Amelia at 4 weeks

This Thursday I will have a one month old baby.  Is it just me, or did this past month just fly by?  Having Mia with us is truly amazing.  Yes, we lose out on some sleep and it takes a little bit longer to get ready to go anywhere, but those are things we adjust to.  I love waking up and seeing her big blue eyes staring at me, and I love seeing her funny faces when she stretches. 
I was looking at the pictures we took from the day she was born, and it's baffling to see how much she has already changed.  Her face is filling out (I love her chubby cheeks), and she is getting a little bigger!  We still have to roll the arms and legs on some of her outfits, but we are finally getting down to one roll!  I don't think we have much longer in newborn outfits! 

Things that Amelia likes:
~ Being swaddled
~ Tummy time
~ Her bouncy seat
~ Laying on our chests for cuddle time
~ Her big brother, Inu
~ Car rides
~ Walks in her stroller

She is sleeping for about 6 hours straight at night, so we are pretty lucky!  At her 2 week check up, her doctor was very pleased that she was already abover her birth weight.  While we struggled with nursing the first few days, Mia has become an excellent eater!  I have no doubt that she will continue to grow and make her doctor quite happy! 

Hubby is an awesome partner!  When he is home, he changes her, cuddles with her, and sneaks her away for story time while rocking in the glider.  I love watching her just stare up at him and follow his every move.  She definitely knows and loves her daddy! 

Enjoy a few photos!

Mother's Day

 Ready to meet her boyfriend

Trying out her new sunglasses

With two of her friends! 

I lucked out and had two very close friends pregnant at the same time as me. 

Our babies were all born in the last two and a half months!

From our newborn photo shoot

She's Here!!!

Just as I was starting to think that I would go past my due date, our little girl decided to make an early appearance! 

We welcomed Amelia Katherine on April 17, 2012 at 4:37pm.  She was 20.5 inches and weighed 6lbs 8oz.  We have spent the last two weeks mostly staring at her in complete amazement and trying to get what sleep we could.  We could not be more in love! 

Baby Shower

I'm almost a month late on updating about my baby shower, but better late than never! 

My friend hosted a nice, small, cherry blossom-themed baby shower for me on March 3 and it was a blast!  There was plenty of great food, fun games, and everyone had fun catching up and chatting.  We played a nursery rhyme trivia game and learned that none of us really know our nursery ryhmes as well as we thought...in fact, we gave hubby the same quiz later and he beat my score!  We also played a Mad Libs game which resulted in a story about me having a baby that weighed 82lbs and had 400 and something toes!  It's definitely a story I'm keeping in our baby book to look back on!  Our friends were beyond generous and got us some amazing gifts for Amelia.

  Since the shower, we have set the nursery up, washed baby clothes and bedding, and started to pack hospital bags.   This weekend I hit 36 weeks, so only one week until I am considered full term!  Amelia has recently discovered my ribs and won't leave them alone.  Mostly she just presses on them, but some mornings she chooses to wake me up with a nice, hard kick.  With less than a month until I'm due, we are getting more and more excited and definitely more and more nervous! 

I'll leave you all with a photo from my baby shower where I'm showing off one of the gifts that I got. 



Whoa...third trimester!

I hit my third trimester a few weeks ago, but today marks 60 days until my due date!  I'm not sure where the time is going, but I would like it to please slow down just a little bit.  I don't want it to drag like it did for a while in the second trimester, but I don't need it flying by when there still seems like so much to get done! 

A couple of weeks ago we finally put our nursery furniture together!  It definitely helped make everything feel a little more real.  Obviously I feel her kicking and punching me all the time and I know I'm going to have a baby, but seeing the nursery come together gave me that "wow...this is really her room" moment. 

My baby shower is coming up too!  Less than two weeks and we'll be getting together with a few friends to celebrate Mia's upcoming arrival.  The friend who is hosting my shower is also pregnant and due just two weeks after me, so I'll be hosting her baby shower a few weeks after mine.  We thought about having a combined shower, but nobody seemed willing to take on the task. 

Hubby had a long weekend, so we decided to go off base and have a 3D ultrasound done.  We got one when I was 17 weeks to find out the gender, but we wanted another one to see how much she has grown and maybe get a chance to see if we can pick who she will look like.  She's make look like me, but she is definitely my husband's child.  She kept her hands up by her face and tried to keep us from getting any pictures.  I wasn't going to have that though.  I grabbed my water bottle and started drinking away knowing it would get her to move around a little.  It kind of worked...she moved her hands just barely out of the way and we got to see her little face. 

We've got a busy few weeks coming up!  Hubby's parents are coming out to visit for two weeks and we'll be showing them around the island a bit.  We'll be visiting some historical sites from the war and also some of the fun touristy places like the aquarium and glass factory.  My favorite part about having visitors is getting to introduce them to our favorite restaurants!  I'm already making a list of all the places we need to make sure we eat at while they are here.  Food is definitely something I will miss the most when we leave this beautiful island next year. 

This weekend a friend of mine is taking some maternity photos for us, so as soon as I get the photos from that, you can expect to see some of my favorites on here!  





One week until the move!

It's finally happening!  We're actually going to be moving to our new house!

Last week I had a housing meeting and I just expected them to update me on the process.  I was so pleasantly surprised when the housing counselor started pulling paperwork out and talking move dates.  We're scheduled to have our government furniture moved next Monday, and the rest of our stuff will be packed up and moved to the new house next Tuesday!  I've already had our pre-inspection and yesterday a guy from the moving company came over to see how much stuff we had so they would be prepared. 

I've tried to get a little bit done before the big move, but it's nice knowing they will do most of the work.  I packed up all of my scrapbooking stuff because there are too many little items that I don't want to have to fish out of a box at the new place.  This weekend we'll be taking everything off the walls and clearing out the government furniture in preparation for Monday. 

