A visit from an oriole and the tooth fairy!

What a busy and exciting day we had today!!! We started out our day getting some things done around the house. Bear put the gate back on the crib, we went through the girls room and sorted through more toys to sell, and got our shopping list ready (as always, we ran out of milk). We took all the toys/things we wanted to sell to a second hand baby store and found the stroller I really wanted to get (it has a tandem seat for a bigger kid to use as well as the regular stroller seat...we don't need a double stroller, so this is perfect!) so we put our earnings towards that as planned! We will pick it up Wednesday after Bear gets done with work. Anywho, we got done with the rest of our errands and came home to grill out some steaks. While I was in the house getting a salad ready, Bear called for me to come out back. He and the girls had seen a Baltimore oriole and it seemed to have been sticking around. I brought the camera out and these are some of the shots I got...

Here it is coming in for a landing at the hummingbird feeder

Ya gotta love the color!!!
He sat there for quite a while working at getting the nectar.


And of course I had to try to get a picture of our hummingbirds, though it seemed that every time I turned the camera on, they flew away. But, with some patience, I finally got one of a pretty little boy sitting on our fence behind my impatience (he he).

After spending lots of time outside, the girls were completely grubby and needed baths so they wouldn't look gross for church tomorrow. Caitlyn got her jammies on and finished brushing her teeth when we asked how her loose tooth was doing. Bear wiggled her tooth a bit and it was very loose! He pushed on it a little bit and it came out! Caitlyn got a little scared when she saw the little bit of blood in her mouth, but was and still is excited beyond words! She is growing up so fast...it's hard to believe it's already time for her to start losing teeth! Allison was in the bathroom brushing her teeth as well, and when Caitlyn's tooth came out, she tried to grab a hold of one of hers to pull out...she's so goofy! So of course, we had to put her tooth in an envelope and daddy helped her write a letter to the tooth fairy. She signed her name all by herself and ran up to bed with it to put it under her pillow! She hasn't been this motivated to go to bed and get to sleep in a long time!!! She already has another loose tooth, so we'll see how long it takes for another one to fall out. Anywho, here is her first baby tooth that fell out...
And here is my extremely happy and toothless Caitlyn! She will have quite the story to tell, as always! Hopefully the tooth fairy will get his job done tonight successfully!

27 years and 36 weeks

Today I turned 27 which, for some reason, sounds so much older than 26! Goofy, I know, but I really can't complain. Today was a great day! Bear got to come home early for spring clean up, so we had most of the day to spend with the whole family...doesn't get much better than that! And in keeping tradition with our family, the birthday person gets to pick the meals for the day and the best part was that I didn't have to cook!!! Bear made dinner to include brownies and homemade ice cream (yum-o!!!). He even took care of the girls baths so my back got a break from bending over the side of the tub! We spent most of the day outside in the sun (with sunblock of course) and got to enjoy the hummingbirds coming around more frequently (I see one right now!!!). Here's a couple pics from the day...


Purple roses...my favorite!!!
Here is Allison being chocolate beard the pirate. Of course the pic doesn't do justice to what she really looked like, but she was enjoying her ice cream a lot!


And now we are past 36 weeks with this pregnancy, so the stress of delivering crazily early has been relieved! I would still like to make it to May, but we'll see how things go. I now get to start going to the doctor weekly to be checked and should probably go see anesthesia at some point. The belly is growing just fine, though bending is becoming rather challenging lately. Thank goodness it's warm out so I can wear flip flops and not worry about having to tie shoes or pull on boots!!!
Love you all and see you soon!

Earthquake, a loose tooth, & hummingbirds!

What is the deal?!?! This is our second earthquake we have experienced in areas that earthquakes aren't common. Our first was back in 2002 while we were out at Ft. Lewis, WA. That one registered 7.6 or so and was an incredibly creepy feeling as the hospital I worked in churned for several minutes. This morning, we had a very rude awakening! The earthquake struck at about 0540. I was still in a dead sleep and Bear said he was awake, but waiting for the alarm clock to go off. We have a glass water jug/cup on my dresser which was making all kinds of racket and all the metal drawer pulls were clinking loudly. Honestly my first thought was that it was a train going by (later Bear said he thought the same, how funny!), but then remembered that there aren't train tracks that close to our house. Once the reality sunk in that it was an earthquake, my heart started racing! Our house shook for several minutes, but nothing got damaged, and the girls slept through it. This earthquake measured at 5.4 starting in Illinois and took only a couple minutes to travel over 150 miles when we felt it. When Caitlyn came downstairs she said that she had a dream that a monster shook her room. I told her that it wasn't a dream and that the whole house wiggled. She got a kick out of that. As Caitlyn was telling her story, I noticed that her lower teeth looked a little funny. I told her to open up her mouth so I could look and we discovered that Caitlyn has her first loose tooth! So of course she wanted to know if the tooth fairy would come to our house. I guess we'll have to wait and see when the tooth actually falls out! To add to the excitement of our morning, we had our first hummingbird of the year at the feeder this morning! It was a pretty little boy with a bright pink neck. I was really surprised by that since we just filled up the feeder late last evening. What a way to start a Friday! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!!

