Aunt Brookie's Visit

We are having such a great week with Aunt Brookie visiting us.  My sister is one of my best friends, it has been so much fun having her here.  I returned to work at the beginning of this month, Sean took paternity leave for ten days and had Ely while I went to work.   Brookie has been here watching her now that we both are working.  It has  made the transition less brutal, it's times like this I wish we had family closer, so I could have a babysitter that was a family member.  I love my job and have always planned on having a career, but I never thought the transition would pull on my heart strings so much!  In between Sean's paternity leave  and my sisters arrival, I had two days where I had to hire a sitter and I have never been more eager to get to my destination after work. I was filled with so much joy to see my baby! I'm going to be so sad when my sister leaves, she has been the best nanny.  She has been so helpful with Ely and helping out around the house.  If we are ever in a situation where we get to pick where we live, I hope we get to live close to her.  

Aunt Brookie getting to hold Ely for the first time

Converse trying to keep a low profile with all the visitors we had the weekend Brookie arrived.

Jam session with Daddy and Uncle Ryan

 Being held by Uncle Ryan, with only one shoe on.  Ely has so many outfits with corresponding shoes, her feet have hardly grown since she was born and never got to wear the shoes with her 0-3 outfits because her feet are so small.  These shoes are suppose to go with the dress she is wearing but are still way to big!  

Ely loves her Grandma Lily

These two goofballs look so much alike!

Kisses for days

On our way to church

I can't believe she is almost three months!  

We are Moving to Japan!

When we first got orders to move to Omaha, neither one of us were excited.  I thought we were being banished to a flat, boring, no mans land and that there would be little opportunity for us here other than Sean's job.   I could not have been more wrong.  Even though our current duty station is Bellevue (which is what I Googled when we first got the orders) we are about a ten minute drive away from Omaha which is a larger city.  If we drive 15 minutes one direction we get to enjoy the entertainment aspect of a big city, and if we drive 15 minutes the other direction we have the serenity of the beautiful countryside.  I did not have the best attitude about moving out here when we first got the orders and ended up loving it, so I'm trying to keep that in mind as we prepare for our next journey.  As a disclaimer I want to say that I am SO excited about this move, it has been a bucket list item of mine to live in a foreign country for at least a year, and we will definitely be in Japan longer than a year.  It is bittersweet, I am grateful for this opportunity, but I am a little sad that we will be so far away from family and that we are leaving a place that we have come to love.

 When Sean first told me he got orders to Japan, I didn't even bat an eye.  I didn't even get excited, because he told me that he was adamant about not reenlisting in the Air Force.  We started looking for houses in June and spent every single Saturday in July looking at houses in Omaha. We had the loan, the neighborhoods we wanted to live in and an excellent realtor.  Our goal was to be in a house by August.  In June we found a home that had a few things that needed work, but we really loved it and strongly considered purchasing it.  We prayed and got an answer that strongly pointed to "No." I also strongly felt like we should stay in the apartment we are currently living in, but couldn't make any sense of it because all sort of logic pointed to getting a house as soon as possible. We were getting a new baby and in April Sean would be getting out of the Air Force.  In April we wouldn't be allowed to live in military housing which is what our duplex is.  Staying in this duplex simply did not make sense, so we kept looking for a house.  We tripled our efforts to find a home that would work well for us and be a good investment.  We fell in love with another home, and it was difficult to find anything wrong with it.  Everything logical pointed to buying this house.  When we decided to pray about it, I was more than confident I was going to get the answer I wanted, because I really really really wanted this house.  I really wanted to stay in Omaha, I really wanted to be the type of people that were permanently in one place for a while.  It seemed so normal, and comfortable, and this to me seemed glorious.  Since I was 11 I have not lived in one place for more than 4 years at a time.  I was wanting some normalcy for my daughter, I wanted to bring my baby to her home that she would be able to grow up in.   When we prayed for an answer as to whether or not we should buy this house, our answer was a flat out "No."  I was bitter, and angry, and confused.  I also felt like we were being directed to stay in this apartment, which made even less sense.  We had no clue where we were going to be living come April, because we were being told to stay living in this military housing and in April we would no longer be in the military!

When Sean got the orders, it seemed like the confusion we had been feeling with what to do was lifted.  All the answers we were looking for seemed to fall into place.  I am grateful for prayer, and I am grateful that I did not get the answer I wanted.  If we bought a house and received the orders, I can't imagine what we would be doing now.  Even though this is right and we were told this is what we should be doing,  I have struggled with the aspect of "Why are we trying to fix what is not broken? I love Omaha, so why leave it?"  When we were coming to Omaha, it seemed like an improvement on our lives.  We wanted to get out of Idaho so bad  (sorry Idaho, you just were not for us!).  I've just come to the conclusion that sometimes you go from a good situation to another good situation.  When people would complain about getting orders over seas I thought they were nuts, what an amazing opportunity! You get one life to live, take advantage of opportunities such as this and be happy about it! Right now, in this moment, I am stressed about downsizing, moving, flying 21 hours overseas with pets and a baby, but I know once we get there it is going to be incredible.  My daughter is going to be about 4 years old when we come back, she will be coherent and have memories of living in Japan!  Oh, and there is a beach, and it is warm year round!  Woohoo!

If you are the praying type, please pray for us as we prepare for this new journey.  Please pray that we can get our pets over there and that we won't spend a fortune doing it!  Please pray that we will be able to leave on our scheduled times.  It's times like this where all you really can do is have faith and hope it all turns out alright.  If you love to travel, start planning your trip to come visit us, I'm excited about entertaining visitors!

New Years Eve and Day

This New Years was really simple but fun as well.  We did just about as much as you can do responsibly with a 2 month old.  Ely and I had a little dance party by the tree, she loves music and movement. We had a nice dinner and watched  a movie while we sipped our sparkling cider and nibbled on crackers and cheese.  We went to bed at 11, parenthood can do that to you.   We woke up briefly at midnight but only because we could hear all the fireworks going off around us.  The following day was really relaxing. We just lounged around.  I can't believe my little one is 2 months old already!  She is getting so big.  She smiles all the time now, and she is so close to laughing.  While she was sleeping the other day she did this silent chuckle and at the end one little "Ha" came out. She is letting me get a little bit more sleep now. She sleeps at night now, and only wakes up to be fed, and she is going longer in between her feedings.  She has sort of at a plateau right now with her growth, or at least it seems like it, one day all of a sudden it was like bam, no longer a new born and she seemed huge.  I was so sad, it seemed like her little face was constantly changing and she was growing out of all her clothes so fast, but now I don't feel like I'm going to miss something.    At first I thought she looked like Sean and was going to be a mini Sean, but people have been telling us she is starting to look like me now, it is so crazy how much she changes!   

New Years Eve

So Serious

 Happy New Year!

Lucky girl has her daddy's eyelashes