I'm crossing my fingers Inu will do well with the move.  He has an obsession with marking absolutely everything when we go outside, so I'm hoping and praying he won't want to do that inside the new place.  The new house has carpet, so I'll be pretty upset it he starts marking everywhere. 

In other news, I've hit my third trimester and I'm still feeling great!  I'm in denial that I can possible get any bigger...I can just imagine myself looking like a Weeble if I do!  Hubby says he'll roll me around if I can't move by myself though...isn't he sweet? lol

Also, I finally get to pin my husband!  In Feb, he'll be promoted to Capt and I'm so stinkin' excited!  I didn't know him when he commissioned, and I wasn't able to be there when he was promoted to 1stLt, so I've been looking forward to this!  I'll try to have someone take pictures so I can post them. 

Hope everyone is doing well! 

MilSpouse Survey

1. How did you and your spouse meet?
A mutual friend told us we should talk.  We started talking online and two months later, he was flying out to meet me in person and spend July 4th with me and my family!

2. How old were you when you two met?
He was 24, I was 23

3. How long have you been together?
We've been together 2 years and 8 months, married for 2 years next week!  Yup...only dated 8 months before we got married.  What can I say?  When you know, you know.

4. Where are you and your spouse originally from?
I was born in California and eventually ended up in New Mexico.  He was born and raised in Ohio.

5. How did you feel about him joining the military?
He was already going through TBS when we met.  I was a military brat growing up though, so the lifestyle wasn't too new for me.  My parents were thrilled to hear I was dating a Marine!

6. Where did your spouse go to Basic Training?
OCS in Quantico, VA

7. Has your spouse ever been deployed?
Not yet.  They keep teasing him with deployments and then assigning him somewhere else

8. Ever been to his promotion ceremony?
Nope :(  We were still living in separate states for his last promotion.  Hopefully I'll be pinning him in the next couple of months though! 

9. How long have you been a military wife?
It will be 2 years next Monday!

10. Did you marry him before or after he joined?
After

11. How did your husband propose?
We were spending Christmas with his family in Ohio when he proposed.  Christmas night he told me he had one last present for me and pulled out a brown lunch sack.  Inside was a coffee mug that said "Marine Wife" and had the ring taped inside.  I wasn't expecting it at all and according to him, it took me about 10 minutes to actually tell him yes.

12. Where did you get married?
We got married in Albuquerque, NM with a very small group of family

13. How old were you two when you got married?
We were both 24

14. Did he wear his uniform on his wedding day?
No, we had a small JOP ceremony, so we opted against the uniform. 

15. Where are you and your spouse currently stationed?
Okinawa, Japan!  LOVE IT!

16. Do you live on base?
Yes and we'll be moving to a new base soon

17. How long were you married when you had to go through your first separation?
Since he was still in school when we got married, he flew in for the wedding and I put him back on a plane that same weekend.  I think we got 2 days of married life before we lived in separate states again for a few months. 

18. What is your favorite base so far?
This is his first duty station.  He went to to his MOS school in NC, but we definitely love Okinawa more! 

19. Do you think your spouse looks good in his uniform?
Absolutely!  Not a big fan of them wearing sleeves down all year now, but seeing him in Dress Blues once a year for the birthday ball makes up for that!

20. Do you think military life is more advanced than civilian life?
Not really sure

21. Do you like the benefits you receive as a military dependent?
I'd be a liar if I said I didn't.

22. Do you have a lot of military wife friends?
Living on base overseas, it's hard not to.  I've kept in touch with friends back home, but my friends out here are all military spouses.

23. What is the hardest part of the military life?
Not getting to plan.  I like to know when something is going to happen and the military is teaching me to be a little more flexible with things. 

24. Do you own military wife stuff?
I have a Marine Wife shirt that my mom passed down to me and also an angel holding a flag that says Marine Wife. 

25. Do you support your spouse as a member of the military?
Of course I do!  If I wasn't willing and ready to support him, I wouldn't have married him.  He loves his job and I love seeing him happy. 

2012 - A baby and a new home!

Two major things I'm looking forward to in 2012:
~Amelia being born
~Moving into our new place

I think I forgot to mention that we have a new place to move into!  When we went to our housing meeting back in November, we were told that they didn't have a place slated for us to live on base and that we would either have to wait awhile, or get a place off base.  We decided to wait a bit and see what happened with our on base chances.  Our upstairs neighbors ended up picking a place off base, so that opened up their spot on Chibana (a housing base near the Air Force base).  We called the housing office up and the lady told us she had already put us in their spot!  Hooray!!! 
We got to check our new place out a few weeks ago and we love it.  It's newly renovated and there are so many things we are looking forward to.  Some of those things:
~Carpet
~Washer and Dryer behind closed doors (in our current home, they are in the kitchen)
~Central Air- so ready to be done with huge AC units in inconvenient spots of the room
~Bathrooms with more storage
~A HUGE lockable storage outside
~A living room large enough to have our living room furniture and a small office area

We are hoping to hear from the housing office this week about when we will get to move.  A couple of weeks ago we were told it will hopefully be in January!  I can't wait to get settled in our new place, set up Mia's nursery, and relax! 
The same day we got to see our new place, we had my 20 week ultrasound.  So far everything is looking good and we definitely have a little mover.  My appointment took longer than usual because the poor ultrasound tech couldn't get clear enough pictures with Mia moving around so much.  We did get to see her little mout moving when she was drinking though!  I'm now 24 weeks and feeling pretty good.  I still can't believe how the time has flown already.  It feels like just a few weeks ago that I found out I was pregnant...before I know it I'll have our little girl in my arms and wont' have any idea where the 40 weeks went!