A few check in, the Proud check out

It's OFFICIAL!!!!!!! Mark is now an officer in the United States Navy! His rank right now is an Ensign (I now halfway understand all that stuff Gpa Dan...give me time though, there's a lot to learn!) and he is SO glad to be done with OCS! I am SOOOOOOOOOOO proud of him!!!! I'm not going to write much today cuz we're about to go out and about Newport for the rest of the day but I just wanted to announce that he's done!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!



This pic is from Wednesday. Evelyn has LOVED seeing her Daddy again!!! Mark picked us up from the airport and spent the afternoon with us. It was so wonderful! More pics to follow...as usual I took lots!!!

"Everyone says you only fall in love once but thats not true, everytime I hear your voice I fall in love all over again"

Tomorrow Evelyn and I are "off on the road to Rhode Island and we're not going to stop til we're there!" Well we will have to stop for a layover but other than that, no stopping! :) I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Excited though!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's been a long 12 weeks which luckily flew by :) but I'm very very very very very very very glad it's almost over! I've missed Mark soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much! I've been so glad that I can talk to him everyday though this past while, it makes it a bit more bearable but also kinda makes me miss him more! Anywho, I just wanted to do a short little post before I leave. The next post will be full of pictures from RI and Mark's graduation! Wish me luck with flying with Evelyn though! I'm gonna need it!!!!!!!!!

"The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month." H. Van Dyke

I can't tell you how true this quote is for all us Missourians! Friday was a beautiful warm sunny day, 60 degrees, the grass was almost all the way green and I spent some nice time on the porch talking to Maria (who is back from her mission btw!!!! SO EXCITED about that! I talked to her for a long while and loved it! Can't wait to see her next month!). And then yesterday we woke up to this crap.



SOOOO not happy about it! Of course the first winter I come back to Missouri it is the winter with the most snow in yeeeaarrs! Grrrrrr! Of course I guess I should be used to this type of thing happening because every year in Utah it would snow, snow, snow, get warm and beautiful, and then dump one more snow before spring truly began. Luckily today it has already started to melt so I won't be angry too long. Next week is supposed to be a lot nicer!

One other unfortunate event from this snow storm though was that the power kept flickering off and on during the late afternoon hours and then finally went off for good after dinner. So good ol' dad got the generator going and we were set to go. Except then my sister Emily came over with all her kids and Mellisa with her kids (they didn't have a generator so came to our house cuz we had electricity). So we had a good long night with them over (they left around midnight). So that was exciting.

(Ephraim and Matteo)

(Evelyn playing with Grammy before we got the generator back on)

Today church was cancelled because of the weather so we spent the morning getting ready for the weekly family dinner (this week lunch) and also the twin's 3rd birthday celebration! We all made pizzas and stuff to go with that for their lunch cuz that's what they wanted. I made some yummy bread sticks using my new bread maker my Momma got me for my b-day, I love it! I also helped Monie decorate the boys' birthday cakes, I piped all the dots on the top. Turned out cute I think!

(Mmmmmm....breadsticks! I love me some breadsticks!)

(They're supposed to be basketballs, these boys love sports! And they're pretty darn good for three year olds!)

(Matteo blowing out his candles, he was a lot more into the cake and presents stuff than Abrahm was, Matteo is such a hyper lil' thing, especially when he gets a pinch of sugar...watch out!)

(Abrahm blowing out his candles, he had to blow them out like 10 times cuz he couldn't get it)

So the we ate our yummy lunch, watched the boys blow out their candles and open their presents, ate cake and ice cream and then sat around and talked and chased kids and consoled crying ones and put some down for naps and talked and ate some more and took pictures and talked and yeah...pretty much the usual family get together type stuff that we do every Sunday! I'm really gonna miss this when we leave again!

(Carmen and Evelyn)

(Santana)

(Kady)

(All the granddaughters! I Love Santana's face in this one!)

(Crazy girls!)

(Crazy girl.........)

(Matching hair! How cute!)

Let's see what else is there to catch up on....I hope you don't mind the length of this one cuz I'm doing all my catching up in one blog post instead of doing multiple, too lazy I guess to get different quotes and all that for each one, plus Evelyn is being cranky right now so it's a bit difficult to finish just this one. She needs a nap.

Ok so a week ago we had a Ward Italian Night with a spaghetti dinner and a presentation by my sister Annie and her family about Italy. Andy is full-blooded Italian and so he has a lot of fun stuff about Italy. I helped Annie make a Italian powerpoint for people to watch (did a pretty darn good job too on it!) and helped her make delightfully yummy Biscotti! It's Andy's grandma's recipe from Italy and it is awwweesommmme! I could eat those things all day, without the nuts in them of course but Annie is nice and made some without them.




Ok, hold on, Evelyn break, time for baby food!

And back! So she was either really really really hungry for baby food (she hasn't been eating much this past week cuz she had an icky cough) or she really really really liked squash cuz she just scarfed that thing down like nothin! Funny little girl. Other than being sick she's had a pretty good week! She's been rolling over a looooot more so I definitely have to keep an eye on her. She has been teething lately which isn't altogether too much fun but she's not too horrible yet. She's of course been chewing and slobbering on everything.

(Such a sweet picture!)

Two new things she's started to love to chew and suck on are her thumb and her big toe, both of which are pretty funny. She just learned a couple days ago to put her foot in her mouth and now she loves her feet even more than she used to. She's also learned to make BIG splashes in the bath with her hands. She only splashed with her feet before but now she's on to bigger and better things. I can't wait to take her swimming this summer cuz I know she's gonna love it!

