Halloween 2011

Halloween this year was a blast! We did Trunk or treat again, but we had help, and a way cooler trunk this year! We did an Airforce sponsored trunk, which was awesome because we didnt have to pay for any of the decorations :) We did the trunk with our friends Kelly and Matt, and their son Brody, who is the same age as KayLeigh. We were a family of zombies for Halloween this year, I did the makeup and I think I did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself :)

                     we set up the trunk and handed out candy for a little while with the boys, then Kelly and I took Brody and KayLeigh around the trail to trick or treat for the first time! She had an awesome time! She was screaming most of the way,and stomping her little feet to make her shoes light up. She refused to let me help her carry her candy bag, even though she was dragging it on the ground. She enjoyed looking at all the trunks, especially the ones with light up stuff on them. She didnt really get the hang of saying "trick or treat"in fact she didnt say anything other than screams in between candy stops when she was stomping around like a wild woman, I guess she was really just committing to her zombie role lol. KayLeigh did really well and didn't fuss until we were on the car ride home and we had to stop and get some more milk for her. she was fast asleep very quickly with some left over zombie blood on her head, I tried to scrub off what I could with a baby wipe, she was just too sleepy for a bath. good thing it came off this morning in the tub!

                          This year Halloween was a lot more fun than last year, it was warmer, we had good friends with us to run our trunk and hang out with. And kay had her buddy, Brody, to go trick or treating with for the first time. I cant believe how fast she is growing up. Last year she spent all Halloween bundled up and sleeping. This year she walked most of the trail on her own, and even shared some Halloween chocolate with me today. :) Next year, she'll be able to say trick or treat... I just cant believe it!  Happy Halloween everybody! Love you all, enjoy the pictures!



My baby zombie walking the Trunk or treat trail

Watch out Brody, Zombie Kay's gonna get you!

Trick or treat!

my big girl!

Zombies!!

Kay and her Buddy brody,and Kelly

Mat scaring little kids

Zombie Fohners

Our monster trunk!

Cutest zombie ever!

October 28, 2011

In an effort to update my blog more, here's another post for this week! I'm on a roll, lets hope I can keep it going :)
  I guess I'll start off by bragging about all the new things KayLeigh can do, it seems like she does something new everyday now, it's amazing! She has a pretty good vocabulary, she can now say... "Me-mo" (elmo) This is usually said while pointing at the t.v. or laptop, requesting to watch elmo... "kitty" or "cat" which is usually followed by lots and lots of "meow! meow! meow!" and then trying to chase down the poor cat to snuggle him to death. She loooooooves that kitty. She also says "dog" and knows that the dog says "woof" although when she says it, it usually sounds more like "oof" which I think is way cuter anyways :) She likes to say "eye" and then try to poke your eye out, I guess she just really wants to make sure you know where your eye is! She can also locate her nose, mouth, belly, and booty. although she doesnt say any of those yet, she is more than happy to point them out to you. She will even shake her booty (dance) if you ask her to while music is playing :) Of course she says "mama" and "dada" but I get confused a lot about "mama" and "me-mo" and sometimes I try to hug her when all she wants is elmo lol. She says "bebe" (baby) when she carries around babies, or a little yellow stuffed sheep, whose name is apparently "bebe". She doesnt say "no" but if you tell her "no way" she shakes her head all crazy and thinks its the funniest thing ever, she has to concentrate a bit harder to nod her head yes, but she's got that down too :) she tries to say "night night" but it sounds a lot like "nana" or "ana" which is what she says for breanna. She usually says breanna while shes looking at pictures with me, or the pictures of her and breanna on the bookshelf, probably one of the cutest things ever. She has a rubber duckie, and a duck backpack, and she says "duck" and "quack quack" to both of those. she also really likes playing with cars, and will also point them out to us while we drive by saying "car" She says "yum" if she's really enjoying her food, and "ooooooh" with her little lips all pouty if she sees something she thinks is really neat. And I think thats it for now...
             She's learning all sorts of new things lately, just the other day she picked up some of her socks off the floor, and tried to put them on her feet, she does the same with her giraffe slippers, I was so suprised!! My favorite is when she tries to tickle mat or I. She comes up to you and says "tittle tittle" (theres another word I missed!) and tries to tickle you, she likes to tickle my feet, because I scream and act like it REALLY tickles, she thinks its funny :) We've got a good bedtime routine down now, she goes and gets me a diaper out of the diaper holder and we get her into pjs, then she shuts off the light (we have low light switches in all our bedrooms in addition to the normal height ones for some reason...belgium..) and picks up a book and heads over to the rocking chair to read. Shes just becoming such an awesome little person, I love it! When I ask her if she's hungry (especially in the morning, when I've made french toast sticks) she'll march right over to her highchair and wait to be lifted up so she can eat. she usually does not wait quietly and does a lot of whining and screaming in the process, I think its her attempt to hurry the food up :) Shes been walking for about a month now,and she's really good at it. She hardly falls, unless one of the dogs throws her off balance, or she trips over the cat lol. She's getting quick and is trying to run. she loves going for walks around the neighborhood, and is very sneaky about trying to let go of your hand. If shes holding onto anything, like a toy or a flower she's picked up outside, she'll drop it so you let go of her hand so she can pick it up, then she takes off as quick as she can in hopes that you don't notice you're no longer holding her hand lol. She's quite independent. 
                       She's pretty fond of books, she'll bring them up to you and sit in your lap so you can read them to her, or she'll sit on the floor and look at the pictures while babbling away like shes reading. She likes to chase the cat around too, and pick him up in various awful ways, but he's a good cat and will put up with it for a while.

