Home Sweet Home... for now

We finally got a new assignment. Ryan is working on the Port of Entry on the boarder in Nogales AZ. We are living nearby in a beautiful little town. We were able to get into a very nice home. Lots of room and great location etc. We are loving AZ. The temperatures are great averaging about 60* lately. Colleen likes nursery at church and I have already signed up for my library card!!! :) It would be nice to stay here for a while but we are currently only sure of three months. We will hopefully know more by January.

Halloween

We were in Ontario for Halloween this year... Colleen insisted on a "princess dress" snow white to be exact... instead of the GI Joe that I was gunning for ;) :p Marcus was a little giraffe. Colleen walked around my parents trunk or treat at the church with her grandpa who was dressed as an "Army Surgeon" i.e. Black scrubs with army boots and a military scrub cap. All in all it was fun. Colleen was somewhat intimidated by some of the scarier costumes there but was enthusiastic about the free candy that people were giving to her.

We Had Our Baby Boy!!!

Marcus was born on Monday night. We were only 39 weeks and 1 day. He came so quickly that the nurse had to catch him. He was 8 lbs and 5.2 oz. 21 1/4 inches long, and has a very round head. Really dark blue eyes... really really dark blue. Dark hair (for now) and a dimple in his chin. He is a great little baby. Not fussy or difficult etc. He sleeps for about 3 hours at a time and nurses well for us. We are all very happy with him, especially Colleen. She sure loves her little brother.

We are moving next week; Marcus won't even be two weeks old, so that should be a crazy adventure for us! We will be visiting home before going on to our next assignment which makes our parents very happy as well.

Colleen's 2nd Birthday Party

Colleen turned 2 today. We had her party last night (Saturday) where we invited two of Colleen's friends and their parents over for some food and fun. We had Mac & Cheese and chicken, Veggies, strawberries and chips and dip.

She had an animal themed party so for her "cake" I made devil's food cupcakes with green "grass" frosting and wild animals on top. Since we were such a small group I only made a dozen cupcakes which left me with some extra cake mix afterwords... so I made a round cake as well... this way Colleen was able to blow out candles and Ryan could take it to work today on Colleen's actual birthday. After eating the kids wanted to go outside and play with the rocks... don't you love toddlers...so easy to entertain... then we came inside to play eleph-fun a toddler game where an elephant shoots butterflies out of its nose for the kids to catch in their nets... it was a big hit!!


We then opened presents... the boys got gift bags with a stuffed animal, a parachute animal and a bopping balloon to occupy them during this activity and to involve them so that it didn't turn into a blood bath. Colleen was excited about her gifts and said "WOW thank you wow thank you" over and over again.






All in all it was a great success. The kids had lots of fun, the set up and clean up for me was pretty minimal... since I got Ryan to take all the left-overs to work today... and we got to celebrate Colleen's birthday! Thanks to everyone who sent Colleen gifts!

New Pictures of Colleen

Colleen LOVES the camera. Whenever she can reach it she will bring it to me, pull it out of the case and tell me to "take a pit-ture". She will run and pose but usually won't stay still long enough for me to zoom in or actually take the picture before she wants to see it. So it takes a few tries to get a good still shot of her.

We Scored Some Furniture

On Friday night Ryan called me to tell me that they had had a drawing at work for a love-seat and sofa that the company had bought six months ago to furnish an apartment that they had for a consultant on this project. He said that he had won the drawing and if they were okay with me we could pick them up this weekend. So that night we went over to the apartment to check them out. The consultant only ever came down a few times a month, and the furniture was brand new six months ago... so it had VERY little wear! So long story short we now have some new living room furniture... which is funny because Ryan and I have been discussing buying some new furniture with our next move and a new couch was defiantly on the list. We had also discussed weather or not our getting new living room furniture was "necessary" or if we could hold off and use that money in our saving accounts. The lord works in fantastic ways sometimes don't you think!!
So here are my new... and they look and still feel new... living room furniture. They even are the color that I was contemplating for our next set.

So over memorial day weekend Ryan, Colleen and I went down to Baton Rouge. We stayed in a really nice Bed and Breakfast, went to the Zoo, caught a session at the Temple, went swimming and did some much needed shopping at stores other than WALMART (I am so sick of Walmart its ridiculous!!). Ryan and Colleen had slight colds, and Colleen's got much worse the day we came home. But all in all we had fun getting away from Leesville.
These pictures are from our day at the Zoo. Colleen loved it. She got mad in the bird section because one of the parrots would yell back at her... she kept running back to the cage to tell it " no no no bad bad!!" then would wait to make sure it stayed quiet... we finally had to pick her up and carry her out of that section and distract her with the monkeys before she would let it go. We went on a Tuesday morning, so there were very few people there. We finally stopped for an icy and let Colleen go in the animal petting zoo, and then in the playground before heading to the souvenir shop before leaving the park.

And the baby is.....

Hey Everyone!

For those that haven't heard yet, Ryan and I are expecting our 2nd child. Today was my ultrasound appointment and we found out the gender.... WE'RE HAVING A BOY!!!!! wooohoooo.

So we have to learn everything all over again basically... but we are super excited. Both Colleen and Ryan were at the appointment with me and Colleen kept pointing at the screen and saying "Baby!" When Ryan told her she was going to have a little brother she looked at him funny and said "Bug?"
The baby is due on Sept. 27th

Time for Number Two!

So just so all my friends know... Ryan & I are expecting again!!!! I'm due at the end of September; the 27th to be exact. We are very excited. We'll be finding out the gender around the middle of May, so I'll let you all know what we'll be having then!

Our Trip Home

So I went home to Ontario OR 3 weeks ago because my little brother David finally got home from his mission to Japan! We (C and I) spent those weeks getting to know David, visiting with Ryan's side of the family and catching up with some friends. If I wasn't able to catch up with some of you from the Boise area... I am really sorry... it was a CRAZY 3 weeks!



Flying to Oregon from Leesville is no joke either! 1hour drive to Alexandria Airport, about 1hour flight to Dallas... HUGE airport by the way and NOT fun to navigate with a toddler and bags!!... 3hour flight to SLC.... LONG LAYOVER... 1hour flight to Boise... 1hour drive to my parents in Ontario. Had to wake up at 3:30am MT Time, and arrived in Ontario at 8:20pm... UGH! "C" was great on the flight up... the flight home... she was a MONSTER. She didn't sleep at all, and the turbulence was horrible going into Dallas and into Alexandria. After all is said and done, I am glad to be home again.