Hi!

I've missed you guys!

I have been wanting to update forever--- BUT we've been busy here in VB! :)

Currently what's going on with everyone is:

Mike is in Mississippi in some sort of "soldier" training. He's been practicing war like scenarios so that when he deploys (in the Spring) he'll be ready if anything crazy happens. That's probably not exactly the way he would describe the training he's doing, but that's the way I am going to describe it to you! Ha! He left almost 3 weeks ago and has been going non-stop...has only had 1 day off and has been at it at least 12 hours a day- usually more. Good news for him is he's almost done- that's good news for us too! He will be home on Friday :) Oh, and when he gets back he gets to hang from a helicopter as it flies around-- exciting!

We have been slowly getting used to the girls being back in school. The early mornings are not fun, but the quiet days while they are there are wonderful! Nicole is doing great as usual, and Aubrey absolutely loves Kindergarten. Aubrey got in trouble on her birthday for making chicken noises- I guess the excitement of bringing in a treat for everyone got the best of her! She has since redeemed herself and came home with a special award the other day for sitting still & being quiet during their writing lesson. With all the chaos we've been through recently, we decided it would be best to skip a fall sport and just go with one extracurricular activity- dance- they love it.

Luke is great! Mike's buddies at work like to refer to him as "bubble boy" because the kid always seems to have something going on with him. We really don't mind-- we are just thrilled he survived the salmonella incident! At the end of the month he will be seeing a pediatric urologist- yeah, he hasn't been circumcised yet. Um, nothing really major going on down there, just his penis attached to his scrotum is all :) I guess it isn't that big of a deal, they just need a little bit more skin to grow so his member isn't damaged during the procedure. He probably won't have the actual surgery until after the new year. We will find out more when we go to our appt. He also has an umbilical hernia-- his guts poke out of his belly button. It's just weird- his belly button is huge. They won't operate on that until he's 3 or so and they say it will close up before then anyway. It's pretty unattractive, but lately it hasn't been sticking out as far so maybe that's a good sign the hernia is closing up. Those are really his biggest issues to speak of. As far as his personality, he is such a sweet sweet baby. He is pretty laid back and is a wonderful sleeper which is awesome because Mom needs her sleep too!

As for me, you can probably tell by the rambling above what I've been up to! It has been quite a change for me getting back into baby mode. No more running around all the time, no gym yet....just lots of time at home with the baby. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it...it has just taken some getting used to ;)

Obviously, it has been awhile since I have updated. I added a ton of pictures below, but didn't write anything with them so I'll give the rundown here:

In May we celebrated Mother's Day by going strawberry picking-- we've done that for a few years in a row now- so fun! Nicole was awarded Citizen of the Month for trustworthiness and she also turned seven :) At the end of the month we said goodbye to Bayside Presbyterian Preschool (for now) and celebrated Aubrey's graduation. Sad day leaving the preschool, but am looking forward to when Luke can be a student there.

In June we had our big dance recital. I was hugely pregnant and decided to assist with Aubrey's group- wow- that was rough! But I survived and the girls did a great job & looked beautiful on stage. At this point we hadn't spend much time at the beach and unfortunately on our first big day there Nicole got stung by a jellyfish. We had no idea what to do and ended up making the sting that much worse by cleaning it with cold fresh water. That's like the worst thing you can do. Wups! The sting progressively got worse over the next few days so ultimately we ended up in the ER for some steroids & meds to make it not itch so bad. It's so strange- she still gets itchy from time to time. They say that can happen for up to a year-- crazy!

In July we welcomed Luke to the family. My blood pressure was high so they had to induce me- not an easy delivery, that's for sure! We were glad he came slightly early though because we were set to move on my due date. The weekend of our move we got to go to Family Day at Mike's new command. I stayed behind (with Luke) and missed all the excitement on the boats. Apparently, Eileen had quite a ride on the fast one! Hahaha- check out the picture of her holding on for dear life!

August didn't start off too fun. Actually, it was the end of July that we ended up in the hospital with Luke. Ughhh. What a nightmare! To clarify what happened-- he had salmonella poisoning. For you and I, it really isn't that bad- case of the poops, bad guts for a week and then we are fine. For him, he had no immune system to fight it off so the bacteria made their way into his blood stream- NOT good at all. Anyway, I will never forget when the dr came in and told me "I hate to be the bearer of bad news" (and the convo continued to go downhill from there)......my heart just sank. That was by far the worst day of my life. I just kept thinking- how could you take him from us when we've waited for him for so long? With lots of support, prayers, and an excellent medical team our little guy pulled through. Thank GOD! All of the doctors were fabulous and took such good care of Luke. If it hadn't been for them he wouldn't be with us today. After a couple of weeks of treatment he has fully recovered and by the looks of him, you'd never guess he had been so sick-- he weighs 14lbs!!!

I also posted random pictures from all of our summer fun we managed to squeeze in between our life changing events that occurred! LOL! We had swimming lessons, we went to the beach, spent quite a bit of time at our pool, and went to our favorite theme park a couple of times- Busch Gardens.

In September we started school- yay! We also celebrated Aubrey turning five and when Grandma was here for Aubrey's birthday party we went to the oceanfront for the Neptune Festival.

October is just getting started & Grandma Cyndy is visiting! Looking forward to some fun times with her for the next couple of weeks :)

Please check out all the posts under September & October to the right ------> Lots and lots of pictures!

Miss & love you all!