Christmas

Here are some pictures of our Christmas. It was a nice relaxing day and we were all glad to take a break from the big move. We were babysitting an English Bulldog named Buttons. Tommy really loved having him around. They were inseparable the whole time he was here. It gave me the idea that maybe I should buy a pet for Tommy, but decided a new baby was an even better gift for him. So we're going to wait on the pet. I barely remembered to take pictures. We went and had dinner with some friends and their kids, and when we came home and got ready for bed I remembered I hadn't taken any pictures!

Our landlord who lives below us came up and gave that teddy bear to Tommy. She made it herself!

We didn't need any mistletoe!

Look how big I've gotten! The pregnancy seems more real now. I'm due June 27th, but hopefully this little guy or girl decides to come a bit sooner.

Christmas shopping and a medieval festival!

Today we finally finished up with our Christmas shopping. It was so much fun! Downtown was packed with people and new shops that open up just for Christmas. Candy, German chocolate, fresh crepes, homemade gifts, and music!

Here's Tommy intently watching New Moon at the theater with us. He sure likes his popcorn!

Here we are!

Tommy getting ready to go. He likes showers better than baths.

We fear he's not really shy.

Here's Tommy playing with his new toy. Isn't it cute?

We're pretty sure this guy was drunk. He saw me taking a picture and hurried in front of the camera. I was trying to take a picture of their 10 person "beer bike". Everyone sat around the table peddling and drinking beer. It was quite a sight!

Here we are at the only Mexican restaurant we've been able to find in Germany. It's pretty good, but we both agree that Mexican food in AZ is a little bit better.

I didn't know Justin was taking my picture. :) Chips and guacamole!

Here's Tommy on the Christmas merry go round. This was the best picture we took because it was hard catching Tommy while it was moving. He had fun waving to us and blowing us kisses as he passed.

It was a fun day, but by the time we got home Tommy was exhausted. We stopped by 3 different chocolate & candy shops to get all the best chocolate to send home to our families. Their truffles are incredible. One is made out of pop rocks and it's fun to bite into it and feel it popping in your mouth.

Downtown Bamberg is so much fun. There's usually always all kinds of different people performing something cool and unusual. Today we saw a man who stood so still he looked just like a statue. He had cool makeup and he really didn't look real. You give him money and he'll move and it was so awesome. I wish I had gotten a picture. We went to a medieval festival but couldn't get many good pictures because it got so dark. At the end of the day we caught New Moon at the theater on base. Before the movie started they played the national anthem and everyone stood with their hand on their heart. It's the simple things like that that make us proud of our country.

Enjoy the pictures!

Some pictures!

Just goofing around with Tommy today. :)

This is one of his favorite stuffed animals.

Tommy has my lip gloss on his mouth, as you can see he has his fair share of kisses.

H1N1 flu, be careful!

Just days after my last blog post stating I'm fine and Tommy is fine, here I am landed in the hospital with "swine flu". Since I'm left with quite a bit of time on my hands, I thought I would go through my experience so far and also give you the info. I've gotten from my doctor about how NOT to get it. Trust me, you don't want to get it!

When I first heard about this flu I never thought I would get it. I never get sick. I want all of you to know that you most certainly can get it, and quite easily as it's passed from person to person with ease. All you need to do to get it is be in the same room with someone as they sneeze or cough, or touch something an infected person has touched and then transfer it through eating or even blowing your nose!

Swine flu can last a MONTH. Typically it lasts about 7 days for your average joe, but if your immune system is down for any reason, or if you're pregnant (yipee for me!) it can last much longer. You can have it for a good week and not know it, but that's a good amount of time for the virus to grow and mature and then WHAM! You wake up with the full blown symptoms. You won't even know what hit you.

The best way to stay flu free is to wash your hands as frequently as possible. Don't eat, drink, rub your face or eyes unless you've washed your hands. If someone sneezes, cover your nose and mouth and get out of the room. Of course, if someone you live with gets it, my serious advice is to stay out of the house until that person is most definitely well. You will get it, no question! Justin has coughed on all surfaces in our house, and no matter how clean I tried to keep everything, Tommy and I still have gotten it. Tommy's symptoms arrived today. Luckily kids have gotten over it much faster than adults and he is still his playful self. He is running a fever, which is sometimes the first symptom. For me, it was a cough.

