My new toy...

So, we went to San Francisco this weekend. And had a BLAST I might add. Good fun was had visiting with family. However, one thing was lacking. Good pictures. A little background. I have camera issues. I've never had a good camera. Except once. 3 years ago, my aunt gave me her old Canon SLR. And I fell in love. The pictures it took of Nora were (are!) amazing. The prints look great. But that's just the problem. It's 35mm. Which is not cool. Our scanner is great, but it doesn't matter, the scans look horrid. So I don't use it very often, especcially now that I'm all into digital scrapbooking. So I bought a digital camera on eBay for $35. It's been fine, but it's starting to go. There's a reason it was only $35. So, back to San Fran. We took the girls to this children's museum right on the bay. And we had the most AMAZING view of the Golden Gate Bridge. So I took some pictures. The prints from my SLR, they look so good. The pics from my $35 eBay camera, eh. Good, but not great. So I have this problem. And the solution is obvious, buy a digital SLR. But I'm cheap. And dSLRs are expensive. But after this weekend, when I missed out on capturing some of the best pictures I've EVER had the opportunity to take, I decided that enough is enough. So, when we got home, I researched what is a good dSLR for the not-so-serious photographer. Basically, what's going to take great pictures of my kids, and of my vacations. My choice?

The Nikon D40. I bought it for about $400. Which is alot for me to spend on ANYTHING. But I think I got a good deal. And I got it from Amazon, and because I have Amazon Prime, overnight shipping was just $4. So it'll be here on Wednesday!! And I'm selling my old SLR on Craigslist, which will hopefully offset the cost a little. We'll see. And I just want to say, I know it's not a "top-of-the-line" camera, but I trust Nikon to make a good camera, and I don't need a lot of bells and whistles that I honestly have no interest in learning how to use. I have a feeling this will be a good camera for me.

Most of all, I'm excited to use it on our trip across the country!! Finally! A decent camera!! Makes me so happy.

Oh, and I finished all my sewing projects tonight. Dave is TDY, and since I can't sleep well without him anyway, I always stay up wicked late. So, the only project I have left to complete before the move, is that stupid ugly scarf!! I will take pictures of my stupid ugly scarf with my wicked cool new camera!!

We be jammin'

So... there is more going on in my life than just moving. Hard to believe... I know. My very good friend Melissa came over yesterday and I showed her how to can jam and make butter. Just for future reference, when the recipe says it will yield 8 jars, they really mean 12!! We prepared for 8, and got surprised!! Since she's my visiting teaching companion, we decided to give these to our sisters, which makes me happy. And Dave wants me to make some for him to give the ladies in his office. So tomorrow I get to buy stuff to make more!! But I like that type of stuff, so it's all good! Doesn't it look pretty?

Gotta love it...

I love being a military wife. My life is an adventure. By the time I get tired of one place, it's time to move onto the next!! I know quite a few people who are very bothered by this. Not me! I think since my dad was military, I feel very comfortable in this lifestyle. Dave and I both are like that. The other day we were talking to some friends and one of them said they had lived in the same house their entire childhood. Dave and I were both shocked by that. What? That actually happens??? Totally wierded us out for a good three days. But I digress. I love being in the military, but I don't love it when things change out of nowhere. Dave came home yesterday and the conversation went a little like this...

"They named the new Dave 2.0 and Ken (his co-worker and BFF) 2.0 today."
"Well, that's good."
"Yeah, Ken 2.0 (I'm sure she has a name but I can't remember it) started today, and Dave 2.0 will start June 15th"
"Great! So you'll have three execs for over a month, maybe you won't have to work so much!"
"Yeah... about that..."
"What."
"They want me to be out of the job at the beginning of July."
"So that means what?"
"Um... how do you feel about being on the road by July 6th?"

Son-of-a.... After much negotiating, we decided on a July 11th wheels up. You see, I had a timeline. Dave is TDY June 1-5, so I was going to wait until after that to really start working on the move. Well, my timeline is a 6 week timeline. Which means, I'm already behind schedule. Dang. If I were a swearing person, now would be the time I'd be swearing. There is some good news. Dave's last day will be June 26th (2 weeks earlier than anticipated!) and he'll be home for a week to help me pack and finish things up. The other good news, we'll be Kansas for his 10 year HS reunion. He was really disappointed to miss that and now is really stoked he'll get to be there. I am just going to be a busy busy bee until then....

