Day 64: 2010 New Year's Eve

Posted by: Cris

Christmas finally came for the Stickley family today when we all gathered at Mammaw Nova's for some Christmas hijinx.

Mammaw Nova got the girls these awesome stuffed horses which were quickly named Bullseye and...well, Bullseye (they are obsessed with Toy Story at the moment).
The rest of the day it was Nova saying: "I'm a cowboy girl!"

Tonight it was back to Grandma & Grandpa's to make use of the technology and watch bowl games. Thanks to our last minute quick thinking and Ed spending half a day rewiring his A/V system, we were able to overcome the lack of cable TV at Grandpa's house and watch college football.

Actual cable TV being watched at Grandpa's house: From Ed's satellite dish in Toledo, through his tuning box, through his slingbox, into cyberspace, into my computer, into the TV.

As the New Year approached, I was a bit sad to not be in the midst of all the fireworks craziness that takes place in Hawaii on New Year's Eve.

As we all yawned and worked to stay awake until midnight, the adult played some games...

Alex in deep thought over a Pictionary game: ...while the kids watched Toy Story 3...AGAIN!
Juneau & Nova were both WIDE awake as midnight approached:




Marshmallow guns double nicely as confetti guns for New Year's
Happy New Year!!
Making "confetti angels"
So, after a New Year's ice cream treat for everyone (including my children) at 12:30 a.m., it was finally off to bed and now at 1:00 a.m. they are finally asleep.

The past year has seen alot of changes for our family including a move back to Hawaii, a new house, 2 little girls growing and growing, and most notably, mommy leaving for deployment. This year promises to be filled with lots of important events but obviously none as important as mommy coming home.

Happy New Year!!

Day 63: A Cookie Is Not Candy

Posted by: Cris

Our tour of Ohio continues with a return to Grandma & Grandpa's house.

Though they were up late last night and up early this morning, the girls were ready to play today. Once Nova gets into pretend mode, it can become pretty in-depth. Today she started a princess scenario and next thing you know, Grandma was under the table, they were driving to the castle to attend the ball, then to shopping play and who knows what else. Then Juneau put herself in jail...I couldn't keep track of everything that was going on.

When the girls woke up from nap and saw that Alex, Lyndsey and Aunt Coral had arrived in the meantime, they couldn't have been happier.

Tonight we've been out at Mammaw Stickley's house for an early start to the Stickley Christmas celebration tomorrow (or is it a late start since Christmas was last week?)

Juneau & Nova got these cool early late Christmas presents from Aunt D - story book pilows. Juneau's was Toy Story 3 but of course, yet another person had to feed Nova's princess addiction (you people are killing me).

Here Nova started a pretend scenario where everyone is a 75 year-old in a southern Florida retirement community playing Bingo. (Actually, it was Brent's idea).

Funniest moment of the night (and for quite some time for that matter:

As we were all standing around in the kitchen talking after dinner, Juneau came out to the table and quickly rattled off the following in the most serious voice:

"Can I have a piece of candy cuz a cookie's not candy"

I was the only one that caught it completely but I immediately knew exactly what she was saying - At age 3, she was already anticipating that when she asked for a piece of candy I was going to say "You already had a cookie a little bit ago" so she was pre-empting my objection with her own counterpoint - "A cookie is not candy"

I couldn't disagree with her...in fact I was laughing so hard all could do was give her a big hug, tell her "good job" and give her a piece of candy. That girl is going to be big trouble 10 years from now!

Finally, if you've ever wondered if a 12 year old could actually fit into a toddler car seat, then wonder no further.

Day 62: Old Friends

Posted by: Cris

Today I took my girls on a long(ish) road trip to meet some old friends. So, we hit the road early this morning and headed toward Cincinnati.

I was anxious to see if there were any remnants still of Touchdown Jesus which sat in front of Solid Rock church on I-75 north of Cincinnati until it was struck by lightning and burned to the ground last spring. (If you aren't familiar with this icon/eyesore, google it).

As you can see, there is no evidence left of Touchdown Jesus or his charred remains. However, word is that they are planning to rebuild him so it is possible he will actually Rise Again. Before I decided that the best move I could make was to propose to Emilie and let her drag me to Hawaii, I spent a wonderful 6 years at Northern Kentucky University. This is where I started my career fresh out of grad school as an assistant Athletic Trainer then as the Head Athletic Trainer.

Since I left in 2005, the University has continued to grow and in the meantime, built the beautiful Bank of Kentucky Center which I had not yet seen. It is very awesome.

I got to see lots of old friends - coaches I worked closely with, my former team physician, other people who were part of the Athletic Department administrative staff with me and the current Head Athletic Trainer who not only was my #1 assistant and right hand when I was in charge but also one of my closest friends, Molly. She became the Heat Athletic Trainer when I left and I am so proud of her for the job she has done continuing and expanding to awesome new levels the stuff that she and I started when we were at NKU together. Molly had never met my girls in person but has followed them from day one on this blog so I was anxious for them to finally meet her.

After attending the basketball game and spending some time with the NKU gang, we headed to the north end of town to see another old set of friends, Jeremy and Kyla. Jeremy was one of my first Athletic Training students at NKU when I was first out of school and we ended up becoming very good friends along the way. Jeremy and Kyla actually made the trip to Hawaii in 2005 and Jeremy was the only person not in Emilie or my family who was in our wedding. So, we go way back but yet, I had never met his 2 boys and he had never met my girls.

