Bossier City, LA

Here we are! Home Sweet Home...in Bossier City, LA. We have been here for about two weeks now and are all settled in our new house. LA welcomed us with a round of the flu, but we have all had our turn and should be back on track now. I love Bossier City! There is so much to do here and the weather is beautiful! I can't wait to get outside and give our yard the little bit of TLC it needs. Some weeding, flower planting, and fresh grass seed in the backyard should do the trick.

Here are a few pictures of our new house! This first one is the living room. We love the fireplace! There were even screws already in the brick that matched the hangers for our big picture! The bookshelves built in took away some clutter of having our own bookshelves and DVD racks in the living room. Aubrey loves all the space and I love the floor to ceiling windows on either end.

Aubrey loves her new room. It's hard to believe this is the third bedroom/house she has lived in since she was born! I guess that's the Air Force for you! It's setting her up for being moveable in the future. :) It's amazing how everything seems to just fit.

This is the guest bathroom. Our blue and brown decor works perfect with the brown vanity and light brown walls. The blue helps brighten it up a bit. You'll just have to ignore Aubrey's pink and purple towels hanging from the shower.

Here is the "green room". The windows are beautiful and, as you can see, Sadie has found her sunning spot. Sadie and Maggie will lay in here all day and just watch out the window. It is an incredibly bright green, so if you're coming to visit I hope you're feeling cheery! The bedding I had in my room in high school matched in here perfect!

Ahhhh....my favorite part of the house. I love the kitchen! Although there are a few things I would change, there are more than a few things I love. Our kitchen table fits in here great and there is a little desk off to the right where we can have all my cookbooks and our computer stuff. It's really nice to have all that in the kitchen so we are all in the same room more often!

Here it is! We are very close to our neighbors, but they are pretty quiet so we don't mind. I love the green siding and blue door, but Ben isn't so sure about it. The big tree in the front yard is already budding! You can see the water tower in the backyard...it's one of the points the B-52 flies by in their pattern. I thought I would miss the jet noise since we aren't living on base...boy was I wrong! The Buff has 8 engines and it sounds like every one of them are going to come through our front window when they fly overhead. I love it!

After finding out that Ben was going to be pulling 12-14 hour days when he hits the flight line, and hearing about the 4 am shows and 2 am returns, we decided he needed his own car. He was able to find this great 1997 F250 Heavy Duty truck. He finally got his truck and I have my own car again!

Our move out from MS was somewhat uneventful. Aside from some arguments on what our pets did to the carpet and what they didn't we were able to get out of there with a small fee. Here is Aubrey crawling under the table and re-arranging the furniture. :)

While I was visiting a friend in Minot, Ben had to clean and pack...looks like he had quite the little helper!

This one is from the "old" house on Mississippi Ave. She was waiting for the cookies to finish in the oven.

Now we are at our new house. It only took her two days to start standing here! The windows are so low that she was able to use the windowsill to stand up. She was just hanging out watching the kids play outside.

So adorable! I wonder what she was thinking?

Can't forget about our other two "kids". Sadie and Maggie have adjusted great to their new house! They have a fenced in backyard again so they can play outside without having to be on a leash. Maggie was watching Aubrey look out the window from the picture above.

Oh Sadie...she is being such a puppy right now! There is a lot of open space in the living room and Sadie is taking full advantage of the wrestling space.

Here she is! She was using her pack'n'play for her crib while we were in the moving process and this is what we would see when nap time was over!

Aubrey loves to help daddy. He was tacking down our cable chord and she kept crawling all over him. It took a little longer than planned, but it got done!

Aubrey is constantly crawling over to the fireplace and using it to help her stand up. I don't think we'll be having a fire in there anytime soon so she's good!

Here she is again by the back windows. The dogs were outside playing and she just sat/stood and watched while she squealed at them through the window.

Whew. I know it's been a long time, but I hope y'all enjoy the update and the new pictures! Hopefully it wont be so long before the next update!!

She's Crawling!!

I can't believe I missed it! I was visiting with a neighbor and Ben managed to catch her first forward crawl on video. Just wanted to share it with y'all! As I'm writing this she has made her way from the living room to the dining room and is fascinated with the hard floors. She is now working on chasing after the dogs squealing the whole way!

New News!

As many of you have probably heard we wont be heading to Oregon for F-15 training. Because Ben is too healthy he kept GLOCing (G-induced loss of consciousness) at the centrifuge. He decided it wasn't worth risking his life every-time he went up in the jet so we started looking at other options.

Today Ben and I found out our future (for the next few years anyway). Ben will be flying the B-52. He is so excited to be in a bomber and have the opportunity to "distribute the hate". Everything starts happening pretty quick now. Once his orders come in we are free to start the process of PCSing. We have to report to Barksdale AFB near Shreveport, LA by March 5th and he starts his training on March 15. Rumor mill has it that we can plan on being there for about 8 months and then either we will stay there or head back up to Minot, ND.

