C at three months.

I love my giraffe!

He is good for chewing on...

... and sleeping with!

If only he could help me hold my very heavy head up!

We will play outside!

We were beginning to feel a little cabin fever towards the end of the very long English winter, and we needed an outdoor activity, even if that meant bundling up for it. So we headed to West Stow, a nearby park and nature trail for the morning. After fueling ourselves up with a cream tea, (tea with scones and clotted cream... yummy!) we hit the trail. The boys enjoyed having some space to run in after being cooped up on our house all winter!

Then it was time to hit the playground. The cold didn't stop the boys from completely enjoying it... and the bright sunlight made it quite enjoyable for me too!

While (all) the big boys were off playing, I caught C in a smiley mood and snapped some of my favorite pictures of him.

We're looking forward to being able to do more hiking and outdoor activities like this as the boys get bigger!

The difference between N and e...

These were advent calendars that the boys did last year. The designs are all done initially with stickers, and then you add a star to the scene for every day in December. We made the initial scenes in church, then the boys each got to add their own star sticker every day. Just so you know... these were done with minimal help from E and I. These are their own original designs!

Exhibit A: N's. Notice the symmetry. The logical placement of animals, and most importantly... the order!

Exhibit B: e's. Right. I know you are all thinking, well e is younger, so it's logical that his is more disorganized. Yes, this is true. But if you think that's the only reason the calendars looked so different then you clearly do not know my children! (My personal favorite is the floating wise man on the right...)

Love those boys!

Happy Valentine's Day!

When the guys are gone... the girls will play! This year the squadron was gone over Valentine's Day, so I decided to invite anyone who wanted to come over for dinner. I wasn't exactly planning on the whole squadron coming over, but was really excited when they all did! I had over 25 people including kids there, and it was so much fun! I miss these girls so much, they are an awesome group of ladies.

C loved getting passed around all night long... lots of attention here!

The playroom was put to good use. So many boys! (And this is only about half of them!)

There was one pilot who didn't go with the rest of the guys. He was having sinus surgery... and the lucky guy, he got to come have Valentine's dinner with all the wives. Pretty good night for a single guy... like 15 dates and a lot of food!

C at two months.

Check out my smile this month. I'm a happy baby!

There's a monkey on our car!

In another one of our "we must see everything possible before we move even though it's freezing outside" weekends, we headed to the Wolburn Safari Park. This is one of those drive-through zoos and we thought we were being so smart. We'll be nice and warm inside our car while we see all the animals! Plus we heard there was an indoor playground. Great! Sign us up! What we didn't realize is the drive through part is only part of the zoo, and when it's foggy (which of course it was) large portions of it are closed... which they were. There is a pretty large outdoor zoo part, which was really too cold to enjoy. Unfortunately the huge indoor playground was like as far away from the warm car as possible... so we were nearly frozen before we got there. But when we did... we had a blast! The slides were awesome!

After they playground... we thought (mistakingly again) that it must have warmed up a little bit by now and we could enjoy the train ride. Ummmm. No. Just look at how much he is enjoying it!

And that little blob of blanket inside E's coat. The nearly frozen baby. Mother of the year I am not.

After almost getting frost bite on the train... we headed back to the car to thaw our extremities. By now the fog had lifted slightly, and part of the drive through safari was open. Luckily for us it was the best part... the monkeys! They were climbing all over all the cars. The boys thought this was HYSTERICAL! (Frankly, so did E and I...)

We all kept hoping one would eventually end up on our car... And one did!

He started out on the hood (bonnet), hung out there for a while and eventually made his way to the top of the van. He was there for a really, really long time! And because he was on the top, we couldn't see him! The only way we knew he was still there was because we could hear him walking around a bit... and all the people in the other cars were driving by and pointing! So fun! We finally had to start driving very slowly to sort of encourage him to get down.

Norwich Castle

So to ease the blow of having to leave England early, we decided to get back into sightseeing... baby or not. So that weekend we hit the road to Norwich to see the castle. We only made it a half hour up the road before we had to stop to feed the baby... After eating he was ready to go. Where to C?

One of the highlights of the castle was this throne that the boys could sit on... complete with robe and jewels. They had so much fun pretending to be king for a day!

