Monday, December 20, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

Dear Family and Friends,

The past few years have been a crazy, yet exciting time for our family. In 2009, Matt was commissioned as an officer in the Air Force and we officially joined the active duty military. That means we spent four months apart and were then quickly moved to Meridian, Mississippi. Moving to the south was quite a culture shock; however it has been a fascinating and rewarding experience.

When we first arrived we couldn’t understand most people and they were using phrases we had never heard before. We were not prepared for the heat, humidity and giant, man-eating bugs that live here. But we were also overwhelmed at the beauty of the landscape and the hospitality of the people. It seems like everything slows down a bit when you cross the border into Mississippi and we have yet to get stuck in traffic. We’ve had experiences good and bad; but we have found friends for life.

After having lived here a few months, we found out that we were expecting a new addition to our family. That news was quickly followed by Matt leaving for another four months for MORE training; leaving Brittany a pregnant single mother in a strange land. But thanks to friends and ward members she was able to get through it without losing her mind… mostly. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.

In 2010, Matt returned and we officially joined the mini-van club. We welcomed our new baby boy, Caleb Matthew, to our family on March 4th. Even though he was 8 lbs 9 oz, he was 3 weeks early and his little lungs weren’t quite ready for the outside world. He had to spend a week in the NICU, in which time we experienced many little miracles and are so grateful for all of the prayers offered in our behalf. We are happy to say that he recovered well and he is the joy of our lives. He has the best big sisters a little guy could ask for and will forever be spoiled by them.

Elleigh is our amazing little dancer and continues to become quite a performer. She entered 2nd grade and now has the true toothless smile characteristic of that age. She has a wonderful teacher, great friends and loves going to school each day. She was placed in both the Intellectually Gifted and Artistically Gifted programs at her school and loves the new and inventive projects they get to do. Currently she has a dream of becoming Taylor Swift and has asked us if we can find a rock star school to attend. As a back-up plan, she would also like to be a veterinarian. She is a little spitfire and life would be boring without her.

Sophie is also becoming quite a beautiful dancer & is officially in kindergarten this year. In Mississippi, kindergarten is full day which was hard for Brittany to get used to. Her wonderful teacher said she would like to clone her and have a classroom full of Sophies, because, in Sophie’s words, she would like to “obey all of the rules of the world.” Sophie continues to dream of becoming a mermaid when she grows up and can’t understand why Jesus just won’t make it happen. Sophie is our heart and is always ready to give hugs and cuddle, as long as she can have her teddy bear with her.

Matt is almost done with training and will soon be a rated Airfield Operations Officer; despite having to suspend training for several months to resolve a medical condition. Training has resumed and we were selected to move to Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, NV in the spring. We are very excited to be closer to home, dry air and civilization.

With Love,
Matt, Brittany, Elleigh, Sophie, Caleb

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Not-so-hostile Takeover

I have decided to hi-jack this blog. My wife typically does all of the blogging, but in the self-serving interest of writing things that nobody else cares about, I'm giving it a shot. So I apologize in advance to all of you who follow (or whatever the appropriate blog-term is) this blog, as I'm sure that most of what I write will be uninteresting and useless to you. That IS what I do best.

Here's a brief synopsis of the events over the past 6 months:

E-bug started 2nd grade this past August. She is a little genius and was accepted into both the Intellectually Gifted (IG) and Artistically Gifted (AG) programs at her school. I am proud to say that she not only passed the tests, but she blew them out of the water with scores of 97% and 93%. Unfortunately, we could only choose one of the programs so she is doing the IG. She absolutely loves it; as do her parents. She has become a true 2nd grader with the eternal rite of passage of losing her 2 front teeth.

S-bub is now in kindergarten (sniff, sniff). She absolutely loves school and she adores her teacher. Her class has a color system to determine daily behavior (green=good, blue=less good, red=bad, etc) for which she gets a green dot EVERY day. My little S-bub is so determined to follow all of the rules that she often lets her teacher know who is talking out of turn. I may be biased, but I'm pretty sure she is a genius-level artist. She is so creative... and funny. She cracks us up every day. The other day I made a joke about selling our kids and my little comedian says, "nooooooo... but you can just sell Elleigh".

Little-C is growing like a weed. All he really does is eat and sleep. For the few hours of the day that he is awake, he is the happiest most playful baby around; as long as he's being held by his parents or sisters. He's starting to scoot across the floor, which means we need to go buy a baby corral or some sort of harness to keep him from destroying our house. He has the most infectious laugh that pulls you in, and then when you're not looking... he'll drool all over your face. A couple of weeks ago he and I were wresting on my bed. I picked him up over my head and growled at him. With precision timing and drop-dead accuracy, he spit-up right into my mouth. As I rolled over to spit out the previously consumed formula and applesauce, I passed little-C to my "sympathetic" wife as she struggled to catch her breath from laughing. If any of you are wondering but have never had the pleasure of this experience... it tastes exactly how you would imagine. After I had finished brushing my teeth for the 16th time and drank 1/2 gallon of mouthwash, I promptly grounded little-C for the remainder of his adolescence. But then he smiled at me with his two protruding bottom teeth and I caved. I guess I'll just have to slowly extract my revenge from him over the next 20 or so years... or not.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Tuesday, March 16, 2010