Speaking of KayLeigh, I hear her hollering upstairs, its bedtime here, and we've all had a cold, so she's probably not feeling well. So I better be off :) motherhood is calling.
Love you all, I promise more to come, monday is halloween, and we've got a busy night :)

             

My Elmo pumpkin, I'm rather proud of it :)

KayLeigh's first Halloween Party

Kay had her first halloween party at her playgroup today. Any guesses as to what she dressed up as? .... give up? She was the cutest kitty ever!! A lady that works at the clinic made her a tutu that she loves wearing, so we had to include that in her costume. She had a good time, ate some cookies and played with all the toys. 

                                                    My little kitty after breakfast, getting ready to go

                                                           Somebody's got an awesome toy over there!!

                                                                 cutie pie!

                                                 she found a baby to carry around

                                                         looking out the window

                              she was excited that daddy showed up, he usually works when playgroup happens

 

It's been too long!

Wow. I just looked at the blog, and I am way more behind then I thought! I'm going to try and catch you all up. After Jared's graduation and all that, we went back to Ohio and Mat picked up Breanna from Louisiana. We spent a few days in Ohio, and In PA with Mat'sfamily, then headed back home to Belgium! We took a military flight back from Maryland to Belgium, it was their commercial airline, so it was a pretty nice flight. Except that neither of the girls felt like sleeping the entire time... We flew into germany again, and walked around Ramstein and got some German food then were on our way home. Its about a 4 hour drive and luckily both the girls slept a while on the way there. We got home and showed Breanna her room, and she played with the dogs and we all settled in. We spent the next two months enjoying having her here, we went to the zoo quite a few times, she really enjoyed being able to pet the lemurs and even fed the little monkeys some grubs, she was pretty brave :) The best part of the summer was our trip to euro disney, in Paris!

We planned the trip to be just an overnight thing to Paris, we drove up on tuesday, and checked into our hotel that was about 20 mins away from Disneyland. and drove into Paris! Mat has been there before when he was a kid, but it was a first for all of the girls :) I was really excited to be going to see the eifel tower, and Disneyland. We parked by the NotreDame, and walked ALL THE WAY to the Eifel tower! It was exhausting, luckily we brought two strollers so both the girls could ride. We saw a lot of neat stuff in Paris, and I'll post the pics :) It was fun to just wander around, until we found the eifel tower, which is huge! breanna was so excited when we found it! On the way back to the car, we ran into a little fair, and stopped for some food, and enjoyed looking around at paris at night. we made it back to the car and drove back to the hotel, and we all fell asleep very quickly!

We woke up pretty early the next morning, and got breakfast at the hotel and headed to Disney! I think I was just as excited as breanna! It was a nice day to be out, not too hot, not cold, and we went on a weekday so it wasnt too crowded. The nice thing was that everyone who worked there spoke english, so even though it smelled like france..it didnt sound like it lol. We rode a lot of rides, and saw the parade. Breanna even got to be part of it! "Mary Poppins" brought a bunch of kids into the parade and she got picked, and danced around with them to zippedy doo da. I think she really had a good time! We were sad when we had to leve, but the plans are already set for next year, when Kay will be able to enjoy it a little more too.

Disney was really the last hurrah of the summer. We had to head back to Ramstein to catch a flight back to the east coast to take Breanna home :( The plan was just to take a hop back to the east coast, hopefully have someone pick us up and head to ohio. That didnt really work out the way we planned though.. it took 3x as long to get out of germany than we expected. every time we have gone on space a its only taken us a day or two to get out. this time it took us a week!!! We spent way too much time in that tiny airport terminal on base... We had to be there so early in the morning to hopefully catch a flight, and every time we had to pack up all our things and bring all our luggage into the terminal and check in for the day. we spent a lot of time in the family lounge, sleeping, and letting the girls blow off some energy. they have cribs and a couch in there so both the girls could nap, as long as there wasnt another annoyingly loud family in there, which there usually was... we spent a lot of time walking around the mall on base, but even that got old after a while, we were sooooo ready to leave. we went swimming and tried to keep the girls occupied, both mat and I felt bad for keeping them at the airport for that long.

