Our first day of our new life.....

In the above picture are the kids sporting their new sunglasses--can't be here without them!

Below is Julia at lunch today--we ate outside on picnic benches and she was completely engrossed by all the birds that were surrounding us. Many of these we haven't seen before.


This particular bird kept coming closer and closer to Julia's leg--to steal food. The kids had a hay day tossing crumbs (not so much in Marcus's case, he threw whole french fries). So our question is: Papa, what kind of bird is this? Julia swears we've never seen one back home. (I believe she's going to be an avid bird watcher while we're here--she LOVES them!)


Walking around post--we are carless at the moment (however we're renting a minivan tomorrow and going car hunting for Ryan).



Beautiful trees! On top of that--they have gorgeous flowers on top of them! Orange! Just had to take a picture....


Again, just exploring more of post on foot...(I spy with my little eye mountains up ahead)


Yep, visible from post....Evie Andy looks so cute with her heart-shaped princess sunglasses!



Anyway, we're here...we made it all in one piece. Only lost Marcus at the airport once (and I about had a heart attack too). He and the other kiddos did EXTREMELY well on the plane rides. Hardly any fussing and crying. What absolute troopers! We're adjusting to the time change well I think (however, Jacob did pass out tonight at 5pm--before dinner. But you do the math and figure out what time his body was telling it was). :)

Some other good news it that we found out today that there is a duplex opening up for us next month! On post! (that's what we were really exploring today while walking around post...where our new home is). While we walked the one mile to get there, we passed the commissary, px, AWESOME playgrounds, ect. We are sooooo excited! We are going to explore some other places off post, but I think we'll stick with on post (at least for the first year).

I know it's kind of a short post...but I'm exhausted and I'll have so many more pictures to share tomorrow (when we actually get OFF post and explore a bit). We love you all and miss you. Thanks for all of your support for us. :)

Hair Band--for Roya

Ok Roya, you wanted to know how I did my hair for the reception--here it is. Although I must say that I didn't use AS much hair in the hair band (though I will for tonight for the social we're going to).

First, start off by giving a part on the side. Section off the hair in front of the ears on both sides (put the rest of the hair in a ponytail so that you can see what you're doing).




Next, take those two sections of frontal hair and comb them back into a ponytail at the top of the neck.



Let the hair down and voila!






Here she is--the finished product after blowdrying and a little curling with the curling iron. :)
Again, I got this idea from the previously posted links (girlydos).

Who needs Spring Pictures?

You know, when I was in elementary we only took school pictures once a year. It was for the school year book. The packages for the pictures weren't expensive at all--and there was only one pose and one background. Since my kiddos have now entered school, I'm finding out that not only do they do "fall" pictures for the year book, they do "spring" pictures too. The spring come with a nice wooded/forest-y background and there are several poses to choose from. Sure--that's great...if you want to pay an arm and a leg for them. I think the minimum I saw was $30+ dollars for a very small package. Hmmmm....no thanks! So instead I decided that I'll just stick to my own camera and keep taking pictures like I always do...and sharing them like I always do. :)









A quick note about this pic of Evelyn....we were watching TV and she came to join us while eating her ramen (yeah, I know Ja, bad for you but darn good!!!!!). All of a sudden she turns to Ryan and I and she has this noodle across her nose and it's hanging down her cheeks. She starts exclaiming "Master Sheefu! Master Sheefu!"

New obsession...

****I've edited the links so they are now working.

Thanks to an informative and beautiful post that Roya did a while ago, I was able to find some websites that are solely dedicated to girls's hair. I can do the regular ponytail, pigtails, braids...a few years ago I even learned how to french braid. But...that was it. To me it was very repetitive and BOOOOOORRRRRRRRING!

Not anymore! Here are the two websites that I have been using for guidelines and ideas:

http://girlydohairstyles.blogspot.com/

http://shedoeshair.blogspot.com/



Here's something that I actually saw on a young (and I mean young, like, on a 2 year old) girl at church last Sunday. Her family was sitting in front of us and so while I listened to the testimonies I also studied....(this is Evelyn by the way...)


Then this morning I found the exact same do on a website--and a brave mom out there did it upside down! I asked Julia how she wanted hers and she liked the upside down look. So here it is...



