Look what I can do!

Our son has learned how to dress himself. And, he really enjoys picking out his own clothes. This outfit was chosen entirely by Evan, and he put it on by himself too! I love how proud he is of himself. Also, I love the socks. I think they really bring the outfit together.

Speaking of stylish accessories--we went bowling!

Turns out our bowling alley on base is pretty awesome, and we had a wonderful time. We went on Saturday, and Evan has talked about it everyday since then.

He got pretty good at rolling the ball down this handy ramp. Turns out that the bowling alley is the perfect place to bring toddlers, because when they're not bowling, it is perfectly acceptable for them to run around and make noise (which they do best) because it's so loud in there anyway! I can't wait to go again.

Lastly, how cool are these waffles? I was a little concerned, because the "new" Star Trek movie came out quite some time ago, but they weren't expired so I brought them home with me. Mike wasn't as impressed as I thought he might be, but they make me smile. Plus--and I am not ashamed to say it--I loved Star Trek. Most entertaining movie i've seen in a long time. And now, entertaining waffles! What's not to love?

Naptime!

Evan has always been a really good sleeper. He usually takes a 2-3 hour nap during the afternoon (my most wonderful part of the day) and he usually just climbs into bed and goes to sleep. No problem.

His naps have been getting a little shaky. Today he refused to go to sleep, but I could tell he was tired so I just left him in his room to play...after quite some time, he fell asleep like this. The baskets are in his closet--one is full of stuffed animals, one is full of blankets. A good a choice as any, I guess!

Oh yeah. Apparently he decided to take his pants of at some point!

Hello!

Hello world! We are loving California. It is so bright and sunny in our house, and for the last couple of days it's hit 70 degrees. I know that doesn't win me any extra love from most of you, but you can all tell me how wonderful your weather is when its 110 here in the summer. Then we'll be even!

I have to apologize--I have no pictures to put in this post. I just don't take a lot of pictures anymore...I suppose I'll have to work on that.

All is well with us. Evan is turning into quite a big boy, and he is talking a lot and generally becoming more and more independent. He is such a good helper! He loves to help us clean or help Mike fix things and always insists on doing things himself. Today he has apparently decided to call daddy "Mike", which is pretty funny, but hopefully just a one day thing.

I (as most of my friends are telling me) have apparently gone crazy and have switched Evan to cloth diapers. We thought about it before Evan was born, but decided we were already taking on enough new things. We had already decided to use cloth with the new baby, and I don't see Evan being potty trained before she's born, so we figured we might as well switch him now. I don't think he even noticed! Well, he definitely doesn't care. So far it's going pretty well. It took me a couple of weeks to figure everything out, but it's really not too much extra work. I'm not gonna lie, disposables are super convenient, and i'm definitely touching alot more poop than i'm used to, but all in all, it's not really a big deal, and absolutely worth it.

Really the only drawback so far is that Mike isn't too jazzed about changing diapers anymore...but I think he'll get used to it.

I think Mike's kind of bored at work, because there's not a lot going on right now, but he's settling in, and is definitely happy to be here. His squadron has cool planes, so that helps. He and his motorcycle are enjoying the sunshine as well.

We've decided to name the baby Ella, and she is doing great. I had a doctors appointment this week and an ultrasound, and everything is coming along smoothly. The pictures they gave us didn't look like anything to me, so I won't post them, but she's getting big! We're feeling pretty prepared, and have most everything we need. I'm starting to decorate her room slowly, and was able to get a lot of Evan's neutral baby clothes ready for her. We kept all of his old stuff, so as far as baby gear, we're pretty much set! I did make a gift registry at Target with a few things on it that we legitimately need, so if anybody feels so inclined they can click here and it should pop up. Or you can search for it at Target. All in all, we're feeling good, and are much more prepared this time around!

So thats us at the moment...I'll try to take some more pictures to share next time!

Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful Christmas, and hope that you did too. Grandma Jean came to visit, and we all had a quiet and relaxing Christmas vacation.

Evan was definitely excited about Christmas this year, and he did such a good job opening his presents! We were a bit surprised, but it took him forever to open up all his presents because he would open one present and then play with it for a considerable amount of time before he wanted to move on to the next gift. Look at this--he spent enough time to put all of this train track together...with all of those presents still under the tree!

What a sweet boy. He's also been learning a lot about manners, so we heard "thank you" constantly all day. It's nice to hear!

He loved all his toys, but I told him to pose with this one so I could take a picture and this is his "pose". I love it! Thank you Uncle Matt and Aunt Nova!

By the way, every time he plays ("cuts wood", he says) with the chainsaw, he insists on wearing the safety glasses. Safety first!

2009 was great, and so far 2010 has been good to us...and I think it's going to be a good year! Happy New Year!

Santa!

Here's Evan's santa picture for this year. It was pretty stress free, because at one of the holiday parties we went to they were taking pictures for free. I thought it turned out pretty good. Santa gave Evan two candy canes, and Evan told him that he wanted a Christmas tree for christmas. I'm not sure why--maybe he panicked, like in A Christmas Story when Ralphie tells santa he wants a football. Usually he says he wants toys for Christmas.

I'm a pretty big fan of the patriotic tree--as you can imagine they're pretty popular on base. I've even seen a white artificial tree with all red white and blue ornaments on it. Nice.

