Progress!

Since my last post, we have made a lot of progress! First we planted a small garden. There was a section near the house that used to be an herb garden, but it was full of weeds. So Alaina and Allen got their gloves on and pulled everything out. Unfortunately, in Allen's endless search for weeds to pull that day, he ended up with a pretty nasty case of poison something. One doc said sumac, another said poison ivy. It was pretty bad but it is getting much, much better. Luckily, Alaina was only pulling teeny tiny weeds in the rocks and avoided the poison all together! Anyway, we planted 2 roma tomato plants, a red bell pepper plant, and cilantro seeds. We put in a lot of effort, with special soil and everything, so hopefully it will grow well. Alaina and I also planted watermelons and pumpkins in their own personal greenhouses, they are doing great and will be transplanted to the garden soon!

Allen also finally got Alaina's playset put together. We had forgotten how much she loves to play on that thing, and she has played on it almost everyday since it was put up. We also finally got a new patio set! Anyone who has seen our old patio set knows it was getting pretty rusty and rough looking. So we found one on clearance at the BX and it looks so great!

Alaina is also making progress. She is sleeping in her bed without a bedrail, which made her feel very grown up. She is also reading very well. She is in the summer reading program at the base library and is actually reading some of the books she checks out. She also read enough to write her name on a scoop of ice cream and hang it on the wall at the library. She was so proud that she asked if we could go get Allen at work and take him to the library to show him her "award". We did and he was very proud of her and she was completely excited to show it to him.

My pregnancy is also progressing nicely. I am feeling very pregnant, but pretty good. The babies are doing perfect, which makes me so happy. Our next project is going to be the nursery, which I am very excited to do.

New house and new job

Well we are officially settled in our new house in Shiloh! It is great to be so close to family and friends. We have already had so many visits with family, I love it! Mom and Dad came and we went on a tour of Busch Stadium for his birthday, it was really fun.

We are all unpacked, with the exception of some boxes in storage in the basement, which we will hopefully tackle soon.

Alaina and I are doing good, doing our best to enjoy our days and loving the fact that Allen gets to come home every night. Alaina is growing so fast, she is continuing to read and can now read sentences. We have also retired the little tricycle and she is on a big girl bike with training wheels. She didn't like it at all at first, but once she got the hang of it she loves it! She is also very excited about becoming a big sister. The babies seem to be doing great. They have a dance party in my belly every night at around 11pm, and my belly is really getting big!

Allen is doing great at his job, as usual. On Tuesday he was promoted from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Commander. He had a promotion ceremony that Alaina and I got to attend, as well as his sister Michelle, her husband Mike, and their kids Aaron and Eric. Alaina and I got to put on his new rank, and it was very exciting. His ceremony was so nice and his boss was so complimentary of him. I am so proud. We are trying to get pictures of the ceremony, and when we do I will post them.

So we are all doing great, loving the new place and job. We are looking forward to this summer and being so close to family!

Babies update

Well, I had an ultrasound yesterday. Allen is at sea, so when they checked the genders of the babies I covered my eyes, then Allen called me after the ultrasound so we could find out together. So...we are having a boy and a girl!
We are very excited. Allen is thrilled beyond belief that he is getting his boy. Alaina is super excited because Dora has twin siblings, a brother and a sister!
Allen gets to come home next week, and we will move into our new house and get settled and start preparing for our new little ones! Yay!

Update

Well it has been a crazy couple of months! As you all know now, I am pregnant with twins! They are due October 27 and hopefully next week we will find out what they are! Allen has been super busy on the ship, going to sea then coming home for only a couple of days before going back out. I have been staying at mom and dad's while he has his busy schedule, I have had pretty bad morning sickness so it has been great to have some help.

On May 3 Allen will officially detach from the ship!! That same day, the packers will go and pack up our house in Virginia, and by the end of the week Allen will be back in Illinois to stay. Alaina and I are very excited to be done with ship life, as I am sure Allen also is. We found a great house in Shiloh, just about 15 minutes from base. It is in a great location, Allen has a cousin in the area and I will have a great friend about an hour away in O'Fallon, MO. Not to mention family an hour and a half away! We are so excited.

The ship was in port for a whole week last week, I don't know the last time that happened, so Allen took the opportunity to take some leave and come visit Alaina and me. We had so much fun, it has been weeks and weeks since we had that much time together. We went to the zoo with our good friends in Missouri, and spent a lot of time playing outside and at the park. We found a great park in Carbondale that is a giant castle. Allen and Alaina had such a great time climbing up and down, and I enjoyed sitting in the shade watching them.

Um, can you get Belah down?

The other day Allen and I were in our bedroom and Alaina was playing in the living room. She loves to throw Belah in the air and see where she comes crashing down. This particular day there must have been a little more oomph in her throw because she came in the bedroom and said, "um can you get Belah down?" I said "where is she?" Alaina replied "up on the lamp." Well we do not have a lamp, just a ceiling fan way up on our 15 foot ceiling! Sure enough I look up and can just barely see Belah on a blade of the ceiling fan. After I took lots of pictures we decided to go ahead and get Belah down by turning on the ceiling fan. Belah flew right down and Alaina got such a kick out of it. It was really funny and I got a great laugh out of it.

Good times with Gramma

For those of you who don't know, mom came to visit me last week! Allen and I decided to do another cycle of in-vitro. Unfortunatley, when it came time to do the IVF, Allen was at sea. So mom came out to help me because one procedure knocked me out and the other one required 24 hours of bedrest. The IVF is done, I had 2 beautiful embryos implanted, and we find out if I am pregnant on Friday! It is going to be a long week! Alaina and I really enjoyed our time with mom here. We did a lot of relaxing, which was great, and we had a lot of fun playing on the Wii and going to the Virginia Aquarium. Thanks again mom for all of your help. I couldn't have done it without you!

Snow Day!

Well for once we got the snow that was predicted! Unfortunately Allen has to work today, but Alaina and I got out in the snow. She had so much fun throwing snow and making snow tracks. It was so cold and windy, but Alaina didn't want to come inside. That is until some snow smacked her in the face and she insisted on coming in and putting band-aids on her cheeks because they were red. But it was a lot of fun and now we are dry and warm and enjoying our snow day.