Ok, this is just absolute fun! I LOVE this look! It's simply two messy buns with a zig zag part.



I've been doing this on my girls for a few years now...but it never occured to me to BRAID the little ponytails in stead of just doing the regular ponytail. Again, this came from perusing the websites...




Here we have four braids...just connect every other one...so easy--why can't I come up with this stuff on my own? :P










So here's to loving new hairstyles and creativity! Here's to actually looking forward to doing hair every day! Here's to my girls loving waking up each morning and having mom look online to find a style they like (and one she can handle). :)

The shoes--for Karen

Ok, here's my infamous shoes that I found at JCPenny last year for the OCS ball in June. (The pictures don't do them justice--they're GORGEOUS!...and a bit smudged from last night's use). It was absolute pure luck that I found them. I wanted closed toe high heels, black patent leather. Dude, no one sells those in June! Only sandals and open toed spiky heels. I'm more of a platform kinda girl anyway since I tend to walk on the outsides of my feet. Balancing on tiny little spikes is not a talent of mine AT ALL. Anyway, so I was out shoe hunting and JCPenny was having a clearance sale. It was one of those where they put out a few racks and the only sizes available are what's on those shelves. Well, I saw this pair--it was the only one out there and it just happened to be my size (karma? No way, Heavenly Father loves me and knew that shoes can sometimes be really important to a girl). And the kicker is they were 50% off the original price. :)

So when I bought them, I of course tried to walk in them...um, it wasn't pretty. I probably looked like I was drunk. So I hung on Ryan's arm the entire night of the ball last year. Last night was the exact opposite (still hung on ry's arm, but it wasn't for dear life this time)--I won't say it was easy, I really had to concentrate on how I walked (felt like I was in kindergarten again and practicing walking before my walking test for my pediatrician). But no wobbling, tripping, or anything! Wahoo! So I think I may go for being a little sassy and wearing these with a pair of jeans for my next date with Ryan. :)

Yeah, yeah, yeah....I know...

Ok blog stalkers *cough, Jeanne*, I know it's been way too long since I've updated. It's just with our huge move on the horizon I've been trying to get prepared and organized for that. Blogging seemed a bit low on my to-do list. Speaking of this list...I swear, every time we think we're on top of it all, there's a few more things coming out of nowhere that are added to it. Somehow I don't think the craziness is going to stop til we get settled in.

On to the stories.....

So last night Ryan and I went to a Comadant Reception (I'm pretty sure I just slaughtered the spelling on that first word). All the guys in Ryan's class were looking smart in their dress blues. *quick side note--I've always teased Ryan about his outfit not matching (come on, since when does a dark blue and black match?!). He remains indignant over my comments--til last night when he came out our room, having just changed into his outfit, and Julia exclaimed "Daddy--you don't match!"* For the wives, we were told to wear anything from nice dress pants to cocktail dress to all out formal. It was up to us. Well, there's only like, two other wives here and one just happens to be LDS and in my ward. We put our heads together and decided to go all out formal since our husbands were.




It was a rather nice reception. Before entering the hall, we had to form a receiving line--officers with spouses/girlfriends to the front to go first. We then were introduced by name to...uh...some seriously higher up and his wife. *chuckles* Ryan explained it to me last night but it was still over my head. I'm sure I'll understand it more in a year or so. Anyway, it was some very important decorated man and his wife. Then we were free to mingle and get drinks and finger food. Ryan introduced me to quite a few people in his class and then of course the women grouped together (we were seriously outnumbered--there may have been 6 of us total?). We joked about our dresses and uncomfortable shoes (I wore 3-3 1/2 inch heels--practiced walking around in them during the day so that I wouldn't fall down later). Then of course there was the excited talk of where everyone is headed after graduation. :) (And I might add that EVERYONE in my house is getting quite excited/nervous for our move!)

Not much else happened at the reception. The class formally welcome a few very important men and received some awesome/extremely helpful and important advice. I was very impressed with the colonel who spoke. He had a way of catching everyone's attention--keeping it...coming off as very strong, a bit intimidating, extremely impressive, but at the same time--down to earth. It was awesome. I'll never forget that.

I'll be blogging more later--time to pick Ry up from class.

Oh, and the walking practice from earlier paid off--I can now walk in those heels without being wobbly at all!!!! That's an extreme acheivement for me!