Please pray for my family! Justin still has it and Tommy is just starting it, my poor baby. And be careful! It can't spread anymore if we are all aware of how to stay clear of it!

Sickness has hit our house!

Where do I begin! Our little family has been plagued by illness for about the last month. Started out as a small cold for all of us. First Tommy, then Justin, and finally me. Tommy got over it in about two days, and it didn't really seem to bother him. Justin got it pretty bad, and actually got sent home from work for two days. His cough has been lingering for the past couple weeks and now the full symptoms have returned with a vengeance.

Here he is in our bedroom, trying to sleep it off. Luckily he got another 3 days off this week to start feeling better. You can hate me for this picture later, Justin. :)

Tommy has managed to stay healthy through all of this, and I have only the normal pregnancy sickness. I threw up for the first time last night, so I can see the fun is just beginning! I live on animal crackers, watered down juice, and the occasional bowl of cereal. The upside to all of this is that our food bill has gone down some. No one but Tommy feels up to eating these past few days. I just try to remind myself that getting sick every now and then is healthy, and things can only get better once you're past the worst of it.

I have to admit the hardest part of all this is trying to figure out whose water bottle belongs to whom, since I don't want this spreading around. I found a sharpie fixes that problem beautifully.

Tommy turns two, new baby, oh my!

So Tommy is officially living through the terrible twos! He turned two October 2nd, at 11:30am to be precise. The party was fun, it was Horton Hears A Who themed. The cake was ordered from the German bakery by our house and it ended up being pink. We ordered it to be raspberry filled and we didn't realize that meant the frosting would be raspberry too. Oops! But it was delicious! I would love to post pictures from his party, but they are too big and won't upload onto blogspot. However, they are all on facebook. Make sure to check them out if you haven't already!

Here is Tommy, he's helping daddy in the kitchen.

Also, I'm pregnant! Justin and I found out about a week ago. We were both very surprised. Yes, I was crying in this picture. We are both very excited and grateful to have another baby on the way. We're hoping for a girl but would be happy with either. The due date is June 27th.

We have a lot to look forward to! Can't wait to share it with all of you here on our blog!

Carving Pumpkins!

Today Justin, Tommy and I carved our first pumpkin together. It was much easier than I thought it would be. I've never carved a pumpkin before and I thought it would be harder to cut through the pumpkin than it was. It only took us about 45 minutes for two pumpkins! Here are some fun pictures we took.

Here is Justin's pumpkin

This one is mine

Justin finishing his up

It was so fun to get the insides out!

Our neighbor's black cat Merlin came by, it was perfect timing!

I love this picture!

Tommy taking a break, cheez its are his favorite.

He is such a sweetheart!

Justin's Homecoming

Justin is finally HOME!!

I cannot describe to you how amazing it is to have a husband again! :)

It was so exciting going to his welcome home ceremony. I was so anxious all day. Another military wife picked me up to take me to the ceremony, she lives just 2 streets over. When we got there we were brought to the basketball court at the gym. We waited for about an hour, but we got updates when the soldiers arrived. Everyone was so anxious, there were a lot of military wives there that hadn't seen their husbands for a year. We thought the soldiers were coming in from the front entrance into the gym, but the wall lifted up from the left and the soldiers were there lined up. They played the song "the boys are back in town". It was so fun. Here are some pictures.



There were a lot of people, here is one side of the room.






Here's Tommy while we were waiting in the bleachers for the returning soldiers to arrive.



Everyone was so anxious, there are a lot of soldiers in Justin's company.



Here is the wall lifting up with the soldiers in formation. I was SO excited.



When Justin picked Tommy up he started pouting like he was about to cry, then he buried his face in Justin. It was really cute. Tommy didn't recognize him at first.






Tommy has never bit his bottom lip like that, but he was trying not to cry, it really was adorable. He had no idea what was going on!




First family picture we've had in a long time.

Thinking Aloud...

So lately I've been really thinking a lot about our plans for the future. Being in the army really does make everything unknown. You have no choice but to accept that you don't know where you'll be in 2, 3, and 4 years. Justin has 3 years active duty left, and then another 3 inactive duty.

