Using my talents...

One more quick one for today. So I decided to make Christmas dresses for my girls. I know how to sew basic things...crafts, buttons, mending. But the last time I actually tired sew something to wear was for myself when I was pregnant with Makenzie. Needless to say it was a disaster. So I was a little bit nervous this time, but I really wanted to do it. Overall, things went relatively well. I only had to unpick a few times, but I was happy with the finished product. I'll have to take pictures with cute little bodies in them next time.




Kaylee's Dress
Makenzie's Dress
The pair

The things we like to do...

So I have a bunch of random pictures that I wanted to share so this is what I came up with. Enjoy.
Wake up early
Wake up happy
Play with our toys
Watch dad play the Wii
Ride bikes
Build towers... and then knock them down
Play in more boxes
Exercise
Color
Clean up
Practice our art skills
Ride the teeter-totter
Swing some more
Swing
Go to the park
Just be silly
Eat new foods
Crawl all over
Fall asleep on the coffee table
Hide out in boxes
Play in mommy's shoes
Dress up in dad's hat

Holidays...

So it's the holiday season, and it's sure has been different. I know that it shouldn't matter where you are, Christmas is Christmas. Well, it's just not true. I'm here in the deep South, and it's nothing but wet soggy weather-70 degrees and humid no less. Now does that seem like Christmas to anyone?? Well, maybe to you snow haters, but for me, I miss the snow. I see pictures and watch the weather channel and see that others are getting it, so I guess that will have to do. I'm excited to be able to head back home to get in on the snow action. The weather aside, it's been a good holiday season for us so far. Thanksgiving was all up to me this year. Justis helped as much as he knows how to-he'll be the first to tell you he just doesn't cook-but I had to do the rest. It was a little anti-climatic for us/me. It was like I was preparing any normal dinner for my little family of 4, it just took me 2 days to do it. Either way, it tasted good. I was pretty proud of my self for even making the dressing that my mom makes and I love. It was a little nerve racking to pour liquid over dried out bread. I've watched her do it many times and it always tastes good, but somewhere inside of me I know that liquid and bread equals soggy & gross. But I did it anyway, and it wasn't half bad for my first time.
So with Thanksgiving over we were on to bigger and better with decorating for Christmas. I was excited to get it all up while listening to my music. I had a great little helper named Kaylee who loved the bulbs on the tree and wanted to keep putting more on, but our little 3 ft tree was getting pretty full with all of the ornaments that we have collected in our 4 years together. Kaylee's favorite decoration was the advent calendar. If I would let her, she'd pull everything out all at once. But I'm teaching her how much more fun it is to pull one out each day, and she has been pretty good to accept that. I've also introduced her to a family favorite, The Muppet Christmas Carol. She seems to like it and asks to watch the frog(while signing frog) movie. All in all, my little house feels like it's Christmas time, and there have been many mornings that I have woken up to it being a little darker outside and I jump to the window in hopes of softly falling flakes and get sucked back to reality by the pouring rain. I guess it'll have to do.

The two house village.


My little nativity scene that the girls love to play with.



The stockings that took me seriously 3 years to finish.

The beloved calendar




Here's the overall picture.

The year of the Graduate!

So this has been quite the year for Justis. He has graduated from many different schools/courses. It's all been very exciting. First in May was his graduation from the University. He had worked very hard and completed his degree amazingly in 4 years. They weren't easy. He started off getting married, then having baby #1 half way through and baby #2 right at the end, went through 2 moves and continued to keep a 3.5 GPA through it all. I was very proud of him. Next came Basic Training. He left our little family for 10 weeks and went through some crazy experiences to complete this phase of life. And in the end he came out on top as the Soldier of the Cycle. After BT he had yet another course, this time 7 weeks long. He made it through this one and graduated once again.
It's all been a lot of change and very exciting for us. His girls are very proud of him, and very happy to have him home with us now. He's definitely worked hard for us and we appreciate him so much. Thank so much!

What Luck...

