Boat ride and Sesame Street

First boat ride of the season! Check out Joseph's new life jacket! Cool huh?

Pop with the babies...

We went to see Elmo and friends on the base this month with Joseph's buddy Logan! The characters dance around on the stage and talk about deployments and why mom's and dad's have to leave sometimes. It was such a cute performance and was FREE! They also gave every child an Elmo light up toy! That was Joseph's favorite part. The show was about 45 min. long and unfortunately little Joseph started having a bit of a meltdown towards the end (laying in the floor crying) so we had to leave the show a little early so he could go home and nap. Here is the write up on the website about the performance..."BEGINNING APRIL 2010, the traveling Sesame Street/USO Experience for military families will reach installations across the United States. This free show, exclusively for military children and their families, features Elmo and his friends Rosita, Cookie Monster, Grover, and Zoe, as well as free giveaways for families. The tour is part of Sesame Street's Talk, Listen, Connect initiative for military families."

Joseph and Logan waiting to go inside to see Elmo...

Cool Elmo light up toys...

LIGHTS!!!!

Furry Friends....

Madelyn and her boyfriend

Our friend's Erik and Kelley got orders here to Va Beach after spending 6 years in Lemoore. Erik was Joe's roommate all thru flight school and his good buddy. Kelley recently had baby #2 3 weeks before Madelyn was born.....so of course that means Baby Jacob is Madelyn's first boyfriend! Here they are playing together under the gym. Jacob is super relaxed and Madeyn is trying to eat his elbow! (I told her that biting her boyfriend isn't the best way to impress him). :)

Yay! My new boyfriend! She was happy!

Our attempt to get Joseph, Madelyn, Jackson, and Jacob all in the same pic!

Mother's Day

We spent Mother's Day at my parent's house. Here is my mom with Madelyn as she's getting ready to nap!Joseph and Maddy sent me some beautiful flowers on Mother's Day with their daddy's help! I wanted a good Mother's Day pic to send to Joe on the carrier, and we must have taken about 100 pics of me and kids. I thought it was hard enough trying to get one kid to smile for the camera, but now with two, it's almost impossible to get everyone happy and looking at the camera!

Take 1....I'm trying to get the fake hot dog out of Joseph's mouth

Take 2....Joseph's screaming...Madelyn's ok, but looking all off somewhere else :)

Take 3....Joseph's calmed down, but now Madelyn's screaming....

Take 4....a decent picture, but we had to have fake hamburger patty in it...

So then, we moved outside to try again....

Ok, one more....SMILE!!!!!

At this point, both kids are OVER taking pics. We tried to get a good pic, but daddy got the best laugh out of the ones that we did get! :)

Beginning of May

Joseph, Madelyn, and I spent the first 2 weeks of May with my parents at their house. Joseph has lots of toys at Nan and Pop's house and he loves going to find them when we go over there.

Joseph has mastered putting the rings on the peg in the right order! We tell him which colors to put on, and he gets them and puts them right on! He can now say yellow....his version is "Yeyo"! When he's not putting the rings on the peg, he LOVES putting them on his arms.

And he is so proud of himself when he gets them on his arms!

There were a few very warm days so I set up Joseph's baby pool and let him play. He has been a little afraid of the water lately (he still LOVES baths every night, but the pool was a different story), but I hope he will get over that as I plan to spend a lot of time in the pool and at the beach this summer.

Here were pics of Joseph's long hair. He was in desperate need of a haircut, but momma was just too tired being up with Madelyn every couple of hours, so little Joseph's hair just grew, and grew, and grew. I finally took him to a Hair Cuttery, and boy was that a mistake! They didn't cut it even and it was one of the worst haircuts he's ever gotten. We went back to Pigtails and Crewcuts (a children's place that cuts hair) this time!

Madelyn looks like she's singing here!

Joe's last week home with us

Joe left for deployment last week. We sure miss him, but love getting the daily emails from him while he is away! He even called us this week from the carrier too!

Here is Joe with his baby girl the morning I took him to the airport to fly to Bahrain. His flight was over 14 and 1/2 hours and he was for sure tired when he arrived.




Joe's last pic with Joseph before he left.

We took the children to the Botanical Gardens for Joseph to play in the fountains.

Joseph wasn't too sure about the fountains. He actually wouldn't even go near them. :( He seems to be afraid of the water this spring/summer. I've been trying to get him used to the water again the past couple of weeks. He LOVED swimming and playing in the water last summer, and continues to love taking baths each night, so we're not too sure why he seems to be afraid of swimming this year.

Madelyn enjoyed laying out on the grass (even if it was for only 5 minutes)!

Joe and Joseph haven't a great time with the ball!

Tummy Time!

Madelyn is 1 month old!

Madelyn turned 1 month old on April 18th! You can probably tell that I'm having a the best time dressing my sweet little princess up! Sometimes she gets all dressed up and we don't even leave the house! :)

Here are a few things about her........She has quickly figured out that she would much rather be held than put down by herself. Could you blame her?!! She continues to nurse every 2-3 hours day and night. We hope she will start sleeping longer stretches at night soon. If she doesn't start sleeping longer on her own, I will start sleep training her after she turns 2 months old. I know the importance of her getting good, quality sleep, so I feel that sleep training is essential to helping her develop good sleeping habits. Also, she has developed a good day time routine of sleep, eat, play (in that order) and this routine seems to help her get the rest that she needs during the day. Madelyn is suffering from reflux just like her brother did. She is currently on zantac, but that doesn't seem to help with her pain, so she is scheduled to see a G.I. dr at the end of May. I hate that her pediatrician won't prescribe anything more than zantac, and we have to wait another month for her to get some relief. Madelyn weighed 6lb 5oz at birth and tonight I weighed her on our baby scale and she was 8lb 12.5oz!

Joseph seems to enjoy having a baby sister and often wants to touch her head and hair, and of course steal her paci! He continues to be very gentle with his little sister! Joseph's latest change is that we converted his crib this week (took the front off) and put the toddler rail on. This happened after I caught him teetering over the front rail on his tummy and about to do a head dive out of his crib. He LOVES the freedom of getting in and out of his bed, and sometimes has to be put back in his bed several times for nap time. He fell out of his crib :( the first night we put the toddler rail up, but quickly learned to sleep away from the opening of the rail and hasn't fallen out since. Thankfully his mattress is very low to the floor/carpet, so he didn't hurt himself by falling.

Here are some pics of Miss Madelyn being cute....

STOP DRESSING ME UP AND TAKING MY PICTURE!

Play time!

Tummy time...