The Sunshine Project {Take 3}

It's that time of the week again!  The Sunshine Project is something that  my blogger friends, Kim and Summer started with the specific purpose of allowing you to share what brought sunshine into your week with the blogosphere.  Cool, huh?  All you have to do is post and then link up on either of their blogs.  Easy enough, right?

No surprise...mine is about Vaiosina.

At the playground yesterday

And the things she's been saying these days. 

Every morning, I go in to work, sharing details about what Vaiosina said either the night before or early that morning (while getting ready for work/school).  It's been a while since I blogged about how much she's grown in the last few months.  I believe the last detailed post I made about her was at the 19-month mark.  She's about to turn 2 in 4 days!  I can't believe it.

In any case, she can basically repeat what you say and has learned a lot from school and other people.   She can sing tons of songs (in tune!) and has memorized lines from her favorite books and movies (Disney's Tangled is her most favorite). It's amazing and very funny at times.

Anyway, there's pretty much something different each week...sometimes each day.

One week, it was "not nice, daddy (or mama)."

Two weeks ago, it was "Awesome!" anytime she saw something she liked (pronounced "awww-tum").

She knows she gets a piece of chocolate every time she uses the potty.  So whenever she's done, she says, "I potty! Chocket pease?"

One night last week, I read her a Cinderella book then put her in one of her Cinderella-printed nighttime pull-ups.  It just so happens that all of her daytime pull-ups are Cinderella-printed as well.  Anyway, the next morning, I pulled out another set of Cinderella pull-ups to put on her and she said (sarcastically), "Rella again???".  Yeah...it's the only print they carry at our commissary (for girls, at least).  She said it for a couple days, every time I put on a new set of Cinderella pull-ups.  I bought her a set of the boys Cars printed pull-ups yesterday. 

Everytime she sees the Olympics on TV, she says "Dun-dun" for London and "The Eye!" because she went on the ride during our trip and loved it.

Last night, she was shaking one of her toys and sang, "Shake shake shake; shake, shake, shake...booty!"  Because she's heard me sing it before.

Last night, she also started saying "Oh man!" every time she dropped something.

And this morning, she called me by my first name.  "Uh-chelle! Buh-bye!" she shouted at me from the living room (my first name is Michelle).  Ummm...no baby girl...it's mommy!  But it made me laugh.

Tell me it doesn't make you laugh!  She's a riot.

Love her to death.

Another ray of sunlight...Malu will be home on Saturday!!!  Yay!!

The Sunshine Project {Take 2}

I hope Kim and Summer don't mind me linking up a little late for this.  They normally do this on Thursdays--shame on me!   However, I didn't want miss the opportunity to shed some light on what brought sunshine into my life this week! 

First, we returned from our trip to London on Monday.  You guys, I can't even tell you just how much fun we had.  What an AMAZING city!  Although we were only there for 2 days (actually, less than that), we saw so much.  I definitely plan on sharing the details very soon!

Second, we literally had a lot of sunshine this week, in terms of the weather.  The only downside was having to be in the office most of the time instead of spending time out enjoying it.  Not to mention, there is no air conditioning in most of the office buildings (or in housing) and 80+ temps with your full uniform kinda stinks!

Third, on Thursday evening, Vaiosina and I went out to dinner with some friends to a restaurant called the Schnitzelhaus.  This place serves giant schnitzel--the kind that covers your entire plate!  Dee-licious

Fourth, today was Vaiosina's first time at a movie theater.  I'd been contemplating taking her to see several kids' movies over the course of the past few months, but always worried she wouldn't sit still through it or would make a fuss.  I think I need to give this little girl a bit more credit because she did great!  She saw Madagascar 3 today and loved it.  Stayed awake through the whole thing, enjoyed popcorn, and snuggled with me for a little bit of it.  What a blast!  Of course...Bear Bear's gotta tag along.  He loved it too :)  (Sorry about the blurry photo!)

Finally, thank goodness for Skype!  We got to chat with Malu today.  There's nothing sweeter than seeing your daughter kiss her daddy on the computer screen.  She even says "Muah!" when she kisses.  Too cute.  Less than a week and he'll be home!  So proud of all you do sweetheart!

Hope everyone's enjoying the weekend!