So since we have moved to Alabama, we have had to purchase a few items that we have borrowed from my parents our entire marriage. The first item was a table and chairs. I was very excited to go searching. It was probably one of the fastest decisions Justis and I have made together about anything. We went looking at all the furniture stores in town and ended up back at the first one and made our choice. Of course my choice would be one the they have to order in specially. It seems to always go that way. Anyway, they tell me it will be here in 4-6 weeks. Well 4 weeks go by and the chairs are here, but no table. 6 weeks hits and the table hasn't even been sent. Finally the Friday before Justis was able to come home from his school the table comes. They deliver it and go to set it up and they didn't have the correct hardware. Luckily they had it at their store and before they left I asked them to show me how the butterfly leaf works. As they are doing this a piece of the table falls off. So I asked him if that was important and he said kinda yeah. At this point the delivery guy sits down and says that they are just going to order me a new table and I can keep this one until my working one comes. Phew!! All I wanted was to have a table to have dinner on since Justis was going to be coming home. So that was fiasco numero uno. On to the rest. We'll keep it short. When Justis came home we decided to buy a few things. A bedroom set was number one on my list. When I finally found what I wanted it came in only 3 weeks-less time than they told me-and they got it delivered within a couple of days. After it was all set up, I went in to inspect it and look things over. Well first thing I notice is this huge gap between my mattress and my foot board. What's that all about?? Well turns out they sent California King rails to go on my Queen bed. Luckily this is an easy fix. Next crazy purchase is a t.v. Justis, just like every other guy, wants a nice entertainment system. Big TV on the wall, good sound, etc... So he finds a t.v. for a good price online, free shipping, just the right size, so he buys it. A few weeks go by and nothing. He having worked in the shipping business knows that anything can be shipped across the country in a week. So we call the company we purchased from and are on the phone for 40 min without having spoken to a single person-just recordings-to see where the heck our t.v. is. Well the phone rep wasn't a bit helpful to say the least. To finish the story, we are just shy of one month waiting for this t.v. and come to find out that the company went out of business and we aren't getting a t.v. and have to dispute charges with the credit card company. GRRR!!! Can you believe the problems. I told Justis that we are not buying anything other than necessary items here in Alabama. He agreed. :)

Big girl sitting up!
Kaylee loves to wear dad's bike helmet.
Little Makenzie happy as can be!

So Busy...

So it's been a while since I've posted anything. I take pictures with great ideas of posting them on my blog and then life gets in the way. Justis has been home for about three weeks now and it's just flown right by. He graduated from Warrant Officer Candidate School and the beginning of October. It was so exciting. My dad was able to be here with me and share the excitement. It was a simple graduation and having to little girls, that's the way to go. At the graduation I had the opportunity to go up and pin him-which basically means I just put his W1 pin on his uniform. Nothing to big, but it was fun for me to do because it meant he was able to come home after graduation. It's been so nice to have him-and adjustment for all of us but great over all. I know that Kaylee sure does love having him home. He's had things pretty nice since. He goes to PT in the morning and the comes home basically for the rest of the day. He's in what they call a bubble. There are so many guys here doing school and not enough teachers that they take a class then have to be in a bubble and wait for openings in the next class. It's kinda nice though because we get to have him home for a bit after being apart for 5 months. During this bubble he did do Dunker School which is where he has to learn how to get out of a helicopter if it were to crash in water. They've set up a cockpit over a swimming pool to have these guys learn how to get out. It sounds pretty intense. He's in there with all of his gear on-uniform, safety vest, helmet and they even make them wear blacked out goggles to simulate being under water at night. Justis seems to really enjoy it though.
The girls are just growing so fast. Kaylee is talking so much. She repeats almost everything that Justis or I say to confirm and it's so cute how she says things. One of my favorites is "yes." I couldn't even begin to try and imitate it, but it's so cute. She has also taken up calling me by my name instead of "mom." Little bum. Justis thinks that it's hilarious and therefore encourages it. It is cute, I just hope it doesn't get out of hand.
Makenzie is almost 7 mo. old now and is sitting up and proud of it. She is so close to crawling too, but hasn't quite mastered those skills. It's so fun to see her progress and grow. She has finally started eating cereal and vegetables for me. It was such a struggle for almost 2 months, and then all of the sudden one night she got it, and it's been pretty good since then. And since she has finally started to eat solid foods she is sleeping better through the night. Some nights are still frustrating, but she is learning.
Well, we are pretty much all settled in here. It's really feeling like home to us. I don't even really feel like I am in a different state until I think about going to visit family and realize the I'm clear across the country. But that's a good thing. We have met some really great people and are really enjoying our experience here in the South. We do miss you all at home though. Sorry there are no pictures with all of this writing, but they will be us soon.