(She's only sucked/chewed on her thumb a few times but she looks pretty darn cute doing it! And she certainly slurps and sucks on it...funny thing...)

(I LOOVVVE this picture! And the next, she's SO funny!



We've been keeping pretty busy lately, with chauffeuring kids around, going shopping and out to dinner with my friends, helping Grammy, scrapbooking, reading, playing, visiting other friends, and getting a round of shots for Evie. She only got one this time and was having a good time watching this new person and all of a sudden he poked her with the needle and she just stared at him and slooowly her face began to crumble and she began to cry for a second and then I picked her up and talked to her and we ended the visit with a nice big smile to the mean man. :) He said he doesn't get smiles too often which is probably very true. She's done real good so far with all her shots, hardly crying or anything. Thank goodness!

Other than that I can't think of anything else we've been doing, besides talking to Mark, which is always exciting! :) He has had his cell phone back these past two weeks so I get to talk to him everyday which has been soooo wonderful. His class is the senior class right now so they have a lot more privileges and it's a lot easier going cuz they're the ones in charge of the other classes. He's been doing pretty good, just anxious to be done and come home! I fly out on Wednesday and am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And that's all for now!

"Change is the process by which the future invades our lives." --Alvin Toffler--

This will be a short post but full of new information! :) Mark got an email today with "unofficial" orders about where we're going after this! Like we already knew, we're going to California for 3 months, from beginning of May (we have to be there by the 10th) to the end of July. Then in August we have to report to our duty station which is in............Gulfport, Mississippi!

We're pretty excited to get on with this next part of our lives and glad that we finally know where we will be! Now we just have to make all sorts of plans for all the little things in between and how/when to leave/move and all that good stuff. It's going to be a bit of a pain let me tell you! But it's exciting too. Mississippi is closer to family and is a part of the country I've never been/lived so this will be a great experience for us! The time period for us being there is about 18-24 months or longer if they decide to keep us there so we'll be there for a good while. So there you have it! Oh and I leave one week from tomorrow to go to Mark's graduation!!!!!!! YAY!!!!

"Scrapbooking is cheaper than a therapist."

Here's some of my latest projects, which are significantly better and were a lot more fun to make because of my new Cricut!!! Now I know some of you don't know what a Cricut is so I'll tell ya. Well I'll let the Cricut people tell ya, this is from their website.

"Cricut® personal electronic cutters allow you to get amazing creative results with the touch of a button. Cricut machines with the Cricut cartridges cut beautiful designs and alphabets for card making, home decor, scrapbooking, paper crafting, and more. Imagine the projects you can create with Cricut. Your results with the Cricut are only limited by your imagination."

It's so much fun! I absolutely LOOOOVE it! It was my Valentine's/Birthday present from Mark and then I used the rest of my b-day money for the difference plus little extras, like a fun new cartridge. So anyone who gave me b-day money, thanks! I'm extremely happy with my new toy!

This first pic is of a card I made for a friend of mine, it was her wedding yesterday and so I used my new Cricut to make it. It cut out every single thing here, the base of the card, the heart, the rectangles, the letters, and the envelope! I Love it!



I didn't use the Cricut a whole lot on this one but I still think it's cute! The letters are what I cut out btw.



Anywho, I've got a few more pages I'm working on so I'll put those up when I finish them. This last pic is of me and my friend, Allison, who got married and my other friend Jeanie. I look awful (my cheeks are soo red! It was ridiculously hot in there. I always choose the most unflattering shirts to wear to weddings although I don't realize how bad they look in pics until I get the wedding ones back :) but they both look gorgeous! We've been friends since elementary and it was wonderful to see them.

"Scars heal, Glory fades and all we are left with are the memories made." --Chris Cagle--

This post is all about my nieces and nephews. I've spent quite a few nights (sometimes day time) while I've been here watching some of their games so here's a collection of pics and such from them. First of all there's Sierra...she's played volleyball for her school team and now she's doing a rec league or something outside of school and I went to a game day of hers a couple Saturday's ago. She's a darn good player and her team is darn good too! Evelyn loved watching the game and I enjoyed it as well.




Next is Brian. He's in 9th grade and is playing on the boys basketball team at school. He got a good amount of playing time on the Varsity team for being a freshman. He's a decent player but I bit too much like me, in that he's a bit timid to shoot or be aggressive enough :) He seems to be getting better though.




Next up is Carmen. She is in Junior High and played on the girls basketball team and cheered for the boys after her games were done. Such a cute little cheerleader too! This year she was also the chosen princess candidate for her class for the Courtwarming ceremony (like Homecoming). She wasn't crowned princess but looked like one all the same! :)






And last but not least is Natalia! She's in 6th grade and her team only plays one game on Saturday's but despite their young age, they're a good team! Still need to work on some things but they're young and have plenty of time. Natalia is definitely more like me though, very timid about playing and needs more confidence. Hopefully she gains it better than I did, cuz I never did! :)




It's been a lot of fun going to all their games and I'm so glad I'm finally around to go! I love being around for all this family stuff. It's so great! This last pic here is of Mellisa's adorable, wild boys, who LOVE sports and for nearly 3 year olds, are actually really good! They have their own basketball hoop at home and they love to shoot hoops, especially Abrahm. He does lay ups and everything and really shoots the ball well. We all can't wait til they're older so we can watch them play sports, they're going to be good little players! Right now though they can't quite get the basket up to the big hoop but they sure are cute trying!