Nurseries

Before our house was completely turned upside-down by the movers, I got a few shots of Kate's nursery. It was the exact same set-up as Shawn's nursery, but we painted the walls back to the base housing color (since I knew we'd have to before moving anyway) and I added some more girly artwork and stuff. 

We switched Shawn over to a toddler bed and moved him into Sydney's room about a month before Kate was born. That change marked the beginning of his terrible/incredibly needy nighttime sleeping routine. Here's what his nautically themed nursery looked like:

Trash Beach

A few weeks before our pack out, my friend Annie posted a picture on Facebook of an insane amount of green, blue, and white sea glass, saying she found all of it one one beach in less than an hour. A few days before the pack out, I developed an irrational fear that I needed to find as much sea glass as I possibly could so it could get packed up with the rest of our stuff. Annie told me she found her loot on "Trash Beach" and gave me directions, so that's where we headed that weekend.

It was up north near Camp Schwab, but there wasn't great access to the beach. We parked our car and had to carry all of our crap (i.e. camping chairs, towels, beach toys, beach umbrella, diaper bag, and stroller) down the sea wall steps and across a sandy channel to get to it. Thank goodness it was low tide, otherwise we wouldn't have made it. Either way, I'm sure we looked like the most ridiculous crew ever overloaded with stuff and trying to push a stroller through a bunch of wet sand. As we crossed, we saw thousands of hermit crabs, all with a bluish shell. And they hid under the sand so fast when we got close! It was kind of cool but at the same time kind of disgusting how many there were.

When we finally got across the channel, I immediately found lots of sea glass. Then Kate blew out her diaper, so we set up camp and I changed her in my lap. We were mostly shaded in the trees, but the sun would sneak through every now and again and get in her eyes. I found Sydney's sunglasses in my diaper bag and put them on her, and she looked so sweet!

I love her squishy little body!

I fed her while Spencer took Syd and Shawn to swim, and then I put her in the Bjorn so we could go hunting for sea glass. Unfortunately I couldn't find her sun hat, and she pooped all over her more protective clothes, so I created a classy get-up to keep her from getting scorched.

Lookin' a little white trash on Trash Beach.

Although I didn't get any photo evidence, Trash Beach did not disappoint! Our sand bucket was almost 3/4 of the way full of sea glass by the time we left. Once we noticed the tide coming in, we had to pack up pretty quickly so we could get back across the channel.

Since we were in the area, we visited Melody Road one last time. Shawn liked it a lot better that time around.

I couldn't help but look at the water and think, "Man I'm gonna miss this."

I Turned 31! (almost 6 months ago...)

As it turns out, having our stuff packed up and moved to the other side of the world immediately made Blogging fall to the last thing on my priority list. Although this is all what I remember from six months ago, I still think it's worth recording.

My birthday just wouldn't be the same without a traditional carrot cake, so Spencer whipped one up for me. Joke, I made it myself. But I did have some cuties help me put the candles in it.

Holy fire hazard Batman! Look at all those candles!

My kids are always so excited to dig in to the cake, the cream cheese frosting is the best.

Sweet little Kate hung out in the bouncer while we celebrated. She sure loves that little thumb.

We Bought A House!!

Spencer flew solo to Bethesda, MD for a house hunting trip. Dying to invest in something, he insisted that we buy instead of rent when he's in residency, then keep it as a rental property. With only a week to find us a place to live, we were both stressed- especially since he didn't love anything he saw. Then this new listing came up one morning, and he went to see it that same day.

To the left of the house in the side yard, he said this sold him from the start:

A kid-sized cemented in basketball hoop.

He said he could just envision Shawn "shooping"hoops there and loving it. One picture that I particularly loved was this:

A fenced in back yard (not the dogs!).

A few days later we put in an offer, and the sellers accepted it. They actually accidentally met when he went to see the house, and their realtor told our realtor that they liked him :) He was able to squeeze in a home inspection the day before he flew home, and we got word three days later that the sellers accepted all of the things we asked them to fix. It's exciting and terrifying all at the same time!

Chunky Monkey- Kate at 2 Months

Kate's 2 month check-up was a nightmare, because it actually happened over the course of 3 appointments. For the first one, I was on time but the doctor was very backed up. Kate was checked in, and after the nurse put her stats into the computer she said, "Uh, I think I need to measure her again." I put her back on the table and everything was correct. She was just surprised that Kate had grown 3 inches and gained 3 pounds since her two week appointment! Chunk! After that, we waited for another 45 minutes before getting put into a room.  Fifteen minutes later, I told the nurse I had to leave because I had to pick up Sydney from school (I'd forgotten my phone in the car and couldn't call a friend to get her for me). 

That chunk by her armpits just makes me smile!

Attempt #2 started fine… we got to see the doctor, but when we went to immunizations, they said they were out of the combo shot Kate needed. They told us one of their personnel went to get some from another clinic, so we could come back later that day or sometime early the next week, otherwise she'd have to get five shots instead of three. I opted to just wait and spare her getting poked that many times.

I love those squishy legs too :)

When we went in a few days later for attempt #3, I was so mad to learn that they were out of the combo shot AGAIN! And they had no idea when the next batch was coming in ("Tomorrow? Maybe next week? We just don't know.") I was livid, but I didn't want to get behind on her shot schedule either, so I was an evil mom and just went ahead and got it done. My poor sweet girl had to get 5 shots! I felt terrible! Thankfully, I think the front desk sensed my irritation and gave us a nice nurse that was incredibly kind. It was so much nicer that the 19 year old inexperienced corpsman who has no experience with babies that we usually have to work with. 

 
Kate's stats at 2 months:

• Weight- 12 lbs. 4 oz. (84th percentile)
• Length- 24.21 inches (99th percentile)
• Head circumference- 39.5 cm (71st percentile)

We love this sweet angel baby we've been blessed with! 

Kate's Blessing

We originally planned to bless Kate on Feb. 23, but had to postpone because our kids were taking turns running fevers. Thankfully, everyone was healthy on our backup date, March 9. 

Me (with my new-ish brown hair) and my sweet babe.

Love her little Alfalfa stick up hair.

She has been showing us her precious smile for several weeks now, and we can't get enough of it!

I mean, is there anything more adorable than a baby's smile, with those sweet little coos and gurgles that usually follow?

We were so grateful to have so many of our close friends there with us. Since our family is so far away, it's amazing to have awesome friends that can be part of these special events with us. Spencer invited Justin Heaton, Adam Hurst, Shane Jenks, Seth Perrins, Brenton Yates and Jake Camp to be in the circle, along with Branch Presidency members Preston Jones and Brian Bailey. I was so excited that our awesome neighbors, the Donahue's, were able to be there too.

Stacey was sweet enough to take notes of the blessing for me. Kate was told that she was lucky to be born into a home where she was loved and wanted. She was blessed to:

• have a healthy body and a sharp mind.
• know where to turn for peace in the trials specific to her generation.
• be worthy to make covenants in the temple.
• come to know Heavenly Father's will through prayer.

She was also counseled to follow the example of her righteous mother- something I'm trying to live up to! At my PPI with President Jones later that day, he told me that during the blessing he felt like he wanted to open his eyes for just a second. When he looked at Kate, he said her eyes were just so focused on Spencer like she was listening intently to the things he was saying. She certainly brings an air of peace and calm to our home, and has been such a content baby thus far. We are so grateful for her!

Sand Dollar Beach

As we get closer to our PCS date (What?!? Just over 2 months left!), I feel the need to check stuff off my "must do in Okinawa" bucket list. One of those things was going to Sand Dollar Beach. I brought our camera to document our fun adventure, only to find that it didn't have a memory card in it, so I was limited to the capacity on the camera's internal memory- which was only 4 pictures! Lame! 

I had high hopes of finding tons of sand dollars, but this was the closest I got to a good one:

Almost perfect, aside from the small hole and the mass of plant life on the other side.

While I was a little disappointed, we still had fun scouring the beach and finding shells. Sydney was picking up every. single. thing. that caught her eye.

Another item on the bucket list was driving on Melody Road, which was just a few minutes away from the beach. The road had grooves of varying widths etched into it so that it played a Japanese love song when we drove over 40 km/hr over it. A clever way to show Japanese pride and ensure that people drive the speed limit?

This treble clef shows the starting point of the song.

We drove over it 4 or 5 times (sometimes pulling a James Bond and going over it backwards on the wrong side of the street)- it was pretty cool! While Spencer, Syd, and I enjoyed picking out the tune, Shawn did this the entire time:

Somehow he was still enthralled with it and kept asking, "Where the music road go?" and got kind of ticked when we said we were done driving on it. He talked about the "music road" for several days afterward too :)