'tis so sweet....

today was what sundays are all about :) The Girls, Laura and I got up early (a bit too early for me...but the girls 6 a.m. internal clock ticks strong!!!) and headed to church. I'm not much a "hymn" type of gal, but lately I have really been loving when there is a good old fashioned hymn thrown into the mix. We sang "'tis so sweet to trust in jesus" today, and I have been humming it all day long, and just really feeling an overall thankfullness about so many things in my life. It started out with the little old couple sitting in front of me in church, holding hands, and singing with their whole hearts. It made me so thankful for my own Grandmother, who until the day she passed away really represented all things beauitful. It made me thankful for Mammaw and Pappaw Stickley, who have represented the same to the Stickley family. Having these truly beautiful people in our lives, who have shaped the generations below them, is one of the things i am most thankful for.
After church we made our usual Costco Sunday grocery run (always a highlight!), and then headed back home for some SERIOUS play time! It was a "play in the pool in your underwear" kind of day around here! I am only slightly embarrassed to admit that the girls spent pretty much the entire afternoon running around in the backyard (it's fenced! so the neighbors won't be juding us!!) in their underwear, having an absolute blast with eachother. The girls played sooooo happily together today, and watching them play so well together was really what i needed to refresh me before i start into another busy work week.

it seemed like a perfect time to pull out the paint and paintbrushes, and the girls quickly created a little art studio!

they LOVED playing with the paint (this is really the first time they have gotten into painting), and it was so fun to watch them create tons of pictures!

a little bubble time thrown into the mix.... after playtime came bathtime, and then Laura and I took the girls over to a beautiful little park with a lake for a jog. I had never been to this park before, and it is really, really a nice place to spend the afternoon. Our jog wasn't really very fast (or long!), the altitude has been severely limiting my running (and my motiviation since it is pretty much PAINFUL to run!), but it was nice to spend some time outside on a Sunday afternoon.

Another thing i have been so thankful for today is that in the face of a very difficult year, I have found not only an amazing childcare provider, but also a friend. Laura has transitioned perfectly into our family, and if I had a big, gigantic list of all the things i was hoping to find in someone to help me with the girls this year, she would meet everything on my list and more. I am so thankful for her committment to helping the girls through this year, and also for our developing friendship.
anyway, after our run we came home and made salmon, with spinach ravioli, which was totally delicious, and the girls and I snuggled up on the couch and watch Aladdin (which is actually kind of scary, by the way! i totally forgot about all the scary stuff!)

I've had to totally readjust our bedtime routine (and my own mindset about bedtime) after several truly terrible nights with j-bug. the girls have always been ridiculously good at bedtime. we tuck them in, turn out the lights, and they just go to sleep. as i mentioned in an earlier post this week, however, Juneau has been having a really hard time at night. I finally decided that we would just throw our old bedtime routine to the side, and I have been laying down with them until they fall asleep. I think this is already making a huge difference for Juneau, and that she really needs this time to be close to me, and reassure her, and I'm really glad that I didn't try to stick to my guns about bedtime. It's a tough time for their little 3 year old minds to grasp (mommy's gone for a long time, then mom comes home, and then dad is gone). Last night I asked Juneau what would help her to keep from crying at night she said "just give me a hug, and then snuggle me for 10 minutes". Well, that pretty much sealed the deal!
So, we had a great little snuggle time tonight, and a great end to the weekend.

All in all, there is a tough year ahead, but there are so many things to be thankful for! I know there are some rough days ahead, but i am glad to have some wonderful days like today to help get me through the tough ones.

some pics i forgot to upload!

i was looking through the camera today and realized i hadn't posted a few of the pics i took last week.
The girls are sooooo cute when they are getting along (which is MOST of the time!!!)
This pic was last week before church. i thought they were looking sooooo cute!!!

Juneau, of course, had one of her awesome poses ready for the camera

This girl is a natural princess! she just can't help it! (sorry daddy!!)

Super little travelers....they spend a lot of time in their car seats!

They are kind of obssessed with playing computer games on playhouse disney. Their current favorite is a Toy Story game. I thought they looked so cute with these little bun-heads

playing their computer games. thankfully, things have settled down in the neighborhood! It was a bit unsettling to find out there was a murder suspect living on our street! After Laura called to update me on the situation, I checked my voicemail, and there was a message from the Colorado Springs Police Department instructing us to lock the doors and proceed to the basement and stand agains thte west wall, away from the window! YIKES!!!!! Anyway, by the end of the day the street had cleared out. unfortunately, the suspect was not apprehended, so we are on the lookout!!!! Thinking about getting the girls their own can of pepper spray! haha!!!

anway, we are all fine, and things are pretty much back to normal around here. Just excited for Daddy to get home from his hiking trip so we can spend a couple of awesome weeks together before he heads back to hawaii!!!!

