A Very Happy Thanksgiving

Wow, what a weekend!  I was so sad to see it end. It's not that I had to get back to work or anything, it was just nice to have some family in the area to entertain.  We were so happy to have Malu's (my hubby's) siblings here, not only to celebrate Thanksgiving, but to meet Baby V for the first time.  As expected, they were completely enamored by their little niece, and she by them.  It was just so much fun.  So let me break the weekend down for everyone.

~Wednesday~

Baby V met her Uncle Felix for the very first time.



Felix is Malu's younger brother (born right after him) and he came all the way from North Carolina to visit.  He's in the Marines and stationed at Camp Lejeune.  We took him to the new PX and pretty much just hung out for the entire day.

~Thursday~

I got up at the butt-crack of dawn to start cooking all the dishes for our Thanksgiving meal, including my very first turkey!  While doing this, we tuned in to the Macy's parade and waited for Malu's other siblings to arrive from California.  They had departed the evening before and they didn't arrive until about 9:30 Thursday morning.  We had a huge breakfast waiting too!

So...

Sina finally got to meet with her Uncle Vaea (he's younger than Felix).  He attends college in Pasadena and also plays football for that school.  He brought two of his teammates (who happen to be his friends/classmates from back home--in American Samoa).

She also got to meet her beautiful Auntie Silulu (who is the eldest of Malu's siblings). 

I'm not sure if I mentioned this to you guys before, but Silulu (we call her Lulu) is an aspiring actress who is currently attending a college in Long Beach, California.  She also went to the Olympics in Beijing two summers ago and competed for American Samoa in judo.  I love having her around.  She has such a bubbly personality (much like Malu) and her laughter is so contagious. 

Anyway, I'd slaved away all morning in the kitchen and made meatballs, cheese dip for appetizers, two different kinds of sweet potato casseroles, a macadamia nut pie for dessert.  And my turkey...

...came out great!  In this picture, I'm in the process of moving the turkey to a platter, but it came nice and golden brown and so moist!  I actually brined the turkey in a recipe that I got off of another blog.  Apparently the recipe is from Emeril and I'm definitely going to use it every Thanksgiving from here on out.

Our friends, the Hermosillo's (Melissa and Ismael, shown below), hosted Thanksgiving for our family and a few of our other friends that afternoon.

To say that we had tons of food was an understatement.  Every space on the table and on her kitchen counters was covered in food.  I'm not even joking.

And I didn't even get pictures of all the food.  It was INSANE.  Um...did I mention that we had 3 turkeys?  And we had such a great time.  We were able to work off some of what we ate by playing Just Dance 2 on the Wii.  I'm not going to incriminate anyone by posting those photos.  Just know that they are hilarious!

~Friday~

The boys had stayed out late Thursday night so we actually spent most of Friday morning relaxing at home.  I didn't feel like facing the Black Friday crowds either.  We'll be moving soon, so much of our Christmas shopping will have to take place while we're on leave in Colorado and Utah.  But later that night, we took the crew for an authentic Mexican meal at a restaurant nearby.  I mean, what's a visit to El Paso without having Mexican food? 

~Saturday~

This was the first time that Malu and his brothers and sister had been in the same place and at the same time in years.  So I thought it would be perfect to capture this on film.  I scheduled some family photos to be shot by a good friend of mine.  So that's what occupied our Saturday morning.  I'll have to post those pictures when I get them, so stay tuned!

For months, Malu had been itching to take a huge group of people to go paintballing.  The fact that he got to take his siblings and some friends of ours totally made his day (or maybe his entire year).  The paintballing place is literally two miles from where we live.  You guys should have seen how ecstatic Malu was that day.  It was priceless.

Here are a few photos from that day:

Here's the before paintballing picture...

One of my baby and I

and the after paintballing photo

Great times!  I think Malu is still coming down from the high he felt that day.

Later that night, we enjoyed a dinner at a new Vietnamese restaurant in town.  Delicious!  Lulu left a few hours after that.  She had to go back to CA early enough to allow her to rest before returning to work on Monday. We miss her so much already!

~Sunday~

The boys left and Malu and I spent the rest of the day thinking about how grateful we were to have had that time with our family and friends.  We also took some time to give thanks to God for so many things...

for dying on the cross to absolve our sin

for each other

for our little baby girl

for the love of family and friends

for jobs that we love

for our home

for nice things

for a free Country to live in

(and the Soldiers that defend it)

(nutella)

and soooo much more.

I hope all of you had a very Happy Thanksgiving as well.  This week, I am finishing up the last of my clearing/outprocessing.  Next week, our household goods are getting packed up...and then we're up and out of this place! 