The Sunshine Project: Take 1

Today, I'm linking up with Summer @ Summer's Story and Kimberly @ Kimberly's Corner for the Sunshine Project.  It's actually their 4th week doing it--this is my first installment.  It's simple really...you just blog about something(s) that has/have really brightened up your week.  When you're done, go to Summer or Kim's blogs and leave your link on their Sunshine Project posts.  Too easy!

I don't think it's any surprise that Vaiosina is my absolute sunshine.  Like any tot, she's got her moments, but she really is such a fascinating and fun little girl.  She just started potty training last weekend.  Truth be told, I thought she was ready months ago, but I didn't want to push it.  But last Friday, I just decided to plop her on the toilet that morning and she peed in the potty.  She peed in the potty all day at school that day too.  The next day, I had her pooping in the potty!  We've been continuing on with her potty training (and kudos to her teachers at school for keeping up with it) and she's doing great.  This week, we're in pull-ups and I'm over the moon excited--for her and about a soon-to-be diaper-free life (that is, until the next little one comes along; whenever that will be)! 

No, I don't keep her potty on our living room ottoman.  This was specifically for the photo opportunity!  That's her travel potty anyway--that sucker's going into the car!  So proud of you baby!  Keep it up!

It also shouldn't be any surprise that Malu brings a lot of sunshine into my life as well.  He's been at a school for two weeks now and he's doing really well.  We actually got to Skype tonight and that just made my heart pitter-patter...even if it did take him forever to give us a call!

Last ray of sunlight...we're going to London this weekend!  Yay!  One more day of work and we're there.  Very excited!

Anyway, thanks to Summer and Kim for allowing me to link up!  I hope everyone's week has been filled with wonderful, happy moments!

I'm Busy...

...and dedicating every ounce of energy I have left after work, making dinner for Sina and I, giving Sina a bath, putting her to bed, and cleaning house to reading the Hunger Games.

I usually don't take long to read books but these days, I can't stay awake long enough to read any book (as I usually read before going to bed).  I'm determined to have this finished tonight or tomorrow.  I know I'll definitely have it read before the movie makes it to our post theater.

I don't know what took me so long to start the series....it's fantastic. Better than the Twilight series, I daresay.  And ya'll know I love me some Twilight.

Anyway, as soon as I'm done, I promise I'll get back to blogging!

Another Person's Junk...

...is now my treasure!

There was a community-wide flea market this morning and Sina and I went to check it out before heading to the commissary to do some Thanksgiving dinner shopping.  Had Malu been there, I probably would have walked away with tons more stuff (darn you, drill!).  Since I had Sina and the huge stroller, I could only buy as much as the stroller and my one free arm could hold.  There was one table in particular that had all kinds of household items and Christmas decorations.  I walked away with these.

And wouldn't you agree that no kid's room is complete without at least one giant stuffed animal?

This girl's got mama wrapped around her chubby little fingers.  I also got a really cute duck-shaped timer for the kitchen.  I got everything for like $8.

Other than that, it's been a rather typical Saturday.  We ended up going to the commissary twice today because the first time, I realized I didn't have my shopping list with me.  Fail.  I grabbed what I remembered from the list and went home.  Sina took about a three-hour nap and we hit the commissary again.  She loves going there.  It's quite the happenin' place to be on Patch Barracks and we run into familiar faces everytime we go.  Sina loves all the attention she gets from the cashiers too.

As I'm typing this, I'm watching Eclipse for the millionth time.  Breaking Dawn doesn't hit our post theater until Thanksgiving Day, but it will inevitably be at max capacity that day and I don't think I can stomach it, really.  It'll be a while before I actually see it.  There are theaters in town that air movies in English.  I might have to go that route.

Malu comes back from drill tomorrow evening, so it's me and my Sina for another day.  We'll be making Thanksgiving cupcakes for her classmates.  They'll be chocolate cupcakes topped with little pilgrim hats.  Too cute!

Happy Saturday everyone!

Mantel Love

I haven't lived in a house with a fireplace and mantel since we left Colorado in December 2008.  We have a house in Colorado Springs, just a few miles away from my parents' house.  The house has been rented out for the last three years by three different sets of tenants--all who have lived there two times longer than I have (and even more than that for Malu because he deployed two months after we moved in).  So basically, I lived in the house for about five months before I got orders to move to Fort Bliss, Texas.  I didn't even get to finish decorating the place.