Only at a military school...

If only I had known about this ahead of time, I would have brought my camera when I went to pick Caitlyn up from school today. For those that don't know, we live on a military base and Caitlyn goes to school on the base as well. Caitlyn's preschool has their own fenced in playground by their classroom, and right next to their playground is a paved area with basketball hoops and the like. Today the students of Mudge Primary School got the opportunity to talk to some Apache helicopter pilots (Soldiers of course), and how do they get around? In their Apache, of course, which landed about 100 feet from the fence of the playground which was plastered with the kiddos watching it land right in front of them! After it was safe enough, the students got to go over to the helicopter and talk to the pilots and ask them questions. Gotta love preschoolers...I guess they were asking why they have to fly at night because it wakes people up. To which the Soldiers apologized. Then came up questions of what do they do when they need to go potty...they have to land of course! Caitlyn thought that was funny. Today was supposed to have been library day, but because of the helicopter landing, they didn't get to go. For some reason Caitlyn wasn't too upset about that today. When Allison and I got there to pick Caitlyn up, the Apache was still there. The principle told us that they would be taking off soon, and said that anyone who wanted to could stay to watch. The girls had to stay! Both of them were up against the fence when the props started moving. Once the noise picked up a bit, Allison came running back to the safety of mom saying "it's winding on me". Caitlyn watched it hover and then turn and fly off. It went right over our heads (just like the C-130's do at the house) which Allison can't stand! She started covering her head saying her usual "the airplane got on me". She cracks me up. Gotta love life on an Army base (sorry no pics for this one)!

Tessa Jo

Bear has been wanting to get a dog of his own; One that would be good for more than just licking your toes like our other two!!! So, we found this little girl at a humane society in Louisville over the weekend, and Bear completely fell in love with her. He named her Tessa Jo (Tess). She is 2 months old and is an Aussie and something mix. She gets along with Roscoe and Maggie pretty well, but Maggie still has to be the alpha dog...that will be interesting when Tess gets bigger! And of course, Allison is convinced that it's her Tessa, not Bear's! Tess is very cautious in new situations to the point that she is afraid to walk on any type of floor except the carpet. But she manages to get over that fear when it's time to go in the kitchen to eat (as long as the dryer/dishwasher isn't running). Bear and I haven't completely decided whether the girls and I will leave Kentucky before him, but if we do, he will surely have some good company!

Pooped out!

I'm sure that in years down the road, Allison would be mad to see that I put this picture on the blog, but it's just too cute and funny not to share this story! Caitlyn has been on spring break all this week, and since it has rained basically every day so far, the girls and I have been spending much of our time in the house playing around and enjoying some time with each other. Allison hasn't been napping very much and is getting up early and staying up late so she doesn't miss any of the action. The other day, she was wanting to go outside with Bear so she could watch him cook on the grill (yes, in the rain), but I told her she had to go potty first. She has been doing so good with wearing her big girl panties...she tries pretty hard to keep them clean and dry. So, she went in the bathroom to take care of her business. She was in there for quite a while, so just being funny, I asked Bear when he came in if he would see if she fell asleep sitting on the pot. He came out and said she was doing fine. When I walked by, I saw her head fall forward so hard that she nearly hit her head on the toilet, but she caught herself, and laid her head against the wall. By this point, her eyes were closed and she was completely out! I couldn't help but burst out laughing. Bear came over to see what was so funny, and also burst into laughter. She had only sat down for a couple minutes to go potty and was out for the count. Our poor little booger was literally pooped out!

But hey, at least she kept her panties clean! After we were done laughing, Bear went to get her off the pot and clean her up. She completely freaked out because she hadn't realized she fell asleep, what she was doing when she fell asleep, or where she was. After a bit of a struggle, she was cleaned up and recharged from getting her cat nap on the potty. Gotta love that little turkey!