I realized I kind of like not knowing. It's going to be so exciting each time Justin gets new orders and we'll finally see where we're going next. We have 2 more years in Germany (it's already been 1) and after that we really don't know where we'll be sent to. He'll only have a year left so wherever it is we won't be there long. He does get to have his "top 3" choices of where he wants to be stationed. I know our first choice will be Hawaii, which would be AMAZING.

After Justin is released in 3 years the army will set up interviews for him, and most people have job offers before they're out of the army. We'll go wherever the best offer comes from, but most likely it won't be in Arizona. We've thought about having another baby but we're not sure when. If it's a girl Justin and I have decided that will be it for us, but if it's another boy we'll try one more time for a girl. ( I have a feeling it will be a girl, fingers crossed!) Not that we wouldn't want another boy. :)

So Justin gets home in 24 days. They pushed it back to August 21st instead of the 15th. They may be back on the 18th but I'm counting on the 21st at the latest. I talked with another wife whose husband is in Justin's company and she gave me all the details of what to expect when the soldiers will be home. I'll get a call when Justin's flight leaves, another call when he gets to the airport, and then a final call when I should go to the base for the ceremony. They have a short ceremony where all the soldiers march out to their families, I'm not sure exactly what else happens but I know it's short and everyone just wants to see their husband and go home. I'm hoping it'll be around dinner time when he gets home so that I have all day to prepare. :) They'll be a lot of pictures to post of when Justin gets home. I am unbelievably excited. It's almost all I think about.

After he gets back he needs to have physicals and exams to make sure he is in perfect health. He and I are also getting lasic surgery (for free!) sometime soon. Most of you know that Justin and I have the same eye prescription and we are both almost legally blind. (short little story.. both of us woke up one morning and I saw this black smudgey blur on the ceiling, Justin and I wracked our brain trying to figure out what it was because we didn't have our contacts in, realized once we put them in that it was an air conditioning vent...) So that is really exciting news. After his exams he'll have up to 30 days paid vacation, we'll relax a couple days here and then head off to AZ. We'll visit with family and then drive our car up to the docks to have it shipped here to Germany and stop in at Disneyland, and maybe fly out from there back home... we haven't really hammered out the details yet. We just know we need a vacation ASAP.

Okay so back on topic, I've decided I like the mililtary lifestyle quite a bit, except for the deployment part. That part is really quite miserable. Other than that I wish Justin could stay in forever and we could spend our lives traveling the world, and getting paid for it to boot! :) Enough rambling, to see new pictures that I had trouble uploading here, please add me on facebook.

Lifes a bowl of cherries ♥

So we've discovered that Tommy loves cherries! I'm certain he would have them for every meal if he could. We're lucky enough to have neighbors who have a cherry tree (Danke Ines and Andre!) and they share with Tommy.

It's been raining here for about a week, so Tommy can't go outside as often as he would like to. I think the rain will stop soon though, this might just be monsoon season. It's so pretty and I love the rain, but too much of it isn't good. Tommy and I are ready to see the sun again.

Justin gets home in about 25 days!!! Love you Justin!

My Bucket List

Thanks for the idea Kristal! Here is a list of things I want to do before I kick the bucket:

1. Have three kids
2. Get a degree
3. Learn to paint
4. Learn to speak fluent German
5. See Tommy go to college
6. Fit into my skinny jeans
7. Make a souffle
8. Buy a house
9. Visit France
10. See a mummy
11. Take a vacation to a secluded cabin with Justin
12. Sing in public
13. Give a talk in sacrament meeting
14. Have six pack abs
15. Meet Oprah
16. Sky dive with Justin
17. See the Grand Canyon
18. Buy a baby grand piano
19. Learn Sixteenth Variation by heart
20. Go on a class field trip with Tommy
21. Go camping as a family
22. Publish a book
23. Design a home
24. Be called an "artist"
25. Give up sugar for a year
26. See the Mona Lisa
27. Go on a mission with Justin
28. Give my mom a tour of Germany
29. Go to a Van Halen concert with my dad
30. Take ballet classes
31. Cater an event
32. Make each of our babies a blanket
33. Do a temple session in the German temple
34. Be blond for a year
35. Host a Christmas party for our entire families
36. Give scrapbooking advice
37. Make homemade ice cream
38. Read and understand the Bible and Book of Mormon
39. Renew my wedding vows
40. Make raspberry jam with berries I grew myself.
41. Visit Oscar in Spain
42. Have a family dog
43. Fit into my wedding dress again

That's all I have so far. It's a work in progress. :) The post below this one is also new, so make sure you read that one too!

