Happy Birthday/Halloween

The girls first birthday came and went. We are still living in the TLF so it made it a little difficult to make and decorate a cake for each of them. I managed to do it without buring them too bad in the cruddy stove they have here, also since I had none of my cake decorating supplies, and the pans I used to cook the cakes in were pyrex storage containers, I think I did pretty good. Sorry it has taken so long to get pictures up. The internet here is so slow. Just uploading these pictures today I have to put one up, close the post, reopen it to edit it, then add another picture. It won't let me do them all at one sitting. Very frustrating.

Melody loved the new taste of cake right away while Bethany wanted to play with the icing. Once she got a taste though, she wanted more.

 They loved opening up their gifts. (those pictures will come later). They got some adorable bath toys from Auntie Michelle, some big girl cups and plates from Grandma Jutras, fancy dresses from Yay Yay, and ,I can't believe I did this, but Joe and I got them some noise maker toys. We hear the train noises all day long, hopefully they will at least learn how to sing the alphabet song from it.  I was going to take it back, but just take a look at their faces on the train. I just couldn't bring myself to take it away from them.

 For Halloween, I let Joe choose the outfits. Since the girls were just a couple months old, Joe has been singing and playing the Manah manah songfrom the Muppets to them. We desided since this might be the last year we can pick their outfits before they want to be princesses, we dressed them up the way daddy wanted them to be.





Crazy Good News!!!

My first thought was we are getting out of moving to Alabama. No, we are still packing up the truck tomorrow. Joe just came home with a big smile on his face. He just got a phone call from one of the Colonels at AFIT. He personally called to tell Joe that he was selected for distinguished graduate!!! Not only that, but they pulled Joe's record that is going before the force managment board and updated it with this great accompishment. In case we have not told you, the AF has too many people, so they are laying off a bunch of people. Joe's file is up for review this month. This is the reason we are not buying a house and settling right away when we get to Alabama in case he does get realeased from the AF. Having the title DG in his record REALLY looks good for us.

11 days and counting

We only have 11 days left here in Ohio! We are sad to go, but look forward to starting a new chapter in our lives. We have made so many wonderful friends here and have had many memorable experiences. And, or course, we were blessed with our two beautiful girls while we were out here. Speaking of which, they are a constant source of entertainment. Melody has started to make this crazy face where she scrunches everything up;and tilts her mouth up on one corner. We call it her "old man" face. She makes it when she is really mad, but also when she is happy. It is hard to get a picture of it because once she sees the camera, she stops. We were able to get one picture. It was when she was coming out of the look, but at least you will get the idea.

Finally

Since we only have a month left here in Ohio, I have been very motivated to lose the pregnancy weight. A month ago I put myself on a healthy diet and told myself it would only be until we moved. I am happy to say that I not only made it to my pre-pregnancy weight, but I past it by 5 lbs. I might just see how far I can go before we move. After that, I am off the diet, just in time for all of the holiday goodies!!
We have been crazy busy. Joe is almost done with his thesis. He defends this Thursday! I can't wait!!  The girls are adjusting to the house we are staying in until we move. They will probably just get use to it when we pack them up and move them to a new place. They love to explore and get really mad at the fact we block them from going up the stairs to explore the second floor.
Here are some of the things they have been up to.

With all the excitement of moving. Joe and I desided to take a break from the girls. We love them dearly, but it was a lot harder to move then we thought it would be trying to dodge the girls constantly.

SOLD!!

As of 2:00pm today our house is officially sold.

Now the fun part.... the packing. Joe had a bright idea, we pack all of our belongings and move it ourself since the military will pay us what they would have payed a moving company. We are letting them handle all the heavy furniture though. Well, Joe won't be able to help much since by the time we need to be out of the house (by Aug 18) that is around when his rough draft for his thesis is due. So guess who will be doing all the packing?? Yours truly, with the girls help of course. I plan on letting them play in a box to keep them out of the way. Although I am sure they would be a great help, I think it will help me more to have them out of the way. They would love to help me by eating the wrapping paper.
I told Joe since I am doing most of the work, I get to spend some of that money how I please no questions asked.
Of course our little rug rats are growing fast and getting into everything. They both crawl, pull themselves up to stand, and walk along the furniture. The other day I caught Melody climbing on top of her chair to get onto the couch where Joe left his backpack. I got a great picture of that, I will post it next time since it is still on the camera. Here are some that I have worked on already...

Until next time. I will try and keep up with the pictures, but I can't promise anything. I am still playing catch up since Joe messed with my computer again last week.  Wish me luck with all the packing!

I have fallen Behind!

It has been a while since I posted pictures. Joe has been 'experimenting' with the computer to see what is making it run so slow. He made it so I was not able to do anything with pictures for a few days. I can't believe how far behind you can get in just a matter of days! I am still working on some, but here are the ones I have so far. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

The girls are into EVERYTHING!! Both of them crawl, pull themselves up to stand and walk along the couches and their toys. I am constantly running from one girl to the other trying to stop them from getting into things they know they shouldn't be in. The other day I was recording Melody crawling through a tunnel. You could just see Bethany's backside through the other side. She was standing up at the endertainment center. She turned it on to the radio and started to dance to the music. I could see her little behind bop. I am so glad I got that on video! We are working on getting a website up to post videos, so hang in there.

This week Melody learned something new. If you pat your hand to your mouth and make noise like an indian, then pat her mouth, she makes the same noise. Of course we tried it again the next day and she forgot how to do it.  We notice that they do that sometimes, one day they will do something and then the next day or week they 'forget' that they can do it.