We're back!

We are home!  Finally after 3 months, 4 for Nick, we are back home in Oklahoma.  We made the normally 9 hour drive in 11 hours on Friday.  Tanner was not a happy camper. 

He did take a few mini cat naps, but when we were stuck in Dallas rush hour traffic, he was SO mad.  He threw out both pacifiers. And cried, and cried. But once we made it into Oklahoma and out of the traffic, I fed him and got him ready for bed(it was around 7:30, his normal bedtime).  He slept the next 3 hours until we got home.  

When we came into the house, the thermostat was set to 88 degrees (thanks, housing...). The house smelt funny, still does, and I had to get the vacuum out to get all the spiders out of our room so we could go to bed and get ready to unpack the next day.  

The house is slowly coming together, and boxes are slowly starting to disappear.  It is so hard to unpack, clean, or do pretty much anything when you have a 7 month old baby demanding attention and having nap strikes.  But we're working on it.  My mom is coming out to visit in a week and I'm looking forward to having her help decorate the place.  She has great taste in interior decorating!

I will post pictures once everything has a place and we are settled!

It's been a long week!

A lot has happened since I posted last.  Tanner had his appointment on Monday the 9th.  He is still my little peanut, but he has done so well.  He is 13.6lbs and 24 inches.  He was in the 8th and 9th percentiles for height and weight, and now he is in the 21st and 29th.  His head circumference was 16.5 inches, which is the 44th percentile.  


He did so well during his shots.  And I did better than I thought I would do as well.  (His daddy held him the last time).  The first two shots in his one leg barely phased him, but the one in his right leg made him cry pretty hard.  He immediately stopped once I snatched him up in my arms.  

This was right after a short nap after shots.

Tuesday I signed the lease for the larger house on base.  It will be our home, because we know we will be there at least 3+ years.  It was hard living in a house knowing you're going to move soon.  You just can't make it homey.  The movers came at 1pm and took 6 hours to load up their truck and move one street over and unload the truck.  And this is when Nick and I packed EVERYTHING up in boxes and had it all out in the garage already.  Al the furniture was moved into the living room as well.  I have no idea why it took them so long to do that.  Crazy, but at least it's done.  I definitely wouldn't have been able to do it all with Tanner needing my attention as well.  

Roses outside of our new house.

I spent the next couple days cleaning the old house to make sure it passed inspection on Friday.  Luckily it did, and I left for Texas at 2pm. Really bad weather was headed into Oklahoma at the time and I really wanted to miss it.  I drive through OKC during rush hour, in torrential downpour of rain, with the sky as dark as night.  I was so anxious, and felt so sick.  Come to find out I drove through one of the cities minutes before they had a tornado.  My saving grace was Tanner.  He slept through it all.  He was actually only awake maybe an hour of the entire 9 hour drive.  He did stop for dinner (Nick drove up from San Antonio to meet us half way-I was afraid of stopping in the middle of the night to feed Tanner alone).  He was an angel!

Dinner at Cracker Barrel

We got to San Antonio at 1:45 in the morning.  Tanner fell asleep at 3.  I'm so proud of him!


It's been a great week so far! I love being in a large city.  Mostly because there is Target. HAHA!

Vacation

We moved to Oklahoma in July of 2010 from North Carolina.  Every holiday it seemed like we could never make it home, whether it be because of pilot training, or me working in health care and never getting those types of days off. Or because of being 9 months pregnant or having a newborn.....

So when Nick graduated, and Tanner got a little older we figured it would be a great time to finally go home to visit family.  We got up at 1:45am on a Tuesday morning to drive to the city to catch our 6am flight to NC.  We had Tanner and our cat, Harry, with us.  (We can only have 2 pets while we are in an apartment in San Antonio, so Harry is going to live with my parents.  He's much happier there anyway.)

Harry loves his new cat tree!

This was Tanner saying goodbye to Harry.

Our flight to Atlanta went very smoothly.  Tanner was a complete angel.  I fed Tanner on take off (to make sure his ears popped) and he slept the rest of the way.  Harry had to be put on a separate flight from Atlanta to Greensboro because there were human organs being transported and  guess having a cat on board could cause problems.  He only got home about 2 hours after us.  

The first place we went to once we got home was Prissy Polly's BBQ.  There is NOTHING like NC BBQ.  We miss it so much.  While we were home we were able to eat other things that we only have in NC/or don't have in OK.  Biscuitville, Terry's Deli, Red Robin, Cagney's, Don Juan's, and Qdoba were a few of our favorites.   

That next day Nick went to our old high school and spoke to a few of the JROTC classes and visited our JROTC instructor and a few of our favorite teachers.  While he did that I had my hair cut.  I had probably a foot cut off and donated to Locks of Love.  I absolutely love my hair now!

We visited Nick's mom's work, and my dad's work.  We went to the shooting range, and to Target and Kohls.  I got to see my sister and nephews, and have my mom's cooking. Nick also got to work on Thumper some with my dad.  Thumper is my dad's '69 Mustang Fastback with a 408 stroker. It was an amazing time!