Have a great week!

The Maternity Ward: Before & After

So remember the time when my friends--Leah, Laura--and I were all pregnant at the same time and all the guys at work called us the Maternity Ward?  This was us before.  The picture was taken at my second baby shower during the Memorial Day weekend, which ended up being the weekend that Leah (far right) had her baby, Hunter:

Of course, I had Baby V in August, and Laura (center) had her baby late last month.  Since then, we've been dying to get a picture of the Maternity Ward with our little ones.  We finally got the opportunity late last week at a hail and farewell.

So here's Laura with Baby Jack (4 weeks), Leah with Baby Hunter (5 1/2 months) and me with Baby V (3 1/2 months).  Baby V's is the only girl so far (our friend, Ashley, will be having a girl in a few months).  Between these guys and Baby Gage, I think Baby V's got a pretty good line up of future boyfriends :) 

Gosh, I am so thankful to have met these wonderful ladies and to have captured moments like these in a way that we'll be able to look back at fondly for years to come.

Oops!

"What?!? What did I do?"

That's the look I got from Sina this morning when I went to her crib, found her looking like this and broke out into a fit of laughter:



Her pajamas are the kind that have the elastic opening at the bottom so that you can change her diapers with ease at night.  Well, she kicks and kicks at the stretchy hem a lot. Usually, in the mornings, we hear her making tons of noise.  She usually just lays in her crib entertaining herself until one of us goes to pick her up and bring her back to our room to play.  I just didn't expect to see her half naked when I got up to get her.  I don't know why I'm so surprised...she is pretty strong and she's pretty adept at wriggling out of well...anything.

Let me just throw one more in for good measure...

...and for another laugh.  I woke Malu up saying, "get up and see your daughter."  And Sina just kept looking at up at us as if to say..."what is soooo funny?"

We love you baby girl. 

Happy Saturday everyone!

~Christmas Cards 2010~

Not surprisingly, I'm a little late on making this post.  Dozens of other bloggers have already taken advantage of this opportunity to receive 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly.  I am merely catching up!  Since I've been married, Christmas cards with our cool pictures on them have been something to look forward to every year.  We've got friends and family scattered all over the world and I just like to let everyone know what we've been up to over the course of the year.  And what better way to show them (on the greatest time of the year) with a cool holiday card?  The best holiday cards are the ones that are personalized with your own favorite photos.  And now that Baby V is here, this just gives me another reason to showcase just how cute she is...and to doll her up in something wintery/Christmasy.  

This Thanksgiving, Malu's brothers and sister will be in town.  Since they haven't been together in the same place at the same time for years, I've taken the opportunity (and they may think I'm cheesy for doing it) to schedule a family photo shoot while they're here.  That way, I can get great pictures of them (which make for wonderful Christmas gifts for their parents/grandparents) and we can knock out our family photos with Baby V.  My friend, Shay (I used to work with her husband), will be doing our pictures for us. 

In any case, if I had to choose a specific card, I'd opt from the following:

Man, decisions decisions!  And as I'm making this post, the Christmas spirit is sooooooo in the air (although I know Thanksgiving hasn't even passed).  It's nippy out, I'm having my morning cup of coffee, and my hubby and sweet baby are still in bed.  I am sooooo looking forward to the holidays...even though we'll pretty much be on the move for it this year.  This will be the third straight year that we'll be in the middle of a move during the holidays.  This year, we're getting ready to move to Germany (and moving out of El Paso on December 13th) and will be visiting family in Utah and Colorado.  Last year, I was deployed in Iraq and trying to make it back home for Christmas (here's the crazy story).  And the year before that, I was moving from Colorado to El Paso.  The fun never ends.

If you're hearing about this offer for the first time, go to Shutterfly and find out how you can get your 50 free holiday cards!

Lady Bugs & Chucks

Not sure if you guys remember, but I became obsessed with lady bugs while I was pregnant.  So obsessed, in fact, that everything from Sina's baby shower theme, to her nursery bedding and decor, to tons of her clothes are all about lady bugs.  And she doesn't know it yet, but she just loves them!  Or at least I love her in those adorable outfits that she's amassed from our friends and loved ones.

Yesterday, I decked her out in full lady bug garb--from head to toe.  I just thought that you guys would get a kick out of it.  And Malu...he just shakes his head.  He thinks it's weird.  But he would...he's a guy.  To him, she's good in plain white onesie.  No sirreee! 

