The Year-end Update (...our paperless Christmas Letter!)

In an effort to save some paper (OK, it's probably more because we're lazy) we decided to put our Christmas letter here on the blog.

It's truly been a wonderful year for our family in our quiet Oklahoma town, and we have a lot to be thankful for. We have been able to spend more time together as a family this year than Phil's job usually allows and we even managed to get out of town a few times for some fun.

Early in the year we took the girls down to Puerto Vallarta for a family vacation. We met Phil's parents AND Katie's parents down there, so it truly was a vacation with family! When we got home we bought a minivan to accommodate our soon-to-be expanded family. Katie immediately tested it out with a road-trip to see friends and family in Illinois.

Later in the year we caught a C-17 to San Diego for a weekend visit. Katie was 34 weeks pregnant, but we managed to see Sea World and the San Diego Zoo as well as visit with some of Phil's family while we were there.

Of course, the kids just keep growing up. Claire had her first dance recital in May. She expresses her creativity with her fashion statements and drawings. She can write all of her letters in upper- and lower-case and can read just about any 3- or 4-letter words she sees. She still takes horse riding lessons, dance lessons, and swim lessons and has really bloomed as the boss -er, I mean- oldest sister of the bunch.

Madeline (aka Maddie) definitely changed from "toddler" to "preschooler" this year. She still sucks her thumb and twirls her hair like she always has. But now she's doing big-girl activities like horse lessons, dance lessons, and swim lessons with her sister and she has started preschool too. She's always looking for a way to make us laugh and is particularly fond of her little brother.

Which brings us to Colin, who joined us this July. We managed to get Colin baptized at our parents' parish in Illinois, where his two sisters were also baptized, via another C-17 space-A trip. His first plane ride was on his daddy's airplane! He is such a sweet baby. He smiles often, loves snuggles and tickles, and absolutely adores his big sisters. He is now 5 months old and sitting up, eating baby food, rolling over, cooing, giggling, and doing all of the things that cute babies do. We really feel blessed to have all three of these little people in our lives. They're so fun!

Katie is still busy at home with the kids, running them to and from their activities. She's the "room mom" for Maddie's preschool class and tries to be active in the spouse's group on base. Phil keeps busy at work and still flies about once a week. He also finds the time to be the president of the parish council at our church. He is able to come home for lunch so often that the girls ask about him when he is unable to make it.

We've had a lot of fun visiting with family this year. Katie's parents have come to Oklahoma 3 times this year (bless you, Mom and Dad!!!) and Phil's parents even brought out Phil's grandmothers with them for a visit to our house (bless you too!). We had a wonderful time with them. The girls in particular enjoyed playing "chickenfoot" dominoes with their Great-Grandma's.

We finished out the year with a trip to the happiest place on Earth: Disney World. We had a wonderful time there, but did receive some really sad news: Phil's Grandma Millie had passed. We will miss her so much and are so grateful to have had that visit with her at our house.

We're pretty sure we just celebrated our last Christmas in Altus. We'll miss it when we leave, but are excited to move to New Jersey this coming May. We hope everyone reading this has had a wonderful Christmas as we look forward to 2010!

Maddie-isms

Getting a good grasp of the English language is hard, no matter how young one starts. We've had a few chuckles while watching our Maddie-kins learn:

"My antennas fell off" - in reference to her headphones while watching a DVD in the van.

"My tummy has a headache" - we assumed a stomach ache (???)

"Can I watch the 'mersha shows?" - Maddie-speak for commercials (she likes to watch them at the end of a DVR'd show).

[low grumbly voice] 'TUMMY HUNGRY!' [back to normal Maddie voice] "Ooo! My tummy says it's hungry." - sometimes her tummy talks to us. He's kind of rude.

"I had a 'vream about ladybugs, unicorns, God and Baby Jesus." - yep, that's what she tells us she dreamed about every morning.

"Can I suck my fum' and 'fwirl my hair?" - when she knows her hands are dirty she'll ask before sucking her thumb and doing the corresponding hair twirl.

