My Brother, the missionary!

My brother Jordan has been on his mission a couple months now, he sent me some pictures and I wanted to put them up so family who hasn't seen them can. Isn't he handsome in a suit?? Geez I can't believe that's my baby brother! He's serving in the Oakland/San Francisco mission and is currently in Fremont. Love you Jordie! :)

Scrapbook Pages

Here are some of my more recent scrapbook pages. I've been trying to catch up, I have a big box of photos I need to organize. I went through them the other day and categorized them by event, took close to an hour. Looks like I have a long way to go! I love doing it but it most definitely is time consuming. (and expensive!) It's actually my favorite hobby and Justin loves that I do it. When I first met him, he asked me if I could help him scrapbook his mission pictures. :) I didn't actually become a scrapbooker until my good friend Kristal introduced it to me. It's really become a creative outlet for me. Playing piano is also something I love to do, but not having a piano has made that hard, go figure!

Here are my favorites:

This one is last year's Easter. Justin was deployed and I was living in Arizona with Tommy. I rented a house right by Justin's family, it was so much fun. I loved being their neighbor. The bottom picture is my sisters Susannah and Tiffany. The top one is Tommy with my sister's boyfriend's niece. Say that three times fast!
This was Tommy's first time at the Phoenix Zoo. He LOVED it. He had a blast and was beat tired at the end of the day. When I scrapbook something that has a funny story or just something I want to remember, I add a little envelope to the page and have the story inside. Sometimes I have other people write on it too, makes it a little more special for me.
Here are some of my senior pictures. The biggest picture on the page was the same picture I sent to Justin while he was on his mission (it was smaller of course). Ahh, the memories. :)
Me and my sister Tiffany, she came to visit last New Years, it was so nice having her here with me. Miss ya lots Tiff!
A picture of me five months pregnant with Tommy, the bottom picture is me holding Tommy's two day old hand. I wrote the poem on his first birthday. I can't wait for Tommy to read it someday.

More to come!

Family pictures 2010

So much has been going on this month. We went to Arizona to visit family and friends for a month, we celebrated our 4th anniversary, finally got family pictures taken, and took a short trip to Landstuhl. The month went by in a blur! We are really relieved to be home safe and sound and back to our daily routines.

Our family pictures were taken by

my good friend Amber Cupples. Check out her store here: http://www.thekarliekollection.com/ She has been awesome, she's already made some things for Tommy and Tristan that have been so nice to have. I like buying things that no one else has, and she does custom orders. You really can't beat that.

So, we got family pictures taken! We haven't had any taken since Tommy was a baby, so we were way overdue. They turned out awesome, I've been framing them and hanging them around the house for the short time we've been home. I'm going to tackle some scrapbooking later today. I've posted all my favorites, but it was hard to choose. If you're a friend of ours on facebook, you can see more there.

While we were in Arizona we got to do

a lot of fun things. We saw a few movies (we can't see many here, most are in German)

went out to eat for practically every meal (we missed American food soo much!), went to the Ostrich Festival, saw Guys and Dolls at the Hale Theatre, and got to catch up with everyone. Justin had the pleasure of fixing everyone's computer while he was there, which he really loves to do.

The flight home was really long. Justin was a sweetheart and took care of Tommy most of the time so I could relax a little more. I usually fly without Justin so I felt extremely spoiled. When we got home we had a few days to unpack and then it was back on the road. Justin had lasik surgery scheduled on an air force base in Ramstein/Landstuhl. It was a three hour drive which wasn't too bad. It was my first time on an AF base. I was really impressed with it, they had a lot of really nice parks, houses and a huge shopping mall. They also had Macaroni Grill and Chilis. Here in Bamberg on the army base we have Subway, Burger King and Pizza Hut. So needless to say, we're bummed we're not stationed in Ramstein! Justin's surgery was delayed until next week, but it was still cool to sightsee a little while we were there.

We're really cracking down on getting Tristan's room ready for him. In the next 3 months we'll

be picking up his furniture, painting, and baby proofing. We can't wait to see it finished and to bring home our new baby boy! I'm due June 27th, only 3 months to go. We're all feeling a little anxious for June to get here. We can't wait for our little June Bug.

Thank you to all of you in Arizona! We had so much fun seeing you. We won't be coming to visit until our time here in Germany is up. That's a year and a half. We don't want to travel until Tristan is a bit older. You're all welcome to come and see us here, though!

My sweetheart, all year, every year.

Justin,

How lucky I am to share my life with you,

Sometimes it's jut too good to be true,

You brighten my life with every smile,

With every laugh & each new mile,

you mean more and more to me.

Even when you're so far away,

There's oceans between us and we're still okay,

Your return brings me such exquisite bliss,

I'll never forget how much you were missed,

Can never take for granted every moment I have with you.

You're my perfect match in every way,

It can't be celebrated in just one day,

You're my sweetheart all year round,

The greatest treasure I've ever found,

Like every day for the rest of our lives...

Be mine this Valentine's Day.

The Best Gift Ever.

Most definitely would be my camera. My camera goes everywhere with me! And since I use my camera so much, I'm confident Justin will find it urgent to get me an upgrade. (Are my hints too subtle?) I digress! Here are some shots I've taken the past couple weeks.

Question: What could be better than a man in uniform? A man vacuuming in uniform, of course!

We took Tommy to H&M for some much needed new clothes. He loved the attention he got from the staff working there with each outfit he tried on. Then he took it upon himself to run outside in one of them and cause the theft alarm to trigger. They let him go with a warning, I think he learned his lesson.
I find it much easier to buy nicer clothes for Tommy now that we have another boy coming that will use them too. The one below is our favorite.

It's a BOY!

Justin and I waited patiently (or rather, relatively patiently) for our final ultrasound to come around. I don't think either of us have been so anxious in all our lives! Well, the day finally came on Monday and it was pretty obvious our new baby is a BOY!

Just look at that cute profile! The baby is growing like he should and seems to be a really healthy baby. I can definitely see a remarkable resemblance to Tommy's ultrasound pictures. I think they're going to be little twin blondies. Here is Tommy before his debut.

It might just be me, but they look the same! We won't mind having a mini Tommy around! ♥

The latest belly shot.

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.