Our new house

Here are some pictures of our new house. We are renting, as we will only be here a total of 6 months. We really love the place. It is very spacious and I love the layout. We also have a view of the 10th hole of a golf course from our backyard. I actually found a golf ball in our backyard while playing with Alaina!
We are in a really great location, 4 minutes from a Harris Teeter, about 5-10 minutes from Wal-Mart and about 20 minutes from several malls and military bases.
Needless to say, we should enjoy the next few months. Even more so when Allen is home and not on the ship.

I'm still alive!

I have really been slacking on my posts lately. I have been pretty busy with welcoming Allen home, packing up and moving back to Virginia, and setting up our new house. We are now living in Suffolk, Virginia. We are mostly all settled in, we just have a garage full of boxes to go through. But the inside of the house is done and looks pretty great if I do say so myself. Allen is back at work on the ship, already working long hours, even having to stay overnight on the ship.

We live in a great area, Alaina and I were able to go to the movies less than a mile from our house to see Planet 51. It was a lot of fun and Alaina really liked it.

We are very excited about the holidays, and very very excited that Allen is home to celebrate with us. We have our Christmas tree up already, and Alaina knows that we get to eat lots of turkey tomorrow.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. I wish I could be home with my family, I miss them so much. But we will be home for Christmas, so we are looking forward to that!

SIU! SIU!

Saturday, Alaina, me, Mom, Dad, Chrisy, Shawn, and even Sophie and Ella went to the SIU Homecoming parade. It was a beautiful perfect sunny day and the parade was really fun. We caught lots of candy and Alaina even got to meet one of her favorite characters, Super Why! It was a really good time.

Curious George!

Just like her Daddy, Alaina loves Curious George. Lucky for us, he just started his very first live show tour! We were able to go see it! It was a really good show, the stage characters looked and sounded exactly like the ones in the cartoon. It was a musical, so there was lots of singing and dancing. And the man in the yellow hat stood right next to us! Alaina and I had so much fun!

How's the weather?

It's Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs! Alaina went to see her first movie ever! She loves this book and could not wait to see this movie. She was so excited, she was giddy and giggling all day. She loved the movie, as did I. It was so much fun.

Another baby!!

This afternoon Jon and Kristin added another baby girl to their family. Amelia Violet was born at 3:55pm CST, 6lbs 11oz, and 19 in. long. I have only seen this picture so far, but she looks pretty darn adorable! Congratulations Jon and Kristin!

Chrisy is a mama and Shawn is a daddy

Well Sophie and Ella have arrived. They made their long awaited first appearance August 26th. Ella was born at 5:10pm and Sophie was born at 5:11pm. They are doing pretty good, especially since they were born at 34 weeks. They didn't even have to be on oxygen. Chrisy is doing well, just hurting from the c-section. Ella and Sophie are completely adorable and so cute and tiny. And as Alaina accurately put it, Chrisy is a mama and Shawn is a daddy.

Fun times!

Last weekend there was a Family Fair, a fundraiser for the Family Crisis Center. Me, Lanie, Dad, and Mamacita went to check it out and there was a bouncy house and an inflatable slide. Alaina had never been in a bouncy house, and she loved it. She also loved the slide. It was tricky to get up to the top of the slide so her good ole mama had to get up there with her. It turned out to be really fun!

I'm ready for my close-up

Alaina got a new swim suit from her Grandma Lilly and she was very excited to wear it. So she tried it out in her little pool. She loves it and was striking poses all afternoon!

Tractor show

We all know how much dad loves tractors. Well, there was a tractor show last weekend in Pinckneyville and we got to go. It was a fun time, seeing all of the tractors, there were so many! Alaina loved the trams, which were tractors pulling trailers that had old bus seats on them. But the highlight of the day was when Alaina got to see and ride on "Little Toot". He is not called Little Toot anymore, but it is a tiny train that we all got to ride on. Alaina also got her first wonderful taste of funnel cake! It was fun. And now Alaina likes tractors too!

Happy Anniversary

On August 6, Allen and I celebrated our 10th anniversary (from a distance). He did send me these beautiful flowers and balloons, and chocolates. I love you Allen, hurry home.

Wiggles!

Alaina loves The Wiggles, those 4 guys from Australia who wear colored shirts. She has seen them live in concert once, and we got to go again when they came to the Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis. We had great seats and we had a really great time. Alaina sang and danced and screamed. We love the Wiggles!

It's a Babies Shower!

We had Chrisy's babies shower a couple of weeks ago, we had a great turn out and she got a ton of loot! Meg came down and helped to host it. It was really a lot of fun, we had a couple of games and of course cake! According to Alaina, it was "the best baby shower ever!"

Finally!

I forgot to post this earlier, but for about 3 weeks now Alaina has been potty trained! Wahoo, finally! We had 2 nightmarish days but she finally got it and has been doing absolutely perfect. She loves band-aids and so they were her reward. On this particular day, I think it was her first full day in underwear, she obviousley had a very successful day!

Happy Birthday Chrisy and Laura

Luckily Chrisy was not in the hospital for our big 3-0, so she got to come over for cake and confetti. Meg treated us all to crowns and things that popped confetti out of them! It was a fun birthday and I am thankful that Chrisy and I got to spend this one together and that Meg was here too. love ya girls!