When I moved to El Paso, Malu was still deployed so I rented out an apartment and put most of our stuff in storage, including my Christmas decorations and tree.  Almost a year later, I packed that apartment up and deployed.  Most of you know the story of that deployment (if not, click HERE) and I came back a few weeks later, pregnant.  Since I deployed, Malu decided to hop into another deployment cycle, so when I returned to El Paso, he was gone.  I rented a small house--no fireplace and most of the stuff that was in storage before, went back into storage again.

Well, fast forward to now...we were told that the houses/apartments in Germany were really small, so we left a good amount of stuff in storage.  As a matter of fact, our packers didn't have much work to do because all they had to do was re-label the boxes that had never been opened almost 2 years prior and I mistakenly had them put our Christmas decorations and tree back into storage. They'll be there until we move back to the States in 2014.

The only Christmas decorations we have at the moment are the ones we bought at Ramstein last weekend for the real Christmas tree we'll be buying after Thanksgiving.  Frankly, I was disappointed with how expensive decorations have become, even at the PX!  And I haven't had time to go on the local economy to find cheaper ones.  I will be trying to build my collection at the upcoming Christmas markets though. 

I wish we had a fireplace and mantel to pretty up.  We don't really have a focal point in the room that we could build a theme around.  Our dining room doesn't even have room for some kind of hutch or buffet that I could decorate (and we left that in storage back home too), so it doesn't leave much for me to work with.

I just signed up for Pinterest because, frankly, everyone's on Pinterest these days and I can see why--it's freakin' addictive.  I went crazy over these Christmas mantels today.  At least I have some good ideas for when we move back to the States and I will make sure that the next place we live in has a fireplace!

Oh well...mantel or not, I'm still as giddy as ever about Christmas.  Malu and I have so much in store for Sina, we can't wait!

Gosh, look at me...we haven't even done Thanksgiving yet!

Day Care--Full Time!

What a week!  Malu started working full time again, so we've been adjusting to being a dual military couple again.  The last time we did the dual military thing, we didn't have a baby!  It was rough.  What's cool is that we now work in the same building, so I see him a lot during the day now.  What's also cool is that this allowed us to be bumped up the child care waiting list on post and a slot opened up for Sina.  So now she's in "school" full time.  She'd been to daycare before for hourly care and loved it, so we didn't anticipate her struggling in her transition to full time.  Well, she struggled...but thankfully, not for too long.  At the start of the week, she was sick, so that might have had some play in the way she reacted the first few days.  I also think that this time, she knew that she wouldn't be getting picked up in an hour or two and it freaked her out.  So this is kind of how the week went:

Monday:  Malu drops her off and she screams bloody murder as he tries to leave.  Because we live the furthest away, Sina is the last to be picked up and Malu said that she barely made a peep the entire way home.  She didn't take a nap the entire day.  When I saw her, she looked miserable.  She didn't warm up to us until halfway through dinner.

Tuesday:  Same as the day before.  I go to pick her up and the providers tell me that she is clingy and wants to be held all day long (which is odd, because she doesn't like to be coddled all day long and usually plays on her own).  She takes a really short nap.  Quiet the entire ride home and doesn't warm up to us until halfway through dinner.

Wednesday:  Not too much of a fuss as Malu drops her off.  When Malu comes home with her, she walks in with a huge smile on her face and her clothes are stained in finger paint.  She was clapping and laughing.  She'd eaten very well the entire day and had a good nap.  It was clear that she'd had a great day.  The picture above I took as we fed her dinner that night.

Thursday & Friday:  Barely a wimper at drop-off.  When I picked her up on both days, the providers told me that she is getting better by the day.  On Thursday, she enjoyed "sunglasses day" with her little friends.  On Friday, I was told that she was playing with the other kids, laughing and smiling all day, took a long nap and ate extremely well.

Malu and I are so proud of her for sticking it out and for showing all those daycare peeps how cool she really is!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other news...

I should've posted this over the week, but our favorite Finch Family came to visit last weekend and joined us for the Women's FIFA World Cup (which I'm still bummed that USA lost).  They were only here for a few hours, so we took them to the Schonbuch Brauhaus for dinner and had a great time!

