Olivia is officially a girl scout

Tonight we had Olivia's induction ceremony for her Girl Scout troop. They got pinned and are officially, official:)
She knows her sweet little Girl Scout Promise, and memorized the meaning of her petal for the ceremony. She did such a great job and was super proud of herself:)

We also had a reporter from the Navy Public Relations come out to cover the story about the girls donating their cookies to local soldiers. And I am happy to announce that Olivia had the most donated boxes of anyone in her troop- 39 boxes!!!!! Thank you to everyone for donated boxes, and bought cookies!

Olivia reached her goal and exceeded it by selling 200 boxes! Woah Nellie! She did awesome:)

Anyway, the reporter came and took some pictures of the girls and will be publishing the story soon. The cookies will be going with the next group of guys from Jeff's work that deploy in April. They are SUPER excited to receive them too. Out of all of the troops in the area (and there are LOTS) none of them, NONE OF THEM, donated their cookies locally. So It's a big thing for these girls. They ended up with 72 boxes:) The girls also made handmade cards for the soldiers that we will be including in the box. We will be sticking in a disposable camera that we hope the guys will use to take pictures of their group with their cookies once they get overseas. And if they have extra cookies we are going to ask them to hand them out to any children they come across. It was great for our little group of 5 and 6 year old girls:)

As most of you know, my living room as been full of cookies for the past month and a half. I was the Cookie Mom for our troop. It was a nutty, nutty job. I swear I worked every night on it! Taking orders, packaging orders, counting money, ordering stock, and inputting it all into the computer! Our troop sold a record 1353 boxes of cookies! All of which came through my living room. So tonight at the ceremony the troop presented me with flowers and an adorable patch for Olivia that says, "My Mom's the cookie mom!" It was cute.
Then to top it all off I slipped and fell down a half flight of stairs (with a baby on my hip) in front of EVERYONE, including the reporter:) Classic, just classic. I thought it was pretty hilarious, but I guess the gasps that came from every other person led me to believe it wasn't funny. But we were all ok, my ankle is a bit tender, but Tessa is unscathed. It's completely laughable now!

We were involved in another car accident tonight!!!!!!
We were all in the van heading out to pick up jeff's race info packet, just chatting and the kids were watching a movie.
Then WHAM a motorcylce hit the side of the van! A young kid pulled out of a sub to our left and t-boned the bike! A big fat Harley.
The man was already on the ground when his sliding bike hit us.
He was pretty messed up but will be fine. Road rash and a few bones sticking out of his leg!
Our van is fine. Some scratches and our wheel/ rim is all slashed.

I think we will call the drivers insurance company and have them fix it.

Scary, very scary!!! It was like that commercial that was out awhile ago where two people were talking and WHAM they get hit!

Corruption

These girl scout cookies are corrupting my life! I swear it's a full time job. I haven't been able to get anything done around here as I'm always filing orders, counting money, couting boxes, preparing deposits, and doing reports. This weekend is the LAST weekend of the cookie sales and by Monday I should be done. Done. DONE.
I feel like I haven't even blogged in um, well..... forever. I apologize!
I shall return soon, with a gazillion pictures:)

We have a tooth!

Tessy has been teething for MONTHS now, half her life actually, and we finally have some little teeth poking through! This was the first, a tiny little sliver...



*and as of today, the second one has poked through too!*

Tessa stood up, completely unsupported!

Just now I was doing web cam with my mom, and Tessa crawled over and stood up (completely unsupported) for the first time, in the middle of the kitchen floor. And mom got to witness it!
Previously she had only stood holding onto us or the couch.... walking isn't too far away!

Cookies Are Here!!!

Girl Scout Cookies are HERE! 70 cases (840 cookies) actually fit in my van! What an adventure...
If you'd like some, let me know:)

Olivia's Valentine's

Olivia saw these super cute valentines in a magazine and just HAD to make them, they are totally her style! So we made them for her class and they were awesome!

Deagan's Robot "monster" Valentines

Deagie helped mommy make these Valentines for his class. We saw the idea in a magazine and fell in love with them. And they were super easy! And absolutely adorable:)

Seven Years Ago Today

Seven years ago today, on the edge of Sunset Cliffs in San Diego, in the dark of night and in the presence of only two other people, I married the love of my life! Our lives were crazy busy. I was a senior in college finishing my last spring semester and Jeff was going through BUDs Seal Training in San Diego. We were busy planning a big wedding for the following summer, when life had other ideas. I once stumbled upon a quote that has forever remained one of my favorites and it goes a little something like this: "Sometimes on the way to a dream, you get lost and find another one!" And boy has that been the story of our lives. With a growing baby Olivia inside we decided to scratch all of that and get married right then and there! No, I didn't have any of my family present, but it wasn't for them- it was for us. And what a celebration we were able to have five years later at our renewal of vows wedding... now that was perfect and not a tenth as stressful as things were getting the first time around. The time that Jeff and I were able to share in San Diego, as "just us" provided us with some of the best memories of our lives! And I wouldn't change a thing.
Yes, we have had a crazy long road to get to where we are today. In fact it's been all over the place- we've been through more in seven years than most people do in a lifetime. But you know what? Throughout it all, through every high and every low, we've had each other and our love has never changed! It's actually grown deeper. It's amazing. Powerful all on it's own.
So today I say thank you. Thank you to everyone who has been there on this amazing journey. Thank you to my adoring husband for his unwavering support and unconditional love.
Every year I think about posting this picture. It's the ONLY picture that we have of that day. Yes, the only. And no, it's not digital, it's a print. It's scratched all over and it has weathered many a storm (hello katrina), but it's perfect. That night, on sunset cliffs, my best friend Lindsey was there to marry us. (yes, for $50 in San Diego, you can get a "marriage commisioner for a day" certificate and you can marry people for that day under oath). So Lindsey married us and took photos by the light of a flashlight. And the film camera that we were using wasn't working well. It was so dark that it couldn't focus and the flash wouldn't work. Except on this one picture... the kiss after the I do's. I'll treasure it forever!