Anyway, I suppose I should caveat this post by saying to my parents--who read this blog regularly--that "chucks" refer to the Converse sneakers that Sina is wearing here.  They were a gift to her from my friend, Jennifer, who found them at the outlet mall months before Sina was born.  I couldn't wait to get them on her!

As you can tell, Sina didn't exactly know what to do with these big, heavy things on her feet.  I'm almost positive that she was also taken aback by those big pairs of lady bug eyes gawking at her.

 

The other day, my mom mentioned that Sina seems to be a t-shirt and pants kinda girl, as opposed to the kinda girl that likes to be dolled up in froo-froo dresses.  I think the big bows are the closest I'm getting her to froo-froo.  For now, and until this little bug has a mind to choose what kinds of clothes she will wear, mommy is going to dress her up in mommy kind of style--comfy!  And I think she pulls off the shirt and pants combo in the most adorable way.  I love you my little bug.

And, um, she kicked the shoes off before we could get her into the car.  She's not big into shoes just yet!

Hope you all are enjoying your Sunday! 

Five on Friday (Sina, the new PX, & other stuff)

Since I didn't get to follow along with Mrs. Gambizzle's Thursday Five blog hop, I'm just going to list five great things about my week on this beautiful Friday morning!  You guys, things have been pretty busy lately, so I haven't been in much of a blogging mood.  I'm going to try to get caught up on everyone's blogs over the weekend though.  So since it's been a while since I've blogged, expect this to be a tad lengthy.  Here are my five:

First.  Baby V slept through the entire night last night.  Growth spurt, I suspect.  She's usually a good sleeper at night anyway.  But we usually put her down at about 8:30 p.m., she'll wake at about 3:30 a.m. to eat and then she'll be wide awake at about 7:00 a.m.  And she sure lets us know it...because she'll be laying in her crib talking up a storm...really loud.  In any case, she slept from 8:30 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. this morning.  She probably would have slept longer had I not woken her up to feed her.  Not only that, she pretty much fed herself this morning.  Yup, she grabbed right onto her bottle and held onto it pretty much the whole time. 

Oh my Sina...you're growing up so fast.  Stop it!  Here's a picture that I took of her last weekend.  She and I were doing tons of shopping, so the shirt was very appropriate.

Second.  I got my orders to Germany this week.  Now I can officially start clearing and we're just that much closer to getting all packed up and starting our PCS leave.  We'll be taking about 43 days to visit with family and friends in Colorado and Utah before we leave the country.  In any case, being that this is my third move since 2007, I'm a pro at all this PCS stuff.  I already have everything set...gave notice that we're vacating this house earlier than expected, scheduled all utilities and services (i.e. TV and internet) to be terminated not long after we depart, scheduled household goods pick up (which will span an entire week), renewed my passport and got new ones for Malu and Sina, and the list goes on.  The great thing about this move is that I have Malu to help me with it.  I've had to do the previous two moves on my own.  Not that it's too hard to do alone, it can just be a little overwhelming. 

Third.  I love the new PX on post.  Oh and it's not even called the PX anymore, which stands for Post Exchange.  It's just called Exchange now.  Fancy doo!  Let me back up...okay, for my civilian friends out there, the PX is a store on post.  It has everything that your typical retail store, like Walmart, has...only a lot of things are cheaper and everything is tax free.  The PX usually also has a food court and just about every installation in the Army has the same restaurants (i.e. Burger King, Charley's, Anthony's Pizza).  Well, since Fort Bliss is becoming a premier post with the arrival of the 1st Armored Division and thousands of new Soldiers and their families, the Army saw fit to develop the first PX of this kind.  It has the same features of a standard PX all in a beautiful new package that makes you feel like you're not really on post and more like you're at a mall off post. 

Ours is called Freedom Crossing.  And forgive my pictures...they're not the greatest.

The main exchange store is huge.  They have everything set up like a department store...like the purse section.  They have this entire section dedicated to Coach.  And they sell them a lot cheaper than you'd normally find them off post.  I'd say about 30% cheaper.

Now they've always sold Bath and Body Works products, but look how they have them set up.



And the same goes for the Victoria's Secret merchandise, although this is the first time I'm seeing actual underwear and the Pink clothing line.  They used to just sell the perfumes and lotions.

One thing that also surprised me about the main store is that they now have a section, like in the Walmart, that sells hand guns and rifles.  Really.

Okay, now check out the food court.  Tell me you don't feel like you're in a mall?  I know my Army friends are amazed because you honestly never see things like this on post.

We have all the same restaurants, but in addition to those, we have Subway, Junga Juice (like a Keva Juice), Taco Bell, Arby's, Sarku Japan (which is a hibachi grill), and a full-service Starbucks.  We also have...