p.s. No tears at bedtime tonight! yes, my solution was not perfect, and did involve me crawling into their "bed" (which is currently just 2 crib mattresses pushed together!) and snuggling with them til they fell asleep, but I was just happy to end the day happy and snuggled up with my girls!

catching up on the week

whew.....not quite sure how Cris kept up with daily blog posts for six months (he is, indeed, some sort of superhuman), but I can barely keep up weekly! haha!
so, when last you saw the Stickley gang, we were scrambling up some rocks...let's just say the rest of the week has not been nearly as fun or adventurous :)

Cris left for his backpacking trip this week (spending a week at glacier national park with some other outdoorsy-type-fellows). This is giving Laura and I a trial at our first week without daddy.
The first major event of the week was nova (who has struggled with some serious constipation issues) stating adamantly that she was not going to poop until her daddy was here to help her. hmmm.....this could get interesting!
Fortunately, we have already successfully worked through that little issue, and survived her first potty incident without her "prince" there to help her! (sorry nova, you are really really going to hate this blog when you are about 13 years old!! heeehee!!!)

cute pic of the girls when we were hanging out in downtown denver last month...

Our resilient little jbug has been struggling a bit. She acts tough, but i think the stress of the upcoming changes really affects her, and by the time bedtime rolls around she is a gigantic ball of stressed-out, irrational tears. It has been frustrating for both of us, as I am having a hard time figuring out to handle her bedtime tantrums. These seem to get sigfnicantly worse when she senses things are changing, and i think she knows big changes are ahead.

Other than bedtime, however, Juneau is such a ridiculously fun and funny kid, and three years old is just about the best age ever :)

Here you can see her enjoying a gigantic bowl of Pho (one of her very favorite treats) The day after Laura (and her brother kirk, who helped her with the long drive from Ohio to Colorado) arrived, Cris took the gang up to the top of Pike's Peak.

ahhhh.....gotta love Juneau's ridiculous posing for the camera! Laura and Kirk with the girls....super adorable! beautiful view of colorado springs Laura and the girls! have i mentioned that we LOOVVEEE her?!!! ADDENDUM!!!

I must immediately take back the part about the rest of our week not being as adventurous!!! Laura just called me at work because she and the girls are all locked up tight inside the house, because the neighbor's house is currently surrounded by a SWAT teams with their weapons pulled, looking through the windows, and shooting tear gas in through the windows! the streets are all closed off, and there are news reporters swarming, and a detective knocking on the front dooor!!!!!! apparently the guy they are looking for is wanted for murder???!

red rock canyon

yesterday we made plans to be up and out of the house by 8:00 to head over to red rock canyon for some rock climbing. laura had never been climbing in the great outdoors (just some gym climbing) and was on board for a fun day. The 5 of us were loaded in the car, teeth brushed, hair brushed (well, most of us....see the last pic of this post!), and ready to go at 7:59! I was super impressed, and ready for some fun....until 5 minutes later when my pager went off. I'm the "back up" doc this weekend, which means i have to be ready to go in 24/7 for the whole week if someone needs a hand in L&D or the OR. soooo.....detour to the hospital, quick c-section...healthy 8 pound baby "Liam" delivered safely, and then back in the car to head up the climbing spot....we ended up about 2 hours behind schedule, but we were all still excited to hit the rock.
Laura bravely conquered her first route relatively effortlessly (she certainly fits right into the colorado life!) made it to the top of the first route...

and then rappelled back down like a pro!!! TONS of fun!

Gotta love the double stroller at the crag! :)

Juneau makin' her daddy proud! J-bg was totally geared out! check out the chalk bag! haha! love it!

Nova really was pretty fearless, and did extremely well...at least until she hit the crux of the 5.5 route we put her up on! :)

hanging with daddy while he belays

poor nova....where is this child's mother?! Her face is dirty, her hair is all matted down, she's tired, hungry, and hasn't bathed in days!! haha! well, that's just how we have to roll around here sometimes :)

library with daddy

today cris took the girls to the library to explore some cool reptiles and other animals at a special program. Of course Juneau was at the front of the line to pet all the cool animals. Nova, on the otherhand, preferred to observe from the sidelines :) The hedgehogs totally cracked her up. She told me it felt like petting rice.

yikes!!! hope this girl doesn't think her momma will ever allow a pet snake!!! because i do draw the line at reptiles for pets.

