the daddy doll

i am one tired mama! these girls are seriously wearing me out (but i am loving it!)

The girls and I drove down to my parents for the weekend, while Cris stayed up in the Toledo area to watch Alex and Lyndsey rock their cross country meet. My brother and his wife drove up to spend the weekend with us, and we've got 3, 2, and 1 year olds running around all over the place :) Juneau is quite the little rambunctious ring leader, and has made it her personal goal to be the loudest and craziest of the 4 of them. the cousins are definitely having a blast...it's really so fun that that they are all so close in age.

nova took washing Secily's hair very seriously. Secily was a good sport :)
These are my mom's new little puppies...aren't they just the cutest? They are Australian Terriers, and are seriously the best little dogs ever. They love hanging out with the family, do lots of tricks, never roam outside of the yard....and my personal favorite feature....they are bred to be snake hunters! which comes in very handy when you live out in the middle of a corn field in rural ohio...i really, really don't like snakes(another reason Hawaii is my personal paradise - there are NO snakes on the whole island!), and so i am quite pleased to have a bunch of these little snake hunters running around :) If you are looking for a nearly perfect little dog, check out their website....

I thought the kids would all go crazy for the puppies, but of the four kids, there was really only one who couldn't keep her hands off the puppies....

yep, Jbug....

The puppies were quite tolerant of the neck squeezing, and dropping :) They actually loved Juneau, and i think the feeling was mutual!

After we played with the puppies, we headed out for a jam-packed day. We started at the carousel....

And now, Enter Daddy Doll...

Nova loves babies. Her top 3 babies currently are Sweetie Baby, Tiny Little Baby, and Two Baby. Usually one of these 3 accompanies her on her outings. Today, however, she found this boy barbie at my mom's house, and was so excited. She kept telling everyone it was her daddy. She begged to take him with us....and i just couldn't say no. she misses her daddy so, so much, and it made her really happy to have this little daddy doll.

Nova loved the carousel....but i think she loved the popcorn even more....

I looked over to see her "Sharing with Daddy"

Cousins...aren't they just the cutest?

anyway, back to the daddy doll. Nova likes to stick her babies in her shirt like a front pack...It was a bit embarrassing to be the mom of the kid with a half naked ken doll stuffed down the front of her shirt...but what could i do?

Grandma with her grandkkids at the pumpkin patch.

horse drawn wagon ride - a big hit!

picking out the perfect pumpkin (notice daddy doll)

i had to include one more shot of the ridiculousness...The worst part of the whole thing is when she would announce to random people "This is my Daddy"....yeah, i got some funny looks today from strangers :)

We had a great time today with the whole gang...my brother tommy and his wife sonya, with my niece and nephew - secily and micah. best ever :)

OH -IO!

we are officially all out of colorado, and now together in Ohio! Cris, Grandma Stickley, the girls, and the dogs had a relatively uneventful trip cross-country. The dogs are now tucked in safe and sound at Grandpa/Grandma Stickley's farm. i'm sure they will love being farm dogs for the next few months.
My last day of outprocessing went surprisingly smoothly. i did have to give up 3 vials of blood, and get injected with Anthrax, Tetnus, and Diptheria (they held off on the small pox due to Juneua's eczema, and will give that to me in afghanistan). i have been walking around with 2 sore shoulders all weekend from the immunizations.
I am a bit behind on pictures...this was taken the last week in our colorado house... The Ohio State denim jumpers probably look a bit familiar to the Stickley gang, since they once belonged to a certain set of twin cousins :) All of their cute Ohio State gear is being thorougly enjoyed for a second round :)

The girls were thrilled to have Grandma's undivided attention while they worked on their coloring and sticker projects...

Just in case you were wondering how to fit a 3,000 square foot house into a 10x20 foot storage unit....this guy has the answers. Cris is a proud graduate of the Dennis Stickley Packing School, and, and he took it as a personal challenge to fit our entire house, yard, basement, garage, and motorcycle into this small rectangle of space.

Cris has told me about packing for family road trips as a kid, and his dad doing a "dry run" with the empty suitcases before the trip to see how they would best fit in the car. every stop after that involved packing the suitcases the exact same way as they were done for the "dry run" :) That genetic trait has come in handy many times over the last few years, as we have spent a lot of time packing, repacking, moving, and traveling.