Kaylee on the hunt

Kaylee acting just like mom-she has her baby and I have mine

Makenzie after eating cereal- full tummy=happy girl


Makenzie ready for our walk


Kaylee's rock collection

Time is flying...

Well, we have officially been here for one month. It's amazing how quickly the time has gone by. The weather has calmed down a bit too, thankfully. All of those major hurricanes that have been hitting the US haven't had any big affects on us. We've been enjoying lots of sunshine and humidity. Well, enjoying the sunshine anyway.
My girls seem to get bigger everyday. It's nice that Kaylee is because she is starting to really talk and she definitely understands me. She's at such a fun age right now. I've always heard people say that kids watch everything you do, but you don't really believe it until you have your own. Kaylee mimics me all the time. The other day there was music on and I was dancing around and I look at her and she was trying to copy me exactly. And when I'm getting ready in the morning she likes to pretend like she's putting make-up on too. It's so funny. And Makenzie, well, I'm not so sure it's great she's getting bigger. She's starting to weigh a ton. And as all babies, loves to be held. But she is smiling and laughing at Kaylee and I all the time. I love to watch Makenzie watch Kaylee. Her eyes are glued to her when she is busily playing with toys. Probably wondering"How does she do that?" I know that things will get crazy around here when Makenzie starts to become mobile. Thank goodness she sticks to a 360* circle around her playing with toys.
So Kaylee's newest thing is swimming. She loves to go swimming. I feel bad on the days that we go out to get the mail and haven't planned on swimming because she always walks over to the pool and in her cute was says swim pool. She's pretty brave too. At first she takes her time getting into the pool. She'll go down one step and then the next and if I reach out my arms to help her she backs up and says "No." So once she is ready for me she puts out her hand palm up and wiggles her fingers back and forth saying "mere." That's come here. It's so cute. So then I get to bring her out into the water and we playing. She really loves to jump into the pool which surprises me a lot. The first time we went swimming my neighbor was with us and taught her how to jump in. She sits on the side of the pool(Kaylee) and she says "humpty dumpty sat on a wall, humpty dumpty had a great fall" then she jumps into the pool. She just laughs and giggles all the time.
Her other favorite thing is rock collecting. Everyday when we go out for our afternoon walk she has to stop and collect rocks. Her hands are full of them by the time we are done. I don't really know how it got started because I sure didn't show her rocks, but she loves them. It's really quite cute to turn around wondering where she is and she is bent down next to her stroller picking up rocks.
Well, we are down to 3 weeks until Justis is finished with his current school. We are getting excited. I think he is too. It's a little hard to see him as little as we do, so it will be nice to have a full time daddy again.
So I have to tell a story about Kaylee. She had her first experience with flirting on Sunday this past week. We were at church sitting on our bench and Kaylee was going crazy. Giggling, jumping up and down and just acting silly. I wasn't sure why she was acting this way, but noticed that she'd stop every now and then and look behind us. So I turned around and saw that there was a little boy on the bench behind us. He was smiling and her and she would turn into jello and fall into my lap. I started to laugh and Justis turned and wondered why Kaylee was acting that way so I had to explain it to him. It was hard not to laugh at her even though I was trying to get her to settle down since we were in church.
Well, as my title says, time is flying and right now that's a good thing.

Just us girls

Bath time fun!!!

Makenzie doing what she does best....not much, just being cute!

Kaylee at the park. She really like these kind of bouncy things.


Best time of the day...nap time!!!

Bad Hair Day

Okay, so my friend and I went to the park the other day. It was a nice sunny day, and we were enjoying the park. Kaylee was having fun on the play ground, running around the jungle gyms, swings, slides etc... We decided to go take a walk down by the lake and see the ducks. Kaylee loves ducks. So we are walking along and I'm looking at the ducks and I see a duck with the worst hair day you can imagine. It was hilarious and for once in my life I actually had my camera. It was great. So for all of you gals who think you are having a bad hair day, please take a moment to stop and remember my duck.