Her favorite thing to order at McD's is "chickie nuggies" and she likes to eat "minis" (Mini-wheats) in the morning for breakfast. And her favorite drink is "red juice" aka cranberry juice.

She also has taken all her stories to heart and narrates her way through the day, "...and now her runs quickly to her room to get her dresses. And her runs back to the kitchen!"

We can't give her apples too often either, as her favorite story is Snow White and whenever she bites an apple she falls into an immediate and deep sleep -- usually in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Oklahoma blizzard

We survived the Oklahoma blizzard of 2009! I'm not a huge fan of snow, but I can admit that it's exciting to get snow on Christmas Eve. Here are a few snaps of the white stuff around our house:

Disney World!

We finally went to Disney World! We booked this trip last January, so it really was a long time coming. It was wonderful and magical and we want to go back - NOW! Hopefully we'll be able to go again soon.

We met up with our good friends, the Burks', and their little boy Ethan. And we were able to get together with my cousin Beth and her fam' for a day, too. We were so glad they came down for a day in the parks (though I sure wish I could have snuggled on those kids of hers for a bit longer!).

The trip was loads of fun - but a picture is worth a thousand words, so feel free to click one of the photos to see some highlights! Here's the quick run-down:

Got there Wednesday. Told Claire we were riding the Magical Express (the Disney shuttle) to our hotel. Upon entering the bus she said to no one, "I would like a bottle of water." When one didn't magically appear she told me, "This bus isn't really magic." But it did have a TV so all was good.

Thursday: Magic Kingdom. The girls proclaimed every ride their favorite by saying, "I like this ride as much as It's a Small World!" Ate dinner at the Crystal Palace with Winnie the Pooh and his friends. Maddie was NOT afraid of the characters (whew!) and Tigger fed Colin baby food.

Friday: Animal Kingdom. Loved the Nemo show. Loved the Animal Safari. Got scared of the Bug's Life movie. Got rained on after the Lion King show. Watched the Christmas parade and went home a bit wetter than when we arrived.

Saturday: Epcot with Beth and her family! Rode a couple of rides and then ate lunch with Disney's princesses at Norway's Akershus. Excellent food. Girls didn't notice their food due to their excitement over THE PRINCESSES! Hopped over to Magic Kingdom and caught the Spectral Magic parade.

Sunday: Hollywood Studios. Said good-bye to Beth and gang after breakfast and then headed out. Caught some great shows and Colin and Ethan got to meet Speed (or Lightning?) and Mater from Cars. Went back to Epcot for dinner and froze our tushies off! Isn't Florida supposed to be warm???

Monday: Breakfast with Mickey and pals at Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary. Back to Magic Kingdom and some "Fairy Godmothers-in-training" gave our girls a make-over. Once they were princessified, we set off to terrorize Claire and Maddie: Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain. They tolerated the Mansion, LOVED the pirates (who knew?) and Claire warned Maddie off of Big Thunder because it was too scary. Met the step-sisters and step-mother from Cinderella (and they were hilarious!!!) and re-rode Small World, the Tomorrowland's People-Mover, and the Cinderella's Carousel.

Tuesday: Caught the Magical Express back to the airport at 5:45am. After a slightly delayed connecting flight, a scare with losing "Pink Blankie" in our taxi, the drive from Dallas, and a potty break at an almost-impossible-to-get-to Target store... we got home at 9:30 PM.

Whew! Exhausting, but we're ready to go back (after we rest the wallet a bit...)!

Grandma Millie

Phil's Grandma Millie was called home last week. Grandma Millie: we love you very much and we'll miss you terribly.

Holiday Party

Last night we went to the squadron's holiday party. It's always a nice party, held at Quartz Mountain Resort, with lots of fun games like the random object scavenger hunt (which gets really competitive) and the traditional indoor snowball fight (OK, they're technically marshmallows instead of snowballs). Last year we were lucky enough to get one of the town's few babysitters in our home. This year we were not so lucky and had to take the kids to the on-site babysitters.

