1,000 Words

So here's what Billy's new camera can do...

This pictures really are amazing. We just started so we don;t really have it all figured out, just yet. But so far, I love it.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to my amazing husband! This is the 12th birthday I have been able to share with him. The 11th birthday as his wife. I look back and try to remember all of them. I remember our first birthday as husband and wife, I was at Milstar School in Georgia. I sent him dinner and a movie, since I figured that we would probably do that if I was home. I sent Forrest Gump on VHS and a gift certificate to Applebees. February 1998. That was so long ago. It is amazing how much we have been through since then. There is some cliche thing I should probably write now about how much things change and yet always remain the same....but I won't. Our lives are anything but cliche and ordinary. I love you, babe. Without all the cliche "best friend, forever and ever, soul-mate" stuff. Even though you are all that stuff, you are so much more. You are my strength and carry me. You make it all worth it.

Anyway, Billy wanted to go snowboarding for his birthday, so he went to Squaw Valley on Saturday. One of the few things I like about living here, is that almost everywhere we want to go snowboarding is free for us since we are military. We pay $15.00 for a shuttle ride from the Outdoor Rec center on base. It's nice. After a log day of boarding, you can load up your gear and sleep all the way home. Oh, and we save $74.00, 'cause that's how much a lift ticket costs for everyone else.

I told him he had to take pictures....Here's his loot:

Billy is pretty easy to please...But I wanted to do something special for him this year. I comissioned an artist to do a charcoal sketch of him and the kids. And he loved it. It's about 16x20...The picture makes it seem so small.

I also made his Grandma Fohey's carrot cake for his birthday cake, which he hasn't had since he was in highschool. It was a nice day. It is the least I could do for him. I love you, babe. Here's to 50 more birthday's together.....

Seriously

So I had weekend duty this weekend. Can I rant for a moment and tell you how much I HATE working on the weekends? Seriously. I mean, don't get me wrong, I get a huge sense of accomplishment from my job, saving the world from bad guys and jihad, I just wish I didn't have to do it on Saturday and Sunday. Oh and let's not forget that Monday was a holiday, so I had to work Monday, too. Oh, and let's also not forget that Saturday was Valentine's Day, too. If I ever meet a terrorist, I am going to ask him to please take a break from tyrany and World Dominion on Saturdays and Sundays. It is seriously affecting my family time. Seriously.

Billy and Avery had a great time, though. Avery got to wear all kinds of not matching outfits with really messy hair. She was sporting the "not quite clean" look all weekend as well. Seriously. I love that about them...They are both kids and played so hard this weekend. They pushed almost every one of Avery's toys down her slide. She was determined to get the moo up the stairs and down the slide, all on her own. Eventually she did let her Daddy help her.

My favorite part of the weekend, was coming home every night to a squealing 15 month old...Who ran just as fast as her little legs could go...down the hallway to hug me and kiss me and love on me as though she has not seen me in 5 days. Seriously.

She has let me rock her at bedtime the past few weeks. I am so loving that, too. Miss Independent has been falling asleep on her own in her crib since she was about 6 months old. Forget sleeping with Momma and Daddy. Not in a million years...unless she is sick. Seriously. I know I am a lucky parent and shouldn't complain, but sometimes, I just don't get enough loves from her during the day.

So, seriously, I guess it wasn't so bad working this past weekend. There is comfort knowing how much you are loved, missed and needed at the end of the day.

Seriously.

Happy Days

There isn't much I can add to these pictures...they speak volumes....

So we finally got Avery back to the ENT doctor, who confirmed Avery's ears are infected (really?) and prescribed more ear drops...these are stronger apparently. Anyway, she is less than thrilled when she sees me coming toward her with that little white bottle. She had to have her ears evacuated at the clinic, which is to say she was completely traumatized and violated with a long ear suctioning vacuum thing that was loud and by the length and depth at which the doctor plunged it into her ear, EXTREMELY painful. I was nauseous. I felt so bad for her.

But as you can tell from the pics, she never lets things like this get her down. She is so much like her brother in that aspect. Always smiling and laughing.

I'm just saying....

So I have been trying to upload video for almost 20 minutes and have lost the patience..

So here goes nothing.....

I think Avery is the smartest little thing. Ever. I mean, could a parent be more proud?

She's 15 months old and knows how to mimic all animal sounds. And by all, I really mean 10 or so. But come on, at 15 months old, that's pure genious!! My personal favorite is her rendition of a rooster, which is a high pitched "doody-doo" followed by a wave of her hand over her head.

And did I mention she is bilingual?

I am not sure why they call water "agua" at her daycare. But they do, and now, so does Avery. For those that know us, know that it is a weekly occurrence for Billy to be mistaken as hispanic. Puerto Rican, Mexican, Spanish, Italian, pretty much everything except Samoan...even Russian once! So he was less than thrilled to learn that one of Avery's first words was spanish. I think it is cute. I am glad we finally figured out what she was asking for. I just happened to be in her classroom and the teachers asked "Who wants agua?"

And there goes Avery screaming "Agua, Agua, Agua!" and pointing to her cup.

I know I am biased, but I'm just sayin'...15 months old?!

Lookout Harvard.