We got to take laura out to Juneau's favorite restaurant for dinner....Hibachi!!!! Our Hibachi chef was as little fire-crazy, and scared all 3 of the kids that were at our table by setting the entire grill on fire in a huge blaze. The other little 2 year old at the end of the table never really was able to pull it together, and her parents took turns holding her in the lobby of the restaurant after the whole blazing table incident. Luckily, Juneau's new BFF was there to hold her hand, and June-bug and Laura made it safely through the scary show :) (juneau is holding laura's hand tight while hiding her face behind her napkin!)

tomorrow we are hoping the weather will cooporate and we are planning to head over to red rock canyon for some rock climbing! should be a fun time!

i'll end with nova's recap over her dream last night "I had a dream about Unicorns, and Jesus was riding on one!" haha! not quite sure where these crazies come up with some of this stuff...but i love it!

She's HEEERRREEE!!!!

The last several weeks have been a roller coaster in the child-care department. This momma was STRESSED about the upcoming year....life as a single mom of 2 toddlers, working some seriously crazy hours an OB/GYN...is there anyone out there who could keep up with this crazy household???
We started looking for an Au Pair...I was excited about having an international nanny. I though it would be a great experience for all of us....1 small problem, however. Au Pair's are technically required to only work 45 hrs/week, and while i may be able to bend the rules for my "typical week" of 50-ish hrs, i certainly couldn't bend them enough to cover my 85+ hr weeks. Plus, it takes a very special person to keep up with my crazy 3 year olds, and i was just nervous. We had a couple of very promising and exciting prospects, that ultimately fell through, and i was basically totally freaking out.
Until......Laura!!! My frantic prayers were unexpectedly answered when i reconnected through some round-about channels to a childhood family friend. Laura was living in Ohio, and had heard about our situation, and was willing to try life in the wild, wild west with the wild, wild stickley crew.
I'm not sure she knew what she was in for, but she certainly seems up to the challenge! the girls adored her from the second she walked through the door (after a 20+hr drive across the US!), and we are all super excited for what the year holds for us, in spite of our crazy circumstances.

Rapids!!

posted by: emilie
It has been an action packed weekend! We are still a bit in the organizing/unpacking phase, so things are still a bit crazy around the house. Adding to the chaos has been a bit of a crazy (and fun!) weekend....with more still to come!
This weekend several of my friends from deployment (the Dentist, the PA, the Physical Therpist, and another OB/GYN) were able to arrange to all meet up this weekend in Colorado Springs! We decided it would be totally awesome to go on a big white water rafting trip...and it turned out to be amazing!
Cris, the girls and I had been to the Royal Gorge on a couple of occasions, and we always see rafters on the river. I always thought it would be super fun (cris had actually been rafting on that trip many years ago). So it was really cool when it all worked out to go with my friends from deployment.
We have been slacking a bit on taking pics of the girls the last couple of weeks, so our faithful readers will have to settle for some white water rafting pictures :)

The gang getting started on the rapids...

Having tons of fun!
the water was COOOLLLLDD (in the low 50's), so we geard up in wet suits and jackets to stay "warm"
Physical Therapist, OB/GYN, and Denist - reunited! (only in a much more enjoyable location!)
Most of the gang
The WHOLE gang!
Tomorrow the fun continues, as we head up to Denver to hang out with Dee, Justin, and Baby Luca. Nova is already excited to keep practicing her "mommy" skills with Luca :) Then we try to whip the house into shape for the arrival of our new nanny on Wednesday!!!

Bug Day!!

Posted by: Cris

Even though we celebrated it back in May so that we could share the experience with the whole family, I couldn't let today go by without recognizing this officially as our "Bug Day".
July 14, 2008 - Our Giving & Receiving Ceremony: The original Bug Day


One of my favorite pictures from our first couple days in Hanoi:

Our June-Bug 3 Years Later:

Is there anyone as lucky as Emilie and I that this amazing little girl found us from all the way across the world?

I love you Juneau!!

2 Weeks to Remember...

Posted by: Cris

It's hard to believe it was 3 years ago today: July 11, 2008 - Ready to leave Honolulu for Vietnam. The start of 2 weeks that changed our lives.

How much our girls have grown in the last 3 years. It has been so amazing and such a blessing to see them grow into sweet and cute little girls...

Pictures that have needed to be posted for quite some time:

Nova's obsession with babies continues to grow:

This is NOT naptime...Nova was playing with her babies and suddenely disappeared. I found her up in her bed "putting her babies down for nap."

Tonight at the mall play area, Nova took an actual little baby by the hand to help her through the crowd of kids then proudly ran over to tell us "Mommy, I was helping that baby learn how to walk." She ran off then quickly ran back and exclaimed "I'm getting really good at taking care of babies."

Best buddies, settled in to watch The Little Mermaid:

Library time last week involved a bug show. Juneau and Nova were both so proud of themselves for touching this tarantula:

Juneau screwed up her courage and went back the second time and actually let it crawl up her arm:

Juneau has discovered her love for Pho recently:

The hazards of sharing a bed with your sister:

Inseparable sisters: