Michael's Promotion to Major!

The day finally arrived! Michael picked up Major! It was a pretty big shock to us since we didn't think his number would come up until around Jan/Feb 2015 ... so we are so excited that he was promoted before baby girl arrived!

My brother and his family made the trek from Charlottesville to help celebrate with us!

Scout and Caleb causing trouble in the background - Savannah really classed up the ceremony with her velvet dress :) (I so love that girl!):

Cousins on the Blank side!

People started filing in to the Chesty Puller memorial statue at the Marine Corps Museum right next to Quantico:

Michael's brother Bryan was able to promote him! This is extra special because Bryan was the commissioning officer for Michael back in 2003 at Texas A&M!

Yep, I'm huge.

Promotion pomp and circumstance:

Taking the oath:

Yeah!!

Pinning on the new rank!

Michael's speech:

The start of the congratulatory line led by the Colonel:

Our friends from Lejeune were able to make it! The really tall guy was on the MTT team with Michael back in 2006 to Ramadi, and Phil was Michael's TBS roommate and logistics school classmate back in 2004!

Bryan found an old Aggie that was in his same outfit at A&M!

Yeah - our soon to be family of 4!

Phil and Michael:

Jeff and Michael:

Bryan and Michael:

Our joint-family (i.e. Navy, Marines, Army):

All of our family at the promotion - we are so thankful to have so many family members close by to help us celebrate! This is a first in our military career!

Hanging out with Michael's boss after the ceremony:

Savannah helping keep Caleb out of the surrounding forest:

Afterwards our families went out to eat - what a sight we must've been:  6 adults, 6 kids and 2 babies!

Little CJ gives some great grins and really sums up how we felt about the day!

The kids flock to Michael (not a picture you would have seen 4 years ago!). So thankful for the changes in our life and the path that has been set before us!

Congrats Michael! You are one hell of a Marine Corps Officer and I'm so proud to call you my husband! You deserve this!

June 2014

As we get closer and closer to baby girl's arrival, we find ourselves finally finishing projects that we have been meaning to accomplish!

First things first, gotta rock some sunglasses on the way to church ... and grab a quick snuggle with 'gaggy':

31 weeks!

Someone is a GAMER. Seriously. He grabs his controller and hands it to me or Michael indicating that he wants to watch us play so that he can hit the buttons on his controller.

Daddy snuck away from the office at lunch to play at the park :)

We were feeling sushi so we got Caleb some chicken yakisoba that he would only eat with his chopsticks! The kid was pretty good too!

We made homemade blueberry ice-cream - yum!

We finally got around to buying a new-to-us playground/fort for Caleb! A girl in my MOPS group is moving back to Texas so she gave us a great deal ... as long as we tore it down, hauled it away and put it back up ourselves!

Luckily, Bryan and co. came down to help us out!

Bringing back old memories of digging post holes :)

Who needs ladders.  Brother teamwork.

32 weeks!

The only way to eat chicken rigatoni ... chopsticks through the pasta.

We started transitioning Caleb to a regular cup at mealtimes - he does so well!!

P-Mo came to visit! She and Caleb had so much fun playing on the computer ...

and "fixing" his door!

We went up to DC for some BBQ with Bryan's family so that P-Mo could spend time with everyone! Caleb really enjoyed the carrot cake :)

Church with P-Mo!

33 weeks!

Piggy checking out the new fort:

He is pretty good at the rock wall! We had to switch the slide and the rock wall because when going down the slide on this side you'd get too much momentum and it'd shoot you off the edge! Michael says I ruined the fun by making him switch it, but I was trying to keep all of Caleb's limbs in-tact.

We also finally got around to getting a new chest of drawers for Caleb so that the dresser could be moved into the nursery with the crib. Caleb was a big helper getting us through the check out:

First day of swim lessons! He is such a little fish! He loves the water and has a blast every time he gets in. He can already blow bubbles, float (somewhat) on his back, kick his legs real fast (especially on the kickboard) and get into and out of the pool by using the side and ladder.

He was tickled pink that he put his tractors in a line just like a choo-choo :)

More swimming!

Using the big duck kickboard!

Why wouldn't you wear Mr. Potato Head's hat to "mow" the basement (with his "mawn-mower" just like gaggy):

34 weeks!

After a doctor's appointment we went and grabbed some fast-food pancakes before his swim lesson :) Gotta carbo-load before expending all that energy!

Little kickboard!

Michael had some skin cancer removed and they did this crazy looking "purse-string suture". It looks SO much better than it did when it was first done!

Last day of swim lessons (first session)!

After the final lesson the instructors turned on the water mushroom - Caleb was in LOVE! The boy loves to swim!!

... and, of course, he found a ball to throw around which made it even MORE fun :P

Receiving his certificate from his swim instructor:

We have a watermelon thief!

Bailey decided to make herself comfortable on baby girl's lion in the nursery. I didn't have the heart to move her since she is lame on her back paw and she doesn't like moving around too much lately :(

Checking out mom's squished cowboy hat (from the move):

Helping Daddy re-arrange and sweep out the garage:

Catching a quick game of baggo between chores:

Daddy taught him how to dual-wield his drill and his nail gun. He's pretty cool now.

35 weeks!

Doughnuts after church!

We also took away his bink this month after "losing" our last one. He did pretty good with the transition and now he doesn't even ask for it :) He has cut his bottom two molars all the way through, and the top two have sprouted through as well (still waiting for the rest of them to emerge). His skin struggles (i.e. eczema outbreaks) when he is teething, but at least we know it is all related so we can help wherever we can.