Big-ish update

Ok, so I know it's been forever aside from the little quickie updates. Everything here is going pretty well-- Monica came for a visit last week, so we kept plenty busy! We went to Rudesheim (where Reisling wine is made) to see the vinyards and the cutsy little town, went to Mainz-Kastel (military base) and got Andrew's "Band of Brothers" DVD set signed by a group of the original soldiers, went to a medevil fest at Ronnenburg Castle (way cool-- except all the hills from the parking area through freshly plowed fields with a double stroller!), Abbie tried to climb Gliburg Castle, went to the Licher brewery, and ate TONS of great food!


Abbie is a spit-fire and a half these days-- ever since Andrew's R&R ended she hasn't been napping well, and is having nightmares at night. Suddenly she is terrified of butterflies and cotton candy (learned of the cotton candy fear at the medevil fest), but loves dinosaurs and lions... go figure. The nightmares are only about once a week lately, and I blame housing here for them because of the roofwork we had a couple months ago (the dreams are about the man outside her window from the scaffolding they had up). She is talking a lot, sometimes way too much! We went to the zoo the other day and she still hasn't stopped talking about the "mingos" (flamingos). She is such a great big sis to Jake, doting on him every chance she gets. Her current favorite phrases are "don't have to, right?", "we'll see", "after baby Jake's done with his bottle", and "maybe later/tomorrow". Usually all of the phrases are strung into one long sentence 9,352 times a day. She loves sneaking up on people "I scare you!", and trying to make Jake smile.

Jake is a little porker-- he is about 15lbs now and growing like crazy. We found out at his 4 month (yes, he is that old already!) well baby that he has some sort of hemoglobin disorder--we'll have more test results in a few weeks, but if he has been asymptomatic so far they think it will continue to be that way. He is such a good-natured easy kid, and he loves to sleep! He slept through the night for the first time (well, more than 5 hours) the day he turned 3 months and hasn't stopped loving his bed since. He smiles at everything, although it really takes a lot of stupid faces from me before I can get a laugh out of him. He can roll over both ways and scoots around the room on his back trying to make me nuts by getting stuck under furniture while I make his bottle! In the last few days he has perfected his raspberry blowing technique, and does it every chance he gets. I am so lucky we had such an easy baby in him, especially since I'm single-moming with Andrew deployed.

Speaking of Andrew, he's doing fine. The good news about the extention is that his unit is staying put, not going to Baghdad like a lot of the other cases have been lately. He tells me how bored he is all the time in his life as a "fobit" (never leaves the fob, aka base), but I am quite happy with the situation! He is doing a lot of good things there, but we can't wait to have him back home with us.

Lets see, what else... for those of you in the Cincy area (and Lafayette/Chicago area), I will be braving the 11 hour exercise in torture by boarding a US-bound plane with the kids (by myself-- eeeeeek) in early November, and likely staying through Christmas (waffle house???). We plan to come back here sometime around the new year, and getting the house ready to celebrate Christmas again with Andrew when he gets back. If you want to try and get together, email me and let me know when you'll be where and we'll see what we can come up with! My cell # will be the same as my last stint in the States.

Anyhoo, Jake is crooning for me in the crib-- bottle time.


And now for some pics (assortment from the last 3 months)...