This is really good news for us. He has a great opportunity to possibly cross train and fly each of the three bombers throughout his career. This is all we know for now, but I wanted to keep y'all updated.

Off to Louisiana! At least we get to stay in the south!

Freedom Park

On Saturday Ben and I decided we wanted to get out of the house for awhile. After getting Aubrey all bundled up (it was a little colder than we thought) we made our way to Freedom Park. It's a nice distance away from our house so Ben and I were able to stretch our legs a bit. This was Aubrey's first experience at the park and she loved it!! As with all the other firsts I try to get a few pictures and thought I would share. This first one she had to sit on my lap on the swing since another family was using the baby swings. It has probably been ten years since I have been on a swing, but I survived!

Like I said, a little colder than we thought. We got Aubrey dressed right, but apparently the sweatshirts weren't enough for Ben and I.

At the top of the slide there is a tower with the window cut out. You just have to pretend the big yellow sweatshirt isn't behind her. :)

Ben took Aubrey down the slide for the first time, but she had to stand on the top of it first.

She absolutely loves being thrown in the air. I love this picture of her with the sky and trees in the background. You would never guess we are in MS!

After the other family left we headed over to the "Tot Spot". It's the cutest thing! Everything is mini-sized for the little kids and there is even some sand around instead of just the mulch. Aubrey went down the little slide all by herself (with a little help from daddy).

We decided we would have to bring her back to play in the sand on a day when she doesn't have to wear her mittens.

Right before we left Aubrey got to swing all by herself! She is still a little small, but she loved it. I'm sure this was just the first of many trips to the park. I can't wait for her to ask to go!

She's Growing!!!

I can't believe how much Aubrey grows every week. She is crawling now (backwards, but still crawling), and somehow she manages to find EVERYTHING she isn't supposed to play with. We have so much fun playing during the day and our living room is officially a play room. Right now we work on picking up our toys when we are done so mommy and daddy don't trip walking through the house. Here is a picture of her pausing from her toys.

I was sitting at the computer while Aubrey was down for a nap one day when I heard some music coming through the baby monitor. It was this sweet little rendition of "Rock-A-Bye Baby". My grandma gave Aubrey this pink hippo that ties on to her crib and when you pull the handle it plays music. Apparently Aubrey decided she was done napping and with no toys around she found the next best thing! I put her down with her head at the other end of her crib, but she wiggled her way around. She also pulled down the other two blankets that were hanging over the end of her crib. I love it when she wakes up happy! Sweet thing.

Well, here it is. Aubrey officially has two very visible teeth. We are still waiting for those top teeth to work their way through, but she is very efficient with these two. We now feel comfortable giving her more than just baby food and she loves her snacks!

In the afternoon after her nap Aubrey gets a nice snack in her high chair. She will sit there for quite awhile just munching away and drinking out of her "big girl cup". Here is a little clip of snack time.

Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas!! We had a great time here in Mississippi. It was so much fun to have Aubrey around. She's able to sit up and had a good time "opening" her presents. I think she liked the paper a little more than the gifts inside, but now she loves playing with all her new toys!

"Daddy, what's that in your hand?" Aubrey discovered the video camera.

"If You Give a Moose a Muffin". She's reading already! Must take after mom.

Sooooooo tired....and a little overwhelmed with all the new stuff.

Priceless picture of Aubrey in her Christmas outfit. Forget the frilly dress...pants are what's in. We took her to church in this and one of the little girls told her mom that Aubrey looked like a little British girl. Must be the hat. You can't really see them, but her shoes are red and black plaid. So cute!

Now that the New Year has come and things are settling down we noticed that Aubrey cut another tooth! Just popped up today, but it explains a lot of the fussiness the last few days. She also has her first ear infection. I can't complain though. She is eight months old and this is the first time she has really been sick. After some antibiotics she is back on her feet (well kinda). Crawling is coming slowly, but one of these days I'm going to turn around and she is going to be gone. Time flies...

A day in the life...

I feel like I am so busy all the time, but when I try to remember what I did I come up empty. It must be motherhood catching up with me. There is always something coming up, but the smiles on my family's faces is always worth the work. I was looking through my pictures and when this one popped up I couldn't help but smile. Ben is always finding things to do to make me laugh. I HATE getting my picture taken, but couldn't help smiling when Ben came up behind me. Little did I know he had the camera in his hand.

Aubrey has recently found her laundry basket to be her little haven from the dogs. They are pretty good around her, but you never know where one of those eight paws are going to land!

We finally have door frames that meet the requirements for Aubrey's doorway jumper. She loves it, but it requires a little more supervision than I had expected. It doesn't take much for her to bounce herself right into the wall/door.

This picture is actually from Thanksgiving. We had a pretty little dress on her for everyone to see when they came over, but that quickly got downgraded to a onesie when she got her fever. Oh well...she was dressed nice for a little while!

This is one of those pics every dog owner has to have. Ben thought Sadie looked cold so he was nice enough to share his sweatshirt with her. Maggie looks completely ok that she didn't get one.