Madisen loves being a big sister to Sina.  She's getting good practice for when her little sister arrives in the fall!

We had a huge meal and for some reason, I'm always catching pics of Malu and Mattie eating!

Sina can't get enough of Mattie!

Yes, Eric and I were there too, we just didn't get any good pictures.

I barely passed the PT test I took yesterday.  The last one I took was literally over two years ago. I'll have to explain that one later.

I'm as sick as a dog right now and hope that it goes away before my mom and dad get here next Friday.

Yup...my parents will be here in a few DAYS!

I can't wait!

Have a great weekend you guys!

Down & Dirty

We didn't really have any big plans set for this weekend, despite it being a 3-day.  We kinda just assumed a "go with the flow" stance and it's been working rather nicely.  The weather hasn't been especially great so it's been nice just hanging out at home.  We've also been logging a lot of nap-hours and catching up on some movies (old ones).  I mean, we haven't been in a theater since Sina was born.  We don't even know what's playing in the movies these days.

In any case, yesterday we finally made our way to the mall not too far from here.  I haven't been in much of a shopping mood, at least for myself.  Anytime I go anywhere, I'm buying stuff for Sina.  Yesterday, I found her her first pair of Nikes.  I figure since she's getting a lot of mileage on those cute chubby feet of hers, she might as well get some good support.  Later in the evening, after putting Sina down to sleep, Malu surprised me with a dinner by candlelight---leftover homemade macaroni and cheese, some wine (it surprisingly went well together) and some Dave Koz, which we even danced to for a little bit.  It was all so sweet...we closed the night by watching Dinner for Schmucks, which was hilarious!

Today was much of the same, just doing little things around the house.  It was cold and rainy out, so we didn't feel much like doing anything.  When the weather started looking up, we headed out to Panzer to change the oil in our car.  Since this installation is small, the car care center is always booked weeks out.  So instead of waiting, Malu thought it best to change the oil ourselves at the auto crafts center--and he was determined to have me learn how to do it.  Yup, that's right...we got down and dirty over there. 

And my mom will probably kill me for posting this picture of Sina just hanging out with us in the bay, but what the hey.

We had her out of the car and set out on the garage floor and was as curious as ever.  Don't worry mom...the bay door was wide open.  Fresh air all around.

Changing oil is just messy work.  I can't say that I promise to change the oil myself from here on out. I guess in case of emergencies......and don't tell my husband!

Anyway, we just finished watching When in Rome (yup, finally getting to it), which we both enjoyed.  We enjoyed some freshly-baked brownies while watching it!  Yum.

Thank goodness we have one more day to chill out.  What a special day it will be...

It's Father's Day,

our 4-year Anniversary,

and Auntie Jewel's birthday (as well as my darling cousin, Wenonah's birthday).

Again, no big plans.  Sometimes those are the best kinds of days.

~~~~~~~~~~

On another note...I just wanted to share two pics of the custom framing I had done on a picture that I'd won from Maria over at Personalized Sketches and Sentiments.  I won the drawing of my choice months ago and I naturally chose a ladybug for Sina.  Well, I went over to the arts and crafts center on post to have it framed.  The framing shop has been backlogged for weeks and after waiting over a month, I finally got it back and Maria has been waiting for me to show her the results.

You can't really see it, but the entire bug is drawn out using Vaiosina--our daughter's full name (here's the story on her name).  It's amazing!

Here's another view of the picture hanging up in Sina's room.  She's got this cozy little nook in there where we've put the hideaway couch.  Malu usually reads to her here.  Don't make fun of my dyslexic placement of her alphabet wall art.  I was trying to copy what was on the package to the decals, and then realized I should have just put them in alphabetical order...duh.  Still looks neat though.

Well, I loved how the picture turned out and it fits so nicely into her room.  I only wish that I didn't hang it so high.  Realizing that she has something new in her room, Sina practically broke her neck staring at it.  I think that means she likes it.

If you haven't seen Maria's work...go to her blog and website and check it out.  Not only is she talented, but she's got a beautiful family and is one of the sweetest bloggy friends I have.

A million thanks to Maria!