It was February, so still really cold outside. We were very happy the castle was kept up... and heated on the inside! It was full of lots of fun activities for the boys, and we enjoyed our afternoon there. Even though we were nearly frozen, we had to take a picture because it was C's first castle after all!

A not-so-happy birthday for E

Well, we had a bit of an unpleasent suprise two days before E's birthday. He came home on Wednesday night at about 9pm and informed me that we would not have another year and a half in England like we thought, but would be moving this summer sometime. What?! I love England, it's my favorite place we've lived so far... Then he told me we had to turn in our dream sheet (preferences for our next assignment) Friday morning. Seriously, Wednesday we found out we're in this assignment cycle, and the dream sheet was due on Friday. Great. So the rest of Wednesday night and all day Thursday we were in a mad thrash of trying to figure out where we wanted to go. What was best for his career, what was best for our family, what was best for us. Usually you have weeks or months to figure this out... not hours. I know C... woe is me.

It was an unpleasant two days, and sort of ruined E's birthday celebrations. I did not take this news very well at all. I loved England. Did not want to go. Period. So a happy girl I was not, but I am an AF wife... and I can do anything. So I sucked it up and produced this very boring birthday cake anyway. Just look at his excitement!

So on Friday, many tears and much lost sleep later he put in our dream sheet. (Let's just say for the record that Del Rio was not at the top of that list... but here we are.)

The best part of his birthday actually came two days later when our British friends (she's English, he's Scottish) had us over for a Scottish dinner. He even broke out his kilt for the occasion! We had haggis, mash, sweede, and yes, even a wee dram of whisky!

The food was fantastic (yes, even the haggis... it gets a bad rap, it's actually quite good!) The company was even better. It was a bit of a bittersweet evening because it made us realize how hard leaving our friends in England was really going to be. Anyway, happy birthday E, maybe we can celebrate with haggis and Scotch next year in Del Rio!

C's baby photo shoot.

Well this was another one of those things that didn't work out quite as I envisioned. I have fantastic baby photos of N and e from Alaska, and I wanted to do the same for C. It didn't work out as planned for a couple of different reasons... mostly the photographer and I were not on the same page about what I was looking for. Also, C was six weeks when we shot these. The other boys had theirs done around three. Ah the third child. At least I got them done!

We did end up getting some good shots, but the process was quite painful... and there was a lot of photo shop involved. Here are some of the better ones!

Happy Birthday to me!

I had a real treat for my birthday this year. N and E made a cake for me. It was fun to watch them work together to make it... and it was my favorite, chocolate! (Which also happens to be N's favorite too... so I think he had another motivation!) Better taste it first....

Lookin' good. Thanks guys!

Daddy's helpers...

When C was born, we had to do a little rearranging in the house to fit everything in. We took what used to be the office / craft room / guest room (complete with E's flying stuff on the wall) and turned it into C's room / guest room (flying stuff still on the wall - he's a boy!) The office and craft stuff moved into to the playroom, which meant some of the toys had to move into the boys' room... which meant we had to make some more storage in there. Did you follow along? So we found these shelves to put in their closet for more efficient clothes storage. It turned into a fun little project for E and the boys to do on a cold English winter Saturday!

Just look at that concentration!

One down and three more to go... e was done, but luckily N and E got the rest built!

Thanks guys!

C at one month

Merry Christmas (part 2...)

A few days after Christmas Grandpa and Grandma L came to meet little C and celebrate a late Christmas with us. The boys thought two Christmases was great!

C thought Grandma holding him all day was pretty great too...

They brought this favorite gift for little e. It was a Toy Story set with Buzz, Woody, and a rocket. e still sleeps with Buzz most nights. They are very well played with toys. We love Buzz and Woody! The awesome fleeces for the boys were from Aunt D.

But we all agreed C was really the best Christmas present this year. Seriously, how cute is he?

Another great gift... you know you are the mom of boys when there is a soccer goal in your living room. I wish I could tell you that was just for Christmas Day only, but that would be a lie!

All the Christmas stuff is hard work for babies... and Grandpas!

Time to refuel with some Christmas chili. Apparently it's good!

It was great to have Grandma and Grandpa visit... but the trip went way too fast. Come back soon!