Don't even ask me about the house hunt. I've decided we're living in a van by the river and that's final. I can't wait until Dave is a Colonel and they just give us an address upon arrival. I have suggested purchasing a massive RV and just live in that so we'd never have to do this again. Dave said no when I suggested it, but now I get the feeling he's seriously considering it. If that gives you any idea how the house hunt is going.

Baby is good. He's getting fat. Which is what he's supposed to do. :/ He smiles now, which makes me happy. Girls are good too. Just being boogers. But what's new about that?

I think my head my explode. Srsly people. This move may kill me.

Only at Edwards...

There are certain things that only happen at Edwards AFB. This morning I was standing at my kitchen sink, washing breakfast dishes when I heard two sonic booms. By itself, not a big deal, but I looked up and out my kitchen window towards the flightline (I have a great view of the flightline from there) and the space shuttle was landing! That ain't gonna happen in Ohio! This is one of the mornings I really like living here.

Wakin' up is hard to do...

Why is the 5 am feeding so much harder than the others??? I have no issues getting up in the night at 11 and at 2, but for some reason that 5 am just kills me. With the others, I get up, we nurse and I go back to bed, no muss, no fuss. But first, I can never wake up at 5 am. Dave always has to nudge me and say, "The baby is crying" before I even figure out what's going on. Then I get there, latch him on, and promptly fall back asleep. And not the light sleep like the other 2 feedings, but really deeply. Then like half an hour later, I wake up enough to switch sides, then fall asleep again. And finally, in another half hour, I wake up, put him back in the crib, and go back to bed. So, what should have taken 15-20 minutes, takes over an hour. It's killing me!!! And it's going to get even worse in a couple weeks when I start running again. I won't be able to go back to bed!! Sigh.

So my little Peanut is a month old. He's growing up really fast. Kind of makes me sad, but kind of excited too. That's one thing I've liked about having kids, I like seeing then grow and develop and become who they are. Babies are fun because they are cuddly, but I just like watching the older ones. Take Layni, that kid is going to do something musical. I can almost guarantee it. She's always singing and dancing, and she plays the piano. Seriously, it's one of her favorite things. And she can almost pick out "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". And that's not just the mom in me talking, people who have heard her do it are always amazed. I'm not the mom who thinks my kids are the best and greatest at everything, but I do think Layni has some talent with music. And Nora is the same way with art. That kid would color or draw or paint all day long if she could. I really just love watching my kids develop and grow. It makes me feel good as a parent.

So, Dave has 2 months left on his job!!!!!! WHOO HOO!!!! I hate his job. The people he works with are nice, but dang, it's stressful. I just wish he wasn't so stressed out about everything all the time. It's really hard for him to leave work at work (and it doesn't help that he gets phone calls about it even when he's home) and I can just tell that it's wearing on him. It's been a great opportunity and I'm glad he has it on his military resume, but man, I'll be glad when it's over!! Then we'll get to see him again! July 2nd is his last full day, then he'll work half days until the 10th. Then he's mine until August 10th when he reports in for AFIT. That will be so nice. I can't wait.

The house hunt is... progressing. We've made a spreadsheet. Because we're dorks. Who like spreadsheets. That's jus' how we roll G. It's got tons of info about each house, so we can make an informed decision. Of course we'll get there, fall in love with a house and not even look at the spreadsheet again. But right now, we have it. There is one house that I LOVE from the pictures. It needs some work though. It needs a bathroom addition, and the basement needs to be finished. Luckily for us, it's cheap enough that we could roll the costs of the renovations into the loan and still be able to afford it. But we're not sure we want to live in a project. Haha. But if we did I could totally make jokes about living in the projects. Anyway, back on topic. But if we did, then we could make all the choices about the bathroom and the basement, and make them the way we want them. We're weighing our options. We haven't decided to buy just yet, but our Realtor is also a Property Manager, so he has rentals we can look at too. Just in case.

Well, I should go. I have mountains of laundry that need to be folded and my bathroom is getting pretty nasty. I probably ought to clean it today. Gross. I need a wife who will do those things for me.

Liars! All of you!!