An Einstein's Bagels!

Also new to this facility is restaurants with outdoor seating because they have stores outside the main PX facility--like an outlet mall.  Like the Smash Burger, which is like a Fuddruckers.

and, no joke, a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant.

And the kicker?

We have a full-service theater, just like Carmike or Tinseltown.  It has 10 screens with stadium seating.  And yes, we get all the new releases ON TIME.

Not only that, the place has a huge seating area with a fireplace

And in the outdoor mall, you have the clothing and sales store (where we buy our uniforms), a beauty and barber shop, the class six (liquor store), and a Game Stop (video games).  And more stores/restaurants are going to be built, as well as the brand new commissary.

So things are really looking up here at Fort Bliss and it kind of makes me sad to leave.  Kind of.  And since I work just down the road from this place, I'm always hanging out there...either for coffee at Starbucks in the morning, or for lunch. I love it!

Fourth.  Malu and I have had date night, like, three nights this week.  Not really.  Sina is always with us.  Usually to us, date night is any night that we don't eat at home.  And we've been doing this because we really need to go to the grocery store and just haven't had time.  Anyway, we've eaten at the new PX, and at The Magic Pan (which is a restaurant downtown...yummy!).  This is a picture of my two loves when we ate at Pei Wei's the other night.  So good!

Um...we're going to the commissary today.

Fifth.  My Auntie Daisy is back in town!  She'll be here until her son finishes the semester at UTEP.  So she got to meet Sina for the first time on Wednesday night. She's one of Sina's godmothers.

Yup, Sina's got the double chin action going on.  We actually went bowling that night too.  That's where the picture was taken.  And for the record, I beat Malu at one game!

Anyway, that's all I've got for now.  We've got tons of stuff going on here the next few weeks.  Along with prepping to move, Malu's sister and brothers will be visiting for Thanksgiving (I'll be making my first turkey ever).  So definitely stay tuned you guys!  Have a great weekend!

~3 Months~

Our angel bug will officially be three months old in the next few hours.  Another month down...not sure how much more of this "growing up" stuff I can take.  I am, however, very grateful that, up to this point, she is an extremely happy and healthy baby.

Lots of firsts this past month.  First trip to the pumpkin patch, first Halloween, and this is a picture of her on the day that she rolled over by herself for the first time.  I believe it was Wednesday.  She did it for her daddy while I was at work.  So when I got home, we tried to get her to do it again and to no avail.  I guess she was just too tired! 

In this last month, she has also completely transitioned to formula which is months and months earlier than I had wanted to do it.  And it's not because I wanted to stop breastfeeding, it's just because I couldn't produce enough milk to sustain her, especially with me back at work.  I could barely pump out enough milk for a full day.  And I'd tried everything...stayed hydrated constantly, took Fenugreek vitamins, drank milk tea and got a prescription for Reglan, which helps with milk production.  It just didn't work.  So for about three weeks, we mixed the breastmilk I could pump with formula and eventually phased the breastmilk out.  And she took it all like a champ, really, because she never got sick, had diarrhea or spit up anything.  So, yeah, now she's completely on formula and although that stuff is expensive as hell and goes fast (because she's eating 6 ounces every four to five hours), it's so much easier because I get a lot more sleep (especially since Malu does all the feeding overnight), I'm not stressing out about not having enough to feed her, and, if we want, we can stay out at places longer and not worry about having to breastfeed her.

Her hand-eye coordination has progressed.  She is so enthralled by her hands.  She's constantly got her hands clasped together and is often found trying to shove her fists in her mouth.  She can also grab her feet with her hands--very flexible!  And it's just so cute to see her do it.  She loves when we stand her up on our laps too.  I think she's dying to walk.  And when we lay her on the floor to get her to roll, she kicks her legs so much, I feel like she's going to start crawling soon.  Not only this, she will accept/take things that you hand to her.  Like today, I handed her her pacifier and she latched onto it and put it back into her mouth the right way.  I was shocked!

And...she talks.  And talks....and talks.  Malu and I wake up to her every morning (around 6:45) talking to herself and making googly noises.  And she's getting louder every day.  Everyone tells me she looks like her Grandma Ruby. Well, they can also say that she talks up a storm just like her too :)

Here are some other favorite pictures of her over the past month.

Sina and Mommy



I don't know why I insist on making her wear these flowers.  She's not a big fan.  But she's so cute in them.  This was actually taken this morning.



I call this her "bad to the bone" t-shirt.  It was a gift from my friend Leah.

I can't wait to see what's in store for us this month.  Sina, you bring us so much joy.  We love you, love you, love you!