Enjoying Each Other

Even though the countdown has begun for Mike to be gone for several months, I'm still in denial about it. Instead, our little family of three is focused on just enjoying each other and anticipating what a wonderful Christmas this will be since at least we'll be spending it together.

Digging into the brownies the fabulous Estoestas sent us for Christmas.

Hanging out with Daddy.

I thought Florida had warm weather! We decided to go out for a walk tonight and had to bundle up the baby because it was so cold.

Grace and I in front of the 'Lone Sailor'. Pretty soon our sailor will be leaving us all alone.

I was getting Grace's bath ready and when I turned around, this is what I found.

Three Times in Three Hours

There was a time a few months ago when Grace went 4 days without having a poopie diaper. An hour after Mike and I decided that we were taking her to the doctor the next morning to make sure everything was okay, she had the biggest poopie diaper ever. At her next well-baby checkup, the pediatrician reassured us that it was not uncommon for exclusively breastfed babies to go that long without a dirty diaper, and we haven't given her bowel movements too much thought since then.

Tonight, after her daddy changed three FULL dirty diapers in less than three hours, it's hard to imagine we used to worry that our baby didn't poop enough. And I think Grace rather enjoyed surprising us with her fully loaded Pampers.


We had lunch at Sticky Fingers and found out that a balloon can help make for a peaceful lunch for mom and dad.

We took a tour of Mayport Naval Base to make sure I know where everything is before Mike leaves his girls. This big gray ship, the USS Farragut, will be his home away from home.

My little helper assisting me with pantry organization.

Late Night Dancing

Ever since this girl discovered that she can groove, she hasn't stopped. Even if there isn't any music to be heard, she will still dance to her own little beat. Here she is, after her bath and all in her pj's, enjoying her own little dance party of one.

And since she was in such a good mood- even though it was way past her bedtime- we decided to go ahead and take her picture for our family Christmas card. I know that Christmas is only a week and a half away and by the time they arrive and I get them all mailed out, it may very well be the new year already, but this has been a crazy time and I'm lucky to get Christmas cards out at all.

Here are some of the ones that didn't make the cut...

I liked this one but I didn't feel it was Christmas-y enough.During the photo shoot, I sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" in a loud, silly voice to get her to laugh and smile. We didn't always get a smile at the right time, but without fail, every time I finished a song, she would give me a round of applause.

Distracted by the ornaments.

"Don't look at me, look at Daddy!"

"I'm comin' to get you, Daddy!"

Homebody

After all the traveling we've done lately, I'm enjoying just staying in and being a homebody. And I've got my sweet baby to keep me laughing. What more can I ask for?

Matching aprons courtesy of Lola.

Christmas Presents

I absolutely love Christmas, and when I was young, it was all about the presents. I loved looking under the tree and trying to guess what were in those wrapped boxes that had my name on them. It was agony having to wait until Christmas morning to find out what I got.

This year is Grace's first Christmas and even though the child has no clue what the holidays are about yet, she got to open her Christmas presents two weeks early. We'll spending Christmas in Jacksonville and her grandparents didn't want to miss out on seeing her reaction to all the presents. Lola and Lolo even took a break from the restaurant on it's busiest night in order to bring Grace's present.

Grace loved ripping the wrapping paper, but she didn't quite understand the concept of opening multiple gifts. Once she opened something and saw it was a cool toy, she didn't want to be distracted with anything else. I felt a little bad having to take the toy away, just so she could open her next gift.



We are now in Jacksonville after an uneventful drive and we plan on relaxing for a while and finally enjoying the holiday season.

Fever

Grace woke up cranky and she was hard to please all morning. During one of her crying bouts, I noticed two more teeth getting ready to poke out from her bottom gum. Then at lunch Lola noticed she was running a fever. Thankfully a dose of baby Tylenol did it's trick. Still, because she rarely runs a fever, I cancelled all my plans for the rest of the day and just stayed in. It's now 40 minutes away from midnight and Grace must be feeling better because she's still happily playing and seems far from being ready to go to bed.

Hopefully the fever and crankiness was just a symptom of the teething and all will be well tomorrow.

Busy

Busy. That's quite the understatement when describing what our lives have been like the past couple of weeks. Hence the lack of blog updates. That, and we didn't have internet hooked up yet. We'd have to go to Panera for their free wi-fi. And because we felt guilty if we just sat there and used the internet, we would buy some pastries and a drink. So in the end, we probably spent an insane amount of money just to check emails and Facebook.

Since the last entry, we moved to Jacksonville and finished the last of the renovations, celebrated Grace's first Thanksgiving, received our household goods and did our best to cram it into our new place, and drove to Virginia Beach for a class Mike has to take.

The 2 weeks we were in Jacksonville was the longest amount of time we were in one place since we left Japan. We have literally been on the go since the beginning of October. I wish I could say we were done with traveling, at least for a little while, but Sunday morning, we make the trip back down to Jacksonville.

I figured I better update the blog or I may never be able to document these last couple of weeks.

So here it is. Get ready. It's a long one.

THANKSGIVING WEEKEND

First we had dinner at Dave's where he was kind of enough to cook us a Thanksgiving meal complete with made-from-scratch mashed potatoes. And he's a bachelor! Impressive.

Then we had dessert at the Baggetts'. John and Mike were roommates during their swinging bachelor days and now they have three kids between the two of them. With one more on the way (on the Baggett side).

We took a day off of working on the house to head down to St. Augustine. It was gorgeous!

We made time to check out the alligator farm. Very cool, but we have to come back during the summer. The alligators were sluggish because of the colder weather and they're much more impressive when the weather is warmer. Particularly during feeding times.


SOME RANDOM FIRSTS

Now that Grace is up to five and a half teeth, we introduced toothbrushing to her daily routine. She loves it!

Her daddy was very proud of this particular first- nose picking. But don't worry, I plan on teaching her that ladies absolutely do NOT do this in public. And we always use tissues- never bare fingers!

She finally understands that she's in trouble when we speak to her using "the tone".

Look at that pitiful face!

Her first lumpia. She was a little unsure, but this girl is eager to try all kinds of new food.

My sweet baby has turned into a tiny dancing queen! Any time she hears even a hint of music, she is bopping up and down and shaking that little booty of hers.

I don't have a picture to go with this first, but Grace took her first step last weekend. And I missed it! I'm with her 24/7 and the one time I didn't have her with me because I was making a quick run to Walmart, she takes a step for her daddy. But I don't mind. I'm actually happy he was able to witness a first of hers. Especially since he'll be leaving for 7 months in a few weeks and will likely miss many milestones while he's gone. But it did almost make me cry that I wasn't there for this milestone. So far, I've been right there for all of her firsts.

Her first visit to Santa Claus was a disaster. My normally friendly and go-with-anyone baby cried hysterically when I placed her on Santa's lap.

The night we took Grace to see Santa was also pet night. Friendly old St. Nick frightens her, but she's okay with dogs that are huge as horses.


ALMOST CAUGHT UP NOW...

I celebrated my birthday with a date night with my husband. (Looking at this picture makes me regret this pose. I forgot the power of side poses. Facing the camera head on this way makes me look HUGE!) The grandparents babysat while I enjoyed a steak and lobster dinner followed by a movie, the new Twilight flick. I loved it, and Mike was kind enough to keep his sarcastic snickering to a minimum.

We hung out with Ninang Glenda, Lina, and Sadie this afternoon. Grace sure does love her Ninang Glenda.

Having a blast at the play area.

And finally, my favorite picture of the day- Mike playing 'stinky feet' with Grace while he gets her dressed for the day.