So, I was told the transisition from 1 kid to 2 kids was the hardest. And since that wasn't so bad, I was thinking, "I got this." Well, you all lied. I don't know if it's because I now have more children than hands, or if I just happened to time the little guys arrival with a whiney period for my girls, but I am about to beat the girls, and lock them in their room. The baby isn't so bad, it's Layni trying to push him off my lap when he nurses, and Nora screaming, "NO!" everytime I ask her to do something. It's driving me crazy!!! It all just reinforces to me that we are DONE. Finished. No more children.

Anywho... on to the birth story! So, April 2nd was really windy. I had an OSC Board meeting that morning, so I got a babysitter, and went to Starbucks for a Chai Latte (which was FABULOUS) and went to my meeting. My back had been hurting really bad all night, and during the meeting it just got to be horrible. So I figured I'd better call the doctor just to find out if he wanted me to come in or not. On the way home, I passed Dave running and flagged him to come to the house. Got home, sent the sitter home, called the doctor and the doctor said, No more monkeys.... wait... the doctor said, come in and get checked. Dave was like, "Whatever, you're fine, I'm going back to work." So, I found another sitter for the kids, and went to the doctor's office. This is at about 2 p.m. So, the doctor checks me, and I'm not dialated or anything, but he decides to keep me overnight to get this back pain under control, so they wheel me over to the hospital. When I get there, they hook me up to all the monitors and guess what! I'm having contractions! Like every 4 minutes. So about 5 p.m., they decide to go ahead and take the baby. I called Dave at work and was like, "GET HERE NOW." So, I wait, and wait, and he doesn't show. Then they start getting everything ready and he's still not there. They roll me to the operating room, AND HE'S STILL NOT THERE. They get me all prepped and ready to have the surgery, AND HE'S STILL NOT THERE. So, I'm panicking. Then they get the call, he's there. THANK YOU LORD. He made it, just barely. He ran from the Maternity Ward to the operating room, and got there just in time. After that, everything went fine, and Jonathyn was born at 8:22 p.m. The doc even played my favorite Eagle's song, which was cool. I find it very ironic that with the girls, I really wanted to have a normal birth, but never went into labor, and with the one planned c-section, I went into labor on my own. Oh well, he's here and we're all happy.

Things have been crazy since then. The girls are finally getting used it him being here. They just won't stop whining and fighting with each other. That's the part that's driving me crazy. But Peanut is a good baby. He doesn't cry very much at all, just when he's hungry, which isn't often. I make enough milk for about 3 babies, so there's plenty and since I nurse on demand, his little tummy is always full. He sleeps pretty well too. We just moved him out of our bed this weekend. I don't mind co-sleeping but Dave can only handle so much of my hippy-dippy parenting crap. But we're doing good. I'm working on getting into some sort of a routine. Hopefully that will help the girls and be good for him too. We've just got to do something about the girls misbehaving. I can't deal with this much longer.

Now that Peanut is here, we're focused on the move. We've talked to our Real Estate agent, and he sent us a bunch of listings. Most we aren't interested in, but there are a few that caught the eye. We'll see what happens. We're also keeping an eye on the rental market just to see what's available there. We're leaving July 18 and taking our sweet time getting to Arkansas. We're going to St. George, to see Dave's grandparents graves, we're going to the Grand Canyon, we're going to stop in Albuquerque and check things out there, and we're probably going to stop in Ada and see my Grandma. It'll be a long trip but it'll be good. And Dave will get to leave with me, Yay! We thought he'd have to stay, but things worked out right. And the best news? His last full day of work is July 2nd!! Which means, as of Saturday, he has 2 months left in this job!!! W00T. By the time he leaves, he'll have been up there for nearly 15 months, and it's a 12 month assignment. Let's just say, he's very ready to be done. So, the movers and the cleaners come the week of July 13th, and then we head out! (Provided we pass inspection). We're blessing Peanut in Tulsa on the 2nd of August, then spending a week in Kansas, then heading to Ohio for househunting. We're leaving the kids with Dave's dad for a week while we do that. That will be nice, a week without the big kids. We'll take Peanut with us, he's too little to be away from his mommy, and he's not hard to control like the big kids.

Anyway, Nora is banging on my piano, screaming about getting dressed, so I'd better take care of that. Kids, kids everywhere and not a paddle in sight.

Jonathyn Michel

So, if you hadn't already heard, I had my baby on April 2nd. I promise I will tell the birth story, but right now I'm pretty beat from having a baby and taking care of my other 2 kids. I'll get too it, I promise, just give me some time. Check out my Facebook for pictures and other status updates....