Date night

Tomorrow is our anniversary, so tonight we are going out on a date! Dinner and a movie:)

Our Little Beach-Snow Bunnies

Deagan, Tessa and Olivia in the snow!

Tessa's first time in snow!

Deagan enjoying showing Tessa snow!
He pulled her around in this sled (that has been used by all three kids)
Deagan and his best buddy (our neighbor) Sam.

Virginia Beach Snow Storm of January 2010

Well so much for our average temps of 55 in the winter! Does anyone remember our first Christmas that we stayed in Slidell, LA and didn't come home to Michigan?.... yeah, it snowed for the first time in a gazillion years! Well it seems that the snow loves The Carter Family and it follows us! Apparently there is a 7 and 23 year cycle here for snow. It's odd. Every 7 years they get a snow storm that produces around 6 inches of snow. And every 23 years they get a storm that gives them over 8 inches of snow. Like I said, and odd cycle. Well apparently they were due for the 23 year cycle.... and we got it!
We have around 6-8 inches of snow!!!! The roads closed down, there was a state of emergency issued! Well we just decided to stay home and play in it:)

Virginia Beach Snow Storm of 2010

Jeff with the kids in their awesome igloo!!!!
The kids with their little snowman:)

Olivia and Mommy
DD eating snow
Jeff digging out the inside of the igloo... hehehe!
Tessa watching the kids outside in the snow.
Tessy and Mavvy watching the kids with Jeff.

Tessa, 8 months old
Tessa watching the kids outside.
Olivia after playing outside for 1.5 hours!
Deagan with chapped cheeks after playing outside for two hours.
Our "beach" house covered in snow!

Tessa @ 7 Months old

Tessa and Olivia's baby dolls, all of them are wearing TESSA'S old baby clothes!!!!!
She just had to investigate;)

I love the way he sits!

Deagan is my baby. Momma's little boy. But he's getting so big, so quickly. He's off to kindergarten next year:( And just in the past few months I've seen him "grow-up" so much. But then I see these little things and they make me smile.

Random pictures of the girls

Olivia and Tessa being silly girls!
Tessa's happy dance (she's flailing her arms)
seven months old
doing a baby push-up before she learned how to crawl

Tessa's 6 month well visit... a little late

Well due to some insurance issues after our relocation, we finally went in today for her 6 month well visit.
She is 18 lbs, 14 oz and 27 1/4 inches long. She's a tall skinny girl:) (something that we've never known, we've only had short plump babies). I tried to look up Deagan's stats, but I couldn't find them quickly. However, I do know that at 6 months he was somewhere between 22-26lbs. hehehe, it was all in his mongo head!

She had to get FIVE shots. Painful to watch. Each individually. But she's a trooper and only cried for a short moment, then was just plain mad. She's got her Daddy's eyebrows and isn't afraid to use them:)

So in the past month or so, Tessa has undergone huge changes. Not only is she now mobile, but she's clapping, waving, eating cheerios and puffs, and pulling herself up on things. That girl loves to stand and cruise along on furniture. Olivia walked in her 9th month and Deagan the first week of his 10th. I thought for sure that Tessa would be later than Deagan- that it just wasn't her personality, but I think I'm WAY wrong. I think she just might beat out Olivia! This little chick is CRAZY. She'll stand up on things and just "let go" and fall backwards. Then she looks puzzled like "um, why didn't that work?" and she'll do it again. She's got good balance too. She scares me!!!!

Another HUGE developmental milestone that she's reached is a funny one for parents.
HER LIFE NO LONGER REVOLVES AROUND FOOD. Let me repeat, her life no longer revolves around food.
For so many months all she wanted to do, ever, was eat. It seemed like day and night she was taking bottles. She was mad- give her a bottle. She was tired- give her a bottle. She woke up at night- give her a bottle. First thing in the morning.... you get what I'm saying? Eat eat eat! But not anymore.
Now she's perfectly content to wake up in the morning and play a bit before eating. And you practically have to force her to take an afternoon bottle. And the 3am one.... yeah that's gone (knock on wood). She's finally sleeping 12 hours straight. Don't get me wrong, she was before, but always with a few pacifier plugs here and there and the occasional bottle. Now it's just sweet sleep (knock on wood again). I'm sure I'm cursing myself....

They grow up so fast.... so fast!