My Little Girl is 2!!

I can't believe my baby is 2! The last two years have gone so fast! Alyssa was actually pretty excited to have a birthday, I didn't think she would really get it. But she loved opening her presents and eating her pretty doll cake Grammy made for her. She's lucky because she gets to have another party on Thursday so Nate and my sisters can celebrate with her too. These are the pics we had taken on her birthday.

What a Ham

Little butterfly

Here are some pictures of Alyssa's butterfly costume. We went to a fall festival in Altus and we rode on a hayride, got candy and all that fun stuff. Alyssa loved it all, especially the candy!

Bed Time Reading

Here is a video of Alyssa reading to herself as she gets ready for bed. She's turning in to quite a chatterbox.

Proud to be an American

On base, they play the national anthem everyday at 4:30, as well as other military songs at 7:30am and 10pm, even on the weekends. Alyssa has seen everyone stop for the national anthem before, and of course Alyssa likes to do it too. This day we were just playing at the park when the music started and she wanted to stand up just like Daddy. I just love how she put both hands over her heart. There isn't much that will distract her from playing at the park, but that got her attention.

Visit to the Duckworth's

About two weeks ago Alyssa and I went to visit our friends in Oklahoma City. We knew Robin and Albert when we lived in Enid and we didn't have kiddos yet. We hadn't seen each others kids yet so it was fun to finally get to meet. Alyssa and Canon had a lot of fun playing together. We spent some time at the park and playing outside in the nice weather. Little Bo tagged a long too, he is such a sweet, mellow baby. It was a great break from our cramped quarters here in Altus and a really great chance to catch up with old friends :)

Pigtails

Alyssa with her pigtails and Broncos "jerjee" getting ready for the Broncos game
Getting ready for Church
Decided to take a seat on the sidewalk on the way to Church

We haven't tried giving Alyssa pigtails often for several reasons. Her hair is still pretty short. She has a terrible habit of pulling out the hair bands, and even when she leaves them in she rubs her head against her carseat or some other object and it pulls half of the hair back out. So, it's basically hard to get her to keep them in. But before church last week we got her dressed up and put some pigtails in. It even lasted through church and until we went to go watch the Broncos game.

Racquetball Time

This is her new "Cheeesse" face--she says it whenever we get the camera out
Gotta love those goggles
Can you see me through this racquet?

So we have been searching for things to do here at Altus. Not much to do especially when the weather is bad like it was last weekend. So, we thought we would try taking Alyssa to the gym. They have a cool kids play area where kids can play while their parents watch while working out. She likes it there, but the funny thing is that she doesn't like it nearly as much as the racquetball court. We thought she might enjoy running around and trying to hit the ball. Nate was hoping she would at least try and hit the ball. Instead of hitting the ball with her racquet she would just kick it and then chase it around. She had a blast just chasing the ball around and now we have another fun activity for Alyssa to keep her happy here at Altus.

I Love Ice Cream!!!

On our recent travels from Seattle to Denver we had to give Alyssa something to keep her occupied while we waited. Boy did she love the ice cream as you can clearly see in these pictures... (she's even giving the thumbs up of approval)

Smoke

So, I almost burned down our hotel room today......Well not exactly, but I'm shocked that the fire alarm didn't go off and evacuate our whole building at 7:30 am. I was trying to microwave a pop tart and I put it in for 2 minutes, instead of 20 sec, not on purpose of course. I went into the other room for a second and realized I never heard the microwave ding. When I walked into the kitchen the microwave had smoke pouring out of it. When I opened the door the room filled up with the nastiest smelling smoke.. Nate and Alyssa were sitting ten feet from the microwave this whole time and didn't notice anything until I walked in the room. So we've had our door and windows open all day and have sprayed febreeze and various air freshners and it still reaks in here! I hate the smell of smoke and it seems to have permeated everything. Does anyone have any advice on how to get the smell out? We are worried that if it doesn't go away they will charge us for smoking in here. I'll try anything, so any advice would be helpful.

Altus

So, we are here in good old Altus, OK. We've had a few long days of travel, but they went really well. We flew from Seattle to Denver on Sunday, stayed in Co for one day and drove 9 hours to OK on Tuesday. The flight went well even though Alyssa didn't get her own seat. She did so much better than she did a few months ago. She was pretty easy to entertain, and of course watching Nemo help a lot. The 9 hour drive to OK was what we were most worried about. Alyssa hadn't been on a car ride longer than 2 hours or so, and even those 2 hour trips were rough. We left at 4am hoping she would sleep, and she did! She slept til 7am and then fell asleep again later. We only made one stop the whole time and Alyssa hardly whined or cried at all. So that was such a relief! Now I feel like we can go on longer car trips without going crazy!

Nate started up down here yesterday. We should be here about 3 weeks, give or take a few days. Alyssa and I are finding things to do and so far it seems our normal life has carried over here. It is good to know that I will get to see Nate every day even if he is busy. Our room is pretty small but I think it will work out ok. Alyssa is sleeping in the closet (I know it sounds terrible, but she doesn't mind at all!) which helps the space issue. I'll try to keep you all updated on our adventures in Altus.

5 Wondeful Years

Nate and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary on Saturday. I can't believe it's been 5 years! So many changes and so many great memories. Some friends of our watched Alyssa so we could go out on a date. We had a nice quiet dinner and then we went to see gymnastics super stars. It was a show all the olympic gymnasts put on, it was really cool. Nate enjoyed it too, even though I don't think he was expecting to. It was a great date. I'm so thankful for my husband and I can't wait for what is to come....

The Fair

This was Alyssa's first time on a ride by herself. She thought it was great.

The petting zoo

We had a hard time convincing her to get off this one...

A very long and tiring day, she doesn't fall asleep in her car seat much anymore.

We went to the Puyallup Fair last week and we had a blast. We've been hearing about it for two years so we thought we should check it out. We went on a great day because it was military appreciation day, so we got in for free, and the rides were all $1 each. So Alyssa got to try out carnival rides for the first time. I was a little nervous at first because I didn't know if she would stay seated for the whole ride, but we strapped her in good and she did great. The problem was getting her off the ride at the end. We enjoyed some good food and Nate and I even got to go on a ride. I must say, it was a very enjoyable day :)

I just realized Alyssa has the same outfit on in these pics as she did in the last post, funny considering all the clothes she has and the number of pictures we take.

Blackberries

One great thing we discovered this summer are all the wild blackberry bushes. They grow everywhere around here in August and September. This year I realized that we have a ton of bushes right behind our house. For the last three weeks I've gone out several times to pick berries and make all sorts of different creations, cobbler, jam, pie, coffee cake..... very yummy. Alyssa loves picking berries. She gets to pick the red or green berries so she doesn't squish purple juice all over everything. She only picks two berries, one for each hand :) The only problem is that blackberry bushes are full of thorns and Alyssa gets scratched up every time we go, but she still likes it.

Summer cont...

Airshow

More fun in the sun

Thats a little peek of what we've been up to. This post has taken forever because I couldn't get things where I wanted them, hopefully I'll get better at this.

Summer recap

Nate and I went to Jamaica in May and left Alyssa with our parents for a week. It was an awesome time of relaxation and time together, which is rare sometimes. We stayed at a Sandals resort that had beautiful grounds, a lot of great food and watersports. Nate learned to sail, we snorkeled and best of all laid on the beach and did nothing! When can we go back?

View from our room

Alyssa LOVED her wading pool this summer. She spent many hours in the backyard running around in her swimmimg suit. I think she spent more time getting in and out of the pool than she did actually in it, but she enjoyed herself.

Flying a plane like Daddy at the Mueseum of Flight.

A little cruise around Puget Sound.

Hello to the world of Blogging!

Well, I finally decided to create a blog after some inspiration from all you other bloggers. I love keeping up with everyone and getting an inside look at your lives. I feel like our life is pretty boring sometimes, so I hope I can find things to post. But I figure I can at least post pictures which will make our families happy.