It's a GIRL:)

We are so excited to share our happy news with you all. Ella is going to have a little sister! I always figured I was having another girl because of the similar symptoms I had, but honestly I never thought I would be lucky enough for Ella to have a sister and for me to enjoy another girly little monster ( I say that with love)!! I have two brothers and Tom only has one sister and 3 brothers. His Aunt has one daughter and 4 sons. It seems on both sides of the family having sisters is rare. We are SO blessed. So very blessed. Although it was quite sad to go to my ultrasound alone yesterday, I managed just fine. To see the happy, BOUNCING baby on the screen with a perfect heartbeat was such a relief. The tech told me she has giant feet and long fingers (both of which Ella had at 20 weeks) and I saw she was measuring a few weeks behind which is exactly how Ella was. I'm assuming she will be tiny like her big sis was when she was born! She even had her hand behind her head EXACTLY like Ella entered the world. The tech told me she was posing;)

Our lives are soon to change for the better and we couldn't be more thrilled. Here she is waving "hi" to all of the blog viewers (Although I think this pic is of her foot...)! Oh and yes, she is nameless. We are slowly working on that.

PS This pic is a pic from my Iphone taken of the u/s picture printout. I can't work our scanner/printer for the life of me:( Sorry!

5 Questions

I loved this blog post so much from Mrs. In Training that I decided to "borrow" it;) Her blog is super fun!

Question 1: Where were you five years ago?

1. Stationed in Germany with Tom

2. Living off post in a cute German apartment in Lichtenau

3. Attending tons of Fests and drinking giant beers

4. Traveling all over Europe with our min pin Riley

5. Learning to be an Army wife

Question 2: What is on your to-do list today?

1. Update the blog

2. Do some online fabric shopping for the new baby GIRL

3.Make a list of potential names

4. Clean the bathrooms

5. Wrap Cadence's 2nd bday present for her big party tomorrow!

Question 3: What five snacks do you enjoy? (Only 5??)

1. Super Pretzels with cheese or mustard

2. Any veggies with dip

3. Zebra Cakes

4. Cheese and crackers

5. At the moment..plums. and lots of them.

Question 4: What five places have you lived?

1. Levittown, NY

2. New Port Richey, FL

3.Tampa, FL

4. Ansbach, Germany

5.Ft. Sill, OK

Question 5: What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?

1. Have tons of children

2. Travel the world

3. Take my ENTIRE family on an amazing cruise

4. Open a boutique for my mom so everyone can see her amazing talents

5. Shop til I freakin' drop.

Never say Never

Before I was a parent I think I had said "Oh I will never do that!" quite a few times and now it's coming back to bite me in the butt. Even when Ella was a baby I always said "I will never buy her character clothing." Yeah, well Ella owns Elmo pjs, a Ni Hao Kai Lan shirt, Dora pjs, ect. I also said "I will never buy her character bedding." The pictures below show I lied. When Ella refused to sleep in her crib after our trip to South Korea, I allowed her in my bed for a few months. (Oh another thing I said I would never do!) Truth be told, I didn't mind her in there. She was my little cuddle bug! But I knew Tom would be home in April and I needed to get her out of our bed. We have a four bedroom home, but I knew I wanted to keep the nursery for the next baby and Ella hates that room now. I wanted to keep the guest room because frankly I can't just move a queen sized sleigh bed and where the heck do I store that? Besides my mama is coming to visit for a month when this baby is born and I want her to be comfy with her own room. Our only other choice was the playroom for Ella's new bed. There is already enough in that room so Tom suggested a toddler bed...and to make it as girly as possible. So we did just that. Everything I ever said I would never ever do, I did. I never wanted a toddler bed. I especially never wanted a PINK FRILLY CANOPY toddler bed adorned with princess bedding. But you know what? It works. And Ella falls asleep peacefully every night in it. Now if only she would stop waking once...twice...sometimes three times a night, I would be sleeping peacefully as well. But hey, you can't win them all, right?

Here it is...in all it's glory... right after I set it up last month. She was so excited and kept saying "It's my princess bed! It's my princess bed!"

Here is how her playroom looks with it. I thought it would take up much more room, but there is still room to move and play!

And here she is sleeping quite comfortably if I do say so myself! (with her Dora pjs on, covered in her Princess bedding. Ohhh Lordy.)

A Proud Army Wife

On Thursday my husband will have his last day in Command. For those of you who didn't know, he has been in charge of Charlie Battery for two years now. With that command position comes a ton of responsibilities. He's been in charge of 90+ soldiers, millions of dollars worth of equipment and a large number of families who have relied on him for advice and care. It's been a 24 hour job for the last 24 months. There have been countless middle of the night phone calls and weeks where I swore he had a realllly comfy bed in his office because I never saw him. I know he's had stressful, tiring times, and he might have lost some hair along the way, but he was amazing at this job. I'm happy I had the opportunity to watch him interact with his soldiers and see the respect they had for him. I have always been proud of my husband...but I'm extremely proud of everything he has accomplished in his career thus far. I hope he signs over Charlie to the new Commander with his head held high because he deserves to do so. And even though I will no longer be the "Commander's wife" (a title I secretly loved) I always get to be Tom's wife...a title I will always adore. Congratulations, babe. Job well done.

Giving the salute two years ago to take charge of Charlie

Doesn't he look so cute behind that podium making his speech?

Hard at work in the field

Exactly what he was in charge of...

Family pic the day he took command

Loves her puzzles

This video is pretty darn cute. Ella loves building this puzzle and in this video she is telling me "good job mama!" I could watch it over and over again.

Let's get ready to TUMBLE!!

I have been trying to find things to do indoors because of this freezing cold weather. Anywhere but the INDOORS of my own house. I took Ella to Tumble Time on Saturday night. She loved it and had a great time running around with her friend Cadence. I am going to enroll her in the class because she enjoyed it so much.

Her favorite was the bar and doing flips on it. She kept saying "again! again!"

Walking the balance beam with a hula hoop...can I enroll her in the circus?

Mamas and their girls

ABC's

Ella has been singing her ABC's this month and I had to share the cuteness with you all! Ignore the first like 20 seconds. She was trying to sing along to a new country video:)

The Growing Belly

I told myself I wouldn't subject the world to this for a second time, but I have had quite a few requests to see my growing belly and I am here to please my readers...all 3 of them. I only take these to show Tom and sometimes if Bridget asks enough I send them to her, too;) So here goes:

9 weeks

18.5 weeks (14 Feb)

To compare...this is my 19 weeks belly shot when pregnant with Ella. Hmmm I think it's pretty similar!!

Potty Training...

...is for princesses ONLY.

His little Valentine

Tom was extra sweet to Ella this year for Valentine's Day. Maybe it's because he's away or maybe it's because she understands all about getting gifts from her daddy, but either way she was excited to know her daddy was thinking of her enough to send her CHOCOLATE. And let me just tell you, a minute after putting that piece of chocolate in her mouth this poor kid realized she couldn't chew it...so it ended up ALL over her. She was a droolin' chocolate fool. Sorry no pics of that mess. I was too busy cleaning up the floors and sofas.

Hugging the Elmo stickers

She calls this her "heart box" which is from one of her favorite shows Ni Hao Kai Lan. She couldn't believe her daddy sent her an actual heart box!

"Are you going to help me open this heart box or what lady?"

She was mad because I stole the best chocolate piece...the caramel one.

She's unsure of how exactly to chew it