of them...that's how meaningful they are.

We call it our 'comfort tree'. It might not make it to the center of Macy's (Tom did add colored lights to it afterall!), but it is quite lovely to look at in the corner of our living room.

20 Weeks

As promised to a few friends, here are some belly shots from this week. Ella is my photographer. I definitely popped after Thanksgiving and at my 20 week appointment finally gained some weight. :)

These pics were taken between 20 and 21 weeks. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

So here is how our Thanksgiving went:

Tom decided what an awesome idea it would be to brine the bird. So we did. And when you brine a bird you turn the oven up to 500 degrees and the bird cooks for 30min to get it started. Wellllll, it was 8 am and the smoke detectors start going off. Yeah. That was from our house. This building is so old that the detectors are EVERYWHERE. In every room, hallway, stairwell...and they are loud. Think school building fire alarm. Needless to say, we met all of our lovely neighbors downstairs in their pjs that morning. I am pretty sure this just gives them more reason to hate us besides the fact that my kids stomp everywhere when they walk. At least the firemen were friendly:)

BUT the bird turned out absolutely delicious so it was all worth it. We had some wonderful friends join us for dinner and we were very grateful for their company! God has been so good to us and we definitely don't need a holiday to remember that.

November Catch-Up

Well another month is flying by and here I am again as usual...catching up. It's been a really exciting month so far filled with great news. New place to move to, new car, new gender soon to arrive in this house...

But here is some of what happened in the 11th month:

We discovered story hour on post has improved tremendously since we last went two years ago!

I took the girls to Norman for a full day of shopping...7 hours with my kids and they were shopping champs. Tom, however, wasn't so thrilled with the total when we arrived home;) BTW, Ella used tortilla chips as vampire teeth in that pic.

And what is a month catch up without photos of Madeline napping? I think I take so many of her sleeping because it's my favorite time of day. ;)

We had an indoor picnic with our friend Louisa!

Madeline loves to act like the wicked witch. She cracks me up!

Baby P #3 is a...

BOY!!!!!!

Thank you to Kim Haynes for taking these absolutely adorable shots to help with our reveal!

We are really excited to welcome a boy into our world! 

Peace

Even though I am sad that Mitt Romney lost the election, I know what's most important in my world:

Because at the end of the day...nothing else really matters.

(PS. They do not normally sleep together. I put them in separate beds, but Ella must have climbed in with Madeline to keep her company.) Just melts my heart.

New Mom Mobile

I am no longer driving my little four door sedan. I moved up in the world of mom mobiles. I absolutely LOVE my new vehicle and feel totally spoiled by it. It has so many bells and whistles on it that I can't keep up. Ella asks me to play her Disney station on Pandora through the car and I know it can...I just haven't figured out how. The girls can watch movies now (only on long road trips is the rule). I can touch screen everything and call some concierge lady and she is so overly friendly that I really want to use her everyday just to chat. But I have held back on that;) I can't even count the number of cupholders this thing has. (The BMW only has 2. Yes, two. I learned that the Germans don't really care for that convenience.) I never have to dig around for my keys in my purse. As long as they are in there, I can press a button on the door to open it and then inside to start it. Most convenient feature ever, especially as a mom whose hands are often filled with grocery bags or kids cups or children for that matter. When we purchased our German souvenir back in 2006, we LOVED it. I mean we thought it was the best thing ever. Now, I find myself making excuses to get out of the house just to drive my new wheels. I heart it.

It's an Infiniti JX35

Summer 2013

Happy November! We received some really great news today. We will be headed to Newport, Rhode Island this summer. Tom was chosen to attend the Naval War College there for Command and Staff college aka MAJ schooling for those not familiar with the military:) He came home with some nice Sam Adams beer and told me to start celebrating. I think I screamed and then pulled a Tom Cruise and literally jumped on our couch. To say I am excited to leave Ft. Sill is an understatement. As much as I love our little post here, after 6 years, of living here I am very ready for a change. We will be a few hours from our NY family and that makes me beam with happiness. Until you have lived states and states away from family and friends you will never know what it feels like to be somewhat close to them again. It's like a breath of fresh air.

I am very proud of my husband. He was one of two air defenders chosen for this spot. He loves his job and works his tail off. It's nice to see hard work pays off every now and then. Even though we will only be there for less than a year, I am looking forward to what Newport will bring to us.

This is the Naval War College in Newport. Absolutely beautiful!