The on-site babysitters were a local girl scout troop and a couple of their moms. Claire and Madeline did fine at their "party" in the big kid room, though they were rather zombie-like in appearance by the time we picked them up. Colin, on the other hand, was in the baby room doing his part to ensure that none of the girl scouts would become a teen-pregnancy statistic. After Phil and I scarfed down some dinner I went and rescued him and he spent the rest of the Christmas party like this:


Yep, that's my pashmina, doubling as a sling. Thank goodness I reviewed my slip-knot tie before we left for the party, though I hope one of the girl scouts could have refreshed my memory if necessary. He behaved himself quite well at the grown-up party by sleeping through most of the festivities so we still had a nice time. Maybe next year we can score some grandparent babysitters (hint, hint!!!).

Altus

Maybe it's the holidays, maybe my hormones are still out of whack from having a baby, or maybe it's because we know we're moving in a few months... whatever it is I'm already starting to feel like I'll really miss Altus when we leave! I know, I know. I do a lot of complaining about it here. There is NO shopping except for Walmart and a couple of ridiculously expensive boutiques downtown. There's no Starbucks anymore. Nowhere to try on shoes. We don't even try to cook any recipes that call for something that might be considered the least bit exotic. We have to drive 60 miles each way to get our minivan serviced. And I won't even start with the housing. But...

Altus is a wonderful place to have a family. We know almost everyone in both of the girls' classes at school. There are at least four other baby boys in our squadron that are Colin's age that he could play with in a few months. We have a great church. Phil comes home for lunch almost everyday and he's almost never out of town for work. The girls take swim lessons and dance lessons with a bunch of their friends because, well, there's really only one place around here to do each of those things so that's where everybody's at. Their horse riding lessons are ridiculously inexpensive and the gal who does them goes to our church. And her daughter babysits for us. It's so comforting to have such a feeling of community.

Don't get me wrong - we are excited to move to New Jersey. I've already mapped out all of the area Target stores and there are TWO Ikea's. Plus several real shopping malls to choose from. We're looking forward to experiencing "culture" like The Nutcracker Suite ballet in Philly and the Statue of Liberty in NYC. But we'll definitely leave behind the small-town atmosphere when we move and I know we'll miss it. Who would have guessed?

Santa weekend

Santa sighting count this week: 4

Sighting 1: At the Altus Christmas in the Park lights - convinced the kids NOT to sit on his lap because it was chilly outside and we knew we'd see more of him later on in the week.


Sighting 2: At the 58th Airlift Squadron children's pancake breakfast. Got to sit on his lap and tell him about the Waterbabies they want. Happily, no crying from Maddie this year.



























Sighting 3: At the Club's brunch with Santa. Again told Santa what they wanted, in case he forgot. Still Waterbabies (Santa's got the memo on that).

Sighting 4: At the Altus Christmas parade. Santa rides on the last float in the parade.

Our Little Gastronome

Colin is 4 months old, which means he's legal to eat real food (or at least, baby rice cereal). We weren't entirely sure how well he'd like it. Claire ate food well enough as a baby but she wasn't immediately a fan. Maddie gagged on anything that came off of a spoon until she was 9 months old and, in an act of sheer desperation, her Grammy Sandi gave her some whipped cream frosting!

How did Colin do? He gobbled it up!



Today was Day 2 of food for him, but I forgot to mix him up some cereal. We all sat down to dinner with Colin in his usual spot: next to the table in his bouncy seat. I barely ate two bites of food before his LOUD complaining (and kicking and flailing) had me up and attending to him. He couldn't take his eyes off of our plates and when I sat him in his high chair he looked visibly relieved. I couldn't shovel the cereal into his little mouth fast enough to keep him happy. Clearly we've been starving him!

Hurry up, Mama!!!

To Tulsa and Back

After lots of talking and planning we FINALLY managed to get together with our good friends from Washington, the Palens. They're living in Illinois now, so we managed to meet up in Tulsa for a fun weekend together. With two little babies (their Colin is 7 months old) plus the 3, 4, and 5 year-old crowd we didn't get quite as much shopping in as we would have liked. And we didn't make nearly enough use of the free-drinks happy hour at the hotel. But we had a great time anyway and had a nice visit.

Tulsa Aquarium (don't have one of these in Altus!) Click pic for more!

Because we were there for Claire's birthday we had to find something fun to do. What's fun for a new 5 year-old? Chuck E Cheese!

Claire's birthday at Chuck E Cheese (don't have one of these in Altus!).

It was lots of fun, and we sure do miss living right around the corner from them.

Claire turned 5

Our little Claire-bear turned 5 years old this weekend. I'm not sure what it is about the age of 5, but my brain categorizes '5' with school-aged KIDS and not with little kids. She seems so grown up. It doesn't help that she acts like a big girl too. One of her favorite phrases is, "This is going to take for, like, ever!!!" (she saves that gem for times when we ask her to wait just a minute or to be patient). She's incredibly sweet to her baby brother and is best friends with her little sister. She can be a bit sassy (and I imagine we're just seeing the tip of that iceberg!) but she has yet to experience much in life that can't be fixed with some snuggles from her beloved companion, Yellow Blankie. We're looking forward to seeing what the age of five is all about!

Her party (held a little early so Grandma and Paw-paw could be there):

Click the picture above to see more from her party!

Dance Showcase

The girls recently had their dance "showcase" - they dance a few numbers on the big stage, but don't have the fancy costumes that they wear for their recital in May. Anyway, Maddie was really excited about her chance to get up on the stage after watching Claire at her recital last year. They both did great on their routines and Maddie even saved up enough energy to get on the stage at the end and dance with all of the kids. Claire, on the other hand, was tuckered out by that point. Here are a couple of shots (click the pictures below if you'd like to see more!):

Grandparental visit

Books were read ad nauseum, dishes were done, baby was held and cuddled and spoiled... Yep! The grandparents were here!

My poor mother is probably hoarse from reading so many books. I'm certain my dad's arms are tired from carrying the baby around. They graciously attended horse lessons and swim lessons. They took the girls to and from school. They attended Claire's birthday party and the girls' dance showcase. Mom sewed the girls their Christmas dresses and Christmas pj's and a Christmas skirt. Dad and Phil golfed in a golf tournament and brought home turkeys as a souvenir (don't ask me, I don't play golf). In other words, we had a GREAT visit and sure do miss them now that they've headed back home!

Obligatory highlight reel:

A New View

The base housing office was privatized (a civilian company bought the houses from the Air Force to rent to us) shortly before we moved here. Since taking over, they have made many efforts to improve the housing situation for military families. Most of those "improvements" have been misguided, at best.

They have done ONE thing, though that we really appreciate.

They tore down the houses directly across the street from us, which gave us a beautiful view of the cotton fields and mountains to the North.

The girls had a great time watching the big machines devour the houses and turn that side of our block into a field. We've already watched them pick cotton and we're really excited to be able to see some excellent storms form up this spring.

It's cotton pickin' time

Yep, it's that time again here in Southwest Oklahoma:

Ready to pick

Picking the cotton

Big bale of cotton, ready to go to the gin

Halloween 2009

Phil was out of town for a conference so I had all three kiddos by myself. I figured it would be a good weekend for it, though, with Halloween festivities keeping us all quite busy. Here was our schedule:

Friday:
9am Claire's field trip to the fire dept for school
4:30pm Trick-or-treat at Phil's squadron

Saturday:
Take photos at the local pumpkin patch place
5pm Halloween pre-party at the neighbors' house
6-8pm Trick-or-treat on base/hand out candy

Sunday:
9am Mass
5pmish Phil returns

Not bad, right? Well...

Friday
Fire house: I had all three of the kids with me for Claire's field trip because they didn't get a bus for the field trip; they needed parent drivers. I successfully got all three of my children into the fire house, kept them from falling off the steel staircase, kept them from falling down the pole, and even took some photos. I'm feeling awesome.