We are spending the weekend with Aunt Coral and the gang in the Toledo area. The weather is nothing short of spectacular, and we are all enjoying the mild temperatures and sunshine.

Juneau in her first (of many, i'm sure!) basketball games with her cousins

Getting dizzy with Aunt Coral

playing some serious ball

Cris showing "he's still got it!"

Juneau's favoite part of the new 'wild things' movie was when all of the wild things slept in a pile. she loves to pretend like we are sleeping in a pile...

Nova loves when we all "wake up and tickle!"

Yesterday evening we also enjoyed a baseball game...

Grandpa was quick to join in the fun

The girls LOVED spending the whole day outside with their cousins

Grandpa and Junebug showing their matching hats :)

tomorrow i see my girls....

the last 5 days have been hard! i have been separated for a week from the girls before, but this time was much harder....i guess because the reality of how tough the next 6 months are going to be is starting to set in. i wanted to see them more than anything in the world.

today i went to the mall to kill some time (when was the last time i actually wanted to kill time?). it was hard to enjoy shopping because the girls love going to the mall so much. they love playing in the play area, and then throwing a penny in the fountain, then getting on the escalator all by themselves and heading up to the pet store. being without them this week has felt like i am missing part of myself. kind of like leaving home without your cell phone, and then spending the entire day reaching for the phone that isn't there....only about a 10,000 times worse!

but tomorrow i get to see two tiny little smiling faces :)

almost done in colorado....

tomorrow is my last day of "outprocessing"...which basically involves running around to every dept in the hospital and informing them i will be deployed for the next 6-7 months. Y0u would think there would be a better system that would notify all depts at once that someone will be gone, but i guess the Army hasn't yet discovered that system. Instead i carry around a 2 page checklist to approx 20 different offices, which gets signed/stamped (Assuming someone is in the office, and not at lunch or a meeting, in which case i have to come back to that office). also, all of the offices are not necessarily in the hospital building, which means driving around post and hoping people are available to stamp/sign my little paper. we're talking some serious fun.

tomorrow will be extra fun, and involves an entire morning of medical readiness...check my vision, my hearing, my immunizations, a pregnancy test, bloodwork/DNA testing, dog tags, ear plugs, life insurance policy (you get the point)....all of that with about 100 other people doing the exact same thing which means some very, very long lines. :)

BUT, after all of that is done, I am home free....i hop on a plane the next morning, and head to ohio for some serious family time. I got to skype with Juneau and Nova tonight (they are at Grandpa/Grandma Stickley's). They have been having a grand old time on the farm. Digging through soybeans, riding the tractor, picking peppers out of the garden, and being little farm girls. based on their conversation tonight, i think they love it! It's so fun to skype with them now that they are old enough to have their own little conversations. they told me about the ice cream they ate, and the purple peppers they picked. i can't wait to see them in 2 days!!

last night in our Colorado house

it's been an interesting year. Cris has survived (and rocked!) being a full time stay at home dady for over a year now. I have survived my first year flying solo as an OB/GYN out of residency. It's been a good year, overall.

today we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. and then packed. and then cleaned and cleaned and cleaned....jealous, aren't you?

Today we definately put to use our "secret weapon"....Grandma Stickley!!! I cannot tell you what a blessing it is to have her here for the last few days of moving out. She has spent the whole day entertaining the girls (who have been just a wee bit 'difficult', shall we say), along with cleaning bathrooms, microwaves, ovens, floors, and everything in between. i even learned all about the differences between regular and self cleaning ovens. :)

so, tomorrow the adventure starts....well, it is always an adventure around here, but i guess this particular adventure starts :) Everyone (except me!) loads up in the minivan and sets of for Grandpa and Grandma Stickley's farm...a mere 20 hours away :)

details, details, details

this is the post where i bore you with all the gorey details of our upcoming travel. but i can't help it because i LOVE details. and i love planning, and i am so happy to actually be able to plan now because i have deployment orders in my hot little hands. This is going to get a little crazy, and my make your brain spin just a bit, so feel free to skip it.