We met up at a Cincinnati "shopping play" to let the kids get some energy out.

We all know that Nova loooooves babies so playing with 7 month old Caleb was a big hit.

Juneau is 4 months younger than Jonah so they ended hitting it off.

Jonah is a little more cautious of new crazy kids than Juneau with her "every person I meet is my best friend in 2 minutes" attitude so it took awhile of playing before they really got into it.

Nova, Caleb and Jonah

By the time we were ready to go get something to eat, the kids were having too much fun and weren't ready to leave.

You know you are "in" with Nova when she wants to hold your hand while walking out of the mall.

So, we left the mall and headed out to go see one of my other old friends:

Yes, feel free to make fun of me like my very own wife does - I'll admit it, I love CiCi's and Nova wholeheartedly agrees.

The four kids were as cute as could be at dinner.

Jeremy and Caleb:

After eating, Jonah and Juneau hit the game room and were having the time of their life playing on this driving game. They sat there forever giggling and playing some sort of game they had formulated.

When it was time to go, Nova was full of hugs...Jonah wasn't so sure. He has signs of being quite the ladies man, just like his dad.

By the time we hit the car for the drive to Grandma & Grandpa's, Juneau and Nova were both hopped up on sugar from cinnamon rolls and were goofy for the whole ride - untile we got about 5 minutes away at which point they both crashed and fell asleep...0f course.

It was such a great day getting to see so many old friends and reminisce about so many great times and let my girls meet all these folks who have been so important in my life.

Day 61: 4 Girls - 2 Twin Beds

Posted by: Cris

For some reason, Juneau and Nova were totally into hats today.

Christmas may be over but Juneau is still in the spirit. Just about as cute as it gets:

It is no surprise what Nova's hat of choice would be:

The BW-3's style:

The rest of the evening involved whatever variety of games all the cousins could come up with including:

Shoulder rides...

Hide and seek with these cool remote control animals (you hide them, then the kids search for them with these little remote controls that every time you push the button, if you are close enough, the animal makes it's sound). Nova loooves them. The only problem was that when she took a turn hiding them, she didn't quite understand that she wasn't supposed to be involved in the seeking. As soon as she heard the elephant trumpeting, she was quick to volunteer "it's over here!"

Being drug around the tile floor on pillows...

Piling into a blanket...

...and being swung back and forth.

The girls loved putting Brent in the blanket and "helping" Alex & Lyndsey swing him back and forth:

Finally, with the prospect of not getting to end the night with a movie as usual since there was a TON of football on tonight, the plan was hatched to move the whole movie set-up to Alex & Lyndey's room.

So, after watching Monsters Inc. on the portable DVD player, Juneau and Nova are now fast asleep, each in a twin bed with Alex & Lyndsey. Hopefully, the Matus girls can still get enough sleep tonight so that they can kick butt in their scrimmage tomorrow. But I know fully what a flopper and kicker Juneau is so Alex may be a step slow on the court tomorrow.

Day 60: Love Those Cousins

Posted by: Cris

Tonight I am hopeful that day 60 will end up meaning we are a third of the way (at least) to Emilie being on her way home. As seemingly smooth as things have been going, I can assure you that it is at least partially (if not predominantly) a mirage. We have our good days and our bad days but even on our best days, the three of us miss Emilie like crazy and just can't be totally happy until she's back.

I'm thankful though for the things that help make those good days more frequent...like the cousins in Juneau & Nova's lives that they absolutely love. We get to go back to Hawaii before long and spend lots more great time with Melody and this past week, the girls were so happy to spend so much time with Secily, Micah, Kaleb and Hope.

The majority of our time here in Ohio has been spent at my sister's house so the endless attention from Alex, Lyndsey and Brent has given Juneau & Nova so much joy that I can't even put into words how thankful I am that they love their cousins so much.

Brent has pretty much mastered any difficulty of lego project that exists so this year for Christmas, Coral and Ed got him a Rube Goldberg contraption which he still had put together and operational in less than 24 hours. Juneau is always happy to have a helping hand with getting ready to go - in this case, shoeing up to go to the basketball game tonight.

Brent is always ready to play along with (and even help come up with ideas for) whatever pretend game the girls are playing - in this case, something necessitated making a bed on the coffee table.

Lyndsey has even taken to carrying pop-pops in her pocket when we go out.

Very occasionally, Coral, Alex and Lyndsey get a moment to catch their breath before...

...the craziness starts again.

The dry weather has Nova's poor little cheeks all windburned and chapped but she is still having fun.

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!!

Cap the night off with some Buzz Lightyear jumps off the couch...

"To Infinity and Beyond" - Juneau with some serious hangtime.

Even Alex joined in on the Buzz Lightyear fun:

When it's time to finally calm down (which generally takes much longer than you'd expect), Juneau & Nova love to cuddle up on the beanbag with Alex & Lyndsey.

It is funny that 10 years after my sister went through having twin girls, I ended up with my pseudo-twin girls but it has provided Juneau & Nova with great cousins for them to look up to as they grow up.

I am extremely thankful for all of the cousins that enrich my girls lives so much and help distract them from any unhappiness that might arise during this time without their mommy.