Squadron trick-or-treat: Got the girls dressed and out the door in their costumes. The boy was in a presentable outfit and riding in a front pack for which I made a cute Halloween cover. We successfully trick-or-treated and got the girls fed without ruining their costumes for the festivities tomorrow. Left before they could get dirty on the playground and/or the boy could have a meltdown. I definitely missed the help of having a husband around and was feeling a bit frazzled. But all three kids were accounted for and the older two were candied up so I still chalked it up as a successful excursion.


Saturday
(Answered questions of ,"Is it time to trick-or-treat yet?" all day long without completely losing it.)
Pumpkin Patch: Got all three children into cute Halloween-festive clothes. Made sure they were fed and happy. Arrived to pumpkin patch to find out that you can't take photos on Saturdays because a professional photographer is there. Turned around and left because I wanted to take the darned photos myself.



Neighbors house: Got children fed and supervised their play with lots of other children. Everything went quite well except for one minor stranger-anxiety incident when I tried to hand off the boy so I could eat. Came home and got the girls dressed for trick-or-treat. Claire changed her costume at the last minute from "Ariel" to "angel" but we got that figured out. Tried to take their picture in front of the house in their costumes and the camera wouldn't work. Had a little panic attack. Borrowed a friend's camera for the Halloween picture and quickly grabbed the movie camera so we would have some sort of documentation of the event for Daddy.



Trick-or-treat: Set out our bowl of candy with a threatening note attached to ONLY TAKE TWO PIECES and hoped for the best. Took the kids to two houses and then dashed back to retrieve Claire's digital camera. Fielded questions from Claire about why I was using her camera. With the camera situation resolved, we got as far away from our house as is physically possible and Claire announced that she's cold. Hurried back (while trick-or-treating) and grabbed coats. Sent the girls to finish trick-or-treating with a neighbor because Colin was announcing to the world that he was DONE. I got the girls into bed after a few pieces of candy for each of them. Two hours late, but it's a holiday, right? Was feeling a bit tired of doing everything by myself.

Sunday

Woke up and HURRIED to get everyone somewhat presentable and out the door for Mass, bribing with candy. Didn't need to and arrived an hour early. Spent the next hour back at home getting myself MORE presentable and lamenting the fact that Colin was now going to be screwed up on his nap.

Mass: Colin was crazy and a complete stranger offered to watch the girls for me while I took Colin into the back of the church. And I took him up on it (he was a dad and there's glass so I could still see them...). Wondered how pathetic I must look for complete strangers to offer help. Began to plan a Mom Conference (Momference?) in my mind for next weekend. Lots of spa activities involved. Then remembered that I'm still breastfeeding and can't go anywhere. Came back to reality and rescued Mr. Stranger from my children.

Received two phone calls from friends to meet up and have the kids play in the afternoon. Wahoo! Walked to the park with the girls to meet them all and saw a C-17 come in for a landing. They're home early. House is a mess and dinner isn't even started so Phil won't have any idea how completely together I had everything. Oh well. Let the kiddos play and borrowed a friend's phone to tell Phil where we are because I forgot mine. (Maybe I don't have it so "together" after all). Came home to Phil cooking dinner. Yayyyyy!

New Jersey

We recently found out that our next assignment will be to... McGuire/Ft Dix in New Jersey! (Here's a map, in case you're wondering which of the little East Coast states that is). We're not moving yet - we'll get there in May of next year. It will be a short assignment; Phil will attend school with the Air Force there for a year and then we'll be off to yet another location.

Our days in lovely Oklahoma are numbered. Looking forward to some really good Philly cheesesteaks next year!

Jack o'Lanterns

Here's what we (OK, OK, what Phil and the girls) did last night:

Colin and I just watched and occasionally acted as creative consultants. Here are their final products - they were so proud:

He talks! Well, sort of...

Colin is talking, but we can't really understand what he's saying. Maybe you can?

Grandparents! Lots of 'em!