Tommy riding his new bike!

It's good to be back in Germany. Tommy and I are finding fun things to do to stay busy while Justin is still in Iraq. He gets home in 39 days, give or take a day or two. It feels good to say "he'll be home next month" when people ask.

Tommy is learning all sorts of new things. He can say quite a lot, including his favorite "calm down". Whenever I tell him no or to stop something that he's doing, he says "calm down!". I don't know if he knows what it means but he sure says it at the right moments! He is especially good at knowing where things go. He helps me unload the dishwasher and he throws away trash and his diapers all the time. He also loads laundry into the washer, only usually it's clean clothes he puts in. :)

I can't wait to get my camera charger!!! I've already missed so many good photo opportunities, I'm going to be posting a new blog all the time once my camera is good to go. I should be picking up the charger at the post office very soon. I went on Friday but the post office was closed, probably for the 4th of July. I was disappointed. I'm a big believer in documenting my life, one day I will want to see pictures and what if I don't have them? For me that is a sad thought.

The weather here is pretty good. It's nice and cool inside, even though there is no air conditioning here. Outside it's kind of hot some days, and a little humid but not too bad. It's millions of times better than Arizona this time of year so I won't complain.

Here are the pictures, enjoy 'em!



Classic Tommy look. This is the "I'm sneaky" face.








He really has a blast on his bike. On the back there's a place to push and you can lock the wheels out. He hasn't gotten the hang of steering yet so this bike is perfect for him.

More blogs coming soon so make sure to check back! Love you Justin!

Our long trip home

Tommy and I got back to Germany yesterday, the flight was long! It wasn't as bad as I thought though. Tommy was much better than the last time and he slept most of the way. I got to watch some movies but couldn't sleep. I was really tired when we finally got here. Tommy is having a really hard time adjusting. He slept 12 hours last night and so I thought he was on schedule already, but it's midnight now and he won't sleep. If I put him in bed he starts screaming. I'm not sure what to do and it's a little stressful. I'm not tired either.

I wanted to take some pictures on the flight and when we first got here but my camera is dead and Justin has the charger in Iraq. (Don't even ask how that happened!) It's nice to be home, although our house was a bit messy and dusty since we haven't been here in 7 months. I spent most of yesterday and today cleaning up. Today Tommy and I worked on the garden and he played in his sandbox with our neighbor Luis. Then we went to the neighborhood farm and saw the baby cows. They looked maybe a month old. So cute! I've gotten to talk on the phone to Justin a lot which is nice.

It's beautiful here in June! It looks like a postcard everywhere I look. It's extremely green and flowers are blooming. I wish that our families could be here to see it. The weather is around 72 degrees but it feels a little cold to me. I have heaters running inside, my neighbors think I'm nuts.

Justin will be home at the latest August 18th if everything goes somewhat smoothly. He leaves Iraq July 27th and then will be waiting in Kuwait for the next available flight back to Germany. That could take a few days to a few weeks. We're definitely ready to be together again. It's been a long 7 months. I'm so happy Tommy and I could be in AZ with family and friends for so long though. We miss you! If anyone would like to visit, please come!!

Love, Brittney and Tommy

Mother's Day

It was a perfect day. Justin called me early to wish me a Happy Mother's Day. I love you Justin!



Here's my Mama with my sister Tiffany. :)



After church we went to PF Changs with my family. This is my favorite picture of the day, my dad with Tommy. Tommy is named after him.




My little brother Jordan (18) and sister Susannah (15).



My fortune... I'm assuming it's referring to my upcoming trip back to Germany.



Family picture, only we're missing my older sisters Dayna and Holly and their families.



My Daddy.



This was me at the end of the day, it was a long day! Happy Mother's Day! ♥