Merry Christmas!

Christmastime

Yay! Christmas is in full swing in the Smith household. I finally got all of our christmas cards and presents sent off (today...) and I think our Christmas shopping is finished. Which is very nice, because I'm getting a little sick of the drive to Lancaster/Palmdale. Our tree is up, the few presents I've wrapped are under it, and I have been obsessively baking cookies.

Evan helps.

He ate a lot of sprinkles that day. Pretty much every morning when he gets up he asks me if we're going to "bake cookies today mama?". He's actually a pretty good helper too!

Mike put up lights around the outside of our house, and he says that he "officially" feels like a man now. Not career or fatherhood, but hanging up Christmas lights is what does it, apparently. We didn't have any outlets outside our last house, so he jumped at the chance to decorate this one. He put up 10(!) strings of lights, and sadly, we still have about a 3 foot gap on one side of our house. Oh well, they look awesome anyway!

Evan has met santa about ten times now (seriously!) at various holiday parties and functions, so they're pretty tight now. When he finally got around to talking to him, he told Santa he wanted a Christmas tree, even though we already have one. We picked up an artificial tree this year (pre-lit! Best idea ever) due to our desert environment, so maybe he was hoping for a real one...I'm pretty excited about not having to vacuum up any needles. I don't think a fir tree would have a chance in this dry air! As an Oregonian, I swore I would never have an artificial tree, but:

1) I never planned on living in the Mojave desert (thanks for the adventures, Mikey!)

2) Turns out they're pretty awesome.

At this party Santa arrived on a fire truck, and I can't say I've ever seen Evan so excited. He screamed like a little girl and ran around yelling about Santa, then followed him diligently inside.

On top of that, Santa gave him a train.

Grandma Jean is coming on Tuesday, and we're all pretty excited about that. Unfortunately, (and he's been doing this for a while) Evan has been calling every woman over the age of 40 that he sees "Grandma Jean", which can be slightly embarassing. I mostly ignore it, and hope the poor woman didn't understand what he said. Also unfortunate in this instance is the fact that his speech is really getting good. And usually, he's pretty easy to understand.

His imagination is pretty entertaining too--lately he'll come running up to one of us and say that he's scared. When we ask him why, he usually thinks for a minute and then says something like "elephant right there!" or "helicopter!". Generally, theres no elephant. He's getting pretty good at entertaining himself.

Mike has all of next week off, so we're looking forward to some relaxation. And Christmas. Merry Christmas!

We've Made It!

I can't believe it--we're finally settled at Edwards. Moving out went very smoothly, and everything got packed up and on the truck with no problems.

Evan even got to help!



We arrived Nov. 8, after 7 days of driving and a little bit of time visiting with family, and are very happy to be here. When we got on base and checked in at lodging we were expecting our TLF (temporary living facility) to be just another hotel room, maybe with a kitchenette, but were overjoyed to find that it was more like a two bedroom house--complete with fenced yard, full kitchen and plenty of space to relax. It was such a blessing to be able to be out of hotel rooms!

We only stayed there for a few days, and were able to move into our brand new (literally!) house Nov. 12th. Apparently we're pretty good at moving, because we had everything that needed to be in the house unpacked that day, and as I sit here now, the house is clean (mostly--it's amazing how filthy a house thats never been lived in can be), things are in their places, and the house feels like our home. We are very, very happy.


Mike has slowly been getting acquainted with his job, which is with the 31 TES (Test and Eval Squadron) and does operational testing on aircraft including unmanned aircraft, fighters and bombers. Most likely he'll be working on the B2 bomber , although nobody has really told him yet exactly what he'll be doing, and he's still mostly working on getting his boring inprocessing done.

Evan loves his new house. He seems to really like having so much more space to run around in, (much, much more--I think we've upgraded from having around 700 sq. ft. to a little over 2000 sq. ft!) and he really likes to be able to go off and be by himself. Ithink we all do! Our yard has some grass and a lot of sand, and he has been playing out there quite a bit with all his diggers and dump trucks. I like that it is completely fenced, and I can see him from inside so I know he's safe out there. Cody is enjoying the yard as well!




Edwards is a little remote, but not as bad as everyone made it out to be! There is quite a bit of open desert, but we can see mountains off in the distance which is really nice. To get to the freeway we have to drive for about 30 minutes across desert and a dry lake bed, which is a little weird because there is literally nothing out there. From our house to the kind of things that we might want to get to off-base (Costco, Target, etc.) takes only around 45 minutes, which to us is not bad at all! I don't see why everyone was telling us that everything is so far away (with dramatic emphasis), especially because once you've driven that 45 minutes there are more stores and restaraunts than we even had access to in Massachusetts. Plus, it only takes about two minutes to drive to the commissary and BX on base, so you won't hear me complaining!

All in all, we are pretty excited to be here, and for the most part, Edwards has exceeded our expectations. And yeah, it is exceptionally sunny here and the sky is blue beyond belief. Ha!


So, all is beyond well here. On another exciting note, we are planning on driving to the Corvallis area for Thanksgiving, and we can't wait to be home for a bit! We haven't figured out what days we'll be there yet, but we are definitely coming! Yay!


Also, I'll send out change of address cards as soon as I have the time to sit down and do it. :)