We finally got on a plane, after waiting way too long! we flew on a cargo plane, that has the sideways seats that fold up and all the cargo in the middle.. .Breanna was a little freaked out by it, since its way louder than a commercial plane. But she found a buddy with the army guy that was sitting next to her. He was on his way home from Afghanistan and he was so nice, he told her the plane was ok, and nothing was wrong even though it was bumpy and loud, he showed her pictures of his puppies, and even gave her one of his patches. I think she had a pretty big crush on him! Kay slept almost the whole time, but breanna did not want to cooperate and had a very rare temper tantrum on the plane. We had a layover in Bangor, Maine, and they got to run around in the terminal for a while, so i think that helped both of them a bit. We had to rent a car and drive 4 hours into ohio, we flew into indiana.

We made it to mat's mom's house finally and a few days later had kayleighs first birthday party. it was really nice. she had an elmo cake, and all of mat's family came and she got a lot of presents and it was just a really nice night. She got a little overwhelmed with all the prestents and then the cake but i thnk overall she had fun. I still cant believe she's already a year old!

We spent a few days in Ohio, then had to make our way to louisiana to take breanna home, that was awful. we always hate saying goodbye, and the drive was long, and hot. After we dropped her off, we headed to colorado, which again,was a very long drive. and I never want to do that much traveling ever again! We made it to my parents house and the plan was to stay about a week, then mat was going to go to a school for work in missouri, and i was going to stay at my parents house for the rest of the month and thenwe'd fly bck home. that worked about as well as flying out of germany....

Mat's school suddenly got cancelled and he was out of leave so he had to go home asap. so we made the decision to drive back to ohio and catch a hop back to belgium. we drove back, but there were absolutley NO FLIGHTS going out, every day we'd wait and hope for something but there would be one flight with 2 seats, if we were lucky, and we couldnt get on one. so mat had to buy a ticket back home so he could go back to work. Kay and I had to stay i n OHio for a while longer before we had the money to pay for a flight for us to go back. I was rather proud of myself for mastering international air travel by myself with a one year old though :).

So that is a quick, very quick recap of the past few months... I will post some pictures tonight. but kay just woke up from her nap.. so this is to be continued :)

Summer part II photos from Colorado!!

Mat, Erin, Dad, Kay and Cory at the park




















Dad and the Bug
















Erin and the Bug
















Jared blowing bubbles for Kay















At Jared's Graduation















He did it!
















Erin and I decorated all those cupcakes!!














She even made the frosting!


















Kay and Erin hanging out while the boys climb

Mat climbing in Eldorado Canyon

Jared

Me and KayLeigh

My birthday cakes!!

Cutie pie

Erin's owie from the slide at New Belgium

The slide!

The beer I poured myself!

Pouring myself a beer

Dad sipping his freshly poured beer

Erin and dad at the start of our New Belgium brewery tour

Yum!

We each got 7 of these...FREE!

More words to come in a blog soon..I'm just too tired to put it all up tonight! enjoy the pics! : )

Summer 2011 part 1

Well it's 3:30 am Belgian time, and I am sitting in the living room with Kay, watching Elmo...Because while Mat and Breanna are fast asleep, Kay had other plans for me. Her top tooth is FINALLY breaking through so she has been acting up a little bit, and she was hungry but did not want anything to do with her bottle...and now she's not tired even a little bit. I could take the opportunity to clean or put away suitcases but this seemed like more fun : )

Summer so far has been quite the adventure, I'll try to put everything in here that we did and hopefully it makes sense!

We started off in Spangdhalem, Germany. Its about 3 hours from our house and 1 hour from Ramstein, Germany where we go to catch the space-A flights back to the states. We stayed overnight at the hotel on base in Spangdhalem, it was a pretty relaxing night. We went to a resturant in town and got some delicious german food. Kay and I shared a plate of deer goulash, it was AMAZING!!! We took her to the park by the hotel and then put her to bed while we enjoyed some tasty german wine. Here are some pics of Kay at the park in Germany!

Alrighty after that we woke up pretty early and headed to Ramstein to hopefully get on space-a to BWI. Theres always a chance that there wont be enough space for everyone to get on the plane, but luckily they had a ton of open seats on the commercial airline, so we didnt have to ride on the cargo plane this time! yay! Kay took a little nap in the USO while we were waiting...

We got on with no problem and Kay did pretty well, she didnt sleep quite as much as she did the first time we flew back to the states but she could have been a lot worse!

This is Kay before the flight started...

and waiting for the plane to take off

and this is her grump face after we landed 8 hours later!

Mats dad picked us up from BWI and we spent a few days at his house, Kay adjusted to the time change well and we had a good time hanging out with mat's dad. We were glad to be back in the states!!!

Here's a pic of Kay snuggling with her papa rusty (mat's dad)

After a few days in PA we caught our flight to Colorado, Kay did pretty well on this flight too. shes getting to be a good little traveler!

I'll post more tomorrow, I'm going to make another attempt at sleeping with Kay. Love you all!