Oct 1 Grandma Stickley flies to colorado. This is a new development in our little plan. It came about because Cris was planning to go ahead and drive with the girls to Ohio on Monday, giving me a few days in colorado to tie up loose ends and "outprocess", while allowing him to get everybody (including dogs) settled in Ohio. You might think i am married to a clinically insane man, who willingly was planning to drive 20+ hours in a minivan, pulling a uhaul, with a somewhat finicky 2 year old, a quite rambunctious 3 year old, 2 full grown huskies, and a little lap dog. Yes, i think he might be crazy too. but he was willing to do it. However, in her infinite generousity (and i'm sure getting to spend a few extra days with her grandbabies has something to do with it) Cris' mom volunteered to fly to Colorado and then make the drive with Cris and the entourage back to Ohio. We are beyond thankful for this blessing, to say the least.
Oct 3 - Cris, Grandma, Juneau, Nova, Sherpa, Summit and Denali set off for Ohio
Oct 8 - Em flies to Ohio
Oct 21 - Cris, Em, Juneau and Nova fly to Hawaii (this is a surprise as of yesterday, since my deployment date is actually 2 weeks later than i initially thought!!!)
Oct 25 - Nelson and Katy arrive in Hawaii!

I don't think i am supposed to put any exact dates for official travel, but basically i will get to spend a little time in hawaii, then head to georgia for a week or so, then to afghanistan.

ha! does it all sounds just a little bit on the crazy side? you should see me packing suitcases and boxes. I have an Ohio stack, a Hawaii stack, a deployment stack, and a storage stack.

anyway, since i am getting all crazy excited about getting to spend a week in hawaii, i guess it's about time that i share our next piece of exciting news....

this, my friends, is the view from our new bedroom....in our new house....in hawaii!!!!

sorry the picture is kinda dark, but you can see the good part...the ocean! we are technically not officially home owners just yet. We are hoping to finish closing by the time we arrive in hawaii at the end of october. But getting to see the house is person is really exciting (Cris already saw it when he was in Hawaii last month).

And, if any of our friends and family are planning to visit us in Hawaii, this will be the view from your bedroom :)

The other thing were are so excited about is having a yard! When we lived in Hawaii before we basically didn't have any yard at all, and so we are super excited that the girls and the dogs will have a great outdoor space to play. the house is built into the hillside, and so the back yard is tiered into a small upper yard, and a larger lower yard. it's kinda neat :)

so, the last 24 hours has been packed full of finalizing plans, making flight reservations, and the usual packing and cleaning. we are EXCITED to see our families in the next couple of weeks!!!! i am really looking forward to spending lots and lots of time with cris, the girls, and our ohio family before i head out for the deployment.

sister playtime

i know i have been saying it a lot lately, but the girls have been so ridiculously hilarious in their interactions with eachother lately. part of it is that Nova's personality has been exploding over the last couple of weeks. She spends a good portion of the day singing...real songs, made up songs, or just little phrases that she decides to put to music. it is so funny. One of the funny things they do is to make up non-sense phrases and keep repeating them until one of them totally cracks up. The other day at naptime Nova started saying something silly, like "snoozy woozy". Then juneau said it, then nova said it, and back and forth until cris finally went upstairs to tell them to be quiet. Juneau was laying in bed, trying to pretend to be asleep, but literally bursting with laughter that she was trying to contain through a straight face. it was so funny.
They get along well for the most part, but do get into some little spats. Sometimes Juneau will tell Nova to be quiet, and Nova's response will be to say indignantly, "Don't tell me that, Juneau. Only Mommy and Daddy can tell me to be quiet". it's so hard not to laugh when you hear that perfectly clear statement coming out of a little 2 year old's mouth.
Anyway, i started this post so i could put up a couple of pictures cris took this week. He was out working in the garage, and had kind of left the girls up to their own devices. When he noticed it had been awfully quiet for too long, he looked over to see this: the girls had completely independantly rigged up this little climbing route on the ladder. Nova had the rope secured around her waist, and Juneau was "Belaying" from the ground (notice her little gloves!)
When Cris realized what they were doing, he helped them swith the setup, to give Juneau a turn to "climb"

Nova took her job belaying seriously...never took her eyes off her climber.