Thumper

That Saturday Tanner met some of his extended family.  His great-grandma, great-grandpa, and his great-great-grandma on his mom's side.  And a bunch of other family members.  It was a very long day, but I'm glad he was able to make so many people smile.  We also have some great video of it all.  

My dad with Tanner at the airport.  Tanner was getting ready to poop here.

Tanner and Uncle Don.

Tanner with his Great-Grandpa Barber.

4 generations.

5 generations.

Tanner with Great-Grandma Barber

On Monday we flew to Tampa to see my Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt.  We only had about a day and a half there, but it was amazing.  The weather was beautiful and it was great to show Nick a few of our favorite places. We also ate at Sonny's.  :)

Out on the pier in Tampa.

Mom, Grandma Chenault, Tanner, and me with downtown Tampa behind us.

We finally made it home late Wednesday night.  Tanner did so well on all 6 flights.  I already miss it so much.  But with Nick being done with pilot training and me not working right now, we can probably make it home a little more often than every 2 years. 

Tanner is people watching at the Tampa Airport.  

Passed out on the plane.

I'm hoping we can make it back to Tampa to stay a little longer.  It's like a second home for me and there is so much more I want to show Nick.  And come on, it's Florida!  Coming back to Oklahoma and not having that salt water smell in the air, and no palm trees anywhere is a little depressing.  

Tanner's schedule did get completely screwed up, though.  He's no longer sleeping 6-7 hours at night now.  More like 1.5-2.  He also got a little fussy there at the end of our trip, but I think waking him up from naps and teething didn't help that any.  

Graduation Day

I am beyond proud of my husband!  As you can tell from the previous post he wrote, he graduated pilot training on Friday morning.  He has worked so hard the past year and all that hard work paid off!  He received 3 awards.  The AETC Commander's Trophy, The Flying Training Award, and Distinguished Graduate.  But best of all, he received his pilot's wings!  Tanner did so well during the ceremony!  There was only one time where he got a little fussy, and we all soon found out why.  As the commander was announcing the distinguished visitors he let out a HUGE, EXPLOSIVE poop!  Nick was sitting several rows away and heard him.  I couldn't stop laughing, neither could everyone sitting around us.

After Graduation we were able to go check out a C-17 that arrived for some of the guys in Nick's class who will be flying it in a few months.  It was huge!

That's me standing there.  I'm 5 feet tall, so you can see how huge it is!

We had a fancy dinner that night.  It was the first time I left Tanner for a long period of time.  (I am so incredibly thankful for friends!  I didn't worry about him at all!)

The rest of the weekend we just hung out trying to relax a little.  It was a very long and busy week.

I just realized we were all wearing blue.

We have another busy week ahead of us!  We are leaving at 2:30 in the morning to drive to the city to catch a flight home.  We haven't been home to NC in almost 2 years.  My dad and sister will finally get to meet Tanner, as will Nick's grandparents and extended family.  It will be so nice to go home for a while!  At the end of the week, we are going to fly to Tampa to see my grandparents for a day before we head home!


Wish us luck...we're going to attempt to fly with a 2.5 month old and a cat.  Should be an exciting blog post. :)

2 Months

Little man is 2 months old today and 9 weeks old tomorrow!  How does this happen so fast? Seriously.  How?


He had his 2 month appointment this morning.  Of course he had a huge poopy diaper and a completely soaked pee diaper before we left the house.  I know it probably doesn't mean much, but every ounce counts with this guy!  We ended up weighing 9lb 7oz and was 21.75 inches long.  Both are in the 9th percentile.  Dr. M was not concerned because he is proportionate, and eating/pooping/peeing just fine.  His head is in the 29th percentile, though.  Big brain=smarty...right? :)


She checked his head (made sure there were no flat spots), checked his hips, ears, eyes, and gums.  Everything looks great.  She was surprised how he likes to stand up and actually bears a little weight.  She asked us about tummy time and if he has rolled over yet.  I told her he has a few times but we don't know if it was a fluke or not.  She picked him up and put him on his belly and he raised his head just fine and then tried to roll over.  He was so cute.


He was in such a great mood this morning, which made it much worse.  I knew once he got his shots he would be so sad and sore.  I made Nick take him back to get his shots.  3 shots and an oral vaccine.  I could hear him scream from the waiting room.  It just broke my heart to pieces.  He's been really sleepy since.


He did stay up long enough to enjoy Baby Time at the library today.  He sat and watched the big kids dance and read books.  I think he will really like it once he gets a little bigger!


Since this post is pretty long I will post a few pictures from my phone.  Can you tell I love my little sleeping baby?

Nick got his training dates today.  We're going to San Antonio next month until July.  Luckily my friend's husband has training there around the same time too! Her little guy is 3 months older than Tanner.  I can't wait to be in a city where we can do things with the kids!


And since Nick has his dates set...we can buy plane tickets to go home...THIS MONTH!  Nick and I haven't been home in almost 2 years!  I'm so excited! (Not too excited to try to figure out how to travel with a 2 month old on a plane...).


Baby's awake...gotta go!