Phil's parents came for a visit -- AND they brought Phil's two grandmothers with them! As I'm sure you can imagine, there was a lot of spoiling going on in our house. We had a great visit with them and were so grateful for the opportunity to introduce Colin to two of his great-grandmothers. Claire had a great time playing card games with her grandparents and we all had a nice time visiting the wild animals at the wildlife refuge. Maddie had fun getting lots of stories read to her, and Colin enjoyed being held by everyone. Well... OK, after the first day he really enjoyed it. He surprised us with a little bit of stranger anxiety at first! He quickly warmed up to all of the attention, though, and was charming everyone with his smiles in no time.

And on to the gratuitous slide show:


Their visit here was wonderful, but the return trip has had some issues. Grandma Millie has been in the hospital with some health issues since returning to South Dakota, so please keep her in your prayers. Phil's parents hit a deer while driving to the hospital (in their beautiful new car!). Their car definitely didn't fare well, but fortunately they were not hurt.

baby update

Colin is really generous with his smiles; he always has one available for his big sisters or anyone else who looks him in the eye and says, "Do you have any smiles for me?" His whole little face just lights up with the most precious, pure smile. His sisters don't seem to ever get tired of making him smile and they love to play with him. Baby smiles really are very cute, aren't they?


Click on the photo to see more pics of the boy!

We're still here

So sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. We've all been battling some yucky illnesses. No one has grown a curly tail yet, but this was likely the dreaded Swine flu. Or H1N1. Or what I like to call The Worst Sickness EVER! Phil got it first but Claire was the obvious front-runner for "Most Sick". She had a very high fever for a week, accompanied by a lovely cough. I spent most of my day trying to get her to cover her coughs with her elbow while I shielded her brother and sister from any potential germies that were flying through the air. We are finally all feeling better (knock on wood) and Maddie and Colin may have avoided this flu!

Phil's parents and his grandmothers were just here for a visit, so we'll post some pictures soon!

The Blue Exercise Ball

There is a big blue exercise ball in my living room. It does not coordinate well with the overall decor and it is not comfortable to sit on. It is not used (intentionally) for exercise. Why is it there? It's the ONLY thing that makes our little guy go to sleep. We bounce on that darned thing for hours, afraid to get up because he WILL wake up if we do. His big sister, Maddie, was the same way. I abhor the ball and the pain it causes me in my back, but I LOVE the ball for its ability to put my babies to sleep when nothing else will. I can not wait to throw the thing in the trash one day. In the meantime we're grateful to have it.

No photos of the ball right now, but Claire drew a picture yesterday:
She says that's Mommy bouncing Colin on the ball. He's asleep (you can tell by the green lines on his eyes), but not yet asleep enough to lay down in his crib. He's swaddled in a blanket. It made me chuckle that we spend enough time bouncing on the ball that our daughter drew a picture of it!

She's 3!

It's hard to believe that we had our little Maddie-kins 3 years ago. She's getting so darned BIG!

Our big girl chose a "hula girl" theme for her birthday party. (side note: The theme of one's birthday party is not taken lightly by my girls; she and Claire have been poring over the party catalog since last December). Anyway, the hula girl theme was great, since we still had some decorations from Claire's Hawaiian-themed 3rd birthday party almost two years ago. :) We had a lovely outdoor party planned, but ended up having to move inside due to rain. (Seriously, it NEVER rains here this time of year, but poor Maddie's party has been moved indoors due to weather for the past two years!) We had 18 children in our house as well as their parents. It was a bit chaotic, to say the least. I think, though, that Madeline had a GREAT time. Here are a few pics:

More photos...

Here are a couple of new shots of the girls from this morning. As soon as we get Colin running around outside, we'll have some of these shots of him, too. Happy Labor Day weekend!

Maddie looking for a push

And of course, a pic of the boy for all the followers out there (this was from last week, but it's still a goodie!):

Some Saturday Smiles

Here's the boy showing off some happy attitude.

The cattle drive!

The rodeo is back in town and this year we were prepared with our camera! The cattle drive came right through base housing so we walked out to see the longhorns and cowboys. Only in Oklahoma!